Wikimedia Ireland/Projects/MerrionStreet.ie

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Draft letter to MerrionStreet.ie[edit]

We are contacting you on behalf of the Wikimedia community in Ireland. As you may know, Wikimedia is an international foundation that aims to produce high-quality, free educational content through the collaboration of tens of thousands of volunteers worldwide. The most famous example of a Wikimedia project is Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

At present, images and other content on the MerrionStreet.ie website are listed as being under Government copyright. This precludes the use of these images in projects such as Wikipedia, which uses a Creative Commons copyright licence that facilitates collaborative work and innovation. Considering that other governments, such as the United States and Polish governments, release government-produced images and other content under similar open-source licences that facilitate reuse, or indeed without any copyright restrictions at all, we wonder whether the Irish Goverment News Service might consider taking similar steps. Many of these images would be considered a treasure trove for those working on Wikimedia projects, and it would be wonderful if a government body were to lead the way in an initiative like this.

More information on Creative Commons licenses is available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

We would be delighted to discuss this further, over the phone or in person.

[add contact information for a WMIE representative]