I wonder whether an acceptable compromise would be as follows – default stays as-is, but when a user hits 50 or 100 observations, a prompt comes up asking them to consider a different license, explaining each one. That way users who are unlikely to come back won’t get annoyed, but users who stick around would be encouraged to use open licenses.
Also, I don’t know how many good-quality images are uploaded by small-volume casual users, proportionately to large-volume longtime users. Asking established users to use more permissive licenses may actually be more effective than changing the default for new users.
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