This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:Non-free content. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Is there a rationale for considering images of politicians who have made such images explicitly available for download in the "press" or "media" sections of their campaign websites not presumptively fair use? Notability typically derives from visual appearance as of time of the subject's political campaign and accordingly images are only replaceable during a limited time window, and during this time window persons associated with a candidate's opponent may take unflattering photos of the candidate and then declare those photos public domain... a debate over neutrality then ensues when a Wiki user wants an article to use the unflattering image and another user considers the image prejudicial. If promotional images made available by political campaigns are considered presumptively fair use, because those images are all considered acceptable to each campaign the campaigns are on an equal opportunity playing field in terms of Wikipedia.Bdell555 (talk) 03:45, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
If the candidate himself/herself would like a more flattering image to be used, he or she need only freely license (instead of "promotional use" license, which generally includes commercial restrictions) one of those promotional photos, and then we'll happily use it. There are editors who frequently contact such organizations for permission requests. If they're not willing to do so, it's evidently not a big deal to them if we use the opponent's photo. We can also use no photo at all until an editor takes a freely licensed one if we suspect that an image release was done to be manipulative. There's no irreplaceability in a photo of a living person. So, no, there is no rationale, because there's no valid way to do it. SeraphimbladeTalk to me03:51, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
I think distinguishing between a "promotional use" license and a "free" license in the case of the typical campaign is splitting hairs unless the campaigns themselves recognize such a distinction. Moreover, Wikipedia is a non-commercial project, to my knowledge. I suggest when it is obvious that an entity simply wishes to make images available for "media use", projecting on to the entity a detailed licensing desire be considered just that, projecting. Speculations about restrictions are just that, speculation, whereas the fact that the images are being made available for media reuse (is "media" not in the very name of Wikipedia's parent foundation?) is established fact. The common sense presumption is that if the campaign has no objection to the "media" making use of an image, it would have no objection to Wikipedia making use of it, especially when the campaign website is making available an image at a massive resolution (quite typical) and Wikipedia is using only a sharply reduced resolution. If there is REALLY a concern here, the onus could simply be reversed such that a WP:OTRS be sent by any "volunteer editor" who presumes that the campaign might actually have a problem with Wikipedia using the image. Instead of making an absolutist claim to the effect of "There's no irreplaceability in a photo of a living person" how about providing a rationale? In any case, replaceability is indeed difficult with unsuccessful candidates for office since the candidates are frequently non-notable apart from their candidacies which took place in a limited window of time and in a politically charged and contentious environment. The campaigns involved here are far more concerned with being presented neutrally in Wikipedia than with wrapping their media release images in legalese and I should think that it is the interests of the copyright holding campaigns which should be paramount.Bdell555 (talk) 04:52, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a noncommercial project, yes, and likely we would get in no trouble using such images. However, that is also not the standard we use. Images and text we use must be free content, including for reuse (including commercial use), modification (which is also often prohibited by the "promotional" license terms), and redistribution to be allowed without further permission. The standard is not "Will we get sued for using this image?", but "Is this image genuinely released under a free content license, that allows anyone to do any or all of these things?". As to replaceability, it need not be easy, only possible. If it is possible, a nonfree image may not be used. That's the very first criterion. SeraphimbladeTalk to me05:01, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
I'd note that you again refer to "promotional" license terms when there is no evidence that the copyright holder in the cases at hand intends such terms, never mind that they be as restrictive as you suggest. If we are going to project, a public domain license is just as reasonable a projection. We are talking, after all, about high resolution images being made available for general "download" and/or "media" use. More to the point, a standard of "possibility" may be disputed since Wikipedia policy has in other places referred to "reasonability" and "difficulty". A holder of elected office typically holds office for years and accordingly a replacement is reasonable. Campaigns are typically just weeks and notoriously challenging for maintaining WP:NPOV, which I might further note is a "fundamental" Wikimedia policy, unlike replaceability. Images of a Wikipedia subject should be of the subject when WP:NOTABLE, and apart from the bid for public office, unsuccessful candidates typically do not satisfy notability. If the bare "possibility" of theoretical replacement is a truly absolute doctrine then the matter could be easily settled by having the policy declare that is is truly absolute. Fact is, I believe there is an opening for common sense and rightly so: you'll end up with articles about political races with a photo for one candidate that is public domain but not approved by the candidate and no photo for the other(s) even though photos for all of the candidates approved by the candidates are available to the media. I think the real hazard here is that an overwhelming consensus at the article level amongst editors about how to present an article in accordance with Wikipedia's fundamental policy can be undone by a cabal who discuss which t's to cross and i's to dot with respect to defining free content. It behooves us to keep the big picture of the Wiki project in mind.Bdell555 (talk) 05:40, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
There's no cabal. The Foundation requires us to minimize the amount of non-free content used on the project. A campaigning politician is very much alive, so a free picture is always possible even if it takes some effort. Thus, any non-free image is inappropriate. This is not a copyright/legal issue, this is philosophical - we are free as in gratis, allowing reuse of our content , and non-free content gets in the way of that. --MASEM (t) 05:48, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
Again, if the standard is "possibility" why is the standard described as "difficulty" and "reasonability" elsewhere? If, with no small indulgence, we assume that the images at issue here are indeed "non-free", why do I find absolutist claims like "any non-free image is inappropriate" here on the Talk page and not on the policy page? re the "gratis" concept, please note that the images at issue here are obviously being made available "gratis" by the owner. There is no assumption about whether the owner wants financial compensation for use. Do the interests of the owner play no role at all in this discussion? Any reasonable neutral observer here would presume that the owner would rather we use his or her "approved" image than a non-approved image. I suggest there is indeed danger of a "cabal" whenever a principle is being made absolute by a sub-set of Wiki editors such that it trumps the other goals of the project.Bdell555 (talk) 06:12, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
The interests of the owner of the image are not at issue here, since Wikipedia is not a vehicle for promotion. If the owner would like to release an image under a free license, such as CC-BY-SA, we will likely use it, so if they'd like to serve their own interests and have their image likely used here, they have but to freely license it. If they would prefer not to do so (as is their right, and their decision whether it serves their interests or not), we will need to find a different free image or refrain from using one at all if no free images are available. (And I believe Masem meant libre rather than gratis, though I invite correction if I'm incorrect on that.) As to your proposed use, you may wish to look at #1 on the policy page. If the image is replaceable (note it doesn't say easily replaceable!) by a freely licensed image, we cannot use a nonfree image. In nearly every case, images of living public figures are considered replaceable, as it's as simple as snapping a picture and releasing it under the appropriate license. Also, for politicians in the US, you may wish to check if there's an image of the person created by the federal government or one of its employees. Work of the US federal government, or federal employees as part of their official duties, is automatically in the public domain. SeraphimbladeTalk to me07:01, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
The policies of the Wikimedia project considered in toto do not support the contention that the interests of the owner "are not at issue" when the same owner is the subject of a Wiki article, and I would specifically point to WP:BLP. Treating all politicians fairly means treating them as fair media would, using their approved images when that's all that is available and the images are cleared for public or media use. Can someone explain how the supporters of WP:BLP can simultaneously support a policy whereby "APPROVED" images of a subject that are released by the subject for "media" use are to be rejected in favour of NON-approved images (that have an explicit "CC-BY-SA" license)? There are a number of instances where Wiki policy exhorts editors to exhibit some sensitivity towards subjects of articles who may be unfamiliar with Wikipedia's more arcane policies; - demanding that releases approved for media use, which any common sense person understands, be accompanied by the sort of explicit legalese preferred by some Wiki editors is the picture of insensitivity. The great irony here is that if there ever WAS a lawsuit, it would be against the Wikimedia Foundation for NOT using the "approved" images and instead preferring, as a matter of policy, images which the litigant considered prejudicial. I did indeed "look at #1"; however, see again my suggestion that Wikimedia policy be considered in full and not just select sentences. Wiki policy elsewhere refers to "difficult to replace" (in bold!) as the standard, contrary to your assertion that whether "easily replaceable" or not is the definitive rule.
Finally, even it that WAS the definitive rule, what is the point of having a Talk page associated with a policy page if not to consider improvements and/or more detailed and complete articulations of policy? Did Moses come down from Mt Sinai to deliver the current policy page on golden tablets?Bdell555 (talk) 08:13, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
I was wondering if this form of fair use would meet the criteria: There's a species that is only know by a single specimen (the one it was named for) and is presumed to be extinct. There's a non-free image of it, but the thing is, the specimen still exists somewhere (probably stored away in some museums' basement). So technically, someone with access to it could take a free photo of it, but I wouldn't count on that happening.
Let's say there's a single non-free photo of a extinct species in the wild. No other representation exists (i.e. a dead specimen like in the case above). This would be allowed, but what if the species turns out to not be extinct? Would the current image have used here have to be deleted? even if there's no replacement (and being so rare, who knows if/when one will be created)? Rocket000 (talk) 16:30, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
I think using the non-free image would be acceptable in both cases. If something is that rare we can't reasonably expect a random Wikipedia user to be able to create a free licensed photo of it. If it was in a known location accessible by the public where photography was allowed that is one thing, but if it's something that is stored at a unknown location not accessible by the public I think that is well beyond what we can "reasonably expect" people to be able to photograph. In the cast of a "not quite extinct after all" species it would depend on just how rare it turns out to be naturally, but realistically if something is so rare that it was presumed to be extinct it's not rely reasonable to expect anyone to track one down in order to take a free licensed photo of it (and if anyone where to track it down and get a photo it would probably be worth a small fortune, and so they can hardly be blamed if they are not willing to release it for free...). --Sherool(talk)19:31, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Ok, that's pretty much along the lines of what I was thinking. It's just been so long since I got anywhere near uploading fair use stuff, I wanted another's input first. Thanks. I thought of one last thing though... more of a theoretical question. Someone (who's artistically-inclined) can create a illustration from the non-free image. Obviously they can't make a derivative, but the photo provides enough information so they can still draw an accurate representation of the species (just like seeing it in person). Personally, I don't think a illustration can take the place of a photo in the case of biology, but I know some people think they do. I guess it depends on how good the illustration is, but then in that case, there's the fact that a good enough one can be created. I guess that's beyond what we can "reasonably expect" too. Rocket000 (talk) 20:40, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Several promotional photos of living people (many of whom have been out of the public eye for decades) that I spent some time finding and uploading as I was unable to find any free alternatives have recently been deleted, apparently because it is deemed that a free photo can be created of any living person, even if none exists at present. This is not what criterion 1 states. If it is, however, what it means, can I suggest that it is reworded to avoid editors wasting their time finding, scanning and uploading images that they believe constitute fair use, only for them to be deleted. The wording could be "For living people, only free images may be used". It's unambiguous and clear to anyone reading the guidelines. If, however, non-free photos that have been used for promotional purposes can be fairly-used if no free alternative can be found, can this also be explicitly stated? Editors can then avoid wasting their time on these images, and other editors can use their time on more constructive activities than applying their own individual intrepretation of this criterion to find images to delete. Thanks.--Michig (talk) 19:45, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
We have, in exceedingly rare circumstances, allowed nonfree images of living persons (such as when the person is a complete hermit who never goes into public). However, someone being out of the public eye doesn't mean that they're never in public, so a free photo is generally possible. Also, quite often, there are existing photos of the person that the photographer may be willing to release under a free license (especially since the exchange they get is that CC-BY-SA gets them photo credit on a pretty high traffic website here, and from any downstream reusers.) The trap people fall into is confusing "replaceable" with "easily replaceable". If it's just hard to replace a nonfree image, we can wait. It's only when it's impossible that we begin considering nonfree content exemptions. Since this is a free content project, we keep nonfree content to an absolute minimum, and sometimes that means we may not have an image at all in some articles. That's alright, this is meant to be a freely licensed encyclopedia, not Flickr. But Flickr can be a good source for existing photos. Sometimes there's already one under a free license, and if not, I've had pretty good luck so far in contacting Flickr photographers and asking them if they'd be willing to change the license to CC-BY-SA. Many are happy to, especially if they're aware that doing so will mean the image gets used here with credit to them. SeraphimbladeTalk to me20:01, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for your response. I'm asking for the wording of the guideline to be clarified one way or the other. If a non-free image could never be used if a free image could theoretically be created (an interpretation that has led to several images being deleted today) then that's considerably different to the question of whether a free image exists now or is likely to be created. The criterion should not be open to such a wide interpretation. I give enough of my time to this project as it is without having hours of work undone because someone interprets policies and guidelines differently. I'm a firm believer in working in line with policies and guidelines, but if we could have a clear statement in the guideline one way or another it would save a lot of time.--Michig (talk) 20:14, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Certainly, clarity is never a bad idea. For clarity here, I'm going to post the nonreplaceable policy as it stands right now:
"Non-free content is used only where no free equivalent is available, or could be created, that would serve the same encyclopedic purpose. Where possible, non-free content is transformed into free material instead of using a fair-use defense, or replaced with a freer alternative if one of acceptable quality is available; "acceptable quality" means a quality sufficient to serve the encyclopedic purpose. (As a quick test, before adding non-free content requiring a rationale, ask yourself: "Can this non-free content be replaced by a free version that has the same effect?" and "Could the subject be adequately conveyed by text without using the non-free content at all?" If the answer to either is yes, the non-free content probably does not meet this criterion.)"
That really depends on what it is intended to convey. The sentence "Where possible, non-free content is transformed into free material instead of using a fair-use defense, or replaced with a freer alternative if one of acceptable quality is available" strongly suggests to me that if no free image exists then a non-free image with a valid fair use rationale is acceptable. Clearly what constitutes a 'valid fair use rationale' is dependent on the interpretation of fair use. When uploading images, promotional (e.g. press-pack) photos are an option for fair use of non-free images. The guideline and the content of the image upload screens suggest to me that non-free images such as these can be used here if no free alternative exists. If that is not correct, then the criterion needs to be changed. The statements about free images being available and of acceptable quality are completely at odds with an interpretation that would see non-free images deleted if a free image could theoretically be created at some point in the future. Let's be clear on what constitutes fair use first and then reword the criterion so that it is unambiguous.--Michig (talk) 20:35, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
I doubt that it would be that simple. If a non-free image can be used if a free one of acceptable quality does not exist then this means that non-free images can be used, and if that is at the crux of the guideline then changing it to be more restrictive would be wrong. I can barely think of any situation where if a photograph of something exists then it would be impossible to create a free image, but clearly this is not the thrust of the guideline. There is clearly an acceptance that non-free images may be used when a suitable free image does not exist. At least that is what the guidelines convey. I don't want the wording changed simply to make it more restrictive without some demonstration that it needs to be more restrictive. There is an issue here of whether we are leaving the project open to legal action by using non-free images, and there is a separate issue about aiming to use completely free content. The free-only contingent will draw the line in a considerably diferent place to those simply looking at the legal issues. I'm sure the guidelines here are a result of years of discussion which I haven't followed. They need to clearly reflect the position of the community, not just an idealistic point of view. At the moment, I don't know what the community position is, because the guideline is so woolly. My preference would be for administrators to work to what the policies and guidelines actually say (which would mean that without a free image existing a non-free image could be used) rather than their own views on whether non-free images should be permitted. If throughout the guideline "could be created" were to be replaced by "could possibly be created at some point" then that would be much clearer, but not necessarily correct.--Michig (talk) 21:18, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
The Foundation's already drawn the line on replaceability, so that we really can't change. You can find their resolution here. The most relevant portion states that "An EDP may not allow material where we can reasonably expect someone to upload a freely licensed file for the same purpose, such as is the case for almost all portraits of living notable individuals." (It is also the case for many similar situations—buildings that still stand, artifacts that are on public display in a museum, and the like.) We can certainly clarify the policy, but we can't override the Foundation. SeraphimbladeTalk to me18:04, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
That resolution is very much clearer than the non-free content policy here. If something could be added here along the lines of "non-free images of living people [and perhaps other example areas?] are in the vast majority of cases considered replaceable with free images, even if no free image currently exists", it would be more consistent. If this could be made clearer on the upload file pages that would help to prevent people from wasting their time uploading non-free images in such cases. It is entirely reasonable to expect editors to refer the WP policies and guidelines but nobody can be expected to dig out a Foundation resolution in order to be able to interpret them correctly. --Michig (talk) 20:58, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
What's odd about restricting these promo/publicity/"media" images is that Wikipedia already has a number of images which are explicitly restricted to Wiki-only use; these are generally (always?) consequent to WP:OTRS approval. So clearly Wiki-only use is consistent with the philosophy of the project. Yet current policy generally rejects images (of living persons) released to the media on the grounds that an explicit release for off-Wiki, off-media, commercial for-profit use (i.e. allowing users to take the image from Wikipedia and then manipulate it or sell it for money, etc) is needed. There's a need, in other words, yet there isn't a need, with the rationale for when there is a need being apparently arbitrary. If, for example, in response to a WP:OTRS query, the copyright holder says go ahead and use, but on Wiki only and/or specific Wiki article only, I would think that would be rejected as inadequate permission for Wiki use. But policy obviously does not call for such a rejection since many such restricted use images exist in Wikipedia. If permissions obtained this way are adequate, then why not green light media-released/promotional images for use on WikiMEDIA projects with a licensing provision acknowledging generally un-free (not approved for commercial or indeed any off-Wiki use)?
The biggest irony, in my view, is that for a supposedly open-source project, the arguments of people like me who advocate taking a media release disclaimer at face value with the primary guarantor to appropriate use being the transparency of the copyright holder's statement(s) concerning the material (the editing community's common-sense can be applied to whether the copyright holder is being treated fairly), have been rejected in favour of a non-transparent WP:OTRS system whereby only a particular group of insiders has access to the Wiki-relevant licensing terminology (or lack thereof) used by the copyright holder. Furthermore, you've got, what, less than 10 people deciding on how to deal with copyright holders fairly and then dictating their opinion to an editing community of millions. As usual, a removal of transparency and concentration of power are correlated.Bdell555 (talk) 01:16, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
Generally speaking, we should not be accepting such images unless they would be acceptable without any permission at all. Do you have any examples of where OTRS has approved permissions under such exemptions? SeraphimbladeTalk to me01:33, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
Coming from the OTRS side, we have clear guidelines on what images can be accepted as free. In the case Bdell is talking about, we reject images that say "you can use on Wikipedia only." Generally, if someone has an issue with an OTRS ticket or image dealt with by OTRS, they generally find a list of people who have access to the system (I am one of those). However, it is more than just 10 people. User:Zscout370(Return Fire)01:41, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, another OTRSer here- there are plenty of us, but for legal reasons it does have to be kept hidden from general view. We do not accept "only Wikipedia may use this image", and I work a lot with the image submissions queue- I've had to turn down an awful lot of images that have been submitted simply because they have been stated for Wikipedia use only. J Milburn (talk) 11:01, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
The images I had in mind, such as one that cited "OTRS ticket number 2009101010027301" and said "Permission granted for use in Wikipedia ... article only" had gone up Oct 9 but apparently it did get deleted just hours after I made a note of it on Oct 30. In any case, the group that only constitutes a handful is not the number of OTRS people but the number of people who decided the "clear guidelines" that promotional images of living persons are not allowed (i.e. the Foundation).Bdell555 (talk) 06:51, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
They've every right to dictate that to us... In any case, it has been discussed on-wiki a number of times, and the resounding conclusion is that we favour waiting for free content, rather than using non-free content, unless free content is certainly not forthcoming. J Milburn (talk) 12:01, 3 November 2009 (UTC)A child of five could understand this. Fetch me a child of five!
Don't neglect in this discussion the fair use argument for a living person who cannot be captured in a way which is of overriding importance, e.g. were Groucho Marx alive, but plucked, shaven, 20-20 and a non-smoker, a fair use argument could be made for an earlier image. 86.44.40.182 (talk) 17:14, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
We don't seem to be any closer to improving this guideline to prevent uploads that are going to get deleted. I made a suggested addition above of "non-free images of living people [and perhaps other example areas?] are in the vast majority of cases considered replaceable with free images, even if no free image currently exists". Is the addition of wording along these lines here and on the upload page a possibility?--Michig (talk) 07:11, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
This article would really benefit from the inclusion of a map. Since the article is specifically about an anomoly on Google Maps, would it be appropriate to use a screenshot taken from Google Maps under a claim of fair use, or would such a screenshot be deemed easily replaceable with a free alternative? Small-town hero (talk) 00:17, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Given that the problem exists in Google, no free alternative exists. I think it's a case where fair use would be allowed. Eventually, Google will correct the problem and it won't be shown anymore. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:53, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Hi guys, just seen this image on the main with this template. Does that mean any crown copyright pictures taken before 57 are public domain? Would this be "free" for example? Ryan4314 (talk) 13:43, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
This pic is awful, and serves as a great example of how things are going downhill around here. The full image is barely any bigger than the thumbnail in the article's infobox; so it lost its informative functionality almost entirely. Do you call it "fair use"? If this kind of BULLSHIT is what goes by that name nowadays, then FAIR USE IS DEAD. Go welcome your new copyright-extending overlords, Wikipedia! -- Stormwatch (talk) 16:44, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
I have no comment but a question. The image is displayed with 250px in the article. Is there any need to have a larger image than that? Rettetast (talk) 16:59, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
So one can see what that interface looks like. The image would be informative if it showed me that, but since it's so reduced, it pretty much ceased to be informative.--Stormwatch (talk) 17:02, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
It has been upheld before at DRV that a screenshot should be large enough to read text, if that text is relevant. This would seem to be such an example.
It is also unfortunate that the history no longer shows that previous images were available, that an appropriate admin could restore. It would be better if these previous uploads were still listed in the history, but without thumbnails (which I have seen managed elsewhere on image pages). Jheald (talk) 17:15, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Regardless of whether there are thumbnails of older versions (I think, automatically, there isn't on NFC) the previous versions of the image should be deleted as unused non-free pictures. I will look into this particular image now. J Milburn (talk) 17:18, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
(ec) I don't disagree with that. But it would be useful for there still to be an entry in the "image history" birdcage, albeit without a thumbnail, and without a link (or, better, with a redlink) Jheald (talk) 17:28, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
I've uploaded a larger version. Because of an irritating cache issue (I've run into this before...) it still doesn't look readable to me, but was on my laptop. It will be readable to someone who has not recently viewed the image. J Milburn (talk) 17:27, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Respect for commercial opportunities and Wikipedia-only permission
Most of the these criteria are designed to maximize the freedom of Wikipedia content. The notable exception is criterion 2, which is designed to comply with fair use laws. With that in mind, what is the rationale for applying criterion 2 to cases of non-free content where we don't need to resort to fair use? I'm talking here about cases where we've gotten permission for the material to be used on Wikipedia but without a free license, or "not free enough" licenses like the Creative Commons no derivative and no commercial use licenses. I ask because when I'm hanging around WP:MCQ I get some cases where somebody wants to upload material to Wikipedia with permission of the copyright holder without releasing it under a free license. If the material complies with the rest of the NFCC, I have a hard time justifying why they have to dramatically reduce the resolution of their image before we'll accept it. Steve Smith (talk) 16:29, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
If we start a third "partially free" classification (IE, non-free material that is used outside of fair use) then we get other problems- surely, if it's legal for content to be used on Wikipedia, we are free to splatter it all over userpages? In fact, we could argue that this partially free content could ignore a lot of the criteria. This is about creating fully free content- if we start allowing concessions for "partially free" content, then we're going to be encouraging it, which is not what we want. J Milburn (talk) 18:39, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
That's one opinion. Personally, I'd be happy to encourage high resolution partially-free content (at least for definitions of partially free that still allow for a wide distribution of Wikipedia content). Or to put it another way, I'd focus on making the best possible no-cost encyclopedia and worry a lot less about the ideological purity of forcing donors to provide fully-free content. And surely the legal position we create for ourselves and reusers is a lot clearer with ND or NC content than it is with relying on fair use for the same purpose. But then, I don't generally win these arguments. Dragons flight (talk) 19:04, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
The thing is that we are not using fair use instead of ND or NC content (and any "semi-fee conditions an image may have still apply even if we opt to not rely on them for our use, so our position is not weakened by invoking fair use instead of a non-commercial only license for the same image). If we where to relax the rule for adding "partially free" content it would simply result in a net increase in not-free-licensed content getting added, reducing the incentive to create free licensed images for the same purpose (the exact opposite of what the project mission is supposed to be about). This is not just wild speculations, "partially free" licenses (non-commercial, by limited permission only etc) where widely used in the early days. Seeing how the widespread use of high quality, but restrictively licensed, images stunted the creation of new truly free licensed images of the same subjects was one of the primary reasons why the use of these "partially free" licenses where completely rejected (true it was done by fiat[1], but it's a good move in my book and I do believe it's generally widely accepted regardless). --Sherool(talk)22:08, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
I thought the project was about creating "the sum of all human knowledge". ;-) Seriously though, there has always been a tension between being more inclusive about media (and by implication having more media available to populate our encyclopedia) and adhering to an ideological hard line with respect to free content (and by implication hoping to create more free content). Personally, I've always been in the "encyclopedia first" camp, and think that it was silly for the free, non-profit encyclopedia to exclude non-commercial works. For me it is about educating the world first and foremost. Also, I would disagree with your history. I was there in the early days, and the bans on NC, with permission, etc., had very little to do with practical and serious assessments of the role of such content on Wikipedia, and nearly everything to do with the ideology of a few key leaders. Dragons flight (talk) 22:39, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Well, both aspects are in the tagline (the "Free" in "The Free Encyclopedia" doesn't mean "free of charge", it means free content!). We do aim to be an educational resource, but of a specific kind, specifically a free content educational resource. That's in the same vein that we intend to educate in a specific way—as an encyclopedia, rather than as a dictionary, an original research publication, a how to manual, or the like. We also intend to specifically be a free content resource. Part of requisite attributes for being free content are that you can reuse or modify the content, in any way or for any reason, without anyone being able to stop you. If the license doesn't allow that, the content is nonfree. That doesn't mean it's automatically unacceptable, but it does mean it must pass the much higher standards for the use of nonfree content. And I know of many, many cases where strict refusal to use nonfree images have encouraged the release or creation of free ones. If we were more strict, we could probably do that even more often. But "partially free" is nonfree. SeraphimbladeTalk to me18:48, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
The idea is that if the foundation goes belly-up, someone else can take the database and continue without needing to purge anything. We don't want to tie the content to the provider. --NE219:57, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Clarification, please
Does the following:
"Minimal usage. Multiple items of non-free content are not used if one item can convey equivalent significant information."
mean that a non-free content item cannot appear in the same article twice? For instance: a small version of a college/university sports logo in an infobox and a fuller-sized version in the appropriate place in the article? Thanks for your opinion. Shoreranger (talk) 20:04, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Well, ask: does the second use add information to the article? In that example, there's the logo in the infobox; if I want to see it in a bigger size, I just click that. It's likely that showing it again would just make the article cluttered. On the other hand, say you want to add a pic of the campus' main building, and in front of it there's a big sign with the logo. In this case it's no problem that the logo is seen again. -- Stormwatch (talk) 20:56, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses. In the example I propose, I am suggesting that it does add information, in the sense that a significant number of readers will not go beyond the lede and the infobox if they are just trying to get the sense of a large entity like a university, which likely has an article with a number of sections and even some offshoot articles on specific topics. This will be the only opportunity for these readers to see a graphic associated with athletics they may have seen before and did not associate with the school, or some other similar revelation. Other readers, looking specifically for information on a university sports program, will look for the school first and then the section in the article about athletics, where a logo will confirm they have arrived in the correct place. They likely will have skipped the infobox and never had the opportunity to see the illustrating graphic. Please feel free to respond - thanks! Shoreranger (talk) 21:29, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Use for illustration is tenuous at best to start with, so no, it would not be appropriate to put it repeatedly. That would not be consistent with minimal use. SeraphimbladeTalk to me01:42, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Also, we strongly discourage the use of small versions of logos in the infobox (see WP:LOGO). A large image logo for the university is appropriate, but not for its athletic department. Remember, the article is about the educational facility not its athletics department - most schools will likely have a second page that describes that separately, and discussion in the body is usually appropriate, but it is not a key factor of the academic aspect of the school. --MASEM (t) 13:25, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Far too long and too much verbatim from the report to qualify as an acceptable quote. Particularly when there is no literary style or the like to make that specific order of the words fundamental - eg it is not creative expression, it is similar facts. Stuff like this always can be replaced by "free" paraphrase and selective details from the text. --MASEM (t) 17:58, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I've run into a discussion at File talk:Lundomys skin USNM.jpg about whether the NFCC allow images like this one. The image shows an animal for which no free pictures of the skin are available or could easily be created. In theory, however, the images could be replaced by finding a Lundomys in Uruguay or going to the Smithsonian collections (which are accessible only to researchers with an interest in the animal). Would such images be allowed on Wikipedia? (Another image that I uploaded a while back that would fall under the same category is File:Skull of Oryzomys hypenemus.png.) Ucucha12:52, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
I see no reason to allow this. There's nothing to stop someone hunting one down- it would seem they aren't even that rare. J Milburn (talk) 14:07, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
We don't even know, as the article indicates. But I would like to keep this discussion on the topic of whether we allow such images in principle; if we think we do, we can discuss the merits of this particular image. You can also use the other image I mentioned as an example, which is of an extinct animal, so no one will be able to hunt one down. Ucucha14:12, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Such images are replaceable, thus never appropriate. Replaceability has little to do with the difficulty of that replacement. I would argue that non-frees of extinct or nearly-extinct species are likely going to be ok, but this certainly isn't true in the example image (as it's on the complete opposite scale). Remember that WP is a worldwide project, so it may be necessary to contact the appropriate language WP and get help from them for the photograph. --MASEM (t) 14:23, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Masem is quite right. It's a large project, and also remember that "replaceable" doesn't mean "already replaced" or "immediately replaceable", it only means that one could replace it. If that takes some time, we'll wait, but we do not allow nonfree images when they could be replaced by taking a free one. SeraphimbladeTalk to me14:28, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Even with extinct animals, it will often be possible to get free images of stuffed specimens, fossils, skeletons or the like. I advise this image is removed immediately- it may then be worth requesting release from the copyright holder of the photograph. J Milburn (talk) 14:43, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
That is all very clear. So basically, we can only use fair use images where it is unsurmountable copyright restrictions that prevent us from having free images--like for screenshots of computer programs, or magazine covers. That would exclude almost any fair use animal images I can think of. I think I agree with what Dragons flight writes in the next section: I prefer writing a good encyclopedia over preserving the purity of free content. But I know that I'm arguing against a Foundation policy that is quite unlikely to change, so I'm not going to pursue the matter further. It's a pity. Ucucha21:03, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
There is a good point that for some extinct species there may exist an exhibit that displays its bones or a stuffed remained that can be taken as a free photograph and used that way. One clear case would be as used at Tyrannosaurus, since skeletal models of the dinosaur are readily available. However, in the case here, I would argue that, given what doesn't seem to be a common museum-type exhibit, that a non-free can be used since the change of a free photo is not 100%. Mind you, if a free photo later becomes available, that has to be used instead. --MASEM (t) 07:43, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Well, a couple things here. Has anyone tried asking the copyright holder if they'd be willing to release the image under CC-BY-SA? I imagine it has little to no commercial value, they might be amenable to such a request. Even if not, how readily available are the bones, and since the image is a sketch rather than a photograph, why couldn't anyone make a sketch? SeraphimbladeTalk to me07:48, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm personally extremely dubious of user-created sketches because of OR problems and the question of derivative works... I would suggest that this wasn't a good option. J Milburn (talk) 12:36, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
The copyright holder is dead, so I'd have no idea who to write to release it. I believe there are bones of this animal in the Smithsonian and the University of Florida, and perhaps more have been dug up since. Ucucha12:51, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. 1000+ is ridiculous. It shouldn't be too difficult to code a bot that removes these. There's no reason ever to have non-free in userspace (projectspace is slightly different because there are a few exceptions, but that one namespace should be clear). So, botrequests? Black Kite19:32, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
The only concern I have for a bot is we all agree that an image lacking a specific type of PD/CC licensing tag must therefore be assumed to be non-free and thus not appropriate in user-space. (That is, that we assume all images uploaded to WP are non-free unless marked otherwise). I believe we do agree on that point, in which case a bot can use that to nuke the user-page misuses. I would be concerned for cases of much older images or users that put in a hand-written PD notification which the bot will obviously ignore and mistakenly remove. --MASEM (t) 19:35, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Except - what if the image is validly used elsewhere? Or are we talking about images with invalid PD rationales (in which case nomming them for deletion is correct) ? Black Kite19:40, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I was talking about images without a copyright tag- only a manual note saying "this is PD" or whatever. I gather that is what Masem was talking about? J Milburn (talk) 19:43, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
To be clear, yes, I'm talking about human-understandable, but not machine-readable, PD license texts. They will be false positives and if we're ok with their removal (if there are any) and subsequent debate, then great. If we do get a bot to do this and work for its approval, we may want to be clear that such removals are quite possible to avoid any subsequent backlash that may happen. (but in reality, I doubt there's more than a handful of such images in the list above. I'm just covering our bases so we don't end up with another BCB issue). --MASEM (t) 19:56, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Masem, I'm not really seeing what your concern is here- there are already bots tagging images without machine readable copyright tags for deletion. It would be quite easy to set a bot to remove any (machine readable) non-free images, and let the non-machine readable images get tagged for deletion/removed by the other bots. J Milburn (talk) 20:46, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Just to be clear - I am completely fine (and supportive) of the process and the need to do it. I'm just tossing out the fact that in knowing how some people (Beta and Hammersoft, specific) that have tried to deal with maintaining appropriate use of non-free content get treated abusively for doing the right thing, I think it best just to make sure all our justification for direct removal (not tagging, which is seen as less an issue) of images is documented. --MASEM (t) 17:23, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Please note that in many cases, such as on article talk pages, links to non-free images are probably best converted to simple links rather than removed completely. PowersT15:39, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
FU rationale for non-free buildings as corporate headquarters
In regards to File:Square Max Hymans (Paris).jpg, this is a building where the architect has a copyright over images of its buildings, even if they are taken by other individuals.
The FU rationale used for Air France is that this building was the headquarters of the company for 30 years (it no longer was after 1995) - This is discussed in the article Air France, and also in the articles Montparnasse and 15th arrondissement of Paris.
Why is what the building looks like important to the article? Can we have a full understanding of the topic without the use of this image? J Milburn (talk) 20:21, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
The appearance is important as it visually demonstrates an inherently significant building to a company. The building pictured is the one where AF management made its decisions, where human resources managed the employees, where flight planners charted the routes of the company's airliners. It's not just a random building that the company owned or leased from. It was the nerve center of the company for thirty years. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm not challenging the significance of the building. Talk about it, by all means. What it looks like is of very little importance. I can certainly see the justification for an image of the building on an article about the building, but I can't see what it's really adding to the current articles. J Milburn (talk) 20:55, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Anyway, on IRC I found ZScout, who is also in the know of these issues. He suggested moving the images close to the text that discusses the head office facilities in particular. Anyway, as for what it looks like, the Tremblay facility is discussed, i.e. its architects are named and the cost (in Euros) is mentioned. So the building is specifically discussed. The Montparnasse was sold by AF, so there is some discussion about that too. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:17, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Well yeah the building may be mentioned, but is it actually necessary to see a picture of it to understand the article? In some cases maybe, but frankly in most cases a company headquarter is just a fairly generic looking office building and our readers will be perfectly capable of understanding the article about the company without seeing what the corporate headquarter building looks like. Take The Coca-Cola Company article for example. Would the article be any header to understand if you imagined the photo of the headquarter was non-free and removed it? I would say no, the appearance of that building have nothing to do with anything important about the company or it's image, and I don't rely see the Air France building being all that significant either --Sherool(talk)19:17, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Content review needed
It seems like the intent of {{non-free historic image}} is being stretched to indefensible levels on the articles in the Eastern Bloc family, at least including (but not limited to):
I started to dig through them, but they need a more thorough review than I can give, and would benefit from another set of eyes. Many images are horrendously overused, and in the worst cases NFC rationales are copy-pasted to make the same claim across many articles. Any help would be appreciated. (ESkog)(Talk)05:33, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
We have serious issues with this sort of thing- I tried to cleanup some articles relating to WW2 Poland, and got some real backlash. Editors don't take kindly to non-free images being removed when they are "historical". I will look into these articles if I get a chance. J Milburn (talk) 19:04, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Seconded. Historical images are the one area where I do fear we may still have systematic NFC problems. I think there could be more real-world headaches for WP with some of the "historical" images, and more potential for damage to its reputation, that with ten thousand album covers. Jheald (talk) 22:35, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
I tried to clean up the use of two images in particular - File:EnverHoxha.jpg and File:ImreNagy.jpg - and have been summarily reverted. Another set of eyes on those images' use would help. I don't really see how "to provide a photograph of this person" is a legitimate rationale for any but the article on the person. (ESkog)(Talk)15:12, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
We have Template:Freedom of panorama for the opposite (when there is no FOP) which is not widely used, but I do not believe we have a tag saying what you're looking for. The closest we have is this. I would not be opposed to a "non-free building" tag for illustrating buildings protected by FOP. J Milburn (talk) 19:09, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Okay, that happened, the policy page (NFCC) is now in Category:Wikipedia legal policies, so the nutshell changed ... it doesn't have the usual "changes should reflect consensus" language, it has the {{legal policy}} template instead. That isn't meant to mean that people can now make changes without consensus, or that people can't make changes at all ... it means that, like other pages in the legal policy cat, the truth lies somewhere in between, to be worked out over time by comparison with what tends to happen on this and other legal policy cat pages. The Discussion Report coming out later today in the WP:Signpost may be helpful. - Dank (push to talk) 17:06, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Company owned versus Privately owned
I have a question. If lo-res versions of say, movie posters and magazine covers are allowable under Fair Use, does the same hold true for privately-owned photographs on Flickr? Does Fair Use only apply to companies like Warner Brothers or Vanity Fair? User:Bearian asked me if this photo can be used in the Thomasina Winslow article. My first instinct is to say no, but then it occurred to me that the only difference between that and using a lo-res image of the Batman Begins poster or a the cover of an issue of Vanity Fair is that the latter are owned by companies, and photos on Flickr like the linked one here are owned by individual people. How does this work? Nightscream (talk) 02:16, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
That images is not a good example. A non-free image of a living person like that is not going to pass the non-free criteria. Though I am sure there are examples here that contradict me; if a flickr user can create an image then a wikipedia user could create a similar one and the non-free image from flickr would fail WP:NFCC#1. If the photo you linked to was of a deceased person, and was the only such image, then perhaps an argument could be made. With Batman or Vanity Fair, it is difficult to discuss something in the media without an example of the media. Consensus has tended here towards allowing a single non-free image in such articles, more if there is sourced discussion of the image itself. - Peripitus(Talk)02:24, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
And furthermore, magazine covers and movie posters are poor analogies because they are industrial images, not the solely owned works of individual artists. DocKino (talk) 06:04, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Some free use criteria seem rather illogical to me, e.g.:
Cover art: Cover art from various items, for identification only in the context of critical commentary of that item (not for identification without critical commentary).
If "that item" in the above sentence means e.g. an album, and not the visual appearance of its cover, then why would critical commentary of this album need a cover image and how would this cover image enhance or complement the commentary, becoming more than "just an illustration"? The cover is essential for critical commentary only if one is commenting on the album cover itself - otherwise, it's an illustration just the same.
An example of unacceptable use is given as "An album cover as part of a discography, as per the above." That would make sense only if the "above" bit did. To me, it doesn't. Also, the very purpose of album covers (unlike many other art works) is visual identification, so saying you can't use them in a discography means you can't use them for their intended purpose. ("If I had to buy this album, I'd recognize it on record shelves because it looks like this.")
These criteria would be easier to understand and accept if there was a written rationale which would explain things from the legal perspective. GregorB (talk) 17:46, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
The magic words "for identification" have been widely used to explain how numerous image uses satisfy NFCC#8. That the magic words explain that only weakly and, in most cases, not at all is the dirty secret of NFC on en-wiki. CIreland (talk) 18:00, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
WP's handling of non-free content is stronger than the legal position of fair use in the United States, as it is meant to minimize the use of non-free content and maintain as much free content for the work. So it's difficult to discuss the legal perspective beyond that we cannot be weaker than US fair use laws.
That said, the rationale is that cover art is usually going to be shown in an article about that work when that work is notable and thus there is information (beyond fundamentals like artist, release year, setlist) to discuss about it, that is , the "critical commentary" you ask above. We don't require that the actual image itself be discussed (though certainly, for iconic ones like Abbey Road we should whenever possible). When the album cover is present in a discography, which is simply just the basic facts about the album, there is no critical commentary, and thus the image use is simply decorative here.
Also, to address CIreland's point, I've posed that we do have an allowance for "for-identification" images within infoboxes of articles, but again, that's due to the fact that if there's a notable article about the topic, we have the critical commentary to go along with it. --MASEM (t) 18:13, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Historically, these covers have been white-listed from the very start of the WP:FU page; indeed this examples section substantially pre-dates the creation of the actual WP:NFCC criteria.
Policywise, we regard these images, being the images purposely chosen by the record companies to be the principal visual reference for the record, as relevant knowledge to convey about the topic of the article - so justified under NFCC #8. (Also in judging #8, we weigh it against the effective copyright taking - in this case considered slight, as they are already so widely reproduced, and in effect created exactly for the purpose of making an image to be associated with the record and reproduced as widely as possible).
The issue with discographies is not, I think, legal; but rather, to do with Wikipedia's reputation -- that too much non-free content in one place can make WP seem unduly interested in reproducing other people's content, rather than content that is original or public domain. That's my rationalisation of the proposition, anyway. Jheald (talk) 02:46, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments... I find the BGA vs. DK case particularly interesting. This decision is explicitly based on four factors that come into play under US copyright law. If one takes a look at them, it is apparent that Wikipedia's arguments in favor of fair use of album covers are the same or stronger than DK's on each of these four factors:
"the purpose and character of the use" - about the same, except Wikipedia's use is not-for-profit
"the nature of the copyrighted work" - about the same, except that one the main purposes of album covers actually is visual identification, which is not true for posters used by DK
"the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole" - about the same, i.e. a low-resolution copy
"the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work" - about the same, i.e. nil
Since this decision went in favor of DK, one might conclude that Wikipedia is easily on the safe side. Of course, IANAL, and this should not be seen as more than an amateur attempt at legal analysis, but it still appears convincing to me.
However, things are a bit more complicated than that: Wikipedia's reputation would indeed not be helped by its fair use policy leaving the impression of simply using copyrighted content with abandon. But to me, it appears that - mostly since rules have to: 1) steer very clearly away from legal trouble, and 2) be simple and unambiguous - it is nearly impossible to devise a policy that is not too conservative simply by design. GregorB (talk) 20:16, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
To comment: a (vast?) majority of individuals below about 25 totally disregard the importance of copyright. I personally think that wikipedia's reputation is as likely to be hurt as helped by going beyond what is required by law. In fact, I don't see why the servers must be located in a country with such restrictive laws. Why not some other country?68.144.78.233 (talk) 11:23, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
This is a reminder that voting is open until 23:59 UTC next Monday 14 December to elect new members of the Arbitration Committee. It is an opportunity for all editors with at least 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2009 to shape the composition of the peak judicial body on the English Wikipedia.
For information, I have written a small userspace page out of questions that keep coming on my talk page. It is at User:Rama/Fair use, if that can be of interest to anyone. Cheers! Rama (talk) 14:36, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
Hi, I'm having some problem in removing this non-free head-shot of an athlete from Black history in Puerto Rico. I believe it should not be problematic to accept that the omission of this simple photo would not be detrimental to the understanding of such a broad topic.
Editors of the puerto-rico related articles seem to have a problem with that. I wish someone with a presentable record on dealing with non-free image could deal with that. Thanks, --Damiens.rf19:30, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
Also of interest, this non-free image that was just copied from a copyright infringing website, is currently being used in 9 different article and a user sub-page.
The problems with Puerto-Rico-related images is rampant. Great editors and even some admin editing on this area are showing a complete lack of understanding of our non-free content and image policies.
It's not hard to find images taken from any website tagged as PD-whatever, and changed to Non-free-whatever when contested. There was this one image lacking source information. When I contested it, and editor provided a link to a Picasa web album containing the image. Worst of all is that this editor was an admin! WP:RFA should not be a vote/popularity contest! It should be a knowledge test. --Damiens.rf01:49, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Question on copyright of video game arcade cabinets
At WP:VG, we are discussing what should be the infobox image for arcade cabinet games. In most cases, we don't have much that (at least, as we think of it) as free images: you can have the game's logo, a screenshot of the game, or a flyer/promotional picture. It's also possible to have a real photograph of the cabinet. And while difficult in terms of rarity and location, a user-supplied photo of a cabinet would seem to be possible for most games, so, like our images of living persons, would seem to be the best answer - if, of course, they were free. The idea here is that we are trying to normalize how to present these arcade games in their infobox, and thus looking for what is likely going to work across all games.
Most arcade cabinets have unique 2D artwork on their sides (the shape of the cabinet, while possibly artistic, would likely fall under the issue of functionality as opposed to creative expression so that aspect is free). Taking a photo of the cabinet would thus (to me) be a 2D representation of 2D copyrighted art, making it derivative work and thus non-free. The problem, however, is that we've had conflicting advise. While some images have been deleted from commons [2], there is also a category [3] that has about half the images that would be questionable as "free". Another user ran into the problem with a non-free arcade image taken from a flier, with the deletion discussion [4] suggesting that a user-taken photo of a cabinet is "more free" than a vendor-supplied version. Except that I find the concept of "more free" being questionable - either an image is clearly free, and thus redistributable by WP, or it is non-free.
So the question is: is it possible that a photograph that is clearly designed to showcase the arcade game which has unique artwork (such as File:Mspacmancabinet.png, as opposed to File:Arcade-20071020-a.jpg which clearly isn't focused on the game) to be considered as free per NFC? Obviously there are some cabinet pictures that will be free due to lack of art (see File:PongVideoGameCabinet.jpg), but these are the exception, not the rule. --MASEM (t) 02:40, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Generally speaking, I wouldn't say that the cabinet pictures are focused on the copyrightable portions (the art). Rather, they are a photo of the cabinet (whose design, as you correctly state, is not copyrightable as it is simply utilitarian). The fact that it incidentally includes potentially copyrightable art doesn't make the photo nonfree, any more than a photo of a street scene that happens to include a Coke bottle in the gutter. But this being said, that's my opinion, and i'm not a lawyer. Why not ask someone who is? SeraphimbladeTalk to me02:53, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
"#Images" section unclear
Of the image examples given, only numbers 2 and 8 seem clear to me. Number 3, stamps and currency, states "for identification of the stamp or currency, not its subject". I know what it means, but I am not sure that it is as clear as it could be. Perhaps we could expand "not its subject" to read "not the subject illustrated on the stamp or currency" or something similar?
Numbers 1, 4, 5, 6 and 7 use the phrase "critical commentary". Is this a term of art? It appears to be used as if it were one but there is no Wikipedia article on the topic and no link to a policy or guideline to explain the term. This phrasing should be replaced by plain language, failing which a gloss should be provided. Angus McLellan(Talk)13:16, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
The "its" in "not its subject" is readily clear to me - "stamp or currency" is the only noun "it" can apply too.
"Critical commentary" is a term from US Fair Use law (though IIRC it doesn't appear exactly in that form), and thus where we have gotten that definition from. Unfortunately, US Fair Use law does not attempt to define this any further. We've tried to argue changes to that phrase before, but all of those presume the intent of what fair use means, which we are in no legal position to try to guess. We thus assume that critical commentary involves some discussion of the picture more than just "here is a picture" without any connection to the text or the like (eg NFCC#8). --MASEM (t) 14:31, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
As recently as two months ago, following a heated discussion about fair-use stamps, I made a suggestion that this should be revised for clarity but there was no support for change. I encounter the problem when nominating stamps for deletion when working my way through the improper use of stamps but there are still a good number to be removed. Every now and then a heated discussion takes place that could be avoided if the usage was clearer. I don't think adding "not the subject illustrated on the stamp or currency" to #3 makes this clearer to me, but for uses other than in stamp articles I am still in favour of some additional detail, by adding a "critical commentary" phrase to clarify that where a stamp is used outside of a stamp article it cannot be used just for decoration and/or without commentary, as is sometimes the case, though some editors think adding some production/identification details is sufficient to justify fair-use. I would certainly have less resistance to deletions if this were more detailed. ww2censor (talk) 15:42, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
(ec) Note that for some of the categories of images, showing the image is considered to further the critical commentary on the subject of the article, rather than the specific image itself; eg: box art for a film or recording; and for some categories of images (though we generally don't allow stamps) this is acceptable. (Compare also Bill Graham Archives vs. Dorling Kindersley as cited in a discussion above). In such cases, a serious encyclopedia article generally qualifies as critical commentary. Note also that critical commentary does not necessarily imply discussion of a works artistic merits or demerits (ie artistic criticism). Such artistic criticism counts as critical commentary; but the legal meaning of the term is wider - encompassing artistic criticism and serious commentary Jheald (talk) 15:56, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
I am planning to upload a clip sequence outlined in some description by commentary for School Rumble to replace the screen shot which does not as a still image adequately fill its intended role under fair-use due to the way in which commentary describes how absurd gags which often use references to other popular media and how the two main character's actions parallel each other. You can't really do something that complex with a couple screen shots.
The particular one I want to use is referenced by at least of the reviewers specifically. A bike chase scene which lasts in entirety 5:08. The series is 2x26 episode season plus 1 extra special episode. I don't plan to use the entire clip either (i was going to try and cut out some unnecessary footage), but don't know how much because the commentary goes into some depth about the gags.陣内Jinnai03:59, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
At bare maximum, I would start with our audio guidelines: 10% of the length (of the episode in this case) or 30 seconds, which ever is smaller - in this case, 30 seconds would be your maximum length. --MASEM (t) 13:59, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Quality wise, what kind size should i use? I was probably going to go at max for 50% original size which would be 320x240.陣内Jinnai19:10, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
For a TV episode, I would say under a minute. The size you mentioned is fine. I just saw a court decision in Illinois that says an accidental taping of 3 minutes of a movie for a birthday party is not copyright infringement because of the little amount of the move was recorded (in this case, the movie was New Moon). So I think a minute should be fine for this education purpose. User:Zscout370(Return Fire)08:42, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Also, as a point, I know the bike scene that you're talking about (just rewatched it) and I've read the article, and I'm still finding it difficult to see where it would fit (that scene doesn't specific appear to be talked about). But, presuming there is info about it, my suggest: you have the Trueno joke, which follows them racing past a speeding train, which follows a cut of the three of them from behind; that's 20 seconds right there, and with the brief bit of audio (english dub) gives the parallelism idea that you're talking about. --MASEM (t) 14:57, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Most, but not all. The other aspect is that the setup mirrors each of them, ie Tenma has an idea relating with Kurasama and Harima has an idea relating with Tenma which is exactly like her's, except the characters are replaced. They then both pursue their goal in the same manner. Without the setup, that important aspect is lost. As for commentary, it may have accidentally been removed through all the various updates. I'll have to check the various sources.陣内Jinnai22:06, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
True, but I should point out you adequetely described the "she gets an idea, he gets the same idea" concept quite well without any pictures; that's not to say that the sight gag aspects (again the 20 seconds I commented above) aren't replaceable by text, but some parts are. --MASEM (t) 22:15, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Maybe not with text. I mean i think it would be difficult to demonstrate via text how both of them have different ideas but come to the same parallel conclusions, so much so that they mirror each other without confusing most readers with long-winded and confusing passages.陣内Jinnai22:28, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
In short, yes due to the complexity of what I'm trying to describe and show, otherwise it would be too many screenshots that the article would get tagged for that. There is nothing wrong with fair-use video anymore than fair-use audio tracks as long as its limited. Just because your preference is against it, doesn't mean it there cannot exist a rational for it.陣内Jinnai22:56, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Go on then, surprise me. I have nothing against videos, I just fail to see a situation where one would truly be necessary... J Milburn (talk) 22:58, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Given Added the commentary i'd like to add (still not sure where) to the article's talk page that would give the fair use rationale for the clip, ie it uses audio-video elements combining together on multiple levels. A screenshot cannot capture that.陣内Jinnai02:44, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
Fanart
Is fanart permitted? And who owns copyright on it? -- Anonymous 16:06, 14 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.208.192.21 (talk)
Nonfree media use for broad subject categories such as Punk rock
I recently took another look at Punk rock. I thought I'd done cleanup there, but apparently things found their way back in, so I'll see what the opinion is here. Currently, there are several nonfree media files (album covers/music tracks) in use in the article. I would imagine that for such broad subjects (punk rock, art, photography), it would be almost impossible for a nonfree media file to be irreplaceable. I'm quite certain that free images already exist in this area, and more could be easily created. I am almost as certain that CC-(BY and/or SA) or public domain licensed punk rock exists for the sound files (and in this case we could also use the whole track instead of a short snippet, if desired). Anyone else seeing something I'm missing? SeraphimbladeTalk to me17:19, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
More abstractly, this article is one of many that is always on this list of articles using excessive numbers of non-free media. It's a growing trend. I don't think you're missing anything, but it's basically impossible to enforce anymore. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:26, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
Well, it's certainly not impossible to enforce, we've enforced it many times. I think, though, especially in articles with such a broad subject area, "irreplaceable" would be very difficult to meet—it's certainly possible to get free images of punk rock, and I don't think it'd even be terribly hard to get free content sound files either. Just running some quick searches, I've already found CC-BY-SA punk music. SeraphimbladeTalk to me17:51, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
That's perfectly fine for examples of recent punk. We could, for example, arguably replace the existing Sum 41 audio sample with a free sample of contemporary pop punk. But this is a largely historical article. Have you actually found significant examples of punk from the 1970s and 1980s that are free use?—DCGeist (talk) 17:59, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
No idea, but that wouldn't particularly matter. We wouldn't need a media file for everything, only by way of some examples. Text descriptions are free content too. Regardless, the images are certainly replaceable. SeraphimbladeTalk to me18:19, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
Text descriptions of the length and detail necessary to even plausibly convey the sound and impact of particular songs are obviously not appropriate to a genre article. Audio samples are the appropriate means to convey such encyclopedic information. Now, I'm not sure what you mean by "no idea". Have you or have you not actually found significant examples of punk from the 1970s and 1980s that are free use?—DCGeist (talk) 18:51, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
Way too many samples. Unless specific songs are documents as core examples of punk, most of those sound files could be replaced with garage bands with similar sounds under free content licenses (yes, difficult to get, but not impossible). I don't necessary see as much a problem with the images on that (the one apparent non-free, the Ramones cover, is sourced to exactly why it's important to punk rock). --MASEM (t) 18:41, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
The unique historical import of most, if not quite all, of the songs sampled is well-established and cited or readily citable. They're irreplaceable by samples of historically insignificant songs by historically insignificant garage bands.—DCGeist (talk) 18:51, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm not doubting that many of the samples used are sourced. However, like the issue above with list articles, most of these songs have their own page, and thus we don't need to duplicate the sound file in the genre article, save for those that are considered the most influential or best representative of the work. But say in a genre that may be relatively new, where there are bands listed that represent it but no specific songs as examples, this is where a free sound sample would be better than a copyrighted one. --MASEM (t) 18:59, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
Masem's got it quite well. For the article on The Ramones, or Black Flag, or Green Day, it may be true there's "no free alternative available", as there are no known free works from those particular bands. But for punk rock in general? There are certainly free alternatives available. At that point, it doesn't matter whether they're "as good" or what have you, as we always use free content over nonfree when a choice does exist. And that's before even getting to the images—certainly one cannot assert it's impossible to get free images of any number of punk bands, large and small? I certainly imagine we can do that instead of CD covers. SeraphimbladeTalk to me07:42, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Again, in terms of the audio samples, that's perfectly fine for the sections of the article that deal with punk rock generically. But not for the core of the article that deals with the historical development of punk rock and the significant details of that historical development. Those sections of the article don't concern the strawman of "punk rock in general". I believe, for instance, that there is no free content available to exemplify what was happening at CBGB's in the crucial, formative years of punk. I'd love it if there were...but there ain't. As for the images; For instance, It is well sourced that the cover of the Ramones' 1976 debut album, featuring a shot of the band by Punk photographer Roberta Bayley, set forth the basic elements of a style that was soon widely emulated by rock musicians both punk and nonpunk. I'm not aware of any now-free image that had any such impact or anything historically comparable to it. Are you? If so, please provide it and source it forthwith, so we can improve the article with it.—DCGeist (talk) 08:07, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
That might be a case for using it in the Ramones article, but all that's necessary for the punk rock article is that free images can illustrate the concept of punk rock. It doesn't have to be the absolute best thing for it, only adequate. We can do it adequately with free material. SeraphimbladeTalk to me08:20, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry, you're wrong. The article covers not only a concept, but a cultural history. Those are two different matters. Please educate yourself on the difference, so we can have an informed discussion.—DCGeist (talk) 08:27, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Let's not be rude or snide, I've worked on this project quite some time as well. I could as easily say you don't understand what "free encyclopedia" means, but that's why we're discussing the matter. The article covers a genre of music, nothing more or less. That's what punk rock is. If we can adequately (not exhaustively) illustrate that genre with use of all free media, we do so. SeraphimbladeTalk to me08:49, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
To say punk was (is) simply a "genre of music" just ain't true. Its cultural significance was (is) much wider than that. Jheald (talk) 11:43, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
No one's doubting the significance of the genre. However, for a given copyrighted sound sample, unless it is asserted as being a defining cornerstone of the genre or the like, or sourced to describe how its structure or sound or the like has specific elements of the genre as to be instructional, it is simply there to provide an example to the reader of what the genre sounds like, much like how people want to illustrate every element of a list article. Something that a garage band under a CC label can do just as easily to show that off, just as, here, there's a lot more free images of bands to help illustrate who they are. --MASEM (t) 14:33, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree there is way too much non-free stuff on this article. It is largely due to the intransigence of one particular editor who owns the article and is responsible for retaining much that is inessential. If we could find the courage to remove it, the article would actually look better too, as well as being more fitting for a free encyclopedia. Oh well. --John (talk) 23:09, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
The distinction between the general concept of punk and the specific history of punk is a significant one, and there is unquestionably a place for iconic, highly influential or deeply exemplary fair use images and sound samples that illustrate and inform the latter (which also do illustrate and inform the former). For less central items, however, it is worth noting that the growth of the Creative Commons movement does mean that, however slowly, images with historically informative value are being brought into the free-use arena. Let's take the "Post-punk" section, for instance. While the image of PIL's Metal Box is highly informative, are these historically appropriate CC images of The Fall from 1984 so much less instructive?: File:Thefall1984.jpg/File:Brix Smith.jpg. DocKino (talk) 04:52, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Some of the article where it's used in have no fair use rationales (like Harlon Block), and there are some rationales for articles where it's not used in (like United States Marine Corps).
Since this image is one of the most mentioned as a perfectly valid cases of fair use in Wikipedia, I believe it should be good to have the file usage to comply with our policies (at least to prove it's possible for a file to comply with our policy).
Agree - on the page about the photo itself and the photographer, it is critical, but no where else (even those that were photographed, since the faces are indistinct). There is a free alternative there, that being any of the free images from Marine Corps War Memorial. --MASEM (t) 14:59, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
Sure, I'll happily endure the machine gunning I'll get for doing it. I don't care. The image itself is the subject of an article. Therefore, the use of it should be restricted to that article, and any other use of it made as a reference with a link to that article. This is codified in guideline at Wikipedia:NFC#Images_2 #5. Off to blow things up. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:59, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
You have just violated the very specific exception in Unacceptable uses for iconic images. It specifically names that image. Are you really really sure you want to pick that fight, here and now? You're literally going against the specific exception example, specifically listed in the policy... Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:25, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Absolutely. It's a bad example, and honestly should be stripped as an example. Why? Look at the very next entry in that unacceptable images list which says "if the image has its own article (in which case the image may be described and a link provided to the article about the image". In this case, since the image does have its own article, it creates a conflict in the guideline examples. So what do we look to then? The policy. Policy asks us to keep fair use usage to a minimal level. That trumps the conflict in the guideline, making it clear we should fall on the side of reducing use rather than expanding use, examples of exceptions not withstanding. And yes, I'm quite happy to defend this. I don't care about picking fights. I care about doing what is right. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:38, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Specific image question
Hi. This question was listed at the copyright problems board, but since that board is for text only and isn't really so much of a discussion forum as a holding point until due time has passed for permission, I am courtesy-listing it here.
File talk:Black Angels logo.png: There's no disagreement about copyright as such on this one; the disagreement is about whether this falls under our non-free use policy. I brought the question to WP:3O; the opinion I got back was that this would be a better forum for the question. - JmabelTalk 19:35, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
One issue is that if a drawing is taken directly from a copyrighted photo, the photographer stills holds the copyright. See Barack Obama "Hope" poster. So the drawings would have to be either drawn from life or made as a compilation of several photographs in order for there to be a clear license. Will Bebacktalk00:22, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Unambiguous emphatic no - This could be used to "replace" any non-free image - a point which was clearly obvious, and discussed as the en.wp community and Foundation formatted their non-free image policies. It was specifically rejected. The current polices would make no sense if we allowed that sort of blanket replacement. Line drawings are at best a poor replacement from a user educational point of view, and particularly from the point of view of attracting the attention of readers. Lest we forget, we include images not to be pretty, but because images clarify articles, educate themselves, and most importantly the presence of images increases the amount of an article that a reader reads, and the amount of that information that they remember. Reducing images to line drawings is arguably a 50% reduction in value of those articles, to the readership, in terms of knowledge they usefully collect and retain. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia - first and foremost. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:31, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
No. Because drawing is a skill, we cannot confirm that it is possible to get an image of a person that is drawn well that best represents that person and that is tagged as a free license image. It is not the same type of guaranteed replacement as there is for pictures of living persons. --MASEM (t) 00:37, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't think the answer is quite as clear cut as other above do although I unwillingly reach the same conclusion on practical grounds. In principle I would welcome the replacement of non-free pictures with free sketches of acceptable quality. In practice this is a difficult area. I would like to understand the legal position more clearly. Obviously the cases Will Beback gives are not acceptable and those are derivative non-free works. But what about someone who can watch a TV show or video clip and then produce an acceptable sketch? Is that derivative? How many volunteers have this degree of skill? I don't think it's a practical proposal unfortunately. And even though I would dearly love to see non-free content reduced, I would much prefer to see accurately labelled and properly credited non-free materials used rather than supposedly free content whose status as a derivative work may be in doubt. Angus McLellan(Talk)00:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
The drawing of Teilhard de Chardin is a blatant copyvio, and lacks any fair use claim to legitimise it. Amateur drawings such as these simply lower the quality of the project. Images are the first thing that strike the reader, and these editorial interpretations of a person's appearance (i.e. of their character) are simply unacceptable, especially in a BLP. Ty01:14, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Some of Rama's older drawings are based on single photographs and are thus (in my opinion) derivative works. I discussed this privately with Rama at one point - he said he recognized that there were issues and added: "My personal policy is that I am not the best judge of what constitutes a derivative work in such cases, so I do not defend these images if a request for deletion is made." But aside from problems with individual images I think free artworks like this are very useful and should be encouraged. Haukur (talk) 01:21, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
But they are poor quality drawings which even distort photos when they are a direct copy of them. Here's another example: original and drawing. Compare, for example, the lips. Ty01:25, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
I already agreed with you on Rama's work. I'm not going to repeat myself. I cannot endorse the idea that any non-free image is replaceable now by a free content sketch, but neither can I accept the idea that no non-free image is ever replaceable by a sketch if one is available and of suitable quality. Line drawings are not necessarily a poor replacement as has been claimed. It seems to me that the NFCC references to free alternatives do not exclude replacement in a different medium. Any such replacement can only be considered case by case. No general rule is necessary. Angus McLellan(Talk)01:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Several problems are being created by a confused set of principles here.
Someone creates a drawing of a person based on a photograph of that person. The drawing is a derivative work and thus, should be considered under the same restrictions as the original work. Ultimately, a dead person for whom there are no existing freely availible photographs (from a copyright perspective) means that there can be no freely availible drawings of them, since any drawings would be essentially derivative of existing photos.
Someone creates a drawing of a person, where the person sits for the drawing live and in person, and THAT drawing is released under a compatible liscence. No other freely availible image exists. No brainer. The drawing is free, no photo is availible to serve the same purpose, the drawing should be allowed. This would only apply to live people
Someone creates a drawing of a person from a freely availible photograph of the person. There is no need to replace a freely availible photograph, so such decisions should be made for purely stylistic reasons; there is no copyright restriction on either picture.
Assuming we are talking only about situation #1, then I see no justification for drawing a picture from a photo as somehow being a good idea. --Jayron3202:47, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
2 is not a no-brainer if it is not a good drawing/painting. Quality is essential. Images like that of Susan Boyle are an embarrassment and undermine wikipedia. An image by a recognised artist, or by a member of a recognised body such as the Royal Society of Portrait Painters would carry weight, but wikipedia is not the place for amateur artists to display their efforts (complete with prominent signature). Ty02:54, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
I think your mis-interpreted what Jayron32 wrote, Tyrenius. Just because an image use is allowed, that does not imply that the image must be used - the usual editorial considerations would still apply. CIreland (talk) 03:40, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
He said, "the drawing should be allowed" presumably for use in the article. If I have misunderstood and he did intend a judgement of quality to be made, then that's fine, but that's not how it appeared to me. Ty03:55, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Allowed does not equal mandatory. Editorial considerations always trump everything in these situations. That is, all allowable additions to an article are not always mandatory additions to an article. There would be no policy hurdle to include a truly free drawing; but there may be very good stylistic reasons not to include one. It's why I used a word like "allowed" and not "mandated". Its always a bullshit arguement when someone claims "policy says I can write XXXX, so you cannot remove it." No, sometimes some bit of text or some picture or anything else actually degrades the quality of the article, regardless of whether or not it is "allowed". --Jayron3204:05, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
No way, the drawings from photographs good or bad become just as problematic as fair-use as any other original work would be except worse because it is also arguably a problematic copyright violation of the photographer's intellectual property, and the fair-use photograph original is preferable...Modernist (talk) 03:47, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
This situation has come up a number of times before. In the first place, the artist who insists on placing their work in various articles is always terrible - even when, as on one ocassion, they turned out to be a professional who evidently made a good living at it. In the 2nd place the images were always copied from photos, & thus just created more problems, & in the 3rd place the various people above pointing out that a drawing or painting just isn't a substitute for a photo are correct. Johnbod (talk) 03:52, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Not all images can be replaced by drawings. For instance, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima cannot be replaced by a drawing, and has to be a Fair Use image if it is to be displayed at all. In other cases, when the image desired for Wikipedia is not iconic and subject of critical discussion (to closely paraphrase the guidelines), we cannot claim Fair Use because drawings can be made in the fashion of courthouse drawings. An example of this that has not been questionned can be seen at Susan Boyle. Because this is possible, portraits are intrinsecally replaceable and can never be claimed for Fair Use -- unless they are themselves the subject of the article instead of depicting the subject of the article. Rama (talk) 09:48, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
the use of the Susan Boyle image has been disputed on the talk page, and, if you read above, also disputed in this thread. Bad amateur art is not an equivalent to a documentary photograph. Ty11:19, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
I concede the point about disputing the image, but my central argument is that the image is now featured on the article, and cited as example of properly used drawing.
I have problems with your last remark. It stems essentially from a personal judgement of value as to the quality of the drawing, and possibly from an overoptimistic assessment of the virtues of photography. It is quite possible to make terrible photographs that do not ressemble their subject.
For instance, and with all due respect towards the resective authors, we have two photographs of Juliette Lewis, [6] and [7], on which I would hardly recognise her at all without the caption (and I have been physically next to her), and which are quite unflatterring.
I see no existential difference between photography and drawing in the respect: both are very demanding, and require both technique and some luck to manage a good quality. That the Free material at our disposal does not satisfy our taste is not a reason to claim Fair Use, thereby disregarding virtually all rules of the guidelines. Rama (talk) 11:37, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
The Susan Boyle case is pretty much a red herring here - she is a living person and therefore we wouldn't have accepted a fair use image anyway! –xenotalk13:37, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Your language is careless about the difference between fair use and our non-free content criteria. There are many circumstances where a legal claim of fair use is possible even though a free content replacement of one form or another could be created or even when one already exists. Dragons flight (talk) 10:06, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
I do not understand. The very first item of the WP:Fair Use policy reads "No free equivalent. Non-free content is used only where no free equivalent is available, or could be created, that would serve the same encyclopedic purpose". Rama (talk) 10:13, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
As you might note, WP:Fair Use redirects to WP:Non-free content. We have tried to make explicit that our non-free content policies are different from (and stricter than) the legal standards for fair use. So referring to things simply as "Fair Use" on Wikipedia helps create confusion. Dragons flight (talk) 10:20, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
But Fair Use is a particular case of non-Free content; furthermore, as you noted, WP:Fair Use redirects to WP:Non-free content, which I understand to mean that WP:Non-free content is relevant for issues on Fair Use.
I have to say that it is the very first time that I hear it said that Fair Use could be invoked even as a Free alternative exists -- and I have heard lots of extraordinary things on the matter. Rama (talk) 11:16, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
The legal standards for fair use make no explicit reference to the existence of alternatives at all. It is implicitly relevant to the consideration of the "nature of a work" by way of it's uniqueness, and to the commercial significance of the work, but yes one can legally claim fair use even directly in the face of free alternatives. The whole business of having no current or future possible replacement is a requirement that Wikipedia put in place not Congress. Back to the earlier point, we intentionally renamed WP:Fair use to WP:Non-free content and reformed its content a long time ago because the name Fair Use was creating confusion. We don't want people thinking either that A) all fair use is allowed or B) that Wikipedia's criteria are equivalent to fair use, cause they aren't. In fact, as long as people follow NFC the legal definitions and issues surrounding fair use should be irrelevant. So, yes, we'd prefer that people refer to "non-free content criteria" rather than to "fair use", because the legal doctrine of fair use is only partly relevant, promotes confusion about what the criteria really are, and quite frankly many people don't really understand fair use is to begin with. Dragons flight (talk) 11:55, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Oh, I see. I had actually noticed the line "Wikipedia's non-free use policy (...) is more restrictive than US law requires." and quoted it in my notes, but it had not occurred to me to underline the difference as you do. It is a sound habit and I will adopt it. Rama (talk) 12:02, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
I have myself in the past defended the argument that a self-made drawing, based not on concrete copying of an existing non-free picture, but on extracting visual information from several available pictures and then freely synthesizing it into a new independent drawing, could be a viable "alternative" in the case of certain items, such as old ships (might also work for buildings, objects and the like). However, with portraits of people, this is objectively so difficult that it all but impossible, in practice if not in theory. Rama's examples just go to show both problems here: they are evidently copied directly from a concrete single source photograph, which makes them non-free derivative works; and even despite being directly copied, they are practically unrecognisable and therefore just don't fulfill their encyclopedic purpose in an acceptable manner. What would be necessary to make this idea work is this: look at several different photographs of an individual, understand their physiognomy so thoroughly that you can reproduce a portrait from memory, and then draw the person in a different way (e.g. at a different angle, in a different pose, with a different facial expression), while still remaining true enough to the original physiognomy to make the picture recognisable. Okay, a very, very, very skilled expert draftsman could conceivably do that, but it's so exceedingly difficult that I would say it goes beyond what is "reasonably" possible. (Note that the Susan Boyle painting could serve as a case in point, but it was made on the basis of video material that was plentifully available, which for many historical figures wouldn't be the case.) Fut.Perf.☼12:32, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
In fact the majority of the images at [8] were realised from several photographs. I assume that there are strong arguments to say that these are indeed Free material.
I absolutely agree with the technical points made by Fut.Perf., but I do not think that the difficulty of the endeavour changes the nature of the task. The probability of having Free material of good quality in this fashion is most certainly low, but it is also non-zero, and should therefore not be dismissed. Rama (talk) 13:13, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Honestly, we are really tripping over the "or could be created" clause in NFCC #1 (which I never thought was a very good idea to begin with). Yes, in principle, someone could draw a perfect likeness of a person without violating any existing copyright. But it is very hard to do. Similarly, in principle, I could create free images of the inside of the Titanic shipwreck by paying for my own expedition to the site. Or I could "create" free images of the Smurfs by buying the full rights to the Smurfs and releasing them into the public domain. There are lots of possible but implausible ways of creating free content. At some point, when looking at content where no alternative now exists, we really have to tailor our choices based on reasonable expectations about what we can expect to be created. Dragons flight (talk) 13:45, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
I should clarify that "or could be created" isn't the whole issue since even after a potential free content replacement is presented (such as one on Rama's sketches), one still has to ensure that it reasonably serves the same encyclopedic purpose. Dragons flight (talk) 14:00, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Agreed on the terms of the issue.
I believe that where the line falls is in fact clear: if an image is not reproductible for technical reasons, it is improper to claim a non-Free image (basically because it is then, in fact, merely very hard, and not impossible, to reproduce it); if it is not reproductible for legal reasons (typically copyright) reasons, them the non-Free material can be claimed.
In your example, the Smurfs would be a legitimate non-Free image, but the Titanic one would not.
I understand and respect the practical point of plausibility, but we should also be mindful of the other practical point that usage of non-Free material has a strong tendency to get out of hand; if we do anything to suggest that Fair Use can be claimed, under our policies and guidelines, simply to supplement a lack of illustration, or simply by invoking personal taste as "reasonably serves the same encyclopedic purpose", we will have voided the policy of its content, and many will understand it as "anything goes". Rama (talk) 14:09, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Rama, are you saying that the only way I can include a picture of the Titanic on the seabed is if I hire the resources of Woods Hole to get me down to the ocean floor, and take my own pictures of the wreck? Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:47, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
I thought afterwards that as with the Smurfs, one might buy the copyright. Or persuade one of the deep sea joyriders that's been down for a trip (and there have been a few of them) to release one of their photographs - Cameron doesn't have copyright on the ship itself. Never thought of a CGI render - that Swissair one is quite remarkable. The difficulty with the Titanic on the seabed would be rendering the damage and marine life, although one could synthesise that from multiple photos so I believe avoiding copyright issues. Personally, with the Titanic, I am of the opinion that the still shot of the bow that Bob Ballard originally released is truly iconic, and one ought to be able to use it. But I accept that opinion on this varies quite a bit.Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:27, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Article needs review
Sonic screwdriver has been tagged, off and on, with {{non-free}} - one of the primary editors on that page continues to remove the tag. I think there are way too many images on the page, but wanted to get other opinions... (ESkog)(Talk)21:06, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Advice wanted on possible inclusion of album cover.
There is one recording available of Twice Through the Heart. In the article, the recording is mentioned in two places and the fact that it is in the Daily Telegraph's list of 100 recommended classical recordings is also mentioned. Is there enough material here to justify an inclusion of the album cover? If not, how much mroe would I have to include?--Peter cohen (talk) 16:17, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Going through the article talk page would be a better start, rather than coming here without even a courtesy message to the article's regular editors.
That said, I don't see a problem. The article is about the History of BBC television idents. Showing what those idents being discussed looked like is directly on-topic re the subject of the article, and adds directly to reader understanding of the topic - the requirement both in law and in policy. Also, our use here is directly transformative, per Bill Graham Archives vs. Dorling Kindersley. So, very similarly to currency images on historical currency articles, it seems to me that the image use here is well chosen, judicious and entirely appropriate.
There is exeedingly heavy use of non-free images, and the use of galleries. Alarm bell really should be ringing when we're having to use the gallery format for non-free content. I will leave a note on the talk page. J Milburn (talk) 12:50, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
query about attribution of int:license
Colleagues, The licence text says "The copyright holder of this file, X, allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that the copyright holder is properly attributed...."
Does this mean that the copyright holder should be acknowledged explicitly as such "used by permission of X" in the caption in whichever article the file is used? Or is the sign at the Commons good enough? the file in question bills the singer, who just happens to be the copyright owner; but that's not the point, I think.
No, they merely have to be attributed in some way. We attribute on image pages, publishers may attribute in a list at the back of the book, at the bottom of the page, something like that. Creative Commons licenses, to the best of my knowledge, say nothing about how the copyright holder must be attributed. J Milburn (talk) 12:55, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Hi. I'm traveling and not able to do much on Wikipedia, but I think there are a great many images uploaded by User:Blackknight12 that need review and quite probably deletion. He is currently on a two week copyright block for blatant copyright violations. But he's uploaded a great many portraits of living people, such as File:Air Chief Marshal Jayalath Weerakkody.gif, as "unique historic image", when their usage certainly does not conform (Jayalath Weerakkody). If anybody happens to have time to look into this and take any necessary action, it would be greatly appreciated. I'm back at home base tomorrow, but am coming home to a lovely backlog at WP:CP. :) --Moonriddengirl(talk)13:56, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
My God, we do have a major issue here. I have been through the first page of uploads, and will do the rest later tonight... There's no point trying to salvage this, as they were all uploaded with absolutely no care for policy, and, if we've had to resort to blocks, all else has failed. I'm simply mass tagging/deleting. J Milburn (talk) 14:38, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Due to stupid Northern Rail hating my station, I have run through the rest of the uploads, dealing with the majority of problems. I will check through his uploads again at some point to pick up on any that I missed. J Milburn (talk) 15:47, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I believe File:Barbrahouse1.jpg is a good example of non-free content use on Wikipedia. It's a picture that generated a controversy that generated a neologism. But while it has a sound fair-use rationale, it has no fair-use template. Which one should be used? --Damiens.rf19:20, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Erm, why do we need to see the picture of Streisand's house? What extra information about the Streisand Effect is this providing? Perhaps this is the template that is best suited? CIreland (talk) 20:48, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
The picture itself is discussed in the article, but... indeed, what exactly the picture looks like is not relevant to the matter. All one needs to know is that it was a picture of a beach-house. It doesn't really matter either the house was beautiful, big, small, white, etc... Well noticed. Will you take the honor?
The present statement of the template is that magazine covers could be used in case of direct illustration of a point about the publication of the image. Could some one explain exactly what "a point" and "the publication" mean, they're so vague. Can an image of a magazine cover with a celebrity on it be used for the article of that person, as he makes the magazine more appealing which raise up its publication at the same time? --SymaneTALK04:37, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
The "publication" is strictly the magazine of interest, and requires there be associated critical commentary about the magazine to go along with the image (eg its own article). We cannot use the cover of a magazine depicting a person in the article about that person, except in very exceptional cases where the cover of the magazine (see, O. J. Simpson murder case for example, where the media created a bias on the case shown through the magazine covers). --MASEM (t) 14:23, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
It's important to notice that the cover image itself should be necessary for understanding. For instance, just because the article mention Mr. Famous was on the cover of Time, it does not follows that we need to see what cloths Mr. Famous was using in the photo. --Damiens.rf23:47, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Logos on individual game articles, again
Every single article in Category:2009–10 NCAA football bowl games has been decorated with the logo of the overall bowl game, resulting in overuse that, in a worst case, looks like this. I know we've been around and around this before, but I thought that there was at least consensus that we shouldn't be using logos on articles which were about a single instance (a game) of a larger continuing tradition (an annual bowl game, and the proper place for the identifying logo). My token attempts to enforce this have all been reverted blindly and quickly, as per the usual. (ESkog)(Talk)19:01, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
I'd be glad to run AWB to remove the images from the year articles in a day or so, as in the past, consensus has been to not include sports team logos in the individual season articles (or at least only use the free, text only equivalent in those instances). If there are any major concerns, I'd like to hear them out, but this seems pretty straight forward, non-free abuse, with similar past precedent supporting removal. -Andrew c[talk]00:20, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
The last time we went through this here there was no such consensus regarding individual season articles. Opinion was split roughly 50/50 on the matter, with a slight majority disagreeing with removal. Oren0 (talk) 02:22, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
The logo belongs on the article about the game generally, but not on the article about individual games. The same is true regarding team logos and individual years. An attempt at a compromise was made with liberal interpretations of what counts as public domain, but non-free images should still be freely removed, and anyone adding them back warned and blocked. Just because some people like to shout about sports logos, doesn't mean we suddenly have an exception. J Milburn (talk) 12:58, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I think the clear answer here (letting the PD/trademark issue run its own course) is to review and get consensus to revert the change that was done on NFCC#3a that the editors at that time thought was simply simplification of the language. Or more exacting, getting consensus that "minimal use" applies to how many times an image is used as well as as per article. The question here likely becomes: in an electronic format, is each article considered a separating publishing instance of shared content, or is the fact we only have one picture file considered the only publication with all reuses simply extensions of that? Take out logos, non-free content, and so forth, and that is a rather simple legal question about web publications that may already have existed in case law. In other words, there may be a chance we can approach Mike Godwin on the issue to ask him how Foundation views publication of common media; if it is the former case, then #3a has to apply to every reuse, but if not, then we need to turn back to consensus to find the answer. --MASEM (t) 02:38, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
I do find the distinction you pose interesting. IIRC, someone tried to contact Mike Godwin last time around and he refused to get involved (or maybe just didn't reply, I'm not sure). Oren0 (talk) 02:46, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't think we need to even worry about that. As per NFCC#8, most of these usages should be removed. It's generally just "oh, and here's what the logo looks like!" and adds nothing to the article. J Milburn (talk) 02:49, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Except that we have the problem of generally allowing non-free images in infoboxes a free pass (since there is discussion of the pictured item in that article), aka the "image for identification". It's long an issue with the case that we can't point to #8 and clearly show that these fail while we allow book and game covers elsewhere where there is no discussion of the image itself. --MASEM (t) 22:21, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
New BRFA
Hi all,
This is just a notice that I've created a new request for bot approval. The task in question is designed to add {{orfud}} to non-free images that are not used in any article. Link to discussion.
I've removed both covers from that article. It really is irritiating that covers slip in like that... I found the hidden note particularly annoying. J Milburn (talk) 22:51, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
this comes back to the idea I've suggested of "infobox images for identification" that happens with such articles that are list-like in nature (which this clearly is) but there's more than just listing out the album, instead being sections that likely could each be broken out to their own individual articles but for editorial decisions have been brought together as a single article (which this clearly is). If we accept that on individual articles we allow cover art even if the art is not specifically referenced, we are penalizing those editors that are seeking alternative means of presenting related content. I'm not saying we've agreed to this being true, but it is a loophole that cases like the above bring up when we (seemingly unquestionably) allow for "decorative" images in infoboxes on single articles. (Note, this is not to allow individual images on true discographies where there's no further discussion of the individual works on that page). --MASEM (t) 02:58, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
It's important to recognize two things here:
(1) The pertinent article content is clearly not of the sort that we mean by "discography".
(2) While the image is not "iconic", as was incorrectly stated in the hidden text, that is irrelevant to this case. The image is illustrative of an item that is the subject of extensive critical commentary (the primary coverage of the item on Wikipedia), and its use is thus supported by both policy and the relevant content guideline. As Masem suggests, our mission and our policy should not be read to restrict editors' freedom to develop various means of presenting related content. Whether the primary coverage of a music recording appears in the context of a stand-alone article or as a dedicated section in an article providing broader coverage is irrelevant to the proper and judicious illustration of the recording.—DCGeist (talk) 03:10, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
"Extensive critical commentary"? Where? I see a list of basic facts about release dates, performers and authors etc., but this extensive critical commentary I cannot find. CIreland (talk) 10:28, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
IMO, the issue here is that the topic of this article is Music of Final Fantasy VIII, not those specific albums. If, in the future, those articles are ever created, then an album cover could be used to identify the topic of those new album specific article. However, images of album covers do not directly help identify the topic of "music". While this may be penalizing editors who want to present all albums on one article, and it may penalize albums that are not notable enough to have their own article, I still believe it is inline with our minimal non-free content policy. But as it stands, these images are not identifying the topic of the article, but instead simply decorating the page (who cares if they are in an infobox or identifying a section?) I think this situation relates to Wikipedia:Non-free_content_review#Glen_Campbell_videos where the community felt DVD covers and screenshots were overuse of non-free content, and thus removed. At least I don't see the difference, except more nerd (:P) on the internet that like FF8 than Glen Campbell, so there is a vocal minority supporting keeping the FF8 content, when objectively, we should treat the subject matters equally, and apply the rules the same. -Andrew c[talk]16:06, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes, a compromise that is unsustainable really. We already recently had an editor ignore it and try to re-populate the article with album covers. The problem here is there is nothing codified anywhere that this sort of treatment is preferred over no album covers at all in discographies, which is codified. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:32, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
I strongly agree with the logic or lack thereof in this case... The only even remotely disputable policy relating to these images is Policy 8. This policy reads: "Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding." In this case three of the four album covers are directly discussed in the article and the presence of the images significantly increases readers' understanding of the discussion. Omitting the images is directly detrimental to understanding the discussion about the cover art style. Further along in the guidelines state the following is an acceptable use, "Cover art from various items, for identification only in the context of critical commentary of that item (not for identification without critical commentary)." Again, these images meet the acceptable criteria. The only disputable fact is that these images could be considered part of a discography. However, in this situation that is not the case. The albums were all released by different methods (C&C was available only via website order, C&C: RA via retail, C&C: TS was bundled, etc.), the newer albums are not even by the same musician, and all the albums feature different styles of music. This does not qualify as a discography in my opinion, and I fail to see the rational behind classifying the albums as such. --Kevin Morse (talk) 07:10, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
I think the idea that this is simply an editorial decision misses the point. Articles such as the one being discussed here are not held to as high a standard as a stand alone article. Whereas a stand alone article might be permanently stub level even with some notoriety for the subject, in a list article it can seem as notable enough to warrant a cover. Further, the eyes that look at this article would have an exceptionally difficult time of determining what the metric really is for whether an album within a discography should be allowed to have its cover shown. There is no line in the sand. If you allow one cover, you migth as well allow all of them. It's the same principle. The general rule of thumb has been if an album or single is notable enough to have its own article, then it can have one and its cover can go there. Any other treatement of the album/single doesn't warrant a non-free image. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:31, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes, the rule of thumb is that an or album or single notable enough to have its own article is notable enough to be illustrated. In most cases, the application of that rule of thumb is unambiguous; in some cases, however, we need to apply specific thought to the matter. Take the present case, for instance.
What we have here is a group of four releases, two of which evidently are notable enough to have their own articles, given the amount of WP:V-standard coverage they have received externally, and the level of sourced critical commentary they have been accorded here. Logically, those two items are notable enough to be illustrated wherever their primary coverage appears on Wikipedia. That primary coverage could, according to our standards, be in stand-alone articles. In most cases, it would. But, ah...
The involved editors made a rational decision to create one article, encompassing those two related recordings—Final Fantasy VIII Original Soundtrack and "Eyes on Me"—as well as two less significant related ones, rather than, say, to create three articles: one for the notable album, one for the notable single, and a third covering all four recordings that would offer summary coverage of the two notable ones. Why should our policy be construed to mean that this rational decision concerning the most effective, efficient way to present encyclopedic information should result in the two notable recordings not being illustrated? And do those who have militated against the inclusion of the two images in the present article really believe that our readers and our policy will be better served if Final Fantasy VIII Original Soundtrack and "Eyes on Me" are accorded stand-alone articles and illustrated in those?—DCGeist (talk) 05:02, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
I have to agree with this above -- as long as we assert that we allow for cover art that is simply there doing little but decoration in the infoboxes of articles on a single notable work. I further assert that there's a reasonable line to be drawn here - that we can tell when a section of a list-like article could be spun out as opposed to when it is simply a data point to complete the list. It's going to be fuzzy, but better than no option at all that is counter to when we have separate articles.
Unless of course we want to be more strict on the infobox image. Cover art that is not mentioned at all, is not used to support any aspect of the article (which could be something like art style, character identification, etc.) could be removed, and that would make it on par with removing images from list-like articles like the one in question. However, that's a larger barrier that I think we'd have a lot of trouble with enacting. --MASEM (t) 06:57, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
I will strenuously oppose inclusion of covers in Nographies because of the indefensible position it creates. It is hard enough to police fair use overuse and mass decoration of articles. If we become more permissive of this sort of article containing images, we might as well give up. I sure as hell won't fight including all covers any more because I won't be able to argue a position that makes any sense any more. While the new policy might, in theory, seem clear in such a case, the reality and actual practice will be mass over population of fair use images in list articles. Masem, in theory, you're perhaps on to something. In practice, it's untenable. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:11, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
I completely understand the concern, as the language, if not exactingly clear when this is permissible, would allow the case where an image adorns every element of a list. Which is why I think it is completely fair to bring notability or whatever we consider our requirements for a stand-alone article into play. Without working the specific wording:
Elements of a list that are non-notable should not have individual non-free pictures simply as decoration or means of identification (this does not prevent inclusion of images that are iconic and discussed in the text as required per NFCC#8
Elements of a list that are notable and have their own articles (and thus typically included as a brief summary of the main article and for completeness) should not have individual non-free pictures simply as decoration or means of identification, as it is expected that image to be on the separate article.
Elements of a list that are notable but do not have their own article and are fully covered in the list article may have a non-free image for identification, though editors should consider avoiding overuse of such images if many of the list elements are notable but grouped into the singular list. (eg, if a book series is covered in a list, and each cover has a similar layout and design, only one cover is needed).
Yes, people will abuse this, and because WP:N gets involved, we'd have issues with disputes over that. But, its a necessary balance as long as we allow decorative non-free cover images in infoboxes throughout the rest of the work. And really, I think the test when this applies is a lot more bright-line than is being suggested, but its a matter of exacting the language for it. Note that I'm not against making that change, but that, to me, will likely be a lot more work to get through than to make better allowances for inspiried editors. --MASEM (t) 15:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure I could improve on that in any significant way. That maintains the spirit and intent of our policy, while bringing some logical consistency to an area of fair use that sorely needs it. The relationship between our image policy and our notability guideline is a fruitful area for bringing greater consistency to the interpretation and application of that eternally fraught notion, "significance". There's no way the language of our NFC content guideline can prevent abuse, but the clearer and more logical its principles, the less invitation there is for abuse and evasion and the more encouragement there is for thoughtful and effective variations in the arrangement of encyclopedic information.—DCGeist (talk) 16:02, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure we shouldn't look at this the other way—is the cover really needed for every album article, let alone mention of the album in a list? For some albums, i.e. Virgin Killer, we can certainly make a very good argument that yes, the cover is assuredly a part of what makes the album notable. But do we really need an album cover for every run of the mill album out there, where the album (rather than its cover) is the focus of coverage? Even if we are to use nonfree media in such articles, wouldn't a better choice be a short example of the music, since that's what's really notable about the vast majority of albums? SeraphimbladeTalk to me16:08, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
I would love to look at it the other way. The amount of covers we have is simply staggering. There are 100492 album covers alone. More than 1/3rd of the non-free media we have on this site is in covers. But, the reality is there is no way in hell we'll ever get people to back off on the idea that we must have album covers for every album on the planet. Allowing album covers onto album specific articles is a compromise. Now, what we're discussing is another compromise, to allow album covers on articles where there is no album specific article. After that, we'll be talking yet another compromise to allowing all album covers in discographies again, because why not? We're already allowing album covers in discographies now (if we do as is being suggested here). No. I refuse. I won't accept the compromise. Absolutely not. No way, no how. We already compromised. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:17, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
What compromise exactly? The resistance to a logical set of principles as outlined by Masem will produce a logically foreseeable set of results. Let's take the present case of Music of Final Fantasy VIII, where that set of principles would lead to 1 article with 2 images. Deny that possibility, and we are likely to see the following:
(1) The two recordings currently covered in the article that meet our notability guidelines will receive their own articles, which will be illustrated according to our well-established practices. Score so far: 2 articles, each with 1 image for 2 images total.
(2) The two recordings that arguably do not meet our notability guidelines will also receive their own articles, which will be illustrated according to our well-established practices. Lengthy arguments and AfD processes will ensue. If the articles are eliminated, we will wind up with exactly as many fair use images as we would under a well-articulated set of principles, but some substantial amount of the community's energy will have been needlessly consumed. If the articles are not eliminated (and it's not exactly easy to eliminate stand-alone articles on commercially distributed and professionally reviewed recordings once they're created), our ultimate score will be: 4 articles, each with 1 image for 4 images total.
Well, first off, this wouldn't involve a change in policy, but a refinement of the content guideline. Second, there's nothing abstract about it—there are many articles that offer primary coverage of multiple copyrighted items that do not fall neatly into the definition of "discography" or similar summary list. Music of Final Fantasy VIII is typical of an entire genre of articles—the unintended, undesirable consequence of entirely prohibiting fair use illustration in them will be to spawn a myriad of illustrated conventional articles: short, cluttery, but practically impossible to eliminate.—DCGeist (talk) 17:13, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
OK, let me get this straight. Hammersoft's main rationale for removing pictures from articles like this is his "rule of thumb" (an album or single notable enough to have its own article is notable enough to be illustrated). This rule is nowhere to be found in non-free content policy or guideline. In fact, it is against the Notability guideline. Still, some people try to persuade him to be a litte more relaxed about this, but he refuses to do so, because otherwise he - unrealistically - fears that all discographies on wikipedia will be densely populated by front cover pictures. And then, to top it off, when an album or single does follow his rule of thumb, he is still not satisfied and demands that the editor chops up his article into separate articles, otherwise he won't be able to defend his position anymore, which was already wrong in the first place. It's absurd. Lumdeloo (talk) 13:16, 27 December 2009 (UTC) (editor of the nixed Glen Campbell videos page)
WP:NFC#10a states, "The image or media description page [should] contain: Identification of the source of the material, supplemented, where possible, with information about the artist, publisher and copyright holder; this is to help determine the material's potential market value."
What is the source? WP:CITE#IMAGE goes a little further, and specifies "the URL of an image, if gotten from the web", and gives a very specific example about a government archive as a stand-in for all offline content.
I've been engaged in a disagreement with another user recently about this issue. Specifically, there is an ambiguity in our policy about how much source information is required. If an image is a screenshot of a film, for instance, are we required to identify who took the screenshot? Who made a scan of an album cover? Is such information a necessary part of a fair-use rationale?
It's my feeling that the only "source" information that's really critical is whatever allows us to identify the original author and/or owner -- so, "screenshot of Citizen Kane" is enough to identify Orson Welles & company. For a photo from a news site, I feel it should be adequate to identify whichever photographer and publisher is credited, although mentioning which story it's from helps to identify what the subject of the photograph is (and if there's no credit listed, the URL is the only way to ID the author/source).
In the case of the "government archive" mentioned at WP:CITE#IMAGE, the specificity listed there is probably necessary to fully ID the source/owner (and the subject of the image), but clearly one doesn't need the same specificity when it's a widely available source -- if it's from a book, for instance, you don't have to mention where you bought/borrowed the book from (though you should mention what book it is from, so that other people can look it up as well).
What are other people's thoughts on this? I'd like to see some specificity added to this policy as to what specific information we want when "identifying a source", and why we want it.--Father Goose (talk) 10:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
On sourcing, the most useful thing to read is probably the discussion here and here from March, on the basis of which it was decided to restore the words if possible in NFCC #10a.
My understanding is that we require a web URL or information about where the image was scanned from to tell us the immediate source of the pixels. This helps make any later discussions much more concrete as to exactly how the image got to us; and also helps show that the image was at least reasonably available before we published it, which can be a consideration for an NFCC #2 analysis.
Per the discussions linked above, deeper sourcing (of the sort you are talking about) is nice, but is not a pre-requisite of policy. In most cases it is possible to make a reasonable assessment of NFCC #2 without it. For a typical box cover, or run-of-the-mill old photo probably from an old newspaper, this is generally quite acceptable.
If there is reason to suspect the photo is particularly rare, or from a particularly important photographer, or has some "iconic" status, that may suggest it might have some real current commercial value, and that we might need to think more carefully. In such cases NFCC #2 could come into play, and the rationale for our using the image has to be correspondingly stronger, if on balance it is to be appropriate. But any such challenge should be made under NFCC #2, rather than NFCC #10.
(Note: it was images of long-deceased people I particularly had in my mind writing the above, but the logic applies pretty much generally). Jheald (talk) 20:54, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
I remain baffled by claims that a web link to a "random website" constitutes a source. We're fairly clear about how to source free content images, providing author and attribution details, but for non-free images we're seemingly happy to provide no useful information. There are at least two good reasons for wanting much more than a "here's where I downloaded this from" link.
First of all there's the Golden Rule. People here expect credit - look at the featured picture on the main page or how our free content licenses let authors specify how they are to be attributed - so we should credit other people's work in like fashion.
If the ethical aspect means nothing then there's that pillar, free content encyclopedia, and the wording of the EDP, "minimal" non-free content. Laziness in sourcing old images means that there is a very large amount of free content here wrongly marked as non-free. Jheald's pictures of "long-deceased" people are thus a category where sourcing is important. Read {{PD-US}} and reflect on the very low rate of renewals. Anything published in the US pre-1963 is probably in the public domain there but it seems that nobody will ever bother trying to prove this in individual cases. It is not at all likely that there are no free images of a US actor, politician or other significant figure who was in the public eye much before 1963. Something like WP:NFC#UULP for some categories of dead people too might be sensible. Angus McLellan(Talk)12:50, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Approximately April 2008, a discussion was initiated to change the wording of WP:NFCC#3a from :
Minimal usage. As few non-free content uses as possible are included in each article and in Wikipedia as a whole. Multiple items are not used if one will suffice; one is used only if necessary.
...to...
Minimal usage. Multiple items of non-free content are not used if one item can convey equivalent significant information.
This was changed on May 7 2008, and has not been changed since (as far as I can tell). From the linked discussion, the primary reason for this specific change (there was other language changed too) was because it assumed that the "in each article and in Wikipedia as a whole" would be obvious from the new wording. In other words, it was not meant to change the meaning of #3a but instead to say the same thing in as few words as possible.
This change, however, has led to several recent problems with images, one specifically on the use of non-free team sports logos on articles about specific seasons or games (see, for example Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2009-02/Wikipedia:Non-free content/RFC on use of sports team logos). That is, it is argued that once we accept one use of a non-free image, then all other repeat uses of that image (presuming with proper rationales and the like, and ignoring other issues with NFCC#1 or #8) are not increasing the "minimum usage" aspect of the image on WP. In the current language of #3a, this reads as true, but in the former language, it is certainly not the case.
I propose a discussion to determine if the language of #3a should be reverted, or at least clear up how consensus and legal policy affirm if "minimum use" applies to both an article by itself (which is certainly supported by consensus presently) and across Wikipedia (the main issue at hand).
I will point out one potential legal consideration that I have mentioned before, but that I do not have an answer for. In terms of fair use, part of the legal language considers how much we use fair use (both how much from the original source, and how much reuse we have). From this aspect, we need to consider how we consider ourselves "published" in the electronic format. One can, for example, view the fact that we only have one "file" of any given non-free image (we regularly delete duplicates of such non-frees when they occur), and thus it is published only once (in the "File:" space) across all of Wikipedia and that all calls to that file through articles are not republishing it. In this case, the above statement of "minimal use" is not limited by any legal precedent, and thus we would have to turn to consensus to determine if it is the case that "minimal use" applies across Wikipedia. The opposite view, in which each inclusion call in article space to the image file is one instance of publication, does impact how we treat "minimal use" as we need to keep the number of publications down, and thus "minimal use" needs to apply across Wikipedia, not just within an article, regardless of prevailing consensus. That doesn't mean we can never use a non-free image twice, but when we start getting into the 10s and 100s of repeat uses (as the case of non-free sports logos), then clearly we've passed an allowance. Understand what we consider "publication" may help to answer this question rather quickly. --MASEM (t) 23:51, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
That's worth thinking about, but my immediate reaction is "let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater". The original rationale for the change was to align NFCC #3 more closely with NFCC #8, an certainly insofar as it applies to a single article, the new wording is a lot clearly defined, and much more clearly "sings from the same songsheet" as NFCC #8.
As regards the legal issue of use on multiple pages, can you clarify your sources for why you think there is a problem? The rough legal test for 'minimality' is "no more than needed for the purpose identified". Requiring each use on each page to separately pass NFCC #8 seems to me to conform to that.
I also suspect logos may not be the best example for this discussion -- given that the whole purpose of logos is to enhance the identifiability of what they represent, using them for that purpose is if anything strengthening their value: there's very little copyright taking, which is why are guidelines are comparatively relaxed about their use. Focusing on other kinds of images may give a clearer picture here. Jheald (talk) 00:31, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
As to the legal issue, I don't know. It is a question I pose to discuss to see if it matters and what we need to consider from it. But I do believe knowing how the underlying assumptions of publication apply to a wiki, in which resources can be drawn from several sources, needs to be considered as part of this question.
And unfortunately logos are the core of this issue. Logos for identification on articles that describe in detail about the organization they represent (in the same manner we allow covers of copyrighted works for identification in the infobox of the articles that discuss those works in depth) is certainly allowed, but the issue mentioned above is where editors want to apply logos to every article that mentions or is about one smaller aspect of the larger organization for identification (in the specific case, for individual game and individual season articles). And without regurgitating the whole past discussion, it is clear that the NFCC as it currently reads (and completely ignoring its history) does not say enough if this is an inappropriate case or not; but on the other hand, with NFCC#3a reworded as originally it was, it clearly is inappropriate. As I don't think the intent of rewording NFCC#3a was to diminish the aspect of "across Wikipedia as a whole", that's why I propose restoring the language, pending consensus that we still consider minimal use applying to both article space and WP as a whole. If it is clear from consensus or the legal question above that we need to minimize non-free use across WP as a whole, then clearly we still can use logos, but in the same manner we restrict other non-free use, which is pretty much only on the page that specifically discusses that entity for identification with critical commentary, though we still allow for some logos to be reused if they are discussed in deeper context (eg, for a sports team, a season-specific logo would be appropriate on that season's page, as long as the reasoning for creation or other similar aspects are discussed). --MASEM (t) 14:47, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Go back to prior version The intention in changing it was well intentioned, well reasoned, well thought out. It made sense. But in practice, new people coming to their first understanding of WP:NFCC are missing understanding. There's been significant unintended consequences, and we should return to the prior wording. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:04, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Agree to return to prior wording. Regardless of your stance on non-free content, the fact is that the wording change was thought to be semantic only, while in practice it has led to a different interpretation of policy. (ESkog)(Talk)18:12, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I may be going slightly outside the main discussion here, but I disagree with putting so much weight on minimizing the raw number of non-free images. Rather, we should have clear and strict rules for under what situation using a non-free image is ok. In my opinion, we there should be a very good reason before we include even one non-free portrait of a celebrity. On the other hand, it doesn't really matter if an article about a non-free computer game as one or three screenshots. --Apoc2400 (talk) 19:47, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
We are a free content encyclopedia, with the awareness that some topics cannot be discussed and fully understood without some non-free content, and thus make allowance for these exceptions. But that is what they should be viewed as, as we otherwise seek to use free content whenever possible. Since they are exceptions, they need to be kept to a minimum, and thus the importance of asserting what bounds we consider our counting to. --MASEM (t) 19:58, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Since the minimum number of non-free items in an article is zero and not one as #1 and #8 make clear, the original wording seems to be a better match with the general sense of the non-free content criteria and the licensing resolution. Let's put things back they way they were. Angus McLellan(Talk)19:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
The problem with going back to the previous version is that "Multiple items of non-free content are not used if one item can convey equivalent significant information." and "As few non-free content uses as possible are included in each article". The first, with its emphasis on "convey equivalent significant information" is the more accurate statement of polcy; the second -- as was discussed at length when cited -- causes very real confusion with NFCC #8 Rewriting the clause to address the issue might make some sense; but simply reverting is not a good way forward.
If Masem's concern really is a problem, an alternative would be:
:Minimal usage. Multiple items of non-free content are not used if one item can convey equivalent significant information. This also applies to use of a single item of non-free content across multiple articles.
That said, I think we should be cautious. User:J Milburn, in a different discussion above, made the point that articles ideally should stand or fall by themselves, rather than assuming the reader is necessarily going to look up dozens of related articles. I still find it very odd, for instance, that our main articles on each major iteration of Star Trek - Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek:The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager etc - show us an image of what the spaceship looked like, but not a (far more informative to the reader) group crew shot. I presume that this is on the theory that that shot appears in another article, but I'm not sure that expecting the reader to click through to that article ir reasonable, or matches what someone with a casual interest would do. Jheald (talk) 21:09, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Why does quoting rule drive Goldilocks nuts?
Here's the current rule: Brief quotations of copyrighted text may be used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea. ... Extensive quotation of copyrighted text is prohibited.
Two problems with this rule: (1) vagueness (2) doesn't explain underlying reasoning
Where is the "happy middle ground", the Goldilocks area, where quoting is not too much, not too little, but just right? It's hard to find this middle ground. It's hard to find porridge of just the right temperature. I've run into editors who construe it narrowly, so any quotes longer than one sentence are excessive or extensive. In other cases, it seems perfectly appropriate to quote at length. The vagueness is fertile ground for Wiki-lawyer types to bully people around, since exactly how much is too much is not nailed down.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 03:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Consider this. Suppose I'm writing an article about a graphic artist. I find an art critic commenting on this artist. I quote the art critic verbatim with attribution using an inline mouse-click-checkable reference, with a two sentence quote. Consider how everybody benefits:--Tomwsulcer (talk) 03:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I capture exactly what the critic said; I don't substitute my own wording but the exact critic's language which clinches the thought better than my meager efforts to paraphrase. This benefits Wikipedia since it furthers its reputation for getting the facts right.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 03:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia readers benefit. They get the thoughts of a published critic and an art expert, and not an amateur (me) who is not a paid professional. They get the stuff direct from the source, not second-hand distortions.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 03:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
The quoted critic benefits as well by having his or her name on Wikipedia. It reinforces the critic's reputation. It confirms, in a sense, the expert's expertise. The publication benefits too with free publicity. My sense is in almost all cases, papers and critics want to be in Wikipedia, and love being quoted with attribution. It's why they make much of their old newspaper content freely available on the web.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 03:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I believe the quoting + attribution system is a WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN for all parties involved and should be encouraged, not discouraged, as this rule seems to do. The way this rule is worded douses fire on people's impulse to quote, in my view.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 03:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
The FEW instances in which quoting can get out of hand, as we'll all agree, are when the quoting is SO extensive that it is essentially stealing non-free content from a producer like The New York Times. But it can happen ONLY in this situation: when both critic and newspaper worked hard to make quality information expecting that people would pay for it. They were hoping for a sale. They're offering something. People might buy it. But, Wikipedia came along, published THEIR work under WIKIPEDIA's name, freely, without charge; as a result, the New York Times lost a sale. In such situations, even with the attribution, it's theft, because Wikipedians don't have to buy their New York Times subscription but they can get it FREE on Wikipedia. Clearly that's not fair to content providers.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 03:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
But, let's be realistic: how often does a situation like this ever happen? In almost all situations in which a Wikipedia contributor is writing an article, we're basing information on stories and content from old newspapers which have little, if any, commercial value. Five years old; ten years old; fifty years old. That's typically what we quote. We're an encyclopedia; we're not a competing newspaper. Would you pay $2.50 for a three year old issue of the New York Times? Much old newspaper material is free, anyway, from numerous sites, including free websites published by the newspapers themselves. It's old news. What newspapers sell is new news, stuff that's current, happening, need-to-know right away. If anything, quoting + attribution on Wikipedia actually makes their old valueless news more valuable, since, in a way, it's like free public relations for the critic and the newspaper. It gives a New York Times piece greater shelf life, to use a marketing term. Quoting the New York Times doesn't prevent a sale or undermine its ability to make a living; rather, quoting helps it.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 03:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Take books. I've revamped articles on books like Bad for Democracy by Dana D. Nelson. I've put quotes in with attribution. Some quotes are several sentences. The book is currently for sale on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I summarize the book's key points. But does my little Wikipedia article, less than a page perhaps of text, kill off possible sales opportunities for the book? Is it like giving away the ending in a movie? Does quoting Nelson kill off any sales opportunities? Of course not. Plus, Nelson's quotes are often freely available on free web sites and in other free sources like newspaper reviews. My one page won't compete with her 300-page hardcover book. If anything, it's increased exposure for her book, and is much more likely to generate sales by readers interested in learning more, than by blocking persons who would have bought the book but didn't because, gosh, they could read my one-page summary on Wikipedia. Neither Nelson nor the publisher has complained to me when it's easy to do so (my email is prominently available on my talk page). Have any of you, who have possibly written on any subject using quotes + attribution, had a solid complaint from a content provider about your two-line quote being "too extensive"? I'm interested. Please share your experiences.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 03:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
That said, I DID run into a counter-example with Philosophy of Spinoza. In my initial draft which I wrote a few months back, I quoted scholar Steven Nadler from his book Spinoza's Ethics extensively about his thinking about Spinoza in an early draft of my Wikipedia article. I quoted Nadler perhaps 10-12 times, with single line quotes. I honestly didn't know the Wikipedia rule prohibiting "excessive quoting". I learned it just a few days ago from User:Tyrenius; it's so like my experience with Wikipedia that I keep seeming to bump into new, sometimes contradictory rules, the more I contribute. Anyway, I began an email correspondence with professor Nadler hoping for his input and expertise about Spinoza; he declined. He saw my draft version before it went online. To my surprise, he did object to being quoted so much. Why? I'm not exactly sure, but was I making too much of his hard-wrought stuff free, in a sense? This is my best guess. So, in fairness and deference, I rewrote practically the whole draft so that nothing much of Nadler's thinking is left, no quotes, nothing. What's left is me and Spinoza -- me and my non-professional handyman-level understanding of Spinoza, shall we say. But, even this example, as well, confirms my fundamental point, which is: --Tomwsulcer (talk) 03:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
We need to exercise judgment here people. Sticking to some arbitrary vague rule is in nobody's best interests, and keeps the wiki-lawyering culture festering with even more rules and policies. I think Wikipedia is better off explaining to contributors not merely a rule, but the principle behind the rule -- the principle is that we don't want to rip off content providers. We want Wikipedians to be sensitive to the fact that when we're making stuff free, we might possibly be injuring content providers who earn their living by creating valuable stuff. I suggest: help Wikipedians to be sensitive to this possibility. We don't want to kill off the sales opportunities of content providers or put people out of business. In my view, Wikipedia is better off encouraging quoting with attribution, specifying that "excessive" or "extensive" quoting is not permitted in those situations in which it might cause a content producer some visible economic hardship or infringe on their right to make money, but that we all need to exercise our good common sense. And we all need to be especially vigilant that if any content provider complains, then we should immediately respect that, and act accordingly to fix things.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 03:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
WP's mission is to present free content. We can include brief quotations, properly attributed, without violation of that, but when we start quoting any large block of text from copyrighted works, we are overstepping the bounds of what is now free content. It is not a legal or monetization issue, as the free content mission is more restrictive than either concept in US law. It is simply a matter of using small-enough sections as necessary to support the rest of the discussion.
If it's not a legal or monetization issue, then what kind of issue is it? A confusing issue? :) The ruling has to be based, somehow, on some kind of legal/monetary basis somehow, otherwise all content would be free. I'm trying to grasp the essence of the thinking behind the ruling here, and perhaps it eludes me; but "free content" and "restrictive" seem mutually restrictive. And I think you agree with me that judgment is required.-Tomwsulcer (talk) 18:14, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
To simplify, there are three legal aspects to consider: we have copyrighted works, we have block-quote text that comes from copyrighted works that would normally fall under US fair use laws, and we have content generated by users that have agreed to release works within CC-BY-SA/GFDL licenses. There is a certain amount of inclusion of copyrighted works, within the concept of fair, that we can include in text written under CC-BY-SA that does not cause the CC-BY-SA to fail or transform the original copyrighted work to CC-BY-SA, which is where we are justified in the inclusion of brief, attributed quotations. If we include too much of the original work, either we're transforming its more restrictive license (by US copyright law) into something less restrictive (unallowable), or we're diluting the CC-BY-SA with copyrighted material (unallowable) But that exact line in terms of quantity is so very very vague and certainly not spelled out in the CC/GFDL licenses or copyright law. As noted below, it is really a "know it when I see it" type of piece. --MASEM (t) 18:36, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm impressed you grasp the complexities involved. I doubt I ever will. And it's complicated. But I'll try to keep the quoting to a minimum. Thanks.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:39, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
The problem of course is that there's no bright line for when a brief quote becomes an extensive quote, and most likely will come down to a combination of several elements: exactly how long the quote is; the length of the original work (a para from a newspaper article is likely more unacceptable than a para from a full book); to what degree the quoted info supports the full article; and to what degree can some of the language in the quoted material be replaced with free content (WP editors' own interstitial words between core parts of the quote). It unfortunately a case of "I know it when I see it". I will say that most editor will balk when a quote is over a paragraph, but that's not to say a multi-paragraph quote is not allowed, just that we will scrutinize it more. Basically, learning to use longer quotes within the concept of free content is an art, and nothing can easily be written down to explain the bounds. --MASEM (t) 14:56, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
The Copyright Office presumes that the infringers it would let off the hook would be those who had made a "good faith, reasonably diligent" search for the copyright holder. Unfortunately, it is totally up to the infringer to decide if he has made a good faith search. Bad faith can be shown only if a rights holder finds out about the infringement and then goes to federal court to determine whether the infringer has failed to conduct an adequate search. Few artists can afford the costs of federal litigation: attorneys’ fees in our country vastly exceed the licencing fee for a typical painting or drawing. ... The Copyright Office proposal would have a disproportionately negative, even catastrophic, impact on the ability of painters and illustrators to make a living from selling copies of their work... It is deeply troubling that government should be considering taking away their principal means of making ends meet—their copyrights.[1]
”
But, according to the "No excessive quotations" rule, the extra-long quote, itself, violates a copyright rule. Does irony get any sweeter than this?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 17:04, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
It should be pointed out that every article is a work in progress and may not at all times conform to WP policies; the above article, being "start class" means that it likely hasn't been vetted at all to determine if that is the right length or not. The best examples to judge from are those that are featured articles, which have passed several editors' review including issues of copyright, excessive quotes, and the like. And to point out to my above comments: that passage, if it were from a book, likely wouldn't be considered excessive, but it is instead from an op-ed, suggesting it is a major chunk of the work, and thus is excessive here. Length alone is not a clear determination. --MASEM (t) 17:19, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
Non-free images on sandbox/userspace developing articles
Our policy on non-free images outside of article space is unequivocal, as we all know.
But, I routinely run across articles that are in someone's userspace, obviously under development, and contain non-free images. My typical reaction to this is that if the page hasn't been worked on for a couple of weeks, I'll comment out the offending image (example). But, if it's still undergoing recent work, I leave it alone (example).
I do this because I feel it user hostile to be gutting articles they are working on in userspace prior to pushing to article space. Nowadays, if you start an article in article space and it isn't fleshed out much, it almost definitely will get deleted before you have a chance to really develop it. That's very disheartening for a user, especially a new or newish user. I know some people tell the editors to first develop the article in userspace. But, then along comes someone who guts the non-free images from it while they are working on it. Uhg.
So, what I was thinking was developing a template that cautioned the user developing the article about non-free content and userspace, and which also placed the page in question into a category, such as Category:Userspace development articles with non-free content, and also have the template indicate a date beyond which non-free content would be removed or commented out.
I know some people are going to be upset about this idea, as it creates a (albeit temporary) exception to WP:NFCC #9. But, it is a middle way of encouraging developing content while keeping tabs on pages that are in violation of the policy so they can be cleared up later. There's benefit to the development user, and to the person who finds the page since it allows them to categorize the file for later easy finding. I've been finding a LOT of dead development articles with non-free content on them. I think this would be greatly reduced if we had a means of categorizing development articles that had non-free content.
I think that's a great idea. I have typically approached this situation much as you describe, and it would be good to have an organized way of dealing with those half-formed attempts which never become articles. (ESkog)(Talk)18:10, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Seems reasonable. Another part of me thinks that Wikipedia is growing even more complicated, but I sense you're trying to deal intelligently with the sometimes harshness of the rules, and the need to not be so rough on nooBs, so I applaud you for that, being mostly a nooB myself. I frankly am baffled by the rulings about pictures. My eyes glaze over trying to read the copyright levels; I've given up on trying to understand the different types, or situations. So when I develop articles in my userspace, I fetch relevant pictures from Wikimedia Commons. If it's there on the Commons, I assume it's okay to use on Wikipedia. This probably sounds simplistic to people who know more about the ins and outs. But that's how I approach it. And, if an image gets deleted from my userspace, I shrug my shoulders and fetch another. For me, the copyright areas are rule-city akin to the Federal tax code with perhaps only 80,000 pages, and I try to do my best to keep creating articles since I've given up on trying to understand highly complex rules.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 18:24, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
If they are really articles in the work, either inline the images or put a nowiki around it. But if the article is just not going anywhere, remove the images from the sandboxes or just comment them out. User:Zscout370(Return Fire)18:34, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Somewhat off track, but I was wondering: can regular readers see articles in development on my userspace? Is it possible for them to navigate there?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 18:38, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Kindof agree with Zscout370 here. There's no need to write this exception in - as having the images displayed in userspace isn't necessary to finish writing the prose. –xenotalk18:48, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
By inlining them, it affects layout. Further, it creates obstacles to the user finishing the article. I'm not suggesting we let these articles fester indefinitely. I'm suggesting a one or two week allowance to permit developers time to create the article relatively unfettered. We have precedent; we permit non-free, unused media to sit around for a week before it gets deleted. We permit unsourced non-free media to sit around for a week. We permit non-free media without a rationale to sit around for a week. What benefit does inlining the image bring to the project other than rigid adherence to the policy (which has less rigid adherence requirements in other categories)? Contrast; the benefit in allowing it is a less hostile editing environment, a means to track development articles and fix the policy violation readily if they do rot (hell, a bot could do it for us). --Hammersoft (talk) 20:13, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I was not aware (and just want to be sure) that inlining an image is effectively the same as using the image such that bots won't tag it as orphaned. I wonder if it is possible to create a template for user-space page editors that provides them with a mock free image and an inline call to their target image which can then be easily removed when the page is moved, eg:
{{mock|File:nonfree-picture.jpg|thumb|This is a picture}} can be easily changed to [[File:nonfree-picture.jpg|thumb|This is a picture]] when in main space. Just an idea here. --MASEM (t) 14:13, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm not loving this. Firstly, we have instruction creep and bureaucracy, secondly, we have a serious lapse in our policy. Placeholder images should be used if layout is important, but, as a draft writer myself, I don't upload non-free images until after I have moved the page to the mainspace. Finally, we have a new bot just starting up that removes non-free images from outside the mainspace, and these kind of "oh, it's ok here, because this is a DRAFT!" exceptions will preclude the use of the much-needed bot. J Milburn (talk) 15:55, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
As I noted above, the "serious lapse" in policy already basically exists in other ways for NFCC policy. Also, the bot can easily be trained to look for the template and see if the template has expired. I'm asking this to improve the user's experience in drafting articles. We should be assisting them in doing so, not walking in and slapping them with policies they do not understand when they've barely even started the article. --Hammersoft (talk) 22:46, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
There's no reason the layout has to be perfect before the article is place in main space. In fact, there is no reason the article has to be developed in user space at all; we still accept stubs. So if a user prefers to work on an article in their user space, that's fine, but one effect is that they will not be able to use non-free images until the move it to the main space. I don't see that this is a significant issue. Particularly, because "layout" is a very minor consideration for an article that is still being written; get the content right, and the layout can be fixed later. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:06, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
If the leitmotif in this discussion is improving the experience of serious editors/authors and encouragiing them to participate more and post clean, new creations to article space, perhaps a little less radical deletion without warning, and more WP:BEFORE, WP:CIVIL, and help, would be appropriate. Nothing is more exasperating than having to cleanup after lazy contributors, but more help is required for seriously motivated Wikipedians, particularly those who micromanage some of the tedious aspects of the encyclopedia, such as projects and newsletters in the hope of recruiting yet more, serious, contributors.--Kudpung (talk) 23:44, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Size restrictions when copyright does not require them
According to criterion 3.b, low-resolution images ought to be used rather than high-resolution ones, but Parliamentary copyright places no such restrictions, and following this I have uploaded full-resolution versions of File:House of Commons.jpg and File:Royal Robing Room, Palace of Westminster.jpg. Soon afterwards a notice appeared in the latter's page calling for a size reduction. Are we still required to use low-resolution versions, then, even if the copyright-holder doesn't seem to mind? And if so, how low should that resolution be? Waltham, The Duke of18:07, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
As low as possible- it's a judgement call. How low can you make this while it still illustrates the point? We use as little non-free material as possible, and if this content is not public domain or freely licensed, it is non-free, regardless of what the copyright holder "seems to mind". J Milburn (talk) 19:00, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
It's a fair point though. For material where we're not actually claiming fair use, rather we're using the material as licensed, but the license forbids derivative works, then who or what is served by reducing the resolution? "Reduce the resolution" is basically motivated by the relevant one of the four U.S. fair use factors. If we're not claiming fair use, it's really not helping anyone to reduce the resolution.
A second point is that, to comply with a "no derivative works" license, arguably we may have to present the work at its provided resolution, to comply as nearly as we can with the wishes of the copyright holder, and to prevent it being misrepresented.
Yeah, all valid points. Here are some thoughts in response. Firstly, when we start saying "ah, but we don't really need to reduce this" we start creating a sub-class- not "free", but "nearly free". This could potentially be very confusing, and kind of defeats the point of treating these images as non-free. Further, reducing the resolution aids reusers, who are using the work under a claim of fair use, and as we aim for our content to be reusable, this would be a positive. As for "not modifying in order to respect wishes", using that logic, using the image as a thumbnail would not be allowable, as in doing so, we display it as it was not originally used. Not a lawyer, so I couldn't really comment. In any case, we are effectively using the image under a claim of fair use anyway, so exactly what the license stipulates is not massively important. Equally, someone could copy onto their own website a piece of text licensed under the GFDL and not reprint the full text of the GFDL, but just claim to be using the text under fair use. Naturally, I agree that these are things to think about. J Milburn (talk) 23:26, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
Oh, dear, I had no idea how much of a minefield copyright law was. I've always avoided such discussions.
Now, I understand why the images must be resized, but I also believe that detail is of importance when it comes to interior decoration (especially of a style such as the one in question, Gothic), and the lack of restraints on the copyright-holder's part still stands, so... I think I've come to a perfect compromise: 800 pixels on the long side. It is exactly the size of the preview, so there is practically no difference on the file page—until one tries to click. (evil laugh)Waltham, The Duke of04:01, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Applicability of foreign FOP inside America
Our current consensus on the handling of images of architecture and artwork in countries with no or limited freedom of panorama is that we always look at the source country, which means that of course, every image of a modern building in say, France, can definitely not be on Commons, and can definitely not be called a free image on Wikipedia. But, I'm just wondering, our stance for PD images locally, unlike Commons, is that they just have to be PD in the US to be used here. I'm wondering if the same principle could be applied to FOP somehow. With this, I do not take a particular stance, I just put out a potential idea. ViperSnake151 Talk 21:10, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
If I remember correctly, FOP is still pretty patchy and limited even in the States / specifically Florida. But you're suggesting it might be a little more liberal than say France, and we could consider taking advantage of that? Jheald (talk) 21:53, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I was thinking that we could have an internal consensus for that, at least locally, kinda like PD-art and stuff. I consider, like everyone else, buildings to be a utilitarian product, and most of the time I do not see the designers running around and demanding royalties for the printing of photographs of them. With artwork, if there's no FOP, that is a bit more of an natural slippery slope. ViperSnake151 Talk 22:12, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
I think we'd have to consult a lawyer before we start making assumptions like this. The US uses the rule of the shorter term regarding PD images by age, meaning that if it is PD because of age in the source country, it can be considered PD in the US. However, I doubt any such equivilent exists with regards to FOP. Of course, I'm no lawyer, so I have no idea. J Milburn (talk) 23:16, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
Huh? I've always been under the impression that the US did not use the rule of the shorter term. Well there are caveats, works that where PD in the source country before 1996 are PD in the US as well because of the URAA, but the general rule is that in the US only the US copyright term apply regardless of the length of the term in the source country. --Sherool(talk)11:39, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't see any objection in principle to allowing these as "free-U.S.", if that's what U.S. law provides (and I suspect it may very well be the case that U.S. courts would apply U.S. standards, cf Bridgeman vs Corel or copyright terms per Sherool above). Can I suggest letting the discussion here run for a few more days, and then, if nobody objects, to ask Wikipedia's legal people? If they advise us that these images are safe under U.S. law, then we could approve an appropriate "foreign panorama" + "free-U.S." + "do not upload to Commons" template to cover them. Jheald (talk) 11:48, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Well, I disagree- if the legal people say "yeah, it's legit" then we can discuss the possibility of stepping away from Commons further with regards to our definition of free, not just automatically assume that we will. Obviously, that's a perfectly valid topic for discussion. (And Sherool, you're probably right, which means that there is a potential issue with any image just casually tagged as {{PD-India}} or something similar- it will have to be ascertained whether the image is also free in the US before it can be considered free by Wikipedia...) J Milburn (talk) 18:47, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
I'd agree with J Milburn. This would a very significant change. Won't ever happen anyway. Bridgeman vs Corel is almost certainly not helpful here as US FoP at its simplest covers 3d objects like buildings. Look at Godwin's response on whether it applied to very-nearly-2d objects such as coins, seen at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content/Archive 25#Photographs of ancient coins. Anything you'd want to take a free picture of, but couldn't due to it being in a non-FoP jurisdiction, the URAA would stop you anyway most times. And we - unlike Commons - do not have Template:Not-PD-US-URAA. Angus McLellan(Talk)00:33, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Just to clarify my reference to Bridgeman vs Corel: I didn't mean that Bridgeman vs Corel applied directly; rather, I was citing it as an example of U.S. courts' tendency to apply U.S. standards to what might or what might not be copyrightable, regardless of where the picture was taken. The URAA is a red herring -- we're not talking about images being non-copyrightable (and subsequently having their copyright restored) because of a failure to comply with U.S. formalities; rather we're talking about particular claimed rights in an image simply not being recognised/accepted by U.S. or relevant state law. That's why I think ViperSnake's instincts on the legal position may well be sound, though this is definitely an issue where we would need proper counsel's opinion, rather than our own best efforts. Jheald (talk) 00:46, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
If you do ask, best be sure to ask all of the questions. If section 120 may take precedence over the law in the jurisdiction where the work in question is sited, shouldn't we also be asking the same question about sections 113, 106A, and the others which may inconvenience us? Should Florida personality rights law, whatever it may say, apply to all pictures of people living and recently dead? No doubt someone legally-minded could come up with other questions that would want asking at the same time. It's unlikely that all of the answers would be things we'd want to hear. Angus McLellan(Talk)02:23, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't think I see the problem. En-wiki's policies and practices have always been developed against a background of U.S./Florida law. It's been taken into consideration from day one.
Section 106A/113 is simply the U.S. implementation of Moral rights, as mandated by the Berne convention. We take account of it by getting uploaders to actively declare that they renounce their rights to prohibit derivative works. This is possible in U.S. law, because U.S. law is actually one of the weaker implementations of moral rights -- in French law moral rights cannot be irretrievably waived, the creator can demand they they be respected no matter what they have previously said. So I'm not sure why you think we might have a particular issue with U.S. law here.
As for Personality rights in Florida, Florida law provides that these come into play only if images are used "for purposes of trade or for any commercial or advertising purpose", and disclaims any applicability for "publication as part of any bona fide... presentation having a current and legitimate public interest and where such name or likeness is not used for advertising purposes". A similar view has also been taken by a variety of state and federal courts on First Amendment grounds. In some respects the position is very similar to trademarks: we can't use somebody's image to promote ourselves, nor can we slap it all over a a range of tea-towels or similar merchandise. But it's legitimate to use the images on a purely factual level in encyclopedia articles -- both for us, and for our downstream reusers. That's why Commons accepts such images, but warns with :commons:Template:Publicity Rights that there could be problems with some uses; just as we accept trademarked logos, but warn with {{Trademark}} that there could be problems with some uses. Jheald (talk) 14:58, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, currently our stance is quite, inconsistent. We've been recently tagging photos of buildings in France as non-free (which by this precedent, "should" be free), and yet we accept foreign FOP for artwork even though there's no FOP for artwork in the US. Certainly bizzaro if you ask me. ViperSnake151 Talk 02:07, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
No, we don't. We accept foreign scans of public domain works as public domain, regardless of the desires of the scanner. With regards to FOP, our current practice is that it is down to the source country as to what to accept. Where's the inconsistency? J Milburn (talk) 02:13, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Cover art
This may be a stupid question, but what does the following statement mean?
"Cover art: Cover art from various items, for identification only in the context of critical commentary of that item (not for identification without critical commentary)."
The cover. However, we make an exception with regards to the article on the book/album/magazine/whatever itself, and say that if it's notable enough for its own article, the cover is a useful addition. J Milburn (talk) 13:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
No, the item (book, video, dvd, album). Read the statement again. People on this page have a tendency to stretch the NFC guideline to fit their own purposes.Lumdeloo (talk) 13:20, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Correct, the item. Just as the statement reads. If we meant to limit the applicable critical commentary to the cover itself, the statement would read "in the context of critical commentary of that cover". But it does not. DocKino (talk) 13:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Well then the statement needs to be removed or rephrased. Just because I discuss a book, does not mean at all that the cover of the book would be a useful addition to the article, otherwise author, musician etc articles would be plastered with non-free content. However, if the cover is discussed, that is an indication that showing the cover would be useful. J Milburn (talk) 13:29, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
It depends how extensive the discussion of the item is, and to what extent it is discussed elsewhere. If the section represents our primary coverage of the work, and there is not extensive coverage elsewhere (notably, it does not have its own article), then it is entirely reasonable to cover the box art there -- and our policy reflects that. Jheald (talk) 20:22, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
So non-free covers should be used for identification, even if the cover doesn't increase readers' understanding of the topic? Theleftorium20:02, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
At the moment, the general consensus is that a single identifying cover image be used on an article about the book/album/whatever, as it automatically does increase reader understanding. It's not particularly consistent with our non-free content criteria generally, but it's the way it is. J Milburn (talk) 20:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
(ec) The thinking is that, in general, showing the cover that was the significant identifying image of the work does represent a significant piece of understanding about it -- even if the cover is not discussed. Compare for example Bill Graham Archives vs. Dorling Kindersley, which was an important touchstone in the discussion when NFCC #8 was adopted into its final form. Jheald (talk) 20:22, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Incidentally common consensus is that, in appropriate cases, this can and does apply to more that just a "single" identifying image. Jheald (talk) 20:22, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Just noting "alternate album covers" -- that when a alternate record cover looks quite unlike the first, and represents in its own right a significant release, then that has also generally been upheld as informative and appropriate, eg at IFD.
Jheald wrote: "If the section represents our primary coverage of the work, and there is not extensive coverage elsewhere (notably, it does not have its own article), then it is entirely reasonable to cover the box art there -- and our policy reflects that." In the meantime people like Hammersoft and J Milburn are demanding that editors chop up their article covering multiple (notable!) works or they delete the cover art of those works, just because they don't have their own article (see the discussion on top of this page: Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content#.22Iconic.22_cover_art. And they claim this is according to policy as well... Lumdeloo (talk) 14:02, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes? As was said, the "identifying cover image" argument applies to articles on the work. It's not ok to extend that and say "oh, I know it's an exception to the rule, but it also applies to XYZ for some reason". J Milburn (talk) 14:08, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
I think what needs to be brought to the discussion, which may so far have been missing, is the awareness that a single article may be our preferred venue for covering several topics, despite having only the one article-title. As WP:MERGE puts it "there does not need to be a separate entry for every concept in the universe": related subjects with large overlap may best be taken together.
It may be worth noting that "Section" -- ie use of the artwork to show identifying cover art in a section of an article devoted to the work in question -- used to be one of the standard zero-controversy rationale options at Template:Album cover fur created by the copyright lawyer User:Wikidemon, until User:J Milburn took it upon himself to remove it in July 2009. That suppression looks more than a little questionable to me. Jheald (talk) 17:01, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
It makes perfect sense to me that if an image is fair use in an article about the album, that it would still be fair use if that article were to be merged into another article as a section about the album, but you may wish to read this discussion where one or two editors' own interpretation of the guideline suggested otherwise. If the change was made without consensus it should be changed back.--Michig (talk) 17:08, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Unless I am misunderstanding what you are all saying, you claim that the use of album covers in an artist articles (or book covers in author, etc) alongside sourced discussion of said album (or book, or whatever) is perfectly legitimate? J Milburn (talk) 18:12, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't think anyone has put in exactly those terms. An album cover can be fairly use in an article specifically about that album, and I think what is suggested is that if no separate article exists specifically about the album, then it can be fairly used in a section within another article if that section is specifically about the album and discusses the album in significant detail (i.e. not just a mention in an artist/band article, and not as decoration within a discography).--Michig (talk) 18:29, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
So you're suggesting that whether the use of an image in an article meets our non-free use criteria depends on the existence of another article? How is this view at all consistent with our non-free content criteria? Either an image significantly increases reader understanding of a topic, or it doesn't. It can't significantly increase reader understanding of a topic if another article happens to not exist. J Milburn (talk) 18:33, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
We should only have one article that discusses each topic in any great detail. In the case of an album, if an article exists specifically about that album, that's where the detail should be and that's where the image would be appropriate. If no separate article exists, it may be appropriate to include substantial coverage in a 'parent' article, and in that case an image would be appropriate. This is consistent with our policies. Disallowing cover art in a section of an article but then saying it's ok if that section is moved out into a separate article isn't consistent full stop.--Michig (talk) 18:46, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
This view shows a clear misunderstanding of the way articles work. To take the artist/album discussion, the artist article should only ever discuss the album to the extent that it is important to the artist's career/life, and the album cover is rarely going to be important there. Again, whether an article about the album exists should not determine what should be included in the artist article. J Milburn (talk) 19:04, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Hmm, so if someone doesn't agree with you it "shows a clear misunderstanding"? I have plenty of article experience in this area, and plenty of album articles get merged into artist/band articles as a result of AFD discussions, merge proposals, etc. Several artists/bands were shortlived and only produced a single album, or only existed for the purpose of recording a one-off album. It is entirely appropriate in these cases to cover the artist and the album in a single article, and I see no reason why an image of the album cover could not be fairly used there.--Michig (talk) 19:10, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
In these cases, if the album is the artist's only notability, yes, most of the information about the album should be included in the artist's article. This is true regardless of whether an article on the album exists. J Milburn (talk) 19:27, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
J Milburn is mixing up two things. Michig doesn't say that the existence of an album article determines whether you can use a non-free image of the cover art in the artist article. He merely describes a situation in which an album is discussed in detail within the artist page, because that made more sense than creating or maintaining a separate article for that album. But honestly, I wouldn't know how to explain this to someone who - when others point out to him that the NFC guideline states the opposite of what he is stating (see the start of this discussion) - says that in that case that section in the guideline has to be removed or rephrased(!?). Well, that will solve the discrepancy between his opinion and the actual guideline for sure! Frankly, J Milburn, it would be the best thing for you to do: propose a change to the guideline in this respect and see how much consensus there is for your point of view. But for now, it still says "Cover art: Cover art from various items, for identification only in the context of critical commentary of that item (not for identification without critical commentary)." This is our guideline, when determining fair use of cover art pictures, in a separate album article, an artist article or an article describing multiple works. So please, stop acting like it is an exception to some other (non-existent) guideline. @Jheald: would you care to explain what your interpretation of "critical commentary" is? A stub article on an album/dvd/book/etc. doesn't usually offer what I would call extensive critical commentary on that work, yet no one seems to take the use of a non-free front cover picture there as a violation of NFC policy or guideline.Lumdeloo (talk) 19:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Critical commentary is a legal term of art, which is found in legal discussion of U.S. Fair Use law. It essentially is shorthand for 15 USC 107, which provides that fair use is for "purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research"
My understanding is that as we use it, it basically means that there has been a real attempt to cover a topic in an encyclopedic way, either at greater or lesser detail. Careful analysis of the work, or serious commentary on it certainly qualify, though the bar may not be as high as that. One thing the term does not necessarily require is "criticism" in the narrow sense of just statements about whether the work is any good or not. A bare track listing with release dates and chart positions is borderline, but I think probably does just about scrape over the bar as "scholarship", given that it's part of a wider serious systematic presentation of such material.
If you look back through the archives here (or search them), you'll find it's a question we've come back to again and again. But in the end attempts to replace it, or even define it in the policy page, have each time so far failed - principally (I think) for not quite bringing with them the full sense of the reference to U.S. law. A better starting point on the term may be the contributions of User:Wikidemo, eg here and here; but the discussion has come back a lot of times since. Jheald (talk) 21:54, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Incidentally, wrt something J.Milburn wrote above, if a separate article already exists on the item, I suspect that that would more likely lead to a challenge under NFCC#3a, rather than a change in the NFCC#8 analysis. I'm sure there are circumstances when the additional use of an image has been found to be justified; but in general in the example above for the album cover, I think we would defer it to the specific article on the album, unless there was a particular benefit in having it in the second article as well (eg if the second article were specifically presenting the evolution of the band's cover art style, rather than just presenting them as the identifying images for the album... ) Jheald (talk) 22:17, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
I have no interest in continuing this discussion while Lumeloo continues to make ridiculous posts as above. Theleftorium, if you're even still watching, I have explained where policy and consensus stand on this issue, and Jheald has offered some helpful insights. Most of the rest is drivel, and I would ignore it if I were you. J Milburn (talk) 23:48, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
J Milburn, "thank you" for your message on my userpage. No, I'm not ignorant of NFC criteria or guidelines, unable to read or a troll, like you suggest, and I don't appreciate your threat to block me if I don't "take a backseat on further non-free content issues". The only positive thing is your offer to explain the problems (with my point of view, ridiculous as it may be). Please do, on this page, so everyone can read it. In a nutshell, I'm saying accepted use as described in "Cover art: Cover art from various items, for identification only in the context of critical commentary of that item (not for identification without critical commentary)." is not an exception which only goes for articles covering a single work, but it also goes for article sections which describe a work in detail." Please explain precisely what is wrong with that statement, with reference to NFC criteria and guideline. Lumdeloo (talk) 17:33, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
In general it is very difficult for cover art to meet WP:NFCC#8, but as a principle we accept cover art of an item on the article directly about that item, even if it is not obvious that such cover art significantly enhances reader understanding of the item. For most albums and books, it is not obvious that the cover art enhances reader understanding at all, because most albums and books have very generic cover art. For example, knowing the cover art of the most recent Tom Waits album does not at all help me understand the music on the album. Nevertheless, the general principle is that this use of an album cover image is OK.
However, if we are talking about a single section of a larger article, then the tests at WP:NFCC#8 (and WP:NFCC#1) become much more relevant, because then the item is not even the main subject of the article, it is only a secondary subject of the article. So then it makes a difference whether the cover itself is of encyclopedia interest. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:28, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply. So point 1 of WP:NFCI is an exception to a more general rule which says that in order to pass WP:NFCC#8 the image (in this case the cover art) itself has to be discussed. And, this exception only goes for articles that discuss a single work (album, single, book, DVD, game etc). Is this correct? Lumdeloo (talk) 23:06, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
My personal understanding of acceptable practice is that an article directly about a work can use the cover art of that work "for identification". For other uses of cover art, the usual NFCC analysis applies on a case by case basis. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:18, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
That I think is a good description of the present situation, but as, at least to myself, shows the inherent bias in the system against articles that are more than just lists but instead well-assembled groupings of small, well-sourced section with critical commentary. This either needs us to recognize that we do allow for "infobox images for indentification" where there is no apparent direct discussion of the infobox image but other enough critical commentary about the work the image represents to allow it; or that we allow way too much in this approach and need to cut back and only include such images when they are relevant. (a point that I am pretty positive will be met with a lot of internal editor resistance)
Again, we are not talking about a diskography article that for a number of albums, simply reports release dates, publishers, and track lists and that attempts no further analysis of the works. We're talking about articles where clearly each article section could be its own article (and thus per presently, would each have their own infobox image), but that the editor for some reason believes it better covered in one (maybe this set of works are interconnected over several years, and the critical commentary for each work shows a reflection back on the previous albums in the series; thus splitting them up would likely cause the reader to have to read each album article simultaneously with the others to gain the same knowledge.) It seems to be common sense that says "Well, if section X would normally be its own article, then should be able to have an identification image we'd normally allow for such articles while as a subsection of a larger one".
Now, I am well aware this can be opening a can of worms for image abuse. Lists of characters or tv episodes, for one, where the individual topics are not notable on their own, have the potential to be flooded with images if this is taken too far. Thus, the common sense part comes into play again: that is, we're looking for critical commentary from sources to support that item, instead of just repeating primary source information. (Critical commentary from secondary sources being a form of notability, and thus a means to substantiate an article). If there's no critical commentary from sources about the individual element, then no infobox image is appropriate. It's not a super bright light, but it's far from fuzzy. --MASEM (t) 23:58, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
In reply to CBM's comment, there is a major problem with this explanation of NFC policy/guideline: there is no text that supports it. Nowhere does it say that point 1 of WP:NFCI is an exception to NFC policy, instead of an example of acceptable use according to policy (which is what it definitely DOES suggest). Even worse, the whole distinction between articles directly about a single work and other uses, which would be crucial in understanding this particular explanation of this guideline, is missing completely.
But, some of you would perhaps argue, if we take WP:NFCI as it is (which we should, until there is sufficient consensus to change it), it would be in contradiction with WP:NFCC#8. I would disagree. First of all, being able to identify a work is a first necessity in order to understand the critical commentary about it. I (and I'm not the only one), primarily identify albums, dvds and such by their front cover. After all, it is what I see (and afterwards remember) when I visit (online or real) music stores, when I read articles about it in magazines, when I see advertisements on tv, on billboards etc. Ironically, the need for identifying a work by its front cover only increases when multiple works are presented in a single article, which for instance would cover several notable but simarly titled compilation albums by a certain artist. My understanding of the topic is definitely improved by the inclusion of the front cover there.
Secondly, after identifying what the text is about, being able to see the front cover in itself also significantly increases my understanding of the topic. It tells me how the work was presented to the general public at the time of the release. Did it have a very cheap looking front cover or very classy, did they use a recent or old picture of the artist, how was he or she presented or wasn't the artist depicted at all, did the cover have an relation to the title of the work, does it resemble front covers of other albums by that artist etc. etc.
I have noticed that some editors (probably not even on purpose) change the exact wording of WP:NFCC#8 (significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic) into something like "significantly increase readers' understanding of the article subject. If that were the case, I would agree that including front cover pictures in an artist article was against policy. However, it says topic and this can refer to the topic of an article or an article section. Other change it to "significantly increase readers' understanding of the written article" or even "if you can understand the article without the front cover, then the front cover doesn't meet WP:NFCC#8". If this were the case, I would agree that critical commentary on the cover itself is probably required. This misunderstanding sometimes leads to the strange situation in which editors do their best to describe the front cover in detail in order to be able to include it.
Others limit its meaning by saying that the image has to increase understanding of the music on an album. Again, this cannot be found in policy or guidelines and again, this makes perfect sense to me. All sort of details about the recording and the release of the album, chart info etc. which are usually included do not improve my understanding of the music either, nor do they - in most cases - form the most notable part of the album, but it would be very strange to delete that information for that reason.
In short, and with all due respect, I cannot find support in NFC policy/guidelines for the statements made by J Milburn and Carl. It seems to be entirely reasonable to include cover art in artist articles or articles about multiple works, but only in the context of critical commentary of those works (not for identification without critical commentary), and our current policy reflects that.
I can appreciate other editors who want stricter rules, leading to less non-free images, and which are easier to uphold. But they will have to reach consensus first and then change policy or guidelines accordingly. From my point of view, the proposal made by Masem, is stricter than the current policy and I am willing to support it and actively participate in reducing non-free content if it is accepted as modified guideline.Lumdeloo (talk) 15:20, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Within the entire set of Wikipedia contributors, there is guaranteed to be a subset of editors who are literalistic. Please understand that is not an insult. There are plenty of politicians who exercise the same philosophy. It's part of human nature, as a whole, for a subset of humans to be literalist. It's no more right or wrong than any other philosophy. Lumdeloo, I believe you are a literalist. In this case, we're seeing from you that if it's not explicitly forbidden in policy/guideline, then it is acceptable. I know you don't believe me, or anyone else who has disagreed with you on this point. But, you are wrong. It might not be expressed word for word, letter for letter, in our policies and guidelines, but the common practice is intolerance for cover art in discographies, videographies, and bibliographies. Go through the entire project, and you will be very hard pressed to find a single instance of an article in one of those categories that has cover art sprinkled through it. I just went through Category:Videographies and not one has cover art on it If you find one in the other categories, the cover art is present only because someone hasn't come along and removed them. This has been extensively, extensively argued before, long before you became concerned about the removal of cover art from Glen Campbell videos. The principal spirit of the policy is to limit non-free images as much as possible without compromising our mission. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:58, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
So now I'm a literallist. And what is your proof? According to you I say "if it's not explicitly forbidden in policy/guideline, then it is acceptable". Sadly, it's the other way around. It's explictly allowed to use front cover images in the context of critical commentary. However, when the image doesn't meet your own additional guideline, saying this only goes for articles directly about a single work (which for some reason never made it into policy/guideline), you delete the image and claim you're acting according to official policy. And that's what's unacceptable to me.
I'm glad you brought up discographies again. I forgot to address that in my previous post. I went through Category:Videographies and some of Category:Discographies too. Somehow you fail to see the difference between those pages and a page like Music_of_Final_Fantasy_VIII (or my own pitiful attempt Glen Campbell videos). Yet it's crucial: the discography pages don't have any *critical commentary* on the albums or singles. Which is of course precisely why the NFC guideline says that front cover images are not acceptable in discographies. However, claiming that a page which describes more than one album in detail is a discography too and therefore cannot have any cover art included doesn't make any sense (and makes you even a worse literallist than me). This false interpretation would also create an unnecessary inconsistency in the NFC guideline (acceptable because it is in the context of critical commentary, but not acceptable because it's a discography). However, for those who understand that we don't allow cover art in discographies, because discographies by definition lack critical commentary on the releases listed, the NFC guideline is perfectly consistent in this respect.
Could the NFC guideline be more explicit about the required amount and nature of critical commentary to allow for cover art? Yes it certainly could. But we need to discuss this first and then change the guideline accordingly, not use our own personal guidelines. It's the best way to preserve the principal spirit of NFC policy and to gain widespread support for it. Lumdeloo (talk) 14:05, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm going to say this once more, and drop it. You've been trying to get your pet article images restored for months now. It isn't going to happen. Multiple people have told you how it is on this project. Multiple people have shown you to be wrong. You don't seem to care. Fine. I don't care you don't care. Go ahead and restore the images to the article. You will find it in quick order that you will be reverted, and the images stripped again. If you insist on trying to edit war to push them in, you will find yourself blocked. If after the block expires, you continue to edit war them back on, you will be blocked for a longer period. And etc. etc. etc. You seem to think your reading of policy is the only correct reading, and anyone who disagrees with you has to get consensus to overwhelm your reading of policy. I can assure you that you are categorically wrong. Your move. If you want to get blocked, then by all means continue proceeding as if policy is with you. Go ahead. <sits back and pops some popcorn...this should be fun> --Hammersoft (talk) 20:33, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
OK, final comments from me too then. Multiple people have shown me to be wrong? Well, at least multiple people have threatened to block me, I give you that. You probably want to suggest I'm just a single stubborn newcomer against multiple people who know better. However, there are "multiple people" that disagree with your interpretation of NFC policy and not just in this particular thread. It only takes a few minutes to find recent similar discussions in the archive [9], [10], [11],[12], [13]. And no, it's not just newcomers that don't agree with your interpretation, it's experienced editors - dedicated to NFC policy - as well. The content of discussions like these show clearly there is no consensus on this particular subject, to say the least. This will continue to be the case until the issue is dealt with in a proper way.
I'm afraid it wouldn't surprise me if you have a few administrator buddies who are willing to help you block me, when I restore (some of) the pictures in my article. Eventually though, independent administrators will recognize the difference between vandalism and a dispute regarding policy. I hope you don't choke on your popcorn. Lumdeloo (talk) 20:23, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
Resolved
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