Wikipedia talk:Image use policy/Archive 7

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Nude Pictures

Is there a policy? I think as long as they are not porn pictures we should be able to post them

  • It has pretty much been decided that clinical-esque photos (such as those on penis and clitoris) are just at the edge of what is acceptable. →Raul654 03:15, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)

Eh? Decided where? Don't remember that at all. I don't think we have really visited the question at all. I think that the question would merely be of showing that there is a reasonable rationale for the image, and that it is suitable for the subject of the article. For example images of porn have been posted in articles, but mostly only from "classical" era or previous. This question has yet to be seriously tested. -- Cimon

  • I think each picture would have to be discussed on its own merits, probably on the talk page of the article the image is added to. What are you proposing? Everybody will have their own boundaries of taste. For example, I'd readily accept a black and white nude photograph taken by a respected photographer if it was indicative of his work and we had permission to use it. However, I don't see that a picture of full, penetrative, amateur sex is going to add much to pornography. --bodnotbod 15:25, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)


We allow people to link all sort of pov links both pro and con to certain people and topics why can we not allow people to post extral links to nude pix?

We do accept images of people without clothes -- Penny Rimbaud hasn't offended anyone for months. --Zigger 14:35, 2004 Jul 18 (UTC)

I would say that Penny Rimbaud is an example of appropriate use. From what I can tell, that photo is actually not unrepresentative of who he is and what he's about.
In contrast, I refer you to the history of Reese Witherspoon, where there are over a dozen attempts by (I believe) one user to link a nude screen cap of Reese in the one movie I know of where she actually did nudity. There are also over a dozen reverts by 7 or 8 different users. Did she do a nude scene? Yes. Is the image representative of her work? No.
The poster's rationale was "The human body is beautiful" as far as I can tell. (Now his rationale is probably "let's see how many times I can post this and annoy people" but that's a different question.) He's not contending that it's representative of her work or personality, just that it's a cute picture.
Would you argue that this is an acceptable place to put a nude photo? - Kenwarren 20:48, Jul 18, 2004 (UTC)

yes i think any picture of a nude person is acceptable place on wikipedia look at some of the articles we already have why not allow nude pix. How do we know it a he? I think it is representative of her personality I am sure Reese is probably naked everyday like most people are naked everyday.

I would say that including a link to that photo isn't really right, as it's nowhere near representative of her work. That said, images of a porn starlet should probably be hidden behind links, but available, as reflective of her work. Also, unlike Bodnotbod, I think pornography would be more NPOV with a better external links section and perhaps a few examples--again, hidden behind links. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 00:13, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)


I just don't see what the big deal of including nude pictures along as the person knew they were being taken of them and they are not pornographic. It doese not have to be the main picture or the only pix but really it is only the human body people also why do people automatically associate porn pictures with nudity?

Many people would be suprised and even offended to see nudity in articles unrelated to nudity. Why offend them just because we don't think it's a big deal? It's part of the Neutral Point of View -- we present the facts relating to an issue in a neutral way, without trying to win people over to any opinions we hold ourselves. It would be kind of like putting pictures of bacon in articles about Israel; to me, "it's just bacon", but to many people interested in Israel it would seem like an insult. It wouldn't add anything to the article and is likely to make people question the neutrality of the 'pedia. Lunkwill 18:27, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

That is a good point about the bacon but So why do we allow links to pages that are "anti that person" that might offended a reader as well

I'm not proposing this is the right approach, but if the article is about bacon a picture of bacon is appropriate, so surely if an article were on a specific subject relating to porn then a picture of the subject could be portrayed, provided of copurse it were not illegal. There seems some logic in this and to suggest otherwise would surely be POV? In fact I cannot think of a reason that is not POV in some way. In interests of decency we may not wish to porray it in a similar fashion that a picture of "vomit" under an article of the same name name (I have not checked) but even this is POV. Hence, for better or worse, Wikipedia cannot ever be 100% NPOV in its approach. Just an intersting, if not useful, point :) Dainamo 22:46, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

  • I would agree with this. In fact, since the image is marginally relevant in that case, I've left the link our anonymous editor added to the Twilight article. - Kenwarren 14:03, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)


Should we ban JPEG images?

Those who want to ban MP3 sound (Wikipedia talk:Sound) from wikipedia might be interested in the Forgent patent affecting JPEG images which is in today's news. [1] So far Sony has signed a license and an unnamed other company has paid US$15 million for one. After moving to ban the world's music format, should the world's photo format should be next? Japan and the US are the major countries which allow these patents. Should we instead refuse to deliver MP3 and JPEG content to viewers in Japan, to pressure users there to get their laws changed? That's the approach copyleft takes: make a large set of resources available, but only let you use them if you agree to the terms, so applying pressure to change your license. Jamesday 01:44, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I doubt the volume of users in Japan is enough to result in a law change. I would also hold off until a case goes to court and we have a finding - there is a lot of discussion about whether their patent can be enforced. --inks 02:24, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Japanese use is pretty high. US use is even higher (the US is the other country with software patents). However, I don't think we should ban any world standard format until there's a nearly universally used replacement. Jamesday 19:16, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)
The MP3 format is different, there is no JPEG alternative that i am aware of, this roally suchs though and i hope for a free image formats soon. -- var Arnfjr Bjarmason 03:35, 2004 Jul 23 (UTC)
Yes, the case is different. However, PNGs can be used for the same content as JPEGs, and are lossless. It's just a pity they result in larger file sizes. — Chameleon My page/My talk 03:57, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
PNG's are not comparable, they're a lossless compression format. -- var Arnfjr Bjarmason 04:56, 2004 Jul 23 (UTC)
PNGs are a replacement for GIFs, as they are truecolour and lossless. There is no widespread alternative for JPEG. Anrion 08:14, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
What is it about PNGs (or any other image file type, for that matter?) that makes them not an alternative for JPEGs? Lucky Wizard 02:09, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I'm putting it in very crude terms but JPEGs are based on "lossy" algorithms whose main intent are to represent the gradual shifts in color of a photo-realistic image. We don't care about the exact color of a specific pixel, we care that the whole photo be represent relatively correctly in a compressed manner. PNGs and GIFs on the other hand are exact -- each pixel must have a definite unalterable value. The bottom line in this is that PNGs and GIFs are efficient in representing images with a relatively small number of colors and definite borders between the colors. JPGs are efficient in representing photos with thousands and millions of gradual-shifting colors, but "flat" areas turn out crappy. Aris Katsaris 19:19, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
umm, this was not today's news - the article is from July 19, 2002. and if you read it up to the end you'll notice that the patent in question expires in 2006. regards, High on a tree 01:38, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I don't think Forgent has a legal leg to stand on; I don't think their claims to the JPEG patent would hold up in a serious court case. Forgent is just a case of slime abusing the legal system. Samboy 01:13, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I do think that a fully open-source alternative to JPEGs should be found however. JPEGs are old, and their compression could be improved on. PNGs are not supposed to be replacements for JPEGs, but they can replace them for certain images. — Chameleon Main/Talk/Images 20:06, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Is this photo fair use or public domain?

Hi, I'm want to use ofthis picture on Elmer Flick's page. My question is whether it is public domain or fair use. I think it is public domain because it was created/published in 1903, but on the 'Rights and Reproductions' page, it says its fair use. It seems like the 'Rights and Reproductions' page is just a general page they use for all images from the Chicago Historical Society. Are there any exceptions to the rule of things being published before 1923 are in the public domain? What are your opinions? Thanks for your help. Mattingly23 14:28, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • My opinion is that 1903 means little. The image was not put on the Web in 1903, so you're looking at a copy which someone made with a scanner or camera. (Whomever made the copy) owns the copyright (on that image) which happens to be (a copy of the old photo). (several phrases identified in preceding sentence to avoid pronoun trouble) We can't see the image because you provided a temporary link to loc.gov which no longer works. From your phrasing I imply that the (copy of the old photo) was probably created by the Chicago Historical Society. But asking them to use that loc.gov image might not work, as the Library of Congress might have their own copyright on the file that you're looking at -- or someone who adjusted colors and cropped it might have the copyright. Such complications is why the LOC.gov pages often tell you to contact their staff in order to deal with copyright questions. If you own and are holding the original 1903 image then the situation is much simpler, and this is the situation which is answered by most explanations about copyright and dates. (SEWilco 04:34, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC))
    • Here is the link to the copyright info about the pics I posted: [2]. It seems like they say there probably aren't any restrictions, but they don't want to guarantee it. - Mattingly23 17:12, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

policy on image text wrt pointers to email addresses?

What's the policy on images like Image:GlockenspielSousaphone.jpg where the photographer has provided a sample of a photo for use in the Wikipedia, and also provides the email address where other photos potentially can be acquired by private arrangements with the photographer? Isn't this a form of an advertisement?

Hmm, interesting question. Since the "ad" is on the image page itself, I'd say "No." But it is a form of advertising when/if the user clicks through to the full-size image. Looking at the text on the image page, it looks rather benign and harmless. I'd say it's fine, but I don't know if we want to encourage professional photographers to license us photos just to get more business. Actually, I guess it might be a Good Thing. This 'pedia desperately lacks good illustrations. Anyone else?
Also, next time sign your post. Do this with 3 or 4 tildes ~~~ or ~~~~. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 17:15, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)
I'm all for it. Hey, free images, right? As long as it's GFDL, this is no worse than by-attribution licences, of which we use plenty. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 17:27, 2004 Aug 19 (UTC)

The Thumbnailing craze

To me, the 300 pixel size was a good idea for photos that seems to have gone by the board. It is an ideal size to add visual impact to an article, without overwhelming browsers or slow connections.

The glory of Wikipedia, I thought, was that, as a non "dead tree" publication, we could "waste" a few electrons, and make the articles really live. Our layout options are somewhat limited by the format, but good pictures can make some articles real gems.

But a bunch of people have, in my opinion, been running amuk, thumbnailing everything. Why!?

There is a place for thumbnails; I use them myself. But many articles that were greatly enhanced by an appropriate photo, are now degraded by unintelligible thumbnails that require an additional step, and the viewing of more info that often has no relevance to the article.

On a few occasions I have reverted thumbnails. I've been tempted far more times. I am aware that not all my photos are brilliant, and sometimes have just let it go, but I find my enthusiam to contribute photos is declining. Naturally I keep best track of my own photos, but I would think this to be true for other photographers as well.

I think Wikipedians should establish some guidelines. At least one full sized image that adds to an article should NOT be thumbnailed. And many images that "go to pieces" cannot be thumbnailed. Non-photographers need to be especially cautious about thumbnailing, as they may not have the "eye" for good photos or layout. Some thumbnailing should not be so bold, but should be done only by consensus.

At any rate, I toss these ideas out for discussion. How about some policy specifications? Pollinator 16:36, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)

  • Actually, you'll hate me then. When there's no need to resize an image, I like to use the "frame" option to add a frame and caption. It just looks so neat and tidy and pretty. zoney ▓█▒ talk 16:42, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • The main reason I use them is to avoid having to upload separate "large" and "small" versions. I can see why it would be a problem if the thumbnails were too small to be intelligible, but that's a bad choice of sizing and/or poor image design (too much complexity, too-small details, or other things that are lost in size-reduction), not a result of thumbnailing. Thumbnailing lets us have a greatly detailed, near print-quality image and, if the image is designed with thumbnailing in mind, a perfectly intelligible thumbnail-sized image all in one. It also gives article editors far more flexibility iin deciding what an appropriate image size is, rather than assuming that 300px is going to be okay for all situations. -- Wapcaplet 18:49, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • I use thumbnail, but with a 250px (or whatever) parameter ... seems the best of all worlds to me. I venture to suggest the problem is not marauding thumbnailers, but marauding thumbnailers unaware that you can define the image size, and with little eye for page composition. --Tagishsimon
  • As a matter of aesthetics, some images should not be thumbnailed, especially diagrams and screenshots, especially ones that are already small (see older versions of The Legend of Zelda). In many cases, a specifically constructed smaller version, such as by cropping, shrinking, and sharpening, looks a lot better. This is common practice on many art webpages. In this case the smaller version's image page should link to the larger version. On the other hand, for many images simply shrinking them works fine and eliminates work for everyone. Should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Derrick Coetzee 19:13, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • The struggle between least-common-denominator and good-looking goes on - I think eventually the sizing calculations will have to be under less manual control, for print purposes and the like - 300px is kind of wide for screens, distorts formatting around it, but would be too small for most printed works. So I don't spend a lot of time worrying about image sizes; more important to get them in there, so they're available to use (maybe not even in the article you anticipated), and also to discourage uploading of images with undesirable licenses. I think it's safe to say there will be several more rounds of image markup tinkering before it really stabilizes at something we all like, while properly-licensed images will become more valuable as the dubious ones get scrubbed out. Stan 19:26, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Pollinator, can you give some examples of photos that have been treated badly by thumbnailing? I'm not sure I understand your criticism yet. Large pictures are important when they are the subject of the article (for example Mona Lisa needs a large picture), but when used as illustrations a large picture can take over the article, distort formatting, and leave little room for text (a good size for the Mona Lisa article would not be so good for the Leonardo da Vinci article, where it has to share the space with other illustrations). I see that you carefully size your pictures to fit the article context you have in mind; perhaps this is why you are unhappy when others resize them. You might do better to upload the biggest image you have, let the software scale it, and not worry too much that its not perfect. That's what I do. I know the thumbnail software isn't very good at the moment but it will get better — and when it gets better every big picture will benefit automatically. Think ahead to the hypothetical print version... Gdr 23:40, 2004 Aug 24 (UTC)
    • Ah, I see that you don't want to upload the original image because you don't want to license it under the GFDL. But on the other hand you are annoyed when someone resizes your carefully prepared reduction. Maybe you just can't have it both ways? Gdr 23:40, 2004 Aug 24 (UTC)
      • Perhaps a concrete example would help. One of Pollinator's striking photographs (full frame) can be found at Windpump. Judge for yourself whether the page layout works, or whether some thumbnailing would help. -- Solipsist 08:14, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
        • Framed both images because I feel that they look better that way. Framing, I think, offers a good compromise between the desire to thumb/annotate and the desire to include an original image in its full glory. --[[User:Ardonik|Ardonik(talk)]] 02:54, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)
      • Example: Niagara Falls was thumbnailed. I reverted that one.Pollinator 14:15, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)
        • Is is acceptable like this? [3] Gdr 16:32, 2004 Aug 25 (UTC)
      • Yup, that one almost certainly better full frame. Have you tried the 'frame' option that Zoney was mentioning. It would help separate the image from the horizontal rule and gives a cleaner caption.... Hang on Gdr got there before I had finnished typing. -- Solipsist 16:34, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
        • The Niagra Falls one is a good size. Too much detail lost if that particular photo is smaller. But each of the photos in Windpump is larger than the article itself--almost as tall as a smaller screen--and there's no important detail to be seen. They could both be half as high/wide or even smaller and not affect the info they're conveying in the article. Elf | Talk 22:05, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
          • I think the first photo on the Windpump article is a good size. The second doesn't fit, though, but the best solution would be to add text until it does. Right now, before there's more text, there's really no good solution. anthony (see warning) 00:27, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • As I've mentioned on the pump afew weeks ago, I think we should not give pixels for images unless there's a specific reason. Why? Because what looks great on my screen (in my browser) will look horrible in yours. I suggested a setting (small/medium/large) in the user settings, so everyone can set to see the thumbs accordingly. Of course, there will be always reasons to specify the size of an image exactly. I hope that these settings will be implemented one day. Kokiri 16:38, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • That's a good point; many times, a more fuzzy setting such as small/medium/large would be perfectly adequate. Though I'm a bit hazy - do you mean that instead of specifying "200px" in the image thumbnail, we'd say "small", etc.? That alone seems fairly pointless, since "small" is just going to translate into some predetermined number of pixels anyway. Having such an item as a user preference (i.e., "Image thumbnail quality: ()small ()medium ()large") might be handy, and could help with bandwidth issues too (modem users could stick with small thumbnails - though, this would also mean they'd more frequently need to view the full version, since a smaller thumbnail may not be clear enough) but it seems like extra work for already taxed servers; three differently-sized thumbnails would need to be generated for each image, for each sizing that is used in any article, and roughly tripling the disk usage for thumbnail images. The ability to specify pixel-widths in image syntax is of vital importance in many thumbnails; for instance, when I do a large, high-res diagram for some article, I choose the thumbnail size carefully so that most of the relevant detail is still visible - that there are still enough pixels to show the detail. If all I had to go on was "medium," that would be far less flexible. -- Wapcaplet 21:32, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • I admit that I have recently thumbnailed an image for the sole reason that I wanted to give it a caption and did not know about the frame option. Maybe somebody could point me to the description of the image tag syntax, and put this pointer at some easily found location. I'm sure I'm not the only one still wondering where this syntax is documented. Simon A. 15:56, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What format?

What format do I use for screenshots, and would it be a bad idea to use Paint to convert to that format? --Sgeo | Talk 13:19, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

PNG is the recommended format for screenshots, and it would not be a bad idea to use Paint if you have Windows XP. I don't believe earlier versions could save PNG files. Rhobite 13:28, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC) edit: please don't edit my comments Rhobite 17:20, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
Actually, I think it depends on what the screenshot consists of. If it is something like a text editor, PNG would probably be the preferred format. But if it was a photorealistic screenshot from an FPS, JPG would probably be a better format (for its better compression of photographic images).
I don't think Paint supports PNG, but it'd probably work for JPG images. Personally, I prefere Paint Shop Pro, but that's just me. There are probably several free utilities available that convert image formats. — Frecklefoot | Talk 13:51, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
Paint does support .PNG in Windows XP. In any case, there are many graphic file converters out there. GIF is arguably okay. Whatever you do, do not use BMP! Derrick Coetzee 14:25, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I just uploaded Image:BabasChess.PNG which was converted with Paint on WinXP. --Sgeo | Talk 15:11, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

And I just recompressed it to knock a third off the file size. Ain't collaboration fun? -- Cyrius|✎ 15:23, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
And I just converted it to indexed color to knock another ~50% of the filesize off. PNGs can fairly often be indexed for big space savings. This is unfortunately something that pngcrush can't do at this time... -- Wapcaplet 22:58, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I have noticed that some programs are less than ideal for compressing PNG. Maybe Windows XP paint doesn't compress it at all. Rhobite 17:16, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
pngcrush -brute oldfile.png newfile.png does a better job than anything else I can think of, image editor or otherwise. It's cross-platform, too. --Ardonik.talk() 17:27, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
pngcrush is awesome! I have a list of .pngs extracted from a recent database dump. I should have a bot go through and pngcrush all the ones that gain significantly from it. Potentially this could be done as part of the upload for new images. Derrick Coetzee 18:05, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons

What about images from Wikimedia Commons? --.:Ajvol:. 08:53, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

(Since no one else has said this, and it's not clear on the article page) You automatically have access to Commons files. No special prefix is required. If you want to use an image foo.png on commons, all you need to put is Image:foo.png. But it will try to access a 'local' version of the file first - so if foo.png exists on en:, it will use that. I don't know if its possible to write something extra to force it to use the Commons file. pfctdayelise 01:38, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Renaming an image

I recently uploaded an image, and realized I’d given it a bad file name. This project page and Wikipedia:How to rename (move) a page both say there's no easy way to rename an image. So I uploaded the image with the correct file name, and left a request for speedy deletion on the first (incorrect file name) image. It's already deleted. Then I took another look at the image page and saw a move tab. When I went there, it looked like an easy way to rename an image. I didn’t use it, though. Gun shy.

What is the current preferred way to rename an image? If no one answers in a week, I’ll assume that uploading again, but with the correct file name, is out of date, and I’ll change the project page texts to reflect that. Rmeier 00:35, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

When I clicked on the move tab, and actually tried the Move Page, it didn't work. I received the following error message - “Error: could not submit form”. Therefore the correct method to rename an image is to upload the image with the correct file name, and leave a request for speedy deletion on the first (incorrect file name) image. I use the {{deletebecause|your reason here}} template. Rmeier 05:33, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Is this compatible with us?

Instead of trying to comprehend all of the various types of allowabilities for images and so on, I figured I'd simply ask here from time to time if a certain website's policies are compatible with ours, and what steps would need to be taken to utilize their images. So, my question today is: is the National Zoo's copyright statement compatible with Wikipedia/GFDL/CC? Can I upload their images? If so, what tag(s) should I use? - UtherSRG 02:36, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

Affirmation that the copyright holder agrees

I'm trying to upload an image that is public domain (PD-USGov-DOT to be precise). The upload page insists I check a box "I affirm that the copyright holder of this file agrees to license it under the terms of the Wikipedia copyright." But I can't affirm that; by definition there is no copyright holder, and I probably can't go and ask a random person at the FAA for agreement to license it anyway. Should the checkbox be clarified along these lines: "I affirm that either this image is not subject to copyright or..."? Until this is resolved, I ain't uploading the image. David Brooks 20:11, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I just saw that the same question was asked (but not answered) at Wikipedia_talk:Uploading_images, which is admittedly the better place for it. David Brooks

forestryimages.org

There's a huge collection of tree and forestry photos at http://www.forestryimages.org/. Most are taken by private individuals and copyrighted, with (usually) a non-commercial licence note attached; fair enough.

However, some are marked as taken by United States Forest Service personnel - these photos carry the same non-commercial license restrictions on the page (typical example: this one). Yet surely as US Government photos, these are in the public domain and free of copyright? Can I ignore the stated restrictions as being incorrect, and use these USFS photos with the tag {{PD-USGov-USDA-FS}}? - thanks, MPF 19:02, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Anyone?? - MPF 00:07, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Commons

How should this page be updated to reflect Wikimedia Commons ([4])? Hyacinth 04:07, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Macromedia Fireworks

Macromedia Fireworks [10] (http://www.macromedia.com/fireworks/) A mildly popular imaging program, primarily used for creating animated gifs and static JPGs. Contains only basic editing tools.

Fireworks is far from "basic editing tools". It is atually best image software for making images for web. For photos, yes Photoshop may be a bit more suitable, but for rest ... Could somebody with better language skills correct this in article. Thank you --TarmoK 21:01, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

{{unknown}} -- remove from articles?

While checking on articles for Wikipedia:Press coverage and Wikipedia:Wikipedia as a press source, I came across this news article. They used Wikipedia not as a source of text, but as the source of the picture. I was excited, since I'd never seen Wikipedia used like this before, until I checked the image and its copyright status is unknown. I don't fully understand fair use, although I am fairly certain that this image is not public domain as the uploader originally asserted. I think we should be careful about using copyrighted photographs; as Wikipedia gets more popular, reusing photographs will probably occur more often. And copyright holders may start getting annoyed to find their photographs being reprinted in news stories and such. I don't normally follow the image discussions so I don't know what's in the works for {{unknown}} images, but just wanted to leave a heads up. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:11, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's a shame I left out the information on that picture. I tend to rush through things like that. But just for the record, it's been fixed. It won't happen again (hopefully)! --ROY YOЯ 15:48, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Please help

Knowledgable users, please lend a hand @ Talk:Arthur_Wellesley,_8th_Duke_of_Wellington. Thank you. ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 13:46, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Old photographs?

Since there isn't a Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Photos) page, I am not sure where to ask this question: What should one do with old photographs that you are planning to upload to the Wikipedia? I've uploaded a few old photos from the Library of Congress. Unfortunately, like many of the pre-1923 public domain photos at the LOC, they were darkened and yellowed. Most of the photos I uploaded I have used "as is". For one of the photos, however, I cropped the image, and then converted the image to greyscale and lightened up the image, which I think gave a much better picture. I am wondering if there should be any sort of Wikipedia guidlines for this type of photo manipulation. BlankVerse ∅ 13:15, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Recommend PNGs for greyscale images?

Should it be mentioned in the article to recommend using greyscale PNGs for monochrome pictures (incl. black and white photos)? Or would JPEGs still be better for monochrome photos? --Zilog Jones 13:54, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Black and white versus colour doesn't really affect the JPEG vs PNG decision. Both formats have a greyscale mode of operation, and in greyscale they have the same respective advantages and disadvantages as in colour. It may be worth ensuring that the image has been saved in greyscale - I don't recall seeing the option on many JPEG exporting programs. --KJBracey 21:25, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Portrait policy idea.

I have an idea for a policy using portrait images. I'm not sure if this has been discussed before or if there is already a page for it...

Some of my ideas are:

  • When adding a portrait, find one that is simple and clear looking that shows the persons "features" easily. Isn't that what a portrait image supposed to be about?
  • Don't upload a high-res pic for a simple portrait as it's unnecessary. Instead provide a link to a high resolution picture at their official web site or whereever a stable link is at. Unless the picture is rare.
  • Don't needlessy change around someones portrait. I see this alot for famous musicians and singers. Just find an image you fans like that clearly shows the person and leave it alone.
  • Keep it simple. No fancy photo editing that makes it hard to see the picture.

I got this idea from seeing people constantly changing famous musicians portrait images for no real reason. This really bugs me because the picture usually gets changed from an ok picture to an ugly one that doesn't show the persons face.

Any thoughts? --Arm 19:39, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with most of these, except your point about high-res images. Images must be uploaded in as high a resolution as possible, because low-res pictures look bad in print. See Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Uploaded_image_size. arj 20:44, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Photos of people in public places

What, if any, are the legal concerns regarding photos of people taken in public places without a model release (e.g. a photo of people in a rowboat in New York's Central Park)? -- Avocado 17:18, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Ditto. Are there guidelines about using non-famous people? e.g. I have pictures I want to use for sports, but they're amatuer players. What if they're not easily identifiable? pfctdayelise 01:42, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
This is actually a tough one. There are some countries with stupid privacy laws. I am not aware of any preexisting guidance on Wikipedia. I would suggest that you avoid pictures with identifiable people when at all possible, since that will probably provide sufficent protection. I think it's not a bad solution overall, since except in specific circumstances, I believe that it is generally distracting to have identifiable people in our illustrations when the people are not the subject, and overall such photographs look less perspective. ... A discouragement for photos of people where they are not needed will also be useful when someone decides to play wheres waldo and get a picture including him into every article on Wikipedia. ;) --Gmaxwell 05:48, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Policy on large animations

See [5]. A 700 KiB animation was removed for being too large for dialup users. Is there any policy on this? I don't see why we should limit ourselves, but as a compromise, a static image could be created and leave a link to the animated version. Don't just delete it. — Omegatron 13:18, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

I've added something to the policy to that effect. Tweaking (eg. what is "very small") appreciated. See also #Animated GIFs above. ··gracefool |☺ 22:21, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Dear Image use policy,

Booo, you suck! Get off the stage. TIA! El_C 02:22, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Er, huh? Are you trying to make a WP:POINT, or what? In any case, I think the Image use policy is quite well written and useful. If you have any substantive suggestions, please speak up. JesseW, the juggling janitor 02:37, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
That's OiHA! (don't touch my seal of approval, my beloved Image policy!) Anyway, in answer to your question: the former. [W]ell written [possibly, I haven't —and will never— read it] and useful, I see you are sucking up to the hated Image use policy, which, in the long-run, is probably a wiser course than the one I've chosen (one which will likely bring about my untimely demise). Thanks! El_C 02:59, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Images in templates using names assembled from pagenames

Some templates (for example {{DB Character}}) build image names from the page name. I think this is an extremely bad idea for a number of reasons.

  • It causes problems with some article titles due to a long standing bug in the filename length checking.
  • It encourages re-uploading of existing images which wastes space and makes things harder to maintain.
  • It encourages short nondescriptive names.
  • It encourages uploading a different image with the same name possiblly disrupting other articles that use the image.

Should we write something on this into the image use policy?

Pictures taken in museums

This question is about the usability of pictures I took myself of historical artifacts in a museum; if this is not the right place for my query, can somebody let me know where to take it? The museum in question had no policy against taking pictures, and the images are of historical artifacts (specifically, old scientific equipment) and not of art or specially-designed exhibit displays. Can I post and use the pictures I took on wikipedia? Thanks, -- SCZenz 23:15, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

AFAIK, and IANAL, such pictures would be just fine, and very much appreciated. Of course, you would state on each image description page "This photo was taken by me, SCZenz, on >date when you took the photo>, in >name of museum>. {{PD-user|SCZenz}}". Thanks in advance for the pictures! JesseW, the juggling janitor 00:13, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Photos of Silent Film Actors

I posted about this on the Silent Film Talk Board, but I thought this might be a better place to ask: I'm pretty new here, but I'm hoping to spruce up some of the silent film actors' articles, particularly with photos. After looking at all the copyright image guidelines, however, I'm pretty much too scared to do anything. I certainly don't have any physical photographs at home, but the internet is teeming with pre-1922 photos of somewhat forgotten stars. I found the Library of Congress site both difficult to navigate and somewhat devoid of photos of stars lesser known today. Does anyone know of a reliable repository of old silent photographs, or are any pre-1922 photos good to go if I tinker with them in Photoshop long enough? Or am I better off just e-mailing a lot of websites asking for permission (although most Silent Movie fans want to spread the word about their forgotten genre and probably don't mine sharing, some are very protective about their personal collections). Wencer 02:53, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Removal of lines from image use policy

Asking people to consider the appropriateness and necessity of the images they include isn't the same as saying that we practice censorship. Was this edit discussed anywhere? -- SCZenz 18:59, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

As far as I can tell it wasn't. I've added the text back, although I've trimmed it a bit... because the link-vs-inline isn't something there is consensus about. As far as I can tell the shockingness of an image an editoral consideration, and that all other things equal we prefer to use less shocking images where we can. The text has be long standing in one form or another, ... it used to say 'offensive', but I changed it (a month ago?), as 'shocking' is more general and more related to our goal (high quality vs censored and 'kid safe') --Gmaxwell 21:41, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Cool. It looked like a bizzare edit to me, but I hadn't been keeping track of this long enough to know for sure. -- SCZenz 21:51, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Article: Image Editors

Why are there audio editors listed along with the recommended image editors?


Image Question

I'm interested in uploading(My computer is finally fixed :) ) one of these flags for the Courland article along with Courland colonization, etc. I understand the flag policy but the copyright, IMHO, of these flags is unclear. If it can't be used(or best not), is there a specific site to redraw it. I have gone through several sites but unfortunately have been unsuccessful.

Photo credits

Rule of thumb #9 says "Don't put photo credits in articles or on the images themselves; put them on the description page": this appears to put us in breach of licenses which require us to be clear about the copyright status of the image. The issue came up on Talk:Main Page#David Blunkett photo. Comments? Physchim62 (talk·RfA) 13:23, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

  • That was a pretty isolated incident and wasn't discussed among people who actually have some knowledge of our licenses or copyright law. In general we don't put photo credits on the captions themselves and that is a good rule of thumb. Anyway, as far as fair use claims go, the versions which do not include copyright information (or license information) listed are tiny thumbnails, and I think that is probably fine (based on the limited caselaw around thumbnails). Only with larger versions does it become imperative to indicate the licenses so explicitly, in my opinion. --Fastfission 14:59, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation's image hot-linking policy?

I've posted this on Meta, but I thought I'd post this here as well:

Does anyone know of the Wikimedia Foundation's policy of hot-linking images on the Wikimedia servers? I know that hot-linking images on other people's servers is often considered leeching. However, I would like to hear of the Wikimedia Foundation's stance on hot-linking to images on its servers. Thanks. --Ixfd64 08:47, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

  • I would think that it would fall first under re-use of materials — you'd have to indicate the origin of the image and the copyright status (i.e. GFDL) as you would anything else. But beyond that, I'm not sure there is a coherent policy — you might be better off asking at the Wikipedia:Village Pump rather than here, because this page is directed at how Wikipedia can use images, not how others can use Wikipedia images. --Fastfission 14:58, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I've spoken to the devs about this and they have said that right now the bandwidth usage of such use is so small its currently not an issue but that they may consider charging for such use in the future if it becomes significant enough that the administrative overhead is worth it.

Strange Policy

What is this for a strange "official" policy, if I can find such Pictures: Image:GudeaLagasch.jpg - on 20 February in 2004 (!!!!!) this Image was tagged as picture with unknown status and should be delete after 7 Days. And now? There's the image, it's not deletet after 7 days or 7 weeks or 7 months. More than 20 month later such pictures are here. The english Wikipedia should do more against this pirats! Kenwilliams 02:31, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

These images are beeing actively deleted. Problem is the sheer number. There used to be ~12.000 of them, now it's down to ~2.000 (see Category:Images with unknown source. It takes time is all, especialy since you have to sift though the category to find images that have in fact been tagged for more than 7 days. You can help out by tagging images that have been marked with "no source" or "no license" for more than 7 days with the {{db-i4}} speedy tag, they should be dealt with in a timely fashon after that. Thanks for the heads up by the way I'll delete Image:GudeaLagasch.jpg right away. --Sherool (talk) 13:27, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
It also doesn't help when people upload a thousand images per day, many of them copyvios, and then threaten admins for doing their job by clearing them out. If you want to help, go through the images that are not orphans and remove/replace their uses in articles, since we don't like to have articles that reference deleted images. Stan 14:35, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
True, it is not appropriate to blame admins for this. Bear in mind that there are thousands of images being created in Wikipedia every day. --Siva1979Talk to me 18:03, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Several painting / image manipulation tools, removed ?

I noticed that several software references, and links to various image manipulation tools were removed a few months back.

(See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Image_use_policy&diff=next&oldid=24130754 )

I didn't find any discussion on the reasoning/rational behind it. Several of those tooks were some of my favorites to use, and I would reccommend to others.

Would it be ok to put them back, or point me to the discussion on keeping them out, or are they somewhere else now?

Thanks, --Iain 21:58, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


A Question

I've got a bit of a query regarding Images. I'm writing an article about an educational system, and I would like to include a picture of the system's crest. Now I understand from reading this FAQ, and other pages that the creator of the image is required to release it to free domain for it to be able to be included. I remember from a discussion on another article's talk page (the name escapes me now) that such a declaration can be requested for in an e-mail and is valid. As this is the first time that I'm doing this, I'd appreciate a bit of advice as to the type of e-mail request to write and what exactly is required. Thanks in advance.Kaushik twin 07:46, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Old public domain images

For public domain images published before 1923, is it ok to use them, even if you didn't scan them personally? --Dara 19:53, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I do not belive that simple duplication of a 2D image is generally considered sufficiant to get copyright (thier was a big lawsuit about this in the U.S. setting precedent not too sure of the situation in other countries) so yes it should be ok. Plugwash 21:48, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
That's right. You should tag them as {{PD-US}} if they are not old enough to be tagged with {{PD-Art}}. But remember that it has to be published before 1923 -- it can't just have been created before 1923. --Fastfission 03:04, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
we should probally have a {{PD-Art-70}} like we have a {{PD-old-70}}. Plugwash 17:00, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
It sounds like a good idea doing this, Plugwash. --Siva1979Talk to me 18:04, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Sources for "self-sourcing" images

In connection with tagging things as {{no source}}, the question came up as to what is the "detailed source" of something like a scanned book cover. A casual reading of the policy seems to say that you have to say whether you scanned it yourself, or collected from Amazon's thumbnails, or whatever. However, this seems irrelevant at best - the actual source is the book's publisher, irrespective of what intermediate steps the image's bits took to get here. (Much like the Bridgeman v. Corel argument, where PD-ness of art is unaffected by accurate scanning and copying processes.) Rewording the policy would be tricky though; perhaps phrase it as requiring "ultimate source" which for book covers is the publisher, while "immediate source" of scan or website is helpful but not critical. Stan 22:49, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree (though if someone upload a new image without any info I make a point of tagging theyr images and delivering the whole "no source" speech, even if it's fairly obvious, in a hope of educating the user. If the image is usefull I can alays tag it later if they turn out to be inactive), the important bit is to say who owns the copyright (wich I asume is usualy the publisher in case of bookcovers, as they have probably paid for it to be made). So so how and where the image was obtained is more or less irrelevant (though it's nice to know), what is important is that we have enough information to be eable to verify who originaly created/published the work (and in case of "PD-old" stuff when and where). Same with screenshots and such. Saying "this is a screenshot from Half-life, developed by Valve Corporation and published by Sierra Entertainment" rather than "I found this image on gamespy.com", nothing wrong with doing both though. --Sherool (talk) 02:42, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

User-created images

I would like to propose making the following changes to the "User-created images" section to document the fact that Wikipedia requires (not wants) a free license for user-created images.
Change:
Wikipedia highly encourages users to upload their own images and release them under a free license (such as the GFDL).
to
Wikipedia encourages users to upload their own images, but all user-created images must be released under a free license (such as the GFDL and/or an acceptable Creative Commons license or be released into the public domain (no license). If licensing, it is best practice to multi-license your images under both GFDL and Creative Commons.

Add new paragraph:
Images with you, friends or family prominently featured in a way that distracts from the image topic are not recommended for the main namespace (user pages are OK). These are considered "vanity" images and the Wikipedia community has repeatedly reached consensus to delete vanity images.

Add new paragraph:
User-created images cannot may not be watermarked, distorted, have any credits in the image itself or anything else that would hamper their free use unless the image is intended to demonstrate watermarking, distortion etc. and is used in the related article. All photo credit should be in a summary on the image description page.

These additions are to clarify arguments that administrators have to deal with concerning images. Please support these ideas. Thanks -Nv8200p talk 16:58, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I would support a change per the above. └ UkPaolo/talk┐ 20:09, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Support. --Lukobe 20:17, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
A few comments:
  1. multi-licenseing of images under both GFDL and CC licenses should be encouraged.
  2. not all cc licenses are considered acceptable.
  3. we should probablly add an exception for images intended to demonstrte watermarking distortion etc.
(unsigned comment by User:Plugwash)
Revised per comments (in red) underlined. -Nv8200p talk 21:55, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Suport. (with minor grammatical changes). ed g2s • talk 03:25, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I think that these are all worth-while changes, yes.
James F. (talk) 10:27, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Definitely. Jkelly 17:10, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Strong support for the above. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 17:32, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose, excessive policification. Would the second paragraph require us to delete the images at Wikipedia:Facebook? And although watermarked images are less useful than non-watermarked, I see no need to encode that fact in policy. There are plenty of ways to make a bad photograph; watermarking is just one of them. (Actually, I would support a ban on all free images, which should never be uploaded here, but at the Commons instead.) dbenbenn | talk 02:12, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
    • How about changing "Images with you, friends or family prominently featured in them are not recommended" to "Images with you, friends or family prominently featured in them are not recommended for the main namespace", besides the paragraph says they are "not recommended", clearly the facebook is an exception. Let's consider the spirit of these changes, not the letter. The main point is about deliberately watermarking images for Wikipedia for vanity / usage restriction. I think it is important that we strongly discourage this. ed g2s • talk
      • Mainly, I am opposed to the proposal to disallow watermarked images. I agree they are strongly discouraged. But they shouldn't be totally verboten. And I would agree that vanity images are usually not recommended for the main namespace, but there are lots of exceptions. For example, Sleep shows a picture of the photographer's daughter. Thumb shows a picture containing (part of) me; your proposal would disallow that. dbenbenn | talk 03:22, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
        • Made changes to try and address issues. Watermarked user-created images should be verboten. The only reason to watermark an image is for vanity / usage restriction, which is a subversion of Wikipedia's reason for existence. -Nv8200p talk 16:43, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The wording is not accurate. "... all user-created images must be released under a free license." You can also release user-created images to the public domain (no license). Kaldari 19:33, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Good point. Added PD. -Nv8200p talk 20:22, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Why is licensing preferrable to releasing to the public domain? Kaldari 16:00, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
        • See Copyleft#The_ideology. With a public domain images, someone can make a derivitive work and copyright it. GFDL and Creative Commons licenses forbid copyrighting derivitive works. Derivitive works must be released under the same license. -Nv8200p talk 16:25, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
          • I fail to see the logic. Why would Wikipedia care what people do with derivative works of images on Wikipedia? From a purely ideological standpoint, I suppose it makes sense, but from a practical standpoint I don't see a compelling reason to prefer CC or GFDL over public domain for images. Kaldari 07:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
    • How about this wording instead: "Wikipedia encourages users to upload their own images, but all user-created images must be released under a free license (such as the GFDL and/or an acceptable Creative Commons license) or be released into the public domain." Kaldari 07:08, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Incorporated above text into the policy page. -Nv8200p talk 15:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Logos

If there are not objections, I have copied the statements from Wikipedia:Logos on to the relevant sections here that logos should be in PNG format. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 06:31, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

  • So you do not have to look at Wikipedia:Logos: JPEG format should not be used for logos because it results in a less professional appearance. And SVG format it results, in effect, in an infinite-resolution image, which may be harder to justify under fair use. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 06:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Which brings up the following question: Should all copyrighted images under fair use NOT be uploaded in SVG? Zzyzx11 (Talk) 06:43, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Ugh. That is completely inaccurate. SVG is a finite resolution format, which is why you can store it in a finite resolution file. Just like a PNG you can rasterize a SVG to any size you want. However, because SVGs represent an image logically, it is computationally simple make a good looking SVG at any size. (I could make a PNG of a logo just as equally huge by tracing it into a SVG and then outputing the SVG at large size). Generally a gzipped SVG is going to be smaller than a PNG in the case of a logo, so you have a good information theoretic argument that the SVG carries less not more information. But what really matters is what impact the use has on the commercial value of the copyrighted work, and I just cant see a case where we'd look better with PNG logos rather than SVG logos under that metric. If there isn't more discussion here, I'll go slice out that text from the page. --Gmaxwell 21:30, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I see no reason to think that using a vector format for a logo file would invalidate a fair use claim. Yes, someone could scale it to a big size with less degradation than with PNG or a similar raster format. But as Gmaxwell points out, they could do the same by just opening up Inkscape and using the tracing tool. I think that the fact that the vector logo is far more useful to Wikipedia - for instance, it can much more easily be adapted to different layouts, and it is much more suitable to a potential print version of Wikipedia in the future - is more than enough to make a fair use claim quite defensible. Moreover, IP issues with logos tend to fall under trademark, not copyright, law. As long as we don't use the logos to advertise our own product(s) or to falsely imply endorsement by the companies, we should be safe on that front. Given the significant advantages of vector images to Wikipedia, I see no reason to pre-emptively restrict ourselves when, to the best of my knowledge, (A) the Foundation has not forbidden the use of SVG logos, and (B) not a single company has ever complained about the practice. Frankly, I suspect companies would be more upset at crappy, pixelated JPEGs that make their logos look bad. While I certainly respect the need to keep Wikipedia out of legal hot water, I think this may be an example of m:Copyright paranoia. I'd prefer not to hamstring ourselves until and unless we hear from our legal professionals. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 16:59, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Album and single covers

  • I have a few questions about album and single covers.
    • Can we upload images that are cropped from album or single covers?
    • Can we use images that appear in an album's inlay or booklet?

Thanks Street walker 10:36, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

As long as they meet fair use criteria and are properly sourced and tagged —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nv8200p (talk • contribs) 22:09, 3 March 2006(UTC).

Images from a website that no longer exists

  • MJJSource had some really good pictures on their site. It was an official website run by Michael Jackson's people, but the site no longer exists. Does this mean that all images on the site are no longer copyrighted? Street walker 10:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Nope, presence/absence on a website doesn't change copyright status. It does, however, make it harder to verify the source of the images. Internet Archive may be helpful? Stan 15:36, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Copyright status of U.S. coin photos/scans

According to the policy: "Also note that in the United States, reproductions of two-dimensional artwork which is in the public domain because of age do not generate a new copyright — for example, a straight-on photograph of the Mona Lisa would not be considered copyrighted (see Bridgeman v. Corel). Scans of images alone do not generate new copyrights — they merely inherit the copyright status of the image they are reproducing." Does this mean that images taken from coin auction catalogs, like this one, could be uploaded under a {{Money-US}} license? This and similar images are clearly either scans or straight-on photos, with little or no creative work involved. Can they be used in compliance with copyright law and Wikipedia policy? Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 17:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Legally speaking, I see no problems with this. But just to make sure, you should check this with other users on Wikipedia. --Siva1979Talk to me 18:08, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Exclusive licence for Wikipedia?

Can I give Wikipedia a general yet exclusive permission to use images from my web site? The point is that since I like Wikipedia, I'd like to contribute those pictures, but I do not want them to be reused in other contexts. Could it work if I state on my site something linke "I will consider any use of my pictures by Wikipedia as fair use"? 84.189.175.229 22:30, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

No. All user uploaded images must be licensed under GFDL, Creative Commons or released to the public domain or as copyrighted free use. -Nv8200p talk 22:49, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately no, we don't accept "permission-only" images, since we actively encourage people to use our content, even commercial projects (for instance, the DVD edition of de:Wikipedia). You can either license a set of images that you feel comfortable with under a free license, or come up with a fair use rationale and tag the images Template:Permissionandfairuse. Jkelly 22:52, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

A discussion from the Village Pump (technical)

Hi. I had started a discussion at the VP in order to find out if an idea of mine would be technically possible. The answer I got was that it was, and the proposal was well-received by the users who participated. The next step would be submitting this to the general community. I figured this forum was the more appropriate one, but we could move it elsewhere if I'm wrong. What follows is the full transcription (copied and pasted) from the discussion that too place over there. I figure we can take it from there. Thanks in advance for any feedback. Redux 00:32, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

begin transcription:

In certain areas of the website, we are being overwhelmed with newbies uploading copyrighted images (copyvios) and images with uncertain copyright status (not usable). Naturally, newbies are generally unaware of our image usage policy, which has been thoughened considerably, incidentally. But the thing is, this is multiplying considerably the work of everybody else, in order to keep Wikipedia in compliance with both the law and our policy. Perhaps we should consider making the ability to upload images available only to accounts that are, say, a couple of months old? I don't know if that's even possible from the technical point of view, so I'm not even proposing this elsewhere before I find that out. Regars, Redux 23:33, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd guess it would be easy to do using the "autoconfirmed" which is used for page moves. --cesarb 01:47, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Possible, and not a bad idea. Autoconfirmed is an automatic permission users receive when their account has been registered for a specific period of time; the default for which is four days, and this is what we've got set on Wikimedia wikis. File a request on BugZilla and see what happens. Rob Church (talk) 03:55, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. But BugZilla? Isn't it supposed to be for reporting bugs? I believe this is more about a change in the MediaWiki, which might have to be supported by a policy change. Then again, I'm not really experienced in reconfiguring the software... Redux 15:50, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
We use BugZilla to keep hold of bugs, feature, and site configuration requests. The correct product and severity for a feature request are MediaWiki and enhancement, respectively. Rob Church (talk) 17:29, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I think it's a good idea, first thing to do will be to see if the community in general agrees, then if so file it on bugzilla (as far as I understand bugzilla is for all changes/improvements as well as actual bugs). Martin 15:57, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Should we start a discussion at WP:IUP, or perhaps at Wikipedia:Images, then? Redux 20:38, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that a couple months is the right length of time. When I notice new users uploading problematic images, I will engage them in a discussion about the policies, what's okay to upload, and inform them about Commons. I've found that the new users catch on pretty quick and have become good contributors to Wikipedia. Granted that many of the images at [6] are probably copyvios, though many others are self-authored photos.
I think that Special:Upload has improved greatly at explaining what's okay and not, but could be made more clear and explicit. Many users that I engage in discussion are quite confused by Wikipedia:Image copyright tags and don't understand that well, which license to select. Maybe we could improve that page, and link it boldly to the line "Specify the licence of the file by selecting it from the drop-down list below." on Special:Upload? -Aude (talk | contribs) 17:50, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Just to point out an alternative here. We can also create permission groups which are explicitly denied the ability to do things, e.g. we could create a noupload group which denies upload rights to users. This could then be added by a local bureaucrat using a modified version of the current interface for granting rights, which I'm going to improve sooner or later. Rob Church (talk) 08:03, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe that this idea is complementary, rather than an alternative. I like the idea, as a form of removing upload rights from whichever user (regardless of how old the account is) who shows a disposition for ignoring policy and uploading problematic images. Although I could suggest, if it's even possible from a technical standpoint, what if that could be done in a somewhat similar way to blocking a user? I mean, Administrators might be given the ability to suspend temporarily a user's ability to upload images.
On the original suggestion, of course, two months was an original suggestion, it could be a little less, but I do believe that, given our policy, and our concern with keeping Wikipedia in compliance with the law, it has become somewhat difficult for the ability to upload images to remain as an automatic privilege of every new account. It's severely multiplying the work load of other users. Not to mention that some newbies don't respond immediately — nothing too strange, as new users aren't all that active in the beginning as a rule. Also, some newbies don't really know what's going on when we contact them about the images not being usable, and it takes them a while to catch on.
As an alternative, I might suggest that, instead of making the ability to upload images available to new users after a predetermined period, we could make it available upon request. I don't mean any kind of "support/oppose" vote, the user would just have to answer a few standard questions, and if (s)he answers right, the ability to upload would be granted — and in order to answer right, that person will have to read up on Wikipedia policy. As a complement to that, future abuse could result in temporary suspension of the ability to upload images. Redux 13:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

end of transcription

Non-GFPL images violating text's copyright

When an image with a GFDL-incompatible license is incorporated into an existing article, doesn't this violate the copyright of the article's past authors? The combined article content, as presented to the user, is a derivative work of the past contributions. As such, it must respect the copyrights on those past contributions, and these are (usually) available only under the terms of the GFDL; and the GFDL requires the entire derivative work to be licensed under the GFDL (except for "aggregation with independent works", which this is not the case here). It follows that almost any use of non-free images (e.g., fair use), and even images available under free but GFDL-incompatible licenses, forms a copyright violation. Has this been discussed? --Kzon 01:30, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

IANAL, of course, but I think these do fall under the aggregation clause of the GFDL. If not, then all those sites that mirror our content and tack on non-GFDL ads are infringing the authors' copyrights also, and much more egregiously. —Cryptic (talk) 21:04, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
The aggregation clause refers to a compilation of "separate and independent documents or works". When an article is modifed to include a pertinent image as an integral part of the narration, and the result is rendered as a single web page, the case for "separate and independent" is very weak indeed. Concerning ads in mirrors, I'm neither sure nor care - they're not under our control or responsibility. But if Wikipedia currently violates its contributors' copyright, that's a reason for concern. Kzon 21:42, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
My understanding of it is that Jimbo et al determined that the text was distributed under GFDL but that images could be distributed under other licenses. There is a long discussion of it at meta. I don't know the answer myself -- I find the GFDL very confusing on these sorts of points -- but it has at least been discussed at some point. --Fastfission 21:49, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, that clear things up - especially the summary attempt section at the paragraph before it. These argue, convincingly, that fair use means absence of copyright (in that specific context), and thus fair-use material, like public domain material, is GFDL-compatible.
Still, the discussion at meta leaves open the issue of images available under a GFDL-incompatible free license (e.g., Creative Commons) when it does not form fair use. This again seems like a violation of the text's copyrights (by the same reasoning), and is not addressed by the aforementioned resolution. I'll bring it up there. Kzon 22:31, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

military / dod images and sourcing

It has come to my attention recently that it may be required for me to list a source for images which have been uploaded (by myself) and tagged as copyright-free as images taken by US Military/DOD personnel in the performing of their duties. While I nominally agree with the need to list a source for images, it is many times not possible. Many images are available on .mil and .gov sites which are clearly military in origin, and yet do not have a source listed. I have taken images which are clearly such, and uploaded them without listing a source if one is available.

It seems to me that this is a "common sense" issue. If one looks at my image contributions, one can find literally a hundred or more images which have been uploaded in this manner (and tagged as such). Am I to understand that these images must be deleted? Avriette 00:59, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

At the very least link to the site you found them on then. Unfortunately a lot of material on .gov and .mil sites are are in fact licensed from private contractors and other sources rather than taken by US federal personell in the line of duty. A picture of a jet or a tank may for example be a "promo shot" made by the manifacturer rater than something that was made by by the federal government itself, and as such they would be subject to copyright. With "embeded reporters" and what not these days you can't even asume footage from a battlefield to be made by the army itself (except the "obvious" gun camera footage and stuff like that). Some "common sense" can be used in some cases sure, but IMHO we can't just automaticaly asume that anyting fond on a .mil or .gov site is automaticaly public domain. Hopefully we can claim fair use rather than delete if in doubht, but that would still require a source... --Sherool (talk) 02:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
The images that specifically provoked this discussion were taken by US personnel in Afghanistan. I know this for a fact, as I know the person who took them. There are some niggling details , and as such I would prefer to not to reveal identities. However, I can say that a) nobody will come claiming copyright, and b) copyright is not applicable. Does having "personal knowledge" that they are taken by US personnel suffice? For that matter, if an image on a dtic.mil or usmc.mil site is clearly taken by a marine/soldier, without a listed credit, is it not possible to list it? Avriette 04:20, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, well in that case give I'd say just explain on the image page in as much detail as you possebly can without getting anyone into trouble. Even if it's just "I know who took these images, but because of theyr nature they would prefeer to stay anonymous, but they agree to let the images can be used freely" or some such. It's not the ideal image source, but I would probably consider something like that good enough in such a case (can't speak for others), asuming good faith on your part and all. That's a good rule for any image realy, write as much info on them as you can, don't leave people guessing. That's the important part, we generaly trust people when they say "I took this photo" after all and while "this was taken by a friend of a friend of my brother's girlfriend's uncle" or whatever is a tad more flimsy it's at least better than nothing. --Sherool (talk) 13:19, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
In that case, would anyone be opposed to my adding that notice, let's try:
This picture was taken by US Military personnel in a time of war; due to the nature of these photos, the source should not be revealed. However, they are not protected by copyright laws in the US.
to the photos so indicated? There are others which are clearly from the Navy's historical files. I see no reason to add any notes to those. There are a few others (diagrams and images of weapons systems) which, to me, are clearly military in origin. What do people think about those? Examples:
  1. Image:Belt fed machine gun.jpg
  2. Image:040527-O-0000L-003.jpg
  3. Image:Claymore mine af.jpg
  4. Image:M14rifle-markings.jpg
I'm not sure how we would make sure that these are not the work of some subcontractor or manufacturer. Thoughts? Avriette 16:00, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Public Domain Images stored on Internet Galleries

I have looked at many different articles on the subject of uploading images here on Wikipedia and I have to say, I cannot find a clear answer to the following question (maybe there is not one!):

In a nutshell, am I allowed to upload an image, which if I had a hard copy in front of me would clearly be in the public domain, if an online gallery (such as this one www.topfoto.co.uk) has digitized it and is claiming copyright? Does the fact that the website is based out of the UK make a difference?

It would be safer to exercise caution and not upload it, even with an accreditation to the website, but would appreciate some succinct guidance on this. Please direct me to the right article on Wikipedia if that is simpler.

Thanks a lot! LeighBCD 19:41, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

SVG vs. PNG in Widely Used Templates

I've been going around swapping some PNG versions of graphics for SVG versions (for example Image:Achtung.png → Image:Achtung.svg), thinking that this was a good thing as per Commons:Images for cleanup. However, while waiting for a reponse to a notice I placed on the {{PD-because}} talk page (which is protected, otherwise I would have done this already), I've now read at Meta:SVG image support that all processing is done on the server end, and it spits out a PNG for the browser anyway.

I know that all (or most all) PNG country flags have been replaced with SVG equivalents. Is there any guideline for PNG → SVG swapping in templates and other areas? Thanks. McNeight 17:25, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

  • The reason for swapping is not that it will improve things visually on this end (in most cases the display will be exactly the same), but so that people can click on the image and get an even better version of it. I don't see any reason not to swap PNGs with SVGs. --Fastfission 19:38, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
    • Pluss at somem point in the future when SVG support is more universal in browsers we can skip the thumbnailing process and use the SVG's directly (though there are some secirity issues that need to be adressed, since SVG files can embed scripts and such). --Sherool (talk) 19:46, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
      • Eh, if we need to. I think that rasterizing the SVG, especially for small icons, will probably always be a better approach (enhanced compatibility, and no worries about browsers mis-rasterizing). But anyway, that's neither here nor there. --Fastfission 02:27, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
      • On the script issue: we already cope with malicious SVGs to some extent to protect the servers (i.e. killing URL refs). I don't think we should bother with client side SVGs until we figure out how to savely use it for some types of interactivity. (i.e. write a non-turing-complete very limited scripting language parser in javascript and let people use that language to make interactive SVGs)--Gmaxwell 03:09, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Multiple Images That Appear Identical

I've noticed multiple copies of the same image, sometimes pre-scaled and sometimes with a background color added. For example, Image:Warning.png is similar to Image:Cscr-important.png which is a scaled version of Image:Important.png which is a scaled version of Image:Nuvola apps important.png which is superceded by Image:Nuvola apps important.svg and are all incredibly similar to Image:Achtung.png and Image:Achtung.svg. While I'm not advocation the merging of all of these graphics into a single one (some are GFDL, some are public domain and some are dual-licenced), is there any way to declutter some of this? McNeight 20:33, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Google Earth

Is there somewhere in one of Wikipedia's policies that explicitly says we can't use images/"screenshots" from Google Earth (with the exception of the article, Google_Earth, itself to illustrate the software)? If so, where does it say that? If not, I think we should add it here. When I remove such an image from an article, it would be helpful to point that user to some explanation/policy. -Aude (talk | contribs) 19:36, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what specific images you are looking at, but at the bottom of the actual Google Earth application, there is a very clear copyright tag as to where the data you are looking at came from, and whose copyright it is. Unless they can prove otherwise, I would assume any data from Google Earth is copyrighted. McNeight 21:27, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I came across Image:Pentagon_ariel.jpg (now removed) in The Pentagon article. Some of the imagery data might be public domain (e.g. from USGS). However, Google also gets much of their imagery and data from commercial sources, including Digital Globe, Tele Atlas, and Navteq, who I'm sure wouldn't be amused to see it on Wikipedia. And the software features for manipulating the data (e.g. oblique angles, as in this example), are also proprietary. Because of all this, I think there is no way we can/should use Google Earth images. But some people don't realize this; therefore, I think it's worth explicitly adding to the policies. -Aude (talk | contribs) 22:20, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

JPG or PNG

I don't think the quality reduction is worth it for the file size reduction especially with dial-up use dwindling. Would anyone object to the format section being changed to say photos may be PNGs? Discordance 03:30, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

We would much rather people used maximum quality JPGs (for which there will not be any visable quality loss) because we are then able to thumbnail them down to small size for transmission (we must keep things in like formats when we downsize). However, it would be useful to increase our quality setting on thumbnailed jpgs since we do get visable artifacting on the thumbnails of some images. Someday we may allow users to select their own image sizes and jpeg qualities but the way we handle images today won't work for that. --Gmaxwell 04:09, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

3-D Photos

I recently uploaded a a 3-D image and linked to it from the Helictite article. I think it offers an interesting perspective and is a worthwhile contribution. What do you guys think? I couldn't find any policy literature on this. Can we mention this in the Image use policy for other would-be 3-D photo contributers?

What's the point? How is one supposed to view that? (BTW, you can sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~). When you save, the software replaces that by your login name and a timestamp. Lupo 08:15, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
The point is that those who have 3D glasses can gain a three dimensional perspective, giving them a better sense of scale. Jason7825 10:10, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I thought so. How many people in the world are likely to have 3D glasses? (I don't.) I would think it's a vanishingly tiny fraction of Internet users. Therefore, I don't see the point of uploading images that can be viewed properly by only that very tiny fraction, but that show a blurry mess of red and blue lines for all the others. I suggest that if we change the policy to say something at all on that topic, it should be by stating that one shouldn't do it. Lupo 10:26, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
I've already seen other 3D pictures with a tag that shows 3D glasses. just can't remember where. so this might be a good idea to ask someone about it. Unixer 09:08, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
I think User:3dnatureguy was the original proponent of 3D images on Wikipedia. He's uploaded a ton. There was a lot of discussion that resulted in a guideline over at Wikipedia:3D Illustrations. ~MDD4696 22:28, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Statement about noncommercial use

The image use policy page does not state anywhere that image with only noncommercial use allowed are not generally permitted. One has to look Wikipedia:Image copyright tags or Wikipedia talk:Image use policy/Noncommercial-use. This has led to confusion in some quarters; see e.g. Talk:Jordanhill_railway_station#Aireal_View_Image:Jrs.jpg. --Saforrest 14:17, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

  • Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#User-created_images states "Wikipedia encourages users to upload their own images, but all user-created images must be released under a free license (such as the GFDL and/or an acceptable Creative Commons license) or be released into the public domain (no license)." and Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Free_licenses states "Licenses which restrict the use of the media to non-profit or educational purposes only, or are given permission to only appear on Wikipedia, are not free enough for Wikipedia's usages or goals and will be deleted." Seems pretty clear that this would means Noncommercial use but maybe not. I have added the words into the paragraph -Nv8200p talk 21:59, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Images in templates?

I'm creating very small images for use in the film stub templates, using images that are already in Wikipedia (such as smileys, clipart, etc.). What type of images should I not use, in terms of copyright? Fair use? GFDL? Thanks - Her Pegship 01:32, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

You can't use the fairuse images.. Anything which is freely licensed is fair game. --Gmaxwell 03:45, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Images from other languages wikipedia

I want to know is there any requirement of tag to image which is available on other wikipedia language page. If yes, which type of tag should be used? Thanks -- Shyam (T/C) 12:51, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

It is absolutely required to properly source and tag an image lifted from another language Wikipedia and just saying "from German Wikipedia" is not a good enough source. Ideally, the same source and tag from the other Wikipedia should be used. -Nv8200p talk 00:00, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
At the very least copy everything thats on the image page on the other wikipedia. If possible translate into english. Leaving a link back to the other wikipedia is a good idea but only really nessacery if it was created by a user there. Plugwash 18:20, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Layout of images on the page

There seems to be no recommendation on where to place images on the page when text flows around them. It's quite hard to get this to look nice - and I have some observations.

  • If images are all on the right, then when the user views the page with a very wide browser window, a small text font and/or a low res screen, then the vertical extent of the image tends to be larger than the text in the section to the left of it resulting in images 'colliding' vertically and winding up not being next to the text that they are relevent to. This is not a problem for narrower browser windows, larger fonts or higher resolution screens.
  • If you try to avoid the problems above by alternating image positions to the left and right then the opposite happens: On high res screens with small font sizes and wide browser window, there is plenty of room for the text to flow down the middle of the page between two images who's vertical extents overlap. It looks much nicer than images that are all to the right. HOWEVER, on low res screens with narrow windows and/or larger fonts, the horizontal gap between the two images gets very small and the text is forced into a long, narrow channel leaving perhaps just a few words on each line. This looks terrible and is hard to read.
  • The solution in both cases is to write more text or use fewer images and put the images all off to the right. With a sufficiently large text-to-image ratio, everything looks OK.

So - should there be a policy?

I think we would do well to advise four things in the case of flow-around images:

  1. Images should generally be placed to the right of the article and not alternated left and right without some special reason.
  2. There should be a 'recommended browser width' at which articles should look their best.
  3. There should be advice to editors to check their article looks right at a specified minimum-reasonable-window-size and at a specified maximum-reasonable-window-size - and everywhere in between - but allow things to look somewhat ugly for cases outside whatever we determine is a 'reasonable' range.
  4. We should recommend the minimum ratio of characters of text to image height. So that (say) a 200 pixel vertical dimension image should be accompanied by (let's say) a minimum of 800 characters of text before the next flow-around image.

We might also choose to advise end users on the best window settings to see Wikipedia at it's most nicely presented.

SteveBaker 06:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Have you taken a look at Wikipedia:Picture tutorial? It has already been decided that alternating images on the left and right is the preferable way to lay out images. Images are supposed to enhance the text, so when images stack up on one side of the screen, they lose their context.
Secondly, the "recommended browser width" is an antiquated idea from the pre-CSS web. There is no reason that sites today cannot be designed to look respectable across all browsers, screen resolutions, and platforms. Wikipedia does a pretty good job of this, in my opinion.
Your last point is far too restrictive to actually be implemented. Wikipedia has over 1,000,000 articles, and there is just no way that we could come up with a standard that works in even just the majority of them. Editors are encouraged to use their best judgement in each individual article. Things are generally consistent across articles, so I don't see a reason to restrict that. ~MDD4696 22:19, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Fairuse Tagging question

  1. Is my fairusein tagging for Image:Jamnalal Bajaj 2006-03-17.jpg correct? Source page says, "© 1996-2005 Kamat's Potpourri. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without prior permission. Standard disclaimers apply". While WP:IDP states, Fair use is okay if "it is a historically significant photo of a famous individual;"
  1. Is my personal drawing of the same picture Image:Jamnalal Bajaj.JPG legal to be released GDFL?

Could someone please take a look at these and advise? Thanks, Ganeshk (talk) 07:54, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Your fair use claim looks fine. Depending on when that photo was taken, it is possible that it's even public domain. I'd say that since your drawing required artistic expression to create, that you can release it under the GFDL. It's not identical to the original, so I can't see why there'd be a problem. ~MDD4696 22:24, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

what happens when an image has no source and no author?

hello everyone, I have a question regarding this case: [7] Image:Rycina 1752 Palac Branickich.jpg. the image has no source, it has no authorship, nothing. It could be old, it could also not be old, to me it's not clear. I am trying to tag however it always gets removed. Can someone please give me some insights please, thank you... Gryffindor 14:46, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

In general, all images should have sources. Paintings should have immediate image sources, title, and the name of the painter, together with at least the painter's year of death. However, for things clearly several hundred years old, one may indeed assume PD, even if the painter is unknown. For that particular image, I have now supplied the imemdiate image source—it wasn't hard to find. The painter is still unknown, but it's one of those very old works. The source says it's from 1752, so in any case the painter is long dead, and thus the work is PD. Lupo 08:01, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Questions about fair use tags...

I primarily contribute to Vikipedi, the Turkish Wikipedia. I would like to ask some questions about using the fair use tags of English Wikipedia in Vikipedi.

When we want to use images of copyrighted items (album covers, movie posters, film screenshots etc.) in Vikipedi and tag them with fair use tags (template:Albumcover, template:Movie poster etc.) in a similar manner as it is done in English Wikipedia,

  • given the fact that Vikipedi is also served from the servers in USA,
  1. Is it okay to use related fair use tags (rather, the direct translations of them into Turkish) of English Wikipedia ?
  2. If the translated tags are usable, is it also applicable to use, say, "Vikipedi, the Turkish-language Wikipedia" phrase (of course, the translation of it) instead of "English-language Wikipedia" and "Vikipedi" instead of "Wikipedia" in the sentences
  • "on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation,"
and
  • "Any other uses of this image, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, may be copyright infringement."
respectively ?

Tnaks in advance...

--Doruk Salancı 21:31, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

tr: has decided to allow copyright-infringing images defended by the U.S "fair use" doctrine? In case you have not done so, it is probably best to first check with a Turkish copyright lawyer to ensure that Turkey does not have any "primary audience" clause (such as the one in Germany that caused concern for de:). If there is no such problem, and tr: wants to allow unfree content, then direct translations of the en: "fair use" tags may be helpful for tr:, but keep in mind that these are primarily an organisational method and that the phrasing you seem interested in is directed at warning re-users that these images are unfree. If that's what you want, there is no reason not to translate it, linking back to en: as the source for authorship. Jkelly 21:42, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Permission and fair use?

Hi, just to make sure; if I am given a picture free-of-charge, to be used in Wikipedia only see example here, and the original author has the copyright, yet, gives non-exclusive rights to, I--is this the correct tag for it?; is PermissionAndFairUse tag correct, or should I use another tag? Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zmmz (talk • contribs)

The media also needs a fair use rationale. This would really only be fair use in an article about the photographer as a discussion of their work. Using it to illustrate our article about Iran is pretty dodgy. See the Art of Iran category at Commons for lots of images that are free and reusable. Jkelly 20:18, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, that you have permission is almost totally irrelevant. ed g2s • talk 21:15, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I don` understand, if the author gave permission to be used in wiki, and the pic are relevant, what is the problem?Zmmz 21:30, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Because our goal is to be a free, reusable encyclopedia. We want people to be able to take our content and use it however they like. Allowing contributors to specify that content is "Wikipedia-only" means that we become less reusable. Jkelly 21:36, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, the authors gave permission for the pics to be used, anywhere in Wiki. Is that criteria for deletion?Zmmz 21:44, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Er, actually yes, per WP:CSD I3, if the media isn't being used under a valid Wikipedia:Fair use claim. Perhaps the photographer would agree to a more permissive license? If not, perhaps you can ask a Wikipedian to take a similar photograph, or find something close to what you are looking for on Commons. Jkelly 21:58, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Adding images

Many users think that just slapping a "XX-self" tag on an image is good enough and self-explanatory without adding any kid of summary even though the image use policy states "If you created the image, for example, write image created by John Doe on Jan 1st, 2000 (replacing John Doe with your name, and Jan 1st, 2000 with the image creation date). Don't just write image created by me." I would like to modify this paragraph to:

An image summary and image copyright tag are required for all images. The image copyright tag provides a standard template for the licensing of the image. The image summary provides necessary details to support the use of the image copyright tag. The recommended image summary contains some or all of the following:
Description: The subject of the image
Source: The copyright holder of the image or URL of the webpage the image came from
Date: Date the image was created. The more exact, the better
Location: Where the image was created. The more exact the better
Author: The image creator, especially if different from the copyright holder
Permission: Who or what law or policy gives permission to post on Wikipedia with the selected image copyright tag
Other versions of this file: Directs users to derivatives of the image if they exist on Wikipedia
Examples:

-Regards Nv8200p talk 14:50, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with putting more extensive recommendations for image descriptions. However I am fairly sure that they will not be followed, unfortunately... --Fastfission 20:04, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Images of archeological artifacts?

Hi, would it be possible to use PD for pics of things that were dug up from some archeological site and ar now in museums or archives based on that the original author is dead for a couple thousand years? The museum I have in mind does not say anything about their copyright policy.

  • The question is not the authorship of the piece but the authorship of the photograph. If the photograph does not incorporate any "creativity" in its creation (i.e. a 2-D picture of a 2-D thing -- such as a photograph of a painting), then the photographer (under US law anyway) receives no copyright claim. But photographs of 3-D things (urns, pots, statues, whatever) introduce creativity by means of choosing how to photograph the object, what sorts of backgrounds to put with it, what angle to do it at, etc., and the photographer probably does have a copyright claim. Absence of a statement about a copyright policy does not mean one can assume it is in the public domain -- under the Berne Convention copyrights do not need to be declared in order to exist. --Fastfission 17:50, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
    • That's what I figured, but I wanted to check. Thanks for the prompt response! Renata 22:07, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Images with URLs embedded

Image:Hawai - sunset.jpg has a url in the lower right hand corner, which looks like it directs to a commercial site. Should these images be removed, or may the offending URLs be edited out, and a new version of the image uploaded? User:Clifden seems to have done similar things with other images they've uploaded. --JereKrischel 20:03, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

If you belive the license tag is genuine and its realatively easy to do so then get rid of the mark. Otherwise use WP:IFD Plugwash 20:08, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Plugwash is correct. However, a word of warning... Such watermarks are often a surefire sign that the licensing information is incorrect. I corrected a batch of dozens of images on commons which had their watermarks removed, the uploader thought it was okay because the images came from a federal goverment site.. but the images were not made by the federal goverment, they came from a commercial photo agency. The removed marks made this quite clear. ... So make double darn sure that any image you remove marks from is kosher, and expect to be bitched at, tarred and feathed, etc if you get it wrong. :) --Gmaxwell 21:06, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Just as a very specific note to that: I don't know about the images in question you are referring to, but sometimes photo agencies do take photos which were in fact made by the US government (and can be proved as such) and scan them and say they "own" the copyright on it (i.e., Corbis claims they have the ability to sell the copyright on Klaus Fuch's Los Alamos mugshot photo. I e-mailed them about it, they told me they thought they owned the copyright to the scan of it, which is clearly legal nonsense according to Bridgeman v. Corel. I told them it sounded like a good opportunity for a class action suit against them from people who had mislead into thinking they had bought licenses for using the photo itself, and they stopped corresponding with me. Sigh...). But these are pretty rare cases and we should give the photo agency the benefit of the doubt unless we have really incontrovertable proof about the origin of a photo (the mugshot was, without a doubt, created during WWII as part of the Manhattan Project and as such by the Army Corps of Engineers). --Fastfission 23:51, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
You are correct. Just for the record I was referring to [adam medical images] .. at one time we had what looked like 1/2 their collection uploaded as pd-usgov. In the future when some sleezy company pulls that game, make sure you get their position in writing before mentioning legal action. ;) --Gmaxwell 00:45, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Why no {{free screenshot}} choice on upload form

When I upload an image, why can't I automatically mark it as being a screenshot of open-source software? Cheers, --unforgettableid | talk to me 03:26, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Should photos with random people in them be avoided?

I want to update an article with photographs I have shot related to the topic. The photos (of telescopes shot at a public event) have recognizable people in them. They are not celebrities and the photos are not about them--- they just happen to be "in the shot". Do I have to avoid having random people in the shot? Crop or blur them out? Get a release from them? Or is it ok to have a photograph that has a random anonymous person in it? Halfblue 15:56, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Historically we have not worried about such pictures. In the United States, If you were in a public place and the people had no cause to have a special expectation of privacy and were only incidentally captured (i.e. they aren't the subject of the photo, which reduces the risk of right of publicity complaints) then there is not a significant issue. [8][9] But be aware that if one of the identifiable people in the picture complain in the future, we may remove the image not necessarily out of fear of lawsuit but out of a general desire to be kind to our fellow man. In general, the gratuitous inclusion of identifiable people in images creates a distraction and they should be avoided for such editorial reasons, but legally we should be okay. For images where the person is the subject of the image (and for all images with clearly identifiable people in some countries, like France), *we should* be obtaining model releases. Even in US we should do this in order to prevent the subjects from obstructing commercial use which is permitted by all the free licenses we accept. Wikipedia doesn't yet have a boiler plate model release, but we should write one and encourage photographers to use one where they can. I'd like some help from people knowledgeable with the privacy laws in other countries (esp France) to help craft a document which will satisfy any obligations there as well as closing the right of publicity issues in the US. --Gmaxwell 17:42, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Content

Any limitations on the content of images used on Wikipedia? Anyother guidelines or policies regarding content? See Image talk:Fellatio.jpg. Hyacinth 20:08, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Nope, as long as it is legal (i.e. child pornography as defined by U.S. law - not acceptable) and not a copyright violation -Nv8200p talk 22:51, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Number of screenshots per article

I noticed when licensing several images that there is a stipulation of "one screenshot per article"; is this true? Terek 03:54, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Flickr images

Is it ok to upload images from Flickr with this license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ ? --Dara 23:46, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

No. But you can use the Flickr message system to ask the photographer to change the license. Jkelly 23:51, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Putting 'gross' images on the Main Page?

The Featured Article for June 5, 2006, was Keratoconus. The image chosen to represent it on the Main Page was from the article; it's of a bulging human eyeball with someone pulling the skin away from it on top and bottom. This image squicked out a lot of people, and generated a lot of debate on Talk:Main Page as to whether the image was appropriate to put on the Main Page.

I'd like to see some sort of policy on this before the same kind of thing comes up again. For example, say one day the featured article is Cancer, and it's decided that the most helpful and illustrative picture to go along with it is of a patient on an operating table, cut open with a doctor holding internal organs aside to show a cancerous growth?

I'm not talking about removing images from articles; this is not about censorship. It's about showing courtesy to people who visit the Wikipedia home page at en.wikipedia.org and don't expect to be presented with an image which could make them lose their appetite. What's your opinion: should there be limits on the kinds of images which should be placed on the Main Page? Or, in the interests of representing the Featured Article as well as possible, should Wikipedia not be influenced by the squeamishness of its readers? - Brian Kendig 15:57, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Question about licensing found image

I was looking for images of Senate House, London, and found two that very nice high resolution pictures ([10] [11]), which come from this page. On the top of the page th author states: "Feel free to reproduce these photos on other sites; all I ask is that you credit me as the photographer and make a link back to www.zardoz.net." My question is: is this statement alone justification to put it up here, properly sourced, under a Cc Attribution-Sharealike 2.5 license, or a similar license, or do I still need to get explicit permission from the creator? --Daduzi talk 06:30, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

One thing's for sure - you cannot tag a photo as CC when the creator hasn't. Best course of action would be to contact the photographer and ask them. /wangi 08:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
By the way here's a cc-by-sa-2.0 licenced photo of Senate House: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/169284 - If you decided to use that please upload it to Commons and tag using {{geograph}}. Thanks/wangi 08:57, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Formats for icons

At the moment the policy boldly claims:

  • Drawings, icons, political maps, flags and other such images are preferably uploaded in SVG format as vector images. Images with large, simple, and continuous blocks of color which are not available as SVG should be in PNG format.
  • Drawings, icons, political maps, flags and other such images claimed as fair use should be in PNG format.

I'd like to add or GIF for the special case of icons here for various reasons discussed on Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive11#Wording_of_I1. In short (1) inline GIFs work with "any" browser supporting images at all, unfortunately not the case for inline PNGs. (2) It's sometimes possible to create smaller GIFs (in relation to PNG or SVG) for simple icons by reducing the number of colours to 16 or 64.
For important icons (used on process templates, e.g. "blocked"), a smaller GIF can be better than the SVG at the moment, until all old browsers including my dinosaur die out. Under the listed technical conditions, this deserves a new "icons" subsection of "formats". Closely related to "size" issues, that could be also arranged as subsection of "formats". -- Omniplex 07:05, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I strongly support this proposed change. It's extremely frustrating to constantly see perfectly good GIF icons (which often are comparably small or even smaller) replaced for absolutely no valid reason. Time and again, I've been told that "because our policy says so" is adequate justification to disregard common sense, reducing compatibility without any real benefit. It would be nice to finally fix the policy, thereby eliminating the need to cite WP:IAR. —David Levy 12:07, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
It makes very little sense to expend massive amounts of WikiEffort converting GIF/PNG icons to SVG, that are then converted via rsvg to...24-bit PNGs for display to the user! Taking into account the alpha transparency bug in Internet Explorer (which most Internet users still have, WikiDislike or not), and 8-bit PNGs or GIFs still have a very valid use, especially for images that are ONLY meant to be used at one size, like icons. This standard seems to date from the days when BurnAllGIFS was all the rage... -- nae'blis (talk) 20:20, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
I also support the use of GIFs in such cases. Any file format Wikimedia supports should be usable in cases where the benefits to doing so outweigh the drawbacks. This is clearly such a case. SVG and PNG should be the defaults, but not the only options. --CBD 17:38, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

At this very moment, Image:Red-x.gif is being considered for deletion, despite the fact that it's 37 bytes smaller than the equiivilant optimized 8-bit PNG! The sole justifictaion appears to be that the rules say so. It's abundantly clear that the rules need to be changed.

Despite the fact that the Unisys LZW patents have expired, people still point out that GIF technically is an "unfree" format. Well, that argument will be negated on 11 August (one month from today), when the world's last remaining GIF-related patent will expire. That might be a logical point at which to update the policy, as there will no longer be even a shred of logic behind the format's exclusion. —David Levy 18:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Other editors replacing image I uploaded

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Jean.png. Other editors are replacing the image I uploaded with a completely different image, not a new version (quality, file type/size). Why didn't they just upload their image with a different filename? Can I get them to stop? --Facto 03:17, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Why don't you upload you image under a more unique name? -Nv8200p talk 02:12, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Postcards, antique and otherwise - public domain/fair use?

I haven't seen anything about this, although maybe I haven't looked hard enough. Some postcards, including older ones and antiques, carry copyright markings; not all. But is a postcard more like a public-domain image, i.e. not reproducible for commercial purposes but OK for public education? I'm thinking of location shots for certain things I'd like to illustrate....examples on my own webpage at http://www.cayoosh.net/fountain.html (for example, among many others).Skookum1 23:36, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

They are under the same rules as any other copyrighted media, the same as any photograph. Being a postcard does not change its copyright status. If they are published in the U.S. before 1923 or outside the U.S before 1909, they are in the public domain in the United States. --Fastfission 23:41, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Promotional material

What is the copyright license for material meant for promotion, such as the profile image of a popular director or writer? While these are copyrighted, they are released to be used in the public domain for promotional purposes. Some of these are only available on profile websites of the director. Also, what is the status of photos of specific people under specific circumstances? Take for instance Viktor Bout, of whom very few photos exist. What license would these fall under? Thanks, Gabbahead 09:56, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

All of the types of images you mention can only be used as fair use and must meet some or preferably all the factors required by United States law. -Nv8200p talk 02:11, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Text in images

When using text in an image, is it best for the text to be monochromatic or made to have more of a grayscale, anti-aliased quality? Theshibboleth 10:12, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Depends on which looks the best in that particular image, I'd reckon. There's no other reason for doing one or the other. --Fastfission 20:35, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Renaming images

Until I commented it out, under Image titles and file names this page said:

Currently there is no easy way to rename an image — they will not "Move" to new titles in the ways that articles will. The currently accepted method to rename an image is to 1. download the image to your hard disk, 2. re-upload it again with a new file name, 3. mark the old (incorrect file name) image page with a speedy deletion tag noting that the image has been replaced by an exact duplicate of the file (for example, {{deletebecause|This image has been renamed to [new filename]}}). Note that duplicates images which are not exact duplicates of the original file contents (new scans, different file formats, etc.) cannot be speedy deleted and must be listed manually at Images for deletion. Before you place the speedy deletion notice, make sure that all the articles that linked to the old image now link to the new image. A list of articles linking to an image is found at the end of the image's description page.

This is a terrible recommendation, because doing this will destroy the entire history of the image, and all that is gained is a presumably better-named image. Until we get a way to move images, it is better to have a badly-named image with a full history than a better-named image with none. I felt that I could comment this out pending further discussion since this is just a "currently accepted method", not policy. —Bkell (talk) 16:51, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Mary Anning painting

There's a nice image of Mary Anning taken in the (British) National History Museum. Since we're unclear about the policy, I figured I'd ask here. This is a reproduction of a painting from the 1800s. The reproduction was made in 1935. Is this copywritten material? No one wants to violate WP policies or copyright law. At the same time, there doesn't appear to be a clear answer (I checked a half-dozen image help pages, and didn't find anything that seemed to apply). For the record, the image would go on a page about her (fair use?) and on pages about fossils she discovered. Can you direct me to the relevant policy?--Firsfron of Ronchester 04:19, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

You'd have to crop out everything but the image in question. Jkelly 01:25, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Understood.--Firsfron of Ronchester 23:23, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Are x-rays copyrighted?

I have uploaded several photographs of x-rays. These x-rays were taken at a clinic I work for, but do not own. Am I essentially uploading a photo of a copyrighted 2 dimensional object, which as I understand it, would not be allowed? There is no personal information visible on the photo (names or ID numbers). And if they are copyrighted, should we delete these images? --Joelmills 03:10, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

X-ray photographs are copyrighted by the "photographer" (the person operating the machien) unless otherwise specified. --Fastfission 20:34, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Image Caption

Hugh Allen.
Hugh Allen.

Is there a way to make the title appear in the center at the bottom of the image? --Wikindian 23:25, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, see example. It renders a little strangely. Jkelly 01:27, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


Hugh Allen.
Hugh Allen.

Using [[Image:HughAllen.jpg|thumb|<div style="text-align:center;border:none;">Hugh Allen.</div>]] it displays a little less strangely, but the text is still not correctly centered due to the "enlargement" icon. However, fiddling with padding-right and margin-right and such it should be possible to fix even that. Lupo 15:12, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Alternatively: don't do it. If captions were supposed to be centred they would be. The left alignment is part of the skin and should be preserved for consistency. ed g2s • talk 12:26, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Magazine Pictures

What do pictures published in magazines fall under? Are they considered promotional? For instance, this image of Stacey Dash was in an issue of Smooth magazine. Is it promo? or something else? --Jaysscholar 14:48, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

and I know magazine covers are fair use, but what about a pic inside the mag --Jaysscholar 14:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Barring truly exceptional circumstances, it is a violation of copyright to use an image from inside of a magazine. Magazine covers may be used to depict the publication of that particular issue of the magazine but we may not use anything from inside the magazine. --Yamla 16:34, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Really?? Anybody can pick up a mag off the stand and skim through and see it so I would assume its fair-use. You may have a better understanding though. Where would I go to argue this? --Jaysscholar 16:37, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
No, the situations are entirely different. In your example, it is debateably fair-use because at least theoretically, you are considering whether or not to buy the magazine. In the case of Wikipedia, we cannot use the image because we are not using it to depict the publication of the particular issue of the magazine (and the cover would be the appropriate image to use if we were). The magazines pay substantial amounts of money for the images that appear inside of them and they very firmly exercise their copyrights over them. We can't just go about using someone else's copyrighted material. If you are an intellectual property lawyer, I can put you in touch with Wikipedia's legal staff where you can argue the case. Otherwise, there's not really much else you can do. Wikipedia's legal staff have already ruled on this issue. --Yamla 16:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm. The cover is fair-use to describe the issue, so could the pic be fair-use to describe the person in the image? --Jaysscholar 16:50, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
No. Imagine there's a cover of, say, Playboy with Jennifer Aniston on it. And furthermore, this cover generates a lot of controversy. You could now use a scan of that cover in the article on Jennifer Anison but only in the section of the article that talks about the controversy. You could not use it as the first picture right at the top-right of the page, for example. But let us look at another cover. Jennifer Anison on the cover of Cosmo. No controversy, no discussion of that particular issue in the Jennnifer Aniston article. That image could NOT be used in the article, then, because it would simply be used to depict the person and that is not fair-use. --Yamla 17:14, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Ok, what about if there is a pic in a magazine and she is just simply modeling. no controversy or anything. regular modeling. can this image be used in a section describing how she has modeled in magazines, when she is mainly an actress? could the cover? could an image within the magazine? --Jaysscholar 17:22, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
No, such an image could not be used at all. The cover could be used if there's a specific discussion of that particular issue of the magazine. No image within the magazine could be used. --Yamla 17:34, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


Just a comment on this. I faced it with an image in the Sonny Liston piece. I used the Sports Illustrated cover of the end of the Liston/Clay fight. Not fair use. But using it to illustrate that that issue of SI was a chosen as a prize winner and that cover photo recognize, and the article dealt with that, the image could be used. --Dumarest 16:29, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Personal image copyright tags

What is the opinion of this group on personalized image copyright tags? I nominated {{C-CPW}} for deletion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 July 16#Template:C-CPW, but looking through Category:Image copyright tags just now, much to my surprise, I found it was not the only one. There is also {{PD-Vardion}}. So my question is this: am I right or wrong? Are user-specific copyright tags allowable under current policy or not? BigDT 23:48, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Generally I think these sorts of things should be in the user's own namespace if they exist at all. I think that in the case where people are just simplifying common text they type in (i.e., I have started using a personalized template which I subst on commons which itself contains the CC-BY-SA template and also automatically specifies how I want to attribution to be), it is perfectly fine. But if they rely on other templates in this case it would better if they are not subst in general, so that if we ever do any sweeping changes (i.e. decide someday that CC-BY-SA is no longer allowed) we can change all the templates uniformly. So... yeah. I think that they should be moved to the user template, and should not subst any internal templates they call themselves, if that makes any sense. --Fastfission 00:55, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Images on userpages

Are there restrictions on using images from articles on userpages? DJIndica 04:37, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The key restriction is that fair use images are not permitted on user pages (or, for that matter, on any pages outside of the main, article namespace). --Daduzi talk 04:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Epilepsy and Animated GIFs

Firstly, I should admit that I don't have a clue about epilepsy... but I'm worried that animated GIFs such as Image:Parrot rgb3.gif could trigger epileptic seizures. Shouldn't there be some advice on this issue somewhere? --StuartBrady (Talk) 22:43, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that's one of the few examples which is problematic enough to warrant a link rather than rendering. Maybe we should add a line that incorporates the W3C recommendation: " Until user agents allow users to control flickering, avoid causing the screen to flicker. Note. People with photosensitive epilepsy can have seizures triggered by flickering or flashing in the 4 to 59 flashes per second (Hertz) range with a peak sensitivity at 20 flashes per second as well as quick changes from dark to light (like strobe lights)."[12]--Fastfission 14:32, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I think there should be something like that (but maybe without the reference to user agents). I can't imagine anyone objecting to this, but I can't just add it to the policy without a consensus... so comments, please! --StuartBrady (Talk) 16:12, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Copy permission?

I am trying to find images for a page on slalom-skiing, the current image being rather ugly. There is a nice image that a company has published as a "download" on their site. If I ask their permission to copy the image, can I use it? Do I need them to declare it copyleft (or something of the sort)? I can't find any guidelines relating to this type of situation. Thanks Yandman 09:19, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

See the image use policy. They must give you permission for free use of the image or GFDL or Creative Commons licensing. The communication must be in writing with contact info for the person giving the permission. this communication should be posted on the discussion page of the image. See Image talk:Zebra finch.jpg for an example. -Nv8200p talk 16:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Ta very much Yandman 16:17, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Photo montages and fair use

Could I get a clarification of the photo montage policy? The text on the project page, as far as I can discern, refers to the placement of a number of separate images next to each other. However, I am trying to figure out policy regarding compositing multiple images together.

Would policy completely forbid uploading a Photoshopped photo montage consisting of fair use images, side by side? (My main impetus for doing such a thing would be that no alternative can be found, fair use or not.) –Unint 01:04, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

This is really difficult to opine on without more information. Jkelly 01:05, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
I'd echo that - what is the problem simply uplaoding the images individually and then displaying them next to each other within a <gallery> tag, for example? Thanks/wangi 01:11, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Most uses of montages are not acceptable for fair use. With fair use we must be discussing the work in question, and while it's possible to discuss several images at once, that isn't the normal use of montages. I've removed fair use containing montages from things like the heading of Persian people in the past. --Gmaxwell 01:26, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

All right, I'll try not to bore people...
I'm trying to illustrate a past lineup of the band Simply Red. According to the article, around 1991 the band's lineup dissolved and became effectively a solo project with backing musicians; my idea is to use photos from the liner notes of their 1991 album to illustrate the last "cohesive" state of the band. This is difficult because most promotional images illustrating "Simply Red" show only the lead singer, and the band's fanbase seems to lack a substantial online presence.
(Might this be considered a "commentary" on the photos themselves because the very existence of photos of individual members in the liner notes illustrates the previous significance of the group project status of the band?)
In the interest of full disclosure, there are a few really old group shots floating around the web; however, I can't vouch for their sources as I can for the liner notes, nor can I even identify each band member in them clearly.
Incidentally, the first time I saw such a montage done (with fair use images) was these images. –Unint 01:56, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Widely used publicity images and logos

I've uploaded two images and a logo, but I'm not sure about the tags I've put on them. Both the image of Hap Moran and Morgan Taylor are photos that were widely used for publicity and in various publications without copyright or credit. Moran is my father and Taylor was a good friend of his, so I have these images in a private collection. I've dealt with Time-Life books (see New York Giants, 75 Years, by Jerry Izenberg, Tehabi Books, California, 1999, pp. 23, 128, 185) with some of the images of my father, and even though they were obviously taken by a professional photographer at one time, they paid me for the use of the image and credited them to "The Moran Family Collection" I also uploaded an image of the logo from my now-defunct high school, McBurney School Again, being a novice, I'm not sure I used the right tags or license designation.Revmoran 13:10, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Licensing of own picture

I'm having a little trouble following the GFDL and CC licenses. If I don't require attribution on usage of my images, is "release to public domain" my only option? Or is there some licensing option that would still apply? -Freekee 17:10, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

No you can use {{No rights reserved}} -Nv8200p talk 21:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Is there any practical diference between that and {{PD-self}} ? -Freekee 03:45, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
With PD-self you are giving up your copyright on the image with No rights reserved you are keeping your copyright. The way the image can be used by a third party is pratically the same. Although with public domain, I believe someone could create a derivative and claim copyright on that. With No rights reserved, they cannot claim copyright on a derivative. -Nv8200p talk 00:07, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Censorable Image Content

Regarding this article: Gia Darling In no way should this article be sensored, but should the cover of a film containing adult content (the cover also being of this type of content) be sensored? The cover is being used to represent the subject of the article.

Wikipedia is not censored -Nv8200p talk 21:14, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

New policy proposal

After a lengthy debate on the AN/I about how much proof is required that a model has really given permission for a photo of her in a sexual pose to appear on wikipedia I've started a proposed new policy page Wikipedia:Policy on private photos of identifiable models. Please come an edit it. Note that this policy has nothing to do with the copyright status of the images in question, as copyright is amply covered in existing policies. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 11:03, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Need help with film promotional image use

I need help with images I've uploaded to the article Succubus (film). They're promotional images taken from the film's official site: http://www.bloodceremony.net/Home/leffat/Succubus/body_succubus.html . I've uploaded the film poster and the second promotional screenshot (with the pentagram thingy). At least the second image was deleted so far.

I have asked permission from Sami Haavisto, who is the producer and director of the studio, and the webmaster of its site, so he owns full copyright to the images. Here is a transcript of the discussion:

  • Me: Can I use the Succubus promotional images freely in Wikipedia?
  • Haavisto: Yes - the images are public in connection with the film.
  • Me: It turns out Wikipedia has to allow the images to be used elsewhere too. Permission to use them only in Wikipedia is not good enough. Here is a link: Wikipedia:Image use policy.
  • Haavisto: Let's not give copyright fully away. The images may only be used in connection with the film.

As I understand it, no one is giving copyright away. Sami Haavisto will still own the full copyright, all we need is a license to use them. What, specifically, is required for Wikipedia to accept them? Do I need a license that allows anyone to download the images and use them for any purpose, even for commercial uses, as long as the proper copyright is mentioned? Does it need to allow the images to be used without any relation to the film? Does using an official promotional screenshot in a Wikipedia article constitute fair use? If so, then is the film screenshot template found in the image copyright tags list enough? And if it isn't, what else do I need? JIP | Talk 10:44, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

For these images you will list the source that you mentioned on the image description page and also the tag {{Movie poster}} for the poster and {{Film-screenshot}} for the screenshot. Add fair use rationale after the tag to justify use in the article.-Nv8200p talk 12:22, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
So this will be enough? What exactly does the fair use rationale have to contain? What about possible use of the images by themselves, without mentioning the film? Sami Haavisto seemed to expressly deny this. Is it enough to mention the film name and the copyright holder in the description, and provide a link to the official homepage? I have full permission to use these images on Wikipedia but I'm not sure about usage anywhere else. JIP | Talk 12:28, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, this will meet the requirement for use of a copyrighted image on Wikipedia. Fair use rationale should explain why the the images meet the doctrine of fair use such as the images are used for non-profit purposes to enhance an article on the film and provide a visual identification to associate with the film and that it is believed use of the images will have no impact on the market for the images. You cannot use the images by themselves or for any other purpose other then an article about the film. To do so would be a copyright violation. -Nv8200p talk 15:06, 31 August 2006 (UTC)