Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2021 January 8



File:FBI grid of suspects wanted in 2010 US Capitol attack.jpg

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the media below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the media's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the discussion was: Delete; deleted by AnomieBOT ⚡  02:09, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * File:FBI grid of suspects wanted in 2010 US Capitol attack.jpg ([ delete] | talk | [ history] | links | [ logs]) &#x20;– uploaded by EEng ( [ notify] | contribs | uploads | upload log).

I am not sure if this image is in public domain. The photos were not taken by FBI agents or police officers but simply presented/released by the police department for identification purposes. The photos were taken by different individuals who own the copyright. The image itself is a derivative piece of work created by New York Post. I think the image should qualify as fair-use instead with a clear indication of the source. BeŻet (talk) 14:36, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Reclassify as fair use I don't see how we can consider this public domain unless we know every single image was taken by an employee of US government under the course of their duty. Copyright either belongs to the individuals who took the photos or to NYPost (if we think that compiling the grid is transformative enough). Melmann 15:01, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete: I have never been comfortable with Wikipedia becoming a website for posting criminal e-fits, mugshots to find suspects etc. It's a 'free encyclopaedia' afterall. Stevo1000 (talk) 16:46, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Reclassify as fair-use per Melmann, and Delete unless used in an article or section of an article about the image itself. I would say Delete unless it is itself the topic of an article or section of an article even if it was in the public domain per Stevo1000.  With image recognition technology, a face will soon be just as much a BLP issue as a name and address, if not more so. davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  17:21, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete as having BLP issues and insufficent context within the image to overcome them. A More appropriate image available at https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/seeking-info/violence-at-the-united-states-capitol with fewer images and a lot more context.  There is still no guarantee that the images are in the public domain though, so we should assume it is non-free until proven otherwise and use it accordingly - only in an article about FBI hunt for these people or about the image itself.  For BLP reasons, the image should have a very low resolution. davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  17:48, 8 January 2021 (UTC)


 * A "Wanted" poster by Wikipedia sets a dangerous precedent. Questions of public domain or fair use are irrelevant to that.  If law enforcement agencies are providing such images, by all means include a link to that.  But this homebrew Wanted poster should be deleted.  BMJ-pdx (talk) 18:08, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Another way of saying it: Defer the legal issues to law enforcement.  They are far more capable of a thorough vetting than is Wikipedia.  BMJ-pdx (talk) 18:21, 8 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete — the police website where the photos are hosted states that they were "obtained" from other sources; therefore, they don't count as government-produced works. On top of this, the photos aren't attributed, meaning that their author or authors are unknown. This could potentially lead to a huge copyright issue later on even if they are reclassified as fair-use, especially if more than one person is responsible for them. Phil  roc  (c) 18:23, 8 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Speedy Delete. If the images were taken from livestreams, journalists, etc., then they're effectively guaranteed not to be free. At least with the official FBI wanted poster per davidwr we're in "safer" territory on copyright because it's demonstrably an FBI publication. Not taking any stance on the appropriateness of wanted posters per se but I'd really like an RFC to chew through this subject before Wikipedia helps assists with any manhunts.-Ich (talk) 18:25, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * (humor) When we do a manhunt, we hunt with this and mete out justice with this and this. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)  19:12, 8 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment: It's not used in the article any more, so currently it's completely unused. BeŻet (talk) 21:59, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete, no valid public domain claim (images were not made by the US government), no valid fair use (image is orphaned). WP:BLPIMAGE should also be considered. Wikiacc (¶) 06:04, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete pretty much for the reasons given above. Not everything put out by the US government is automatically PD as explained in WP:PD. So, unless the provenance of each one of these images can be clarified and its confirmed that they were all taken by a US government employee or were released under a free license that Wikipedia accepts, then this shouldn't be kept. Even if it is argued that this was a WP:Derivative work with its own copyright, the copyright of each of the individual elements would still also need to be taken into account. As for converting this to non-free content, I think that would be pretty hard to do since it's unlikely this would meet all ten WP:NFCCP. Again, the original sources of each photo would need to be taken into account as this would basically be a non-free montage involving images created by multiple copyright holders and not photos taken by New York Post employees. Same goes for any FBI posters about any of these people; it would need to be shown that the FBI not only released the poster, but that the FBI (or some other US government agency) took the photos that are used on the poster for the poster to be 100% PD. -- Marchjuly (talk) 15:57, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the media's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this section.