Commons:Deletion requests/Courtesy photos by Kevin Lowery

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  • Add {{delete|reason=Fill in reason for deletion here!|subpage=Courtesy photos by Kevin Lowery|year=2024|month=November|day=24}} to the description page of each file.
  • Notify the uploader(s) with {{subst:idw||Courtesy photos by Kevin Lowery|plural}} ~~~~
  • Add {{Commons:Deletion requests/Courtesy photos by Kevin Lowery}} at the end of today's log.
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.

Courtesy photos by Kevin Lowery

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As far as I can tell, these photographs are not taken by an employee of the US government and therefore possibly not acceptable on Commons. See https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-lowery-7483841a0/ for the bio of the photographer. --Cryptic-waveform (talk) 16:19, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@BadzilBot,
I checked one photo. This one here: File:FLOTUS (51033293481).jpg The exif data quoted here:
"By-line - Kevin Lowery"
By-line Title - Contract Photographer"
City - Washington
Province- State - D.C.
Country- Primary Location Name - USA
Headline - FLOTUS
Credit - White House
Source - White House
"Copyright Notice - This photograph is provided by THE WHITE HOUSE as a courtesy ... " (emphasis added)
So, this photographer was a contract employee working for The White House (U. S. Government). This is a Public Domain photo. :--Ooligan (talk) 23:41, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Contract employee" is not really a thing. Lowery was a contract photographer, which IMO means that he was not an employee. Cryptic-waveform (talk) 00:36, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Cryptic-waveform, yes, the exif data input by this self-titled "contract photographer" was working for The White House (U. S. Government).
Please note that Mr. Lowery himself input the exif data field "White House" into the "Credit" field. As a professional photographer, he would give credit to The White House, because he was working under a U.S. Government/ White House legal contract.
Also, Mr. Lowery himself input the exif data field "White House" into the "Source" field. Again, as a professional contract photographer, Mr. Lowery would only do this while under a legal contract to the U.S. Government/ White House. --Ooligan (talk) 18:00, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Cryptic-waveform Any further comment about my response to your point? Thanks, --Ooligan (talk) 17:00, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not convinced. The language of the license banner does not match the reality, which is that the photographer is not an employee of the government. But I don't see us agreeing so I'll let other people with in on this. Cryptic-waveform (talk) 02:14, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
 Keep I understand that people want to make sure the proper person is credited, but these photos were provided by the White House on their official Flickr page with the tag of being a government work. So to me we are running into a work for hire situation where it is the proper thing to credit the author. Under Section 201 (b) of Title 17 of the US Code it states:
"In the case of a work made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author for purposes of this title, and, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument signed by them, owns all of the rights comprised in the copyright."
And we know that this was a contract photographer. In my view, this is likely a situation where the copyright was fully signed over to the White House. We can't know the exact details of this situation, but going on the precedent of how we deal with other works from the White House Flickr page I'd say this is ok. SDudley (talk) 19:45, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Kept: Per discussion. Contract work for the WH means these are owned by the WH. --Gbawden (talk) 08:53, 2 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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