Wikipedia talk:Non-free content

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Image used in multiple articles (continued)

Nobody seemed to notice, so here is the recent bit again, edited for readability: -- Steelpillow 19:13, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

There is another possibility, that a work may be famous or even iconic, and instantly recognisable to a large number of visitors, but that its name might not be, for example Gravitation (M. C. Escher). In such a case, and where another page has a text link to the main critical discussion, it is sensible for the link to be accompanied by a thumbnail image. (OK that's not what paper encyclopedias tend to do, but paper editors are grouchy about space and print costs). -- Steelpillow 20:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I propose modifying the guideline to something like:

-- Steelpillow 10:50, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I think this would cause more difficulty than it prevents. One issue is that although you feel that that image is better known than its name, others may not. Establishing that an image is well known, but its name is not, would be difficult. The entire section on "acceptable images" is meant to describe images that are acceptable to be used even once; an image about an iconic piece of art can be used in the article about that piece of art. But the minimal use provisions of the policy at the top still apply. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:03, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

How do we judge whether an image is better known than its name? Well, how do we judge whether an image "has achieved iconic status as a representation ... or is historically important in the context..."? I would suggest that whatever manner we judge the second instance (which remains in the guidelines, despite efforts to remove it) should also be how we judge the first (which I wish to put in the guidelines).

As for minimal use, it has been pointed out before that the policy statement refers to the use of many different images on a single page, which is not relevant to the use of a single image on multiple pages. I can find no policy on this other than the unspoken default of taking each individual usage on its own merits - which is precisely how I wish to continue.

So I really do not see the problem. -- Steelpillow 18:57, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, if an image is so iconic in context it has it's own article, it's probably very reasonable to include it in the parent article. Think about downstream use - reusers of Wikipedia who want to distribute content on a CD or DVD (or print) won't include a lot of minor articles, so parent articles need to be as "complete" as possible. This is still a minimal use ... WilyD 19:26, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not a minimal use in any sense. The "minimal use" provision (WP:NFCC#3) says "As little non-free content as possible is used in an article." If it's possible to link to another article where the image is included, then it isn't necessary to use it in the parent article. Our mission is to provide downstream users with free content whenever possible. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Steelpillow's comment wasn't 100% true at the time he/she made it but I've since changed the policy page so that it is, by moving prohibition on long audio/video samples from 3a to 3b. Now 3a is solely about limiting the # of non-free uses on each page, and 3b is solely about limiting the extent of each non-free use. The comment about it being a page-by-page issue, not a policy against use on multiple pages, remains true. Carl's right too. Minimal use means zero is better than one. As a note, the phrase "minimal use" is used in a much different sense than "extent of use" under the fair use law. Wikidemo 20:01, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

It's transparently minimal use - we want to generate free content for downstream users, but not "free" to the exclusion of "content". An article that needs an unfree image is justified in using it, regardless of what appears in other articles. Zero is more minimal than one, but where an article needs unfree media to explain a concept or whatever, directing the reader to another article is not an acceptable substitute. We cannot rely on subarticles being available. Articles need to stand alone. WilyD 20:57, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

(EC) I would say minimal use refeer to all use across the site. If people can follow a link to get more details on a subject then that's where we should generaly keep any non-free images who's purpose is to simply identify the subject. Yes there can be acceptable use other places too, but "visual recognition" for navigational purposes have been explicitly rejected as a valid use of non-free images in cases such as album covers and tv-show episodes and such, and I don't rely see the fundamental difference here. If you can justify how adding the image near the text link will greatly improve the understanding of the topic in the image rationale that might be acceptable in some rare cases. Generaly speaking though I don't think we should put anyting into the guideline that suggests that we generaly accept the use of non-free images whenever the subject is linked to as long as the editor believe the image will be more widely known than the target's name or title (that tends to be how it works, any number of editrs will line up and tell you how iconic the cover of theyr favourite album is, and how people will know it better than the actual title and so forth as a justification to sneak a dozen non-free images back into a discography list and simmilar things). --Sherool (talk) 20:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Visual recognition for navigation purposes isn't a valid usage, I agree. But if every M.C. Escher work had it's own article, M C Escher would still require an example of two of his work to explain what he's all about. WilyD 20:57, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, a couple of examples as long as they can be said to increase the articles understanding is fine. I was mostly commenting on the "proposal" Steelpillow had, wich was not about giving examples of his work, it was explicitly about useing the image next to a text link of it's article, not because the image would be used as an example of the artist's work, but because a user believe it's name alone is not well enough known for people to know what painting the linked to article is about without having a tumbnail of it next to the link. IMHO "minimal use" defenently trumph that kind of use, and should continue to do so in the vast majority of cases (exceptions may always be possible in some cases if acompanied by a suitable rationale, but not as a general clause in the guideline). --Sherool (talk) 21:26, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure we understand Steelpillow the same way. His proposal specifically refers to a "passage about the image", which I visualise as a substantial piece of text about the image (or other media, it might well apply to including a sample of American Pie both in American Pie and Don McClean.

Actually, looking back at it now, his proposed language is really unclear. Maybe I misunderstand. Roughly speaking, I'll alledge the policy should say basically that each article can make its own case for unfree media, regardless of the existence of daughter passages. This is mostly for downstream use, but also readability. No special considerations of any kind (either inclusion for idenfication for navigation, or exclusion due to availability in daughter articles) is supportable under this policy. WilyD 22:15, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

NFCC dovetails with rules about article content. It's not good to create a satellite discussion about a subject outside of its main article because you get all kinds of forking problems like redundancy, wasted effort, divergent statements about the same thing, etc. Note how there's only limited disccussion of Guernica (painting) in the articles about Pablo Picasso, Guernica (town), or Bombing of Guernica. It's interesting that the Picasso has a second copy of the image but the others don't. Is that added use inappropriate? Non-minimal? More likely to lead to copyright problems? Bad for Wikipedia's free mission? I'm not sure. Wikidemo 22:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I think we should not be trying to read too much into the words "minimal use". Basically, "fair use" is "minimal use" that will not interfere with the copyright holder's ability to make money from the copyrighted work. Is the ability of a book, magazine or music publisher to make money off a book or magazine or CD album diminished by the use of the image of cover because it's plastered all over Amazon and other vendors' websites? Quite the contrary, those images are put out into the public to help market the copyrighted product (which may raise the opposite question from certain quarters of Wikipedia -- specifically, Should we avoid helping commercial entities in their financial pursuits. Using a book, magazine or album cover image, particularly a low-resolution image, is fair use, minimal use, not because it's only in one article, but because it only represents a small portiion of the work, the most visible portion that the publsher puts out there to help sell the product. Use it in as many articles as you care to -- it's still minimal use. Two very notable cases are used in the US to illustrate the principle of accepted fair use, one with respect to text and the other with respect to images.

*With repsect to images, the following was considered to be fair use. A search engine's practice of creating small reproductions ("thumbnails") of images and placing them on its own website (known as "inlining") did not undermine the potential market for the sale or licensing of those images. Important factors were that the thumbnails were much smaller and of much poorer quality than the original photos and served to index the images and help the public access them. (Kelly v. Arriba-Soft, 03 C.D.O.S. 5888 (9th Cir. 2003).)

*With respect to text, the following was considered to be fair use. Publisher Larry Flynt made disparaging statements about the Reverend Jerry Falwell on one page of Hustler magazine. Rev. Falwell made several hundred thousand copies of the page and distributed them as part of a fund-raising effort. Important factors were that Rev. Falwell's copying did not diminish the sales of the magazine (since it was already off the market) and would not adversely affect the marketability of back issues. (Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Moral Majority, Inc., 606 F. Supp. 1526 (C.D. Cal. 1985).)

... Kenosis 21:31, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Do not confuse our non-free content policy with the legal requirements for fair use (this is why we changed the name from Wikipedia:Fair use. When the policy says minimal use it's to be taken quite literaly. We are a free content project and want non-free material to be used as little as possible, and only when not using it would make an article harder to understand. Just because something is legal doesn't mean Wikipedia policy allow it. --Sherool (talk) 21:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I prefer the use of "the" to refer to NFCC, rather than "our" NFCC -- sounds too much like WP:OWN. My primary point is that fair-use is minimal use. The fact that the NFCC are in some ways more restrictive than the four fair-use criteria doesn't affect this part. NFCC #3, in saying "minimal use", is using a virtual synonym for "fair use", except that "minimal use" is not a common-law term of legal art in the same way that "fair use" is. The "minimal" part is fulfilled by using only a minimal portion of the copyrighted work, and is not affected by how many articles it's used in. The use of the words "minimal use" as a heading in NFCC #3 is, well, let's say it reflects the prior lack of knowledge about copyright considerations. Hopefully, this will pass as more regular participants become more and more familiar. ... Kenosis 22:06, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

As Sherool says, NFCC 3a is about both the size of each nonfree image and the number of nonfree images used. The second sentence of 3a makes this clear. Our nonfree use requirements are stricter than fair use would require. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:25, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I just fixed that, I think. 3a is about number of uses, 3b is about the extent of each use. Same result, just trying to keep things clear. I also changed the headers to make it sound less legalistic and avoid confusing people into thinking we're referencing the fair use standard. Wikipedia is using this in a plain English way: simply, use as little non-free content, as few times, as possible. Fair use does not have the same rules. Under fair use Google can create a hundred million thumbnails and each is legal. We choose not to go that way.Wikidemo 22:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Sure, Wikidemo. In the meantime, plainly well consensused, well thought out, judicious use of images in, say two or three relevant articles instead of one article are being trampled upon, with immense damage to the goodwill of participants. Typically, with, say, a book cover image, you have the article on the book, the article on the author, and the article on the topic-- still very much in keeping with "minimal use" in both the numeric and substantive senses of the words. Yet, this notion that "minimal" means "only on the article about the book, magazine or particular album continues to persist. So, what will the participants in the project proceed to do about that very misguided situation? ... Kenosis 23:07, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is indeed the present dabate. And I fully understand that it will not stop presently, but rather will go on for some time until WP participants get a better understanding of the relevant concerns, rather than trying to divine the reasoning behind the NFCC. It seems to me it would be sensible to understand what reliable sources outside of wikipedia mean by the words "minimal use", I should think. Otherwise, the rules just get, well, sort of made up without any real reference point, it seems to me. So, since WP participants have made up the rules here, why use the words "minimal use"? (Rhetorical question -- IMO, the likely source of the words is that one or more WP users heard or read the words "minimal use" in the context of copyright law, along with the Board Resolution #3, "Such EDPs must be minimal". Kind of a juxtaposition,so to speak.) ... Kenosis 22:52, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

As I was also attempting to say, this is a learning process, and the NFCCs have given evidence that the way they were written can create great damage to interpersonal relationships on the Wiki. I would hope that the NFCCs are not quite yet believed to be forever written in stone, but rather, that the growth process will continue and that the NFCCs will be adapted with the experiences of the past several months (since late-March, 2007) kept in mind. ... Kenosis 23:01, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Can a quoted sentence be used in multiple articles? Or should it be limited to one article and the other articles have links to the quote? This would be "minimal use" of a non-free text passage. -- SWTPC6800 03:06, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Direct quotes should also be kept to a minimum and only used when they add significantly to the article. But there are significant differences between quotes and images (such as ease of linking) that lead us to handle them differently. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:13, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

IMHO each article should be taken on its merits. Does it benefit the reader significantly to have the text quoted here? Sometimes we can say yes, other times we can say no - let's just link to a relevant page which does have the quote and an intelligent discussion leading off it. I think this makes sense for images too. -- Steelpillow 20:53, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Somebody made a point about people abusing an 'iconic' getout to plaster copies of their favorite album cover or whatever all over the place. IMHO this would be quickly picked up on, on the basis that it did not contribute significantly to the individual articles. There already seems to be a steady flow of people thinking that some non-free thumbnail is acceptable and others tearing them down as fast as they go up - would moving the barrier a little to the liberal end make any difference to the overall level of policing activity? -- Steelpillow 20:53, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

"Minimal use", in that context, means that the barrier is never at the liberal end, and that the default is "do not use". Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:39, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

{{Biorationale}}

I just noticed {{Biorationale}} and am unsure whether it satisfies WP:NFC's rationale requirements. Any thoughts? -- But|seriously|folks  19:46, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

In no way does it pass as a valid rationale. Someone needs to delete it. β^_command 23:09, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll remove it. --Yamla 23:11, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Could you please restore it while we consider? You can leave a tag on the template if you want to say it's been disputed. But five hours is not a proper discussion and that has the effect of invalidating a bunch of images that may or may not be legitimate, without even leaving an edit history so anyone can know what happened.Wikidemo 00:17, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind. I have just restored the content but with a warning. Now, exactly what is the problem / issue, and how would you deal with the appx. 30-50 images that this has been used on? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikidemo (talk • contribs) 00:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Only one of those rationales is valid (that the person is deceased, rendering replaceability impossible). In any other case, using nonfree images of a living person fails #1, as the image is replaceable. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:33, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

It looks as if this is only meant to be used for those who are not living. -- Ned Scott 04:53, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I can see situations where all parts of the rationale will be true, but I feel very reluctant to have these kinds of templates floating around. In the very least, having a template be configurable and requiring some form of input would be better, even for simple situations, as well as to encourage a more detailed rationale (if one is needed). -- Ned Scott 04:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest moving this to {{deceasedbiorationale}} and including instructions on proper usage in the /doc. While rationales for images of deceased persons are generally uniform, there are special cases where any usage compromises commercial value. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 08:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Temporarily suspending deletions based on lack of fair use rationale

I have made a proposal, by edit to WP:CSD, that we temporarily suspend I6 because Betacommandbot, the bot that was tagging images for lack of a fair use rationale, attempts to have been restarted and malfunctioned, tagging many images that actually did have rationales. In addition, there has been some serious discussion on this page regarding whether a written rationale should be required and whether it is appropriate to speedily delete legacy images for lack of rationale, given that the prior arguments that the Wikimedia Foundation was requiring us to do that turned out to be untrue.

Can we please hold off on further tagging and deletions until we resolve this issue? Re-starting the large scale deletions would be a provocation at this point. This is a matter that ought to be addressed in a calm, sensible way. Thx, Wikidemo 03:12, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

We should be able to do tagging by hand still, but we can wait for the deletions. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 03:17, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

the bot as been rolled back. Wikidemo, 10c is a sense able requirement even if we have a template for a few cases that have a similar use, IE logos and album covers, along with a specific page reference were we are allowing that image to be used. but wholesale removal is just asking for non-free images to be abused. we cannot also say it is a logo we can use it where ever if it is a logo we can clearly state that and the companies page that it should be on. β^_command 04:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

This isn't a matter of a few valid images. The vast majority of tags and deletions of legacy images in the past, thousands to tens of thousands of them, have been otherwise appropriate images that lack an explicit rationale. Hand tagging and deleting in contested cases, and policing to make sure new images have tags until we resolve the matter, are both okay. Massive purging of Wikipedia images is not, and that is a provocation if it's done before this issue gets a real hearing. If that is starting up we need to stop that, now. Glad to hear the latest tags have been rolled back. It would be good to hear some promise that this isn't going to start up again. Wikidemo 05:03, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Images that violate policy need to be tagged and fixed, and if people are un willing to fix then deleted. I will start it up again. Im sorry but we need to get wikipedia to be compliant. I would be in support of a very limited use of a template style rationale for a few specific uses. I see only 3 current examples Book covers on the book pages, album covers on the album page, and company logos on the companies main article. β^_command 05:10, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

So you're saying you're going to start the bot up again to purge Wikimedia of its old images? That would be a big mistake, and will probably result in a lot of bad will and upheaval at this point. There is no Wikimedia Foundation mandate. We now know that was a mistake. There is only a Wikipedia policy, supported lately by some faulty reasoning. We don't purge half the non-free images by bot on a technicality over that kind of thing. Please, don't start that kind of disruption. Decisions are made by editors, not bots. We can push the issue and get some consensus on the right way to go about it. \Wikidemo 05:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

yet again, you completely fail to understand why Im going this. In a perfect world BCbot IDs a image with a problem, notifies the uploader(s) and the article(s) where the image is being used, that there is a problem. Once people know there is a problem they fix it. But for the most part users dont care about fixing the problems they just want to ignore the issue. Ive postponed image tagging now several times, in june by request, mid-July hoping that the previous taggings had gotten people motivated, and I did a little in early August, But for the most part I have been hoping people would fix the problem, (I guess Im an idealist because it doesnt seem to be happening). Your proposal to remove rationales will go no where as it is a VERY bad idea and will lead to a massive abuse of NFC, which will be 10x harder to clean up. β^_command 05:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I understand the issue pretty well, thank you, and you misrepresent my position. Some people do care about the issue. You could help fix the problem too, you know, by helping to add rationales instead of just deleting images. Using the fact that the person who uploaded an image a year or two ago does not fix it in the one week you give them as some kind of proof that people on Wikipedia don't care about the issue is strange. One of the things that makes the whole process uneasy is when a person who takes sides on the issue also calls the shots on running the bot. It would be nice if we all had bots to make several thousand edits a night to back up my position, Wikipedia would start looking like battle-bots. Wikidemo 18:56, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Like I said on WT:CSD, the bot is just tagging. What we need to do is ask for a grace period from admins instead of blaming the bot. -- Ned Scott 05:22, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

There already is one, I6's have to be tagged at least one week before being deleted. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I mean if one honestly does need more time, admins are generally nice about granting that. -- Ned Scott 05:26, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh sure. And if someone's to come to me and say "Hey, I want to write a rationale for one you deleted", and they're prepared to do it, I absolutely will undelete it for them. Regardless of what some think, the aim here is not to be unreasonable. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:29, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

How about this one. "Hey, I want to discuss the need for rationales and what our procedure should be for dealing with images that have rationales that are not explicitly written on the image page. This is a contentious issue and there is no support for the requirement that there be a written rationale. Please undelete any images you deleted on this basis while we discuss thie issue. If we decide that implicit, template, or remote rationales are appropriate I and others need some time to write them. We need more time, a week or two, or however long it takes to make sure we have consensus on what to do about these images."

"Just tagging" is only the triggering event in the inevitable 7-day deletion process unless admins agree to forgo deletions. If they agree not to delete legacy images that are appropriate and salvageable, fine. But why add a bunch of tags in the first place and provoke people that way before we resolve the issue? Other bots have limited themselves to tagging new images. That would be an easy step. We've let the issue lie for a few weeks after Kat Walsh's statement. We can have that discussion now and pursue it if we need. Doing so under the cloud of newly tagged images, where many of the tags may turn out to be invalid depending on the outcome of the discussion, doesn't help anything. Wikidemo 05:41, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok that is the problem We need more time, a week or two, or however long it takes to make sure we have consensus on what to do about these images you have had three months to do this, why has it not been fixed? two: rationales should be per use, to that length Ive stated that some simi templates would be good, and they would fall under the policy as it is. As it stands consensus is against you, our policy states that rationales are needed. Until such a time that policy changes I will continue to enforce it. β^_command 05:50, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

One more thing to add to the quagmire here. If BCbot is doing automated notifications, it ought be giving notice to participants in the article(s) and/or other page(s) on the relevant talk page(s) of where the image presently is being used, and perhaps even wherever the image has previously been used. Often the uploader has no working relationship with the people invovled in the page(s) using the image. ... Kenosis 13:39, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, wide notification leads to complaints the bot is spamming. It would be a ood idea to add images in articles you frequent to your watchlist. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:04, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Interesting argument, particularly since complaints from local participants do not appear to deter the circular arguments by certain regulars in this part of the wiki (e.g. "we made the rule as presently written, and therefore we must follow it because it's the rule"). Indeed those users appear energized by the complaints. So the argument Carl is making here is that proper notification is trumped by ill-founded notions of spamming?!! ... Kenosis 14:20, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

And once again, "minimal use" indicates that we err on the side of not using in the event of no consensus. I see no clear consensus that boilerplate tags are acceptable rationales (especially given that the policy said they were not well before the Foundation made its resolution), so we err on the side that rationales must be individualized. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:13, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

What consensus? Saying "I will continue to enforce it" (via unapproved, non-consensus use of a bot to enforce one person's reading of policy) is silly and contentious. *I* have not had three months to do anything. We (Wikipedia as a project) face a question of what to do about half the fair-use images on the project. It's unfair and ridiculous to suggest that I, a single editor using the "edit this page" feature am supposed to compete with a bot that tags thousands of images a night and a team of zealous deleters using bot-assisted application to delete 5-10 images per minute each. And why should I? We're talking policy for Wikipedia, not a competition of editor versus the bot. Why haven't the tagging system and bot been fixed in the last three months to function properly, operate in an orderly way, and do something more sensible? "Minimal use" and erring on the side of caution does not mean wily-nilly purging of half of our images on a technicality on a random schedule. Erring on the side of caution does not mean embarking on such a program. There is no rush. Kat Walsh's statement that belied the whole point of the deletion program came only a few weeks ago. Why force the issue now? Wikidemo 07:14, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

There is a rush only in the sense that there is a deadline next year that we are supposed to meet. I think Betacommand can give stats about how many images need attention by then.

I think it would be very reasonable to pause deletions for a short period of time, and I have taken a break from dealing with the CSD categories. But my attempt to clarify the issue of written versus implicit rationales and Kat Walsh's statement was not successful (see WT:NONFREE#Nonfree_use_rationale_requrement_weakened? above). How may weeks should we stand around waiting for consensus to develop? It seems to me that those who are in favor of loosening the requirements should take more initiative in obtaining consensus to change the policies, if they want to see the change happen. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:01, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The Board Resolution only requires that NFC be tagged so they are "machine readable", that is, identifiable as NFC by a bot. This is a completely separate issue from each image having an explicit written fair-use rationale for each particular use, as Kat Walsh has already made clear. ... Kenosis 14:23, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

As I pointed out in the previous thread, there is a difference between the foundation resolution and what is required here on en.wikipedia.org. Our policy is stricter than some interpretations of the foundation resolution. I tried to see if there is consensus to weaken our requirements here somewhat (which would be fine with me) but it didn't appear there was consensus to do so. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:41, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Weaken what? These NFCCs were initially formed very much on the fly, so to speak. It's also been pointed out in the previous thread that there are confusing and highly divisive aspects in the NFCCs. Some of them are based upon mistaken perceptions of what "fair-use" means in the real world. And importance of the "real world" issues, contrary to assertions that it's irrelevent, is evidenced by the numerous comments along the way referencing the "real world", such as , e.g. "Omigosh, what if copyright holder X sued the foundation?" and such. I respect the need to be conservative. But, the notion that "minimal use" means "only in the article about the book or magazine" is an arbitrary decision made without understanding what "minimal" means. The proposals to revisit this issue are not threatening to weaken anything that has anything to do with reality. Defining, e.g., "minimal" as "only in direct relationship to a relevant topic" is very enforceable and not divisive except to a user who's truly irrational. Similarly, the notion that each NFC use must have an explicit rationale is an approach that can quite readily be replaced by machine readable boilerplate. Just like a library, there are three uses for, e.g., a cover image (1) Title of book, (2) Author of book, and (3) Subject matter of book. Any bot designer worth her or his salt can handle that, in plenty of time for March 2008, if that's the chosen route. ... Kenosis 15:06, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Another bot problem

Another bot, User:OsamaKBOT, just started going through the logos on Wikipedia and systematically tagging them for lack of source, about 900 in the last 3 days. It's going in alphabetical order and it is up to AR. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&offset=20070907203430&limit=2500&contribs=user&target=OsamaKBOT.

A few problems with this. These are the same class of legacy images that we have use rationale concerns for. It looks like yet another image deletion campaign that's going to get all these deleted, in the case of logos probably most of the company logos from Wikipedia. These aren't fly-by-night uploads by problem editors. These are the articles about the most important companies on Wikipedia: Apple, Archer Daniels Midland, American Express, etc., with logos uploaded as long ago as 2004 from what I've seen. As with the use rationales, the answer to sourcing in the case of logos is to add a source, not delete the images. Invariably, the source of the logo is the company for which the logo is used. There is no copyright held by anyone else. So simply adding the name of the company as the source, in the logo template rationale, fixed the image. Deleting images here is disruptive to the project and will create a lot more work for all concerned. Moreover, many (perhaps most) of these logos are not really copyrighted. So that is a limitation of the logo copyright tag.

As with Betacommandbot, and other mass tagging and deletion campaigns, I ask that we pause this kind of thing until we sort out the issues and see if we can get a realistic program for fixing the logos (see below). Wikidemo 02:06, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

What is there to "sort out"? All images require sources. They always have. If people don't provide sources for their images, the only way to enforce that requirement is to delete the images (secure in the knowledge that if someone later provides a source, the image can be undeleted). What other possible approach can there be? --bainer (talk) 12:57, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

While I agree in principle we do have a long standing understanding that scertain images are practicaly "self sourced". I mean would you realy delete the Microsoft logo just because the image page doesn't explicitly say that it was in fact from Microsoft? I'm all for getting images sourced, but bot tagging logos as unsourced does more harm than good by fortifying the impression that image maintainance is beeing done in a completely mindles fashon. Not everything tagged as a logo is in fact a logo, but you can't rely detect that with a bot. I would strongly reccoment skipping over most forms of "identifying works" (logos, cover art etc) when using a bot to tag unsourced images. There is rarely any confution about where those images orignaly came from or who hold the copyrght to them, wich is the point of having sources in the first place after all. --Sherool (talk) 13:49, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. The approach is to simply note that the logo is owned by the company. Is anyone really going to want to undelete 10,000 images so I can get a bot to add that note? That seems a backwards way to go about things. This goes for album covers, film posters, paintings, and other 2D art where the copyright is in the work, not the photograph. Wikidemo 15:05, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

The mass tagging of images has long been a problem. Look at what happenned to Betacommand and his bot. The bot operators are too often not receptive to legit criticism of mistakes. Quality control of their code needs to be better.Rlevse 16:54, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

You don't shoot the messenger. OsamaKBOT is doing what should be done to un-sourced files, tagging them. Users upload all sorts of logos that they assume represent something, when it is actually identifying something else. I can talk for other wikis, where they had the wrong logos for Disney and Sony. One wiki had Microsoft logo with the colors mixed up. Some even had the CIA logo placed in M5 article. And en.wiki is no exception, it has its share. The logo source is important to make sure you got the real/accurate thing.

An alarming note was written above: album covers, film posters, paintings, and other 2D art where the copyright is in the work, not the photograph, a statement that I think (imho) is not accurate; when it comes to copyright, everything is copyrighted, album covers, film posters, paintings, and other 2D art, all copyrighted. Fairuse means a source/owner is a must; these logos belong to someone, assuming others will know the owner is not accurate.

Ignoring the problem will not solve it, images either have a valid source or get tagged. Now, the tag it self or the actual action after the tag process, might need to be worked on. Aain, don't shoot the messenger. --Tarawneh 01:23, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

No, the statement of copyright is absolutely correct as a matter of US law. The only copyright in an album cover, logo, film poster, painting, etc., is in the source artwork, not in the image file. The only relevant sourcing information is who owns that copyright. That differs from photographs of 3D objects, where there is typically a copyright to the photo in addition to possible copyrights in the subject of the photo. If these images lack use rationales or sourcing information we can add them in short order rather than deleting the images. But first we have to agree on which images that is appropriate for, how to notate them, etc. That is why we're urging a halt to the bot-initiated tag-and-delete process with respect to older images (Betacommand proposes a January 1, 2007 date below) until we get this sorted out.Wikidemo 03:40, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Uh, Osamabot is also taggin images as no source when in fact they have source. He's also tagged thing witht the wrong tag. See his WP:AN thread too.Rlevse 02:17, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

You know Rlevse, I have fixed most them.--{{subst:#ifeq:{{subst:NAMESPACE}}|User talk|{{subst:#ifeq:{{subst:PAGENAME}}|OsamaK|OsamaK|OsamaK^{Reply? on my talk page, please}}}|OsamaK}} 11:03, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

What to do about legacy images lacking written rationales

Half of our old non-free images lack written use rationales, and people keep adding new images without a written statement. We want to do something, even if the Foundation is not requiring them. But there is no urgency, as we discovered from Kat Walsh's statement a few weeks ago. The premise of the Bot and the program to delete 170,000 images, that we needed all the images on Wikipedia to have written rationales by next March or else we are violating a resolution by our Board, is faulty. When we learned that we started discussing what kind of rationales we really need, but the discussion as usual degenerated into revert warring at the hands of a few people who said any change to the status quo is premature and "not consensus." We noticed that the bot had stopped, which took the pressure off. To start up yet again, unannounced, with no willingness to discuss, is pretty unfortunate. For the people on one side of the debate to turn the bot on and off, while opposing efforts to change the requirements, is unreasonable and unfair. A more reasonable process is to decide what we should do about use rationales first, and then do it, without ultimatums and without the false preconception that the current state of affairs represents some kind of consensus. We should limit the discussion specifically to the question of rationales, and avoid opening the wider policy of what kinds of non-free images are okay to use. The steps would be:

• Decide what kind of use rationales are needed on images - what they consist of, how made, what they say, etc.
• Assuming this leaves a large class of images without adequate rationales, decide how we are going to add those rationales to images that are appropriate, delete images that are clearly not appropriate, and how to handle the disputable cases.
• Agree on an implementation program and enforcement procedure, including a schedule for enforcement, notifications, etc.
• Build and test automated and human-assisted bots for all aspects of the program - identifying and sorting images, notification, adding or modifying rationales, deletion, and reporting.
• Appoint someone, a group, or a project not on one side of the debate or the other to oversee the bots and other enforcement procedures

Until we're done, it is needlessly confrontational to continue on the present course of image deletions. The most neutral and least disruptive course is to (1) keep insisting that new images have written rationales as presently required, and do everything we can to prevent adding new images without rationales, and (2) leave the old images alone until we decide what to do about them, subject to the normal case-by-case review system we have in place.

Wikidemo 18:56, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. -- But|seriously|folks  19:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

If we can set a date that is considered "non legacy" I can have BCbot ignore those images. Like Ive said I dont care if the images are fixed or deleted. (Im neutral about that) Ive proposed a few ideas but they are just ignored. I like most of your ideas but I do disagree with some. β^_command 20:04, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Good, thanks. And sorry if I have ignored or missed your ideas. I'll keep my eyes open and please feel free to re-post or mention them on my talk page. Three logical dates that come to mind for a distinction between legacy and current images are: March 23, 2007 (the day of the new Foundation policy, on theory that things changed then), mid-June, 2007 (when the bot first started and people started getting serious, on theory that people should have known by then), and Aug 1, 2007 (on theory that if you haven't enforced a missing rationale within a month, a large-scale mop-up is harsh). I think July 2006 is too early for a cutoff because even though the rule was in place then and people should have known, the fact is they didn't and this is not an action to punish uploaders for breaking rules but rather to shape up images across the project. So I would favor a March or June, 2007 date. Once we do clean up legacy images there should not be a lingering problem that needs cut-off dates. Wikidemo 22:00, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Just a quick note. I'm going to see if we can get people to come together to resolve these issues, starting in the next few days. Take the weekend off if you want, but we ought to get moving! Wikidemo 02:06, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

how about January 1, 2007? that would have given 6 months for the new policy to be put into effect.

as for my ideas, Ive suggested a very very limited use of template style rationales for 3 classes of images. I say limited because I see only 3 areas that such a style of rationale would be concrete: Album covers, logos, book covers. And even those three classes would only be covered for a single use of said image, on one specific page: Album covers -> the album article; Logos -> for use solely on the main companies page; Book covers -> the article about the book. Those template style rationales are not blanket use, you would still require that those templates have a parameter for the article that it is used in. (you cant just add {{logo rationale}} you would need to specify what article that it applies to) One of the features of the template would be a tag for deletion if the parameter is blank. If A user wants to use the image else ware we would require a hand written rationale.

addendum to that statement, any and all such templates MUST be approved here and there MUST be a very solid claim that every use is the EXACT same, and is truly needed in said articles. Ive got a few other ideas but we are not yet there. β^_command 02:24, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

January 1 2007 sounds good to me. If it looks like people are really address this we should ask other bot operators to follow suit and/or write this in as a temporary matter of enforcement policy. I agree that we should have a template approval process and some other protections. I think we'll end up with a number of specialized categories, but we can start with those first three (logos, album covers, and book covers) and wait to see what other proposals people make. It would be great if we could have a bot or some tool to fill in the "article used" template parameter for the old images as we go through them because that's just simple data lookup from the image page...but that's getting ahead of things. First we should figure out what's acceptable, then we should figure out how to get there.

I might take a rest for a day or so but I'll try to have some more concrete ideas after that. For this to go anywhere we'll need broader participation. Perhaps a proposal sub-page just for discussing the issue of reforming (and/or tagging and deleting) the legacy images? Wikidemo 07:24, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Question about Image:Darwinsblackbox.jpg

Is the use of Image:Darwinsblackbox.jpg on Intelligent design in violation of WP:NFCC#3 and WP:NFCC#8? The image is already on the article about the book, which suggests this use fails #3, and I can see little significance to the reader from including a picture of a book to support the claim that the book is important, which suggests ift fails #8. There is a long discussion about it on the image talk page Image talk:Darwinsblackbox.jpg. To keep everything concrete, I am interested only in the use on Intelligent design. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:52, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

It's valid in the Darwin's Black Box article. I'd remove it from the other two, though. Borisblue 14:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I do not believe it is in violation. The imagery used in the cover bears particular relevance to the substance of the whole framing of the intelligent design debate, and so it has good cause to be included in that article in its own right. It is not merely decoration. It is not merely a pointer to the book. It is a major part of the framing of the ID debate and properly belongs in the ID article. People will disagree on that, to be sure. I understand that, and I don't object to a fair and open discussion of the matter.

I DO object to that debate being fragmented over as many pages as possible. The proper place to discuss particular images is the fair use review. Are you confused about the best place for that debate, or are you just trying to bring it up in as many different places as possible? Is it some kind of tactical ploy? In particular, are you TRYING to find a venue where people don't really have much background in the content of the article itself? If so, it really sucks. Theres an open fair use review. It is a place where people hang out who are familiar with the fair use guidelines, and where people with the content background to explain the perspective on significance hang out as well.

The manner in which people are pushing the delete program is disruptive, and shows a cavalier disregard for the basic principles of consensus and discussion on which wikipedia is based. Please take this to the proper forums. —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 14:22, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Please AGF and consider that maybe the reason why so many editors bring this up is that it is in fact in violation of our policy. You should also know that IFD debates routinely handle the debate of which pages a non-free image may be used in. While it should technically just be at FUR, a decision handed out at IFD (which in this case was to remove it) is just as qualified. Keeping the debate where it started is the best way to not fragment it. --Pekaje 14:30, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I am assuming good faith. That's entirely consistent with concluding poor judgment. THIS page here is for discussing the guidelines; not particular images. The point about "technically" it should be an FUR matter is quite right; and there is a still open FUR for the page. I'm begging here. You guys KNOW this is a contentious subject. There have been arbitration cases already in which advocates for deletion of images are urged to be a bit sensitive. So please, try and keep the discussion where it belongs, and let the fair use review do its proper job. —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 15:02, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The issue does appear to have already been settled at IFD. I'd be surprised if FUR gave a different outcome, at least with the arguments presented. I don't think the image should be deleted, but it does need to be removed from the articles where it is used in violation of policy. It would appear that OP was using it as a specific example on what can and can't be used, according to these policies, so this page was not an entirely inappropriate place to ask. --Pekaje 15:27, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the fair use review is the right place to discuss the image, but I am certain it isn't the only place. This page is followed by many people familiar with the image policy; my hope was to get some new people into the conversation. Just as WT:V is used to discuss possible problems with particular articles, it is appropriate to use this page to discuss particular situations. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:12, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

When there is already an open discussion in more appropriate forums, and when it is known to be a contentious subject where existing arbitration rulings have urged a bit of sensitivity, I think this is very poor judgment indeed. There is a principle in wikipedia that policy overrides consensus. That is quite true. But it does not mean anyone can unlaterally decide which way policy goes. That is itself contentious... just look at the boxes at the top of this page! One of the major points in contention is whether or not the content is significant. That is a matter for which background in the content is directly pertinent. I'm not proposing that you should just roll over and let the editors of an article do what they like. But I do think that when there is a strong consensus about significance from editors, there should be a bit more willingness to recognize that we might really mean that in good faith. In any case, it is a debate for which people involved in the content have a stake, and part of the reason that this has been so disruptive, and the focus of arbitration cases and edit wars and whatnot, is a widespread perception that the advocates for deletion are just riding roughshod over anyone else without stopping for adequate consideration of the roll of editors in making the case for rationale and significance.

If there's a fair use review open, then you HAVE a more appropriate forum available. Use it, please! —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 15:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

<unindent>Obviously the reason this is here is because it's viewed as a test case of sorts. Fine -- unfortunate, but, fine. Since it's here, I should call attention to the fact that this debate about images in the article on intelligent design has gone across a number of userspaces, four IfDs, a fair-use review, various templating and other strategies, administrators' noticeboard, and an attempt to short-circuit standard mediation processes by filing a Request for Arbitration -- all initiated by deletion advocates. In legal parlance, this is known as forum shopping. It's a shame, IMO, how divisive to the community these NFCCs #1, #3 and #8 have turned out to be. For the IfD w.r.t. this particular image, see the Images for Deletion proceeding, where a strong consensus to keep this image in the article on intelligent design was unilaterally overruled by the closing adminitrator with the words "Images removed from articles per Wikipedia policy on non-free content and image copyright tag requirements. -Nv8200p" For the fair use review, see Wikipedia:Fair_use_review#Intelligent_design. See also, e.g., the very recently archived discussion at Administrators' noticeboard. As well, I should call attention to the Request for arbitration. And, in addition to the increasingly lengthy discussion at the image talk page, there have been the various other strategies in efforts to delete, including the arguments brought to bear in this section here. In short, once they set their sights on something, this group wants their way. I'll get back to y'all with some substantive comments a little later, as my time permits. ... Kenosis 16:23, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

NFCC Discussion

Speaking of criterion 8, shouldn't someone start a discussion about it? I believe a lot of images have been listed on IfD recently on the grounds of IFD 8, and I read a lot of discontent about it. So, if nobody minds, can a discussion on that begin again, and others be informed of it through the Village Pump?--Alasdair 02:41, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

IMO, if these competing tensions are not resolved in some reasonable, sensible way, the previously publicized goals of Wikipedia are in some jeopardy. Among the competing tensions at the present time are: 1) a free encyclopedia (what does this mean?), 2) the best achieveable quality (what does this mean and is the consensus process dead except for throwing a bone to contributors at the local, individual article level to resolve petty disputes at that level?), 3) an encyclopedia as safe as possible from cheap-shot lawsuits, 4) compliance with the law. There certainly are other relavant tensions, but IMO the ones I just mentioned are more than adequately serious to deserve broader discussion. As to the way the NFCC are presently worded and how they are presently being applied, these appear to me to deserve continuing discussion on this page until they are resolved in a way that effectiively reflects a sustainable approach to what WP participants have, by consensus, chosen to term "Non-free content". ... Kenosis 03:31, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, I noted the new NFC #1. As long as someone's writing skill is good enough, anything could be described by words. Which means thoretically, screenshots should more or less NEVER be used in articles about film. But what quality will the article be of? If anything, I'd prefer tension 2, as you state. Now then, should we broaden the discussion (by posting at the Village Pump) and ask others for their opinions? Since I think #1 and #8 are far too restrictive.--Alasdair 06:27, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that while a slackening of the rules would be popular (I certainly wouldn't mind), it is unlikely to pass. The foundation resolution is extremely strict as it is, and any further local loosening than we already have is likely to be overruled. As for the specific case of screenshots, well some do pass #8 and some don't. Often they fail #3. Use it solely for when there is some amount of non-trivial coverage of what is shown in that screenshot. If it's important enough to be included, it's important enough for someone to write at least a couple of paragraphs about. Anything else comes across as decorative use. --Pekaje 08:26, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Having read the resolution, I find this phrase to be a key one: "Any content used under an EDP must be replaced with a freely licensed work whenever one is available which will serve the same educational purpose." The question is, how would replacing album covers, screenshots, posters and such with text serve the same educational purpose? Such images are more than just used to show the thing exists. More can be seen from those images. For instance, for album covers, you may get to comment on its design, and why the group chose this cover and so on. For film screenshots, besides showing a scene in the film, it gives the reader an idea into the setting of the film, what the characters are experiencing, their current emotions during that situation and such. In fact, the images may contain far more information than you think compared to just text. And even if you can express such complicated designs in text, the reader is going to have a hard time to understanding it. Hence I feel for those cases, text can almost never "serve the same educational purpose". Therefore, if the uploader can explain it clearly with a very detailed and thoughtful rationale as to why "no free equivalent exists" and that it's significant.

As for minimal use, I agree in principle since those articles aren't supposed to be fansites or whatnot. However, it may help to give an idea how much is considered minimal, as in terms of quantity per length or something like that.--Alasdair 09:03, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Just so it's clear, I agree with the points made above. There are a whole heap of non-free images that could never be replaced by text. What I object to is the same non-free images (which have valid rationales for the article about the subject they depict) being used decoratively in other articles with little or no coverage of the image. That includes album covers in discographies, posters in an article about the history of musical theater, and book covers in an article discussing some of the same issues as those books. --Pekaje 09:18, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I see. Either way, I think the wording of several criteria should be reworded to prevent misunderstandings. Take an article I've been working on, for example: Rob-B-Hood. In the article about a film, I've added a screenshot to show the inclusion of one of the characters in the film, which also shows him acting in his typical slapstick comedy ways as he did with the main actor in the past. (The latter cannot be explained by words, can it?) Then, I've a picture showing main actor Jackie Chan standing in the set. That particular image shows the setting for the film, the costume design and the equipment used during filming (such as the make of the camera and such). Then, there is a picture showing his stunt in film. The next image shows a picture of the baby that stars in the film. After that, we have 2 movie screenshots so the readers can have a better understanding of what is going on. And yet in the FAC, a reviewer states that many of these pics are unnecessary and can be expressed by words due to the NFCC, while there is more information than what you think in those shots.

This is why I suggest a rewording, in a sense that encourages uploaders to provide a thoughtful rationale on the image's contents, to explain why all the image increases people's understanding in a way words can't.--Alasdair 09:45, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

That's a great idea. The problem is that the handful of editors that are controlling this policy page are not listening. -Nodekeeper 11:37, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

How so? I don't think you'll find any of the "regulars" here that would object to encouraging people to write more detailed and thoughtfull rationales for the use of non-free images -- or any rationale at all for that matter. That's sort of the main aspect of the policy in the first place, only include non-free images if you have a good reason for doing so and explain what that reason is in each instance. Indiscriminately putting in screenshots of every character in a movie is bad, using a couple of screenshots of illustrate particular points of acting, visual style or such is ok. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference if the (required) rationale is not present. So anyting that makes it more clear to people that they have to provide an "explanation" for why each image is significant to the article has my support. Sometimes we will disagree on the merits of the provided rationales, but at least then we'll have a starting point for a real debate rater than it getting lost in the backlog of tens of thousands other images with no rationale. --Sherool (talk) 11:53, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

(←) Let me emphasize a point to back up Sherool here. The important part of the written rationale (especially in light of Kat Walsh's statement) is the plain English explanation of why the article benefits from the inclusion of the image. Things like "small size" and "no commercial harm" are completely generic and don't actually explain why the image should be used. A written rationale consisting entirely of generic statements is of no benefit in evaluating whether the image should be used in the article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:08, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Yup, in fact, I've taken efforts to write more detail on the movie screenshots these days, explaining the content of interest in it, and why it can't be replaced by words. I'm sure that "Minimal use" already is enough to prevent people from indiscriminately adding screenshot. My proposal is to add a section to WP:NFCC (and maybe WP:NFC) encouraging people to write detailed rationales to explain each detail on a non-free image, and why it's significant. I'll come back to the discussion tmr. Be right back.--Alasdair 13:30, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I have run into an interesting little problem when it comes to explaining why an image is significant.

An encyclopedia is not the place for original research. However there is a role for expertise and judgment in being able to identify the most appropriate sources and organize a clear description of using those resources. The use of images, whether free or not, is an example of applied judgment. But suppose now that a dispute arises over whether or not an image is significant or not. In my view, this is a meta-discussion; and not the meat of the article where the image is used. It is usually distracting and undue weight to give a long argument for the significance of an image in an article. That is, in effect, explaining to someone why the article is written as it is.

I attempted to give a rationale for some images, and then someone immediately slapped a "citation" rag on it. Effectively, I was being told that it was not enough to give a good argument on my own account for significance; I actually have to find some other authority who independently identifies that image as significant. This is really hard to do; because even if the image is used in other contexts, they are not necessarily going to go into a meta-discussion of significance, as they don't have the extra burden which is imposed at wikipedia for formally justifying any non-free content.

Frankly, at that point I gave up. I just took it as yet another in an endless series of hoops and demands being arbitrarily imposed by advocates for the deletion of as much non-free content as possible. Trying to make my rationale both sufficiently detailed to explain the significance of the image, and also cited to others who have made the same argument independently, is too much. If that is what it is going to take, I'd just be inclined to throw in the towel entirely.

If you are going to advise longer rationales explaining significance in more detail for novices to the subject area, I think you had better recognize that this is a request for an independent analysis; and may take a form that would look like original research if transferred into an article.

One consequence of the delete wars going on is that images tend to be kept if the image is seen as notable. But what the policy actually requires is that image contribute to understanding. The former is easier for a newcomer to the subject to grasp. If the image is famous, then it gets the benefit of the doubt. But if an image is not particularly famous, then by default it is presumed to be insignificant; but this is actually not the same thing at all as saying it gives no significant contribution to understanding. The two notions are independent of each other. —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 13:58, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Not sure what you are saying here. If you are trying to make the article say that an image is significant you'll naturaly need to cite a source for that claim, but we are talking about the non-free use rationales here right? All you need there is to explain why you believe the image adds significantly to the understanding of the article, and how it otherwise meet the non-free criteria. Demanding citations from 3. party sources for an image use rationale seems odd. I mean anyone can dispute the rationale naturaly, but bringing original research into it seems odd unless the rationale tries to make some kind of auhtorative claim as part of it... --Sherool (talk) 16:59, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. The rationale explains the editor's own reasons for including the article image. —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 20:30, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

(EC) This may be true, and I think in several cases that does make a difference. But the number of images which are historic and iconic enough to stand on that alone is very small. Also, I think people need to learn the meaning of the word "significant". It is not enough for a nonfree image to add some degree of understanding to an article, as that could be true of even decorative, tangentially-related images. The article would have to really suffer without it. So here's a simple version for newer editors. A good nonfree rationale should state how it would be impossible (not hard) to convey a significant amount (not any amount) of information without use of the image. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be using the image. As to the original research bit, well, image pages aren't technically articles, but anyone is still welcome to challenge any assertion you make (such as "This image is so historically iconic that we need to use it"). At that point, you do need to back it somehow. If the image really is iconic, that shouldn't be hard, there will be dozens of sources about that specific image. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:05, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

That is a somewhat extreme interpretation of the policy. :-) SWTPC6800 17:25, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Very much so. In fact, it doesn't seem to have any basis in the policy. The policy phrase, which was arrived at deliberately and with quite a bit of discussion, is that an image "would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic." I don't see "impossible without" in there at all. Wikidemo 17:29, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

One thing that's apparent to me, at the moment, is that the hatred by some users of "fair-use" and/or "non-free content," or whatever it's chosen to be called, along with the perception of some that images do nothing significant to improve readers' understanding, is holding this tagging project up a great deal, hardly even to mention the effects on community morale and good-will across the wiki. It seems to me that with an appropriately programmed bot it ought take no more than a month or two to speedy-delete all orphaned NFCs whether they're tagged or not, as well as to delete all images lacking tags. Presumably, Deletion Review would be quite busy during this period, but so what? After that, it seems to me we all can readily continue to argue the merits, or lack thereof, of the various specific kinds of NFC in particular applications. ... Kenosis 21:02, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

You mean something like User:Betacommandbot? But anyway, having looked at WP:IFD, I don't see as much nominations of images on the grounds of criterion 1 and 8 as a few weeks ago. If you want to minimise the chance of images deleted inappropriately, participate more at IFD and state your reasonings so to why it increases understanding and whatnot.--Alasdair 03:47, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I do mean "something like User:Betacommandbot". The March, 2007 Licensing policy Resolution demanded three very important things that can be expediently done by a competent bot desisnger such as User:Betacommand. After defining what the Wikimedia Board meant by "free-content license", the Resolution said: "2. Non-free content used under an EDP must be identified in a machine-readable format so that it can be easily identified by users of the site as well as re-users." It was very recently made clear that the words "machine readable" mean, essentially, able to be dealt with by a 'bot', or otherwise automatically categorized. Board member Kat Walsh's clarification has further made clear that an individually hand-typed rationale is not necessary for every particular use of a "non-free" image. The Board also said: "4. Media used under EDPs are subject to deletion if they lack an applicable rationale." The Resolution also said: "5. ... As of March 23, 2007, all new media uploaded under unacceptable licenses (as defined above) and lacking an exemption rationale should be deleted, and existing media under such licenses should go through a discussion process where it is determined whether such a rationale exists; if not, they should be deleted as well."' Like I was just trying to say, #2 and #4 of the Resolution, and part of #5, are achievable by the use of a bot. Let's proceed to get it done please. IMO, once that's set into motion, we'all can continue to argue about the rest of #5 of the Board's resolution. I'm advocating that a bot should proceed to delete anything that doesn't have a rationale, a template on the image page (which includes all images without a template, and also includes NFC files that are "orphaned", not presently in use, as well as NFC files that to not have a template on the file page). The rest, per the Board resolution, must be sorted out by hand, so to speak. I'm advocating to at least get the "machine-readable" requirement done as quickly as possible. If there are too many Deletion Reviews to deal with, the pace of the bot can readily be notched back somewhat, and if the pace is deemed inadequately rapid, multiple bots can be set into motion with identical methods or the pace of the agreed bot can be increased, depending on which might be deemed more feasible. Seems to me, let's get the automated part out of the way, as pronto as possible. ... Kenosis 05:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, you and I agree on something. As to the {{fact}} tag in my comment above, I actually do have a source—the definition of the word "minimal". I don't believe anyone would consider "the least possible" to be an unreasonable definition of that word. Well, to use the least possible number of nonfree images, we must make sure the ones we do use are absolutely necessary—not just nice, not just convenient, not just difficult to replace textually or with free images, but actually indispensable. That will result in a small, minimal use of nonfree content, and that is what is required. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:43, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

The argument is duly noted. Now, about that bot to get the major business out of the way, such that "we're never going to get this done on time" can be removed from the mix of arguments about precisely how much and what type of NFC will be used in precisely what article. Can the participants here at least form a workable consensus on that much for the time being? . ... Kenosis 06:51, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Seaphimblade is advocating an unaccepted minority position regarding what kind of are appropriate to use in Wikipedia, and I think it confuses the issue to mix that with the question of how we enforce the technical requirements regarding image meta-data. I'm not clear on what you (Kenosis) are advocating. As far as I know we've consistently deleted all the images that are orphaned or lack a copyright tag and there is no serious backlog, hence no issue there. What's left are 170,000 legacy images as per Betacommand's estimate, about half of all the non-free images on Wikipedia, that lack written use rationales or statements of source. The Foundation is not requiring us to remove them; that was a misunderstanding. Further, many and probably the vast majority are perfectly appropriate images for Wikipedia, they just don't have the information written out. Summary deletion of 170,000 perfectly good images would be a huge disruption, and completely unnecessary. Modestly assuming that each took just over 10 minutes to find, format, prepare, upload, and add to the articles, that's 30,000 editor hours worth of work that would be trashed and have to be redone, fifteen person-years at a full time work schedule. By contrast, it would be a simple matter to just add this information for many of the common cases. Even for cases that are not so easy we can do a lot better than summarily deleting them. The use policy as it now stands (which might be changed) merely requires the images to have a rationale or else be deleted. That is still two outcomes. Focusing on deleting them, without making a serious effort fix them, is a serious mistake. There are plenty of ways we can fix them in an orderly fashion. That's what I'm hoping to get people to plan rather than an aggressive purge of images. Wikidemo 07:12, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Understood. (This, incidentally, is why I posed the question on your talk page about where the 170,000 figure came from.) And it's already been made clear that a custom hand-typed rationale is not necessary for each image, but only that they be placed in a "machine-readable" class so they can be sorted and dealt with automatically in the future. So, among that 170,000, there are a bunch in which the source does not appear to be disclosed on the image page. These would seem to be a priority. If there's no disclosure of the source of the image, that is arguably a lapse in the legally required custodianship of proper copyright management information (CMI, per [http://law.justia.com/us/codes/title17/17usc1202.html §1202 of the US Copyright laws). Anybody know roughly how many or what percentage of that estimated 170,000 appear to have no source information? .... Kenosis 15:51, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

CMI laws are specialized and I'm pretty certain they don't apply here. Many to most images without rationales lack explicit source information b/c source is one of the fields in the rationale. The way Wikipedia implements that is pretty messed up but that's another story. However, it's also a case where the source is implicit. When you say that the death star (an image that would be summarily deleted) is AT&T's logo, you're saying that the source is AT&T. Perhaps you're thinking of cases where someone is re-using a historic photo or publicity photo. There the source is not clear so it's important to know where the photo came from. Perhaps for that reason, a lot of these images do say where the uploader got them from even if they lack a fair use rationale. Wikidemo 19:40, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikidemo, what you've just said here readily raises about a dozen or two dozen issues that I don't have adequate time or space in the middle of this thread to sort out and effectively discuss. Suffice it to say at the moment that "copyright management information (CMI)" is merely the focus of the title of the section of Title 17 of the US Code (Copyright), and that it's not any more "specialized" than most other sections of Title 17. The issue of expectation that the uploader identify the source from which that uploader got the image is, at present, mixed in with a lot of other issues that are far less important in terms of complying with any relevant law relating to putting up images in Wikipedia aritlcles. What I'm advocating at present is that the importance of an explicit identification of the source of the material is vastly more important than many, or even most, perhaps all, of the various other very confusing issues presently presented to the uploader at Special:Upload. And the present "simplified version", Wikipedia:Upload is, after the prospective uploader clicks on what s/he thinks may be the proper option, is not exactly easy either. Both of these approaches presently lack a demand that the source of the image be clearly identified, or if unknown, to state "unknown" in the source field and in its place identify the copyright holder or other pertinent information relating to copyright or public domain status. All of this is a separate issue from arguments about what particular "fair-uses" or NFCC uses are appropriate in what particular articles. I'm advocating raising the importance of an explicit "machine readable" standard "form field" that must be filled in with either an http IP address or other source where the uploader got the image. Presently, that's definitely not the way it's organized. ... Kenosis 03:33, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

We haven't given a whole lot of thought lately to the question of sourcing image files. It's not directly related to the question of which images are appropriate here or not, or establishing the legality of use, but it's a good way to verify the accuracy of information in the image file. Knowing the source, as opposed to who owns the copyright, doesn't seem vitally important in the case of book covers, film posters, stamps, corporate logos, album covers, paintings, etc. In some cases people pay far too much attention to where the image comes from and not enough to the underlying copyright. For example, take a look at the article Henri Moore. Every single image there claims it's free because the photo is creative commons, public domain, etc. Yet every single one ignores the second issue, the copyright in the sculpture itself. I'm not sure what you would say about the "source" of this copyright. Most people don't exactly know where the sculpture comes from. I suppose you could describe the location and name of the sculpture. But I do agree, the source information should be required at the time of upload. It's weird that it is often added as part of the use rationale template, not a source field related to the image. BTW, I don't see that Chapter 12 of the copyright law requires Wikipedia to do anything with sourcing information or anything else.Wikidemo 07:54, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

On what basis are these conclusions about §1202 drawn? Without getting into details about how I know this, I can tell you that Wikipedia's interests are served by requiring the uploader to provide a statement of the source from which they got the image. This section of USC Title 17 (copyrights) requires that nobody mess with the copyright information. The easiest way to cover the arse of an individual or an organization is to state where you got the image from. It's not the only way, but it's the easiest and safer way. The expectations that a statement by the uploader on the image page of what the source of an image is should be part of the standard expectation, i.e. mandatory to put some information into a field specifically titled "Source from which you obtained the image:__________"
....... And as to the relative importance of knowing who holds copyright, if something is fair use, it's not essential to know precisely who holds the copyright. ... Kenosis 14:40, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I re-read the text of Chapter 12 a few times and some commentaries on it. 1202 is basically an anti-piracy law. It forbids tampering with Copyright Management Information knowingly and with the intent to facilitate copyright infringement. It's not outlawing anything new, just adding criminal penalties to acts that already constitute direct or contributory infringement. Nowhere does it require anyone to actually have or provide CMI, nor does it apply to good faith attempts (like those of Wikipedia and its editors) to provide CMI. Just knowingly false CMI. The only possible Chapter 12 violation I can see is if an editor makes a bad faith misrepresentation or alterations of the copyright information on image pages, knowing that the images are infringing and that the tampering facilitates the infringement. But the culpability does not rub off on anyone else, just the person who makes the knowing misrepresentation.Wikidemo 16:12, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely correct. And part of our job here is to do our best to make sure the info doesn't just mysteriously disappear. Thus, all uploaders should be required to provide a source from which they got the image or other copyrighted file, as opposed to "I dunno". It puts WP in a better position to help prevent piracy. Fairly straigtforward. ... Kenosis 17:43, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Just want to add a voice that Seraphimblade's reading of the word "minimal" is not sensible in the context of the policy. Minimal, as a word taken in isolation, means none at all. In normal English, the word is almost always used, as it is in this policy, in the context of some requirement. It is the minimal for some purpose. Other wikipedias manage non non-free content at all, which blows out the water the idea that anything is ever strictly necessary. That is not the demands of policy. The English wikipedia adopted an exemption policy that explicitly recognizes a balance between quality and exclusively free content. The word "minimal" in the context of this policy means minimal use in line with the recognized rationale. Hence, if an image is used for a certain purpose; don't take that as an excuse for using it in another context without a solid rationale. Don't use more than is required for the nominated purpose. The policy emphatically does not demand "necessary" or "indispensable". Nothing is truly indispensable and that is not any part of policy. Sorry; I think it is worth repeatedly emphasizing this point. The policy does not demand that images have to be necessary, and it is simply incorrect to present policy in those terms. —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 07:40, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I'm not against deleting images that lack rationale, I'm just against the deletion of those with proper rationale written on the description (to be replaced by text) on the grounds that "We are a free encyclopedia".--Alasdair 11:14, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Judging by the discussion, it seems those fair use images could be used when it's difficult (but not impossible) for the info to be conveyed by text, is that right? Also, compare the article Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith to its German counterpart, and you'll see how dull the latter looks.--Alasdair 01:14, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, although the information they convey also needs to be non-trivial and relevant for understanding the article better. Merely making it look less dull is obviously not enough. --Sherool (talk) 07:04, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

<Unindented> Of course, I'm referring to the production photos, and one or two screenshots of the film to be used on the plot to highlight the vital battles, climax etc. These are things that words alone are hard to describe, and even if words are used, the average person may still find it difficult to picture the scene in his head.--Alasdair 08:48, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I've just compared the de and en versions of Revenge of the Sith, and I have to agree that the en one, using fair-use pictures, is much better. The cinematic poster does a good identifying job at the beginning, the green screen pic vividly demonstrates what is meant by green-screen technology. The two plot screenshots are probably not needed, but the cast pic and the 'Odessa Steps' screenshot really add value to the article. The most damning indictment of the de version though is how the picture they have used make them look desperate. A Star Wars logo and a really bad picture of Ewan McGregor at a film premiere. Typical, amateur, low-quality, fan-taken photograph with McGregor's mouth half-open and some photographers in the background. That sort of thing is what gives free content a bad name. Similar to the "nearly-but-not-quite-relevant" pictures used in Main Page TFA blurbs in a desperate scramble to avoid using non free images. In such cases, I'm firmly in the "better to have no pics rather than a poor-quality or irrelevant free pic" camp. Carcharoth 10:48, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Another gripe I have is that there are websites out there that allow you to freely share and distribute their work, but are of no help to Wikipedia due to the NonCommercial or NoDerivs CC license. Just how willing are they to let others distribute it? If I write an email to the webmaster, will he be willing to distribute it with a CC license that is simply Attribution or Sharealike?--Alasdair 06:27, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Betacommand running for re-adminship

Regulars on this page may be interested to know that Betacommand is now up for renewed adminship (RfA here), which would set aside ArbCom's decision to de-admin him four months ago. Users with views on BC's suitability (for, against, or neutral) may wish to leave comments there. Jheald 10:01, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this violates the "no advertising" unwritten rule for RFAs. Is there any reason to have this comment here? There isn't a snowball's chance β will pass. Borisblue 15:33, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... when I first read the note, I thought Jheald was canvassing to go against Betacommand's RfA (mostly the set aside ArbCom's decision part, which may be read as "Dudes, go there to prevent him from becoming admin as ArbCom said!". The full paragraph reads a little more balanced, but since my first thought was that he was canvassing against, and your thought was that he was canvassing for, I think the message can stay (also, considering that his RfA has been going for some time already, and the note has recently been added). -- ReyBrujo 15:41, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Jheald is clearly canvassing against. Where in my comment did I imply he was canvassing for? Either way, I think it's bad form. Borisblue 17:55, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

A strategic notice or two are not canvassing. Some of the people who know Betacommand's work best probably hang out here, and this may be the best place to attract intelligent comments on the issue. I do agree that it's probably pointless since BetaCommand has zero chance of being given the admin flag by the community - I'm not sure whether Jheald supports or opposes him, but I'm not sure it's relevant. Is it bad form? Maybe. But he'll probably get more support here than from RFA'ers at large - if Jheald is trying to sink Betacommand's bid for adminship, he's doing a shitty job by advertising it here, methinks. WilyD 18:04, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I think this clearly qualifies as a "friendly notice", so no problem. -- But|seriously|folks  18:16, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Seems like a neutral message, and doesn't bother me. -- Ned Scott 03:34, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The message sounds decent, but other than the fact that he deals with fair use a lot, it should not be a matter of concern if we know he is going for RFA or not. Honestly, if we do this for every candidate that has a hard line stance on fair use that sides either for or against, then our purpose for being here is gone. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 04:39, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Copyedits to legal section

I have just simplified and shortened the guideline's "legal position" section. Please don't panic! No change to rules is intended, just trying to keep it brief, simple, and clear. A couple weeks ago I reordered the sections to put all of the explanations and legal rationales in one place, making it apparent that many things were said two or three times. The main thing was to remove redundancy and extraneous content. It still needs a little work, and please feel free to improve, correct, etc. If I may ask, if you add a word please take one out somewhere else - one of the main issues has been shortening the page to a manageable length. A few other highlights:

• Separated into legal background generally, and application to Wikipedia (had been divided by everything else, and fair use)
• Made short list of works with no copyright - based on date, expired term, not sufficient degree of creativity
• Minimized redundant warnings about how important copyright law is, how user is responsible, how we don't want to get sued, etc. Tried to say it just once.
• Removed discussion of mission of Wikipedia, purpose of policy, preference for free content, etc. (those are covered in section immediately above)
• Link instead of quote four fair use factors, and eliminate attempt to summarize fair use law. These were confusing and potentially misleading by distracting attention from Wikipedia's non-free content criteria, and did not teach users as much as they would need to know to make a full judgment about fair use. Instead, provide references to internal and external sites that contain more extensive discussion of copyright.

-- Wikidemo 10:30, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I've looked over these changes, and they all appear beneficial and relatively non-controversial. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 16:50, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Exception to the rule?

I noticed an "exception" to one of the non-free image rules, and got to wondering if it really is an exception. This is regarding the use of non-free images in user space. The exception is when the user themself is the copyright holder! The example in question was someone uploading an identifying picture of themselves to Wikipedia, but not wanting to license it under the GFDL. So, is it OK to upload "all rights reserved" copyrighted pictures to use in your own userspace? Excessive amounts of images might run into accusations of using Wikipedia as a web-hosting service for that person's pictures, and maybe even verging towards a MySpace-style page, but one or two pictures should be OK, I would have thought. Carcharoth 21:17, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Where do you see that exception? I am pretty sure it is not allowed. Garion96 (talk) 22:00, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have been clearer. It isn't currently an exception, but I was wondering if it was. And if not, why not. I saw the point made at WP:AN here. I guess the question is really whether I (for example's sake) as the holder of the copyright on this picture of myself, have the right to upload it with a copyright tag and put it on my userpage on Wikipedia? Carcharoth 22:09, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

No, I'm afraid not, see Wikipedia:User page#Images on user pages. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 22:13, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

That section doesn't explain why the specific case I outlined above is not allowed. I don't actually have an image I want to do this with ("for example's sake"), so no need to apologise ("I'm afraid not"). It's just a thought experiment, prompted by what I read at WP:AN. Carcharoth 22:22, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I did find some old discussion at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content criteria exemptions#Exemption Request for Image:Chippewa michigan logo.gif. I think the assumption is that people want to be able to freely re-use photos uploaded by others, but when it is a photo of yourself that you are uploading, a photo that will almost certainly never be used in an article, why does Wikipedia still seem to insist that such photos are released under a free license or into the public domain? There are good reasons for: (a) retaining copyright on photographs of yourself; and (b) putting photographs of yourself on your user page. I don't intend to do the latter, but I can see why people might want to do both. Carcharoth 22:35, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

There is of course the reason that we are a free content project and only use non-free images if needed (see the criteria) in articles. To make an exemption for user pages seems utterly pointless. Garion96 (talk) 22:51, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like laying down rules for userspace as part of a mission to promote free content. There are better ways to promote free content than requiring people to release all their user-generated images under a free license. I know people who are quite happy to release many of their images under a free license, but won't release certain images (eg. those of people) under a free license. The sticking point here seems to be one side thinking "but this is my image, so Wikipedia aren't going to be sued if I use it on my user page on Wikipedia". The other, ideological side, are thinking "it doesn't matter who holds the copyright to a picture, we don't want non free images because that dilutes our free-content mission". I get the feeling that both sides talk past each other and miss the points each side is making. Carcharoth 00:00, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Another way to put this is to imagine someone with a virtual identity (including pictures) roaming the internet. Then they arrive at Wikipedia and start to participate there. They are politely, but firmly, told to leave their copyrighted images at the door, or to release them under a free license, even when those images are part of their identity, and not intended for use in the encyclopedia. Does that analogy make things any clearer? If feels like an "Unclean! Unclean! Out!" cry, with people only being accepted if they become totally free. It seems that being "partly-free" (ie. contributing free text and free photos, but wanting to retain rights on some specific photos to be used for personal use) is frowned upon. Carcharoth 00:07, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Here's another example. I see pictures around Wikipedia of people at wiki-meet-ups, and I see that these photos are released under the GFDL. I've thought long and hard about this, and I'm clear in my mind that if I ever took photos of people at such an event, I wouldn't release them under the GFDL. I would chose to retain the copyright to protect both myself and those in the photos. I would still continue to take photos of places, objects, animals, buildings, and so on, but would the current set-up mean that I would be unable to upload the people pics (say, at a meet-up) to a page in the Wikipedia namespace, but would have to instead link to an external site hosting the photos? Carcharoth 00:13, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately the disctinction between "free" and "non-free" is not at all precise, except in that "free" involves an affirmative statement by the uploader or the person granting the "free license", while the status of "non-free" must be inferred to some extent, based upon a reasonable effort to ascertain the copyright status, or lack thereof, of an image. "Free" image licenses, increasingly, contain various constrictions that reduce the notion that "free" means "I can do anything I want with the image" to pure absurdity. "Non-free" images often are freer than "free" images. Just for a couple illustrations of this reality, go look through the various "free licenses". Some require author/photographer attribution and contain other caveats. Fair-use of images generally has no such requirement. And "public domain" images remain in something of a black hole in this ideological swipe of the broad sword of the word "free", because "public domain" technically is "non-free" according to the definition of free license. There's a great deal more to this, but maybe suffice it for me to say at the moment that there is no type of image or other media file, not one, that allows one to do absolutely anything they please with it. At the end of the day, "free" is not necessarily so free as some think, and "non-free" is not only not necessarily not-free in most meaningful senses of the words "not free", but often is freer than "free". Thus, there remains a significant amount of work still to be done about what means what around here, and what those things mean in practical terms in the "real world". Or, maybe we'all should just wait until the first "abuse of free license" lawsuits are filed. Kenosis 02:23, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

• There are legal frameworks other than copyrights, such as trademarks, personality rights and moral rights, that concern photographs of living persons. Something permitted in terms of copyright, such as derivative works and commercial reuse, is not necessarily permitted under another framework. While a logo may lack creative authorship and thus be ineligible for copyright, for example, trademark law governs the legal use of the logo in certain commercial contexts. Similarly, while a photograph of several people licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License may be redistributed for commercial purposes or be modified in terms of copyrights, personality rights-related law governs the legal use of the likenesses and "personality" of the individuals in commercial contexts (especially with regards to advertising).
• Despite this, freely-licensed works do still offer significantly more rights to the downstream user than some give credit. Many licenses deemed "free licenses" by the Wikimedia Foundation do indeed have restrictions, but they are generally as nominal as maintaining a byline crediting the photographer or offering the work to licensees under the same license as the one under which you are distributing the work—hardly something to complain about, in my opinion. There may be personality rights-related, trademarks-related, or moral rights-related restrictions, depending upon the jurisdiction and the use of the work. That seems a simple matter of common sense in a common law system, where a violation of personality rights or trademarks is equivalent to committing the tort of "passing off", which few would consciously commit unless they are engaged in unethical practices (or consider the legal protection unethical or inappropriate, add some more caveats, etc.  ;-)). That's why Wikimedia Commons, for example, has a general disclaimer, and why any commercial reuser should immediately contact an intellectual property lawyer (or multiple such lawyers) before reusing content off of any Wikimedia project.
• Anyways, this was a rambling reply / comment to several comments at once, but in my opinion you do not need to worry about releasing photographs of living persons under the GFDL or a similar free license, due to the protection offered in other legal frameworks. That, however, is my opinion, and I am not a lawyer. --Iamunknown 04:12, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

There are a lot of justifications for fear expressed just above. Some, IMO, are perhaps realistic, some are quite farfetched. For one of the farfetched ones, I point out that trademark law is a body of law that has to do with rights to use clearly identifiable non-generic, distinctive (i.e., not "merely descriptive") word combinations and images in identifying the source of services or goods for the consumer of those services or goods, and that trademark has extremely little or nothing to do with copyright. Personality rights are an extension of trademark law. Moral rights include not only the legal term of art as to attribution where appropriate, but also, in the broader sense of the word, the right to resist a private takeover of public domain and fair use, if anybody cared about broad principle here. Moral rights are generally well covered by the basic editorial policies of WP, such as WP:NPOV, WP:VER, WP:NOR, WP:RS, and WP:BLP. To illustrate, in cases like book and magazine cover uses, moral rights are inherently covered by the fair-use of the particular cover image w.r.t. the copyrighted work, which typically has both author and title right on the cover image, which anybody can proceed to use to find further attributions if they so desire. For us, it's only necessary to cite that it's a scan of the cover on the image page. No need to state anything else because they're generally already plastered all over Amazon and other book and CD sellers' websites anyway. . ... Kenosis 04:50, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Community pictures

All the legal theory above is very nice and all that, but it still doesn't answer my question. I draw a very clear distinction between the encyclopedic pictures I take and the non-encyclopedic ones. Call them "educational" and "personal" if you like. So, I have a portfolio of user-generated images and I gladly release the encyclopedic ones under a free license and upload them to Commons for use in various Wikipedia language editions and other Wikimedia projects. I also have some non-encyclopedic ones that I may wish to upload now or in the future. My question is whether it is acceptable to upload the non-encyclopedic ones to Wikipedia under a non-free tag? Have a look at Wikipedia:Meetup. Click around some of the meetups and you will find picture sections. 99.99% of those pictures will have no encyclopedic value at all and will never be used in articles. They are usually of various Wikipedians posing for the camera or talking, drinking and eating. Some are uploaded to Commons, some are uploaded to Wikipedia. Some are GFDL, some are CC licensed, some are released into the public domain. Since they will never be used in the "free content encyclopedia", I don't understand why they have to be uploaded as free pictures (except maybe to show committment to the free content mission). The pictures could be uploaded with a copyright tag to Wikipedia, and they would serve exactly the same purpose. The advantage would be that they wouldn't be shunted off to Commons by the bot that is moving free images from Wikipedia to Commons. Once on Commons, anyone can take the pictures and reuse them. I realise that other laws protect against inappropriate use, and that I still retain the copyright on my GFDL images, and that non-free images in user space and Wikipedia space would mess up the bots that trawl for that kind on thing, but surely a "copyrighted non-encyclopedic picture" tag could be devised for this sort of thing? In either case, regardless of whether the pictures are free or not, there is an argument that while personal Wikipedian pictures of Wikipedians are undoubtedly part of the "community activities", Wikipedia and Commons shouldn't be a photo host for such pictures, but should concentrate on encyclopedic pictures. ie. The encyclopedic and non-encyclopedic pictures should be separated out.

So my question boils down to this: Is it more acceptable to upload personal, non-encyclopedic pictures that are never intended to be used in the encyclopedia (eg. Wiki-meet-ups and personal portrait photos) under a free license, than it is to do so under a non-free tag, and if so, why? Carcharoth 10:29, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I feel that almost belong at WP:PEREN. See for example Wikipedia:Licensing for community images. Even if there was any mechanism to exclude such images from the image dumps (there currently isn't), and even if there was a way to prevent such images from beeing used outside of userpages (there currently isn't). I still think it would be a bad idea. If nothing else it would send some rely mixed signals. On the one hand we are trying to convince people to release their images under free licenses, while on the other we allow our users to upload non-free images of themselves because they are not comfortable releasing them as free licensed... There is also the slippery slope danger. If some non-free images become accepted in userspace, then people will quickly argue that the remaining restrictions are arbitrary and that since it's not content related any strictly legal use should be accepted in userspace... This would at best amount to zero added value to the ensyclopedia writing effort, while adding a whole new level of complexity and even more image related maintainance work on top of the already difficult situation. Allround too much pain for too little gain in my book. Just create a "Wikipedia meetup" group or Flickr or whatever and link to it instead if you are not comfortable releasing such photos under a free license. I don't see why we need to erode the non-free content policy just so we can host the images on-site... --Sherool (talk) 11:10, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of Wikipedia:Licensing for community images. Thanks for pointing that out. Maybe it should be put on WP:PEREN. I think some of the arguments at Wikipedia:Licensing for community images are valid. My point is twofold: (1) Encyclopedic and non-encyclopedic pictures should be treated differently. At the moment, Commons is being used as a hosting service for personal, Wikipedia community pictures. At some point, that will not be sustainable. (2) Wikipedia quite rightly discriminates against non-free pictures and in favour of free pictures when they are pictures used in the encyclopedia. I'm not clear why the same mindset applies to pictures that will never be used in the encyclopedia. Maybe the problem is that many people don't think of userspace as being part of the encyclopedia. It obviously is, as article editing and user contributions are discussed there, but then what is the status of the Wiki-meet-up pics? How do they contribute to the encyclopedia? Why split Wiki-meet-ups pics between free (on Wikipedia) and non-free (on an external site)? Why not just have them all on an external site? Then free and non-free pics could happily co-exist. If someone set up an external site with non free pics, could they take all the current GFDL pics from Wiki-meetups and put them on that site? Carcharoth 12:07, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

As a free content project we only use non-free images when absolutely necessary. Non-free images are a necessary evil, not something we openly encourage. In addition a move like this would totally screw up any downstream users, at least now all the images are either free, or are supposed to have a rational as to why they are not free. I don't see any reason why wiki-meetup pics can't be released under a free license. As far as the external site, sure you are free to put whatever you want up on the web, within legal reason. That external site is not wikipedia, so have fun! —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 14:16, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

One of the main reasons for changing non-free images tag names to include the words "non-free" and for having image tags, is to allow machines (ie. computers) to distinguish between images and apply filters. Just because such filtering is not currently done (and it could be done right now), doesn't mean that "screwing up downstream users" is a valid argument. "The free content mission" is a valid argument, but then I've always been worried that Wikipedia will try and make the world "free", instead of concentrating on building an encyclopedia. Also, you say "or are supposed to have a rational (sic) as to why they are not free". Did you even look at the page I linked to? Wikipedia:Licensing for community images has a template that says:

"This work is copyrighted and used on Wikipedia by permission only. This work is licensed only for use on community pages at Wikipedia (that is, user pages and Wikipedia pages). It should not be used in any article."

That is a rationale, right there. But you are still missing the point. All these community images are non-encyclopedic. You say "we only use non-free images when absolutely necessary" (emphasis added) - I reply "we only use non-encyclopedic images when absolutely necessary and we only use non-free, encyclopedic images when absolutely necessary". Can you not see the difference between this and this? The former is a personal, "memory" pic. The latter is an encyclopedic, educational picture. What applies to the latter shouldn't necessarily apply to the former. There are many more quotes from that page that make a great deal of sense. The over-riding impression I get, is that the responses to the proposal were invariably along the lines of, "yes, but we are a free content encyclopedia". Can you really, hand on heart, explain to me how this is part of a free content encyclopedia? Carcharoth 14:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Regardless this is the free' encyclopaedia... we are different from myspace and youtube. As far as that image, why do we need a non-free version? Supposedly everyone here is working for free content, not the opposite. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 20:18, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

We really are talking past each other here! :-( The whole point I was making is that the wiki-meetup photo galleries are exactly like MySpace and YouTube. They might be free, and they undoubtedly help build a sense of community, but ultimately they are no different from people hanging out in IRC, or messing around in Esperanza, or hanging out at the Reference Desk, or helping to run the Community Portal. In essence, what people fail to make clear sometimes, when talking about the free-content encyclopedia, is that they don't just mean that the bit people read has to be free, but that the mechanism and supporting structures must also be free.

Then you say "why do we need a non-free version?" - which again totally misses my point. I'm saying, "why does it need to be free?" The point I'm making is that because this is non-encyclopedic content, people often think that it doesn't matter if it is free or non-free. The freeness only impacts the location of the pictures, not whether we need it. Technically we don't need any of the meetup pictures. A look at the thought processes might help: people say, "Hang on, these are not pictures for the encyclopedia. These are personal pictures of me and my friends. Why should I release them under a free content license?" The answer comes across as an ideological barrage: "We are FREE. You must be FREE as well. Embrace your FREEDOM!" :-) In fact, the answer should be:

"Well, to sustain our aim of a free-content encyclopedia, we require our contributors to freely release any contributions they hold the copyright to, regardless of where in the encyclopedia the contributions are used, or for what purpose they are to be used. If you feel uncomfortable freely releasing any of your creative content in this way (for example, personal pictures of yourself), then the best solution is to host such creative content elsewhere and to link to it."

That comes across much better.

Your final comment is: "Supposedly everyone here is working for free content, not the opposite." - actually, it may surprise you, but it is possible to be committed to both free content and copyright. My view is that free content is the best way to handle certain types of creative content (a certain online encyclopedia springs to mind here), but that copyright is also important in other areas (primarily to retain creative control over a body of work, but also for moral reasons - I treat taking pictures of people as very different from taking pictures of inanimate objects or plants or animals). I see absolutely no contradiction in seeing my body of creative content as a whole that can be divided up into different parts, some of which are released under a free license, other bits of which I chose to keep more tightly controlled by copyright. For me, it is not an all-or-nothing approach. I do realise that some do see it as all-or-nothing, and would remind them that I am fully aware that once something is freely released it is permanently free. What I am talking about is making a conscious decision to retain some of my unreleased creative content (past and future), and only releasing the bits I am absolutely sure I want to freely release (again, I'm talking mainly about images here). I hope that makes things clearer. Carcharoth 22:44, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Trying to avoid misunderstandings

OK. Let's try again, before there are misunderstandings here - the recent Wikipedia:Revocation of GFDL is not permitted may have had a chilling effect on such discussions. I have always been happy to contribute selected text (ie. everything written under my Wikipedia account) and selected images (ie. ones I think are good enough and are useful) under a free licence (usually the GFDL), and I'm aware that once released, they are free forever. What I'm not clear about is what to do with images and text that I have created (outside Wikipedia) that I don't want to release under a free license. In terms of encyclopedic content, is it acceptable for me (the Wikipedia editor) to mentally approach me (the amateur photographer and occasional writer) and obtain images and text from myself under fair use? Or, in terms of writing the encyclopedia, should that be left to others to avoid a conflict-of-interest? Most of this is hypothetical of course, as I'm not a published writer with stuff worth quoting, but I do have a collection of images I am wondering what to do with.

Ah. I've just realised. Non-free content has to have been previously published! So I would have to have published my photos somewhere else before they became eligible for others to consider uploading under fair-use? Anyway, as none of my images are unique and irreplaceable, this is irrelevant. Though I am now wondering whether uploaded GFDL images previously published elsewhere should have "previously published here" information noted somewhere.

And again, all the above applies to encyclopedic content. If you then move to looking at non-encyclopedic content, such as personal photos of myself, family and friends, and photos at wiki-meetups, none of the above applies. The distinction between the two sorts of images are so clear, I don't understand why people ignore this and focus on free/non-free. I think I just about understand now that if I want to post such images with a copyright tag, I will need to do so on another site. Just one final point. The decision about whether to release an image under a free license should always be left to the photographer. Comments like "I don't see any reason why wiki-meetup pics can't be released under a free license" are effectively trying to make that decision for the photographer. I do realise that once I have released an image under the GFDL, it can't be taken back. Which is one reason why I am thinking through all this very carefully. And images are different from text, which is why I'm thinking more carefully about images than I did about text. Carcharoth 15:26, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually if the photographer does not want to release under a free license, there are other sites to host their images. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 20:23, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The argument could also go that wiki-meetup pictures are unencyclopedic and that there are other sites that are not free content encyclopedias, that could host such images. Do you see what I am saying? People say that "free content encyclopedia" is a place that is both free and encyclopedic, but then they allow non-encyclopedic free images and encyclopedic free images, but exclude non-encyclopedic non-free images and most encyclopedic non-free images. It seems that the "free" part of "free content encyclopedia" takes precedence over the "encyclopedia" part of "free content encyclopedia. Let's see if I can remember how to construct a table showing the four-way options here.

Current situation:

IMAGES	Free	Non-free
Encyclopedic	Y (ideal content)	N (unless fair-use)
Non-encyclopedic	Y (community images)	N (not allowed at all)

Situation if Wikipedia:Licensing for community images was implemented:

IMAGES	Free	Non-free
Encyclopedic	Y (ideal content)	N (unless fair-use)
Non-encyclopedic	Y (community images)	N (unless community image)

Situation that would uphold both the free content and encyclopedia mission:

IMAGES	Free	Non-free
Encyclopedic	Y (ideal content)	N (unless fair-use)
Non-encyclopedic	N (community images hosted elsewhere)	N (community images hosted elsewhere)

Does that make things any clearer? Carcharoth 22:08, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I think I already understood it but it's in nice pretty tables now. :) Table 1 and table 3 would work for me. I don't find community images that important. However since many people like to have an image of themselves or wikimeets in userspace and because the community is important (albeit not as important as the encyclopedia) I prefer table 1. Garion96 (talk) 22:17, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

As the author of Wikipedia:Licensing for community images I (of course) agree with Carcharoth, and think Carcharoth has argued well for his point. I believe I am usually reasonably able to understand other people's arguments, even when I don't agree with them, but I keep feeling that the people arguing against non-free community images are missing the point. Thue | talk 21:46, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Well what is the point? That people will upload more non-ensyclopedic images if they can do so under a non-free license? That' is not a good thing in my book. We generaly do give a good deal of leeway as long as such images actualy are used on some user or project page, but it's not the kind of content we encourage people to upload. We have only one image database, there is no way to filter out images with any particular tag non-ensyclopedic or otherwise, you want a copy of the image database it's all or nothing. As long as the images are at least free licensed it's only a little bit extra bandwidth to download that dead weight, but if they where to be non-free to bot we will actualy be putting up more obstacles for re-using our content. Sure it may not be a huge obsticle to reuire people to hunt down and delete all the non-free community images in the database before they start using it, but it's still extra work and I don't see how a few more meeup photos are worth that when such images can easily be hosted elsewhere. I guess one solution would be to shange the software to keep "community images" in an entierly different database, but I can think of about a thousand more importnat things to spend developer time on than that... --Sherool (talk) 05:04, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia stands for open content. A similar analogy here would be to compare to slashdot, which normally backs linux. Generally Microsoft is frowned upon there, same here, we frown upon non-free content, and require that any non-free content we do use actually have a rational as to why we must have that non-free content. Plain and simply, we are not any other website, we take copyright seriously here. Don't want to make your wikimeetup pictures under a free license, you don't have to, just find a different host (flicker for example). Complaining about how we force people to release "community" images under free licences is the same thing as complaining that all text is released under the GFDL, either you are with us with free content as the goal, or you are not, this site does not look to be changing from GFDL anytime soon, I don't see us allowing non-free images for purposes that really don't help our project. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 05:31, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Responding to both Sherool and Eagle101. No, the point is not to encourage people to upload more non-encyclopedic images if they can do so under a non-free license. The point is to be friendly and non-bitey to people who aren't part of the free content movement, and who are happy to contribute encyclopedic content under a free license, but who draw the line at contributing non-encyclopedic, personal, content, under a free license. Whether they are misguided or mistaken or whatever, many people do treat their personal and private photos as something different from encyclopedic content. If they don't want to release those personal pictures under a free license, but still want to share them, they should be politely told: (a) why it is not acceptable to host them here; (b) where they can host them instead; and (c) why Wikipedia is happy to host personal non-encyclopedic content (ie. community images) when they are released under a free license. What shouldn't happen is for people to wave an ideological flag and try to convert them to being totally free. That is very, very off-putting. Eagle 101, in particular, we do not (or should not) "force" people to do anything. Similarly, language like "you are with us [...] or you are not" is horrifyingly dictatorial. If the only people writing the encyclopedia were those dedicated to the free content movement, it would be a very small encyclopedia. Contributing to a free content encyclopedia doesn't mean totally immersing yourself in free content culture. Carcharoth 10:04, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Well the image use policy have said since forever that users have to release any material they own the copyright to themselves under a free license if they wish to upload it, and the user page guideline already says to avoid a lot of non-Wikipedia related stuff. So I would say they are already beeing told this. There is no guarantee that new users will acutaly read those pages naturaly, but that will be the case with any policy or guideline you make... --Sherool (talk) 12:44, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Not just new users. I had been under the impression that users could upload non-free images, even if they had created the image, if they could provide a non-free use rationale. I now realise that I was mistaken, particularly given the "non-free content must have been previously published" NFCC criterion. The unwritten assumption here, though, is that "user-generated" images are new, recently taken pictures, that have not previously been published. This fails to recognise that it is entirely possible that users own the copyright to images that have been previously published. If they still exclusively own the copyright to such images, can they then freely release them? If they are a professional photographer, and own the copyright to a historic image, are they allowed to, using their account on Wikipedia, upload it with a copyright tag and add a non-free use rationale? The answer seems to be "no". In which case, it would have to be another user that uploads the picture before it can be used under the NFCC criteria. Am I reading this right? It seems horribly rule-bound, but that seems to be what Wikipedia is saying:

"all user-created images must be licensed under a free license (such as the GFDL and/or an acceptable Creative Commons license) or be released into the public domain..."

This seems to depend on what "user-created" means. Would old images (say, created before Wikipedia started) count as "user-created images"? Can previously published images created by a user count as user-generated content? Can anyone confirm or correct this? Carcharoth 12:58, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

If new users don't want to contribute personal photos under a free license, then kindly point them at flicker. We have no obligation to host non-free content that does not significantly help our core goal. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 23:28, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Eh, last statement there was directed to your prior statement above, your questioning about what "user created means" is a result of your rules lawyering. That statement means in spirit content created by me, a Wikipedia user. As a Wikipedia user I should upload it under a free content license, or simply don't upload it. That statement means content created and owned by wikipedia users, the real humans behind the accounts. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 23:34, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Rules-lawyering? Is that a compliment? :-) I would write more, but I think my main point is that the upload warning should talk about the encyclopedic nature of the content, as well as the free nature of the content. Special:Upload has an overwhelming amount about free/non free, but might be better off if a few sentences were to say something like:

"Please only upload images that will contribute to building a free content encyclopedia. The image must be be public domain, or be uploaded under an appropriate free licence. The image must also be intended for use in an encyclopedia article."

Is that reasonable? Carcharoth 02:16, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Community images - Wikipedia or Commons?

One more point. There is currently a bot running that is trans-wikiing free images on Wikipedia to Commons. There may be some people who are happy to freely upload their community images to Wikipedia, but would have second-thoughts about seeing them put on Commons. I'm aware of the arguments that this is nothing to worry about, but what should the standard response be to those who argue that there is no need for their pictures, of a wiki-meetup where only members of one WMF project were present, to be available on Commons? Carcharoth 10:11, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

You may have a point here, but being on commons does not mean anything other then more projects can use it, and if the images are released under a free license, moving them to a different project is permissible. Don't want this, don't upload to Wikipedia. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 23:30, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

This is the point I'm making. The arguments always seem to come back to an ideological defence of Wikipedia's free-content mission. Don't get me wrong, I totally agree that Wikipedia needs to make clear it is free content. But why not do so politely? Statements like "Don't want this, don't upload to Wikipedia." can be very off-putting. Why not soften the blow by saying "please continue to contribute free content, but we ask you to find somewhere else to host any non-free content"? Carcharoth 01:56, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Image policies and living people

Okay, I received an image from a notable person; they are giving me permission to use it on Wikipedia. However, this person doesn't want to release any images into the GFDL under any purpose. Is there any way I can make this work? It's ridiculous that Wikipedia doesn't allow simple identification anymore; I mean, I've done extensive searching for free replacements, but I'm between a rock and a hard place here. — Deckiller 04:42, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

You could ask them to release it under a different free license, such as the CC-BY-SA-3.0. Who are you having a hard time finding a free picture of? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 04:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Derek Sherinian. I found an image of him on flickr, but it's of him playing a little ukulele for fun (and he's a keyboardist). — Deckiller 04:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

(ec) I have been very successful when talking with photographers from Flickr. They usually welcome contact from Wikipedia. In fact, some extremely rare images can be found there (like the one from Ayumi Hamasaki, in example). So far, only one rejected because he wanted sold pictures for a living. -- ReyBrujo 04:58, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

(ec^2) Ask this person to consider CC-BY-SA, which is usually a better license for images. You could also use {{withpermission}} along with the fair use tag, but it will not likely to be kept. Good free images of living persons are usually found, you just need to continue searching. -- ReyBrujo 04:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

If necessary, should I ask webmasters and see if they took certain images? If that's the case, then I could ask them to release the image. — Deckiller 04:56, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

You usually ask webmasters to tell you who was the photographer, and then contact the photographer to request permission. -- ReyBrujo 04:58, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I've removed most of the images from the article Derek Sherinian because they do not meet WP:NFCC. Aside from complying with policy, this will also increase the likelihood that a user will see that the article needs a picture and will decide to donate their own. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:03, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

WOAH! That seems pretty high handed! I don't mean to deny good faith and all that; but is this seems extreme. There was no tagging given. The image of the band Image:Dream Theater 1995.jpg seems to be a very strong case of permissible non-free content. There was an album cover, where the image is needed to make sense of the text that describes modifications of that cover when it was released in Japan. And there is another album cover, which I think does give a valid input of non-trivial understanding to the article, though I appreciate that might be subjective. But the first two removals seem quite inappropriate to me. I'm not meaning to attack you personally, but aren't there some kind of guidelines for people rushing in to delete images unilaterally like this? —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 07:34, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The related point is that if Wikipedia editors think that asking questions about images here will get a page they are editing scrutinized for non-free images and eviscerated like that, then Wikipedia editors are less likely to come here asking for advice. If you see a problem like this, Remember the dot, please restrain yourself, put a tag on the article, and let someone else deal with it in due course. There is no deadline, and a delay of a few days or weeks won't hurt. If any legal problems arise, the pictures can be removed by an OTRS volunteer. As editors, we have to work together. Carcharoth 09:53, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Meh. One reason I've been contributing less to Wikipedia is the problems we have with images. Our image policies have far too many hoops. — Deckiller 09:33, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

One can always write text instead of dealing with images, or deal exclusively with free images. Either of those options would avoid the nonfree image restrictions. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:36, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Norwich City player of the year

I'm working on taking this article to FL status. It really needs an image of the trophy. If I can't find a free image, can a convincing case be made for using a fair-use rationale? The trophy is not particularly notable in terms of its design, etc, just in terms of the honour. --Dweller 13:19, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

That's a good question. Can a picture of a trophy ever be freely licensed? I can think of no strong argument either way, actually. A trophy is certainly a kind of artwork, and could well be copyrightable. On the other hand, this category at commons would indicate that they believe that the copyright on the image of a trophy belongs to the photographer. At any rate, if a non-free image can legally be created, then obviously the article must use that. --Pekaje 15:05, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah. I'm not talking about the copyright of the trophy image, but of the photo. --Dweller 15:07, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, in that case (if copyright belongs to the photographer), a free image should be easy to obtain. If there is just one trophy that changes hands, it is typically displayed somewhere. If the presentation is a newsworthy event, a good picture should also be easy to obtain at the ceremony. Otherwise there is always the option of contacting the club or a/the trophy holder and asking for a picture with permission for any use. Digital cameras are abundant these days, so it's not a big thing to ask someone. --Pekaje 15:16, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not asking if it's possible to get a free image of it. I'm asking if a non free version of it (like the one here ([1]) for example) could be used with a fair use tag. I have a hazy understanding of our rules - I believe that if the article went into deail about the design of the trophy, a fair use rationale would be possible. As this is a fairly run-of-the-mill sporting trophy design, does that rule out this option? --Dweller 15:21, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh, well, then the answer is simple. No. A free one can quite reasonably be obtained, so per WP:NFCC#1 a non-free image is unacceptable. --Pekaje 15:25, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I could easily contend that a free image is extremely hard to achieve, as this is a trophy kept behind glass, presented once a year on the pitch, some distance from the nearest fan, in front of a scrum of press photographers. --Dweller 15:41, 11 September 2007 (UTC) (You can see in the link I provided how close the nearest fans are. The nearest one's probably in the Captain Canary suit - and Doherty's got his back to him and, um, he's got 4 ft gloves on, making photography tricky) --Dweller 15:43, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Kept behind glass, you say? That would indicate that it's on display somewhere (as trophies often are). I see nothing that prevents creation of a free image in this case. I think your best course of action is to request a picture of the trophy from the club. User:Videmus Omnia is one of the resident experts on obtaining free content, so you could try contacting him for tips on how to proceed. --Pekaje 15:50, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

OK... will do. Thanks. --Dweller 15:53, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

What I would do is to hit the contacts on [2] (either "Brand & Promotions" or "Media Enquiries") with a request for a photo of the trophy. You want to emphasize Wikipedia's heavy web traffic to get attention - please feel free to modify a boilerplate letter from User:Videmus Omnia/Requesting free content, which has worked well for me. If you're lucky, you'll establish a friendly contact with the club who might be willing to license other photos under free license. If that doesn't work, you may have to get devious and Google for low-level club employees who may have e-mail addresses, blogs, FaceBook or MySpace profiles, and flatter them in return for a photo of the trophy. Let me know if you can use any help. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 16:08, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I have reasonable lines of communication with the club. The problem is that football clubs are exceedingly cautious about image rights. I'm pessimistic, but will try. --Dweller 16:41, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

With respect to the question by Dweller about the footballer holding the trophy, of course such an image can be free-licensed. A copyright on a three-dimensional work certainly doesn't mean you can't photograph it, nor that one can't freely use the photo on the web if the photographer chooses to free-license it. In response to Pekaje, I'm not aware of any cases where the creator or rights holder of copyrignt in a three-dimensional work has successfully claimed copyright infringement against someone publishing a photograph of the object put out on display. There is some case law, but not very much, about whether the photos themselves are copyrightable. The US case of Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. (Southern District, N.Y., 1999), a seminal case, held that photographs of two-dimensional art that is in the public domain is insufficiently creative to claim copyright for the photograph, but didn't speak to the issue of whether photographs of three-dimensional works are copyrightable. Perhaps importantly here, though, the UK case of Antiquesportfolio.com v Rodney Fitch & Co held that photographs of three dimensional antiques were original works in which copyright subsists, because they involved sufficient creativity (angle of photo, lighting, etc.). Thus, if a free-licensed image of reasonably quality is available, that's the one to use. ... Kenosis 01:40, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

It is indeed a tricky question. Personally, I don't think the copyright of a 2D representation of a 3D object should belong to the creator of the 3D object, but others may disagree (there is a reason why we have {{non-free 3D art}}, for things like sculptures and statuse). If it were up to me, such a picture can be free, so the one linked above is unacceptable. Actually, even if it can only be non-free, it would be best not to use the one above, as it's too small to really be encyclopedic and the inclusion of one of the trophy receivers is unfortunate. In fact, some might argue that you'd need a rationale for both the trophy and the journalistic picture, while just a rationale for the trophy is preferable (and indeed easy to justify). --Pekaje 12:12, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

What we think it should be, say, as a matter of theoretical fairness, is not what I was attempting to address. I couldn't find any case law about it, and if there's no case law about it, this would generally indicate it's not an issue. If one or more cases are brought to our attention wherein the creator or other rights holder of the three-dimensional work successfully claimed that the photo is a derivative work, WP will adapt of necessity. But a hint of the status of such a photo of a 3-D object as "derivative" is given in the US in Title 17 U.S.C., which deals with the scope of exclusive rights in architectural works. The law in relevant part, at 17 U.S.C. § 120(a), states as follows: "Pictorial representations permitted. The copyright in an architectural work that has been constructed does not include the right to prevent the making, distributing, or public display of pictures, paintings, photographs, or other pictorial representations of the work, if the building in which the work is embodied is located in or ordinarily visible from a public place." In other words, take all the photos you care to of a 3-D object that's put on public display. If you care to free-license it, WP can use it. If you don't free-license it, then whether WP can use it or not falls under an NFC/fair-use analysis. ... Kenosis 15:55, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Hold on. What you say only applies in the US to buildings, not to statues, sculptures, murals, or, in this case, trophies. See freedom of panorama. What I'm never clear about is whether because freedom of panaroma is much freer outside the US, whether it is OK to upload stuff to servers in the US of stuff taken in other countries. I'm from the UK, and I've taken pictures of a British war memorial in France (see Image:La Ferte-sous-Jouarre memorial.jpg) which was unveiled in 1928, and uploaded the pics to servers in the US. I also took pictures of buildings, but looking at Commons:Commons:Freedom of panorama#France, it seems that buildings are not OK. I suppose it depends on the age of the building. So do I now have to find the age of the town hall building I took a photo of here: Image:Ferte-sous-Jouarre town hall.jpg? What about the photos of statues and tombs in the Pantheon (in Paris) that I took: Image:Voltaire's tomb.jpg, Image:Lagrange's tomb at the Pantheon.jpg, Image:Braille's tomb in the Pantheon.jpg? Do I have to find out who sculpted them and when they died? Should I have given the date of construction of this monument (1808), to verify that it is public domain: Image:Place du Chatelet fountain and memorial.JPG? What about a plaque erected in 1919: Image:Thomas Jefferson's Paris house memorial.jpg? Carcharoth 16:59, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I completely forgot about checking for freedom of panorama. If the trophy is on display at the club, then per Commons:Commons:Freedom_of_panorama#United_Kingdom, one can freely publish pictures of it. As I understand the commons rules, it would be an acceptable image, even though the servers are located in the US. --Pekaje 17:26, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

It might be on display in a private trophy room, accessible to employees, the club management and the football players, but not (usually) to the fans and public. Or it could be totally public, like a club museum or openly accessible trophy display area. Carcharoth 17:53, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

(ec) If one can free-license it, then no NFC/fair-use analysis is necessary. It's simply not allowed, per WP:NFCC#1. As for case law, I find Rogers v. Koons interesting, in that a 3D representation of a 2D image could be in violation of copyright. I know that's the other way around, but it's interesting anyway. But yeah, it does seem like 2D images of 3D works are generally considered original works. --Pekaje 17:11, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Kindly do not cherrypick the points. I used the following words: "But a hint of the status of such a photo of a 3-D object as "derivative" is given in the US in Title 17 U.S.C., which deals with the scope of exclusive rights in architectural works."; after which I proceeded to quote § 120(a). I'm going to address say this one more time, and then get off this conversation unless it's necessary to actually make a useful point. There is no evidence that I could find of a "copyright" to a 3-D work displayed in public being successfully applied to a photo of the publicly displayed work. If there is, I'd like to see it, along with the context in which such a holding was rendered by a court. ... Kenosis 17:47, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused now. Are you saying that freedom of panorama does apply or not. Or are you making an argument that is more general than freedom of panorama? Or are you making an argument orthogonal to freedom of panorama? Forgive me if I offended you, but freedom of panorama is the only relevant principle I was aware of, and I was confused as to why it wasn't being mentioned here. Carcharoth 17:50, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

"Freedom of panorama" is WP:OR. Maybe suffice it to say, it's not exactly an accepted legal term of art or constitutional principle. ... Kenosis 17:59, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

this is not WP:OR. --Pekaje 18:07, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I've redirected Freedom_of_panorama to the essay Wikipedia:Freedom_of_panorama. WP users are generally free to opine as they wish in WP:Essays, while articles must comply with WP:NPOV, WP:VER and WP:NOR. The article had been created then redirected to the essay, then deleted, and was recently recreated with factually inaccurate material without any hint of a WP:RS. All of this appears to arise out of the essay at the Wikimedia Commons at Commons:Commons:Freedom_of_panorama, which attempts to describe what is felt to be a right of photographers (which it is in a casual sense), and which has some potentially useful snippets of various national copyright statutes, though unfortunately the Commons page is rife with misconceptions, errors and omissions. IMO, the Commons page is a far better study in how the internet can spread false perceptions than it is a useful guide to copyright law. One example of an error in that project page on the commons is what we just discussed about photos of 3-D objects not being derivative works in general. ... Kenosis 18:54, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up. Do you have an account on Commons? It would be good to clear up any misconceptions over there, though that might be rather a big task! Carcharoth 21:37, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Ann Bannon images

Guys, I swear to God I'm doing the best I can. I uploaded 3 images: Ann Bannon in 1980.jpg, Ann Bannon in 1955.jpg, and Ann Bannon in Seattle in 2002.jpg with Ann Bannon's permission, sent a copy of the permission to permissions-en@wikimedia.org and read through the miasma of licensing information, choosing what I thought was the most appropriate. If there's something I need to do different to the images, please let me know. I appreciate your assistance. --Moni3 04:25, 12 September 2007 (UTC)Moni3

Please see Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission. We need to get permission to release the images under a free content license. Not simply an exclusive permission to use the images in the Wikipedia article. --Sherool (talk) 04:43, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I sent that to her. She agreed to it:

"From: "Ann Bannon" <annbannon@annbannon.com>

To: psmor@earthlink.net

Subject: Re: Update

Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 20:00:51 -0700

Pam dear,

The 1955 photo was taken by my ex-spouse, and is entirely mine. (He can't see anymore and wouldn't give a toot, anyway.) Tee Corinne, a lovely friend, died of cancer about a year ago, and in any case always granted me permission to reproduce all of her photos of me. I've paid for any others you might want to use--Sue Leith, Hope Harris, Rink Foto, Bob Giard, Craig Dale, etc. They're all mine. I went to the copyright website on Wikipedia, but can't figure out which category I fit into--certainly not the Department of Commerce or the Navy. Let me know, and I'll sign and deliver."

I don't know how to mark the licensing. Nothing on the (very long and confusing)list of options seemed to apply, so I chose non-free promotional. What else would apply? Thank you for your help.--Moni3 11:58, 12 September 2007 (UTC)Moni3

You should get a specific license statement. See User:Videmus_Omnia/Requesting_free_content#Get_the_license_statement.21 for info. Then you can forward the email to OTRS (that page should have all the instructions you'll need) and it will all be nice and legal. Thank you for taking the time to obtain free images. --Pekaje 12:18, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I've resent another request to her using the language in the "Get the license statement." I'm sorry - I don't know what OTRS is. I looked for OTRS on that page, or a title that consisted of those first letters and didn't find one. I know this is tedious for you to have to repeat this for the painfully uninformed. I do appreciate your assistance. --Moni3 13:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)Moni3

OTRS is a system for handling emails sent to the foundation. When you forward the permission email, it is assigned a ticket number, which will eventually be placed on the image description page. This is a sort of verification that the copyright owner did indeed release the picture. I think this section does a fair job at explaining what needs to be done. I hope this clarifies things. --Pekaje 14:13, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I got the permission slip signed, forwarded it to OTRS and uploaded one image of the three you can see here, but the image description is still marked for speedy deletion. What do I need to do differently? --Moni3 17:50, 12 September 2007 (UTC)Moni3

Seems you selected the wrong license when you uploaded. Since you got an email with GFDL permission, you should mark it with {{GFDL}} (and select that in the upload form (don't use the shortcut links, go directly to the upload form)). I corrected that one image, you can mark the rest. Again, thank you for helping us obtain free images. Remember to thank the image owner as well. --Pekaje 18:00, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone, for being very patient with a relative noob. I appreciate your help very much. --Moni3 19:19, 12 September 2007 (UTC)Moni3

Sports images in uniform

Did we ever decide if free image of sports players while they're in their uniform are truly free? - Peregrine Fisher 17:39, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Free-licensed images of people in uniforms are "free" to whatever extent the uploader has validly granted the free license. They're not free to be used to defame, slander or libel or harass, nor free to be used to infringe or dilute a trademark of a team, e.g., by using the photo to copy a uniquely disctinctive logo and then using it for your own team. Other than these kinds of legal restrictions to behavior and written or oral statements, such a photo is free to be used however the free license grants permission for it, no matter how disctinctive or copyrightable the uniform itself may be. ... Kenosis 19:55, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

True, but...defamation, trademark, etc., are not free content issues. I would argue that if you take a picture of a person in a uniform that includes copyrighted design elements, the uniform itself is either incidental and therefore beneath our non-free use concerns, or else the use is significant and we have to go through the usual analysis. If you take a full frontal shot of a copyrighted clothing design, and that image is replaceable with a non-copyrighted clothing design, does not add significantly add to the article, etc., then maybe it's not a good image. In general, I would think a sports player image is usually going to pass this test. A guy on the street wearing a team jersey, perhaps not. Wikidemo 20:41, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes Wikidemo, indeed "defamation, trademark, etc., are not free content issues". But at this stage of my participation in this project, I think it's important wherever possible for me to call to attention widespread misconceptions and confused ideology that "free" means "free to do anything I want with it." I did not mean to necessarily imply that this was anyone's intent here, nor that other restrictions on behavior fall within the definition of "free content" as being tagged with one of the accepted "free licenses". The question did, however, use the words 'truly free", thus prompting the clarification. ... Kenosis 21:08, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Sure, that's been a pet issue of mine but a rather controversial one. Specifically, however effective we are at creating a free content encyclopedia in terms of copyright, the content will never truly be free because people always have other legal concerns to consider, especially privacy, defamation, trademark, etc. I'm not aware of any serious free content movement, and I don't think it's possible, with respect to these other legal issues ("trademark-left" licenses? "defamation-left" content?). Therefore, one cannot re-use any content wily-nilly, not even public domain content, without thinking through the ramifications. For that reason, I argue, an absolutist approach to cleansing the encyclopedia of all fair-use works does not make the encyclopedia any more free. After a certain point the marginal benefit is slight, and not in proportion to the loss of encyclopedic value. Wikidemo 21:28, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. ... Kenosis 21:50, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

So what do you think of community images (see the section somewhere above)? Can you understand how people who are not lawyers might have the idea that releasing photos of a tree, building, animal, book, etc. under a free license is OK for pictures for an encyclopedia, but might be more wary when wondering what license to upload pictures of themselves, family and friends to community areas of Wikipedia? Obviously, the privacy and defamation laws still apply regardless, but people think that "free" means "people can do what they like with the picture". In reality, the "people can do what they like" bit starts as soon as you upload a picture to the internet and anyone can download it to their computer. What you can do (if you have the time, money and resources) is to aggressively assert your image rights and go after people who use the image inappropriately. In that sense, it doesn't matter whether the image is free or not. I do sometimes, though, get the impression that the free content movement re-inforces a sense of openness, of a reduction in absolute privacy. A kind of reaction against the "permission culture" that copyright induces, and saying "you don't need my permission, go ahead and reuse the content". It will be interesting to see how things develop over the coming years. Carcharoth 21:53, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Carcharoth, if the question was directed at me, I don't know the answer. I think you correctly sense that there may be privacy issues involved, as well as issues of defining encyclopedic content in the context of WP not being a free-hosting site. Given the quasi-anonymous nature of the wiki, I think your concerns about that class of photographs are reasonable, but are questions separate from a "free-content"/NFC analysis. More important to me is how WP will verify the validity of free licenses given under WP usernames, an issue that I would imagine will come up again in the future. It may not turn out to be adequate to indef block a user after a flawed or fraudulent free-licensed photo has gotten wikely reproduced on the web, though that obviously is an issue for other project talk pages. ... Kenosis 22:22, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The question was intended for Wikidemo, but anyone can answer on a talk page like this. I'm glad others do sense the privacy issues involved. The issue of the anonymity of many Wikipedia accounts is something I was thinking about too, as in that section above there was something about "user-generated images", which I take to be Wikipedian amateur photographers uploading pictures they have taken. I got very hung up on scenarios where the Wikipedia account freely released images taken by the real person, or uploaded under fair-use image taken by the real person (being the same person in this case). Screwy stuff. The other thing with not knowing who the person is behind the account, is that it is difficult to work out when such images will become public domain. You have no age to work with. Not a massive concern, as for most purposes GFDL is as good as PD. But not for all cases. Carcharoth 22:39, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

• Wikidemo, you might also be interested in this thread. Carcharoth 22:00, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Copyrights that were not renewed

It appears to me that we are on shaky ground if we claim an image from the mid 20th century to be public domain because a volunteer here cannot find evidence of a copyright renewal online. Has this issue been discussed before? Shouldn't the presumption be that copyrights that were renewable were, in fact, renewed, unless there is positive evidence to the contrary? — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:11, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps it is useful to restate the legal status of a copyright that is published without a notice, that never had a registration, or that had a registration that was not renewed. Also, can anyone describe or point to a source on how one would look up a copyright at the Library of Congress if there's an image we want to check, and how certain it is that one can find the filing or the renewal based on having a copy of that image? Thx, Wikidemo 21:31, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Here is one link to the U.S. copyright database: [3]. However, the U.S. government urges caution in doing this research [4]. There is a lot of information on that website about the copyright law [5], but it seems foolish to me for Wikipedia to allow volunteers to give what is essentially legal advice about the copyright status of images from the mid 20th century. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:46, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Sure, the sense of "what if?" is reasonable, although only about 10% of registered 1923-1963 copyrights were renewed, and this represents probably less than 1% of the total material published in the US during that period (no one knows for sure-- it could be much less than 1%). An assertion of "copyright not renewed" should be required to be accompanied by a statement by the uploader that a "reasonable effort" was made to search for the author's or other rights holder's name, and that a "reasonable effort" to search for a copyright renewal in the appropriate date-range (27-28 years after first publication). Most of the relevant records are online as noted in the WP:NFC project page footnote (presently footnote #3). A showing that there is a record of a copyright renewal is adequate to immediately defeat the statement on the image page, whereupon it should be changed to "NFC" and assessed accordingly. The safest policy, of course, would be to demand relatively low resolution images for all pictoral, audio and video content. ... Kenosis 22:04, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that the volunteer is making a negative claim - the claim that no renewal exists. Negative claims are very difficult to justify convincingly; it should take much more than just the inability of one volunteer to find a copyright registration for us to conclude we are safe in assuming no registration exists. Really, it should take actual legal advice for us to assume that.

This question came up in the context of old cover images from Time magazine. An editor claimed one such image was public domain, which seemed unlikely. I emailed Time at the address they advertise to get permission to reprint the image, and the response was that they do claim copyright on the covers. I haven't searched for other images that are similarly mistagged as public domain, but I'm sure there are a decent number.

I am advocating that we should have positive evidence that an image is public domain - either evidence it was published in a year that forces it to be public domain now, or evidence it was released by its owner - before tagging the image as public domain here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:12, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I just raised a negative claim in the section above. How does anyone know that a "free-license" is valid? ... Kenosis 22:29, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

There might be instances in which inability after reasonable effort to locate evidence of renewal could give rise to an argument that the image might reasonably have fallen into public domain, provided that no successor to the original publisher or author exists that can be queried. But under no circumstances would this be a tenable approach with regard to a book published by a reputable publisher or a magazine that is still being issued. All publishing houses and copyright lawyers' offices used to have stuff members whose specific job duties was to calendar copyright renewal dates and make sure the renewals got filed. Newyorkbrad 22:31, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes excessive caution leads to copyright commandeering (which has now been moved to the term 'copyfraud'). Sometimes such 'comandeering' is unintentional, and is just people trying to play safe and 'claim' copyright rather than take the time to demonstrate their claim of copyright. What you could ask the people at TIME is where the records are that show renewal of copyright for old covers. Not just "do you claim copyright?". The knee-jerk reaction to a question like that is invariably "yes". Only if you follow it up, do you find out what the true situation is. For what it is worth, I think they probably do have the copyright, as they have published a lot of their old material on the internet (eg. this). Carcharoth 22:32, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

But it isn't our job as volunteers to investigate and make decisions about copyright law. Unless there is clear evidence that something is public domain, we shouldn't have editors using their own initiative to decide it is. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:35, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

But "clear evidence that something is public domain" is also investigating and making decisions about copyright. Carcharoth 22:41, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Whether a copyright has been registered, renewed, or published without copyright notice is not a question of law, it is a question about a factual occurrence that happens to have legal implications. That's comparable to naming the source of the image, owner of the copyright, etc. Big difference. People can be trusted to make factual determinations.Wikidemo 23:02, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, right. So researching and filling in an upload form is fine. Debating the finer points of copyright law in IfD discussions and on talk pages like this, isn't... :-) Carcharoth 23:09, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Cute. No, I think it's okay to discuss copyright law here when we set policy but we sure don't want to do it image by image at the time of upload or IFD. In my opinion the criteria for an image being okay or not should be as fact-based as possible without appealing to the bigger issues. Wikidemo 01:29, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

How do we know what the right name is for the copyright holder? Especially if the rights were transferred? I looked online for a renewal notice for the Time magazine cover I mentioned, but couldn't find one. That doesn't mean I am willing to believe that the images are public domain without some legal advice. It means I'm not qualified to do the search. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:07, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

(←) True, but these are positive facts - evidence of the year something was published, or an explicit release by the copyright owner. What's no good is deciding that something was not renewed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:43, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The records are there for anyone to check. Deletion advocates and "only-free-content" advocates are willing to spend time getting in users' decisionmaking at the local article level, but not willing to double check the records?? Once the uploader or someone following up on the uploader is required to make the affirmative statement, it's not radically different than the affirmative statement that the uploader makes when placing a free-license template. We know that the odds, even at random, of a particular 1923-1963 image having been renewed is something like 1%, odds that may be far lower than the odds of using a bogus free-license image or other media file around the wiki and around the web in general. Add to that an affirmative statement by the uploader and the capability for users to double-check the statement, and, yes, there's still the potential for error. The standard for libraries and people in general, including Wikipedia, is a "reasonable effort" to ascertain the copyright status, not "it is beyond any question that this was never renewed". ... Kenosis 22:54, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Having conducted a search is a positive fact. That can be recorded. Sometimes you have to acknowledge that records are not available. Not just "unknown because no-one has bothered looking", but "unknown despite someone looking". If you are worried about trusting uploaders, then all image verification should be brought in-house to be done by trusted volunteers. Kenosis said it better than me, though. "Reasonable effort" is an accepted legal term, I believe. Or if not "term", a legal something. Carcharoth 22:58, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that we can't reliably check these things. The Library of Congress specifically warns against it [6]. Their advice: "In many cases it is important to consult with a copyright attorney before reaching any conclusions regarding the copyright status of a work." — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:01, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Please, please. NO CHERRYPICKING!
The text of the particular section of the circular says:
A Few Words of Caution About Copyright Investigations
Copyright investigations often involve more than one of these methods. Even if you follow all three approaches, the results may not be conclusive. Moreover, as explained in this circular, the changes brought about under the Copyright Act of 1976, the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988, the Copyright Renewal Act of 1992, and the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 must be considered when investigating the copyright status of a work.
This circular offers some practical guidance on what to look for if you are making a copyright investigation. It is important to realize, however, that this circular contains only general information and that there are a number of exceptions to the principles outlined here. In many cases it is important to consult with a copyright attorney before reaching any conclusions regarding the copyright status of a work.
This is standard insitutional deniability. The Wikimedia foundation offers similar disclaimers that the foundation and the users arent' responsible for this and that. It's entertaining reading if you like to take things literally, but in fact it's fairly standard. And actually, it would appear that we have no way of checking free-licenses either, given the quasi-anonymous nature of the wiki. The use of non-renewed 1923-1963 material is quite legal and quite reasonable to use it in WP as editors deem appropriate, so long as they make a "reasonable effort" to ascertain the copyright status, or lack thereof, of an image. This material constitutes a vast wealth of material owned by the public, meaning that it should not be ignored because some are demanding a theoretical "absolute proof". And, as I said, to be safe, use a low-resolution image that would qualify as fair-use, just in case someone missed a renewal in their diligent search. If this turns out to be the case in one or more instances, the image can be assessed under the NFCC. ... Kenosis 00:31, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Nobody has answered my earlier question. If a copyright registration was not renewed, does this automatically mean the copyrighted material slipped into the public domain? What if one was never filed? Is that public domain? Finally, what about having been published without a copyright notice - I assume that makes it public domain if before 1978 and subject to some complications between then and 1989. That covers nearly all corporate logos. Wikidemo 23:01, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, if copyright has not been renewed on material published in the US between 1923 and 1963 in the 27th year after publication or initial registration, it is in the public domain, which means that copyright protection is no longer afforded for that material. ... Kenosis 00:38, 13 September 2007 (UTC) ... Sorry, I was in a hurry before and missed your third question. For materials published before 1978, failure to give notice of a claim of copyright (e.g., "© 19yy WeOwnEverything Inc." or "copyright 19XX, Joey Photographer") is a relinquishment of copyright, although a claimant can show that a "reasonable effort" was made to include the coyright notice on all publications of the work (which requires a lot of work for the claimant and the claimant's lawyer(s)). For works between 1978 and 1989, claimants who published without a copright notice had five years after the publication to register the work with the U.S. Copyright Office. The 1978 through 1989 records are not only online, but online at the www.copyright.gov website in a searchable database. ... Kenosis 01:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Here's a concrete example. Haukur 23:31, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

For those unaware, I'm responsible for uploading the image (in fact reuploading, after a mooted fair use debate in IfD and DRV) that prompted Carl to initiate this thread. The reupload was deleted per Carl's correspondence described below, so I can't link you to the detailed public domain explanation I provided on the image page, but it was along the lines described by Kenosis above: I made a thorough search of U.S. Copyright Office filings for both 27 and 28 years after the date of original publication. I searched under "Time" (the magazine whose cover is in question, also the name of its corporate owner), under "Kinsey" (subject of the cover in question), and under "Artzybasheff" (painter of the portrait that is the cover's source). Based on the presumptively reliable, unbiased evidence of the U.S. Copyright Office's online records, the required renewal was not filed. I will note here that while Time.com included a boilerplate "Copyright © 2007 Time Inc." notice at the bottom of the source webpage, there was no copyright indicium associated with the specific historical image.

Carl, finding my assertion of public domain status dubious, emailed Time.com, inquiring about the copyright status of the image. A reply came, claiming that copyright on the image was still in force. Revealingly, this reply came not from Time itself, but from a merchandising representative: Wright's Reprints. I presume to shield his correspondent, Carl has "re-created" the relevant talk page where he posted this reply (Image_talk:TimeKinsey1953.jpg); it originally showed her e-mail address, a Wright's Reprints address, not a Time Inc./.com/etc. address. The re-creation still indicates that she is "Reprints - Permissions Coordinator/Wright's Reprints."

At any rate, I have emailed Time.com thus:

Dear Sir or Madam,
I'm inquiring about the copyright status of images of Time magazine covers such as the one at the link below. It is the cover from August 24, 1953:
http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19530824,00.html
In response to a previous inquiry, I was informed by a representative from Wright's Reprints that the cover was still under copyright. However, a search of U.S. Copyright Office records for 1980 and 1981 reveals that no copyright renewal on the magazine, its cover, or any of its contents was filed within 28 years of original publication--such renewal would have been necessary to maintain Time Inc.'s copyright. If there was an error in this search, and Time Inc. did indeed file the required renewal, could you please give me the U.S. Copyright Office record number? If indeed the required renewal was not filed per then prevailing copyright law, does Time Inc. claim continued copyright on some other basis, or was the response from Wright's Reprints incorrect? Thank you.
Best regards,
Dan Geist

On a note more philosophical (or ideological, if you prefer), the present issue is essentially one of reliable sourcing, like so much else here on Wikipedia. In the case of U.S. copyright renewal records, we do have good, reliable sources for whether copyright renewals, as required for many years under U.S. law, were filed or not. To determine whether specific material is in the public domain--specifically, to determine whether required copyright renewals were filed--is not to "investigate and make decisions about copyright law" as Carl erroneously states. It is to investigate, report, and act on verifiable and attributable evidence, just as we do throughout our encyclopedia. The absence of a required copyright renewal filed with the U.S. Copyright Office, an absence reasonably verifiable by any Wikipedia editor or reader, should be treated as positive, indeed authoritative evidence. The verifiable presence of such a renewal is definitive evidence, I'm sure we all agree; the verifiable absence of such a renewal is no less than compelling and, as Carcharoth suggests, more than sufficient safeguard.—DCGeist 23:59, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

There is no verifiable absence in this case. The fact that you and I are unable to find the renewal doesn't mean none exists. It may just indicate we aren't looking in the right place. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:02, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Is there a reasonable basis for this comment? What other "place" do you believe we should look for a U.S. copyright renewal other than the records of the U.S. Copyright Office? Let your imagination run riot. Propose a reasonable place we have not yet looked in, and let's look there.—DCGeist 00:10, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps when I was unable to find the renewal, it was because I didn't use the correct search terms. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:13, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate the point. That's why I specified my search terms: "Time" (name of magazine and name of corporation); then seperately "Kinsey" (name of subject); then seperately "Artzybasheff" (name of creator of underlying portrait). I thoroughly scanned the resulting hits (there were many, as "Time" is obviously a common term). Can you, or anyone else, think of any other reasonable search terms? At some point, I believe, we have both the right and the responsibility to say that a thoughtful and thorough search reveals no evidence of required copyright renewal, and to proceed thereby.—DCGeist 00:31, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

But the right way to proceed thereby is not to claim that the image is public domain! That will only lead to large numbers of mistagged images. One option is to contact the copyright holder to ask about a renewal. Another option, if the image is important enough, is to contact our lawyer. A third option, the simplest, is to use the image under our nonfree media policies. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

How bizarre! You suggest that when a thoughtful and thorough search of the reliable, authoritative source evidences that an image is public domain, the "simplest" thing to do is use it under our nonfree image policies? Um............I disagree.—DCGeist 00:50, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

A failed search is not evidence the image is free. It's only evidence that we didn't prove it is copyrighted. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:03, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

And that, sir, is not a reasonable position. You could just as unreasonably argue that an email from a Time.com representative admitting that the cover's copyright was not renewed was not "proof" because it did not come directly from the chief counsel of the Time Inc. legal department. And then, if that email did come, you could just as unreasonably argue that it was not "proof" because it did not come from Ms. Marybeth Peters, United States Register of Copyrights. Where exactly do we stop? Mr. Dick Cheney himself? Or with the reasonable, thoughtful, thorough efforts of Wikipedia's editors, authoritative sources provided?—DCGeist 01:12, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Somewhere in the middle. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:35, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

First copyright renewal of TIME issues are for 1934

• Getting back to the TIME covers, I followed some of the links and noticed a lot of the seracheable databases were talking about books. For periodicals, it seems that this list is best. The entry for TIME says: "Time: issues renewed from January 29, 1934 (v. 23 no. 5); see 1962 Jan-Jun". The introduction to that list says:

  "Below is a list of periodicials and their first copyright renewals, if any. The list below should include all of the more than 1000 periodicals that renewed between 1950 and 1977, and selected periodicals that renewed between 1978 and 1992, or that did not renew their copyrights. (After 1992, copyright renewal was no longer required.) This may be useful as a guide to people who are interested in digitizing certain periodicals, to point out serials for which further copyright research may be fruitful."

  Can anyone tell me (and others) what all that means. Also note that cover artworks or photos or designs may have been registered separately, so this may not ultimately help for covers. Carcharoth 23:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Um, did people miss the bit I posted above? "Time: issues renewed from January 29, 1934 (v. 23 no. 5); see 1962 Jan-Jun". I ask again: what does this mean? Is this evidence that TIME renewed their copyrights on their issues 28 years after publications, starting from 1962 for the 1934 issues? Carcharoth 01:27, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

More to the point, this is definitive proof (at least I think so) that all the TIME issues before January 29, 1934 are Public Domain. Previously, it would only have been the ones before 1923, though that is academic as TIME only started publishing in 1923! :-) Anyway, it seems that the copyright tag on Image:Time's first cover.jpg is incorrect, and that the right tag is some sort of PD-copyright expired tag. Am I right? Carcharoth 01:35, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Nice research. More heartening to me is that WP users are gradually getting a better handle on the issues. This will be helpful to WP in the future, I would think. ... Kenosis 02:10, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

As to the search method, it's presently in Footnote 3 of the project page. To find out how to search for copyright registrations and renewals, see, e.g., How to Investigate the Copyright Status of a Work, Stanford's Copyright Renewal Database, Project Gutenberg and INFORMATION ABOUT The Catalog of Copyright Entries. The records from 1950-1990 are the ones we're presently concerned with. Project Gutenberg has scanned the 1950-1977 records, which are not searchable to date, but rather must be read in alphabetical order by six-month period. Only the records from 1978 through 1989 are searchable. Those records are in the Copyright Office database. ... Kenosis 02:23, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

How is a list at the University of Pennsylvania "definitive proof" that the earlier issues are free? It explicitly states "We may have made mistakes or omissions in our summaries. You should double-check any registrations for periodicals you think might be in the public domain, and should not rely on this page as the last word on renewal data, or for legal advice." — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:30, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

If anything here was predictable, this argument was predictable. Carl, the original records from which the library project list was drawn are online as well, available for anyone to double check as they wish. ... Kenosis 02:37, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't the UPenn page contradict the claim that DCGeist made that the 1953 issues were not renewed? It seems quite unlikely that a professional publisher such as Time, Inc. would "forget" to renew once they started - they often hire people expressly for the purpose of renewing copyrights. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:46, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

As to the TIME magazine covers, my own prior seach for the copyright/public-domain status of a couple of specific TIME Magazine covers led me to the conclusion that many or most of the 1923-1963 were not renewed. This note about 1962 renewals of 1934 issues wasn't part of that search. I'd suggest taking it one chunk at a time, until WP ultimately knows which periods were renewed and which periods were not renewed. This would be important not because the use of a cover image or internal image would not be fair-use, because a low-resolution image would likely be fair use anyway. Such a use would, however, be subject to the NFCC analysis which, as we have seen, can be quite contentious. And the use of an internal image from such an issue might require attribution for every fair use in every article in which such an image is used. Based upon the UPenn library site, as well as my own couple of searches before, I'd speculate that very few of 1923-1963 issues were renewed. I am, however, open to contrary information. ... Kenosis 02:53, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I have not researched the entire span since the early 1960s, but there is no doubt that Time Inc. did indeed renewe its copyright on the 1934 editions of its magazines in 1962. Evidence adduced from various searches of U.S. Copyright Office records reveals that Time Inc. renewed copyrights on many editions of its magazines--Time, Fortune, Life, later Sports Illustrated--that were originally published in the mid-1930s and forward.

Look, having strongly advocated for our community's ability to conduct diligent searches of the relevant records, I want to make clear that I believe that on an individual level it requires, to pull out a handy word, time--both the time to acquire the experience necessary to conduct a search skillfully and the time to actually wade through all the records one encounters. That said, endeavor as I might, I have not been able to find any evidence that Time Inc. renewed copyrights on 1953 editions of Time. Specifically, I find a gap in Time renewals between Vol. 60, no. 26 (December 29, 1952) and Vol. 63, no. 2 (January 7, 1954). As Kenosis indicates, diligent searching does suggest that at various periods Time Inc. did fail to properly file required copyright renewals for certain of its historical editions. I await with eagerness the response to my email query to Time.com reproduced in the preceding thread.—DCGeist 03:45, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Commissioned and unpublished artwork

This is a general question related to two images I've found in use:

• Image:RobinJonboy007007.jpg used in Tim Drake as a spot image. Best information from the artist's website [7] lists the piece as a "sketch" without specifying that it has ever been used in a publication.
• Image:6.5Supergirls.jpg used in an infobox in Supergirl as the primary image fopr the article. The image was uploaded here on May 9, a month after upload to the source site. From that site it's pretty clear that the piece wasn't commissioned for DC and has never been published.

The guidelines seem a bit gray on images like these. Are the usable as non-free content under a FUR?

Thanks, - J Greb 03:09, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

In regards to previous publication re WP:NFCC#4, publishing the image on a website should count, so long as it was the copyright holder that did so. At least that's my understanding. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 03:29, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that's the crux of the problem. The placement of the images on those gallery sites wasn't done by DC Comics or Warner Bros., who hold the copyright and trademarks on the various characters. One is basically an artists portfolio, where I can see him having a degree of ownership in that specific piece, it doesn't deal with the issue of the character. The other, if I read the placement right, was uploaded by the person who commissioned the work. Again, he may own the piece of art, but there is still the issue of the characters. - J Greb 03:47, 13 September 2007 (UTC)