Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Images and Media/Non-free

READ THIS FIRST

Please do not post queries on individual images here. This talk page is to discuss future WikiProject Fair use policy ONLY.

Queries regarding the fair use merits of a particular image should be posted at Wikipedia talk:Fair use.

Talk archives:

• /Archive 1 - Beginnings of the project, Comic covers, Fair use review and disputed use, Images without source, Usage of fair use images, etc.
• Archive 2 - up to end of Nov 2005
• Archive 3 -November 2005 - December 31, 2005

Questions about individual instances of potential copyright violations have been moved to Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems. Please post queries on the fair use merits of an image to Wikipedia talk:Fair use or Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems . This forum is to discuss future Wikipedia fair use policy ONLY. Travb 16:27, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair Use from a legal stand point

Hello, I am studying to be a lawyer. As a disclaimer, I want to state up front that:

• I have not taken the bar,
• nor have I taken a intellectual property class yet.

That said, I have gotten into some arguments with other Wikipedians in regards to fair use. Because of these arguments, I have become familiar with fair use law more as a layperson then as a lawyer, although I have used my skills learned in law school to examine the case law on the subject[1][2] and the fair use statute[3][4].

There are two points I would like to make here:

• First that fair use/intellectual property law is vague and is difficult to interpret even for copyright lawyers.
• Second many Wikipedians, out of ignorance and fear of the law, and worse against the spirit, dreams and goals of wikipedia's mission, often delete items which could potentially be considered fair use.

First, fair use/intellectual property law is vague and is difficult to interpret even for copyright lawyers. The law was intentionally written and intended to be vague:

"There are no hard-and-fast (fair use) rules, only general rules and varying court decisions. That's because the judges and lawmakers who created the fair use exception did not want to limit the definition of fair use. They wanted it--like free speech--to have an expansive meaning that could be open to interpretation."[5]

If it is difficult for lawmakers and lawyers to understand the rules of fair use, which were intentionally meant to be difficult to quantify/understand, it is insulting and intrusive that certain Wikipedians, with no legal background whatsoever, take it upon themselves to interpret fair use law.

Worse, in my experience many Wikipedians use copyright law as a POV weapon.[6] These Wikipedians often decide to delete material, "just to be on the safe side" they argue, when they don't even know what either side of the copyright debate is, let alone what the "safe side" is.

If Wikipedia were to go to court (and this appears highly unlikely) Wikipedia could be potentially seen as similar to a file sharing network, not liable for what its users do. File sharing companies like Napster and Gnutella have transformed the music industry for the better. Wikipedia has the potential to do the same for intellectual property, if its users would just allow it too.

Second, as mentioned above, many well intentioned but ignorant Wikipedians take it upon themselves to use heavy handed tactics to delete anything that is potentially a copyright violation. Many Wikipedians ignore this statement:

"As a general rule, if you are using a small portion of somebody else's work in a non-competitive way and the purpose for your use is to benefit the public, you're on pretty safe ground. On the other hand, if you take large portions of someone else's expression for your own purely commercial reasons, the rule usually won't apply."[7]

As I have argued before[8], web sites such as Common dreams, another non-profit, copy whole articles onto their website with no legal trouble. No person has ever given me a satisfactory answer why this is acceptable for Common Dreams but it is taboo for Wikipedia. Copy and paste one sentence from an article onto a controversial Wikipedia site, and a Wikipedian who is ignorant of the law, will heavy handedly delete the sentence citing copyright.

As I have mentioned before [9], the worst part of this destructive copyright policy on wikipedia is how it undermines the stated dreams and goals of Wikipedia. As Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia envisioned:

• "Finally, we should never forget as a community that we are the vanguard of a knowledge revolution that will transform the world. We are the leading edge innovators and leaders of what is becoming a global movement to free knowledge from proprietary constraints. 100 years from now, the idea of a proprietary textbook or encyclopedia will sound as quaint and remote as we now think of the use of leeches in medical science." [10]

• "Wikipedia goal is to create a free, democratic, reliable encyclopedia—actually, the largest encyclopedia in history, in terms of both breadth and depth. This is an ambitious goal, and will probably take many years to achieve!"--[11]

• "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." -Jimmy Wales, July 2004[12]

• "Wikipedia is first and foremost an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language. Asking whether the community comes before or after this goal is really asking the wrong question: the entire purpose of the community is precisely this goal." -- Wikipedia-l mailing list, March 8, 2005[13]

• "Fair use (and the narrower fair dealing) is an important freedom from abuse by copyright holders. It is good to see a decision which supports it." [14]

Wikipedia could be the "vanguard of a knowledge revolution that will transform the world" on the forefront of opening up intellectual property for the entire world to share and benefit from, as Google is doing today. Instead, because of a handful of misguided zealous Wikipedians, who are afraid of some vague potential legal threat, Wikipedia is so much less. Travb 15:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• Two small responses:
  1. The question of whether Wikipedia's fair use policy should be strict or not is not connected to whether people use it as a way of getting rid of controversial content. A completely plausible argument could be made that it is only in controversial cases that people start really thinking about "fair use" in serious way, and thus they end up getting a much higher standard of scrutiny than most marked instances. But anyway, this has nothing to do with the law or the policy.
  2. What Common Dreams does has no bearing on our policy. There are websites which post entire song lyrics in a way which is clearly outside the bounds of the "fair use" clause but they receive little to no legal difficulties. One possible interpretation is that it isn't worth anyone's time to try and prosecute those instances, or the material that Common Dreams infringes upon happens to be from people who aren't inclined to sue. Wikipedia can take no such luxuries — we are becoming more and more high profile every day, and the copyright holders on our unlicensed material are all over the map. If Common Dreams is posting the entire copyrighted contents of articles, they are probably breaking the law. The question is whether anyone will sue them, which is an entirely different concern.
  3. I've never seen anybody delete content based on "one sentence" from a copyrighted website, unless it is uncited, unquoted, and clearly plaigiarism. There have been a few instances of people not wanting to include a few song lyrics on pages but they seem to get cleared up -- usually in favor of allowing the content. Most "fair use" issues are related to images, especially those which are 1. generic, 2. being used incidentally (non-critically, non-encyclopedically), and 3. are images which a user primarily justifies as using because "they want it" rather than on intellectual grounds required for a real defense of using unlicensed materials.
  4. I think you are misinterpretting Jimbo's intentions. They are not, from what I can tell, to create a vanguard source of unlicensed copyrighted materials. THey are rather to create a vanguard of free materials. At least, this is what I have picked up from his various postings on the subject. Whether our use of fair use material is compatible with the latter goal, I personally am suspicious. But since nobody on the high has decided that it isn't, the goal of our fair use policy should be to 1. keep Wikipedia respectfully in the clear, and 2. keep our re-users as much in the clear as possible (that is, while acknowledging that they will have to make "fair use" determinations for themselves, we shouldn't be using anything which is only "fair use" in the specifically Wikipedia context).
• Humorously, the situation used to be, not so long ago, that "fair use" was almost completely abused in the opposite direction -- people would claim anything as "fair use" just because they wanted it on a page for whatever reason. If it has swung the other direction somewhat as a curative, I do not, in the end, think that is such a bad state of things. The more critical people are of "fair use" claims, the better fair use rationale they can make themselves, and the more empowered they actually become in terms of copyright law. But I understand there are different ways to read this.
• If you'd like more feedback on this, I recommend posting it to the Wikipedia-en mailing list if you haven't already, where a lot of discussion on policy issues takes place. --Fastfission 16:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I Totally agree that some usersrs take this too far. At one point a Wikipidian even argued with the person who created an image that we are not allowed to use his immage as fair use on userspace even after he gave us persmion too becose we can't make exeptions. Some Fair Use Police take it too far

--E-Bod 03:50, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Excellent points Fastfission

Fastfission thank you for your points. I will respond at length to each one soon.Travb 17:11, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

To clarify your stance, and make sure I understand what you are saying, your four main points can be summarized as follows:

1. copyright abuse by "POV warriors" is irrelevant.

2. fair use policy of other non-profits is irrelevant and probably illegal.

3. copyright abuse by "POV warriors" does not exist.

4. Jimmy's intentions are not to create "a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge."

The first two points (1,2) are opinion and as opinion they cannot be "proven" nor "disproven".

The third point (3) is a blanket statement of fact and can easily be disproven with little effort on my part.

Thr fourth point (4) is an interpretation of another persons thoughts, which are always open to interpretation, but I think Wales views clearly support my views. That said, even if Wales views do or do not support my views, they are ultimately not the deciding factor in the debate at hand, but are only persuasive ideas from a benevolent dictator about the fair use debate.

I will write more later, dissecting your argument at length.Travb 17:36, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Copyright infringement is both important and does exist, although I am not sure it is more interesting or important if there exists some POV-warrior motivation behind it. Wikipedia content is intended to be able to be used in a for-profit manner. If you believe that User:Jimbo Wales would support removing restrictions on copyright-infringing material, I suggest that you ask him about it. Jkelly 20:50, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your statements.

I actually asked User:Jimbo Wales before[15], and got no response.

I hope the following comments do not eclipse my much more important comments above, if they do, I will strike them:

The more I think about it, with all due respect to User:Jimbo Wales, the more I feel it doesn't ultimatly matter how Mr. Wales feels. Mr. Wales views are not the definitive deciding factor in any debate, but are only extremely persuasive ideas by the founder (and that is why I posted them here). Mr. Wales views are ultimately only one voice among millions. I feel this way because even though Wikipedia was Mr. Wales creation, and we all owe him immense gratitude, Wikipedia has become a concept now owned by the world as a whole, not by one sole individual, no matter how important and influencial that individual is.Travb 21:11, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Returning to Fastfission points:

1. Copyright abuse by "POV warriors" is irrelevant.

I was simply stating the real negative consequences of such deletion policies which probably have not been addressed here before. Since you feel this argument is irrelevant, there is no point in arguing this.

2. fair use policy of other non-profits is irrelevant and probably illegal.

What Common Dreams does has no bearing on our policy.

I disagree, CommonDreams, and other sites are examples of webpages which have much more liberal policies and which have not been sued.

There are websites which post entire song lyrics in a way which is clearly outside the bounds of the "fair use" clause but they receive little to no legal difficulties.

I am not talking about websites which post entire song lyrics with no legal difficulties, I am talking about CommonDreams which has a liberal fair use policy on each of its pages.

In this argument, you use a lot of words such as: "One possible interpretation" "probably". In otherwords, you don't know. Please cite any copyright violation lawsuit which has been filed against Wikipedia. You can't. If you can, I will apologize, issue a mea culpa (apology) and leave this wikipage talk board.

Fastfission wrote:

Wikipedia can take no such luxuries — we are becoming more and more high profile every day, and the copyright holders on our unlicensed material are all over the map. If Common Dreams is posting the entire copyrighted contents of articles, they are probably breaking the law. The question is whether anyone will sue them, which is an entirely different concern.

For some reason, every wikipedian who enforces copyright, sees himself/herself as a protector of wikipedia. But ironaclly, every enforcer I know knows as much, or usually much less about intellectual property rights than I do, and I know very little about intellectual property law. So there are many people who are ignorant of intellectual property law, who delete portions of articles with impunity. Fair use is ignored or rarely discussed. When fair use is discussed, it is in negative terms: delete, delete, delete. "If you are not sure, delete". The result is the heavy handed deletion of large amounts of material which DOES NOT NEED TO BE DELETED.

You are talking about possibilites. Since wikipedia has not been sued, you are basing your assumptions on predictions of the future. These predictions by their very nature are shaped by opinions and cannot for certainty be proven or disproven, so I cannot "prove" to you that Wikipedia will not be sued, anymore than you can prove that Wikipedia will be sued.

3. copyright abuse by "POV warriors" does not exist.

I wrote: Worse, in my experience many Wikipedians use copyright law as a POV weapon.[6] These Wikipedians often decide to delete material, "just to be on the safe side" they argue, when they don't even know what either side of the copyright debate is, let alone what the "safe side" is.

The footnote [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Winter_Soldier_Investigation#Sources 6]. Links a heated revert war currently in arbitration between two stubborn foes. The anon in this case is quoting all of the examples of times that the user had sentences deleted for copyright violation. This user, a "POV warrior" (not my words), slapped copyright violations on two controversial web pages and later admitted that he wanted the entire article deleted. He was using copyright violations to push his own POV, after many other users had used copyright violations against him.

But, unfortunately, I fear, this arugment is also irrelevant to you Fastfission, because I sense that "POV warriors" using copyright violations to push their own bias, in the words of Madeline Albright, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it." Lets err on the side of caution right? If a person is not sure about "fair use" (and no one here seems to know what the policy on fair use is), then lets err on the side of caution and delete, delete, delete.

The irony is the abuse is real and documented, but your hypothetical law suit that so many Wikipedian enforcers repeat by rote is nothing more than that: a hypothesis.

4. Jimmy's intentions are not to create "a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge."

I think the quote says it all, but as mentioned above, even if Jimmy does really mean what he says (and I am starting to wonder as I learn about all of his commercial ventures), it is again ultimatly irrelevant. It is important to state that Jimmy's quotes are here only as convincing, inspiring words, not as bibilical scripture.

So what we are we left with? Four irrelevant arguments, which I brought up. None which will convince anyone who sees themselves as a Wikipedian protector. I think the bottom line is that many users enjoy feeling like they are protecting Wikipedia and they get a sense of self-worth. And hey, if a few articles and sections are deleted by Wikipedians ignorant of current copyright law, "the price is worth it." Travb 22:56, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Most of these post don't belong here

Most of these posts are inquiries about individual instances of fair use/copyright.

Few of them discuss the larger topic at hand: WikiProject Fair use. I suggest (and I think I may do this right now) moving these irrelevant topics to another, more applicable forum.Travb 16:18, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Postings have been moved to Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems.Travb 16:38, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Where have you moved such psots? I always understood thwat this page was a very good palce to ask about questions on indiovidual instances of fair-use policy, adn i have recommended it as such on the help desk. If this is not a good forum for such psotings, where is there a good place where knowlegable people will read and respond? DES ^(talk) 19:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page. If you have, in fact, pasted the material that you removed somewhere else, please provide us with that location. Jkelly 20:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I just read your page header. Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems is where User:Travb moved all of this page's contents. Jkelly 20:52, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for not being clear, I hope I didn't step on any toes. I clarified where I moved the posts. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Did I archive the talk page incorrectly? If so let me know. Sorry for the hassle. 20:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair Use Club?

I had written on the WikiProject Fair use page:

• Another view on improving guidelines. Another view holds, that current guidelines are complex, vague, overly heavy-handed, and worst of all, contrary to the founding dreams and ambitions of Wikipedia, with the result that people who do not understand copyright issues are, out of ignorance, deleting material for fear of a legal crisis which in all probabability will never happen. Establishing fair use policies which correspond to the law is difficult, if not impossible, because the authors of the fair use statute intended the law to be vague. Wikipedia should not err on the side of caution, but be an inovator and trailblazer in intellectual property law, as Gnutella and Google book search have been. Wikipedia should be on the forefront of realizing founder Jimmy Wales ambitious dream: Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.[16]

Jkelly responded by deleting all of this but one sentence and explained the reason for his deletion:

Re-word (mostly delete) personal essay not endorsed by signers of project. Feel free to userfy your perspective. [17]

I think I may understand after Jkelly heavy-handed deletions the purpose of this page. (As Jkelly edits show,you don't have to use the excuse of copyright to delete entire passages.)

I must have misunderstood before, and for that I apologize. I cannot emphasis this enough: Please correct me if I am wrong in my understanding of this page. This is a group of "volunteer copyright police" joined together to enforce what I see as often heavy-handed fair use policies which I argue against. In other words, this group of like-minded individuals actions is exactly what I have been arguing to stop.

In otherwords, although no one here appears to be a intellectual property lawyer, and no one seems to no much more about copyright law than I do, this group of like minded individuals are here to uphold their version of the way they feel Wikipedia should look. Jkelly appears to have already made up his mind about fair use policy, and will not allow disenting views on the wikipage. Please correct me if I am wrong, but such one sided page protection is against Wikipedia policy.

Again, please correct me if I am wrong and I will humbly acknowlege my mistake.

I recall a group of like minded Catholics with a wikipage page who recently attempted to gang together to push their version of Wikipedia. The consensus was overwhelming in favor to deleting this Catholic page. Although the circumstances are different, this page, if I understand its function correctly, has similarities to the Catholic page. Banding a group of like minded individuals together to push for a particular policy for wikipedia.

• Does this mean I can now build a page in favor of liberal fair use policy and bar users like Jkelly from adding comments which contradict my own POV on this new liberal fair use page?

I apologize if I come off as aggressive here, but please keep in mind that Jkelly was the person who aggressively deleted my contribution to this article first, and then hinted, by using the term Template:Userfy that my comments, are "vanity statements". (if I understand him correctly--if not I again apologize--I am sticking my neck out here and trying to avoid my head getting chopped off by a group of Jkelly like-minded individuals) Travb 21:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

The difference is that this "club" is merely enforcing existing policy, not trying to make up new stuff. The deprecation of fair use has been in place ever since I started at WP three years ago, but the old strategy of asking editors to police themselves has simply not worked - we have thousands of blatant copyvios all over the place - and so we need to get tougher about it. If you want to see real hardnoses though, go over and check out de:, they don't put up with any of this argument at all - it's either free license or delete. Stan 22:02, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I apology if you didn't like the word "club", I can change it if you like.

It is not as black and white as you seem to portray it. Existing policy is vague, because the current fair use law is vague:

"There are no hard-and-fast (fair use) rules, only general rules and varying court decisions. That's because the judges and lawmakers who created the fair use exception did not want to limit the definition of fair use. They wanted it--like free speech--to have an expansive meaning that could be open to interpretation."5

So Wikipedians take it upon themselves to interpret the law, usually in a negative way. I think the current policy is: "when in doubt: delete". This is in stark contrast to the purported mission of wikipedia. In otherwords, heavy handed volunteer Wikipedian volunteers, far from saving wikipedia from a hypothetical court case that hasn't happen and may never happen, are actually undermining Wikipedias mission and goals.

Your comments: we have thousands of blatant copyvios all over the place - and so we need to get tougher about it I never have understood law and under types like yourself. I am sure in a perfect world (your perfect world?) en: would follow the same policies as de: am I correct? Do you prefer the de: policies over the current en: policies with "thousands of blatant copyvios all over the place"?

I apologize if I used an unfair anology, I was just explaining my first reaction to your posting. If you find this offensive, please tell me and I will delete all offensive portions. Travb 23:04, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

You make some reasonable points. You are right, fair use is rather vague and ill-defined. IMHO, that would be an argument for ensuring that our uses really are fair, rather than taking risks and discovering later that we were wrong.

Even a small copyright problem could potentially lead to significant problems to the project even if it doesn't go to court (and, unlike Google, we simply don't have the resources to go to court to fight legal battles). For example, I'm still really upset with the software changes that Jimbo had put in after the libel stuff back in December.

You mentioned something about the mission of Wikipedia, and I think that that's a good idea to keep in mind. Our mission is to build a free encyclopedia (emphasis mine). It could be argued that the use of unfree images under fair use does not help that mission, even if it is legal. I know that others on the WikiProject have different beliefs, but personally I believe that it makes sense to discourage fair use except in cases where it is required so that people are encouraged to contribute free content. Furthermore, what may be fair use for us may not be fair use for our commercial reusers or reusers in other countries who can't take advantage of liberal fair use laws, so from the perspective of keeping our content free, taking a fairly conservative stance on fair use is the way to go. JYolkowski // talk 23:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments JYolkowski, my beliefs on what Wikipedia should be and can be are in the miniority, just as my other beliefs. I am tired of being in the minority and marginalized on this topic, as I usually am throughout life. I could argue your points, but I am tired of arguing for now. Thanks again for the comments. I will leave with a few of my favorite quotes:

No man can struggle with advantage against the spirit of his age and country, and however powerful a man may be, it is hard for him to make his contemporaries share feelings and ideas which run counter to the general run of their hopes and desires.--Alexis de Tocqueville

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.-- Bertrand Russell Travb 23:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Interesting to be characterized as a "law and order" type. If anything, I'm a freeness zealot (all those years of working on GNU); it irritates me when somebody uploads a copyrighted photo of a high school when they could just as easily go out on the front lawn and take a free version of the same picture themselves. A gigantic body of free imagery will make a big difference in the world, but it won't get built if people keep falling back on material with a complicated legal status. Why should anyone agonize over a fair-use image when there are a dozen better ones on commons? Stan 23:55, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

On the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States...

Looking through my watchlist, I noticed that someone removed the text "on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation" from Template:Promophoto. That bit there was added to the tag as part of our goal to rewrite our fair use tags, specifically #9 on WP:WPFU under goals: A large part of our invocation of "fair use" is because our site is educational in purpose and run by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, and that our invocation of "fair use" for our use of the image might not apply to other uses (that is, third parties can't "piggyback" on our "fair use" claims). Having said that, I've never really questioned the utility of that text myself so I'm wondering what others think. Do you think that that bit of text is useful to have on the fair use templates? JYolkowski // talk 23:11, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I do, and I think this change should be reveted. DES ^(talk) 23:19, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I just expressed my opinion. Jkelly 23:53, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I do think it very important to specify our being non-profit educational to be fair.--Jusjih 07:24, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Project page change

Am I the only one that thinks the new paragraph on the project page isn't what a bunch of people here endorsed when they signed up? Jkelly 23:54, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Yep, I also think the project page should be reverted to the original text, the objective of this projects is not to justify or endorse the use of fair use images on Wikipedia.--nixie 00:02, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair use videos of copyrighted software?

Please have a look at WP:CVG talk. I'd like to get some feedback from this WikiProject before proceeding. Cheers, Jacoplane 06:57, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Fair use

I just added a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Fair use, aimed to allow sports team logos to be used on userpages, and I'd like to get some comments on it from the people in this project. Thanks, VegaDark 03:51, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request

It looks like we've rewritten all known fair use tags (one of the project goals), so I'd appreciate any comments on the tags and how they can be further improved (or if they're totally hopeless and should be deleted). See Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use/Fair use tag reform for a complete list. Again, I'd welcome any comments. Thanks, JYolkowski // talk 22:11, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been using them already, they seem generally OK. More media-specific tags would be handy, for instance we have a huge amount of Gundam stuff that I'm never sure how to handle. It would be nice to have a number for what "low resolution" means - somebody thinking of a print encyclopedia is not going to have the same idea of "low" as somebody on a dialup. :-) The deprecation of {{fairuse}} is apparently not strong enough, people are still using it. Could perhaps the text be subst'ed en masse into the existing images, and then the template deleted? Stan 00:26, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Having taken a quick look at Category:Fair use images, I think you're right in that we could use some more media-specific stuff. I tag the Gundam stuff as {{comicpanel}}, that's not exact but it has a close enough meaning IMHO. Maybe I'll create a tag for that one.

The huge number of images tagged with {{fairuse}} is a big problem. I remember cleaning out Category:Posters; that was a huge effort on my part (and I know that at least three other people put a lot of work into it as well), and that category was much smaller than this one is. My suggestion is to tag all of the easy stuff first - i.e. things that are obviously album covers, logos, etc. when viewed in gallery mode. After that, I guess perform some sort of bulk en masse cleanup of the category. Maybe a bot might be useful. JYolkowski // talk 02:41, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been stomping through that category for almost two months now, knocked off a couple thousand so far I think. Did most of the easy ones already, sorry. :-) Don't think it's bot-able, since for instance it's not usually obvious whether a sourced photo is legit (from official website) vs from a fan site, with no pedigree. As long as it can't be added to, and we chew at it steadily, it will disappear eventually. Stan 23:45, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I decided to change the category on {{restricted use}} (which {{fairuse}} redirects to) to Category:Improperly tagged fair use images. That way, we can figure out who's adding stuff to the category and politely ask them to tag stuff differently.

Regarding the Gundam stuff, I took a look at it and it looks like the person who drew the images is not the copyright holder, so to me the entire set of images look kind of dodgy. Do you still think it's worth creating a tag? I don't like creating tags for stuff that I don't think is clearly fair use, but it would have the advantage of being able to find them easier to delete them. JYolkowski // talk 21:57, 25 January 2006 (UTC) Note that I've undone the category change because it now seems that all images are now in the Improperly tagged category, which really doesn't help at all. JYolkowski // talk 21:29, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's probably a good idea, just to make them easier to deal with en masse. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 22:02, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

The Gundam fan art was apparently donated, saw a comment about it somewhere. It seems like there is a whole class of images of game/anime artwork used legitimately for identification, not screenshots or comic panels. Perhaps be explicit and call it "identifying-artwork" or since they're mostly characters, "character-artwork"? Stan 23:45, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I've created {{character-artwork}}. Comments are welcome. JYolkowski // talk 00:00, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

The line about free alternatives needs to be removed, there are no free alternatives for copyrighted characters, even is someone draws a character for wikipedia - it is a derivative work and the original copyright still applies.--nixie 00:17, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Removed. JYolkowski // talk 00:21, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Based on a comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fair use/Fair use tag reform, I thought it might be a good idea to have more standardisation between our fair use templates. With that in mind, I've created {{image-license-fairuse}}, based on {{image-license}} but with a few small differences. I have used it to reformat {{music sample}}, {{speech}}, and {{USPSstamp}}. I have also rewritten these three templates to use bullets to emphasise the valid uses. Please let me know if you have any comments about these three templates and I'll make changes as necessary before standardising everything else. Thanks, JYolkowski // talk 23:25, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

All the templates are reformatted now. JYolkowski // talk 19:54, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Those are awesome, by the way. --Fastfission 22:08, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! JYolkowski // talk 21:25, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Requesting removal of "fair use" images in userspace

Removing, or asking users to remove, copyright-infringing images that they are rendering in their userspace is not reliably one of the most conflict-free aspects of going through the fair use image categories. Do we have, or should we create, some boilerplate for this, or perhaps create a list of editors who are willing to do this and have demonstrated both willingness and appropriate tact? I note that editors are posting requests at WP:AN/I rather than taking on each one themselves, and it would be great if there was something more in the way of resources for this. Thoughts? Jkelly 23:31, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

We have a template, {{fairuseuserpage}}, that can be used to replace the image. Its syntax is {{fairuseuserpage|Fair use image.ext}}. JYolkowski // talk 23:41, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

That template seems quite intrusive... most people dont take very kindly to edits to their user space... --Admrb♉ltz (T | C) 23:43, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that's the essence of the problem. On the one hand, removing images from people's user pages is, as Jkelly said, "not ... conflict-free" (and some heavy-handed approaches that some people have taken in the past haven't helped). On the other hand, it's often hard to get people to remove images without doing it yourself. Personally, I see the template as a reasonable, if not perfect, compromise. I've used it a few times (in late 2005) and haven't got any negative comments about its use. If anyone can see any way of making the template more friendly, that would be cool. JYolkowski // talk 23:54, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Personally I've just left a kind note informing the user that they can't feature fair use images on their userpages, and they've removed it themselves. I think that's a better way of going about it because it doesn't encroach on their territory and it gives them an opportunity to respond if necessary. ~MDD4696 00:20, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi User. Please remove [[:Image:Some Image]] from your userpage. Unfortunately, it is tagged as a copyrighted image, and under fair use guidelines it may not be used on userpages. Thank you. ~~~~

I don't like that template. I prefeer to write a message from scratch each time. I made a "template" on a user-subpage, but I've only used it a couple of times because we are rarely talking about just one image. A tip though: Do not start talking about copyright infringements and copyright law. People will just start making arguments that it's legal fair use and what not (or even acuse you of making legal treats). Instead simply politely say that it's against Wikipedia policy and point to WP:FUC. Some people grumble, but usually comply (though it might take them a couple of days). On a related note: For those that don't already know about it User:Interiot/Reports/FairUsers and the asosiated toolserver script is a handy tool for locating the "big offenders". With the big gallery pages I tend to just fix them myself and then leave a polite message explaining why, and I've only been reverted once so far (mabe the others just haven't noticed yet though). --Sherool (talk) 01:21, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Greetings Sherool. Would you be so kind as to write customized messages for the more than five thousand (be patent the list is generated in real time, and it's an expensive query) tagged fair use images used in User namespace? Interiot's worst offender style reporting makes it look like less of a problem than it is... the problem isn't single pages with hundreds, it's a thousand pages with one... And this doesn't even address the fact that a huge number of images are mistagged. In my view, any procedure which requires more human work to remove a violation than it did to create one is doomed to fail.--Gmaxwell 03:39, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I am against using fair use images at userpages, which is much less likely to be fair. As I do not like editing others' userpages without strong valid reasons, I would like to tell them our policy here.--Jusjih 07:30, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair use tags

Myself and another user have just finished categorizing the image copyright tags. Fair use tags can be found in Category:Non-free image copyright tags, along with a few other non-free tags which haven't yet been completely deprecated. Physchim62 (talk) 09:40, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I left a suggestion on the category's talk page. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 13:17, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair use lists

Here's an interesting page, something worth chewing over: User:Dragons_flight/Evil_looking_lists. Personally, I think we should push to get them removed, but I'd like to hear what others have to say. --Fastfission 05:05, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, they're pointless, even dangerous, forks. Physchim62 (talk) 05:14, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Yep they need to go, but getting them deleted via AfD or copyvios may be problematic since people with no concept of the issues get to "form a consensus".--nixie 05:46, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

This has been debated before (involving, I believe, FHM's list of 100 sexiest women). This particular list was based on a reader poll, and it was therefore argued that FHM gave no creative content in the list itself, but were merely listing the 'data' they got from their readers. I haven't seen any court cases related to this, but this argument sounds reasonable to me. (If Zogby did a poll, the numerical results of their poll would not be copyrightable, although their presentation might be.) Anyway, I guess it would matter how the lists were generated. If Rolling Stone listed the top 100 albums of all time in the editors' opinions, then this is subjective, so the list is probably copyrighted. But if they just went by album sales, or a reader survey, then it probably wouldn't be, since even a survey is objective data. So anybody want to research how these lists were generated?

I agree, by the way, that it's problematic to use a vote to interpret copyright law. Perhaps a content-based RFC should be filed? – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 13:23, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I would support that, or maybe even doing both at once. Physchim62 (talk) 20:51, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Note: 3 of these lists are listed at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Other. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 21:14, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

USPS Stamp images

Hi, looking for some guidance on possible fair use of {{USPSstamp}} to illustrate the subject on the stamp. If you have any insight, please comment at Wikipedia talk:Image copyright tags#USPS post-1978 stamp images. Thanks. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 15:06, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Catgories for images with/without rationales?

Given that all the fair use tags now also ask for a fair use rationale to be added to the image descibtion page, wouldn't it be helpful if we created categories for fair use image without fair use rationale? Or, alternatively, for those with ones? --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 15:50, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand what you're getting at - do you have an example in mind? Stan 20:06, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking it would be helpful if all the images that, considering the new guidelines, would require a fair use rationale in addition to the licensing tag, but don't have one, would be included in one category. --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 20:57, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I think that something similar to this idea is part of our proposed fair use monitoring idea. However, you'll notice that that link is still a redlink, and I don't think it's going to get off the ground until we clean up overly vague fair use tags. See my next post. JYolkowski // talk 21:25, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Getting rid of Template:Fairuse

Now that all fair use tags have been rewritten, I think that it might be time to look at getting rid of our depreciated tags, and I think that cleaning out their categories is a prerequisite to doing so. So, I'm thinking of revisiting cleaning out Category:Fair use images. I notice that the category seems rather smaller than it used to, so thanks to anyone who has been re-tagging stuff in the past. To complete the job, I'm thinking of doing the following three-step process:

1. Manually view the category in gallery mode, and re-tag anything that obviously looks like a logo, album cover, character artwork, or whatever. My progress through each letter is listed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use/Fair use image sorting; anyone that wants to help out can choose one of the available letters.
2. Export the text of all images remaining in Category:Fair use images and generate some lists of things to re-tag. Once I get to this step, I'll post the lists on Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use/Fair use image sorting. Some examples:
   • Images containing very little or no text in addition to the {{fairuse}} tag likely have no source specified. Since stuff like album covers etc. whose copyright status is obvious were removed in the previous step, any remaining images without descriptions should be tagged as as {{subst:nsd}}.
   • Images that tagged with both {{fairuse}} and a more specific fair use tag should have the {{fairuse}} tag removed.
   • Based on the image description text, it may in some cases be possible to determine a more specific tag to use. To pick one example out of many, images containing the text "[[Category:Images of art]]" could likely be re-tagged as {{art}}.
   • Images tagged with more exotic tags in addition to {{fairuse}} may need further investigation to verify copyright and licence status.
3. Having done that, any remaining images should be re-tagged as {{fair use in}}, {{fairusein2}}, etc. Not sure of the best way of doing this yet.

Any comments are welcome. Thanks, JYolkowski // talk 21:25, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

There are still images using the tag to be deprecated. Shall we replace them?--Jusjih 07:14, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Template:Fair use reduce

Based on a suggestion made on WP:AN, I've created a template (and a corresponding category) for requesting that a fair use image or other file be reduced in size and/or quality. Suggestions and edits are welcome. I'd also like to ask those more familiar with this project to add links to the new template in all the appropriate places, since I'll probably miss some. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 11:23, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

The template says that an admin should delete the original version once a smaller one has been uploaded. Maybe it should also mention where to contact an admin to do this (I personally wouldn't have the slightest idea where). --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 15:16, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, neither do I, an I am an admin. Maybe we should have a second template for that. Perhaps "Fair use reduced"? --Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:44, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. I also checked and the corresponding category (Category:Fair use size reduction request) says the original should be nominate for deletion, but I think that's for files where the new version is uploaded under a new name. (Or is there a way to nominate just an old version of a file for deletion, but keep the current one?)--Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 18:55, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

There is now. See Template:Fair use reduced. I've based it on the existing CSD I5 templates like {{or-fu-re}}. --Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:00, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Wow, that was quick. Well done! --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 19:05, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

How many words is fair use?

from: Chronicle of Higher Education 2-23-2006 [18]

"A fact sheet on fair use published by the U.S. Copyright Office does not say that fair use is limited to a set number of words. It says fair use of a work is permitted for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair-use guidelines published by the office... say that 1,000 words or 10 percent of a work of prose, whichever is less, can be republished. But at least two publishers, Blackwell Publishing and Elsevier, advise authors and editors seeking to make fair use of a book to republish no more than 400 words." Rjensen 09:04, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

How odd. According to the courts, there's no fixed limit. IIRC, there was one case where eight words was judged a copyvio, and another where several thousand was judged to not be. --Carnildo 09:07, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The key is not just how much of the text was used, but what part. There have been cases where relatively small usage was deemed unfair use, because it was reproducing the only part of the book that anyone would buy it for, under the guise of reviewing... a politician's biography with some highly-touted revelations in it, IIRC. However, no-one would have kicked up a fuss had they lifted a few paragraphs from a different section... Shimgray | talk | 09:18, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Note that I directed Rjensen to here from there. Lupo 09:26, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The bottom line in commercial cases is: does the usage damage the market value of the original? If we take less than 10% (the Copyright office guideline) then it's unlikely to cause damage--unless it's the heart of a brand new book. Rjensen 09:39, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I would not rely on that 10% figure; the "Fair use" factsheet from the U.S. Copyright Office, as expected, doesn't say anything like that. See also this FAQ list from the U.S. Copyright Office. Lupo 10:15, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Those 10% guidelines came from a different Copyright office publication: [19] page 8. Publishers and educators came up with safe harbor guidelines, that have been very widely accepted by publishers and educators: "Publishers and the academic community have established a set of educational fair use guidelines to provide "greater certainty and protection " for teachers. While the guidelines are not part of the federal Copyright Act, they are recognized by the Copyright Office and by judges as minimum standards for fair use in education. A teacher or pupil following the guidelines can feel comfortable that a use falling within these guidelines is a permissible fair use and not an infringement. Many judges look to these guidelines when making related fair use determinations. The educational use guidelines can be found in Circular 21, provided by the Copyright Office (lcWeb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ21.pdf )" from [20]

Those 10% guidelines came from a different Copyright office publication: [21] page 8. Publishers and educators came up with safe harbor guidelines, that have been very widely accepted by publishers and educators: "Publishers and the academic community have established a set of educational fair use guidelines to provide "greater certainty and protection " for teachers. While the guidelines are not part of the federal Copyright Act, they are recognized by the Copyright Office and by judges as minimum standards for fair use in education. A teacher or pupil following the guidelines can feel comfortable that a use falling within these guidelines is a permissible fair use and not an infringement. Many judges look to these guidelines when making related fair use determinations. The educational use guidelines can be found in Circular 21, provided by the Copyright Office (lcWeb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ21.pdf )" from [22] Rjensen 10:48, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Template talk:TIME

There's some discussion going on at Template talk:TIME#Usage and Template talk:TIME#Current_wording, and I'd appreciate any comments that anyone has. Thanks, JYolkowski // talk

Deletion info

Maybe I'm missing something somewhere, but where is the admonition not to use fair use unless you can avoid it? And where is the encouragement to list an image on IFD if the image can be replaced by a GFDL compatible license? What about if it is a clear breach of copyright? What about fair use rationales on image description pages? Almost every article that is tagged with the {{TIME}} copyright tag has no fair use rationale. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The last paragraph of {{Restricted use}} does recommend replacement. Clear breach of copyright is a speedy criterion, right? At least that's what I do. Since fair use rationales are a relatively new requirement, it shouldn't be too surprising that it's still spotty. TIME magazine covers are a weird case in that usually we have magazine covers only to illustrate the magazine, but being on the cover of TIME has traditionally been noteworthy in and of itself, and so there are some covers that I think are fairly used. As a first approximation, I'd say the article has to explain why the subject got onto the cover on that day, or why elements of the design are present or omitted (does the Ben A. Jones cover include a racetrack just for eye appeal, or is it a specific track with some significance?). Stan 14:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Fair use reduce

I understand the need for a Fair use reduce tag. However, take a look at a high resolution screenshot for Day of Defeat: Source like Image:Dods.jpg. I did not upload this image, however, I did tag it with Template:Promotional. In the image description, you can find the source of the image, this is the only image which displays the map dod_donner, so I believe the fair use rationale is there.

This screenshot was released by Valve Software for promotional purposes and then uploaded to Wikipedia. Surely, it would be Valve's intentions for the screenshot to be used as is, not to be scaled down or have its quality eroded in some way. A high resolution screenshot of the game would be in the mutual benefits of both the Wikipedia audience and Valve Software. Should this screenshot, and other officially released screenshots be downsized? - Hahnchen 16:15, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

This gets tricky. The important questions of fair use, so far as Wikipedia is concerned, is "Would Wikipedia be seen as competing with the copyright holder?" and "Would the use of this image potentially detract from the value to the copyright holder?" Our fair use guidelines are designed so that the answers to both of these will always be an unambiguous "no". For instance, if a photo of a celebrity is copyright a modeling agency, we want to scale down the image so that it is clear that we are not competing, and so that it doesn't detract from the copyrighted photo's value.

This case is a little different. It seems obvious to me that the value of the screenshot lies in its ability to attract players to buy the game, and not in any inherant property of the image itself. As you say, the use of the full-size image on Wikipedia should increase the value to the copyright holder, not decrease it. If I were on a jury hearing this case, I'd say it was a fair use.

But that's the problem: what if Valve Software (the copyright holder) were to disagree? Some companies can be really stupid about their copyrights, and there's a lot of gray area there. Is a high-quality photo of Vin Diesel simply a way to convince people to see his movies? Or does it have value in itself? Does mp3-swapping encourage people to buy the CDs, or does it discourage people? You might have a valid argument (in your mind) as to why the copyright-holder should be all for your reuse, but unless a the copyright-holder agrees, you'll still be sued, and unless a jury agrees, you'll lose the suit.

I think your best option is to reduce the image's size on Wikipedia, and then write to Valve Software, asking if they mind us using the full-size image. If they say yes, you can use the full-size picture, add a {{permissionandfairuse}} tag, and note the permission on the image's talk page. And if not, we should keep the lower-res image. All the best, – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 16:41, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ta bu shi da yu 2

Hi, I've filed a fair-use-related RfC regarding speedy deleting improperly used images. I'd appreciate the comments of you guys, even if you disagree with me. Cheers, JYolkowski // talk 22:19, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Dealing with bogus claims

A major problem we have is that many images have fair use tags on them where there is no plausible fair use rationale. The problem is particularly acute for casual editors who edit in a fairly limited range of subjects and see Wikipedia narrowly, as a venue for publication of material of interest to them, rather than as the broad project it is. Such casual editors are perhaps conditioned by the world of free web sites and blogs, where copyvios are generally tolerated until a DMCA takedown request is received. These editors see the fair use tags as a reasonable workaround for Wikipedia's otherwise stringent copyright policy.

Sadly, many seasoned Wikipedians have an unjustifiably broad view of fair use. One might speculate that the overall inclusion bias plays a role in this, as well as the fact that we have never done an especially good job of articulating the limitations of fair use on policy pages. In any case, it is difficult to achieve a consensus that a purportedly fair-use image should be deleted.

I believe that some sort of more streamlined process for such deletions is called for, particularly with recently uploaded images. Perhaps we should delete purportedly fair use images in the absence of consensus rather than keep them. Progress is already being made in articulating the handful of cases where fair use images are acceptable here, though loopholes remain; perhaps closing the loopholes is sufficient. I think the Time magazine cover debacle is ample evidence that a supermajority of editors will not agree to delete fair use images if the images are useful and topical, regardless of the strength or weakness of the fair use argument.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 04:28, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Our biggest "bang for the buck", which we are already doing and seems relatively uncontroversial, is to break out categories for which the fair use rationale is a boilerplate, such as corporate logos used on the corporations' pages, album covers, and the like. One can keep subdividing; for instance, photos of deceased persons can't be replaced by a Wikipedian with a camera, so there is a whole category of rationales that include "person is dead" somewhere in them. On the flip side, there are images that are almost never going to be fair use, such as AP photos of sports events. Since these are going to be rare, I don't see any problem with making uploaders jump through higher hoops ("this is the only photo in existence", "it was the only perfect 10 ever scored", etc) - if the picture is as critical as the uploader maintains, then it shouldn't be a problem to come up with the rationale. Processwise I think it's important to come up with more predecided rationale components, so as to minimize the amount of per-image debate, and also to make some estimates of time and effort, so we are actually doing something that will keep up. Stan 05:18, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd suggest the following:

1. CSD I6: Fair use image without a rationale: Any image tagged as "fair use" without a fair-use rationale for at least one of the pages it's used on may be be deleted at any time starting seven days after it was uploaded.
2. CSD I7: Fair use image with a clearly bogus rationale: Any image tagged with any "fair use" tag, with a clearly incorrect rationale (eg. fair use rationale mentioning an event, when the picture is of a person) may be deleted at any time.
3. Removal of images without rationale: Any image used in an article without a fair-use rationale that explicitly applies to that article may be removed at any time by anyone; such removal is exempt from the 3RR.
4. Fast-track deletion of bad fair-use claims: Images that appear to directly contradict one or more of the points at Wikipedia:Fair use#Policy can be listed for fast-track deletion. If, after three days, there is no explanation of why it does not contradict the policy, it will be deleted.
5. Blocking of users: Any user who repeatedly uploads images that fall afoul of one or more of these policies, or who repeatedly inserts fair-use-tagged images in inappropriate articles, may be blocked for periods of up to a week.

--Carnildo 07:31, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Scratch that. First, the entire contents of certain subcategories of Category:Fair use, such as Category:Yu-Gi-Oh!_images and Category:Pokémon images should be shot. Then we should discuss what to do with the rest. --Carnildo 08:34, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, without commenting on the specific encyclopedic merits of Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh!, I'd think single frames from an animation, used to illustrate a character in said animation, would have a much stronger fair use claim than most: they contain only a tiny fraction of the original animation, have no use whatsoever as substitutes for it, and generally promote the original work rather than competing with it. I agree, however, that the card or Pokédex images may have a weaker claim. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 12:32, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Unlike most people, I've actually reviewed Category:Fair use images end-to-end, and there is clearly massive confusion about what constitutes a "fair use rationale" - they range anywhere from "I feel this is fair use", as if "feeling" was somehow significant, to multiple paragraphs linking to relevant bits of the US Code. As we've learned with other initiatives, this kind of administrivia works better with templates and categories than with people composing their own verbiage. It may even be that there is no reason to allow any handcrafted rationales, and we can simply require that all images must be able to choose from a list of pre-approved rationales, each of which connects to extensive description with examples. Stan 14:03, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that's a really good idea. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 14:11, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Factionalism

OK guys, this business of factions is getting irritating. It does not help us if there is one group taking Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use as their policy development locus, and a different group using Wikipedia:Fair use review, and having editwarring over the two. If you look at some of the discussion on the respective talk pages, there is quite a lot of similarity, and everybody involved wants to end up in the same place, so let's stop working at cross-purposes. We need both people to develop better templates, and people to take action once developed, and they aren't necessarily going to be the same people. We don't have to panic about fair use images, but at the same time we absolutely must have process that will keep with the influx. Stan 13:18, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm thinking that fair use review can be used as centralised discussion for images needing fair use review. WikiProject Fair use has not done much on this front thus far -- fair use review is a first step to something, at least. Johnleemk | Talk 10:01, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

It's cool to have the two pages, especially if one is going to get daily updates and the other not. But if they're not cross-referencing each other, that's not so good. Stan 13:47, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Definitely. Johnleemk | Talk 14:10, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Created a tag for sheet music

{{sheet music}}

I hope this is acceptable. One of the things that has bothered me is people taking copyrighted musical compositions, engraving them, and incorrectly releasing them under the GFDL. (It's a different situation with public domain, obviously.) That's like setting the text from some copyrighted book and claiming you then own the copyright. – flamurai (t) 17:46, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I consider the template acceptable, but the burden of proof still rests upon the uploaders to show how fair they are.--Jusjih 07:38, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Postage stamps

One of the messy areas for fair use is postage stamps, because while the source is intrinsically known (country name is right on the image), copyright status is not so easily determined (I've researched this some, but for many countries it's still a mystery), and being honored on a stamp is usually noteworthy in itself, even more than being on the cover of TIME :-) . So I've tried my hand at writing some guidelines at Category:Fair use stamp images - maybe not the best place, but conveniently close to the images themselves. Probably want to be a separate page eventually, since we'll want some specific examples of legit and not-legit. Next step is to try them out on some images (Canadian and US would be best, since recent stamps are definitely known to be copyright), see what needs to be clarified further. Stan 18:28, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Art

First, can someone who has more time than me check what's up with File Upload Bot (Cobalty) (talk · contribs)? This seems to have been a bot that uploaded lots of reproductions of paintings, making PD or fair use claims, but most of these images seem to be of copyrighted artworks. See e.g. Andrew Wyeth, and there are lots more of that kind.

Secondly, when is an artwork published? Circular 40 of the U.S. Copyright Office gives some indications, but doesn't say what's the case with a painting that exists in only one copy. They just state that selling it (including through an auction or gallery, where the work would be exposed to the public) does not constitute publication, and the Berne Convention, §3.3 also says that "the exhibition of a work of art [...] shall not constitute publication" (emphasis mine), and 17 USC 101 concurs: "A public [...] display of a work does not of itself constitute publication." Are such works considered essentially "unpublished" unless facsimiles are produced or reproductions are reprinted in an art book? Wouldn't that mean that most artworks are protected until 70 years after the painter's death in the U.S. (and anywhere else where 70 years p.m.a. applies)? If so, please note that this bot mentioned above also tagged any artwork created prior to 1923 as PD, which would be utterly wrong. Lupo 08:00, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

ACK Lupo. I would like to add that a publication could be made via publishing in printed sources (e.g. newspapers, art magazines) --Historiograf 23:36, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Further summary and discussion at Wikipedia talk:Public domain#Artwork. Lupo 08:57, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Main Page

I didn't think fair use images were allowed on the main page, yet over the last week or so its been done several times... --Admrb♉ltz (T | C) 00:29, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I do not know who picks for the pics to be on the main page. Was this more in the TFA or the Current news sections (or DYK or Today in History..). User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire) Fair use policy} 00:35, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Well the last couple of days it has been the Featured Article, they are doing good w/ the DYK and Current News. --Admrb♉ltz (T | C) 00:36, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok. Then I can suggest to that we could bring it up to the FAC director User:Raul654. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire) Fair use policy} 00:56, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

*nods* though looking at WP:FU there is only a mention that they can not be used in templates, but if the board says OK, it can be in a Main Page Template... --Admrb♉ltz (T | C) 01:44, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Raising the "critical" bar

Getting beyond the TIME flap (which I think was mostly about correct handling of procedure, not fair use in particular), perhaps we should think about raising the bar on what counts as critical and/or analytical use. Currently the bar is set pretty low and we don't have any good examples for people to refer to, but it wouldn't be too hard to draw up some guidelines as to what constituted truly critical/analytical use of images. Personally I don't think it is much of a threat for the most part, but from what I can tell Jimbo and the legal types are made uncomfortable by it. Any thoughts on the best way to pursue this? Obviously there's no clear-cut way to say "this is critical, this is not", but perhaps by route of examples people will be able to figure out whether a given use fits into one category or the other.

For example, the comparison of the two famous O.J. Simpson magazine covers is likely critical use -- we are specifically using them in the article on O.J.'s trial and on photo manipulation as part of a critical reflection on the magazine covers themselves. A magazine cover just used to illustrate the person on the cover, without ample discussion in the text about that specific magazine cover (not just the magazine itself), would probably not count as "critical".

Any other thoughts on how to best go about this? I think if we raised the bar a little bit, it would knock out any problematic cases, and make it a lot easier to nominate problematic cases for deletion. --Fastfission 14:22, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Where does the "critical discussion" bit come from anyway? All I see in Wikipedia:Fair use criteria is "must contribute significantly to the article", which seems rather broader. Perhaps we should agree on what a significant contribution is, for instance "identification" as in "see what it looks like" is apparently uncontroversial, since it's the usual uncontested rationale for album covers and logos and suchlike. Stan 21:52, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

why should we start raising the bar for out editors? It's important not to surrender fair use rights. If an item illustrates one of our articles it qualifies as fair use for a noncommercial educational institution like Wiki. The courts have never imposed a high bar on educators. It is NOT true that the illustration has to be discussed or analyzed or transformed. No legal authority has ever said that regarding educational use. Rjensen 22:04, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

We want to be reusable, including by commercial ventures both on- and offline. Further, we should never rely on "We infringed upon copyright because we thought we could get away with it"; that is neither smart nor what this project is fundamentally about. Jkelly 22:33, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

When we go commercial we will pay the royalties. Until then we are NOT commercial and do not follow the rules that only apply to commercial publishers. Rjensen 22:45, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Unless you're a member of the foundation's board, you're not in a position to say whether "we will pay the royalties". If it ever came to that, I expect Jimbo would direct mass-deletion of fair-use images and that would be the end of the issue. A more realistic possibility is that a third party would want to publish a for-profit encyclopedia using WP content, as the GFDL carefully allows. They might or might have to scrub out fair-use images. If we're sloppy about fair use, then they would have to get rid of all of those images, even if articles end up in a poor state ("as you can clearly see in the image at left"). Stan 00:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

The "critical" aspect comes up on WP:FU and a number of the templates, but it is not well defined or illustrated in either. As for whether we should raise the bar, I think it would just make things much more legally tight and make our policy easier to follow. It would also remove one of the major points of contention for the critics of WP's fair use policy, which is that it can be very, very loose on things like this. In any case, whether one thinks we should raise the bar too high, we should at least seek to clarify this part of the policy. I suspect the de facto effect will be a tightening, but am happy to see what happens with it if we dare to discuss it a bit. --Fastfission 00:53, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Two things I forgot: I think "identification" is really, really weak, and am not sure what the legal justification of it is, and think it might need at least some writing out somewhere so that we can refer people to it. As for "educational" -- we are not an educational institution under any strict definition, though we are noncommercial. But anyway -- I think our fair use policy should try to be as "portable" as possible, in accordance with our free content commitments. Obviously there are limits to that if one uses fair use at all, but I think relying upon the educational nature stresses that to the point of real implausibility. In any case, what I'm recommending more than anything else is really trying to nail down exactly what these vague terms mean, and try to work up some sort of carefully thought out justification for them. --Fastfission 00:57, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Wiki is an educational institution, accorting to the US Internal Revenue Service. The Wikimedia Foundation has been approved by them as a 501c3 foundation with the NTEE Code: B60 (Adult, Continuing Education). The ruling was made in 2005. Rjensen 01:39, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I wasn't aware that was their particular 501 status. But anyway, I think my general point still stands. --Fastfission 03:55, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

"Identification" I think is pretty easy, for instance, in the case of symbols. You could have a lengthy verbal description of Apple Computer's rainbow logo and talk about how famous it is, and still the reader won't necessarily make the connection with "oh, that symbol". The argument is even stronger for historical logos, as they start to disappear from the net. Surely some legal eagle has written all this up, we should find it. On the educational institution aspect, we use the GFDL because we want for-profit entities to be able to re-use the content, so although the fair use might be rationalized for WP itself as "purely educational", it doesn't help for other parts of our mission. That's why we forbid people to upload their own images under any sort of noncommercial-use-only license, for instance. Stan 04:01, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

University employees' headshots

Do headshots of university employees (professors, assistants, etc.) like this one, used in Stanley Gartler, truly fall under {{publicity}}? If not, what would be the right way to tag such images? (This uploader, BTW, has tagged as {{cc-by-2.5}} a number of images just ripped from other websites that give no indication whatsoever that they'd publish their images under this license.) Lupo 19:45, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Anecdotally, these headshots are often submitted to the institution by the faculty without any indication of where they came from (ie My friend takes a picture of me that I like and I submit it with my bio, ideally with some kind of gentlemen's agreement with my friend). Template:Publicity is for pictures created as a "work for hire". It may be that some headshots on university websites were actually created under such a contract, but it is by no means a safe bet. Jkelly 20:08, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

In fact, see WP:AN: I have the strong feeling that this uploader will soon edit under a new username :-( Lupo 10:47, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, 90% of those headshots have an obscure legal status. Ironically, that makes the fair use claim stronger, because an uncredited amateur willingly giving over a photo for publication is not being harmed or infringed upon by our reuse of the picture. It would be good to have a separate bin for all of these - something like "published by employer, ultimate origin uncertain". For living academics, it should be easy for student Wikipedians with cameras to get a photo with a clearer status, so the template could include an automatic "fairusereplace". Stan 13:06, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Copyright gurus/wankers needed

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 March 13#Template:PD-CAGov - I need someone who actually knows their stuff to look into this. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 00:26, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Another one - Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 March 23#Template:PD-NCGov. Basically, does "property of the people" mean anything? --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 20:38, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Strangely enough, I lived in both states, so I know where I can take a peek about copyright laws. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 20:46, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Retiring the "fairuse" template

I've noticed several instances of people responding to lack of source information by adding {{fairuse}}. Since there's really no way to have legitimate new uses of this template, I'm thinking it's time to close off the loophole and retire it; use a bot to go through and do subst's on the existing image pages, then delete the template altogether. Any botmasters that want to sign up for the substitution step? Stan 20:57, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to retire it, but I'm not sure subst'ing is the best way to go about it. It's fairly easy for me to change {{fairuse}} to {{fairusein|somewhere}}, and it's more cumbersome when it's substed. Maybe if we rename the tag {{fairuseobsolete}}, people will be less likely to use it? – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 22:50, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Aieee.. please don't subst it. It would be better to just rename it to old-fairuse-tag-if-you-use-this-on-a-new-image-the-image-will-be-deleted or something and fixup all the images still using it. If you subst it it will make automated image management stuff more error prone. Better I think would be to continue to leave the tag but convert it into a "fairuse classification and justification request" ... which would probably apply just fine to all the images still using it. --Gmaxwell 22:56, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

The template already tells people not to use it, but that won't necessarily inhibit people much in the little game of whack-a-mole that is starting to develop as miscreants look for ways to escape the no-source/no-license hammer. Looking at recent changes for Category:Fair use images, I see more Roomba action than anything else, so maybe it's just isolated incidents at this point. Stan 23:33, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Roomba is bursty so it tends to roll off whatever was on related changes quickly whenever I do a new run. Think it would be useful for me to start making reports of things which were previously nosource/nolicense which end up with a fair use tag? ... How about a list of 'fairuse' tagged images which don't have an external link? :) --Gmaxwell 23:53, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I looked at the last week's worth of edits more closely, and don't even see 10 additions that might be misuses, so I'm thinking this is not an actual problem yet. Between no-source and orphan deletions, the category is shrinking considerably, so perhaps it can be emptied out and the template deleted for lack of uses before anybody notices... Stan 01:38, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Image board

I would honestly fall into the "ignorant" image uploaders category - no doubt about it. To curb the problem that already exists, I say that any new "fair use" uploads have a new, fresh template, like a "prodfairuse." Very similar to CDVF or recent changes, a team can then sit there, watch all the image uploads, review them, and upon passing a "fair use" checklist, the prod can be replaced with "passfairuse." If not, give it the boot. Intellectual property and illegal image uploads should be treated as any other vandalism. Well maybe not precisely like vandalism, but there should be a more quick and tidy response. --Jay(Reply) 18:49, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Where is that template?!?

I'm looking for a template that says something like, "This image has been replaced by free image {{{1}}}}." I can't find it anywhere; I've looked at WP:FAIR, here, and other pages. I first saw it on an image page, but that image has already gone through IFD and I can't find it elsewhere. Can anybody point me to the template name? Hbdragon88 21:03, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Sounds similar to {{Fair use replace}}, but that's for requests, not fufilled requests... ~MDD4696 22:41, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Close Mdd, its {{Fair use replaced}}, add the d. Admrb♉ltz (t • c • b • p • d • m) 22:50, 26 April 2006 (UTC) Hrm... I was wrong... if you read the cat page that fairusereplace feeds into it says just list it on ifd... Admrb♉ltz (t • c • b • p • d • m) 22:51, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

{{Orphaned fairuse replaced}}. Jkelly 23:35, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much. *tags the two imges with or-fc2* Hbdragon88 04:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

New templates for a new criterion

Brand-new speedy criterion I6 says "Any image tagged only with {{fairuse}} or {{fairusein}}, with no fair use rationale, may be deleted seven days after it was uploaded. Images uploaded before 4 May 2006 should not be deleted immediately; instead, the uploader should be notified that a fair-use rationale is needed." In light of this, I think we need a new template for user talkpages along the lines of "You uploaded image XXX.jpg under a claim of fair use. Please provide a detailed rationale on the image description page of why you feel the image is necessary for understanding the article. Images with no such rationale can be deleted after seven days." There should also be a template to put on the image itself that sorts it into a dated category like "Fair-use images with no rationale as of 10 May 2006" so that admins can delete the images that have been there long enough. What do you think? Angr (t • c) 13:48, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I made {{Fairuse rationale needed}}. Johnleemk | Talk 12:41, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Cool, thanks! Is there one for use on the uploader's talk page? Angr (t • c) 13:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

{{Image fairuse rationale}} should do the trick. Johnleemk | Talk 13:42, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Fair use review?

Is Wikipedia:Fair use review still active? I put up a request for a fair use review nine days ago and no one has responded. Angr (t • c) 13:59, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Magazine cover fair use too restrictive - perhaps a full ban instead?

As anyone following the magazine cover fair use saga is aware, articles across Wikipedia are being altered by magazine cover images being removed because the current Fair Use rationale omits their use to illustrate the subjects featured on the cover. I cannot fathom that the copyright law prohibits this - it must be a mistake. Why can we not show a magazine cover -- properly sourced, copyright noted, etc. of course -- to illustrate the work of a magazine model, for example? Or a TV show featured on TV Guide? I've yet to have anyone show me conclusive proof that this use of magazine covers violates any copyright -- when I ask all I get are snarky comebacks saying "ask the US government". Personally I think that's BS. Someone quote me chapter and verse where it's actually prohibited by the government -- or is Wikipedia just playing the Cover Your Ass game? If people are so sensitive to magazine use, then I'd like to recommend the use of magazine covers be outright banned since people are just going to continue to upload them. While we're at it, let's get rid of all the book covers, comic book covers, DVD/video covers, movie posters ... hell why not just make this entire place text-only? 23skidoo 11:55, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, magazine covers are protected as a fair use under federal copyright law (See Kelly v. Arriba-Soft, 03 C.D.O.S. 5888 (9th Cir. 2003)). No corporation could successfully sue for the kind of fair use seen on Wikipedia. However, litigation is expensive and the mere possibility of being sued limits actual fair use everywhere. My guess is that Wikipedia is afraid of this kind of threat. I would personally like to see large, visible organizations like Wikipedia take charge of efforts to assert the right to widespread fair use of copyrighted material. Redkern 17:57, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

We can't tell whether the use is actually banned until the courts rule on it. Therefore, until they do, better safe than sorry. We can at least guarantee a modicum of safety if we (quoting verbatim from the magazine fair use template) "illustrate the publication of the issue of the magazine in question". That is almost certainly fair use, because we are discussing that issue. As an example, if Hitler was featured in Time, the cover would almost definitely be fair use if we discussed that issue of Time's coverage of Hitler, and its significance. Otherwise, what we are doing is simply illustrating Hitler, which competes with the original use of the cover -- to illustrate Hitler. It's a confusing concept, but you have to bear in mind (from fair use in a nutshell): "Don't compete with the work you are quoting or copying from. If the use diminishes the market for the copyrighted work (or portions of it), including revenues from licensing fees, it is probably not a fair use." The purpose of Time's cover images are to depict their subject, so we cannot have only that same purpose in mind when reusing those images; we must at the very least use them for another purpose as well, and the safest (and usually easiest) one would be to discuss the issue in question and its coverage of the subject. Johnleemk | Talk 12:35, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I for one would not be in the least sorry to see all fair-use images gone from English Wikipedia. Other Wikipedias--the German one, for example--get along just fine using only public-domain and free-licensed images. Angr (t • c) 12:37, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, I can think of many valid reasons fair use should be permissible -- most images tagged with {{Historical_image}}, for instance. Unfortunately, the vast majority of fair use images are just not...fair use. Johnleemk | Talk 12:57, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

That license too is being misused. Image:Adam-Walsh.jpg, Image:AmberFrey.jpg, and Image:Anitacobby.jpg (just to pick three from the first page at the category) are certainly not being used to illustrate a historic event. Angr (t • c) 13:10, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

(Amusing note, the first most likely gets the copyright holder wrong, the last provides no source/copyright holder data, also don't say historic event... the criteria for that tag is that the image itself is historic :) --Gmaxwell 02:51, 16 May 2006 (UTC))

Which is why I say most. (Perhaps not most, even, but still -- definitely a substantial number.) Johnleemk | Talk 13:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I have looked at hundreds of historical articles on Wiki and have not yet seen an example that was not fair use. The fact that an illustration relates to the article directly makes it fair use--there is no need to comment further on the illustration. Rjensen 13:37, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Not so. Otherwise magazine covers could be used under fair use. (Well, maybe they can, but currently given how courts have interpreted the law, they probably can't.) Image:AmberFrey.jpg is definitely not fair use at all. Given the fact that it was taken from a media source, and is not itself iconic (AFAIK), according to WP:FU, it's not fair use -- media images which are not in themselves iconic hardly ever are. Johnleemk | Talk 13:46, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I need some help here. The user Rjensen has being modifying what the {{Magazinecover}} template says according to his own views, ignoring all discussions we currently having. I can't revert it anymore. It's simply incoherent that the current text in {{Magazinecover}} is less restrictive that what is said on {{TIME}}. {{Magazinecover}} now says that magazine covers may be used to to illustrate an article, or part of an article, which specifically describes the issue in question or its cover. PLEASE, wait for some consensus before making such changes, Rjensen. And someone please rv that (and maybe protect the page) --Abu Badali 21:20, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Please wait for a consensus before imposing restrictions on editors. Rjensen 22:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

You have it backwards - for anything nonfree we start by disallowing it, and entertain arguments to allow. Note that we take into account WP's overall goals of freeness, that nobody has donated enough to create a legal defense fund against the likes of a Sony or Newscorp, and that as a highly visible website we can't hope that nobody will notice copyright violations. Stan 00:16, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

You can't make up restrictions out of thin air. Rjensen 00:34, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

They aren't made up out of thin air. Copyright law around the world is remarkably uniform. In the US and most other countries creative works are automatically copyrighted. When a work is copyrighted only the copyright holder is permitted to do certain things. These include reproduction, derivative works, and other actions. There are certain situations in which other people gain the ability to perform some or all of these actions under some or all conditions. For example, the copyright holder can grant a license to you. Or your action might be found to be permissible as fair use. However the default is deny. Thus we will not knowingly distribute copyrighted works without a fairly high degree of confidence that our distribution is legal. "I didn't know of any restrictions" is not a defense while "I knew I was permitted because" is a defense against a copyright claim. Because our project's goal is to produce a free content encyclopedia, taking a legal course is no obstruction. --Gmaxwell 02:58, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

the notion that the Wiki article has to talk about the magazine containing the image is pure invention and helps the cause not at all. (Legally speaking, Wiki articles themselves are transformative uses of the image.) Rjensen 03:04, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

It's an invention that errs on the side of caution. I've already written a detailed explanation above of why this is so. Johnleemk | Talk 03:42, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure you understand the requirements of fair use. Something doesn't just magically become fair use when you use it in someplace else and bandy about the word 'transformative'. Think of it this way. A photographer took a stunning photograph of George Bush. Time wanted to increase the quality of their coverage of an upcoming GWB article so they paid the photographer $20,000 for the exclusive rights to it. Time publishes the image on their cover, knowing that people will be attracted to their coverage of GWB because of the stunning image. We like the cover to, so we make a scan (or pull it from the section of TIME's site where they sell framed covers).. stick it on the article. Now people read our article instead, as we're cheaper and have the same eye catching photo. The details are cooked... although we do compete with TIME, we are not in direct competition, but the model is fundamentally correct. Fair use exists to prevent copyright holders from crushing public discourse, academic study, and critical review. It does not exist so that we can take photographs from groups who paid a lot for them without compensation just to make our articles better. Some interesting cases to look up: Ringgold v. Black Entertainment, and Roy Export Co. v. Columbia Broadcasting. In the second case, keep in mind that when we just take the cover to use it's image (and not talk about the mag.) the copyright in question isn't the copyright of the magazine, but of the cover photograph which is a free standing work worth many thousands of dollars, for which TIME may not even be the copyright holder. --Gmaxwell 04:08, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I protected the template. Aren't all of these templates supposed to be protected?--Peta 02:00, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Why? They haven't attracted vandalism so far, have they? Dr Zak 13:58, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

No, but they do attract people trying to use them to re-write copyright law, which is worse. --Carnildo 18:25, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Protecting them is kind of un-wiki. I mean, you don't improve people's attitude by protecting a page, you do that by engaging them in discussion. Dr Zak 18:31, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Separate fair use rationale page?

Hello, since missing fair use rationale is a speedy deletion criteria, I propose to write a separate guideline page on fair use rationales giving plenty examples. Right ow all info about the rationale is somewhere buried in the Help:Image page.

What would be completely awesome: a fair use tutorial similar to Wikipedia:Introduction for those completely not familiar with the concept. Renata 19:04, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Absolute Rule

Absolute Rule

I have been told that there is Absolutely No Fair use rational for Fair use Images on a user page. I Do not Believe in Absolutes and I believe the rules themselves are not what is important but rather the meaning behind the rules. Different people interpret things differently and I would like to address this Absolute problem.

When can a Fair use Image be placed un user space.

1. Sandboxes.
   • If you want to write an article first and then transfer it to the main space.
2. Saving a private copy.
   • Copying something form the main space to you user space so you don’t lose it incase it gets deleted or edited.
3. When directly talking about what the image represents.
4. When the person who created the image gives you permission
   • The sight implies they want the image to be used this way
   • The person has given consent to use the image on user space without releasing other rights to the image

I feel these issues need to be addressed properly and do not fit under a blanket policy.

You may want to see our article on webhosting for information on how one can set up personal pages on the web without dealing with the Wikimedia Foundation's rules about unfreely-licensed content. Jkelly 03:46, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I know abuot WP:NOT. While I don't think reasonable peple will argue about fair use on a Userspace sandbox, one instace that is under alot of debate is using a fair use Thumbnail sized immage in a userbox expressing your byist to a company. Forinstace if i want to let peple know that I Love Spongebob and I admit my biase on my userpage while i edit artiles about Spongemob a thumbnail image of sponge bob should be fair use. If i habe a Bias and love Google i should be able to have an immage. If i want to say that i have an Uncyclopidia account i should be able to include the uncyclopidia thumbnale icon nexto the link. Theses are times that the immage is useful. I personally like userboxes that link to articles about subjects we are interested. It aids in navigain and a fair use image would be ideal to locate theoes articles.--E-Bod 04:13, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

The only one there that makes any sense is "If you want to write an article first and then transfer it to the main space." The others are not very justifiable. If you want to save a private copy, do so to your own computer. If you want to make private backups, the same goes with that. When talking to a person about the image, just link to it inline (just add a colon before the Image: part, i.e. [[:Image:Filename.png]]). We don't do "with permission" on Wikipedia, we don't go with the "implication" of the site, and we don't allow images whose permissions are only for use on user pages at the current time. Your arguments about why should be allowed to have certain images do not seem to take into account any actual aspects of the law -- you seem to just be stating what you think ought to be the way the world works, and not trying to discuss things in terms of how it actually works. "Usefulness" is not a criteria for fair use. --Fastfission 04:12, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Fair Use from a legal stand point Explains Legally why some of your Fair use inforces are taking things too far.--E-Bod 20:32, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Proper removal

When enforcing Fair use I feel we need to clarify how to do that. I feel it is unacceptable to not inform a user that they have removed a fair use image from their user page. I feel a user who removes fair use violations should evaluate if it is a fair use violation. Many Wikipedian have been offended when their user space losses something personal. I think that instead of removing the fair use violations if they have already been up for a while a message should be left on the talk page asking the user to remove it themselves and only removing the image if they refuse. Removing fair use images from user space is a delicate issue and proper technique should be used to avoid conflict. A user who removes fair use images form user space and receives loads of complaints on their talk page should reconsider if there is a better way to get rid of the fair use images without offending the user who has it. User should be bold but we should not be bold when tit may lead to WP:BITE--E-Bod 03:39, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

At the moment we have a pretty clear rule about fair use images in the userspace, though I do agree that people should be polite about it, and should probably ask the user to remove it themself first, just for the sake of not stepping on people's toes. I think people do regard their userspace as something they have some control over, and it is a good idea to respect that when possible, for the sake of avoiding conflict. --Fastfission 04:14, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Proposed merge

I do not understand why there are two articles: Wikipedia:Fair use review and Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use they seem to cover the same exact material. I suggest they be merged.Travb (talk) 11:50, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Fair use review is for requesting another look at the status of fair use for certain images. This WikiProject is for addressing fair use problems in general. Johnleemk | Talk 13:17, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Scratches head--okay--I will remove it.Travb (talk) 14:16, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Quick question about rationale

I've read what I can about this in existing discussions, but honestly I get bogged down in the details pretty quickly. My question is: are the new(er) specific fair use image tags (e.g. {{film-screenshot}}) sufficient for providing fair use rationale for the images that use them? This seems to be one of their purposes as indicated by #1 on this page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use. If so, why does the tag ask for detailed rationale? And what would I include in such a rationale beyond what is already stated in the tag? Staecker 18:32, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Music samples

I thought that someone here may be interested in the proposed guideline at Wikipedia:Music samples. One of the most important issues that is currently discussed is the quality of the fair use samples (see Wikipedia talk:Music samples). Your input would be very appreciated. Jogers (talk) 15:07, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Multiple uses - some fair, others not fair use

I have been searching for a guideline for how to deal with images that are licenced as fair use images that are being displayed in several locations, where some adhere to the fair use rationale and others don't. I have listed two such images with {{Fair use disputed}}, but I feel there's not much more that I can do. The two instances I have come across are Image:Tv 30 second to fame south africa.JPG and Image:IAO-logo.png. __meco 12:34, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

In general, I'd suggest just removing (or commenting out) the image from the pages where it has been inappropriately used. I've done just that for the two images you mentioned. Actually, the former image has a number of other problems: it was way too big for a fair use image (I've resized it), it has no source information, and it certainly doesn't seem to be a TV screenshot even though it's tagged as one. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 14:44, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Discussion about SVG Logos

There is a bit of a discussion about SVG logos and fair use located here. Does this check out? Thanks, GChriss 21:48, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair use images in lists

See Wikipedia:Fair use/Fair use images in lists for a request for comment about the use of fair use images in lists. This RFC arose out of a dispute about the use of images on list of Lost episodes and has grown beyond that article to have broader significance for lists generally. Please join the discussion if you are interested in this issue. --bainer (talk) 04:57, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Possibly relevant image sampling data

See User:ESkog/ImageSurvey. (ESkog)^(Talk) 06:30, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

New image templates to supplement fair use

I have created two supplementary templates for use in conjunction with fair use tags and added them to a few image descriptions; see {{old-50}} and {{old-70}}. One is for images whose author died 50 years ago, and one for 70 years. The purpose of these templates is to let our users who live outside the U.S. know that the images might be public domain in their own country and they might be able to re-use them in ways that Wikipedia (and Americans) cannot. Take a look at the templates and tell me what you think. Andrew Levine 13:05, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm wondering how the text of {{old-70}} jibes with the text of {{PD-old-70}}. User:Angr 13:33, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

{{PD-old-70}} is a license tag for image where the copyright has expired both in the U.S. and in "Life+70 Or Less" countries. {{old-70}} is a template (not valid as a license) for images which are still copyrighted in the U.S., but not in those other countries. It and {{old-50}} are meant to identify images that have been tagged as fair use on Wikipedia, but which are PD in certain other jurisdictions. For example, a work first published post-1923, made by an author who died pre-1936, is public domain in almost every country in the world, but might not be in the U.S. Andrew Levine 13:54, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I thought the U.S. was a life+70 country. User:Angr 14:09, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it's currently the longer of life+70 and 95 years in the U.S. Andrew Levine 16:40, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) The U.S. is not a "life+70" country. That applies only to works published 1978 or later, or to unpublished works that were not published between 1978 and 2002 inclusive and where the author is known. Indeed works of an author who died 1935 or earlier, but that were published post-1922 may still be copyrighted in the U.S. For other works, the rules vary between "95 years since publication", "120 years since creation", or "at least until the end of 2047". See Peter Hirtle's chart for a good summary, or see WP:PD. Lupo 16:44, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Promotional images

There is a debate over the fair use claim of promotional materials at Wikipedia:Copyright problems#July 6, 2006 which might interest some here, and which would benefit from additional input. A large number of images are involved, including many more that haven't been listed yet, making it an important matter. -Will Beback 18:58, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Abusive use of fair use tagged images is rampant

Beginning in February of this year, I've taken it upon myself to remove images from places where they were used in violation of Wikipedia:Fair use criteria item #9. As part of this work, I spent two months going through literally every single userbox in existence to remove such violations. I completed the work on userboxes in late May of 2006. Just recently, I went back through all userboxes starting with "User A" and found more violations, equivalent to about half the violations I'd found during the last pass through that section. Note that these are not reverts of my work, but new violations. This tells me the work in removing the violations was futile. In total, I've done approximately 1100 edits removing fair use image violations. Net result; there's still thousands upon thousands upon (probably) tens of thousands of violations.

I once suggested having a code change that would prevent the display of fair use tagged images outside of the main article namespace, as this would solve the problem. I was insulted for the suggestion and since dropped it. I've since proposed a bot to handle the removals, and have not had any takers.

The reality is manual removal of these violations is insufficient to the task of managing these abuses. Further, there's no apparent desire to come up with another method to solve the situation. --Durin 21:09, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

You are suggesting a technical solution to a social problem. What is going to happen is that people will upload new pretty images and mis-tag those to display them where they shouldn't. People are enraged enough about Orphanbot when it removes the pictures from their userpage.

On a more positive note, the other day I started going through Category:Fair use images of United States postage and removed images in articles where they were mis-used (i.e. where it was not the stamp that was discussed). So far none of those improperly used images has gone back up. Dr Zak 21:21, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• I've been told before that this is a technical solution for a social problem. The core issue here is that it is a LEGAL problem first and foremost. I'm quite aware that people will upload images and mistag them to circumvent the technical solution were it implemented. I'm also quite aware of the grief that people feel from orphanbot. I place the need of Wikipedia to protect itself against copyright infringement lawsuits above the feelings of those people who want to violate our policies and often copyright law. What I've posted above is more of a plea; the fair use image violations are rampant and manual management of the situation is failing. If the best response we can come up with for this is that it's a social problem, therefore there's nothing we can do, then I fear it's going to take a major copyright lawsuit against Wikipedia before anything substantial is done. --Durin 21:36, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I am personally using Random Image to go through images and I managed to knock out a few fair use images that way. The problem I am seeing now is that Durin says; a social issue. People think that since we are an encyclopedia, we can use everything under fair use. They do not keep in mind the people who reuse our content; the mirrors, the people that use us for papers. I also agree with Durin that it has to take something big in order for anything to be done on Wikipedia, just like anything else. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 21:49, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

What I am saying is that a technical solution will not encourage clueless newbies that are unaware of the difference between "free-as-in-beer" and "free-as-in-speech" to learn about the crucial difference. What is needed is the consistent application of Orphanbot, combined with a stick, that is with substantial blocks and bans. Dr Zak 21:56, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• What I'm saying is the status quo is failing us. We are already using orphanbot. We are already using sticks. I've done more than a thousand violation removals and never had to block anyone, though I have had to warn about the possibility of it. I am far from being the only doing this sort of work, but all of our efforts combined have utterly failed in stemming the tide of fair use image violation usage. It is rampant, and getting worse all the time. The tools available are insufficient to the task. --Durin 22:07, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I think Durin is right; we need to turn things around so that it takes less time to get rid of unfree-image abuse than it does to engage in it, and that means some kind of technical solution. Nonsense vandalism is a "social problem" that we have no problem applying a technical solution to. We may well be past the point where we can assume that most Wikipedia editors are going to respect our image use policy and Wikipedia:Fair use criteria if only they are pointed to them. Jkelly 22:22, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The most likely technically solution would be to ban new users from makeing image uploads.Geni 15:10, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

If a clueless newbie tries to add a logo to their user page and gets a "This is Not Allowed: see here for details" message, this will keep the violations down and educate. If they then go and GFDL tag the logo to get around this then sure, bring out the "stick". I would wholehearted encourage a __MAINSPACEONLY__ marker for fair use images, or even better (but sligtly more complicated) an access control list for fair use images i.e. "this image may only be used on: ....", enforced by software. This could also be applied to NSFW images that are frequently used for vandalism. ed g2s • talk 23:00, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I would not be quite so pessimistic as some posters, although I have had my fair share of insults on image tagging issues. As with vandalism, it is a minority of users who cause the vast majority of problems and they should be dealt with without mercy. If an image is only used in a userbox (or elsewhere on a userpage), delete it. No warning, no removal. Blatant violations of fairuse policy in article space should be dealt with similarly (I have deleted a couple of galleries of pornstar photos, for example), although removal of the images from the page is necessary in this case. The janitor doesn't have to knock on every door before he sweeps the staircase... --Physchim62 (talk) 14:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

That is what we do, but the point being made in the first post is that this is a never-ending task, and one that would be greatly reduced if we had software limitations on where a fair use image could be used. ed g2s • talk 01:54, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

TV Screenshot Policy

Is it legitimate to take screenshots of movies or TV shows for the purpose of depicting a single person on Wikipedia, such a sports player, or a place such as a sports stadium? If they are, is it required that the station logo be kept intact on the screenshot or must it be removed? Cheers, --mdmanser 12:04, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it isn't. The screenshot tags say screenshots can only be used to depict the television show or movie in question. User:Angr 13:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok thanks for clarification. --mdmanser 14:37, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

..."or its contents"? I've always thought that it's OK so long as the bio discusses the source of the image. The JPS^{talk to me} 11:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I've also always thought "or its contents" allowed the image to be used to identify as per User:The JPS's comments. I would definitely remove the logo. The copyright for the logo is not going to be necessarily owned by the same entity that owns the copyright for the image in question, therefore to use the image intact we would need to justify fair use for both the image and the logo. We could make a case for the image, but could make no case whatsoever for the logo as the logo is never going to be part of the discussion. Rossrs 12:03, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair use images cannot be used for "simple illustration", so that would seem to answer the initial question. A TV logo should be kept in place if referring to the coverage of a particular station of a particular event, as it is relevant to the discussion. Physchim62 (talk) 15:37, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's an example of what I don't think counts as fair use: Image:Tracyannoberman.jpg. It is being used to illustrate Tracy-Ann Oberman, not This Morning (she was merely interviewed on This Morning, and doesn't seem notable enough to mention it in the article). The JPS^{talk to me} 11:37, 30 July 2006 (UTC) P.S. a second opinion and comment of the article's talk page would be welcomed. The JPS^{talk to me} 11:37, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

This is exactly what I tried to clarify in Template_talk:Tv-screenshot#Question on use in May, by asking "Or for example a tv-screenshot of a building, is it usable in an article about the building?" If there is a documentary about world's 100 most famous buildings, is it allowable to freeze frame and screen capture all of them and use them in 100 articles about the buildings with fair use license? I would guess that is not fair use. I think this example is similar to User:The JPS's question, one takes screenshots (and crops them) of all This Morning guests, claims fair use and uses them on articles about the guests just to illustrate the subject, not for critical commentary, nor are the screenshots relevant to the article (other than to illustrate), and without relevant discussion in the article (having a line that this and this was in that show, is not discussion!) - is a violation of fair use. feydey 13:23, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Policy

Wikipedia:Fair_use_criteria/Amendment 2. ed g2s • talk 11:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone looked at {{Character-artwork}} recently?

Virtually everything in Category:Fair use character artwork is copyvio or mistagged. If it is fan art, it is NOT a valid example of fair use. If it is a screenshot of a TV character, it can be tagged as tv-screenshot. Is there any logical reason for this template? Cleaning it out is going to be a nightmare - it is huge - but I really think we need to stop further use. Any thoughts? BigDT 02:17, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a steaming pile. So are most of the other fair-use categories, and many of the free-license categories. So what else is new? --Carnildo 03:22, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

My prefered on is still {{Promotional}}. It works as a free ticket to upload almost anything found on the internet. --Abu Badali 04:03, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Should we try and clean-up the category, then redirect this template into the promotional template? User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 04:07, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

IMHO there are some images that fall into this category. Hand-drawn images (not fan art) of video game characters, for example, that come from manuals. Like Carnildo says, it's just like the other categories. The only thing we can do is just tackle them as we see 'em. howcheng {chat} 05:46, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a mess, but cast my vote for most irritating and seriously abused tag for {{Promotional}} too. At least this character artwork meets our FUC#1 and isn't hindering our acquisition of free content (unless we're looking for fan art that may or may not still infringe on its model's copyright). ×Meegs 06:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

We can't even get the long-deprecated {{fairuse}} removed... Stan 04:13, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah ... there's a lot that's bad. Let me run this idea by everyone. What if we were to have templates like {{fairusein-confirmed}}, {{promotional-confirmed}}, {{logo-confirmed}}, etc? When someone from this project or who is familiar with copyrights and the doctrine of fair use reviews an image and confirms that it is appropriate, they could replace {{fairusein}} with {{fairusein-confirmed}}. The problem is that right now there are eleventy billion allegedly "fair use" images and there is no way to even begin to go through them all. Even if we got organized and assigned everyone a letter of the alphabet or some such thing, new images are being uploaded constantly, so there is no way to know what you or someone else has reviewed vs what is brand new. But the -confirmed templates would give us a way of doing that. Sure, there will be some people who will try to game the system and tag their own images with -confirmed just like right now, they tag them with PD-self even though they are obviously ripped from some random website. But, that's the exception, rather than the rule. IMO, this would be a way to start trying to sort out some of the image copyright woes. Any thoughts? BigDT 18:54, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe {{reviewedfairuse}} is the template you're looking for. howcheng {chat} 20:10, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but there's a difference. What I was hoping for is some kind of "unreviewed fair use" category or other way of determining which fair use images have not yet been reviewed without clicking on every image. Is that possible to do somehow? BigDT 20:26, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The "reviewed" images are something like 0.01% of the total, so chances are pretty good that a randomly-chosen image is unreviewed. Instead of a "confirmed", which is too vague (and don't underestimate people's willingness to mass-apply a template), I would like to see templates for source, different parts of rationale, etc, so that every image will have a different set. Another ambitious thing would be to have a bot mass-tag images as needing rationales or whatever, then work to empty out those categories. Stan 00:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair use and magazines

• It has been my impression that, for an article about a particular magazine, (say Time (magazine)) that under Fair Use, one could take basically any cover of Time and use it to illustrate the article, and have no (c) problems. An admin (who I will not name b/c I like him, don't want people flamebaiting him, and b/c he's not the problem, the policy is) recently told me that covers can only be used to depict the publication of that particular issue, as in "this issue's cover generated lots of press", not "this magazine, as depicted in its july cover, generated lots of press." That would mean having to remove the cover images from virtually every magazine article. Based on my legal research and good-faith interpretation of 17 U.S.C. § 107, we would be coming nowhere close to a (c) violation by changing the fair use policy to allow this use of covers, because:

1. "the purpose and character of the use, ... is for nonprofit educational purposes";
2. "the nature of the copyrighted work" is to advertize the magazine itself, which Wikipedia would be doing by reprinting the cover;
3. "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole" is not a concern, hence our reason for allowing covers of things in the first place; and
4. "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." would be positive, since we would not harming the market for back-issues.

Comments, please? --M@rēino 19:38, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Fair use criteria is much more restrictive than the usual interpretations of the United States fair use doctrine. Time (magazine) looks resonable to me at the moment, except that we probably don't need two covers to illustrate the "Person of the Year" concept. Jkelly 19:54, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Magazines should be used to illustrate the issue in question, not just as a useful picture of the person. ed g2s • talk 19:59, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

An image of the "Person of the Year" would be usable to illustrate any/all of the following: (a) The specific issue of the magazine (b) the magazine in general (c) the concept of the Person of the Year (d) the person named as "Person of the Year" if and only if their being named as the Person of the Year is discussed in that person's article. Johntex\^talk 21:34, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with JohnTex. The problem is that right now, editors are deleting uses (b) and (d).--M@rēino 21:39, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure about (b), but I belive we really dont need to use the image in (d). The information "John Smith was Time's Magazine person of the year 2006" can be fully stated without the aid of an image (as I have done right now!). The image use would be highly illustrative and hardly informative, as it would not be adding any essential information to the article. --Abu Badali 00:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

As to JKelly's remarks: I know that currently the Wikipedia Fair Use criteria are much more restrictive an US fair use law. That's why I propose this small liberalization. My proposal would make it easier to supply useful images for articles and would keep us totally in compliance with the law. It's all benefit and no downside, as far as I can tell. --M@rēino 21:39, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I think Johntex's approach is a good one. I don't think we need to pull our hair out over the magazine issue—low res magazine covers from non-current magazines are going to be transformative in almost any way we use them, and put next to encyclopedic content with a decent caption are going to be legally not a big issue. --Fastfission 12:11, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

What does cause pulling out of hair is deletion of magazine covers from articles about the magazine which Yamla has been pursuing actively today. Fair Use is a complicated issue for non-lawyers like myself. Rather than tear down an image because sufficient source information has not been noted, it's worth the effort to add the source info, which in these cases is simple and brief.Ghosts&empties 23:22, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, and with magazines and other media covers the source of the image is really not too important, since the copyright will lie with the magazine, not whatever website it was pulled from. The copyright holder should in most cases be obvious (a Time magazine's copyright will be with the publisher; a CD's copyright will be with the record label, etc.)—if it is not obvious, then it is probably not actually a media cover. --Fastfission 00:03, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think we should dismiss soucing this stuff entirely. We have a lot of articles on albums, movies, etc. that aren't released. A verifiable source for the supposed cover, poster, etc. is important in those cases. I don't know what the bother is in noting whether one got an album cover from AMG or Amazon. Jkelly 00:06, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I agree that sourcing in those situations is good, but that's not related to determining the copyright status, that's about verifiability. Anytime verifiability is in question, it should be sourced, whether it is a magazine cover or a factual statement. --Fastfission 00:17, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Source, in this matter, at least should be done, so we can say "the image was used at this website, which I found and copied over to here." Since, in my view, that shows that a Wikipedian did not scan it. That is what I done when I had to upload FU images. But there are many people not like me, so I suggest that we push for more sourcing, but not make it mandatory in those cases, since we know who holds the copyright for record labels, magazine covers (unless, of course, it was photoshoped, but that is a whole anothet isse). User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 01:40, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Does it matter if a Wikipedian scanned it if it is a magazine? In any case a lack of a source shouldn't be used for deletion for media covers, since the real reason for needing a source (determination of copyright status and copyright holder) is almost always obvious. Frankly with such straightforward cases a lack of a detailed rationale shouldn't be used for deletion—the rationales are all going to be the same ("This is low res, this is not competing, it is used to illustrate, blah blah"). --Fastfission 02:11, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

• Actually, if you got a Time Magazine cover off of, say, Amazon, your source is NOT Amazon, it's Time, becuase Time is clearly Amazon's source. --M@rēino 16:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Publicity photos

Editors here may be interested in User:Jimbo Wales' concerns raised at Wikipedia talk:Publicity photos. Jkelly 21:46, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more with that statement. Garion96 (talk) 22:16, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, as he said "We are much better off to have no photo than to have a fair use or even "wikipedia only" photo". Making our policy any more liberal will stifle the growth of the project. ed g2s • talk 00:27, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I've commented about an action plan at Wikipedia talk:Publicity photos. It involves OrphanBot, or similar. Can we establish some co-ordinated project (similar to Wikipedia:Untagged images) to reduce these categories? As ed_gs implies, the more we have to argue with uploaders over this the less time we have to write decent words. (And there is, of course, the 'free' issue). The JPS^{talk to me} 12:16, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Orphanbot is already hated, so one more controversial job can't hurt. Good thing it's a bot. :) Garion96 (talk) 12:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I think Jimbo is absolutely correct as well, both about the way that the raised public awareness of Wikipedia can allow us to be more insistent on free media, and on the legal issues relating to using random celebrity photos. It would be great if we had some way to send a message to all of the million celebrity photographers in Los Angeles and New York that said, "Hey photographers! Got some photos that you can't get published? Want to get them on a site with a high pagerank, with a million hits a day, and still get all the credit for taking the photo? Release a few under a free license and put them on Wikipedia! All the exposure you want, and since no commercial magazine is ever going to release their entire work under the GFDL you can be assured that nobody will be ripping you off any more than you normally would be!" --Fastfission 12:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

He is 110% correct. "Fair use" is supposed to be about offering commentary on a work - not about "we can't find a photo so we're going to take someone else's". BigDT 00:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

• Except there's no taking when it's a publicity photo. Jimbo is not a lawyer, and frequently lets his dogma get in the way of good ideas. A publicity photo is a photo whose (c) is waived only for the purpose of increasing awareness of the subject, which is exactly what all encyclopedias do. Asking people who have already offered photos that the mainstream media has no problem with to adopt some GNU standard like GFDL just so they can be on Wikipedia is the height of arrogance. We're not that important that we can singlehandedly change the (c) law to suit our purposes. --M@rēino 20:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Back when magazine images began to be banned (call it what you will; I call it banned), I predicted that someone like Jimbo might out and suggest Wikipedia become a no-images encyclopedia. This is the start of it, IMO. 23skidoo 15:53, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I cannot make sense of this comment unless I assume that you are unaware of the existance of images that are freely licensed or are in the public domain. There are more than 750 000 of them at Wikimedia Commons, for instance. Jkelly 16:01, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Plus, we managed to get photos from many organizations due to the request of Jimbo, Brad, Danny and several other higher-up folks from the Foundation. We can do it again, all we need to do is just be patient and ask. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 16:06, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

A useful distinction?

I've been feeling lately that in our policies it might be worth trying to draw a heavy "fair use" line between things which were originally intended to be used and consumed simply as photographs (photographs of random celebrities) and things which are media covers (album covers, magazine covers, etc.). Taking low-res versions of the latter and using them in an encyclopedia is tranformative and does not infringe on any markets. Taking any-res versions of the former is not only not transformative (they've gone from photo to photo, not album cover to photo or anything like that) and potentially does infringe on the original market (licensing photos). Of course, any photo is potentially re-licensable but the courts have held in the past that there is a difference between something intended to be consumed as a poster or a cover and something which is intended to be consumed as a photograph. I like this distinction because it would focus most of our fair use efforts onto rooting out things which are not transformative at all. It would mean things like the album covers and the magazine covers would be much lower on the "worry" scale, while things like "publicity photos" (which are often taken by private photographers) would be much higher on the "worry" scale (and would be actively discouraged much of the time). Is this distinction useful, sensible, actionable?--Fastfission 12:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I've always though that you'd be on a better stand in terms of fair use to use a cover featuring X - which at least has a tracable copyright - than some random photo you've found on the internet. However I don't think making the distinction is particularly useful for building a "free content" encyclopedia, and I'm not convinced that making the distinction would improve the state of fair use images.--Peta 12:57, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Let's, for the moment, jettison the whole "free content encyclopedia" question. (I know, a heretical remark, but I hate that every discussion of how to make our fair use policy more legally or conceptually clear gets bogged down with questions over whether we should be using fair use at all. It's a worthwhile question but an entirely separate one from what I'm asking. In any case I think media covers are probably most likely to be fair use for more reusers more of the time than other fair use claims, which would make them less of a pain from a re-using point of view, but again, that's a separate question). What I'm saying a distinction like this would be used to help direct attention, not that it would change the way things were tagged and labeled. It would basically mean that we encourage people to see the largest bulk of our fair use images (which are media covers, screenshots, etc.) as "probably not a big legal deal" and focus on the more questionable things. It might also mean that we would raise the bar on the questionable things a bit higher than it currently is. --Fastfission 13:22, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

• I agree. For reasons that I think have already been covered, a "free content encyclopedia" is by definition an incomplete and censored encyclopedia. Album, book, and magazine covers are a perfect example. These covers are functionally much closer to trademarks than they are to copyrights, in the sense that the lawsuits are over tarnishment of the brand, rather than a perceived threat to future sales. --M@rēino 16:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

If you don't want a "free content encyclopedia", then you're working on the wrong project. Stan 16:41, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

We all have our own reasons for working here. Please don't take a tone that could be interpreted as inviting any one to leave or questioning anyone's conviction to the project. Wikipedia allows fair use images. What we are discussing here is how best to use them. Johntex\^talk 19:22, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

It's not OK to justify a class of fair use by arguing that the fundamental goals of the project are somehow mistaken. One of the consequences of Mareino's thinking is that it becomes OK to replace free images with nonfree, then free text with nonfree, etc. WP simply cannot be everything to everybody. Stan 21:07, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that conclusion is logical from his argument at all. I don't see him arguing that free images should be replaced with non-free ones. Johntex\^talk 22:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think a "free content encyclopedia" is necessarily any more "incomplete" than a "non-free content encyclopedia" (I don't measure completeness in number of graphics). But if we are going to use "fair use" images (which it seems that we are) then I would like to be able to prioritize which of them we spend our time pulling our hair out over. The magazines, album covers, and other media covers have been periodically targetted by overzealous people trying to make our fair use compliance better, even though, frankly, they are probably the safest invocations of fair use that we have—that's sort of my bigger point. --Fastfission 23:27, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Magazine covers are an easy target because they aren't that many of them and generally aren't really used in any kind of context - just as decoration. For example how's TIME cover of Bill Gates fair when we already have free images of him. I know I have been able to replace several TIME covers with free images, but many others wouldn't have bothered looking since the article was already illustrated. I don't think we should encourage the use of covers over other fair use media, but next time someone goes on a magazine cover purge like the TIME covers you might want to point their attention at things that are actually problematic.--Peta 00:23, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree about the prioritization. An additional way to distinguish is that media covers are in a sense "self-documenting" in that there is little or no doubt as to its source or purpose. But a publicity photo is not intrinsically different from a news agency or stock photo, and there is no commonly accepted way to wire the source info into the image. One straightforward way to raise the bar on publicity photos is to require a precise URL, one that can be tested with a bot - "is there a matching image on the given URL?". If the image or URL disappear, we lose justification for keeping the ex-publicity photo. Stan 05:24, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Possible breach of fair use policies

Dear all. Could you please comment on this possible infrigment of fair use policy. Thanks in advance. -- Szvest 16:47, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I have taken a look at the log as requested and tagged one image for a speedy deletion as an attack image (Image:No-dprk.gif - a picture that is apparantly the North Korean flag with a big "NO!" written on it), one for IFD (Image:Havana-capitol.jpg - an image from a commercial content provider available on a fee-per-use basis only), and several as {{no source}}. BigDT 18:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I tagged some of the above's users images as non-commercial images, since he uploaded a lot of images from FOTW to here. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 01:17, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your assistance guys. -- Szvest 14:59, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:FairuseF1

Template:FairuseF1 has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Abu Badali 01:30, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Possible limits on fair-use image pixel area

We can all agree, I think, that a 600x800 fair-use image is too large and needs to be either resized or removed. So I propose that we decide on a maximum pixel area for fair-use images (that is, its width plus its height must not exceed a set limit). If an image with a fair-use tag is seen exceeding that limit, the uploader should be notified on his/her talk page, and a tag should be placed on the image description saying that the image may be deleted in 7 days if it is not resized to comply with the limit.

For a starting figure, I propose that a limit of 80,000 (eighty thousand) pixels in area be imposed. This allows square images up to 282x282, or rectangular images in sizes like 300x266 or 400x200. Who agrees with the basic premise of this criteria? Who thinks that a different limit besides 80,000 pixels might work better? Andrew Levine 14:34, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if one can set a specific limit like this. Aside from fair use not really being about pixels, but about usage, it also doesn't work well with Wikipedia's policies, which are based more around the idea of conveying the information in a limited space (which can depend on the image). As for a hard limit of 80,000, look at one of our best examples of "fair use": Image:OJ Simpson Newsweek TIME.png. I don't think there is any resolution issue with it—it conveys the information well, but is not excessively large and certainly poses no danger of competing with the originals. However at 480*318 it comes out to 152,640 pixels, which is almost double what you would propose as a limit.

If one really was serious about drawing up very concrete guidelines, I would do it first by different media types, i.e. a magazine cover should in most circumstances not need to be more than 400 pixels tall to read most of the text on the cover, but a CD cover (which generally has a lot less pertinent information on it per pixel) can probably suffice with around 300 * 300 plus or minus a hundred pixels. Screenshots are often at screen resolutions, which I think is generally fine, since their possibility of competition with anything is so low and every pixel can carry information in this case.

In the cases of printed media I think size of the original should be taken into account as well—a magazine cover scanned at print resolution would be 3,300 pixels tall, while a CD cover would only be around 1,350 pixels tall (I am just using estimates here; 300 dpi * 11 in. for a magazine and 4.5 in. for a CD, I haven't measured). In terms of total pixels a 400px*300px scan of a magazine cover is only 1% of the pixels that would be in a 300dpi scan of it; while for a CD a 300*300 scan would be 5% of a 300 dpi scan, or something along those lines (the conversions between pixels and area and etc. is throwing my brain off a bit this morning). The overall point being that in a case of "the amount used", as applied to physical size, the amount of space represented by a scan means more in one case than the other. --Fastfission 15:29, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

List of academic coats of arms

What is everyone's thoughs about List of academic coats of arms? This "article" is really just a gallery of copyrighted images, most of which are only used in this article. While a lot of time has gone into it, I'm not sure that creating an image gallery constitutes "fair use". If we're trying to be a free-content encyclopedia, having a gallery of copyrighted images is a bad thing. I kinda feel bad about nominating it for AFD because an outstanding job has been done on it and a lot of work has been done ... and I really like the gallery ... but this really isn't an appropriate thing to have. Any thoughts? BigDT 18:13, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I have speedied it. We don't do galleries of unfree images, and there was nothing else to the article. Galleries of freely licensed images should be at Commons. I suspect that some of these coats of arms could have been created by Wikipedians from out-of-copyright designs, and we therefore shouldn't be republishing some of them at all, let alone in a gallery. Jkelly 18:24, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Sobering estimate of fair use abuses

Recently, Tangotango went through the July 17 database dump to analyze how many violations of fair use images there were in the sense of them being used outside of the main article namespace (and portals). The total was deceptive; the scan was only for images tagged with {{fairuse}}. He listed the first 500 from that list at User:Tangotango/Sandbox.

From my own work on userboxes, I've come up with an estimate that 1.89% of all userboxes have fair use image violations. There are, as of a week ago, 10043 userboxes. This yields a number of ~189 userboxes with violations. Tangotango's first 500 showed only 2 violation in userboxes. Extrapolating that 2 of 500 across 2247 violations that were found by his scan results in 9 violations. 9 vs. 189. Now, I've removed 50 of those 189 in the last couple of weeks, leaving 139. So, 9 of 139; Tangotango's list of violations only shows about 6.5% of the violations. Meaning, there's more than 34000 violations out there.

Now, I know this estimate is seriously, seriously rough. But, it still points to a massive problem in adherence to Wikipedia:Fair use criteria item #9, which proscribes the use of fair use images outside of the main article namespace. We're not talking about a few thousand violations, but tens of thousands of violations.

This underlines what I was getting at in my words above at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Fair_use#Abusive_use_of_fair_use_tagged_images_is_rampant. The tools we currently have to deal with fair use image violations per WP:FUC #9 are woefully inadequate. I suspect the number of violations is continually rising, rather than falling despite the work of people here. --Durin 21:19, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

What do you think of http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6880 ? Jkelly 21:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

• By itself, it's insufficient. Nothing stops people from uploading images and improperly tagging them. Tracking down improperly tagged images is even MORE problematic, as it takes a Mk.1 Eyeball to determine if it's a proper tag or not. With a fair use tag, a bot can do checking on where it's used and make adjustments as needed. This problem is considerably larger than a single solution seems to offer. I don't know the answers; I just know where we are is a sorry state. --Durin 22:14, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
• Totally wacky idea; prevent the display of images outside of main article namespace and image spaces entirely, fair use or no. We are here to build an encyclopedia, are we not? The images we most care about are the ones that contribute to that effort. So, regardless of tagging we prevent the display of images outside of main article namespace. Only problem left after that is inappropriate tagging, and unused images being violations themselves. But, if they don't display anywhere but the image page itself and the article it is in (if it is in one) the encroachment of copyrights is very circumscribed. Far safer situation from a legal perspective. Of course, there'd be hell to pay if we implemented this as sooooo many people have decorated their userpages and what not (myself included, Jimbo included too). --Durin 22:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

That would certainly solve the problem... but it is very drastic. I wonder if allowing only Commons images to render in userspace would just result in a lot of bad uploads there... Jkelly 22:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

• Commons already has a number of bad uploads, and I find the policing there to be at least the same as here, if not worse. It would be a drastic solution, and there would be a number of counter arguments. It would also have the effect of killing off quite a huge number of userboxes at least in their display of decorative images. That's sure to raise a huge protest. But, it does solve the problem. If we ask the question, "Why are we here?" I'm hard pressed to think of significant cases where the display of images outside of the main and image namespace contributes to the goal. A huge number of userpage designs would be very detrimentally affected, which is sure to annoy a huge number of users. That would cause quite a few people to depart the project, I'd expect. :/ Outside of that...any other uses of images that contributes directly or indirectly to the project when used outside of main/image namespaces? --Durin 22:35, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Durin, that's nice, but can you offer any insight on whether we are doing better now than in the past? It's a large problem, no question, but the eventualist in me thinks that as long as we continue making progress and deal with any specific complaints in a prompt fashion, that we will ultimately be okay. Dragons flight 22:27, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

• That's an excellent question, and one I do not have a good answer for. The only piece of data I have is very, very limited and not sufficient to indicate trends. What I do have is a feel for how bad fair use violations are on userboxes right now, compared with how bad it was before I went through every single userbox and removed all violations this past spring. There's about 1/2 the violations now, but keep in mind they were all created since my sweep of all userboxes; lots and lots of people are comitting violations and far fewer people are removing them. I suspect we're ultimately losing ground over time. But again, I don't really have data to back that up. I was naive enough to think that once the userboxes were swept, the problem in userboxes would be greatly reduced, and we'd have only an occasional violation. That's not the case at all. I would like very much to see how the global problem is changing over time. --Durin 22:35, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

• This is a ridiculously easy problem to solve. One of the robots -- I think it's Cyde's, not sure -- has already been going around removing fair use images from user pages. All we have to do is extend it to go through user subpages, and to go through the links on the user:box page. --M@rēino 20:24, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

• It is an easy problem is such a bot does indeed exist. But, I've not come across it in my wikitravels. There is OrphanBot, but it is an entirely different beast and it is not doing this work. --Durin 18:57, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Long term the only solution is education. Currently we are the only ah "web 2.0" site that really appears to be trying to do something serious about copyvios. In time people will learn. At the currenrt time it looks like it is going to be up to us to do the initial educateing.Geni 16:03, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Media covers -- re-ducks

Hi all. I've made what will no doubt be a somewhat controversial proposal on specific guidelines to put in place in regards to media covers (magazine covers, CD covers, DVD covers, VHS covers, book covers). My goal was to try and come up with a policy which would make it clear how these were to be used in encyclopedia articles which would be both safely within the guidelines of the law and within our overall content and copyright(left) goals. I'm very interested in coming up with something which will help reduce the number of discussion cases that these types of media generate since I think that the discussions almost always end up being the same, and not being very conclusive or fruitful. I'm also interested in making the guidelines clear, understandable, and sensible. Any thoughts about it would be much appreciated. The proposal is here. I apologize ahead of time about the length! :-) --Fastfission 23:35, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Copyright status of completing another person's work

I'm hoping some copyright experts could help me with the copyright section of unfinished work. What is the copyright status of work that was started by one person and then completed by another? Who holds the copyright, especially if the first piece of work no longer has copyright status? For example, if a novel is mostly completed but then the author dies and the book is finished by another person is it a joint copyright situation?

Cross posted to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous. violet/riga (t) 11:29, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Seems to have been answered there, thanks. violet/riga (t) 12:51, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Amend CSD I6

I've proposed an amendment to CSD I6, the requirement of fair use rationale. Surprising enough to me, it did not include any fair use tags save for {{fairuse}} and {{fairusein}}. I feel it needs to be expanded. Please weigh in at Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Missing_fair-use_rationale_.28I6.29_needs_teeth. Thanks. --Kevin_b_er 07:15, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Images sourced to Wikipedia mirrors

Can we have a bot look for these? Jkelly 17:15, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

"sourced to Wikipedia mirrors"? What do yall mean by that? User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 05:56, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I assume this would be an image that says "Source: [1]" on the image description page, where [1] is a site that is actually a Wikipedia mirror. It's a circular reference, and not a source at all. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 14:41, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. I encountered two of these yesterday. And we do maintain a list of mirrors, so the bot would just be looking to match URLs. Jkelly 16:06, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

This should be done (assuming it is a significant problem) by offline analysis of database dumps. We have way too many images to justify a bot querying the active site for this info. Dragons flight 16:08, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it is a significant problem; I just think it is an obvious and easy to solve problem, and wanted to know if there was a smart way to fix it efficiently. Jkelly 17:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Another thing I see as a similar problem are images whose source is another Wikipedia. One example is Image:Trockiy2.jpg use as source "found it on the russian wikipedia. Should be public-domain as it was made in the USSR pre-1973.". We need to make sure what the real source is before making guesses about the copyright status. --Abu Badali 16:28, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

That needs a human to assess whether or not the original image description page has proper sourcing or not. Jkelly 17:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes. The bot could add each image to a category by Wikipedia language (like Category:Images imported from Russian Wikipedia, etc), and editors would revise the galleries of languages they understand translating the source info (or marking the image as having no valid source). --Abu Badali 18:09, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Non-commercial writeup

Hi gang. I finally got around to finishing up what was meant to be a little explanation of why we don't accept "non-commerical" content, and try to go over some of the common criticisms, etc. I'd love input on it, or even editing/adding/changing/whatever (it's a wiki, after all). I know it's not strictly a "fair use" issue (though that does come into play in the end of it), but since a lot of people on here are also very interested in general Wikipedia copyright issues I figured it would be a good group to test it out on. Take a look at: User:Fastfission/Noncommercial. It's of course totally unofficial at the moment, and aspires only to be an explanation of a policy, not a policy itself. --Fastfission 01:46, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

That was an interesting read. And nice to link to when people have questions about that. Thanks, Garion96 (talk) 14:51, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Very interesting. Have you considered adding a section explaining why we don't accept permission-for-Wikipedia content? Shimgray | talk | 15:30, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Fair use art

I've just had a look at {{art}} and noted the situations for fair use are:

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

I'm suprised to see that "the artist" is not in the list. I don't know much about fair use, but I would have thought using an image of an artist's work on an article about the artist would be acceptable.

This isn't just theoretical as Image:Julian Beever-Is this the real thing.jpg is used on the Julian Beever article, which is about the artist not any of the listed topics. Thryduulf 09:33, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

The Julian Beever article does discuss the "artistic genre" and "technique of the work of art" on the first paragraph. And most articles about artist will do so. (Actually, there's almost nothing about Julian Beever on the article, just about his works and techniques).--Abu Badali 11:28, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, bad example, but would an image of an artists art on an article just discussing the artist be allowable fair use? Thryduulf 15:20, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I think a low-res image used to show an example of the artist's art would be fine on an artist's page. It would be best if it was a very well-known work of art as well. It would be hard to argue that such use was not transformative and encyclopedic. --Fastfission 16:52, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not expressing this very well(!), but my real point is should we add "the artist" to the list on the template? Thryduulf 18:11, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think we should, because it is very unlikey for us to have an article about an artist that do not discuss his "works", "artistic genres", "techiniques" or "school". Do you have a counter example?--Abu Badali 18:53, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I think adding a line which says "the work of the artist" would be fine if it is just about clarification. --Fastfission 18:55, 10 September 2006 (UTC)