Wikipedia:WikiProject Free book covers

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This is a project to replace modern book covers used to illustrate articles about books in the public domain. These images are not really acceptable under the "replaceable" clause of our fair use policy,[1] since the books' original covers, title pages, etc. would be free. The list below includes articles that rely on such illustrations unnecessarily, and, where they've been found, links to images that could replace those illustrations.

There are several very good reasons to do this:

  • Our policy states that free images are always preferable to non-free images.[2]
  • Including an image of the first edition is much more encyclopedic; it provides real information about the book, rather than about a modern publisher.
  • It educates our users and the public about the history of these books and about the value of freely licensed material.

Contents

[edit] Volunteers needed

You can do any of three things:

  1. Look for articles on books published in the US before 1923 (as well as most other books published before that date as well, and all published before 1909[3]) that use copyrighted, modern book covers as illustrations. Category:Books by year and its many subcategories are useful. Add them to the list. Make sure they're not redundant. If someone wants to organize the list that would be great.
  2. Look for public domain images--covers, title pages, illustrations, etc.--on the web. Library and academic sites are good. Auction/rare book dealer sites can be good. Project Gutenberg has a few images, not many. Generally, title pages are actually preferable to covers, since they have more content. Add the link next to the book title.
  3. Upload a PD image from one of the links below (to Commons only if you're sure it's public domain worldwide; if it's {{PD-US}}, or you're not sure, upload it to Wikipedia), replace the existing image in the article, and tag the old one {{orfud}}. Leave a gentle note on the uploader's talk page explaining why it's better to use PD cover images for PD books, or just cut and paste the template below, replacing the parameters with the filenames of the old and new images. Strike out the book title on the list, but don't remove it, when done.
    • Possible edit summary: Replacing fair use cover with free image; [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Free book covers|volunteers needed]]
    • Possible talk page message: {{subst:Template:Covermessage|Image:old|Image:new}}~~~~

[edit] Useful links

[edit] Books in the public domain using copyrighted book covers as illustrations

[edit] Nonfiction

[edit] Participants

Note: anyone can participate: this is a Wiki, remember? If you'd like to help without listing yourself here, that's fine. And if you like to put your name here, that's cool, too.

  1. ^ For a lengthy and very useful discussion of the replaceability issue, see User:Chowbok/Robth's RFU Explanation.
  2. ^ And, indeed, the collective character of the project should incline us even further in this direction than policy currently states. As Jimbo Wales has said, "My own view, which is at the extreme end of the spectrum I know, and therefore not (yet) formal policy in every case, is that we ought to have almost no fair use, outside of a very narrow class of images that are of unique historical importance."
  3. ^ See WP:PD for a thorough explanation of the issue. Lupo summarizes it nicely:
    "On the English Wikipedia, the general consensus is to apply the pre-1923 rule to all works, even to works first published outside of the U.S. In the U.S., any work published before 1923 anywhere in any language is in the public domain if it was published with a copyright notice. The pre-1923 rule also applies to works first published outside of the U.S. without a © notice, if they were published in English. It does not apply to works first published outside of the U.S. without a © notice in a foreign language: such works are PD for sure in the U.S. only if they were first published before 1909. All works first published outside of the U.S. in any language without © notice are also PD in the U.S. if they were already out of copyright in their country of origin on the URAA date (January 1, 1996 in most cases). See Peter Hirtle's chart, footnote 11.
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