Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Images and Media/Non-free/Archive 6

WikiProject Free Images
Images can be divided between free and non-free ones. Recently, there has been a push to eliminate the non-free ones that, apparently, can be recreated. However, until now I have seen many places with suggestions about how to request free images, but not a project to coordinate efforts. Because of this I am giving the first push to WikiProject Free Images, aimed at centralizing discussion about free images. Currently, it is situated at my userspace, User:ReyBrujo/WikiProject Free Images, but with enough positive feedback and help, it will be moved into the Wikipedia namespace.

The WikiProject aim is broad: first and foremost, educate users about the benefits of free images, but also to teach the differences between free licenses when applied to images. Aside this, the WikiProject will focus in replacing the current fair use images with free ones of good quality, by contacting the media, agencies, publishers or other copyright holders as necessary. It would keep a list of requested images to different organizations, with the different steps that had been taken and the different replies. It will also have an index of all the images that had been donated by these organizations, so that they are able to review their contributions. Also, the members of the WikiProject would review the usage of these images in Wikipedia, verifying that attributions are applied at all times when requested by the copyright holder.

This WikiProject was given as a thought during the Elimination of Fair Use Rationale in Promotional Photos discussion, and since apparently there has not been a similar one, I decided to try it out. With some luck and effort, it should be possible to replace many of the current fair use images with free ones of similar quality.

Please drop by and give some thoughts in there. Thanks. -- ReyBrujo 18:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

categorization
Why does this WikiProject include mainspace categories? I'm not going to undo it without discussion because there's an entire structure, but this is plainly in violation of Categorization guideline. More to the point, it's really confusing, because people keep fluidly posting commentary & discussion on the mainspace articles, when they are really trying to get to this material. --lquilter 22:41, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Image:Switchfoot.jpg
I'm wondering if I can get a second opinion on this image as to if this should be considered fair use or not. The disagrement comes down to two arguments either that...
 * there are no free images of the entire band together and given the inherent problems of taking photos at concerts (especially that show the full stage) it is unlikly that any free photos will be forthcomming or
 * that simply because the band is still together, the creation of a replacable free image is possible irregardless of how likely it may or may not be

thanks in advance for taking the time to look into this for me --T-rex 19:51, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I guess this project has died... --T-rex 07:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)


 * No just not massively active. A photo could be created thus the image fails FUC#1.Geni 09:37, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

How would you advise I proceed in this situation?
Hi,

As I understand it, fair use of an image is considered permissible for critical commentary on the work in question, the artistic genre or technique of the work of art or the school to which the artist belongs.

The use of in the Norman Rockwell article probably meets the criteria but the use of the same image in the Ruby Bridges article does not meet any of these criteria.

It seems to me, therefore, that the image should be kept but the use of the image in the Ruby Bridges article should be removed.

Do you agree? Should I just be bold and delete the image or should I start a discussion somewhere? If the latter, where should that discussion be held?

Richard —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Richardshusr (talk • contribs) 22:02, 23 January 2007 (UTC).


 * As the articles currently stand I would agree that the image should be removed from Ruby Bridges. Initialy at least your best bet is likely to be jut to go ahead and do it.Geni 12:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Short templates
I've created three short warning templates for tagged images. They are intended solely to be used on the talk pages of users who are experienced contributors and who already have been given the long versions of the templates; as I'm sure you know, sometimes these templates can really pile up, and they can annoy people unnecessarily. My replacements are: I chose those three because they seemed likeliest to be given to experienced, good faith users. Edit them, use them, don't use them, whatever you like, but there they are. Howcheng is, I believe, adding them to his image warning script, so you'll probably see them around occasionally. Chick Bowen 01:02, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Template:Replaceable short
 * Template:Rationale short
 * Template:Orphaned short

Barnstar discussion
Barnstar and award proposals/New Proposals is considering a new Barnstar to be given to people who make great combined contributions to Wikipedia articles and the Commons free-use image collection. Please come by and state your views. Thanks, Johntex\talk 15:29, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Crowncopyright Canada
I had made a template a while back, and it got deleted. So I thought we should create a proper Crown fair use template. I've created a trial template at User:Cavenba/Sandbox/Template:CrownCanada. Take a look and tell me what you guys think. Cavenba 20:40, 3 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I think this should be deleted. There's nothing inherently fair-use about Canadian Crown Copyright images, and a template for them will only encourage people to think there is. --Carnildo 21:26, 3 March 2007 (UTC)


 * We had a Crown Copyright template before for Canada, but it was deleted since the terms were not compatable for use by Wikipedia/Wikimedia. I wish to also say that it is generally a bad idea to use a blanket fair use template for images. Just because an image is X or is from Y, doesn't mean it should enjoy automatic fair use. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 01:11, 4 March 2007 (UTC)


 * There are several Crown Copyrighted images on Wikipedia including highway signs, license plates, government logos, government documentation, publicity photos, and such; which are all under non-commercial use only with attribution licenses. Some of them are under "fair-use" (without the "non-commercial use") and others are with both "fair-use" and "non-commercial use." 02:22, 4 March 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cavenba (talk • contribs)


 * A Fair use claim needs to be made for anything licensed under Canadian Crown Copyright. If you see media under that license that fails our Fair use criteria, including having no fair use rationale, please nominate it for deletion.  Jkelly 02:30, 4 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Question to Cavenba, what do you mean by government documentation? I do admit that we are slow at deleting the non commercial photos, since either they were uploaded before the cut off of May 15th, 2005 or there is a template bloat on the image page. Let us know of specific examples and we can see if they are fair use or not. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 04:20, 4 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Well five examples are: Image:Tch.png, Image:NB87ASS-226.jpg, Image:ON96ST.jpg, Image:Stockwellburtday.jpg (although that one is replaceable), and Image:Canada wordmark.png. Cavenba 18:26, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
 * OK. I think the car license plate, I think we can draw another one of those (as we did with the road signs, unless we cannot do that). But thanks for pointing out the examples. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 18:39, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Question to Cavenba, what do you mean by government documentation? By that, I meant say, an image of the cover of Canada's Food Guide, which Wikipedia doesn't have right now. Cavenba 20:29, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, so covers of government publications. Ok, I get you now. I still need to pour through the Canadian images and see what happens. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 20:34, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
 * By the way: I've also created a rationale template at User:Cavenba/Sandbox/Template:FairUseRationale that can handle up to 5 reasons. Cavenba 23:25, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
 * A similar discussion has been going on with New Zealand and UK Crown Copyright issues. To my mind the inherent problem is that Fair Use policy is an attempt to inappropriately impose a single issue US law based policy on Wikipedia.  While it is true Wikipedia servers are in the US, and US law prevents the foundation from being sued for copyright, copyright is not the only foreign law violation that the foundation could be exposed to.  More importantly users, as distinct from the foundations servers, are not entiredly located in the US and fair use policy offers no protection for them at all. In fact some foreign sourced images which do comply with fair use seem to breach local laws, while others are excluded as not complying with fair use policy, when their rights holder would not be able to take any action under the laws which govern them.


 * There seems nothing inately superior about US intellectual property law compared with that in other developed nations. The present policy - rejecting crown copyright from commonwealth jurisdictions and similar arrangements, but allowing US governemnt images - has the undesirable effect of increasing the US bias in content.


 * My own views, for the little they worth, are that we need to scrap US law as the basis of the policy and start again from scratch. We should have a serious think about whether ideological purity over Free use should really prevent using crown copyright / disabled logos and so on when the only restriction on use is often a harmless "no modification" clause.  And the POV terms Fair use and Free use should be replaced by neutral descriptions.  But of course this is unlikley to happen any time soon. Winstonwolfe 04:35, 1 April 2007 (UTC)


 * It is extraordinarly unlikely that the servers will be moved somewhere that is not in the United States, where the project is protected by the DMCA. It would, frankly, be disastrous to do so.  It is even less likely that the projects will abandon free content principles simply to accomodate copyright holders that do not wish to license their media freely.  Largely, Crown Copyright works fall into two categories; ones for which there exists a particular person, or group of people, that can release the material under a free license, and materials for which this is not true.  For some subset of the former, all we have to do is ask.  For the others, if protection from commercial and derivative use is important to the copyright holder, we accept that and wait.  Crown citizens, of course, have significantly more influence on these matters than an American 501(c)3 does, and may wish to discuss forming a local chapter to address the issue.  Jkelly 06:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Fair use for images of rare animals?
Should a template for images of rare animals for which free images would be difficult to find? I would like some feedback for this idea.  bibliomaniac 1  5  03:05, 15 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Bad idea. Species for which it is unreasonably difficult to get a free-licensed image are far rarer than most people realize.  Between old taxonomy books, US government websites, and contacting the authors of papers on the species in question, it should be possible to get free-licensed pictures of almost everything. --Carnildo 05:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with Carnildo with this one. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 07:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, we were finally able to find some decent images for Bornean Clouded Leopard, for example. See Talk:Bornean Clouded Leopard for some of the diverse approaches that were taken.--Pharos 23:02, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

WF Licensing policy and grandfathered images
Hi. I'd like to start a discussion about the Licensing Policy resolution and our current deletion policies' grandfathering exceptions. In order to comply with the resolution, projects that have an "EDP" (which we do, at Fair use) "existing media under [unfree] licenses should go through a discussion process where it is determined whether such a rationale exists; if not, they should be deleted as well". We therefor need to determine how to implement this here. WP:CSD I3's grandfathering clause needs to be phased out. WP:CSD I6's just needs to be changed to reflect that older images need to go through the "discussion process". So, any ideas about the most elegant way to deal with these grandfathered images? Jkelly 00:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)


 * delete them. Seriously they've been on borrowed time for over a year.Geni 03:45, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Which ones exactly are we talking about? CSD mentions several kinds. Stan 14:58, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with Geni for I3, there aren't that many anyway. They should go through the same path as "no license" images do now, which includes a 7 day window for uploader notification etc. For I6, the current wording is a little weird anyway. It says "Images and other media uploaded before 4 May 2006 should not be deleted immediately". Well, images uploaded yesterday with no rationale aren't deleted immediately, they go through a 7 day window, with the uploader getting notified. It seems like I6 is trying to act like there is a big difference between how we treat the ones before 4 May 2006 versus after, but the actual outcome for both is pretty similar. We could just reword it to take away that date, and treat them all the same. - cohesion 19:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the total is maybe 2K. I went through and vapourised most of Category:Non-commercial use only images a while back.Geni 23:00, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Category:Unfree SXC licensed images is now also empty, after listed on WP:PUI. Every uploader of every image was notified beforehand by orphanbot though. Garion96 (talk) 00:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Featured lists and fair use images
A proposal to explcitly limit the use of fair use images in Featured Lists is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Featured list criteria. Your input would be apreciated. Tom pw (talk) 21:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

An adminship endorsement
Kelly Martin has an interesting proposal for RFA which would ask WikiProjects to endorse candidates. I think this is a good method to help measure the qualifications of a candidate which is more intelligent than edit counting... it takes a lot of work to verify that a user is doing the right thing with respect to something like non-free images... so it's silly to expect each RFA user to undertake the work themselves. If a wikiproject looks at a users work in a particular area of interest, they can better determine if the user is doing what is needed in that area and save other people the work. I think this is a great idea.

is up for adminship. While not primarily a copyvio/fair-use janitor, I've looked through his contribs and he appears to consistently be doing the right thing. He tags replaceable images as replaceable and when he puts a unlicensed image in an article he makes sure that it is serving an explanatory purpose. If other people take a quick look and think that his actions are a reasonable example for the rest of Wikipedia, then I think this project should endorse him. Thoughts? --Gmaxwell 22:09, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Seconded. Addhoc 17:32, 13 April 2007 (UTC) For what's it worth, I don't think Kelly has thought about this enough - effectively, she is going to be allowing other editors to vote twice.


 * If projects had an objective measuring system this would be a good idea. I think it's probably possible. Even a rating system for the project-related edits. I would feel more comfortable looking at a set number of random image edits and saying what % I think are beneficial, or are within generally consensus derived patterns. Incidentally a random sample of 20 image-space edits for coelacan show 100% consensus type edits. 60% of them were fair use uploads with the primary rationale being that the subject was dead, which is a little troubling, but within policy. He does have a good understanding of the rationales though. - cohesion 02:59, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Help with the great renaming
The great fair use template renaming has been ongoing for nearly a week now and it still has a lot to go. Please, if you have any spare time, please help us out at Non-free content/templates. Basically, we're finding every single fair use template and choosing a new name for it that begins with "Non-free ". And we're upmerging as necessary, because a lot of people seem to have gotten confused and used these templates for categorization, which is inappropriate. For instance, there is no difference in fair use justification between screenshots of Mac vs Windows software, so we merged the two into a more general software screenshot template, which itself may end up being upmerged too.

The thrust of this renaming is to make our image pages more machine-readable. At the end of this, it should be possible to simply check each image's description page using the regex  to determine if it is a non-free image. As a result, we aren't just renaming templates, we also have to fix all of the redirects. If you think that'd be a lot of edits, you'd be right. Cydebot has been editing at a rate of one edit per second for many days now. But the work is still ongoing, so please help us out at Non-free content/templates. Thank you. -- Cyde Weys 01:15, 26 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I looked over there, and it isn't at all clear what needs to be done. Could we get an assignment, like " replace with  "? – Quadell (talk) (random) 20:16, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
 * There are a bunch of templates with discussion attached to them... Some which may need to be swapped out or deleted. Feel free to comment more, or if you think the action is clear enough be bold and take care of them however you see fit.
 * Some templates just need to be renamed... they make sense, and have a clearly distinctive use case from the templates that have already been renamed. For those, move them to the new name which should begin with "Non-free" and generally follow the naming style of the already converted ones (I.e. spaces rather than CamelCase). Then make an entry in the bot ready section that looks like Oldname - Non-free newname Category:Catnames if you are merging a template and want the bot to add a category. --Gmaxwell 19:26, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Attempting to create dated Non-free use disputed
I have created dfu and its associated underlings/support by modifying the prod system. The backlogs at Category:Disputed fair use images were likely to go for a long time because it is impossible to tell whether an image was tagged yesterday or a year ago. What would be the best way to get people to start transitioning to the dated versions of the old template? (ESkog)(Talk) 03:06, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
 * normalyrutting large letters at the top of the existing template telling people not to use it any more ans what has saplanted it works wuite well.Geni 03:21, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. Edit or reject mercilessly as you see fit. (ESkog)(Talk) 11:41, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Captions for all logos?
This is a trademark issue, not a copyright fair-use issue, but I still want to provide a link here to the current discussion on a proposal that all logos on Wikipedia bear a caption. nadav (talk) 07:40, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair use portraits without rationale
Which deletion template should I use on a fair use portrait of a living person that could obviously be replaced, that uses a fair use template, but does not have a fair use rationale? For example this one Image:KarlBjarniGuðmundsson.jpg. The text on is not accurate in this situation, but using  first seems quite inefficient. – Ilse@ 11:09, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Inefficient because the image will presumably be tagged with afterwards. – Ilse@ 11:14, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * This is surely a rfu case. --Abu badali (talk) 11:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't the first sentence of ("This image was uploaded under a fair use rationale") be changed? – Ilse@ 11:25, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * To "This is a non-free image.", I'd suggest. And yes, I wouldn't bother with tagging it NRT unless it is deemed to pass fair use guidelines. (It would just piss someone off if s/he provided a rationale on request, only to have the image deleted anyway.) – Quadell (talk) (random) 12:02, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I fixed it. – Quadell (talk) (random) 12:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Me too ;) --Sherool (talk) 12:08, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your help. I agree with you Quadell, using both templates feels like you're harassing someone. I think the template text has improved, but somehow the first sentence sounds a little odd to me. Don't you think it sounds better when it isn't split into two parts? Something like "This non-free image is believed to fail Wikipedia's first non-free content criterion" or maybe a more active phrasing. – Ilse@ 19:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * And what about, shouldn't that be changed too? – Ilse@ 23:37, 3 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Good point. I made those changes. – Quadell (talk) (random) 20:49, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Purpose of fair use images
Many fair use rationales don't have a proper description of the purpose of use of a non-free image. In these cases it is something vague such as "illustrates the article". Some examples of bad purpose descriptions can be found for the images used in Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner.

In my opinion fair use images should only be used when only a non-free image can be used to identify the subject of a full article or the subject of an article section that needs identification. Therefore the "purpose of use" should be described as "To identify X in (the section Y of) article Z". Ofcourse there always will be discussion about the need for identification.

I think this criterium from the fair use rationale guideline "is it being used to illustrate a particular topic? (e.g., a screenshot from a movie)" makes it possible to upload too many images under a fair use license. I think the words of this phrase should be changed to something more precise or deleted. – Ilse@ 10:10, 5 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Maybe this could be helpful User:Ilse@/fairuse. – Ilse@ 09:47, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Missing purpose of use description
Many images lack a purpose of use description in the fair use rationale, such as Image:'Young'Dracula.JPG. I believe the point of adding a fair use rationale for each use on Wikipedia is the explicit purpose of use description, explaining the significance of the image for the article (how it passes WP:NFCC #8). Tagging the image with or  is not possible, because these images do have fair use rationales, though incomplete. In what way should these cases be dealt with? A tag? – Ilse@ 22:45, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you want no fair. --Butseriouslyfolks 05:28, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe dfu is better. It says "This image's fair-use status is disputed", and you can explain why you dispute it. --Abu badali (talk) 14:26, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Questions concerning fair use
Earlier today I either removed images from articles or tagged images as Replaceable fair use/nrd. However, everything I did was reverted by a single editor. So before I proceed or decide to let it go, I am coming here to get a third opinion, and hopefully improve my knowledge of fair use on wikipedia. The first image in question is Image:Black Widow Syndrome.jpg. It is a book cover but isn't used on a page concerning the book. It is instead used on a page concerning the subject matter of the book Black Widow (woman). The image initially had no fair use rationale. A rationale has since been added ("To illustrate the object in question Black Widow (woman).") but that seem questionable. Is this an example of "fair use"? Could I use Image:Mysteries of the Horizon.jpg on the derby hat page? My understanding is no, which is why I say the fair use rationale is questionable.

Next, we have two images dealing with a gun, TDI KRISS Super V XSMG. The first is an image from the manufacturer's website, Image:KRISS.jpg. I believe a simple photograph could be created that would adequately give the same information. Then there is Image:TDI KRISS SuperV XSMG.jpg, a magazine cover with the gun on it. I can understand a fair use rationale for the magazine cover illustrating the magazine, but it doesn't seem like fair use to use the magazine's copyrighted art to illustrate the gun. Would it be ok to use Image:Co7.jpg on the Tyra Banks page? Again, my understanding is no, its not ok.

Can someone help me understand fair use a little better? Am I being too nitpicky, or do I have valid concerns? Thanks for your help.-Andrew c 21:02, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I think your concerns are well founded and that none of those are appropriate examples of fair use. If you take a look at this list of unacceptable ("unfair") uses, you'll find examples very similar to what you are describing. --Butseriouslyfolks 21:23, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, these uses of images are not allowed according to our policy. I contacted the uploader as well. One thing you might want to avoid is talking about the issue in terms of "fair use". Fair use has a specific legal meaning in the U.S., and there are many images that are allowed under fair use law, but are not allowed according to Wikipedia's policy at Non-free content. The question to ask is always "Does this satisfy all ten of our non-free content criteria?", not "Is it legal to use this image according to Fair Use law in the U.S.?". In particular, the image of the book cover fails NFCC #8 in that it isn't necessary (or even discussed) in the article; the image of the gun fails NFCC #1 in that a free image of the gun could be created; and the magazine cover fails NFCC #2 in that it could be seen as competing with the copyright-holder. Thanks for helping with images! All the best, – Quadell (talk) (random) 22:20, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you both for your comments and support, and thanks for contacting the user as well. I thought I had a pretty good idea on image use, but it never hurts to learn more. Thanks again.-Andrew c 00:19, 28 June 2007 (UTC) And I apologize for posting here. I'm used to seeing the notices at the top of pages like Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment, so I assumed (incorrectly) that the project page would be a better place for my inquiry than the guideline talk page. I'll copy the discussion to that talk page if that's ok with others.-Andrew c 00:28, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Request for usage review prior to FAC
We are preparting the article on Ganesha for FAC review, and I would like to get a verification that all of the images in use on the article are legal before we go forward. Can any of you who understand the fine points of usage please participate in review of that article, and comment on the talk page for it there? Currently the article is getting a lot of changes related to images as we toss out dubious ones and replace them with (hopefully) legal ones. Anyone helping with this will accumulate good karma as a result. Buddhipriya 02:14, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for asking here. I'll go through soon. I'm delighted to see that an image I created is on the page! :-) All the best, – Quadell (talk) (random) 04:02, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Too much fair use on a page?
I was over at Club Penguin and noticed 19 screenshots... not sure we need that many non-free images just to illustrate a game... thoughts? Sasquatch t|c 17:02, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Request some oversight
I'm currently trying to minimize the copyright violations on Battle of Jenin and am running into some editors who do not seem to understand that entire sections stolen from other websites is not acceptable on Wikipedia. Could I please get some assistance and feedback? I'm a relative newbie at this. Kyaa the Catlord 16:01, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I have stopped using any clips since this morning, when there was a revert at the article with this confusing (garbled?) summary kept the "quotes" cut the rest (which IS copyvio) I'm trying to avoid reporting this article for copyvio, PalestineRemembered. You should check out the alternatives.. Examining this diff you will see there are 4.5 paragraphs, one of which contains 31 words of quotation. I'd be astonished if this was excessive (the document in question is not a work of art, it's a UN report, intended for wider circulation). And, of course, this was placed before the warning.
 * However, I took this complaint seriously and have made three further edits to this article - one of which included moving two words in quotes, one of which included nine words of Bush - and that last one is after the time registered in this complaint (which, needless to say, I wasn't informed of), so that one is not being complained about.
 * All this despite the fact that the complainant still refuses to point out the policy I'm supposed to be in breach of, that I've looked for and cannot find and she appears not to want to discuss. See this diff where I am attempting to get to the bottom of her complaint in a collegiate fashion.
 * There are articles all over the encyclopedia that use masses of quotes. Some take it to such an extreme that they're labelled "quotefarms" - however, the objection is to the non-encyclopedic nature, it's never been copyright violation that I can see. It seems strange that an admitted newbie should take such objection to what I'm doing and complain without taking advice. PalestineRemembered 17:32, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Please review the warning I just placed on your talk page. Of note is the line "You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences." The article in question contained whole sections which were simply chunks of text stolen from other websites. It isn't difficult to review diffs, PR, edit summaries are just that, summaries. You can check the diffs to find the material I removed and review them yourself. Full sentences, not quotations, in the removed text were lifted directly from another website. Kyaa the Catlord 17:37, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, I'm going to drop back on the UN stuff. I've just reread some of the policies, and although using whole sentences and large chunks of the document like you've insisted be done is a content policy violation and plagiarism, I'm no longer going to call it a copyvio. However, I'm sticking with the overly long quotation from the BBC. Information, not sentences. An interested reader can go to the BBC and read his statement in full and we can avoid a copyvio issue as the article stands currently while presenting the information, just not stealing the content from another source. Kyaa the Catlord 17:49, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

What's in a Name?
Steps have been taken at other non-free content related project pages to revise them so users do not confuse Wikipedia's non-free content policy with the generally broader concept of fair use under copyright law. To maintain consistency, I propose renaming this particular project "WikiProject Non-free Content". It's a bit less catchy but certainly much more accurate. -- But | seriously | folks   15:42, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Fine with me, and from the month of silence maybe everyone is just apathetic? :) - cohesion 00:47, 26 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Object. I don't think it's a bad thing that the project name celebrates the value of fair use.  Jheald 08:28, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Texas Aggie band
I was attracted to the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band article while on anti-vandal patrol and saw edit warring over the addition of a "primary sources" tag by several users. Apparently, one side feels there is too much pov content from a single source. Since I have no knowlege in this matter, and from the seemingly large amount of content from a single source and the manner in which that content was written - I became a bit concerned over potential copyvio issues. I stepped in to stop the edit warring and started this query. If someone from this project could weigh-in on the discussion, I think it would be enormously helpful. The article has an FA status, and was recently featured on the main page. Thanks! Dreadstar †  19:12, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair use overload
I realise we aren't meant to discuss individual images here but I believe this conversation has wider implications for the freeness of Wikipedia and would appreciate comments and advise from experts here. Thanks Gustav von Humpelschmumpel 16:27, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

This page should be deleted.
First, I object to defining freely-available content as "non-free." If you can view it for free and use it on Wikipedia, then it's free. The only people who would define a fair-use image as "non-free" are Richard Stallman and others who are obsessed with the law. Unfortunately, these people are very vocal around here.

Let me give you an analogy. I recycle. That's good, so wouldn't it be better if I forced my neighbors to recycle, too? It may make them hate me and waste an incredible amount of time over a couple of plastic bottles, but it's worth destroying a neighborhood over it. Same with Wikipedia. It's worth side-tracking the project over whether images have just the right "rationale." Let's turn this site into a battleground over the legal theories of a minority who have no legal education but do have a great deal of paranoia.--Gnfgb2 02:12, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * You seem to have run afoul of the libre/gratis confusion. The goal of Wikipeda is to produce a free content encyclopedia: that is, one that is libre.  The content on Wikipedia referred to as "non-free" may be gratis, but it is not libre. --Carnildo 04:37, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * And that runs afoul of the distinction between partly and completely free. It also doesn't really have anything to do with Wikipedia, since we're free to use fair-use images. Philosophical issues over whether they can be used on other sites should play no part in how we run an educational site. Anything that helps people understand a subject is good for our goal of creating a high-quality encyclopedia.--Gnfgb2 05:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I mostly agree, but that is not Wikipedia's reality. For good or ill, Wikipedia also has a mission of spreading free content in the copyleft sense.  That was decided long ago by people that still largely run the Foundation, and there is not much that can be done about it now.  Dragons flight 06:08, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Note. Gnfgb2 is a sock of hard-banned user:Primetime. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 23:50, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Input sought
Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content --Hammersoft (talk) 16:25, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Replacable fair use process: constructive or disruptive?
Regarding removal of NF images for free replacements, as per this removal, all that seems to happen is a tag is placed on the uploaders talk page and the image categorised as such.

The question is, does there not exist any other more positive group / process / project for this kind of work? If the uploader never returns, who else knows which article this image was deleted from? The image page loses the link to the articles it was used in, so even for people who routinely view the image replace categories and are not possibly involved directly in the subject matter, how are they supposed to know where it came from, even if they are able to find a free use version in the just 7 days allowed before it disappears completely?

Anyway, I was able to find a free use version already on WP in a matter of seconds, something the remover was seemingly unable or uninterested in doing. It seems to me from this, and past experience, that the whole image deletion policy is generally disruptive, rather than constructive, as there is no onus on the people who love to remove these images and just place tags to actually try and fix the situation, or more importantly inform other interested parties of the situation so they can fix it, or help the constructive but not necessary involved people to fix it either. I only found out as the article is on my watchlist, but it may well not have been, it is already too large as it is. Apologies if there are other processes or groups, or a more appropriate place for this question, but I am not aware of them, not for want of looking. MickMacNee (talk) 14:01, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I think the process itself is neutral. The way it's applied can be anywhere from disruptive and contentious to constructive and collaborative.  To my mind the best results come when people who are actively interested in a specific subect get together actively to improve the article and bounce ideas off each other.  It's a real pleasure to work with a good editor, tweaking each other's contributions, adding things, coming up with better and better content.  When you do that you don't even think of it as deletion or a policy matter, it's just editorial discretion.  If I'm working on Anita Ekberg and someone finds a great free image that completes the article, I'm happy they replaced the old non-free one.  The other approach I sometimes liken to dive bombing.  People who have no history with an article or the people who wrote it come in, find something amiss, and attach a bunch of tags and/or boldly edit the piece.  That can work too, and sometimes things need that kind of correction.  Often everyone appreciates the guidance.  But that's probably what you're thinking about.  Sometimes people don't like being dive bombed, and sometimes the bomber misses the target.Wikidemo (talk) 00:22, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The process itself may be theoretically neutral, but it is often applied in a disruptive manner. We should encourage editors who are deleting images to at least make a brief effort to replace the image.  Too many people get into a one-track operation of simply trying to delete images. Johntex\talk 00:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Note - this is a discussion I posted on media copyright questions, then Wikipedia talk:Non-free content, but now I believe it belongs here reading the header above and the comments. Apologies if I am incorrect in my assumptions MickMacNee (talk) 21:36, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Non free images in Infoboxes
I was pretty sure that it has been an unwritten rule that we should not put non free images in infoboxes? I removed this image, but I have been reverted. I would appreciate if people could clear up this issue. Thanks Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 21:09, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * There's not a problem (best I'm aware) of using a non-free image in an infobox (this is used throughout movies, video games, TV shows, etc.); the non-free image can't be part of the template that makes the infobox, but the picture itself is acceptable to include. (And in this case, it's not a WP:BLP problem, as that person is dead.). --M ASEM  21:13, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

BetaCommandBot and NFCC10c - New discussion page
I have created the folowing page Bots/BetaCommandBot and NFCC 10 c to attempt to centralise discussion on BCB and specifically its NFCC10c tagging operation. MickMacNee (talk) 14:28, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Promotional images
I'd like an idea what the current thinking is regarding the use of "promotional" images for television and film articles, specifically the ones that really get used on Wikipedia &mdash; studio-produced character images lifted from websites. I had been advising people at WP:SOAPS that screencaps are preferred over these types of promo images, more or less based on this ifd and a series of related ones at that time. While Abu badali's methods have been criticized and he seems currently inactive, I find some merit in his argument that the bulk of these images were not created as part of a "press kit" to necessarily be used by other media, but in fact to promote these series and films on their own sites or in areas of their own choosing. In fact, the websites' terms of service (like NBC's) flat out forbid reuse of content elsewhere.

At this time, there seems to be no language anywhere in the fair use guidelines for images discussing this topic specifically, and the addition of the "image_has_rationale" parameter in the Non-free promotional template suggests that they are acceptable in a broader sense than before, perhaps as the result of some discussion somewhere. And yet the recent template tfd suggests that the issue is still controversial.

I do not seek to "outlaw" these images entirely, as they are certainly useful in many cases, especially where a screencap may be unavailable or not sufficient to illustrate a particular point. But in the presence of a screencap of comparable value, I'm curious about the legal and fair use comparisons. Perhaps this is being debated somewhere? In any case, if a guideline or at least "rule of thumb" has not been established, something should be established and set down someplace where it can be referenced by editors. Thanks in advance. &mdash; TAnthonyTalk 18:16, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Book content
what's the policy on book content (photos or text) as images. the policies don't talk about that (or at least I cant find where :P)?
 * Does it has to be partial?
 * Can it feature the thumbnails of the author (I personally think that it gives more credit to him, by not taking the graphics too far from it's context, that is assuming there are good credits on the wikipedia article corresponding thumbnail, an that the image page has its source info ok)
 * If book content images are not aloud neither partialy nor completely, with or withuot text... isn't it ironic that we have a tag for comic book content? I think comic book industry would vare more about Wikipedia featuring his drawings than book authors actually getting attention.It would also be ironic that we have several full screenshots, that's the same situation or worst.

I think wikipedia should make sense either all go or all stay (unless the reason behind this inconsistencies has to do with some U. S. or international wierd law) --20-dude (talk) 09:45, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Non Free content and Portals
Are non free images allowed in the articles that are represented on portals? Portal:R&B and Soul Music What is the advise in this regard. The image is for the self same article that the fair use clause was written. What is the protocol? SriMesh | talk  02:39, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Fair use of press kit
I have requested that Joanne Gair release certain photos for use in her wikipedia article and was informed that she could not because they were a necessary part of her press kit. For example, the first and last images in the kit would go together well and help explain what she does. Her photo, which included on the most recent article I can find about her is also a part of this press kit. I had claimed this image under fair use before finding out it is part of the press kit. What can I use?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 06:58, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

FU images of long-term imprisoned living people
Greetings, projectians. I am wondering whether the no free equivalent clause of the WP:NFCC is applicable to copyrighted images of living people who are currently imprisoned (or, similarly, reclused) and for whom no free alternative images exist? Thanks, Skomorokh  14:32, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Copyright compliance
Per request I am posting a notification of a bot request Bots/Requests for approval/MBisanzBot 2 that will remove non-compliant copyrighted logos owned by the WMF from userpages per our non-free content policy. Please add comments or questions to the Request page.  MBisanz  talk 10:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

discussion
For anybody who's interested, there is a discussion in deletion review regarding Image:Jersey £1.jpg, which is a "test case" for the question of "when do images of coins constitute fair use"? 69.140.152.55 (talk) 17:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Replacements
I don't quite understand the subtleties of the rules on this, but if I were to take an image, say, which is the logo of an old tv show which is blurry and generally crappy, and recreate it in Photoshop to be crisp and clean, is my new version fair use, or is it no longer the same thing as the previous version? I'd like to update a swath of Japanese tv show logos this way, but if my actions would create even less suitable images, I won't even bother. Howa0082 (talk) 16:37, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright tags
Please see Village_pump_%28proposals%29 for a centralized discussion on bringing our copyright tag names into compliance.  MBisanz  talk 03:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Category namespace gallery w "fair use" logos
Is this an acceptable use of logos under a claim of fair use? Please see User_talk:ARBAY. --Una Smith (talk) 05:44, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

National Library of Wales
Please see User:Paul Bevan; he and User:Telor Roberts work for the National Library of Wales, and are piloting a scheme where rare historical images from the Library's archives are uploaded onto Wikipedia articles that contain no images.

At present, this is only being done via a fair use rationale, which they have been, I think, meeting (check their contributions to confirm this, they haven't uploaded too many images thus far). It would be good if someone more knowlegable than I could a) check to make sure these are fair use, ie meeting all the NFCC, and b) perhaps engage with them to see if a better licence could be negotiated. Cheers. Neıl   ☄   14:16, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi. Thanks for posting your message here. Neil correctly describes our approach in that we are looking at relaxing the rights on some of our digitised images for the first time in order to explore issues such as:
 * How useful they are to a community like Wikipedia
 * How the community reacts to our images (ie do they think they're useful?)
 * What kind of impact this might have on the National Library (positive? negative?)
 * What kind of license should we release future content under? To whom?
 * Should we release our content at all?


 * This is a considered approach which takes our own responsibilities in terms of rights into account, this is not to say that future work by the National Library won't use a different license - or even that we wouldn't release these same images under a different license - however I'm sure you can understand that we need to have some clearer idea about the issues above before we consider moving beyond a pilot.


 * We have been gently corrected in our understanding of the 10 Criteria for Fair Use on a number of points and I'd be grateful if anyone could confirm a few things:
 * 1 We've had it pointed out that the images should be resized to ~320px. I couldn't find this in the guidelines so we have been uploaded images which are what we regard as 'low' resolution (ie significantly lower than the high resolution copy we have) - could someone point me to the rules on how resolution is defined for Wikipedia? (I note there's no resolution in this discussion). We were working at it from the basis of:

Low_resolution Is the material in a lower resolution that would be unlikely to impact the copyright owners ability to resell or otherwise profit from the work? For images, this would be strictly the resolution (in pixels) of the picture used; for audio, this would be the bit rate and sample resolution used. SVG images do not technically have a resolution, so may be described using "SVG will be rendered at low resolutions". From Template:Non-free_use_rationale


 * 2 We've tried to "Explain why no free equivalent could reasonably be obtained or created to replace this media" by pointing out that these are unique historical images. In many cases these images are of a person who has died but in some they are images of objects or places which, in theory, could exist now. Our rationale is that there is no free equivalent that we can find (and we do look before uploading - our aim is not to replace other images with our own) and our expectation is that if someone does find an equally relevant image that is free they will replace ours - as seems to be clear from the Non Free and licensing guidelines. Is this not in line with the policy?


 * You can see an example of our rationale here.

Thanks, and apologies for such a long posting. I hope you can all see that we're trying to take a considered, and self-educating, approach through a short pilot which will - we hope - lead to the greater availability and usage of content from Wales and of Welsh interest.

A final point: I'd really like to encourage anyone who has a more 'general point' (ie one they don't feel can be posted here) to add it to my Talk page so that we can make sure we include your views in any future thinking) Paul Bevan (talk) 09:14, 8 August 2008 (UTC)


 * You are going to have a hard time getting wikipedians to accept non free pics of buildings that still exist.Geni 22:06, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:LOGOS rewrite
After seeing attempts to use WP:LOGOS to bypass the non-free content criteria, I have proposed a rewrite of the guideline. Comments are welcome on the guideline talk page. J Milburn (talk) 14:20, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Fair use for photo from Georgian government related to South Ossetia conflict?
I found this photo on the Georgian Ministry of Defence web site. It was related to a news story (currently here) about how Georgian forces had captured a Russian army vehicle containing several thousand Russian passports, apparently intended for distribution to residents of the disputed South Ossetia region.

All the material on this web site — including the photo in question — is marked as copyrighted by the Public Affairs Department of the Ministry of Defence of Georgia.

Assuming I wanted to add this photo (or a reduced-quality version thereof) to the article on the 2008 South Ossetia war — in order to illustrate one of the allegations being made by Georgia in connection with the current conflict — could that be done with some sort of fair use justification? If so, how might I phrase the justification? It didn't seem (as best I could tell) to fit into any of the acceptable fair use categories, but I'm not intimately familiar with this subject and realize I might be missing something.

I did e-mail the Georgian MoD public affairs department, explaining what I wanted to do, and asking if they would be willing to give a free licence for this photo, but they never replied, so I assume it's "fair use" or nothing. Richwales (talk) 06:36, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Fair use - Ron Schueler
To start, I hope this is an acceptable place to ask about potential copyvios. I'm currently working on Ron Schueler, with luck getting it up to GA. I figure it'd be great for the article to have an image of Schueler in the infobox. I've searched all over the web for a fairly current image of Schueler (not one of him as a ballplayer thirty years ago), and only found one reasonably good one (here). The picture (I'm assuming) was taken for the MLB/Giants organization. I don't understand fair use and free/non-free content restrictions and whatnot very well, and I don't want to make one huge misstep. So does anyone know (or can figure out fairly easily) if that image qualifies to be used on Wikipedia without breaking any copyright laws? Calor (talk) 04:41, 31 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi mate, they don't allow non-free/fair use images of people who are still alive, unless it's a famous photo of em. I got my wrist smacked over that, see here and here. Ryan 4314   (talk) 22:29, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Question
Would I be justified in using this image on these 2 biographies? The image contains both subjects (I aim to expand the Harris bio soon incidentally). Ryan 4314  (talk) 21:08, 25 September 2008 (UTC)


 * IF you discuss the image in the course of the article perhaps.Geni 09:09, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Not likely; a non-free image of them would be replaceable. Stifle (talk) 09:20, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I understand about the non-free image thing (In fact the Harris article has a free image), but I mean "justification" in that this is an historic moment in both their lives? Ryan 4314   (talk) 11:10, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The image doesn't provide anything that can't be provided equally well as text. --Carnildo (talk) 19:48, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I am unsure how to proceed
Recently, i uploaded for the article about the I'm a PC Microsoft campaign. A number of issues spring to mind, and I'd like to get some advice, please. The image is of a real person, Sean Siler, (an employee of Microsoft) identified in the ad campaign only as "Sean@windows.com". The image is from an ad campaign, and I was considering using an image rationale similar to the closely-related Mac vs. PC article, which seems to address the BLP issue for image use. The problem I am encountering is the specific licensing; the image was made on an Apple Macintosh by another person, and is a screenshot from an ad campaign. Could someone check the image's licensing, and help me fix it, please? - Arcayne   (cast a spell)  16:27, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Coat of Arms of Myanmar
The image Image:Coat of Arms of Myanmar.svg (also Image:Myanmar coa.png, Image:Myanmar coa.gif and Image:Coat of Arms of Maynmar.svg) is about to get deleted from Commons since it the image is copyrighted by Vector-Images.com. It might however qualify for Fair use on en.wiki for Burma and Coat of arms of Burma. If it does I would appreciate if someone could locally upload the image and fix the rationls etc. Thanks Lokal_Profil 16:25, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Could you have a look?
Hey, is the Image:UVA Wise Outside 001.jpg tagged correctly? I'm used to seeing the template with the big "stop sign"-like "(c)", and this one isn't even mentioning the source. Thanks for following up on it, Ibn Battuta (talk) 05:14, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Invitation to discussion
There is a discussion about a  new image copyright tag for old files with no satisfying copyright status on Wikipedia talk:Image copyright tags, I would like to ask you to participate in the discussion. thanks  ■ MMXX  talk  14:23, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Vector/svg use in (c) and TM logos
Is there a consensus on vector-format logos that are under both copyright and trademark protection?

Is there a consensus on vector-format logos that are only under trademark protection, such as the Coca-Cola logo?

As best I can tell it's "only include as much detail as needed for a low-resolution image" for both. Please update me if I'm out of date or just flat wrong.

If I'm right, and I hope I'm not, this leaves the door wide open for uploading "perfect" vector logos when the logo itself is not complex, such as something that is mostly geometric shapes plus letters in a non-copyrighted font. This defeats the purpose of Wikipedia's rules, as the image page will have an image which is large enough and "detailed enough" to be used for piracy purposes. If this was through through and discussed, fine. If it wasn't, the issue should be looked at again. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  15:46, 17 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The WP:LOGO guideline was completely rewritten by one author recently, and this was one of the issues that (I think) wasn't particularly well scrutinised.


 * The old guideline primarily stressed the importance of accurately representing the brand and the trademark, so that the brand shouldn't be tarnished by unnecessarily poor representation here.


 * My understanding is that vector/svg is allowed, provided that the vector file includes no more detail than is used for display at low resolution. A fair number of logos have been converted to SVG over the years in line with this.


 * So long as that is the case, I think WP still complies with the law, which is to use no more than is necessary for the legitimate fair use purpose identified. (For copyright images; no such restriction on trademark images, but we warn people to be careful how they use them).


 * I think we take the view that SVG is a legitimate format for an image, and having decided to use SVG, no more has then been included than necessary.


 * But if you think it is an issue, you might like to copy this thread over to WT:NFC, which is a bit more active than this page. Jheald (talk) 17:36, 17 November 2008 (UTC)


 * See also lengthy past discussions at WT:LOGO and Template_talk:ShouldBeSVG.  Before the recent re-write, the old guideline used to say
 * "'for SVG formats, versions of the logo that contain significantly more detail than is necessary to display at the desired (low) resolution should be avoided'"


 * That may or may not still be the consensus position. Jheald (talk) 17:57, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Is this acceptable?
A piece of artwork drawn by somebody currently on the run, and wanted in connection with a crime. They haven't copyrighted the work, and it is currently being used by media outlets. See Murder of Lindsay Hawker, which I plan to expand—there's a drawing by Ichihashi relevant to the case. Yohan euan o4 (talk) 00:26, 19 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Copyright is automatic as soon as they put pen to paper -- they don't have to put a (C) on it, or send it anywhere. It is copyright simply by being created.


 * What you have to ask yourself is whether there is a fair use case for us to show it, per WP:NFC. Is this a significant addition to what the reader would understand about the case? Jheald (talk) 02:04, 19 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Arguably, there might also be a public interest case for showing it. But it will be fair use, not free content.  Jheald (talk) 02:10, 19 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for reply. I believe that I will upload it, at some point in the next few days. Yohan euan o4 (talk) 19:50, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Acceptable?
Hi, I don't think this image's meets the fair use criteria for inclusion in this article (You can't see the "serial numbers" very well at all), what do you guys think? Ryan 4314  (talk) 04:56, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

This project is outdated
The goals of this project have remained largely unchanged since they were written in 2005. However, how Wikipedia deals with non-free content has changed significantly since then, not least because of the 2007 Wikimedia Foundation resolution clarifying the Foundation's goals. So too have the various fair use justification templates and (indeed!) the image upload process. This project's goals and rationales need some serious revision. It is not 2005 any more. Uncle G (talk) 14:54, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed project merge
Hi! I've proposed at WikiProject Council/Proposals/Files that this project be merged with a number of other WikiProjects related to images/files on Wikipedia. All comments there from the members of this project would be much appreciated. Thanks! –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 23:03, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Redirect proposal
Given the generally favorable response to the proposal, it is now proposed that this project be redirected if there are no objections so that its purpose can be carried forward by the new project, WikiProject Images and Media. Please join the conversation at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Images_and Media. Thanks. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:38, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

non-media
do you guys also handle non-media files? ie, text entered as text, etc. 76.66.192.35 (talk) 13:53, 12 December 2009 (UTC)