The Story of a Picture in Public Domain

About five years ago, I submitted a photo of an orca to Wikipedia, suggesting that someone might want to add it to the English page about orcas. No one did, as far as I could tell. I forgot all about the picture, until today, when the owner of the site Animalandia sent me a nice mail thanking me for having released the photo to public domain.

I then accessed the photo's page at Mediawiki  and discovered that the photo actually is used in Wikipedia articles in Arabic, Breton, Spanish, Hungarian, Korean, New Norwegian, Norwegian, Polish, Slovak, Swahili, Vietnamese and Chinese. It is also used in some articles in English, but not the one about orcas, which I had intended it for. In the Spanish Wikipedia, it is even used as a "Medalla de Orca saltarina" for editors who have made important contributions to Wikipedia.

What about the rest of the internet? I googled around and quickly found several pages where the picture is used:

• http://drumm.wikispaces.com/TandavaJ+-+SelinaF 
• http://www.xray-mag.com/node/42 
• http://nellybarbe.blogspot.com/2009/12/orca.html 
• http://www.herradurasport.net/2008/12/la-orcaballena-asesina.html 
• http://www.marefa.org/index.php/%D9%85%D9%84%D9%81:JumpingOrca.jpg 
• https://www.facebook.com/pages/Orca/110393985655465?sk=wall#!/pages/Orca/110393985655465?sk=info 
• http://lasaventurasdevitinho.blogspot.com/2009/08/tecnicas-de-caza-de-las-orcas.html 
• http://babybel.over-blog.com/article-29016565.html 
• http://blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=han1344&logNo=120126839994 
• http://wiadomosci.ekologia.pl/ciekawostki/Orki-inteligentni-lowcy-dziesiatkuja-wieloryby,13888.html 
• http://www.gofeminin.de/my-world/silver21031/comment-1.html 
• http://meeres-bucht.over-blog.de/article-31746356.html 
• http://herramientas.educa.madrid.org/animalandia/imagen.php?id=29988

To me this, is how public domain should work. A simple picture is released and dozens of people who happen to need such a photo simply use it. No hassle. Just use it.