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Image size suggestion

Per above, I have tentatively added a line [1] to address the recommended size of an image, and stressing that images larger than this should be reduced (unless there's a rationale for it). It is not meant to be a hard limit (if you're at 0.101 megapixels, that shouldn't be setting off alarms, and exactly "when" there's a problem, if its 0.2, 0.5, or what, I'd rather not say, just a rule of thumb to guide editors. --MASEM (t) 19:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

See my comments above, re keeping English simple, so non native speakers can understand. But it is good to have the line- or something like it. --ClemRutter (talk) 21:19, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I have reverted the change; first, I fail to see consensus, and second, the choosen value of 0.1 megapixel is really low; around 300x300px. It is arbitrairy and neglects to account for the nature of the image. An image with lots of detail needs a higher resolution. I still feel that 'web-resolution' is the best rule we can go by. — Edokter • Talk • 21:29, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

• That's awfully vague. I think a better rule is what I was hinting at in the prior section. The maximum size of the image should be no larger than necessary to convey required information intent in the article itself, thus no justification for an image being larger in File space than it is in Article space. If you have to click on the image to understand the image, the display size is too small for the purposes of the article. This is still arbitrary, but is better than simply "web resolution". All that generally means is 72 dpi. Ok, how about a fair use image 12 inches by 24 inches at 72 dpi? That'd qualify as web resolution. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:33, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
• First, we can still include language that says "Images should only be as large as necessary to convey information", which means if you can do it in 100x100 compared to 300x300, then you do that. But the point is, more to Edokter's quesiton, is that the 0.1 MP threshold is where "this seems rather larger for nfc" meter gets tripped. It's not an invite to resize the image without impunity (much less delete it). Yes, different images have different needs, but its always possible to rationalize that. --MASEM (t) 22:17, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

You gotta know though, there will be editors who "will" treat it exactly as an invitation to do exactly that. Any limit has to be broad enough to satisfy both sides in some measure (and leave both sides unhappy in some measure?). But there are probably sub-catgories of images where is would be possible to readily apply some sort of image without too much trouble (for example screen shots, portraits, album covers, logos, etc.).

As an aside, you're aware that there is an editor going around right now applying his own arbitary limit and resizing images as he sees fit? User:Skier Dude is applying I don't know what rule, but is playing below the 0.1 megapixel rule being discussed here and is oblivious to or ignoring the discussion here. There's always at least one in the woodwork somewhere. <sigh> Wiggy! (talk) 11:03, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

First we should ask why it is necessary to reduce image size. Copyright and fair use couldn't care less about the image size. At some point, 'low resolution' was entered into our non-free criteria. The most obvious resaon is to thwart reproducability. Since web resolution already prevents that, going even smaller is not warranted. And I will echo Locke Cole; sizing images as they would show on the articles is defenitely not recommended. Most are shown in thumbnails, as recommended by the manual of style, so the argument "If you have to click on the image to understand the image, the display size is too small" is not convincing. An arbitrary limit on image resolution is a resize-war waiting to happen. Each image should be judged on it's merits; it should be big enough to allow all necessary details to show. — Edokter • Talk • 23:46, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

There is aspects of "amount and substantiality" to fair use; reproducing an entire image pixel for pixel can be seen as a red flag for fair use considerations. Also, we have rather strict limits on audio samples (the smallest of 10% or 30 seconds, with the worst possible Ogg-Vorbis encoding). I'm not suggesting we make images as badly treated as that as images are much more integral with the text and need to be sufficiently resolved to be able to read between the text and viewing the image. However, in normal considering of the average type of non-free work we have here, which mostly are movie posters, artwork (2D or 3D), covers of books, films, albums, and video games, and screenshots of films, TV shows, and video games, the 0.1 MP "suggestion" satisfactorily gets the point of the image across for the typical aspect ratios for these works. That's not to say that sometimes we need a screenshot at a higher resolution to capture a fine detail that is discussed in the text, or that we have another piece of nfc that falls outside this set that needs other rules.

I guess my point is that for the bulk of nfc, an image of 0.1 MP doesn't set off any flags or issues with #3b, but when you start getting well above that (say, 0.3 MP), I'm going to start questioning the need for that many pixels. That's ok - adding a statement to the rationale that says "This image needs to be at this size to see this feature as noted by text in the article" is all that is needed (presuming it's not a bogus statement) to retain that large image. Make this a template that can be added, such as {{non-free large image size rationale}} so that a bot can detect when an image has been flagged and avoid resizing it; and as suggested above, its possible to add a 7-day warning period, saying that without this template, the image will be resized, so that we give users time to ad it. This allows us to have one more aspect of the NFCC policy codified to some extent as we do with image use in mainspace and outside of it. --MASEM (t) 14:03, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I just don't see how you can make a hard-and-fast rule that images larger than 300x300px are too large. It really depends too much on the nature of the image and I believe that arbitrary guidelines like this will only lead to bickering. Oren0 (talk) 17:19, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I completely agree that a heavy-enforced limit will rile too much, but there needs to be some advice, as otherwise you'll get people arguing that a 800x450 image reduced from 1650x1050 is "low resolution". As Hammersoft suggests above, images should be as small as possible to convey the needed information, and my suggestion is to advise that aiming for images no larger than 0.1 MP is not going to trip anyone's red flag as to what is "low resolution". That's not to say a 0.2 MP is improper, or the like, but when you start getting up much higher than, you'd better have good reason.

Here's an alternative:

Images should be sized to be as small as necessary to convey the information needed for significance as per WP:NFCC#8 in order to meet WP:NFCC#3b. Ideally, images should be no larger than 0.1 megapixels; Images that are larger than 0.25 megapixels require additional rationale to explain why the larger image is necessary.

Using a second, hard limit of 0.25 MP (which is around VGA/640x480 resolutions) where a rationale is required at least helps to keep images small or attached with rationales, and leaves the treatment of images between 0.1 and 0.25 as a case-by-case. --MASEM (t) 17:45, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Userspace

Let's say you were looking at Wikipedia, clicking the "random article" link. You find an image that you like and want to use it on your user page. But unfortunately, it's fair use. Can you make an exception for not using fair use images in userspace in that case? --Fangoriously (talk) 22:32, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

No. Fair use images are not just for sticking whereever we fancy- every use of non-free images must conform strictly to our non-free content criteria- it isn't enough that there is a use somewhere else on the encyclopedia that is acceptable. We have these rules for legal and philosophical reasons, and there are very, very few exceptions. Non-free content can never be used for decorative purposes. J Milburn (talk) 22:36, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Can I use free use images in userspace? --Fangoriously (talk) 03:31, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes- anything that counts as "free" can generally be used in the userspace, but sometimes "shock" images (like nudity) are removed. J Milburn (talk) 11:09, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Fair use of Christian Bale promotional images

Hi, can someone with more experience in fair use than myself take a look at Christian Bale to see if the last two images (the Empire of the Sun and Batman ones) are acceptable fair use? Both are marked as copyrighted promotional images, and the copyright tag states "It is believed that the use of some images of promotional material to illustrate: the person(s), product, event, or subject in question...". I just deleted a number of other images from the article that clearly did not meet fair use requirements, but did not know how to proceed on these two. Thanks for any insight. --CapitalR (talk) 20:39, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment: As I read it they are promotional for the movies and by extrapolation the characters therein, not for Bale the actor, and should therefore not be in the actor's article. Happy to change my view if I have misunderstood. – ukexpat (talk) 20:51, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

NFCC#1

Hi guys, does a photo of multiple computer game cases violate NFCC#1 (An album cover as part of a discography, as per the above.)? If not, can said photo be donated to the "public domain" by a user, as it's just a photo of copyrighted images? Ryan4314 (talk) 19:38, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Probably not, but if might fail #8 if there's not a very strong connection between the subject of the article and the titles displayed. If you're dealing with a photo and the uploader wants to release it under a free license, there's also a question of whether the cover art is displayed prominently enough to make it non-free in the first place. Something like this would need to comply, but something like this wouldn't. If you have a particular image in mind, please supply a link so we can have a better idea of what the photo is like. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 20:48, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for replying, I was referring to this article here. Ryan4314 (talk) 21:13, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Asperger_syndrome#Asperger_photo

There is a discussion at the above location about the suitability of a non-free image of Asperger with one of his subjects. Any input would be appreciated. J Milburn (talk) 21:08, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Help with an image for Bubbles (chimpanzee)

I've recently cleaned up this article, and was wondering what type of image I can use to illustrate Bubbles. I have a liking for this picture, although don't know whether it would be allowed. Any help will be welcomed. Thanks, Pyrrhus16 19:52, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Can you give me a link to the photo's details please mate? Ryan4314 (talk) 19:56, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Is this what your looking for? That's all the info I can find on the image. :) Pyrrhus16 20:11, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Yup, that's what I was looking for. I can't find any "free" images, although I haven't tried FlickR yet. So I think you could get away with a fair use one as it's unlikely that a free equivalent will ever become available (Bubbles is living at an undisclosed location right?) Ryan4314 (talk) 20:24, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Nice rewrite by the way, I also think you should get in on DYK. Ryan4314 (talk) 20:25, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The location is known, but I'm not sure how much access the public are allowed, if any at all. — R² 20:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I've nominated it for DYK. I'll go add the image. And yes, he is living in California. Recovering from the suicide attempt... Pyrrhus16 20:33, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Uploaded the file. Thanks for your help. :) Pyrrhus16 20:45, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The image has been nominated for speedy deletion... — R² 22:01, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The image is replaceable. Images of living entities that exist merely to identify the subject are not permitted as per out non-free content criteria. I notice there may be complicating factors above, I have not had a chance to review them, but still, in general, the said statement is the case. — neuro^{(talk)(review)} 22:05, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Bubbles was only in the public eye for a few years during the late 80's to early 90's. He wasn't seen in public afterward. In the late 1990's he was moved away from Jackson entirely, over fears he would attack the children. The only realistic chance a member of the public could have taken a picture was between 1986-92. The opportunity to take more images has passed, the chimp is in private residence. — R² 22:11, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

An Osama bin Laden sort of situation? — neuro^{(talk)(review)} 22:13, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

And this is a chimp, not a human :) But seriously, if you look at the time line, Bubbles was actually in the public eye for a very short period of time (even though he lived with Jackson a little longer). It's been more than 15 years since a member of the public could have got close enough to take an image. Notice how we don't have many free images of Jackson himself, he has always been reclusive. So getting an image of the chimp will be even more difficult. — R² 22:16, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I think an uninvolved second opinion would be nice. I'll just wait for someone to waddle along. — neuro^{(talk)(review)} 22:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

That's cool by me. — R² 22:34, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree, the fervour that surrounds Michael Jackson, probably means this chimp is hidden well away, perhaps he has grown a beard, moved abroad and integrated himself into society as an unassuming shopkeeper. Seriously though, can't see a public domain picture turning up anytime soon. I like to see myself as uninvolved, I "waddled along" when this post was posted just after mine, but if you want someone else that's cool. Ryan4314 (talk) 23:11, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Thinking about it, Bubbles (at the height of his fame lol) was a young chimp. Even if we could get a picture of him today, he would be very old, and would just look like any other chimp. What made Bubbles so unique was how human he seemed alongside Jackson in those jackets. Today he looks and behaves like any other old chimp I imagine. We need an image of Bubbles that represents his notability. Thus we need an old image, something we can't do freely. It's going to have to be a fair use image. — R² 01:39, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

A cropped image of him in Jacko's arms wearing some sparkly shit should illustrate your point quite well I think. Ryan4314 (talk) 01:52, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, something like this? This picture is discussed as part of a critical commentary in the article. Would this be a better, or more fair one to use? Pyrrhus16 10:38, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

A colour image would be better (more encyclopaedic) and Bubbles would have to be cropped out of the picture, so you'd only see part of Jacko's arms, not his face. Ryan4314 (talk) 13:21, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Will this one do? Pyrrhus16 13:37, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Yea that's good, all that's left for you is to crop it (make sure u mention on the Fair Use Rationale that it's been cropped). Ryan4314 (talk) 14:20, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I've update the picture. I guess we'll have to wait and see whether it's kept or not. Pyrrhus16 14:52, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Since the image has been altered, do we remove the speedy deletion tag? — R² 15:00, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks like it's been done. Pyrrhus16 15:14, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree now. Good work, guys. — neuro^{(talk)(review)} 01:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Excessive images at .hack//Sign

I feel this article has excessive non-free images that can not be adequately rationalized. The article's "owner" feels otherwise. I have spelled out the specific images I feel are unnecessary here, and he has responded with his views on why they meet WP:NONFREE. Additional, neutral eyes needed. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 06:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Only 6 images? Does not seems excessive to me... SF007 (talk) 15:52, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

The number is not important. If 7 images are needed, so be it. If no images are needed, the article doesn't have the "right" to a certain number. J Milburn (talk) 23:48, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Expired warning?

WARNING - Please see Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content_criteria#Slow_moving_editwar before making ANY edit with regards to criteria number 8. Editwarring on a policy page will not solve the problems and may result in blocks for editwarring and disruption!

[2][3]

That's what I see above "Preview" at the top of the page. The link is outdated, since there's nothing there. --Raijinili (talk) 11:34, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

What changes were you going to make to the non-free content criteria? They aren't really the kind of thing that should be changed without talk page discussion. J Milburn (talk) 11:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't going to change anything. I wanted to see what kind of source would produce that transcluded section in the first article, and was surprised to see the warning. I then did a little more exploring and found that another article had the same "protection". --Raijinili (talk) 11:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Found the actual message: MediaWiki:Editnotice-4-Non-free content criteria. Gonna put up an editprotected tag. --Raijinili (talk) 12:09, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh wait. You're an admin. I'll let you take care of it. --Raijinili (talk) 12:10, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I've got no idea- I wasn't involved in that discussion. Could someone here who was please update as appropriate? J Milburn (talk) 23:47, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Unknown copyright holder?

Is it acceptable to use non-free content when we have no idea of the copyright holder? I am thinking specifically of historic images being used to illustrate the biographies of those who have been dead for some years, but not long enough for anything to fall into the public domain- is it acceptable to use work without permission, and then not even credit the copyright holders? J Milburn (talk) 19:51, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

• It is acceptable, yes. Obviously copyright holders and/or authors should be listed when this information is known, but it's not always known.
• If two non-free sources of roughly equal quality illustrate the same topic, it's better to use the content where the provenance is known. However, in practice it can be difficult to substitute non-free content with high-quality provenance for non-free content with low-quality provenance: when I tried to do this recently for File:Hans Aspergersmall.jpg, my intended replacement image was almost immediately deleted.

Eubulides (talk) 07:04, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

• I'm not quite sure how we can justify deleting free media when we do not cite the author, but not deleting non-free media when we do not cite the author. Surely, when we're using their work without permission, the least we can do is credit them? J Milburn (talk) 09:02, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

• I'd guess that most non-free media on Wikipedia lack either informatin about copyright holder, or author, or both. So is this a suggestion that most of the non-free media in use on Wikipedia should be removed? A fairly drastic suggestion, if so.
• As a quick sanity check, I just now visited Category:Fair use in... images, and visited the first and last items listed, namely File:'Allo_'Allo_cast.jpg and File:河蟹戴表.jpg. Neither entry lists either copyright holder or author. These are just two somewhat-randomly-chosen examples, of course, but I would guess that the vast majority of non-free images on Wikipedia lack copyright-owner or author info.

Eubulides (talk) 15:27, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

There really isn't a requirement for sourcing the copyright holder or the like in WP:NFCC, but I do note that WP:NFCC#4, "Previous publication", is a factor there. It's not an easy requirement to put to a rationale-checker bot, but in the case where we are using images with unknown copyrights, we should be at least citing the source for that image, even if it is a URL to a site that the image was located on but otherwise used there without mention of copyright. Failure to have even something like this should be reason for a 7-day warning tag to bring the image to spec. --MASEM (t) 15:40, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, definitely the source should be given, since that should always be known. Eubulides (talk) 15:45, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

• Um, no, NFCC10a clearly says that the copyright holder needs to be listed. – Quadell ^(talk) 19:58, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Yeah, source and copyright holder are both prereqs. Images get deleted routinely at FFD/PUF for lacking copyright holder information. (ESkog)^(Talk) 21:08, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
    • A source is required, but if you click through to WP:CITE#IMAGE, it states that "It is important that you list the author of the image if known (especially if different from the source), which is important both for copyright and for informational purposes." Thus, yes, a source for where the material came from is important but the necessity for the actual original author/creator is not. Mind you, I can see this being a conflict between what 10a says and what WP:CITE says, and if the intent is that original creator is necessary, then WP:CITE needs to be changed. --MASEM (t) 12:46, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
      • • WP:CITE is a style guideline. ("It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense and the occasional exception.") WP:NFCC is an "official English Wikipedia policy". And NFCC is clear that the copyright holder must be listed if different than the source. – Quadell ^(talk) 13:04, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
          • Yes, it's understood that policy trumps guideline. But the argument being made here is that the policy is wrong, and its disagreement with a well-accepted guideline is one symptom (not the only one) of its being wrong. Policies change, and the question here is whether and how to change it. Eubulides (talk) 16:41, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
      • As it appears that most non-free images do not list both copyright holder and author, the intent appears to be that the source should be cited. Typically there is no reliable way to determine copyright holder, as copyright transfers are typically not public. Surely it's not the intent of 10a to place a typically-impossible requirement on an image's supporting documentation. Eubulides (talk) 21:51, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
        • Yes, but there's a difference between, say, an album cover (where the copyright can be assumed to belong to the record label) and the hypothetical historic photo of a late person of note, where the copyright could belong to anyone. I think it's important to make an effort to determine copyright holders, and cite them. If the copyright holder cannot be determined, I think it would be best to find another image. J Milburn (talk) 23:12, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
          • And what happens when the is no other image? Physchim62 (talk) 23:39, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
            • We don't use one? I think it would be hard to find such a case. If there was only one image of a person, it shouldn't be too hard to find the copyright holder, but, even then, it is better to use no image than use one with poor licensing information. J Milburn (talk) 23:45, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
              • I disagree that "it shouldn't be too hard". It is often quite hard. None of the actual examples cited above are album covers. And none of them list both copyright holder and author. So this appears to be a rule that is not observed in practice. I agree that uploaders should make an effort to determine the copyright holder, but it's unrealistic to expect this in all, or even most, cases. This is especially true for historical photos, where it's often the case that nobody knows who the copyright holder is. Insisting on a copyright holder would preclude many, many historical photos, to the detriment of Wikipedia; this is not a wise thing to do. Eubulides (talk) 23:48, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
              • I don't see this being a problem if the source is a highly reliable one; eg if the picture is a scan out of a published book and even says "Photographer Unknown" for its caption. As long as that source is cited in the rationale and some degree of good faith effort has been assumed to have been to identify the true source, I don't see a problem. IANAL, but in consideration of fair use, attribution or lack thereof is not a factor, however, this might be a good question to ask Mike Godwin about (it is a legal issue in general about WP's fair use protection). That would help clarify it if we must have the original source (as best as we know) when providing an image. --MASEM (t) 23:56, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
                • Legally, it's probably safe to use an image of undetermined providence, if a major publisher reproduced it. But it would still be against our policy to do so. – Quadell ^(talk) 13:07, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
                  • Legally, it's absolutely safe; fair-use law doesn't provide more protection to unknown provenance (quite the reverse!). The point here is that our policy isn't right, in that it is stating requirements seem to be typically ignored, and it contradicts guideline. Eubulides (talk) 16:41, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
                    • I'm checking with Mike Godwin to check on the legal issue if attribution affects fair use; that might require us to do this. But even if he says it's not an issue, we can still discuss that if we want to enforce the identification of the copyright owner (and the resulting processing of images to support that). I personally think that its great if it can be provided and should be provided if its obviously, but it's not a requirement. --MASEM (t) 16:58, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so there are two different questions. One question is "Does our policy currently allow us, under any circumstances, to use images that we concede are probably copyrighted, but where we don't know who the copyright is held by?", and the answer is no. But a second question is "Should our policy allow this, and under what circumstances?", and to that I don't know. – Quadell ^(talk) 17:56, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

There are several attributes to the source of an image

1. The author of the original image (the photographer or artist). Very often unknown.
2. The original publisher of the image (who may well have commissioned it, such as for an album cover). Might also be unknown.
3. The copyright holder of the original image. Very often unknown.
4. The owner of the original image (such as the person who has the photograph in their collection). Might not be the copyright owner.
5. The physical source of the image used (from the web (URL supplied), scanned from a book (book details supplied), etc.

Are there any others? Many of these (apart from the last) are commonly unknown. The copyright holder is probably only known if there is a copyright statement next to the source picture (and even that might be out-of-date). I think J Milburn's assumption about the copyright of album covers is likely to be too simplistic. Similarly for book cover art, which may for example use a photo with permission.

I agree the current policy requirement to log the copyright holder (if different from the source) appears very restrictive and, if enforced, would lead to the deletion of most non-free images on WP. A quick glance at the category shows most non-free images list the source URL and nothing else. Colin°^Talk 11:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, #1 and #3 are the same, unless the original copyright holder transfered copyright to another party. (This happens automatically upon death, of course.) #2 and #4 are irrelevant. #5 is not strictly required, although it may be helpful in verifying other information.

If we were to allow non-free images where the copyright holder is not known, one of the problems would be satisfying NFCC#2. If the AP owns the copyright, then our use probably competes with them and undercuts the market value. If Joe Blow's heirs hold the copyright, then it's not a problem. How would we tell? – Quadell ^(talk) 13:50, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I very much doubt 1 and 3 are the same as a general rule. I don't own the copyright on anything I write for my employer, for example. Only 3 is relevant for copyright-ownership purposes, of course, but 2 and 4 are not irrelevant. The combination of date plus where the image was published matters a great deal wrt whether the image is still in-copyright. Item 4 is not infrequently mentioned when a photo comes from someone's collection. All of these things help if we know them, are useful if the actual copyright holder is unknown, and constitute information about "the source of the material", which this policy requires. The problem we have is where we know, say 4 and 5, but not 3. Colin°^Talk 15:30, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

(update) I've just spent 20 minutes clicking on non-free images in the category listed above. I have yet to find one that supplies the copyright holder. This is hardly surprising as none of the templates have a parameter for this attribute and none of the guidelines examples give an example beyond supplying a URL. It appears that the second half of 10a is routinely ignored. Can someone suggest how to advertise this issue to get more input here. Colin°^Talk 21:10, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

If we were to "turn on" this enforcement, it would be 100% a human-driven effort (bots can't help like with article name or at least one use). I can pretty much tell you that save the more ardent NFCC supports will want to have that much time sink into that aspect. It's also not as simple to fix as the article name issue since one would pretty much have to be the uploaded to fix, and the numerous images uploaded by long-departed WPians would likely go away. However, we can turn on the enforcement starting from a certain date if we were to have a "new image patrol" ala new article patrol that would check each image and tag with any NFCC concerns including lack of copyright holder information, and then let the CSD admins deal with those images that have no follow up. Images before that point would be grandfathered into the system, but at the same time, we could implore help at GA/FA that any articles that pass through there need to have the copyright on any NFC images asserted clearly. --MASEM (t) 21:17, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

We don't have policies that apply only to FA/GA. Folk writing policy have to understand the implications for the whole project. It is not just the issue that perhaps 99% of non-free images on WP currently fail the policy but that perhaps the majority of those would fail this policy even if someone tried to find out the copyright holder. If there's a legal reason for needing to know the copyright holder in order to make a FU claim, then this needs to be enforced WP-wide. Otherwise it looks like we have a duff policy requirement here. Colin°^Talk 21:29, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

In an entry in her talk page, Colin asked Jkelly (talk · contribs) for her opinion as she removed the "where possible" from this requirement in the NFC criteria. However, as Colin mentioned, Jkelly doesn't seem to be active recently. This change was made without discussion in 2006. I propose that we reinstate those words to fix the many problems mentioned above. Eubulides (talk) 06:49, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

There may have been no discussion regarding the change, but the page is heavily watched and the change has survived 18 months. So I don't think it should be removed without a full discussion. Perhaps an RFC is required to get contributions to a discussion. The requirement for stating the copyright holder needs to be reviewed from a legal POV as well as the implications from a community POV. I don't believe it is acceptable to have important policy being routinely ignored only to be cited as a when someone wishes to take pot shots at an image. If this policy requirement is to be kept, we need to help editors follow it by adding examples to templates/guidelines and to any checklist that new-image patrollers use. If you think an RFC is a good idea, then we should create a new section and set out the case for/against the policy requirement. Colin°^Talk 07:48, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

We can safely put the legal-reasons speculation to rest: the 2006 change was not put in for legal reasons, and (for what I hope are now obvious reasons) there is no legal requirement that a fair-use claim must list all current copyright holders. I was hoping that the current thread would be enough of a venue for a full discussion of the community issue (certainly it's longer than the zero discussion in 2006!), but if someone else thinks an RFC would be better, that's OK too. Eubulides (talk) 08:19, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

See #Proposal: revise wording of NFCC 10a (requirement for copyright holder details) below. Colin°^Talk 17:34, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Someone explain this policy to me in laymen's terms.

Obviously Wikipedia can't be having huge galleries of a single celebrity or word-by-word transcriptions of novels and stuff like that, because they're both cumbersome and legally risky. However, I fail to see how why Wikipedia can't have use a decent stock photo of a celebrity instead of a crappy one from some dude's camera or multiple images in large lists of fictional/cartoon characters, especially since every other site on the internet has absolutely no problems doing things like that at all. The whole "we must try to make everything non-copyrighted" philosophy here isn't very good for article/encyclopedic quality, really. - Norse Am Legend (talk) 23:42, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

WP's goal, per the Foundation, is to be a "Free content" encyclopedia, that is, free as in thought and unburdened by intellectual property issues so that it can be redistributed indefinitely. We seek to use as much free content as possible and avoid non-free content when we can, that includes replace non-free when a free image can likely be created, and avoiding non-free images which are only used for decoration. --MASEM (t) 23:50, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

If there is a choice (and sometimes there isn't) between having a free "crappy" (and I have to ask how crappy you're talking) and a non-free "decent" picture, then Wikipedia is going to choose the one which allows it to be:

• Spread to countries with stricter laws.
• Spread by print publications, by commercial enterprises independent of it.
• Etc.

If that doesn't satisfy you, they have to put in a good-faith effort so that no one will sue them. Like Youtube with copyvio videos. And you can't have a group of anonymous people all knowing that the effort is fake, so it must be real.

Also, the "crappy picture" doesn't seem to detract from article quality, since the purpose should be more to inform, and perhaps give links to more, unencyclopedic information. I can see how a limit on images might.--Raijinili (talk) 23:55, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Referring to "crappy" images, the thing that immediately sprang to my mind here was one I saw a little while ago of a football player. It was a shot of him facing away from the camera, essentially making the image totally pointless. Then there are just lots of celebrity pictures here taken with them in a crowd of people at an awards ceremony with them facing any which way in weird lighting.

I really would like WP to be a little less strict with its image enforcement, since I fully support the notion of "a picture being worth a 1,000 words", and when you get into the realm of drawn characters and works of art and other things like that, what the subject looks like is about 90% of its importance. - Norse Am Legend (talk) 00:06, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the Foundation has charged us with minimize the use of non-free images. You'd have to speak to them to get them to loosen it. --MASEM (t) 00:13, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Not really. The NFCC go somewhat farther than the WMF policy mandates. #8 in particular is quite a bit stronger than it needs to be, and a lot of good images are deleted because of it. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R

The line from the Resolution: Such EDPs must be minimal. Their use, with limited exception, should be to illustrate historically significant events, to include identifying protected works such as logos, or to complement (within narrow limits) articles about copyrighted contemporary works seems to suggest that "significance" is something the Foundation had in mind. Yes, our NFC policy is an interpretation of the Resolution, however, at the same time, the Resolution used what is still our current NFCC as a metric of what other Mediawiki projects should have. --MASEM (t) 00:43, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Our policy is more or less that NFC cannot be used unless it is demonstrably and substantially superior to the closest free alternative from an informational standpoint. The resolution leaves us the discretion to determine with some degree of subjectivity that a good non-free image ought to be used over a free image of poor quality; en-wp generally does not permit this unless the disparity in quality is obvious and has clear pedagogical implications. I'm just pointing out that the strictness of our policies has more to do with the attitudes of some of our editors toward NFC than any WMF mandate. Surely we could loosen certain elements of our NFCC considerably without the WMF intervening. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 07:29, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Up there, in the top left corner? "The Free Encyclopedia". That's why we can't afford to loosen NFCC. And what you've stated isn't our policy at all. Our policy is that NF content cannot be used unless it would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding. Perhaps the strictness of some of our editors on this point is because they are dedicated to the idea of a Free encyclopedia - if people want to overuse non-free images then there are other web-sites and wikia available for them to do it. Black Kite 08:56, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

No other sites have problems? You missed getty (and corbis) sending bills to a bunch of webmasters for a few hundred dollars.Geni 00:28, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Master (Doctor Who)

Thirteen non-free images. Thoughts? Black Kite 21:32, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I can see valid use for 7 of them (the 6 images in the infobox and the one of the animated Master.) The others are excessive. --MASEM (t) 21:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Images in List of Episode articles

I'm trying to find the current accepted practice for including images in the List of Episode articles. A couple of years ago there was a wide-spread deletion of images from the lead of LOE pages because they failed WP:FUC. In the past year, there has been a growing number of images being passed through FLs (thus creating an example for future FL articles). I'm trying to figure out what the currect, accepted practice is for this situations (e.g., List of Meerkat Manor episodes, List of Seinfeld episodes, etc.).  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 18:41, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the guidance is that images as part of the list itself and not so much what surrounds it are considered inappropriate. As in both examples, the box art cover is reasonable as the wrapper of the lists, but not individual screenshots from every episode one it. --MASEM (t) 19:04, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, my argument over at Meerkat is that the box art for season 1 of a 4 seasons show isn't appropriate. No image is needed, it's not the main article, but if there was an image my argument is that it should be something that encompasses the page as a whole (like the Seinfeld complete boxset of all 9 seasons).  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, hmm. I think this is less a common issue per images-in-lists and just a general NFCC#8 determination. I agree that the best "summary" image is always preferred as the Seinfeld box. Is the MM boxart for just one season necessarily wrong? I don't think so - there is discussion of DVD releases in the list, and as each season is not notable on its own (or at least does not require a separate page for each), I'd see no major problem with one example of DVD box art used to illustrate the list.--MASEM (t) 19:49, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

That's what I'm trying to gauge, because there seems to be some double standards going on. DVD images are not allowed in film articles that do not directly discuss the box art itself. The same with soundtrack covers in film articles. Infoboxes seem to get leeway with regard to having a "poster" (or in the case of TV's the title card), but LOEs are not main pages and don't generally have infoboxes. It's not like the season articles where the whole page is about that one season, and the DVD art goes in the infobox.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:55, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I would say from what I've seen that the "exactly one non-free image for identification" unstated guideline works for these lists, infobox or not. The DVD cover is a good representation of the series, and the DVD is mentioned to some extent in the article (for MM). I dunno if we really want to spell out that unstated guideline more, though...--MASEM (t) 20:09, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Hence my questioning, because I wonder if the "unstated guideline" is really an "under the radar violation" of the policy. It's not a style issue, so I hate leaving it up to "editor preference", because it's a non-free content issue. If there was a more clear definition of use (one way or the other...doesn't matter which) then it wouldn't seem like such an issue.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:16, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

(←)I'm willing to discuss the addition to "accepted uses" for images for exactly no more than one image of a published work as part of identification of that work without any other rationale, with any other cover images requiring significance per #8. That is, the implicit significant for one cover image it the identification of the work at hand at bare minimum, but a second cover does not help towards that. --MASEM (t) 23:56, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

In this case I would interpret "work" as being an episode. The picture can very clearly help in identifying and characterizing the individual episodes. DGG (talk) 20:03, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

For critical commentary?

The last time I brought this up, a malfunctioning bot prematurely archived it. I will restate my four questions regarding this policy's use of the term "critical commentary" and the phrase "for critical commentary". Does this policy use "critical commentary" in the plain English sense, or in the legal sense? If this policy uses "critical commentary" in the plain English sense, isn't everything encompassed by the term prohibited by Wikipedia:No original research? If "critical commentary" is used in the legal sense, why doesn't the guideline explain what it means in accordance with Wikipedia:Explain jargon? If "critical commentary" is used in the legal sense and cannot be easily defined, why isn't there at least a statement that it cannot be easily defined, followed by a list of examples like the one at Wikipedia:No personal attacks? -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 00:54, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

CC, to me, has always meant that there is specific discussion on this particular image. For instance, File:Clarkjesus.jpg is used in Clark Kent (Smallville) to illustrate a pose the character was placed in. The text directly beside the image is analysis on how that pose illustrates a symbolic representation of Jesus Christ. That is critical commentary on that specific image. That's plain English, and nothing OR about it. Non-free images require commentary (not editor commentary) from reliable sources that discuss the image in question specifically. So, if you have a picture of a DVD box in a film article, there needs to be commentary on that cover art that does more than just identify what is there. In other words, critical commentary goes hand-n-hand with "significant increase in understanding".  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 01:36, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Currently, there are eight examples of situations in which free images can be used in the absance of non-free alternative:

1. Cover art: Cover art from various items, for identification only in the context of critical commentary of that item (not for identification without critical commentary).
2. Team and corporate logos: For identification. See Wikipedia:Logos.
3. Stamps and currency: For identification of the stamp or currency, not its subject.
4. Other promotional material: Posters, programs, billboards, ads. For critical commentary.
5. Film and television screen shots: For critical commentary and discussion of the cinema and television.
6. Screenshots from software products: For critical commentary.
7. Paintings and other works of visual art: For critical commentary, including images illustrative of a particular technique or school.
8. Images with iconic status or historical importance: As subjects of commentary.

Cover art is allowed for identification in the context of critical commentary. Film and television screenshots are allowed for critical commentary and discussion of the cinema and television. Images with iconic status or historical importance can be used "as subjects of commentary". Screenshots from software products, paintings and other works of visual art and other promotional material are only allowed "for critical commentary". I believe that "for critical commentary" implies that the images must be used to make original critical commentary. Also, regarding the Smallville screenshot, the critical commentary was probably about the scene as a whole, not about a specific frame of the scene, I believe the image is being used to illustrate the subjects of critical commentary: the scene, the character, the episode and the series, and that the image itself is probably only the subject of critical commentary as part of the scene. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 03:01, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

My main concern is that the criteria for software screenshots, visual art and promotional material are poorly phrased and needlessly strict. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 03:04, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I think you might be looking too deep at the "For" in "For critical commentary". It isn't supposed to be suggesting that you create your own original commentary. The commentary must exist already. Yes, with fiction related stuff you aren't likely to have commentary on a "frame" in a TV show or Film (maybe a comic book panel or something), but for all of the frames within a given scene. If a frontal shot of Clark on the scarecrow pole could be attained that was well lit enough that you could see what was happening I would gladly swap out that frame for the new one...because it's a better shot of the imagery in question. I assume your pointing to software screen shots because you have a specific example? There's always going to be some gray area with this stuff. For example, File:F13Variety.jpg is an image of an advertisement in a magazine from 1979. It's used in the article where there is text describing both the image itself as well as the impact the image had. I've still had some people question its usage. I cannot think of any software examples. The point of critical commentary is supposed to be that you find some information that basically "analyzes" (I use that term loosely, because I don't mean to say some "scholarly" work written on it) what is happening specifically in that frame. I agree that "For" makes it sound like we need to be creating commentary for the image (and I've seen that done on pages before...no real commentary beyond editors just describing the image themselves), which we shouldn't. I think "For" should be replaced with "With", personally.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:18, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not pointing to software screenshots because of anything specific, I'm pointing to software screenshots, promotional material and visual art because they are only allowed "For critical commentary.", unlike film and television screeshots, which are allowed "For critical commentary and discussion of the cinema and television.". I would like the "for critical commentary" to be replaced with something clearer, such as "in the context of critical commentary" or your "with critical commentary" suggestion. I believe that you are correct about what "for critical commentary" was intended to mean, and the use of page scans, promotional material and other visual art in all eighteen current FA-Class comics articles supports your interpretation, however I don't think any policy should operate under the assumption that everyone can correctly guess the writers' intent. I'm worried that a literal interpretation of "for critical commentary" could result in the deletion of many non-film, non-television, non-cover fair use images, such as the ones in comic and video game articles. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 01:01, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm actually all for making them all the same--either "with" or "in the context of"--because I can see your point about the poor wording of "For". Unless someone can come along and explain (to both of us) the rationale for using "For" in all of those criteria, then I would give this a couple of days and then make the adjustment. IMO, it isn't really changing the meaning (especially since no one has bothered to clarify why "For" was used), but really just clarifying the intended meaning that most of us have followed already.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 01:58, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I think "with" may be too broad, perhaps "with relevant critical commentary" or "with related critical commentary" could be used, however I'd prefer "in the context of critical commentary", "in the context of relevant critical commentary" or "in the context of critical commentary relevant to the image". -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 03:12, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I actually like the last one, because I've seen instances where someone attempted to get use an image where there was nothing in the text actually talking about that image, just a caption they personally wrote for the image itself.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:25, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this change. --MASEM (t) 03:55, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

The test deriving from the policy section (presumably) is that there must be critical commentary of the subject of the article, and that the image must in some way uniquely add to that critical commentary in such a way that understanding of the user is significantly improved.

The requirement for the iconic images is deliberately different and tighter, because these tend to be photo libraries' premium images. Therefore in the case of these images (only), the image must explicitly itself be the subject of the critical commentary, rather than simply adding in an important way to the overall critical commentary of the subject of the article.

Finally, the term "critical commentary" is deliberately chosen for its use in U.S. legal discussion. It does not imply a requirement for either criticism or original commentary. My understanding is that a serious, thorough quasi-academic discussion of a subject, such as we aim to provide here, typically could be called critical commentary. Jheald (talk) 20:08, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that the common practice with screenshots has been, for awhile, that there must be text on the specific image otherwise it isn't "necessary" to understand the subject because the article clearly doesn't even talk about the image itself. It would create the argument of, "what makes this image so special". Without commentary on the image itself, we wouldn't know why it was used or why it should be used.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:16, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

On the other hand the image may be perfectly acceptable if it is captioned "Image of Y illustrating X", where X is some point made in the article commentary, which is made far more transparent by being able to see the image. Jheald (talk) 21:47, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

As a specific example of this type of usage, currently, the article for The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker describes how the game's art style has been the subject of extensive discussion and critical commentary, and uses a screenshot to illustrate that art style. The screenshot itself probably hasn't been the subject of critical commentary, however it depicts the game's art style, which has been the subject of critical commentary. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 00:26, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I have concerns

Without consensus, this user has been trying to add the logos of the owners of companies to their respective infoboxes. Furthermore, he contends that "I think it look better and could climate any confuses if any about the parent companies, because of any abbreviation, ect." This is just clear-cut decoration, please, help us stop this. ViperSnake151  Talk  14:07, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

What user? Which infobox? What article? Never mind. — Edokter • Talk • 14:37, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

RfC: Which size should bots be resizing images to to comply with NFCC?

Recently, I came across a bit of an obstacle to getting my bot going due to some confusion at its BRfA over what size it should be resizing images to. Firstly I started resizing rigidly to any area inside 450x450, and then I was informed that using overall megapixel size might be a better way of doing it. I then implemented this, but there is a lot of debate over what number of megapixels to use, and WP:NFCC seems to be very vague on the issue. I'd personally suggest 0.25 megapixels (that is, 250000 pixels), but some seem to want higher. A demonstration of consensus is needed to decide one way or the other. — neuro^(talk) 13:31, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Bots shouldn't be resizing images. The NFCC guideline is just a general directive and there are no numbers in place. Resizing anything into a square (450x450) doesn't work if the image is not square. Doing the file size thing might work, but probably poses some similar problems. Somebody else tried doing this a few month back. It didn't work out and he was berated for the effort. I wouldn't go letting an automaton loose until its been thoroughly talked through. Wiggy! (talk) 13:45, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Can we just add a parameter to the {{fair use reduce}} tag that allows the tagger to specify the optimal width in pixels? That would put the discretion on humans but leave the most tedious work to the bots. Calliopejen1 (talk) 13:47, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I thought the general advise was no larger than 0.1 megapixels for NFC - however, if a bot is doing it, I would only have it do it if it far exceeded this (0.2 or 0.25 megapixels) to bring it back to around 0.1 megapixels; when I look at NFC I usually give leeway around 0.1 megapixels, so a bot shouldn't be picky around this point. --MASEM (t) 13:47, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand the task here. The size limitation is a general guideline, not a firm rule. There are cases where it does not apply, and as stated cases where editorial discretion is necessary. Wikidemon (talk) 16:13, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Hence why they are manually reviewed before upload. — neuro^(talk) 16:25, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, I would suspect it be rather easy (actually, even helpful) to have the bot recognize a special template that a user may add to an image to justify for it being large. This would help the non-free rationale to be "machine readable" in a sense, like we do already with article names; if it has this template it is presumed to be compliant to be oversized (though there still needs human-determined need if the rationale is good), otherwise the bot should warn and then reduce if the template is not present after 7 days. --MASEM (t) 18:32, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Images must be reduced in size _before_ they are uploaded. If the size uploaded to wikipedia is larger than suitable for fair use then the image must be taken down or a smaller replacement put in its place. Any resizing after upload does not effect its fair use status.Scientus (talk) 08:40, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

That's completely oblivious to the flow of the discussion here and doesn't address the expressed need to deal with the large number of existing images that might be regarded as oversized in a transparent and even handed manner. If a bot is going to do the work its needs a standard to work to. If a standard is in place then it provides an uploader with clear direction. Wiggy! (talk) 09:18, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

A useful task would be for the bot to create a list of all NF images over 0.25 megapixels, if such a list doesn't exist already. Physchim62 (talk) 17:24, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

The underlying point is that there is no formal rule or policy in place, only a general guideline. You can't have a bot impose or enforce a generality - it wants definitive goal - and one doesn't exist in this case. Doing so is just asking for grief. I don't see a problem with a bot making a list or tagging stuff that meets an agreed criteria that in turn leads to a person going out and doing the work, but having a bot resize stuff is just plain wrong. I can't understand why some folks are so hot to enforce a rule that doesn't exist. Wiggy! (talk) 17:52, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I could have sworn that there used to be a guideline page with 0.1 MP as the rule of thumb (which it really is), though I can't find it though searching "0.1 megapixels" shows that it was a common guideline for FACs and other quality control points. We should formalize something, even as I suggest above add in a template that allows someone to rationalize (but not penalize) a larger image if it does need to go above 0.1MP. --MASEM (t) 18:38, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

When I last took part in a discussion on this, my view was that bots should be used to identify images larger than a set size, but that humans should be used to provide a rationale for oversized images, and a template used to ensure that the approved rationale is skipped by future checks by a bot. A mixture of human and bot input. And this can be done for several of the NFCC. About a year ago, I wrote Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria compliance. I don't have time to work on that now, but if anyone would like to carry on with the ideas there, and add their own ideas and reorganise and get things moving, please do so (and also update things with what has happened in the past nine months or so). In particular, this section of the proposal I wrote. I had intended to do this as a follow-up to this remedy at an ArbCom case, but never got round to it. That remedy was a call for the community to do something, so how about it? My old proposal would just be a starting point, but if the community of NFCC editors and image editors could come up with long-term solutions based on that and using the ArbCom remedy as impetus, that would really be great. Carcharoth (talk) 19:59, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm working on a template to allow people to justify larger non-free images. — neuro^(talk) 20:35, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

{{User:Neurolysis/Non-free media resolution rationale}}. — neuro^(talk) 20:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I think Masem is looking for this template Template:Non-free image rationale where it clearly provides the size guideline he was trying to find.

ww2censor (talk) 22:30, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Good all the way around. I think it's a noble cause, juse one of these bot things that ought to be done carefully, in a friendly and transparent way, with adequate notice to the 97% of people who inserted images that are just too big, 1% of people who know what they are doing and have a good reason for it, and 2% of cases in the middle. Bot approvals are one of the few areas of policy not carefully watched by editors, so things sometimes spring up as complete surprises. Please just be sure to have a clearly worded, friendly, non-bitey notification and edit summary procedure sensitive to various people in the 97 / 2 / 1% breakdown - those 1% are probably prolific, solid editors. Wikidemon (talk) 23:10, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

The BRfA was on Template:Cent for a while, so that shouldn't be a problem. — neuro^(talk) 00:22, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

All it does identify what it calls a rule of thumb. There is no fixed rule or policy that says the size guideline that appears in the template is legitimate. Its just something pulled out of thin air. This whole business as its shaping up has feet of clay. A gang of rule bangers surely has to do better than that .... Wiggy! (talk) 01:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it's important we identify a rule of thumb, but make sure the bot operates "far" from that. Again, if we start with 0.1 MP as the rule of thumb, but only have the bot tag articles above 0.25 MP with a seven-day "provide a rationale for this size or it will be resized" before it does that, with opt-outs via a template, we are certainly not punishing or making too much work for anyone. The 0.1 MP was something that I am nearly sure was more standard than just one template reference, and really should be codified but, as noted, bots should only worry about aggressive violations of that as it is just a rule. --MASEM (t) 01:50, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I've never heard of this. Where I can I find the rule that non-free images should not be huge? -Freekee (talk) 04:24, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

WP:NFCC#3b encourages low-resolution images over high ones. --MASEM (t) 04:55, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Which brings us back to there's no rule here for a bot to enforce. It seems to me that the folks to want to enforce the rules should live by their own standard and have a rule to enforce before they enforce it. Wiggy! (talk) 12:43, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that at some point there was advice about 0.1 MP on more than just that one template page; the number of search hits in searching WP-space based on "0.1 megapixels" is too large to be ignored. When it was removed, I can't tell you. Given that we have tight restrictions on audio samples, it seems perfectly clear to have similar restrictions on image sizes, as long as we allow in exceptional cases for users to say "I need it this size as to capture this detail" or something along those lines. For the bulk of our NFC content (mostly logos, screenshots, front covers, and movie posters), 0.1 MP is sufficient to get the point across (just a notch smaller than 400x300), so it's a reasonable rule of thumb to provide. --MASEM (t) 13:58, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I get all that. I understand there's probably a legitimate need. My point is that a bot should not be programmed to go out on a mission for which it has no legitimacy because there is no accepted policy, rule, guideline, or anything else. If mission bound editors are determined to do enforcement, those acts should be rule-based and have proper sanction. You can't insist on a rule that doesn't exist. Before anything else that has to be accepted. You know, a first principles sort of thing. There has to be transparency and fairness. Nobody has been able to cleanly and simply point to the rule, so what is shaping up is a fishing expedition to find something that might fit. The reason this is any kind of BFD to me is that there are too many individuals who happily run amok imposing their interpretation of things on everybody else (honest editors and clods both) without having any considered and sanctioned basis for doing so. This is one of those instances. There is no rule, no standard, no guideline. This is just setting up for (another) duel between opposing camps. If the rule bangers want to enforce the rules they must start by living by the rules themselves. Wiggy! (talk) 14:38, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Then maybe we need to establish consensus for a guideline on image size that likely existed before but for sake of argument, lets say it never was the case. It would be a guideline (in WP:NFC) as opposed to police (in WP:NFCC) since there are times that we readily allow larger non-free images when they can be demonstrated to be as such. An over-sized image would not be a reason to delete an image or invalidate the overall non-free rationale, but it does need to be resized. As a first shot, adding something like Image size: Non-free images should be as small as necessary to convey the necessary visual information to the reader. Non-free images should be no larger than 0.1 megapixels; however, if an image needs to be larger (for example to retain details that cannot be identified at small resolutions), this needs to be included in the non-free rationale for the image. Then if we had that, and made sure bots only operated on images well-exceeding that and that bots only tagged to give editors 7 days to add an appropriate rationale before the image was automatically resized, I don't think we'd be pushing any buttons there; it's a process that can be easily corrected, we don't lose images on articles, and the like. But I understand that we can't do the bot until we have a better statement of what the limit is meant to be in place, thus I think we need to make sure that's a sane limit. --MASEM (t) 15:27, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Is this going to actually edit the image to make it lower resolution, or just lower the image's size within articles? I'd recommend starting slow because it's hard to know the unintended effects, both practical and in terms of reaction. There are lots of non-free images used for many different purposes, although the main ones are book covers, album covers, logos, video/dvd covers, software and game screenshots or covers, and maybe one or two other common categories. Between them that's most of them. Also, for notification it's hard to notify people about images. We found from the non-free notice bots that many to most of the people who uploaded images years ago are long gone and/or don't check in during a 7-day notice period. The notice also has to be friendly and informative - and take into account that the same person is going to get hit with lots and lots of notices if they've added lots of images. Further, the people who rely on the image are often not the uploders - it's the people who added or modified them in articles, or just edited the article page. - Wikidemon (talk) 05:23, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I am really enjoying the logic show here. ref Template:Non-free image rationale. If I say it is Wikipolicy to slaughter the first born of any editor who forgets to sign a post- then that is false! If however I get a wikiwonk to write a template Template:Non-signing talk rationale that includes the lines: It is advisable slaughter the first born of any editor who forgets to sign a post then do a bit of throat slitting. The world says- I dont think that is right. Wikignome says- no it is policy- it is contained in Template:Non-signing talk rationale- I will go and launch a bot to ensure that the relevant infants are snuffed. The debate then comes back here are we all discuss whether the bot should take out the second born as well just to make sure. Doubly signed to cover both my children, just in case someone does mistake this for a wikipolicy --ClemRutter (talk) 09:04, 16 March 2009 (UTC)--ClemRutter (talk) 09:04, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

<chuckle> An interesting means of illustrating rule creep. Bravo. I reiterate in a less gory manner. There's no rule here, so the bot has no place. Wiggy! (talk) 12:40, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Remember, this is resizing images, not deleting them, as BetaCommand's bot would at least tag them as. No image would be removed because it was too large, just resized. Take the case of an image uploaded years ago, the contributor long-gone from WP, so the notification goes on deaf ears. The image gets resized, something that a more active editor of a page that it is on notices; that person can then upload a new image, presuming the user did not not know how to tag the image to prevent it from being bugged by the resizing bot, that user would now get the new message about the need to resize. --MASEM (t) 12:00, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I can certainly do a "in one week's time your image will be resized" notification to the uploader, and will ignore images with a legitimate reason not to be resized. — neuro^(talk) 19:08, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Sub-proposal in order to set the above

Given Wiggy's valid concern that we don't have an image size guideline, even though it makes sense to have one, I suggest adding the following language to the "Guideline Examples#Images" section:

• Image sizes, determined by the number of pixels in the image, should generally not greatly exceed 0.1 megapixels without a valid rationale for requiring the higher resolution images as per WP:NFCC#3b; images that are well over 0.1 megapixels should be reduced in size.

0.1 megapixels is not a random number: this gives 4:3 media screenshots the ability to do a 400x300 pic (0.12 megapixels, that's within "not greatly exceed") with 16:10/16:9 having 400x250 / 400x225 images. --MASEM (t) 16:50, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and I would then add the advise of the inclusion of some template, maybe {{non-free large image rationale}}, to qualify the need for a large image. --MASEM (t) 16:51, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

If we are going to go down to 1, I would personally suggest 1.5 (and I thought I was pretty extreme D:) — neuro^{(talk)(review)} 19:32, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I would select the value based on how many images are currently above the value, and how much work it will be to review that list and notify the uploaders and notify those who are using the images. Also, some discussion on what are acceptable reasons to have larger file sizes may be needed. Carcharoth (talk) 09:44, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Before we engage in an act of wholesale vandalism- we need to get the definition from a policy- not define it here in an unrepresentative forum. Fishing for a random number neither solves the problem or advances the cause. We have accepted that Wiggy has a valid concern- and until that is addressed this conversation should cease.--ClemRutter (talk) 10:04, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

The point here is that there is no set policy as to when images start to be problematic, and thus we should define some number in a guideline (as it needs to be common sense) so that editors can know what it is. Only then is it ok for a bot to go tagging for oversize issues (which is not vandalism if it is an approved task). --MASEM (t) 12:22, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I am in total agreement that We should define some number in a guideline so that editors can know what it is. This solves many difficulties.

• Firstly, it treats editors with respect- and acknowledges that editors are genuinely trying to apply the WP:NFCC#3b
• Secondly, We as a group do have the authority to make a recommendation
• Finally it will reduce the number of problem images, as editors will strive to comply

However, it must be a recommendation and as such it is inappropriate to use a bot to make changes. It is appropriate for a bot to tag an image saying that it could be controversial when the uploader has not already tagged the image showing he is aware that there is an issue. But staying within these guidelines is excellent.

When I use the word vandalism to describe an act it is done with care. Look at the Vandal, which states that- ... the association of the name of the tribe with persons who cause senseless destruction, particularly in diminution of aesthetic appeal or destruction of objects that were completed with great effort. A vandals who sacked Rome were carrying out an approved task- the destruction of images, it is the authority of the leader who gave the instruction that is in dispute. I can see a fairly close parallel.

Finishing on a positive note, the suggestion here that editors who upload images are not miscreants but we can assist them with a piece of positive advice is a real advance.--ClemRutter (talk) 19:31, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I think this should be implemented by putting it under the Unacceptable use examples, say something like "An unnecessarily large or high resolution image, such as one greatly exceeding 0.1 megapixels in size, without a justification for why a larger image is needed." ViperSnake151 19:41, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I would like to take the whole page, and do a full rewrite in simple English so non native speakers will understand it. That means no subordinate clauses- short sentences. All of us here are far too verbose- especially me. Take out negatives, and all unnecessary adjectives and adverbs. Think where the editor is coming from. A scan doesn't give meaningful megapixel info. So how about. Please upload low-res images. Try to keep the file size less than 0.XX megapixels. An image of 480x640 pixel is OK, so is an image of 512 X 1024. If you need to upload a larger image, use this tag. {{Important big image}}. You must explain your reasons.--ClemRutter (talk) 21:13, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Commenting to stop archiving, this is still outstanding. — neuro^{(talk)(review)} 01:43, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Rewording would probably be a good idea, but regardless, I think 0.1 megapixels would be good guideline to specify. And 0.15 megapixels is big enough to trigger a bot to automatically resize. Is there any objection to this? – Quadell ^(talk) 13:09, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

0.1 is too small and doesn't even allow an image of 300 x 400 pixel dimensions, which would be 1.2 megapixels. An image 400 x 400 pixels would be 1.6 megapixels. It is necessary to think in terms of image dimensions and deduce megapixels from that. Ty 01:48, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

What details would be in a 400x400 image that would not be visible at 300x300? And again, 0.1 MP is a level where I would say there would be little doubt the image was low resolution. At some significantly higher level (0.2? 0.25MP?) is where a size rationale would be needed. In between I would not expect any active bot or human editor enforcement, though the question of size can be raised by a concerned editor. --MASEM (t) 02:01, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Ty. Johnbod (talk) 02:03, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Image size especially for works of art that need to be viewed clearly is important. 1.6 megapixels is good...Modernist (talk) 02:07, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Please see WP:NFC#3b - we are specifically aimed to use low resolution. If there is a critical detail like a brush stroke or the like that is justified in the article, then a cropped closeup can be used instead. (also I'm pretty sure Ty means 0.12 and 0.16 MP. a 1MP image would be around 1000x1000) --MASEM (t) 02:12, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Any chance of maybe working through and discussing some examples that might give up some sort of pattern that could point to a rule? The example above of media screen shots at 400px x 300px giving you a .12Mpx rule at least gives you something to wrap your head around that comes across as fair because its not arbitrary. If we can systematically put together enough examples then maybe the magic number will emerge (which is likely gonna be between .1 and .2?). An assessment of the needs of some existing broad categories like logos, album covers, screen shots, portraits, etc. could quickly get to some sort of starting point based on some real work instead of a string of guesses.

I could also see running bots that carry out some preliminary background work like identifying insanely big images that no one could quibble about and dealing promptly with those instead of nibbling at everyones toes at an undetermined lower limit or generating lists for review and manual assessment at some test limits like .16Mpx, .2Mpx, .24Mpx to get some sort of handle on the scope of the issue (unless thats an insanely large task). Having some background of that sort might help better focus the discussion here. Wiggy! (talk) 03:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, the numbers are based on the following:

TV screenshots: Prior to HDTV, you're starting with an image (NTSC) that is 720x480 (based on Display resolution), we can quarter that to get 360x240 (.086 MP) and I've yet to see a case where you'd lose any critical details.

Video games: Starting from VGA resolution (640x480) that most games on the PC support at a minimum, a quarter reduction gets you 320x240 (0.077MP). Now, in some game discussion mechanics, this can start fuzzing out text, but if you're focusing that much on a specific detail, either you're probably getting into the gameplay for WP purposes, or you can use a cropped image. If you're staring with a more modern game on a console, they minimally support 480p (same as NTSC/PAL) so you're back at the TV screenshot.

Now, I start with the argument that most standard images (a person, a group of people, a location, scenery, etc. etc.) are clearly visible in either of the above cases, so the bulk of our other NFC content, such as movie posters, book, CD, DVD, and game covers, and so forth, any critical details of these are going to be resolvable at similar reduced resolutions. This is not to say this is true for every NFC images, but I would think without doing a more statistical analysis of all NFCs and their use, I would be pretty confident that this is the case for a majority.

Given that, a 0.25MP makes sense as "you need justification for this size" as both the NSTC and VGA case without reduction work out to .35 and 0.31 MP, respectively. Since WP:NFC#3b specifically tells use to use lower resolutions whenever possible, this gives a good barrier where justification should be necessary (eg where a bot can patrol on image sizes). --MASEM (t) 03:57, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

<< Thanks for the explanation. So if I follow, that suggests a number that a bot can use in general application that works out to .25MP? That's significantly higher than the .1-.16 figure that was being generally bounced around before, but is at least not pulled out of thin air and may afford folks on various sides of the issue some measure of contentment (no folks, that's not a pronouncement, its part of an ongoing discussion, cool your bots).

Which leads me to my next notion. As you've noted above some stuff is so common and standardized in format (screenshots, album covers, logos, etc.) that you could probably differentiate it on a category basis and set a lower threshold for the bot at around .1-.12MP. Album covers for example could quite easily fit within the .1 rule as 300x300px images or up to 345x345px under a .12 rule if one were feeling generous. Is there value in applying that sort of approach with a view toward developing a tighter limit on a category by category basis as individual categories are assessed and an appropriate standard agreed to?

If that sort of rational approach is applied, you get transparency, fair process, definitive enforceable rules and all that other good stuff ...

Okay, this is where you correct my misapprehensions or improper interpretation. Be gentle. :) Wiggy! (talk) 05:23, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Here's the way I see it. There's two critical thresholds. Threshold A is a size that below this point, we immediately assume low resolution and thus we don't require any statement to this fact. Threshold B is a size that above this size, there absolutely must be rationale for the larger size. When an image falls between A and B, we should not bot-enforce the need for a rationale, but we also should be willing to bring it up if we think that we can get the image below Threshold A or that a rationale is needed to stay above A (this likely would only be when the article the image is used it is discussed in review in a place like GA or FA). Basically, we shouldn't be bitey about meeting A, but B needs to be met (either by resize or rationale for the size) to meet NFC policy. With A at 0.1 and B at 0.25, that gives us reasonable bounds for that.

As to doing this for certain specific media per, say, the license template? Let's hold off until first this is accepted and that we have no problems with a bot doing the large image tagging and feedback from that. --MASEM (t) 05:48, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps this won't go for other bots, Masem, but mine is manually (human) patrolled before it uploads anything. It does take an element of human review, so obvious mistakes can be avoided easily. — neuro^{(talk)(review)} 09:31, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest .15 megapixels as an upper limit. Basically screen resolution for a size that's more than reasonable for viewing within an article. Anything above that gets to be beyond what the fair use statements for the images call for. DreamGuy (talk)

The fair use statements don't "call" for anything. That's the point of the discussion. I'm agreed with the notion below that the thing should be polled out so that we have some sense of the actual scope of the problem. Wiggy! (talk) 01:35, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

They call for smaller versions, i.e. ones that are screen sized but not so large a to be printed out at standard print resolution. If you get above .15 then you are starting to talk print resolution, and there's no need for that. Fair use is only for getting away with the minimum acceptable to get the point across, and that means screen resolution, not print resolution. DreamGuy (talk) 23:42, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

It may be helpful to get an idea of what our current NFC distribution is on MP sizes for all images, binned by 0.025 ranges. Say that only 1% of the images are above 0.15 MP. Then it would be implicit that people appear to consider that too large and thus the bot should trigger warnings when they don't have an appropriate size rationale (which we still need to generate a template for). But if 5 or 10% or more are above 0.15 MP, then I'd be careful, I'd not want to piss off too many people. --MASEM (t) 19:20, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

One thing you learn pretty quicly when it comes to following rules, whether it be copyright law or Wikipedia policy, is that lot of people are going to be pissed off no matter what you do. If 5 or 10% or more is above .15 MP then we have all the more reason to fix it and fix it soon, because we are claiming fair use for an image but using it in a way that has not been authorized by our legal department. DreamGuy (talk) 23:42, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Proposal: revise wording of NFCC 10a (requirement for copyright holder details)

This proposal is to request a change to the wording of NFCC 10a, specifically the requirement to document the copyright holder. This is because although this information may be essential in some cases in order to determine if the usage is fair (particularly with NFCC 2), is not legally required in all cases. In addition, although the weakening clause, "where possible", was removed in August 2006, almost none of the non-free images on Wikipedia actually identify the copyright holder in the image description page. Specifically:

1. In a recent discussion at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content/Archive 41#Unknown copyright holder?, several contributers claimed that there is no legal requirement to explicitly document the copyright holder. Indeed, since fair use applies without their permission, it can be argued that knowledge of copyright details is less important than when claiming that copyright has lasped, for example.
2. Determining NFCC #2 requires some awareness of the original market role of the copyrighted image. An example would be an AP news image that is unlikely to be able to be used. However, many non-free images are clearly not in the images-for-hire category (for example, a film poster). Therefore, while knowning the copyright holder would be extremely useful, it is not always required for this purpose.
3. The current text requests the copyright holder only "if different from the source". This is logically nonsense since (unless the "source" is the person uploading the image who also created the image) the source is an inanimate object that cannot own anything. The source may be, for example, a book, a magazine, a poster, or (often) a website. What the text is trying to say is whether the publisher of the source material is also the owner of the copyright. This ambiguity could be resolved by always requesting the copyright holder even if it is the same as the publisher of the source of the image.
4. The copyright holder of a derivative work, such as a book cover, can be complex. My copy of Levy's Small Island credits Richard Haughton for the cover photograph and the Hulton Getty Archive for a background photograph. My copy of Faulks' Birdsong says "Cover photograph by permission of the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum, London", yet the WP image description page says "copyright for it is most likely owned either by the artist who created the cover(s) or the publisher of the book(s)", which isn't true. The image may well have been published pre 1923 so would be public-domain in the US.
5. The existing album/book cover templates have vague copyright-ownership statements that indicate that either the cover-artist or publisher is the copyright-owner. Such vague statements fail to satisfy the current policy and, as noted above, are often wrong. For many book and CD covers, the designer of the cover art, although often credited, may not have created a sufficiently original work to gain copyright. Instead, the copyright remains with the photographers or painters whose work is licensed and appears on the cover.
6. It is not necessary to know if the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover is copyright EMI, Apple Corps, Robert Fraser, Peter Blake and his wife, the photographer Michael Cooper, the stock photo library, or McCartney's gran. The claim for fair use of the image in an article that discusses it in depth is valid.
7. A search through Wikipedia's non-free images shows that almost none give accurate, specific (or indeed any) details of the copyright holder. The policy is routinely ignored.
8. The policy cites the guideline Wikipedia:Citing sources#When uploading an image, which doesn't require the "author of the image", which in any case is not necessarily the copyright holder. The examples given in that guideline do not show the copyright holder being credited.
9. The various non-free template do not encourage the entering of copyright-holder information, indeed some of them discourage it by the presence of vague statements.
10. I would like WP to encourage editors to enter as much attribution information as possible: photographers, designers, painters, whatever. I would expect an image reviewer (such as when an article is presented at FAC) to demand this information if it is reasonable to do so. It is nearly always available for book and CD covers, for example, and we should give the artists and those who commission/publish such works the credit they deserve.
11. An image was recently deleted (Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2009 April 6#Hans Aspergersmall.jpg) solely on the grounds that it lacked details of the copyright holder. This is despite the source image (from which the WP image was further quality-reduced) being of such poor quality that it has no commercial value. Its use on Hans Asperger would have met all the NFCC other than this specific requirement for a copyright holder. Despite a search, no such copyright information was found. This image was, in that regard, no different from Sgt. Pepper's and any number of other non-free images prominently used and reviewed by image-copyright-clerks.

I suggest the criterion is replaced with something like the following:

10a. Attribution of the source of the material, supplemented, where possible, with details of the artist(s), designer(s), publisher and copyright holder.

An image that has insufficient such information might then fail (particularly on point #2) the judgement "is this fair?", but it isn't absolutely bound to fail as at present. Colin°^Talk 17:33, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

• Support proposal. --GRuban (talk) 19:40, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support. The proposal strikes a fair balance between (1) our desire to credit creators and (2) common real-world practice, where sources often omit credits and we cannot reliably determine the info. Eubulides (talk) 20:16, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support as long as it's understood that fair use law in the US does not require or is affected by attribution or lack thereof. Still encourages people to include sources when obvious and should allow tagging when the source should be obvious. --MASEM (t) 20:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support, although I would prefer the wording to be "identification" of the source (in copyright law, you "attribute" the author). Oh, and whoever removed the sensible wording in 2006 should be troutslapped and sent to the WikiDungeon :P Physchim62 (talk) 20:44, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support. A source is really always necessary and should be straightforward for a single image. Copyright holder can be complex, potentially disputed, and may only be necessary in some cases to determine fair use. Perhaps there should be some commentary or annotation that says that locating the copyright holder is encouraged and may aid in resolving questions of fair use, but is not required. --Clay Collier (talk) 00:43, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support, per Eubulides SF007 (talk) 02:13, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose One of the reasons for requiring information on the copyright holder is to facilitate content re-use; the re-user of non-free content will often (e.g. if they are not in the US) need to request permission from the copyright holder in order to use the content. CIreland (talk) 03:16, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Any NFC content is already restricted from reuse - that's why NFC on the English wiki cannot be transferred to any other language wiki directly. That's why we encourage free replacements when possible. --MASEM (t) 03:31, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
    • My point is that if the copyright holder is unknown then re-use is no longer simply restricted, it is totally impossible in most cases. CIreland (talk) 03:47, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
      • If I understand correctly, you are describing a case where someone wants to re-use a non-free image on WP but can't claim fair use themselves? They need to enter into a commercial/legal arrangement with the copyright holder and will have lawyers to do that for them. And those folk will do a better job of tracking down and identifying the copyright holder than any Wikipedian. I certainly wouldn't employ any lawyer that trusted what they read on WP wrt the copyright holder. Would you? Colin°^Talk 08:41, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
        • The situation you describe is one that I had in mind but your assumption that our re-users can all afford lawyers is a wee bit silly. I should declare a slight conflict-of-interest here - I am myself a re-user of WP content - typically I use entire articles in a small-scale educational environment. It's already a pain in the neck when the article I want to use has non-free content since I am outside the US; the absence of copyright holder information would completely prevent me from re-using any article with such content (assuming the image is essential to the article, which it ought to be, given NFCC 8). CIreland (talk) 11:16, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
          • Well the current situation is that you must be finding out the copyright holder via the source information, because it isn't explicitly stated in many non-free images on WP. I'm proposing we remove the "if different from the source" clause that leads people to not bother finding out (just assume the source publisher is the owner, I guess) and encourage as must helpful information as possible. So rather than someone not bother because they're unsure about who the copyright holder is, they list the artist, publisher, etc to help you as much as possible. I also suggest (though this isn't part of the proposal here) that the templates and guidelines pages be updated to encourage this more and potentially to remove the unhelpful "Probably the artist or publisher, whoever they are" vague statement on the templates. This proposal will not prevent an image going to AfD because it lacks enough information to determine if usage is fair. So someone could still say "I suspect the copyright holder makes money from selling this image and our use may harm that" even though they don't know the name of the holder. If the current policy terms were actually enforced, you wouldn't be worrying about whether or not you could reuse an article with non-free images, because there would be much fewer than at present. And ultimately, all non-free images are not essential to WP - the Germans do fine without them. There are plenty articles on WP that would be immensely improved with a picture but no free or fair-use image exists. When you re-use an article, I'm sure you already have to make sacrifices where permission isn't granted. Colin°^Talk 11:57, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support. Millions of images are, technically, still within protection term but their ownership is in legal limbo and can only be determined through court proceedings. NVO (talk) 05:36, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support to update a minor and often ignored part of the policy fit common practice. Sceptre ^(talk) 06:59, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
• Question. What is the proposed wording we are supporting. I would think that this is critical. As I read it we are voting for change- but not specifying the change. The rubric says: This proposal is to request a change to the wording of NFCC 10a, specifically the requirement to document the copyright holder. I question the grammar of this sentence. The main clause is asking for change, but to what does the bit after the comma relate- if it is in apposition to wording of NFCC 10a then it cannot be qualified by specifically. Even so, the proposal only requests a change to the requirement to document the copyright holder which can mean a relaxation or a tightening of this requirement. I support a relaxation of this requirement due to the near impossibility of defining who owns the copyright in 40+ year old photographs- but I don't see that the wording of the request makes that obvious. --ClemRutter (talk) 08:52, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Sorry if my grammar is poor or the proposal too long. The suggested replacement text is at the bottom of the proposal. Colin°^Talk 09:16, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
    • Sorry, missed that bit. So the proposal is 10a. Attribution of the source of the material, supplemented, where possible, with details of the artist(s), designer(s), publisher and copyright holder. Commas are important; when they are misplaced innocent well meaning text can encourage the opposite effect. If I were to design a bot to implement the new wording-: I would take and image and ask Does any image have an artist(s), designer(s), publisher and copyright holder Yes- supplementing is possible. So I would now drive though the database and erase each image that does't cite all four- artist(s) and designer(s) and publisher and copyright holder. That should eliminate the category entirely but was not the intention. If I understand it correctly, The intention was 10a. Attribution of the source of the material. Further details of the artist(s), designer(s), publisher or copyright holder should be provided to support this statement when any of these are known. It may not be quite as neat as the first amendment, but it stops the provision of a designer being mandatory. --ClemRutter (talk) 11:59, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
      • Well the bot would be incorrectly implemented. The (where possible) clause applies to each of the members of the list, which is defined per standard English using "and" before the final member. I don't really see how that can be interpreted as you indicated. And your alternative deviates from the intention. Firstly, these do not "support this statement" as that is adequately achieved by a standard citation of the book or link to a web page. They are supplemental, hence the use of that word. Secondly, it is not a request to supply them "when any of these are known" but to supply them "if possible". That implies a reasonable degree of effort to find out. I'm happy for someone like Tony1 to massage the text but you clearly get the gist of the proposal, which is all that is important at this stage. Colin°^Talk 13:15, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
        • Fine. I have been bitten by the bots from hell, and have negative feelings towards lawyers (who defy reason) so I do look on the black side. It usually pays off in the long run to explore the margins and the hard cases before anything is written in stone. I hope that defining the proposal further will make it easier in the long run to achieve your modification. --ClemRutter (talk) 13:34, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose, facilitates excessive use of non-free and inappropriate material. Stifle (talk) 08:58, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Since this is a discussion, not a vote, I would be interested in an explanation of how this minor change to a clause that is 99% ignored already will facilitate excess? Can you give a class of image that would now become excessively used on WP that weren't before? And what would be "inappropriate" about such material? Or perhaps you think WP currently has an excess of inappropriate non-free material and would like to see 99% of it deleted -- because very little of it currently meets the policy requirement. Colin°^Talk 09:16, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
    • I think you know as much as I do how voting, or !voting, works here, so let's leave that aside, shall we? The current NFCC policy was approved in light of the WMF resolution on licensing and that resolution contemplates minimal usage of non-free material. I don't think it is at all correct that this is a minor change, nor that the clause is 99% ignored already. Requiring the copyright holder to be attributed is a clear safety valve that reduces the likelihood of an image being added and having "fair use" slapped on it when its use may not be at all fair. Furthermore, several of the existing criteria, most notably #2, depend on knowing the source and copyright holder of an image to determine whether the image is acceptable. Stifle (talk) 13:22, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
      • I have already given a good example (point 6) where knowledge of the copyright holder is not required. I am not proposing that source information be optional. I am not proposing that #2 is scrapped. The NFCC are not a replacement for a FU rationale that is reviewed by human beings. They are minimum requirements before anyone beings to review a FU rationale. If, as you say, a particular picture needs an explicit copyright holder to be mentioned in order to pass #2 then it fails #2 without it. Therefore, this aspect of 10a is redundant as it is secondary to other criteria such as #2. This is not a "clear safety valve" as everybody ignores it. Furthermore, just because a rule prevents misuse, that doesn't make it a good rule. Do you care who the copyright holder for Stg Peppers is? Do you know who the copyright holder is? Colin°^Talk 15:00, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose, If we are to allow this, we need to be very specific about when and where it is allowed and make the wording reflect that. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:08, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Well this is a discussion, so please can you give an example of text or restriction that you would be happy with. Remember that currently, Sg. Pepper's is heading for AfD because I bet nobody here knows who the copyright holder is  ;-) Colin°^Talk 09:16, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I can't think of an exact wording. I would undoubtedly leave an accidental loophole. Anyway, in any reworded version, I'd explicitly mention album, single and book covers and film posters (assuming the usual Wikipedia rules about fair use rationales are fulfilled) - Mgm|^(talk) 08:28, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

• Support - Unnecessary hoop to jump through in many cases. --Apoc2400 (talk) 16:43, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support based on current practice. For example, the FA from three days ago, Riven, includes File:Riven Coverart.png, which does not definitively state the copyright holder. ("Copyright owned by Cyan, Inc. and Brøderbund." is just a best guess.) Similarly, Motörhead uses File:Motorhead.jpg, for which no copyright holder is listed, and there's probably no way to be sure whether it's the artist or label. --NE2 17:12, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
• I don't have any input of the outcome of this discussion, but want to give my two cents. ¢1: I implement this aspect of the policy, and was unaware others did not. I routinely tag images as lacking their copyright holder when I come across them. Pulling a guesstimate out of my bum, I'd say about 15% of the images get such information while the others wind up deleted by an administrator. ¢2: I just want everybody involved here to realize that {{no copyright holder}} will need to be deleted or amended based on the outcome of this discussion. Just FYI. — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 18:54, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support because knowing the copyright holder usually makes little difference towards whether a use is fair or not, and copyright holder is difficult to determine in a large number of cases (especially older images). Anyone who needs to know the copyright holder would have to verify our claim of who the copyright holder is anyway; giving them the original source for the image helps such people far more than forcing us to state a copyright holder in cases where it would quite likely be wrong. DHowell (talk) 19:28, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
• support Irrelevant to fair use. Would only be relevant in other copyright situations. DGG (talk) 23:53, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support Current practice and irrelevant to fair use -- Agathoclea (talk) 09:40, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
• Where do you get your numbers from when you say that "A search through Wikipedia's non-free images shows that almost none give accurate, specific (or indeed any) details of the copyright holder"? Hiding T 13:38, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I clicked on images at Category:Fair use in... images in a fairly random fashion but with a tendency towards interesting looking names (:-) and had to click on more than 20 before I found one that had any copyright information at all. I then kept clicking for a while longer and honestly only found a couple more with copyright. Tonight I've been more methodical: selecting the three images at the top of the columns on each page of 200 in that category, beginning at A and going on up to 100 images (middle of K). The results are 81% identifying their source and 22% noting the copyright holder. This is higher than I expected and most of those noting the copyright were easy cases. The sourcing is usually just a raw URL or a "cover of the book", which is less good than we expect for articles. Several old photos of people or battleships came from amateur sites and at least one such site appeared to just collect photos people sent in. Such family-photos still no-doubt retain some copyright for somebody but how would you ever track it down? Some portraits were from memorial websites where perhaps a professional family photo was uploaded. Who's going to contact the bereaved family to ask who took the photo of their dead husband? Colin°^Talk 19:15, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support. Who owns the copyright to a work is a matter of law, often complicated, surprisingly often unclear, and entirely irrelevant to the question of whether we may use an image under fair use or not.  Sandstein  20:06, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support the new text is more likely to be obeyed than the old text. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:33, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose If the copyright holder of copyrighted images is not included than the use fails the general Wikipedia requirement of documenting the source. The effect on our ability to claim fair use is irrelevant. A copyrighted yet free image should also be identifying the copyright holder. Not attributing the copyright holder is in contradiction to the general goals of Wikipedia. Jay32183 (talk) 02:59, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support. Add as much information as possible. The copyright holder of the work when published would be sufficient. We don't need to trace the copyright transfers over the years; the real owners often can't figure this out. We are reproducing the entire work as fair use; we do not need determine who owns the copyright on the typeface used in the title. The artist, designers and photographers often do not hold the copyright on a work for hire. -- SWTPC6800 (talk) 03:09, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support. Fair use images of the kind that are likely to be helpful for our purposes may include such things as advertising for defunct businesses or anonymously circulated leaflets. These things more or less have to be uploaded as fair use for the specific reason that copyright owners are unidentifiable, the images were circulated anonymously, or the current owners of the monopoly-right assets of defunct businesses are impossible to ascertain -- not because we are sampling a copyrighted work with current market value. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 19:07, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

It looks like discussion on this topic has tailed off. I had hoped this would be an informed discussion rather than a poll. In addition to the comments made above, I've received comments elsewhere on WP from folk who gave some reasons to leave things as they are. Overall, based on the evidence of examples people have given and the opinions of the above participants, I am persuaded that we should remove the absolute requirement to always document the copyright holder. Some further points I have noted during this discussion:

• On WP, verifiability, not truth, is the standard. Strictly speaking, it is not good enough to say the copyright holder is EMI, one much cite the source for this information (sleeve notes, for example).
• The requirement to document the "copyright holder" is not the same thing as making a vague guess in the direction of what sort of person or organisation might hold the copyright. Some of those who opposed above might want to examine their file-upload history.
• Some supported on the grounds that this was irrelevant information but I don't believe that is the case. If AP or Corbis were the copyright holder of a photo, then it is (apparently) unlikely that we can use it fairly. This sort of worry seems more likely for photos and, for news agencies, for photos of current events. It is much harder to imagine a situation where an artwork or graphic design (such as an album, book or film poster), or a historical photograph, could not be fairly used in some way despite being uncertain as to who owns the copyright.
• Many images have uncertain copyright owner. For example, the black and white photograph of your grandparents wedding is still under copyright but there may be no way now to find out who took it.

I am minded to tweak the proposed text to end with "details of the artist, publisher and copyright holder" to simplify the text as "artist" covers a variety of media and techniques. I believe that a reviewer can still demand/request copyright information on the grounds of judging #2. I'm not sure what to do about {{no copyright holder}}. There are other Image deletion templates. Any more comments anyone? Colin°^Talk 20:06, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The tweak sounds fine and preserves the proposal's spirit. Templates need to be altered to match; for example {{no copyright holder}}'s wording should change from "Unless this information is added to this page" to something like "Unless this information is added to this page where possible". Eubulides (talk) 20:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the copyright holder requirement should not be discarded so quickly. It is useful for determining the original market role of a work, and without it we end up with lots of images soruced to random blogs. Maybe it could be revised to refer to the original publication or something along those lines. Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:40, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Something like "...If the source information is insufficient to determine the market value of the work..." – Quadell ^(talk) 22:09, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The "original publication" is not very easy to determine for many works. An advert, for example, may be simultaneously published all over the place. How about:

10a. Attribution of the source of the material, supplemented, where possible, with details of the artist, publisher and copyright holder. There must be sufficient information from which to determine the original market role of the media and the commercial opportunities afforded to the likely copyright holder.

Colin°^Talk 22:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but this version asks for far too much. There's no practical way to know what the commercial opportunities are; when this sort of issue comes up in court cases (the damage phase of copyright-infringement cases), both sides typically engage expert witnesses, at an expense far beyond the resources that we can expect for Wikipedia editors; and these experts often disagree significantly. Similarly, one cannot require sufficient information to "determine the original market role of the media", as this information is often unavailable for historical images. What is the "original market role" for File:Malraux-Freund-1935.jpeg? As the photographer died in 2000, there's a good chance that nobody in the world knows the full answer to that question even for this famous historical image; and this problem applies even more forcefully to less-famous images. If it's vital to mention market value here, something like the following would be better:

10a. Attribution of the source of the material, supplemented, where possible, with information about the artist, publisher and copyright holder; this is to help determine the material's potential market value.

Eubulides (talk) 23:03, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your rejection. I'm happy with your alternative as it links #10a with #2 but doesn't introduce further red tape. After all, point #2 is the the requirement that must be met here and this leaves it up to editor judgement/review as to whether #2 remains a concern for a particular image. The focus of #10a is attribution.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Colin (talk • contribs) 07:53, 23 April 2009

• Support wording revision I have no objections to the changes being made. Reflecting the wording to follow common practice is ideal, as long as it is in line with US copyright laws. hmwithτ 11:54, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I have modified the text with the latest suggestion, but with "identification" rather than "attribution" wrt to the source per, Physchim62 comments (the source of an image is often just some web page or book, neither of which actually created the work). Colin°^Talk 21:13, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, actually, that edit mostly used the second-from-latest suggestion, not the latest suggestion. The difference is important, as the second-from-latest suggestion places unrealistic requirements on the uploader. Given your approving comments of the latest suggestion, I assume this was inadvertent and hope it's OK that I substituted the latest suggestion, except using "identification" rather than "attribution". Eubulides (talk) 23:13, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh b*ll*cks. You are right. It was a long day. Must remember not to edit policy pages when tired. Colin°^Talk 07:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

• Support per above. Ikip (talk) 17:04, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Album cover in an infobox in a section of an artist's article specifically about that album

I recently created the Aura Lewis article, which includes a section which discusses in some detail the recording and history of the album Full Experience. Rather than having a short article about the singer and short article about the album, with some duplication between the two, I put everything into one article. I uploaded the File:FullExperience.jpg image to be used in an infobox for the album within the section about it. User:J Milburn removed the image, as apparently he felt the image itself needed to be discussed in the text (edit summary was "Remove non-free cover. Image should only be used outside of the article on the album if the cover itself is discussed"), rather than discussion of the album itself, and tagged the image for deletion as an orphan. When I uploaded the image, I believed that fair use concerns were satisified as the album is discussed in the relevant section of the article and when uploading, two of the criteria of Wikipedia:Upload/Non-free album cover were satisifed - "used in an infobox about the album/single", and "in a section devoted to the album/single". I reverted the removal and the orphan deletion tag, and explained why on his talk page, but User:J Milburn then accused me of "blindly reverting" and reverted my edits again. I suggested a third opinion should be sought and so brought it here for discussion. I believe that the Wikipedia:Non-free_content#Images guideline is satisfied as one of the agreed fair uses is "Cover art: Cover art from various items, for identification only in the context of critical commentary of that item (not for identification without critical commentary).". The item (the album) is discussed in the section of the article devoted to it. User:J Milburn suggests the cover art itself needs to be discussed, which I don't see evidence of in the guideline. He has also stated that he would be happy for the image to be used in a separate article about the album, but I don't see the sense in separating this content out into a separate article. If the image constitutes fair use in an article about the album, I see no difference if that content is merged into the artist's article. Your input would be appreciated.--Michig (talk) 15:28, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Not only is there no consensus for JMilburn's views on the matter (though others share his views), the policy explicitly allows album covers to be used on album articles without discussion of the artwork itself, as you pointed out. It's not quite as obvious that the cover is allowed in a section about the album, but since the image is used as identification of the subject of the section, I don't see any problem with it. The policy was written to exclude, as one example, an album cover used as a picture of the artist in the artist's infobox. That's why they're generally excluded from artist articles, but this is a valid usage. -Freekee (talk) 16:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Rubbish. We do not include album covers in discographies (and there is clearly consensus for that)- what's the difference in including them in a list, and slapping them into the artists' articles when there is no discussion of them? Would you honestly treat other non-free images in the same way? For instance, if John Doe had a marriage to Jane Doe, and there was a section discussing that marriage in his article, would you support putting a non-free image of the late Jane Doe into that section? Of course not. Yes, as has been said plenty of times, there's no issue with allowing the image in an article about the album. Your argument for identification is significantly weakened when the subject that "needs" to be identified is not even worthy of an article, and its appearance is not even worthy of significant commentary. J Milburn (talk) 16:30, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Correct, we do not include album covers in lists (discogs are lists). In this case, the image was "slapped" into a section about the album, which is the same as placing it in an article about the album. Your implication that the album is not worthy of an article is untrue, since there's enough info in that section to qualify as a Start (as opposed to a stub). The rest of what your saying is not an argument for deletion, so much as an argument to change the policy. Irrelevant to Michig's concerns, in other words. The image should be restored until the policy is changed. -Freekee (talk) 16:57, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

What? What part of my post argues for policy change? I am arguing that the image does not significantly increase reader understanding of the topic of the article (the singer), not for policy change. You cannot claim I'm arguing for policy change unless you actually point out what part of policy I am contradicting- nowhere does policy state "album covers may be used in sections about the album, even if the cover itself is not discussed". Further, if it could have an article, why doesn't it? If it did have an article, would you still support the image being included in the artist's article? J Milburn (talk) 17:17, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

If the album was given its own article there would be no reason to have the image in this one, but short articles about albums are better merged into the article about the artist if the artist's article is not large. If you'd be happy for this content to be moved out into a separate article, with the image included in that article, I don't understand the reasoning behind not having the image where it currently is. I don't see any policy-based argument to back up your position here. If it would be fair use in a stand-alone article, it's still fair use if the content of that article is merged with another.--Michig (talk) 17:23, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

There's a massive difference, and it is based on point 8 of the NFCC. "Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding." I would argue that, by default, seeing the cover of an album increases the readers' understanding of the subject (the album) as it shows how the album is portrayed, and is useful for means of identification. However, knowing what an album cover looks like does not automatically increase understanding of the musician, nor is it useful for identifying the artist. As such, a cover should generally only be included in an article on an artist if it is significant enough to warrant discussion on the article itself, as that illustrates the significance of the cover with regards to the artist, the subject of the article. Any use of non-free material must significanctly increase understanding of the article subject. J Milburn (talk) 17:28, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

No it wouldn't, because the article is about the singer, not the album. WP:NFCC#8 states that "Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic", and since the topic here is the singer, the album cover does not increase the reader's understanding of her. Black Kite 17:31, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Whether content about an album exists within a separate article or within a section in the article about the artist is simply a matter of organization of content. If the image would "increase readers' understanding of the topic" when the content is in a separate article, the same applies if that content is organized within another article. The section in which the image was placed is about the album.--Michig (talk) 17:34, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

But the article still isn't about the album. This is precisely the reason why galleries of album covers were deprecated from artist's articles some time ago. I can think of very few reasons why such an image would pass WP:NFCC#8 - the only one I can remember was one where an album cover was a self-portrait painting by the musician themselves, which was heavily discussed in part of the article as depicting the person's mental state at the time. Black Kite 17:37, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Galleries of album covers don't belong in band articles because they're just decoration, which is not fair use of non-free images. This use is nothing like a gallery.--Michig (talk) 17:41, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

More specificallly, The reason album covers are not in galleries in artists' articles, is because they're not used for identification of the works, in conjunction with discussion of them. Such galleries are not specifically connected with the works they represent. In the case, the entire section is about the album. Recording details, release date, what it looks like, etc. -Freekee (talk) 17:43, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

What is this if not decorative? It's certainly not telling us anything about the subject of the article - which is the person, not the album - than we don't know from the text. Wikipedia:NFC#Images part 1 clearly lays out the guidelines for this, even italicising "of that item", and even furthermore, the image is technically a non-free image of a living person and thus replaceable in this context (WP:NFCC#1) - which, of course it wouldn't fail if it were in its own article. Black Kite 17:37, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand why you think that the subject of a section cannot be different than the subject of an article. -Freekee (talk) 17:51, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going to waste any more time on this - I've created a separate article for the album. Perhaps the orphan tag can now be removed. The whole matter has been badly handled, and if the issue of album images in article sections about the album is still worth debating, go ahead, but without me.--Michig (talk) 17:55, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm tired of the constant bickering over album covers. I want an answer. Thanks Michig. -Freekee (talk) 17:57, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Because NFCC is there for a reason. To be precise, by allowing this usage you are effectively saying that we could illustrate any article on a living person with a non-free image of them on an album cover/magazine cover/book cover etc., as long as we mentioned the album/magazine article/book in the article. And that is clearly against both Wikipedia's mission and our policies. Black Kite 17:59, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Album covers in sections (section break)

← You're not answering my question. The image is illustrating a section about the album. How is this different from illustrating a stand-alone article about the album? And don't repeat yourself. You've already stated your reasons, but you haven't explained the difference. The purpose of NFCC is to keep fair-use at a minimum. I think we can agree on that. But the policy states that covers are allowed to be shown. Specifically:

1. Cover art: Cover art from various items, for identification only in the context of critical commentary of that item (not for identification without critical commentary).

(Emphasis original) So let's look at our example. The image is used to identify the album, and it is being done in conjunction with a discussion of the album. That's what the policy allows. I think you're stretching it to say that no, this is an article about the artist, not the album, because at least part of that article is clearly about the album. If you can find a guideline that speaks to this difference, please link it here. But let's look further at our policy page. Counterexamples, Images 8 reads, in part, "However, if the cover itself is the subject of sourced discussion in the article, and if the cover (or book) does not have its own article, it may be appropriate." This would seem to apply to our situation. -Freekee (talk) 19:15, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

And you're still not answering our question. In what way does this cover significantly increase the understanding of the topic of the article, as is required by the NFCC? It's all well and good that part of that article is about the album, but it should only be about the album to the extent that it is pertinent to the artist, as, at the end of the day, the article must focus on the artist. Therefore, if the image adds little to our understanding of the artist, it should not be included from an editorial point of view, never mind from a NFCC point of view. J Milburn (talk) 19:28, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, I think you've answered your own question - "However, if the cover itself is the subject of sourced discussion in the article...." - which it wasn't. Just saying "and the cover looks like this" isn't sourced discussion. Black Kite 19:38, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

J Milburn, it sounds like you're arguing policy again. You're saying that general NFCC policy says merely identifying the subject isn't good enough. But the specific policy for cover art I quoted above says that identification (with discussion) is enough. There seems to be some contradiction. But would you like a more specific answer? The cover art of an album is part of the entire product. Many bands consider their visual imagery to be integral to their being. To show an album cover helps us to show who the band is, what they're about and how they present themselves. What logo did they use during that period of their career? Was that their dark period? Were they all neo-classical or had they gone post-modern? It's not mere decoration - it's illustrative.

Black Kite, I think you're correct that it doesn't specifically apply. However, it does seem to imply that images are okay in sections, when standalone articles do not exist. -Freekee (talk) 20:03, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, they can be. But, as mentioned above, they would have to pass all the criteria of NFC/NFCC, which means that (amongst other things) they'd have to be actually discussed (as opposed to mentioned) in the article, and significantly increase the reader's understanding of the subject. The self-painted album cover that I mentioned above - and which annoyingly I now can't find - would be a good example. Black Kite 20:11, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

First of all, I think it is important to make the disctinction between the NFCC policy- the important bit- and the NFC guidelines, which are just help on how to interpret the NFCC. I completely agree that album covers could be useful in artist articles in various cases, I am simply arguing against allowing them in "by default", which is what seems to have been done here, and what is currently the general practise on album articles. I would be even more lenient than our guidelines (used to) suggest, in that whether there is an article on the album shouldn't matter- if the appearance of the cover is important with regards to the artist (and the easiest way to judge that is if it is discussed in the article) then it should be used. J Milburn (talk) 22:31, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

You say you are arguing against allowing them in "by default", but I think this argument effectively disallows them by default (except in those cases of discussion of the artwork itself).

As I said, the album cover is part of the package. It's not this is a piece of artwork that is marginally related to the music we're discussing. We discussed the album in the section about the album, and this is a picture of the album. And your argument if the appearance of the cover is important with regards to the artist still doesn't address my concerns about article vs. section. Replace the word "artist" with "subject". The appearance of the cover is important with regard to the section that is all about the album.

If you want to look at this on a case-by-case basis, let's take a look at some artist articles. These articles have sections that mention albums. It's usually in the context of their careers, and they don't give detailed info about the albums themselves. I would not argue for including album covers in these sections. But some artists are not very big, and they have sections for each (or some) of their albums. These sections are very specifically about the albums themselves. I would argue that this is a perfectly acceptable use for a cover image. What do you think? -Freekee (talk) 17:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I do not agree. Take, for instance, three articles I've written- Faryl Smith, Andrew Johnston (singer) and Connie Talbot (coincidentally, I'm watching Britain's Got More Talent on ITV Player right now- I feel like a fanatic...). All three have extensive discussions of albums (two albums, in Talbot's case) that the singers have released- do you feel that adding the cover to these articles would be beneficial? I certainly have no desire to include the covers- I think the descriptions cover the album well, at no point do I think a reader would say "hmmm, I wonder what the cover looks like"- the articles do not seem to lack anything. These articles are about the artist, and so should discuss the albums only to the extent that the information is relevant to a summary article about the artist. Would you support adding the covers? Seriously, what do they add to an understanding of the artist? (I reject your arguments about "increasing the understanding of the album"- yes, the section is about the album, but if something does not increase understanding of the subject of an article, it should not be in that article. I mean, I wouldn't add an image of Smith's album cover to the article on Johnston, even if I added a section discussing the album and its cover- neither have any place in the article, as they do not increase the readers' understanding of Johnston). J Milburn (talk) 17:57, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd just like to say that I support Freekee's view, it is the same as mine. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 17:59, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

No, I wouldn't make the case that the album covers should be included in those sections. But I see a difference between those sections that are about the album, and the one that brought this up in the first place. You've written a section that discusses the album in depth, but flows well within the framework of the overall article. For that other one, the section was purely about the album. It was included in the article about the artist, simply because the album belonged to that artist. We're talking infobox, personnel, etc. I feel that, as such, the cover image deserves to be there. But this brings us back to the discussion about sections versus articles, that we never seem to have. It sounds like you might feel that an album article has no business being dropped into an artist article, since it (when written that way) may do little to enhance the understanding of the subject. Was that editor wrong in including that section (with that particular info) in the Aura Lewis article? -Freekee (talk) 03:44, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

To me, the argument that a non-free album cover should be allowed on an article about the album but disallowed on a section about the album is pedantic wikilawyering. The fact of the matter is that the subject at hand is both the album and the artist and the illustrative nature of the image is the same in either case. The choice to take the same text and merge it into another article should have no bearing on the suitability of an image to accompany that text. It is wrong that a merger of this type makes a previously unacceptable image acceptable, just as it would be wrong that splitting content from one to two pages would make a previously unacceptable image acceptable. As a sidenote, both of you should mind WP:3RR, as 5 reversions back and forth over a mere two hours is totally unacceptable. Oren0 (talk) 08:10, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

To which the easy answer is - if an album is notable enough in the artist's career to justify a whole section, it must be notable enough for its own article - which is preferred, especially for prolific artists, as it means the main article doesn't get too big. Black Kite 08:38, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

But in those instances where it does not quite warrant a separate article, I would support permitting an image in the section.--2008Olympian^chitchat 10:18, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

@Black Kite: The choice to split a section from an article is a stylistic one and has nothing to do with WP:NFCC. Oren0 (talk) 02:54, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Infoboxes and that "one illustrative image" exception

In general, for commercial published works (including: movies, TV shows, DVDs, books, video games, and albums but excluding TV episodes), there has always always that the infobox image displaying the front cover, poster, or title card of the work is completely appropriate, with the understanding that the article describes the work in detail and thus just "justifying" its use. Rarely, however, is the article specifically talked about in the article (there are notable exceptions, see Ico's cover which purposely resemble a certain painting) so this is mostly for identification of the work in question, and has a long-standing consensus that it is appropriate use of NFC. It's unstated but pretty much assumed.

So applying this concept to the above discussion, where the author has chosen to merge a short article on a album to the article about the artist, what has changed? Ignoring if this was a good type of merge (maybe it shouldn't have been done in this case because the two topics are rather disparate), why does the fact that the coverage has been moved into an article create an exemption from the above infobox image? Mind you, I don't personally care either way, but this issue, as well as some past discussions (for example in the featured list nomination of List of Final Fantasy compilation albums, which, if each album were its own article, would each have an image). And of course, we have to recongize the difference between a "list" of short articles merged together and a "discography" that may list non-notable albums alongside links to notable ones that have articles. However, there is an inconsistency here, and we need to be explicit about it. Either we need to admit that front cover identifying images for certain classes of works (#3a/#8 maintenance, mostly) are appropriate even if the work is discussed as a sub-section in a larger article, or we need to be stronger on when such images can be used. I really don't see us taking the second option (that will make those against the harshness of how NFCC is applied even more aggravated). --MASEM (t) 19:11, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Text and WP:NFCC

Text is specifically covered in the guideline portion of this, but it is excluded from the policy at WP:NFCC, which refers to "all copyrighted images, audio and video clips, and other media files". Is there some reason why it is explicitly excluded? If not, I believe that it merits mention, since copyrighted text is also "non-free content." I tried searching the archives for an answer, but unfortunately got quite a few hits. Not surprisingly, "text" is a very general search term. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:59, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

This is due to text being covered by the GFDL already,. see WP:COPYVIO. Media could be covered by the GFDL but the project's opted not to use that, so we have the NFC policy for that. --MASEM (t) 13:32, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm pretty familiar with WP:COPYVIO. :D However, this isn't about copyright infringement, but about Wikipedia's approach towards fair use handling of copyrighted text. Wikipedia does accept limited usage of non-free text in quotations, as is set out at WP:NFC. It's just not mentioned at WP:NFCC. Is there a reason it is referenced in the guideline, but not the policy? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:39, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The main reason, in my experience, is that we don't require non-free use rationales for quotes of copyrighted text. It is true that, strictly speaking, these are used under a claim of fair use. But we handle them differently than other non-free media. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:25, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I can see that. Reading over the policy, many of the points would clearly apply to text, but 7, 9 & 10 clearly wouldn't. :) I wonder if it would be possible to incorporate text at least in a parenthetical reference that non-free text must also be used in a manner consistent with policy (perhaps specifically noting those points that don't apply)? It has recently come to my attention that there may be a perception that the discussion of text at WP:NFC lacks teeth because text is not mentioned at WP:NFCC. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:34, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

We should implement that idea as maybe a NFCC 11 or addendum;

*Use of non-free text. Direct quotations of non-free textual matter must be used in the spirit of this policy, articles should only use limited quantities of unmodified and properly attributed/cited textual excerpts from copyrighted media when necessary. However, the fair use of text does not require compliance with the complete criteria as described, which only applies to images and other media.

Think this could work? ViperSnake151  Talk  19:31, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

That would be lovely. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:33, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I think this would be a better option: I have no problem with #7 and #9 applying to non-free text (quotes). It's just #10 that's problematic, isn't it? So we could reword NFCC#10 to say that it applies only to media files, and then say that NFCC applies to all non-free content. Simple. – Quadell ^(talk) 19:36, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

An issue with #7 and #9 is that some users undoubtedly have non-free quotes on their user pages, and trying to remove these would be a nightmare. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:20, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Also, non-free text may be quoted in some guidelines, policies and/or user essays. I know I quoted some in a recent dispatch in which I was involved. I've also seen quotes used at AN and ANI. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:24, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh yeah. I hadn't though of that. Well, still, all of these could be worded like "non-free media files must be used in at least one article", "Non-free media files are allowed only in articles...", and "For image or media files, the file description page contains the following:..." With those clauses, we can safely say that NFCC refers to all non-free content, including text. – Quadell ^(talk) 20:33, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

That's true, and probably the simplest solution. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:35, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Let me revise that wording one more time:

*Use of non-free text in articles. Direct quotations of non-free textual matter in articles must be used in the spirit of this policy, articles should only use limited quantities of unmodified and properly attributed/cited textual excerpts from copyrighted media when necessary. Please note that we are more lenient in regards to the usage of text in this manner. The rest of the non-free usage criteria as described above only applies to media files.

That be sufficient? ViperSnake151  Talk  14:13, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest making sure to add something like "Use of such text should not impede the reuse of the text under the GFDL." as to just back up the fact here? --MASEM (t) 14:19, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

No, I don't like that. I don't think we should say that text should be used "in the spirit of" this policy, but that non-free text should be used only in compliance with this policy. I don't think we need to specify that we're more lenient with text. I think it would be much better to say that all non-free content (including text) must be used only in compliance with NFCC. – Quadell ^(talk) 14:20, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, let me try:

*Fair use of text in articles. Articles should only use limited quantities of verbatim textual excerpts from copyrighted media when necessary, properly attributed or cited to its original source. Use of such text should not impede the reuse of the text under the GFDL. To clarify, the rest of the non-free usage criteria as described above only apply to non-free media files.

This work better? ViperSnake151  Talk  02:28, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

"only when necessary" strikes me as too strong. Short quotes should be used freely, and moderately long quotes should be used sparingly, but I don't think the rhetoric of necessity is appropriate for either. For example, a lot of articles introduce terms or concepts by quoting the literature which gave rise to them. It's not necessary by any reasonable interpretation -- the articles could paraphrase the definitions and mention where they originated -- but tactfully including such quotes is good for credibility and style. There's no pressure to handle non-free text more stringently than we currently do; it seems to me that it could only detriment articles. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 06:05, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm...now that you think of it...

*Fair use of text in articles. Articles may use verbatim textual excerpts from copyrighted media, properly attributed or cited to its original source or author. Moderately long excerpts from such works should only be used sparingly. Use of such text should not impede the reuse of the text under the GFDL.'

Do you agree with this wording better? It kinda matches our current practices a bit more. ViperSnake151  Talk  12:48, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I like that, except that I think it should be "verbatim textual excerpts" rather than "textual verbatim excerpts." The guideline already notes that extensive use of copyrighted material is forbidden, which is a good restriction, since I have seen contributors who believed that you could reproduce an entire source as long as you did it with quotation marks. :) (Just to demonstrate that this is not theoretical, take a look at this one. It's not the only one I could point out.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:57, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. I don't really understand what is meant by the GFDL note, though (I realize this was suggested earlier). My concern is that some editors may form the opinion that quoting any unlicensed text in an article impedes the article's GFDL compatibility to some extent. What is the clause meant to be interpreted, exactly? — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 23:52, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

There, fixed. Think we maybe should also say something to the effect of "Unlike the fair use of media, fair use of text on Wikipedia will often be unavoidable in many cases."? ViperSnake151  Talk  22:27, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

That would be fine with me, but instead of "unavoidable", I'd go with something like "desirable." We could avoid it, but sometimes good scholarship demands that we shouldn't. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 23:43, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The GFDL note is because some people think we can't put fair use text inside a work licensed under the GFDL. Anyway...

*Fair use of text in articles. Articles may use verbatim textual excerpts from copyrighted media, properly attributed or cited to its original source or author. Moderately long excerpts from such works should only be used sparingly. Proper use of such text does not impede the reuse of the text under the GFDL. Fair use of text will often be more desirable in many cases than the fair use of other media.

So, there. ViperSnake151  Talk  00:42, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah, so the "should" is used descriptively? I was reading it prescriptively, as in "such text should not be used in a way that would impede GFDL compliance." — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 01:06, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Let me just adjust that a bit. ViperSnake151  Talk  01:20, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Is this good to go? It seems good to go. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:10, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

While I don't see any problems, this should really be more publicized first since this is a policy page and given the broad scope of the addition. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 01:34, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

All right. I'll WP:VPP it. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:41, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Pumped. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:47, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

←Pumped and evidently uncontroversial, at least there. Where would this go? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:30, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The latest text there is very odd about the GFDL. Clearly, non-free copyrighted text cannot be reused under the GFDL; it can only be used under the copyright terms of the text or under a claim of fair use. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:18, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps it should be clarified:

*Fair use of text in articles. Articles may use verbatim textual excerpts from copyrighted media, properly attributed or cited to its original source or author. Moderately long excerpts from such works should only be used sparingly. Proper use of such text does not impede the reuse of Wikipedia's content under the GFDL. Fair use of text will often be more desirable in many cases than the fair use of other media.

Would this work? From the above, I gather that the concern is that some editors may worry that the use of a quotation in an article may prevent redistribution of the article. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:53, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest simply removing the last two sentences. That leaves the part that is clear and accurate, and removes the part about the GFDL that will be very difficult to express in one sentence, and the part about fair use of text being more desirable, which is debatable. This policy is not really about fair use or GFDL in any case, it's about what non-free content we permit, so the last two sentences are tangential anyway. Similarly, the bold title should be something like Use of non-free copyrighted text in articles, since again fair use is not the main point. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:47, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

←Okay, so we'd be talking about something like:

• Use of non-free copyrighted text in articles. Articles may use verbatim textual excerpts from copyrighted media, properly attributed or cited to its original source or author. Moderately long excerpts from such works should only be used sparingly.

Sound good to anyone? Everyone? :) Where would it go? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:15, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

That seems better to me. But I think you meant "Articles may use short, verbatim textual excepts ...". Looking over the main page, I see there is already a "text" section in the guideline, so I think the discussion here was to amend the actual policy. If that's the case, one option is to rename the "policy" section to "Media files", and add another section on "Use of non-free text". Another option is to add subheadings to the "policy" section, one for media files and another for text. I am not convinced this is really necessary; I commented i this thread only because I though the language about GFDL was not ideal. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:23, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the point of the proposal was to make clear that the policy refers to text, too, since it is mentioned in the guideline but not the policy. The question was raised at WP:COPYCLEAN when evidently there was some confusion in an AfD among experienced contributors about the lack of reference to text in the policy portion of this. I'm thinking that your second suggestion might work. I don't believe a lot of detail is needed, since the guideline covers specifics. Really, I would just like to see some indication in the policy that text is included. This could be abbreviated to a single parenthetical sentence as far as I'm concerned. For example, it could be inserted into the "Policy section", which could be revised thusly:

There is no automatic entitlement to use non-free content in an article. Articles may sparingly use brief verbatim textual excerpts from copyrighted media, properly attributed or cited to its original source or author. Other non-free content—including all copyrighted images, audio and video clips, and other media files that lack a free content license—may be used on the English Wikipedia only where all 10 of the following criteria are met.

Doing something like that would make it clear that text is also covered, but keep it simple. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:00, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Perfect. That was what I was kinda aiming for. ViperSnake151  Talk  21:58, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I think "sparingly use brief verbatim textual excerpts" is rather strong. How about "Textual excerpts from copyrighted works should be used somewhat sparingly, especially longer ones, and should be properly attributed"? If we make this too strong, I suspect it will become difficult to engage with academic literature tactfully on many topics. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 00:15, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Updated text language proposal

I don't want to quell proper use of copyrighted text by any means. :) How about:

There is no automatic entitlement to use non-free content in an article. Articles may in accordance with the guideline use brief verbatim textual excerpts from copyrighted media, properly attributed or cited to its original source or author. Other non-free content—including all copyrighted images, audio and video clips, and other media files that lack a free content license—may be used on the English Wikipedia only where all 10 of the following criteria are met.

That should be clear enough, since the head of the policy says, "For the full non-free content use guideline (including this policy and its criteria) see Wikipedia:Non-free content." --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:23, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Is this good, then? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:19, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Lacking objections, since VPP didn't bring interested parties to the table, I suppose I'll implement it in the next day or so. Please let me know if you see any problems with this language that I'm overlooking. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:16, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Non-free image dispute at House FAC

There is currently a dispute over the use of a non-free image of the cast of House, at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/House (TV series)/archive1. One side is arguing that the image does not significantly increase understanding, while another side is arguing that it does. Additional input from more editors is requested. Thank you.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:51, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

The image in question is a group cast image. For relevant precedents, there are currently 14 Featured Articles on live-action scripted television series (excluding shows conceived as miniseries/single-season serials):

• Arrested Development (TV series)
• Carnivàle
• Cold Feet
• Degrassi: The Next Generation
• Doctor Who
• Firefly (TV series)
• Joking Apart
• Last of the Summer Wine
• Lost (TV series)
• Making Waves (TV series)
• Only Fools and Horses
• Press Gang
• The Wire
• Yes Minister

The two FAs on live-action scripted single-season TV miniseries/serials are arguably precedents:

• Our Friends in the North
• Pride and Prejudice (1995 TV serial)

Thanks for your attention to this matter.—DCGeist (talk) 05:01, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Two potential issues at Susan Boyle

Need a few more eyes on this. Editors are trying to use a portrait of this person as a replacement for a free photo of the person. File:Susan Boyle.jpg; the image has been cleared through ORST for commons use. But this begs two questions:

• First, is this an encouragement we want people to use to be able to include pictures of people that may have plenty of NFC images out there but no free replacement? For the sake of discussion, assume we're talking present-day people, not older times where photography would be unreasonable/impossible.
• Second, is this really a "free" image? If you have not seen her first TV appearance, you can see a link on that page as well as undoubtable many page on the net. The portrait image strongly resembles the footage from the show she was on (including the microphone and dress, though changes the lighting and removes her contestant number). Regardless of intent, this falls in the area of derivative use, and thus burdens the image regardless of the artist' intent, making the image ultimately non-free.

Now I note there's plenty of flickr images (but of the wrong license, but that's usually not a difficult barrier) so it's not like this is the only option ever for a picture. But I'm leary of this entire use of non-historical third-party portraits for living people, regardless of the artist intent. --MASEM (t) 05:32, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

license plate galleries

Is it just me, or is this just a large non-free gallery of images? — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 08:22, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Need more sets of eyes at Pocket God

The article had a huge non-free gallery, which the primary editor has refactored into a table and then removed my {{non-free}} tag. I could use another few sets of eyes to decide whether I'm overreacting or if the images do need to be removed - I do hate to get into one-on-one disputes. (ESkog)^(Talk) 15:03, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the listy images, that seemed pretty obvious. I doubt all of the other images are needed, but I have not removed them myself at this time. J Milburn (talk) 15:20, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

NFC, living people

Hi. I could stand some clarification on the question of living people in NFC. It has been drummed into the heads of almost every observer of RfA that this must not be. But obviously there are some circumstances where it can.

I see that guideline currently includes the following language: "However, for some retired or disbanded groups, or retired individuals whose notability rests in large part on their earlier visual appearance, a new picture may not serve the same purpose as an image taken during their career, in which case the use would be acceptable." Take File:LedZeppelin1969Promo.jpg as a test case. Led Zeppelin is kind of broken up, it seems, frequent reunions notwithstanding. Is the image also usable in Robert Plant? (And the articles of other living members of the band?) It's used to represent his membership in Led Zeppelin, but is it appropriate, given that there are free images in the article and the man is still living?

And what about actors? WP:NFC says, "For media that involves live actors, do not supply an image of the actor in their role if an appropriate free image of the actor exists on their page (as per WP:BLP and above), if there is little difference in appearance between actor and role. However, if there is a significant difference due to age or makeup and costuming, then, when needed, it may be appropriate to include a non-free image to demonstrate the role of the actor in that media." We have an article on Morgan Freeman, who has played many different characters in his life but who is not retired or notable for any particular appearance. Would it be acceptable to use a still from each role he's played that has its own article in the character article? (Such as File:News-batbegins2-2.jpg.) Does it matter if the man basically looks the same? What about Kristen Stewart? We have a free image of her as well. Is the non-free screen cap at Bella Swan justified by policy?

(However the guideline is meant to be applied, I'm inclined to think that some reference to actors in their roles ought to be mentioned at point #12 of Wikipedia:NFC#Images 2 if this is also an exception to the living person issue.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:46, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I had one case at WP:IFU where a contributor painted a picture to create a free image, it would have been based on a non free picture rather than the live person, but this would still be possible in the cases you mentioned. In the pre printed photo era, the pictures were done this sort of way, perhaps by etching. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

You know, if we could depict famous people with well-done etchings (like the Wall Street Journal), that would be considerably classier than our current technique of, say, putting up a photo surreptitiously snapped of them getting off an airplane. Now, I don't know how hard it is to do good etchings, and bad etchings would make the articles and Wikipedia look considerably worse. Is it likely that we could find Wikipedians with the artistic skills to do this? rspεεr (talk) 00:55, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't doubt we could. We are a diverse bunch. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:21, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

This is a terrible, terrible idea. I feel shocked that people are genuinely considering it. J Milburn (talk) 15:22, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I am somewhat sarcasm impaired, but I had thought the suggestion was tongue-in-cheek? Maybe it was, and so is your response? Or maybe all was sincere? I don't know, but I'm still hoping for clarification on my original question as to under what circumstances we can claim "fair use" on images of living people. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:02, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, there's the current issue of the use of a non-notable article's portrait of Susan Boyle in lieu of a free photo of her. The talk page has much discussion, and IMO, a piece of art not done in an official manner becoming acceptable as a free replacement to a photo is leading to the potential use of really bad art as replacements for less publicly known figures. --MASEM (t) 16:07, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that picture really is setting a horrific precendent. J Milburn (talk) 16:16, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I was actually serious, as serious as the people arguing for the portrait on Susan Boyle. If there could be some uniform standards, I think Wikipedians could make a project out of it and do it well. Is what I'm suggesting actually more "horrific" than, say, the pictures we have of David Bowie or Mick Jagger? We're talking about situations where free photos are nonexistent or of terrible quality -- what would you suggest instead? rspεεr (talk) 16:58, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Waiting for, requesting or taking a better picture. While we're at it, why not remove the need for references? Seriously, which is better? Relying on poor references, or just writing what we know is right? J Milburn (talk) 17:28, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Weddings and Babies

I removed File:Myhers and lindfors in weddings and babies.jpg from this article, as it appears to be purely illustrative and to fail WP:NONFREE as it does not involve critical commentary of the film. Per the uploader and main article contributer, he thinks it is a "nice" image, and it is basically just a scene from the start of the film. Another editor has reverted my removal, claiming that the justification is fine to him[4]. Additional views at Talk:Weddings and Babies#WP:NONFREE compliance would be useful.-- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 17:34, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I happened to catch this film on TCM a week or so ago and read its article. It was quite an odd film, an indie production that addressed a sense of generational hopelessness and malaise before The Graduate. I don't think it would take much to find a reliable source to state so and that image is not necessarily "nice" as it illustrates the trapped attraction-dysfunction relationship in the film. I think the FUR should be amended to read something like: The image reflects the nature of the relationship between the protagonists in that they are simultaneously attracted to each other, yet are unable to communicate effectively. As such, it illustrates a concept conveyed by the film that words are incapable of doing. (Reliable source citation here) --Moni3 (talk) 17:45, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

a scene in a movie discussed in the article , where the discussion is accompanied by a source, needs the scene displayed to make sense. The relevant policy is " [can be] used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding". The topic is the discussion of that scene, not the movie as a whole. Movies are a visual medium. This seems to be a question that arises frequently, so I look forward to a more general discussion. Do you mean to have it here , or at the article, there's no point in doing it twice. Perhaps the copyright noticeboard would be best. DGG (talk) 17:51, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I intended for the question to be at the article, as it is about a specific instance and a note was also posted at the Films project. There are already tons of general discussions that have already stated that, for the most part, scenes from films should not be added to articles for decorative purposes. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 17:52, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

(EC) How does the image convey that? I don't see it illustrating anything like that at all, it just appears to be two people sitting beside each other and looking to the right. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 17:51, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Well...I got it. In the same vein that images of Diana and Prince Charles facing away from each other while sitting next to each other seemed to symbolize to the world that their marriage was in the crapper. I'm not generally one for keeping gratuitous images, and think most should be chucked. I think this one is legitimate. --Moni3 (talk) 17:57, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think it is "nice," but I also think that it illustrates a significant scene in the film and that it is not contrary to policy. I also was a bit alarmed by her action, as it appears to me that by such criteria, very few if any nonfree images would be permissable in articles about films. However, I am not an expert on this policy and I am glad that this is a subject of wider discussion among people who are. Stetsonharry (talk) 18:02, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

That is true. Images should ideally be free of copyright problems. Fair use should be claimed as minimally as possible and the rationale to use a copyrighted image should be airtight, not to illustrate a thing, but to show a point a reliable source has made to be integral to the understanding of the concept in question; it should be used to convey a concept that words cannot, and the wording in the fair use rationale should say that, with the reliable source to back it up. FYI film trailers in the 1960s, I think up to 1977 but don't quote me on that, were not copyrighted. As a result, many film trailer images are free to use. You could avoid this entire issue by including an image from the film trailer if it's around on YouTube or such, per File:Childrens_Hour_trailer.jpg. --Moni3 (talk) 18:08, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

The film trailer is unfortunately not available. Crowther does make a mention of the scenes in which the two discuss their relationship, and I think makes a specific mention of this scene illustrated in the article. Also the article references this particular scene in the plot summary. Stetsonharry (talk) 18:13, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Non-free content criteria are enforced haphazardly in articles below GA standards, unfortunately. I would take a look at where the images are placed and how they are referred to, particularly with reliable sources, in Mulholland Drive (film), a featured article. --Moni3 (talk) 18:20, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

It seems that a publicity still is available that shows another scene in the film that has indeed been a subject of extensive critical commentary. However, this has been an interesting and useful discussion and it shows how these issues are anything but cut-and-dried. Stetsonharry (talk) 20:44, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

(indent) It occurred to me that the image actually does relate to the critical commentary in that section, not as it relates to the scene but as it illustrates Lindfors' performance, of which Crowther is quoted at some length as discussing: "everything she does—every movement, every gesture, every reaction, every lift and fall of her voice—is so absolutely right and convincing that the style drapes most fitly around her. . . She is the solid core of this film." I've adjusted the caption to reflect that. The other nonfree image brought to my attention, the publicity shot, relates to a scene that has indeed received critical commentary. However, it again just shows the two together, and I think this photo does a better job of illustrating Lindfors' performance. Stetsonharry (talk) 09:38, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

File has been nominated for deletion, so the nexus of discussion on this subject has shifted there[5]. Stetsonharry (talk) 15:43, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Non-free animations?

Hi, I'm wondering about the use of File:Analysis Tianenmen False Fire GIF.gif. Though it recently was kept at IfD, I was wondering whether there was any previous consensus, or whether anyone had any thoughts, on the use of non-free animations? I would have thought that each frame would have to be justified separately, and, usually, a single frame would suffice. Does anyone know of any past disussions, or have any thoughts on this issue? J Milburn (talk) 14:24, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

We may have to consider how this would apply to other uses of multiple frames from a single work (though non-contiguious).

Clearly #3a is imperative here. We should only be using animation/video segments if it is absolutely necessary to include the motion in conjunction with discussion of the video, and even with that, reduce it to the most minimal amount needed to get the point across. In the above image, I would argue that while a single image does not do the same justice as the full video, two or three scenes from it are sufficient to convey the key points (the tracking of the object in the circle), and thus this should be used over the video.

But that doesn't complete the issue as the question becomes: are each of those images a separate non-free image despite coming from the same source? Let's back up to where we discourage "montage" images of, say, characters from a television show, or if this is done, we consider the whole image to be the weight of the number of non-frees used to create it (an image of 6 characters from 6 different shots is 6 non-free images, despite being one file). Is taking frames from a video shot less than a second long and putting them together as a single image (or possibly animation) equivalent to the character montage? I can't think of a logical reason to say yes or no without contradicting established practices, so I would say that there's a point of common sense here: an animated image, if the animation is absolutely needed, and is of a very short (less than a few seconds), continuous length compared to the original work, then the whole animation is really only one image in terms of rationale and non-free content weight. If the animation is not necessary though select multiple frames are (qualified by the same length and continuous use restrictions), then the montage of all images would be a single non-free. But if you start montaging images from across the work in a non-continuous fashion, or use way too long of an animation, now we have problems. --MASEM (t) 15:20, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Bot to remove non-free content from outside the mainspace?

I'm sure we had one, at some point? What happened to it? Is it still up and running? J Milburn (talk) 00:05, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Tweak notice

I made the following tweak in wording to to the "Text" section. TwilligToves (talk) 12:27, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Are you saying quotation marks are required? What about <blockquote></blockquote> ? See WP:MOSQUOTE -- SWTPC6800 (talk) 00:59, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. Good point. I know from conversation with TwilligToves that the change was made to address a common confusion (I've also seen it) some editors have that as long as there is a citation, they've complied. They seem not to get that the text must somehow be singled out as a quotation, either with quotation or marks or block quote. Can you think of some way to clarify with proper flexibility? :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:47, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Query

File:Hendlerabrazopartido.jpg, used in Daniel_Hendler. I'm surprised that the "This image is a screenshot from a copyrighted film" is acceptable. Just checking. Tony (talk) 16:21, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Ice Station Zebra

There are 9 non-free images being used in this article and two of the same images are used in Ice Station Zebra (novel) together with some commons images that are likely not PD. Surely this contravenes WP:NFCC 3a and 3b? Would someone who understands multiple images use address this. Thanks ww2censor (talk) 17:58, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I've nominated some of them for deletion at Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2009 June 5. – Quadell ^(talk) 13:38, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Associated Press images

<troll>Good news. Thanks to this precedent, now we may use Associated Press's images for free to illustrate our articles, with no need for our use to be transformative. All that is required is a reasonable amount of uninformed editors to vote keep for you.</troll> --Damiens.rf 21:33, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

What if we undelete Image:Il-76_shootdown.jpg now? --Damiens.rf 21:36, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I've deleted the image as a clear violation of WP:NFCC #1. --Carnildo (talk) 23:55, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Nice to see some admins with balls. --Damiens.rf 00:04, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually... #1 does not applies (in its most common form) because the poor dude is dead. Would you delete in as a clear violation of WP:NFCC#2? --Damiens.rf 00:05, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

After reading your deletion message, I understand you didn't mean "the most common form" of WP:NFCC#1 (i.e.: the belief that dead-guy -> copyright-orgy).--Damiens.rf 00:08, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

#1 is "No free equivalent exists or could be created". One common interpretation is that living people are presumed to fall under the "could be created" clause unless proven otherwise. The subject of this image is dead, so he doesn't fall under "could be created", but according to the article on him, he was relatively famous and made public appearances well into the era of widespread digital cameras. There are almost certainly large numbers of photographs of him out there, some of which either are or could be placed under free licenses. --Carnildo (talk) 01:26, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

And I agree with you here. --Damiens.rf 13:58, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's an NFCC#1 violation, but I do think it's a clear NFCC#2 violation. I thought it had been well-established that we don't use AP images to illustrate the subjects of those images on Wikipedia. The AP sues companies that do that -- see http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/04/ap-to-aggregato/ for example. Is it going to take a suit before this gets reaffirmed? – Quadell ^(talk) 14:54, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it is well-established. It's explicitly prohibited at WP:NFC#Unacceptable use images #5. howcheng {chat} 15:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Kirk Collage

I had a question about File:Kirk collage.jpg. The image is a collection of non-free images, which while individually seem usable, I question the use as a collage. I tagged the image questioning the fair-use rationale for the images; as it seems that the image is not minimal usage and could easily be presented in single image versus the collage (gallery). There seems to be some differing opinion for the use of the image on the James Kirk page and File:Kirk collage.jpg page, so further input regarding the fair-use of the image would be appreciated. -Sharp962 (talk) 23:18, 8 June 2009 (UTC).

A collage of multiple non-free images needs to be treated with the weight of the number of non-frees that make it up. Thus, this is equal to 6 non-free images and is probably excessive for the page. One or two of those would be reasonable in addition to the main infobox image. --MASEM (t) 23:24, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

quotations from poems, lyrics and so on

I am looking for a policy regarding the quotation from a poem. In the article Chamber music I have quoted one section of a work by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Für kommende Zeiten. The work is a collection of 17 short poetic texts constituting instructions to musicians to improvise to. The entire quote is only 21 words long; on the other hand, it is a complete section. Stockhausen, incidentally, was inspired by haiku, and all of the sections have a brief, enigmatic quality to them.

I included this section in the belief that this was fair use, however, this has been challenged by another editor. So I am wondering what the policy is in this case.

Thanks to all for their help. --Ravpapa (talk) 16:47, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Workaround solution: FU images in userspace

Case: I'm putting together a long article in user space, it may take weeks. I plan to use some FU images (artwork); assume that they all comply with NFCC if it were main article space. But it's not; FU are illegal in userspace. Oh well, I can wait with uploads and fix the text - except for graphic layout. Which is important for an article on arts - not just placement and proportions, but also correct succession of images and change in their tonality.

Is there a workaround solution? Placeholders can only help with basic placement (although finging an image of the right proportions can be a PITA). NVO (talk) 06:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I can appreciate the need for non-free images in userspace drafts, but, sadly, "drafts" often end around sitting in the userspace for months without being touched, can never reach a level suitable for the mainspace or sit there as a form of spam/abuse/original research/POV fork, which the authors consider ok as it is not in the mainspace. For this reason, allowing non-free images in drafts is not really possible. Also, we have bots to remove non-free images from the userspace, (or should have- where the hell are they?) and they cannot differentiate between these more legitimate uses and others. The best bet would be to move the article to the mainspace, tag it with {{underconstruction}}, and just finish the job right at the end. J Milburn (talk) 10:20, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Couldn't you just link to the images? If you place a colon before the word "File" or "Image", the image won't be displayed but the rest of the format will still be there (box, caption etc). Physchim62 (talk) 10:38, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Of course, if the images are not used anywhere else, they may still wind up deleted as orphaned fair use if you take too long over it. J Milburn (talk) 11:12, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

If the images are linked, they shouldn't be picked up by the bots: that's not a 100% guarantee (they would still be in technical breach of the NFCC), but it should be enough to allow article development. Physchim62 (talk) 11:26, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

No, if you put in the colon if just makes a regular inline link, thumb|right|like this. A real workaround might be to upload a freely-licensed placeholder of the same dimensions, and upload the real non-free image when moving the article to article space. And if necessary, use a bit of user javascript to change the placeholders to reference copies on your local computer if you really need to see the non-free versions. Or you could just install MediaWiki on your own computer, Special:Import whatever you need from enwiki, and do it all there ;) Anomie⚔ 11:56, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not like article space isn't full of incomplete articles... --NE2 12:17, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

You nailed it! Per NFCC, the stub in main space may accept just one image, perhaps a portrait of the artist, as there are no critical commentaries on the paintings. Compilling these commentaries in a properly referenced, comprehensive article takes time. And there comes the question of graphic balance: Picasso's Blue Period vs. Picasso's Rose Period on one screen. NVO (talk) 07:17, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Then upload them as you start commenting on them... there's no reason to do this in userspace. --NE2 07:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Here's the reason: putting together an artists' bio based on a single definitive book can be done quite quiclky - a couple of weekends and it seems ready... It's the critical commentaries that need multiple sources and different viewpoints - they take far more time. I'd argue that this is exactly what needs to be done privately, in user space: don't release articles based on a single, biased source. Compile all relevant POVs before it's public. NVO (talk) 09:10, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Try {{under construction}}. --NE2 09:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I definitely would, hope the bot notices it too :)) NVO (talk) 12:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Let me rephrase that: Try {{under construction}} in article space. --NE2 12:54, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

To propose a possible midpoint solution - it's not easy but its something: We create a template for an image to say "this image is being used in an article in userspace - if the userspace article remains unchanged for 7 days and this image otherwise remains an orphan, or the image is not used in mainspace after three months after this template is added, this image will be deleted", then have a bot patrol on that. This also would include cases of articles that get userified through AFD or other means with existing images that may be deleted. This gives editors time to work on userification and avoids gaming the system (making one small change every 5 days to retain an image indefinitely). If the userification of the article takes that long, then retaining images is not helpful.

We also should (if not already) provide a number of placeholder images of the typical aspect ratios found in NFC: square (1x1), 4x3, 16x9, 16x10 as well as the vertical orientations for things like book and movie covers. This allows people to placeholder these in their user-space article to figure out the best arrangement. The image should obviously look like a placeholder (and possibly come out and say that) so when the user moves the article to mainspace they can remind themselves to now upload the media. --MASEM (t) 13:20, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Just do it all in regular article space. There's no need to have it on the user page to get it into some approximation of a final version. We don't need a workaround for nonfree content on user pages because there's no reason to do it. DreamGuy (talk) 13:45, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

With userification becoming a more popular option as a result of AFD, this is not really an across-the-board true statement. --MASEM (t) 14:16, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Download the images to your own computer and upload them when the article is ready for main space. I also see no need for this. Although placeholders with aspect ratio's might be handy for some users. Garion96 (talk) 14:21, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Userification wouldn't require the nonfree images to be there. The bots can yank them out. Add the images back when it goes live again. Problem solved. I don't see why people think that graphics make a huge difference when editing a sample. The content is all text, the images aren't a big deal and can be added whenever. No workaround needed as there's no problem there in the first place.DreamGuy (talk) 18:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Here's the only thing I can see being a problem with this approach to images (and unfortunately, I've not the greatest grasp of how NFC, the GFDL and other applicable issues interrelate here). Say User:LongGone has updated a key NFC image for an article with strong rationale, and there's no question that the image belongs in the article; User:LongGone eventually disappears from editing. Some time later, the article itself is on the verge of deletion due to lack of notability, and User:WantsToHelp has made the claim that userification is better than deletion to fix it up. Now, the question becomes: if User:WantsToHelp downloads the image and saves the rationale knowing that it will take him much longer than 7 days to fix it and that the image will likely be deleted in the meantime, such that when the article is ready to go, he can upload the image and copy over the same rationale, has this marginalized LongGone's contribution in anyway - either from being the one that provided the image or the rationale? (Obviously WantsToHelp could create new rationale from scratch, but the image is still in question). Yes, maybe the timeframe is short enough that the old image page is still in the database and hasn't been purged out and it can be restored but this isn't always an option. I'd personally rather see image pages retained as long as possible with their history instead of deletion and re-uploading, and it may be that the GFDL demands this. --MASEM (t) 18:39, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned images get deleted after 7 days, all article deletion discussions last seven days. So there is a period of 7 to 14 days to "save" the article and keep the image which is more than enough. And no, the GFDL does not demand this, neither does the Creative Commons BY-SA license. Garion96 (talk) 18:49, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I would say the preferred approach in such a case would be to simply undelete the original image instead of re-uploading it and worrying about preserving attribution for the writer of the rationale and what not. As long as the only reason the image was deleted was that it was orphanded I don't think any admins would be difficult about undeleting such images if you can show they will be put back in use. --Sherool (talk) 21:58, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

"no need to have it on the user page" - perhaps, but WP:NPOV and WP:RS strongly discourage release of one-sided, biased material, and basic common sense also says: hold it until it's more or less ready for release. An honest bare stub is far more acceptable than a long but inadequately sourced, biased text. NVO (talk) 17:16, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Which has nothing to do with images. DreamGuy (talk) 18:20, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

If a biography on visual arts is considered comprehensive without a single piece of artwork, then you're right. To me, it still looks like Blind men and an elephant. NVO (talk) 02:57, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Than there is a real simple solution. Add the artwork only when the article is moved into main space, having of course all the non-free rationales etc etc. Garion96 (talk) 12:32, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

If we have a problem with images getting deleted/rationales wanting to be kept or whatever, just contact an admin in this category (such as myself) and the original image and rationale (along with GFDL required history) can be restored. No big deal. J Milburn (talk) 21:41, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Is it time to explicitly address SVG images?

It seems there are two points of view with regard to SVG format non-free images: One holds that they are "infinite" resolution and therefore can never pass WP:NFCC#3b, while the other takes the view that it depends on whether the SVG contains only enough detail to render at a "low-resolution" pixel size. In the discussions I've seen with a large number of participants, the latter view seems to "win" in most cases: See [1], [2], and [3] for example.

I propose adding the following to this page as section 2.5, to reflect what seems to be the consensus in the above mentioned discussions.

Non-free images in vector formats

Either of these SVG images could be scaled to any reasonable size without loss of quality, but only the image on the right reveals more detail by doing so.

Raster images, such as PNG, are constructed based on a grid where each grid position holds a single color. Vector images, such as SVG, are constructed using lines, curves, geometric shapes, and text. One advantage of vector images is that they can be rendered at any reasonable pixel size without the edge artifacts present when scaling raster images; when evaluating non-free images for compliance with criterion 3b, some incorrectly conclude that this means vector images' resolution is "infinite" (rather than simply not applicable) and therefore vector images can never pass. The appropriate factor when considering vector images is "level of detail": If a vector image does not contain detail beyond that required to render at an appropriately low pixel size, the image is low-resolution/fidelity.

Some logos and other very simple images (but not quite simple enough for {{PD-textlogo}}) can be perfectly reproduced by a low-resolution/fidelity SVG. As programs are available to scale such simple raster images without appreciable loss of quality, the claim that a raster version is less likely to be usable for deliberate copyright infringement is also not convincing.

Note, however, that converting non-free raster images into a vector format is not normally recommended, as the result is still non-free. We have many free images needing conversion in Category:Images that should be in SVG format.

It may be a little verbose (in particular, the first 2.5 sentences are only there to briefly introduce the situation for those unfamiliar with it), feel free to tweak it if necessary. Anomie⚔ 04:55, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

It might be worthwhile to ask/determine "how many non-free SVG images do we have" before making a statement. One could argue (at an extreme!!) that if you can take an image with creative elements and make into an SVG, you've passed the threshold of originality, because the creative element is something that can't be converted into simple code - in this case, the vector image. While an extreme consideration I do ask - is there really that much non-free images out there that use SVG?

Lets assume that it's a problem. I would then say that we should not host non-free SVGs due to the infinite resolution problem (thus never meeting fair use law or the foundation's requirement) but that SVGs should be converted to a raster image of an appropriate size. I would have common sense allowance for some SVG where the infinite resolution is critical to the image, but for the life of me, I can't think of a case where that would occur. --MASEM (t) 05:10, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I always get a headache when I think about the copyright implications of SVG images. Having said that, I've no objections to Anomie's text: it seems to be a sensible interpretation of our NFC policy. I would put it as a separate section "Guidelines for SVG images" rather than try to integrate it with the rest of the NFCC. Physchim62 (talk) 06:49, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

There are a non-trivial number of non-free logos that are SVG. In some cases, converted directly from a PDF or other document distributed by the company itself. Dragons flight (talk) 07:22, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Even though we have this criteria, many publicity departments have policies for the use of their organisation's logo. These people may supply the logo for use in Wikipedia to ensure accurate representation. We may as well honour their request, but when rendering the bitmap, we have it set to a small size. I support the plan that we don't copy every little detail where we are generating an SVG file from a non free raster image. Creating the sVG was probably an original work, but converting back to the visible image will be back in the non free situation, so at this point the point 3b of the policy should be applied, by not rendering the image at a large size. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:08, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Before you shoot out and do this make sure you're engaging the SVG project guys. And while I think the technical desciption is a useful thing, if its about providing a rule or guidance any new section should be expressed as just that and be very easy to interpret and apply for the layman. Wiggy! (talk) 11:47, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Please do, I'm not familiar with all the different places (both image-related and copyright-related) this could be advertised. But I do suggest waiting on a full-comminuty WP:VP/Template:Cent/WP:RFC/etc advertisement (if any is necessary) until people familiar with the issue have had a chance to comment and clean up the proposal. Anomie⚔ 12:05, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems to come up often enough that I kept being reminded that I intended to make this proposal for some time now, and I don't often check NFCC-related pages (i.e. I probably won't notice it unless it ends up on WP:VP, or if I'm bored and look to read any interesting drama on WP:AN). The "infinite resolution" problem does not exist, the concept of "pixel resolution" is simply not applicable to vector images. Or does an image of a standard 5-pointed star really have the "same" resolution as a very detailed map of world coastlines and country boundaries, just because either can theoretically be rendered at 100000000px without jaggies on the diagonal lines or curves? Anomie⚔ 12:05, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

As a pet peeve of mine, I'd prefer stronger language discouraging user-created SVGs of non-free logos. I've encountered a number of editors either doing it on their one volition, or making requests at the graphics lab to turn raster non-free logos into SVG format. The problem with this is a conversion almost always is not 100% identical. I've seen cases where users have used the wrong font, or used poor kerning, or the wrong color, or many other errors. While some of this stuff may seem minor to some people, we are talking about corporate branding, something these companies often spend a lot of money on. It is disrespectful to then take their logos and make these amateurish, hackish conversions by hand (and as I am typing this, I realized I am guilty of doing this for a pd-text trademark logo, but I guess that is besides the point). As non-free images need to be used minimally, and at smaller resolutions, there is little benefit within the guidelines one would get from converting a PNG to SVG for a non-free logo. I cannot think of any instance where it is appropriate, actually. So I would like to suggest strongly that if we are to add a mention to non-free SVG, we state that they must (or strongly encouraged) to originate from the company (via an official PDF letter head, or an EPS or SVG file from a press kit, or something along those lines), and not originate by some volunteer attempting to trace a JPG. -Andrew c ^[talk] 12:32, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Good points, but IMO that's more related to WP:LOGOS than WP:NFCC. Especially since it applies equally well to {{PD-textlogo}} logos, and for that matter to user-created PNG or JPG versions as well. If you make a proposal along those lines at WT:LOGOS, let me know. Anomie⚔ 13:01, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Careful now. My experience has been that NFCC is regarded as overarching and therefore the logo (and any other) guideline needs to fit neatly inside it. Otherwise things are just being set up for (another) fractious run through the place by an anti-image editor with a narrow view of the world and little sympathy for other editors whether they be well-intentioned or not. The whole thing has to hang together as a piece or it won't work. Wiggy! (talk) 16:52, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I must be missing something, please enlighten me. Andrew's proposal in a nutshell seems to be "Logo images must be an accurate, high-quality representation of the logo, including correct fonts, kerning, and coloration" (which I completely support, it just seems more appropriate for WP:LOGOS; in fact, WP:LOGOS#Logo choice already mentions it in passing), with some extra advice on where to obtain quality images, some opinion on whether SVGs are useful for logos (IMO overlooking the fact that a print version of the article would do better with a higher DPI rendering), and some proposed instruction creep. I can't see how any of that relates to WP:NFCC or to the proposal at hand, or how lacking it in this proposal sets things up for a fractious run of any sort. Anomie⚔ 22:00, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather not let this die; please suggest places this should be advertised for "expert" attention (i.e. Wikipedians who actually deal with SVG images). Or just advertise it. Anomie⚔ 23:30, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Where should I post this?

There is a discussion going on at Talk:MissingNo.#File:Missingno-ny.png about a non-free image and whether or not its use is justified in the relevant article. There seems to be no consensus either way; is there a relevant noticeboard or anything (or just this talk page) where we can get some wider input from people more familiar with NFCC? Thanks, rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 23:55, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Here seems the best option. Media copyright questions is mostly newbies and "is this PD or not?", copyright cleanup is mostly text. Here and files for deletion (if the removal would orphan the image) are the best places. J Milburn (talk) 00:05, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, despite what my highly respected colleague has said, there is a noticeboard for just this sort of thing: WP:NFCR. Sorry J. :P-Andrew c ^[talk] 00:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah, thanks! No worries, J, we all get lost on this maze of a website from time to time :) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:53, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

How on Earth have I missed that for so long?! That's going straight onto my watchlist... J Milburn (talk) 01:08, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

It's somewhat under-used, most non-free images go in the speedy deletion que and if disputed tend get escelated to files for reletion instead. Personaly I think there are too many places dealing with image copyright issues as it is, it should be consolidated more so all eyes are in one place istead of spread across multiple venues (at least Wikipedia:Copyright problems have stopped dealing with files now). Personaly I think Wikipedia:Non-free content review and Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files should be merged into Wikipedia:File copyright problems or some such, ocationaly a file that turns out to be incorectly labeled as free may still be usable under the non-free criteria instead of beeing outright deleted, and once in a while a disputed non-free tagged image turns out to actualy be public domain upon closer investegation (lack of copyright notice or renewal for US material of a scertain age for example), I think it could be usefull if users that specialise in both free and non-free images where all in the same place (not to mention it would be easier on new users if all types of copyright / license policy disputes where handeled in one place)... Just an idle thought, anyone think it would be worth launching such a proposal? --Sherool (talk) 14:20, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

This seems a bad idea. The majority of discussions at PUI are completely uncontroversial, and get very few replies. PUI rarely has anything at all to do with non-free content. J Milburn (talk) 11:00, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Does this policy really help the encyclopedia?

This policy seems to mainly effect images. Articles have far far fewer images than they would under a fair usage policy. We aren't including promotion pictures of famous people which are quite often the best quality photographs of them. We aren't including promotion materials on albums. We are stripping out key scenes from television show and movies. I'd like to just open a general discussion. Does it make sense to maybe substantially weaken this to free preferred and go back to the kind of liberal image policy from 2006? jbolden1517^Talk 16:43, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

No, it doesn't help the encyclopedia at all. Having less images does not make it more "free" in any way. People make excuses saying "it's to comply with the law", but even the law is WAY less restrictive than wikipedia, they also say "it's to prevent lawsuits", but that is not a problem if for example an image is copyrighted, since the image can be easily removed in minutes (seconds!): avoiding lawsuits. They also say "it's the spirit of wikipedia to be FREE (as in freedom)", but like I said, having less images does not make it more "free", it only makes it worse and more poor (and I dare to say this policy makes it LESS free). There is also the excuse that "we want the content to be distributed on DVDs and other countries", that can be easily solved by having all "non-free" images tagged, I bet it's pretty easy to make a script to create a wikipedia version without them (for the DVD). In the end, all arguments are very weak for such a restrictive policy (ironically, in the name of "freedom"....) SF007 (talk) 16:56, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Discouraging the use of non-free content promotes the creation and use of free content, as well as pointing us in the right direction ethically. Would we really be in a position to call ourselves free and promote free content if we were happy for non-free content to be strewn about the encyclopedia as anyone saw fit? J Milburn (talk) 17:15, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that wikipedia in not only "Discouraging the use of non-free content", the problem is that what people call "non-free content" (a term I find biased) is in practice almost being censored by many editors, and even "bots" automatically default to delete images if they don't have the "proper tags". Regarding "pointing us in the right direction ethically"... what is unethical about the Firefox or Ubuntu logo? (wikipedia considers that "non-free"), "ethical issues" depend from person to person and I find that argument is very weak: a "non-free image" is not unethical "per se".You say "if we were happy for non-free content to be strewn about the encyclopedia as anyone saw fit", but NO ONE is saying to upload ALL copyrighted material without ANY rules, we only want to have the freedom to upload and use stuff that is allowed by the law, without having the images being removed/deleted/reduced in the name of "rules" or "ethical issues" that I think are very weak (like explained above) (to be honest, your talk looks similar to one from a religious people saying to do stuff "in the name of religion"). SF007 (talk) 17:41, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

The Foundation has set restrictions on non-free content that are purposely more restrictive than what US law would allow in order to both maintain the free content mission and to make sure WP complies with US law. Any issues with this needs to be addressed to the Foundation. --MASEM (t) 17:53, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec)The constant bickering over tags is necessary so that non-free content can be machine read, so that, for instance, it could be filtered out by a reuser who wanted to remove all NFC from their distribution (say, on DVDs). There is nothing unethical about the images themselves, but what I said was that if we are splashing content we do not consider "free" whereever we wish, we are in no position to start demanding free content, which is something we do want to be doing. In any case, keeping our content stricter than the law keeps us doubly safe- now, if someone breaks policy, it can be dealt with. If those who just cross the line are breaking the law, we leave ourselves wide open to legal problems. (I'm also slightly alarmed by your comparison of ethics to religion, but I'll let it pass since it doesn't really matter to our conversation. Most of ethics is based on reason, most of religion is based on faith. Unless you're Locke, there's a biiiiiiiig difference.) J Milburn (talk) 17:55, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this policy is helpful, and, no, we shouldn't change it even if that were up to a vote, which it isn't. That ship sailed a long time ago. DreamGuy (talk) 18:31, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Having read the policy documents again, while contributing to the debate above. I would say that the interpretation of the policy far stricter than the policy. Once any bot or editor has with good faith or otherwise decided to target an image- reason is ignored. I maintain, using the example above that if a Wikiproject supports an image as being fair use as described in the Wikipolicy then it should be mandatory that deletionists back off.

• It the example above-Talk:List of windmills in Warwickshire#Packwood Windmill photo. an image is deemed unsuitable ( even though it is proposed by an editor with 20000 edits, who has started 320 articles), it is opposed by editors who have made no contribution to that academic field, using byzantine flawed logic. While it is displayed, this image is identified and dated PD-Old. So what was the point of the deletionista intervention.It did not breach policy- just the deletionista's interpretation of policy- which was wrong. The policy is clear that precedents should not be used to decide whether the image is fair use or not. Examples of fair use are given- but the 'deletionistas' use them as an exclusive check list. Wrong. Guidance notes are confused with policy.
• Further, the deletionista have now deleted it. Explain to me what policy says that PD-Old images- should be deleted. Possibly, this editor should have his deletion rights revoked. This vandalism. Further, we need to do a general roll back of all images this editor has touched.
• It is time to refer this matter back to the council so more constructive guidance can be given, and a fair use deletion policy that is written in a way that helps in the construction of an encyclopedia. In the mean time I propose that the archiving bot is turned off- so this discussion remains visible. In the past this hasw been discussed, a concensus for change reached. All has gone quite, the bot archives the discussion and the deletionista carry on as if nothing has been said.(POV)
• To summarise: Refer to council: revise the policy guidance notes: initiate a peer reviewed deletion procedure: roll back deletions for the last 12 month, and reassess against new policy guidelines.
• --ClemRutter (talk) 18:45, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

• To be fair, the above example is an exception. 99% of copyright issues are based on editors simply inserting clearly copyrighted images everywhere, thus causing huge amounts of work for admins and other copyright-aware editors to have to remove them, often causing ridiculous wastes of everyone's time. In the case of images such as these 99%, the only problem with the Foundation policy is that it's not restrictive enough. Black Kite 18:50, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

To be fair- I always WP:AGF and attempt to be fair. Please read my post again. I do not criticise the policy- but its interpretation. I work in the 1% area of wikipedia. I am not using one of my images as an example, but one of a respected editor whose talk page I keep on my watchlist. I have wasted 30 mins of my time looking at the case above- and I expect that the deletionista would do a basic edit check on the editor who proposed this image, and then follow the discussion he initiated. In 99% of cases, deletion is fine but it is not constructive to WP to have this vandalism, where the deletionista have no experience in the field who respond to every argument with the same mantra. Look at the responses, they are patronising a valuable editor. (I do resent my valuable time being wasted- especially when it is so onerous to upload, geotag and fill out the 10 point template in the first place.They demonstrate clearly the point I made above.)

So, how can be proceed so the deletionistas do their valuable work, on 99% of the copyrighted junk, but accept the wisdom and expertise of established editors. I proposed that council should have a look at the damage the interpretations of their sensible policies are doing to WP. But, here is an alternative suggestion (though it is not my intention to make up procedures on the hoof).

• Images are tagged as liable to deletion.
• Any editor, can attach a FU hang-on tag. The image will be removed from the deletion list, and placed on a discussion pending list, and the deletion tag removed, to silence the bots. (maybe- any experienced editor with 200, 500+ edits)
• The image will be forwarded for discussion to any Wikiprojects named. They or an editor should approach an administrator who will approve the image, tag it as accepted with reason.
• The deletionista will see that the image has changed status. If this does not happen within 3 months, then it will be automatically deleted. While on the pending list if the deletionista can identify an actual copyvio, then it will be speedy deleted in the normal way.

That still does not address the problem of the guidelines. They must be rewritten to distinguish between policy, and supporting interpretive guidelines. Care must be taken with ANDs and ORs. Care must be taken to use an independent editor who is not suffering emotional scars. I suggest you get someone, who's first language is not English to look at them as it will produce clearer copy. We also need a easy roll back procedure (there may be one) for exceptions.

--ClemRutter (talk) 19:55, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

• ClemRutter, not only is your message incredibly abusive (I am not an illogical person, at all) but you're wrong- the image was deleted at the request of the uploader, because he had moved it to Wikimedia Commons. Had it not been determined to be free (and having another free image is definitely a good thing) then it would have been deleted, as it clearly did not aid our encyclopedia to the extent that we should use it without permission. And, we do have a peer reviewed deletion process. You clearly have a very limited understanding of the policy and the way it is enforced. 19:06, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Full apologies- for not knowing about the request for deletion. But this illustrates, another point about communication. Look at this page- no feedback. I canẗ accept you interpretation of the policy in this case- I posted my comments on the talk page. As the post above illustrates I am proposing a solution where we separate the 99% of junk- from the valid but unusual. I object to the way arguments here are lost to the archives. I am sure it is not your intention to spend so much time repeating the mantra- I am sure that you would be far happier zapping the junk uploaded by the Fools and Bairns. In this one percent, the system is broken: so can we work together WP:AGF in fixing it.

(quick response to avoid an other edit conflict)--ClemRutter (talk) 19:55, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I think some people here are waaaaay too strict about image size... for example, movie posters and album covers. I swear, one of these days they'll have to be smaller than the thumbnails! --Stormwatch (talk) 16:06, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Most pre 1978 magazine advertisements are public domain.

Because a typical advertisement runs in several magazines, they are not included in the magazine copyright. Each ad needs its own copyright notice. See this 1974 ad for KOOL cigarettes, copyright Brown & Williamson Tobacco The tobacco companies often placed copyright notices in their ads.

This is from the Copyright Notice Circular 3. Page 3, Contributions to Collective Works. (In copyright speak a magazine or journal is known as a "collective work".)

A single copyright notice applicable to the collective work as a whole serves to indicate protection for all the contributions in the collective work, except for advertisements, regardless of the ownership of copyright in the individual contributions and whether they have been published previously.

A notice for the collective work will not serve as the notice for advertisements inserted on behalf of persons other than the copyright owner of the collective work. These advertisements should each bear a separate notice in the name of the copyright owner of the advertisement.

Here is the law. U.S. Code title 17 chapter 4

Works published before 1978 required a valid copyright notice or the material was in the public domain. Advertisements relying on the copyright notice of the magazine are treated as a notice with the wrong name.

As a practical mater, an advertisement with a famous copyrighted photograph might result in a challenge. This would be unlikely for a typical advertisement with an in-house photograph of the product with a utilitarian description and price. See this circular saw ad.

Here is a 1985 federal court case that affirms that advertisements require an explicit copyright notice. 759 F2d 493 Canfield v. Ponchatoula Times Here are a few other cases.

Here is an interesting page, the calculator advertisement is public domain but the magazine subscription advertisement has a valid copyright because it is by the magazine publisher. Popular Mechanics ad.

Any real copyright experts have comments. -- SWTPC6800 (talk) 17:45, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Not sure what qualifies as a "real copyright expert" here, but it looks like you've done a good job of showing all the various sides. I would imagine that any ads by the publisher in their own publications would be covered by the copyright to that publication regardless of whether it was for subscriptions or other titles or whatever. DreamGuy (talk) 18:38, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

A search of the Internet Archive for "Public Domain Rule 5 advertisement" shows that they post advertisements that do not have an explicit copyright notice. [6] -- SWTPC6800 (talk) 03:33, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Here is an article about Duke University's efforts in obtaining copyright permission for "7,000 advertisements printed primarily in U.S. newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955". With student labor they tracked down the owners of the ads. In the article's conclusion, they state this may not have been necessary.

"An alternative to the process we followed in searching out the companies would have been to check with the Copyright Office to see if any of the ads had been registered when first created. The copyright law of 1909, under which the ads in the project originally fell, required that a notice of copyright be affixed to each copy (or forfeit copyright), and that the item be registered with the Register of Copyrights (noncompliance possibly causing a fine or the voiding of copyright). (8) Every magazine and newspaper in which the ads were printed most likely carried a copyright notice; this notice, however, fails to cover the advertisements not originating from the magazine or newspaper itself."

Lynn Pritcher (February 2000), "Seeking Copyright Permissions for a Digital Age", D-Lib Magazine [7]

-- SWTPC6800 (talk) 19:06, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

But is all this enough to cover us over trademark issues? Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 21:15, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

For many of the products and companies, the trademarks have expired. These advertisements are over 30 years old. After a several years of non-use, a trademark may be considered abandoned. For example: File:MITS Calculator 1200 Series 1973.jpg. Go to the US Trademark search [8] and look for serial number 72423353. You will see that the trademark used in the ad has expired.

In many advertisements, the registered trademarks only occupy a small portion of the ad. We don't restrict images that happen to have a trademark visible. See Nikon D80

-- SWTPC6800 (talk) 21:54, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Adding an image copyrighted to myself

I am trying to add an image to my user page which is copyrighted to myself. It’s an illustration I’ve drawn that I think is appropriate considering my username here. As the copyright owner for this image, I am willing to grant Wikipedia the non-exclusive right to display my illustration, although I don’t want to release its copyright entirely.

However, I’ve had this image deleted from my discussion page by a bot due to non-free content restrictions, since there was nothing about the image that would have made it obvious to a bot that it was uploaded by its owner. Is there anything I can do to make it clear that as the copyright owner for this image, I do not have a problem with it being displayed on my userpage? --Captain Occam (talk) 17:44, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Non-free images are allowed only to help illustrate wikipedia articles, as it is impossible to create an encyclopedia based only on free images. As a result they are only allowed in article space, not in user space or templates. Have you considered releasing your work under a free license, like {{cc-by-sa}} ? Sv1xv (talk) 17:51, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a free webhost. If you want to use content, you will have to release it, I'm afraid. J Milburn (talk) 17:55, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather not release this image, since I've occasionally used it in things that I tried to make a profit from, and may do so again in the future.

Is there a way to include a remotely linked image in a Wikipedia page? <img> tags don't seem to work. --Captain Occam (talk) 21:54, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

No, though you could just link to it. J Milburn (talk) 21:55, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Buildings again

This probably has been ground to death... please point me to relevant archive if there is one.

Photographs of non-free buildings are not acceptable. Architects' drawings of same buildings are acceptable as Paintings and other works of visual art.... Do you see logic here or what did I miss? NVO (talk) 17:09, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not following this line of thought. Why would you think drawings would be acceptable? Still can have someone take a photo just as in the photo situation. Being drawings doesn't make their copyright any less valid. DreamGuy (talk) 18:24, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Neither do I, so I'm asking where the logic is. Drawings are acceptable because the guideline says so. Photographs are not because no matter who takes them their subject is not free. In both cases the subject is not free, but a photograph taken by yours truly a week ago is unacceptable and a drawing made by an artist ninety years ago is OK provided that NFCC is met. Go figure. NVO (talk) 18:36, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

So let me rephrase the question: if photographs are not allowed, then perhaps architectural drawings should be banned too? NVO (talk) 18:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Architectural drawings may be useful in a section discussing the planning- I'm not sure. Certainly, some blanket "these drawings are ok" rule does not/should not exist. J Milburn (talk) 21:37, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

What was the rationale for banning FU photographs of the buildings, anyway? I understand that living people have legal concerns, but why buildings are treated differently from graphic art or statues - simply because there's more money involved? NVO (talk) 02:42, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Where are you getting this from? These strange blanket statements seems to have nothing to do with the NFC policy as I understand it. J Milburn (talk) 09:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

1. Wikipedia:Non-free_content#Images: "Some copyrighted images may be used on Wikipedia, providing they meet ...": "7. Paintings and other works of visual art: For critical commentary, including images illustrative of a particular technique or school."
2. Wikipedia:Non-free_content#Images_2: "Unacceptable use": "12. Pictures of people still alive, groups still active, and buildings still standing"... NVO (talk) 14:20, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any conflict. The #7 specifies that the images in question must be used for critical commentary. If the drawing of a building is sufficiently significant that you can write a sourced paragraph discussing the image itself, then yes, you can use it. If not, you can't. #12 says you can't use a non-free picture of an existing building simply to show what the building looks like. --Carnildo (talk) 21:37, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

So... where's the logic? Shouldn't artwork have more "copyright weight" over photograph taken by user? NVO (talk) 20:38, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

And what makes photographs of destroyed but "copyrighted" buildings different from photographs of existing buildings? NVO (talk) 20:40, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Map-territory relation: a picture of a building is not a building. If you're using a picture of a building to show what the picture of the building looks like, you fall under #7. If you're using a picture of a building to show what the building looks like, you fall under #12.

The reason for distinguishing between standing and destroyed buildings is that anybody with a camera can take a picture of a standing building, while only someone with a camera and a time machine can take a picture of one that no longer exists. The purpose of #12 is to indicate that a picture of a standing building is presumed to fail WP:NFCC #1 unless proven otherwise, while a picture of a building that no longer exists needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis. --Carnildo (talk) 00:12, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

We've always considered pictures of sculptures and other 3D artwork to be derivative works. Buildings are no exception, although they are a popular target for them. ViperSnake151  Talk  00:42, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Unless it was user-created and there is no freedom of panorama (Hello France!) ViperSnake151  Talk  03:41, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I see. The "buildings still standing" clause, like the "people still living" part, is correct for the most part. It applies because they are assumed replaceable in most cases, but there are exceptions- this looks like it may be one for buildings; for people, we have recluses, those in prison and so on. J Milburn (talk) 14:33, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Non-free photos of standing buildings are not fair use by our standards because they are replaceable by taking a photo. The drawings of the buildings shouldn't be used with a fair use license/tag either because the photo can still replace it. DreamGuy (talk) 21:02, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

DreamGuy, read up- this is not always the case, as in some jurisdictions, any image of the building counts as non-free. J Milburn (talk) 13:08, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Specifically, see Commons:Freedom of panorama for when photos of buildings are automatically under copyright. --MASEM (t) 13:27, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Any photo of a "copyrighted" building taken by you or me is non-free, that's the point. Commons are stuck in a deadlock: their own COM:FOP rules reject such images, some deletion requests are ruled delete, others keep or no-consensus keep. Hell, commons cannot even decide on what is a "copyrighted" building (after some ten years in construction biz I can tell you lots, just believe these aren't simple cases - that's why quotation marks across "copyright"). I presumed a FU upload on en-wikipedia could be more legitimate than a bogus-free-licence upload to commons, but, no, buildings are specifically banned here. NVO (talk) 17:07, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Commons defines "free" differently than we do, and our guideline does not say that buildings can be copyrighted, only that non-free images of standing buildings are presumed replacable. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:17, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Our guidelines only restrict the term "fair use"; they don't affect the fact that US law doesn't recognize commons:freedom of panorama restrictions, even if they would be subject to copyright law in the home country. Berne doesn't make something inherantly uncopyrightable under a country's laws subject to copyright if would be subject to copyright in the home country. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:24, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec) The fact we define free in a different way from Commons does not mean that we can use non-free images as free. What matters is what counts as free under US law and what doesn't. I'm no lawyer, so I have no great personal opinion on the issue. Do you feel that these self-made images of copyrighted buildings in countries with no FOP are free in the US? J Milburn (talk) 17:25, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

If released by the photographer as "free", yes. I'm not sure that FOP even applies; that's a matter for that country's laws, but I'd accept an ruling from Wikimedia legal to the contrary. I would say that our current policies and guidelines mean that only the photographer need release the image for it to be "free". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:30, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I think thsis may actually be one of the rare cases where contacting Mike Godwin is appropriate. J Milburn (talk) 10:58, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Quite right. Note that current Wikipedia:Non-free_content#In_general says "Any materials that were published in other nations, and which are copyrighted under the laws of that nation, should be considered to be copyrighted in the United States under the URAA." Doesn't say enforced but still copyrighted. Whatever it means. NVO (talk) 11:15, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll contact Mike. J Milburn (talk) 11:57, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Thinking about it, I'm probably wrong about the US application of the copyright law of the country where the picture was taken (for buildings near an international border, probably more appropriate than the law of the country where the building is located) would cause the copyright on the image not to belong solely to the photographer. Still, if the copyright belonged solely to the photographer under the law when and where the picture was taken, then only the photographer need release it to the public domain for it to be free, under the current (April 03, 2009) interpretation of the URAA. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:40, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

←You need to separate clearly three things: buildings, architectural plans, and photos of buildings.

1. Buildings: Foreign buildings may be considered copyrighted in the U.S. as per the URAA and as per 17 USC. 17 USC only knows a copyright for buildings completed after December 1, 1990, see 17 USC 102(a)(8) and its Amendment history. Since we don't have buildings here, this is largely irrelevant here.
2. Architecural plans: Don't know off-hand, would need to look it up. Basically copyrightable.
3. Photos of buildings: are in the U.S. exempt from a possible copyright on the building itself as per 17 USC 120(a), if the building is in a public place or is ordinarily visible from such a place. Hence, for the large majority of building photos, you only need to consider the photographer's copyright on the photo itself, even if the photo shows a foreign building that is copyrighted in the foreign country. (Exceptions may concern images taken not on and from a public place, but for instance on private property, or interior shots. I don't know what kinds of interiors would qualify as public places according to U.S. law.) Things are copyrighted in the U.S. under U.S. law, not under some foreign law, and contrary to the Commons the English Wikipedia regards only U.S. law. So even if a foreign country does not have "freedom of panorama", the U.S. does (for buildings only!), and thus photos of buildings are generally fine here if licensed freely by the photographer or PD.

HTH, Lupo 15:05, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Now I'm really confused. Don't cite the law, propose a workaround solution. Right now, "fair use image of existing building" is explicitly banned from en-wiki. Smuggling such photographs under free licenses as "entirely my own work" (per upload form language) is no good either because although "I created it," I don't "own all the rights to it, and have not used anyone else's work in making it". NVO (talk) 06:04, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

You don't need to allow "fair use images of existing building". Anyone can go there and take a nice freely licensed image him- or herself. If you had read what I cited above, you'd see that in the U.S. photos of buidlings are exempt from a possible copyright on the building itself. There's absolutely no justification for using copyrighted images of existing buildings under a "fair use" guise. Lupo 08:45, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

So what's the solution? It's not a question of the U.S. law. It's the question of wikipedia upload form which allows either FU or fully freely licensed self-created files. In between is a gray area that, according to your statement, is not copyrighted in the US but at the same time cannot be released under a free license (the photographer does not own all rights and did in fact used someone else's work protected in the place of origin - photographers are bound, foremost, by the laws of their countries of residence). Right now the most obvious choice is: upload to Commons under a phony free licence, since their copyright control operated on "don't tell, don't ask" basis. NVO (talk) 09:06, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

How about this: upload under the free license of the photographer's choice, and slap a tag like FOP on it, warning re-users that the depicted building may be copyrighted in the country where it stands and possibly also in the country where the image is to be re-used. (The country of origin of a building is, according to the Berne Convention, the country where the building is located.) Lupo 09:19, 8 July 2009 (UTC)