MediaWiki talk:Licenses

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August 2005 - May 2006

Items on the list should be in the format: template name|descriptive label. Drop-down list is displayed on Special:Upload.

[edit] How about this

I have mentioned before that I think "with permission" and "non-commercial" should be added to this list as "traps". This kind of images are frequently uploaded and put in a random license category (most frequently Category:Free use images). I have made a draft for a possible wording of such a template, it's fairly long but I feel it's important to explain why such images are not allowed on the off chance that someone will actualy read it before the image is deleted. Any thoughts? --Sherool (talk) 22:09, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. "Non-commercial us only", I agree completely... Perhaps also "no derivatives". Make it a standard trap (honest but not too threatening). Too much of this isn't good either though, because we do create the impression for people who only read the drop down that these images are permitted, but since we're good at deleting them I think that risk is acceptable.

"With permission" I'm not so sure... Say I have an image I want to GFDL but I'm unsure of all this licensing stuff... well you have my permission too, so I might just select with permission because selecting something I know I understand feels more safe. We could try it though, and see what happens. Even with my low expectations I only expect it will catch people who are unsure, and we really should have a conversation with people who are unsure just so we won't have to deal with the mess of them asking us to remove all their uploads when they discover that copyleft licenses permit commercial use. :) --Gmaxwell 22:35, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

The wording should include something about licensing of self-created images. I've seen a few "no-commercial-use" images go by which were clearly created by the uploader, and sometimes contacting the uploader will lead to the image being re-licensed under the GFDL or a CC license.

Of course, there's also the problem that people don't read the description pages of images they upload. Every day, OrphanBot notifies me about a couple dozen images where that's clearly the case. --Carnildo 23:03, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I've found dozens of cases where they *did* read it, then they changed license tags at random until they got one that didn't sound dangerous... At some point I'll code something to detect all these (where the uploader changed from a trap right after uploading) and flag them for review. Perhaps we should provide a license wizard? "Did you create this on your own?" etc.. but then again, it might be useless, we get a lot of "self made movie screenshot released into the public domain". :( :( --Gmaxwell 00:20, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

The way I see it:

People who see the deletion notice and pick another tag at random: Well what can you do, warn/block people who do this, no matter what we do this will be possible though, people can do this with "don't know" right now, but we still delete a lot of crap because the uploader choose "don't know" when he uploaded it.

Self created works: Well self created or not if commercial use is not allowed it still have to be deleted. If the uploader sees the message he will know that he need to re-license the image or it will be deleted. I don't see this as a problem (but feel free to refactor the draft to make this more clear), maybe add instructions for the deleting admin to notify the uploader about why the image was deleted and point them towards WP:DRV to get the image undeleted if they agree to release it under a free license after all.

People getting the impression that those licenses are acceptable because they are official options: Well again most people seem to think that anyway, they just pick the "closest match" from the license dropdown and go on theyr merry way. Once they have uploaded an image with that tag they will (hopefully) read the message and be educated, if not see first item above. If they just upload and don't look on the image page at last we can still easily delete the image, and again the deleting admin can notify the uploader as to why it was deleted.

I think it would be worth a shot at least, unless we have some other solution to this problem that will be ready to implement any time soon... --Sherool (talk) 09:25, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Did anyone go ahead to implement these trap tags? If not, I will. Stifle (talk) 23:29, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

clearing out these traps on CSD is a pain. Need a way to make the thing automaticaly refuse image upload with a reason.Geni 00:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Autorefuse would just cause people to iterate through the options until it worked and feel morally justified in doing so... people simply do not feel bad about lying to 'a computer'. .. If this is really something that could be automated, we could simple have a bot perform the deletions. .. any real reason not to have a bot do it is also a reason not to make refusal automatic on top of the risk of additional incorrect tagging. --Gmaxwell 02:01, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

As lon as it survived a test run peroid I can't see why it would not be worth a try.Geni 02:11, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia screenshots

Why is the "Wikipedia screenshot" tag categorized under "Fair use / copyrighted - read WP:FU before using any of the following tags:"? It is duallicensed under GFDL/GPL. TZM^T (de:^T) 17:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

All too often such screenshots also include the users browser and various images that are not GFDL licensed, IMHO the whole tag should be phased out as it gives the false impression that any screenshot you make while a Wikipedia page is visible is somehow automaticaly GFDL/GPL licensed. The only kind of images the tag rely makes sense for is those that have been carefully cropped or "sensored" to only contain HTML formated text and nothing more. The majority of images with that tag probably belong in the software screenshot cat. --Sherool (talk) 00:13, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Permission tag

I received a message from User:Bkell concerning the new Permission tag. He thinks that this wording needs to be changed: "I have permission to use this image only on Wikipedia" or "I have permission to use this image for non-commercial purposes only" or something. After all, if someone finds an image licensed under the GFDL somewhere, and wants to upload it to Wikipedia, then that person has permission to use the image—permission under the terms of the GFDL license. The presence of the "I have permission" option at the very top of the list, worded so broadly, makes him concerned that many newcomers will choose it even if they meant that the image is available under a free license.

My feeling on the subject is that this is probably a non-issue. If you have permission to upload the image under the GFDL (or CC, or pretty much your choice of allowed license) then you must also include details of the license, and/or the license text. Either the uploader will hence choose the right tag first off, or include in the summary what the license is, or it's a copyright violation and should be deleted anyway. But some other opinions would be good too, particularly from people who m:avoid copyright paranoia. Stifle (talk) 17:23, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Further thoughts about the subject: although it's badly backlogging CAT:CSD, the option is proving to be devastatingly effective. Not only is it catching a big pile of images that might otherwise have slipped through the net, there's a curious coincidence: most images uploaded with the new "with permission" trap tag are used in nn-bio articles or vanity pages, which can then be caught and deleted too. Stifle (talk) 22:49, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

you issed the random corperate stuff but the shear amount causes problems.Geni 02:29, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

GAH! no no no. "the file you have uploaded has been listed for speedy deletion". You are only inviting people to change tags at random until they find one that doesn't tell them their file will be deleted. Must we go over this every couple of months? :-/ blah. --Gmaxwell 23:26, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't see this happening much. OrphanBot doesn't see all of the images tagged with {{db-noncom}}, but of the images that it has logged as using the template, only one out of 60+ had the license template changed by the uploader. The main cause of these images still being around is admins changing the {{db-noncom}} tag to {{no source}} or {{no license}}. --Carnildo 02:08, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Just for the record there might be some "dark numbers" (is that the proper English term?) there as I have noticed a couple of people re-uploading the same image with a different tag rather than trying to modify the first one. Then again a number of them are also aparently self made photos (Guess "permission to use on Wikipedia" was the first "best" option they could find) so having them changed to "gfdl- or pd-self" seems fair enough (I've only checked a handfull of images though). --Sherool (talk) 05:21, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

That's probably more common, it seems from reading people's questions, how you would "change the license" isn't obvious to most people. I think most people's expectations are that the drop dopwn menu somehow sets metadata about the image. Most people don't immediately understand how it's actually working, so I would bet people would either give up and ask someone, or re-upload the image selecting a new choice from the dropdown. - cohesion 18:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Hope I'm not to bold, but I took the liberty of rewriting the label to hopefully avoid a bit of confution and I also added non-commercial. --Sherool (talk) 00:46, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I slightly modified it. Stifle (talk) 12:37, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, the reason I included the "only" and "no other terms" was to try to minimise possible misunderstandings. We don't have a problem with content that happens to allow non-commercial use (as long as everyting else is also allowed ;) ), we have a problem with content that only allow non-commercial use. Maybe peopel will figure that out themselves though. --Sherool (talk) 13:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I know. We're trying to balance between getting images deleted if they shouldn't be here and avoiding having people put on bogus tags. Stifle (talk) 13:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not quite as bad as I thought. Here is a first cut: User:Gmaxwell/changed_tag. This is a list of images that started out somewebsite but are now GFDL-* PD-* or CC-by-*. God I love having a wikipedia database with full text for all revisions. Muhahah. I'll make more lists later. Enjoy. --Gmaxwell 12:32, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, great job, Gmaxwell! Keep up the good work. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 04:38, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Archive?

Just to be on the safe side, I feel that it is about time to archive parts of this page. It is getting too large. Any comments about this would be welcomed. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 02:12, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

... safe side? Safe side of what? Anyways, no need to discuss... just do it. ~MDD 46 96 16:14, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Just a note to all. I have archived some of the contents of this page. If anyone has any objects over this, please feel free to state your concerns. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 04:38, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Single license

Moving from Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

This one is very minor:

When choosing a license on the "upload file", there is no single cover license. But if you choose the album cover license, it gives you an "album/single cover" template on the image page. Michaelas10 12:36, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

~~{{editprotected}}~~

Agree; the label 'Album cover' for albumcover should be 'Album or single cover'. I've added {{editprotected}} to this section. --ais523 16:02, 5 October 2006 (U T C)

Done. --Sherool (talk) 17:32, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deprected tag?

I think {{PD-Soviet}} should be removed from this list. It makes no sense to have a deprecated tag in the drop-down list at the upload screen. Lupo 08:48, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Its gone (finally).--Nilfanion (talk) 21:50, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ordering of licenses

Umm, I think the order of the free licenses should be rejigged. Currently GFDL is the first and so is the most frequently used. However, its not the best license for imagery. I propose that we reorganise this by usage of template not by what they are. So list the self-made licenses, then the other free licenses and finally the fair use licenses. Basically I think on the lines of how Commons does it. This is a more rational order in my opinion and will result in dual licensing for typical selfmade work (which is by far the best).--Nilfanion (talk) 21:54, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Checking through Commons, I think I agree with this. --ais523 09:55, 30 October 2006 (U T C)

[edit] promocomic

At WikiProject Comics we've noticed that {{promocomic}} is not on the license drop down box, so would it be okay to add it? I get there are concerns about using some classes of promotional images, but since no free to use image of comic book characters will ever exist, the fair use of these is just as strong as other images, perhaps stronger since they are released by the companies for the very purpose of promoting the work. Steve block Talk 10:18, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

After

**** Comicscene|- Series of panels from a comic strip

please add

**** Promocomic|- Promotional image of forthcoming comic cover

per above. --ais523 11:39, 30 October 2006 (U T C)

Done —Mets501 (talk) 12:09, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] boobytraps fail to assume good faith

Please see Why the booytraps? and What's the deal with the educational and non-commerical license speedy candidates? for recent discussions on why the boobytraps are not working very well at present. I believe lots of people are never getting to the image description screen where it explains why the image will soon be deleted; most seem to get to the "Your image has been uploaded" and go on about their business. I had a user upload the same image three times and them ask what was wrong with our upload servers that his image wasn't showing up? When I explained what was wrong, he went and got permission, and now we have a properly licensed image for that article.

We're either going to have to implement a software change where people cannot upload images under these invalid licenses, or change the upload confirmation screen, or accept that we're shutting out a lot of possibly valid images because people don't understand the black art of media licensing on Wikipedia on their very first try. I believe this is a prime example of biting the newbies. -- nae'blis 17:09, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

If they're not familiar with our image policies, they shouldn't be uploading images, especially if they're copyvios. These traps are our first line of defense against untagged images, images with false tags and misused fair use images. I might add that the image you linked is not properly licensed; if the uploader really got it licensed under the GFDL, he has to prove it, since the source has a (C) notice. He needs them to notify the permissions OTRS queue. --Rory096 22:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Right. Assuming good faith is all well and good when it's in general practice, but we simply cannot afford to do so in the matter of copyright violations, where a violation could cost the WMF significant amounts in legal damages. Stifle (talk) 00:02, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Autoreplace

Is it important that the autoreplace tags are specific to people, places etc? Right now the substing isn't working because it is missing a layer, so the dates are remaining {{CURRENTDAY}} etc. I am changing them to subst in {{autorfu}} instead. This is just like rfu except it throws in Template:AutoReplaceable fair use instead. We do need to go in and replace the ones that got the other tag, they will be easy to find in today's category forever :) - cohesion 00:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Luckily enough it looks like not many people use that selection in the dropdown, so there isn't really much of a problem at all :D Mission accomplished for that "Invalid" header I guess. - cohesion 00:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

what fo you mean missing a layer. The seperation is useful because it allows for subject specific instructions on posible protests.Geni 23:21, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

We can still have different ones, but they were getting substed in with the variables not stable, for example, they were still just {{CURRENTDAY}}. So they would always be in the current day's category, rather than the day they were placed. The missing layer I meant was something like {{rfu}}, so that the dates can get locked down. I really don't have any opinion about whether they are different tags or not, it was just easier to fix if they were the same. I will look at it again, and make them go to the different ones, but still going through some intermediary. :) - cohesion 00:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, done, now we can make as many as we want that are different, but we don't need to make any more intermediary ones. I didn't rename {{autorfu}} but it can be used to add the normal date time thing to any template that accepts it. :) - cohesion 01:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks although I hope we won't need any more soon.Geni 01:53, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Found the image somewhere

Can we delete this option because it is effectively the same as "I do not know the license." --Ellmist 05:24, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

This one is for people that just found the image, but acutally have no clue what a license even is. — xaosflux ^Talk 05:27, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Branded product covers

I've proposed a license for general branded product covers on the village pump and following one support and no opposes I've decided to create one here. I've left it on the licenses page and it remained completely unchanged. I believe it's time for it to appear here as well. Michaelas10 (Talk) 16:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not that clear from the text of the template that you are only referring to food-products, but that is the category that the template adds the image to. There is also only one image using the template right now, Image:RBASE for CTOS disk photo.png, which is not food-based. Maybe the category could change? I'm a little hesitant to add a template to the list when only one image is using it. Is there really a lot of need for it? - cohesion 18:03, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

A different category was created on Category:Branded product covers and I'm requesting the removal of the old one. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Michaelas10 (Talk) 18:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Any progress? Accepted? Rejected? I know plenty of fair use images who would require this license rather than just a "copyrighted work" one, and it would certainly be helpful to list it here. Michaelas10 (Talk) 18:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I can't think of any way of describeing it that would not be somewhat confusing.Geni 11:34, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Brazilian government

I have received a message that I need to apply a tag indicating the copyright of the image Bairros-regionaisBH.jpg. Images produced by the Brazilian federal government, the states or municipalities are automatically in the public domain, but there is no tag for that (unsurprisingly, there is one for US government). How do I proceed? Macgreco 02:14, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Well first you need to find the relivant section of law so that people can check it is really public domain then raise the issue at Wikipedia_talk:Image_copyright_tags.Geni 01:22, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GFDL-self-no-disclaimers

Could someone please change

*** GFDL-self|GFDL (self made -for things that are entirely your own work)

*** GFDL-self-no-disclaimers|GFDL (self made -for things that are entirely your own work)

in order to bring the two GFDL licenses into sync with each other since the non-self GFDL license doesn't have disclaimers in the license selector either. Here is a template link for {{GFDL-self-no-disclaimers}}. The text is the same, though it just lacks the disclaimers that the version it is using now has. Many thanks. Kyra_~(talk) 18:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Done! Stifle (talk) 20:01, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Styling of this list

Where exactly are the text styling defined? The "headers" in the dropdown list are currently styled as style="color: GrayText". IMHO this is not ideal, light gray on white background is rater hard to read, and may be part of the reason a lot of people still upload things under licenses marked as "invalid" on the list. Adding a differnt background color at least would probably help, but where to change this? I looked at the source and it looks to be hard coded on each list item rater than using any CSS class we could change from the central stylesheet. --Sherool (talk) 12:07, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More conversion of GFDL licenses to non-disclaimer versions

Please replace the lines

***self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-2.5,2.0,1.0|Own work, copyleft: Multi-license with GFDL and Creative Commons CC-BY-SA-2.5 and older versions (2.0 and 1.0)
**self|GFDL|cc-by-2.5|Own work, attribution required (Multi-license with GFDL and Creative Commons CC-BY 2.5)

with

***self|GFDL-no-disclaimers|cc-by-sa-2.5,2.0,1.0|Own work, copyleft: Multi-license with GFDL and Creative Commons CC-BY-SA-2.5 and older versions (2.0 and 1.0)
**self|GFDL-no-disclaimers|cc-by-2.5|Own work, attribution required (Multi-license with GFDL and Creative Commons CC-BY 2.5)

under the Dual Licenses section in order to remove disclaimers from future GFDL works. Jesse Viviano 20:38, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Done —METS501 (talk) 05:01, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] UK Government Images

Can {{PD-BritishGov}} be included on the drop down please? Greenshed 16:45, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Which dropdown does it go in? Expired or not subject to copyright? Is there consensus for this change? The Uninvited Co., Inc. 21:00, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Invalid fair use

Under invalid fair use, would it be clearer if the two descriptions were changed to 'Copyrighted image of...' rather than 'Fair use image of...'? The uploader may not understand the use of the term fair use, especially a newer user, so they may choose another option which does not apply to their work. If they choose this but the image can be used, this can be easily changed by a patroller or the deciding admin. Hopefully, this would catch more images which fail the fair use criteria. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks, mattbr³⁰ 16:14, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

does quite work since all GFDL images are also copywriten.Geni 16:25, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Geni, it was worth a try. mattbr³⁰ 16:42, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit request

Could someone replace all instances of cc-by-2.5 to cc-by-3.0 and similarly cc-by-sa-2.5 to cc-by-sa-3.0 (new version released of the same licenses a couple of images already using {{cc-by-sa-3.0}}).--Konstable 03:40, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

hmm d lisence claims to use the terms of the berne covnetion but then talks of fair dealing rather than fair practice.Geni 12:06, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

given the current issues Probably not a good idea.Geni 12:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

After reading the discussion on Commons, I'm adding the cc-by-sa-3.0 and cc-by-3.0 licenses to OrphanBot's list of forbidden license tags, until we get a decison on whether or not the licenses are free. --Carnildo 23:11, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Web screenshot

Web-screenshot is kinda dangerous, to a lot of users it means "anything I found on the web". Just letting people know, the tag/category is a little messy. - cohesion 04:02, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

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