Category talk:Wikipedia non-free file copyright templates

I think there should be a Category:Free or non-free image copyright tags (or some better name) for tags like, , or , where the image might be public domain, or might not. What do you think? – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 13:16, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I didn't do this for two reasons:
 * The category would be very small, and editors interested in image tagging probably already know which ones are concerned ( could be added to the list). The same reasoning lead me to place a small number of non fair use tags here: there are too few of them to really merit a seperate Category:Non-free non fair use image copyright tags.
 * As with all copyright issues, the default is non-free: if we are not sure, that should signify reuser emptor. If we know that a certain country's banknotes are PD, for example, the images can be labelled (or  for the best known example). This is already done with PD Norwegian coats of arms on Commons.
 * Physchim62 (talk) 14:28, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm worried about someone going through at a future date and nominating all orphan "non-free" images for deletion. But that would delete some valid, free images. Yes, image with those tags should be tagged with a better tag that specifies whether it's free or not, but that's not a reason for deletion, at least not without a reasonable search for the status of the image. See what I mean? – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 16:38, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree with Physchim62's second point. I think that image copyright tags like the ones listed above should actively encourage users to investigate the copyright status of each image and re-tag it if the image is free, but I'm concerned that a category named Category:Free or non-free image copyright tags may cause people to think that that set of images as a whole are "better" than unfree images.  However, I might be in favour of a category name along the lines of Category:Assumed non-free image copyright tags or Category:Non-free image tags requiring investigation as to whether the images are free or something like that.
 * I agree with your last point. It's hard to figure out what to do though.  For example, there are thousands of images tagged with, most of which don't have any source information, and some of which may be copyright violations.  A proper cleanup would likely be a huge amount of effort, making deletion a very tempting alternative.  Not sure what the solution is.  JYolkowski // talk 23:24, 27 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I see your point. Maybe this shouldn't be split afterall. (And coats of arms are indeed a Big Problem.) – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 00:59, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Image copyright tag renaming
Please see Village_pump_%28proposals%29 for a centralized discussion on bringing our copyright tag names into compliance.  MBisanz  talk 03:42, 4 June 2008 (UTC)