Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Official portraits of Donald Trump

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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.

Files in Category:Official portraits of Donald Trump

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Apparently ticket:2017050810015705 contains information from an unknown individual claiming that this photograph (and derivatives) are not works of the US government and thereby are NOT public domain. The photographer is Doug Coulter. Apparently confidentiality agreements don't allow OTRS agents to even confirm nor deny whether Doug Coulter is the person who this ticket is from (ping Odder). It is absolutely astounding that an official portrait of the US President is not in the public domain, but there we go, apparently photos of the Oompah Loompah-in-chief need to be deleted from Commmons.

Slangcamms (talk) 03:01, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm somewhat skeptical. I think a considerable amount of more research needs to be done before we should consider deletion. MB298 (talk) 03:02, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I'm an OTRS agent and can verify that the ticket demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that this picture is not in the public domain. I can confirm the image is not a work of the US government, but can't say much more than that without violating the confidentiality agreement all OTRS agents sign. I will say WMF Legal has seen the ticket and indicated support for the determination made by OTRS agents. The research has been done, but it's based on information that is not public and can't be made public. ~ Rob13Talk 03:13, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • You may be an OTRS agent, but you just argued that an image is not in the public domain when the issue is that whitehouse.gov released it under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:06, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Trump and his administration are idiots, uptil a few weeks ago, there were no images on the WH flickr stream, and when some were added, they were tagged with the wrong license (public domain instead of USgovernment), its obvious people here have no idea what they are doing, regardless of what Doug claims, as long as he was officially charged to take the presidential/VPresidential pics, the rights to those images officially belong to the US Government, not him..he did not do it for free, he was paid for it by the USGovernment.--Stemoc 03:51, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Delete Sorry Stemoc, the pictures are NOT in the public domain based on the information in the OTRS ticket. Due to confidentiality agreements I can not comment any further than to say the information provided by Rob is essentially correct. - Cameron11598(talk) 03:56, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      • Whether or not it is in the public domain is not the issue. The issue is that that whitehouse.gov released it under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:06, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Stemoc: I will say that your description of how the picture was taken is inaccurate in full. (Not trying to sound like an ass, just trying to be succinct so as not to say something without meaning to.) ~ Rob13Talk 04:21, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      • So Lets see, according to the super secret otrs people, the author, Doug Coulter only has issues with the President's image being used here freely, not the VP's which he also took? (talk about due diligence) ...--Stemoc 22:10, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • For purposes of the Copyright Act, a work of the United States government is "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties." 17 U.S.C. § 101. I find it highly unlikely that a photographer hired on a contract basis is an "officer" or "employee" of the federal government. Rebbing 00:09, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • OTRS agent (verify): I've followed this ticket at OTRS since the first email, and can confirm that it appears that the image is not in the public domain, from what has detirmined in the responses, hence  Delete. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 08:20, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Whether or not it is in the public domain is not the issue. The issue is that that whitehouse.gov released it under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:06, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Delete: OTRS knows how to handle complex issues, and the Foundation's legal team is OK with the OTRS decision. If OTRS says delete, it's probably right. (Stemoc, on the other hand, has given no evidence that someone "did not do it for free", or that the U.S. government was the one that paid someone else. See the craziness at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Donald Trump President-elect portrait.jpg to see how vague claims have gone wrong on this file before. BU Rob13 has said specifically that it's "not a work of the US government". By the way, the U.S. federal government can have copyright on works that weren't originally their own: {{PD-USGov}} only applies to work that was "born" as a federal employee's work product at creation. If the work was made by a private party then the rights are sold or transferred to the government, the copyright is not extinguished and {{PD-USGov}} doesn't apply. I'm not saying any of that necessarily applies here, just that it's possible for such works to exist, so current "ownership" by the federal government is not a 100% indicator of {{PD-USGov}}.) --Closeapple (talk) 09:44, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Closeapple and BU Rob13: can the community see a statement made by WMF Legal? I understand we have to take your word for the content of the OTRS ticket, but surely whatever WMF has said should be shared with the community so that this decision can be made. Finnusertop (talk) 19:15, 2 June 2017 (UTC) Pinging some more OTRS people to see if they could answer: @Cameron11598 and Josve05a: Finnusertop (talk) 22:03, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      • OTRS agent (verify): Any statement made by the WMF Legal team would still be under similar privacy protection as an email by any other person. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 22:11, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Josve05a: Can the community at least get WMF Legal on the record saying 'We looked at the OTRS ticket and the concern is valid'? We should be able to hear it from them directly. I don't distrust you when you tell us that this has been the case. But this is a high profile case and the community deserves to get all the information we can if we are expected to reach a community decision instead of an office action. Finnusertop (talk) 23:24, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
        • You would have to ask them. However, if they were t make such a statement, then they may be in deep water regarding safe harbour since they would publically acknowledge a copyright problem existing on their servers without doing an office action. I'll leave it up to the individual staffers if they want to respond (or waive the privacy of their possible responses) and participate in this community discussion. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 23:28, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment this is just insane. Couldn't we have more details and, if necessary, can't the actual author be persuaded to allow the use of the image ? If that picture is deleted, I suggest we replace it by this one until we have a better, more recent one. (This one is more recent but kind of unflattering - not that I really care about flattering Trump but we need to remain somewhat neutral). Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 10:49, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment This is the picture as it appears in Federal buildings, (can confirm JKF Federal Building) so would it not be considered fair use on the English Wikipedia? As regardless of this bizarre quagmire, this remains the image used to represent him in official government protocol. --Simtropolitan (talk) 17:58, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Simtropolitan: Fair use is only if the image itself is being discussed. As clarified above only works created by the US-GOV are PD, not merely works owned by them that were created by third parties. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:22, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy Delete - If an OTRS volunteer (BU Rob13) has already concluded that the images are not in the public domain and were not CC licensed by the copyright owner, then what is the purpose of this discussion? Shouldn't the images be promptly deleted? - MrX 18:08, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • It should be temporarily deleted (we err on the side of caution with copyright issues) while we discuss this, but the claim that whitehouse.gov lied when they released it under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License is an extraordinary claim, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. The fact that so many OTRS volunteers have posted comments that indicate that they were not even aware that whitehouse.gov under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, instead commenting about whether it is in the public domain, leads me to suspect that they are taking the word of whoever contacted them without examining the evidence of the other party that claims to own the copyright. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:06, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment Can a OTRS user confirm that the original B&W image is the image that is in mentioned in the ticket. This image was released by the Joint Congressional Inauguration Committee on 15 December 2016 at a now dead link at http://www.inaugural.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Entire%20Program.pdf , which I have not been able to find an archived copy of. This image differs to the possibly colourized version in not only resolution and software, but more importantly the colour version was edited at 11 January 2017 on which the date metadate was also modifed. Furthermore the B&W image has a more precise APEX shutter speed and APEX aperture, as well as differing slightly in Focal plane X resolution and IIM version. If the colour version is the problem we can use the version by Gage that was manually coloured. If however the B&W version is copyrighted then work must be done. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:15, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Emir of Wikipedia: Please don't go removing these images from use until this discussion is closed. I put back the one you removed on Simple English Wikipedia. --Auntof6 (talk) 22:46, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The White House's copyright policy states that, "[e]xcept where otherwise noted, third-party content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License." There is no such indication presented with this photograph, so it appears to me that this is either a work of the federal government, in which case there is no copyright, or a third-party work, in which case we have the White House's assertion that this image is licensed under a Commons-compatible license. Accepting the OTRS-related concerns as valid, I see no reason we can't simply change the license tags on these files and close this as "keep." Rebbing 00:05, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep It's abuse of OTRS to deliver takedown request to volunteers who have signed a confidentiality clause that prevents them from sharing relevant information with the community, who are then asked to come to a consensus while in the dark. Takedown requests should be posted as DMCA Takedown Notices that WMF has pledged to publish. Finnusertop (talk) 00:21, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Rebbing, barring a convincing rebuttal. I'll watch for one. Mandruss (talk) 00:37, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete unless/until this can be resolved. We have an obligation to remove potentially copyrighted images that we likely don't have to right to publish. I agree that it's not fair the the OTRS agents for them to have to deal with it, but they ended up with it anyway. Waggie (talk) 02:03, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted: Speedily, as an unambiguous copyright violation based on information available in the OTRS ticket. The image was taken by Doug Coulter in December of 2016 before Trump assumed office. The original request made to OTRS was not a DMCA takedown notice. Upon investigation of a request made in the ticket, it was made clear that we do not have a license from the copyright owner. OTRS has thoroughly pursued a free license for this image, but we have not received such a license after waiting a substantial period. Allowing this DR to continue to run is pointless, as the community does not have the specific information to determine if the images are acceptable, and OTRS agents cannot disclose those details. A consensus to keep the images based on incomplete information and incorrect conjecture would be irrelevant, as it would not be capable of resolving the unambiguous lack of an acceptable license originating from the copyright owner. - Reventtalk 02:17, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Undid close: per Rebbing, barring a convincing rebuttal. This image was posted at whitehouse.gov[1] under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.[2] A convincing rebuttal would be a comment directly from a member of the Wikimedia legal team explaining, in detail, how that they determined that whitehouse.gov is lying about the copyright status of the image. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:54, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep - Although User:BU Rob13 makes a good argument that it is not public domain, the argument given by User:Smallbones on Jimbo Wales' Wikipedia talk page strongly supports CC-BY status. To wit, a) the photo is on the White House website with no copyright information given, [4] and b) the White House website says all material is CC-BY licensed unless otherwise indicated. [5] Unless and until one of the better users than us who has right to read the secret content explicitly tells us that this is a copyright violation on the White House's part, I'm going to assume they just didn't think of it. Remember that it is NOT our duty to verify whether a reliable publisher obtained its permissions correctly, or else every single publisher we go to that has CC-BY licensed material, whoever it is, cannot be believed and their material cannot be used, and Commons must explicitly restrict its scope to subscriber-generated material -- that is, if we can trust our subscribers, which seems dodgier than trusting the publishers. Maybe you just want to get some gasoline and pour it on the servers and declare it a sacrifice to the copyright god? Wnt (talk) 19:16, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Wnt: Revent, a respected admin with extensive knowledge of copyright law, has access to the ticket. They closed as delete on the basis of the information therein, so your request for a "better user" has already been granted. ~ Rob13Talk 23:32, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • It was disruptive to open this discussion again and demonstrates a disdain for process. There is no evidence that the Whitehouse owns the rights to the photo, and according to OTRS, there is evidence that a photographer does.- MrX 19:30, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regardless of the actual copyright status of the file, this non-admin reopening is clearly against established procedures and clearly of an absolutely unhelpful nature given that a discussion is currently underway at COM:UDEL.    FDMS  4    21:03, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is disruptive to shut down an an ongoing discussion with a claim (a claim made without a shred of evidence or even anyone willing to defend it) that whitehouse.gov is lying about the copyright status of the image. I did !vote for temporary deletion until the copyright status is clear, but refusing to let the community even discuss the issue is an unconscionable invocation of a supervote. If you want to report me for disruption for insisting that the community be allowed to discuss this and make the decision, go right ahead. Any such attempt will blow up in your face. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:13, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's not a shred of evidence supporting the claim whitehouse.gov is lying about the image, because nobody is suggesting whitehouse.gov is lying. The situation is not unusual, it's fairly clear actually, and the confusion is almost certainly the result of unintentional, non-malicious confusion or error on the part of the whitehouse.gov and/or Trump transition staff. The portrait was taken before the new whitehouse.gov website went live, and quite likely before the copyright policy of the new whitehouse.gov website was agreed upon, so any contracts with the photographer possibly would not reflect the intended copyright policy of the as yet unbuilt new whitehouse.gov website. It's not all that unusual to see some material on a US Federal Government website which isn't actually covered by the United States Federal Government Public Domain release; we see data and illustrations from scientists incorporated into works by the USGS, FDA etc, we see extracts from aircraft and airline flight maintenance manuals in the FAA and NTSB reports, and manufacturer publicity material often appears in US DoD publications. We remove these as we find them, some issues are actually flagged by the agencies themselves, letting us know they forgot to add a picture credit or copyright notice and can we remove the material. TL;DR This sort of issue with a US Federal source isn't all that unusual and doesn't cause any major issues. Oh, and @Slangcamms: can you please remove the 'Oompah Loompah-in-chief' quip in your nomination, it's not the sort of language we would expect to see when discussing the subject of a photograph, regardless of our personal thoughts of the subject. Nick (talk) 22:06, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • We cannot assume without evidence that whitehouse.gov made a mistake any more than we can assume without evidence that whitehouse.gov is lying. whitehouse.gov claims copyright. Some unnamed individual who opened a OTRS ticked instead of a DMCA takedown also claims copyright. As Wnt pointed out above, it is NOT our duty to verify whether a reliable publisher obtained its permissions correctly, or else every single publisher we go to that has CC-BY licensed material, whoever it is, cannot be believed and their material cannot be used, and Commons must explicitly restrict its scope to subscriber-generated material. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:22, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • We have evidence that whitehouse.gov has made a mistake, the photographer has told us that to be the case. We accept that errors happen from time to time and we deal with them. That was the case before this issue happened and it will be the case afterwards. You're correct that it's not our duty to verify whether a reliable publisher obtained its permissions correctly, but we go above and beyond what we technically need to do in order to protect us and (primarily) our re-users who don't have the benefit of DMCA Takedown and Safe Harbor protection. That's why we routinely remove material that has come from US Federal Government sources where we know or have good reason to believe the material is not actually Federal Government work and thus in the public domain. It's why I nominated for deletion an illustration of the Douglas DC-10 cargo door mechanism, sourced from the FAA, it was actually content provided to the FAA by McDonnell-Douglas, who retained the copyright. Nick (talk) 22:32, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nick: I fear you may be missing the thrust of our argument: We are not suggesting that these images are public domain works created by a federal employee in the course of his duties. Rather, we are proposing that the private photographer granted to the White House the right to sublicense these images under a Creative Commons license. That's what the White House's website indicates. I understand that the OTRS ticket refutes the public domain claim, but does it also prove that the photographer never agreed to let the White House sublicense these photographs (or never issued such a license himself)? Rebbing 22:42, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I understand the OTRS ticket refutes both the public domain and specific Creative Commons licence claims that exist on the whitehouse.gov website (I was asked by one OTRS agent when the e-mail arrived how they could prove the person who had contacted OTRS was actually the photographer, I suggested, as the EXIF data in the photograph has the camera serial number, they could use that as confirmation). Nick (talk) 22:49, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • It would be nice if an OTRS volunteer familiar with the ticket would chime in on this point, but thank you for that information (and for getting my point). I have two follow-up questions: Between the White House's published statement that it has a license and a secret claim saying that it doesn't, why should we trust the secret claim? And, second, even if we would be willing to take the photographer's words about his contractual agreement with the White House (or Trump transition team), are the OTRS agents sure they're talking to a him and not to any of the countless computer-savvy persons who would be highly amused to tarnish the president's Web presence in any way possible? That serial number is right there in the EXIF information for anyone to see: it's 6....7; it took me all of ten seconds to find it, and, with another minute, I could easily transplant the appropriate EXIF fields from that photograph onto my own proof photograph to "prove" that I was the camera operator. If I can do that, anyone can. Rebbing 23:05, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturning an administrator's close was highly improper and, considering there was already an ongoing deletion review, only served to confuse the matter. UDEL provides an adequate remedy for even the most indefensible of closes—which this was not. Now, as for the White House's license, I think we ought to take it at its word, but there's a wide berth between the license being accurate and the White House lying. No one needs to accuse the White House of dishonesty to conclude that it made a mistake. Rebbing 22:53, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I will be pursuing an office action to take this out of the community's apparently less-than-able hands. Guy Macon, this was incredibly improper. You do not have access to the information OTRS does. This never should have gone to DR; it was tagged for deletion in about a week due to lack of OTRS permission. A globally banned user starts this discussion with a sock and we're stuck with a copyright violation on-wiki for longer. ~ Rob13Talk 23:21, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Will you be be pursuing an office action regarding the deletion (which I support) or regarding the attempt to shut down an active community discussion? An office action to delete an image with disputed copyright status would be noncontroversial and rather routine. An office action to shut down a discussion -- especially now that the discussion includes discussing office actions -- would seem to be not allowed under our policy at m:Office actions. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:40, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Guy Macon: Those two things are one and the same. If the images are deleted via office action, the discussion closes as "nothing to do here". The community can continue to discuss the tyranny of those evil OTRS volunteers if it cares to, but the copyright violations will be removed either way. ~ Rob13Talk 00:15, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • So it is your position that all office deletions are permanent and that the WMF cannot delete an image with disputed ownership while allowing further discussion and presentation of evidence that may resolve the ownership issue? Got a link to a policy that says that? --Guy Macon (talk) 00:33, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Re-closed: The files have already been deleted (while some have been temp. undeleted for an undeletion request or for global replacement assistance). This DR was re-opened out-of-process, and should go through a deletion review (COM:UNDEL-request). The files have not procedurally been undeleted, therefore a Deletion Request-discussion can not continue, since they are already deleted. Do not reopen closed deletion requests, unless it is uncontroversial, or on advice of closing admin. As for the arguments made, there is above threshold of reasonable doubt as to the claimed CC-By license on the WH.gov site, per COM:PRP, and the information which OTRS agents (which as the support of the Commons community through policies) have access to. These files would have been automatically speedy deleted due to missing permission, something which happens every day to many files tagged as such by OTRS agents. These are not office actions. As I said, if you disagree with the closure (or this re-closure of an improperly re-opened DR for already deleted files), take it to COM:UNDEL. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 01:13, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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