Commons talk:Licensing

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to Commons:Licensing.

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For discussions of specific copyright questions, please go to Commons:Village pump/Copyright. Discussions that do not relate to changes to the page Commons:Licensing may be moved, with participants notified with the template {{subst:moved to VPC|Commons talk:Licensing}}.

For old discussions, see the Archives. Recent sections with no replies for 60 days may be archived.

Other archives

Seven 2006/2007 discussions organized as subpages, ignoringincl. comments added in 2014:

• ADRM
• Review of license templates
• U.S. patents
• Ecoport copyleft
• Museums Bilder (in German)
• Explaining why Derivative Work and Commercial Use must be allowed
• Which countries' copyright laws determine copyright status?

What is the proper licence for File:Dr Wacław Kraszewski, Zakopane 1925.jpg ?

Isn't the proper licence in this case CC0 ? - All photographs (from 1920-1930) of the described collection do not have individual licence restrictions and the author is unknown. The source page is sponsored by the Polish Ministry of Culture. Regards Henry39 (talk) 07:11, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Henry39, these type of questions can be better answered at COM:VPC. This page is not for such issues. Ratekreel (talk) 07:54, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

OK. Thank you. Henry39 (talk) 07:58, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

But a side remark that is more for this page. They cannot possibly be CC-0. The only way for a file to be CC-0 is that someone hold/held full copyright and overtly licensed it as CC-0, allowing it to be treated as if it were in the public domain. Nothing ever becomes CC-0 without that overt dedication. - Jmabel ! talk 18:13, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

@Henry39: Per COM:Poland, Poland joined the Berne Convention 28 January 1920, so all photos created there since that day were copyrighted the moment they were fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Many of those photos acquired US copyright 1 January 1996 due to the URAA. This photo published in 1925 would have the copyright expire that same day at 12:01am local time in Poland (hours before URAA took effect in the US) if it was anonymous, but later if the date of death of the photographer became known, acquiring US copyright in the process. So, it is important to find the date of death of the photographer.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 04:04, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

@Jeff G.@Jmabel I moved my question to COM:VPC as advised. The answer/advice on COM:VPC from Yann was to use {{PD-Poland}} - what I expected. Jmabel participated on COM:VPC. The full discussion on COM:VPC has now been archived but can be read here. Thank you. Regards Henry39 (talk) 12:17, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Clarification about additional licencing terms

I encountered a couple of situations this year where images had had additional, and apparently ignorable, licencing terms applied to them in the description field or nearby templates:

• This DR, where a spammer said in the description of their images that a clickable hyperlink to their shopping website was "required" when reusing the pictures
• This discussion, where a user's uploads had official-looking templates saying that reusers must contact the author via email for approval for print publication, and that users are also NOT ALLOWED TO UPLOAD THIS FILE TO ALL SOCIAL NETWORKS

In both cases there was some consensus that these requests were unenforceable (because the base CC licence says that is "constitutes the entire agreement") and could safely be ignored. The uploaders are unwittingly Commons:Multi-licensing their files under the base CC licence and their arbitrary restrictive version, so Commons can host them under the former and end users are free to choose which licence to use.

But it's not at all clear to the end user that this is the case. The average Commons visitor seeing a box that says they "must contact the author via email for approval" will assume that this is part of the licence.

Should Commons be marking these files with a clear {{Multi-license}} template that explains the situation and gives the user a choice between "CC-BY with no restrictions" and "CC-BY but contact the author and don't upload to social media"? Or can we step in and rephrase these strict imperatives to clarify that they are actually completely optional?

I'm still seeing "no Facebook" templates on uploads to this day, so it would be useful if this or another page had some agreed guidance on how to handle these cases. Belbury (talk) 10:07, 17 December 2024 (UTC)