File talk:Newcomen atmospheric engine animation.gif

Hi there,

The animation of the Newcomen Engine is fantastic. We are currently making a television show about Trains and Steam in the 1800s. Is there anyway you may allow us to use it in the show?

My contact details are:

Sean Schmolz seanschmolz@thegammaproject.com

Tel: +44 (0) 207 323 1409

Hi Sean,

There are very few people who "run" Commons, so don't expect to see an official "reply" as such. However the point of Commons is that it doesn't need people to run it like that: content is marked up when it's added, so that you can see beforehand how it's usable. Also, all content on Commons (NB - This isn't true for Wikipedia) has to be resuable to a fairly broad level.

You might find this useful for starters: Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia

For this animation specifically, it's multiply licensed under three different licences. You can use any of these, your choice.

• GFDL
• en:CC-by-sa (3.0)
• en:CC-by (2.5)

So yes, you can use this content and you don't have to ask first.

Note though that you may be required to do some things as a condition of using content under these licences. In particular, you'll have to credit the author as a source (the "by" in CC-by) and also (if you use CC-by-sa) you'll need to "share alike", i.e. to release your content under a similar licence (more details at the CC website). If you chose the GFDL option, then you'd have to meet the constraints of that, particularly its notions of "copyleft" (similar to the -sa in CC). These sometimes cause a problem in a commercial environment, usually with older management who have never worked that way before.

Alternatively, ignore the lot and contact the author. They can always agree an extra and entirely new licence with you, as in the old days. The new stuff doesn't rule out the old stuff.

In practice - I'd suggest the CC-by.

Please ask (email me if you like) if I can help with anything else, either rights management or the history of steam engines. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:51, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi Andy,

Thanks very much indeed, that's all really helpful. As you suggested 'older management' probably will have an issue with working this way!! I would ideally like to contact the author and obtain a licence from them, they may well have a higher res version as well.

I'm pretty new to Wiki commons, as you may have guessed, is there any easy way of me getting in contact with the author?

Cheers,

Sean

Author are findable three ways:

• Images ought to have clear notation on their Commons page as to the author or source. This is often not someone on Wikimedia (i.e. they weren't uploaded by the author), especially if it's old and now public domain through age, or else it's a bulk uploade from another site with free content licensing, such as Flickr or Geograph. However many older images (this is 2006, which is "old" by local standards) weren't so clearly labelled.
• If you can't see who created it, find who uploaded it and ask them. It might be theirs by creation, they might have found it elsewhere. This is visible on the page, look at File History for one.
• Sadly the creator of this one was user:Emoscopes, who has created a vast number of really good animations (look at Napier Deltic for a favourite), but according to the last comments I read on their user page has retired from the project. Try getting in touch anyway, they might still be watching. I'd also try and contact them through Wikipedia, as well as through Commons.

Otherwise, just go for the existing CC-by option. Attribution isn't a big problem, nothing like as big as using share-alike within a commercial media company (BTDT!). If you follow the links, there are whole categories of content that has been used commercially, and notes on who did what with which. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:24, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

In use on other sites

http://www.nms.ac.uk/highlights/objects_in_focus/newcomen_engine.aspx

Uncredited, sadly 8-( Andy Dingley (talk) 14:24, 8 July 2013 (UTC)