Niccolò Caranti is fading away from lack of proper attribution being given to his photos. (credit: Terrasque CC BY-SA 3.0)

A CC-licensed photo that was incorrectly used in an Italian festival’s promotional materials has led to a public apology by the organisers for not respecting the terms of the licence, and the reimbursement of legal costs incurred.

The picture in question was taken by Niccolò Caranti, who is a professional photographer and an active member of the Wikipedia community—nearly 900 of his images are available on Wikimedia Commons. The photo was used by the Festival delle Resistenze 2016, held in Trentino-Alto Adige, in northern Italy.

Journalist Federico Rampini was one of the guest speakers at the festival, and the image used for all the promotional material was a photo of him taken by Caranti, which had been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 licence. This particular variant allows the image to be used freely for any purpose on the condition that it includes attribution and releases it under the same or a similar licence. However, neither condition was respected in the festival’s publicity materials.