Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Notre dame basillica delist

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[edit] Notre Dame Basillica

Temporarily suspended until copyright status is clarified Raven4x4x 05:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

No this isn't a joke delist, although at first glance it may seem so. This image is obviously technically and aesthetically extremely good. But I'm a little unsure as to the validity of the licensing, as Diliff apparently signed a waiver saying it wasn't going to be used for any commercial purpose (see here). Now my understanding of the licenses it is released under, is that commercial use is allowed - a bit of a delimma. I brought it up on Diliff's talk page a little while ago (here - response is here) however not that much as you can see came out of it so I thought I'd better bring it for general discussion. It'd be nice, as Dschwen suggested, to just let sleeping dogs lie but I don't think we can do that on Wikipedia for a Featured Picture. Anyway I hope I don't offend anyway, I just thought it needed to be brought up.

• Nominate I don't think I'll vote until more input on the legal aspect is given from other voters. --Fir0002 09:14, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. I have emailed them the following:

From: xxx@xxx
05/12/2006 11:23        
To: info@basiliquenddm.org
Subject: Restrictions on photography inside the Basillica


To whom it may concern,

I am an amateur photographer who visited the Basillica in January 2006. I asked to take 
photos with a tripod and was requested to sign a document that I believe prohibited me 
from commercial use of the resulting photos. I had and have no intentions of selling the 
photo, however, I was very pleased with the result of the photo and uploaded it to 
Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia. I uploaded it under a licence that states it is
my own personal work but it, or derivatives of it, can be used for any purpose. Therefore,
it has been pointed out that I may have broken the terms of the document that I signed. 
Could you please confirm exactly what restrictions there are on my photograph and whether
you believe it should be removed from Wikipedia?

For the record, the article on the Basillica is here: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre-Dame_de_Montr%C3%A9al_Basilica

The photograph in question is here: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Notre-Dame_de_Montr%C3%A9al_Basilica_Jan_2006.jpg

Wikipedia is commited to ensuring that no laws and will be forced to remove the image if 
it is determined that its use is in breach of the document I signed. That would be a 
shame, but I understand your need to control commercial photography inside the Basillica.

Regards,
David

We'll see what their response is, if anything. The official site is a little amateur. The english link doesn't work at all so I stumbled my way to the contact page with my limited knowledge of French. Contactez-nous apparently! Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 11:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Good work Dillif. Agree that the site is pretty ordinary, but look how nice and light the interior photos are! ;-) --Fir0002 21:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that.. :-) Anyone can make it appear lighter than it actually was. Exposure is an easy thing to manipulate, but that doesn't make it more accurate. Lets face it, its probably ordinary photography to accompany an ordinary site. Hard to tell from the low resolution snippets though. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 22:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• Until we get an answer back regarding the copyright status, I think it would be best to suspend this delisting. I'm worried this might take a while. Raven4x4x 05:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
• I have re-sent the request for information in French as per Booksworm's translation. I did not hear back from them at all in response to my English email. I suspect that I will not hear back in French either, but I will wait and see. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 12:07, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
• I just gave them a call. In a nutshell, you are free to take any photos with no licensing restrictions, UNLESS you use a tripod. In that case, you must sign a waiver declaring that the photo will not be used for commercial purposes. So, as much as it pains me, this photo has to be taken off Wikipedia. However, please try your luck at convincing them to allow this one photo to get an unrestricted license. This is too good a photo to delete. 67.71.77.16 20:21, 18 December 2006 (UTC) Oops, wasn't logged in. That was me. ♠ SG →Talk 20:23, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
• If the photographer agreed to release it into the public domain, wouldn't that count as non-commercial? --Dgies 06:36, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

• It would, except that the photographer signed a waiver that essentially prevents them from doing so. Unless specific permission is granted for the release of the image under a free license, it's only usable for non-commercial purposes. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 10:22, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

• You might be right but that sounds like a logical contradiction: "Public domain would be non-commercial and therefore OK, but they can't release it as public domain because they must make non-commercial use only" —Dgies^t c 00:37, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

• • Thanks for the update SG. Did you ask them why they aren't checking their email? ;-) I assumed that would be the party line. Its rather difficult to get them to allow this photo an unrestricted licence by phone. It would really have to be verifiable in some way. If they won't respond to my email, I don't know how else to get it. I suppose I could just claim I mistakenly admitted using a tripod and really it was shot hand-held. ;-) No wait, I was under duress! I'm kidding by the way. They have my signature on the waiver under lock and key in a vault somewhere no doubt. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 11:35, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Depending on how accessible the subject is to you...could you create another picture of this quality without a tripod? (I guess they figured that really good photographs like this require tripods).--HereToHelp 14:23, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
      • If you sponsor Diliff to go to France Canada again I think he will happily shoot another one. :-p But if you have read the image description page, it said This image was taken with a Canon 5D and 85mm f/1.8 lens @ f/13 for depth of field. Each exposure was 15 seconds.. Now I doubt anyone can hand held a camera 15 seconds without motion, so it will be quite impossible to recreate this image without tripod. --antilived ^{T | C | G} 22:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Not one of this quality, anyway...it's a shame. Not only would we have to delist it, but delete it. I really hate copyright.--HereToHelp 23:52, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
• I think it's time that we removed this image from wikipedia. We've certainly established that it's in copyright violation and it seems that we're waiting on approval to use it. Remove now, possibly approve and restore later, that's the way copyright works --froth^{T C} 06:19, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Just to get it straight, it is absolutely not a copyright violation! The copyright for the image is with the uploader. It is just(?) a licensing problem. Commons does not permit non-commercial licenses. The picture could be uploaded directly to en.WP, but still would have to be delisted from FP. --Dschwen 13:20, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
    • The English Wikipedia does not permit the use of non-commercial-only image licesing either (see [1]). --KFP (talk | contribs) 15:43, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
      • Oh, thanks for pointing that out. Too bad, its a great image. Quickly have to save a copy on my PC... --Dschwen 15:56, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've removed it from most of the pages it's on. The rest are just old archives where a redlink won't really hurt. Anyone who's a commons admin can now delete the image itself. Raven4x4x 11:35, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Right, it has been done. Very unfortunate as it was a spectacular image --Fir0002 21:59, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• question they have just the restriction for tripods? then can't you create something list a quatropod, and use it instead? :) _→AzaToth 23:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Deleted MER-C 12:49, 9 September 2007 (UTC)