Commons:Deletion requests/File:May 22 2008 Kansas tornado.jpg

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File:May 22 2008 Kansas tornado.jpg

This file was initially tagged by Rlandmann as no permission (No permission since). This isn’t a simple no permission, since the photograph was taken by a NWS employee (as admitted by the tagged in the edit summary) but the question is, was it done while under taking their duties and if not, was it given to the NWS through the upload form that had did state that photographs would be released as PD. Bidgee (talk) 21:34, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Closing admins should familiarise themselves with the evidence and discussions at this RfC when closing this request.

•  Keep per arguments in the others in this series. Part of the process of submitting images is that they enter the public domain, no evidence to the contrary just generalized FUD. --RAN (talk) 00:13, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

  Do you have some evidence about which submission process was used for this particular image? There were (and are!) multiple submission processes available at various times. We have no way of knowing which submission process was used for any given image, nor in most cases whether any particular process was in place at the time the image was submitted to the NWS. Some of these were definitely intended make the image free,[1] some definitely did not,[2][3][4] and at least one is ambiguous.[5] That said, we've recently heard from the NWS's legal team who "do not believe a disclaimer, alone, can be used to transfer a copyright holder's ownership interest to NOAA or to abandon the copyright interest to the public domain" -- Rlandmann (talk) 04:56, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

•  Keep Per the archived NWS webpage, the image is “courtesy of Chris Foltz, NWS Goodland Meteorologist”, i.e. taken by an NWS employee. {{PD-NWS}} applies here. Per the archived disclaimer link at the bottom of the NWS webpage, “The information on government servers are in the public domain”. WeatherWriter (talk) 05:44, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
• Weak delete -- Like @WeatherWriter: , I also noticed that the image is credited to an NWS employee. However, the threshold for such an image being ineligible for copyright is that it was created by an employee of the US Government while performing their official duties. The way this image is credited ("Courtesy of...") leads me to think that Foltz created this on their own time and provided it to the NWS as a private citizen. --Rlandmann (talk) 21:36, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

  Neutral per above. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 21:50, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

  I’m honestly leaning slightly towards keep just because it was credited to an employee. But I’ll remain officially neutral. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 16:19, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Keep per WeatherWriter and RAN Sir MemeGod ._. (talk - contribs) 17:36, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Very weak keep because NWS employee took it. And I imagine he may have been more likely to release into PD; but it’s only a very weak keep on account of @Rlandmann rationale of no proof and the employee was off duty at the time. 🌀 Hurricane Clyde 🌀 (talk) 18:33, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

 Keep per WeatherWriter. ChessEric (talk) 06:18, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Keep per NWS employee rationle. Sir MemeGod ._. (talk - contribs) 23:38, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Delete. Merely being created by a NWS employee does not mean it is ineligible for copyright. The NWS does not assign meteorologists to take pictures of active tornadoes as part of their official duties. As such, while this photo was taken by a government employee, there is no evidence it was taken in the course of their official duties. An analogy would be a FEMA employee who's assigned to go organize disaster relief - their duties may include taking photographs of some things, but that doesn't mean that every photograph they take while deployed (or even employed) is an official photograph. Berchanhimez (talk) 22:46, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

They do infact have active teams that go out and do take photos of tornadoes as part of their official duties. See w:TOtable Tornado Observatory, and also check out this NOAA press release from July 2024: "Field experiments and data collection are the lifeblood of the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) and when one experiment ends, another is often poised and ready to begin. LIFT (Low-Level Internal Flows in Tornadoes) is the current field experiment NSSL scientists and partners (in this case, researchers from Texas Tech University) have undertaken...The first year of the LIFT experiment is now in the books, and it can only be described as a great success, with 11 deployments and numerous successful intercepts. An inordinate amount of data was collected..." The press release also has a photo of active government personnel literally chasing a tornado. So yes, the government does have people on official duties chasing tornadoes.

Also, yes, per the law, anything created (or photographed) during a government employee's official duty (i.e. getting paid on their salary to do) is in the public domain per Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code. WeatherWriter (talk) 03:18, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

An image by TOTO wouldn't be credited to an individual. Images that are part of research partnered with universities would not be "in the course of official duties" of a NWS employee.

It is not a part of the salaried tasks of an employee that images they take on a personal camera automatically become public domain. Per precautionary principle, the onus is on the person arguing that it is a public domain image to prove it is such. Whether you do this via an email from the office or individual confirming this is public domain is up to you. But we cannot just assume it was their official duties because you think it may have been. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:10, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it is. I’ve been on a university project sponsored/worked with NOAA (I was employed by the university). All photos taken during a NOAA-funded project are public domain, whether by NOAA employees and university employees, since our payment came partially from NOAA. That direction came straight from one of the NOAA leads on the project as well, as everyone had to turn their photos taken during field deployment in. I’m sorry, but your knowledge of that topic is wrong. PRP requires significant doubt, and since we know it was taken by an NWS employee, ONUS is on those who argue for deletion to have a leg to stand on to prove it was not taken during their official duties. There is clear evidence, which we all have acknowledged, proving an NWS employee took the photo. WeatherWriter (talk) 16:00, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

No, that is not a universal. A NOAA grant, for example, does not always require the resulting research to be public domain. further, there is significant doubt - because the assumption that "any image of weather taken by someone who works for the NWS must have been taken in the course of their official duties" is absolutely absurd to claim. Berchanhimez (talk) 18:33, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@Berchanhimez -- I disagree that "An image by TOTO wouldn't be credited to an individual." By now, two-ish months into this work, I've learned there's literally no such thing as "wouldn't" when it comes to NWS attributions!

That said, this attribution style is much more consistent with how they handle an individual contribution than something that the NWS actually owns.

I'm 99% sure that this is the photographer's own image, and the COM:ONUS is on the uploader or person wanting to keep an image here to demonstrate beyond significant doubt that the image is free.

While @WeatherWriter is absolutely correct that some government-created images of extreme weather events really do exist, these are so very rare that there will always be significant doubt that such any such image we find on a NWS/NOAA site is free unless specifically and proximally noted as such, or we have confirmation from the photographer. I've already reached out to them and am awaiting a reply. --Rlandmann (talk) 23:20, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

•  Comment -- I now have a response from the photographer, who confirms that this is his own personal image, to which he owns the copyright:

"Yes, that is a photo that I took while storm chasing on May 22, 2008 north of Hoxie, KS. I was not on work duty at the time. I do still maintain the copyright for the photo."

I have forwarded his response to the VRT (ticket:2024101410008527).

I stand by the analysis in my previous comment that although an image like this could theoretically have been produced by an NWS employee on duty, in practice this is so rare that we must assume that such an image is unfree unless we have direct evidence to the contrary. --Rlandmann (talk) 13:36, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the investigation that confirmed both of our suspicions. I support speedy delete by anyone with access to the VRT to confirm that at this point. Alternatively, this should be deleted by any administrator per the confirmation this was not a photo taken by an employee in performance of their official duties. Berchanhimez (talk) 06:25, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

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Deleted: per discussion, as confirmed by the photographer, not taken in course of official duties. --Abzeronow (talk) 20:08, 12 November 2024 (UTC)