About meEdit

I'm an admin on Camera-wiki.org, the successor site to Camerpedia, where most of the community and editors moved after Wikia bought our domain name and redirected it to this website. Camera-wiki.org will never have ads, is non-profit, and it's controlled and supported by you, the community, not a for-profit company. I maintained an account here to help other ex-Camerapedia users get their copyrighted content removed from Wikia's site. I no longer use the account as Wikia has expressed their desire that any further image removals be done via DMCA requests.

Update to the below FAQEdit

NOTE As of 20 Oct 2012, Wikia staff have asked that you file a DMCA request if your photos are being used here without your permission. They would prefer you do not remove them yourself. (as an aside, you can fix the problem from the flickr side by re-uploading your photo to flickr, thus breaking the static URL used here and effectively achieving removal of your image without the effort of legal action)

Camerapedia / Camera-wiki.org photo copyright issuesEdit

If Camerapedia is using your photos without permission, in violations of the previous licensing agreement with the original Camerapedia site, or has made illegal, unattributed copies of your photos, or if you're just wondering how to get your images removed from Wikia's commercial copy of Camerapedia, please the FAQ in the Camerapedia forum on flickr for help. Since some Wikia users are not flickr members, I've moved the full text of the FAQ here, so just scroll down to read it.

Note to Wikia staff: You are welcome to use flickr photos from the Camerapedia flickr group here, provided they are used in accordance with the photographer's wishes, flickr's usage rules, and within usual limits of copyright law. If you wish to upload copies of the any images whose licenses don't allow that, please ask permission from the photographers first.

Camerapedia/Camera-wiki.org Image Rights FAQEdit

This is a copy of the original made on 20 March 2011. I'll try to keep this in sync with original, which can be found here: * Camerapedia/Camera-wiki.org photo copyright FAQ

Most of you are aware that Wikia bought the Camerapedia.org domain name. While most of the contributors, editors, and admins of Camerapedia moved to Camera-wiki.org where our work continues, Wikia is forging ahead with its own copy of the site under the Camerapedia.wikia.com name. Wikia is also making changes to the way they handle image rights without communicating these changes back to the camerapedia flickr group. This has caused lots of confusion about image rights. To cut down on the confusion, I'm posting this list of Frequently Asked Questions.

1. What's the difference between camera-wiki.org, camerapedia.org, and camerapedia.wikia.com?

Camerapedia.org: the domain name of the original site founded in 2005 by Brandon Stone. Wikia bought this domain name. This site is gone. The domain name is now used as a redirect to Wikia's new copy of the site at Camerapedia.wikia.com.

Camera-wiki.org: After Wikia bought the Camerapedia domain name, the contributors and admins of Camerapedia created the Camera-wiki.org domain name and moved a copy of the Camerapedia content there to continue their work. Camera-wiki.org is an ad-free, non-profit, community supported site striving to build the world's most complete online reference to cameras and photography.

Camerapedia.wikia.com: After Wikia bought the Camerapedia domain name, they moved a copy of the Camerapedia content to their servers and then redirected the old domain name to that copy. This site is a for-profit website, managed and controlled by Wikia. The company derives profit from selling ads placed in and around the content. There are currently no active admins on this site and it's unclear what direction Wikia intends to take with it in the future.

2. How can I offer my photos for use on the Wikia site?

Wikia no longer uses the Flickr Camerapedia group. If you have a photo you'd like to add to the Wikia site, Camerpedia.wikia.com, then you need to upload the image directly to Wikia's web servers. See their help pages for assistance on how to do this. Adding your photos to the Camerapedia flickr group will not result in its use on either Wikia or Camera-Wiki.org and is discouraged. Further, uploading to the Flickr Camerapedia group may not in itself provide sufficient permission for Wikia to use the all-right-reserved or CC NC images.

3. How can I offer my photos for use on the Camera-wiki.org site?

Adding your photos to the Camera-wiki.org flickr group will give Camera-wiki.org permission to use your photos on their website. We will embed your photos from flickr in a way that meets the flickr link-back guidelines. Camera-Wiki.org requires all newly added photos to include attributions, source, and copyright information. We're also going back over previously contributed images and adding this information where we find it missing.

4. Can I allow my photos to be used on both websites?

Yes, you can allow both Wikia and Camera-wiki.org to use your photos if you wish.

5. Wikia is using my photos without permission, how can I make sure my photos are not used on Wikia's site?

First: You need to remove your photos from the Flickr camerapedia group.

Second: You need to find and remove your photos from the Camerapedia.wikia.com website. Wikia has so far refused to honor requests from copyright holders to remove photos that were used on the old Camerapedia site, saying that because it's a Wiki, it's up to the copyright holder to remove their own photos. Several ex-Camerapedia admins are willing to help with this tedious process. Post a request on Steevithak's Camerapedia.wikia.com talk page for assistance.

6. That's too much work, I want to force Wikia to remove my copyrighted photos. Can I sue them?

Seriously, it's easier to just to remove the photos yourself. If you're determined to do it the hard way, try filing a DMCA take down notice against Wikia first. That should force them to remove the image. Also, please note that other ex-Camerapedia contributors have discussed legal actions. It may be helpful to coordinate a single legal effort. Check the Camerapedia and camera-wiki.org forums for more information on pending legal actions against Wikia. The Camera-Wiki.org admins recommend against this course of action, however. We believe it's easier to cooperate and work together as best we can.

7. My photos are under the Creative Commons BY-NC (non-commercial use) license, shouldn't this prevent Wikia from using them, since they are a commercial company, profiting from use of my photos?

This has been widely argued by CC BY-NC license users both in this case and in previous Wikia takeovers. However, there's has been no legal determination that we are aware of to back up this opinion and Wikia refuses to accept it. Wikia's claim is that they are a commercial operation providing hosting to non-commercial websites. If this is a problem, see question 5 and 6.

8. This is all too confusing, what should I do about my photos?

It's a choice you'll have to make yourself. Many previous camerapedia contributors moved to camera-wiki.org, deleted their photos from the camerapedia flickr group and from Wikia's new for-profit site. Others made the move to camera-wiki.org but continue to allow their photos to be used on Wikia's site. You may want to ask other contributors why they made the choices they did to help you decide what's best for your photos.

9. Copies of my photos are being uploaded to Wikia by someone other than myself! What's going on and how do I stop it?

Recently, Wikia staff have begun making copies of flickr photos and uploading them to Wikia's server in violation of the original agreement in the camerapedia flickr group, and in violation of the flickr licenses terms set by the photographers. These photo are displayed with no attribution, source, or copyright information. It's unclear at this time why this is being done. This may not be an intentional copyright violation, so don't panic. We'll update this item as more information becomes available.
Update 18 Mar:a Wikia staff member has said they did not intend to infringe copyright and has apologized. We are waiting now to see if they will remove the infringing photos.
Update 20 Mar: It appears that only admins (Wikia staff members) are able to delete these photos, however, Uwe has succeeded in uploading replacement images to obscure a few of the more recent ones. If you'd like to search the Wikia uploads to see if any of your own photos have been copied without your permission, you can browse the photos in question here: Wikia photo uploads. There are several pages of photos. Most of the copyrighted photos were uploaded by Wikia staff members Scarecroe, Kate.moon, and Bchwood. Attempts have been made to contact all three of them.
Update 21 Mar:Wikia staff member Bchwood contacted me today to say Wikia discussed the problem and would revert all the photo uploads by the end of the day.
Update 23 Mar:All offending uploads seem to have been removed at this point. I believe the issue is closed unless further uploads occur.