User talk:AFigureOfBlue

Not for financial gain...

Hi

I have taken many photos in our provincial nature reserves, and would like to add these to Wikipedia. I have contacted the organisation that manages these reserves to find out their policy on photos taken in the reserves. Here are some comments:

"The person was asking if they could post photographs taken in one of our reserves and post it on the Wikipedia website (not EKZNW's website). Section 6.1 seems to say that they can."

"Its fine if they are posting the photos not for financial gain. I am not familiar with Wikipedia Website. It would be nice if they acknowledge us though this is my view and not the policy."

"It would appear we don't have a policy in this regard but that its fine provided there is no financial gain, which in this instance there would not be."

Please advise further.Michaelwild (talk) 13:03, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Are you referring to this discussion? Now, to my knowledge if you took the pictures and they're of something which is not a specific artistic work (like a statue), then you hold the copyright and the person who owns the area where you took the picture can't restrict how you use it, but !IANAL!

Anyways, the issue with those two images was that they were apparently uploaded to the site by someone other than yourself, so permission would be needed. Note that Wikipedia requires that free images be allowed for commercial use. Images on Wikipedia cannot have restrictions preventing them from being used for financial gain and other commercial purposes.

Now, because I remain unsure from your comment, could you point me to what images you were discussing? Is it those two which were deleted per the above discussion, or some other ones? –Drilnoth (T/C) 14:51, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

No, this is a new dilemma - I have not uploaded the pictures yet. The photos are of scenery, butterflies and plants mostly. I have many taken in our provincial nature reserves in KwaZulu-Natal. I tried to motivate the uploading of the photos with Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife (who run the reserves) by saying that having pictures and pages (or improved pages) on Wikipedia would be a good way of bringing these reserves to the worlds attention. I think their idea is that they want people to visit these reserves (and pay entrance fees etc.) and take their own pictures. Can I perhaps type underneath the licence on the pictures that anyone wanting to use them for financial gain should contact Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife for permission? (Not that any of them are worth anything really :P).Michaelwild (talk) 05:34, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

AFAIK, if you took the images you can upload them and allow their commercial use, which is required by Wikipedia. However, to make sure, I've posted a question at Wikipedia's media copyright questions page to see if someone more familiar with such issues could help clarify it. –Drilnoth (T/C) 19:27, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Looks like you can upload them if you'd like to, as long as you release them under a free license (which the upload page will help you choose). See Quadell's explanation at [1]. –Drilnoth (T/C) 21:23, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

The Specs

Dear Drilnoth,

Thank you for your message a few days ago regarding the lack of evidence of permission of the file The_Specs_(band).jpg. I actually got permission from the copyright holder 2.5 years ago, and sent a copy of his e-mail to permissions then. But when I got a reply from permissions, I missed the instructions at the bottom of the e-mail, and I thought at the time that the process was over. Now I have gone back to permissions' e-mail and written back to them to try to continue the process. Please hold off deleting the photo for a few days or so, because evidence of permission should be forthcoming in the very near future. I'm not 100% sure I followed the instructions correctly from permissions, but if I didn't I'm sure they'll tell me so, so it's possible I may have to send a couple of e-mails back and forth to them yet. But really I do have tangible permission from the copyright holder, so now it's just a matter of making it official at permissions. Thank you very much. Sincerely, Moisejp (talk) 12:12, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I understand. I've removed the deletion tag for now. If a few more weeks go by and we don't here anything from permissions, I'm afraid I'll have to retag it. Hopefully everything goes through okay. –Drilnoth (T/C) 19:29, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Drilnoth. Sorry for the confusion I caused. I'm also glad everything worked out. Have a nice day! Moisejp (talk) 22:21, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Request for help re: copyright tag approval on Lindsey Rayl publicity photo

(regarding File:LindseyRpd.jpg, tagged as lacking permission on July 15, 2011) –Drilnoth (T/C) 11:52, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi

I appreciate your flagging the article I submitted, Lindsey Rayl, for lacking in proper copyright info. Having tried to update and satisfy the requirements, I may have messed things up entirely. The situation is, the copyright holder (photographer) has given permission to use the picture for publicity for Lindsey Rayl. I have included his name and a link and also uploaded on Wiki commons. Still can not figure out how to license tag. Very sorry to disturb you, thank you for the opportunity to correct this little mess.

Kellie Yosemite SierraScribe (talk) 00:56, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Alright. First, thank you for trying to update the page with the proper info. Unfortunately, it still doesn't give any clear evidence that the photographer has given permission for its use. Remember also that free Wikipedia images must be usable for commercial purposes, so if the image was intended for use only as a publicity photo such use may be prohibited.

The page Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission is a how-to guide describing how to confirm permission to use images. I'd recommend reading through that and following its directions to ensure that permission is properly confirmed.

Thank you! –Drilnoth (T/C) 11:52, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi, thank you for responding -- that is exactly what I am looking for & I'm on it now. Really appreciate it. SierraScribe (talk) 21:59, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Hello again. Just an update to let you know the copyright owner of the image in question has provided wiki-permission for this image to remain in Commons, etc. The release has been emailed to Wiki Commons moments ago. Thanks again for your help! SierraScribe (talk) 20:21, 18 July 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by SierraScribe (talk • contribs) 20:17, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Great! The email may take a couple days to go through, but once it does (and provided everything looks good with it), the image's permission should be confirmed. –Drilnoth (T/C) 20:23, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Image nominations

Umm... Why is it that you are spending all your time finding low quality images? Wouldn't your time be better spent with more pressing issues? Merely curious. -- とある白い猫 ^chi? 00:18, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Most of the time, I'm actually on the hunt for images with potential copyright issues; I usually just come across low-quality images incidentally, although sometimes I go on the hunt for them as a break from copyright-related stuff. IMHO, getting rid of or fixing copyright violations is a relatively pressing issue, and one that not many people are willing to take the time to work on (it can be tedious, and not very rewarding because it is such an overlooked area of the project). Also, I think I'm better at that than I am at working on the other, article-related, backlogs, and I'm also not real great at writing articles (although I hope to start fixing that soon!). –Drilnoth (T/C) 12:51, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Mind you images (even copyrighted ones) aren't really deleted, just hidden for public so there isn't any benefit of getting them deleted. I merely want to explain the technical issues so you do not end up wasting your time. :) -- とある白い猫 ^chi? 14:27, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, we will keep that in mind for the next few thousand copyvios we find :) Hekerui (talk) 14:35, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Yep, I know they aren't really deleted. Honestly, is anything ever deleted on the Internet? It says I deleted my Facebook account but... really? I'm not so sure...

Regardless, removing images from public view, even if they aren't deleted, is better than keeping them easily accessible. –Drilnoth (T/C) 14:45, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

File:ProfessorSirSamEdwards.jpg

Your deletion of my image ProfessorSirSamEdwards.jpg was too speedy. I would happily have changed the rights on it for you but by the time I saw this, less than 4 hours after you posted to my talk page, it was already gone. Why are you racing to remove information from Wikipedia? betsythedevine (talk) 16:26, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

First, the image wasn't being used in any articles. Now, that isn't a valid reason for deletion on its own, but it is what influenced me to speedy delete the image rather than taking it to Wikipedia:Files for deletion.

(doing research to finish response)

D'oh! This one may be my bad. I didn't notice that your username is the same as that of the uploader on flickr. I didn't think to check that.

Now, since File:SamEdwardsBetter.jpg exists and is... well... better as the filename states, I think that we want to keep that. I don't see how the lower-quality one I deleted would matter, but if you want it restored after permission is confirmed as discussed below, I'd be happy to do so.

Unfortunately we do need confirmation that it is you who uploaded the image to flickr, and we can't just go by the similarity in username. I'd recommend changing the license on flickr to remove the "Non-commercial" part, which violates both Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons' licensing requirements (the image could be tagged for deletion at Commons at any time as it stands now). Then, since File:SamEdwardsBetter.jpg is in use on the Wikipedia article, that file can be tagged with {{CC-BY-SA-2.0}} on Commons and the licensing should be all confirmed. Alternatively, add a comment to the image page on flickr saying something to the effect of "http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SamEdwardsBetter.jpg , a cropped version of this image, may be used under the GFDL v1.2 or later and the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license."

I'm sorry I didn't think to check the usernames. I had speedy deleted it just because WP:CSD#F3] says that files which are for noncommercial use only (which is indicated on the flickr page) may be deleted immediately. It should only take a couple minutes to confirm the permission, which I highly recommend you do to avoid the image being deleted from Commons at some point. –Drilnoth (T/C) 16:49, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't really mind that the particular image is gone because (as you say) I later made a better version, uploaded it to Commons. I just wanted to flag for you that you might want to let people have time to give you permission before deleting stuff because you don't have it. I hope the rule at Commons about Flickr image permissions is intended for people uploading Flickr images that are not their own. What proof do they want that the two accounts are the same person, beyond using the same name over a multi-year overlapping contribution history at both? Waving goodbye now, I have retired this username and I don't really want to get involved here again. betsythedevine (talk) 17:32, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

This page describes the issue about permissions. However, I think it is unlikely to come up in the near future. Thanks for taking the time to respond and ask me about the tagging! –Drilnoth (T/C) 19:07, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

File:Maya Moore 2009.jpg

In response to his post, Dan Karwoski has given me permission to use any of his photos at any time. However, he is not particularly computer savvy, so when I've requested that he send in permission for specific photos, it has been an ordeal, with me telling him over the phone exactly what to type, including issues such as @ is typed @, not "at". I do not expect you to take my word for this, however, I thought we covered all the images I was using in the last OTRS, which was accepted. The OTRS should be here: OTRS ticket

I am not an OTRS agent, so I don't know what it says.

Could you look at it to see if this image is covered? I thought he sent it to me the same time he sent me the Kalana Greene image, which is File:Kalana Greene Senior Day.JPG and has permission.

If that OTRS does not cover the Maya Moore image, would it be acceptable for him to do this one more time with a blanket permission for all future pictures? He simply wants attribution, but there will be future pictures, and I'd like to avoid the filing of a separate license for every one.--SPhilbrickT 23:47, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Hmm... just a moment. I'll ask an OTRS volunteer about it, because they should be able to see the ticket. I should know in a day or two. –Drilnoth (T/C) 23:57, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

OK thanks.--SPhilbrickT 11:59, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it looks like the permissions e-mail only applied to the Kalana Greene image, according to User:Jclemens at [2]. If you can secure permission for the Maya Moore image and (if wanted), future images, then we can certainly keep the image. Unfortunately, as it is now, we don't have the proper information to retain it. –Drilnoth (T/C) 13:41, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm copying this, just so you can see why I thought permission had already been granted. He apparently did include the permission for some of the Maya Moore images, but not that one. I'll see if I can get him to write something to cover the specific image, and future images.

permission

I hereby affirm that I, Danny Karwoski, am the creator and/or sole owner of the exclusive copyright of: File:Angel McCoughtry with Geno original.JPG File:Angel McCoughtry with Geno.jpg File:Kelsey Griffin Original.JPG File:Kelsey Griffin.jpg File:Maya Moore Red Team original.JPG File:Maya Moore Red Team.jpg File:Maya Moore White Team Original.JPG File:Maya Moore White Team.jpg File:Renee Montgomery original.JPG File:Renee Montgomery.jpg File:Swin Cash original.JPG File:Swin Cash.jpg I agree to publish that work under the free license "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0". I acknowledge that by doing so I grant anyone the right to use the work in a commercial product or otherwise, and to modify it according to their needs, provided that they abide by the terms of the license and any other applicable laws. I am aware that I always retain copyright of my work, and retain the right to be attributed in accordance with the license chosen. Modifications others make to the work will not be attributed to me. I acknowledge that I cannot withdraw this agreement, and that the content may or may not be kept permanently on a Wikimedia project. Danny Karwoski <redacted> April 16 2011

--SPhilbrickT 14:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Shiny!

		The Great Image Drive Barnstar
		For taking the lead on the July focus at the Great Backlog Drive, Category:Wikipedia license migration needs review, I award you this Great Image Drive Barnstar. Sven Manguard Wha? 01:44, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

It's just a shred under 50% complete now, and with all the stuff tied up in PUF, FfD, and the DIs, even if we don't finish it up in the next 10 days, it'll be near dead by then. Sven Manguard Wha? 01:44, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

P.S. In case you're interested, this is not a WikiLove message.

Oh, wow. Thanks! It actually just passed 50% today, and as you said, a lot of stuff is currently tagged for deletion (unfortunately). I'd say that by the end of the month we should be at 75-85%, with the rest being the really tough cases which can be discussed at WP:MCQ. –Drilnoth (T/C) 02:20, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I'll be worth it to put this backlog in the grave forever. It should have been done years ago. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:02, 21 July 2011 (UTC)