On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 7:11 AM, Chris Down <[email protected]> wrote: >> Although I suspect what's also happening is the image that we see >> there is low quality, and you'd need permission to get a higher >> quality, printable version. And they'd never give permission to cc-sa >> it. > > Copyright doesn't work like that. An image is not copyrighted by itself, a > "work" is, and most people would not consider an image that is simply > resized to be an entirely different work to the original. Therefore, > licensing a resized version differently to a higher quality original (or > whatever) is simply not possible
Legally, I think you are correct, but in *practice* different-sized images are used very differently and this is reflected in how they are (in the commercial world) priced very differently. There is also sometimes more effort and labour involved in producing a high-resolution image (i.e. when careful scanning using hi-tech equipment is involved, as opposed to changing a setting on a digital camera). Consider a close-up of a high-res picture, showing previously unseen detail. The same close-up, with a low-res picture, would be a pixellated mess. Ask people if the images are different, and they would say "yes". So while they are both from the same "work", they are different images. They contain different sets of data and the information contained in that data is different. Sometimes high-resolution images will show you things that are not obvious to the naked eye when looking at the original. And high-resolution images are the ones used in print media, and to produce large poster-sized images in adverts. That is where the money side of things comes in. Low-resolution images are useless for most print purposes. So while none of this strictly relates to copyright, it does relates to the financial side of things, so it is unsurprising that people want to protect any investment they made have made in producing high-resolution images. That is something that can be sometimes forgotten by those taking a stand on the 'free culture' side of things. We are used to seeing others benefit from the fruit of our labours. Others are not. Carcharoth _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
