Wikipedia talk:Fair use/Archive 1

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Scientific formulas

I have a picture of a chemistry reaction formula that i downloaded off some site. Its not a secret formula or anything. I think this should be useable...I'm using it for Hoffman elimination. If anyone knows anything more about this topic, mention it on the article's talk page. Thanks. Bubbachuck 04:46, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Reply from Xill: Well, technically they created the picture. If you redrew the picture, then the new one should fall under your own copyright. What might be wrong is if they actually patented the method, and you were giving the method away, but that's now that it sound's like your saying.

Dolly the Sheep

Since Dolly the Sheep is a sort of test-case for this new procedure, I have a few comments to make.

Imagine if Dolly were still alive. How feasible would it be to find out where she was kept and obtain permission to photograph her for wikipedia (it's not like we have a brand name like Britannica, CNN or the BBC)? This can be expanded to anybody who is alive and notable enough to have an entry in wikipedia, and to resources not available to the general public (things in museums, in the vaults of museums, private art collections, the inside of famous buildings, military, etc). We need to consider what is best to be done in these cases where it isn't feasible (or likely) that a wikipedian will be able to photograph the famous item or person, or to find a public domain image (because if these famous things/people are rarely seen then there are people who make a living from selling images of them, not by placing them in the public domain).

I would also like there to be a (well-thought out) policy on things like:

  • which articles can be illustrated with cd/book covers if these are deemed to be fair-use (e.g. is it the same thing to illustrate an article about an album with the cover of an album, and to illustrate an article about a bird with the cover of a book about birds which happens to have a great photograph of that bird on the cover?)
  • if it is permissible to freely copy images of paintings etc which themselves have no copyright (e.g. can we use an image of a famous 300-year-old painting held in an art gallery - these images of paintings may be considered copyrightable, art galleries certianly generate revenue from selling them, and they also prevent members of the public from photographing the works of art themselves)
  • can artistic wikipedians base drawings/illustrations on copyrighted photographs, does that wikipedian have the right to release their image under the GFDL, or is it a derivitive work and a copyright violation?

I have long been confused by the copyright policy, and laws of the USA, and the impact of both on future editions of wikipedia (e.g. paper copies, which will presumably be sold in other countries). If we have to delete all our images and start afresh, so be it, but I want the policy to defined now, to be in line with the law, explicit and easy to understand, and forwardthinking (i.e. we must consider these cd-rom or paper versions of wikipedia now, or face doing this all again in the future). fabiform | talk 17:48, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You should always illustrate such articles with identifying artwork. Use of such images in association with the work they are promoting is going to be fair use. You also won't get a GFDL license except in extremely unusual cases. See Online service provider law for a selection of things which cannot be copyrighted. That answers your question about copies of artworks long out of copyright: not copyrightable in the US or UK. The only policy which will result in complying with all possibly applicable local laws and which will also avoid forking the project into different copyright camps is to tag and eventually develop ways to selectively exclude content which has not yet been replaced wiki-fashion with whatever license the requesting party wants to comply with. Jamesday 08:59, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Quarantine

I don't think we should be deleting images that are not infringing on copyrights. Rather why not just quarantine them? This means not using them in any article. If at a future time we change our minds, we have the images, and no work is lost. Also, many people might have uploaded images that are under the GFDL (i.e. their own images) or under fair use, but not mentioned so. They could be gone now, so there would be no way to reach them. Should these images be deleted just on a change of policy? After all, there is a checkbox that asks you that you only submit GFDL images. If someone uploaded their own pictures, which they put under the GFDL by virtue of checking that box, why should those images be deleted just because the author is not around anymore and there was a policy change? just my 2 cents, Dori | Talk 18:11, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC)

Tag and replace if you notice one and can find a replacement. That's the wiki way of improving stubs of all kinds. Jamesday 08:59, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Even if it's quarantined, people can still access it from our servers, which means we're still infringing. Superm401 | Talk 03:58, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Request for feedback in a certain type of case

Hi. The great majority of the found images I upload are from before 1923. There have been a few exceptions, I'll mention one to see if there are reccomendations for improving my handling of such cases. The image I used in American Austin Car Company article, as I say in the image description, "American Austin motorcar, from ad in July, 1930 magazine. Presumed fair use in unlikely case that any copyright renewal was ever filed on ad. " The company has been out of business for more than 60 years, making it unlikely that any renewal was ever filed to extend any copyright term. (Additionally, people who have worked with material from this era have told me that it was not common practice for companies to copyright their magazine ads in this era, so it may well not even have had any copyright to begin with, although I do not assume that.) What do people think about my use of this image? Ok, inappropriate? Wondering, -- Infrogmation 18:46, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Sure sounds low risk to me. Though keep in mind that when a company goes bankrupt, someone ends up with the company's trademarks, copyrights, patents, and other intellectual property. These always get sold, even if it's only for $1.00. Tempshill 20:03, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
It'll be fair use in articles about the company or cars in the extremely unlikely event that it's not in the public domain. For those unfamiliar with US law, works during that time period entered the public domain as soon as they were published if they did not have a copyright notice, and again did so if the copyright wasn't renewed. Something over 95% (or is it 98%, I forget which) of all filed copyrights were never renewed. Jamesday 08:59, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Dolly

Specific case, rather than general policy. Dolly is now stuffed, mounted, and on display at the Royal Museum in Edinburgh. Assuming the museum allows visitors to take photos (UK museums generally do, don't they?), replacing the Roslin Institute's picture with one almost as lifelike is something any Edinburgh wikipedian could do quite easily next time they're up by Chambers Street. –Hajor 20:48, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

If that's the one with all the natural history (stuffed elephants and the like), then I remember taking photographs when I visited. Although I don't know if photography's allowed generally in all UK museums. I'm sure it is often discouraged, limited to non-flash, or outright banned in most places I've been to. fabiform | talk 21:06, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I'm expecting in most cases we could either be rebellious and take photos anyway, or negotiate special permission with the folks in charge. Some effort required. Do we use a fair use image until that happens? Martin 21:18, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
In some museums, the lighting and glass cases (when used) would make photography difficult, so special permission would probably work better than covert/rebellious photography (if they are willing to grant it).  :) For what it's worth I just emailed the Museums of Scotland people asking on their policy on visitors taking photographs since their site had no FAQ. fabiform | talk 21:29, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Permission to photograph anything on exhibit in the National Museums of Scotland for Wikipedia has been denied. Fabiform, can you explain the conditions under which they notified you of that denial? Do they not allow any photography at all, or just photography intended for publication in a collaborative free-content encyclopaedia? –Hajor 20:24, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Screen caputures from Al Jazeera

I am trying to find some pictures of civilian victims of the Afghanistan war which were either released under the GFDL or which can be used under the fair use doctrine. Even after an intensive search I haven't found any GFDL and I therefore would like to know if for example using low-res screen captures from Al Jazeera & Co would count as Fair Use ?

Damn all this copyright bullshit.

Turrican

Using fair use images when alternatives are possible

As the author of this policy I have avoided specifically stating whether, in cases where remote alternatives exist (such as shooting a photo of a seclusive author), we are allowed to use fair use images in the meantime.

I hope this can be worked out in consensus over the coming weeks. As a fair use advocate, I feel of course that we should have such images. As an open content advocate, I must acknowledge that having these images will reduce the motivation to acquire open content pictures.—Eloquence 23:13, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC)

This is a wiki. People rework and improve stubs all the time. Just tag the images, make sure there's a visible indication in the article which shows the image, so people know that we're looking for something better, and accept that wikis do produce improved works over time, provided there is at least something to start with. Trying to block fair use is essentially trying to force a fork of the project, in which those who want GFDL only look to be a small but very vocal minority, and I am strongly opposed to forking when we can filter and use the wiki improvement way instead. Jamesday 08:59, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Use of still frames from movies, TV shows, and video games

Thank you Eloquence for starting this page.

Newspapers and magazines often print still frames from movies, TV shows, and video games, under the fair use doctrine. Sometimes they use the images sent to them in a press kit from the studio, which I believe always comes with some permission lines printed at the bottom of the photo itself. But often a magazine will just grab a still frame and print it, if the movie is old. Obviously this is the only way to show a scene from a movie, unless we were to insinuate a Wikipedia agent onto the set and take some covert shots. I think we should have such images. We could crib from the guidelines of the Associated Press for a start, if it's not feasible to get a legal opinion to hang our hat on moving forward. In either case this fair use page should explicitly talk about this -- images of this type could be useful to Wikipedia and people will want to upload them. (In the past, I've included some old Apple II game screenshots on Wizardry and RobotWar.) Tempshill 20:03, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

And after posting this, the obvious problem occurred to me, that we are not able to offer fair-use materials under the GDFL. The materials are not ours to license. They could be used as the centerpiece of some commercial product, hypothetically, and be subject to not only copyright but publicity rights of their respective holders. Tempshill 21:22, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

In jurisdictions where fair use is law, fair use is entirely compatible with the GFDL. See meta:Do fair use images violate the GFDL? for far more extensive analysis of just why they are compatible with it, in jurisdictions where fair use is the law. Jamesday 08:59, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I wanted to add a screencap of the infamous "White Bronco" to the OJ Simpson article, but obviously, they are all from commercial news organizations. However, it is definitely an encyclopedic item. Any suggestions or advice on how I can procure such an image? - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 18:59, Jun 9, 2004 (UTC)

A singularly unproductive exercise

Anyone considering actually using this should realise that we can expect that the vast majority of images used in the encyclopedia will be used under fair use, fair dealing or similar provisions of law in other jurisdictions. The net effect: to add a vast amount of overhead for no useful purpose. If you see an image tagged as fair use and can find one which is more freely reusable, replace it. No need for lots of overhead for the most commonly used image category. Fair use is compatible with the GFDL (as are lots of licenses) in jurisdictions where fair use applies, so it's not necessary to eliminate them provided we describe them properly, so those who want to avoid a particular image type can easily do so. Jamesday 08:59, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The reason people like Jimbo want to remove fair use images is not of a legal nature, it is that they want us to create as much open content as possible, and they feel that removing these images where alternatives could be provided will create an incentive to do so.—Eloquence

Creating as much open content as possible is a legal argument. Jimmy started considering fair use images as a posible problem after he was told that fair use didn't exist in the UK. Then he over-reacted and headed in the wrong direction. In a jurisdiction where fair use exists, that fair use is a public domain right, one which was never granted to the copyright holder. That is, fair use is open content, provided only that the use is moderately conservative, so it will be applicable to the vast majority of GFDL-accepting reusers, which is the case for the vast majority of the fair use situations I've considered over at possible copyvios. In other jurisdictions, the people viewing the articles will see the image and be interested in getting one they can use without fair use... and it will encourage them to do so if it improves the article, just as stubs do at present for text. That's why those in the UK are uploading licensed images even where the image is fair use in the US - the UK people often require a license, so they are going out and getting those licenses or seeking replacements more compatible with UK law. Which is just what we want to have happen. That's why we don't delete text stubs and there's no reason to have a different practice for images. Jamesday 22:45, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Fair use rant

Please try to edit this into something readable before adding it to the page. Moreover, please limit yourself to one paragraph, preferably not of the current length.—Eloquence

For all images, the potential copyright issues are far more extensive than fair use, fair dealing or other ways to use information. Architecture and signs have IP attached, so permission may be required or there may be moral rights requirements even where an uploader asserts that an image is in the public domain or is GFDL. Also, each country around the world has its own copyright laws and terms, so what is in the public domain differences in each jurisdiction. In the US and UK, the question of whether a scan of an old work is free of copyright is easy: it is, because mechanical conversions don't create a new copyright. However, there's sure to be a jurisdiction somewhere where that is not the law. It's nowhere near as simple (simplistic) as arguing that avoiding fair use makes everything fine. The laws around the world are not that simple.

For these and other reasons, no reuser outside the US or other jurisdiction where a DMCA-equivalent protects them can use the Wikipedia images without checking each image. Similarly, no reuser in print even in the US can use even asserted public domain or GFDL images without doing their own checking, because they have legal liability if the is IP in the image. We can try to help, with accurate tagging and source information, but we cannot make it unnecessary for reusers to do this work. Regardless, even if we eliminated every fair use image and replaced them all with claimed GFDL images, we wouldn't eliminate the need to do this checking: accurate source information matters far, far more than any claimed copyright status.

I didn't think the above was a rant; I thought it was eminently practical and good advice. Tempshill 00:17, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
This is not the place to explain what fair use is and is not, and certainly not in a POV manner. We should present the user with a very brief summary of the key facts, with links to Wikipedia articles, and a description of our current procedures.—Eloquence
It didn't explain what fair use is or isn't. It explained that fair use is not the problem and why. The problem is different laws around the world and how they interact with the GFDL. Jimmy focussed on fair use because he was told that it wasn't the law in the UK but that ignores all the other jurisdictions with different laws and all the other IP catches which can be present even in GFDL images. Essentially, Jimmy focussed on something which is only a tiny part of the problem and this page is not doing anything legally useful. Work on getting people to add source details instead. It's far more important and really does help. Jamesday 22:24, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I asked this before and you ignored me, so I'll ask again. If a work is created in the US, and a US entity owns the copyright, doesn't fair use apply worldwide for that work? anthony (see warning) 10:00, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
It's probably best to use my talk page if you want me to notice you asking me a question. I do not routinely look at my watchlist. I don't think US law applies outside the US. That's one reason non-US contributors may need to use licenses, even licenses more restrictive than the GFDL, for items which are fair use in the US. The license doesn't stop it from being fair use. Jamesday 00:03, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Using images while waiting for fair use decision

I removed this line: "During this deliberation process, the files may exist on the server, but should not be linked from any pages but this one." I think it's unreasonable to require that we remove all fair use images while going through a ten-day process. And unless we remove them all, that means those listed here would be penalized for going through this process. Furthermore, fair use is a decision which is made in context, based on use, not something which applies to the image itself. Anthony DiPierro

Also no one seems to heed this very basic point: each "fair use" must be explained. YOu can't say, well this image is "fair use" because we say it is. It is fair use in the context it is used, no other. If it is just posted on an image description page then there is really no meaning to the statement and this means the credibility of Wikipedia as a group that seems to engage in copyright compliance is really worthless. I hate to sound harsh, but it appears that there is a lot of effort going into creating this idea of "fair use" that is sort of Wikipedia concept that has little, if nothing, to do with Title 17 USC. The idea about describing specific uses has been listed on the Image Description Page for quite some time; but there are people here who appear to be "experts" on fair use that don't seem to know that there is no such thing as general fair use, unlike the above poster (who I think is Angelo DiPetro). — Alex756 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Alex756 talk] 07:27, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The approach must depend on the type of "fair use". I don't see how exemptions for "non-profit" or "educational" use can be used, since combining GFDL material with such fair use material produces a derived work that can't be used commercially, which obviously violates the GFDL. I think use of fair use material must not impose any restrictions additional to GFDL. Goatherd 13:03, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I thought that was the point of tagging it—to extricate the fair-use material and create a completely GFDL-compliant collection in cases where it's necessary? —LarryGilbert 17:39, 2004 Mar 16 (UTC)
I don't think it would be sufficient. If Wikipedia is going to include GFDL material, then it can only avoid infringing the copyrights by using the GFDL itself. Where in the GFDL does it say that you can distribute derived works which mix GFDL and non-GFDL material as long as the non-GFDL material is easy to extricate? Goatherd 22:50, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
There are two different theories on this. One relies on section 7, "A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an "aggregate" if the copyright resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. When the Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not apply to the other works in the aggregate which are not themselves derivative works of the Document." The other relies on the fact that the resulting work might actually be able to be licensed under the GFDL. For example, the parody "Pretty Woman" by 2 Live Crew is copyrighted and licensed independently of "Oh, Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison and William Dees, which it parodies. Of course the argument can certainly be made that redistributing the work under the GFDL with the intention that others will modify and redistribute it might lean against the work being fair use in the first place. anthony (see warning) 09:57, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Aggregation with independent works in the GFDL covers this. See Meta:Do fair use images violate the GFDL? Jamesday 00:03, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The images have to be displayed in their context - in their article - to decide on fair use. The context is key. The same applies when suggesting that an image my be a copyvio - if you remove the image from the article, you remove the ability to judge whether it is a copyvio or fair use. Jamesday 00:03, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Image fair use?

I'm not entirely clear on the guidelines laid out in Image use policy. If I wanted to add (a smaller version of) this picture to the article On Your Mark (about a Japanese animated music video), would that be allowed? I believe that image is from a calendar; if I posted an actual frame from the music video itself, would that fall under fair use? I see professional movie reviewers using shots from movies all the time, must they always have special permission? If I copied a Disney park photo from a Disney park web site, would it be fair use to put that image on a Wikipedia article about the park? I have trouble seeing how the reproduction of any image here on Wikipedia would cause any sort of financial harm to the owner of the image, and an image would often help make an article clearer - what's a good rule of thumb to use in deciding whether my intentions for an image fall under 'fair use' or not? Brian Kendig 19:14, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Brian, if you've not found it already, Wikipedia:Fair use is probably the best place to read about (and posit regarding) fair use. It's a minefield, not least becase different countries have different concepts of the doctrine. I'd guess that what you plan would be okay, but the folks who hang out there will know better. Oh, if you do upload it, can you see if you can "descreen" it (as whoever scanned it didn't, making it look lumpy)? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:54, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the tip. Can you give me examples of when adding an image to Wikipedia would definitely NOT be covered under fair use? Brian Kendig 05:52, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Sure, in most cases. Just lifting a picture off the Intenet is usually not covered under fair use (despite the fact that there are numerous websites that have lifted images themselves). For example, we don't even have a photo of Princess Diana because most photos of her are copyrighted. Images from things like video games, movies (including covers and posters) are covered under fair use. Use of professional photos is not. If you have any more questions about fair use, consult Wikipedia:Fair use like Finlay suggested. Any further questions about fair use, you can post there. —Frecklefoot 14:16, Apr 28, 2004 (UTC)
And another question: When I try to upload an image, I have to check the checkbox which says "I affirm that the copyright holder of this file agrees to license it under the terms of the Wikipedia copyright." I can't check this box: I have a feeling that if I contact the makers of the anime of which I want to upload a photo, they'll flatly deny my request so that they can cover their own tails, because there's no benefit to them in supporting Wikipedia at all. How do you balance "fair use" of an image with the fact that there's no reason why a copyright holder should agree to help Wikipedia? Does "fair use" of an image ever override the copyright holder's unwillingness to bother with anything but his own interests? Has anyone pursued the copyright owners of a copyrighted image and had them say, "Sure, go ahead and use our picture"? Brian Kendig 06:20, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Most of the website owners I've contacted are more than happy to let us use their images, as long as we attribute the image to them. This is the upside for them--free publicity. And the attribution doesn't have to be glaring--I usually just put it on the image page. For an example, see this image. —Frecklefoot 14:16, Apr 28, 2004 (UTC)
So you're saying all that matters is permission from whoever made the image file, not from the copyright owner of what's in the picture? I'm not sure I'm clear on this... for example, the original artwork of that Defender of the Crown box is doubtlessly still under copyright (especially since another company bought the rights and released a new version of the game for GameBoy two years ago). Wouldn't you have had to find and contact the copyright owners of the original game before you could check the checkbox on the upload page to affirm that they approve its image being posted to Wikipedia? If not, then what's keeping me from taking a picture of anything - like, taking a picture of a copyrighted photo of Princess Diana - and uploading it to Wikipedia with permission to use my picture?
What I'm most confused about is that the image upload page "the copyright holder agrees to license it" checkbox seems to require me to contact whoever owns the original material being pictured, and would preclude "fair use" of the image without explicit permission, since it requires you to know that the copyright holder gives you permission. The image I want to upload to On Your Mark is from a calendar; is it enough to get permission from the person who took a picture of the calendar, or do I have to get permission from the calendar's publisher? I have an mpeg file of of an animated short from which I want to post a picture to Studio Gainax, but I don't see how I can check that checkbox without convincing the company's lawyers that they should grant use of their images to Wikipedia. Brian Kendig 15:15, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Anyone is the rights holder for fair use and can do it. It doesn't require permission from the creator and refusal of permission by the copyright holder doesn't negate fair use. Of course, ideal is a request for and granting of a GFDL license. At various times, the image upload text is modified in ways which don't reflect current policy by those who want to change the policy. Most often in ways which say that permission must always be obtained or that only GFDL items are acceptable. Neither is an accurate statement of en policy. If the picture is a scan or picture of another work, the person who took the scan is not the copyright holder - the copyright holder is the creator of the original work being scanned. Unless there is some original creativity in the picture or scan, not just a simple accurate reproduction. Jamesday 00:09, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)


AS an aside, I wonder if the Japanese animators sought permission to use the Alfa Romeo trade mark bonnet badge? L-Bit

Always use a more free alternative if one is available

Always use a more free alternative if one is available. Such images can often be used more readily outside the US. If you see a fair use image and know of an alternative more free equivalent, please replace it, so the Wikipedia can become as free as possible.

This rule is frequently flouted. I've seen {{msg:GFDL}} photos and free-to-use images I've uploaded overwritten by {{msg:unverified}} or {{msg:Fair use}} pics. On such occasions I've been been reluctant to engage in rv wars – it would be seen as ego-pushing ("my pic stays") even though the real purpose is, as it says on the front page, to "build an open-content encyclopedia". To what extent should aesthetic considerations ("better pic", "rm amateurish photo") over-ride the freedom of the project, and who's to make that call? –Hajor 19:03, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

To come to this belatedly: I think in all cases a free-to-use pic should be preferred over a free-use or unverified image. Even if the free-to-use picture isn't as pretty. While there is some limited acceptance of fair-use pictures in cases where it would prove very difficult to obtain a free picture, I am of the opinion that nobody should be adding any new unverified pictures to the project, those that exist should be slowly weeded out, and every fair-use claim should be examined. Certainly we should not be retrograde about this. —Morven 22:30, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC)
If you put up a free version of a picture that's of inferior quality someone will inevitably want to replace it with a better fair use version if one exists. It seems like the only way out of that argument is to include both the free use and fair use versions as seperate images. Flexibility is fundamental. - Pioneer-12 20:39, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Book blurb

Is the blurb on the back of a paperback, or on the flyleaf of a hardback, fair game for inclusion in a Wikipedia article? It would seem intuitively obvious, since the purpose of the blurb is to garner publicity for the book, but is there any hard policy? I would of course assume that any such text would be clearly annotated as such. --Phil | Talk 08:37, Jun 9, 2004 (UTC)

No, in general it's not. The blurb is a work in it's own right. Added to which blurbs are often wrong, sycophantic(1) or spoliers. However short quotes from the blurb, or recycled review quotes should be OK. ( (1) Be aware, for example of the London play which quoted a national paper "The best play ever" wher the full text was "The best play ever written on a Wednesday and performed the following night") Rich Farmbrough 13:45, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Borderline Fair Use

OK, so I understand the fair use policy (I mean, I've been adding hundreds of fair use logos to Wikipedia), but I've got a situation I wanted to ask about. I just picked up three old books - one on helicopters since 1907 and two on World War II aircraft. They are definitely copyrighted works, but they contain good illustrations of aircraft, many that could be for articles that don't have any pictures at all (example). Plus, there are a number that have pictures with questionable or no copyright information already (example).

So, anyways, the question is, could this qualify as fair use or not? It seems close, but I think you could justify these images as historically significant, informational and, of course, they would be reasonably small and at a low resolution. Anyone else have an opinion? RADICALBENDER★ 00:57, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)


National treatment

The Berne convention says that: "Authors shall enjoy, in respect of works for which they are protected under this Convention, in countries of the Union other than the country of origin, the rights which their respective laws do now or may hereafter grant to their nationals, as well as the rights specially granted by this Convention." [1]

So it seems to me that Wikipedia should be assuming the protections of the country of origin. If the work is a US work, then fair use applies. If it isn't, then it shouldn't. anthony (see warning) 17:14, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

An interesting legal interpretation, but not a correct one. Fair use is not a right of the author; it is a right of the (re-)user. Therefore, this section does not apply. This section is meant to ensure that, for example, copyright doesn't expire in foreign countries before it expires in the home country. It has no merit on fair use grounds. →Raul654 17:19, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)
Your statement is completely wrong. I never claimed that fair use was a right of the author. I also never made any legal interpretation. As for your statement that this section is about copyright expiration, I have no idea where you got that from. Did you just make it up yourself, or can you point me to somewhere that backs that up? anthony (see warning) 17:24, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Your cite says: "Authors shall enjoy...the rights which their respective laws do now or may hereafter grant". Fair use is not a right of the author; therefore, this section does not apply. Therefore, we can operate under US fair use law if we so desire. →Raul654 17:30, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)
Furthermore, "So it seems to me that Wikipedia should be assuming the protections of the country of origin. If the work is a US work, then fair use applies. If it isn't, then it shouldn't." - this is legal interpretation, whatever *you* might think it is. →Raul654 17:30, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)
I understand that fair use is not a right of the author. I never said it was. Copyright is a right of the author. Fair use is a limitation on that right. My statement which you consider a legal interpretation is a suggestion as to how Wikipedia should treat things, and not a legal interpretation. I guess I see how you could misunderstand the sentence "If the work is a US work, then fair use applies." if you took it out of context. But even so, do you dispute that fact? It is obviously true. I take it you haven't found anything to back up your other incorrect statements, and that's why you ignored my question as to whether or not you just made it up yourself. anthony (see warning) 18:04, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Ok, so your "suggestion" is that Wikipedia follow the copyright laws of the respective country in which a work is published, even though you conceed that we are not required to by law (why did you not just say this in the first place?). That's your opinion, and you are entitled to it; however, a large number of our contributors would disagree. →Raul654 18:33, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)
My suggestion is that we only use under the doctrine of fair use those images for which the country of origin is the US. We are, of course, "required" to follow the laws of any country in which we distribute Wikipedia, in that not doing so is a violation of the law, of course. That people might disagree is precisely why I brought this up on the pump. Personally I don't think the Wikimedia foundation should harm its status in other countries (virtually all of them) over the issue of fair use, it's just not important enough. anthony (see warning)
I discussed this with Jamesday in Boston at length. Basically, he's adamant about making sure the foundation does *NOTHING* except the website - so long as they only do that, they're legally untouchable (Webhosts and ISPs are covered by all kinds of safe harbor laws and precedent rulings). Distribution can be handeled by others - Mandrake, for example, wants to package Wikipedia on a DVD, or we can do it ourselves using a seperate foundation (which means that the Wikimedia foundation is still legally bulletproof). →Raul654 20:13, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)
Jamesday doesn't run the foundation, isn't a lawyer, and isn't right if he has said that the foundation is legally untouchable, as not all countries have those safe harbor laws. Furthermore, just because we might be able to get away with breaking the law doesn't mean we should do so. Like I said, our status in other countries is just not worth it. As for whether or not the foundation should do nothing except the website, I disagree with Jamesday on that point, but this is a different topic altogether. If you or he would like to raise the issue somewhere and would like to hear my input, point me to the location. anthony (see warning) 20:27, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Eric Treacy photograph -- Is this fair use?

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.poster.net/treacy-eric/treacy-eric-the-south-staffordshire-regiment-2504022.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.postershop.com/Treacy-Eric/Treacy-Eric-The-South-Staffordshire-Regiment-2504022.html&h=397&w=313&sz=15&tbnid=QM_yTkGNAXsJ:&tbnh=119&tbnw=94&start=8&prev=/images%3Fq%3DEric%2BTreacy%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DN is a photograph by Eric Treacy, from around 1930. The Treacy Collection is owned by the National Railway Museum, who licence it out to posters, etc. I would contend this is a work of art rather than any old snapshot of a train, and a particularly important and well known of Treacy's photographs. I have a bigger version in a book. What do you think? Dunc_Harris|☺ 19:42, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'd say no. In fact, IMO, it being a work of art rather than merely a documentary photograph probably damages a fair use claim. —Morven 19:46, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

Image:U07.jpg

thumb|right Can we check that this would qualify? I think not, but User:Gerhard eger thinks so. It wouldn't be too difficult to arrange a photo of a volunteer in his boxers would it? Dunc_Harris|☺ 19:54, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

request for help

Hi, a new user (User:Raj2004) asked me for help with contacting a website or some such in regards to quotations. They might very well be fair use for all I know. Any help is appreciated. Here is a link to his request on my talk: User_talk:Sam_Spade#Dvaita_and_Visatadvaita. I will direct him here, and a couple other places (like the pump, and Boilerplate_request_for_permission). Cheers, Sam [Spade] 18:00, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

images of people

Is an image of a person considered fair use? AdamJacobMuller T@lk Sun Nov 14 20:15:28 GMT 2004

The short answer is "sometimes, maybe". Serious effort should be made to find images with no copyright violation, as always. If no other such image can be located, use of a copyrighted image of someone famous might be fair use in an article about them. -- Infrogmation 21:07, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Photos of a marketed game

I don't know the legality of photographing/scanning Set cards: please see Talk:Set (game) for my question in detail, and please respond there. Thanks! —msh210 20:40, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Board and rule book of out-of-print game

In reference to my Solarquest page:

  • Is including the 1986 rules fair use? The copyright was originally Western Publishing Co., but I think it went to Universal Games, because they published the 1995 Apollo 13 edition of Solarquest. I have had trouble figuring out how to get in touch with them to request permission, because there are multiple companies named Universal Games.
  • Is including an enlarged image of the board (at the bottom of the page) fair use?
  • Does the fact I own a copy of the game impact these matters at all?

Nathanlarson32767 16:01, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Press kit photos?

I have included several press kit photos in the article Duran Duran, and tagged them as fair use for the moment, as I don't know what else might fit. These were included in press releases sent out to newspapers and magazines at various points in the band's career. I believe these are intentionally distributed without copyright so that media can reproduce them freely, but I don't have the fine print to examine myself. Does anyone know the legalities on these? GFDL pictures of bands are very hard to find -- I've been trying on this one for a couple of months, but pro photographers don't want to use free license, and I haven't found a reasonable fan pic that includes the entire band -- certainly not from the band's early history, where pics are most significant. The article is now a featured article candidate, so I wanted to clarify this issue as soon as I can. Thanks, [[User:CatherineMunro|Catherine\talk]] 02:51, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Was there an answer on this? I'd like to know too. A couple bands without pictures on Wikipedia have Press Kits on their websites including photos. Andreac 17:05, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In February 2003, I asked SoundExchange whether I could archive/publish on the Web any of the promotional materials I received from labels in the mid-1990s, when I was actively DJing and writing music reviews. This was their response, in part:
The fact that you have received sound recordings in the past for promotional purposes merely means that you were not required to pay to purchase physical copies of those recordings. Your receipt of those recordings on a gratis basis did not provide you with any rights to reproduce, distribute or publicly perform those recordings via digital audio transmissions. Because only digital audio transmissions of sound recordings are subject to public performance royalties, your previous uses of the recordings (e.g., for "over the air" transmissions, in a bar or club setting) that were given to you did not trigger any royalty obligation to sound recording copyright owners. If you now choose to use those recordings to make digital audio transmissions, those transmissions will be subject to public performance royalties, notwithstanding the fact that you obtained the physical copies at no cost.
The other materials you mention (e.g., publicity photos, bios) are also subject to copyright protection and cannot be reproduced or distributed without permission of the copyright owner. Use of old bios, pictures and the like may also implicate the performers' right of publicity.
However, in my opinion, this seems to be erring on the side of caution, because most publicity photos are provided with the understanding that they will be republished in the music press. Promotional materials / press kits are not sent out just to pad people's collections. Nevertheless, they reserve the right to sue to you if they don't like what you do with the photos, I guess. — mjb 21:40, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
That passage could have been useful here. chocolateboy 22:44, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Sound sample fair use for language article?

I've been working on fleshing out the article on the Samogitian language, and I would like to include a recorded example of the spoken language. I have some (copyrighted) folklore recordings of native speakers singing, telling stories, etc. If I take a short (~15 seconds) excerpt of one story and credit it appropriately, is this fair use? The key, I think, is that the content of the story is not important to the article. --Theodore Kloba 17:40, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)


Tube Map

Would posting a small section of the Tube map for an article about the station it's centred on (just to show where it is in relation to other stations nearby) be covered under fair use? The current system of just writing what the next and last stations are is somewhat unsatisfying. Jisatsusha 03:24, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Still unclear on the concept

I'm still unclear on when I can claim "fair use" and put an image on Wikipedia, and when this would be a copyright violation. Would someone please tell me whether these examples would be "fair use" or copyright infringement?

  • On iPod shuffle, taking an image of the product from Apple's web site and putting it into the article.
  • On Star Trek, posting images of Star Trek spaceships from the TV shows and movies. (Someone recently decided half of these were copyvios and deleted them.)
  • On On Your Mark, posting a screen capture of a drawing from the anime video.
  • On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, posting a picture of the DVD release cover.

- Brian Kendig 21:45, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)


CD/DVD Covers

What constitutes low resolution? Should Wikipedia have a standard image size for such things?

Should there be a project to acquire these images?

Is it fair use to copy these images from Amazon?

BenFrantzDale 05:43, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Photo of Buddy Holly Sculpture

I have a nice photo I personally took of the Buddy Holly statue in Lubbock, Texas. I would like to upload it for use in both of the above articles. According to this website [2], I believe it would qualify for fair use since it is for a non-commercial educational purpose. However, Holly's widow, Maria Elena, is well-known for strictly enforcing the copyright on Buddy's likeness and I don't want to even get close to the line on this one. Would appreciate any thoughts. H2O 05:43, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)


Song lyrics fair-use

Can quoting one stanza out of a five-stanzas song be fair-use ? Another wikipedian claims it is the "heart of the song" and therefore fair-use cannot be applied. Note that the lyrics have political relevance to that article. Bogdan | Talk 12:36, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)


Fair-use on recent art

I was generally wondering whether I can assume I can use fair use on articles about contemporary artists to show a painting of the artist to complement the article and show an example of the artists work as illustration (its low resolution, only one image, etc). I'm interested in writing and expanding some articles on contemporary artists. I also want to see if I can use an image of a Thomas Kinkade painting to illustrate the article on kitsch. There are older paintings I could find maybe but I think his painting is really the best illustration to descbie what people talk about..

The Lion King

Limited Geographic Scope - why?

I've been asked to justify why I tagged this page {limitedgeographicscope}. It's simply because the page makes frequent reference to the US, without any indication that this guidance applies to non-American users, non-American pictures, or non-American readers. The page introduction states:

  • Fair use/fair dealing laws are different in different jurisdictions and fair use works are seldom going to be usable outside the U.S.—even the most restrictive license possible is often more free than fair use outside the U.S.

Also see Wikipedia talk:Fair use#National treatment above, and Wikipedia talk:Copyrights#US Government PD is not worldwide PD!, and many other points in the copyright spaghetti that indicate confusion over international applicability.

User:Morven told me that "US legal doctrine" is applicable to the project since the servers are in the US. If that's the case, that statement should be at the top of the page somewheres, and my tag can be deleted. I didn't know where the servers were located until he told me that. Please don't assume that you're talking to an American!--Yannick 21:37, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

While the location of the servers means that generally Wikipedia itself needs only pay attention to American laws, note that this does not protect uploaders who are themselves not located in the United States. If you perform an act that is a breach of copyright law in the nation in which you reside, you are possibly liable. Some aspects of copyright law also use the law of the country of first publication or registration to determine what is legal. I believe I recall (but should check) that fair use is not among them - that someone residing in the US and publishing in the US can use the defense of "fair use" regardless of the national origin of the work they are using. Anyone else know of this?
Whatever the truth, someone who knows copyright law well should clarify the situation for non-US uploaders and non-US published works. —Morven 23:21, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

67 machines in Florida, 5 in France, and 11 in the Netherlands, Ref. [3] --Yannick 00:03, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What a shame, that idea looked good there for a minute L-Bit

I just discovered that some global satisfaction can be found at Fair dealing. Still doesn't tell you how to write an international encyclopedia, though. --Yannick 00:12, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

With Permission

If I gain a written (e-mailed) permission from a copyright holder to use an image as either GFDL or Fair Use, does Wiki need a copy of that permission? I am also asking this in the assumption that the original provider will not bother to reference to Wiki, or remove thier "Copyright" notices. If Wiki doesn't retain the permission, what happens if I lose it in some suicidal hard drive event?

Cheers for your thoughts
L-Bit 10:33, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I would copy the permission onto the image description page, including the name and email address of the person granting permission. (You may want to get permission to post the email address first if you think that might be touchy, and/or obfuscate the address to hide it from spammers -- "name AT example DOT com", for instance.) — Catherine\talk 1 July 2005 20:29 (UTC)

quoting a dictionary definition

Is quoting a definition from a dictionary fair use as long as the name of the dictionary is provided? Definitions of capitalism and Definitions of socialism were recently deleted by an administrator because he thought it was a copyright violation. It was a list of definitions with only one definition quoted from each dictionary. RJII 16:42, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There shouldn't be articles that are solely definitions anyway. Superm401 | Talk June 30, 2005 23:40 (UTC)
I understand the goal of these articles, since these definitions are what people argue about, but dictionaries are notoriously touchy about their copyrights, even if the use is well-cited. Unless the articles actually engage in some discussion about the definitions which is not original research, so that the definitions are not the sole content, I think the admin was right to delete. — Catherine\talk 1 July 2005 20:33 (UTC)
I find it unlikely 1. that a dictionary would sue over the quotation of a single definition for the specific needs of an article (that is, we are not just recycling their material, but using it specifically as an authority for something which requires authority, or showing differing definitions, etc., and 2. that a court would hold such use to be anything but "fair". It would depend on the context, of course -- if this fell under "recycling content" then it would definitely be a problem. --Fastfission 00:37, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Scans of comic book interior pages

I know covers of comic books are generally fair use when used to provide information about the character or title, but what about interior panels? Are scans of copyrighted comic book interior pages fair use? I'm inclined to think not, and yet a huge number of pictures on Wikipedia are copyrighted comic book interior page scans which the uploaders have marked as fair use. —Lowellian (talk) July 1, 2005 10:27 (UTC)

Well, it depends on their use. If they are used for purely educational purpose (i.e., illustrating an "important" figure), and are not of excessively high resolution, and have their source and the copyright holder clearly labeled, and no free alternatives have been found or likely available.. then I'm inclined to say that a single image per relevant page would not be infringement in the context of an article on the English Wikipedia. To be safe I think the caption on the page itself should be explicit, i.e. "Superman, from D.C. Comics" or something along those lines, so that there is no implication that Wikipedia claims any ownership over the image. --Fastfission 00:34, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Book summaries

The issues covered on this page appears only to apply to images, not to text, so I'd like to see if we could get some additional guidance here. We're currently having a discussion over at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Full Plot Summary about how long a book summary can be before it no longer qualifies as fair use. Right now it's 8235 words, 50 kilobytes, which is arguably too long. Per this site, there are approximately 197,000 words in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, so the summary is roughly 4% as long as the original. Does anybody here have any suggestions? Clearly nobody has any issues with summaries that are up to a thousand words or so, so the question becomes where to draw the line. --Arcadian 16:08, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I think it is up to the contributors how long it should be. Considering the interest in the book and its overall length, the current one seems fine. Only the court can determine where to draw the line, and in my opinion, this is extremely unlikely to happen in this case. First of all, that article is precisely the kind of thing fair use was designed for. Secondly, there is very little verbatim copying from the book, so any copyright case would be pretty weak. Thirdly, most litigants will contact any web site first and ask for objectionable material to be removed before a lawsuit is even a possibility.  The Steve  07:03, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

Copyright law clarification question

I think there is a mistake in the first sentence of this guideline. The sentence says that copyright law and fair use allow for considerable "uses" of copyrighted material, but isn't fair use actually a copying exception? Correct me if I am wrong, but does copyright law restrict the use of a legally obtained individual physical copy of a work or does it only come into play when copies or derivative works are distributed? There seems to be a lot of confusion over whether copyright law generally, and the word "use" in "fair use" specifically, applies to either: the fairness of and allowance for making copies, or, how the original legally obtained physical copy can be used. zen master T 20:59, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

  • "Use of material" not "use of a physical object". BTW, every time one views an HTML page, image, etc. with a browser, one is making an (electronic) copy on the client system. So "copying" doesn't exactly capture the issue, either. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:47, July 23, 2005 (UTC)
I agree, but first and foremost there is actually a significantly large amount of language confusion surrounding whether copyright law itself and fair use specifically has jurisdiction over how a legally obtained physical copy can be "used". See a lengthy discussion here and also note this guideline had been errantly/ambiguously referring to "use" before I clarified it (was my change clear?). zen master T 09:22, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Music clip

How long can a fair use sound clip from a particular song be? Is one verse or refrain ok if it is made "to illustrate the point"? --Salleman 11:50, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

  • There are no hard and fast rules. I recommend using the shortest clip that effectively illustrates the point. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:18, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

Moving fair use Images to Wikipedia Commons?

Can images labeled as fair use be transfered to wikipedia commons to be used in other language wikis or does the US copyright law restrict this? --141.113.101.21 07:11, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

  • No. Don't do this. Commons does not accept fair use images. US copyright law isn't the issue, the issue is Commons' policy (and possibly other countries' copyright law). -- Jmabel | Talk 20:00, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

Scanning Trading Cards

can sports cards be scanned and used as the picture on a sports player's page? Brun8 22:56, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

  • I can't say anything definitive, but I think it would be pretty common practice. Using one card for a player would probably be appropriate (and the card should certainly be presented whole, not cropped, and the image page should describe it precisely and give its copyright information); using multiple cards of the same player would almost certainly not be fair use unless you were specifically illustrating a change of presentational image by that person. -- Jmabel | Talk 16:14, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject:Fair use

For those interested in fair use issues, and improving Wikipedia's implementation of fair use, I encourage you to visit the new Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use. Thanks. --Fastfission 19:39, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Ten point system

I think the ten point system for determining fair Fair Use needs more explanation. How many yeses or nos are supposed to qualify an image for Fair Use? The system should also probably be in its own section, and I might take care of this. Theshibboleth 03:41, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I think the whole ten point system is needlessly complicated and hence is rarely if ever used. It currently seems to function as a flowchart rather than an additive point system -- if you follow the instructions you should eventually get to a section which says you can or can't use the image. But I think this is a poor way to do it -- it would be better to just state the requirements in a straightforward way. --Fastfission 14:40, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Copyright question

I hope someone who knows a bit more about copyright than I do can help me out with this. :) My question is the following: I'd like to upload an image of the Fuller brooch to the article. There is an image that's linked in the article (which originally comes from [4]); I'm wondering about whether one could claim fair use now or not, but what's more important, I wonder if the image is copyrightable at all. Considering that the brooch displayed is more than 1000 years old (and thus in the public domain itself, as far as copyright is concerned) and considering that the photograph is merely a photographic reproduction of the brooch, it seems that the reasoning behind Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. is applicable, but that ruling only applies to two-dimensional artwork (which the brooch isn't).

So, my questions are... would it be OK to upload the image? If yes, should it be tagged as fair use or as PD? If no, why not? Thanks. :) -- Schnee (cheeks clone) 20:08, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

As I understand it, a photo of a three-dimensional object is copyrightable. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:27, August 28, 2005 (UTC)
OK, thanks. Are there any court decisions etc. on this? I'm asking since it seems to me that the core argument of the case mentioned above - namely, the lack of originality - is still applicable even for three-dimensional objects, or at least if the picture in question is simply a straightforward photograph of the front of the piece. -- Schnee (cheeks clone) 01:19, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Overhaul

I have boldly updated this page in line with discussion on Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use, the mailing list, and User talk:Jimbo Wales. In general, it is widely believed that we need a policy on what sort of fair use material we are willing to accept, and this is my attempt at that.

Please edit it to make it better.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 15:59, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Policy

All of these requirements are met or one? It should specify not imply. --None-of-the-Above 04:24, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Photo Assistance

Is AFP.com a fair use site. I would like to consider using this photo of President located at http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050901/photos_pl_afp/050901155931_hc7pmpn4_photo0 Kindly advise.Kyle Andrew Brown 20:02, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

  • There is no such thing as a "fair use site". Whether individual photographs can be used under "fair use" policies does not depend on the site, but since AFP makes their living selling these photographs, it would be especially important to establish an adequate "fair use" rationale. In this case, it would depend on where you want to use this photo. --Fastfission 18:16, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Problems

Here are just a few problematic statements in the present version of the page:

To my knowledge, our use of publicity photos must be as "fair use", because we no longer allow the use of limited licenses.

  • News and wire service photos published in 1923 or later. Not permitted. These are copyrighted and there is no fair use exemption for them.

What's the justification for saying "there is no fair use exemption for them"? I don't see why these are being treated different than any other copyrighted media. I do believe that there should be a special warning for using photographs whose copyrights are owned by companies who make their income exclusively off of photograph licenses (because the argument that we are defrauding them is a lot stronger), but there are many instances in which said use could still be "fair" in my mind. What's the rationale behind such strongly worded text?

  • Photographs of plants, wildlife, and other natural history subjects. Not permitted. Fair use doesn't provide a general "educational" exemption for such material.

Same question as the news photos. Obviously if it is feasible to take our own pictures of the thing in question (no need to "fair use" a photograph of a dog, for example, as there are many dogs), "fair use" wouldn't apply. But if it is something more specific, I don't see why it wouldn't qualify as "fair use" ("Bruno, the wild dog of the Pampas, known for eating cattle" or something like that).

  • Often an image will be both fair use and licensed use. The license protects the uploader and the Wikipedia, while others can use the image as fair use. This is particularly likely when the uploader is not in the US and may not be able to legally use fair use without infringing under their own local copyright law. It's always good to have the legal protection of even a very restrictive license for a work being used under fair use. To assist reusers, do give both the license details and the fair use rationale. In these cases, the license will govern use outside the US, while those in the US can use fair use.

I think this whole section should be deleted, personally (along with the similar tags). "Fair use" is a defensive claim because you don't have permission; a license is a form of permission — they should not be confused with one another. I think it also confuses the re-using issue. Images licensed only to Wikipedia are not allowed on Wikipedia. The only way to use a copyrighted image on Wikipedia which is not licensed for any use is to use it under a "fair use" claim, if one applies. --Fastfission 19:06, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Fair use depends on the, well, use. Regarding news and wire service photos, there may indeed be a way for them to be fair use in certain uses by other people, but by the nature of this project and what it does -- basically as a news sort of site itself -- we would be using the photos for the exact same purpose that the wire service makes money off of them. If people could just use them legally for free for these uses then they'd never sell any. I don't quite get what whoever came up with the plants and wildlife sentence was thinking though... possibly along the same lines, in that there has to be some convincing reason to think we can violate copyright law and do fair use, and for those the person who wrote it thought there wouldn't be any argument. Really, fair use is just such a dog here, as 99% of the people trying to use it have no clue at all what it means, so we may have to write a policy more strict than we technically need to follow by law just to keep the editors from going amuck. And, that last section is quite muddled. The person who came up with it would have to explain the rationale, because I'm not really following. DreamGuy 06:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Images of art

Are all images of all visual art fair use? I know of a photo of King Tut's death mask that someone claims the copyright to. Can we use it here? Can we edit it and use it here? Jim Apple 05:17, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

It's quite possible for a photo of a three-dimensional object to be copyrighted, even if the original is out of copyright. --Carnildo 05:49, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
No image is inherently fair use, fair use is a matter of how you use the image.
Also, I think you may be confusing fair use and public domain. Fair use applies specifically to certain uses of copyrighted images.
So I'm not quite sure what you want to know. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:51, September 10, 2005 (UTC)
I think this is a question about the Bridgeman v. Corel implications. Making a 2-D reproduction of a 2-D work of art which is already in the public domain does NOT create a new copyright (in the United States). Making a 2-D reproduction of a 3-D work of art which is already in the public domain DOES create a new copyright (because it involves some form of originality and creativity in arrangement). So a photo of King Tut's death mask can definitely be copyrighted. --Fastfission 12:39, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Images of institutions

If an institution such as a school puts an image of its building on the front page of its website, to describe and/or promote itself, it it fair use to copy that image and use it to describe that institution in an article about it? Kappa 00:31, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Legally? Maybe. Under Wikipedia's rules? Probably not. Since images of buildings are usually pretty easy to create, there's no reason to use a non-free image. --Carnildo 03:26, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia will pay for my air fare? Kappa 03:38, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
No, but it will pay your expenses for contacting a Wikipedian with a camera in the general area. See Category:Wikipedians by location. --Carnildo 06:35, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Template changes

For some time now I've been thinking about and discussing more potential policy changes and clarifications for fairuse images, but finding something which strikes a balance between our many needs and many perspectives is very difficult. Still, the existing system leaves a lot to be desired, and there is a lot of argument related to fair use images. Some users believe we are overusing fair use and reducing the freeness of Wikipedia, while others counter with the fact that fair use is essential to our goal of producing an encyclopedia. Virtually all who have evaluated the situation agree that there are a lot of incorrectly tagged images.

Recently, the new speedy delete criteria for unsourced images has caused a lot of additional discussion about all facets of image copyright handling on Wikipedia. After extensive consultation with quite a few Wikipedians I have decided that there is a lot more to gain by changing some details in our procedures rather than proposing a more comprehensive policy change. As a result I have created two new templates: {{fairusenoalternative}} and {{fairusereplace}}.

Both templates share a common characteristic: two variables. These allow (and encourage) the user of the template to provide both where the work is fair use, and why the work is fair use. This is necessary because all fair use is dependent on context and must always have a basis. I do not suggest we impose standards on what goes into the why field right away, but rather feel out what is most useful. The two templates differ from each other because they separate fairuse into two broad classes. In one class we have fair use where there can be no alternative to that work. For example, if we are writing about a copyrighted painting there is no freely available work which could act as a reasonable alternative to the use of an excerpt of the painting in that context. The other class is for works where, while our use would be considered fair use by law in the US, it is possible to create free works which would act as a good replacement. For example, we might currently be using a fair use photograph of Steve Jobs but anyone can take a picture of him, and many possible pictures would do as good or better of a job as the fair use image. Because Wikipedia is the free Encyclopedia, we prefer the freely licensed image when we have an option. It is possible for a work to have multiple instances of both tages, because the replaceability of the work and the rationale of the use may differ from linking article to linking article. However, I think situations requiring multiple tags will be rare.

After the tags are in wide use, the plan is to convert the existing {{fairuse}} into a message requesting fairuse review and disambiguation. We also have some subject-area fair use tags which may benefit from being split and being provided with where and why fields. Enjoy!--Gmaxwell 16:55, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Cover Photos

Apparently not everyone has the same idea as to whether a magazine cover may be used for the article of the person appearing on the front cover. See User talk:Evil Monkey#Playboy covers for a discussion about this. I think everyone should be agreed on this before a bunch of people remove cover photos and then a lot of other people see it the opposite way around. Thanks Dismas|(talk) 16:10, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Covers of media should be used to illustrate the media in question, not the subject of the cover. In cases where the media in question is quite notable, such as Playboy, this can usually be cleared up by a good image caption and the addition of a few sentences regarding the subject's appearance on the magazine cover to the article text. However, magazine covers are not automatically fair use in articles about the subject; care is required. I would also generally discourage this use because the fair use claim isn't as solid as one for an article that primarily contained commentary about the media itself, as well as the fact that it should be easier to get a free replacement (or at least a better fair use replacement). JYolkowski // talk 20:53, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
Okay, so if I understand this correctly, we can use magazine covers if the appearance on the cover is discussed in the article and it plainly states in the caption that the image is being used to show the magazine with said person on the cover? Dismas|(talk) 12:13, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
That's what I believe. There have been some discussions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fair use about this as well, and those discussions seem to have reached a similar conclusion. JYolkowski // talk 20:47, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Mugshots

Example image Unless a city has a policy to put work generated by city employees as part of their job into the public domain, then that work is still protected by copyright. So, how does/should this apply to mugshots? The purpose of these images is somewhat similar to that of publicity shots in the entertainment industry with the major difference being the wishes of the subject. In that case, the images are copyrighted, yet the holder of that copyright let's them be used rather freely in order to drum up publicity. That makes it easier for us to make a fair use claim on those type of images. Does this also apply to mugshots? Is there even a market for mugshots that may be damaged by copyright infringement? What should our policy on mugshot use be? --mav 04:17, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, that particular image is from the Los Angeles Police Department, who certainly seems to think they can claim copyright on their content (see [5]). I don't think the wishes of the subject are required to be taken into consideration for copyright questions, as they are not the copyright holder and would have no standing for a copyright-related suit. I do not think there is a market at all would damage the copyright holder in this instance, though, which would make it not terribly difficult fair use claim for Wikipedia. The images are certainly distributed with intention of potential reuse of some sort. I think it's a pretty low-risk fair use category. --Fastfission 01:03, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
Another thing to consider is the fact that mugshots are very uncreative, which should help our fair use claim with regards to "the nature of the work". JYolkowski // talk 14:11, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
Mugshots are no more uncreative than many portraits, and some are great pictures (the Hugh Grant one springs to mind), as people are in unexpected situations. I dont see how copyright is in any way different from any other picture. And most of the so-called publicity photos we have are not. I would be against using these. Justinc 12:12, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
I think they are as "creative" as anything else when it comes to the legal definition of creativity, but I don't think they are a dangerous category of images. I find it very, very unlikely that a police department would ever use legal action against an encyclopedia reprinting a mugshot of theirs. At least, I've never heard of anything like it. The lack of a true market for these makes it a pretty strong fair use claim as well. --Fastfission 12:29, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Thats the sort of thinking that has got fair use into the horrible mess its now in. LAPD say "Trademark and Copyright 1998 by the Los Angeles Police Department, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. All materials published on the Site are protected by copyright, and owned or controlled by the Los Angeles Police Department, or the party listed as the provider of the content, software or other materials. Commercial use of the materials is prohibited without the written permission of the Los Angeles Police Department." So they should at least be tagged as noncommercial if they are from LAPD, but its worse, they specifically forbid "UNAUTHORIZED COPYING, REPRODUCTION, REPUBLISHING, UPLOADING, DOWNLOADING, POSTING, TRANSMITTING OR DUPLICATING ANY OF THE MATERIAL IS PROHIBITED. You may download or copy any downloadable materials displayed on the Site for home, noncommercial and personal use only, provided that you maintain all copyright, trademark and other notices contained in such material and you agree to abide by all additional copyright notices, information or restrictions contained in any material accessed through the Site.". These people are protecting their copyright. We are blatently ignoring this. We have no justification at all for this. Delete these images. Justinc 12:47, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
We're claiming that we believe we are allowed to blatently ignore their copyright because we believe our use falls under fair use (assuming that we agree it does). We wouldn't need to claim fair use if we had permission to freely use the photographs or they were not copyrighted. JYolkowski // talk 01:16, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
But its much weaker than (say) a magazine cover or something, where there is a presumption that the copyright owner doesnt think its that important, as it is the whole magazine that they are interested in. This sort of notice puts them in a position where they assert importance, and it is not far off a clickthrough license (I see that the Apple publicity photo on Steve Jobs probably did have clickthrough). We arent using it for criticism (in case linked above), merely identification (the weakest grounds for fair use) not sure we should claim this ever, certainly not with terms like this that forbid it. If you got a dvd cover that said "Do not use this to illustrate this item for sale or other purposes", then using it to illustrate the film in wikipedia would be dodgy. Its only the (dubious) assumption that people dont care that supports this. If there was real critical use this might change. Justinc 01:46, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
Let's discuss one kind of media at a time here, because you're mixing up the issues at stake a bit. It seems irrelevant to the "fair use" clause as to whether or not the copyright holder asserts a strong copyright claim. The two things that matter, as far as I can see, is 1. the possible interpretations of the four-factor test as applied to this instance, and 2. whether or not any of those interpretations are enough to likely get us into legal hot water (that is, give the copyright holder a good reason to think it is worth going to court over). Our "character of use" is educational, nonprofit, encyclopedic. The "nature of the work" is factual rather than imaginative (I take back what I said before about creativity -- with "fair use" the bar is higher than with establishing copyright, it seems), and if we have a copy of it on here it has almost certainly been previously published. I'm still not sure how to interpret "subtantiality" when it comes to images, but even claiming that we use the entire work does not seem likely to me to tip the scale very much in this sort of case. And lastly, the "effect on future markets" is nil, since these police departments derive no revenue from their mugshots, as far as I can tell. That sounds like "fair use" to me, but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise. --Fastfission 03:16, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
I feel that I should mention that I discovered a few monthes ago that all mugshots originating from the United States from state and local governments are in the public domain. Not all states and cities have a policy that states that all work generated by employees as part of their job is in public domain, but only the federal government can grant a copyright, and some works have been deemed ineligible because of their nature. Mugshots are used as part of public arrest records, I sent an inquiry to the US copyright office and they assured me that public records are ineligible for copyright for public policy and also because public information cannot be copyrighted. --Fallout boy 05:05, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
This is absolutely true and needs to be highlighted. I don't know what the people above were thinking when they claimed the police would have to specifically release it as public domain. Work done by government bodies as part of their standard public works implicitly do not carry copyrights. Mugshots, reports by government organizations, etc. etc. If they hire an outside contractor for something it's possible that the contract doesn't purchase the rights, and if it's not part of their direct public official capacity, well, then, yeah, we need to be careful, but our taxpayer money already paid for all of us to own these kinds of things equally. DreamGuy 06:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree that Mugshots are public domain as per above reasons. What about photographs of most wanted men, say Osama bin Laden: Image:Osama-med.jpg? A more interesting example is Image:Laden.gif with a claim that it was created by the FBI !? In most cases, we don't know who are the copyright holders. Most likely, it belongs to the criminal or his affiliate, do we have to respect their copyrights then? (I'm only refering to the most notorious type of criminals with article in WP, and the photos are widely distributed.) In my opinion, these photographs were seized by government and released to the public, hence they are in PD, but I seek further comments here. Thanks. --Vsion 09:28, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Honestly I'm not sure if those would be public domain or not, but clearly they'd be at the very least fair use, if used here to accompany an article mentioning the search for them. DreamGuy 09:37, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Let's try to work out the chain which resulted in the photos being published worldwide: - 1. Azahari Husin and Nordin Mohamad Top are suspected of being terrorists and allegedly committed various acts of terrorism in Indonesia. 2. The Indonesian authorities do their best to find the latest photographs and descriptions of the alleged perps within their records, failing such, relays a request to the M'sian authorities for assistance. 3. The M'sian authorities in turn search their records, i.e. identity cards and passport registration records, failing such, resort to requisitioning the latest photos from their relatives, friends et cetera. Of course, their friends and relatives could always cite copyright issues...but they don't. 4. The photos are relayed to the Indonesian authorities for publication nationwide in order to assist with the arrest of the perps, if possible. At this point of time, the M'sian authorities or the owners of the photographs could again easily cite copyright issues...but they don't. 5. The perps are also enjoying international limelight and a lot of people are eager to know about these two previously obscure Malaysian terrorists. There will be demand for news...and photographs of them. At this point, we haven't even heard of the chicago(?) guy and the collector of little things citing copyright issues. 6. One of them is unceremoniously gunned down in Java, Indonesia for resisting arrest...generating a lot of goodwill for the Indons at the White House...and a lot of publicity for the dead perp. Most M'sian and Ind'sian papers and newsreports show Azahari Husin's photograph, the very same one appearing in Wikipedia later...yet, no complains so far (except maybe for the family). 7. As we are reaching the end, there is a realisation that no-one, and I mean NO-ONE has come forth to seek royalties for those photos or citing copyright issues. Furthermore, there are no alternative photos available for these two perps. Therefore, the photos currently available in public domain are what the authorities believe to be the latest images (in order to assist with identification) and the issue relating to the release of the photos are of public concern. N.B. Obviously the two perps would not have volunteered their mugshots. Oi. Babyrina2 01:46, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Stop calling them "fair use images"

I think the tendency to call unlicensed images used under the term "fair use images" tends to mislead editors into assuming they can use an image when they can't. I, therefore, think we should avoid using that phrase and instead use the term "unlicensed images". Images being used under the fair use doctrine are not licensed; the fair use doctrine merely permits the use of the image without a license. We have to make it crystal clear to people that fair use is a per-instance doctrine that authorizes an image to be used only in a specific context and that the image itself remains unlicensed and is not available for general use outside that context. Kelly Martin 00:37, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Zach (Sound Off) 00:53, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
Good idea. Can anyone think of a term that has even more negative connotations? --Carnildo 04:34, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
Unfree? Non-free? Restricted use? Limited use? Bovlb 15:52, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
Constrained-use? (also: subservient, captive, enslaved, enthralled, subjugated ;D) -- Sitearm | Talk 16:57, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
Unlicenced? That is in essense what they are. The use in the article may be fair use, but the image is just plain unlicenced. --fvw* 20:54, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Very specific fair use question

I'd like to use an image of an IBM 603 tube multiplier found here on the CPU page I'm rewriting. Of course the image is probably Copyright IBM, but in their "Terms and conditions" set forth for that portion of the site (here), they explicity state "Fair educational use of the contents of this Web site is permitted." Does uploading this image to Wikipedia qualify as proper fair use under our rules? I find it very unlikely that IBM would agree to license the image under a Free license or release it to public domain, so I think application of fair use is the best way to go here. I'm pretty sure this is kosher, but wanted to be positive before I use the image. -- uberpenguin 20:43, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to see what other people say, but I think it seems fairly reasonable. It's a photo from the archives of the company that made the product, the archives encourage fair use, and it sounds pretty difficult to get a free equivalent. JYolkowski // talk 21:38, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
It sounds like a very low risk of a problem to me, I'd go with it. Noting all of things you wrote above on the image description page would make it even more so. --Fastfission 02:12, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Allright, I uploaded it to Image:IBM_603_multiplier.jpg .. I had to use the old and unfavored fair-use tag because nothing else applies. Hopefully nobody will find a problem with it. -- uberpenguin 15:52, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
That sounds rather close to {{permission}} to me. Certainly {{noncommercial}}. A bit dubious. Justinc 12:07, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
ARGHH... I don't want to rant here, but it's really frustrating that careful editors have to debate about the usage of an image that is both explicitly allowed for educational fair use and is extremely difficult to impossible to obtain in either public domain or under a free license. I am loathe to point out that there isn't a legal entity in the world that would construe usage of that image on a Free encyclopedia page as 'commercial usage.' Have any helpful suggestions like, say, where to find public domain images of early electronic computer multiplier units? The only good source would be the military, and there are few good military images of later Von Neumann tube-based computers. I do understand the preference for free and public domain images, but is exclusion of rare and useful images really a better alternative? What about things like CPU dies? I'd like to include an image of one of those, but the chances of getting one under free license is nearly impossible since the people that TAKE those sorts of images are generally IC manufacturers, not independant photographers or government agencies. -- uberpenguin 13:36, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
I will see what there is in the UK. The Science Museum has a large collection (although mostly not on display, although not hard to arrange to see, and I could take photos). The Computer History museum in the US probably has quite a lot too. If there are specific things you want, drop me a note on my talk page; I will try to find out if they have a catalogue. Manchester, Bletchley park and UCL have some stuff too. Even though a lot of stuff was scrapped, parts often survive. And most historical collections are likely to be free about relicensing for wikipedia I think. Justinc 10:45, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
Nobody's denying that we are non-commercial, but the point is that we're trying to make an encyclopaedia that's freely redistributable, which includes by commercial entities. If we use non-commercial-use-only images, we're no longer the Free encyclopaedia but only the free encyclopaedia. --fvw* 16:29, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
I think this is the point that everyone just ignores. We claim to be "educational" (although whether that provision would include an educational work as well as use in educational settings is something you'd need to consider past cases to be sure on) but we also allow our work to be used by commercial sources. Couldn't a clever lawyer argue that we are, in fact, using copyrighted material for commercial purposes, in that we are working on behalf of commercial organisations? I'm not sure that the doctrine of fair use is intended to allow copyrighted photos to illustrate encyclopaedias without payment to the copyright holders anyway, and I think we rely on the unlikelihood of being sued rather than any certainty in law. The noncommercial part of the fair use clause is only one factor that the courts can consider, after all. -- Grace Note
Then we knowingly and severely limit the number, quality, and relevance of images that can be used. This makes it significantly more difficult to create great articles. Whatever, I'm not here for wikipolitics, just let me know what I should do with the image as it is and if you have any alternative suggestions for me. -- uberpenguin 18:45, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
If I were you I'd ask IBM to put the image under a free licence anyway. Yes, they might be a huge inflexible corporate giant, but it's amazing how many people are willing to help out now wikipedia has gotten popular. --fvw* 22:05, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Will do... The worst that can happen is the request is denied (or ignored... or sent in, sent back, sent here, sent there, lost then found again, then subject to public inquiry then finally buried under a pile of soft peat for 3 months then recycled as firestarters). Eh... I'll do it this weekend :) -- uberpenguin 22:18, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Fair use without source

Does fair use of an image require that we list the source of that image, legally or by our own policy? I've noticed quite a few images getting marked as fair use for reasonable fair use rationales but without their source being specified. --fvw* 20:53, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

A source is required in order to claim fair use. Unsourced images will be deleted without warning. Kelly Martin 21:32, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
If we don't know any source, we can't determine the nature of the work, the portion of the work copied, and the impact on the original work - that's three out of the four factors that we need to consider in determining fair use. It would seem very, very unlikely that we could claim fair use in this case. JYolkowski // talk 21:37, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
Still, listing the source is not a requirement, just makes it harder to claim a fair use defense. I believe something like a headshot of a deceased public figure illustrating an article about that person would be fair use whether the copyright holder was known or not. Also, we have the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act on our side if we screw up. --Nv8200p (talk) 22:10, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
(as wrote as User talk:Nv8200p
I was going to say see Wikipedia_talk:Fair_use#Wikipedia_talk:Fair_use but you have already been there. The problem of being unable to determine the original work and therefore the way it is used is a big point. Many fair use images are crops for example, but if all you can judge them by is the resolution it is hard to say whats reasonable. Remember this is a wiki - we all have to be able to judge on other peoples decisions and comment on them, so if we cant see the original work I cant see any way of doing this (if its from a book rather than the web at least we can find a few contributors who can access it - source neednt be online). I believe that quite a few people lie about sources too. Remember fair use images are someone elses property, and we have to be careful. Images are worse, as most of the case law (and legislation) is based around text quotations, and part of the point of them is you are quoting the source (unless it is truly anonymous). You dont write about a film or book while omitting to mention who wrote/directed/starred in it. Not knowing where a picture came from suggests a lack off basic knowledge to base criticism on. Justinc 22:42, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

How flexible is fair use on a political poster?

We legitimately use Image:Afis.jpg this image at Great Romania People's Party. We currently lack an image for Corneliu Vadim Tudor, head of that party, depicted on the poster. The template claims fair use justification for "identification and critical commentary on the poster itself or the political movement it represents". Do I correctly understand this to mean that we cannot use the poster in the article on Vadim Tudor? -- Jmabel | Talk 17:52, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, it depends how you use it. If you use it with the caption, "This is Vadim Tudor", yeah, that might be stretching it. If you used it with the caption "Tudor used as the symbol of X, Y, and Z, on the poster for the Great Romania People's Party", would in my mind probably be fine and count as "commentary on the poster itself". --Fastfission 13:45, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Audio clips question

Does anyone have guidance on roughly how long a sample of a copyright sound recording may be and qualify as a "brief song clip"? --Tabor 03:11, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

no longer than 30 seconds or 10% of the total length of the recording. Rossrs 05:51, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
It's hard to put a real number on it, but one should be as conservative as possible on this issue. Rossrs' suggestion isn't bad. --Fastfission 13:48, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Use of lyrics

I wasn't sure if I should post this here or on the Help desk but I put it here for now.

There is some reverting going on on the Bob Dylan page right now regarding the use of lyrics in the article. About this edit [6] in particular. I was wondering if this classifies as fair use. Thanks Akamad 00:45, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Looks ok to me; as far as I remember that songs pretty long so this is a very small portion, so in the context of comment (which it is) looks fine. Justinc 01:23, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Seems reasonable to me too. JYolkowski // talk 04:25, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Presentation of lyrics without substantive commentary on those lyrics, as in the dubious edit, is almost never fair use. Length alone is not sufficient to demonstrate fair use, especially for song lyrics; the same excerpt which may be fair use in an album review will not be fair use if used as an epigraph in a novel. The extremely tenuous, alternative, fair use claim for the illustrative use of the lyrics is completely vitiated by the fact that the lyrics are available on the artist's own site, to which the article could be linked. As with images, the fair use status of quoted text should be substantiated by the editor who includes it; fair use is not presumptive. Note the extremely relevant commentary here: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter1/1-b.html Monicasdude 14:44, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
from the page you linked:
"Under the fair use doctrine, you could reproduce a few lines of a song lyric in a music review without getting permission from the songwriter (or whoever owns the copyright in the song"
This says you dont need permission for a music review - it doesnt say you must have direct analysis (or "substantive commentary") of the lyrics. and while the wikipedia is not a music review, i think it would fit under the same category. it is an overview.
And in chapter nine on that website: "quoting a few lines from a Bob Dylan song in a music review" is listed under fair use. SECProto 15:15, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
But it doesn't say that you can quote a few lines in writing that's not a review. And an encyclopedia article is simply not a music review. A review is, virtually by definition, commentary on the subject of its review. As I said above, an excerpt that is "fair use" in a direct review will often not be fair use in a different context. Monicasdude 15:28, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
That is your opinion. I believe the article to be a review of the musician - and therefore the lyrics, which were in context, did belong there. SECProto 01:13, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
Moreover, Monicasdude is on tenuous ground in claiming the lyrics used on the Bob Dylan page are not "substantative commentary". It is clear that the presentation is accompanied by commentary on the lyrics; we're not necessarily aiming for some ethereal standard of "brilliant analysis" as long as we have a basic relevance. Obviously, "brilliant" is desirable; but even mediocre reviewers have fair use rights (and WP articles get better with editing, as long as the process is not disrupted by harmful reverts). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 01:57, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
    • A few thoughts:
    • The article is not the review of a musician. It is an encyclopedia article. Reviews express POV ("This guy is good/bad/complex"); our articles are not supposed to express anything but a neutral point of view. Just a point to remember.
    • The lyrics in question (as far as I can tell by this revert) are used in the text of the article, are explicitly referenced in the article, and are an extremely small excerpt from the overall song. They do not limit the economic value of the copyrighted material in any way I can imagine. Criticism does not have to mean semiotic analysis -- using a small amount of them in context to talk about the tone of a song or period is certainly within the definition of commentary and criticism.
    • They honestly look fine to me. I was expecting a long list of lyrics or quotes appended to the bottom of the article to be the question of dispute; instead they are actually being discussed in the text and it is only one line of lyrics from one song. I don't think there is any danger of the copyright holder thinking this wouldn't be a perfectly fine "fair use". It seems to satisfy all four of the rationale just fine. --Fastfission 02:12, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

As I wrote on Talk:Bob Dylan, the use of six lines of lyrics from a historically significant Dylan song unquestionably falls under fair use. Whether or not we're writing a review is irrelevant. The law doesn't restrict fair use with such specifics. Rhobite 02:54, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

'Review' is a red herring; its just an example on the Stanford site. The law says nothing about reviews, it mentions critical commentary which this undoubtably is. There is simply no reasonable doubt that this is fair use. Justinc 17:28, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Album covers: Strike two lines from policy?

I have suggested at Template talk:Albumcover that the following two lines:

  • The material must contribute significantly to the article (e.g. identify the subject of an article, or specifically illustrate relevant points or sections within the text) and must not serve a purely decorative purpose.
  • The material should only be used in the article namespace. They should never be used on templates (including stub templates and navigation boxes) or on user pages. They should be linked, not inlined, from talk pages when they are the topic of discussion. Because "fair use" material is not copyright infringement on Wikipedia only when used for strictly encyclopedic reasons, their use in other contexts is likely copyright infringement.

...should be stricken from the Policy section of this page. See, for example: Template:Album infobox 2 (and its being kept per consenus at Templates for deletion). However, this is not only the case with Album covers. See also Template:The Beatles, which also uses "Fair Use" images as decoration for a template. There are a number of other examples. I'd suggest that consensus seems to be that such use is desirable, so review of the policy appears necessary. If the policy should not be changed for some reason, I would suggest that nominating such Templates for deletion is unlikely to result in consensus to delete. Jkelly 18:32, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I've removed four copyvio images from Template:The Beatles. --Carnildo 18:48, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
Is that what you suggest should be done with every template using an image tagged as Fair use? That would both be a large project and meet with a lot of resistance from some editors. Jkelly 18:54, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
Assuming the Google search is correct, I've gotten rid of all uses of fair-use images in infoboxes, with the exception of some of the stub templates and Crown Copyright tags. There really aren't all that many of them -- only one other music navbox, three automobile company navboxes, and a mess of copyright tags and stub tags. --Carnildo 22:40, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
No way are we changing this. There is no legal fair use criterion for "decoration". It is correct to remove them all from the templates - there is no reason to delete the templates. Aside from the legal position, this is not desirable either. Justinc 19:17, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
"Decoration" is a judgement call. Please review the difference between Template:Album infobox 2 and Template:Album infobox. They both include an album cover for the article being discussed. The difference between the two is that Template:Album infobox 2 adds two to four (variations exist) other album covers to illustrate previous and later albums in the "chronology" of album releases. Is that decoration? It certainly is the use of Fair Use images in a template. Hundreds of articles are using it. Furthermore, what about The Clash discography? Is that "decoration"? A great many articles are doing something similar to that. Neither our "Policy" here nor our Fair Use rationale at Template:Albumcover reflect how album cover images are being used. Jkelly 19:49, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
I was referring to the beatles one, which has the images on the template. This is absolutely invalid. The other Infoboxes dont contain any images in the template, so are not being used on templates per se; there are no images in template space. For all I know looking at the template the images could be free ones - it might be a series about albums with free cover art for all I know. The use in the discography is dubious as its neither for identification nor commentary - little thumbnails by the actual album in the discography would be better than some generic pictures on the side. Justinc 20:22, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Justinc, it is your opinion that the use of album covers (for Gettin' in Over My Head and What I Really Want for Christmas) at Smile (Brian Wilson album), a Featured Article, is consistent with the sentences "The material must contribute significantly to the article" and "They should never be used on templates (including stub templates and navigation boxes)", and that it meets the rationale given at Template:Albumcover, and so nothing needs changing? Jkelly 21:25, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I dont believe that the policy is supposed to mean that they cannot appear in the instantiation of a template within an article, just that they cannot appear in the template space itself (ie automatically on every instance of the template). If the wording is not clear I think it should be changed. So no I dont think that the usage within Smile is against that policy. The use of the other 2 is probably ok, they are very small and simply for identification, and if we are going to allow the uses of a slighly larger version within each album article it would be difficult to object to the use of them in this way to link the articles. Justinc 21:36, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay, so I propose that the change should be as follows:

  • The material must contribute significantly to the article (e.g. identify the subject of an article, or specifically illustrate relevant points or sections within the text) and must not serve a purely decorative purpose.
  • The material should only be used in the article namespace. They should never be used on templates (including stub templates and navigation boxes) or on user pages.

Does this match how you see the articles being used, and how you think policy should read? Rewording also needs to happen at Template:Albumcover, and I hope that you will contribute to that discussion as well! Jkelly 22:07, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

  • These images are not just decoration; they describe to the users the nature of the topic which they are being invited to research, making them absolutely fair use. Kappa 23:49, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
This is better, but I still disagree. I think that the requirement that material contribute significantly to an article is needed to ensure that we don't have gratuitous use of "fair use" images, which may be a copyright liability if used in significant quantity. I still don't think that fair use material should be used in navigation boxes; if "fair use" applies for an image, I think it should be used in the main article, not in a series box. JYolkowski // talk 00:49, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not clear which images are you referring to, Kappa, of the ones I've brought up. In any case, I'm not really looking to be convinced that any particular use of any particular image is Fair Use. My goal with this (these?) conversations is to draw some attention to whether or not our policy (here) our rationale (at Template:Albumcover) matches our use of the images. Jkelly 01:25, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Per my comments at Template talk:Albumcover, I think that our use of the image usage should be modified to fit our fair use guidelines, not the other way around, because adhering to copyrights is so important. JYolkowski // talk 01:32, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
It seems to me that the current situation, in which we have this "policy" which is neither enforced nor enforcable, is actually a worse situation than loosening it. If we say "let us be careful and minimize the use of Fair Use images", and design our rationales along those lines, and then use them liberally, we are in worse position than beginning from a position of generous "Fair Use" policy with a convincing rationale. Does this make sense to you? Jkelly 03:40, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
No. Once you have good guidelines, you can act on them. This happens every day on here -- people find things which are out of line, and fix them. It is absolutely ridiculous to assume that just because guidelines aren't always adhered to or violations of them haven't been noticed that guidelines should not exist. There are many instances of violations of WP:NPOV but that doesn't mean that we should scrap it. --Fastfission 17:19, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Template:Album infobox 2 does not have any images in the template namespace. So discussing that template in relation to the second line named above is not relevant. I don't really see that the infoboxs use of images in the chronology section violates the first line either. In my view it is within the framework of regulations that we have; "... specifically illustrate relevant points or sections". --Tokle 17:01, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

On a related note: I've come across a few musician articles in which someone changed the discography to a table, and then added an album cover image for each album. I am now removing these images whenever I come across them. The way that I read fair use, at least as it applies in the U.S., is that we could use an album cover in an article about the album itself. There is another issue here, too, concerning usability: clicking on the image brings the user to the "Image:" space, not the album article itself, which is potentially confusing. Both issues were brought up in the {{Album infobox 2}} deletion debate. (Speaking of, someone had mentioned that the consensus was to keep that template; IIRC there was no consensus whether to keep or delete. FWIW.) I had already started to wonder about this when Miles Davis was the article of the day a few weeks ago, and the image was the Kind of Blue cover. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 00:09, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Agency photos

I would appreciate comments on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Fair_use#Newspaper.2Fmagazine_tag_anomoly with reference to: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Fair_use#Images_from_agencies_i.e._wireimages_and_ap. Thanks Arniep 14:02, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Cover art

The phrase "(not for identification without critical commentary)" recently added to "cover art" is pretty cryptic. I imagine if I'd been following this talk page I'd know what was going on, but I haven't, and the project page should stand alone. Can someone reword more clearly to indicate what is and is not acceptable use? -- Jmabel | Talk 17:59, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Inaccurate and confused

The article fair use is about the legal concept. This article is inaccurate in discussing the legal concept. I suggest this article be edited to refer to the article fair use for all uses of the legal aspect so we don't have the problems that go with keeping it accurate in two places, and I suggest this article be clear that it is solely about wikipedia guidance. The two uses of the phrase (fair use law versus fair use guidance) are not the same. WAS 4.250 14:05, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

It does refer to the fair use article, in the first sentence of the second paragraph. This article is, needfully, much more limited than the fair use article, which covers a number of uses that occasionally have gotten confused with what can be used on Wikipedia-- for instance, some university "course pack" policies are much looser than our policies, but some users have tried to apply their language to our context. What do you feel is inaccurate about this article? -- Mwanner | Talk 00:33, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

The first inaccuracy is "The reproduction of any significant portion of a copyrighted work without the permission of the copyright holder is copyright infringement, and is illegal." For example, Wikipedia is copyrighted and it is not illegal to reproduce significant parts of it. Oh, you say, the GFDL does give permission from the copyright holder. So it does; but people reading this page to get their legal understanding of the issue could easily misread it, while in the context of the article fair use "giving permission by for example the use of GFDL" is in keeping with the subject of the article, while in this article it is irrelevant (so says the deleter). "Entire works may be copied under fair use for personal uses and educational uses." is both as true and as false as "The reproduction of any significant portion of a copyrighted work without the permission of the copyright holder is copyright infringement, and is illegal." It's simply not so cut and dried as either. But wikipedia guidance can be mostly cut and dried and simplified. Many more inaccuracies exist in the article and the quoted sentence is wrong for several reasons not simply the ones I just gave. I, again, insist it would be far far better to confine this article to guidance and let the fair use article deal with the legal aspect. WAS 4.250 19:39, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

  • The goal of this page is to make our fair use policy intelligible for the average user with no knowledge of copyright law. One cannot properly use fair use if you do not understand the very basics — use of copyrighted material outside of permission (a license) is infringement unless it is fair use. There is nothing inaccurate about not mentioning all of the varieties of permission and licenses, it is simply prudent not to start off with something which is the exception (most copyrighted works are not GFDL) than the rule. The quoted sentence is just a lead-in into another paragraph about fair use, after having put forward the key issue (avoiding infringment). In any event, all of the legal aspects of fair use here should be limited strictly to Wikipedia as much as possible, but it cannot be devoid of all legal conceptions. The goal is to tell enough of the legal for users to know how to use in relation to adding content to Wikipedia. It is not meant to be comprehensive beyond that nor does it claim to be. --Fastfission 19:52, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Note: I wrote this while Fastfission was writing his, so it's semi-redundant, but FWIW--
    • Well, first, understand that the last thing a person needs when trying to figure out what is and isn't OK on Wikipedia is to be sent off to articles full of legalese that cover everything except what they're looking for. So if you want to try a rewrite, I would suggest making it as self-contained as possible.
    • What I would recommend is something similar to what I did back in November: copy the article to a user/sandbox page, rewrite it to your own satisfaction, then put a notice here for people to take a look at it and comment on it (see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Fair_use/Archive_2#Fair_use_of_text_sources.2C_Policy_rewrite). If everyone thinks it looks good, you then paste it over the existing article.
    • Lastly (and not real importantly), I don't know where you're getting "Entire works may be copied under fair use for personal uses and educational uses", above. -- Mwanner | Talk 20:13, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

This is fair use

The fair use doctrine has been codified in section 107 of the copyright law which contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered “fair,” such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

2. the nature of the copyrighted work;

3. amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

All of these must be taken into consideration. There is no magic formula. [7] WAS 4.250 23:43, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

This is a good example of fair use guidance

[8] WAS 4.250 23:43, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

This is where we should send people for more information

[9] WAS 4.250 23:43, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Entire works may be copied under fair use

"In a lawsuit commonly known as the Betamax case, the Supreme Court determined that the home videotaping of a television broadcast was a fair use. This was one of the few occasions when copying a complete work (for example, a complete episode of the "Kojak" television show) was accepted as a fair use. Evidence indicated that most viewers were "time-shifting" (taping in order to watch later) and not "library-building" (collecting the videos in order to build a video library). Important factors: The Supreme Court reasoned that the "delayed" system of viewing did not deprive the copyright owners of revenue. (Universal City Studios v. Sony Corp., 464 U.S. 417 (1984).)" [10] WAS 4.250 23:43, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

This case has absolutely no relevance to Wikipedia issues, because it does not deal with republication of copyrighted work under a claim of fair use. Monicasdude 13:50, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

A phrase of twelve words may not be copied under fair use

"In a 1979 case, a company copied two of Brilliant's phrases-'I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent' and 'I have abandoned my search for truth and am now looking for a good fantasy'-and altered a third phrase, all for sale on t-shirt transfers. The district court acknowledged that the phrases were distinguished by conciseness, cleverness, and a pointed observation, and ruled that they were protected by copyright." [11] WAS 4.250 00:39, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Note that in this case, the key thing was the medium of reproduction: a T-shirt. This allowed the 12-word phrase to be sold for a sum equivalent to about $15 today. An entire book might go for less. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:19, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Also note the context of this subheading. The previous subsection was "Entire works may be copied under fair use". and both were in furtherance of the point that summarizing fair use law as just don't copy too much is far off the mark and all four equally important factors must be identified (or none). The new intro does just this - name all four. I'd rather ALL the fair use law data go at fair use and the fair use guidance go here, but what we have now is good enough for now for me. WAS 4.250 19:27, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

What are you proposing

I'm really not sure what you're proposing. First, the "Entire works may be copied under fair use" is completely irrelevant to Wikipedia, because the copied work is not being shared with the public. And university fair use policies are at best a weak model for Wikipedia because they don't have to deal with the problem of pass-through to commercial users. The UT example has the same problem, plus it rambles on about all sorts of stuff.

I think it's possible that if you took these sources and tried to distill them down with Wikipedia as your focus, you might get somewhere, but what you've got above, frankly, isn't much of a start. -- Mwanner | Talk 00:21, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Your deletion

You deleted

The reproduction of any significant portion of a copyrighted work without the permission of the copyright holder is copyright infringement, and is illegal. As such, on Wikipedia, which is hosted in the United States, we are normally only able to use material that is not under copyright or is available under a sufficiently free license.
A single exception to this rule exists, recognized in a clause in the copyright act that provides a limited right to use copyrighted material without permission of the copyright holder — what is known as fair use (or "fair dealing" in other countries, where standards may differ).

with an edit summary of "delete an untruth ( a lie). there are 4 important factors in considering fair use. size is only one. in some cases 12 words can not be copied. in other cases the entire work can be copied."

You really need to learn to be more careful in your reading and use of language, especially if you are going to edit policy statements. "Any significant portion" means whatever portion the courts judge to be significant. In some cases, as in the instance you cite, they have judged that 12 words constitute a significant portion of a work. Note, too, that "significant" can refer to any number of different attributes of a portion of text, not just the size.

I have restored the deleted text. Henceforth, please propose changes here before making them in the article. -- Mwanner | Talk 20:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

If we want to rewrite it to be more generalizable, how about:

Under U.S. copyright law, almost all work published after 1922 may have an active copyright (there are exceptions, however — see United States copyright law for details). In general, this guarantees the copyright owner exclusive control over the copyrighted content, and use of such content without permission can constitute copyright infringement and thus be illegal. As such, on Wikipedia, which is hosted in the United States, we are normally only able to use material that is not under copyright (that is, in the public domain), or is available under a sufficiently free license, such as the GFDL (like Wikipedia content itself is).

I don't think that is clearer but it doesn't hash out over what is fair use. In any event, it cannot go from "Under U.S. copyright law" to "This is a page for discussion of fair use" without explaining what fair use is and why we have a policy on it in the first place, which is the entire point of the introduction. --Fastfission 23:34, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I could live with that. Here is a more radical rewrite that might be clearer:
Wikpedia is hosted in the United States, and thus is subject to U.S. copyright law, under which almost all work published after 1922 may have an active copyright (there are exceptions, however — see United States copyright law for details). A copyright grants its owner control over the copyrighted material, and use of such material without permission can constitute copyright infringement and thus be illegal. On Wikipedia we are normally only able to use material that is not under a restrictive copyright in the U.S. (that is, work that is in the public domain, or that is available under a sufficiently free license, such as the GFDL).
I assume you mean to leave the second paragraph intact. I'm tempted to suggest adding something to the end of the first sentence of the 2nd paragraph, along the lines of "where such use does not substantially infringe on the owner's rights." I'm not sure if that just opens another can of worms? -- Mwanner | Talk 00:38, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

The fair use doctrine has been codified in section 107 of the copyright law which contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered “fair,” such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

2. the nature of the copyrighted work;

3. amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

All of these must be taken into consideration. There is no magic formula. For more information about fair use see: [12] [13] [14] WAS 4.250 14:55, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

If you insist on something shorter maybe:

Fair use is roughly the right to use copyrighted work by others without their permission for parody, criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. There are four factors determining fair use: purpose of use, nature of the copied work, how much was copied, and to what extent the copyright holder is deprived of potential markets for the work.

All of these must be taken into consideration. There is no magic formula. For more information about fair use law see: [15] [16] [17] Fair use or the Law section below. WAS 4.250 15:59, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed your posting of these changes yesterday. I'm pretty happy with them, but I think the external links would be better moved to the end and placed in an ==External links== section. Seems to me it would make sense to let the reader at least go through the article once before sending them off for more detailed info. And I think the UT link is overkill, and is considerably weaker than the other two. Other than that, I think it's an improvement. -- Mwanner | Talk 19:50, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
But it seems that Monicasdude has a problem! I will ask what the accuracy issue is. I keep feeling like I'm one step out of synch today: just saw the new post above. -- Mwanner | Talk 19:55, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Please stop inserting inaccurate legal analysis into the article. You have provided no justification for removing the opening references to copyright infringement, which are important in understanding the basis for the applicable Wikipedia policy. Your insistence that Section 107 "codifies" fair use law is plainly incorrect. The "fair use" doctrine predates enactment of section 107, and section 107 by its express terms is not an exhaustive list of factors governing fair use. (For example, section 107 does not address the important "transformative use" standard.) Monicasdude 19:54, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, first, I moved my last comments above yours to make this response to your post make more sense chronologically. Would you please propose alternative text to what is there now, maybe based on WAS 4.250's change? It would be nice if we could all reach consensus on an intro. -- Mwanner | Talk 22:23, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

The US Copyright office says "Although fair use was not mentioned in the previous copyright law, the doctrine has developed through a substantial number of court decisions over the years. This doctrine has been codified in section 107 of the copyright law. ". [18] WAS 4.250 07:19, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, that statement isn't accurate; somebody at the Copyright Office got sloppy. As the US Supreme Court noted in the Ford/Nation [19] copyright litigation, while Congress may have "attempted to codify" the fair use doctrine in section 107 -- and even that's debatable, both in terms of the nonexclusive statutory language and in terms of the legislative history cited by the Court -- "fair use" remains a common law doctrine with constitutional roots, both in the copyright clause itself and in the First Amendment. Continuing judicial development of the doctrine begins with the statutory text, because Congress can expand fair use beyond its constitutional core, but cannot reduce the core protections. But development of the doctrine is not limited to the statute and Congressional intent, as it would be if section 107 were a governing "codification." As the Supreme Court makes clear in the Campbell v. Acuff-Rose decision (the 2LiveCrew/Pretty Woman case) [20], section 107 is not the exclusive base for fair use protection: "The task is not to be simplified with bright-line rules, for the statute, like the doctrine it recognizes, calls for case-by-case analysis."
And nothing you've presented in the slightest bit justifies removing all references to copyright infringement, which, after all, underlies the fair use policy. You're inappropriately using the Sony/Betamax case as a hobbyhorse; that case deals with making, but not publishing, copies of copyrighted work; Wikipedia is publishing material, so that Sony/Betamax is indisputably off point. Monicasdude 15:20, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Templates and "Non Article Space"

This seems pretty puerile considering that fair use itself is a grey area rather than a fine line, why superimpose a fine line here?

The only reason why anyone cares about copyright infringement is because someone is trying to make money off someone's intellectual property or someone is trying to misrepresent intellectual property in a way that would debase the value of said intellectual property. Most of the time here on Wikipedia, I don't think that's the case, particularly in one case recently I ran into with {{user Democrat}}, where someone used this page as an excuse to remove the Democratic Party's logo from a user box.

I've started a rfc on the subject above here.

Now let me ask you, what would the Democratic Party have to to gain from suing Wikipedia/the Wikimedia foundation (a non-profit entity which includes many of its own low-level members) other than bad publicity and perhaps some money that would more than likely be negated by legal costs?

If you'd like, I'm probably going to see the head of New Hampshire's state party tonight, I'll ask her if the DNC would mind at all in regards to "allowing" us to use the logo, but otherwise, I say to all of you -- don't let the fear of litigation quash you from expressing yourself. karmafist 21:34, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

—:IMHO the clear cut "house policy" of not having fair use outside the main namespace is good precicely because the legal aspects themselves is such a gray area. It leaves absolutely no room for misinterpretations. I agree that there are cases where it would probably be just fine to claim fair use outside of the main namespace, and that this rule can seem overly "totalitarian" in some cases, but IMHO turning it into a judgement call is just a too big can of worms to be worth opening. There are already enough problems with people inproperly tagging images, and claiming fair use left right and center in articles. Opening up for "some" fair use images on userpages and such will just result in people interpreting it as a "free for all". If the price for avoiding having to deal with that kind of problems on a regular basis (there are enough copyright and license issues to deal with in the ensyclopedia itself) is to not allow people to display logos of theyr political party, or the movie poster for theyr favourite movie or whatever on thyer userpage then IMHO that's a very very small price to pay. --Sherool (talk) 23:41, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I absolutely disagree there. That is overly "totalitarian". Just give me a legal precedent to make me think any image on a user page would be a problem and i'd stop. There's been none other than random paranoia. Even BD2412, a lawyer, said it's likely that user page/template images such as that one aren't going to infringe any copyrights. This is nonsense, and until there's a clear,structured,and inclusive policy creation/revision/annulment process, I will regard all policies and guidelines to only the spirit of their meaning since they can be changed at a second's notice or with a frightened mob of "consensus". karmafist 05:45, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
I take it this means that you are willing to pay for the Foundation's legal expenses incurred when userspace decoration is challenged in court, succesfully or not, because decorating userspace with stolen intellectual property is crucial to the building of an encyclopedia. Jkelly 06:15, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
"when userspace decoration is challenged in court"? Try if. As to the more general debate of images in templates altogether, well.. just look at what happened to {{Album infobox 2}}. Despite having no consensus, an admin removed it because of copyright/fair-use concerns. Images in templates is a no-brainer (at least for article space)– the templates are included in the article, not viewed on their own (at least, not intended to be viewed on their own; and that in itself is a technicality, not a copyright violation). In so far as images in templates that are used in userspace (so-called "decoration"), I think if karmafist can get permission to use the logo for this, it should be allowed. —Locke Cole 07:27, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
It probably goes without saying that I think that User:Radiant!'s call was a good one. Either Wikipedia needs to decide to take some radical and legally-risky stand that we should push every chance to infringe on copyright under US law, or we need to say that voting by random users on decorative use of copyrighted images doesn't make sense. I wouldn't take the bet that it will be the US Democratic party's logo or album covers that will get us in trouble. They still result in a non-zero chance that we will be distracted from writing an encyclopedia by fighting for the ability to publish non-free material. I don't see the gain. Jkelly 08:55, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
I guess my problem is, if fair-use images are likely to get us in trouble, why do we allow them at all? I know Jimbo has said all fair-use images should be abolished in favor of GFDL images, but in some circumstances this just isn't feasible (album covers, stills from films, etc). And if we're going to allow fair-use images at all (which may be challenged even if they are in compliance with the present policy here), I don't see the big stretch in using images in templates (since those are, most of the time, included in an article where they are relevant). For example, a few months ago there was a campaign by the fair-use cabal to remove all logos from stub templates (such as {{Capcom-stub}}). Those templates were included in articles where that logo probably could be construed as fair-use (but the only explanation was to the policy here, which isn't exactly justified very well beyond "because it says so"). Is there someplace where this particular passage was debated (so I can read up on the reasoning for its inclusion)? —Locke Cole 09:19, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
I think it's a logical extention of the rest of the fair use policy. Fair use images are supposed to be for critical commentary and you are supposed to have a fair use rationale for each page the image is used in (we are nowhere near to be even close to abiding my this in most cases, but efforts are beeing made to sort it out). Those points are very hard to combine with adding the image to a stub template. Besides adding a logo or whatever to a stub template is not needed it does not make the article any better, it's just for show, and if you want to get technical it's also a drain on server resourses, wich is why the most often used templates don't even have GFDL images in them. Simmilarly fair use images on userpages are quite simply not needed, there is no good reason to have them there. Users can still express theyr support for theyr political party or theyr favourite browser or whatever without using any images. Yes some of them can be used perfectly legaly with no risk to the project, but if some images are allowed it become that much harder to convince people that other images are not allowed. I'd rather not have a system where only a real world lawyer can enforce the system, it's unnessesary beurocracy, better with just a zero tollerance rule that everyone can understand (well that still leaves the people who insist everyting they find on the net or take a screenshot of themselves have no restrictions attached, but if they can not be educated they'll end up getting blocked for faking copyright info so no major problem there) even if it's more strict that we are legaly compelled to be. --Sherool (talk) 17:19, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't think a zero tolerance rule is right; we should take these on a case by case basis instead of flatly rejecting fair-use images in templates (be it a stub template, a user page template, or a template included in an article in a prominent way, or whatever). Simply stating that all-fair use images are not allowed in templates just makes it that much more difficult to create an encyclopedia. And I certainly dislike finding work I've done removed with a pointer to this policy with absolutely zero discussion.
I'd also still like a pointer to the discussion that lead to this specific passage being added in the first place. —Locke Cole 09:08, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

We need a consensus on the intro

Intro number one

Under U.S. copyright law, almost all work published after 1922 may have an active copyright (there are exceptions, however — see United States copyright law for details). The reproduction of any significant portion of a copyrighted work without the permission of the copyright holder is copyright infringement, and is illegal. As such, on Wikipedia, which is hosted in the United States, we are normally only able to use material that is not under copyright or is available under a sufficiently free license.

An important exception to this rule exists, recognized in a clause in the copyright act that describes a limited right to use copyrighted material without permission of the copyright holder — what is known as fair use (or "fair dealing" in other countries, where standards may differ). This page is meant as a guideline for dealing with Fair Use materials on the English Wikipedia — it provides general guidance on what is or isn't likely to be fair use and how you can best assist editors when attempting to include material under fair use. However, it is not official policy. You, as the uploader, are legally responsible for determining whether your contributions are legal.

Intro number two

Under U.S. copyright law, almost all work published after 1922 may have an active copyright (there are exceptions, however — see United States copyright law for details). This page is meant as a guideline for dealing with fair use materials on the English Wikipedia — it provides general guidance on what is or isn't likely to be fair use and how you can best assist editors when attempting to include material under fair use. However, it is not official policy. You, as the uploader, are legally responsible for determining whether your contributions are legal.

According to the U.S Copyright Office, fair use is roughly the right to use copyrighted work by others without their permission for parody, criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. There are four factors determining fair use: purpose of use, nature of the copied work, how much was copied, and to what extent the copyright holder is deprived of potential markets for the work. [21]

All of these must be taken into consideration. There is no magic formula. For more information about fair use law see the Law and External links sections below.

comments and votes

  • We need a consensus on the intro. I vote for number two. WAS 4.250 20:59, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Yeah, number two sounds best IMHO. --Sherool (talk) 23:49, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
    • I think we should try to make everyone happy here if possible. If I understand Monicasdude's recent objections, one part is that he wants the second sentence reinstated, but WAS 4.250 has a problem with part of it. I think they could both live with "In general, the use of copyrighted work without the permission of the copyright holder is copyright infringement, and is illegal." This would be the second sentence of the intro.
    • I'm less clear on how to deal with his problem of the relationship between section 107 and fair use as a "common law doctrine with constitutional roots"-- perhaps a brief mention of the fact that the fair use concept is broader than the code, with a link to a discussion (in the fair use article?, in the Law section of this article?).
    • In any case, I think we all want the same thing-- an accurate, comprehensive, but above all, comprehensible guide to Wikipedia editors looking at Fair Use issues. Could we keep at it a bit longer? -- Mwanner | Talk 03:11, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
      • I think we should try to make everyone happy here if possible. I agree. Just no lies. I think they could both live with "In general, the use of copyrighted work without the permission of the copyright holder is copyright infringement, and is illegal." This would be the second sentence of the intro. Sounds good to me. I'm less clear on how to deal with his problem of the relationship between section 107 and fair use as a "common law doctrine with constitutional roots" - Explain to me how this has anything to do with the choice between one and two? Anybody? - perhaps a brief mention of the fact that the fair use concept is broader than the code, with a link to a discussion (in the fair use article?, in the Law section of this article?) - While I think the law stuff should go at fair use, I have zero problem with any truthfull addition if it helps us settle this matter - my BIGGEST problem is reducing it all to "fair use is about the size of the quote" (a misconception Wikipedia seems to go out of its way to encourage). In any case, I think we all want the same thing-- an accurate, comprehensive, but above all, comprehensible guide to Wikipedia editors looking at Fair Use issues. Could we keep at it a bit longer? Absolutely, positively, no doubt about it. WAS 4.250 04:09, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Your comments about "accuracy," "untruths," etc. miss an essential point: the Wikipedia guideline concerning fair use is not intended to say "Whatever fair use allows, Wikipedia allows." It is intended to assure that whatever material is incorporated under a claim of fair use so clearly qualifies as fair use as to avoid controversy and claims of copyright infringement. This means that the Wikipedia guideline must be more restrictive than the doctrine itself, and that it may include bright-line rules that are not strictly required by fair use law. Monicasdude 14:09, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Maybe we've identified the core of our difference. You think there IS a "bright line" for wikipedia. I do not. There is no magic formula. We must not JUST tell them "10% or 30 sec whichever is less" but also WARN them that there is no magic formula, that the courts decide it case by case, that they are legally responsible, that they can not blindly rely on the simplistic semi-bright lines provided, that in the end the courts will weigh 4 important factors (and the first ammendment among other things). Just saying don't copy too much is very dangerous advice. Sometimes everything can be copied. Sometimes 12 words can not be copied. And the example I gave of everything being copied is the most famous case of everything being copied. The example of copying an entire poem exists too as I'm sure you know so I get the impression you are not arguing in good faith. Prove me wrong - show me you aren't just arguing for the sake of arguing. WAS 4.250 14:23, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Audio

I want to know some things, as I find the page Wikipedia:Fair use lacks information on this. Exactly how long is brief, I saw a discussion where it was said not more than 30 seconds or 10% of the original file. Does it mean 30 seconds is always the limit and if the file is not long (not qualified for 30 seconds sample) then I use the 10%, or is 10% usable for longer files which would give 60 seconds sample for 10 minutes surpassing the 30 seconds limit. Also, exactly how much samples should be the maximum for an album, not talking about singles but big enough album. If only there were numerical values like 10% of the number of tracks, more or less, it would help. At least something more appropriate than brief.--DarkEvil 04:12, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

There is no magic formula. The fair use doctrine has been codified in section 107 of the copyright law which contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered “fair,” such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

2. the nature of the copyrighted work;

3. amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

All of these must be taken into consideration. There is no magic formula. For more information about fair use see: [22] [23] [24]

Seven notes copied and used in a song you sell MIGHT cost you money in a lawsuit. Copying AN ENTIRE SONG for personal use is GENERALLY fair use. There is no magic formula. WAS 4.250 04:29, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Or, more practically, on the English Wikipedia, don't use more than 10% or 30 seconds, whichever is less. If you can use less than the limit and still get the point across, even better. --Carnildo 06:58, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm sure this advice is based on something. As I don't know what it is based on, and I'd really like to know, could anyone inform me as to what this (10% or 30 sec - whichever is less) is based on? Someone somewhere said something? a court case? I have no doubt a list of the top 100 songs of 2004 accompanied by song clips of 10% of EACH song could be successfully sued in court. But I'm not a lawyer, so I could easily be wrong. The person publishing (downloading to wikipedia) would be liable. Wikipedia itself wouldn't be liable unless it contributed, oh just maybe like saying 10% was ok. But I'm no lawyer, so maybe I'm wrong. I know I'd feel terrible if I told someone 10%, they got sued and got their wages garnished for the next x years. WAS 4.250 13:19, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

30 sec or 10%

[25] says:

4.2.1 Motion Media

Up to 10% or 3 minutes, whichever is less, in the aggregate of a copyrighted motion media work may be reproduced or otherwise incorporated as part of a multimedia project created under Section 2 of these guidelines.

4.2.2 Text Material

Up to 10% or 1000 words, whichever is less, in the aggregate of a copyrighted work consisting of text material may be reproduced or otherwise incorporated as part of a multimedia project created under Section 2 of these guidelines. An entire poem of less than 250 words may be used, but no more than three poems by one poet, or five poems by different poets from any anthology may be used. For poems of greater length, 250 words may be used but no more than three excerpts by a poet, or five excerpts by different poets from a single anthology may be used.

4.2.3 Music, Lyrics, and Music Video

Up to 10%, but in no event more than 30 seconds, of the music and lyrics from an individual musical work (or in the aggregate of extracts from an individual work), whether the musical work is embodied in copies, or audio or audiovisual works, may be reproduced or otherwise incorporated as a part of a multimedia project created under Section 2. Any alterations to a musical work shall not change the basic melody or the fundamental character of the work. WAS 4.250 13:27, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

How does "in the aggregate" apply or not apply to Wikipedia? Section 1.3 says "These guidelines apply to the use, without permission, of portions of lawfully acquired copyrighted works in educational multimedia projects which are created by educators or students as part of a systematic learning activity by nonprint educational institutions." Is Wikipedia a "nonprint" enterprise? I have doubts about "30 sec or 10%" being applied to copying commercial music to an online encyclopedia (database???). But I'm no lawyer. WAS 4.250 13:35, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

there is NO consensus

[26] says:

[Ninety-three] organizations representing for-profit and nonprofit publishers, the software industry, government agencies, scholars and scholarly societies, authors, artists, photographers and musicians, the movie industry, public television, licensing collectives, libraries, museums, universities and colleges spent untold amounts of money and more than 2 1/2 years of their time and their energy to find agreement on the scope of fair use in various electronic contexts. Now it seems that not enough of their constituents, and in some cases, not even the participants themselves, agreed with the result to qualify the Proposed Guidelines as consensus documents. Forgive the overgeneralization, but users thought the Guidelines were overrestrictive and copyright owners thought they were giving away too much. WAS 4.250 13:46, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

university guidelines based on the TEACH act don't apply

[27] says these are NOT covered

"Digital educational works (Works produced or marketed primarily for performance/display as part of mediated instructional activities transmitted via digital networks) or Unlawful copies (copies you know or reasonably should know were not lawfully made or acquired)"

Further the act only covers accredited, nonprofit educational institutions: "TEACH says it is not copyright infringement for teachers and students at an accredited, nonprofit educational institution to transmit performances and displays of copyrighted works as part of a course if certain conditions are met. If these conditions are not or cannot be met, use of the material will have to qualify as a fair use or permission from the copyright holder(s) must be obtained.". WAS 4.250 13:58, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

courts have rejected a categorical approach

[28] says:

First, the court must examine the nature of the use: Is it for profit, is it for educational or other informational purpose, is it for entertainment? There are no clear lines to this inquiry; courts have rejected a categorical approach, such as to say that uses for entertainment purposes are clearly not fair use. Instead, courts have dealt with infringement on a case-by-case basis to determine whether the infringer's use is fair.

The bottom line is there is no magic formula. WAS 4.250 14:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

The site just cited describes the unsettled nature of current fair use law, including first ammendment defense and "transformative use". Raise your hand if YOU want to be a test case. WAS 4.250 14:15, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

So, I think the better is to not use fair use audio on Wikipedia, it does seem that any lenght would qualify as suable to me. Until the case is settled at least. Or if we had the advice from a lawyer that would be good.--DarkEvil 17:58, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Including song clips in Spoken Wikipedia?

What would be the process for including song or sound clips in Spoken Wikipedia? Can I not, then, GPL my piece? -WAZAAAA

Modification of images

This is DarkEvil once again, I just posted a question about audio which kind of made me more aware that fair use is a complicated matter and I wish for me as well as for wikipedia to not have trouble with the law. So, I'd like to know about something if someone takes a screenshot from a game using an emulator, which is illegal if you don't own the game. Then this person modifies this image by removing a black border around the image (crop). Then, the image appears to dark when it is reduced on Wikipedia so this person enhances the brightness/contrast of this image. I couldn't find information about slightly modyfing fair use images.--DarkEvil 18:04, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Copyright protects creativity. If after your modification it is all about your creativity and not someone else's it is YOUR creation and YOU are the copyright holder to that new image. There is no magic formula for knowing exactly how many tweaks make it yours ... Hey I could write a song with that title! WAS 4.250 18:23, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Removing a border and altering contrast adds no creativity and removes none of their creativity. If the image has no creative content in the first place, it can not be copyrighted (people CLAIM copyright all the time on things they have no legal copyright on). An image of a generic arrow to the left (for example) can not be copyrighted. WAS 4.250 18:29, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the fast answer, this one really resolves my problem.--DarkEvil 18:30, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome. WAS 4.250 19:07, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Another, and perhaps more important, angle to consider it from is: Do the modifications cause the new version to be a misrepresentation of the copyrighted work? Since we use fair use material for the purpose of discussing a copyrighted work, we obviously can't go around making changes which inaccurately represent the copyrighted work. So long as the changes are not material to our commentary (or indeed if they enhance it) they are not inconsistant with our claim of fair use. WAS 4.250's answer seems to be more targeted at the unasked question "if I take someone elses copyrighted work and modify it who owns the copyright on the result". --Gmaxwell 19:21, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, there's a lot of interesting angles on modification. I was trying to help this one specific case. Modifying a copyrighted image for critism or parody is allowed but is better thought of here at wikipedia as original research and we should limit ourselves to reporting such parody and critism by others. WAS 4.250 21:50, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Is this fair use?

I uploaded this photo and got it from here. I think this would qualify as fair use under promotional material. Tell me if I am correct. --MateoP 22:29, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

No way to tell, since the site you took it from doesn't give an indication of the original source. Since some of the other images on that site don't look to be the IP of the site owner -- the cartoon in particular -- this one is problematic. Even if it's "fair use" for the blog to use them, that doesn't necessarily carry over to Wikipedia. Monicasdude 23:54, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
That "blog" is the official blog of the presidential candidate who is in the picture. The original source is almost definitely themselves. It's promotional photographs of the campaign. That's why I thought it would fit into that fair use license. That's the official website of that candidate. --MateoP 00:09, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
That doesn't necessarily make it a "promotional" picture; the photographer may have just given permission for use on that one website. I'd suggest writing a fair use raionale and using Template:Fairusein, being very clear about the fact that it comes from the candidate's website, and have the caption read something like "The photograph that the subject uses on their political blog". Presumably, the fact that the candidate has a blog is an interesting point that is mentioned in the article. Jkelly 00:16, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Probably not fair use, what can I do?

There picture of the 4 people found here and here would make a great image for a presidential election article. However I suspect that this probably can't fall under fair use. So what can I do? Can I email the web page and ask permission? Thanks for more information. --MateoP 15:45, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Well, you could (it would have to be able to be licensed under the GFDL -- which means anybody could freely use it, not just Wikipedia), but the odds are that it is more complicated than that anyway. A better approach might be to try and find free pictures of the individual candidates and just make your own image out of it. --Fastfission 21:15, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Finding free pictures is virtually impossible. I don't think you can combine fair use pictures. Almost no one bothers to mention license stuff in association with their pictures. I think it's just not possible. --MateoP 21:27, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

How to ask for an image to be reviewed?

There's a nice new template, {{fairusereview}}, to request someone to review the fair use status of an image. But how does one actually encourage a review to happen? Does simply putting the template on mean that an expert is likely to look at it eventually? Or should I request a review here or on some other page? I'm not sure what effect {{fairusereview}} really has.

Thanks for any guidance, Stephen Turner (Talk) 07:54, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

  • At the moment I don't think there is any systematic review system, but placing the template would, in an ideal world, get it eventually reviewed. --Fastfission 22:01, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Image: Brief transcription of music

Would an image, in musical notation, of a transcription of a brief section of music be fair use? A brief sound clip is fair use, but a transcription would differ in that it is an image and not a direct reproduction of the sound or the score. When attributed to the copyright holder can this be fair use? Hyacinth 15:59, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Sure, it can be; it's all a matter of where it is used and how. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:56, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
Can it be GFDL? Hyacinth 07:58, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article GFDL should answer your questions. Note that GFDL is a license placed on a creative work by the owner of the copyright of that creative work. WAS 4.250 21:53, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Is there an image in that article in particular which is under question? The only one I see is of a piece of Bach whose copyright has surely expired. --Fastfission 22:00, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Bach, in fact, predates copyright. Public domain from the moment of creation. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:34, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
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