actually the wiki is available under cc-by-sa if not stated differently, so nc-images are included with their regular terms and do not rely on fair use (depending on the interpretation of “commercial” in the jurisdiction).
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Was there some legal consultation on this?
the OSMF as owner of the wiki was a commercial entity under UK law the last time I checked. Publishing images in they wiki might be defined as commercial use, as the business purpose of OSMF is to grow the database. It receives significant amounts of funding.
I would feel better if we have images licensed under an open license like the rest of the pages.
Is there a list of images being removed? How hard is it to get better images from the community under a more suitable license or asking the original photographer to change the license?
I am trying to do it with images at Finding new images for OSM Wiki - help welcomed! - #43 by Mateusz_Konieczny (link to last post)
no (though CC-BY images definitely require attribution and we cannot just use random images pulled from internet at OSM Wiki, unless we are allowed in one way or another - and yes, we have serious problem with both)
CC-BY-NC is more of a gray area
maybe? that would require impressive lawyerese to go with that interpretation, but I have seen less silly interpretations being uphold by courts (or treated seriously by lawyers, to say nothing about what lawyers claimed to treat seriously because it benefitted their client)
but I would say that this specifically is not a problem, I would still go for replacing them for “I would feel better if we have images licensed under an open license like the rest of the pages.” reasons.
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Special:UncategorizedFiles&limit=3000&offset=6000 has images without any category (so also without license template) - many of them just need to be marked properly
Category:Media without a license - OpenStreetMap Wiki has files marked as missing template, many are rescuable or waiting for reply from uploaders
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Mateusz_Konieczny/cleanup lists cases where uploaders were notified long time ago and file still has templates that action is awaited (some classes of files like screenshots are skipped here)
Category:Labelled for deletion - OpenStreetMap Wiki has files labelled for deletion right now
Category:Deletion Proposed - OpenStreetMap Wiki - deletion proposed
Category:Attribution not provided in CC license template which requires attribution - OpenStreetMap Wiki - attribution missing or not specified by using template
(see also User:Mateusz Konieczny/notify uploaders - OpenStreetMap Wiki )
Recent changes - OpenStreetMap Wiki for latest edits at OSM Wiki (you cannot show just ones removing images)
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