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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Girl80 (talk | contribs) at 16:13, 5 March 2008 (→‎Removing all unofficial portions from this article: adding new suggestion). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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There is excessive non-free media and images on this page (as I'm sure there are on other related articles like this). How does an album cover like Image:AliceinChainsDirt.jpg, the cover of Alice in Chains' album Dirt qualify as fair use here? Despite the rationale written on the image description page, which states "It adds significantly to the article because it illustrates the best-selling album by one of the most significant and popular bands in the movement being discussed in the relevant section of the article", there is no text about the album whatsoever in the article. User:DCGeist felt that removing it was unnessecary stating "... it's there to illustrate a historically significant recording, as described in the accompanying text and in the image rationale" [1] but yet the article fails to have this supposed 'accompanying text'. In fact, this is the only sentence it mentions about Alice in Chains:

Acts labeled alternative metal included the Seattle grunge scene's Alice in Chains and groups drawing on multiple styles...

Other than that the image caption, that says:

Alice in Chains' Dirt (1992) was one of the biggest-selling albums identified with alternative metal.

Not only does the article not have critical commentary even on the band, the article itself fails to even mention the album. Wikipedia:Non-free content states a few things:

  • NFCC #1: No free equivalent. Non-free content is used only where no free equivalent is available, or could be created, that would serve the same encyclopedic purpose.
  • NFCC #8: Significance. Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding.
  • Cover art: Cover art from various items, for identification only in the context of critical commentary of that item (not for identification without critical commentary).

I believe the album cover does not meet any of these. Free images of the band Alice in Chains can be used to illustrate the section that says Acts labeled alternative metal included the Seattle grunge scene's Alice in Chains and groups drawing on multiple styles..., instead of a non-free album cover. The album covers do not significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, as required, as it is being used to illustrate a cover of a top-selling album and nothing more than that since no commentary on the album is provided. The album covers may have historical significance, but plastering them on articles as decoration without having any commentary on the album and very little on the band themselves is a violation and needs to be removed. — Save_Us † 09:26, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is an argument to be made that a free image can just as satisfactorily illustrate the historical era of heavy metal discussed in the relevant section, and I'm happy to consider that possibility. But the core of the argument made above is weak indeed. It is simply false to assert that "the article itself fails to even mention the album." Caption text is accompanying text. There is no essential distinction in logic or in policy between caption content and running text content. Caption text is required to meet the same standards of accuracy and verifiability as any other article text. As the accompanying caption text indicates, the image illustrates one of the most significant recordings in the topic genre during the relevant historical period.—DCGeist (talk) 10:06, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How can you assert that caption text is 'critical commentary', which is needed to satisfy WP:NFCC? You seem to be avoiding the fact there is no commentary in the context of the article about the album when the album cover is present, and focusing on the argument of caption mentioning the album. First off, when WP:NFCC says:
Significance. Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding.
It didn't mean add some factual caption and that will make it alright. It means that there has to be commentary written in the article that without the image, the text is detrimental to understanding it. And again I ask, where is the commentary within the article written on Dirt that if siginificant to the point an album cover is warrented?
Another thing, what would be wrong with a free image of the band Alice in Chains performing with the same text slightly altered (something like "Alice in Chains (seen here) released one of the biggest-selling albums identified with alternative metal in 1992, Dirt.")? That would serve the same purpose and its a free image. — Save_Us † 11:06, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your argument fails the simplest logical test. How can you assert that caption text detailing the significance of the item illustrated does not qualify as critical commentary? You cannot do so on the basis of Wikipedia policy or U.S. law.—DCGeist (talk) 11:21, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Because caption text is not what WP:NFCC means, and if you honestly believe that all non-free images need is simple caption, then your not going to get very far in convincing anyone. It's simple logic and very well established by previous discussion here and elsewhere that "very little commentary at all = fair use image not warrented", and that applies to whatever commentary is in the article and however it is written, caption or no caption. — Save_Us † 11:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(a) You keep pretending as if our policy makes any distinction between caption text and other article text, but it simply doesn't. If you'd like to advocate for a change in the language of the policy or accompanying guidelines that draw a distinction, by all means do so. For the time being, however, WP:NFCC certainly does treat article text the same whether it appears inside or outside a caption.
(b) The question of significance is considerably more pertinent. This is often an issue in our coverage of cultural history—especially in the arts—when treating periods recent enough that most images will be covered by copyright but old enough that there are few free images of encyclopedic visual quality and informational value. The relevant period here—the early to mid-1990s—is right on the cusp. I searched the Commons and found only a couple images that might make suitable substitutes (and, yes, I searched for bands beside Alice in Chains).
The next step is to compare the value of the existing image with the possible substitutes. While the illustrated album, Dust, is undoubtedly significant to the history of the topic, it is not so unusually significant that its substitution is beyond consideration. Of the free images that were found that met encyclopedic visual standards, the most suitable (a) shows the lead singer of the same band and (b) conveys (largely via his clothing) the aesthetic shift from older forms of metal to alternative metal, as discussed in the running text of the section. While the image itself is of no historic note (the cover of the best-selling Dust, of course, is), its informational value redeems that loss. The substitution was made.—DCGeist (talk) 18:07, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If I may, about image captions, they are part of the article as well. Of course the image should be mentioned in the main text of the article, but people reviewing the use of an image sometimes seem, inexplicably, to ignore what has been written in the image caption. This is, remember, the text that appears right next to the image on the article page. The description on the image page is something different again. Carcharoth (talk) 12:19, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, caption text is commentary. It's just not much commentary and not integrated into the article. Hence, it makes a weak case for criterion #8 (significance) and #3 (minimal use). The style of illustrating an article with photograph mentioned only in the caption is common to some informal publications where it functions almost like a sidebar. I think it's fair to ask for more. We also have the "no free equivalent" issue. Alice in chains is mentioned briefly in the current version of the article, and there is a free picture to go along. Wikidemo (talk) 17:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that just caption text is not sufficient, but I want people to start including caption text in their assessment of NFCC#8 and so forth. Just ignoring caption text is not good. You also get people (eg. at WP:FAC) wanting to avoid repetition between article and caption, and then you have people concerned about the relevance of the images wanting the captions to make clearer why the image is relevant, rather than relying on people looking in the surrounding text and maybe missing the text in question. A good caption will bring you from the image into the article, and thus make clear the relevance. Carcharoth (talk) 00:17, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I never said caption wasn't worthy of being counted towards NFCC #8, my argument was that caption alone, by itself, doesn't fulfill the normal requirements of NFCC #8, and I feel other would agree with that assessment. — Save_Us † 05:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the fact is that you did write "the article itself fails to even mention the album." And the fact is that is a false statement. Caption text is article text, simple as that. Whether it—like any other article text—is sufficient in a particular case to satisfy NFCC #8 is a distinct question.—DCGeist (talk) 05:21, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
When I said, "the article itself" I meant the content of the article, i.e. the actual article, and was not refering to any dab links, external/internal links sections, categories, caption, extensive lists with no real content (in particular discographies, for artists articles and their related discography articles), or anything else that is not the actual article content itself. All the before mentioned things have one thing in common, they cannot satisfy NFCC #8 by themselves. I never doubted the caption not existing or not being in the whole article, otherwise I wouldn't have said "Other than that the image caption [says]...", and I would appriciate it if you refained from jumping to conclusions about what I mean. — Save_Us † 08:37, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Logos with usage restrictions

This TFD debate over a Template that I made which states that the NASA logos are non-free by Wikipedia guidelines even though they are in the public domain by law, due to additional restrictions and usage guidelines added by US law. Some of these restrictions include the restrictions on commercial use and modification, which not withstanding any other argument, makes it non-free and subjected to WP:NFCC rules, since non-commercial only images or images that we cannot make derivs of are not allowed. Or so it seems, according to an excellent comment by TheDJ. I kinda agree with him, although it may seem a bit weird: we kinda think that there should be some restrictions here on items such as logos that are technically in the Public Domain or free, but contain legal restrictions on their usage, such as in this NASA case, or on other trademarked or restricted stuff.

Sure, you did say on the Insignia template that "These restrictions are independent of the copyright status." That's why me and TheDJ are proposing a "second" tier of these kind of images, the "restricted" branch. As quoted by TheDJ in response to my saying that the NASA logo restrictions made it non-free:

::I reiterate that I consider mixing the processes for copyrighted materials and not copyrighted materials a bad idea. If you want to introduce a separate tagging system for these kinds of restrictions, then that is fine by me, but we should not replace a PD-USGov-NASA copyright tag with "usage restricted tag that makes vague statements about the copyright status". --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:28, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll even lay-out the action plan.
  1. Propose a policy that requires usage rationales for copyright free images that still have other legal restrictions.
  2. Rename all templates in Category:Restriction tags with "non-free"-prefixes (though I personally would prefer "restricted"-prefixes for those.)
  3. Make sure none of those templates say a single thing about copyright
  4. Create a new template for usage rationales of restricted images. One that categorizes into a different "non-free" sub-category than the fair use images do.
  5. Put {{non-free-NASA}} AND {{PD-USGov-NASA}} AND usage rationales on those NASA logos.
  6. Fire up BetacommandBot to start tagging all images with restriction templates as needing cleanup within "to be defined arbitrary # of days"
I think that is the only appropriate way to go about this. As a matter of fact, I would even support you, because I too find the current situation quite annoying and stupid. But I just want to see a good separation between non-free images due to copyright and non-free images due to secondary legal limitations. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

So, what do you think? ViperSnake151 18:46, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In general logos are like any other possibly copyrighted images. The trademark restrictions simply don't affect us but we do apply NFCC to their use as images. Public domain, or otherwise uncopyrighted logos are simply not an NFCC issue. If the government wants to pass special laws about certain content (e.g. porn, currency, national secrets, government trademarks) I think we have to deal with it as a special legal circumstance. I don't see the harm putting those rules as their own section on the NFCC page if they aren't worth a page of their own, but we should be careful not to shoehorn them into existing image policy because they don't fall under the Foundation resolution, and any criteria we have to ensure compliance (minimal use, no free equivalent, etc) simply don't have any bearing on these laws. Wikidemo (talk) 19:15, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note, I think legally, we have to comply with their usage guidelines because Wikipedia is hosted in the United States. ViperSnake151 20:50, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This seems kind of like trademark restrictions (not as such w.r.t. the NASA stuff, but the same general kind of thing as far as WP is concerned) - do we have a guideline for trademarks? (there are quite a few trademarked logos that are in the public domain as far as copyright is concerned, see Image:Coca-Cola_logo.svg or Image:HR_Block_logo.png. —Random832 21:03, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Input needed from a fair use expert

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Roads#Fair use image question --NE2 04:59, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Awkward trademark/free image

I recently found Image:Basketball110.png. It is a self-made image released under the GFDL, that is now on the Commons, of a users' screen name. The image, jokingly probably, claims that the screenname is trademarked by having a trademark logo, ™, written on it. Just wondering if this could be potentially be problematic.. — Save_Us † 08:23, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Trademarks are created by use in commerce to create a unique association in the minds of the relevant consumer as to the origin, source, or sponsorship of a good or service. They aren't created simply by making a claim of ownership. Unless the user is branding some good or service with the user name (which seems quite improbable) it's just a joke, and of no effect. It might be fair to ask the person to edit out the "tm", which is misleading. Wikidemo (talk) 09:23, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, I will request the uploader to remove it so it is not so misleading. — Save_Us † 09:37, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Spoken Word

I question this sentence : "All copyrighted text poses legal problems when making spoken word audio files from Wikipedia articles, and should be avoided in such files, because the resulting audio file cannot be licensed under the GFDL."

Perhaps someone could point to the accuracy of using the word "cannot" as opposed to a more accurate wording (imho) of : "may have problems being licensed".Wjhonson (talk) 21:14, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Images

This language is slippery : "Copyrighted images that reasonably can be replaced by free/libre images are not suitable for Wikipedia."

I'm sure we're all aware that "reasonably can" is a problematic phrase. We cannot agree on what would be reasonable. I would suggest that this language instead be altered to "Copyrighted images for which a free-image is at hand are not suitable for Wikipedia". This would allow fair-use images to live, until such time as a replacement is found. Instead of being deleted merely because a free image might someday be found (which is the way some are currently interpreting "reasonble"). Wjhonson (talk) 21:20, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The reason it's worded and interpreted the way it is, is that we are trying to encourage the creation of free content. So, if a free equivalent could be created, it's better to have no image at all rather than a non-free image. Someone visiting an article having no image will have a greater motivation to create a free image than if the article had contained a non-free image. —Bkell (talk) 22:17, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It does not seem like sufficient justification for using language that is problematic. Perhaps someone could consider what language would be more appropriate. In addition to encouraging free images, we want to encourage people to add pictures as they assist the project in being more user-friendly. People (readers) like articles with pictures and they don't like articles without pictures. We are trying to attract readers as well. Wjhonson (talk) 07:50, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, pictures are helpful and nice to have, but we cannot sacrifice free content, one of the pillars of Wikipedia, simply to have pretty pictures in articles. The fundamental goal of Wikipedia is to build an encyclopedia of free content that anyone can use for any purpose. —Bkell (talk) 15:54, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And the first half of that sentence is to build an encyclopedia, which means we cannot ignore the world's treasure of content, some of which is copyrighted. Is this question still moot? For the longest time Wikipedia images, free or not, were simply unavailable to mirror sites. Wikidemo (talk) 16:49, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Creative Commons vs. Fair-Use

So, if an image/media file/whatever is released under a Creative Commons license with the Non-commercial clause, but its use would be covered by Fair use, can it still be used on Wikipedia, under Fair-use? Drewcifer (talk) 04:39, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would say no, since those images have been asked to be speedy deleted after May 2005. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 04:42, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So I take it that this has already been brought up, and already been resolved? Two years ago it seems? Do you know where I can find that discussion? Drewcifer (talk) 05:11, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actualy we only say that such images that does not meet the standads of our non-free policy should be deleted. In oter words if you try to use an image simply by virtue of it beeing licensed for non-commercial use it will get deleted, but the fact that the image is released under a much freer license than the regular "all rights reserved" does not mean it's somehow disqualified for use under the non-free content policy. It's simply another non-free image so if you can provide a suitable non-free use rationale for using it (demonstrage how a free licensed alternative can not be created, why our use does not hurt the right holder's interets etc), and use a suitable non-free tag rater than the cc-nd one and it's all good. The only reason that kind of licenses are spesificaly mentioned in the speedy deletion criteria is that people will often mistake them for free licenses and try to use them on the merits of those licenses rater than provide a non-free rationale for their use. --Sherool (talk) 05:54, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That makes perfect sense. That's what I was assuming, but thanks for clearing it up for me. Drewcifer (talk) 06:10, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
See Template:FairusewithNC.Geni 02:21, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unreliable image sources

ALF, the animal rights terrorists, and other direct action groups, routinely put out media as "public domain" so that it is widely disseminated. The problem is that these organizations often don't own the copyright to what they are releasing. They will re-use journalist images, re-publish articles about themselves from the media, take screenshots from news footage, etc, and release it as "theirs" because it is about them. A lot of this is ending up on Wikipedia with the claimed public domain license. This stuff comes from people who set fires, bombs, and commit burglaries. They don't have much respect for intellectual property. Are these images acceptable to Wikipedia? SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Depends on how well they back up their PD claim.Geni 02:20, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What does that mean? They don't back it up. They throw it up to various websites, anonymously, and walk away. Some of it they obviously have no copyright to, some of it they might. This mishmash of unreliable licenses is making its way onto Wikipedia. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Limit to the number of fair use images?

Is there a limit to the number of fair use images that can be used in one article? Either a specific maximum or a guideline on how many it is reasonable to use? I am concerned about Touch My Body which has five fair use screenshots to illustrate a short description of the music video. This seems excessive to me, but this article is subject to edit warring by Carey fans and I'd like to be able to point to a specific guideline that shows this is excessive - or leave it be if no such guideline exists. Thanks, Gwernol 15:06, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is no exact number as it is rather subjective, but each image does have to meet WP:NFC#3 and WP:NFC#8, which in the example given is way over the line; they are merely being used for decoration. I can see keeping exactly one (the one of her and the geek on the top right) to go along with the description in the text, but even then, the text does a good enough job to describe what is happening without any pictures. --MASEM 15:27, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Masem, that was what I suspected. I agree that one image could be justified under fair use. I will endeavor to remove the rest. Gwernol 15:31, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Removing all unofficial portions from this article

My understanding is that the only official portion of this article is the top part that outlines the actual non-free content policy. The rest of the article involves large number of examples that may or may not be relevant when compared to other cases. Furthermore, the wording used in the unofficial sections is not always consistent with the actual policy.

In order to simply the no-free content policy and make to it easier for people to understand, we should remove everything that is not official. Perhaps a second page could be created that would show some specific examples and cases.Girl80 (talk) 16:12, 5 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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