Why image credits matter

An openly licensed image is free of charge, not free of conditions. Most open licences ask for one thing: name the author and state the licence. When that condition is not met, the use becomes unlicensed, and "it was free" is not a defence.

The image pipeline on this site filters by licence. A file whose licence cannot be read or recorded is never downloaded, and therefore never appears in the catalogue. That means preferring a page with a missing image over a page with an image of unknown origin.

Credit information lives in two places. A short form sits directly beneath the image; the full list is gathered on a separate credits page reachable from the footer of every page. Meeting the condition next to the image alone might look sufficient, but a single collected list is the cheapest way to stay auditable.

Where an image's author is unknown, that is not hidden; instead of leaving the field blank, the page states plainly that the information is missing. Presenting the unknown as though it were known is a small instance of the most expensive class of mistake in this repository.

The same honesty applies to the content itself. The texts in this catalogue were written for a test environment and do not pretend otherwise; how that content is handled is described in What to look for on a vehicle page.