From: Jean-Etienne Poirrier
Sent: Tue 8/21/2007 3:59 AM
To: Nature Report Niche blogs
Subject: Photo license issue

Dear Madam, Sir,

I was very pleased to see one of my photo [1] published in Nature
Reports Stem Cells [2]. As an amateur photograph and Ph.D. student in
biology, I'm glad to be "published" in a Nature Publishing Group
journal :-)

However, as it is clearly stated on the Flickr photo page [1], there
are some rights reserved on this picture since it is published under
the "Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.0" license [3]. This
license specifically state you are free "to copy, distribute, display,
perform the work" (here the photo) and "to make derivative works"
(what Jessica Kolman did if I correctly understand the photo legend).
But the license also add two conditions: first, you must give the
original author credit (and you did) ; second, "If you alter,
transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting
work only under a licence identical to this one" [3]. And there is the
problem since the legal notice [4] linked under the article explicitly
states "[visitors] are not permitted to copy, broadcast, make
available to the public, download, store (in any medium), transmit,
show or play in public, adapt or change in any way the material (or
any part of it) contained on this Web Site for any purpose
whatsoever". This clause is in opposition with my photo license.

I think we can settle this in a gentleman way. The best solution would
be, of course, the release of your derivative work under the Creative
Common Attribution Share Alike license. And I hope you'll consider
this option: nothing has to be changed (except your license terms) and
you also give freedom to your readers. The only problem could come
from your contract with Getty Images which may not allow you to share
Mel Curtis's photo. Otherwise, I'm afraid the only alternative is the
removal of this picture from this article.

I hope we'll be able to settle this small issue and this could lead to
a better cooperation between people releasing their work under a free
license [4] (notably on Flickr) and the Nature Publishing Group.

Yours sincerely,
Jean-Etienne

[1] http://www.flickr.com/photos/jepoirrier/422469526/
[2] http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/stemcells.2007.67
[3] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en_GB
[4] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#DocumentationLicenses

--
Jean-Etienne Poirrier
http://www.poirrier.be/~jean-etienne/
http://www.epot.org/blog/