User talk:Benofcola

Images
Can you provide evidence that you are the copyright holder of the images you just uploaded? A brief and unexhaustive examination shows that some of those images have been on the web for months or years, and some may have been cropped to remove watermarks.

Please see the Copyright and licensing section of Image use policy. - RovingPersonalityConstruct (talk, contribs) 05:29, 1 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I think I made mistakes rushing in to add images. The images I got all came from SinoDefenceForum where images are openly disseminated. None of the images I posted are mine. The images that are watermarked come from Chinese state owned news agencies, which I removed solely for visual purposes. Since Wikipedia is banned by the Chinese government and do not respect DMCA, I assume it is acceptable to publish their images from their sites with the watermarks removed. For the images that were never watermarked, those images have been disseminated widely with untraceable origins and I cannot know who the source are. Either way, I cannot claim ownership and credit on these images I posted. Is there a way for me to keep these images published? My sole purpose for posting these images is solely to contribute to more information on secretive Chinese naval programs, which deserves greater scrutiny and understanding by western audiences. And Wikipedia is the best site to do this job. Due to the highly opaque nature of the Chinese government, nearly all the good images and closeups of Chinese military assets come from Chinese government sources and not from western observers. Is there a way for the errors I made to be changed so that the images do not get removed?


 * I will stop posting images so that I avoid making more mistakes. I am new to editing on Wikipedia and it was not easy for me to learn the editing process without making errors.

I believe this is a matter of copyright laws, which Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons (where images seem to end up) must abide by regardless of whether the site can accessed in various countries.

Going by the notes in commons::Commons:Copyright_rules_by_territory, US and (likely) PRC copyright laws need to be considered here. For works by private authors, it seems it will be many decades before their images become public domain - unless the author says otherwise. And the PRC central government does not seem to have a policy of releasing its own works into the public domain, unlike the US federal government.

So my first thought is that the images need to be removed. But this is not really a matter I've looked into in detail. You might ask for a more informed opinion at commons::Commons:Help_desk.

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On a different note, be sure to read through Citing_sources and Reliable sources. Everything needs to be sourced/properly attributed (pay attention to WP:INTEGRITY), and all sources need to be "reliable" (which takes into account things like publisher and author.)

I haven't looked at your edits in detail yet, but I'm not sure whether mil.news.sina.com.cn would be considered reliable. I'm rather wary of articles without identifiable authors.

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Finally, add ~ to your talk page edits to show your signature (helps everyone keep track of who is saying what. :) ). - RovingPersonalityConstruct (talk, contribs) 01:39, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

September 2023
Your edit to Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong has been removed in whole or in part, as it appears to have added copyrighted material to Wikipedia without evidence of permission from the copyright holder. If you are the copyright holder, please read Donating copyrighted materials for more information on uploading your material to Wikipedia. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted material, including text or images from print publications or from other websites, without an appropriate and verifiable license. All such contributions will be deleted. You may use external websites or publications as a source of information, but not as a source of content, such as sentences or images&mdash;you must write using your own words. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously, and persistent violators of our copyright policy will be blocked from editing. See Copying text from other sources for more information. BilCat (talk) 18:09, 11 September 2023 (UTC)