User:Finnusertop/The non-free content time bomb

Wikipedia uses non-free content under the legal doctrine of fair use, when the content is deemed to meet our non-free content criteria. No work has perpetual copyright, but the "Free Encyclopedia" treats non-free files as if they did. We don't have a plan and one day it's going to bite us.

The non-free content criteria ensure that we use non-free files in a minimal way, only when necessary, and when no free alternatives exist or can be created. Why these limitations? Because, to paraphrase the mission statement of the Wikimedia Foundation, we should encourage the creation and dissemination of free content in whatever we do. Sometimes this is achieved; if I can't use a commercial press photo of my favorite band in an article, I'd better take the camera with me to the concert tonight!

But for those cases when a free alternative is not an option, non-free content fails us with regards to our mission. When you hit 'Upload!' on a non-free file, you are asked to fill in why a free alternative can not be created, but you are not asked when the file you just uploaded becomes that free alternative to fair use.

Non-free content is not fun to use. You need to write a separate rationale for each use and, failing that, see them constantly being removed from your beloved articles. It is one of the most bureaucratic and divisive areas of Wikipedia.

A problem with the current policy is that once you have concluded that no free file exists and you are given the option to search a non-free file, you are not given a clear direction: almost any non-free file will do, just pick the prettiest. In particular, you are not made search for the media that expires the soonest; you are not even required to find out what it is and when will it expire!

Wikipedia is never the first place to publish those files - but in the age of link rot - we are the first place to have a record of the earliest known publication.

A guideline says:

If one thing is for certain, it is that any picture you had in mind will become a free work not just with "reasonably likely" but with absolute certainty. In the meantime, you are not even expected to acknowledge that, let alone record your findings. This is especially worrying because, as the same guideline reminds us, we are under obligation to replace non-free files with free ones:

"Should"? Surely you mean when.

Authors - or the "copyright holders" whoever they might be - sometimes want to maximize the term of their copyright. It is in their interest to push the inevitable date of expiry Wikipedia is the free content encyclopedia that continues to respect authors' copyrights long after their work has entered the public domain.

In this important sense, the dichotomy of "free" and "non-free" content is superficial. Because copyrights are not perpetual, all content will become free someday. If Wikipedia is in the free content business for the long run, we should take this into account. And you don't have to wait for a hundred years: every day media that was created or published long enough ago enters the public domain. Taking into account the simple observation that every second takes us closer to the expiry of copyrights on all presently non-free content, some of our policies and guidelines seem to grant them this status for perpetuity.

The non-free content time bomb is ticking but it is up to us how it goes off: will we have millions of files we still treated as "non-free" even when they are not - or will we have contributed free content to the project by systematically examining their copyright status.

We have all the means to record the factors that affect the expiry of a copyright: when the work was created, when was it first published, in what jurisdiction was this and who the author was - Wikidata will even know when they have died and from there you can count if enough years have passed.

Unclear copyright statuses of works lead to erring on the side of caution. But being safe rather than sorry when there is nothing to be sorry about is just copyright paranoia.

The event poses a double trouble for the community: we are under obligation to replace every single one of the 500,000 non-free files with free media once it become available - and, we will be entitled to move each one of them to Commons one day. Right now, we don't have a plan; non-free content is like nuclear waste to us.

The bombshell isn't thus that the copyrights of our non-free files will expire - that is no surprise and will happen gradually - but that one day the community wakes up and realizes: we forgot to keep track of these files and now we don't know what to do about the millions of now public domain files we still treat as non-free.

Articles

 * Fair use
 * Free content
 * Public domain

Policies and guidelines

 * Non-free content
 * Non-free content criteria
 * Non-free use rationale guideline

Other Wikimedia projects

 * Avoid copyright paranoia
 * Mission statement
 * Resolution:Licensing policy