Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Guerrillero Heroico

Guerrillero Heroico

 * Reason:Guerrillero Heroico, a photograph taken by Alberto Korda of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, at the La Coubre memorial service.
 * Articles this image appears in:Che Guevara, Revolution, Che Guevara (photo), Special Activities Division, Che (disambiguation), Black beret, Irish Argentine, Basque Argentine, El Gen Argentino, Che Guevara.
 * Creator:Alberto Korda


 * Support as nominator --Jacob Richardson (talk) 15:20, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment Iconic, yet at 80kb it would be the most heavily compressed FP to be promoted in a very long time. Durova  273 15:59, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: As our own article about this picture says, "The legal ownership and copyright status of Guerrillero Heroico is complex and unsettled." I don't think we can easily say this has a free license, one of the criteria for a featured picture.
 * The arguments for the image being public domain are pretty convincing, IMO. We certainly host plenty of images with less substantiated status. Kaldari (talk) 20:18, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow, I was just discussing this last night and here it is on FPC. The arguments are convincing but it's also true that Korda successfully sued for copyright infringement in 2000, so I'd pull up short of describing its PD status as "settled". Not only is it certainly the most iconic photograph ever, it's also the subject of what's probably the most (in)famous IP dispute in history. FWIW, Korda's wishes about reproduction would almost certainly not exclude WP.. I actually have a bigger and better version of this image on file I could upload if we can agree on suitability for FP, at a minimum, remembering that (eg) Fair Use would render it ineligible: mere hosting does not confer eligibilty. --mikaultalk 04:01, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Note that they didn't "successfully sue" - it was an out-of-court settlement, which doesn't mean anything in terms of adjudication. At a certain point it's cheaper to settle than fight, esp if you're going to get negative publicity in the process. Calliopejen1 (talk) 12:12, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * That's correct. The image's copyright status has never been decided by any court. It's important to note that the cases also involved moral rights (which don't exist in the US), not just copyright. Kaldari (talk) 19:15, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Ooh, I dunno, I think I'd consider a $70,000 settlement "successful" ;o) it would appear to be a moral rights issue, but that issue has never been specifically addressed or established any more than actual copyright has. The only issue to settle on this nom is whether or not it can genuinely be said to be freely licensed. AFAICS we host this image further to a discussion that was resolved by slapping a template on it with no real consensus. IMO that discussion failed to properly address the first principle of a PD license: that anyone is free to use the image in any way and for any purpose. Successful (as in "complaint unpheld") challenges to exactly that principle with regard to this image (the Smirnoff action and French RSF complaint) show that not to be the case, basically. Whether we should host an image under such contestable (and contested) license terms is moot: we already do. Whether we feature such an image is the issue we must be clear on here. --mikaultalk 04:23, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. I have to say that there are some pretty convoluted arguments on the image page. Not withstanding those, it appears to be in the public domain per PD Cuba. Mostlyharmless (talk) 08:50, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. Surely Korda has no opposition to the use of his photograph of Che for educational purposes? Jacob Richardson (talk) 10:31, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia allows downstream use for noneducational purposes, including commercial purposes. This is the reason FPC accepts only images that are public domain or under free license.  Durova  273 16:41, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * BTW, Korda doesn't have an opinion on the matter as he happens to be dead. Kaldari (talk) 19:15, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * It appears to be his heirs who make the claim. Durova  273 02:35, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * It is, but his death is relevant. Not being alive, he can't claim moral rights; nor are those rights transferable. His family's recent action over the image is therefore one based on copyright, which is even more relevant... and it's not just Korda's family: Guevara's family have assumed worldwide guardianship of the image and have established a foundation for protection against its continued commercial exploitation . --mikaultalk 04:36, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment Am I the only one thinking that the original uncut image with palm trees and some statue is more intriguing? --Caspian blue 16:17, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Not for unresolved licensing issues, but because it's too heavily compressed.  WP has very few featured pictures under 100KB; this is about a tenth the filesize we'd normally regard as minimal.  Even though the original is iconic, this is not a high quality copy.  Durova  275 23:23, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose Potentially featurable material, but a poor quality reproduction. MER-C 10:36, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose Per above. Noodle snacks (talk) 12:31, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

--Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 03:37, 14 July 2009 (UTC)