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It was removed because it was presumed to be copyrighted and not freely licensed, which is almost certainly correct. In this case, to upload the picture here, the copyright holder (possibly the designer or the band, but likely the record label) will need to confirm a free license by following the instructions on OTRS. The alternative would be to familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's Non-free content criteria and Non-free usage rationale guidelines to upload it to Wikipedia instead of here on Commons. We do not accept Fair use, but in certain circumstances, some local Wikipedias (e.g. English) do. Storkk (talk) 15:02, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
For File:Give Kids the World (3446758955).jpg, the artistic display seems to be the main subject of the photo, and the US does not have FOP for artistic works. In addition, the Give Kids the World Village resort started operating in the 1980s, so the situation where the artistic display was publicly installed before 1978 is not likely to apply. Should this image be nominated for deletion? --Gazebo (talk) 11:04, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Linking for attribution vs. unlinking for accessibility
Certain images in the Commons are intended for decorative use, for example, portal icons in wikipedia:Template:Portal. The Web accessibility standard is that a decorative image should have an empty alt attribute, so that it does not generate meaningless or repetitive screen reader output. Linking the image for attribution purposes, however, results in an empty link. An empty link is an accessibility error due to its confusing screen reader output. This results in a conflict between attribution and accessibility.
To resolve this conflict, I propose encouraging owners of a CC-BY or other attribution required image to add the {{Unlinked}} template after the license, if they intend the image for decorative use on a Wikimedia project. This would allow the image to be correctly ignored by screen readers, search engines, and in other nonvisual contexts. Would this work? Matt Fitzpatrick (talk) 05:15, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Uploads by Jremmes
I'm not sure if the licensing on any of these files is correct and would appreciate the opinions of others.
File:John-alan-messeder.jpg has been uploaded as own work which seems a bit unlikely since the photo is dated January 1948 and appears to be a scan of a photo rather than one taken by the uploader. It's possible that this is some kind of family photo handed down from one generation to another, but I'm not sure if licensing it as "own work" is sufficient and whether OTRS permissions is needed. FWIW, I was able to find the photo online, but all the websites seem to be mirrors of the Wikipedia article where the photo is being used.
File:Pxl blue background logo.png and File:PixelMEDIA-logo.jpg are also licensed as "own work". The files are not being used in any articles, but it looks like they come from here and here respectively. These might be "own work", but regardless they do seem simple enough for {{PD-Textlogo}}. The company's official website seems to be this.
Yes, right. I tagged the first one as "no source". The other two are easy to fix. You can do it yourself, as you suggest. Regards, Yann (talk) 12:13, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
So I have a picture of the sculpture "Head of a Saint" by Bertram Mackennal. I am certain that the sculpture itself is in the public domain, but what about the picture? It's just the sculpture against a white wall. (picture link: https://postimg.org/image/yla0thbq3/) The link doesn't say whether the picture is copyrighted, and I'm not sure if it's a derivative work., So, would this count as a derivative work? If it isn't, then I will describe the sculpture when the upload wizard asks me about the copyright. Thanks, Philroc (talk) 16:04, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
It is a derivative work, but it also carries a copyright by the photographer. And without a license from the latter we cannot use it. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:17, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
If the photograph is not free, it's not acceptable on Wikipedia either, unless the photograph is to be fairly used, i.e. used in the context of illustrating an article about this particular photographic work or about the photographer. It is not the same thing as if you fairly used a free photograph in the context of illustrating an article about a non-free sculpture or about its sculptor. -- Asclepias (talk) 17:24, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Neither. There is no evidence that the photograph is in the public domain in the United States and there is no tag for fair use on Commons. -- Asclepias (talk) 17:24, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
In the legal doctrine, some people may define it as a reproduction and other people may define it as a derivative work. This theoretical distinction doesn't make a practical difference here because either way it is considered copyrightable by Commons and Wikipedia. By habit, most people on Commons seem to use the term derivative work. Anyway, when you upload a reproduction or derivative work, you should always indicate the copyright status of both the original work and the reproduction or derivative work. If the upload wizard doesn't allow you to provide all the information, just add the rest of the information immediately after upload. -- Asclepias (talk) 17:24, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
File is uploaded as "own work" and is being used in quite a lot of articles. While it is possible the uplaoder did take the photo, I'm not sure if it can be freely licensed per COM:FOP#Philippines. Can this be considered a form of de minimis or would the design of the building depicted be protected by copyright under Philippine law? -- Marchjuly (talk) 14:45, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Derivative work of derivative work to original CC0?
Hi, just would like to get confirmation or getting it fixed if I was allowed to save my derivatives of derivative works back to the original CC0 by Mr. Matté, because the CCbySA version between (by Ali Zifan and MB298) is only very little adapted and only simple shapes? (By the way, if anyone would like to convert/redo these as SVG I would certainly love that. :) --SI15:25, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
If you consider that the CC-by-sa is validly used for licensing copyrightable modifications by the three users who contributed to the two intermediate files, then you can't derive a public domain file from a file licensed by-sa, unless you can prove that you are reusing only what was already in the work of user Mr. Matté and no copyrightable modifications made by the other users. But if you can prove that, then the question could become why you don't start directly from the original. That could be an uneasy task and you might irritate the three intermediate users. It seems odd that user Ali Zifan derived his file from the other derivative by user Magog the Ogre, instead of deriving it directly from the original file of Mr. Matté. But that's what he wrote that he did. You don't need to use that derivative. If you want to make a public domain file and the only thing you need is a blank map of the United States with boundaries of the States, it would probably be easier to find a public domain file, there are certainly many maps of this type, and start directly from that public domain file to derive your file. -- Asclepias (talk) 16:53, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
Versions 2.0 and 3.0 of a same type of CC licenses seem quite similar on many substantial points although there are differences. You can compare their texts on the CC website. However, note that the license you mention in your question is not in the section "Commons:Licentiesjablonen#Free Creative Commons Licenses" but in the section "Commons:Licentiesjablonen#Onvrije copyrights". -- Asclepias (talk) 17:44, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
That's really not a good source for the 'attribution' of the image, but a high school yearbook was almost certainly not registered, and a yearbook photographer would have obviously consented to it's publication in that form. I'd just rather see something better to show it's really a yearbook photo (shrugs). Reventtalk14:56, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
I think he meant more of a scan of the actual yearbook page, to show that the photo actually did appear there, and was not simply misattributed. But... not sure that doubt is enough to prevent upload. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:17, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
Yes, that's what I meant, but I'm not particularly concerned about this being copyrighted... it would be nice to have 'proof', but I don't think there's really a substantial reason to doubt it either. Reventtalk20:39, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
The EXIF data for the first photo says "Copyright holder: Usage upon payment in full to Helen Jones Photography" so it seems that the photo was a commissioned work. I'm not sure if OTRS verification is still required in such a case to verify that the uploader is the copyright holder since he is not the photographer.
The second photo was taken by an iPhone and there's no indication who took the photo. I guess it could have been taken by someone using the uploader's iPhone, and I'm not sure how copyright is handled in such cases. Would OTRS verification be needed in this case since this does not seem to be a selfie?
Helen Jones remains the original copyright holder of the work unless they have signed an agreement to the contrary. The EXIF data led me to believe there is an implied non-exclusive license allowing Tim Arnold to use the work for the purpose for which it was commissioned. This does not necessarily result in a transfer of ownership. In this case, I'll be interested in a copy of the signed agreement between Helen and Tim stating an appropriate transfer has actually taken place. Uploader needs to send a copy of the agreement to our support team or Helen Jones, a permission to COM:OTRS. I see that Yann already took the image to DR which I think is fine.
In the second photo, the copyright holder of the work is the person who press the shutter button and not the owner of the equipment. In this case, the person who took the photo needs to send permission to our support team. I took it to DR. Wikicology (talk) 17:24, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
Is it possible to take an image of a copyrighted logo, make a vectorized SVG file of it and use it on Wikimedia Commons for Wikipedia?
I've seen lots of logos from big multinational corporations uploaded by usual users of wikipedia, saying they got the logo from a PDF file or a website.
SORRY IF THEY'RE REALLY BIG. Here are some examples of what I'm saying:
And maybe upload some more, like the starbucks one, just to make Wikipedia more coloured and wonderful, with images people can identify quickly of what they're reading about.
It always depends on the individual logo. The SVG examples you provided above are actually not copyrighted because they consist only of simple text. The logos of Rock FM and Starbucks, however, are creative enough to be copyrighted, so we cannot use any images of those without a free licence. De728631 (talk) 06:31, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
OK, I understand that. So I can use vectorized logos of those who are simply stylized text, right? Without any other extra graphic. 3 more questions:
It would depend on the country where the logos are from and their threshold of originality, and in some cases their laws. The U.S. is one where stylized text is OK; the UK on the other hand may copyright them if they are not a standard font. Other countries may be in between. A few countries actually do say that their national seals etc. are not subject to copyright, but in general, we treat those (especially shields) like copyrighted drawings -- you can draw your own version, but not take graphics off of the web (see Commons:coats of arms). Some flags are below the threshold of originality, as well. The "Orange" logo would most likely be fine. If you get permission, you would need to follow the process at COM:OTRS, as the copyright (not trademark) needs to be licensed for everyone to use -- you cannot get permission for just Wikipedia. Many of the projects would allow logos to be used under a fair use rationale if uploaded to that project directly -- the English Wikipedia does, which is why you see logos on most company pages -- but Commons can not host those (just the ones where copyright does not apply, or has expired, or has been freely licensed). Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:09, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
I've made my own SVG file from an image I found on the internet of the following wordmark:
I think this is fine, because of what we've talked right before. It's only stylized text and a coloured rectangle. Also based in what I've read here: [[1]]. Please, tell me if what I've done is correct. I'd like to make my contribution to Wikipedia and Wikimedia with my best intention, I don't want to go against their politics. Thanks for your attention. CMetalCore (talk) 23:23, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
Text-only front cover of "Would?"
Is this image okay to upload in Commons? It was released in Europe and not elsewhere. I see some handwriting on the band's name, but the font of "would?" is very simple. --George Ho (talk) 07:11, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
The handwriting would not qualify for copyright in the U.S., and as that is a U.S. band, that part's country of origin is the U.S. to begin with. It was on Facelift, for example. So it would come down to the "Would" portion. It would be fine for the U.S. but unsure about Europe. Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:51, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
It is lettering, which is considered a trivial variation of age-old elements (letters), so is not copyrightable. While not true for every country, the basic shape of letters is not copyrightable in the U.S. Computer fonts are copyrightable as computer programs. So, as long as there is no separable expression distinct from the shape of the letter itself (say a 2-D texture on the surface of the letters), lettering is not copyrightable. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:23, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
I am concerned that it is not simply "lettering" or "handwriting". It can be a work of art specifically created to look like handwriting or lettering. Ruslik (talk) 20:20, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
For the U.S., if it's in the shape of letters, the shape or outlines are not copyrightable. If there is ornamentation separate from the letter shape (like say File:Fancy Letter V.jpg) that is different. A work created to look like lettering is just lettering -- there is no loophole there, at least in the U.S. The band title is simply a typeface there, hand-drawn or not. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:39, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
Photos of bottles/cans
I'm thinking about uploading a series of photos of drinks in a glass alongside the bottle/can that they came in, along the same lines as File:BlackSheepAle.jpg / File:VitaCola.JPG. However, I'm not sure about their copyright status - does the label on the bottle present a problem in terms of releasing them under a free license? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 00:01, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
File uploaded as "own work" by Bswieser, but it seems unlikely that it is. Rather, it looks like it comes from some sort of official materials related to the en:Centennial Planetarium.
My father was the first director of the Calgary Centennial Planetarium and the photos I am posting are from his personal collection. Many of the photographs I am posting are photographs he took, and he is deceased as of 2012 so arguably ownership of his intellectual work and his collection belong to his estate. The image in question is from his collection, and though he did not build the model nor take this photograph, it is unlikely that this image exists in the City of Calgary archives. This makes it historically significant, and I'd request I'd be allowed to continuing documenting the history of this building and related offshoots, or advised how to treat materials like this that were in the public domain. Bswieser (talk) 05:11, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
OK, after reading the above... yes, I would say that you have the right to license any of your father's intellectual property. However, items that he merely possessed, and did not author, would not be his intellectual property. Article 12 of Canada's copyright law says: Without prejudice to any rights or privileges of the Crown, where any work is, or has been, prepared or published by or under the direction or control of Her Majesty or any government department, the copyright in the work shall, subject to any agreement with the author, belong to Her Majesty and in that case shall continue for the remainder of the calendar year of the first publication of the work and for a period of fifty years following the end of that calendar year. So, in most cases like this, it sounds like the copyright would be owned by the Crown. If this was published in 1966, then 50 years would expire on January 1, 2017. If it was only first published later, then we'd have to wait. If such a photograph is not owned by the Crown for whatever reason, and it is owned by someone else (if if we can't identify that person), then we are in the area of "orphan works" -- and that is bad, as we cannot really get any license at all. Copyright law makes no allowance for that type of situation, which definitely makes documenting historically significant items more difficult. Any particular use along those lines however may be fair dealing or fair use, which would make it legal, but Commons cannot host such files as anything uploaded here needs to be for general use. So, if your father did not author the material, there are no rights that can be licensed. However, the publication date would be important here, since they do appear to be Crown Copyright works. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:13, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
(answered without seeing response from User:Bswieser) I did find [2] a 1966 Annual Report which talks about the planetarium, and mentions "S. Wieser" is the director. It is very possible the uploader is related, and may have material related to the projects which they do in fact own. This image though looks like it was from a government publication, which would seem to indicate it was Crown Copyright, no longer owned by the person who actually took the photo (or made the model), and it would be under that copyright for 50 years from publication, per {{PD-Canada}}. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:00, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
I am about to start working on an article on Wikipedia about Disney's Magicbands. I was wondering, are images used in an FCC filing, such as the ones under external links on the Magicband's FCC filing in the public domain or not? Elisfkc (talk) 19:22, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
Doubt it, unless the application form makes clear the uploader is going to forfeit copyright. Do we not have any photos of them? I may have a gray one at home. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:39, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
I work directly with the photographer Terry O'Neill however every time I try to upload his images in reference to the existing content created by other users in the past, the image is being rejected.
For example Elton John is referenced and I would like to support the statement with a photo O'Neill took, there is also mention of Faye Dunaway's Oscar win and the photo but I'm unable to upload the relevant image.
What account are you uploading the images with? I've just checked the account you've posted this with and there are no image uploads associated with the account. Also, could you be more specific about how it is being rejected? Is the uploader failing to accept the image for some reason, or is it being deleted once uploaded (this is common if a valid license is not provided, for example)? The more specific information you can provide, the better we can figure out what the issue is. Also, you should sign all your posts with four tildes (~). That way, your username and the datestamp is attached so we know who we're talking to. Diliff (talk) 12:20, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
If the photographs have previously been published on the Internet (with no indication of a license at the source), we typically require a separate email sent by the copyright owner, following the procedures at COM:OTRS. User accounts here are essentially anonymous, and people upload images off the Internet all the time, so we need to be more careful. Also, we need to be sure the copyright owner is clear about the rights they need to relinquish -- images cannot be licensed for Wikipedia only; they must allow everyone to use them. If you mean to use them under a fair use rationale on the English Wikipedia, you'd have to upload them there -- and it would be up to their editors to decide if the images meet their policies. This is Wikimedia Commons, a separate project where we are not allowed to host anything with just a fair use rationale. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:23, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
Can I upload a recording of this text? The recording includes "Copyright 2000 Douglas N. Honorof, Jill McCullough & Barbara Somerville. All rights reserved."
It says that:
Comma Gets a Cure and derivative works may be used freely for any purpose without special permission provided the present sentence and the following copyright notification accompany the passage in print, if reproduced in print, and in audio format in the case of a sound recording: Copyright 2000 Douglas N. Honorof, Jill McCullough & Barbara Somerville. All rights reserved.
The "All rights reserved" is rather odd in that context, and conflicting, but I'd say it is a form of Attribution. The requirement of the entire sentence in print is a bit tough, but not as bad as say the GFDL, so it's probably a free license. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:33, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
Mexican road signs
I had a discussion on ENWP with a couple users regarding the licenses of Mexican road signs. We seem to have come to an agreement that they are not compatible with Commons. That they would be PD in the US, but not in Mexico. However, we have quite a few files located here at Category:Diagrams of road signs of Mexico. So I'd like to get a determination from Commons editors before I proceed with moving and/or uploading new files to ENWP for local use. –Fredddie™17:05, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
I said the same thing regarding the Australian highway signs, but the rationale then was that Australia's TOO is too low to be compatible with Commons. –Fredddie™19:33, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
And I disagreed with that then as well. These are simple shapes with a commonality between many countries, there is nothing original or unique about the two signs that I linked as examples. Fry1989eh?22:24, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
I am on the fence. The shield shape is very similar to the US ones, but the inward swoops on the side are unique. I would need to know more about Mexican threshold of originality. Fry1989eh?16:29, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
In the city of San Jose (in the US), there is an old neon sign for Stephen's Meat Products. The question is whether a freely licensed photo of the sign could be uploaded to Commons, or, in other terms, is the sign itself copyrighted? The information at Commons:Public art and copyrights in the US implies that an artistic work is out of copyright in the US if it was installed in a public location in the US before 1978, the work lacked a copyright notice, and there were no efforts to prevent copies of the publicly situated work from being made. This Metroactive article dates the sign to around 1949 or 1950 and says that the sign was conceived by Stephen Tiesel (who started Stephen's Meat products) and his wife, Grace Pizzo. Another Metroactive article dates the sign to the 1950s. --Gazebo (talk) 05:48, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
Some old photographs are donated content under CC-BY-SA. When those works enter the public domain due to copyright expiration, should we alter their license? Or add a public domain template and is there a bot that can do that? --Hannolans (talk) 18:12, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
Just add the other PD tags if appropriate. A license like CC-BY-SA is universal across all countries; copyright expires at different times in different countries. I don't think there is any bot to do that. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:31, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
Ah yes. So a PD tag and a CC-BY-SA will co-exist. A bot (with a category to mass tag them) would be great as it include hunderds of files when it comes from institutions. Or another tool that can do a find replace. Or is there a tool I can use to add a template? --Hannolans (talk) 22:17, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
@Hannolans: If the images are in a single category (or several), you should be able to use COM:VFC to do a 'find and replace'. Hopefully images from a particular institution are categorized together. Reventtalk00:14, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
This file is licensed as {{PD-textlogo}}, but I'm not sure about the cherry imagery. It seems like it might just be complex enough to be above the COM:TOO unless fruit imagery is considered to be "utilitarian". -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:17, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
@Marchjuly: It's clearly not utilitarian... that term (in regards to copyright) refers to the design of a purely functional object like an airplane or a fork... it never applies to a work whose mere purpose is to 'display it's own design'. Reventtalk00:18, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
Uploaded as "own work", but the uploader and the individual shown in image have the same name so they might be the same person. It also looks like a scan of some photo taken from another source which might indicate that the uploader is not the person who created the image. I can't find the file online anywhere so maybe it's from a personal collection or something. Does this file require OTRS verification? -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:14, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
Yes, you're right Jos1950. The author is listed as Jamesalty, but the uploader is JLenton. I missed that, but that makes the file's claim as own work even more dubious. -- Marchjuly (talk) 12:44, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
Canadian vinyl of "Suzanne" by Leonard Cohen
I want to upload the Canadian vinyl of Leonard Cohen's recording. The logo of Columbia Records is uploaded in Commons, implying ineligibility of copyright in the US. I downloaded the image and cropped the parts out, but the inner circle still remains. I was not able to cover the inner circle. However, would the inner circle by copyrightable? --George Ho (talk) 16:42, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
I nominated the two for deletion; they're definitely above TOO in most countries, if not all. I am not aware of the tool for seating councils, but you can usually edit an SVG by hand. Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 14:58, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
"Saxifraga Foundation is an ECNC-linked network of European nature photographers, whose aim is to stimulate and facilitate the conservation of European biodiversity. They do so by providing high-quality nature pictures free of charge. This part of the website is an initiative of the Saxifraga Foundation. ECNC, Crossbill Guides Foundation, Dutch Butterfly Conservation (De Vlinderstichting) and Foto Fitis provide assistance in its development and maintenance. To download pictures of European animals, plants and landscapes, go to the gallery on the right.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
On this website low-resolution pictures of European animals, plants and landscapes are available for PowerPoint presentations and websites. Visitors are allowed to download these pictures free of charge, on condition that they mention the name of the photographer (this can be found in the filename of the picture). Please be so kind as to send us an email when you download these pictures, and mention for what purpose you want to use them. Downloads for commercial purposes are always strictly forbidden.
If you need high resolution pictures for printed publications on nature conservation, contact Saxifraga for the conditions. We can provide these pictures immediately upon request. Mention in your request the name(s) of the low-resolution picture(s) which you have selected from the website."
Can I upload such "low resolution" photo's to Wiki commons?
Unfortunately we cannot use these pictures for Commons. Commons requires that commercial use is explicitely allowed which is not the case there. De728631 (talk) 15:58, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
A new copyright tag for files from the official websites of the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force
With the growing use of Wikimedia Commons in India, more and more images (or files) from the official websites of Indian Army (Official website) and Indian Air Force (Official website) are flushing in each day. But many of these images are being uploaded with inappropriate copyright licensing tags, mostly under "Creative Commons" (CC) tags. But these are not apt for these files. The Indian Army and Indian Air Force declare their copyright policies for the content published on their websites as followingː
Indian Army copyright policyː "Material featured on this site may be reproduced free of charge in any format or media without requiring specific permission. This is subject to the material being reproduced accurately and not being used in a derogatory manner or in a misleading context. Where the material is being published or issued to others, the source must be prominently acknowledged. However, the permission to reproduce this material does not extend to any material on this site, which is identified as being the copyright of a third party. Authorisation to reproduce such material must be obtained from the copyright holders concerned"
Indian Air Force copyright policyː "Material featured on this site may be reproduced free of charge in any format or media without requiring specific permission. This is subject to the material being reproduced accurately and not being used in a derogatory manner or in a misleading context. Where the material is being published or issued to others, the source must be prominently acknowledged. However, the permission to reproduce this material does not extend to any material on this site, which is explicitly identified as being the copyright of a third party. Authorisation to reproduce such material must be obtained from the copyright holders concerned".
After all this explanation I request the admins and other experienced users to help me in creating a new comprehensive copyright tag template for images from the Indian Army and Indian Air Force websites, that is best suitable and covers all that is required. Structures and style from {{Cc-by-sa-2.5-in}} and {{Indian navy}} many be integrated into this proposed template. --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk · mail) 10:28, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
I'm not sure you need an RFC for this. It would be easier just to create a template first, modelled on similar templates, then discuss a few initial test cases, you don't need permission or a community consensus in advance of getting on with a few tests. From what has been described so far, it may be even easier to create an advisory template intended to supplement an existing standard license, such as Attribution, which could either be placed next to the license, or added to the Permissions field. --Fæ (talk) 11:02, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
@Clindberg: Thanks for letting me know about the template. What about adding parameter for confirmation of source presenting the material? I mean about adding a {{License review}} field, that enables a reviewer or admin to check whether the file is originally posted to the website, and subsequently create a category such as "Un-reviewed files from indianairforce.nic.in" or something like that. --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk · mail) 12:57, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the link to that new discussion. But we had discussed same matter earlier related to Template:Attribution-PIB-India per this and the conclusion was it is an ND license. So we need to maintain a uniformity in our stand. (I've no objection in revising our decisions. But note that (my understanding) WMIN talked with government and they granted CC BY license to many of their sites. Pinging Sreejithk2000 to know current status.) Jee16:34, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
And we've had many similar discussions on the "accurately" wording (or maybe it's "distortion") which also appears in the FoP clauses of some countries (Germany, Mexico) and decided that was about moral rights. The mention of "derogatory" also points that way, strongly. An explicit CC-BY would certainly be good, but I don't think we should disallow other licenses which really are free (and if they are fine with CC-BY for similar sites, that speaks to their intent to allow derivative works in the first place). Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:19, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
I've no objections. BTW, most of the gov.in sites have this uniform "license terms". If this is acceptable we can use lot of media available there. Jee17:30, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
̺Thank You Jkadavoor and Carl. The policy on both the sites clearly mention that the material may be reproduced free of charge without any prior permission. But the only restriction they've implied is to not to use the media in "derogatory" i.e in a disrespectful manner. This clause can be integrated into the new template. Anyway thanks Jee, for pinging Sreejith who is better established in this area. And also I started to contact the department with a request for a clearer conditions of use. Could anyone of you what is the difference between "reproduction" (as mentioned on the website) or "a derivative work" (for what we need clarification)? --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk · mail) 01:53, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
@FDMS4: I think this has wider significance FDMS. Thousands of images from these two sites exist on commons with completely wrong licence tags (CC-by-SA). This discussion is much needed, because, not only for now, it would be a solution in future also. --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk · mail) 03:33, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
What you describe applies to very, very many discussions on Commons, a project curating almost 35 million files. The RFC process is primarily for specific proposals affecting established procedures relied upon by significant parts of the community. FDMS 4 10:45, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
As some may have noticed, I started a discussion below on the same topic before it was pointed out that this one was here. My concern is with the specific wording of the permission text. While there is a suggestion an {{Attribution}} template may be the closest matching tag, I disagree because the pages of both the Army and Air Force state that: This is subject to the material being reproduced accurately and to me infers we are not allowed make any changes to the images, so therefore derivative works are not allowed. If the Indian Army and Air Force follow the example of the Navy and provide us with an acceptable OTRS verification it would be great but until then, my feeling is that none of these images are allowable here and must be deleted. User:Nikkimaria raised exactly the same concern about the lack of a specific statement about derivative works during this discussion w:Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/List of National Defence Academy alumni. Ww2censor (talk) 17:42, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
Do you not think that the requirement This is subject to the material being reproduced accurately and not being used in a derogatory manner or in a misleading context does not refer to moral rights? The language used there, to me, strongly indicates that is the intent, whereas derivative rights are likely covered by the term "reproduction". Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:00, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
I think that the license is wiki-compatible. I do not think that the restriction, "not being used in a derogatory manner or in a misleading context" is a bar to Commons. I do not think "the material being reproduced accurately" is a "no derivatives" restriction, but rather a further claim of the right to have the file archived in the sort of respectful way which is already routine in Commons. The restriction that we routinely discuss in Commons is about copyright and use within Wikipedia and any similar projects. Commons does not routinely secure special permission from rights holders to use uploaded files for insults and to mislead people, and Commons presumes that if anyone reuses Commons content in ways that violate other laws then Commons has no part in encouraging that. If someone uses Commons content inappropriately, like to violate trademark, then that is between the violator and the rightsholder, and not a barrier for Commons to host the content. Blue Rasberry (talk)19:47, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
Amitie 10g Would it be too much trouble for you to reopen those files, and add proper information to their templates and categories please? At present all files you moved will required additional work by other editors. It's unreasonable to expect other people go go around cleaning up after you. Ellin Beltz (talk) 16:31, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
I searched for Copyright Renewal Registration of the oldest logo; I found no renewal registration. I found one album from 1953. What about the late 1970s–1980s logo, which has the colorful, rainbow-ish font? --George Ho (talk) 23:58, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
Files from the Government of Chile and the {{CC-GobCL}} tag
I want to start this discussion again, with newer evidence and information.
Many users already know that the works published after December 2010 by the Government of Chile in its digital platforms (owned websites, Flickr, Facebook, etc) are published under the “Creative Commons Attribution” (CC-BY) license according to the Ord. 112/14 of 2010. Despite that there is an official communication from a (now former) Minister, the licensing of many websites is not consistent even today, linking to different versions of the CC-BY license, and even, some websites have outdated copyright claimings, that contradicts the Ord. 112/14 of 2010.
I already have physically gone to the SEGEGOB and the SEGPRES offices more than once, but I got no satisfactory answer every time. I'm so tired of bureaucracy and mess in the Government, but I'm more tired of bureaucracy in Commons: If the Government already released their works under a free license, this is a right of every chilean, and nobody can revoke it (the right) and deny the access to them (the information) (especially foreigns).
The main and major organism in the Executive in Chile is the Government, and every ministry depend on it. Its website has a link to the CC-BY-3.0 license, but the ministries websites have different links and copyright disclamiers:
Some websites have different versions of the CC-BY license (some the 2.0 and others the 3.0, but never the 4.0 version).
Most of the websites don't have the proper licensing due the base layout is just outdated, or the developers just forget follow the communication, and instead, they used an outdated Políticas de Privacidad that forbids commercial uses and/or derivatives. This does not mean that these websites are not covered under the CC-BY license (the mandatory document is the Ord. 112/14 of 2010 and any statement added by the webmasters and developers is just invalid). But, there are recent ministries like the MINDEP that is not explicitly indicated in the original Ord. 112/14 of 2010 and lacks of a link to the CC license, but them depends on the Government, therefore, it is also implicitly covered.
In conclusion:
Since the Government of Chile is the main and major organism and its website has a link to the CC-BY-3.0 license, just extend/inherit the CC-BY-3.0 license for every owned website of the organisms that depends on it, ignoring any disclaimer different than the used at gob.cl.
Following are examples why we should just use the CC-BY-3.0 license for everything:
A simple case:
Prensa Presidencia have a non-derivative disclamier, but it depends on the Government of Chile, (even, it have the logo of the Government of Chile) (see also this UDEL request).
But, if the majority consensus determined that the CC-BY-3.0 should not be applied to every owned website in the grounds of “The Government as the main and major organism”:
For the Ministry websites with a link to the CC-BY-3.0, keep with {{CC-GobCL}}
For the Ministry websites that lacks a CC link, assume the CC-BY-3.0 license ({{tl|CC-GobCL}, used at gob.cl), even for these sites with policies that contradicts the Ord. 112/14 of 2010 (due, again, this is the mandatory and currently applicable document).
For the websites that have links to different versions of the CC-BY license:
Or use the CC-BY-2.0 for the sites with CC-BY-2.0 license by creating a subtemplate of the {{CC-GobCL}}, like {{CC-GobCL/2.0}}, leaving the works from sites with CC-BY-3.0 license with the {{CC-GobCL}} template.
Or modify the {{CC-GobCL}} to use multiple versions of the CC-BY license (2.0 and 3.0 but not the 4.0) (just like the {{CC-GobCL/Flickr}} template) to use it in in files from every website.
Or just assume the CC-BY-3.0 license for every website, regardless the link, since the Government of Chile is the major organism.
Or just use the default license offered by Flickr, the CC-BY-2.0 license.
Even for the works posted from accounts that the owners didn't used the right license (All Rights Reserved instead of CC-BY-2.0), due, once again, the Ord. 112/14 of 2010 is mandatory.
For works published at other external services like Facebook or Twitter, use the CC-BY-3.0 license ({{CC-GobCL}}), due the conditions of external services can't invalidate the local legislation (again, the Ord. 112/14 of 2010).
The Government of Chile created a mess in licensing, but nobody are allowed to revoke the license and deny the access to the information given by our Government under a free license. I expect that with this thread will end this endless discussion. And, I don't think that this even need (another) OTRS permission. --Amitie 10g (talk) 17:52, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
Interesting and I can imagine frustrating. Does an official English translation of Ord. 112/14 of 2010 exist? We can off course claim that the content is dual licensed under several licenses and we choose the uniform one. But does the ord. 112/14 says 'are released under CC-BY-3.0' or 'should/must be released under CC-BY-3.0'? If it is the latter aren't we depended on the implementation of the order in the several governmental institutions? Is it license information to the general public or an order to the institutions to relicense? --Hannolans (talk) 08:38, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
As I remember, I re-wrote the document in editable/printable format, and I'll make an unofficial translation. For your question, no, there is not an official translation.
The relevant fragment of the Article II paragrapf f) says:
«El contenido que se genere en las plataformas digitales y sitios electrónicos deberá ser publicado bajo licencia "Creative Commons" de atribución, a fin de permitir a las personas copiar y distribuir la obra, reconociendo al autor.»
Unofficial translation (by Me):
«The contents generated in the digital platforms and electronic sites should be published under "Creative Commons" attribution license, in order to allow the people to copy and redistribute the work, recognizing the author.»
"Creative Commons" de atribución obviously means "Creative Commons Attribution" (CC-BY) license, but, as I already mentioned, the document expressly instructed to license the works released after December 2010 under the CC-BY license; the problem is that it does not mention the exact version of the CC-BY license, so, this is why I'm suggesting to just extend the CC-BY-3.0 license to every organism dependient on the Government (the mess was generated by the webmasters and developers, but the Ord. 112/14 of 2010 is just like a Law: It can't be invalidated). --Amitie 10g (talk) 14:35, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
If it is an instruction for governmental organisations to license works under Creative Commons Attribution those institutions may choose under which version of CC-BY they want to license their images.We can default the template to the most recent version and a parameter for older versions? To me it's not sure if this instruction to governments is valid as a license to us. Did you communicate with the central government to clarify and to put that in OTRS? --Hannolans (talk) 07:52, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
This was already discussed more than a year ago. As I mentioned, the document instructs to use the CC-BY license but doesn't mention the exact license, and I explained why just use the 3.0 version. This should be answered by an Attorney, not necessary a Government oficier. And YES, I don't want to send another OTRS ticket because Me and User:B1mbo sended enougt ones (several). --Amitie 10g (talk) 03:53, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
The law, as you have translated it, seems to state something that government websites should do. I don't think it can be read as automatically applying a license to all government websites. It may imply, for example, that http://prensa.presidencia.clshould be CC-BY... but until http://prensa.presidencia.cl actually is CC-BY, I don't think we can accept the law as a blanket license. If the law said "For transparency and legibility, all websites should be written in correct Chilean Spanish", that doesn't make a typo or grammatical error an official part of the language. I also don't think your theory of "heritability" of licenses holds much water. But as I said in previous discussions, I will defer to any Spanish speaking admin or other user whose judgment I have confidence in. Storkk (talk) 08:58, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
no, the instruction does not apply to specific websites, but to every organism dependient on the Government (including the Government itself), and by extension, to their websites. The fact that the lisensing of the most websites is inconsistent is irrelevant as I mentioned above (the Law is the Law), and I explained very well why we should just accept the CC-BY-3.0 license for everything (please read the above examples carefuly, two or three times). I don't think that another Spanish-native talking user is needed to understand this case, but some brainstorm. --Amitie 10g (talk) 03:53, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
You have made innumerable bald assertions, but not a single convincing explanation that I can find. Even stipulating that there is a law directing agencies to license their material under a free license, I am not sure that that free license applies until the agencies actually comply. Storkk (talk) 11:47, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
Again, the fact that the agencies does not comply is irrelevant. I already talked with an Attorney from the SEGPRES and he confirmed that. If you disagree with the Legislation, talk with our legislators, but don't violate the Law. --Amitie 10g (talk) 18:16, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
Your implication (which you inserted into your 23 hour old comment) that we are violating the law by not hosting certain images is so absurd that I don't think it needs a response other than to highlight it. Storkk (talk) 19:29, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
Can someone please review this photo and see if it can be copied to the Commons? I just did another search and came up with nothing relevant. I'd suggest template:PD-US-1989, published in the U.S. between 1978 and March 1, 1989, without a copyright notice, and where the copyright was not later registered. Thanks. BTW, he just died and it's been on all the major news cites. --Light show (talk) 19:22, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
In this case, may be a good idea to research for a Copyright registration. Once proof of no Copyright registration/renewal provided, it may be transferred here. --Amitie 10g (talk) 16:39, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
Doing a search on Paradise Records, I do see they registered a photo which was the cover of the Americana album, but all their other registrations were sound recordings and musical works. So, if that was distributed with no notice on the back before 1989, it would seem to be OK. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:58, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
I never saw the back. At the time it seemed that with all the key details printed on the front, that's where they would have put a notice. Here's another with the same record company's original name. Everything is printed on the front. But I can ask them if there's anything on the back. And I also found an autographed copy of the first one, and will ask what's on the back. --Light show (talk) 02:11, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
I asked if any details were printed on the back. Quick responder: New message from: entertainmentautographs (2,911Red Star) Nah. --Doesn't have that. --Light show (talk) 02:20, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
Your photo was Paradise Records, a different company than Shelter (though both formed by Russell from the looks of it). I would prefer evidence that the photo was actually distributed in that time frame, but... not sure it's enough to prevent upload. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:37, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
You would need to do significantly more research before uploading it here. It probable that it is a photograph by an employee of North American Aviation, so PD-US rationales are inaccurate. That means that we would need more information regarding its first publication, so that it could be examined for copyright notices. If this research cannot be done, it is likely to be an Orphan work, and we cannot host it here. Storkk (talk) 12:44, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
As with the other contributors to flickr who release images under the mantle of "No known copyright restrictions", the San Diego Air & Space Museum's collection details page states that while they are not aware of any restriction they cannot warranty that some copyright owners rights might not be infringed. As with all uploads, the onus is on uploaders to verify they are freely licenced, so some more research may be necessary to confirm the copyright status which can be a difficult task. I have seen such "No known copyright restrictions" images being deleted when reviews have shown they are still in copyright. Ww2censor (talk) 13:52, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Except that is obviously taken from a published source, and a respected institution did copyright research on it and added that tag. We generally do accept that research ({{Flickr-no known copyright restrictions}}), though we do prefer to know the more specific reason. In this case, it's most likely either {{PD-US-no notice}} or {{PD-US-not renewed}}. There is a {{PD-US}} tag which can be used in cases we are not sure which one -- but we may have to know it's one or the other, and not sure we do here, so maybe just keep with the Flickr tag. The museum as a photo listed in an index, 10_0021243, of North American test pilots of the F-100 program, which is likely what that is. All of the people mentioned were North American test pilots. The lack of George Welch probably means it was after October 1954, so probably mid or late 1950s. The biggest risk of the "no known restrictions" is when they are works from a different country than the institution is from -- in that case the copyright evaluation may not take into account the country of origin. But this appears to be a U.S. work all the way around. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:33, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
Question regarding restricting use of Creative Commons licenses
This isn't strictly a copyright question, more of a licensing question. I noticed there was a recent bulk deletion (~750 images) in which it was argued that since the MacArthur Foundation intended to release the images under CC-BY for 'the media's use and CC-BY-NC for everyone else, they should be removed from Commons. I'm happy to be corrected on this if necessary, but my understanding is that you can't do this. If you release an image under CC-BY, you cannot restrict it further simply by asking politely. The CC-BY license is irrevocable. You could (in theory) create a portal in which only media members are given access to the images, but it would only provide physical security, it wouldn't actually restrict the licensing - it wouldn't mean that the public couldn't use the images if they happened to come across the images.
We came across this issue (or something very similar) a while ago when discussing whether it's possible (in the real world) to release a low resolution image under a Creative Commons license and keep a high resolution version of it under lock-and-key for use under a more restrictive license of one's choice. Creative Commons seemed to suggest it was possible, but the consensus in the Commons discussion (I don't have the discussion link to hand) was that it wasn't possible, because the least restrictive license would always apply, and therefore as soon as the high resolution version saw the light of day, it would automatically be licensed under CC even if your intention wasn't for it to be so, as it wasn't sufficiently different to the low resolution version to be exempt from the CC licensing. As I said, I am happy to stand corrected if my interpretation is wrong on this, but I suspect my understanding is correct. Would anyone else like to add their two cents on this as it applies to the bulk deletion I linked to above? Diliff (talk) 11:39, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
See my comments at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Nagy László 1972.jpg, which relate to the size issue but also to the issue of adding restrictions to a CC licence. A quick read of the linked discussions and I don't really agree with Jim who seems to be arguing a "CC BY for the media only" is legally valid. I agree more with Andy that it's just a mess on MacArthur's side and they should have a word with CC about appropriate use of their licences, and develop their own statement wrt media usage that doens't involve CC licences at all. But that was a long discussion not worth re-opening.
In terms of your high-resolution example, again see Commons:Deletion requests/File:Nagy László 1972.jpg for my explanation. In the example I gave, there's a legal problem for the person paying for a higher resolution image from a stock agency and then breaching their contract to publish it outside of the terms they agreed to. And there's a legal problem for us to actually prove both images are the same "work of copyright", rather than two very similar photos taken at a similar time, and one with some creative (and thus perhaps copyrightable) post-processing applied. I think the conclusion we came to was that this practice was discouraged by CC for good reason as it goes against free cultural works but is also legally insecure for the copyright owner. And using such images (in higher resolution) should also be discouraged as we can't really be legally sure they are the same work-of-copyright other than in exceptional cases. I think we also should strive to value the copyright owners intentions, even if they make clumsy mistakes, or have been mislead by past statments from CC/WMF. -- Colin (talk) 13:09, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
They should have used a CreativeCommonsWiki:CCPlus license (CC BY-NC+) as CC don't have a CC-Minus (CC BY- as used now) licensing methodology. They should either fix it in their site or we can neglect that clause. Jee13:45, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
As I have said in several discussions on this issue, it is very common to issue different licenses to different users -- a novel may have a first serial rights license to Magazine A, USA hardback publication rights to Publisher B, paperback rights to Publisher C, UK rights to Publisher D, and movie rights to Production Company E. There is nothing in the CC-BY-4.0 license which prohibits different licenses for different users -- in fact, at 6(c) the license explicitly anticipates it:
"the Licensor may also offer the Licensed Material under separate terms or conditions or stop distributing the Licensed Material at any time..."
The license defines the term "You" as:
"the individual or entity exercising the Licensed Rights under this Public License".
The point you seem to be missing (or maybe I'm missing your point) is that although you obviously can stop distributing an image, that doesn't stop the image that already exists out there from continuing to be licensed under the original license. Likewise, if you publish an image under CC-BY and people start using it, you can't one day decide to switch it to CC-BY-NC and expect everyone who already started using the image to stop doing so. The license is irrevocable. You can also publish the same image under different licenses, yes, but the least restrictive license will apply. The only way to maintain distribution under different licenses is to physically control access to the file. Simply asking for media to use one license and the rest of the general public to use another cannot work. You cannot stop 'the public' from using the less restrictive license. Nothing you cited above disputes that. You say "a novel may have a first serial rights license to Magazine A, USA hardback publication rights to Publisher B, paperback rights to Publisher C, UK rights to Publisher D, and movie rights to Production Company E. There is nothing in the CC-BY-4.0 license which prohibits different licenses for different users". That may be true, but technically if Publisher A, B, C and D wanted, they could completely bypass their individual agreements with you and use the image under the Creative Commons license. They would be completely within their legal rights to do so as long as they respected the terms of that license. However, what usually happens if that publishers decide not to use CC licenses because they are unnecessarily restrictive for their use. The publishers tend to negotiate for a less restrictive license in exchange for a license fee. I have plenty of first-hand experience doing so. Diliff (talk) 14:24, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
Article 6(c) simply says you can add other licenses to this one, not that you can restrict this one. 1(g) says: Licensed Rights means the rights granted to You subject to the terms and conditions of this Public License, which are limited to all Copyright and Similar Rights that apply to Your use of the Licensed Material and that the Licensor has authority to license. I read that as the only conditions allowed are the ones already present in the license, not anything else someone wants to add on top of it. In other words, that license is offered to *everyone*. That is the clear intent of the license in the first place -- it would not be "free" otherwise. If you try to restrict it further, or add conditions, that (to me) basically means it's a modified license, and they shouldn't be calling it Creative Commons. Legally, of course, a copyright owner can make any license they wish -- so if their OTRS message made clear that the license is CC-BY-like terms to only a subset of the public, and CC-BY-NC-type terms to the rest, that may well be a valid license (other that they are then violating Creative-Commons' trademarks by calling the resulting license "Creative Commons", since it is modified from the original with extra conditions). So... I would agree that the files should be deleted. If that was their explicit understanding on issuing the original license, we should not interpret it further than their wishes and keep the files. In many cases the "NC" desire is understandable, and we should respect that -- however that does not conform to our licensing policy, so at that point the only option is to delete them. In many cases, if these are photos of people, publicity rights of that person would probably prevent use on a T-shirt, but if they want to use copyright as a safeguard against those uses, that is their right. If they say "CC-BY for the media only", well, that is probably the actual license they gave -- it is a modified license, and is no longer actually CC-BY itself. It is not a free license, and you can't use Creative Commons' trademarks to tag it. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:45, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
Carl, I think you too are falling into the trap here. You say "Legally, of course, a copyright owner can make any license they wish -- so if their OTRS message made clear that the license is CC-BY-like terms to only a subset of the public, and CC-BY-NC-type terms to the rest, that may well be a valid license". But the point remains that even if they tried to license it as CC-BY + restrictions, it would still be CC-BY. You can't add restrictions to the CC-BY license as you say, so anything you try to tack onto the CC-BY license would be unenforceable or a separate license choice (after all, you can release an image under multiple licenses and the end user can choose which one he wants to use, usually the least restrictive). In any case, this isn't even what happened here. What happened, in simple terms, is that the MacArthur Foundation did release the images under a very clear CC-BY license (the image download pages state it clearly). The 'additional restriction' comes in the form of text in the Creative Commons License page which states that CC-BY is only for the media, and the CC-BY-NC is for everyone else. This is NOT on the same page as the image downloads. They've tried and failed to restrict CC-BY to media only (and this would be prohibited by CC even if they did get this message across clearly - the CC license specifically states that any attempt to add restrictions to a CC license can be ignored). What they have effectively done is publish the images under two (possibly three) licenses: CC-BY and CC-BY-NC (and CC-BY but with restrictions which may or may not invalidate it as a CC license). Any reuser could pick the license they prefer. So I'm afraid your analysis, while it might hold some weight in theory, does not apply to this particular case. At best, what we have here is a courtesy deletion, but I'm still struck by the short-sightedness of it. Surely someone involved should have simply engaged with the foundation, to alleviate their fears and explain to them the consequence of not allowing us to use the images - 750 useful images are deleted and numerous Wikipedia articles become unillustrated. Is that really what they were hoping to achieve? I doubt it. Some discussion would most likely have avoided this outcome. It's just disappointing and unnecessary. Diliff (talk) 15:40, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
CC does not state that any additional restrictions can be ignored. CC does not actually have the right to intrude on a license between two other parties -- it is up to the copyright holder to determine the terms. The only thing they can enforce is their trademark rights. They in fact make this clear at their License Modification Policy: CC recognizes that we cannot control or prohibit separate agreements or understandings that involve or affect our standard licenses. After all, CC is not a party to the licenses – they are agreements between licensors and licensees. However, we have long insisted that CC trademarks and branding not be used in connection with separate agreements, understandings, and interpretations that may cause confusion for the public, or create any ambiguity in or inconsistency with the standard terms and conditions offered by a Creative Commons license. So, the Macarthur Foundation is well within their rights to modify the CC-BY license and offer that as their terms -- they are however likely violating CC's trademark in calling the result CC-BY and using the icon. That fact however is CC's problem to enforce, not ours, and the fact it may be a trademark violation does not change the legal effect of their copyright license -- that would be as they state it. Now, if they did unambiguously release them under CC-BY, they cannot later take that back. But the image download page you link does not contain an explicit link to the CC legal code or even a version number, which still may be OK, but they *do* contain an explicit link to their "Creative Commons License" page, which means I would take that as a clarification of what they mean by "CC-BY", and not a separate license. And that page does make clear that they only want to allow CC-BY-type use by the media. So to me, they have not "failed" to restrict their license to the media only -- that is only license they have offered. The fact that they may be violating CC's trademark does not give us a right to violate their copyright. They have additionally licensed them (completely validly) as CC-BY-NC. However, neither license is free.
I would definitely hope that someone could engage with the Foundation -- it's very possible they are simply unaware that their changes would make it impossible for us to keep the images, or that other rights may apply enough to prevent the uses they are concerned about. It would be very good to be able to keep these, of course, and we should try. However, we should not start that process by disrespecting their wishes in the first place, especially when their media-only license is most likely completely valid and is the limit of what they have actually licensed. If we can convince them to relax that clause, and make it actually CC-BY (while noting that many commercial uses would be restricted by publicity rights, and such uses would need permission from the pictured person, so we add the {{Personality rights}} template to all of them, then that would be great. If they are still uncomfortable with allowing such use though, and want to use their copyright to further control that, then that is their right and we should respect that. They are probably unaware they are violating CC's trademark and that should be brought up to them. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:38, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
@Diliff: @Clindberg: This was, in fact, discussed with the MacArthur Foundation.... at the top of the DR, Jim specifically stated he had discussed it with the General Counsel of the MacArthur Foundation. The email thread is on OTRS. They are restricting who can use the images under the CC-BY terms... if they are misusing CC's 'trademark' by doing so (and I think they are), that doesn't just mean that we can assume that we can distribute the works under that license. We were not 'asked' to delete them, but they clearly understood that we might do so, and clearly state that they are not okay with commercial use. Reventtalk16:53, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
OK, then that seems explicit. If they had marked them as "CC-BY" for a year, then added the "media only" license only later, we might have an argument. But if the license from them has always had that restriction, then that is the only license we can use. I think the link from the image download page basically implies that is what they really meant by their "CC-BY" reference, so that is not a separate license for the images on that page. Any trademark mistake they make would not invalidate their license (and if it does, that means it's not licensed at all, not that we can assume greater rights than they have ever given). While publicity rights would still apply, that would be up to each individual to pursue in court, and the Foundation may want some control themselves, which only copyright can give in this case. So, this sounds like a more standard "publicity photo" permission, which does not allow unfettered commercial use. It is never my desire to delete files from Commons and degrade the quality of articles -- part of learning all the intricate details of copyright laws is so I learn as many possible arguments as I can that exist for keeping works -- but I also don't want to be *wrong*, based I what I think. And from the looks of it, I don't think we have ever been offered terms exceeding the "media only" clause, so I don't think we can host them as actual CC-BY. They may well be fine for use on Wikipedia, but they are best hosted on those projects using their policies. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:17, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) Jim, all CC licenses are "Public Licenses" (CCPL). See "Considerations for licensors: Our public licenses are intended for use by those authorized to give the public permission to use material in ways otherwise restricted by copyright and certain other rights." CC is not making any license for targeting a limited audience. Jee16:55, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
BTW, the word media has a very broad meaning. Even CC uses "Media and formats; technical modifications allowed. The Licensor authorizes You to exercise the Licensed Rights in all media and formats whether now known or hereafter created, and to make technical modifications necessary to do so." So I'll say, the wording of MacArthur "With respect to use of photographs and videos maintained on this website pertaining to the MacArthur Fellows by the media, the applicable Creative Commons License will be Attribution: CC- BY. This permits non- commercial and commercial use by media as long as there is attribution." is perfectly acceptable here. Jee17:09, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
It is broad, but with the definition link you gave, they are using meaning 1 (broadcasting and publishing entities), whereas CC is using meaning 2 (the plural of medium, or the actual format itself). They are not equivalent. It is not reasonable to interpret "media use only" as "everyone", which in turn means the license is not free. The "media use only" stuff is fairly standard with publicity type photographs, and that is generally all they are offering. Use on a Wikipedia article would be well within those rights, of course, but that doesn't make it a free license and viable for Commons. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:22, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
Carl, I agree with you if they would have used "media use only". But they didn't. They just used "by the media"; not even talking about "others". In fact their classification here is "by content"; not "by users". They said 1. all contents except otherwise stated are CC BY-NC 2. MacArthur Fellows Images and Video as CC BY 3. Other (material, reports or other work posted on the website that are not owned by the Foundation) as copyrighted by third-parties. Here no clear mentioning of a particular license for "media" and another for "others". Jee17:40, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
@Jkadavoor: In the email discussion, they used 'printing on a t-shirt' (presumably commercially) as something that they wouldn't be okay with... I think the real issue here is that they are misusing the term CC-BY, and that's not really what they are intending to offer (at least, not in the sense that CC-BY is an offer to 'anyone', for any purpose). Reventtalk17:53, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
Yes, Revent; I had seen that part of discussion in that DR. I can't see OTRS mail and I'm not questioning that reasoning. But we have a strong history that we will not accept license revocation even by ignorance at the time one grant a license. Otherwise we will loss content day by day. Many Wikimedians asked us to delete thier files as they said they were not aware that their works can be used in t-shirts and ornaments. Sorry; we can't accept this. (BTW, I'm neutral if this deletion is per courtesy considering their ignorance. But I object accepting their license to limit the re-users an acceptable practice. I think this is what DIliff too arguing. CCPLs are public licenses; no meaning in considering it can be applied to a limited audience. We should not encourage it. If we are deleting those contents we should ask them to change the wording in their site. If they are not willing, we can restore them.) Jee18:09, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
I would agree that we would not allow license revocation, other than as a courtesy in some circumstances. However, I don't believe they have ever actually offered CC-BY to everyone. They do allow CC-BY-NC to everyone, which directly implies that their CC-BY-ish terms are for a subset less than everyone, or at least not every possible use. I don't think it's at all reasonable to construe that they actually licensed it CC-BY. I think once a company (SCO? [3]) declared that a portion of the GPL was invalid, but still claimed the rest of the terms were still OK thus giving people the right to copy freely based on the rest of it, or something like that -- that was silly to me. They offered a license, and you can only use it under those terms. If invalid, then there is no license at all. The MacArthur license page is clear that the rights are CC-BY-NC for unfettered use, and CC-BY-type terms for many (but not all) uses. Such terms are absolutely within their rights to mandate, and the fact they used CC's trademarks is a problem between them and Creative Commons -- we are a third party, and would not benefit or be penalized for any issues made. If you feel the image page gives a different, more specific license than the overall website one, which is in general quite possible to do, then your position is understandable -- but given the link immediately before the "CC-BY" note, that to me is clearly to me a link which explains their "CC-BY" license, not a separate one. So, I would disagree with you there. It sounds like they have been very consistent on their licensing terms from the beginning, which fall just shy of "free" status, to me. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:02, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
There is too much above to discuss in detail. In my OTRS discussion with the Foundation, it was perfectly clear that they understood that all of the Foundation's images would be removed from Commons and, therefore from WP. They feel that preventing commercial use (except by the media) of the Fellows' images is more important than their being hosted on Commons. The images may, of course, be returned to WP:EN under Fair Use.
The depth of this discussion makes it clear that whether or not the Foundation's limitation on the CC-BY license can accomplish what they want, it would be better if they used a custom license and not the CC-BY.
I think all of you are missing one important point here -- the Foundation's handling of the license was discussed before the fact with their copyright counsel. I believe from my own 40 years of work with copyrights that their position is plausible, but even if I were on the other side of this discussion, I would be reluctant to take the position that the Foundation's copyright counsel was clearly wrong. If the community decides to UnDR the images, I think it would not be long before WMF received a DMCA takedown notice. The Foundation's wishes are clear. They have the resources to enforce them, so even though we don't like it, I see little point in discussing it further or taking any further action, except, of course, uploading images to WP:EN under Fair Use. . Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 18:35, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
"I think it would not be long before WMF received a DMCA takedown notice" = bullshit - they were in use in wikipedia articles for 2 years, are they utterly unaware of incoming traffic referrers; i am quite ready for the counter-claim; and i have been to federal court. i do not find your saving me from going to federal court much of a benefit, why don't you stop? since you are not sharing the email, their wishes are not clear; they did not care enough about the uploads to contact me in 2 years. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge22:23, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
Since the actual use on Wikipedia is within their license terms, I would tend to agree that they are not likely to send a DMCA notice. But, they could if we continue to claim there is a CC-BY license attached to it, for everyone to use (they would not know about that from referrer logs, not that that would matter -- failure to protect a copyright does not lose you any rights). Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:26, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
and if they found an actual t-shirt vendor, they would use personality rights, since it is much more clear cut. failure to enforce a copyright tends to grant it to the public domain in practice, if not in law, (and this was the american practice before 78). it is a matter of risk assessment. we allow "no known copyright" for this reason. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge22:31, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
The individual could use personality rights, correct, but the Foundation could not go to court for them. If the Foundation wants to have any say (or help the people involved), they would have to keep some copyright control. I'm not aware that failure to enforce a copyright has ever resulted in losing copyright -- it does in trademark, but I believe you can always selectively prosecute copyrights. Obviously, before 1978 you did have to maintain copyright notices and renewals, but if you at least did that, I don't think you could lose copyright any other way. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:52, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
Fair enough, I wasn't aware that it was discussed to that extent with them, including the consequences for Commons and Wikipedia if they refused to allow the CC-BY license. I still believe though that actually, they absolutely did (and still do) license the images under CC-BY, because that is the only license mentioned on the image download page. Burying the 'media only' stipulation on a different 'CC licensing page' isn't at all helpful and legally dubious IMO. It's one thing to try to restrict a CC-BY license, but it's another to do it on a page that isn't even visible for users attempting to download the images. I don't therefore see how their position is plausible. It's dubious at best, but more likely unenforceable. It's established that once a CC license is used, it is irrevokable, and revoking it is essentially what they would be asking us to do if they try to add additional restrictions. I know we don't want to take a position that puts us in a legal battle with foundations that if anything we should be trying to court, but it is, as I said, disappointing that they've chosen to take this approach. Diliff (talk) 19:16, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
To me, the fact they linked to that other page immediately before the "CC-BY" reference means they were not burying it -- they were explicitly using that link to define what they meant. All you had to do was follow that link. I would agree without that link it gets a lot more ambiguous, but with it I think it's clear that there was not a separate license on the image download page. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:55, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
Without the link, they would have absolutely no case whatsoever. With the link, it's still contemptably ambiguous, because no reuser should have to go researching on other pages whether they've added restrictions to a clear CC-BY license when legally it's not even possible to restrict it in the first place (all the restriction has done is muddied the water about whether it's actually licensed to anyone under CC-BY at all, because there is an argument that the license they've used is invalidated by the attempted restriction). A smart reuser who is familiar with CC-BY will see that they have licensed it as such on the image download page and think nothing more of it. Diliff (talk) 07:46, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
I think we can all agree that,
at the very minimum, MacFound has published these images with something that looks very much like a CC-BY license, e.g. at https://www.macfound.org/fellows/929/
they have not changed their license and continue to offer it.
they have not challenged our use of the images in 2 years
they have not directly asked us to delete the images (see Revent's comments above)
and I think almost everybody could agree that
their use of "by the media" is unclear. Sixty years ago "the media" might have just meant "the press". 25 years ago it might have just meant "the press and broadcasters." But today it very likely means "the press, broadcasters, and internet publishers," e.g. the Huff Post, the Daily Beast, and Wikimedia Commons (owned by the Wikimedia Foundation - which runs the "fifth most visited website on the web.")
I think almost everybody should agree that the "non-commercial" limitations they're talking about, are best handled by personality rights - it's just completely separate from a CC-BY license.
In short, I don't see why anybody here thinks we have a problem. If there was a problem, wouldn't they have let us know? Why did we go searching for a problem?
I've asked WMF legal to find out whether the first six points are correct, and whether MacFound now wish to ask us to delete the files. If MacFound doesn't want us to delete the files, is there anybody who thinks we should delete them? If they want us to delete the files, is there is anybody who thinks we should not at least consider a courtesy deletion?
We might as well just wait until WMF legal responds.
The use on Wikipedia articles is directly within their intended use -- so there is no reason for them to ask for deletion. However, they mention a specific use case which they desire to restrict via copyright -- and they cannot do that if they are truly giving a free license. While "by the media" can have gray areas, it is most certainly not everyone, and there are absolutely some non-free restrictions which come with it. Commons itself may be "the media", but not all of the potential re-users are. As such, it's not a free license. While we may think that their NC restrictions are best dealt with by publicity rights, they may not think so (and they are the only ones which count). If they gave up that right, MacFound would lose all ability to control those; rather each individual would need to assert their rights if such uses came up. If they wish to also restrict that type of use via copyright, that is their right, even if we don't like it. They consider that more important than Commons' ability to host the files. The deletion is basically us realizing they should never have been uploaded in the first place -- our current use of them is within their terms, but they are *not* offering an unfettered CC-BY license, so there is no available license which we can upload them (by our policy). The images are not "free", which is why there is a problem. "Almost free" is still not free, and us putting a CC-BY tag on them is overstating the license and a misrepresentation. They are basically giving the equivalent of Commons:Copyright rules by subject matter#Press photos. Yes, it's frustrating to see something which looks free at first glance (and which someone spent an awful lot of time uploading, which is disheartening to undo), but quite simply the images do not meet our requirements. So, this is a self-imposed deletion. Pretty much all press and publicity photos are meant for a similar scope, and we could host them no problem legally, but it would be violating our charter -- so we don't. Frankly, to me, deleting photos of buildings in non-FOP countries is much edgier than something like this. So to me... points 1-4, sure. Point 5, it may well mean that, but it's still not everyone and still not free. And Point 6, that is up to them, not us, and they decided to handle it via copyright as well. We have a problem just like any other non-free file that someone uploads (even if legal). Our use is most definitely non-commercial, so we could host any -NC file legally, but we choose not to. Carl Lindberg (talk) 08:10, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
Carl, you still seem to be missing the single most important point in this, which is that they absolutely did license the images as CC-BY (as per the many points made above regarding the relative obscurity of the restrictions), so they absolutely should have been uploaded to Commons in the first place. It is the foundation that screwed up by attempting (and failing, most likely) to add additional restrictions to a license that cannot accept restrictions without having its own terms broken in the process. That is the crux of the argument. Now, I'm not arguing that we cannot do a courtesy deletion. Of course we can, but let's not confuse that with Commons making the mistake here. Diliff (talk) 09:23, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
Carl Lindberg, I'm broadly in agreement with what you've written, but you seem to be arguing the only problem with adding further restrictions to a CC licence is that it breaks CC trademark and shouldn't be called a "CC" licence any more. The legal code of the CC BY-SA 3.0 licence says: "This License constitutes the entire agreement between the parties with respect to the Work licensed here. There are no understandings, agreements or representations with respect to the Work not specified here." My take from this is that the text is explicitly saying there are no further restrictive clauses. So surely adding some makes the combined "licence" ambiguous at best and invalid at worse. -- Colin (talk) 10:17, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
The Creative Commons FAQ also, on the subject of additional restrictions, states: "It is possible that CC-licensed material will appear on platforms that impose terms in addition to the copyright license. (...) These additional terms do not form part of the license for the work. For example, if you download CC-licensed material from a site that does not permit downloading, you may be breaking the terms of use of the site, but you are not infringing the CC license.". So The CC-BY license is irrevokable and unrestrictable and can only be applicable to everyone/the public, not just 'the media' that they attempt to restrict it to. So there's two points that don't look good for the foundation.
They have specified the CC-BY license on the download page with no mention whatsoever of any restrictions on that page. This alone means that regardless of their intentions, they have in effect released it under CC-BY to everyone.
They have linked to another page where they do attempt to restrict use under CC-BY, but the effect of that might be that certain users may be breaking the terms of the site, although given no definition of 'media' is forthcoming, it is at best wishy-washy and difficult to enforce.
As I said, it seems perfectly clear that we are legally in the right here. I don't see how it could be interpreted that the license is invalid. Based on CC reasoning, no additional restrictions can invalidate the license. Once invoked, it cannot be revoked. Diliff (talk) 10:37, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
Diliff you've made this point several times, and how can it be "perfectly clear" since many experienced editors claim it isn't. My understanding is that the law defaults to begin with full copyright all-rights-reserved. It is up to any re-user to determine if they have a clear licence to use such copyright work. Here I would argue it is not clear because one part of the page says "CC-BY" (hey, if we're fussy, there's no such thing as CC-BY, it is CC BY) but the link states the image is actually offered by two other licences, neither of which is a simple CC BY. I think arguing that on a hyperlinked website that clearly linked text should be disregarded is not really credible any more than arguing that text further down a page should be disregarded. Anyone using someone else's work is obliged to make themselves clear on their legal use. If there's confusion, then perhaps the license isn't valid, in which case you just end up with all-rights-reserved. I don't think you can or morally should acquire someone else's photos just because the web-page designer chose to put some text here and some text there. -- Colin (talk) 10:57, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
Yes, I've made the point several times and not once has it been responded to sufficiently, so I keep making it until someone actually does. It's all very easy to 'claim' it isn't clear, but there's very little in the way of solid evidence to back it up. I think you're not expressing the situation accurately. It's not 'one part of the page' saying one thing and another part saying another. There is only one download page per fellow. On that very page, there is only a CC-BY license. And it's clearly established that if you are presented with multiple licenses, you are free to choose the least restrictive one. So even if they do contradict themselves and offer CC-BY but only for media on another page, that doesn't negate the fact that they did offer CC-BY on the download page. Even if all the licensing options were available on the same page, the fact that CC-BY is a clear option means that everything else is just extraneous noise IMO. Legally, it doesn't seem unclear at all to me. It's only if you assume that one license or restriction can conflict with another license that you can even start to assume that in light of the confusion, it should default back to all-rights-reserved. But I already gave you pretty clear evidence from CC's own website (not that it's necessarily the holy grail of legal advice, as we know) that that's not the case. That you cannot restrict or revoke a CC-BY license, and that "additional terms do not form part of the license for the work". So regardless of whether multiple attempts to license the image seemingly contradict or conflict with each other, they simply cannot affect the terms of a CC license. They are legally watertight and unaffected by additional restrictions, conflicts or confusion. Or at least that's the theory. Nothing you've said remotely challenges that IMO. Diliff (talk) 11:18, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
The problem is that repeating the same point hasn't worked for you so far so will continue to not work for you. You are willfully ignoring other's viewpoints about the importance or otherwise of the licence terms being split across two pages on a hyperlinked website and are fixated on the fact that a single page (the one with the image download) says one thing and choosing to disregard that the clearlyly linked to more complete terms say another thing. Honestly, I think your argument holds as much water as worrying about line breaks or page breaks in a legal document. If you don't accept that then we'll just agree to disagree. But what I hope this site never adopts is an approach where we look for mistakes or clumsy wording or start splitting hairs over text separated by a hyperlink in order to acquire images that he image owners have made very cleary they never intended to be made free. We know this. You know this. I would be very upset if your argument was accepted. -- Colin (talk) 16:46, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
this cuts both ways - you will not gain my acceptance of your interpretation of this matter by repeating yourself. i upload the file: i take the risk, not you. i hope that this site does not use the precautionary principle as a stalking horse to dictate terms to GLAM institutions; i hope this website could collaborate with GLAM institutions with their confusion about licenses. i would be very upset if that were the case. i wounder that it means to collaborate with a walled garden? i think the legalistic fault finding and reichstag scaling is very amusing, but not respectable. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge14:22, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
The trouble is, quite often I feel that it is actually others who are willfully ignoring my points. Maybe they're not, but by failing to discuss, address and point out the flaws in the points I've made, it is they who are ignoring the debate. For example, Carl Lindberg and I had a series of back and forth arguments in which we argued whether it was clear that there were further restrictions to the use of the image beyond CC-BY. He kept insisting that since there was a link to a page that explained the restrictions, it was enough. I argued that it wasn't enough, because a license should stand on its own. If someone says "all rights reserved", we know what that means without having to link to law that explains it. Likewise, CC-BY stands on its own. If someone sees it, it is implicit that the image in question is licensed under that. Each time Carl responded, he failed to address that point, and just kept repeating that it was enough. We may have been talking past each other, but the fact remains that I felt he was not addressing this specific issue. So I repeated it, hoping he would. If we simply agreed to disagree in the first instance, neither of us would have the slightest clue whether the nuances of the arguments were understood by the other. It is only by digging down into the actual details of the argument, and yes, sometimes repeating them, that we may reach a common understanding. We may not fully agree with each other but at least we both understand that we've comprehended each other's arguments. You're suggesting we not bother because "it's not working". I would say it is working, and did work. Also, you say it holds as much water as "line breaks or page breaks in a legal document". That's stupid. I'm talking about the importance of ensuring that reusers clearly understand the basic terms of use of the image. Legal documents need to be precise, detailed and meticulous to ensure that there are no loopholes or misunderstandings. We know that big legal battles can result from poorly understood or poorly worded contracts. If you've signed a contract without realising that certain points were unclear or against your interest, it's your fault. You can't say "oh I know I signed it, but I didn't mean to agree to THAT!". Sorry, but you did agree to it and ignorance is not an excuse. Likewise, if the foundation screwed up and mislicensed their images, of course we can go easy on them and let them off the hook, but legally we don't have to. Legally we're in the right. That's always been my argument. I've never suggested we should just screw them for their mistake. But there's a big difference between correcting their mistake and educating them and possibly finding a common understanding that allows us to keep the images, and just deleting their images because they say so. Diliff (talk) 16:13, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
What do you think it means when someone says "w:all rights reserved"? To me, it has nothing to do with individual meanings of the words, and everything to do with various laws and treaties, most importantly the w:Buenos Aires Convention, which demanded that that phrase, or one like it, be used if the owner of a work want copyright on it. In the modern world, where the Buenos Aires Convention is basically superseded in all cases by the Berne Convention, which gives automatic copyright, it's basically meaningless, but still used as part of legal superstition.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:46, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
Some of this boils down to disagreement on the interpretation, I guess. Two parts to this...
The image download page has an explicit link to the copyright policy, *right next* to the word "CC-BY". That, to me, is a clear indication that that link defines what they mean by "CC-BY". Following a link is no burden whatsoever on the web -- most websites have a copyright policy page that you need to go through to find what the exact terms are. Wikipedia pages need to click on the images to even see what the licenses are. A proper CC license reference is supposed to have a link to the actual license (along with a version number), which they do not provide except through their more specific page. So for me, I firmly believe the image download page is *not* a separate license -- no how, no way.
The second part is if their modification of the CC-BY license would be considered valid, and if so, what is the result. Creative Commons does, indeed, try very hard to prohibit any modifications -- the problem is, in my view, they really can't. A copyright owner can license works any way they wish, and I do believe a judge would very strongly tend to follow the copyright owner's stated intentions. As CC themselves note: CC recognizes that we cannot control or prohibit separate agreements or understandings that involve or affect our standard licenses. They are not a party to the license agreement -- so they cannot stop someone from making a modification, legally. Their only real control is their trademark, but we are not a party to that issue. So yes, you have the ambiguity of the license text itself saying "this is the entire license", but then the copyright owner imposing a separate condition. In my view, however, a judge would almost always side with the copyright owner -- if it's ambiguous, I do not think a judge would rule that the end result is a more liberal license than the copyright owner has ever given out. If it invalidates the license entirely, then there is no license at all, and the full copyright comes to bear. A copyright must be given up voluntarily, and there is no indication that the copyright owner has even done so. Mistakes along the line of actually giving a full CC-BY license without looking into the full details... that may well stand up as having been a full CC-BY license. But if there has always been the restriction alongside it, I think that would most likely be considered legally valid, regardless of CC's efforts to stop modification of their license. In general, I have argued to respect the copyright owners' wishes in such situations -- so people adding conditions to the licenses (such as "must contact me" or something) we have generally deemed to be a non-free modification which must be altered voluntarily by the author (say made a request but not a requirement), or have the files deleted. While there is some room for argument, I firmly believe it is very dangerous to ignore additional restrictions added by copyright owners, and think that most judges would side with those copyright owners in a dispute like that. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:40, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
Of course some interpretation is needed, but some interpretations are objectively wrong, and some are objectively right (and of course in some cases there is no clear right and wrong).
I don't think you're describing the link accurately. It's not an explicit link to the copyright policy - not exactly anyway. To me, it looks like the license is cited on the page, and the Creative Commons link is simply to explain what Creative Commons is. If they really wanted to make sure that people understood that it wasn't a simple, clear cut CC-BY license, then it follows that they should do so on the download page and name the hyperlink "see here for further restrictions", instead of citing CC-BY with no mention of any restrictions. They couldthen go into more far more detail on the copyright page and link to it, but to completely fail to mention any restrictions on the download page is a fundamental error on their part IMO, and one that makes it totally ineffectual in corralling the reuser towards the information they need.
I don't think this is even in question, really. As I've said many times, including with quotes from Creative Commons' FAQ, you cannot modify the CC-BY license and it is irrevokable - this is fundamental to how it is published, and how it operates. The only way to do so might be to take the legal text of the license and modify it to suit your needs, but that would mean publishing the entire legal text and giving it a new name, not using the existing license which is published under a known and agreed name: CC-BY. That much is seems obvious. If you cite it, you are citing it as it is published and is publicly known. If you try to add restrictions to it, you are not modifying the license, you are adding additional restrictions to the use of the image which do not affect the license but may affect the use of the image if enforceable. So it comes down to this: Is Creative Commons right that any attempt to restrict use will not affect the release of the image under the Creative Commons license? I don't think we are in a position to decide. But surely unless we have a very persuasive reason why we should not believe them, we have to rely on their expert legal opinion? I'm very interested to hear from the WMF legal team on whether they agree with CC or not. Diliff (talk) 16:51, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
Yes, we may just be repeating ourselves at this point, so may not be worth it to keep arguing :-)
In general, I will always look for clarifying links for copyright reasons -- and the link they give to their creative commons page is right next to the CC-BY mention, closer than most web pages. The exact text is: Photos are owned by the MacArthur Foundation and licensed under a Creative Commons license: CC-BY. They even hyperlink the "Creative Commons license" part, which (just like Wikis) you would typically follow to get more detail on what they mean. The original page is a photo, and on that licensing page, they lay out exactly the terms they allow for photos on the site. I really don't see how they can be construed as unrelated.
You claim that "you cannot modify the CC-BY license". Why not? Who says so? By what right can someone restrict a copyright owner from giving precisely the license they want to give? A license is between the licensor and licensee, and no other party. CC clearly does not want anyone to modify their licenses, but they are limited by the rights that trademark gives them -- they do not have any other way to impose conditions on the MacArthur Foundation. You can always modify the licenses, or make separate agreements about them -- even Creative Commons acknowledges they have no right to prevent that, even if they would prefer it not happen. Given their trademark rights, they can require that the CC name and logos are no longer used, but if the MacArthur Foundation ignores that -- it's a potential problem between CC and them, but not us, and it does not not change the relationship between the copyright licensor and licensee. At most they can (and should) be forced to improve their labeling, even though it would not change the copyright license. When it comes to somewhat contradictory text between an included boilerplate license, and language specifically added by the copyright owner, I believe that judges would virtually always side with the more explicit language from the copyright owner. I definitely do not think a judge would construe the result to allow *more* use than the copyright owner ever intended to give by their own wording. They are not imposing an illegal condition, or anything like that -- if the option is between no license at all, and a modified, not-quite-free license based on CC-BY, I don't think a judge could choose unfettered CC-BY as a result. I guess if you believe that the MacArthur Foundation has no right to alter the license, that would explain your position -- but I think they do, and am unaware of any rights from any party which would prevent them from being allowed to do so, despite CC's wishes. You ask "Is Creative Commons right that any attempt to restrict use will not affect the release of the image under the Creative Commons license" -- but CC doesn't say that; they explicitly acknowledge that people can and will make (legally valid) modifications. They simply ask that their name and logo not be used in those situations -- which is not respected here, but that doesn't change (to my mind) the binding nature of those modifications. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:59, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
Possibly not worth arguing, but although we're covering the same subjects over and over, there's still some nuance that we disagree on.
The link to their CC page is right next to the CC-BY mention, but it shouldn't be necessary to go looking for clarification. If CC-BY is mentioned, that should be all that a reuser needs to know. It's an established license that a lot of media users are aware of and many would see the license, know what it means and use the image without ever expecting that there would be restrictions imposed on the license. It's a bit me giving you a gift that has some fine print proclaiming "but you can only keep it if your name is Larry". You might happen to notice the fine print and be surprised to learn that actually the gift isn't yours after all, but more likely you'll accept the gift and never even assume that you'd have to immediately give it back. And yes, one can click the link to learn more, but one shouldn't need to. All the vital information is right there on the download page. "IT IS LICENSED UNDER A CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE: CC-BY". Nothing more should be necessary. A link to the details of the license is not mandatory, only encouraged as best practice.
Who says so? Creative Commons says so, as I've quoted numerous times already. Well, it also depends on what you mean by modify. Any modification of the license and it ceases to be a CC license and "you may no longer refer to it as a Creative Commons or CC license, and you must not use any CC trademarks (including the Creative Commons name) or branding in connection with the license". It becomes a mutant license by some other name. So while it might be possible to modify the terms of a CC license to suit one's needs, it is in essence creating a new license. Given they are using the Creative Commons name, they have two choices. Either they allow CC-BY to apply to everyone including non-media, or they stop using the Creative Commons license. I know this is not something we can enforce, but I think it's important as CC ambassadors to point this out to them through OTRS. Diliff (talk) 10:04, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
OK, one more round ;-)
If they don't mention a version, it is a little ambiguous as to the exact legal license you are agreeing to. It is best practice to link to the actual license, like you say. And just the same, it is best practice to not alter the license the way they did. Neither of them invalidate the license as given though, they are just poor practice. The actual license offered is the one which is linked, in the end. In this case, they did link to the license.
Generally agreed with you there -- they need to do one or the other to avoid violating CC's trademark. However, trademark rights are the only authority CC has -- they have no rights to prevent the actual modification of the license. The license is a copyright agreement between MacFound and who they offer it to -- our choices are to use that mutant license under their terms, or not use the works at all. We can't just pick a different license more to our liking. CC is not a party to that agreement and cannot affect it -- the trademark situation is completely orthogonal, as we are not a party to that. We could mention it to them, but in the end it's CC's choice whether to try to enforce it or not. If the MacArthur Foundation chooses to alter their license to actually be CC-BY, great, but until that time we can only use the mutant one -- and it sounds highly unlikely they would. They could just change the wording to remove the CC logo, and use "CC-BY-like" to describe their license, and they would be fine in regards to trademark -- and the license they actually offer wouldn't change a bit. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:03, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
But they didn't publish a "modified form of CC BY 4.0" in their website. Instead they vaguely said "With respect to use of photographs and videos maintained on this website pertaining to the MacArthur Fellows by the media, the applicable Creative Commons License will be Attribution: CC- BY" with a link to CC's site where it states "Any arrangements, understandings, or agreements regarding the Licensed Material not stated herein are separate from and independent of the terms and conditions of this Public License". Jee14:02, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure it should be possible to say "XXX license except modified by these terms", i.e. not have the alterations part of the linked legal code file itself, and still have that be valid. Or, depending on the wording, it could be an additional contract on top of the license which effectively restricts the use in the same way. Yes, their wording is clumsy, but in that case you are best served to get better clarification on the copyright owner's intent (which it sounds like the OTRS team did, and the intent is non-free). Any ambiguity would have to be decided by a judge if it came to that, but I think it more likely that the side authored by the copyright owner directly would prevail. If you guess wrong on the intent, that could easily lead to copyright violations. If you made no effort to discern the intent (especially if not clicking the link next to "CC-BY"), it is far less likely that a judge would rule in your favor. Some aspects are ambiguous, no doubt, and their wording "by the media" would have to be interpreted by a judge -- but it is clear that there are *some* restriction over and above "the public" (the expected case for CC-BY), so interpreting that clause to actually mean "the public" is extremely unlikely to be upheld, and if we put an actual CC-BY tag on the file, I think that is what we are doing.
In general it is completely possible to license individual files on a website differently than the overall website -- but it's always a matter of trying to discern the copyright owner's intent on the matter. To do that, you would try to find any copyright-license-related material and try to see, from their wording, if it is free beyond a reasonable doubt (COM:PRP). This can include site license links at the bottom of the page, or anywhere on the website, or even past versions of the website if the page in question was there at the time. I would look for an indication in the wording that a license is separate from the site license... but in this case, there is a link to the site license page immediately before the "CC-BY" mention in the body text, which rather than indicating a separate license strongly indicates that the license mentioned is clarified by that site license page. So while I can understand the argument that it represents a separate license -- I simply disagree and at this point it is not likely either side will convince the other. When it comes to the modified CC-BY and the CC-BY-NC, there is obviously some restriction on the CC-BY portion -- whether that is only for particular uses, or for a more limited set of people -- over and above the CC-BY-NC license, otherwise they wouldn't have the CC-BY-NC license in the first place. That page is not well handled, in my opinion, but since it's pretty clear that the intent was to not give out an unfettered CC-BY license, I don't think we can assume they did -- certainly not beyond COM:PRP. Given that judges will tend to protect copyright owner's rights most of the time these days -- the time of copyright notice accidents are gone -- I think it would take a major mistake in the wording to result in a more-liberal-than-intended license being granted by a judge. Such ambiguity may help at least with an "innocent infringement" defense, which typically just reduces damages but is still infringement, but would not cause the loss of copyrights (i.e. an actual CC-BY license), I don't think. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:08, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
"I firmly believe it is very dangerous to ignore additional restrictions added by copyright owners, and think that most judges would side with those copyright owners in a dispute like that." danger is my middle name. walking the streets of american cities such as Portland, or DC, or North Dakota prairie is dangerous. why is it that you are dictating the risks that others may take, in a close to the line case? Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge18:11, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
Because I don't think it qualifies as a free license. Others are always free to look at the license on the source website and use it or not per their own risk, but Commons policy is to only host works which have a free copyright license, and we do try to enforce that. Otherwise, we might as well host fair use, -NC licenses, etc., and let people use them at their own risk. I don't believe we can say that those works are actually CC-BY, and I don't see another free license there. Obviously, our actual use is within their given licenses, but that is not our policy. And I don't think this case is all that close to the line, to be honest. It's certainly far more than a reasonable doubt -- to me it's only a very hopeful and faint likelihood that they legally did license it CC-BY by mistake. And if they didn't, there is no free license we can put on the works. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:25, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
you are mighty sure of yourself, considering you are speculating about unprecedented license language. it is very clearly reasonable doubt. they put a CC-BY with logo, that is a representation to rely on. and the Reductio ad absurdum of NC ND is amusing - how about that unenforceable SA? Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge04:26, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
The standard is that it was in fact licensed CC-BY (with no modifications) beyond a reasonable doubt. This is not at all unprecedented -- we have regularly asked contributors who put (what we deem as) modifications on the CC licenses to either modify their additions to be requests and not requirements, or have the files deleted. If it got to court, it would be an argument over what license did the copyright owner give -- and in virtually all cases like this, the rulings seem to center around what a "reasonable person" would assume given all of the wording that they saw (or should have seen with reasonable effort). In this case, the license is "XXXX license for use by the media, and YYYY license for everything else". You are saying a reasonable person can read that as being an actual license of XXXX for everyone and every purpose, beyond a reasonable doubt, i.e. it is perfectly fine to ignore the rest of that language. To me, I highly doubt a judge would agree -- a reasonable person would realize there were modifications to the license right next to the CC-BY icon, and would know those modifications exist before looking at the linked legal code. That icon is a trademark with a specific meaning, yes, which can put *some* doubt on their modification -- but the Commons policy is the other way around, i.e. there must not be any reasonable doubt that the license is, legally, CC-BY with no modifications. I don't think that is the case, nor even close really. This is just my opinion, but it would just be a licensing dispute (hardly unprecedented) and those ("reasonable person" or "typical person" or "reasonable juror") are typically the standards that I recall judges using. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:58, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
i did not say ignore the language, merely interpret it is a more expansive way. is it reasonable that judges would read "CC-BY for media" and think, well that means "media only"? media is an expansive word, i.e. "omnimedia" the fact that you and jim do not think of yourselves as media, does not mean it is unreasonable that i can claim to be media. even t-shirts are media, that can get free speech rights at polling places.
and speaking of risk - this is a website that told the National Portrait Gallery to stuff its sweat of the brow; is telling the Prado museum to "bring it on"; and is appealing a decision against it in a German court. i would suggest the risk in those cases is greater than the current matter. so we see it is ideology not prudence that rules the website, acting as if it were prudence is false advertising. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge22:36, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
You can read it expansively, but to read it as an actual CC-BY license you'd have to ignore the phrase altogether, and say that it's equivalent to "everyone for every use". You'd also have to ignore the implications that the CC-BY-NC license was provided for all other uses, which also indicates their pseudo-CC-BY is still restricted in some way. Even if there is reasonable doubt both ways, per COM:PRP we would still delete. I think you could argue that a great many uses would be OK under their pseudo-CC-BY, perhaps due to their clumsy wording even some uses where they later indicated it would not covered, but I don't see how we can consider that equivalent to CC-BY. Wikimedia's stances have been when they feel they are on solid ground legally (at least in the U.S.); I would doubt that in this case, but if they choose to endorse our keeping these files I'd change my mind. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:02, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
you can say "pseudo-CC-BY" all you want, it does not settle the matter. they could have left the NC on there, but 2 years ago they took off the NC for this formulation. you can dictate terms here, do you imagine you can dictate to the macarthur foundation, or to a german court? everyone else is just so clumsy. and our response should be "just say no", just like a first lady. the community takes stances when it wants to spend Wikimedia legal's money based on ideology. legal has gotten involved in URAA, maybe this rises to their attention. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge02:06, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
Personality rights
Several have argued that MacArthur do not need to use the -NC clause to enforce the personality rights of their subjects. Perhaps that is so in the US. But I had a discussion with a UK professional photographer who argued such rights largely do not exist in the UK. I googled and found Marilyn Monroe, Posh Spice and Me Personality, Property and Privacy which entertainingly considers the issue of t-shirts and mugs, as well as other uses. And it seems to support the case that people in the UK should not be confident they can enforce their personality rights that we all read about on Wikipedia. Therefore using "All rights reserved", that photographer can, through mutual agreement, help restrict the usages of his model's image to only those situations the model is happy with. Clearly relying on the photographer's copyright to protect the model's rights isn't optimal, and could be abused by a photographer. It seems to me a fair argument that releasing portrait photos of people with a free licence that permits commercial use might not be a wise thing to do in all jurisdictions. -- Colin (talk) 10:17, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
Additionally, the 4.0 versions of the licenses include this clause: Moral rights, such as the right of integrity, are not licensed under this Public License, nor are publicity, privacy, and/or other similar personality rights; however, to the extent possible, the Licensor waives and/or agrees not to assert any such rights held by the Licensor to the limited extent necessary to allow You to exercise the Licensed Rights, but not otherwise. So, agreeing to the license may also be agreeing to relax some of the publicity rights. I think that was more intended when a person releases a photograph of themselves under a CC license -- it is not possible to waive any personality etc. rights for a photograph of someone else -- but that wording could additionally give some pause if they really want to restrict such use. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:08, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
Can this file be licensed as {{PD-self}}? It's unlikely the uploader created the patch; they may own the patch, but that doesn't mean they own the copyright on its design. Could this possibly be licensed as {{PD-Art}} or some other form of PD instead? -- Marchjuly (talk) 13:46, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
A fairly recent artwork by an unknown designer. Most likely the Fire Company owns the copyright. Tagged with no permission. The Yeti13:58, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
I also came across this one from about the same period. If the back is confirmed w/o notice, would this one be OK? The seller should be getting back to me. --Light show (talk) 20:21, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
First one... probably, unless the authors of the program used the photo without permission in the first place. Second one... no indication of when that print was distributed. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:24, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
For the second one, based on many newspaper photos I reviewed, this would have been published in the early 1970s. But I couldn't find an exact match for this image. I saw the back, which has a sticker on it that says "33%, page 16, bottom rt." But no date. However, it is a publicity photo by a record company, so isn't it unlikely ("significantly doubtful") they would have kept and then used an old photo like this for more recent promos. --Light show (talk) 02:10, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
What are all the ways for checking for copyright status for William Mortensen, photographer
William Mortensen (1897 – 1965) has a lot of post 1923 photos floating around on the internet. I had some correspondence with the gallery owner behind http://www.whmortensen.com/ who once dealt with the estate that is now, he claims, dissolved. I have searched for William Mortensen at Search Records | U.S. Copyright Office. but have not found anything about any of his photographs. How can I do a more exhaustive search?
Here is a citation for one of his books, (1937) The model: a book on the problems of posing, San Francisco, CA: Camera Craft Pub. Co. OCLC: 784800. that is on the Internet Archive & has a "Usage Public Domain Mark 1.0". If the Internet Archive has it listed as being in the public domain, is it copacetic to bring screenshots of the photos in the book into Commons as public domain?
They would follow U.S. copyright law. Published pre-1923 is OK; 1923-1963 is OK if they were published in that time frame and never renewed. If still unpublished, they would still be under copyright (until 2036). I do see a renewal of Mortensen on the negative (though spelled Mortenson in the renewal), so any photos first published in that book are still under copyright. I don't see a renewal for the book you mention at the Stanford book renewal site, so it would appear to be {{PD-US-not renewed}}. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:54, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
@Clindberg: @Carl Lindberg: Thank you! I have bookmarked the Stanford book renewal site. That answers my question about books. I guess individual photographs are murkier. First, I would need to establish that they were published pre-1923 or in the 1923-1963 and never renewed. Is there an authoritative site for checking on the publishing & renewal of photograph copyright renewals? Peaceray (talk) 00:43, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
There is no evidence that copy was distributed, if there are no dates on it anywhere. Sounds like it was for a 1975 performance though. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:58, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
I'm not doubting the work was published in general. But was it published without a copyright notice? If you are basing that determination on this copy alone, then you have to show this copy was distributed before 1989. If the distributed versions had a copyright notice placed on them, and this was unused stock which was not distributed until later, that can be an issue. That type of doubt is right on the edge of being significant, so it's possible admins would vote keep -- but when it comes to very recent works, especially post-1964, I tend to want to be as sure as possible. If there was documentation that this was distributed, that would all help -- but you'd have to know the circumstances of it to determine if it was "limited publication" (material given out to a limited set of people for a limited purpose) versus "general publication". If this was given to just say radio stations for help in advertising on-air, that might be limited. Though if it was displayed to the public, it was probably general publication. It's dancing in the area of "probably PD, but" which is a bit uncomfortable. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:00, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
OK, I found this exact double image in The Daily Herald (Provo, UT) for 9/29/75 p. 29. I can add a clip of the newspaper image with the upload, or just note a publication date alone. Would that work? A link won't work since you need a subscription to see the actual page. --Light show (talk) 00:07, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
It's a very thorny question which has been discussed a couple times. It's unfortunate that en-wiki and Commons disagree, but that is the current state of things. But yes, you could move that to the PD-PhilippineGov tag. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:59, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Clindberg. I wasn't trying to restart this debate; the file just did not seem to be "own work". What should I use as the source of this file? I've found it used online in a few places like here and here, but all of them seem to be dated after the file was uploaded to Commons. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:52, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
No source is provided for this image, but it seems unlikely that this is "own work". It also seems really unlikely that any imagery associated with KISS is not under some sort of copyright protection. Perhaps this was uploaded in good faith, but it seems to be fair use. For reference, the same file can be found as en:File:LAKisslogo.PNG on English Wikipedia. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:17, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
Photo is all over the net, including before upload here, but I have not found one in the uploaded resolution. I haven't found a photo credit either. Uploader has four images -- two Nikon cameras, one Canon, and one with no EXIF. The two Nikon (of which this is one) do seem to be the same camera. Just don't know on this one. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:44, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
Not sure we've found a significant doubt yet. If we can show the uploaded pictures were by different authors, then OK, but until then... not sure. I haven't found a photo credit on any of their images (looked for three), and it seems Commons has the highest-resolution versions of them. I would still prefer better evidence for deletion. No real reason to doubt COM:AGF either. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:18, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
Resolution is not something keeping us behind COM:PRP borders. That we are not sure whether he's the real author or not and that there are older versions over the net make enough doubt. --Mhhosseintalk19:58, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
Yes, it does. If the uploader had access to something which is not on the net, then he's a lot closer to the author (if not the author) than normal. We need to show that it was possible for anyone to find and make this actual upload -- i.e. access to the same or higher resolution version of the photo. When it comes to theoretical doubts, we could do that on just about any upload -- we are never sure about who the authors are. COM:PRP is about a *significant* doubt, not that some theoretical doubt exists. Alternatively, if we can show that there are multiple "own work" uploads where we can show authors documented elsewhere which are not the same person, that would also do it. It's usually not too hard to do, so when I have trouble, it does give me some pause. Even the one without EXIF, I can only find a cropped version which was available before the upload here. There are professional photographers who upload photos; we should find a good reason to doubt the claimed authorship before accusing them of being copyright violators. The simple fact they are professional photos is not a significant doubt all by itself. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:28, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
I reverted your speedy tag. The upload image is 3,184 × 2,120 pixels, the one you linked to is 1024 x 682. Ours is three times that size, does not have the watermark, and has detailed EXIF info not present in your link. So, that could not possibly be the source for the upload here, even though it does predate the upload. And even if you do find one, it should be a regular DR and not speedy, most likely -- give the uploader a chance to respond. It would only be speedy if you find evidence that the uploader is not the author -- which would mean finding uploads by multiple other named authors. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:22, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
I thought the uploader could've removed that watermark via a photo edit software. Consider that most of the uploads on other sites are not named. Also this photo is a cropped version of a larger one, as far as I see. Thanks any way. --Mhhosseintalk17:39, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
It's certainly possible that watermarks could be removed -- though you can usually see evidence of that when looking closely. But you can't expand it 3 times and retain the image quality, and it's unlikely the EXIF information was faked. I have not seen a version of this photo which is a wider crop than the uploaded one. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:46, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
Understand. As always, I appreciate your input ruslik. Can I use that usfk.mil website as the source of the file even though I'm not sure that's exactly the origin of the file? -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:21, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
I'm not sure. The file was uploaded as "own work" without a source. The usfk.mil url was added by Túrelio, not me. I think it's OK, but just wanted to ask first. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:23, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
The logo is fine, but there is the question of the photo itself -- we don't allow photos of coins (slightly 3-D object), and so not completely sure the photo would qualify for {{PD-Art}}. If you are just cropping to the logo... probably OK. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:02, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
The surface and logo is fine, yes. Not worried about the design on the record surface. The discover card is purely surface. This is a photo with a shadow though... dunno. It's more 2-D than a coin, so it may still be OK, but the concern would be a possible copyright in the actual photograph (not any copyright in the object itself). I probably wouldn't vote to delete, but it's not 100%. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:43, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
Looks OK to me. Tommy Vandamm (died 1944, real name George R. Thomas) and his wife Florence (died 1966, who apparently did most of the portraits) were the primary people in the Vandamm Studio. May have been employees, but most likely Florence was the author. Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:23, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
This is one of the more tasteful stills from a nude photo session set [4], which contains some much more explicit photos of the same young lady. The set is publicly available under a free CC-BY-2.0 license and was clearly shot with the consent of the model. If you are worried so much, you may tag it with {{Personality rights}}. The Yeti06:38, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
32RB17: How could you tell that the she had "clearly" consented to publish her photograph? That the set is publicly available on the net proves nothing, there are plenty of plenty pics available on the net which can't be uploaded here! CC license is something and the "legal rights of the subject and the ethics of publishing the photo" is something else, per Photographs of identifiable people.--Mhhosseintalk12:47, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
You misinterpret the policy of commons. This amounts to censorship. If these (relatively insignificant) files are deleted now, what happend next? I believe the WMF does not endorse censorship - or do they? The Yeti13:37, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
Here is a very good explanation in a similar case by Pete F: «This is not a copyright issue (there is no problem with the CC BY copyright license), but a personality rights issue. COM:IDENT says, "The subject's consent is usually needed for publishing a photograph of an identifiable individual taken in a #private place."» --SI13:50, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
As was pointed out already, this was obviously a planned photo shoot with a consenting model. No violation of personality rights involved. --Sebari– aka Srittau (talk) 16:10, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
Sebari: Your comment is clearly in contradiction with COM:PEOPLE which says: " A model, for example, may have consented to the image being taken for a personal portfolio, but not for publication on the Internet." It must be be proved that the model is consented as the guideline says! --Mhhosseintalk17:02, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
Please read that sentence you keep on quoting in context. It does not mean what you claim it means. --Sebari– aka Srittau (talk) 17:07, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
It exactly means that "consent to have one's photograph taken does not permit the photographer to do what they like with the image." --Mhhosseintalk19:36, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
Correct and has nothing to do with this case, where there is no reason to assume that the photographer did not have permission to publish those photos. --Sebari– aka Srittau (talk) 20:48, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
Then you are introducing new concepts under our guideline, i.e. COM:PEOPLE. Sorry, but I can't figure out how you, as an admin, can't recognize that when there's no consent from the subject it means that there's no consent from the subject and that the exact "reason to assume that the photographer did not have permission to publish those photos" is that " a model, for example, may have consented to the image being taken for a personal portfolio, but not for publication on the Internet." Those what I said exactly match the case, in a verbatim manner! --Mhhosseintalk08:27, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
Comment -- I'll like to point out that the fact that this image was taken with her consent does not automatically implies that the photographer has the legal right to freely publish it without her consent. It would be unwise for us to assume that because the image was taken by a professional photographers, she is consented to publishing it here. I think this is one of those images we need to delete per our precautionary principle. All the best. Wikicology (talk) 18:04, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
I have always considered COM:PRP to be a purely copyright-related policy. Could you point to a situation in the past where we have had a consensus deletion based on precautionary non-copyright grounds? I know that may be an impossible task, and my current opinion is pretty tentative... Storkk (talk) 13:09, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
While this might not be an outright copyright issue, it's certainly an issue related to the personal right of a living person and any violation of personal right may result in litigation. That being said, some of our policies and guidelines such as COM:PRP were designed to guide Common's users so as to prevent or minimize possible litigation that may arise from images uploaded here. Copyright or no copyright, what the precautionary principle is saying is that if any images uploaded to Common has a suspected risk of causing harm to the project, such image or content should be deleted. Wikicology (talk) 22:16, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
File:Soumyadipta.jpg
A file named File:Soumyadipta.jpg, uploaded by me was marked as copyright issue and was deleted before my clarification regarding the issue. However, I have a permission copy of using the image to use it anytime and anywhere I need. can anyone please tell me how to solve the issue, how I can upload the image again? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chandan Manna (talk • contribs)
Please do not reupload the same image again, as it was exactly the same as was found on the website cited in the copyvio tag applied to the file. Proper notification was sent to the uploader. The usual process to request undeletion is COM:UNDEL after contacting the closing admin, which hasn't happened yet. Amitie 10g please don't muddy the waters with "shoulds" and what ifs, please just wait for the people who can see the deleted files in future before adding details ultimately irrelevant to the situation. If actual creator permission for this image is possible, uploader Chandan Manna will please follow the instructions at COM:OTRS. Ellin Beltz (talk) 17:45, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
These files look like non-free cover art, but they are licensed under a {{Self}} license. The source and author are both given as "No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)", but I'm not sure how that can be used to verify ech file's copyright status. Googling each file shows both files being used online, but the files were uploaded in 2007 and some of these websites might have just gotten what they are using from Commons. There are some copyright warnings on the uploader's talk page, but I can tell if these are the same files. Is this type of licensing acceptable for Commons? -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:00, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
I made the above images. I think I may have messed up the license. The source code is LGPL. Does that mean the images need to be LGPL as well? What is the correct template for LGPL images? Thanks! SharkD Talk 23:24, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
As far as I know, the source code licence is irrelevant when it comes to the output of LGPL code. E. g. {{LGPLv3}} only refers to the code library itself. So you would only have to worry about LGPL if you published some derivate source code or altered software. De728631 (talk) 00:03, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
Yes, that's alright. You created these images and the software was just a tool, so you can apply a free licence of your choice for these graphics. De728631 (talk) 12:26, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
I just have noticed that @Jcb had nominated for deletion files from this source. There is a lot of them, some already have been deleted. As the reason he had given Source website http://www.adamsguns.com/ is non-free, but there always has been statement on the page which says You are welcome to copy images from my site - Please give credit if you use it online. If you publish an image from my site - You must give credit. So {{Attribution}} is IMO applicable. What do you think about it? --jdxRe:21:00, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
Well, this is actually very simple. You will find your answer at COM:L, our official licensing policy. In short: No, such a statement is not compatible with our licensing policy. Jcb (talk) 21:19, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
In licensing terms, what isn't explicitly granted in the license is almost always forbidden (with some legal exceptions such as fair use and FOP). What are my rights regarding the creation of derivative works of the gun photos? Can they be remixed, or must they stand unaltered? Storkk (talk) 21:53, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
My work is regularly lifted and/or plagiarized for use in Wiki
My maps and work are regularly plagiarized, lifted or copied into Wikipedia and Wikimedia without my permission or knowledge. I cannot stop this. For example, Look at File:Lebanon Ethnic map.png Can someone contact me? Izady@RiskReductionStrategies.org
No. We would need a free license to be given on Panasonic's website. If that is not there, then we can't upload it. The logo is above the threshold of originality, so there is a copyright, and only the copyright owners (Panasonic) can license it. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:26, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
I was about to delete it, when I noticed that the author, Nick Birse a.k.a NotASpy, is our fellow admin @Nick. The source page clearly states (at the time of writing) that the photo is under CC-BY-NC-2.0, while according to our description page it is under CC-BY-SA-4.0/GFDL-1.2. I believe it is not allowed as per COM:L because IMO it is a case of forbidden Use by Wikimedia only restriction. So Nick has to change the licence on Flickr or the photo must be removed from Commons. Am I right? --jdxRe:08:08, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
No, you're very badly mistaken.
The source page clearly states that the image is additionally available under the CC-BY-SA-4.0 and GFDL licences. Did you not read the source page fully ?.
I shouldn't be having to remind a fellow administrator that it's perfectly acceptable to multiple licence images, see w:Wikipedia:Multi-licensing (and also Commons:Multi-licensing. That's how the GFDL and CC-BY-SA licencing works, but it's also additionally possible to choose combinations of Creative Commons licences, on Flickr, I generally use the CC-BY-NC-ND variant of the Creative Commons licence to allow people to re-use my photos, as is, for non commercial purposes, and without having to attribute me specifically.
If I choose to make my work available for commercial purposes (almost always through Commons), then I insist on attribution with Wikimedia Commons being part of the attribution I require. That was something I specifically did to try and benefit the project.
I don't understand the fascination with people trying to delete a file that I have released under the GFDL, CC-BY-SA-4.0 and CC-BY-NC-2.0 or CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0, nor do I understand how an administrator could be so confused as to try and claim it's released under some sort of Wikimedia only licence when it specifically states on Flickr that it's also available under the GFDL and CC-BY-SA-4.0 licences.
@Nick: I admit that I didn't read the page on Flickr carefully enough – I just looked at the icon(s) on the right, as I usually do, and it was clear to me that the photo is licenced under a NC licence, then placing cursor over "Some right reserved" showed link to the CC-BY-NC-2.0 licence. Anyway, the concept of multi-licensing is known to me, but I think that an author should mark his work(s) with the same licence (or combination of licences) in every place he publishes it, if he publishes in more than one place. In other case it causes confusion as in this case. --jdxRe:12:34, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
I have, as far as is possible, been consistent in explaining what licences the image is available under. Flickr doesn't support GFDL or any CC v4 licences, nor does it support multiple licences. Commons doesn't support the CC-BY-NC-2.0 licence used by Flickr (see {{Cc-by-nc-2.0}}) even when a valid less restrictive licence is present, it just nominates the image for deletion without displaying a valid machine readable copyright tag. Nick (talk) 12:48, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
Nick can use whatever license he desires (that Flickr supports) when releasing images on Flickr, and whatever license he desires (that we support) when releasing images here. There is no rule that files have to globally be uniformly licensed... if you get the file from Flickr, you are bound by NC terms... if you get it here, you are bound by your choice of GFDL/CC-BY-SA. Indeed, the file could be marked "All rights reserved" at any external source, as long as the license used here is Commons-compatible, I don't see an issue. Storkk (talk) 12:54, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
Yes, he can, but is it really multi-licencing? When an author publishes the same work on 2+ websites under a different licence on each of them, it isn't IMO multi-licencing – he doesn't give (re)users ability to choose a licence, what, I believe, is the essence of multi-licencing. They might even not know that the work is published on some other site under a licence more suitable to their needs. And, of course, it causes confusion. --jdxRe:14:42, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
The file would have the same licenses here and on Flickr if the CC-BY-NC-2.0 licence template worked and didn't just tag the image for speedy deletion. The file on Flickr has the GFDL and CC-BY-SA-4.0 licences and attribution requirements on Flickr, there's no intentional difference in multi-licencing the file, I want it to be identical on both sites, technical limitations here and on Flickr stop that. Nick (talk) 23:25, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
He is giving re-users here a free license. What license Flickr users get is not relevant to whether we host the file under the free license. Again, he could have them as "All rights reserved" on Flickr or DeviantArt or a personal website (or a printed magazine, etc. etc.), as long as the file complies with our licensing requirements here, I cannot see a problem. We can only reasonably take care to ensure the freedoms of our reusers, not Flickr users. Storkk (talk) 23:41, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
@Elvey: Commons:User scripts/File Analyzer sometimes works, but it looks like the images have been edited, so reverse image searches (via Google) are probably most likely to be the easiest.
There's also that Lamborghini logo on the first page, but it's cropped way down from a CC0 image from here.. I didn't search it down on Commons. I'd suggest you first just poke the person about proper attribution... citing 'us' at least shows some degree of a desire to act correctly. Reventtalk02:48, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. We can't tell if "User:I am two years old" was actually born two year ago unless we know their real identity. Uploader may be 80+ old. Who knows? This images may not be eligible for deletion per our precautionary principle unless there are convincing evidences that uploader is not the author. Wikicology (talk) 18:16, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
I agree with Ghouston that "they "look like official US military portraits" and seem to be rather unlikely to be the uploader's own work. However, if they're official US military portraits, we can keep them - just not as the uploader's claimed "own work" with CC-BY-SA-4.0, but as PD-USGov. Probably the uploader just didn't quite understand how things work here. - Regarding the more general remarks, of course there are older uploaders and I know some active Wikipedians who are older than 80 years. Gestumblindi (talk) 20:26, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
Given the 'own work', the username, and the subject matter, it seems plausible that this is a role account for the National Guard unit. The 'own work' claims seem rather obviously misguided, though. Reventtalk02:56, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
This needs the clarification: if the depicted work of art is itself in the public domain (in this case, the license would be {{PD-Art|PD-Portugal-URAA |deathyear= 1939}}), and if the image does not include the frame (if it does, it needs to be cropped out). Reventtalk03:07, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
This file has been uploaded to the The U.S. Army Flickr account. As a work from a non U.S. army officier (John Stillwell/PA Wire PRESS ASSOCIATION) for the U.S. Army, how can be considered this photo?
As a work from the photographer under his Copyright?
Or as a work for hire/courtesy, now owned by the U.S. Army, therefore in the Public domain?
Hrm. If it was on the US Army website or DoD images, the contributors generally know they are giving them to the public domain, so those are not that big a deal. Not sure about the Army's Flickr account though. The CC-BY license might be considered valid, I guess -- the image is not marked PD-USGov, after all. And of course, the image appears here with an entirely different credit (Staff Sgt Matthew Coffee). Not sure what to believe... I guess the article linked was written by Mr. Coffee, so maybe they just messed up the photo credit there and the Yahoo version was corrected. The U.S. Army site obviously used the photo with permission, but the question is more if the Press Association was aware that the photo would be licensed that way (usually you are if giving photos to the US Army), or if the Flickr webmaster just neglected to change the license for that one image (which would be an issue). Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:29, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Is it OK to assume a photo is likely PD if there is no response after nearly a week? And I'm still fine with deleting it after it's uploaded if there's a valid concern that can't be dealt with.--Light show (talk) 04:26, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
@Elvey: The text on the record label is just 'factual information'... there is no copyrightable originality there. Also, it was published in 1983 with no copyright notice (the circle P is regarding the recording itself). Reventtalk19:07, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
I don't understand the question. You created them, did you not? Therefore, if there is any creative work involved in them, it's yours. Certainly a standard graph layout is not copyrightable.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:30, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
@Prosfilaes: The question was whether or not the company that created the software that created the graph has any copyright claim over the output of said software. --Majora (talk) 23:53, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
The graph is boilerplate, and the software running on the machine doesn't impart any more copyrightable material than a camera's software or PhotoShop.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:08, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
@Majora: To be more specific, copyright requires a specific identifiable aspect of human authorship... the output of a purely mechanical process (software) cannot be copyrighted. Reventtalk05:05, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Interesting case. It seems that the page solicits ideas from the community. Each idea is probably created by a community member and that member is responsible for image attribution etc. In some projects that worked ([6]), in some projects it didn't ([7]). That leaves the problem that there are non-clickable banner images and that the submission are not vetted for those problems on what looks like an official site. --Sebari– aka Srittau (talk) 17:14, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for the e-mail. Indeed the project creator is responsible for the attribution. We will enhance the attribution advice for project initiators and the actual attribution for the images. --Verena Lindner (WMDE) (talk) 10:43, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
I don't know what to make of the licence for this file. It is tagged with {{Cc-zero}} but the source page has this ambiguous statement when you hover your mouse over the PD sticker below the image: "Copyright (c) 2015 dopplerduck . Public Domain (PD)". So it is not Creative Commons zero, but then, if it is in the public domain how can it still be copyrighted to the author? Should we use a generic {{PD-author}} instead? De728631 (talk) 20:49, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
The "Copyright (c) 2015 Foobar" is just a default notice placed by the template. If the author decided to give the copyright (release into the PD), then, it should prevail over the default notice. This is just a website design problem and not a Copyright issue: just pick random files at https://inkscape.org/en/gallery and you will see "Copyright (c) 2015 Foobar" on every file, followed by a valid license; digging deeper, the HTML title attribute conteins the "Copyright (c) 2015 Foobar" followed by a valid license, but the alt attribute lacks of it, having only the valid license. Therefore, as the file was released into the PD, then, {{PD-author}} should be the right license tag rather than {{CC-0}}. --Amitie 10g (talk) 21:09, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for the input. I was also suspecting something like a default copyright tag stemming from the website. Going to change the licence tag to PD-author over here. De728631 (talk) 21:12, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
No, it doesn't. w:All rights reserved means the exact same thing as "copyright"; it is part of ancient legal formula to assert that copyright applies to a work. By themselves, they mean a work is non-free, but with a proper license, they mean nothing special.--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:05, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
It's also a pro forma statement under the w:Buenos Aires Convention which was required to simply declare that copyright exists (much like a U.S. copyright notice did in that country). So, it does not necessarily have the literal meaning of the words -- they needed that phrase to claim copyright, after which they can license that copyright. Creative Commons played off of that term with "some rights reserved", but really, that phrase is probably more equivalent to a statement that copyright exists. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:16, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
For one, one could reserve all rights given under law, as required, and then once having done so and acquired the rights, then license them. For another, a strict reading of that violates how the phrase is actually used. A book near me is copyright by Temperance Brennan, LLC, and says "All rights reserved", but nonetheless they licensed rights to Bantam Books to publish the book, and presumably licensed rights to others to translate it and publish it in other countries.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:45, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
See the Copyright notice in any software licensed under a free license (MediaWiki API script for example), there is the answer for what "(c) Copyright <year> <author>" means. Even, the GNU General Public License requires a proper Copyright notice insude both the source and resulting programa, or at least the COPYING or the LICENSE file; the BSD, ISC, MIT and Apache license should also include the Copyright notice (and this is why these licenses-related templates include the Copyright notice at the very beign of the text.
In ither words "(c) Copyright <year> <author> is just the Copyright notice; "All rights reserved", "Creative Commons Attribution" or "You can distribute and modify it under the GNU General Public License" are the actual licensing. --Amitie 10g (talk) 00:51, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
The be pedantic, en:All rights reserved explains... "The requirement to add the "all rights reserved" notice became essentially obsolete on August 23, 2000, when Nicaragua became the final member of the Buenos Aires Convention to also become a signatory to the Berne Convention. As of that date, every country that was a member of the Buenos Aires Convention (which is the only copyright treaty requiring this notice to be used) was also a member of Berne, which requires protection be granted without any formality of notice of copyright." The phrase "todos los derechos reservados" was equivalent, and also common. The actual requirement was not the phrase itself, but a 'statement of reservation of rights'. Reventtalk05:15, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
The source includes the statement, "This digital image may be used for educational or scholarly purposes without restriction. Commercial and other uses of the item are prohibited without prior written permission from the New-York Historical Society.…" Is there a legal basis for this claim? Vzeebjtf (talk) 06:50, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
Yes, there is no way that this image is still copyrighted, since if the author published it during his lifetime, it's pre-1923 and expired, and if not it expired 70 years after his death in 1919. Reventtalk18:35, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
The only way would be if the photographer assigned any copyright in his negatives to the Library as part of the gift, and if these photos were at the time unpublished, and were first published before 2003. The wording of "digital image" sounds suspiciously like the claim is just about the digitization, and not the original work, which would not have any U.S. basis. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:45, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
@Clindberg: The gift to the historical society was from a third party (Ruth Trappan), while his biographical details indicate his 'possessions and photographs' were left to a woman named Mary Granger. It seems likely that the Historical Society never actually owned the subsisting copyright. Reventtalk19:37, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Yup, agreed (unless transfer of the negatives implied copyright transfer, which varied by court case before 1978). But I think the NYPL puts that boilerplate on just about all their stuff, copyrighted or not. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:54, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Any renewal record should be online at www.copyright.gov. As far as I can see, all Columbia Pictures renewals for 1954 works were motion pictures. So that seems OK. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:48, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure I understand all the interactions of copywright rules. The image and can be seen here [8] were it is attributed to a Canadian photographer/company circa 1930 and said to be public domain in Canada as the copyright has expired under Canadian Law? MB (talk) 01:31, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
No replies? I wanted to upload a side label containing an orange background and an RCA logo. Is the text protected by UK copyright law? --George Ho (talk) 01:22, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
@George Ho: Such generic descriptive text isn't copyrightable (there is nothing original about it). There 'would' have been a 25 year typographical copyright, but it's expired. Reventtalk18:46, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
This was indeed deleted by Yann as a copyvio. Such 'external' collages are generally not okay, since they don't attribute the sources... COM:Collages talks about how to create your own in a workable manner. Reventtalk04:53, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Although technically not a copyright issue, hopefully it's OK to post this here. Per Commons:Photographs_of_identifiable_people#Brazil (photo was taken in Brazil), this would need explicit consent from the depicted persons (incl. a minor), Belgium has similar restrictions. Also, the depiction of these persons is clearly not incidental. But I am no expert in personality rights - could someone more experienced please have a look at the image and the linked legislation? Is it OK to host this on Commons without explicit consent? (An article with this image is currently under "Featured article" review on en-Wiki) GermanJoe (talk) 01:40, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
@GermanJoe: I think you are correct, and you should DR the image. An image of 'the crowd' at such an event at Brazil would be fine (as consent is implied when taking part in a public event for images 'of the event'), but this is clearly an image of the specific people. Consent is needed, and we have no evidence of it. Reventtalk18:29, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Are old photographs of dead people taken by unknown also dead people on public domain?
Hello. For the Spanish Wikipedia I'm preparing a biographical article about my grandfather, who was an eminent composer and musician from Lara state, Venezuela and died more than 50 years ago (1966). This is not my first contribution to the Spanish Wikipedia and I've already read, learnt, discussed and clarified the details of COI , NPOV and other possible issues related to the fact that I'm writing a relative's biography. However, for this biography, I need to upload to Commons, at least one photograph of him. In our family, we have several photographs that could be scanned and uploaded for this article, all of them taken between 80 and 60 years ago. These pictures were taken by some family members, probably some of them by my father, but it is unknown exactly who took them, since whoever did (including my father) have been dead for a long time. Although I'd assume in this case these picture belong to the public domain, since the author is unknown and deceased since long ago, by reading the FAQ and other help topics in Commons, I haven't found any examples like this explicitly explained. I've discussed this case in the Spanish Wikipedia discussion Cafe, but there still remains uncertainty about how this case should be handled. Any help will be most welcome. --Garai0316 (talk) 16:46, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
In case of images taken by your father you as his heir can license and upload them to the commons. For the images taken by other family members you should secure permission from their heirs. If you not sure who took which image, I suppose, you and the heirs of other family members can provide some joint statements to commons:OTRS that you agree to release the images under an appropriate license. Ruslik (talk) 16:57, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
There are various templates depending on what kind of license the heirs agree to, e.g. {{PD-heirs}} or {{Cc-by-sa-4.0-heirs}}. By the way: If a picture is in the public domain by now (e.g. the creator is known and died more than 70 years ago) and you are publishing it for the first time (no one published it previously), you may have publication right which, in the EU, works like copyright for 25 years after first publication. So, through first publication, you would become for the next 25 years the rights owner of a public domain image which you previously only physically owned, meaning that you don't have to mark it as public domain - you could alternatively use a free license with attribution requirement, if you wish to do so. Gestumblindi (talk) 01:53, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Thanks a lot Gestumblindi. I'm sorry, I'm a bit lost. I read the description in the Template:PD-heirs, but I still don't quite understand how I should use it. If I'm my father's only heir and I want to upload a picture taken by him, where in the upload wizard do I state that and where do I use this template? Garai0316 (talk) 03:16, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
It is not in the Upload Wizard because it is rarely used. You can upload files under the Cc-by-sa-4.0 license and then manually change the template. Ruslik (talk) 17:26, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
@Ruslik0 and Garai0316: In fact, the Upload Wizard can be used without having first to upload the image under a non-fitting standard license. In the step "Release rights", choose "This file is not my own work", then "Another reason not mentioned above". There will be a box under "The license is described by the following wikitext" where you can enter the fitting template of your choice manually - e.g. {{Cc-by-sa-4.0-heirs}}. Gestumblindi (talk) 19:28, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for your answers. Ok, that should do the trick, shouldn't it? So, that means there's actually no need to write an official statement anywhere, such as I hereby state that I XXXX, am the sole heir of YYYY, who is the author of this photograph..., right? Garai0316 (talk) 20:55, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Well, in fact, a confirming statement sent via the Commons:OTRS procedure might still be a good idea. The "heirs" template might be questioned, and if there's a statement stored in the OTRS, people will have more trust that what you state is true. Gestumblindi (talk) 12:14, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Hello, I've followed the procedure using the template {{PD-heirs}} and I could upload one photograph, but then when I tried to upload a second photograph, following the same procedure, I got the following error message:
This action has been automatically identified as harmful (more info). Unconstructive edits will be quickly reverted, and egregious or repeated unconstructive editing will result in your account or IP address being blocked.
and then, when I clicked on more info, I got this:
There was an error in your submission.
We could not determine whether this file is suitable for Wikimedia Commons. Please only upload photos that you took yourself with your camera, or see what else is acceptable. See the guide to make sure the file is acceptable and learn how to upload it on Wikimedia Commons. The content must be freely licensed. Don't copy files illegally (in violation of copyright) from the World Wide Web. If you believe that the file meets our licensing standards: Upload the file again or click "Retry failed uploads"/"Submit modified file description".
Well, I also tried with the manual upload and I get the same error message. I guess I'll have to send an email to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org asking what the reason may be Garai0316 (talk) 23:50, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
I also have concerns that is a wire photo. Often the case when you can't see the whole front. Looks like it has a UPI credit in the caption on the back, which also suggests it was a wire photo (UPI didn't make publicity photos). Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:49, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Ruling, not law. Unless you think there is a distinguishing characteristic of different types of bottles which would make the judge's wording not apply, then yes. The wording in the ruling does not say it's specific to vodka bottles. In that type of situation, it's a photograph of the bottle, and the label is incidental (the photo is not being taken because of the label -- it was inherently there.) France had a similar ruling, of a photo with a copyrighted building right in the middle -- but the photo was of a wider scene, so the photo was not focusing on the building in particular, so it was not derivative. Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:50, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
To explain this a bit differently.... the bottle as a whole is a utilitarian object, and the 'trade dress' of a utilitarian object, even if itself copyrightable, is de minimis in the context of an image of the entire utilitarian object. This is, in fact, a 'derivative work' of the design on the label, but it's an acceptable one IMO. Reventtalk05:35, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
@Light show: The image shows a 1951 copyright notice. While you're probably correct that it was not renewed, I really don't feel comfortable with making that assumption... it's better to find the original registration in such cases, and then verify a failure to renew by the actual registration number. Reventtalk04:46, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
That's easy enough. But please recall that in the U.S., "publicity photos taken to promote a film actor or other celebrity were not usually copyrighted prior to 1989." I can search anyway, but which years do you want me to check? --Light show (talk) 06:39, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
You need to search on the name of the copyright owners, not necessarily the subject (though that can help too). Sometimes the titles don't include the subject's name, or the photo is part of a book or serial which was renewed, things like that. Any renewal for this should be on www.copyright.gov so they are easier to search for. If there no 1951 for "Universal Pictures" which might possibly cover this, then it would be OK. If it's a film still, that would be an issue, but a separate photograph would not be covered by the film, so you are looking for other types of publications which were renewed. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:33, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
@Light show: This is the same answer as above, really... try to find the original registration, and then verify the lack of renewal by searching for it by number (and then, preferably, give specific details of the search when uploading). Reventtalk04:48, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Right, I'm just dubious about such a search finding it even if it exists, since we can't read the name of the copyright owner. Looking for a registration gives a more 'comprehensive' search (though tedious). Reventtalk19:14, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
The copyright notice is for "Loew's Incorporated". Successor in interest was Turner Entertainment. I don't see any photographs renewed, or books or serials likely to contain it. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:30, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Fine with me as well, based on these statements. Not sure why I could not read the name of the copyright holder before. (shrugs) Reventtalk10:00, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
Coat of arms from wiki
There is an alternative coat of arms that was uploaded to a wiki with the text "the total or partial copying [of this document] is authorized to any organization or person [so long as that entity] gives proper recognition to [the document's] authors." I cannot find this coat elsewhere, so I presume it was created for this wiki. Is it acceptable to upload it here? The image in question is the last one here: http://www.futparaguay.com/2016/02/escudos-de-instituciones-futbol.html. Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 03:22, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
@Magog the Ogre: Derivative works? The 'moral rights' of the author would seem to prohibit that (specifically, the right to integrity of the work) and not allow it to be here. Reventtalk05:20, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
@Magog the Ogre: While I admittedly have not looked into this particular one in depth, in general the 'official' coat of arms is actually a 'blazon'... a description of the coat of arms in heraldic language. Any specific depiction of that blazon would be original enough (in general) to merit a copyright claim, assuming that it's not pieced together from PD bits. When a 'coat of arms' is PD as an official work, it's merely that particular rendering of the blazon. A DW of a 'specific' rendering of the blazon, as a COA, needs the source rendering to be free to be free itself. Hope that makes sense. Reventtalk06:29, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
@Robslpy: That does not help us... the problem is that the license does not allow for derivative works, and we require that for an image to be on Commons. If the original is under the same license (that does not allow for derivative works) then 'any' rendering of it, even one created by a Commons editor, would be a copyright problem. The copyright law of Paraguay (http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/text.jsp?file_id=129427 Chapter II) explicitly recognizes the 'right of integrity'... you cannot create a derivative work of such material unless the author has specifically and explicitly allowed you to do so, and COM:L prohibits material with a no-derivative-works prohibition from being uploaded here. Reventtalk21:43, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
@Robslpy: Please see the first couple of sentences of COM:L#Acceptable licenses. To quote it, "simply writing that "the material may be used freely by anyone" or similar isn't sufficient". We require that the creation of derivative works is allowed... the license on that page does not specifically permit that. Typically we simply disregard 'moral rights' as non-copyright restrictions on Commons, but according to my reading of the local law Paraguay defines moral rights as 'part of copyright', and so any derivative work would be a copyright violation unless the original author grants permission. They don't explicitly do so. Reventtalk10:12, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
@Magog the Ogre: @Revent But it is not a derivative work, the original shield is on the same web site, so I don't understand the problem. If only a shield was on the page you would understand, but in this web site is the original shield and the simplified. And how the coat of arms of Leicester City F.C. for example can be used and on its web site not listed may be used Leicester City F.C. Home Page?.Robslpy (talk) 17:55, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
@Robslpy: The issue is not if any of the images there are derivative works. The issue is that the license granted there does not explicitly allow re-users to create their own 'new' derivative works, and we require that for works to be uploaded to Commons. The license on the Leicester City F.C. page is not compatible with Commons either, and their logo is not on Commons. It's on the English Wikipedia at en:File:Leicester City crest.svg under a 'fair use' claim. Reventtalk18:12, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
Done. Thank you. Wikicology (talk) 09:05, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
no, the instruction does not apply to specific websites, but to every organism dependient on the Government (including the Government itself), and by extension, to their websites. The fact that the lisensing of the most websites is inconsistent is irrelevant as I mentioned above (the Law is the Law), and I explained very well why we should just accept the CC-BY-3.0 license for everything (please read the above examples carefuly, two or three times). I don't think that another Spanish-native talking user is needed to understand this case, but some brainstorm. --Amitie 10g (talk) 03:53, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
Support a reasonable person might well rely on the intent of the government of Chile to use CC-BY-3.0 as a default. individual exceptions can be reviewed on a case by case basis. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 17:34, 15 November 2016 (UTC).jpg)
Comment -- I'll like to point out that the fact that this image was taken with her consent does not automatically implies that the photographer has the legal right to freely publish it without her consent. It would be unwise for us to assume that because the image was taken by a professional photographers, she is consented to publishing it here. I think this is one of those images we need to delete per our precautionary principle. All the best. Wikicology (talk) 18:04, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
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