File talk:1931 Act ed.jpg

Crown Copyright
The use of this image is entirely legitimate. Please see rules re: Crown Copyright. Salisian 08:16, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
 * There is no fair use rationale. --uǝʌǝs ʎʇɹnoɟʇs 14:43, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Please explainLexigator 14:46, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
 * See WP:NFCC and WP:NFURG βcommand 14:50, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

re: WP:NFCC#10 - justification

 * 1. No free equivalent. This policy has no relevance to this Crown Copyright material.
 * 2. Respect for commercial opportunities. This policy has no relevance to this Crown Copyright material.
 * 3a. Minimal usage. There is no restriction on the amount of usage of this Crown Copyright material, but as this image is of the fist page of an Act of Parliament only, this rule has no relevance.
 * 3b. Minimal extent of use. See answer to 3a. This rule has no relevance.
 * 4. Previous publication. This rule is satisfied, but has in any event no relevance to Crown Copyright restrictions.
 * 5. Content. The content is of direct relevance to the article.
 * 6. Media-specific policy. The image has been appropriately tagged as being of Crown Copyright. The origin has been stated as required.
 * 7. One-article minimum. This policy has no relevance to this Crown Copyright material.
 * 8. Significance. This poicy has no relevance to this Crown Copyright material. The concept of free material / non-free material has no relevance to the law of copyright in the United Kingdom and its copyright convention partners in any event.
 * 9. Restrictions on location. Not applicable.
 * 10. Image description page
 * a. The words Crown Copyright are sufficient attribution for ths Crown Copyright material.
 * b. The appropriate copyright tag has been used.
 * c. This policy is inapplicable to an Act of Parliament, being the primary legislation of the United Kingdom.

Plasmon 18:42, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

re: WP:NFURG -- justification
This guideline is for non-free usage only. It has no relevance to this Crown Copyright material and, in point of fact, whether material has been obtained freely or on payment is not relevant to infringement of United Kingdom Copyright material or its Crown Copyright material when published either in the United Kingdom on in copyright convention states. It is suggested tht Wikipedia should review its policy with regard to the law of the United Kingdom, to which its UK contributors are subject. Plasmon 18:42, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

General comment on the adminstrator's intervention in this matter
It is recognised that Wikipedia must not only be cautious that copyright is not violated but must also be seen to be robust in its policies of copyright protection and non-violation. However, having reviewed the intervention made in this instance it may be helpful to mention the Crown Copyright waiver in relation to the publication of Acts of he United Kingdom Parliament.

Please note the Office of Public Sector Information's Guidance - Reproduction of United Kingdom, England, Wales and Northern Ireland Primary and Secondary Legislation, where it may be noted the United Kingdom Government provides a general waiver of copyright for this material.

It follows that the publication on Wikipedia of this image is entirely permissible and that Salisian is correct in his/her assertion. Plasmon 18:42, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

It's a question of WP policy, not US (or even UK) law
You might like to take this one up at WT:NFC. Basically, the legality of the use here is not the issue: it clearly adheres to the terms of the explicit UK licence, and it is a reasonable to presume the UK Government takes a similar attitude to its U.S. Copyright.

Instead, what's at issue is Wikipedia internal policy: namely that "non-free" images should be used as little as possible. (This image is classed as "non-free", because certain ways one might want to use or modify it are still prohibited). For any image classed as "non-free", WP policy requires a use rationale, to explain why the use of the image is necessary.

The underlying motivation for this aspect of WP policy is to try to encourage the provision of completely no-strings-at-all free images. The thinking is that if it is clearly established that a with-strings image will be rejected, a publicist may be more amenable to releasing an image with no strings at all.

That logic has been used to reject eg Scottish Parliament images of Alex Salmond.

For an image like the one here, it is questionable whether that motivation still cuts any ice -- it's hard to see the copyright owner (the UK Government) having any interest at all in a principled stand by Wikipedia not to use their image because it comes with strings attached. Nevertheless, as presently constituted at least, WP policy does currently require a declaration as to why this image's presence in the article "would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding". Jheald 19:04, 27 October 2007 (UTC)


 * There's no escape from the law I think, and Wikipedia is certainly not beyond the reach of the Copyright Act (to which I contributed). I was interested in your definition of "non-free", being the first time that I read it.  Wikipedia can be obscure...


 * However, not so sure that "necessity" should be tightly defined. Enrichment might also be a good reason for inclusion? What is abundantly clear is that owing to the Crown Copyright waiver, there can be no objection to the inclusion of this image. Salisian 20:00, 27 October 2007 (UTC)


 * There's no legal objection. There's a policy objection.


 * If you think think that policy should be reviewed or refined (and you might very well think that...), you need to convince the populus at WT:NFC.


 * For WP's notion of "freedom" see Free content, or in more detail . Jheald 20:15, 27 October 2007 (UTC)


 * just write a rationale and be done with it. βcommand 20:17, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The rationale is already there. The bot is your responsibility.  Please now go and undo all that has been intemperately and erroneously done by it. Salisian 21:48, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Crown copyright expired
There appears now to be a consensus that the copyright has expired. I am therefore tidying up. Salisian (talk) 09:20, 16 January 2009 (UTC)