How eBay could help Wikimedia Commons get more open-licensed images

I need to disclaim this post with the comment that Andy and I really don't see eye to eye over many things on Wikipedia/Wikimedia/Commons :) (mainly to do with his tone; <i>after discussion with me and the Wikimedia community</i>).<p>But I really think this idea is at best a pipe dream and at worst a licensing disaster.<p>To highlight this lets look at Flickr. That lets you choose a free (Creative Commons) license for your material. So Commons regularly grabs useful images from there to host. And; we still get people complaining that they didn't understand this meant you could take their image and upload it somewhere else.<p>And this is from a site where the whole point is to upload images.<p>Now lets imagine Ebay implemented this; the idea that most of that sites users would comprehend the extent of a little tick box is, I feel, minimal.<p>I obviously am 100% behind freely licensing content - and do a lot of the sort of work he mentions in getting image/content releases by email. But I also dislike the idea of essentially misleading people and then telling them they have no way to go back on the license (yes, this happens).<p>I might be an outlier here in my criticism. But Commons, in my experience, tends to treat non-Commons people (especially image copyright owners) like crap. That is what needs to be fixed first, before any pressure is applied to companies like Ebay...

This is a great idea, but...<p>One of the big problem with many of the eBay auctions is that they don't use original material - for example, if you're selling a copy of a game or movie, often you won't bother to take a picture of your copy - you'll search online and find the best one you can, slap it in the auction and call it a day.<p>This happens all the time, and as auctions are very time limited, it often doesn't raise the ire of the original source of the media.<p>If they had some sort of dedupe/anti-"stock photo"/anti-"professional product shot" thing in there, this could probably work.

Cool idea, but this would never happen because sellers would hate it. One of the main reasons eBay sellers brand their images with obnoxious image graffiti (overlayed text and/or styling) is that competitors have no qualms about stealing images. eBay plans to formally restricts the use of image graffiti later this fall (<a href="http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/newlistingrequirements.html#pic" rel="nofollow">http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/newlistingrequi...</a>). I doubt that a seller who takes product photography seriously would like to hear that their competitors are legally entitled to use their photos, regardless of whether or not the practice is opt-in.