Commons:Deletion requests/Copyrighted images via USDA

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This deletion discussion is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive. You can read the deletion policy or ask a question at the Village pump. If the circumstances surrounding this file have changed in a notable manner, you may re-nominate this file or ask for it to be undeleted.
  • Add {{delete|reason=Fill in reason for deletion here!|subpage=Copyrighted images via USDA|year=2025|month=January|day=11}} to the description page of each file.
  • Notify the uploader(s) with {{subst:idw||Copyrighted images via USDA|plural}} ~~~~
  • Add {{Commons:Deletion requests/Copyrighted images via USDA}} at the end of today's log.

Copyrighted images via USDA

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Bot dump from Flickr, where they have a usable license from the United States Dept. of Agriculture. However, they are copyrighted by the photographer as indicated by the metadata and even the file names. The photographer is not a USDA or other US Govt employee. We don't have permission to keep these copyrighted photos here. --Ruff tuff cream puff (talk) 19:53, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

 Keep COM:NOTCOPYVIO, these can assumed as work for hire which has been discussed before: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Chairman McWatters Official Headshot.jpg. @Clindberg: any comment on this particular case? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 20:56, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The CC-BY license is perfectly compatible with the EXIF statements; presumably they had permission to license the photos that way. The author should mention Mr. Ditto though. Whether the PD-USGov license is valid is cloudier; if the photographer was simply paid to take the photos in lieu of a government employee doing it, that may count as PD-USGov. May be hard to be sure, but if the photos were meant for the USDA website, may be OK to assume that, though I could also see removing that license and using just the CC-BY license as well. There is a web page here, which has a couple of photos marked "Courtesy photo by Ben Ditto", though there are also photos from a USFWS employee marked "courtesy" as well. They are making sure to credit the photographer, but I think it's reasonable to assume they had permission to at least put CC-BY on the photos, and maybe the PD-USGov as well. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:19, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, if it sounds reasonable to others that we keep these I'm fine with that, but can I get your opinion. I'm going through thousands of files that have been bulk-uploaded to Flickr by the government agencies and some have claims like this (e.g. "this is copyrighted by such-and-such photographer but we're giving it a CC license"). Are there any cases where I should nominate these for deletion? Or should I just let all these fly with the assumption that the government agency had permission? At this point I'm pretty foggy on what's correct. Thanks very much Ruff tuff cream puff (talk)
"work for hire" can be a hard concept for contractual situations -- the legislative notes says: it can be assumed that, where a Government agency commissions a work for its own use merely as an alternative to having one of its own employees prepare the work, the right to secure a private copyright would be withheld. For a work commissioned by an external artist because of some special skill, we can't make that assumption. For pre-existing works the government is just using, not sure I would assume anything at all. This one is on the PD-USGov borderline, as it seems as though the photographer was documenting a governmental agency action, and the photos appear to have been first published on the government site, which would seem to indicate they had full permission to do so (and may have just been volunteering). Whether that qualifies as PD-USGov is a bit borderline to me, but sure seems like the photographer would have been aware of the liberal license at least. I could understand limiting the license to just the CC-BY. If someone wants to contact the author to get clarification, that would always help as well. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:07, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Kept: as per Alexis and Carl. --Yann (talk) 21:14, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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