Commons:Deletion requests/File:David Cameron and Barack Obama at the G20 Summit in Toronto.jpg
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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.
This pic from flickr here has the comment there ... This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House. This is unclear to me that this pic is correct for commons, please comment, thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 11:33, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
Keep, on its Flickr page, it says the image is a United States Government Work. This means "it is not subject to copyright in the United States and there are no copyright restrictions on reproduction". Also, although it doesn't automatically mean the image is appropriate, most images of Pres. Obama on Commons are from Flickr with the same copyright status as this image (see Category:Barack Obama in 2009 and Category:Barack Obama in 2010). --Philip Stevens (talk) 15:58, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
- Keep. It seems that current Commons practice is to consider Pete Souza as performing the work of an employee of the U.S. government and those photos as being in the public domain in the United States as far as the copyright is concerned. The restriction formula may restrict the possibility of using those photos on a copyright basis when they are to be reused in countries other than the U.S. In the U.S., it may specify limits about what is allowed relatively to non-copyright matters. -- Asclepias (talk) 16:07, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
- Its not a free image is it, no its not its got conditions attached to it, it is non free. Off2riorob (talk) 21:26, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
- It would be a free image for Commons policy, yes. The flickr account appears legitimate and has identified those photos as U.S. government works in the U.S. public domain. As such, they are free from copyright in the U.S. Other attached conditions do not affect this U.S. public domain status. They can eventually affect its copyright status in countries other than the U.S. and non-copyright aspects in the U.S. -- Asclepias (talk) 22:38, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
- This picture is the work of an employee but it has been released with additional conditions it is not a free picture and does not belong on commons with a free license. Simple as. We should not and can not ignore the released caveat as our publication and licensing allows others to user the file freely through us, which is not what the releaser stipulated. Off2riorob (talk) 12:41, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
- This image is said to be free not because of a free license, but because it is not subject to copyright in the U.S. This image does not have a free license (strictly speaking) tag on Commons. What it has on Commons is a PD-USGov tag, which merely states its copyright status in the U.S., nothing more: "this work is in the public domain in the U.S. because it is a work of the United States Federal Government under the terms of [...] section 105 [of the Copyright Act]. The tag also provides links to more detailed explanations about that status. It can be noted that this image is not considered to be placed in the PD by decision of the author. (If that were the case, it could be considered that any inconsistencies between the PD declaration and additional conditions inconsistent with a PD status could be resolved by concluding that the author did not really intend to place his work in the PD and Commons should not host it). But here, if the image is a PD-USGov work, it is automatically PD-US by the direct effect of the law, independenly of the decision of anybody. Consequently, additional conditions are not derived from U.S. copyright and would apply to the extent that they are not inconsistent with that PD-US status. The eventual reusers of Commons files are expected to use their reasonable caution and judment and make sure that their reuse of the files comply with all laws (including non-copyright legal conditions and copyright laws in countries other than the U.S.) that apply to the specific context of the reuse. This is the case for all files on Commons. It has not been considered useful to specifically add disclaimers to this effect inside the PD-US tags and similar tags. However, it might be useful and prudent to create an additional specific information tag to be added to the photos that come from the White House flickr account (Commons hosts probably hundreds of them now), so that the text of the conditions is preserved (not only in the metadata of some of the files) for information and at least it remains available to the reusers (for what it's worth, but to the extent that they might be applicable in some particular contexts), so that they have the information to make their own decisions. -- Asclepias (talk) 23:23, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
- This picture is the work of an employee but it has been released with additional conditions it is not a free picture and does not belong on commons with a free license. Simple as. We should not and can not ignore the released caveat as our publication and licensing allows others to user the file freely through us, which is not what the releaser stipulated. Off2riorob (talk) 12:41, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
- It would be a free image for Commons policy, yes. The flickr account appears legitimate and has identified those photos as U.S. government works in the U.S. public domain. As such, they are free from copyright in the U.S. Other attached conditions do not affect this U.S. public domain status. They can eventually affect its copyright status in countries other than the U.S. and non-copyright aspects in the U.S. -- Asclepias (talk) 22:38, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
- Its not a free image is it, no its not its got conditions attached to it, it is non free. Off2riorob (talk) 21:26, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
- Based on the copyright status of USGov images, I would question whether such limitations as described above are allowable at all. Probably not. The part The photograph [...] may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House. is, in either case, a non-copyright-restriction and obvious. It only says that you must not use the images in such a way as to make someone believe the usage is approved by the government. Even Nasa images and data have the limitation that, when using or distributing them, you must not use them in a way that makes someone believe your company is in some way affiliated with NASA. --PaterMcFly (talk) 19:23, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
- Keep - as per Asclepias, Philip Stevens and PaterMcFly, as well as U.S. copyright law. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:28, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
- Keep - This is a reasonable point to raise (I was unsure about the usage restrictions myself in the past), but as stated above, the public domain status is not in question. The confusion is about the restriction on usage as an inference of endorsement, but this is not an issue on any Wikimedia project -- since they are encyclopedic/informational sites and not commercial, a violation of the endorsement restrictions (which as PaterMcFly stated, may or not be valid) seems inconceivable and would be removed if it seemed to have occurred. Just to be clear, the White House Flickr account is definitely official -- it is linked to from the home page of WhiteHouse.gov. --Jatkins (talk) 23:28, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Kept - work by a Federal employee (non-admin closure). /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 12:41, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
