Allow multiple licenses for observations, photos, and sounds

[murphyslab]

@pisum

you want to also use it in WikiWorld, you could just load your image to Wikimedia and license it there as SA, right?

There’s a not-so subtle difference here that you’re ignoring. It’s the difference between:

1. I want to be able to use my image on Wikipedia / Wikimedia, and
2. I want others to be able to use my image on Wikipedia / Wikimedia.

The first point is a non-issue. Anyone can do that. I have done that.. But it doesn’t solve the underlying problem.

It’s already been noted in the form of the Needed images list (wiki) for existing Wikipedia articles. It’s a big list. It would not be worth the time and effort to search through that list trying to see if I have an observation for that matches the list of entries. Simply:

1. I (generally) don’t know which of my images would be useful or are needed on Wikipedia/Wikimedia.
2. I don’t have time (and it’s fair to assume that this is true of most others) to check everything observation that I’ve made to ask, “Does Wikipedia need an image of this?” That is something better executed by people who are editing the articles or a bot, as I’ve suggested before:

@murphyslab

A bit of a question/suggestion for the iNat staff – would it be possible to have an (official?) iNat bot that comments on users’ observations (i.e. if the species matches a list of target species) to suggest making the image available for contribution through a change of license? Posts like this are great, but unless one’s highly familiar with scientific taxonomy, just posting a list like this isn’t going to connect with a lot of people. Even if I recognize “Quercus” in the list, and think, maybe I have an oak in my observations, it’s a circuitous process. It just won’t connect with a lot of users here.

The progress on that list itself has largely been achieved by people acting in the same way as a bot would: Working from the list to go search through iNaturalist and ask people.

But the “need to ask” creates two frictions: You need a response (good luck!) and you need the individual’s effort to change the license on iNat (potentially removing the observation from GBIF) or to upload it to Wikimedia with the second license.

Is there any argument that actually is directly against dual licensing?

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P.S. @kjekje Thanks for posting this. It’s good to see that the idea would be useful to others here, particularly the professional photographers who are willing to contribute. You have my upvote.