Wikipedia talk:Fair use review

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[edit] Feb discussion

Sounds good. I think we need to rethink our tagging again a bit. The boiler plate tags are being mistake for a 'type of content' identifyer rather than a copyright tag... Logo is probably the worst, but they all have problems. We also need to step up education. It would be useful to make people attach a justification for *every* article an image is used it (boiler plate or not), this would make it easier to automagically detect questionable use and better focus our efforts. Most importantly we need to be careful to avoid creating too difficult a process... there are a couple thousand fair use tagged images uploaded a month, and a heavy weight debate prone review system would be completely ineffective. --Gmaxwell 03:51, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I think a good first step would be to put a lot more emphasis on point #1 of our fair use criterea. If it is possible to create a free licensed image of something then no fair use image should be allowed on the subject. Otherwise people will tend to be lazy and just find a image of the subject on the net rather than go out with a camera, or take the time to re-draw a map or plot a graph or whatever themselves, or just plain ask the copyright holder if they would be willing to release a picture under a free (or at least semi free) license.
I agree that education is the key tough. Our rules should be fine as is, problem is to make people aware that they exist, and then to follow them. My impression from working a bit with images here is that a lot of people don't have the faintest idea about copyright issues, and many who do don't bother taking the hassle of writing verbose image pages because "nobody else does". As long as people interpret licenses like "you may download these images for you personal non-commercial use" to mean "anyone can use this for anyting", or believe that "stuff found on more than one webpage is public domain" and whatever, trying to enforce the "finer points" of our fair use policy is going to be an uphill battle indeed, there are just too few people who are willing to spend time enforcing these things compared to the number of people who upload poorly or mistaged images, not to mention "unfair" fair use. Currently we are months behind dealing with even the most blatant problem of images that have no copyright tags. Seems to me that unless we can somehow raise awarenes about these things whatever review processes we set up will be hoplessly backloged. --Sherool (talk) 05:50, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

So what do people think about beginning a massive campaign to apply {{Fairusenoalternative}} and {{Fairusereplace}} in mass to all standing works? I could create a webpage on toolserver which would enable highly effective colaboration for this task (quickly displaying a dozen images at a time and providing 'yes/no/don't know' checkboxes etc).... I've thought about doing it in the past (after all, I created the templates), but it seems like such a waste of time when there are so many images which .. well.. should just simply be deleted. That concern is what caused me to begin my orphan fair use tagging adventures (over 20,000 tagged and deleted now)... I think that with the right tools setup we could probably tag all 130,000 images with around 151 man hours of labor. If people think this would be useful, and think that we can actually get the work done, I'll go ahead and build the tool. --Gmaxwell 06:48, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I support this idea. Far too often I see images which are blatantly not fair use (just look at the featured picture on Portal:India) and can't think of what to do with them. See also my comments on WT:RFAr; not enough people understand how fair use works. Johnleemk | Talk 15:12, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] On Magazine covers

I have produced a list of articles which don't appear to be about a magazine yet are only illustrated with magazine cover tagged images. Might be useful for finding some offenders. --Gmaxwell 06:00, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Excellent. I'll deal with them soon. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Talk is cheap

So here are the new actions I'm going to take in the near term to improve the state of 'fair use' images on Wikipedia:

  1. I will alter all of the currently active 'boilerplate' fair use justification templates to include a field for what article the justification applies for. I will make the change in such a way that the notices still look fine for media which uses the template without the new field. I may adjust the language of the template so that multiple instances of the same template on a media page to not look disturbing.
    This change is important because justification must be *per use*. Although in many cases the same justification applies, there are many other cases where it does not. More importantly, when someone links an additional article to a fair use image there is currently no record created that allows us to know if they even considered the copyright implications. Also, when an image has been orphaned due to vandalism or an editwar, such tagging can help us avoid incorrectly deleting an image as an orphan.
  2. I will rename some of the more generically titled fair use boilerplate templates. For whatever templates I rename I will announce my intentions in advance and have my robot fixup all current uses to the new name.
    Right now many are misused by people who believe they are identifying the type of the content rather than it's fair use justification. For example {{icon}}. As a result some of these templates can't even tell us if the content is fair use vs free content, and we can forget about these templates telling us if the use has been carefully considered.
  3. I will adjust our fair use guidelines and instruction pages to reflect the above changes, and require that every use of a fair use image have a justification template, or the use of a generic 'fairuseinbecause' template.
  4. I will adjust our fair use guidelines and instruction pages to require the use of the {{fairusenoalternative}} and {{fairusereplace}} additive templates.
    This is important for two reasons: The first is that it segments works into a group which is very likely to have a strong fair use justification and a group which is less likely, the second is that the use of fairuse images where free alternatives are possible is strongly at odds with our goal to create a 'Free encyclopedia.
  5. I will setup an automated tool on toolserver which will facilitate the auditing of fair use media and it's tagging without an excess of duplicated effort.
  6. I will produce a live report of fairuse images which are in pages without a matching justification template.

If anyone has any comment on these items, please let it be known now. :) --Gmaxwell 18:56, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Good job! I'll support you on these excellent action points. One thing I'd like to see is an extension that makes people prove the 4 criteria for fair use that is documented in the U.S. Code (see fair use). How easy do you reckon that would be? - Ta bu shi da yu 14:41, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
Ah, well an interesting discussion can be had on this. What do you think about the boilerplate justification templates? I think they are clearly benificial in cases where we have a fair use claim becuase they ensure that our use has a well thoughout and consistent justification attached. In cases where we don't have a claim they can be benificial because they should state requirement which are easy to see as untrue. However, they can cause harm as well, because they attach a good looking justification in cases where no one has actually given the matter in any though. I think we need to determine the future of these templates before we talk about making sure the requirements are documented. Do we remove them? Do we keep them? Do we amend them?
I think we should keep them, with improvements to their language, but be anal about ensuring that they are actually used correctly. I'm not overly attached to this plan, so if someome thought we really should replace them with something you subst then fill out, I wouldn't cry. --Gmaxwell 16:46, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
Cool, I had no idea those templates existed. I've added them to almost all the fair use images I've uploaded; fortunately, I only had to tag one with {{fairusereplace}}. Johnleemk | Talk 16:04, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
Strong claims of fair use will never get a replace... that's a lot ofthe point of fair use. I introduced them after a conversation with Jimbo on the subject [1]. Originally I intended to replace the generic fair use template with this and this, but Wikiproject fair use was really spinning up at the time and they over-ruled me. I fought it enough to keep them as additive templates but Jimbo began another worldwind tour of the world, so I couldn't lean on him for support, and I realized that it was a waste of my time to battle with the Wikilaywers. Instead I divorced myself from them and began taging thousands of images for deletion. I've had a lot of success wit that, but now that process is going smoothly it's time to take my work to the next level. The tags have gone almost entirely unused, and it's time for that to change. Thanks for tagging your images. --Gmaxwell 16:46, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Factionalism

OK guys, this business of factions is getting irritating. It does not help us if there is one group taking Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use as their policy development locus, and a different group using Wikipedia:Fair use review, and having editwarring over the two. If you look at some of the discussion on the respective talk pages, there is quite a lot of similarity, and everybody involved wants to end up in the same place, so let's stop working at cross-purposes. We need both people to develop better templates, and people to take action once developed, and they aren't necessarily going to be the same people. We don't have to panic about fair use images, but at the same time we absolutely must have process that will keep with the influx. Stan 13:17, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

With the exception of JYolkowski blanking the page here I haven't seen anything anyone would call editwarring. I've certainly done nothing that has impeded the folks on WikiProject Fair use in their work, and the only thing I've seen anyone from there do thats impeded anyone else is the attempts to justify our copyright violations in the TIME cover case. It's not a big deal. The world doesn't end when we have more than one team attacking a problem. --Gmaxwell 16:09, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
He added a link to the fair use project, you removed it. I've looked at the whole page history, and and it's really underwhelming. Your phrasing it just now as "attempts to justify our copyright violation" sounds like an assumption of bad faith. More than one team attacking a problem is great; teams attacking each other is not at all helpful. If one team goes to the trouble of defining a template and adding it to images, and another team independently decides it's no good and deletes all the images with that template, then the effort of the first team has been wasted. If your belief is that all fair use images should be deleted no matter what, and you're just interested in tactics towards that goal, then at least be honest and say so; don't pretend to be working with anybody who is trying to develop good fair use rationales. Stan 18:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
You have a funny notion of 'adding a link' [2] [3] . Even when he finally did add a link he managed to change the page to instruct users that this isn't an approiate page to discuss the matter, but his pet project is... That you see no problem with this kills your creditability in my eyes.
As far as "attempts to justify our copyright violation", I do not believe he is acting in bad faith, if I did so I would be requesting he be barred from further action. Rather, I think WikiProject Fair use and most of its participants value increasing the quality of our articles over ensuring that our content is Free. I realize my statement that they are primarily attempting to justify our copyright violations is a serious claim, but I've back it up with, what I believe to be, a solid argument and I've yet to see a serious attempt to refute my claims.
Where has there been an instance of anyone "delete(ing) all the images with (a) template"? Name one.
I never claimed that I believe that all fair use images should be deleted. I believe that fair use images should be preserved where they are important to their articles, and that fair use images which are not fair use, or are just of low value should be removed. This is consistent with our policies and with the goals of the project. --Gmaxwell 23:28, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
As you can see from [4], I didn't let him off the hook; effectively erasing a project page by redirecting it is not a friendly act. By "deletes all the images with that template" I meant {{TIME}} specifically; if only 1-2 covers can be a valid fair use no matter what, there's not much point in defining the template and wordsmithing what it says, etc. In any case, I'm glad to hear we agree on the goals for fair use!
However, I don't think phrasing like "attempting to justify our copyright violations" is helpful - a determined skeptic could say that about any fair use rationale, and argue that the most well-written judge-pleasing rationale is just an excuse so elaborate that it's hoodwinking the judiciary. So to some extent I think we're operating in an intrinsically messy zone, and we get into disputes because different people want to draw sharp lines at different places through the zone. To take an example, some of our most highly-credentialed academic editors, who have been involved in professional publishing ventures and presumably have firsthand experience with image copyright issues, also seem the most inclined both to upload and vigorously defend what seems to everybody else like blatant copyvios (an exercise for the reader to supply the user names I'm thinking of :-) ).
Empirically, I think WP works best when we have the sharp lines, because then the one side can be a freefire zone for bold and energetic enforcers, while the other side is safe for random editors. For instance, orphaned images are a good sharp line; either the image is used or it is not, and once the initial whining was over, the rule has become generally accepted and uncontroversial. So as I see it we just need to establish some more lines, and then act on them. Stan 00:41, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Archiving

Should we archive fair use review requests? If so, which ones? Do we archive all, or just the ones where the image(s) were kept? I just removed a deleted image's discussion from the page, but I didn't archive it. Johnleemk | Talk 14:51, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, no one seems to care much, since no one has answered in over three months! I don't suppose there's really much need to archive. Everything is still in the history. User:Angr 20:48, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use criteria consensus discussion started

After quite a few months, I have kicked off Wikipedia:Fair use criteria/Amendment/Consensus. It is not a vote, but will give each editor the chance to support or oppose the amendment very clearly. I've got it going for a fortnight as obviously it needs to end some time, and there is a lack of guidance on how to amend policy.

If anyone knows where else I should be notifying that this has started, please let me know! - Ta bu shi da yu 22:42, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mainspace categorization of this page?

These wikipedia maintenance space articles shouldn't be classed with the mainspace encyclopedic categorization. I created Category:Wikipedia fair use as a better categorization structure, and linked from the mainspace; but I can't figure out where the category is on this page? Embedded in some template? ... also, the fair use media categories (e.g., Category:Fair use media) are confusing. Do they have mainspace encyclopedic significance, or are they only used for wikipedia maintenance? Thoughts? --lquilter 20:44, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

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