Commons:Deletion requests/File:Bundesrat der Schweiz 2009 in Besetzung gueltig ab 2009-11-01.jpg
This image is not one of the set of images covered by the copyright waiver granted in the OTRS tickets mentioned in Template:Swiss Government Portrait. Moreover, a derivative work of this specific image was recently used in a political campaign in Switzerland, and the Federal Chancellery invoked copyright to prohibit this reuse, citing the legal disclaimer of the source website according to which reuse is not allowed without permission. See the report of the en:Neue Zürcher Zeitung at [1]. Accordingly, this is an unfree image and must be deleted. Sandstein (talk) 22:59, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
- This might also apply to other images from Category:Official Swiss-Federal-Council photographs. I've invited the users who wrote the template to comment; they may be better placed to evaluate whether we ever received proper permission for these files. Sandstein (talk) 23:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
- How is it different from the unedited version of the same image (File:Bundesrat der Schweiz 2009.jpg)? -- User:Docu at 05:25, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
- The copyright status of the edited image specifically was the subject of media reports (see also the official statement) but I think that there's no difference to the others as regards copyright. That's why I am questionioning the copyright status of all images in Category:Official Swiss-Federal-Council photographs. None of these images have ever been properly released, it seems. They do also not name the photographer. Sandstein (talk) 07:44, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
- http://www.parliament.ch seems to say the same. According to a recent check (OTRS Noticeboard) it was ok for the image I had double checked.
- Independently of the copyright status, it might just be a problem of personality rights. Seems a bit silly to request pre-approval for a caricature. -- User:Docu at 08:03, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
- BTW, the one that is being debated is the one without Burkhalter. -- User:Docu at 12:44, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
I am the person who originally requested the permission from the Federal Chancellery and forwarded it to OTRS. My original request was targeted at the portraits of the Federal councillors (such as this one), but I later asked for other pictures of the FC; the person who gave me the authorization used so very general language ("les photos des CF publié par la Confédération doivent être/rester libre, sans "copyright"); however, we never discussed explicitely the yearly picture of the Federal Council; is the authorization good enough for pictures in Category:Official Swiss-Federal-Council photographs ? I am not sure. It is a pity, really — it we had emailed them last week and asked for confirmation, we would doubtless have received it, but there is no chance for this now (which also means that there is no point asking for free content from the Confederation anytime soon...). I am not terribly disturbed by what was was published in the newspaper (which I had noticed as well): neither by the disclaimer on the web site (given that we have actually asked for permission to reuse some pictures), nor by the fact that the Chancellery invoked copyright to forbid a use of this image (which seems like a politicial decision which has little to do with protecting copyright). That the Chancellery would give a blanket permission to reuse the image on one side, and invoke copyright to forbid its use on the other (both in good faith) would not really be a surprise (actually, I could bet that the authorizations we received are stored only on the email system of the person who gave them — if they are stored at all). It may be worth noting that the authorization template has been abused (in good faith) in the past; see here.
The best course of action would probably be to wait until the controversy dies down, and recontact the Chancellery to clarify which pictures are covered or not. In the meantime, I am not really sure what to say about the deletion. Schutz (talk) 21:45, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
- I agree. It's probably best to postphone this decision until the current press run dies out a bit. Obviously, it's mainly about personality rights and not about the image as such. Although we generally request images to be reusable for any purpose, we wouldn't be able to keep any images (including portraits) depicting people, because they could be used in an abusive context. I do think there would be similar political controversies if one tryied to use an image of Barack Obama for a political campaign against him. --PaterMcFly (talk) 14:25, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
- On a tangential note, while I'm fully aware of the Foundation's core principles, I'm wondering whether this would be one of the situations where the Foundation might want to reconsider rejecting a CC-BY-ND license by default: photographic works of living people that could be reused to illustrate article content but not modified in a way that sparked the above controversy in the first place. Just my 2 cents of course. MLauba (talk) 12:06, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
- Yea, I agree. Just thought about something like this myself. It didn't even need to be "ND", "ND-altered" (only unaltered reproductions allowed) would even suffice. I think the number of pictures that really are used for profit use from commons is comparably small and it needs adequate review by anyone actually wanting to do this in any case, so that an extra indication that one should not use the picture in a out-of-context manner would not make commons less usable. --PaterMcFly (talk) 22:26, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
- Official pictures are nice to have, but they tend to look all the same and can be found every else too. At least for contemporary politicians, we should be able to find other pictures. BTW here are some official ones that are a bit different. -- User:Docu at 06:32, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
- Well, I disagree here. If you take a look at de:Bundesratsfoto, you see that these official pictures are somewhat changing over time. And there's a difference between an "official photo of a government" and photos during an "official visit" or an "official task". --PaterMcFly (talk) 12:43, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
I cross-referenced the discussion on File:Bundesrat der Schweiz 2010.jpg. -- User:Docu at 11:29, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Can this be finally closed? It makes zero sense to put this image up for deletion, there is even an OTRS permission given to us and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung explanation does not stand.--Avala (talk) 16:04, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Kept, OTRS-permission. Kameraad Pjotr 18:34, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
