Template talk:User Tulane

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[edit] No Fair Use claim is made

Note to those enforcing the restriction on Fair Use images on User Pages: No Fair Use claim is needed for the use of Tulane's shield in the User:Tulane userbox. Explicit permission from Tulane's Vice-President of University Communications has been granted to use this shield, accompanied by a Trade Mark symbol (™) on Wikipedia user pages.

This may be true, but it is a violation of the first point of Wikipedia's fair-use policy. This policy applies to all images which are not in the public domain or freely licensed, even if we supposedly get "permission" to use them on Wikipedia. Unless the image has actually been released under a free license, it is considered unlicensed and used only under a claim of fair use on Wikipedia. —Bkell (talk) 21:44, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reference

[edit] Wikipedia policy with regard to non-free images in templates

Dystopos, I feel the need to explain why I keep removing the image from this template.

On Wikipedia there are exactly three categories of images: public-domain images (to which no one can claim copyright), freely licensed images (where the copyright holder has agreed to release the image under a free license that allows anyone to use the image for any purpose), and images used under a claim of fair use. As far as Wikipedia is concerned, these are the only three possibilities for the copyright status of an image on Wikipedia (apart from unacceptable copyright situations that are not allowed on Wikipedia at all). See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags/All for a list of copyright tags: sections 1, 2, and 4 cover free licenses, public domain, and fair use, respectively; section 3 is for works of the United States federal government, a special case of public-domain images; and the last two sections are unacceptable tags.

So, which category does Image:Tulane shield web.jpg fall under? Clearly it's not in the public domain, because Tulane University is claiming copyright. It is also clear that it has not been released under a free license for anyone to use for any purpose. Therefore, in the eyes of Wikipedia, this image can be used only under a claim of fair use. It is irrelevant whether someone at Tulane has offered to give permission for Wikipedia-only usage in some way; Wikipedia rejects these kinds of offers. Wikipedia only honors free licenses; any other kind of permission is not valid on Wikipedia, and the image can be used only under a fair-use claim. For details about this policy, see Wikipedia:Copyright FAQ#Licenses and Wikipedia:Image copyright issues for dummies#Wikipedia policies ["Similarly the GFDL license permit anyone to re-use our content, for this reason content that only Wikipedia itself have permission to use may (ironically enough) not be used"].

Hence, it is irrelevant whether someone at Tulane has given permission for this image to be used in some very specific way on Wikipedia only. Wikipedia rejects this license. If it's not available under a totally free license, Wikipedia considers it to be usable only under a claim of fair use.

Now, we examine the Wikipedia fair-use policy, specifically point #9, which reads, "Fair use images may be used only in the article namespace. … They should never be used on templates … or on user pages."

Consequently, we have arrived at the following conclusion: Since this image is not in the public domain, and it is not available under a free license, it is usable on Wikipedia only under a claim of fair use. Since it is used here under a claim of fair use, it may not be used on a template. This is the reason I keep deleting this image from this template. —Bkell (talk) 00:33, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

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