Commons:Deletion requests/Template:Swiss Government Portrait
It seems that this template is based on some misunderstanding. The Federal Chancellery has made it clear that Swiss Government portraits may not be used commercially without explicit permission. In a recent statement in Swiss newspaper "SonntagsZeitung" of yesterday (Sunday, April 15), page 4, Vice Chancellor André Simonazzi is quoted as stating, with regard to the current official government portrait (see File:Bundesrat der Schweiz 2011.jpg): "Die Verwendung für politische oder kommerzielle Zwecke ohne Erlaubnis der Regierung ist widerrechtlich." Translation: Use for political or commercial purposes without permission by the government is illegal. A PR agency who used the picture discussed here in a campaign was admonished and they are now expected to donate to a charity for compensation. The advertiser using the image stated that he didn't know you need an authorization to use the photo. - The mails from 2008 stored in OTRS seem to be less than clear regarding the true extent of rights release, see this archived discussion over at the German Wikipedia. Probably the Chancellery then thought the release was only for Wikipedia, as so many people think when asked for rights release. Anyway, Commons doesn't accept NC restrictions. Gestumblindi (talk) 20:15, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- First of all, being the person who discussed with the Chancellery and exchanged private emails with them, which were then forwarded to OTRS for safekeeping, I am really unhappy about discovering that they are now on display on the German Wikipedia (I have added a note there and hidden the content in history). Secondly, I must admit of taking offense at your characterisation of a "misunderstanding". If the people from the Federal Chancellery come here, and see that the emails they wrote privately are splattered around, along with comments implying that these guys don't know what they are doing, it is sure going to help building trust between us and them. As the person who participated in building this trust (and we are still discussing with them occasionally about other topics), I have to thank you heartily for this !
- Then, to come to your argument. First, let me be clear (reusing a comment that was made in the previous discussion): there is absolutely no ambiguity in the original French ticket that all Federal Councillors pictures published by the federal administration are indeed free to use. Not being a native German speaker, I can not vouch so confidently for the other ticket, but it is quite clear as well (and even more so when taken in context of the global discussion, and phone calls, and subsequent meetings with representative of the Federal Chancellery). If I am not mistaken (I should doublecheck my emails), one of our OTRS volunteers who happens to be a Swiss lawyer looked at the tickets and confirmed that they were fine. In comparison, a general quote that was reproduced in a random newspaper does not carry much weight in my eyes.
- Without trying to interpret too much what André Simonazzi is saying, I see nowhere in the quote above an indication that this is about copyright. It is more likely to be based on the personality rights of the Federal Councillors, who do not want to be associated with some political or commercial purposes. This makes perfect sense, and is not incompatible with the distribution of pictures under a free licence. Indeed, when we (= the Swiss volunteers I know of) approach an institution in order for them to release pictures (as in the case of the chancellery), we always mention that the people on the photo still have some rights associated with their images (and which are entirely separated from the copyright, which belongs to the photographer). It is likely that if you take your own picture of a Federal Councillor at a public and want to use it for political advertising, the Government would also complain (even though you have full copyright over the picture). On the other hand, these pictures have been commercially used zillions of times without any problem in contexts where endorsement is not implied.
- So, since Commons is about free content from the point of view of copyright, I see no problem here. Schutz (talk) 07:29, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Dear Schutz, thanks for your statement! I understand that you're unhappy about the OTRS volunteer quoting from mails you considered to be private, but on the other side: How can we discuss the extent and validity of the 2008 permission if we don't know what the chancellery said, exactly? This isn't an issue OTRS volunteers can discuss only amongst themselves. And aren't the mails rather official statements than private? IIRC, individual names were kept out of the quotes. We need a clear permission that can be checked by everyone to its full extent, not a "secret", half-hidden permission. The best way to achieve this would, of course, the chancellery posting a permission here themselves, officially. - Apart from this, I would be very happy if this is indeed only about personality rights. Then we could keep the template and the images, just adding the standard personality rights template would suffice. "Die Verwendung für politische oder kommerzielle Zwecke ohne Erlaubnis der Regierung ist widerrechtlich" from the newspaper statement sounds a lot like a "Non Commercial" restriction to me, but if I'm wrong - very good. Maybe you could ask for confirmation a last time, preferrably getting a statement that can be quoted here, so we're completely sure, as you already were in contact with the people there? With regard to the current portrait, I think the Franz Gertsch painting in the portrait is still a problem, however, or has the Chancellery the copyright and has licensed the painting for free reuse? See also Commons:Deletion requests/File:Bundesrat der Schweiz 2011.jpg. Gestumblindi (talk) 12:42, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- I think there is little doubts that the OTRS emails are private (the ones I sent definitively are !), and discussion about them should be confined to notes in OTRS and the OTRS mailing-lists - even though, I agree this is far from ideal. In any case, public display should be discussed and agreed by our correspondants beforehand ! Most importantly, while public display may not be so much of a problem in the case of a simple authorization, the emails from the Chancellery (now removed from de.wikipedia.org) contained general discussions about change in contracts and the availability of documents from different federal departments, etc, which have nothing to do in a public place. While asking them to confirm the authorisation is a good idea, I am a little bit wary of doing so, as it would probably mean annoying quite a few people there for little benefit (as an aside, most ID pictures of the federal councilors are probably not protected by copyright anyway -- something not true for the group pictures). I'll see what is the best way forward. As for the painting, I agree that it is a separate issue, not covered explicitely by the blanket permission of the chancellery, but haven't looked deeply into it. Cheers, Schutz (talk) 13:27, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- It seems to me that the issue is that there is not a single text which we can call "the permission by the Chancellery", am I right? There seems to be an apparently complex mail exchange touching various issues, but not a single clear, well-formulated "permission statement" issued by an authorized person which could be posted here in full text and referred to? The ideal case would be, I think, a CC license issued by the Chancellery for their material, e.g. CC-BY-SA, as the German Bundesarchiv has done for the material they donated to Commons, ideally posted on their website alongside with the downloadable pictures. That shouldn't be an issue if they really agree to free re-use, I think? Gestumblindi (talk) 16:58, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Two general answers, after a bit of thinking and getting some advice from others. Firstly: we have an agreement with the Chancellery that was validated in OTRS, and noone has seriously questioned its validity. We (at least I) have others things to do that go back to issues that are settled everytime a newspaper writes something (and yes, it is not the first time it happens). Secondly: even if I was willing to reopen the discussion, I would not consider asking for licensing under a CC license. These licences are all nice and well when the institution already knows them well; if they don't, there is a risk they will want to run them through their lawyers, doublecheck every word, and a good chance that we'll never see the end of the tunnel. We are much better off (and they are much more comfortable) with simple terms that can be summarised as "no restriction on reuse, please cite the source" -- which is what we currently have and is perfectly fine. Schutz (talk) 07:07, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
- The OTRS is a very good system for simple, unambiguous cases. Say, I see a file with an OTRS ticket supposedly licensed as CC-BY-SA and I want confirmation - I just ask an OTRS volunteer "is this file really licensed as CC-BY-SA?", the OTRS volunteer checks and confirms "yes, the copyright owners sent a mail using the boilerplate license declaration, all in order". There is no need for us other users to see the e-mail, because we know what e.g. CC-BY-SA entails. Telling us that this license was confirmed is sufficient. But for cases such as this one it's insufficient. No standard license was used, and the quote by Mr. Simonazzi in the newspaper at least seems to be a direct contradiction of the supposed "freeness". As I understand it, you say that we should understand this statement "use for political or commercial purposes without permission by the government is illegal" not literally, that it's only about personality rights, but as yet nobody has asked the Chancellery about it, as it seems. And at least the SonntagsZeitung didn't made any mention of personality rights - but even this: "Für die Reproduktion jeglicher Elemente ist eine schriftliche Zustimmung im Voraus nötig" (not a quote from the Chancellery, but what the SonntagsZeitung says). This would go even farther than a NC restriction, translation: "For the reproduction of any elements a written permission given in advance is mandatory." I trust that, as things stand, any responsibly-thinking admin would delete the template as well as the images using it, because we have a responsibility towards users of Commons files. If we say "commercial use is allowed", commercial use must be allowed indeed, freely, and without "written permission in advance". Commons has never accepted unclear "no restriction on reuse, please cite the source" declarations and always asked for clear, unambiguous licensing which expressly allows commercial re-use, too. So, what we would need from the Chancellery, in my opinion, if not a regular free license, is a declaration that encompasses this too; one that says expressly that any kind of re-use, including commercial re-use is allowed without having to ask for permission first (as long as personality rights aren't touched, of course). Gestumblindi (talk) 19:15, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
- This is probably the right place for me to stop the discussion. We have a perfectly fine (free, accepted by policy and simple) licence for these pictures; we have matching authorisations in OTRS, and people who have read the tickets seem to agree on that. These authorisations are based on direct discussions with the people involved (and not some random quotes made about a hot topic and reported by a third-party). So, as things stand, what any responsibly-thiking admin should do is stand still and spend his time somewhere where it is useful. I understand more or less what you want from the Chancellery, but I don't see how it translates into what we need. Otherwise, you should ask for the policy to be changed, so that only standard (named) licences and boilerplate declarations should be allowed when someone provides us with an authorisation, but this page is not the right place for this. Cheers, Schutz (talk) 07:04, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
- I'm not asking for a policy change. Non-standard licenses are fine if they are clear and there are no contradictions. In this case, we have an intransparent mail exchange from 2008 (not containing any quotable statement which unambiguously allows commercial re-use, as it seems?) versus a current public statement by a high-ranking official apparently clearly contradicting the supposed free use of Swiss Government portraits. So, further clarification is needed. - But I agree with you in this regard: we have probably reached a point where we can only agree to disagree. I can't share your point of view and you can't share mine, as it seems. So, I hope that others will chime in and state what they think of this issue. I'm going to ask Lupo, whose statements on copyright and license issues I've always found very helpful, and Pill over at the German Wikipedia, who is an OTRS volunteer and well-versed in copyright issues. Gestumblindi (talk) 00:32, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
- This is probably the right place for me to stop the discussion. We have a perfectly fine (free, accepted by policy and simple) licence for these pictures; we have matching authorisations in OTRS, and people who have read the tickets seem to agree on that. These authorisations are based on direct discussions with the people involved (and not some random quotes made about a hot topic and reported by a third-party). So, as things stand, what any responsibly-thiking admin should do is stand still and spend his time somewhere where it is useful. I understand more or less what you want from the Chancellery, but I don't see how it translates into what we need. Otherwise, you should ask for the policy to be changed, so that only standard (named) licences and boilerplate declarations should be allowed when someone provides us with an authorisation, but this page is not the right place for this. Cheers, Schutz (talk) 07:04, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
- The OTRS is a very good system for simple, unambiguous cases. Say, I see a file with an OTRS ticket supposedly licensed as CC-BY-SA and I want confirmation - I just ask an OTRS volunteer "is this file really licensed as CC-BY-SA?", the OTRS volunteer checks and confirms "yes, the copyright owners sent a mail using the boilerplate license declaration, all in order". There is no need for us other users to see the e-mail, because we know what e.g. CC-BY-SA entails. Telling us that this license was confirmed is sufficient. But for cases such as this one it's insufficient. No standard license was used, and the quote by Mr. Simonazzi in the newspaper at least seems to be a direct contradiction of the supposed "freeness". As I understand it, you say that we should understand this statement "use for political or commercial purposes without permission by the government is illegal" not literally, that it's only about personality rights, but as yet nobody has asked the Chancellery about it, as it seems. And at least the SonntagsZeitung didn't made any mention of personality rights - but even this: "Für die Reproduktion jeglicher Elemente ist eine schriftliche Zustimmung im Voraus nötig" (not a quote from the Chancellery, but what the SonntagsZeitung says). This would go even farther than a NC restriction, translation: "For the reproduction of any elements a written permission given in advance is mandatory." I trust that, as things stand, any responsibly-thinking admin would delete the template as well as the images using it, because we have a responsibility towards users of Commons files. If we say "commercial use is allowed", commercial use must be allowed indeed, freely, and without "written permission in advance". Commons has never accepted unclear "no restriction on reuse, please cite the source" declarations and always asked for clear, unambiguous licensing which expressly allows commercial re-use, too. So, what we would need from the Chancellery, in my opinion, if not a regular free license, is a declaration that encompasses this too; one that says expressly that any kind of re-use, including commercial re-use is allowed without having to ask for permission first (as long as personality rights aren't touched, of course). Gestumblindi (talk) 19:15, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
- Two general answers, after a bit of thinking and getting some advice from others. Firstly: we have an agreement with the Chancellery that was validated in OTRS, and noone has seriously questioned its validity. We (at least I) have others things to do that go back to issues that are settled everytime a newspaper writes something (and yes, it is not the first time it happens). Secondly: even if I was willing to reopen the discussion, I would not consider asking for licensing under a CC license. These licences are all nice and well when the institution already knows them well; if they don't, there is a risk they will want to run them through their lawyers, doublecheck every word, and a good chance that we'll never see the end of the tunnel. We are much better off (and they are much more comfortable) with simple terms that can be summarised as "no restriction on reuse, please cite the source" -- which is what we currently have and is perfectly fine. Schutz (talk) 07:07, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
- It seems to me that the issue is that there is not a single text which we can call "the permission by the Chancellery", am I right? There seems to be an apparently complex mail exchange touching various issues, but not a single clear, well-formulated "permission statement" issued by an authorized person which could be posted here in full text and referred to? The ideal case would be, I think, a CC license issued by the Chancellery for their material, e.g. CC-BY-SA, as the German Bundesarchiv has done for the material they donated to Commons, ideally posted on their website alongside with the downloadable pictures. That shouldn't be an issue if they really agree to free re-use, I think? Gestumblindi (talk) 16:58, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- I think there is little doubts that the OTRS emails are private (the ones I sent definitively are !), and discussion about them should be confined to notes in OTRS and the OTRS mailing-lists - even though, I agree this is far from ideal. In any case, public display should be discussed and agreed by our correspondants beforehand ! Most importantly, while public display may not be so much of a problem in the case of a simple authorization, the emails from the Chancellery (now removed from de.wikipedia.org) contained general discussions about change in contracts and the availability of documents from different federal departments, etc, which have nothing to do in a public place. While asking them to confirm the authorisation is a good idea, I am a little bit wary of doing so, as it would probably mean annoying quite a few people there for little benefit (as an aside, most ID pictures of the federal councilors are probably not protected by copyright anyway -- something not true for the group pictures). I'll see what is the best way forward. As for the painting, I agree that it is a separate issue, not covered explicitely by the blanket permission of the chancellery, but haven't looked deeply into it. Cheers, Schutz (talk) 13:27, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Dear Schutz, thanks for your statement! I understand that you're unhappy about the OTRS volunteer quoting from mails you considered to be private, but on the other side: How can we discuss the extent and validity of the 2008 permission if we don't know what the chancellery said, exactly? This isn't an issue OTRS volunteers can discuss only amongst themselves. And aren't the mails rather official statements than private? IIRC, individual names were kept out of the quotes. We need a clear permission that can be checked by everyone to its full extent, not a "secret", half-hidden permission. The best way to achieve this would, of course, the chancellery posting a permission here themselves, officially. - Apart from this, I would be very happy if this is indeed only about personality rights. Then we could keep the template and the images, just adding the standard personality rights template would suffice. "Die Verwendung für politische oder kommerzielle Zwecke ohne Erlaubnis der Regierung ist widerrechtlich" from the newspaper statement sounds a lot like a "Non Commercial" restriction to me, but if I'm wrong - very good. Maybe you could ask for confirmation a last time, preferrably getting a statement that can be quoted here, so we're completely sure, as you already were in contact with the people there? With regard to the current portrait, I think the Franz Gertsch painting in the portrait is still a problem, however, or has the Chancellery the copyright and has licensed the painting for free reuse? See also Commons:Deletion requests/File:Bundesrat der Schweiz 2011.jpg. Gestumblindi (talk) 12:42, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
Comment - it seems to me that these are just simple photos, without copyright protection i Switzerland. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 05:23, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
- This may be true for individual portraits but not, I think, for the councillor group photos like the current one or File:Bundesrat der Schweiz 2010.jpg. Too much artistic design. Gestumblindi (talk) 19:21, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
first of all, i agree with the notion that confidential correspondence between the volunteer response team and indviduals should not be published on a public wiki (i do not know how much was published, though); however, this cannot extend to discussing the permission statement itself. i fail to see legal arguments against it, and it is precisely the function of the volunteer response team to perform its tasks in accordance with the community's principles regarding the acceptance of copyright-protected works; it would thus be hindering to the permissions process if it were not possible to discuss, in anonymized form and without giving details that could identify the identitiy of the sender and/or that would impose a breach of confidentiality insofar as entire correspondences are made public, the basic rationale under which an OTRS tag was implemented when justified doubts arise regarding the validity of the statement of permission. here is what we know based on the information received (in chronological order) (note that i couldn't find the :
i) asked for a confirmation regarding the definition of the term "free usage" (the volunteer pointed out that we only use content that is entirely free, i.e. without restrictions on use, e.g. reproduction, redistribution, but also the modification and use without limitation, whether commercially or not.) we were informed that images on http://www.parlament.ch can be used "without restriction (except that of the indications of the source)". (ticket:2007092710010598)
ii) asked about "freely reusable, modifiable and redistributable" imagery of members of the federal council, we were informed that the use of images on http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/cf//br/index.html is not restricted ("keine Nutzungseinschränkung"), provided that the source or a link is given. (ticket:2007080810014523)
iii) the use of pictures of the members of the federal council and/or the federal chansellors is "free" ("libre") while some of the imagery on admin.ch might still be protected by copyright law nevertheless. (ticket:2008022410010827) specifically though,
iv) photos of the members of the federal council that have been released by the confederation are without copyright protection (sans "copyright"). (ibid.)
i am the least convinced with respect to iii) as i cannot find a definition of "free" in the correspondence. also, it is somewhat dubious (at least to me) to which images this does apply and to which it does not. iv) would be interpreted as implied conduct by most OTRS volunteers i know (Template:Attribution; i put this wording to debate on our last workshop), so i don't think this is overly problematic as long as we do not extend it to iii). however, it's of certainly up to the Commons community. personally, i'm inclined to take a more "hardline" approach in this respect, but there's some truth in Schutz' statement that "... you should ask for the policy to be changed, so that only standard (named) licences and boilerplate declarations should be allowed when someone provides us with an authorisation". the relationship between ii) and iii) is interesting; the problem i have right now is that the url seems to be outdated. if the url pointed to the entire photo repository of the site, doesn't ii) contradict iii) according to which some images on the site are protected by copyrights? regarding i), i think that shouldn't be a problem in itself, it also reflects my understanding of implied conduct (Template:Attribution).
i don't read the SonntagsZeitung, but personally, if the vice chancellor points to restrictions of use with respect to said photograph (which i assume falls into iv) above?!?), i find it rather natural to check back again with institution.
cheers, —Pill (talk) 13:02, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks a lot for your analysis, Pill. Yes, I would find it natural to check back again, too, and in the light of the Vice Chancellor's statement which doesn't look like "sans copyright" to me, otherwise we should delete the questionable images according to Commons:Project scope/Precautionary principle ("where there is significant doubt about the freedom of a particular file it should be deleted"). Gestumblindi (talk) 20:12, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
Question: did anyone get in touch with the Chancellery to clarify the incident mentioned in the Sonntagszeitung? (Schulz would be the obvious person...) Rd232 (talk) 19:44, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
Kept: The case reported of the the PR agency using an image for a campaign is not inconcistent with our needs -- we require that an image be free for commercial use (such as publishing it on a web site that carries ads or using it in a book -- any book, even a schoolbook -- that is sold). That is very different from using an image in a PR campaign endorsing someone or something -- even a CC-BY image cannot be used for that without permission. Therefore, my reading is that this template is OK. . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 14:26, 18 November 2012 (UTC)