Talk:Urban Light

Location choice section
Why a separate section when this material was already in the article? It seems to me your edits largely duplicate Burden's quote: it's in two places now--and the historical chronology is disrupted. Thanks for your thoughts. Barte (talk) 00:01, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the quote. But my objection about disrupting the historical chronology remains. You maintain that the location choice is the most important aspect of Urban Light but that strikes me as WP:OR--there's certainly no consensus on that point in the sources. In any case, it is common courtesy to discuss points of difference here on the Talk page. You are cordially invited to do so. Thanks. Barte (talk) 19:21, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Image / Fair Use
Hello! I don't think the art installation meets the threshold of originality. Relatedly, I don't think the current photo is the best quality we can achieve. Several photos already exist on Commons. They're found below. There are more freely licensed (CC-BY-(SA)) photos found online, too. I'll be pinging a few copyright noticeboards and users with more experience to see if they can share any insights. Barte, per your request I'll swap with File:Urban Light Chris Burden LACMA.JPG, the third to last below, since it is much better quality and is at night. Killiondude (talk) 16:17, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Additionally, if this were to use a fair use image, it is highly irregular for an article to have two fair use photos. Participants who chime in may want to discuss this, too. Killiondude (talk) 16:21, 30 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Any night photo works for me, and I agree that a Commons image would be better. That said, I plan to "stress test" whatever image we go with by challenging it on Commons to make certain that it indeed is allowable. The reason: this happened once before, and the judgement went against the Commons image as a vio of the lack of freedom of panorama in the U.S. That was then, of course, so I just want to make sure. Re: the second fair use photo: if your theory holds up, let's substitute a daylight Commons image for that one, as well. Otherwise, I suggest we delete it. Barte (talk) 17:10, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh, interesting. Do you happen to have a link to the discussion you mentioned? Basically, if this installation does meet the threshold of originality, then yes it is copyrightable and all the above images would need to be deleted from Commons. One way to "test" this would be to create a mass deletion nomination for the above images. Killiondude (talk) 17:34, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
 * As you probably know well, the US has no freedom of panorama exception for 3D works, so yes, some of the Urban Light images should be deleted, BUT, the Carol Highsmith images are in the public domain per (the commons version is here). Their use will likely be fine though copyright renewal may be worth checking and then any non-free images on this wiki will not be allowed if there are proven to be freely licenced images available. ww2censor (talk) 17:57, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't recall a discussion or have the link. But I did challenged the image myself on the grounds we're discussing here, and the image was subsequently deleted. I didn't know a mass deletion nomination was possible, but I think that's a good idea, as we'd then know where we stand. The Commons discussion of U.S. FoP provisions is here. As I read it, buildings are exempted, works of art are not. Ww2censor: the PD-Highsmith template stipulates: "Photographs of sculpture or other works of art may be restricted by the copyright of the artist." So regardless of her intentions, I think we're looking at the question: does Urban Light meet the threshold of originality in order to be covered by an artist's copyright? Barte (talk) 19:00, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Indeed, Highsmith's photographs may be in the public domain but, the freedom of panorama depends on the artist and whether the work of art itself is free or not. Chris Burden, the artist, only died in 2015 and it was installed in 2008, so from those dates it is copyright. The only way it can be freely licenced is by being {{:c:COM:TOO|too simple]] and personally I'm not convinced on that front. Some may consider them just a group of utilitarian objects. ww2censor (talk) 21:52, 30 June 2018 (UTC)


 * I have attempted to nominate the image used here and others found on Commons as discussed here. The mass nomination tool used wasn't particularly user friendly, but I gave it my best. Barte (talk) 20:57, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
 * {{bcc|Barte}}Thank you for the ping! I appreciate that. Killiondude (talk) 21:34, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
 * No problem. As I've mentioned, I view this not as a debate but as a stress test to help avoid having to revisit the question later on. Barte (talk) 23:00, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

For the record, here's the discussion on Commons resulting from this thread that resulted in the deletion of five images of Urban Light: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Files_found_with_urban_light. Per the deleted images above, other images of the work were deleted as well.

A 2014 deletion request resulted in the same: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Urban_Light,_LACMA.jpg Barte (talk) 06:10, 22 September 2020 (UTC)