Request for use of files by creative commons


 * This is request page to Wikimedia India Chapter, for their help in putting the images from the Indian Army and the Air Force under Commons acceptable licenses.
 * Proposed by: Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk) 17:04, 26 February 2017 (IST)
 * Status: Under process

Project Goal
The goal of this idea is to get the images from the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force released under one of the compatible creative commons licenses.

Background and purpose

 * The official websites of the three armed forces of India i.e. the Indian Army, the Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force, are indianarmy.nic.in, indiannavy.nic.in and indianairforce.nic.in. All the three websites use same copyright policy as stated below:
 * Material featured on this site may be reproduced free of charge in any format or media without requiring specific permission. This is subject to the material being reproduced accurately and not being used in a derogatory manner or in a misleading context. Where the material is being published or issued to others, the source must be prominently acknowledged. However, the permission to reproduce this material does not extend to any material on this site, which is explicitly identified as being the copyright of a third party. Authorisation to reproduce such material must be obtained from the copyright holders concerned.


 * Even though the policy mentions free use of material without any prior permission or charges, the commons community made it clear that the policy is not clear whether it allows derivative works or not, and files from the sites can't be used. The discussion on commons village pump can be seen here.
 * So with this thousands of the images from the sites were of no use to commons. This is a very serious blow to the Indian military history articles. However, back in 2013, the Indian Navy has given an OTRS permission for use of its images under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 India license.
 * So if the army and the air force are also convinced for the same i.e. to release their files under Commons acceptable Creative Commons's licenses, thousands of images from their sites will be of great help to the Indian military history articles.

Activities
For now, we have two alternative to achieve the objective.
 * Plan A: To send letters to the Indian Army and the Air Force's respective departments dealing with the copyright policy. These letters must be officially send from the Wikimedia India Chapter, and must in detail contain information about various licenses and how releasing their material would be helpful to the community.
 * Note:If desirable results are not obtained through Plan A, only Plan B must be adopted.


 * Plan B: Initially a report must be prepared explaining in detail about the licenses and all as said above. Then appointments with the respective departments must be taken, and the report is to be explained and submitted for the same. This will have greater impact. The request for appointment must also be forwarded from the chapter. After the appointment is taken, a couple of Wikipedians will be designated to the task.

Impact

 * If the goal is achieved, thousands of images relating to Indian military can be used for the purpose of Indian military history articles wide the Indic community Wikimedia projects.

Email from the Indian Navy stating the release of their works
Yes, you are permitted to upload and use images published on Indian Navy Website (with due attribution to the Indian Navy) on Wikipedia.com in accordance with the existing definition (as on 05 Sep 13) provided under 'Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 India' at URL   which says:- You are free: * to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work * to re-mix – to adapt the work Under the following conditions: * attribution – You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). * share alike – If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

Contact details of the Indian Army
Webmaster, Indian Army Room No B-30, Additional Directorate General of Public Information South Block Integrated Headquarters of MoD (Army) New Delhi- 110011 Email Address : webmaster.indianarmy@nic.in

Contact details of the Indian Air Force
Public Relations Officer - Indian Air Force Directorate of Public Relations Ministry of Defence Room No - 91, South Block New Delhi - 110011. Tele: 011 - 23019745 011 - 23010231 Extn : 7915 (AFNET) E-Mail : proiaf.dprmod@nic.in

Discussion
Members are invited to discuss their ideas or alternatives here.

Endorsements
Community members are encouraged to endorse your request here!
 * As proposer, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk) 17:22, 26 February 2017 (IST)
 * WMIN will give as much support as possible Yohannvt (talk) 10:31, 1 March 2017 (IST)
 * Great Initiative -- Suyash Dwivedi (talk) 21:25, 15 March 2017 (IST)