Wikipedia talk:Fair use/Fair use images in lists/Archive 1

Personal thoughts

Being bold, I decided to make the first post. Summarizing, images are good, but within a context which is not found in, at least, most lists. I would like to comment the For arguments one at a time, based on experiences with some episode lists.

Screenshots of television shows which are released for promotional purposes are more likely to be fair use, especially low-resolution screenshots.

I would like to point that the copyright holder is explicitely stating images can't be used. In example, the first image in the List of Lost episodes, Image:Lost101.jpg, has been picked from here. The Terms of use of the site clearly states that:

No material from any WDIG Site or any Internet site owned, operated, licensed, or controlled by us may be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted, or distributed in any way, except that you may download one copy of the materials on any single computer for your personal, noncommercial home use only, provided that (i) you keep intact all copyright and other proprietary notices, (ii) you make no modifications to the materials, (iii) you do not use the materials in a manner that suggests an association with any of our products, services, or brands, and (iv) you do not download quantities of materials to a database that can be used to avoid future downloads from any WDIG Site. The use of any WDIG material on any other Web site or computer environment is prohibited.

Note that even if the Fair use claim is stronger than the copyright holder statement, it doesn't mean (for me) that screenshots can be used. As I will explain below, there are a few other reasons which lead me to think that images in lists are not needed.

Many lists, including featured lists, currently use fair use images.

The fifth point of the featured list criteria states that:

Have images where appropriate, with good captions and acceptable copyright status. However, a list does not have to have a picture to be featured.

According to this, I would like to believe a featured list with images that has its images removed won't lose its featured status. I also remind that a number of featured lists don't use images at all without losing importance.

Most if not all images comply with the current fair use criteria, are tagged with relevant templates (such as {{DVDcover}} or {{tv-screenshot}}) and provide a rationale on their description page.

The {{Tv-screenshot}} clearly states that:

It is believed that the use of a limited number of web-resolution screenshots
* for identification and critical commentary on the station ID or program and its contents

There are two "keyphrases" here. The first one, limited number, implies that after a determined amount we pass from limited to exaggerated (or another adjective you may choose). As I don't think that magic number is set anywhere, I believe it is left to the users to discover it based on their own experiences. For me, that number is about one image every 10kb of text, which is not fulfilled by lists.

The second keyphrase is even more important, for identification and critical commentary on the station ID or program and its contents. This sentence has an 1 AND 2 logical structure, where 1 and 2 must be TRUE to make the sentence a truth. The first part, for identification and critical commentary on the station ID or program, has a (1 AND 2) AND (3 OR 4) structure. Obviously, screenshots from TV and DVD covers fulfill the 4 part (or program). It is with the first part, identification and critical commentary which brings my doubts. I (and others, probably) may question whether a single frame out of 23/30 per second is enough to identify an episode. It is possible some can, and some others can't, so I will be flexible here. However, I don't believe lists use screenshots for critical commentary, as the usually 3-4 sentences summary covers the plot of the episode, which may not be represented by the chosen screenshot. In example, at the List of Lost episodes, #32, The first 48 days after the crash are recalled from the point of view of the tail section survivors. The tailies are getting close to the fuselage camp. How is Image:LOST207.jpg supposed to represent that summary? In this case, it is probable that the image fails both identification and critical commentary.

In the DVD covers case, the {{DVDcover}} template states that the images must be used to illustrate the DVD in question. I believe the Fair use criteria for DVD covers is "much simpler" to fulfill than the criteria for screenshots. In this case, the images are used only to "illustrate", not for "critical comment". That is why I believe List of Oh My Goddess episodes is correctly using Fair use images, but List of Lost episodes isn't. I have mentioned this "differentiation" between episode screenshots and DVD covers previously at the talk page of the Fair use page.[1]

Images contribute significantly to the quality and visual appeal of lists, in a way that text cannot.

That is true. A list with images is visually more appealing to a casual user than a plain text one. However, that is basically a violation of the eighth Fair use criteria, which states:

The material must contribute significantly to the article (e.g. identify the subject of an article, or specifically illustrate relevant points or sections within the text) and must not serve a purely decorative purpose.

Going back to my previous point, I believe most of these lists are not using most screenshots to identify the episode, thus they only visually enhance significantly to the quality, per my above example about Image:LOST207.jpg.

I point again that this does not mean I do not want images in lists at all. As I stated, Wikipedia fair use criteria virtually allows DVD covers in lists, or any promotional material (where the threshold for inclusion is that it is used to illustrate, not critical comment) or other (like an screenshot if the episode summary does a critical comment about it). Unluckily, at this moments lists seems to use them only as decoration. -- ReyBrujo 07:24, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I was a bit worried about the wording on some of the points. I think what this issue is trying to resolve is ANY use of one-screenshot per episode on a list of episodes. I know that most lists are using images because "some other article did it" and because it looks good, which is not fair use rational, but I don't think it is fair to restrict those lists that do take the time to carefully choose images for identification, and not for decoration. Depending on the nature of the show, and the nature of the screenshot, I believe it can go either way. I don't think that we should ban something from use because it can be used the wrong way. How would you feel about the creation of greater restrictions that could still allow a one-screenshot per episode entry on a list?-- Ned Scott 07:59, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

To convert an article into a Good article, someone must check the article to see if it is following some guidelines and conventions. To convert an article into a Featured one, a group of people must analyze it to see if it fulfills with some more guidelines and conventions. Thus, we already have certain groups of members who decide when an article is following some guidelines. The same way, when someone tags an image as orphaned, with a wrong license or without source, someone must check if the tag has been correctly put before deleting it. Adding a group that checks screenshots to see if they fulfill requirements of Fair use could allow lists to keep/get images while fulfilling with the criteria. I repeat, I am not against having images if they fulfill some requirements that, from what I have seen and explained in the previous points, currently are not being respected. -- ReyBrujo 17:08, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of an approvals group for fair use images. Just as editors are asked to make a fair use rational on image summary pages, editors could write a fair use rational for the article itself and then get that approved or not, before adding images. -- Ned Scott 08:34, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe some screenshots need replacing to 100% comply, but removing the images compromises the integrity of the page, screenshots help identify the episode as well. Matthew Fenton (contribs) 09:25, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I identify two "integrities": layout and information integrity. The layout integrity may be compromised, as some lists may have been built around images (which may demonstrate that, in that case, the article is focusing on screenshots rather than information). However, I must point out that other Wikipedias don't allow Fair use images at all, only free ones. And I don't think the information integrity, the one I believe it is a bit more important, would be compromised without screenshots. I do not think an article in the german Wikipedia has less quality than one in the english one because it has less screenshots, especially if those images are used only as decoration. As for identification, I thought: how can a casual user recognize an episode by seeing one frame out of (in example) 67,500 frames that are seen in a 45' episode at 25 frames per second? How can we choose the right frame that would identify for both fans and casual users the episode? As I said, I am not against keeping images if they fulfill Fair use requirements. I would think, if the screenshot has the chapter information (in example, after the opening there is a black screen with white words with the episode number and title), and you explain that it is the opening screen of the *th episode, written by <someone>, directed by <someone else> and opening art by <a third someone>, it may qualify as Fair use as you are using it to identify the episode and to critically comment about the opening screen. Sure, it may not be as "nice" as having a screenshot showing some action, but at least it may fulfill the points the others (at least for me, as I said) don't. -- ReyBrujo 17:08, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd have to disagree with that. The value being placed on an image for identification might not seem high to some, but others will disagree. Yes, we can have a list that does most of what it should do without images. Most, if not all, fair use images could be removed from Wikipedia without those articles being useless. Someone could say "it sure would be nice to have a diagram that shows what this guy is talking about." The value of an image, especially in something like a TV show that is almost completely visual in nature, can be very high.

TV show articles usually tell you how many episodes aired, when they aired, and the general idea and plot of the show. So why do we have List of episodes articles? Why does the reader wish to find a specific title or identify an episode, or read a short summary? Not everyone will value every article the same, and how useful an article might be to some will be different from others. Myself, I've found that screenshots on many (not all, but many) List of episodes articles have been extremely helpful in identifying an episode. This doesn't just apply to fictional TV shows, but non fictional, educational TV shows, news reports and stories, and other such shows as well. Maybe if articles had to make an over all fair use rational, why that show needs fair use images for its list, that might help this issue. -- Ned Scott 19:07, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

No need

• There's simply no need for any fair-use images in lists. Lists do not provide critical commentary, least of all on the specific scene shown by the screenshot. They should all be removed without exception. User:Angr 09:41, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

That is where I don't agree, as I stated above. The Fair use claim that appears in the {{DVDcover}} template requests that the image must be used to "illustrate" only, not for critical comment. I suggest changing the wording of the template for one similar to the {{tv-screenshot}} to achieve this effect, otherwise they should be covered according to that template. -- ReyBrujo 17:08, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

(This is directed at Angr's comments) You say that lists 'do not provide critical commentary', however, there is nowhere in WP:FUC that says an article must provide critical commentary for images used to be classified as fair use. --Temers _contrib ^talk 19:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

That's more of a list vs article debate. I think a pure list, one that doesn't have summaries or useful notes, is a "list", while articles such as List of Lost episodes is an article in a list format. Also, I think Temers has a point, since both sides can agree on the template messages for images being misleading. This really should be about what WP:FU and WP:FUC says. -- Ned Scott 19:07, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

• I largely agree with Angr. We could go 'round and 'round with whether or not DVD covers, screenshots, etc. are just decoration or not, but what really leads me to think this usage should be gotten rid of is the fact that the situation now is that many of our List of... "articles" aren't freely-reusable for what seems to be little or no benefit. Jkelly 22:19, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

• Agree with Jkelly. I think we need to guide our users toward Wikipedia's and the Foundation's main mission of gathering free images. Up front we know that fair use images are time-consuming and prone to error. We need to tighten WP policies and guidelines to eliminate fair use unless the benefits are clear. --FloNight ^talk 23:12, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

• Agreed. Fair use has always been a last resort and this is not a situation where we desperately need images, but instead, somewhere where we might get away with it. ed g2s • talk 00:02, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

• I agree. See also my comments below about purpose - lists almost always do not provide critical commentary, as Angr said, nor do they satisfy any other purpose. I would suggest that with the exception of lists which have so much detail that they can properly be said to fulfil such a purpose, we should ban all fair use images on lists. --bainer (talk) 02:29, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

• I disagree, In your opinion: Lists do not provide critical commentary; in my opinion: The lists do provide critical commentary. Matthew Fenton (contribs) 07:51, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

• Perhaps you could explain exactly how one-sentence episode summaries can possibly constitute criticism, or commentary, or news reporting, or another of the valid fair use purposes? --bainer (talk) 07:56, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

• Identification of the subject(s) of the article. Identification is a given example of proper fair use in WP:FUC. -- Ned Scott 08:10, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

• ...so they don't provide critical commentary. Also that one screenshot can identify a whole episode is arguable, whichever frame you choose. ed g2s • talk 11:28, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
• Ned, see my comments below (under "purpose") as to how the use of "identification" in WP:FUC is not clear. Also, note that I am referring to the established categories of fair use at law, which is of course what is determinative. --bainer (talk) 14:53, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

• I disagree, a blanket ban on "lists" is too broad and undefined. How do we define list? Is it all in the title, and if so, what would be done for articles that just re-named or were never named "list of" in the first place? And as I've said before, there's a list, then there's an article in list form. Rather, how about something useful, like define critical commentary in WP:FUC, then we might get somewhere. As it stands now, no definition or method of judgement is given, and it is only asked that the contributing editor use their own best judgement. The policy also does not comment on what to do about when two editors disagree on this judgement. As it stands now, even if anti-image editors feel it's silly, the policy does not ban the images in this use. If you wish to remove them then change the policy. -- Ned Scott 08:10, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
• I absolutely and whole-heartedly agree; lists by their very nature aren't suitable places for critical commentary (though if you do have such items, it's less a list and more an over-view article, something where it would possibly be appropriate). James F. (talk) 18:09, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
• A little late on the discussion, but I agree, Fair use images should be highly discoruaged from lists/galleries and all of that stuff. I see it as decoration and should be removed. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 02:23, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

• I disagree. I think wikipedia will eventually cover all aspects of human knoledge in detail. Observing and learning involve all senses and skills. The euphoria entertainment related articles then to cause on editors can set the example for other kind of articles. For example the wikiproject TV episodes. Gave me the Idea to start something symilar with paintings.--T-man, the wise 21:09, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Are you arguing that Wikipedia should republish any and all unfree content that someone uploads to our servers? Jkelly 22:26, 5 July 2006 (UTC).

Well, we're doing the series a favor, it's a way of encyclopedic publicity. 200px to 300px is a reasonable size. Smaller than the pictures most pages use.--T-man, the wise 00:22, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

• I'M NEUTRAL ON THIS - I like screenshots, but maybe in an episode list, it might be going a bit to far. Since they are already there though, I vote to keep, but for future projects maybe they shouldn't be included. Cyberia23 20:04, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Purpose

I think the heart of this issue is the purpose component of the fair use test (see the article on fair use for a brief explanation). Fair use protects usage for purposes such as education, criticism, commentary, news reporting or parody. Somehow, "identification" seems to have slipped into this list and become accepted as a valid fair use purpose, and images are being used for decoration, as in the lists given as examples on this page. Unless a list can expand sufficiently in detail that it can properly be said to be fulfilling one of these purposes, it should not be using any fair use images. --bainer (talk) 02:21, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

That is a very intelligent way of putting it. -- ReyBrujo 02:31, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair use is not so tightly defined. Many uses are given as examples of proper fair use, and identification is listed as an example of proper fair use on point 8 of WP:FUC. Even if it was not listed there one could still make an argument for it, because we're given examples of fair use, not exact requirements such as "10 words or more". Even you yourself just said "Fair use protects usage for purposes such as...", and not "Fair use protects usage for purposes limited to...". This level of nitpicking is beyond the scope of US fair use law and the stated Wikipedia policy. -- Ned Scott 08:23, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Then in that respect, the wording of WP:FUC has failed and it needs to be changed. "Identification" in that sentence means to use an image or some other material (such as a sound clip) in order to identify what the text is commenting on, criticising, parodying, etc. You are correct in saying that the categories of purpose are not closed, but it is not correct to then conclude that the categories are wide open. Moreover Wikipedia is not in a position to be pushing the boundaries of fair use law - we cannot afford but to stick to the well established categories.

I highly suggest you read some of the materials linked to in the "external links" section of the fair use article, starting with this guide from the Stanford University Libraries. --bainer (talk) 14:47, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

home field advantage

I can't help but feel this is RfC is just trying to move the discussion to the "home turf" of anti-fair use editors. I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate.. Wikipedia talk:Fair use and WikiProject Fair use editors don't seem to be ones to side with such "fancrufty" reasons for fair use images. "A list of TV show episodes? important? Say what?" I mean, I hope this is not true, and I will try to keep an open mind, but it's not hard to see what I'm getting at.

Most, if not all, of the arguments here simply state that using fair use images on Wikipedia is a tricky issue and should be avoided. While all good points, this does not change what the current policy states.

I also feel that DVD images and screenshots both have their own pros and cons, and lumping them together in this debate is a bad idea.

Pro image editors have desperately been trying to argue reasons for the images on Talk:List of Lost episodes, and many have gotten jaded and dropped out of active discussion because this has dragged on for so long. Now here we are on a brand new talk page where all those arguments seem to be.. "erased". On the Lost list we started to make a point that the whole objection was being seen as an opinionated issue, and that of by only a handful of editors that were against the images. It sort of feels like they went to call for "re-enforcements" instead of addressing the concerns and statements made.

I completely agree that this issue and discussion needs greater exposure, as the decisions we make here will affect a lot of articles, but what happens to the weeks of debate efforts previously made? Is this just a test to see who will give up first?

I'm not calling this a conspiracy, just.. This doesn't feel like a consensus building discussion. Comments don't address the pro-image arguments, and are simple blanket statements of "they don't meet the requirements", as well as alluding to requirements that are not defined by WP:FUC.

"Wikipedia's and the Foundation's main mission" is to gather information. Fair use is sometimes a necessary evil in that. A fine balance that is far from clear. I can't seem to find ANY fair use images that are "critical" on Wikipedia. What is "critical"? Who decides what is critical and what is not? Again, if we wish to get people's personal feelings on fair use images on wikipedia, that's one thing, but it's not a discussion about policy. If this was a list of something more.. academic.. I can't help but feel that this type of opposition would not be seen. There's harsh feelings in general towards Wikipedia's growing fictional articles about TV shows and the like.

I'm not going to yell "not fair" and say we can't continue. We have no choice but to continue from this spot. I, as an editor, have no choice but to accept whatever conclusions we come up with in this discussion. I'm hoping that this discussion gets a good balance from both sides, and that both sides can honestly consider the claims of the other side. I'm going to assume good faith, are you? -- Ned Scott 03:56, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

This is a completely new location, away from the normal locations we discuss fair use. I nearly missed it completely and was a little annoyed that the discussion was started someplace separate from where we normally discussion fair use... Based on this, I can't agree with your position. To me it seems that you don't feel this is a consensus building discussion simply because there is consensus here, it's just not consensus that agrees with you. Oh and when we say critical here we are using it in the sense of criticism, not as in essential. Although we should only be using fair use images where we'd fail to meet our goal of being a quality encyclopedia, thats a seperate matter...--Gmaxwell 04:12, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Leflyman first suggested a centralised discussion, in order to address the issue outside the limited confines of the particular Lost list from which it originated: [2].

Ned, I posted a notice of the discussion on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), the centralised discussion template, Wikipedia talk:Fair use, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject List of Television Episodes and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fair use. Feel free to post a notice of it anywhere else you think necessary. --bainer (talk) 04:19, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

In that case, I feel a lot better about the issue. "To me it seems that you don't feel this is a consensus building discussion simply because there is consensus here, it's just not consensus that agrees with you." Maybe, I hope I have a more open mind than that. This was just a concern of mine, not a conclusion. I still stand by my point that many of the anti-image arguments seem to just be blanket statements, and many pro-image arguments seem ignored and un-addressed. But like I said, this is just a concern, something to think about, and I will continue to keep an open mind. Even if I did feel that this was "not fair" simply because it didn't agree with me.. I'm still going to go along with it. My heart sinks when I think about all the wasted effort that would mean, but I'm willing to support consensus. And maybe it is a bit too early for me to be worried, or for anyone to get a real impression of where this debate will go. So even if I totally missed the boat on some of my concerns, I hope no one holds it against me, and can still keep in mind the other things I've said here. I'm taking the risk of looking like a fool for the sake of being honest. -- Ned Scott 04:27, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

"A list of TV show episodes? important? Say what?" As one of the more fervent anti-fair-use editors here I can state that I do not share that feeling! I use List of South Park episodes regularly (at least once a week when the show is in season!) and would be very sorry to see that list go. I just wouldn't be sorry to see all the copyvios decorating that list go. User:Angr 06:12, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm very glad to be wrong, then :) -- Ned Scott 06:38, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Likewise, I often refer myself to "List of " articles, but also feel the small number of times I've recognised an article by the chosen screenshot are far outweighed by the problems they cause. ed g2s • talk 11:26, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair use involves a small quantity

Since fair use involves using a small quantity of copyrighted material, and 20-30 pictures can in no way be considered a small quantity, I think there is no way that we can justify this as fair use. Stifle (talk) 12:37, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was a "limited number", not necessarily a "small" number. Considering a list of episodes contains the subject matters of each episode, I'd say this would mean only one image per subject / topic is "small" or "limited". This does not seem to be a number of images per article requirement. In other words, use as little images as possible to explain subject A. If picture 1 explains subject A, and picture 2 doesn't add anything more than what is given from picture 1, then picture 2 fails fair use. -- Ned Scott 08:27, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

1 per episode is a limited number. Matthew Fenton (contribs) 14:00, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

What's the debate?

Is this debate just about fair use vs. non-fair use? If not, can someone enlighten me what the big deal is? If so, shouldn't it just be fair to allow lists with fair use images to stay and lists without fair use images to go until fair-use status is obtained and verified? If the debate is what constitutes a fair-use screenshot of a television episode, then we need to get some criteria together and use that to seperate the wheat from the chaff. I feel like I'm stepping in over my head, but I don't see why there has to be such a big deal over this.--Will2k 20:37, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Case by Case Basis

I think that it's OK to use images if they are a way to concisely convey iformation about a list item. An image and 1-3 sentences can sometimes tell you what you want to know. This image is appropriate for the "Starvin' Marvin" episode entry from List of South Park episodes. On the other hand this image is not appopriate for the "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride" episode entry. Peregrinefisher 06:01, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. It seems much of the objection is due to the improper use of images not qualifying for fair use, rather than all images not qualifying. -- Ned Scott 08:22, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I would object to both uses. A picture of Marvin would be appropriate in an article about him, but in an article that only references him as "a boy from Ethiopia" the use of a picture is excessive. The point here is that when we are trying to minimise unfree content, have a fair use picture for every two lines of text in a forty line article is excessive. ed g2s • talk 12:17, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

That's my question. You are arguing against using images in a list on the basis that it isn't proper for a list and you haven't even included fair-use in the argument. That's a seperate debate is it not? This one is about fair use vs. non-fair use. If you want to argue whether images belong in lists or not, this should be debated entirely seperate from this RFC. This page (and others of similar nature like the talk page for Lost episodes) seems watered down with different opinions which do not even touch on the real debate of fair use vs. un-fair use. For this reason, I recommend (if this is fair use vs. non-fair use), building criteria for what constitutes fair use, and then yanking out all images which do not meet the criteria. If there is reason to debate images on lists or not, then we can debate this elsewhere. This doesn't have to be difficult. --Will2k 15:14, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

This is not as simple as fair use vs non-fair use. Wikipedia does not want to have unfree media when it doesn't have to. ed g2s • talk 13:13, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

You talk as if you mean everyone, well you are obviously wrong ed, some people wish to have the images as they aide the article. Matthew Fenton (contribs) 14:02, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree whouleheartedly with Matt. Besides- when images are used on lists they assist the user in finding the information they want more quickly. That means they are not just decoration and thus quailify for use. Ronan.evans 21:33, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Back to my original though then. Who is Matt, you or me to decide which frame (out of the several thousands that are displayed during an episode) gives enough information to identify the episode? If it is a list of DVDs, where the cover of the DVD is displayed in the list, then I would agree the image is used for identification of the DVD set. But for screenshots, that is not true. -- ReyBrujo 21:47, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

He is not assuming people want that. The policy is what Wikipedia wants, and FUC #8 is clearly giving Ed the reason. Whether the images are used as decoration or not in lists is what was being discussed. -- ReyBrujo 21:49, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually we're trying to detremine if they make a significant contribution or not. Being decorative is ok if it makes a significant contribution, otherwise you end up removing certain DVD covers because an actress is too pretty. Jay32183 21:59, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

borderline lists

How do we feel about articles that borderline lists, such as Sakura Card Arc: 60-70 or Episodes of Lost (season 2) (now I know Lost has individual articles as well, so it's not really the best example, but the idea is still there). Many Wikipedians are.. reluctant.. about the whole idea of one article per episode. I really liked the concept of Sakura Card Arc, using a story arc as the alternative. I guess this brings up a question I've asked before in this debate, where is the line between "list" and an article in list format, or an article which contains more than one subject. Would it be considered fair use if no individual episode articles existed for the show, and screenshots were on these grouped episode articles instead? -- Ned Scott 09:18, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

If there is enough detail in the text that it can support a fair use purpose, then by all means, fair use images can be placed alongside the text as with any other article. That would be a case by case question, of course; the Sakura list you link to probably has enough text, although there is nothing to connect the images to the text there. The images are not even captioned, for example. Of course, the issue for this discussion is lists which have nowhere near enough detail, such as all of the lists listed under the examples section. This includes most lists on Wikipedia, and as such it would be appropriate to have "no fair use on lists" as the general rule, with exceptions made case by case on their merits.

As to the second question, the existence or otherwise of indivudual episode articles has no bearing on the list: the use of the image in the list is the only consideration. --bainer (talk) 10:18, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Another one just came to mind that is also from that Sakura group of articles: Clow Cards: A-F. This one is a list of characters / elements, and has a screenshot as well as a scan of a physical promotional card for each of it's entries (to depict the character's two forms). The images need fair use rationale written up for their description pages, and some of the card images need lower resolution versions uploaded, but aside from that, how does their use seem? -- Ned Scott 10:45, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Pointless debate...

Copyrights are not a matter of debate, they are a matter of Law.

I do not see the point of this debate. Fair-use claim has two MAJOR criteria. Both are Y/N questions: 1) Is a free alternative avalible? 2) Does the usage of the image violate copyright holders profit.

The argument that declares screenshots to be "decorative" is flawed. Same argument applies to every single screenshot usage. The text next to the image and all other info clearly describe the content of the image (dvd cover screenshot). If the screenshot is used on an article that has nothing to do with the series, gerne, or the actual episode then it is posible to argue the "decorativeness" aspect.

--Cat out 16:20, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Your criteria is good. The first should be qualified to say "if the image is not already a free image...". A yes to the first question should mean a switch to the free one and deleting the old one. A no to the first question should move to the second question. A yes to the second question is grounds for automatic removal. A no to the second question should be a return to the first one until a free alternative can be found (infinte recursion here :) ).

Let me ask this: If I own the DVD and take a screenshot of an episode during playback, what does this fall under?--Will2k 16:33, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair-use, assuming you use it in an encyclopedic manner on wikipedia. It's usage outside of wikipedia is beyond the scope of this discussion.. --Cat out 16:46, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay then, how about:

1. Did you take the screenshot?
2. Did you verify the image is considered a free image (If yes, cite the proof of freedom)?
3. Did you verify the image does not violate the copyright holders claim to the image (if yes, cite the proof of permission)?

If the answer is yes to any of these three questions, then the image can stay. If the answer is no to all three, then the image must be deleted. If the image survives those three, we add:

4. Did you ensure the image uniquely represents the episode and/or it's description in the "List of..." and/or the episode's page?

If the answer is "yes", the image may stay. If the answer is no, then the image must be replaced. The question then is how do you define a screenshot which represents the episode. I would argue that if it's possible to use the same screenshot for another episode and it still makes sense, then this screenshot fails to meet that criteria. Here's some examples (non-acceptable vs. acceptable):

• List of Family Guy episodes: [3] (I Never Met the Dead Man) vs. [4] (The Thin White Line)
• List of South Park episodes: [5] (Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride) vs. [6] (Starvin' Marvin)
• List of Seinfeld episodes: [7] (The Good Samaratin) vs [8] (The Pony Remark)

--Will2k 17:30, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

1. For articls I write, I take all of the screen captures. I do not scan the dvd covers (as I do not have one).
2. Wait, the images are tagged under fair-use. I am not claiming free usage. I am not required to use free images as I can't since a free alternative does not exist for tv shows.
3. Eeto, all dvd covers used on the Oh My Goddess list has a fair-use rationale. DVD covers are from amazon.com and are promotional in nature. If they hurt sales in any way, amazon would not have used them. Basicaly a dvd cover is like a movie poster, an advertisement. I do not see a sane way that we are violating copyrights by displaying them on a page.
4. Again yes. Each dvd cover is aligned with text describing its contents such as what episodes are on it and a short summary of each. Since each episode has their own article, a short summary suffices.

I am not a fan of episode screenshots on lists. BUT for episode lists such as star trek lists, dvd covers are impractical and screenshots are preferable. Screenshots help us better identify the content of the episode which is both an encyclopedic and an educational reason qualifying under fair-use.

--Cat out 18:16, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I've confused you. When I put the you in bold, I did not mean to address these 4 questions to you specifically or anything you have done/are doing. I mean that those four questions need to be answered by anyone who puts up screenshots or DVD covers. Those four questions are my criteria for what constitutes acceptable images for episodes and I'm looking for comments. Let me mention further that while a DVD cover is basically promotional in nature, one should still ensure the license agreement for the site (such as amazon.com) does give permission to use their images.--Will2k 18:53, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

oh ^_^. Well sorry for the confusion.

It doesnt matter who scans the image of the dvd, it is still copyrighted by the anime company producing it. Amazon is just conviniant collection of scanned images. Also, Amazons license agreement is beyond the scope of this discussion. Lets not get carried away.

--Cat out 21:20, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

While I agree, you guys seem to be missing an important point. Wikipedia's fair use requirements are higher than just the law. In other words, these are all fair use images, but are they fair use images that are acceptable on Wikipedia. One point I want to make is the balance between article usefulness and using only free images. Wikipedia asks the editor to use their best judgement in adding fair use images, whether or not using these copyrighted-complicated images are worth what is added to the article. I believe it is worth it. Now we've come down to a dispute of what people feel is fair use, what people feel is the goals of wikipedia, and the very wording of WP:FUC. -- Ned Scott 22:10, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedias requirements regarding copyrights are in accordance with the law. The only reason fair-use is allowed on wikipedia is because US law allows it. And wikipeida's fair-use guidelines exist only and only to meet the law. I am unaware of reasons beyond the law. So as I understand it if we aren't violating the law, it is then a matter of copyright paranoia.

As you perhaps agree, the issues you mentioned are not grounds for a copyright discussion. Personal taste, preferences and etc should be beyond the scope of this debate. That kind of debate should be on a case by case basis.

--Cat out 09:05, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

You are in the wrong. See how much good a simmlar position did for Simetrical in his recent RFA. Do you also have the same position that Common's policy is limited to restating the law? If so, that should be disclosed on your currently open commons RFA. Our policy exists to protect the goals of Wikipedia. Policy protects Wikipedia's goals not only by forbidding activities which are illegal or likely to bring a difficult lawsuit but also by excluding activities which unnecessarily reduce the freeness of our content. --Gmaxwell 09:16, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

RfAs do not determine copyright issues and there is absolutely no point in you mentioning my rfa on a copyright debate. Commons do not allow fair-use and hence why all images with free license is to be deleted. En.wiki does allow fair-use however. I also kindly ask that you stop being personal and cease debating the contributor (me).

Yes you are very right. The point why we meet the law is so that we avoid lawsuits as well as other goodies. A few dvd covers or screenshots do not reduce the freeness of our content. The images help us explain the content.

As per your argument all fair-use images are just decorative. We should delete Coca Cola logo from the respective article as it can be said it is just decorative. All fair-use images should be deleted.

I see this yet another campaign against fair-use.

--Cat out 10:00, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I take that back Gmaxwell is only campaigning against my commons rfa. --Cat out 10:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Where was I 'personal'? As far as I can tell I responded directly to the factual accurate of your comment. I have no personal issue with you, quite the contrary, in fact. It's a shame you dismissed my pointer to Simetrical's RFA so quickly, because if you'd read the RFA you would have seen that he claimed that the foundation only had an interest in fair use being in conformance with the law... which gathered a number of interesting replies, including one from the acting executive director of the foundation. --Gmaxwell 14:38, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course not. The fact that a number of oppose votes appeared after that negative advertisement is just coincidence, people voting being present on this debate is also a coincidence. You advocating kellys attention whore comment is also a mere coincidence. I believe in coincidences, I just don't trust them. --Cat out 20:44, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

How I wish you weren't being sarcastic. In my opinion we really should delete the Coca Cola logo from that article, as it adds nothing of any encyclopedic value to that article. No one needs to see the logo to understand the article. And yes, all fair-use images should be deleted. The 1% of them that are actually encyclopedically useful aren't worth keeping for the sake of the 99% of them that aren't. User:Angr 10:48, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

This has been debated before, lets not start it again. This seems to be a wave against fair-use images in general as I suggested before. --Cat out 10:53, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

When and where has it been debated before? I only wish there were a wave against fair-use images in general. User:Angr 11:14, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

There are some folks now, which is a stark change from a year ago where you would have been shouted down with cries of "copyright paranoia" for your above statements... So by comparison, perhaps there is a wave now. :) --Gmaxwell 14:38, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

A year ago, I would have been among those crying "copyright paranoia". But that was before I was an admin and found myself spending all my free time deleting improperly uploaded copyright-violating images. I myself even added fair-use images to such articles as Anna Russell, Frankie Kennedy, Julius Pokorny, Rudolph Moshammer, and Winnie-the-Pooh, until I realized that it's better to have no image at all than steal someone else's and call it "fair use" and so deleted them all again. User:Angr 15:22, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I made my points. I am bailing out of this debate as I do not particularly like debating weather or not images qualify under fair-use with people who are against fair-use in general. --Cat out 20:44, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Amount of unfree images/Fair use

First, both sides have made good points.

1. Does the usefullness of keeping the images outweigh the fact that the images are unfree and can't be used by others without restrictions? I think it does. The episode title, summary, and screenshot combine to identify and critique the episode, which is important.

2. Are the images fair use? I think they are. The use of 1/30th of a second of a 1/2 hour or hour show does not effect the potential market for the work and it's being used for educational purposes. Also, I think of it as one image per entry, not X images per page.

What do others think? - Peregrinefisher 19:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

1. No. The episode title and summary are sufficient to identify the episode.
2. No. The images are being used primarily if not exclusively for decoration. There's nothing "educational" about including South Park screenshots in a list of South Park episodes. User:Angr 19:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

A television episode is, by definition, visual in nature. Saying the screenshot does not better identify the episode would be like saying an image of the painting of Mona Lisa would not contribute positively to the article Mona Lisa--Will2k 19:40, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

A television episode may have (25*60*30) 45,000 frames. An episode image which may have been repeated in most others is not much helpful than having none. -- ReyBrujo 20:01, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The choice of screenshots is important. Non representitive screenshots should be removed. - Peregrinefisher 20:07, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. I included this requirement in my criteria for acceptable screenshots.--Will2k 20:27, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and would like to point out something that has been said a few times. The way some editors here are seeing screenshots is that if you see a screen shot of a character then you should be discussing the character. I don't necessarily see screenshots as what is in the screenshot as much as it is a "finger print" of the episode. Unless you take a picture of the master copy of the episode, there's not much other way to visually represent an episode than with a unique screenshot (and even then, you'd just have a picture of a tape in a box). I guess the issue now is if identification really is a fair use argument without critical commentary, and/or if critical commentary can exist in one paragraph. -- Ned Scott 20:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

What's in the screenshot is definitely important. If the screenshot shows the "heart" of the episode, its most important moment (and screenshots tend to be selected with the intent of picking the most important moment), it's much less likely to be fair use than some random still.

And if I can pose a question to Peregrinefisher, how does the following, as an example, critique the episode: "A mysterious woman takes Sayid prisoner, and tells him a disturbing truth about the island. Hurley builds a golf course to relieve the survivors' stress." Another example is: "Space aliens implant a transmitter in Cartman and abduct Kyle's brother" - how does this provide critical commentary? --bainer (talk) 23:16, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Bainer, you're right that those summaries don't include critical commentary. Instead of removing the images can we improve the critique? "Solitary focuses on Sayid's background and introduces Danielle Rousseau and Ethan Rom" for example. I think that would work with this image. - Peregrinefisher 00:19, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The point is not to use images just because they look nice, or compliment the text well. The text works fine without the picture. Rousseau can be pictured on the article about her. ed g2s • talk 13:08, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

It may work okay with no images, but it works better with them. Matthew Fenton (contribs) 14:02, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Rediculous...!

Obviously this discussion could go on for quite a while. My point that I'm going to say is that it could be a mishmash of all the good points from further up in the discussion. Rather than just outright ban everything, there should be some guidelines. I've read through most of this discussion, and I must say that there are some creative ideas, many of which are pretty good.

---

Okay then, how about:

Did you take the screenshot?

Did you verify the image is considered a free image (If yes, cite the proof of freedom)?

Did you verify the image does not violate the copyright holders claim to the image (if yes, cite the proof of permission)?

If the answer is yes to any of these three questions, then the image can stay. If the answer is no to all three, then the image must be deleted. If the image survives those three, we add:

Did you ensure the image uniquely represents the episode and/or it's description in the "List of..." and/or the episode's page?

If the answer is "yes", the image may stay. If the answer is no, then the image must be replaced. - Will2k

I believe that this sums up what I think would be suitable. But there should also be a few more safeguards for this. Perhaps a few more admin-esque people who are in charge of this whole thing, making sure that the screenshots are unique enough. Or perhaps asking a person that contributes greatly to a TV series to oversee the screenshots, having it "Ok'ed" by a few people before it's a go.

---

For me, that number is about one image every 10kb of text, which is not fulfilled by lists. - ReyBrujo

For people worrying about the "limit" Most lists could be expanded upon easily. By doing something along the lines of the Card Captors episode list... uhm... thingy... we could turn these lists into full blown articles. We could even go further than what the Card Captors list has done and do full synopsii (is that how you say it?) for episodes, maybe bunched into groups of 10 episodes, or per season of the series.

---

I do agree that the one example of the Lost picture was more or less a titty shot, but not all series are like that. Another example which I happened to bring up snuff to look like most others is List of Gargoyles episodes. Before I got to it, it was just a list of episode names, and now it looks better than it ever has. Also, for the record, the screenshots that I took for the episodes took me well over 2 hours to do, because each episode is extremely unique. I chose about which part I wanted to use, then I chose the exact frame that would work best. I'm not meaning to brag or anything, I just wanted people to know that not everyone pops the DVD into their computer and takes the first frame they think looks good.

One other thing that I thought I should bring up, is that for List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes many if not all the screenshots are unique to each episode, and could potentially identify each episode.

NetStormer 02:04, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone know if there is a mechanism built into wikipedia which can notify an admin or other user when an episode screenshot is posted automatically (ie. when tagged with tv-screenshot or whatever)? I might also suggest that in order to ensure the fourth requirement is fulfilled, the caption for the image must be:

1. Name of the T.V. Series
2. Name of the episode
3. A description of the image (The usual caption)
4. A description (justification) on how this particular image defines the episode (eg. relationship to the episode title, relationship to the main events in the episode, relationship to the special characters which were specific to this episode)

Forcing the user to fill out those four criterion should ensure the requirements for the screenshot are met.--Will2k 15:34, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone know if there is a mechanism built into wikipedia which can notify an admin or other user when an episode screenshot is posted automatically?

try this... Screenshots of television This is probably the best wikipedia has to offer at the moment, but we could always make a sub-category for individual series or something like that, kinda like the Angel Screenshots sub-category. I also think (from a quick skim of the screenshots of television category) that we should make a guideline on what to put for a file name.

A format kinda like:

{series}{seriestype(Animated, Live action, Reality)}{Season(1, 2, 3, 4...)}x{Episode #}

For example, Gargoyles(Ani)1x01.JPG, is what one pic is from List of Gargoyles episodes. The rest follow the same pattern, and if/when the rest of the series comes out, the remainder of the pictures will be in that format as well. I've got to boot now, work in 20 minutes ^_^. NetStormer 22:42, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking about this approach too. We could make a publicly avaliable screenshot template for uploaders to use. Then on a regular basis, admins can recategorize these as Tv-Screenshot-verified or something. Not particularly good, but it would work.--Will2k 03:36, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

DVD covers

Hello,

The way I see it:

• Low-resolution episode screenshots taken by Wikipedians can often help in visual identification of the episode much more quickly and reliably than those two sentences of text. I think List of South Park episodes is a good example of that.
• DVD covers are almost alawys pure eye candy and in most cases should go away. A good example of that is list of Serial Experiments Lain episodes.

I'm not disputing whether they are fair use or not. However, Wikipedia fair use policy point 8 clearly states that fair use is allowed on Wikipedia only if it contributes significantly to the article and does not serve a purely decorative purpose. This has been some sort of a compromise between those that wanted to use fair use images and those that wanted to get rid of all of them (it's supposed to be Free encyclopedia after all) and I'd really like if the pro-fair use Wikipedians had more self-restraint here.

Is anybody seriously defending DVD covers in lists ? My plan is to get rid of covers where they serve purely decorative purpose. Taw 12:20, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anyone disagrees that screenshots contribute to articles. Wikipedia's own usage guidelines permit fair use images where they contribute significantly to the article, but the key point there is that they must be fair use images. That is, we don't allow any old image which contributes significantly, only fair use images which contribute significantly. So the image needs to be fair use first before we consider how it contributes (this may seem pointless, but it's an expression of the general desire to limit fair use as much as possible - we only allow fair use where it's really necessary).

There are some significant issues regarding whether the current use of screenshots constitutes fair use, much of which is covered by the above discussion. I think the way forward at this point is to either expand the content of all lists similar to the examples given here, to the point where fair use can really be justified, or keep the lists in their current level of detail and remove all of the fair use images. --bainer (talk)

I kind of agree with you on the fact that DVD covers are mostly for decoration, but DVD covers still add to the overall encyclopedic approach of this project. Consider this, you're a big fan of a TV show, and you do some research on wikipedia and find out a new season is being released on DVD. You'd want to know what it looks like, wouldn't you?

That's beside the point, but you get what I'm going for... My main point is that DVD covers are not just for decoration for some of the same reasons that TV Screenshots aren't just for decoration.

The following is off the topic of DVD Covers and back to Screen shots, but... meh!

either expand the content of all lists similar to the examples given here, to the point where fair use can really be justified, or keep the lists in their current level of detail and remove all of the fair use images. -bainer

I agree with you, and yet I disagree with you on that point. It would be easy enough to expand all the lists to the point of fair-use justification, but what about series that have no active members on them or are fans of them? Are we to just delete/remove all the pictures just because it isn't being developed? (I'm reiterating myself here... but what can you do about it?) When I started with the List of Gargoyles episodes page, there was nothing on there. Despite a large fan following there was nothing on there apart from names of episodes. I'm sure that someone would have eventually gotten around to doing what I did, but the question is, how long? I'm not trying to discredit any shows with a small fan following or anything like that, but the honest truth is that who is going to do it?

I've run out of arguments for the time being... I'm sorry if I do offend anyone at any time during my rants... NetStormer 20:25, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

It may well be unfortunate, but "there weren't any people working on the list" is not an argument that will hold up well in court. And I realise that's a fairly glib reply, but the bottom line is that we're trying to avoid infringing copyrights in order to avoid any potential liabilities. --bainer (talk) 04:24, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, here's something I posted earlier:

The DVD's are brought into question. The place they will be used is a table about the DVD's. No. of discs, region, etc, also if you look closer at WP:FUC, it states: "contribute significantly" giving the example - "or specifically illustrate sections within the text", and that's what the DVD covers do. I'm sorry, but a description using words is not acceptable. Perception doesn't work like that. A person couldn't enter a DVD store and spot the boxset quickly whilst looking for "the cast of Lost on a blue background", and it would be silly to think that would suffice. Also, at no point in WP:FUC does it state that the picture itself must be the subject of the article, can you point to where on Wikipedia it says that? The fact that the DVD's themselves aren't discussed in detail is because there isn't much to say about them, that's obvious, there is nowhere in WP:FUC that states that there should be a certain amount of detail before a picture can be used. In some cases a picture tells a thousand words, in this case it does.

Futhermore, as I have pointed out, nowhere in policy does it state that the picture most be the subject of the article or even a large part. Therefore what is the purpose of the countless thousand CD covers, books covers, etc. Yes, they may be the subject of the article but that isn't a distinguishing factor (compared with Lost) to be used in deciding fair use, therefore should they all be removed. I put it to you that all the media in question is pictured because it aids identification and gives the viewer a practical view of the product in question. Exactly the same as with the DVD's. I fail to see an argument against the DVD covers which wouldn't automatically make all CD covers, book covers, etc, redundant and requiring deletion.

If anything, the screenshots serve less of a function. What does it actually add. You can tell what episode it is and identify using only the title and short description, not many, apart from avid Lost fans are going to be able to tell an episode from a picture of Jack talking to Kate or whatever, they are meaningless.

The DVD's, however, have a much more general aim which nothing else apart from the cover can fill --Gary Fothergill 12:10, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

FAIR USE BY DEFINITION IS COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT regardless of where it's used! You do realize that this Image:Tandberg Al-Kateb.jpg infringes a copyright, right? You can justify it all you want but it is still a potential liability and a violation of Thandberg's copyright of said image. The fact that it's not in a list doesn't make the infringement nor the liability go away. Cburnett 06:39, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Copyright holder complaints?

Has Paramount, ABC or another owner of a TV series actually complained about the images used in a list? Fair use is a defense against a claim of copyright infringement and the only entity capable of determining fair use is a court of law. So, if no owner has ever complained and taken the wikimedia foundation to court then this entire discussion is purely academic. And as an academic topic, this discussion could continue till the end of mankind. It appears to me that determing which side you sit on is little different from believing the proverbial glass is half-full or half-empty.

As to where I sit? I would presume the glass is half-full and continue on with life until someone with the authority tries to argue it's half-empty. Unless people are hiding their identities here, no one has such authority because I highly doubt anyone here is a corporate officer of ABC or Paramount. (If you are, I plead you to make a public statement supporting the use of single images and be on the friendly side of people wanting to discuss your fine TV programs. But I digress.)

I'm sure there are plenty of half-empty folk here and my question to you is this: has any harm been done to ABC? (This is one, and IMHO the most important, of the four points to determine fair use since the entire issue here is capitalism, money, greed, etc. Again I digress.) Has ABC lost sales because a given image appears in a "critical commentary" about an episode? Has ABC lost sales because a given image appears in a list of episodes? I don't think anyone (yes, even lawyers and economists) can answer any of those questions with any degree of certainty (if so, this whole piracy, p2p, bittorrent, napster stuff would have been settled long ago) so my vote is to leave them on until ABC/Paramount/etc. complain. From there we can decide whether to acquiesce their C&D letter or if we're all willing to give enough to pay lawyers to defend it or hope the likes of the EFF picks up the tab.

And for the record, I do fully understand the desire to avoid the possibility of litigation and side on the half-empty crowd. However, I presume ABC & friends would also desire to avoid litigation against an educational foundation not only because it would still cost them money but possibly public dismay at suing a "charity" for such a minor thing. Video clips or entire episodes...well that's an entirely different ball to unwind and I don't think a single image comes close to it. Even still, if a copyright holder questions the usage of one image per episode on a list then surely they'll question the usage of the image on a "critical commentary." Embracing the latter still opens the wikimedia foundation up to the possibility of litigation. Heck, in the US, breathing seems to be enough to bring aobut a lawsuit. *sigh*

In summary: keep images on lists because I don't see any cease & desist letters coming in. Cburnett 06:08, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Although I agree with you, I think the concern is more about the redistribution. While many things are fair use on the web version of Wikipedia, it might not be so later on when someone uses an article in some other version. In other words, they're looking not only to protect the web site, but anyone who wants to use the content further down the line. -- Ned Scott 06:27, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

So the argument is for a hypothetical use someone else might hypothetically take??? How a 3rd party uses content from here isn't of wikimedia foundation's concern. Besides, with anything in life you must evaluate your source information before you use it. If someone wants to use List of South Park episodes for a use that makes using the images no longer very strong for fair use, then that's their issue to deal with. I don't have a problem thinking on behalf of others, don't get me wrong, but we shouldn't act like their lawyer. If someone else does use these images, uh, "incorrectly" then that is their action and wikimedia foundation is of no obligation nor responsibility for that person's actions. By siding with these hypothetical uses it is of determent to wikipedia: even if the images serve as just decoration (which I don't agree with but that's not my argument). By removing the images we're like a gun manufacturer admitting that they are responsible for people's illegal actions while the gun company acted in legal, good faith. If these images were added maliciously in hopes of people getting into legal trouble then I might give that argument credence, but I don't and I don't see others doing it that way so, IMO, the argument is moot. Cburnett 13:06, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Seeing as providing free reusable content is one of our primary goals, 3rd party use is very much our concern. ed g2s • talk 13:59, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Another thing is that we are trying to prevent the said companies from sending C&D letters by trying to tightening up on how we deal with fair use. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 21:53, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Both points I already addressed, so please respond to what I've said to prevent circular arguments.

1. Third party use is of no legal concern, which is precisely what this is all about. If someone wants to make wikipedia2.org by simply mirroring all the content then they should be sitting no differently than wikipedia. If they want to publish wikipedia as a book and sell it for $20,000 then it's up to them to determine the legality of doing so regardless of their source material. We are not responsible for their actions. How they use content is their issue and the legalities of how they use is their issue to boot. They have to do so anyway to determine if their actions are inline with the GFDL.
2. Preventing C&D letters is neat and all but have any ever been issued? Your argument is one based on an event that never has occured.

If your intentions are prophylactic in nature then stop playing in the gray area and go all the way and argue for complete disuse of images. Even if you only use an image in a "critical commentary" then ABC can still fire off a C&D letter or sue you. Fair use is entirely a grey area and the goals you have outlined are not consistent with your position. If you want to prevent C&D letters and allow any derivative use then you need to completely ban all fair use throughout the entire wikipedia. Cburnett 23:37, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, if you read the first section at the top of this page ("Personal thoughts") it addresses abc's license, which prohibits any reuse except personal, so fair use is our only claim on these images, and not an academic one. ed g2s • talk 22:24, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

You don't appear to understand what fair use means: what ABC says you can and cannot do is irrelevant when talking fair use. ABC has no legal say in how you use something under fair use. ABC has four choices here:

1. Ignore it
2. Not ignore it but do nothing
3. Play "nice" by firing off a C&D
4. Sue wikimedia foundation for copyright infrigement

That's all they can do. Period. They can't argue it's not fair use because fair use is an affirmative defense and it is up to a court to decide it. I'll put it very clearly: licenses have absolutely zero bearing on fair use. It's like comparing apples and oranges.

Without resorting to ad hominems, I'd ask that you understand what fair use is and means, legally, before entering its realm. If I recall correctly, the UK has no concept of "fair use" so perhaps you are at a disadvantage here? I don't know, just saying mostly since you don't seem to demonstrate that you understand it (specifically in that a license has any bearing on fair use).

You also don't appear to understand what I mean by "academic" either. You can't determine if action X is fair use. I can't determine if action X is fair use. No one here can determine that. It's an argument that can never be settled between us and is therefore purely an intellectual/academic argument. Cburnett 23:37, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

"what ABC says you can and cannot do is irrelevant when talking fair use" - that's exactly what I said. I understand perfectly what Fair Use means. Wikipedia's policy is that strong Fair Use claim is necessary but not sufficient to use an unfree image. "How a 3rd party uses content from here isn't of wikimedia foundation's concern" - it really is. We are trying to make reusable content, so it up to us to make that easier for people. Unfree media conflicts with this goal but is allowed is small amounts as a compromise. Excess usage such as decorating lists is not part of this compromise. Admittedly an "all or nothing" policy on Fair Use would be easier, but short of intervention by the board that's not going to happen any time soon. As for Wikimedia not receiving complaints from copyright holders, Talk:Carlson Twins is one just off the top of my head, and I'm sure if you ask someone on the OTRS, they've received many more. ed g2s • talk 13:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Carlson Twins is not a list and the talk page indicats that the image was not in a list. It also appears that it wasn't a law suit nor a C&D letter but a mere complaint. Fortunately for wikipedia, a picture of a living person can still be obtained while an image of a TV show requires we wait until it enters public domain.

So the one piece of evidence you have to offer contradicts your assertion that images in lists are more prone than in non-lists. Furthermore, your one example proves my point that fair use images, even when in "critical commentary" use, are still open for "issues" by the copyright holders which proves my point that your position is one of contradiction. Compromise? Compromise has little bearing in your stated goal of reusable information.

How many complaints, C&Ds, and law suits have be received over images used in a list but not in their primary article?

The bulk of your argument hinges on "evidence not admitted" yet. You have no proof that images in lists are more prone to anything (evidence proves the contrary actually) and is entirely speculative. So you're arguing for a hypothetical use that someone might hypothetically take and base it all on hypothetical evidence in hopes of hypothetically avoiding legal issues? Repitition/anaphora aside: wow. The occurrance of complaints (that's all the carlson twins image appears to be: a complaint) is apparently small enough that you can name only one. What's the occurances of C&D letters? Or of law suits? How many pertain to lists? By your own example of the Carlson Twins you are admitting that fair use on "critical commentary" type articles are still fair game. It amazes me that you are so vehement about this yet your entire position hinges on hypotheticals, contradictory evidence, and a contradictory goal. I'm not about to put words in your mouth but hypotheticals and contradictions don't help your case...

How can you even reasonably expect agreement on this when you can't provide any evidence that lists are more prone to non-lists? Is this even an issue or are you making it out to be one because you don't like "decorations"?

Common and malicious vandalism is a MUCH LARGER problem than fair use has ever been or, IMO, will ever be. Not that I'm saying we should ignore fair use and its implications but put it into perspective. It's a non-problem. Or do you have proof that it is? What can you offer beyond contradictory evidence and hypotheticals? Anything? Cburnett 02:04, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

You're taking the position that we should infringe whatever copyrights we feel like until someone sues us. That is an extremely foolish and short sighted position. You criticise "speculation" about legal consequences, but you speculate yourself that copyright holders will not sue an organisation like Wikimedia. We should avoid copyright paranoia but equally we should avoid copyright recklessness. The Wikimedia projects receive dozens of copyright complaints a day. Should we stop responding to them until someone sues us?

The reason there is a specific discussion pertaining to lists is in order to avoid edit warring. The aim is to restate existing policy and principle as it applies to a given situation, lists, where that application has previously been unclear. --bainer (talk) 03:11, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

You make a horrendous summary of my position with a nice touche of hyperbole. I have never claimed we should be all wily nilly about this nor did I say we should ignore complaints and wait for actual legal action. Either you like setting up a straw man as an argumentative technique or your reading comprehension isn't that great. You do realize that all fair use claims are copyright infringement, right? So you are promoting copyright infringment as well so, please, summarize and label my position as such like I'm advocating anarchistic use of IP.

The one example given is of a non-list image so "your side" proved my point that your position is contradictive. Again, how can you expect reasonable discussion, let alone agreement, when the evidence you offer is contradictory to your point and hinges on hypotheticals for the rest?

I explicitly summarized my position in my first post: "keep images on lists because I don't see any cease & desist letters coming in." If you want to read that as saying to use fair use willy nilly, or "reckless" in your words, then so be it but that's not what I'm saying (I'm quite certain my posts are overly verbose enough to convey that). My position hardly rests on "speculation" (your word): I'm waiting for hard evidence to show that this is an issue. You claim dozens of complaints ("complaint" mind you, no C&D and no suits) a day but you give nothing to back it up. Of all the lists I've editted with images (heck, I'll claim to be the one that kick started the adding of images to episode lists) I have yet to see any issues regarding their use other than this. Where's the proof? It is you who has the burden of proof.

Also, where do I promote "recklessness"? So you're equating what many editors believe is justifiably fair as "reckless"? A great way to decrease the level of discourse is to outright disregard your opponent's argument, label it, and call it hyperbolic names. Never once have I said we should create straight-up galleries of images. Never once have I said we should bittorrent these puppies out and become a copyright infringement hub. Never once have I said we should put unrelated images on articles (like a screenshot of south park on [[Mister Rogers). Never once have I mentioned anything about the quality (and by extension I have never once said we should get 6000 dpi BMP's of everything). !That! would be reckless.

Fair use is entirely a gray area and I happen to draw a blurry line farther down the scale than you. At least respect my position and argue against it instead of hyperbolics and straw men. So: where's the evidence? Cburnett 04:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I quote ed "Seeing as providing free reusable content is one of our primary goals, 3rd party use is very much our concern."- Last time I checked, in other words when I looked at the little Wikipedia logo that is at the top of the screen, the words "The free encyclopedia," jumped out. The goal of an encyclopedia is to provide a user information- NOT to provide a user with a myriad of free images with witch they can decorate their home page. Obviously Ed thinks we should look out for others and stop them breaking copyright laws, why?. We warn them on the page of such images that using the image is a copyright vio. Once they use the image without taking into account their violation it is not Wikipedia's promblem. Should we disadvantage the whole Wikipeida community of 1.8 million users- just to save a few people who were too lazy to look after themselves. NO. As soon as you step off this site you will realise the rest of the world does not work that way! Does this mean google should deleted all copyright images for mits images site for fear someone might use it illegially? Ronan.evans 21:50, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair use image stripping

Just an idea to throw out there, since the big drive against fair use images is for the sake of redistribution and the GFDL license, would making it easier to filter out the images help? This might be a bit much to suggest, but like I said, just an idea that came to mind. Something that would make it easy for mirrors or anyone wanting to re-distribute to strip the fair use images out of the articles (and hopefully not break any formatting of the articles). The idea came to mind when I was in a discussion about spoiler warnings, and someone mentioned that now readers could actually turn off the spoiler warning text via CSS. This is probably something one should probably suggest to the Wikimedia Foundation itself, but heck, for the sake of discussion I thought I'd throw it out there :) -- Ned Scott 06:24, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not just mirror use either - fair use images have been quite a pain for various Wikipedia CD selection and publication projects, especially outside the United States. Free, redistributable content is great (and the German wikipedia has got on quite nicely with almost zero fair use), and the more we rely on U.S. "fair use" provision, the more problematic redistribution outside the U.S. becomes. Strippable fair use seems a great idea - maybe it should be a provision that if a fair use is used, editors should make it strippable (including alteration of text in the article if it refers directly to a "see image, right" for instance). That would make things a lot easier for reusers. One problem would be whether it encouraged the "un-stripped" version to comply even more sloppily with fair use policy though. TheGrappler 14:10, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Basically what we're discussing here is a software-enabled automatic forking of Wikipedia articles to make a free, reusable encyclopedia. That's an interesting idea. Jkelly 18:21, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

An interesting concept, sure. But would be extremely hard to implement. We can't use a bot to check every article to see which parts should be marked with this special tag and which ones not. Nor we could keep that up to date unless the image upload is modified. -- ReyBrujo 18:47, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I think JKelly is being sarcastic. Wikipedia is supposed to be a free, reusable encyclopædia. ed g2s • talk 19:08, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Guessed so, that is why I answered to the OP instead of Jkelly. Last time someone though my comment was sarcastic he told me I was being uncivil.^[9] -- ReyBrujo 19:23, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I was aiming for wryly ironic, but I may have hit snide accidentally. Jkelly 21:36, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking it would also be of much use when someone wanted to use the content outside of the US, where most if not all fair use images wouldn't be allowed at all, regardless of requirements. -- Ned Scott 06:43, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

There already is a marker: {{tv-screenshot}} & friends. To strip fair use images is merely a matter of determining if that image uses that set of templates or not. If so, then remove it from the article or replace it with an image of "image redacted because it is not a Free licensed image" or something. This is an exporting issue, not an editting issue since this part is done with templates and categories. Cburnett 23:42, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Lists?

Apparently, the debate is about the episode lists - so why does it says "in lists" (all)? Do lists of characters count? -- Henk65 18:56, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Episode lists seem to be the initiator but I don't see the arguments applying to just episode lists (well, the wording does but not the meaning/intention). Unless a list entry constitutes a "critical commentary" then the image would just be a decoration (or so the argument goes). So yes, I would surmise that this RFC applies to all lists. Cburnett 23:46, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I think we should make this a bit clearer:

Will the results of the debate be applied to all articles with the words "List of" in the article name and any article claiming to be a list, or rather is it just what we would define as not sufficient for critical commentary in such articles? -- Ned Scott 06:41, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I would assume the latter. But that would I think also mean that articles like Christina Aguilera discography would have to be trimmed of the cd covers. A discography/bibiography etc is basically just a list. Garion96 (talk) 12:43, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed on the discography example. The ultimate question seems to be about the level of related text to an image. Being in a list is apparently not enough "critical commentary" so it doesn't matter what the name of the article is or anything like that, just the amount of "critical commentary". Cburnett 13:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

That's exactly right, the discussion is about anything which is like the examples set out here, namely a list-like article with many images and relatively small amounts of text. --bainer (talk) 14:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Does then this count? -- Henk65 10:55, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Discographies should definitely not have images on them, especially as the cover is already included on the article about the album/single. ed g2s • talk 01:09, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Little off topic here, but maybe we need a fair use project or something similar. Especially if things like album covers will be removed from discographies and other lists. Because every time you remove a fair use image or replace a fair use image with a 'free' one, you get reverted back immediately and you get a huge discussion. That (a discussion) in itself isn't bad, but perhaps a central place for that would be handy. There is of course Wikipedia talk:Fair use but that should be more about the policy/guideline in general, not specific cases. Garion96 (talk) 01:55, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

There is already the WikiProject Fair use. --bainer (talk) 02:08, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes wikipedia is just way too big. :) I never saw that project before. Thanks. Garion96 (talk) 02:16, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair Use Claims

Remember that the policy at Wikipedia:Fair use criteria includes in its tenth criteria the requirement that "For each article for which fair use is claimed, the name of the article and a "fair use rationale" as explained in Wikipedia:Image description page. The rationale must be presented in a manner that can be clearly understood and which is relevant to the article in question." [Emphasis added.] This means that an existing fair use claim for a use in an existing article is not sufficient for use in a list, as that is a different article. A distinct rationale must be provided for the use in the list. This is reinforced at Wikipedia:Image description page by the statement "Remember there is no "general rule" about fair use, each "fair use" must be explained and a rationale must be established for that specific use (i.e. every page that uses the image will have a distinct rationale for using the image on that page even though fair use is claimed on the image page)."

Also, Wikipedia:Image description page requires that in each place the image is used the following comment be inserted: <!-- FAIR USE of IMAGENAME.jpg: see image description page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:IMAGENAME.jpg for rationale --> .

On the image page, the person asserting fair use in the article/list is expected to present and sign some significant reasoning. My guess is that these policy requirements are more often breached than followed. But if you want to defend debatable inclusion of fair use material, the better the job done, the more likely the use will survive. Given that official policy discourages the use of fair use and other non-free material, the onus is on those wanting to use it to show why it is necessary. Desirable is not a sufficient standard, necessary is the right standard to use. Policy on inclusion of facts is that anyone can remove non-verified material and those wishing inclusion must show verification. By analogue, those wishing to make fair use have the burden to establish it. GRBerry 14:03, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Nice point but that screams of meta:Instruction creep. Side note: the number of hoops for lists doesn't seem like it would even satisfy Ed 2gs or Thebainer.

More to the point: what facilitations can be made to avoid the overly repetitive task of marking literally hundreds of images for List of South Park episodes and literally hundreds more for the individual episode articles AND insert literally hundreds of comments saying "go look here" again on both pages? I quote from the linked article:

It is an insidious disease, originating from ignorance of the KISS principle and resulting in overly complex procedures that are often misunderstood, followed with great irritation or ignored.

This sounds exactly like what the policy is doing that you stated. Cburnett 04:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Images in LOE Pages and Individual Episode Pages

Note: A user or two has said the images are decoration but I think of them as a compact form of information. The human brain is very visual and I think we should cater to it.

Some lists have large amounts of text associated with each entry like List_of_Justice_League_episodes#Season_1:_2001-2002 (it's multiple episodes but you get the idea visually). I don't think anyone objects to these images but I find these pages to be unwieldly. I would prefer a list page that has a small entry with a link to each episode's page but I don't want to give up the benifits of images on the list page just to accomodate this. I would like images both on the list page and the episode pages so I can find my way around easily.

Is there any way that images are OK in an LOE page without making each entry huge?

There are four possible policies as I see it (I favor option 3):

• 1. No images in lists.
• 2. Images are OK if there accompanying text is a certain size.
• 3. Images in lists are OK if they accompany critical commentary. No minimum size.
• 4. Add images to "List of Episodes" as you see fit, as long as they have they have a fair use rational.

Maybe the problem is not the images at all, but that the summaries are not encyclopedic. I know I would like to see more information and less "A mysterious woman takes Sayid prisoner, and tells him a disturbing truth about the island." More like "This episode introdes thisactor as thischaracter" with a picture of the actor. I wouldn't want someone deleting images instead of fixing the lists, though. Maybe something in the screenshot tag could accomplish this. -- Peregrinefisher 14:21, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I've been toying with these issues too. I don't believe encyclopedias make a habit of creating "list of ..." articles (The "L" book would be massive!), but one thing we've noticed about wikipedia is that we can and do redefine what kind of information an encyclopedia provides, and tacitly, what the definition of an encyclopedia is. Therefore, this particular encyclopedia can provide a list of television episodes so the lists and the data they contain should stay. However, television and by extension a television episode is visual in nature. I said it before on this page, calling an episode screenshot decoration would be like calling wikipedia's picture of the Mona Lisa decoration. It's visual nature of a television episode requires an image to help define it much like the visual nature of the Mona Lisa requires an image to help define it. I do not believe this means the episode summary needs to say "the image depicts..." or anything similar. The screenshot is implicatively referenced by the data around it in the table including the summary. It seems like a lot of people get their feathers ruffled when they see an image that contains little to no prose around it. I say the wikipedia definition of encyclopedia shows that prose is not a prerequsite for a picture. The surrounding text, as long as the formatting is clean and it is obvious what belongs where, help indirectly describe the image, and all together describe whatever this part of the list the data is trying to define. Therefore, I believe screenshots and DVD covers have a place in a "List of..." article provided the images have a fair use rationale before hand (non-fair use trumps everything regardless). --Will2k 03:29, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I whole-heartedly think the images identify the episode. In fact, this is how and why I pick the images I do. See User:Cburnett/Images#Television screenshots to get an understanding of how many I've done and feel free to critique my choices (I'd be happy to screencap a better one if you can name it).

Being quite familiar with the episodes I screen capture, I can more often than not identify the exact episode and plot based on a single image. I literally just picked 10 random ST:TNG images and was able to identify each one and their respective plots. So in combination with the episode name and one or two sentence summary/overview I can pretty much find exactly the episode I'm looking for.

The end problem with TV and movies is that we have no access to non-copyrighted imagery. None. None for many, many decades. And considering the power of images ("a picture is worth a thousand words") I think an adequate description of a TV episode requires a recognizable screencapture. The image itself serves a function and as such cannot be mere decoration. Cburnett 05:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

A picture may be worth a thousand words all other things being equal, but I'd rather have even as few fifty free-licensed words rather than a single unfree image. User:Angr 08:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Except they are not equal: we can have both. 1050 words if you will: 50 to use as you please under the confines of GFDL and a 1000 words to use so long as it still qualifies as fair use for whatever the heck you're doing. Cburnett 06:20, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, to take the first picture off your list, it accompanies "After an accidental cryogenic freezing, Fry awakens at the dawn of the year 3000." - now I fail to see how that sentence requires an illustration, or how any illustration would further my knowledge of the what has just been said there. ed g2s • talk 14:39, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

It isn't all about providing new information but rather reinforcing information. Seriously, Mona Lisa does not require an image, but it certainly helps.--Will2k 15:35, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

True; however, since the Mona Lisa is in the public domain, the image can be used purely decoratively. Since a Futurama screenshot isn't, it can't be. User:Angr 15:41, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) True, but to state the obvious, a picture of the Mona Lisa is not fair use. The requirements to use a fair use image are set higher than the requirements to use a 'free' image. Garion96 (talk) 15:46, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

You do?? That sentence contains almost no description at all! How would you know what Fry looks like at that point in time, or what the year 3000 looks like? As for the larger debate I agree 100% with Cburnett: wikipedia needs pictures or it will quickly become irrelevant. If free images of TV shows existed we would use them, but they don't, so I support fair use, as long as it's small images and only one screenshot per episode. That's entirely reasonable. - Mcasey666 01:18, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

What Fry or the year 3000 looks like is not the subject of the article, nor that part of the article. We do not use fair use to fill in the gaps we can't be bothered to write. Were the Mona Lisa to be copyrighted (it isn't) it would perfectly reasonable to claim fair use as the article discusses at length the image itself. One screenshot for every two lines of text is most definitely not reasonable for an encyclopædia with a primary goal of providing free content. We are not trying to compete with TV.com, TVIV or other such listings sites. ed g2s • talk 01:26, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm having trouble seeing your point, and other people probably are too. What does the number of words next to a picture have to do with that picture's fair use status? And doesn't your definition of "an encyclopedia with a primary goal of providing free content" preclude ANY fair use items? I really want to understand your side of the argument, but you haven't been clear enough. Don't just link to some policy page. - Mcasey666 06:55, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Because purpose of use is one of the most important, if not the most important, factors in determining fair use. Purposes recognised as being fair use include critical commentary, news reporting and parody. There is a good explanation of these at the entry on fair use and at WP:FU. Merely displaying an image on its own cannot possibly fulfil one of these purposes, whereas a caption or body text accompanying the image can. Do you see now why accompanying text is necessary? --bainer (talk) 08:05, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Strangely enough, the one purpose you didn't mention is non-profit education.

Fine, take all four points of the copyright act:

1. Purpose: identify a specific episode out of possibly hundreds for a non-profit and non-commercial educational purpose with a goal of information dissemination to the public. The purpose has transformed from entertainment to almost an opposite: education. At least I hope no one reads encyclopedias or dictionaries for entertainment (talk about a cheap date!).
2. Nature: of fictional & published material (at least most TV episodes)
3. Amount: At 24 frames per second of 20 minutes of video (24*60*20=28,800 frames) then a single frame is ~34/10000th of 1% of an episode. Then consider the complete lack of audio. Talk about minute. Note that Wright v. Warner Books, Inc. upheld fair use for no more than 1% of Wright's unpublished work and that stanford recommends no more than 30 seconds of video (mind you that that includes audio) [10] as a guideline.
4. Effect: A single image without sound cannot possibly ever replace an episode nor ever detract from its sales as a replacement.

The last two favor fair use in the extreme with the second counting against all fair use of tv episodes and the first is apparently of question. Claim #1 to be the most important if you wish but all 4 are considered and half of the four should out weigh the first two by the extreme favoring of fair use. Accompanying text is so important to you because you place such importance on #1. You think #1 is most important, the supreme court has said #4 is "the single most important element of fair use", but the supreme court said later that "all [four factors] are to be explored, and the results weighed together, in light of the purposes of copyright". So going by what SC says, economic impact to Fox or CBS or Paramount is zero for either list-use or "critical commentary"-use.

Besides, no one (you included) has shown me any evidence yet that this whole thing is even an issue. Where are the complaints against list images but not main article images? Where are the C&D letters or law suits? Is there any evidence showing that this is an issue? Or is it, like I've repeated many times above, a hypothetical argument based on hypothetical evidence? Sure, we can rank & discuss images on the four criteria and pretend we're lawyers & judges till the end of time but if there's nothing to support the "anti-image side" then this is just intellectual waxing and disrupting wikipedia to make a point (e.g., List of Lost episodes). I'll note here that case history shows, for noncommercial use, it is up to the burden of the copyright holder to show an economic impact and since you side with the owners (by agreeing against fair use) then I see little reason why the burden lies on me to show that it is not an issue. So bring on the evidence. Cburnett 06:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Plus, looking at List of Futurama episodes, one per episode is still about 77(!!!) fair use images in one article. Garion96 (talk) 01:32, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Those 77 images will be used no matter what, because they're the same images being used on the individual episode articles. The pro-screenshot side is arguing that the limited number of fair use images is per subject, not per article. If we used two different screenshots for one episode entry, that would be more than what was needed. -- Ned Scott 03:09, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

You can't just argue that because they're on Wikipedia anyway we can use them wherever. Fair use has to be claimed for each use. ed g2s • talk 10:23, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes Ed, I agree with you on that. Thankfully I did not make such an argument. Did you mean to place this comment under someone else's comment? -- Ned Scott 19:34, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

True. The pro image argument is "one image per subject." - Peregrinefisher 18:36, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I think this stems from an equation of "article" with "subject" but an article can certainly be an aggregation or compilation or list of subjects (there is a strong move on the "deletionists" to merge small subjects into a single article (e.g., List of Star Trek races)) or a single subject can span many articles (e.g., Timeline of United States history). Cburnett 06:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Conclusions?

Seems we've had a few days to sit on this. Is there any conclusion on this discussion?

First, am I correct in stating that, if the image is free, there is no dispute?

Second, according to the official policy, the section of the copyright act of 1976 regarding fair-use can be summarized as follows:

1. The use must not attempt to "supersede the objects" of the original but rather be educational or critical.

Check - The screenshot does not supersede a higher quality screenshot or the episode itself. It's purpose is to aid in the description of the episode and therefore serve an educational purpose (See point four below).

2. The less of the original that is used in relation to the whole the more likely that use is fair, though the importance of the specific portion is also considered (as the quoting the most important part may attempt to "supersede" the original).

Check - As discussed before, this is only one image of thousands which are used throughout the entire episode. The image may be representive of the episode, but it is certainly not anywhere near as representive or more representive than the episode itself.

3. The use must not infringe on the copyright owner's ability to exploit his original work for instance by acting as a direct market substitute for the original work though not through criticism or parody.

Check - Seeing the image cannot serve as a replacement for seeing the episode. This is most certainly not a direct market substitute.

Now add in the additional criteria for television screenshots:

4. Television screenshots are fair-use if they are used for critical commentary and discussion of the cinema and television

Check - This is where the decorative argument comes in and I think might be the only hurdle to a conclusion. While I find the term "critical commentary" rather vague, the images can be considered part of a discussion of the episode (Some might argue in what capacity - more decorative or more descriptive, but I think the "decorative" camp can agree that the image in some way aids in the description of the episode). I think any contribution to the discussion in any capacity should be enough to pass this requirement.

Based on this criteria, I truly believe that it is correct for us to claim these episode screenshots in "List of..." articles (if they aren't already free) as fair-use. Therefore, I think we can continue to claim fair-use. In the event of a C&D letter, we can rediscuss our claim to fair-use based on reasoning they have provided on a case by case basis.

To help enforce proper images are uploaded, I shamefully suggest all episode screenshot images be judged according to my four pieces of criteria:

1. Did you take the screenshot?

2. Did you verify the image is considered a free image (If yes, cite the proof of freedom)?

3. Did you verify the image does not violate the copyright holders claim to the image (if yes, cite the proof of permission (See the four points above))?

If the answer is yes to any of these three questions, then the image can stay.

If the answer is no to all three, then the image must be deleted. If the image survives those three, we add:

4. Did you ensure the image uniquely represents the episode and/or it's description in the "List of..." and/or the episode's page?

If the answer is "yes", the image may stay.

If the answer is no, then the image must be replaced.

I also suggest that all episode screenshots be tagged with the following criteria:

1. Name of the T.V. Series

2. Name of the episode

3. A description of the image (The usual caption)

4. A description (justification) on how this particular image defines the episode (eg. relationship to the episode title, relationship to the main events in the episode, relationship to the special characters which were specific to this episode)

The only thing I think that is left to prove is the validity of DVD covers, though I fail to see how pictures of DVD covers cannot pass the above criteria for fair-use as well. --Will2k 17:08, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, free images (public domain; those released under a free license like GFDL, CC-BY, or CC-BY-SA) may be used to your heart's content. The only issue is the extent to which "fair use" images can be used in lists of episodes. The four points you mention are a good starting place, but Wikipedia's fair use policy has 10 points, all of which must be adhered to.

1. No free equivalent is available or could be created that would adequately give the same information.

   Check There's no replacement for a screenshot.

2. The material should not be used in a manner that would likely replace the original market role of the original copyrighted media.

   Check A single screenshot is no replacement for an entire episode.

3. The amount of copyrighted work used should be as little as possible.

   Fail A list of several dozen, often over a hundred, episodes with one screenshot per episode is not using "as little as possible".

4. The material must have previously been published.

   Check Obviously.

5. The material must be encyclopedic and otherwise meet general Wikipedia content requirements. Unfreely-licensed media cannot be used as decoration.

   Fail Screenshots of TV shows are not encyclopedic and are being used as decoration in lists.

6. The material meets the media-specific policy requirements.

   Well, that's what we're trying to determine, isn't it?

7. The material must be used in at least one article.

   Check Obviously.

8. The material must contribute significantly to the article (e.g. identify the subject of an article, or specifically illustrate relevant points or sections within the text) and must not serve a purely decorative purpose.

   Fail Screenshots do not add significantly to lists of episodes and do serve a purely decorative purpose.

9. Fair use images should be used only in the article namespace.

   Check Not violated since lists are in article namespace.

10. The image or media description page must contain a source, a fair-use tag, and a rationale.

    Check Not violated if the image itself has this information; however, there has to be a rationale for each use of the image, including the use in the list. This is the crux of the matter: is it possible to write a compelling rationale for the use of each episode screenshot in a list? I suspect not.

Therefore, screenshot may not be used in lists of episodes, because doing so violates points 3, 5, and 8 of Wikipedia's fair-use policy. User:Angr 20:33, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, any other interpretation of our policy is just wishful thinking. ed g2s • talk 21:40, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I haven't said anything in this debate yet but feel I must now. All three of your fails do not have clear cut yes or no answers for all instances the way the policy is written. One screenshot per episode is as little as possible in order to be useful, regardless of the exact amount of screenshots used on a given page. Screenshots of a TV show are encyclopedic in an encyclopedia that covers TV shows. When a screenshot is chosen to match the episode description then it does specifically illustrate relevant points or sections within the text. I must also disagree with the statement that free images can be used to your heart's content, this could be clutter and becomes a nuisance regardless of copyright status, but that seems like more of a discussion for Manual of Style. Jay32183 22:00, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree, nothing in the policy is clear about those issues in regards to the screenshots. And the policy still states that identification is an acceptable reason in Wikipedia's eyes, which I would have to agree with. People seem to get so hung up on the idea that it's a lot of images. Well, we have a lot of articles with images, this is just one that gets rendered as a single page. The following is just a thought I had, it is not my reasons for believing the screenshots are covered under fair use, so feel free to find all the flaws you want: I'd even be willing to argue that an article that aids in navigation of other articles, such as on Lost, that both individual article and list are covered under the same argument, since they're interconnected, just rendered separately. This is not much different than the concept of a search engine returning thumbnails as results, because it's being used to point readers to the full articles.

But, like I said, that's just if we want to be logical about it. Even with our current situation, and even if the lists weren't used for navigation and were the only episode summaries, I don't see any clear cut violation of a policy and law that is fuzzy to begin with. -- Ned Scott 23:22, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, many lists are using the screenshots not just to show what's happening but as a "visual fingerprint" to identify the episode. So even if the text doesn't discuss Starvin' Marvin, that's not the point of choosing that screenshot. Choosing that screenshot, with the arrangement in pixels that it has, allows the reader to visually identify the episode in question. -- Ned Scott 23:27, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore:

3) Each episode is copyrighted in itself and the copyright of episode A has no bearing on that of episode B. So aggregating them together just doesn't make any sense. Copyrights apply per published work (i.e., an episode) not per television series. You are incorrectly applying the scope of a copyright to suit your argument.

5) Both "encyclopedic" and "decoration" are very subjective terms. More subjective than the legal concept of "fair use". It must be nice to ignore that and believe your opinion is the answer.

8) This is basically a reiteration of #5 and also very subjective.

Images are not decorations for reasons I've detailed above. They serve a function and have purpose of identifying the episode and its plot. A decoration would be (in the context of a TV episode list) pictures of the cast & crew, props, vehicles, etc. as they do not directly relate to what is being discussed. A screenshot of an image identifies the episode and directly relates to the description, title, and production number. In comparing Image:SouthPark102.gif to Image:Eric.png I think my point is clear. The former identifies the plot of the episode while the latter identifies a character that is in the episode but is not from the episode.

Please tell me why your definition of "decorative" and "encyclopedic" is correct and trumps all when the images satisfy the copyright act (the only thing that legally matters) and unquestionably all other policy points (recall that #3 is voided)? Why do you recognize these terms as black and white when they clearly are not? I can't recall reading any justification for drawing the line where you do other than an implied "cuz I say so."

I will still add that not a single person here has yet to provide any evidence that this is an issue. Not even the bainer, who has asserted dozens per day, can provide any evidence. Neither can ed g2s who, contradictably, provided an image for a non-list article. Nevermind that argument has been put forth time after time that this is to mitigate legal ramifications, but it really boils down to "I say the line is here and you are wrong." Quite a change in argument... What puzzles me most is the willingness to extend the application of a copyright while constricting its use.

Since your line of argument is good enough for you, how about if I use it? "I say the images are not decoration and are very encyclopedic." Does that mean I win because all 10 policy points are "Check"? (And that's sarcasm, btw.) Instead I'll resort to actually explaining why I take my position and why I disagree. Are you willing to try? I've left lots of questions to be answered. Cburnett 23:51, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. The suggestion that images are purely decorative is nonsense. They are definatly decorative, but are not purely decorative in the same way using a table is a decorative approach to describing the episode, but not purely decorative. The only argument left is "as little as possible". This is a questionable point in itself because every article that contains an image is not using as little images as possible (That would be 0). Since there is only one screenshot which describes the episode, there is no more reduced way to represent the episode with images. If anyone is still not convinced, bear in mind that these screenshots are always used when the episode has it's own article. Therefore, if the image is not used in a more grounded article yet, it will be when the episode's article is developed.--Will2k 04:13, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Still no one has presented a coherent argument why images are indispensable in lists of episodes. Consider List of All in the Family episodes, which has not one single screenshot, and does not suffer for it. The list is every bit as useful and usable as List of South Park episodes, without violating anyone's copyright. This is why I say images in lists are purely decorative: the list is still comprehensible without the images, therefore the images are nothing but an added luxury. User:Angr 08:00, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Images are indispensable in lists of episodes because a visual medium requires a visual representation. I think that List of All in the Family episodes needs images, I can't naviagate it well as it is. - 08:53, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

For me, the only thing that makes List of All in the Family episodes difficult to navigate is the fact that not all episodes have had summaries written for them yet. Images would be unnecessary there. User:Angr 13:34, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

We don't need to prove they are indispensable as long as we prove we haven't violated policy. As mentioned earlier the encyclopedic versus decorative arguement is incredibly subjective. Every non-diagram image on wikipedia can be argued as decorative, so that would seem not to be the intent of number 5. The person who wrote that rule surely did not intend for it to mean that pages cannot be visually appealing, but that irrelevant content that is somewhat related should not be included. TV screenshots are relevant to an article which has a goal of identifying individual TV show episodes. Formatting a page in an attractive manner is not a violation of copyright and unlike the law, the spirit of Wikipedia policy is more important than the letter of Wikipedia policy. You may wish to review that checklist and notice that the images passed every objective test, so it would seem that we are now attempting to argue style rather than a violation of policy. Jay32183 12:57, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

If they're not indispensable, they have violated policy. That's what "as little as possible" means. Of course Wikipedia pages can have decorative images and be visually appealing -- but using images that are free (as in freedom), not used under a so-called "fair use" claim. There's nothing fair about stealing someone else's images to make Wikipedia pages prettier, and formatting a page in an attractive manner most certainly is a violation of copyright if the images used are unfree. That IMO is the spirit of the Wikipedia "fair use" policy. User:Angr 13:34, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

You completely misunderstood me and went back to previously disputed points. Your entire arguement is about what is or is not encyclopedic. I will again state why the "fails" listed above are not accurate for the spirit of Wikipedia. The images do specifically illustrate a relevant section of text, I describe the episode the screenshot illustrates. There is no mention of needing to provide new information, that is not what significant contribution means. There may be some confusion because of the restriction on magazine covers because a person being on the cover does not justify using the cover in a biography. This is actually because of use of the magazine without mention to the magazine. With number 5, the "must be encyclopedic" is the important part. Decorative is used here to mean not encyclopedic, it is not being used as pretty equals no fair use, because it is when it is only decorative, which no one has been able to convicingly prove with screenshots, that fair use fails. Under your interprtation all fair use images are forbidden because they make the page look nicer, which is very much not the intent. Saying that anything that can be removed should be removed is a very exclusionist view, note that none of the the guidelines mention necessity as a requirement. As I said before, when an encyclopedia covers television episodes then it is necessarily true that images illustrating those episodes are also encyclopedic. Do not confuse encyclopedic with academic. Now on to the point about the number of images taking into account the other two points I made. One image per episode is as little as possible to maintain any sense of usefulness, and Wikipedia certainly does not forbid usefulness in and of itself. If the article were about a single episode your as little as possible arguement would be laughable. With regard to a list, use of an image for episode 1 should limit use of an image for episode 2, they are destinct entities and the point of the list is identification and differentiation, which screenshots illustrate, remember that illustration of a point is one of the examples of fair use in number 8. I should also point out here that there is never any mention to number of images compared to amount of text, and that the text does not have to describe the image if the image is illustrating the text, although the two should be indistinguishable. I would like to reiterate my point that seemed to draw the most confusion, that when images are used purely decoratively free use versus fair use does not matter. Free use images should also never be used in a non-encyclopedic matter, the Mona Lisa cannot be put on every page even though we are not violating copyright in doing so. Jay32183 14:08, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Both your argument and mine turn crucially on the question of whether screenshots in lists of episodes are encyclopedic or purely decorative. As you say, it's a subjective question. In your opinion, they're encyclopedic. In my opinion, they're purely decorative. I have never said fair use images should be forbidden because they make the page look nicer (that would be absurd indeed!), I have said fair use images should be forbidden if all they do is make the page look nicer, and IMO that's all they do in lists of episodes. They serve no informative purpose at all. Your statement "when images are used purely decoratively free use versus fair use does not matter" is wildly inaccurate; purely decorative images are allowed so long as they're free. To take an example from my own image uploads, Glencolmcille has a gallery of three images at the bottom; the middle one is mine. That image is being used purely decoratively, as it only shows what the village looks like and doesn't actually contribute any essential information to the article. A "fair use" image would not be allowed to be used that way, but because the image I uploaded is free, it may be used that way. The fact that the Mona Lisa cannot be put on every page is that she would be irrelevant on the vast majority of pages; it has nothing to do with the encyclopedic vs. purely decorative argument. User:Angr 15:42, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be completely ignoring one thing I keep mentioning that actually is causing you to contradict yourself. In my reasoning for why the images are not purely decorative I am quoting from your checklist one of the examples of significant encyclopedic contribution, ie specifically illustrate relevant points or sections within the text. By what manner of logic can you deny that a screenshot used to identify and episode does not illustrate text that identifies the episode. Again I feel I should point out that what you posted does not require new or different information as both examples given of contributing significantly to the article fail that. I was unclear in what i meant about applying equally well to free use images. I did not mean to say that it was the current policy, what I meant is that something as subjective as excessive use (without any objective qualifier) should be a guideline in Manual of Style concerning all images, not a means of preventing an otherwise legal fair use. Based on what I've read so far I think we agree that we are debating the application Wikipedia policy not US copyright law at this point. Remember just because it's free doesn't mean it's a good idea, which is not an arguement intended to support unfree images. Jay32183 16:08, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that a single screenshot out of an episode (showing what, a fraction of a second out of a 23-minute show?) can actually be representative or illustrative of that episode. I agree that even free images shouldn't be used excessively in articles, but I think there should be different definitions of "excessive" for free and nonfree images. For nonfree images, I think one per 25k of text is sufficient (as a compromise; I still personally believe the total number of "fair use" images on Wikipedia should be zero), while for free images there could be ten times as many without being excessive. User:Angr 16:45, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

By that logic (only captures a small amount of time) no single image can be representive or illustrative of anything that exists through time, which is most assuredly untrue. I also feel that excessive should not be expressly defined, it requires editors' discretion. There should also be no distinction between free and unfree in this manner, as using images in excess is a distraction, however will violate no copyright law (the laws referring to minimal use refer to the amount taken from the source, not the amount presented in the product) only the poorly worded Wikipedia policy. However, there should be a distinction between prosaic and list articles, as different formatting requires different guidelines. But I am sure almost everyone here agrees the policy requires cleanup in order to resolve this issue as the only failing points the anti-image people present are subjective (excessive use, encyclopedic use, and significant contribution) and we are attempting to figure out where the line is, as not to cross it. Jay32183 16:59, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think "excessive" should be explicitly defined in a policy or guideline either, I was just giving a rough rule of thumb (the one I follow when deciding whether an FA candidate has too many "fair use" images, for example). And some articles just cry out for lots of images, and in those cases I think we can afford to be more lenient about using free images than using copyvios. User:Angr 17:50, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Policy never trumps common sense. The thumbnailed images in lists serve a very specific, encyclopedic purpose and happen to be decorative as well. Good for them as a typical failing of our articles is that they are boring. While policy may at times may appear to controvene their use in lists; I see nothing to indicate that was the intent of the policy. Get a clear mandate from the community, Jimbo or the arbcom; as there is good faith objections so such stringent adherance to numerous policies... which for the most part to not address lists. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 17:08, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Let's boill it down.

Before we try and come to a concensus (if possible) lets try and summarize our positions. Either way, what do we do with List of Lost episodes.

I think a TV episode is so important that we need to have an image of it on its list page and its own page. Am I using wikiepedia incorrectly when I use it for TV info? meta:Inclusionism vs. meta:Exclusionism - Peregrinefisher 08:32, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with inclusionism vs. exclusionism. And you're not using Wikipedia wrong if you use it to find out information about TV show episodes. But all the information about the TV show episode is still there even without an image. User:Angr 08:50, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

That argument is a real problem! All the information I need about Mona Lisa can be described by text too. Of course, I can come up with an infinitely countable list of articles that contain images that are not necessary.

For the sake of the grandparent post, here's my argument: An episode is a work of art that cannot be described properly without a visual representation of the episode in the same vein as Mona Lisa requires an image. The image cannot be used stand-alone but can help describe the episode only if an episode description is already present. Free and fair-use representations of the episode are permissible but copyrighted versions (eg. yanked off of the official website or something) is not. Further, while wikipedia is first and foremost an encyclopedia, it is also a website. Because humans are visual creatures, a successful website MUST be pleasing to look at so the information and images must be arranged and presented in a decorative manner. However, I agree that this isn't deviantart or flickr or anything so the images must be utilized in a manner that aids in the description of the subject. --Will2k 15:00, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

As far as both copyright law and Wikipedia "fair-use" policy is concerned, there is no difference between a screenshot taken by a Wikipedian and one "yanked off of the official website". Both are copyrighted by the TV show's production company. Again, an attractive presentation of pages is important, but it is less important than sticking to Wikipedia's mission of being a free content encyclopedia. Having even one "fair use" image in this encyclopedia is contrary to that mission, but nevertheless a compromise allowing a limited number of fair use images when they're needed for critical commentary has (unfortunately, IMO) been reached. But putting potentially hundreds of "fair use" images into a single list article (how many episodes of the Simpsons are there by now?) and pretending they're needed for critical commentary is simply going too far. It violates the spirit of Wikipedia's fair-use policy, which is the embodiment of the compromise. User:Angr 15:22, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Because this is about including the images on lists, we need to follow an all or nothing approach. It will look very ugly if we include a couple of screenshots for the entire list of Simpsons episodes, for example. We should have one image for each episode in the list, or none at all. Because I think screenshots are useful both for decoration and for description, I want an "all" approach instead of the "nothing" approach.--Will2k 17:09, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

The main point here is that although having a screenshot is useful for helping people who've seen the episode know which one they're reading about - it does not add anything to the summary. ed g2s • talk 12:41, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Again, that is based on your definition of "decorative" and "encyclopedic". Clearly I and others disagree with your definition and you can't even acknowledge that. Cburnett 23:18, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

How do we decide this?

How? - Peregrinefisher 08:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Well it appears that only three issues from the anti-image side remain. They will either have to concede all three of them, or will have to undeniably prove that one of them can never be met. Either way the discussion is over. The three points should probably be argued uder separate headings on this page to allow each of them to be debated properly. We shouldn't have some one refusing to concede on one point because the pro-image side hasn't provided enough proof for the other two. And if we decide that the policy needs to be reworded each of the three points will be exclusive enough that it is easier to clear up confusion in any one of them. As a reminder the questions are "Is the use excessive?" "Are the screenshots encyclopedic?" "Do the screenshots contribute to the article?" There is one more question from the original ten, however its answer is dependant on the answers to the other three "Do the screenshots meet the media specific requirements for fair use?" Unless of course there is an additional policy within screenshot use that isn't covered by the general image use that we are still discussing. If it comes down to arguements that are pure opinion then we will not be able to make a blanket ruling at all and will have to go case by case on each of the contested pages. Please don't respond with pro-image or anti-image points as this is just a suggestion to clean up the debate and not have to argue multiple points at once. Jay32183 18:27, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Are TV screenshots encyclopedic?

No one has said anything since i suggested separating the points so I guess I have to start. Remember that in the section we are not determining the total fair use claim, just this one point.

The most general definition of encyclopedic would be "of or pertaining to an encyclopedia" which but we probably need to be more specific than that. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that covers a wide variety of topics, including television. It contains articles that describe in depth TV series, individual episodes, and individual characters. It also includes episode guides in the form of "List of Series Name episodes" pages, which the current debate is about. Therefore, I feel that TV screenshots are encyclopedic. Now if one were to claim that TV screenshots are not encyclopedic that does not just have an impact on these lists. If TV screenshots are not encyclopedic then they cannot be on the system in any of the encyclopedia articles. An image does not lose its encyclopedic proerties by being placed in a particular article. It may lose its relevance, it may cause an excess of images to be used, but neither of these points answers the question "Are TV screenshots encyclopedic?" Now it seems that screenshots are being used in other articles with a valid fair use claim, which means they images have either been mislabled and no tv screenshot is ever allowed, or the screenshots are encyclopedic and being presented in list format has no bearing on that status. Jay32183 23:22, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Putting aside that ingenious argument that because something's in Wikipedia it's encyclopaedic, you're missing the point of this discussion. It's not about whether TV screenshots are encyclopaedic, it's about whether fair use can really be claimed for images in lists. The problem with lists is that they use an awful lot of content that's claimed to be fair use, alongside very little content that supposedly establishes the fair use claim. Articles on individual items in a list (whether they be television episodes or something else) allow for enough text to establish a valid fair use purpose (I'm not saying all such current uses are fair use, I haven't checked them yet).

And in case you didn't know, a fair use claim must be established for every use. If I use an image in three articles, I need to make a fair use claim for each of those three articles. --bainer (talk) 00:28, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

This is exactly the type of arguement I requested people not make here. There were three points listed above which claimed for why the anti-image people were claiming the tv screenshots were not fair use. Images must be encyclopedic was one of the one marked as fail by the other anti-image people. I was not attempting to disprove all of the points from the anti-image camp with that arguement. If you read the above section you will see my suggestion to tackle each issue separately. Even if you concede this particular point the questions of "Are the images being used excessively?" and "Are the images contributing significantly to the article?" are very much still up for debate, and require separate debates. It can become very confusing and frustrating to all involved if multiple points are debated within the same arguement. I also didn't want to start all three at the same time to prevent confusion and to get the debate focus on one point at a time. Jay32183 00:43, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

You're not getting the answers you want because you're asking the wrong questions. You're asking "are the images themselves encyclopaedic", when you should be asking "is the use of this image valid"? I presume that by "encyclopaedic" you're referring to point 8 of the fair use criteria. If so, then encyclopaedic is probably a bad word to use; point 8 is directed at the purpose and character of use component of fair use, it would be more accurate to refer to "purpose and character", or to refer directly to one of the fair use purposes (the one that has been recognised as most appropriate in this context is "critical commentary").

So, if you want to break the issue up into smaller questions, the question for this issue should be, "putting aside the other parts of fair use, is the purpose and character of the use of this image fair use?" --bainer (talk) 02:48, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect. I was referring to point 5, images must be encyclopedic and otherwise meet Wikipedia content requirement. My plan was to settle points 3, 5, and 8 separately. I will get to 3, use as little as possible, and 8, must contribute significantly. I was never asking you to concede every point with this arguement only point number 5. Please either admit that I am right or present a counter arguement. An arguement regarding points 3 or 8 are not valid in your maintianing that it fails on point 5. Jay32183 13:37, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair use applies if the image is discussed, regardless of location

If an image is discussed in Article X, then the image is fair use in Article X. That applies regardless of whether X is an Article/List/Category/Whatever, and it applies regardless of the name of Article X. Where we choose to discuss images is simply a matter of organization. The merit of the discussion is not lessened by virtue of it appearing in a place that we happen to label as a list for our own organizational purposes. Johntex\^talk 02:19, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Everyone who has commented here so far agrees that where an image is discussed in sufficient detail and with the appropriate purpose then it can be validly claimed as fair use. The problem is that in many lists, there is simply far too little text to give sufficient detail, or to establish an appropriate purpose. A one sentence plot summary of a television episode does not constitute sufficient critical commentary to warrant a fair use screenshot of that episode. --bainer (talk) 02:37, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you - I found the existing discussion a little hard to follow so I guess I didn't spot where that was agreed. However, I am not sure I would categorically agree that a single sentence can't do the trick. Here is a hypotehetical case:

In a list of The Simpsons, episodes:

• Lisa's First Word - Lisa says her first word and Bart, scared by his clown-shape bed, keeps chanting "Can't sleep, clown will eat me" Image:Bedclown.jpg

I think that would be sufficient to explain the use of the image. Johntex\^talk 03:00, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

In the article, the image of the clown bed should be alongside the paragraph on the "can't sleep..." meme, but otherwise that image does appear to be fair use. I doubt the first sentence in that section would necessarily be sufficient on its own, the second paragraph (the one which discusses the image) is the key. You could of course arrange that into one sentence, my point was that one sentence of plot summary (as opposed to one well structured sentence of commentary) is categorically insufficient. Your example sentence is a good start, but of course the closer the image is tied to the text the better.

The image of Maggie with the family around her in that article, on the other hand, needs some direct reference in the text or a caption to tie it into the text. --bainer (talk) 03:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

After reading the rules, it is very clear that the fair use claim for each article goes on the image page not the article page. The fact that there is little information on the article page is completely irrelevant. The fair use tag in the artcle is supposed to be a hidden note that says basically "see the image page for fair use rationale". The suggested format for the rationale on the image page is a bulleted list, not prose, with a list for each article. Just because this has not been filled out properly for images does not mean you can deny that fair use can be claimed. See Wikipedia:Image page for details. Jay32183 13:42, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I read through the rules again too. Number 3 says:

• The amount of copyrighted work used should be as little as possible. Low-resolution images should be used instead of high-resolution images (especially images that are so high-resolution that they could be used for piracy). Do not use multiple images or media clips if one will serve the purpose adequately.

I find this a little ambiguous. Sounds to me like it could mean use as few copyrighted images in an article as possible, or use as few copyrighted images on wikipedia as possible. Given the nature of webpages, the second interpretation makes a little more sense for a website like Wikipedia. If we need a copyrighted image for something and we can use it, we should be allowed to use it in Wikipedia as much as we want. However, using 7 copyrighted images all across wikipedia when only one is needed violates this section of the policy.--Will2k 15:26, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I would tend to agree. To return to the Simpsons episode list example, I think an image per episode could be justified if the image is discussed and if there is physical space for the image, which may not be the case in most our lists. A prominent article with many sub-topics can justify an image per sub-topic, if the images are each illustrating a different point within the article. Coca-Cola would be a good example of an article that can use multiple images. There are numerous copyrighted images there, but each make a different point, so all should be allowed. Johntex\^talk 16:15, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The text does not necessarily need to discuss the particular image. A good example for this is baseball cards. Using a baseball card in a article just because the player featured on the card is mentioned is not fair use. An article or section of an article with the baseball card as the topic is fair use. The specific example given in the fair use policy is Honus Wagner in which the article discusses the baseball but does not describe the image of the baseball card at all. Jay32183 16:27, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I think we are saying the same thing, but maybe the terminology is getting in the way. In the baseball card example, the hypotehical article on Joe-Bob might say "As an ambidextrous switch hitter, Joe-Bob signed his rokie card twice - once with each hand (pictured)." That would be sufficient to merit showing a scan of the rookie card. Johntex\^talk 17:35, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think it was a difference in the way we phrase things. I'm pretty sure you didn't mean to say that the text must say "In this picture we see Joe-Bob, at the left side of the plate, swinging his bat at a ball. He is wearing his homegame jersey with #3 and has an excited look on his face." The image can speak for itself in that regard. Jay32183 17:48, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

What a joke

I have to admit that this discussion is just short of a joke. The anti-image folk (Angr & Ed specifically) have recognized that the only remaining WP policy points are those that are clearly subjective.

• What is "encyclopedic"?
• What is "decorative"?

By deduction: Ed has gone so far as to say any disagreements with him is "wishful thinking" since his definition of both these words is clearly the only correct definition.

Every attempt to quantiy either of these parameters is a futile effort. One man's junk/trash is another's treasure. What Ed 'n friends call decorative I call necessary (would I honestly spend this much time arguing for it AND taking screenshots if I believed otherwise?) and rooted in purpose.

I think it was also be a waste of time dissecting the two words and getting into an etymology war because the intent, by me as a screen capturer, is to illustrate the episode and inform and to do so in such small quantity that it is nowhere near a valid substitute for the actual episode. The last thing on my list was to make things pretty. "Encyclopedic" and "decorative" are mere labels of intent & purpose which is why they are subjective.

I think it goes without saying that this, as a legal issue, is moot. It has been asserted time and time again that this is an issue but no proof has been shown. In fact, the only proof given contradicts Ed's position completely. If it were a real-life issue then Ed should have no problem listing more than the Carlson Twins. But he can't or he won't.

This issue has come fully to drawing a very sharp line in a very blurry field and if the entire thing hinges on "I say so" arguments then this entire discussion is a joke. Let's go ahead and start debating Windows vs. Linux vs. OS X. Or vim vs. emacs. Or python vs. ruby. Or english vs. spanish. Or Maxtor vs. Western Digital. None of these arguments can ever end because they are all subjective. I have come up with at least one objective criterion and that is evidence. No evidence has been presented whch means this is a non-issue.

How about providing evidence or using more than an "I say so" argument? Cburnett 04:04, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Decorative is when the image is not being discussed, but instead is a arbitrarily chosen screengrab from an episode that might help someone who has already seen it know which one they are reading about. Fair is allowed on Wikipedia as a last resort, not when it's mildy useful and makes the page look nice. Stop analysisng the letter of the law, and appreciate the spirit of our policy instead. ed g2s • talk 13:05, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually the tv screenshot policy requires that the episode be discussed, not that particular image (Film and television screen shots. For critical commentary and discussion of the cinema and television.). Fair use rationale belongs on the image page not the article page. I should also point out that one of the guidelines for fair use rationale, in general, from point 8 (significant versus decorative) gives illustration of a section of text as an example of fair use and not pure decoration. Jay32183 13:50, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Episode lists aren't the only pages that do this:

• List of Presidents of the United States
• List of Beatles albums
• List of countries
• List of Google services and tools
• James Bond#Films

These are pages with a level of decoration, but the images themselves carry a description in themselves of the surrounding material. Any instance of an image is always "mildly useful" to any article (exceptions may be diagrams I guess). I think your argument blankets more articles than you think. --Will2k 15:11, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

"Stop analysisng [sic] the letter of the law..." STOP ANALYZING?????? If the letter of the law wasn't important then why is it necessary for you to redefine "decorative" with an amendment? Huh? You can't argue the spirit and you can't convince me that your "spirit" is the correct one then explain why you need to redefine the letter of the law? Cburnett 23:15, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The images are not merely decorative as they help to distinguish the episodes. If they improve the page aesthetically, that is a welcome side effect. They are surely fair use as we are only using one image per episode. Each image captures (or at least they should capture) the 'essence' of the episode (i.e. someone familiar with the episodes looking at an image alone should be able to identify the episode it's taken from). Whether they are encyclopedic is subjective, but I would say that if they are helping the reader to distinguish the episodes then they are useful for the article/list. Marky1981 13:10, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

FUC Amendment

Appearently, Ed g2s has gone around this debate to propose and amendment to the guidelines that would directly spell out that images cannot be used in any list of articles and I haven't seen mention of it on here anywhere. This maybe an attempt to prevent any pro-image editors from participating in that debate. It can be found at Wikipedia_talk:Fair_use#Clarification of FUC#8. This could cause the policy to change before we actually conclude the policy was intended to mean. Jay32183 19:30, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The fact that he did not notify this discussion make me more suspicious it is an action in bad faith--Will2k 20:11, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Heh, the discussion got moved AGAIN to Wikipedia talk:Fair use criteria/Amendment 2. I suggest that anyone who's gotten involved here should also get involved there as well. Nice try ed. -- Ned Scott 22:03, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow. I'm almost speechless that Ed can't argue his definition of "decorative" so his recourse is to redefine it to suit his goal & purpose. Compound that with not notifying the discussion that is hinging on this very point and you get an editor acting in bad faith. Cburnett 23:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I think this is pretty clear that screenshots do currently meet the guidelines and policies for fair use images. Whether or not it's a good idea or bad is irrelevant. Until the policy is changed/re-worded, when screenshots identify the subject of an article, or specifically illustrate relevant points or sections within the text, etc, they have met all fair use requirements set by Wikipedia. And, as a certain editor (who will rename "nameless") has found out, nothing really can be done without addressing the policy first. It would just have been nice if he had let us know about it. -- Ned Scott 04:02, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Short summary

This sentance should basicly sum up all that needs to be said and why this case needs to be closed; Screencaps can aid in describing a key moment in a television show (or other things for that matter0 the majority of them will not limit the copyright owners profit and thus qualify as fair use. Yes, some of them do need to be changed as they may not be showing a key moment which is mentioned in a summary/full write.

Now unless you can come up with something to counter this i see no reason why screencaps should not qualify as fair use and stay in articles. Matthew Fenton (contribs) 13:35, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

In addition to that: it was stated by Angr and agreed with by Ed in #Conclusions? that the remaining points are about:

• Quantity
• Decoration status

I believe I have effectively nulled the quantity point (it's per subject not per WP article as doing so expands the entire concept of copyrights). The remaining point of decoration status hasn't been argued successfully here and led to Ed to proposed an amendment (Wikipedia talk:Fair use criteria/Amendment 2) somewhat covertly. The result of that amendment I think speak to three points:

• FUC #8 isn't about the decoration (and by argument of Angr and subsequent agreement by Ed, #5 is also not about decoration)
• Interpreting "decoration" the way Ed wishes it to be interpreted is clearly not what wikipedians want
• Wikipedians don't want to get rid of fair use images

Ed's failed amendment, to me, nullifies the remaining argument of decoration and ends this discussion. Cburnett 15:29, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, what happens now then, the concensous is that these images should stay and the same is said for the FUC #8. So will an admin archive the discussion etc? Matthew Fenton (contribs) 15:45, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I truly fail to see the "consensus", as a large part is objecting the use of image in lists still, unless you are counting opinions as votes. -- ReyBrujo 16:01, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I do not believe consensus is the most accurate word to use, however the proposed FUC amendment (which will fail in due time) proves that the arguments the nay sayers are using are invalid and do not abide by the current FUC language. Jtrost (^T | C | _#) 16:06, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

That is different. People here seems to think that, by going with another thread (in this case, creating an amendment for the policy), it voids this discussion. This is not a legal system where you first need to win a penal lawsuit to have the basics for a civil one. I believe it is time to, as a well standing wikipedian once commented, stop focusing on amount and focus on content. Since it is so hard to get consensus about fair use images, maybe it is time to stop using them at all. -- ReyBrujo 17:06, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Not using them would severily limit wikipedia, images tell a thousand words, a word tells one word. Matthew Fenton (contribs) 17:08, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

My points:

1. The other Wikipedias work fine enough without fair use images
2. Most of the images in articles are used as decoration only
3. By definition, Wikipedia is a "free" encyclopedia, thus fair use images limit that goal. It is like saying you want to be thin but anyways eat a pie because you haven't yet found a tasty replacement ;-)
4. Truly speaking (and this coming from someone who focuses in fiction articles and not "real" based ones), the most important articles in Wikipedia are those where it should be relatively easy to get free images (maths, biology, cience, literature, art, living and dead people, history, geography, etc). Remember, coming from someone who has only written articles about fictional characters and realms. No prejudice in all the ficitional topics (I write about them because it is one of the few topics I can share knowledge), but I believe someone from anywhere in the world, upon receiving version 1.0 of the print material, would be more interested in reading the article about the Moon, a geographical area or history than Dragonlance or Lost.

Cuz I like to rebute:

1. The other wikipedias are in languages not dominant in the US which is, AFAIK, the only country to have a legal concept of fair use and despite being hosted in the US fair use would be a foreign concept
2. Again, your decoration is my recogize-the-episode-just-from-the-image, yada, yada, yada. <insert all my points from above>
3. The concept of "free" that you speak of is not equivalent to public domain. It is very possible to use wikipedia content in a manner that is disallowed by the GFDL. Fair use is absolutely no different just the scope of what you can and cannot do is different. If someone wants to use wikipedia content then it is legally up to them to ensure they are following any and all licenses for the material they use. Pretty much every last byte of data (all but that in public domain which isn't much) they use is still copyrighted. If you want to advocate for truely free encyclopedia then you need to get that GFDL dropped and every byte of content put into public domain. Only then will you have a free encyclopedia. Just like decoration, the word "free" is equally grey. So by the same argument, the GFDL limits this goal of a free encyclopedia. My point is that fair use images are still to the same tune of the GFDL in that the content is accessable and reusable...you just have to play by the rules of the GFDL & fair use.
4. This seems to be a fallacy of sorts that I keep finding being used on wikipedia (last was Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Beer/Notability Criteria). Just because you don't allow fair use images or set the notability bar somewhere doesn't mean the effort going to make those screen captures or writing about that obscure brewery will be spent toward finding free science images or writing about a more notable brewery. People work on what they want to and it's my position that giving them a list of things they can't do will do more to drive them away than to retain them.

On this note, I would much rather be editting than discussing policy. It makes me cringe when I think about the number of man-hours spent on policy which does nothing productive in itself (it doesn't change that stub into an FA). And Ed's move to curtail discussion and opt for modifying policy mid-discussion is nothing short of an insult because it is a form of trickery (or did I miss him announcing here his ammendment?). Cburnett 18:29, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

To prevent repeating statements, I just want to say that I completely agree with the statements that Cburnett just made. -- Ned Scott 01:25, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

In other words, images tell a thousand words, when used correctly. Most aren't. -- ReyBrujo 17:44, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

The major point in this discussion though is that you cannot make a blanket ban on all fair use images because some of them violate the rule. Even if most of them do not, you cannot use that to remove the ones that do. The current fair use policy allows for the images, and states that sacrificing the freedom was important enough for comprehensive content, otherwise it fails its purpose to be an encyclopedia. Free without purpose is meaningless. It should be pointed out that the only freedom lost in using fair images is the ability to reprint Wikipedia verbatim in a commercial product. It would be silly to do such a thing though, as any consumer would follow the "Why by the cow when you get the milk for free" philosophy. A nonprofit educational duplication can make the same fair use claims we do. Jay32183 17:55, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Again, I do not believe the German Wikipedia "fails its purpose to be an encyclopedia" for not adding fair use images. I have absolutely no doubts that some day most fair use images will be judged out of Wikipedia by deprecating fair use tags, as it has been before. This is a small "exception", much like the modules in the Linux kernel that are being accepted now but will stop working in 2008 since they are just that, exceptions. As I said, the most important articles can get images, free or public domain. If you think about it, it is just the topics about commercial products (singles and albums, TV series and movies, books, games, etc) that require Fair use images and where finding free images is extremely hard. And these topics (again, this coming from someone who only helps with fiction) can be considered "extra", "addenum" or "bonus" for an encyclopedia. -- ReyBrujo 18:13, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

And yes, this is just a personal opinion, and is just a way of demonstrating that there is a much deeper discussion to come, so even if this discussion is closed, expect a new, broader one in the future. In by no means this opinion is focusing on lists only, but in every kind of fair use image. -- ReyBrujo 18:16, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

There have been debates about all fairuse images in the past, as is stated on the fair use policy page. It was decided that fair use images can be used. German Wikipedia also has a different clientel than Engilsh Wikipedia. Television and the like are not extra content. Do not confuse encyclopedic with academic. They are a part of this encyclopedia and the inforamtion is not comprehensive without images, as it is an inherently visual medium. That is not my opinion as every word is used strictly by definition. All arguements against fair use images have not proven that there is anything wrong with them. Customers want images, and you should not get in the way of costumer satisfaction to defend an inferior product, with inferior product being defined as a product failing to meet the needs of it core customer. People attempting to reproduce Wikipedia are not as large a group as those merely using it as an information tool, otherwise we would be completely overwhelmed by the copies. Jay32183 18:29, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Previous discussions about Fair use led to the current Fair use criteria. And #8 is clear in which decorative images void the license. Thus, it was proven at a time that some images are wrongly used in Wikipedia. While it is important what the readers (customers sounds as if this were a commercial project) want, it is also important what we can offer. And if we can offer information without using an invalid license (that is, claiming the image is being used under Fair use when it is violating the criteria), much better. The English Wikipedia focuses too much in (for me) vanity issues like amount of articles and images. As for not being able to comprehend an episode chapter without screenshots, I wonder if the actors receive plays with drawings, or they do understand with only text. -- ReyBrujo 22:08, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how many times I've had to say this but it seems that no one is listening. Decorative is not the key word in points 5 or 8. It's not a matter of what is or is not decorative, it's what is or is not a significant contribution (or meeting general content requirements in point 5). Actors can be considered experts in the field, and all the Wikipedia users cannot be experts on the subjects of every article they read. Voice actors are in fact shown drawings along with the script. Under the current wording of point 8 it gives "identifies the subject" and "illustrates a relevant point or section of the text" as examples of what is significant. Therefore, TV screenshots used to illustrate an episode on a list of episode pass on point 8. The fact that an amendment was proposed doesn't change this arguement, the amendment would have to pass before it can have an effect. Jay32183 22:23, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Back to my original point: who are you or me to decide which single frame out of several thousands that are shown in an episode is enough to identify the episode? -- ReyBrujo 22:37, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

But that has nothing to do with the debate. Many of the frames could, but you're going to have to prove that a particular image does not identify the episode. Let's take Friends episode "The One Where Paul's the Man". An image of Bruce Willis flexing in front of a mirror would be unique to the episode and shows the plot point of Paul making a fool of himself while he thinks he's alone in his room. Now you may be able to find an image that indentifies the episode just as well, but that doesn't invalidate the fair use claim. Also this debate has to do with a blanket ban on fair use images on the lists, so being able to find one innappropriate image does not make your case. If you find an image that does nothing to identify the episode, like a shot of Jennifer Aniston drinking coffee in Central Perk which could be from any episode of Friends, then all of us arguing for fair use images will concede that that image needs to be removed or replaced, but our points about the images in general remain valid. Jay32183 22:49, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree with Jay32183's above statements. -- Ned Scott 01:31, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, screen caps from TV episodes, etc. will be impossible to obtain as a free image for, what?, another 75 years now? (Good luck getting a studio to release them as free images, seriously.) I'll be dead or old enough to not give a damn by then not to mention my (great?) grand kids won't have a clue what these quaint shows about travelling to other stars and Britney Spears' albums were all about to care about to put up images of them.  :) Cburnett 18:34, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Exactly right. Any effort to limit fair use images to a stricter standard than allowed by law is detrimental to the project. We need to be basing our policy on what the law will alow, not on some stricter standard that makes this encycolpedia less useful than it can be. Bring on the legal images! Don't keep them out. Johntex\^talk 05:33, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem that we have is that very few of us are lawyers, and a lot of the copyright law that is in the US is grey, at best. So, Wikipedia decided to make the policy tougher than the US law, since it gets rid of the grey areas and make things at least clearer for everyone. While I am still thinking we are having a hard time enforcing the current rules, I would not like to step backwards and go to the "US law" standard and have it be our policies. We have a lot of fair use photos already and we should be trying to use less, not more, since we are the free (beer) encyclopedia. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 05:54, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

If we changed policy to match the copyright law exactly then we would need to consult a copyright lawyer before uploading every image, since the US intentionally left the law vague to allow the courts to make judgement calls. This discussion should remain focused on what the existing policy means and how it impacts "List of ..." articles. Jay32183 15:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Quite wrong Zscout. I'm not sure how many times I have to explain this (ironic that you point out you're not a lawyer). Even if you make fair use policy on WP stronger you still won't get rid of the grey area: fair use is by definition a grey area. You could make it absolutely 99.99% strict and someone that owns that image could still sue the wikimedia foundation for copyright infringement...and they'd be right. It wouldn't matter that every person in the world would somehow agree that it s fair use: the owner could still sue.

As an area that is grey by definition, the policy change discussion here and the covert amendment by Ed attempts to only shift that line in the grey area. The policy should recognize this and be grey by itself. Removing images from lists (such as Ed did on List of Lost episodes) and covertly creating an amendment that would automatically make him "win" is nothing but making a WP:POINT and disrupting wikipedia.

And another point I've explained again is that even though this encyclopedia is "free" it is still restricting to the GFDL. All content is still copyrighted. Same with fair use, just different rules. I don't think we need to revert policy to the copyright act but recognize that as having stronger policy we have more leeway. Cburnett 20:35, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Would someone please archive this page and start a new one?

It's taking a long time to load and I'm not sure how to do it. - Peregrinefisher 16:09, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Understandable but having participated in most of it I see the discussion repeating itself. I think archiving will just make it repeat yet again. Cburnett 20:36, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I really think the move to try to amend the policy is the breaking point here. Clearly, unless policy is changed, as it is right now, the images (when used to identify an episode, etc. we all can agree that there are some that don't do these things) are covered under a fair use rational. It may or may not be what's best, it may or may not be what was intended with the policy, it may or may not be a lot of things, but we can all read what it says and we can argue about this till the end of time. Change policy first, then remove images. I don't think there's anything else to say that hasn't been said. -- Ned Scott 01:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

the end or just the beginning?

Lets make this simple, who thinks it would be acceptable to keep using screenshots (that, in the very least, can reasonably be argued to identify an episode) until policy is changed. (assuming that change is in regards to limiting fair use images such as screenshots from articles such as lists) In other words, change policy first then remove images.

All you are illustrating with a vote is what we already know. Too many people think that this sort of usage is acceptable, which is why we have such rampant fair use abuse. ed g2s • talk 12:45, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

WP policy goes beyond what the copyright act determines and even if lists stray toward the "not fair use" end of the grey spectrum then we're still beyond what is legally required. So far it looks to be a consensus here and a consensus against your amendment. What this vote really says is that no one agrees with you since you've had ample time to post your argument AND post your own amendment. Again with the hyperbolic names. Many people think it's fair use, I've analyzed the four points of the copyright act, I've analyzed the 10 WP policy points, and it's so far away from "abuse" that such a term is hyperbolic. Cburnett 13:17, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

"So far it looks to be a consensus here and a consensus against your amendment."

Err, what? I see a similar number of people on both sides on this page... ed g2s • talk 14:37, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I dont. Matthew Fenton (contribs) 14:38, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Try counting them then. ed g2s • talk 15:01, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I did, 8 against uhm.. 0. Matthew Fenton (contribs) 15:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Ed wasn't talking about the poll, he was talking about the full discussion. Also the poll was to see who was willing to wait until the amendment proposal has resolved before altering the pages that will be effect by it. Jay32183 15:30, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't see this isn't a vote to end all votes. It's looks like a straw poll to see where people currently stand, which is common in rfc and rfm discussions. There are clearly people still against this, but I'd like to know why they haven't voted. This type of omission skews the results and leads people into believing there is a larger consensus than there really is. Jtrost (^T | C | _#) 15:08, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, since you asked, I for one am not voting because polls are evil and because doing so would impart legitimacy to a straw poll designed to overthrow Wikipedia policy. The results of this poll are irrelevant, because the use of copyvio images in lists is blatantly against both the letter and the spirit of Wikipedia policy. User:Angr 20:16, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

What copyvio Matthew Fenton (contribs) 20:21, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean, "what copyvio"? The copyvio committed by every nonfree image at Wikipedia. User:Angr 10:28, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

That just sounds like a blatent assumption, after all we claim fair use at wp. So unless you can provide some proof of "every nonfree image" please stop assuming. Matthew Fenton (contribs) 10:31, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

"Fair use" is just a euphemism for copyvio. By definition, every nonfree image is a copyvio. User:Angr 10:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

"Fair use" is not a euphemism for copyright violations. It is a defense against copyright violation charges, one that Wikipedia uses preemptively. If a fair use claim is upheld in court then the court has ruled the no violation of US copyright law has occurred. Jay32183 13:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Including the wikimedia foundation logo used on your userpage, thats nonfree is that a copyvio? Matthew Fenton (contribs) 10:59, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The copyright holder of that image is also the owner of my user page, so no. User:Angr 11:21, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

So you are contradicting your self now? Matthew Fenton (contribs) 13:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

No... you can't violate your own copyright. Wikimedia owns the copyright to Image:Wikimedia.png and the page User:Angr where it's used. If the only unfree images we used in lists were ones where Wikimedia Foundation owns the copyright, there wouldn't be a problem. It's a copyvio when we use unfree images that belong to people or companies other than Wikimedia Foundation. User:Angr 14:00, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikimedia does not own the copyright to any submitted text here: the poster does. However, by doing so they require a GFDL license of what you submit. Slashdot works the same way (though not GFDL but the post retains the copyright). Cburnett 03:52, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

How is it not a copyvio if its unfree? I'm quoting you here.

::::"Fair use" is just a euphemism for copyvio. By definition, every nonfree image is a copyvio. [[User:Angr]] 10:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Matthew Fenton (contribs) 14:50, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, geez, I change what I said to "every nonfree image is a copyvio unless the page the image used on belongs to the copyright holder of the image". Which is so blatantly obvious it shouldn't have to be said, but I guess some people need everything spelled out for them. User:Angr 15:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe i am a bit dumb today, but you have not spelled anything out to me? Matthew Fenton (contribs) 15:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Angr was incorrect in stating every nonfree image is a copyright violation. In order be a copyright violation it must violate copyright law. Fair use is a defence against copyright violation charges and if upheld by a court then that particular use is not a copyright violation. Wikipedia uses the fair use defence preemptively in order to avoid lawsuits. Jay32183 15:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

So it would be more accurate to say "fair use" is a euphemism for "a copyvio you can get away with"? Whatever. User:Angr 15:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Not at all. Fair use is legal so saying violation is inaccurate. We aren't getting away with breaking the law when we use fair use, we are stating that we are not breaking the law and it is not worth fighting us. Fair use is also not a euphemism for anyhing. It is the actual term used in US copyright law. Jay32183 15:20, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Heh, ok, look, I threw this up here because we need to do something for the short term while we handle the policy issue. Arguments will just go around in circles as long as policy is so fuzzy, so lets make this about policy and actually get somewhere. You can't go and say "this is what policy says" before it says that. -- Ned Scott 20:37, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Support

1. Ned Scott 01:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
2. Jay32183 02:02, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
3. under the condition that the amendment fails. If it passes, this will require review. A vote is useless though because discussion seems overwhelmingly in support of the above. I hope dissenters can find reason to support or remain neutral without a vote.--Will2k 02:06, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
4. Absolutely. Such use of images are legal under the law and I believe the intent is and should be for them to be allowed under Wikipedia policy. Johntex\^talk 02:25, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
5. - Peregrinefisher 03:20, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
6. Fair use is a grey concept and the policy should be as well. Cburnett 04:43, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
7. 100% Support screenshotsMatthew Fenton (contribs) 06:35, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
8. Jtrost (^T | C | _#) 13:04, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
9. Modulus86 15:30, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
10. 100% support Mikya 19:09, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
11. Support in the fullest. --cholmes75 ^{(chit chat)} 19:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair Use/Unfree

I think we're starting to forget that the issue isn't are these images fair use (they are), but do these unfree images have a place in a free encyclopedia. Also, we can't change what fair use allows because that is determined by US law. Wikipedia has stricter requirements than just fair use, although it doesn't obviously follow that the unfree images should be removed. - Peregrinefisher 23:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, US law doesn't determine fair use at all: it merely defines parameters on a grey line. Only a court can determine that — based on weighing the four points outlined in 17 USC 107 — the fair use defense is valid. Otherwise the copyright infringement stands and life goes from there.

An encyclopedia can remain free despite having fair use images. An image does not affect the whole because the encyclopedia is open and any reuser is welcome to delete the images if either a) they feel like it (hey, WP is free) or b) if they are legally not allowed to use "fair use" images where they live and/or for their reuse. A fair use image may "taint" WP but it does not make it unfree. Cburnett 00:12, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Just wanted to point out some serious errors in your legal analysis. You stated, "Actually, US law doesn't determine fair use at all." This is flatly incorrect. While the law does not specify examples or specifics, the law -- both the stats and resulting caselaw -- defines what is and isn't fair use. Like many areas of the law, the exact application of facts to the circumstances often requires an attorney's expert opinion. But fair use is defined in the law.

And, you also may be concluding -- incorrectly -- that something is a copyright violation unless fair use is determined by a court. (I'm presuming this from your somewhat nebulous statement, "Only a court can determine that — based on weighing the four points outlined in 17 USC 107 — the fair use defense is valid. Otherwise the copyright infringement stands....") Fair use exists the moment the use occurs. A court doesn't have to rule whether something is or isn't fair use before hand. A copyright violator may incorrectly or insufficiently claim fair use as a defense, and thus a court may find that fair use is not applicable, but a court need not rule first. Fair use is a gray area, like many/most areas of the law, and subject to interpretational differences. But a court need not step in before fair use is granted.

As a casual Wikipedia user, I find a great deal of legal misinformation at this site from laypersons about fair use and copyright and public domain. (I've seen, for example, people claiming quotes posted from USSC cases here were "copyright violations," which is patently ludicrous, considering USSC decisions are always in the public domain, no matter how recent.) Perhaps, in issues like this, it shouldn't be left to a general consensus of lay users but Wikipedia should retain a staff attorney to evaluate such issues. Yes, I know that costs money, but a large entity like Wikipedia can't rely on general consensus in place of legal counsel. Signed, an attorney turned TV writer. --207.69.137.7 04:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Am I an attorney? Heck no. (Jokes set aside.) What I am is one who's willing to read US code and make an attempt at understanding and interpreting it. I think that's more than what the average lay person is willing to do. I'm willing to make an attempt and risk being wrong and in doing so I've learned something: so on that note thank you.

The US code does not determine if a particular use is fair use. From 17 USC 107 (truncated for clarity):

...the fair use of a copyrighted work for purposes such as criticism, [other uses]...is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include

See, to me that doesn't determine what is or what is not fair use. Nothing there says if images in an episode list is fair use or not. It merely gives criteria to evaluate if it is fair use but does not specify exactly what is fair use (the greyness of it). This is what I meant by "US law" which I realize isn't technically accurate as I wholly understand caselaw definitely has "a say" on all this.

And your second point is also the result of not being able to speak in exacting terms. Obviously if I make a screenshot and upload it here then I'm doing so as fair use. I don't need a court to tell me that it's fair use before I can claim it. Whether or not my assessment is correct or not cannot be determined by anyone here (with the exception of you: none of us are lawyers or judges).

Finally, it would be nice if you gave some expert input on the matter instead of criticizing. And I'm not saying that because I was on the receiving end. I suspect one post from the likes of you would do more for this discussion than any of us bantering page after page. Cburnett 05:24, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Considering I am still a registered member of the bar, I really can't give "legal advice" per se. You haven't retained me as a client. So I can only give you a broad analysis from an informed point of view. It's like if you asked me at the opera what I thought of the death penalty. I can give you my informed two-cents, but I can't give you actual legal counsel.

As well, I wasn't singling you out for any sort of harsh treatment. I just happened to read your comment after being redirected here from another page. (I actually agree with you that a single frame-shot of a particular episode to use for illustrative purposes here at Wikipedia is likely well within the allowable parameters of fair use.)

Because the U.S. is a common law country, it is actually self-deceptive to read only U.S. Code. As a law professor once said, it's like eating a chicken without cooking it. The cooking is what makes it. While the Code is very important, it is not the only determination. That's why one absolutely must also review the caselaw, which is far more voluminous and infinitely more detailed on the issue of fair use. (This is what lawyers do all day long, and that's why they make the big $$$, because they review the lengthy caselaw and determine how a court would evaluate a particular set of facts.) You thus must review both caselaw and code, not just code alone. Courts interpret code, and they do so in caselaw, which is why we must read caselaw and why it also is binding because of the long-standing rule of stare decisis. So if you read only code, and make your decisions based on that, you'll end up in the proverbial ditch.

The U.S. Code you cite is, in fact, a very broad codification of existing caselaw at the time that stat was passed. But, like all aspects of the U.S. Code, it continues to be honed and refined by caselaw, which evolves every day. And, like many areas of the law, there is conflicting caselaw. The issue of fair use is very ripe for USSC analysis; however, no notable cases have moved through the system as of late for them to take it on.

In the matter at hand -- a single frameshot of a TV episode used to illustrate an article entry about that episode -- I can't imagine that a copyright holder would have any objection and would very well likely embrace this as an allowable fair use. It doesn't and can't divert any revenue from the copyright holder and, in fact, can increase their revenue stream by increasing awareness of their programing. Promotion departments at all the networks churn out publicity photos for every episode that they hope will be picked up in local newspaper TV listings, in TV Guide, etc. The networks regularly use still images as advertising and promotion. So you're doing your job for them here. The screenshots will direct traffic to the episodes and increase consumption -- a critical factor -- not divert traffic away from their copyrighted product. (Again, this is all my personal opinion, not a legal opinion nor legal counsel.) --207.69.137.36 05:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

One more note, if you want to plunge into the wild and exciting world of caselaw in this topic area, you might start with the case of Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation, which is one of the more recent and also deals with an issue somewhat similar to the one here. Although there are some significant factual differences, the concepts are not dissimilar. If you follow the first link to EFF in the Kelly article here at Wikipedia, and go to the EFF page, read the document entitled 20030707_9th_revised_ruling.pdf. That case might be a little confusing because of unrelated procedural hairpulling on the remand issue, but the fairuse stuff is phat.--207.69.137.36 06:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

That's probably correct for our articles on individual episodes, but the issues is images in lists, where the context is not a screenshot accompanying a decent amount of discussion or comment on the episode, but screenshots accompanying single sentences of plot summary. The former context would appear to be a transformative use, the latter, well at the very least there's a substantial doubt whether it is. --bainer (talk) 12:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Not all of the lists use one sentence plot summaries. A well written summary is at least a paragraph. The way List of Home Movies episodes is currently written would not justify the images, one of the reasons the page is formatted not to use them. I don't think images should be found and then the text reworked to fit the image. But if the text were reworked just for the sake of improving the list (more informative, higher quality writing), one may be able to justify the use of an image after the fact. Sometimes a one sentence plot summary doesn't give any extra information than the title, and a title with no discussion at all is not a fair use claim Wikipedia would be willing to defend. Jay32183 12:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I actually hadn't realized how poorly written most of the plot summaries were written. See List of Farscape episodes for how to write a proper episode summary on a list of episodes page. Of course an individual episode page gets a lot more than that. Jay32183 22:48, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The Star Trek & South Park episode lists are specifically written to not spoil the plot. Cburnett 03:35, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Random Lawyer :) for your input. Regarding the bainer's comment. Both a list and episode article cannot detract from their revenue and as I've believed all along that a copyright owner complaining about an image would only hurt themselves. You still have not given me any proof that this is an issue. and I suspect it's not because, like Mr. R. Lawyer here has pointed out, they may even see it as doing their promoting for them for free. Cburnett 03:35, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

If your question is "has ABC sued us yet", then the answer is no. Copyright infringement is indeed a significant issue for the foundation; while I cannot reveal specifics of OTRS requests, I can say that there are always dozens of items in the queue relating to potential copyright violations, many of which turn out to be legitimate complaints. Most copyright owners are content to see us remove infringing material, some are even willing to freely licence their material. However it's impossible, and irresponsible, to try to predict whether a certain copyright holder will sue us or not, we must endeavour to avoid that possibility at all times.

On the substantive issue, impact on the market is only one factor in the fair use calculation, and in any event I would not be so certain that it would go in our favour. Copyright carries with it the exclusive right to make derivative works, and as such while displaying screenshots is not affecting the market for the product (TV show, film, computer game, etc) itself, the market for associated material may well be. Having said that I don't think this is a significant factor, the key one in my mind is purpose and character of use. --bainer (talk) 17:06, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

"I think we're starting to forget that the issue isn't are these images fair use (they are), but do these unfree images have a place in a free encyclopedia." No, this RfC is about "Fair use images in lists". This is not a debate about all fair use images, but rather, do images in lists qualify as fair use for Wikipedia's policies. -- Ned Scott 03:42, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

You're right of course. What I meant was that these images seem to meet the current fair use requirements and the best argument I've seen for removing them is that they are unfree. Personally I think their importance outweighs the fact that they are unfree but this is the difficult grey area to me. We talked about it earlier here. - Peregrinefisher 05:16, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I must disagree Ned, the issue is very much whether the images can be claimed as fair use in lists. I can't tell whether you or the editors you are replying to are still confused about the "use" concept, remember that there has to be a valid fair use claim for every use of an unfree image. The use of images on episode articles may well be fair use, at the same time that their use in a list may not be. --bainer (talk) 17:06, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

That's what Ned said. He opened with some one else's quote in order to refute it. Jay32183 17:11, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

You're right of course, my mistake. Consider my comments directed at who Ned was replying to then. --bainer (talk) 15:18, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Precedent

Has anyone else noticed that this discussion has already taken place at least twice? In the feature list discussions about both List of South Park episodes and List of Stargate SG-1 episodes. In both cases, after a very short discussion, it was decided that the images in question only violated FUC#10, and since that one is entirely procedural the objection was dropped after the fair use rationales were added. I thought it would be appropriate to mention this since the editor who happens to be a lawyer mentioned "case law". Jay32183 15:23, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

These were mentioned in the Episodes of Lost discussion, however those opposed to images simply ignored the discussions. Jtrost (^T | C | _#) 15:41, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Probably the reason these discussions haven't been productive. Jay32183 16:07, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

It's bending the truth to say that the issue has been discussed twice:

• For the South Park list, the second nomination failed because of concerns about the images (they were completely untagged at that point). In the third nomination (the successful one), of the people who brought up the copyright status of the images, Rune.welsh changed from oppose to support after rationales were added to the images, Carnildo changed from oppose to neutral after rationales were added, but said "I'm still not too happy with it," and ALoan withdrew their opposition after rationales were added, saying "I am still slightly concerned... I will let the copyright experts decide." The issue was explicitly deferred for further discussion.
• The nomination of the Stargate list similarly attracted very few editors who brought up the copyright issues. Moreover, the discussion was filled with such enlightened arguments as (paraphrasing) 'can't we just put a fair use rationale in one place, rather than adding it to every image page', 'isn't putting the images into the TV screenshot category good enough' and 'they are fair use in the episode articles, so they must also be fair use in the list'. All three arguments are completely specious, and have been used on this page too, which leads me to believe that those previous "discussions" achieved nothing.

Likewise, your comment that FUC 10 is "entirely procedural" is equally disturbing. --bainer (talk) 16:52, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

While users did express their personal opinions, their change to neutral or support suggests good faith on their part. "The reviewer may choose to accept a reasonably presented rationale in good faith without necessarily agreeing with each point asserted, as long as it does not contain information that the reviewer believes to be incorrect or misleading." The arguements you mention from Stargate were all met with a resounding no, which led to the rationale being added to every image page. The fact that they obtained feature list status is, in fact, a ruling that the fair use rationale is acceptable because an article or list cannot be featured without acceptable rationales. As for FUC#10, "The image or media description page must contain:

• Proper attribution of the source of the material, and attribution of the copyright holder (if it is different) where possible.
• An appropriate fair use tag indicating which Wikipedia policy provision permitting the use is claimed. A list of image tags can be found on the Wikipedia:Image_copyright_tags#Fair_use page.
• For each article for which fair use is claimed, the name of the article and a "fair use rationale" as explained in Wikipedia:Image description page. The rationale must be presented in a manner that can be clearly understood and which is relevant to the article in question." This spells out something for wikipedia editors to do, it does not state any qualities about the image or the article. A procedure is a set of rules to follow in order to do something. Since FUC#10 contains information only about what editors should do, it is, by definition, entirely procedural. Jay32183 17:05, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

In both the featured lists discussions, people opposed when there was literally no information at all on the image description pages, then reacted in one of three ways, changing to support, staying at oppose, and changing to neutral on the basis that at least some rationale was there, although since they were not knowledgeable on fair use they chose to reach no final conclusion.

And passing the featured list process is in no way a "ruling" on the status of the images. It indicates that the list is featured, yes, but they cannot support a consensus about the images when the only oppose votes came from people concerned about the images.

Your approach to FUC#10 is disturbing because it mirrors the attitude common among some members of the community that fair use is whatever they consider to be fair, and providing a rationale which can actually stand up to inquiry is optional, and some kind of hassle. I'm not saying you hold it, but many do, and treating the requirement for a rationale as a mere procedure encourages it. People should have the requirement to provide a good rationale in the centre of their minds, and should not regard it as a formality. --bainer (talk) 15:30, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Resolution

Good reasoning on both sides. I used to be 80/20 in favor of images in lists but now I'm 60/40. Even if I become 50/50 or 40/60 in favor of the images does that mean we remove them? With so much doubt shouldn't we leave the decision up to the uploader? Why not? - User:Peregrinefisher UTC 07:46, July 29, 2006

Huh? Matthew Fenton (contribs) 07:48, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

With the issue so dependant on one's opinion, shouldn't we leave the decision to the uploader? Why not? - <span class="user-sig user-USERNAME">Pergrinefisher</span> 07:56, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course we should leave it to the uploader to decide if the image is used, but there are some editors like ed g2s that will stop at nothing to have them removed. Matthew Fenton (contribs) 08:02, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Because most users don't understand copyright law and our image use policy (not referring to anyone here, but newbies in general). ed g2s • talk 14:25, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Then help them, write help pages a newbie can understand. I've never seen you a help a user. Matthew Fenton (contribs) 14:36, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

At the end of the day, the argument is still hypothetical and academic because Ed and friends have no evidence to support their side in that this is an issue at all. They can claim there are dozens of complaints per day but they have yet to produce any of them. Furthermore Ed cannot assert the rights over the images on behalf of the owner: only the owner can do that. Cburnett 15:06, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

That only makes sense if the argument were solely about what is and isn't fair use, which it clearly isn't. ed g2s • talk 22:54, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. Matthew Fenton (contribs) 22:56, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Again, Cburnett, you're advancing the argument that until copyright holders complain, we don't have to worry about how their work is used. Again, I'll say that that is a foolhardy position to take. Neither I nor anyone else with access to the OTRS queues can reveal information from them, but complaints about images do occur. Ask someone else with access if you don't believe me. --bainer (talk) 01:16, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Not foolhardy, its actually a practical position and in keeping with Wiki-policy tweaks; we change policy as little as possible ... until something merits action. Sparodic complaints are taken seriously and should be acted upon, but one persons/companies complaint does not translate into a need to broad actions. What if certain copyright holders prefer their images be on Wikipedia within reason of fair use. Removing them en masse because of a few squeaky wheels seems unnecessarily preemptive. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 14:19, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Is the material being used for critical commentary?

If the answer is no, as is usually the case, then the images shouldn't be used, as this is the reason unfree media is allowed on Wikipedia, or to quote our policy:

"The primary goal of Wikipedia's fair use policy is to protect our mission of producing and distributing free content which is perpetually free for unlimited distribution, modification, and application for all users and in all mediums ... however ... we must permit some non-free material for critical commentary."

ed g2s • talk 02:11, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that the "List of Blah Blah episodes" articles are providing critical commentary. The episode guide is a systematic inquiry into a television series by breaking it down into its fundamental components, the episodes. What do others think about this? Jay32183 02:40, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

An intersting interpretation, but are the images (the "material") being used for critiical commentary? ed g2s • talk 04:03, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

To analyse this on a simple definition of criticism (from the WP article on critic), how do the lists "[offer] reasoned judgement or analysis, value judgement, interpretation, or observation", particularly considering that most are nothing more than very short plot summaries (often one sentence long)? Or to express it in the language of fair use, how do the lists "[add] something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning, or message" (Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., the parody case)?

Most of the lists do nothing more than reproduce a teaser blurb, which in most cases does not even summarise the plot, and some give information such as the original US air date. Does this offer reasoned judgement or analysis? What interpretation does this offer? The articles on individual items in a list can provide critical commentary, but the lists used as examples cannot, there is just not enough text.

The solution is simple, and I have stated this several times already: either expand the content of the lists (one or two sentences of plot summary and one or two sentences of comment, linking the image with the text, would surely be sufficient) or remove the images from the lists. --bainer (talk) 04:14, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the original airdate and writing and directing credits combined with a plot summary and the image add up to the critical commentary. It tells me what, when, and by who. If too much information is included in the list it defeats the purpose. - Peregrinefisher 15:24, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I find images do provide critical commentery visually when combined with text. IE: On a list i worked on all the screencaps are of a key moment in the episode described in the summary. This aids in conveying it visually as well. Matthew Fenton (contribs) 15:34, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that many of the episode summaries have been written very poorly. Take List of Home Movies episodes for example. I've worked on that page and I feel that adding images to that would just be covering up bad writing. I do think that the episode summaries need to be expanded, but I don't like the providing commentary linking the specific image, although that may be a misunderstanding or an unclear wording. I don't think we should cater the text to a specific image, but bring the text to a point where an image in general would be justified, and then pick an image that matches the text. This method would absolutely require the fair use rationale on the image description page to be quite detailed, saying that the screenshot specifically illustrates the "blah blah" aspect of the plot and such. Jay32183 15:43, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the text needs to directly relate to what's happening in the screenshot, but rather, both screenshot and summary should help identify the episode. Like I've said before, screenshots can be used as "finger prints", so it's not what's happening in the screenshot as much as does the screenshot provide a unique label that would help the reader identify it. Although, if the editor can do this and have the text relate to what's happening in the screen shot, then that's all the better, but shouldn't be required. -- Ned Scott 15:49, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

That may be what you think, but our policy states that images should be used for critical commentary. If you are not saying anything with the image, then it shouldn't be used. How can it be any clearer? ed g2s • talk 00:23, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

That is slightly wrong. The policy about tv screenshots does not require critical commentary on the screenshot, it requires critical commentary on the program and its contents. Jay32183 00:43, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

No, the screenshot template is not an official policy page, it merely suggests what could be acceptable. Our policy (as quoted above) clearly states we "permit some non-free material for critical commentary". ed g2s • talk 01:03, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

The policy page says the film and television screen shots are used for critical commentary and discussion of the televsion and cinema. There is nothing misleading there, you can use a screen shot to discuss the entire show. Jay32183 01:09, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

The screenshot is part of the commentary, not just something that accompanies it. Visual medium => visual commentary. - Peregrinefisher 01:33, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

That section is prefixed by "in Wikipedia articles involving critical commentary and analysis". A two line summary is simply not critical commentary, that's just absurd. If you write a few paragraphs then you can use an image if it's required. Two line summaries are no where near a critical analysis, and to label them as such is a fairly transparent attempt to interpret the rules so loosely that you can justify the images.

Critical commentery could be given in a few words (IE: "A blazing fire with James in it." and the screenshot of course would be the blazing fire, thus critical commentery.) Matthew Fenton (contribs) 14:28, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

For goodness sake... it is shocking that a disturbingly large number of people think that that would constitute critical commentary. It's not critical, hell, it's barely even commentary. May I suggest that anyone who thinks that is critical commentary purchase themselves a dictionary and look up the entry on criticism, and only then return to this discussion. --bainer (talk) 14:35, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

When was wikipedia a place to criticise? Please !stop! contradicting your self. Matthew Fenton (contribs) 14:39, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

There are two definitions of criticism, to criticise in the sense of adopting "a position disagreeing with or opposing the object" (not the one applicable here), and to "[offer] reasoned judgement or analysis, value judgement, interpretation, or observation." For both definitions I am quoting from critic. The second definition is the one applicable here, and is entirely compatible with Wikipedia policies. "A blazing fire with James in it" displays no reasoned judgment, no analysis, no interpretation. It cannot possibly be critical commentary. --bainer (talk) 14:53, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Bainer is right on that one. "A blazing fire with James in it" makes no analysis. It's not because you didn't use many words, but because you weren't using that information to make any sort of judgment or perform an analysis. Although that may make a great caption, an image cannot be used to illustrate its own caption. Jay32183 15:01, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

There's one point I want to make very, very clear. The amount of text has no bearing on whether or not the text is an analysis. It is the purpose of the text that matters. As I stated above, the purpose of the episode guide is to systematically inquiry the plot of a series by breaking it down into its component parts, the episodes. I can understand the point about requiring the entire episode to be discussed, instead of writing a tagline, but that can be done in one paragraph. You haven't actually contradicted the guidelines I mentioned either. My guidelines are actually more specific. You stated that there merely needs to be critical commentary, while I stated that the critical commentary needs to be about the program and its contents. Jay32183 13:43, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, misread you earlier. Yes, the commentary provided by the image needs to be about the program. ed g2s • talk 20:02, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I may have misunderstood you earlier. I thought you were suggesting we had to say "this screen shot shows" in the main text, which I would consider bad writing, but I think now you may have actually meant that the image should be illustrating something we actually wrote. I think it is fair to say that if the part you're showing really was a main plot point, then you would have mentioned it in plot summary. Like in the Friends example I gave in a previous discussion, the shot of Bruce Willis posing in the mirror is a perfect fingerprint for the episode if you already know the plot. But we have to write assuming not everyone has seen it, which means part of the discussion on the episode would have to include the scene of Bruce Willis posing in the mirror. But we don't have to talk about things in the image that weren't relevant to the plot, like what Bruce was wearing or what color the room was. I have noticed that a lot of the cases the anti-image crowd are talking about don't talk about the entire episode. Even without the images, those summaries still need to be expanded because we aren't supposed to be censoring the summaries. Jay32183 22:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

In a properly done illustrated list, the images and the text complement each other and add to the understanding of the subject matter. Johntex\^talk 20:06, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but the image must contribute significantly. Any screenshot from the episode would contribute to one's understanding, but we don't use that as a claim to include the entire episode. It has to be made clear why the chosen screenshot in particular is so important, that is, it must be used for critical commentary; to make a specific point. ed g2s • talk 20:46, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it is a question of degrees. If the screenshot is of the main plot element of the episode, then there is no question in my mind it would be usable, even if no text directly mentions the exact screenshot. Other cases would need to be looked at on their merits. Johntex\^talk 21:31, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Well that's not our policy. ed g2s • talk 21:40, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

It's how I read our policy. It's also common sense. If we have any policy or guideline that conflicts with that, then we need to change the policy/guideline. Johntex\^talk 21:43, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

It's common sense that an encyclopedia cannot be written by anonymous contributors. Being maximally free and reusable is one of our founding principles. Jkelly 21:49, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Being maximally usable trumps being maximally free every time. Johntex\^talk 22:03, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

For who? Brittanica? You might want to consider how much time you want to invest in free culture projects such as Wikipedia if you're not interested in the idea. Jkelly 22:06, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it is a tad presumptuous of you to advise other contributors to question their involvement in the project, but I'll assume good faith and answer the question. I have considered it. I have no desire to sweat over this project so that other commercial entities can come along and re-use the content with no restrictions. I do however care about making a great free encyclopedia. Anyone who wants to re-use the content later can take their time to figure out which fair use images they need to remove, and which ones they don't. Let's focus on our primary goal of a great, maximally usable encyclopedia. Johntex\^talk 22:12, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

"I have no desire to sweat over this project so that other commercial entities can come along and re-use the content with no restrictions." - then don't contribute to Wikipedia. ed g2s • talk 22:21, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, but I'm going to ignore your advice. I like building a free and usable encyclopedia. I just don't see any reason to kowtow to the spectre of other people wanting to resuse the content for their own gains later. If they want to strip out fair use images because they can't use fair use images for whatever their purposes are, then they can strip them out. We should leave them in if they are useful and legal. Johntex\^talk 22:25, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

What I mean is, perhaps Wikipedia is not the project you thought it was. Our primary goal 'is free content, and fair use is a big compromise of this, allowed only as a last resort. This is clearly explained on the policy page. If you want to contribute to a project that is only "free as in beer" as opposed to "free as in speech", then this is not it. ed g2s • talk 22:30, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification. I think I should make a clarification as well. I am attracted to this project because it is "free as in beer". I don't mind that the content is reusable by commercial entities, I just don't have a desire to heap work on us in order to take work off of them. Wikipedia has fair use images and that is how it should be. If other people want to come and re-use our content, that is fine with me, and I specifically allow that when I upload my contributions. That includes, by the way, several images I have taken myself and uploaded as free use images. However, it is OK with me if those people who want to re-use our work have to do some work themselves in order to do so.

It's not that I advocate throwing up any unessecary bariers to commercial use, I just think that worrying about such re-use should be way down our priority list. If a fair use image is legal and adds to the article, then we should use it. If someone else needs to strip it out of a derivative work, they may do so. Johntex\^talk 22:40, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Well I'm afraid this is at the core of what Wikipedia is, so regardless of what you think about it, its non-negotiable. ed g2s • talk 22:44, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

First of all, I disagree with your interpretation of what the project is all about. Secondly, I disagree that anything is non-negotiable. Saying it is non-negotiable is certainly not the wiki-way. Johntex\^talk 22:48, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Our founding principles are non-negotiable, you can choose not to believe it, but they're not going to change. See WP:5P. ed g2s • talk 23:00, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Nothing is non-negotiable. A year ago, many people have claimed that unlimited anonymouse IP editing was non-negotiable, but it turns out that wasn't true. So it is with everything else. Johntex\^talk 23:12, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Well then they claimed it incorrectly. If you really think this is negotiable - go and have a chat with Jimbo and see how that goes. ed g2s • talk 23:17, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll choose my own time and place to make my suggestions, thank you. Johntex\^talk 23:25, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

IMDB is using images with lists

Have you noticed IMDB is starting to include small images with list items? I bet they are also claiming fair use, though I could be wrong. For instance here. - Peregrinefisher 20:00, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually IMDb does not claim fair use in that case. Those images are supplied by people representing the actors, or from news organization that has given IMDb permission to use the image. It actually costs money for the agencies to send in pictures. Jay32183 20:26, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. If you click on the "pictures" link for most entries in IMDB, there will be some images displayed and some on external sites merely linked to. The ones that are actually shown are almost exclusively publicity shots sent by agents to IMDB, with the rest being red carpet shots that IMDB has a licence for, or "behind the scenes" style publicity shots released by the relevant studio.

Another comparison would be TV.com, which doesn't really use any images, in its articles on individual episodes or its lists of episodes (note that I think that in many cases we would be able to mount a good fair use claim for a screenshot in an individual episode article, provided the scene depicted was discussed in the body). It does have galleries of images for each show, but they're mostly red carpet shots of the actors or studio publicity shots. It does use a small number of images, usually of the core cast, to illustrate the main page on each TV show.

Put yourself in their shoes and consider why, as perhaps the premier TV reference on the internet, and the premier film reference on the internet, these sites do not use fair use images. --bainer (talk) 06:06, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Is it because they're for-profit? - Peregrinefisher 17:31, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Oooo, I love hypothetical arguments! [/sarcasm]

Intentionally ignoring your hypothetical, you should consider what the goal of these sites are, or rather what their goal is not. Neither is to be an encyclopedia (read their about pages). Wikipedia is not a primary reference nor should it be used as a secondary reference (this is why we WP:CITE). The difference is quite obvious to me...even when you ignore the profit status. Cburnett 06:22, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

It's a legal question.

Shouldn't we let the lawyers decide?—msh210℠ 06:45, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

No one has really been too worried about the legal aspect here. Wikipedia has stricter policy to minimize unfree content. This discussion is about whether or not "List of..." articles violate that policy. Jay32183 12:44, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Result is No Consensus

We're going back and forth. Can we agree the result is No Consensus? This issue is being argued in several places and the result is probably the same everywhere. Now what do we do? - Peregrinefisher 05:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Proposal

I'm not sure how anyone else will feel about this, but I think I have an idea that could help lessen the arguing. It seems to me, and let me know if you disagree, that it is not impossible for a List of Episodes to meet the FUC, but there are many instances where FUC are not being met. Now I'm only going to mention the priciple of my idea now, because the specifics should wait util after the clarification on FUC#8, and if you only disagree with a specific part, point that out, I'm not too attached to details right now. We could add into the style guide at LOE, how to write plot summaries properly, which is probably something we should even without the fair use issue. Then we could include a bit about how to choose images, and that images are only to be included if the text guidelines are followed. Next we add how to write the fair use rationales so that non-experts will be able to check the fair use claim without too much effort. Please remember this is meant as a friendly suggestion, not my genius idea for the "right answer" to our debate, I welcome polite objections. Jay32183 01:03, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I would like to see canned rationales in easy-to-use template form. What do you mean by "write plot summaries properly"? Can you explain (links to examples would be sufficient) the difference between proper and improper? Cburnett 03:24, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

That was one of the exact details that I thought should wait until after the clarification. Some of the important parts of it, though, would be not to use a tagline or teaser but have paragraph form prose. They should also include spoilers, because it's an encyclopedic episode guide, not a fan guide or an advertisement. As for examples, I think List of Home Movies episodes is a good example of improper, and I think we need more discussion to decide proper. Jay32183 15:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

As of late, I'm more inclined to agree about going non spoiler-free. After 20k edits and touching a couple thousand articles I'm becoming less tolerate of all the boxes I see on WP. Talk:Lost (TV series) makes me cry. I've got a 19" monitor and I gotta go to the 3rd page to see anything of actual discussion. I recall helping craft the summaries at List of Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes and others to avoid spoilers.

My point of the digression: I agree. :) Also, the bolding of "polite" wasn't directed toward me, was it? :) Cburnett 00:39, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

It wasn't directed at anyone in particular, I just noticed this discussion has gotten fairly angry more than once, and I just want to remind everyone to keep a cool head, even when we disagree. I'm hoping more people talk about this than just the two of us though. Ed was pretty heavily involved in this discussion, so his opinion should at least be mentioned. Jay32183 02:26, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to imagine what the summary requirements should be. Putting a minimum on the number of words or sentences might work, like a 2 sentence minimum. The problem with this is I've never seen a similar requirement anywhere else on WP. Maybe something like "it must summarize the events of the entire episode and not be a spoiler-free teaser?" with links to examples, both good (List_of_The_X-Files_episodes) and bad (List of Home Movies episodes). - Peregrinefisher 06:37, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

It might not be the best idea to set a minimum number of sentences, as that may tempt some into adding nonsense so they can add an image. I think it might be ok to say that the summary should be able to stand as it's own paragraph within a lead, because one of the claims in defense was that the same images were being used in the indivual episode articles. But that might cause copy-paste writing, as the plot summary in the guide and in the lead of episode page shouldn't actually be exactly the same. The lead should convey "If you keep reading, you'll get more detail" but the guide would go on to another episode after that paragraph. It may be easier to work out the details after the idea is accepted in principle and after the wording on FUC#8 is cleaned up, which I'm pretty sure will happen, it's just no one is sure what the final wording will be. Jay32183 12:49, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree that a minimum length is not the best approach. The text should at least provide some meaningful context for any image used, and should probably deal with what is actually shown in the image. Whether it is to be a concise summary or a brief teaser, I don't really mind; it would depend on the list. --bainer (talk) 09:10, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Individual Episode Page Images

It seems to me that no one has any problems with these. Why is that? (Or correct me if I am wrong.) --154.20.217.225 04:05, 21 August 2006 (UTC) I love the pictures.

Because most of those articles are more clear about meeting WP:FUC. -- Ned Scott 07:19, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Why some covers are deleted and some not?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_people_in_Playboy_1990-1999&oldid=42581362

Is there any rule? Please tell us. Thank you 13:01, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

It looks like the covers that are used elsewhere in wikipedia (like Julie Clarke) have been kept and the images that were only used in that list were removed. There's a rule about deleting fair use images that aren't attached to a page. They were probably orphaned when images were removed from that list page. - Peregrinefisher 18:52, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Discographies too

AFAIC, album covers are essential in a discography article and their use is fair morally and legally. Nonetheless, a recent application of mine for a Featured List Candidacy fell on this. I was told the images couldn't stay, and without them it looked terrible.

If, as someone suggests above, this isn't a legal issue but a matter of policy can I say firmly that imho such usage greatly improves these articles and should be allowed. I'd also be grateful if we could extend the debate to include discographies, which is a very similar scenario to the one currently being discussed. --kingboyk 22:31, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, it would still depend on how the discography is presented. If it's just a plain catalog, then the images don't add anything but decoration. If the discography were used as an analysis of an artists career, then you may have a case for saying they aide critical commentary. Although I've been fighting to allow the tv screenshots, I do agree that Wikipedia should remain as free as possible, which means only using fair use images when aiding critical commentary. I would think that it would hold true that if there is a way to make an episode guide that allows images then there is a way to make a discography that allows images. It would still be up to the editors of music articles to choose to make the discographies in that way, or if it's too much work without enough benefit. Jay32183 04:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Album covers are fairly widely accepted as "good" fair use in articles about the album, even by people who are cautious about fair use images. The classic examples are articles like Abbey Road or Nevermind articles which would be incomplete without the images. Even articles on albums which don't have extensive discussion of the image are generally ok.

I do think that discographies however should not have fair use images unless there is sufficient accompanying text, just as I have suggested for lists of TV episodes, or any other type of list. What would be sufficient? Taking The Beatles discography as an example, it would be simple to pull together a few solid cited paragraphs outlining how the visual style changed over the band's career. These could be spread down the list, there's plenty of room with the way that article is laid out. This would not only help justify the fair use, but would greatly improve the list. --bainer (talk) 05:28, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm all for it

Can anyone say they dislike lists with images? (I'm sure people can), but I would be so bold as to say the vast majority would at the very least find them more visually appealing. We have 'The material must contribute significantly to the article (e.g. identify the subject of an article, or specifically illustrate relevant points or sections within the text) and must not serve a purely decorative purpose.’ to work with, and there is clear reasoning there to have pictures in lists. The right pictures should both identify the subject of the article and specifically illustrate relevant points or sections within the text. That’s exactly what they are good for. A list without pictures is just a bunch of words, you have to read every single one to find out anything. A list with pictures allows people to easily each point separate from the first. This is how I think f it. Each section of the list (each TV episode for example) is it’s own point in the article, it’s own mini-article if you will. If you're scanning down a list for a particular episode a picture helps illustrate the relevant point, and identify the subject of that part of the article. It simply makes more sense to have them there. It’s easier to view, adds more to the article (using the right picture to sum up the key point in an episode, or illustrate key plot points), and fits in my opinion easily within fair use definition. Just my two cents on the matter. Funny little guy 16:40, 24 September 2006 (UTC) Edit: Just wanted to add that I do the that the use of DVD covers instead of episode screenshots really does add nothing to the article and should be removed. They don't identify the subject of an article, or specifically illustrate relevant points or sections within the text at all. Funny little guy 16:46, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

All of the points immediately above apply to university lists too

Images next to a short educational bio in a university list allow readers to find and to identify more readily some of the more prominent people on the page, and are thus a clear contribution, not "decoration." They identify the person in the entry. Is this critically different from identifying the person in the article when the whole article is about the person? It would be especially difficult to find the more prominent people in a large university list, and even if you found a famous name you might not recognize it without a picture in some cases. Many well-known people are more readily recognized by their picture than by their names and eductional bios. The picture serves a very clear purpose. -DoctorW 05:59, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

The problem there is that for living people still working with the university a free picture is potentially and reasonably available. One of the main points for the episode guides and discographies is that there are no free images. That by itself might not be enough, but it is required. Jay32183 14:43, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd have to check to see whether this applies to any of the fair use images. Most, if not all, are no longer working for the university. Some are deceased. -DoctorW 16:31, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Is there a specific list to which you are referring? Most of the time the specifics matter more than the generality. Jay32183 17:49, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

List of Cornell University people, apparently per WP:AN. -- ReyBrujo 17:54, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

On first look I was able to immediately replace one of the fair use images with a free image that was already on Wikipedia, there's really no excuse for that. But this list may be of the type that does not meet the criteria, although I have not yet read the list completely. The list seems to be a collection of names with no critical commentary on the information the images are said to be providing. If this is true then only free images can be used. The reasoning for episode guides and discographies is that they are supposed to have critical commentary, such as a plot analysis or a discussion on the progession of album artwork over time. Jay32183 18:16, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Jay's comment. The list could keep the free images, but the fair use ones are not justified, as there is no critical information about the images, they are used for decoration, something that is not accepted per our Fair use criteria. By the way, I replaced the orphaned tag to indicate it has been replaced with a free version. -- ReyBrujo 18:38, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Jay, thank you for replacing one of the fair use images with a free image; this is clearly preferable. But remember also to assume good faith. The policies and guidelines for images are complex; in retrospect my limited time would have been better spent in editing topics which relate to my Ph.D. and other areas of expertise.

Did either of you read my comments on Talk:List of Cornell University people? You seem not to have responded to what I said above or on that talk page. I said there, in part:

It seems obvious to me that accompanying an educational bio of a person (as it relates to Cornell University, or to some other university on a similar page) with a fair use image that helps to illustrate (and identify) the person in question for Wikipedia readers is helpful and fully in line with the statement on the fair use template. It should be in the same category as a more comprehensive bio on the article page for that person.

and:

I would like to add that the images on List_of_Cornell_University_people are not for "decoration"; they are for the reader to find and to identify more easily some of the more prominent people on the page (who as part of their entry have an educational bio in relation to the university), thus making a clear contribution to the article.

Immediately above the argument is made that "Each section of the list (each TV episode for example) is it’s own point in the article, it’s own mini-article if you will." Whether an image illustrates and identifies a person in an article, in a section, or in an entry, the rationale is the same. In the case of famous people, the picture serves to identify someone who might not be recognized from their name and limited bio, and it secondarily helps the reader find a person who might otherwise be hard to find in a mass of undifferentiated text.

Claiming that images are "for decoration" refers to the fact that they "must not serve a purely decorative purpose" (emphasis added). They clearly do not.

While free images are obviously preferable, making mass deletions with a few words in an edit summary and no entry on the Talk page for what is clearly still a gray and controversial area is simply bad form. -DoctorW 17:43, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

There is an big problem with your argument that greatly differs from that of episode guides and discographys; the supporting text is not there at all. I haven't made a claim that this kind of article cannot use fair use images, but that this particular article cannot use them because no critical commentary is being made about anything. The television editors (I am one) and music editors have agreed that when there is zero commentary, such as naming all the episodes or albums alone, that the images should not be used. You claim that the images are accompanying a biography, yet I see no biography on that page, therefore your argument is not sound. I have assumed good faith and believe you are well intentioned in putting these images there. I have also not removed any of the images except for the one I replaced with a free image. It also looks like many of the fair use images should not be used on the actual biography articles. For instance, Catherine Hicks is still alive and still a public figure, which means it should not be that difficult to aquire a free image of her. It would seem that regardless of the format or context of the article most of those images would not be allowed because there are free alternatives or one can be easily made. Jay32183 18:58, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate your assuming good faith; it is warranted. I mentioned a limited "educational bio in relation to the university". I know you didn't delete the images. Again, I was making reference to the editors who made massive deletions without one word on the Talk:List of Cornell University people page in spite of a specific request for discussion of the issue. I didn't put all those fair use images there; I think I placed 2. I have been editing Wikipedia for a year, so there is a lot I don't know. But I do know that "critical commentary" is not a requirement of policy, it is a phrase used by your side of the argument and is apparently an illustration of fulfilling the purpose of "The material must contribute significantly to the article." Even the proposed amendment does not require "critical commentary" for this case. Obviously, having free ones replace fair use images as soon as is practicable is preferable. For now (and indefinitely when a free image is not available), having some such image (on this page or on an article biography page) has a clear and irreplaceable purpose. Why is that not enough? -DoctorW 19:24, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Although FUC#8 makes no mention to critical commentary, FUC#6 does after you read the media specific requirements. Just so you know I was arguing on the side defending the images, but I did admit that there were many examples where the rules were not being followed. I cannot claim that the fair use images I'm defending follow the rules when not all of them do, which means I must point out when images fail. Many of the editors won't interfere with an ongoing discussion, and several will even allow the uploader to take the images down rather than removing them, as it is more productive to the overall Wikipedia environment. Again, according to FUC#1 if a fair use image can be replaced by a free image than it cannot be used. There are situations where no image is preferable to a fair use image, and it is fairly widely accepted that biograpghies of living persons is one of those places. Jay32183 20:35, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Put yourself in my position. I am much more careful to look into the official policy guidelines of Wikipedia than the average editor, but I cannot be expected to read every lengthy debate on every policy topic. If fair use images are banned for biographies of living persons, it must say so in the policy statement. Otherwise it is not reasonable for editors to follow such rules, which amount to undemocratic hidden knowledge of elites. (Sorry, but what one of the mass deleting editors cited was "recent pronouncements by Jimbo Wales".) I think the only thing that's practical is for the rules to be in the policy document governing that topic. -DoctorW 22:15, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

But it is plainly spelled out in the guidelines. A free image of a living person who is a public figure is always produceable. Therefore any unfree image used specifically to illustrate the person fails FUC#1. Jay32183 23:49, 3 October 2006 (UTC)