Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Images and Media/Non-free

READ THIS FIRST

Please do not post queries on individual images here. This talk page is to discuss future WikiProject Fair use policy ONLY.

Queries regarding the fair use merits of a particular image should be posted at Wikipedia talk:Fair use.

Talk archives:

• /Archive1 - Beginnings of the project, Comic covers, Fair use review and disputed use, Images without source, Usage of fair use images, etc.
• Archive2 - up to end of Nov 2005
• Archive3 -November 2005 - December 31, 2005

Questions about individual instances of potential copyright violations have been moved to Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems. Please post queries on the fair use merits of an image to Wikipedia talk:Fair use or Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems . This forum is to discuss future Wikipedia fair use policy ONLY. Travb 16:27, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair Use from a legal stand point

Hello, I am studying to be a lawyer. As a disclaimer, I want to state up front that:

• I have not taken the bar,
• nor have I taken a intellectual property class yet.

That said, I have gotten into some arguments with other Wikipedians in regards to fair use. Because of these arguments, I have become familiar with fair use law more as a layperson then as a lawyer, although I have used my skills learned in law school to examine the case law on the subject[1][2] and the fair use statute[3][4].

There are two points I would like to make here:

• First that fair use/intellectual property law is vague and is difficult to interpret even for copyright lawyers.
• Second many Wikipedians, out of ignorance and fear of the law, and worse against the spirit, dreams and goals of wikipedia's mission, often delete items which could potentially be considered fair use.

First, fair use/intellectual property law is vague and is difficult to interpret even for copyright lawyers. The law was intentionally written and intended to be vague:

"There are no hard-and-fast (fair use) rules, only general rules and varying court decisions. That's because the judges and lawmakers who created the fair use exception did not want to limit the definition of fair use. They wanted it--like free speech--to have an expansive meaning that could be open to interpretation."[5]

If it is difficult for lawmakers and lawyers to understand the rules of fair use, which were intentionally meant to be difficult to quantify/understand, it is insulting and intrusive that certain Wikipedians, with no legal background whatsoever, take it upon themselves to interpret fair use law.

Worse, in my experience many Wikipedians use copyright law as a POV weapon.[6] These Wikipedians often decide to delete material, "just to be on the safe side" they argue, when they don't even know what either side of the copyright debate is, let alone what the "safe side" is.

If Wikipedia were to go to court (and this appears highly unlikely) Wikipedia could be potentially seen as similar to a file sharing network, not liable for what its users do. File sharing companies like Napster and Gnutella have transformed the music industry for the better. Wikipedia has the potential to do the same for intellectual property, if its users would just allow it too.

Second, as mentioned above, many well intentioned but ignorant Wikipedians take it upon themselves to use heavy handed tactics to delete anything that is potentially a copyright violation. Many Wikipedians ignore this statement:

"As a general rule, if you are using a small portion of somebody else's work in a non-competitive way and the purpose for your use is to benefit the public, you're on pretty safe ground. On the other hand, if you take large portions of someone else's expression for your own purely commercial reasons, the rule usually won't apply."[7]

As I have argued before[8], web sites such as Common dreams, another non-profit, copy whole articles onto their website with no legal trouble. No person has ever given me a satisfactory answer why this is acceptable for Common Dreams but it is taboo for Wikipedia. Copy and paste one sentence from an article onto a controversial Wikipedia site, and a Wikipedian who is ignorant of the law, will heavy handedly delete the sentence citing copyright.

As I have mentioned before [9], the worst part of this destructive copyright policy on wikipedia is how it undermines the stated dreams and goals of Wikipedia. As Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia envisioned:

• "Finally, we should never forget as a community that we are the vanguard of a knowledge revolution that will transform the world. We are the leading edge innovators and leaders of what is becoming a global movement to free knowledge from proprietary constraints. 100 years from now, the idea of a proprietary textbook or encyclopedia will sound as quaint and remote as we now think of the use of leeches in medical science." [10]

• "Wikipedia goal is to create a free, democratic, reliable encyclopedia—actually, the largest encyclopedia in history, in terms of both breadth and depth. This is an ambitious goal, and will probably take many years to achieve!"--[11]

• "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." -Jimmy Wales, July 2004[12]

• "Wikipedia is first and foremost an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language. Asking whether the community comes before or after this goal is really asking the wrong question: the entire purpose of the community is precisely this goal." -- Wikipedia-l mailing list, March 8, 2005[13]

• "Fair use (and the narrower fair dealing) is an important freedom from abuse by copyright holders. It is good to see a decision which supports it." [14]

Wikipedia could be the "vanguard of a knowledge revolution that will transform the world" on the forefront of opening up intellectual property for the entire world to share and benefit from, as Google is doing today. Instead, because of a handful of misguided zealous Wikipedians, who are afraid of some vague potential legal threat, Wikipedia is so much less. Travb 15:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• Two small responses:
  1. The question of whether Wikipedia's fair use policy should be strict or not is not connected to whether people use it as a way of getting rid of controversial content. A completely plausible argument could be made that it is only in controversial cases that people start really thinking about "fair use" in serious way, and thus they end up getting a much higher standard of scrutiny than most marked instances. But anyway, this has nothing to do with the law or the policy.
  2. What Common Dreams does has no bearing on our policy. There are websites which post entire song lyrics in a way which is clearly outside the bounds of the "fair use" clause but they receive little to no legal difficulties. One possible interpretation is that it isn't worth anyone's time to try and prosecute those instances, or the material that Common Dreams infringes upon happens to be from people who aren't inclined to sue. Wikipedia can take no such luxuries — we are becoming more and more high profile every day, and the copyright holders on our unlicensed material are all over the map. If Common Dreams is posting the entire copyrighted contents of articles, they are probably breaking the law. The question is whether anyone will sue them, which is an entirely different concern.
  3. I've never seen anybody delete content based on "one sentence" from a copyrighted website, unless it is uncited, unquoted, and clearly plaigiarism. There have been a few instances of people not wanting to include a few song lyrics on pages but they seem to get cleared up -- usually in favor of allowing the content. Most "fair use" issues are related to images, especially those which are 1. generic, 2. being used incidentally (non-critically, non-encyclopedically), and 3. are images which a user primarily justifies as using because "they want it" rather than on intellectual grounds required for a real defense of using unlicensed materials.
  4. I think you are misinterpretting Jimbo's intentions. They are not, from what I can tell, to create a vanguard source of unlicensed copyrighted materials. THey are rather to create a vanguard of free materials. At least, this is what I have picked up from his various postings on the subject. Whether our use of fair use material is compatible with the latter goal, I personally am suspicious. But since nobody on the high has decided that it isn't, the goal of our fair use policy should be to 1. keep Wikipedia respectfully in the clear, and 2. keep our re-users as much in the clear as possible (that is, while acknowledging that they will have to make "fair use" determinations for themselves, we shouldn't be using anything which is only "fair use" in the specifically Wikipedia context).
• Humorously, the situation used to be, not so long ago, that "fair use" was almost completely abused in the opposite direction -- people would claim anything as "fair use" just because they wanted it on a page for whatever reason. If it has swung the other direction somewhat as a curative, I do not, in the end, think that is such a bad state of things. The more critical people are of "fair use" claims, the better fair use rationale they can make themselves, and the more empowered they actually become in terms of copyright law. But I understand there are different ways to read this.
• If you'd like more feedback on this, I recommend posting it to the Wikipedia-en mailing list if you haven't already, where a lot of discussion on policy issues takes place. --Fastfission 16:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Excellent points Fastfission

Fastfission thank you for your points. I will respond at length to each one soon.Travb 17:11, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

To clarify your stance, and make sure I understand what you are saying, your four main points can be summarized as follows:

1. copyright abuse by "POV warriors" is irrelevant.

2. fair use policy of other non-profits is irrelevant and probably illegal.

3. copyright abuse by "POV warriors" does not exist.

4. Jimmy's intentions are not to create "a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge."

The first two points (1,2) are opinion and as opinion they cannot be "proven" nor "disproven".

The third point (3) is a blanket statment of fact and can easily be disproven with little effort on my part.

Thr fourth point (4) is an interpretation of another persons thoughts, which are always open to interpretation, but I think Wales views clearly support my views. That said, even if Wales views do or do not support my views, they are ultimately not the deciding factor in the debate at hand, but are only persuasive ideas from a benevolent dictator about the fair use debate.

I will write more later, dissecting your argument at length.Travb 17:36, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Copyright infringement is both important and does exist, although I am not sure it is more interesting or important if there exists some POV-warrior motivation behind it. Wikipedia content is intended to be able to be used in a for-profit manner. If you believe that User:Jimbo Wales would support removing restrictions on copyright-infringing material, I suggest that you ask him about it. Jkelly 20:50, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your statments.

I actually asked User:Jimbo Wales before[15], and got no response.

I hope the following comments do not eclipse my much more important comments above, if they do, I will strike them:

The more I think about it, with all due respect to User:Jimbo Wales, the more I feel it doesn't ultimatly matter how Mr. Wales feels. Mr. Wales views are not the definitive deciding factor in any debate, but are only extremely persuasive ideas by the founder (and that is why I posted them here). Mr. Wales views are ultimately only one voice among millions. I feel this way because even though Wikipedia was Mr. Wales creation, and we all owe him immense gratitude, Wikipedia has become a concept now owned by the world as a whole, not by one sole individual, no matter how important and influencial that individual is.Travb 21:11, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Returning to Fastfission points:

1. Copyright abuse by "POV warriors" is irrelevant.

I was simply stating the real negative consequences of such deletion policies which probably have not been addressed here before. Since you feel this argument is irrelevant, there is no point in arguing this.

2. fair use policy of other non-profits is irrelevant and probably illegal.

What Common Dreams does has no bearing on our policy.

I disagree, CommonDreams, and other sites are examples of webpages which have much more liberal policies and which have not been sued.

There are websites which post entire song lyrics in a way which is clearly outside the bounds of the "fair use" clause but they receive little to no legal difficulties.

I am not talking about websites which post entire song lyrics with no legal difficulties, I am talking about CommonDreams which has a liberal fair use policy on each of its pages.

In this argument, you use a lot of words such as: "One possible interpretation" "probably". In otherwords, you don't know. Please cite any copyright violation lawsuit which has been filed against Wikipedia. You can't. If you can, I will apologize, issue a mea culpa (apology) and leave this wikipage talk board.

Fastfission wrote:

Wikipedia can take no such luxuries — we are becoming more and more high profile every day, and the copyright holders on our unlicensed material are all over the map. If Common Dreams is posting the entire copyrighted contents of articles, they are probably breaking the law. The question is whether anyone will sue them, which is an entirely different concern.

For some reason, every wikipedian who enforces copyright, sees himself/herself as a protector of wikipedia. But ironaclly, every enforcer I know knows as much, or usually much less about intellectual property rights than I do, and I know very little about intellectual property law. So there are many people who are ignorant of intellectual property law, who delete portions of articles with impunity. Fair use is ignored or rarely discussed. When fair use is discussed, it is in negative terms: delete, delete, delete. "If you are not sure, delete". The result is the heavy handed deletion of large amounts of material which DOES NOT NEED TO BE DELETED.

You are talking about possibilites. Since wikipedia has not been sued, you are basing your assumptions on predictions of the future. These predictions by their very nature are shaped by opinions and cannot for certainty be proven or disproven, so I cannot "prove" to you that Wikipedia will not be sued, anymore than you can prove that Wikipedia will be sued.

3. copyright abuse by "POV warriors" does not exist.

I wrote: Worse, in my experience many Wikipedians use copyright law as a POV weapon.[6] These Wikipedians often decide to delete material, "just to be on the safe side" they argue, when they don't even know what either side of the copyright debate is, let alone what the "safe side" is.

The footnote [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Winter_Soldier_Investigation#Sources 6]. Links a heated revert war currently in arbitration between two stubborn foes. The anon in this case is quoting all of the examples of times that the user had sentences deleted for copyright violation. This user, a "POV warrior" (not my words), slapped copyright violations on two controversial web pages and later admitted that he wanted the entire article deleted. He was using copyright violations to push his own POV, after many other users had used copyright violations against him.

But, unfortunatly, I fear, this arugment is also irrelevant to you Fastfission, because I sense that "POV warriors" using copyright violations to push their own bias, in the words of Madeline Albright, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it." Lets err on the side of caution right? If a person is not sure about "fair use" (and no one here seems to know what the policy on fair use is), then lets err on the side of caution and delete, delete, delete.

The irony is the abuse is real and documented, but your hypothetical law suit that so many Wikipedian enforcers repeat by rote is nothing more than that: a hypothesis.

4. Jimmy's intentions are not to create "a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge."

I think the quote says it all, but as mentioned above, even if Jimmy does really mean what he says (and I am starting to wonder as I learn about all of his commercial ventures), it is again ultimatly irrelevant. It is important to state that Jimmy's quotes are here only as convincing, inspiring words, not as bibilical scripture.

So what we are we left with? Four irrelevant arguments, which I brought up. None which will convince anyone who sees themselves as a Wikipedian protector. I think the bottom line is that many users enjoy feeling like they are protecting Wikipedia and they get a sense of self-worth. And hey, if a few articles and sections are deleted by Wikipedians ignorant of current copyright law, "the price is worth it." Travb 22:56, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Most of these post don't belong here

Most of these posts are inquiries about individual instances of fair use/copyright.

Few of them discuss the larger topic at hand: WikiProject Fair use. I suggest (and I think I may do this right now) moving these irrelevant topics to another, more applicable forum.Travb 16:18, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Postings have been moved to Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems.Travb 16:38, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Where have you moved such psots? I always understood thwat thsi page was a very good palce to ask about questions on indiovidual instances of fair-use policy, adn i have reccomended it as such on the help desk. If this is not a good forum for such psotings, where is there a good place where knowlegable people will read and respond? DES ^(talk) 19:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page. If you have, in fact, pasted the material that you removed somewhere else, please provide us with that location. Jkelly 20:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I just read your page header. Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems is where User:Travb moved all of this page's contents. Jkelly 20:52, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for not being clear, I hope I didn't step on any toes. I clarified where I moved the posts. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Did I archive the talk page incorrectly? If so let me know. Sorry for the hassle. 20:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair Use Club?

I had written on the WikiProject Fair use page:

• Another view on improving guidelines. Another view holds, that current guidelines are complex, vague, overly heavy-handed, and worst of all, contrary to the founding dreams and ambitions of Wikipedia, with the result that people who do not understand copyright issues are, out of ignorance, deleting material for fear of a legal crisis which in all probabability will never happen. Establishing fair use policies which correspond to the law is difficult, if not impossible, because the authors of the fair use statute intended the law to be vague. Wikipedia should not err on the side of caution, but be an inovator and trailblazer in intellectual property law, as Gnutella and Google book search have been. Wikipedia should be on the forefront of realizing founder Jimmy Wales ambitious dream: Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.[16]

Jkelly responded by deleting all of this but one sentence and explained the reason for his deletion:

Re-word (mostly delete) personal essay not endorsed by signers of project. Feel free to userfy your perspective. [17]

I think I may understand after Jkelly heavy-handed deletions the purpose of this page. (As Jkelly edits show,you don't have to use the excuse of copyright to delete entire passages.)

I must have misunderstood before, and for that I apologize. I cannot emphasis this enough: Please correct me if I am wrong in my understanding of this page. This is a group of "volunteer copyright police" joined together to enforce what I see as often heavy-handed fair use policies which I argue against. In other words, this group of like-minded individuals actions is exactly what I have been arguing to stop.

In otherwords, although no one here appears to be a intellectual property lawyer, and no one seems to no much more about copyright law than I do, this group of like minded individuals are here to uphold their version of the way they feel Wikipedia should look. Jkelly appears to have already made up his mind about fair use policy, and will not allow disenting views on the wikipage. Please correct me if I am wrong, but such one sided page protection is against Wikipedia policy.

Again, please correct me if I am wrong and I will humbly acknowlege my mistake.

I recall a group of like minded Catholics with a wikipage page who recently attempted to gang together to push their version of Wikipedia. The consensus was overwhelming in favor to deleting this Catholic page. Although the circumstances are different, this page, if I understand its function correctly, has similarities to the Catholic page. Banding a group of like minded individuals together to push for a particular policy for wikipedia.

• Does this mean I can now build a page in favor of liberal fair use policy and bar users like Jkelly from adding comments which contradict my own POV on this new liberal fair use page?

I apologize if I come off as agressive here, but please keep in mind that Jkelly was the person who agressively deleted my contribution to this article first, and then hinted, by using the term Template:Userfy that my comments, are "vanity statments". (if I understand him correctly--if not I again apologize--I am sticking my neck out here and trying to avoid my head getting chopped off by a group of Jkelly like-minded individuals) Travb 21:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

The difference is that this "club" is merely enforcing existing policy, not trying to make up new stuff. The deprecation of fair use has been in place ever since I started at WP three years ago, but the old strategy of asking editors to police themselves has simply not worked - we have thousands of blatant copyvios all over the place - and so we need to get tougher about it. If you want to see real hardnoses though, go over and check out de:, they don't put up with any of this argument at all - it's either free license or delete. Stan 22:02, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I apology if you didn't like the word "club", I can change it if you like.

It is not as black and white as you seem to portray it. Existing policy is vague, because the current fair use law is vague:

"There are no hard-and-fast (fair use) rules, only general rules and varying court decisions. That's because the judges and lawmakers who created the fair use exception did not want to limit the definition of fair use. They wanted it--like free speech--to have an expansive meaning that could be open to interpretation."5

So Wikipedians take it upon themselves to interpret the law, usually in a negative way. I think the current policy is: "when in doubt: delete". This is in stark contrast to the purported mission of wikipedia. In otherwords, heavy handed volunteer Wikipedian volunteers, far from saving wikipedia from a hypothetical court case that hasn't happen and may never happen, are actually undermining Wikipedias mission and goals.

Your comments: we have thousands of blatant copyvios all over the place - and so we need to get tougher about it I never have understood law and under types like yourself. I am sure in a perfect world (your perfect world?) en: would follow the same policies as de: am I correct? Do you prefer the de: policies over the current en: policies with "thousands of blatant copyvios all over the place"?

I apologize if I used an unfair anology, I was just explaining my first reaction to your posting. If you find this offensive, please tell me and I will delete all offensive portions. Travb 23:04, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

You make some reasonable points. You are right, fair use is rather vague and ill-defined. IMHO, that would be an argument for ensuring that our uses really are fair, rather than taking risks and discovering later that we were wrong.

Even a small copyright problem could potentially lead to significant problems to the project even if it doesn't go to court (and, unlike Google, we simply don't have the resources to go to court to fight legal battles). For example, I'm still really upset with the software changes that Jimbo had put in after the libel stuff back in December.

You mentioned something about the mission of Wikipedia, and I think that that's a good idea to keep in mind. Our mission is to build a free encyclopedia (emphasis mine). It could be argued that the use of unfree images under fair use does not help that mission, even if it is legal. I know that others on the WikiProject have different beliefs, but personally I believe that it makes sense to discourage fair use except in cases where it is required so that people are encouraged to contribute free content. Furthermore, what may be fair use for us may not be fair use for our commercial reusers or reusers in other countries who can't take advantage of liberal fair use laws, so from the perspective of keeping our content free, taking a fairly conservative stance on fair use is the way to go. JYolkowski // talk 23:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments JYolkowski, my beliefs on what Wikipedia should be and can be are in the miniority, just as my other beliefs. I am tired of being in the minority and marginalized on this topic, as I usually am throughout life. I could argue your points, but I am tired of arguing for now. Thanks again for the comments. I will leave with a few of my favorite quotes:

No man can struggle with advantage against the spirit of his age and country, and however powerful a man may be, it is hard for him to make his contemporaries share feelings and ideas which run counter to the general run of their hopes and desires.--Alexis de Tocqueville

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.-- Bertrand Russell Travb 23:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Interesting to be characterized as a "law and order" type. If anything, I'm a freeness zealot (all those years of working on GNU); it irritates me when somebody uploads a copyrighted photo of a high school when they could just as easily go out on the front lawn and take a free version of the same picture themselves. A gigantic body of free imagery will make a big difference in the world, but it won't get built if people keep falling back on material with a complicated legal status. Why should anyone agonize over a fair-use image when there are a dozen better ones on commons? Stan 23:55, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

On the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States...

Looking through my watchlist, I noticed that someone removed the text "on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation" from Template:Promophoto. That bit there was added to the tag as part of our goal to rewrite our fair use tags, specifically #9 on WP:WPFU under goals: A large part of our invocation of "fair use" is because our site is educational in purpose and run by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, and that our invocation of "fair use" for our use of the image might not apply to other uses (that is, third parties can't "piggyback" on our "fair use" claims). Having said that, I've never really questioned the utility of that text myself so I'm wondering what others think. Do you think that that bit of text is useful to have on the fair use templates? JYolkowski // talk 23:11, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I do, and I think this change should be reveted. DES ^(talk) 23:19, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I just expressed my opinion. Jkelly 23:53, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Project page change

Am I the only one that thinks the new paragraph on the project page isn't what a bunch of people here endorsed when they signed up? Jkelly 23:54, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Yep, I also think the project page should be reverted to the original text, the objective of this projects is not to justify or endorse the use of fair use images on Wikipedia.--nixie 00:02, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair use videos of copyrighted software?

Please have a look at WP:CVG talk. I'd like to get some feedback from this WikiProject before proceeding. Cheers, Jacoplane 06:57, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Fair use

I just added a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Fair use, aimed to allow sports team logos to be used on userpages, and I'd like to get some comments on it from the people in this project. Thanks, VegaDark 03:51, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request

It looks like we've rewritten all known fair use tags (one of the project goals), so I'd appreciate any comments on the tags and how they can be further improved (or if they're totally hopeless and should be deleted). See Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use/Fair use tag reform for a complete list. Again, I'd welcome any comments. Thanks, JYolkowski // talk 22:11, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been using them already, they seem generally OK. More media-specific tags would be handy, for instance we have a huge amount of Gundam stuff that I'm never sure how to handle. It would be nice to have a number for what "low resolution" means - somebody thinking of a print encyclopedia is not going to have the same idea of "low" as somebody on a dialup. :-) The deprecation of {{fairuse}} is apparently not strong enough, people are still using it. Could perhaps the text be subst'ed en masse into the existing images, and then the template deleted? Stan 00:26, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Having taken a quick look at Category:Fair use images, I think you're right in that we could use some more media-specific stuff. I tag the Gundam stuff as {{comicpanel}}, that's not exact but it has a close enough meaning IMHO. Maybe I'll create a tag for that one.

The huge number of images tagged with {{fairuse}} is a big problem. I remember cleaning out Category:Posters; that was a huge effort on my part (and I know that at least three other people put a lot of work into it as well), and that category was much smaller than this one is. My suggestion is to tag all of the easy stuff first - i.e. things that are obviously album covers, logos, etc. when viewed in gallery mode. After that, I guess perform some sort of bulk en masse cleanup of the category. Maybe a bot might be useful. JYolkowski // talk 02:41, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been stomping through that category for almost two months now, knocked off a couple thousand so far I think. Did most of the easy ones already, sorry. :-) Don't think it's bot-able, since for instance it's not usually obvious whether a sourced photo is legit (from official website) vs from a fan site, with no pedigree. As long as it can't be added to, and we chew at it steadily, it will disappear eventually. Stan 23:45, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I decided to change the category on {{restricted use}} (which {{fairuse}} redirects to) to Category:Improperly tagged fair use images. That way, we can figure out who's adding stuff to the category and politely ask them to tag stuff differently.

Regarding the Gundam stuff, I took a look at it and it looks like the person who drew the images is not the copyright holder, so to me the entire set of images look kind of dodgy. Do you still think it's worth creating a tag? I don't like creating tags for stuff that I don't think is clearly fair use, but it would have the advantage of being able to find them easier to delete them. JYolkowski // talk 21:57, 25 January 2006 (UTC) Note that I've undone the category change because it now seems that all images are now in the Improperly tagged category, which really doesn't help at all. JYolkowski // talk 21:29, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's probably a good idea, just to make them easier to deal with en masse. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 22:02, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

The Gundam fan art was apparently donated, saw a comment about it somewhere. It seems like there is a whole class of images of game/anime artwork used legitimately for identification, not screenshots or comic panels. Perhaps be explicit and call it "identifying-artwork" or since they're mostly characters, "character-artwork"? Stan 23:45, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I've created {{character-artwork}}. Comments are welcome. JYolkowski // talk 00:00, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

The line about free alternatives needs to be removed, there are no free alternatives for copyrighted characters, even is someone draws a character for wikipedia - it is a derivative work and the original copyright still applies.--nixie 00:17, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Removed. JYolkowski // talk 00:21, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Based on a comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fair use/Fair use tag reform, I thought it might be a good idea to have more standardisation between our fair use templates. With that in mind, I've created {{image-license-fairuse}}, based on {{image-license}} but with a few small differences. I have used it to reformat {{music sample}}, {{speech}}, and {{USPSstamp}}. I have also rewritten these three templates to use bullets to emphasise the valid uses. Please let me know if you have any comments about these three templates and I'll make changes as necessary before standardising everything else. Thanks, JYolkowski // talk 23:25, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

All the templates are reformatted now. JYolkowski // talk 19:54, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Those are awesome, by the way. --Fastfission 22:08, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! JYolkowski // talk 21:25, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Requesting removal of "fair use" images in userspace

Removing, or asking users to remove, copyright-infringing images that they are rendering in their userspace is not reliably one of the most conflict-free aspects of going through the fair use image categories. Do we have, or should we create, some boilerplate for this, or perhaps create a list of editors who are willing to do this and have demonstrated both willingness and appropriate tact? I note that editors are posting requests at WP:AN/I rather than taking on each one themselves, and it would be great if there was something more in the way of resources for this. Thoughts? Jkelly 23:31, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

We have a template, {{fairuseuserpage}}, that can be used to replace the image. Its syntax is {{fairuseuserpage|Fair use image.ext}}. JYolkowski // talk 23:41, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

That template seems quite intrusive... most people dont take very kindly to edits to their user space... --Admrb♉ltz (T | C) 23:43, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that's the essence of the problem. On the one hand, removing images from people's user pages is, as Jkelly said, "not ... conflict-free" (and some heavy-handed approaches that some people have taken in the past haven't helped). On the other hand, it's often hard to get people to remove images without doing it yourself. Personally, I see the template as a reasonable, if not perfect, compromise. I've used it a few times (in late 2005) and haven't got any negative comments about its use. If anyone can see any way of making the template more friendly, that would be cool. JYolkowski // talk 23:54, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Personally I've just left a kind note informing the user that they can't feature fair use images on their userpages, and they've removed it themselves. I think that's a better way of going about it because it doesn't encroach on their territory and it gives them an opportunity to respond if necessary. ~MDD4696 00:20, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi User. Please remove [[:Image:Some Image]] from your userpage. Unfortunately, it is tagged as a copyrighted image, and under fair use guidelines it may not be used on userpages. Thank you. ~~~~

I don't like that template. I prefeer to write a message from scratch each time. I made a "template" on a user-subpage, but I've only used it a couple of times because we are rarely talking about just one image. A tip though: Do not start talking about copyright infringements and copyright law. People will just start making arguments that it's legal fair use and what not (or even acuse you of making legal treats). Instead simply politely say that it's against Wikipedia policy and point to WP:FUC. Some people grumble, but usualy comply (though it might take them a couple of days). On a related note: For those that don't already know about it User:Interiot/Reports/FairUsers and the asosiated toolserver script is a handy tool for locating the "big offenders". With the big gallery pages I tend to just fix them myself and then leave a polite message explaining why, and I've only been reverted once so far (mabe the others just haven't noticed yet though). --Sherool (talk) 01:21, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Greetings Sherool. Would you be so kind as to write customized messages for the more than five thousand (be patent the list is generated in real time, and it's an expensive query) tagged fair use images used in User namespace? Interiot's worst offender style reporting makes it look like less of a problem than it is... the problem isn't single pages with hundreds, it's a thousand pages with one... And this doesn't even address the fact that a huge number of images are mistagged. In my view, any procedure which requires more human work to remove a violation than it did to create one is doomed to fail.--Gmaxwell 03:39, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Fair use tags

Myself and another user have just finished categorizing the image copyright tags. Fair use tags can be found in Category:Non-free image copyright tags, along with a few other non-free tags which haven't yet been completely deprecated. Physchim62 (talk) 09:40, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I left a suggestion on the category's talk page. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 13:17, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair use lists

Here's an interesting page, something worth chewing over: User:Dragons_flight/Evil_looking_lists. Personally, I think we should push to get them removed, but I'd like to hear what others have to say. --Fastfission 05:05, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, they're pointless, even dangerous, forks. Physchim62 (talk) 05:14, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Yep they need to go, but getting them deleted via AfD or copyvios may be problematic since people with no concept of the issues get to "form a concensus".--nixie 05:46, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

This has been debated before (involving, I believe, FHM's list of 100 sexiest women). This particular list was based on a reader poll, and it was therefore argued that FHM gave no creative content in the list itself, but were merely listing the 'data' they got from their readers. I haven't seen any court cases related to this, but this argument sounds reasonable to me. (If Zogby did a poll, the numerical results of their poll would not be copyrightable, although their presentation might be.) Anyway, I guess it would matter how the lists were generated. If Rolling Stone listed the top 100 albums of all time in the editors' opinions, then this is subjective, so the list is probably copyrighted. But if they just went by album sales, or a reader survey, then it probably wouldn't be, since even a survey is objective data. So anybody want to research how these lists were generated?

I agree, by the way, that it's problematic to use a vote to interpret copyright law. Perhaps a content-based RFC should be filed? – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 13:23, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I would support that, or maybe even doing both at once. Physchim62 (talk) 20:51, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Note: 3 of these lists are listed at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Other. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 21:14, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

USPS Stamp images

Hi, looking for some guidance on possible fair use of {{USPSstamp}} to illustrate the subject on the stamp. If you have any insight, please comment at Wikipedia talk:Image copyright tags#USPS post-1978 stamp images. Thanks. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 15:06, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Catgories for images with/without rationales?

Given that all the fair use tags now also ask for a fair use rationale to be added to the image descibtion page, wouldn't it be helpful if we created categories for fair use image without fair use rationale? Or, alternatively, for those with ones? --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 15:50, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand what you're getting at - do you have an example in mind? Stan 20:06, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking it would be helpful if all the images that, considering the new guidelines, would require a fair use rationale in addition to the licensing tag, but don't have one, would be included in one category. --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 20:57, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I think that something similar to this idea is part of our proposed fair use monitoring idea. However, you'll notice that that link is still a redlink, and I don't think it's going to get off the ground until we clean up overly vague fair use tags. See my next post. JYolkowski // talk 21:25, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Getting rid of Template:Fairuse

Now that all fair use tags have been rewritten, I think that it might be time to look at getting rid of our depreciated tags, and I think that cleaning out their categories is a prerequisite to doing so. So, I'm thinking of revisiting cleaning out Category:Fair use images. I notice that the category seems rather smaller than it used to, so thanks to anyone who has been re-tagging stuff in the past. To complete the job, I'm thinking of doing the following three-step process:

1. Manually view the category in gallery mode, and re-tag anything that obviously looks like a logo, album cover, character artwork, or whatever. My progress through each letter is listed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use/Fair use image sorting; anyone that wants to help out can choose one of the available letters.
2. Export the text of all images remaining in Category:Fair use images and generate some lists of things to re-tag. Once I get to this step, I'll post the lists on Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use/Fair use image sorting. Some examples:
   • Images containing very little or no text in addition to the {{fairuse}} tag likely have no source specified. Since stuff like album covers etc. whose copyright status is obvious were removed in the previous step, any remaining images without descriptions should be tagged as as {{subst:nsd}}.
   • Images that tagged with both {{fairuse}} and a more specific fair use tag should have the {{fairuse}} tag removed.
   • Based on the image description text, it may in some cases be possible to determine a more specific tag to use. To pick one example out of many, images containing the text "[[Category:Images of art]]" could likely be re-tagged as {{art}}.
   • Images tagged with more exotic tags in addition to {{fairuse}} may need further investigation to verify copyright and licence status.
3. Having done that, any remaining images should be re-tagged as {{fair use in}}, {{fairusein2}}, etc. Not sure of the best way of doing this yet.

Any comments are welcome. Thanks, JYolkowski // talk 21:25, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Template:Fair use reduce

Based on a suggestion made on WP:AN, I've created a template (and a corresponding category) for requesting that a fair use image or other file be reduced in size and/or quality. Suggestions and edits are welcome. I'd also like to ask those more familiar with this project to add links to the new template in all the appropriate places, since I'll probably miss some. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 11:23, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

The template says that an admin should delete the original version once a smaller one has been uploaded. Maybe it should also mention where to contact an admin to do this (I personally wouldn't have the slightest idea where). --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 15:16, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, neither do I, an I am an admin. Maybe we should have a second template for that. Perhaps "Fair use reduced"? --Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:44, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. I also checked and the corresponding category (Category:Fair use size reduction request) says the original should be nominate for deletion, but I think that's for files where the new version is uploaded under a new name. (Or is there a way to nominate just an old version of a file for deletion, but keep the current one?)--Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 18:55, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

There is now. See Template:Fair use reduced. I've based it on the existing CSD I5 templates like {{or-fu-re}}. --Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:00, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Wow, that was quick. Well done! --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 19:05, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

How many words is fair use?

from: Chronicle of Higher Education 2-23-2006 [18]

"A fact sheet on fair use published by the U.S. Copyright Office does not say that fair use is limited to a set number of words. It says fair use of a work is permitted for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair-use guidelines published by the office... say that 1,000 words or 10 percent of a work of prose, whichever is less, can be republished. But at least two publishers, Blackwell Publishing and Elsevier, advise authors and editors seeking to make fair use of a book to republish no more than 400 words." Rjensen 09:04, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

How odd. According to the courts, there's no fixed limit. IIRC, there was one case where eight words was judged a copyvio, and another where several thousand was judged to not be. --Carnildo 09:07, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The key is not just how much of the text was used, but what part. There have been cases where relatively small usage was deemed unfair use, because it was reproducing the only part of the book that anyone would buy it for, under the guise of reviewing... a politician's biography with some highly-touted revelations in it, IIRC. However, no-one would have kicked up a fuss had they lifted a few paragraphs from a different section... Shimgray | talk | 09:18, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Note that I directed Rjensen to here from there. Lupo 09:26, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The bottom line in commercial cases is: does the usage damage the market value of the original? If we take less than 10% (the Copyright office guideline) then it's unlikely to cause damage--unless it's the heart of a brand new book. Rjensen 09:39, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I would not rely on that 10% figure; the "Fair use" factsheet from the U.S. Copyright Office, as expected, doesn't say anything like that. See also this FAQ list from the U.S. Copyright Office. Lupo 10:15, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Those 10% guidelines came from a different Copyright office publication: [19] page 8. Publishers and educators came up with safe harbor guidelines, that have been very widely accepted by publishers and educators: "Publishers and the academic community have established a set of educational fair use guidelines to provide "greater certainty and protection " for teachers. While the guidelines are not part of the federal Copyright Act, they are recognized by the Copyright Office and by judges as minimum standards for fair use in education. A teacher or pupil following the guidelines can feel comfortable that a use falling within these guidelines is a permissible fair use and not an infringement. Many judges look to these guidelines when making related fair use determinations. The educational use guidelines can be found in Circular 21, provided by the Copyright Office (lcWeb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ21.pdf )" from [20]

Those 10% guidelines came from a different Copyright office publication: [21] page 8. Publishers and educators came up with safe harbor guidelines, that have been very widely accepted by publishers and educators: "Publishers and the academic community have established a set of educational fair use guidelines to provide "greater certainty and protection " for teachers. While the guidelines are not part of the federal Copyright Act, they are recognized by the Copyright Office and by judges as minimum standards for fair use in education. A teacher or pupil following the guidelines can feel comfortable that a use falling within these guidelines is a permissible fair use and not an infringement. Many judges look to these guidelines when making related fair use determinations. The educational use guidelines can be found in Circular 21, provided by the Copyright Office (lcWeb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ21.pdf )" from [22] Rjensen 10:48, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Template talk:TIME

There's some discussion going on at Template talk:TIME#Usage and Template talk:TIME#Current_wording, and I'd appreciate any comments that anyone has. Thanks, JYolkowski // talk

Deletion info

Maybe I'm missing something somewhere, but where is the admonition not to use fair use unless you can avoid it? And where is the encouragement to list an image on IFD if the image can be replaced by a GFDL compatible license? What about if it is a clear breach of copyright? What about fair use rationales on image description pages? Almost every article that is tagged with the {{TIME}} copyright tag has no fair use rationale. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The last paragraph of {{Restricted use}} does recommend replacement. Clear breach of copyright is a speedy criterion, right? At least that's what I do. Since fair use rationales are a relatively new requirement, it shouldn't be too surprising that it's still spotty. TIME magazine covers are a weird case in that usually we have magazine covers only to illustrate the magazine, but being on the cover of TIME has traditionally been noteworthy in and of itself, and so there are some covers that I think are fairly used. As a first approximation, I'd say the article has to explain why the subject got onto the cover on that day, or why elements of the design are present or omitted (does the Ben A. Jones cover include a racetrack just for eye appeal, or is it a specific track with some significance?). Stan 14:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Fair use reduce

I understand the need for a Fair use reduce tag. However, take a look at a high resolution screenshot for Day of Defeat: Source like Image:Dods.jpg. I did not upload this image, however, I did tag it with Template:Promotional. In the image description, you can find the source of the image, this is the only image which displays the map dod_donner, so I believe the fair use rationale is there.

This screenshot was released by Valve Software for promotional purposes and then uploaded to Wikipedia. Surely, it would be Valve's intentions for the screenshot to be used as is, not to be scaled down or have its quality eroded in some way. A high resolution screenshot of the game would be in the mutual benefits of both the Wikipedia audience and Valve Software. Should this screenshot, and other officially released screenshots be downsized? - Hahnchen 16:15, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

This gets tricky. The important questions of fair use, so far as Wikipedia is concerned, is "Would Wikipedia be seen as competing with the copyright holder?" and "Would the use of this image potentially detract from the value to the copyright holder?" Our fair use guidelines are designed so that the answers to both of these will always be an unambiguous "no". For instance, if a photo of a celebrity is copyright a modeling agency, we want to scale down the image so that it is clear that we are not competing, and so that it doesn't detract from the copyrighted photo's value.

This case is a little different. It seems obvious to me that the value of the screenshot lies in its ability to attract players to buy the game, and not in any inherant property of the image itself. As you say, the use of the full-size image on Wikipedia should increase the value to the copyright holder, not decrease it. If I were on a jury hearing this case, I'd say it was a fair use.

But that's the problem: what if Valve Software (the copyright holder) were to disagree? Some companies can be really stupid about their copyrights, and there's a lot of gray area there. Is a high-quality photo of Vin Diesel simply a way to convince people to see his movies? Or does it have value in itself? Does mp3-swapping encourage people to buy the CDs, or does it discourage people? You might have a valid argument (in your mind) as to why the copyright-holder should be all for your reuse, but unless a the copyright-holder agrees, you'll still be sued, and unless a jury agrees, you'll lose the suit.

I think your best option is to reduce the image's size on Wikipedia, and then write to Valve Software, asking if they mind us using the full-size image. If they say yes, you can use the full-size picture, add a {{permissionandfairuse}} tag, and note the permission on the image's talk page. And if not, we should keep the lower-res image. All the best, – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 16:41, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ta bu shi da yu 2

Hi, I've filed a fair-use-related RfC regarding speedy deleting improperly used images. I'd appreciate the comments of you guys, even if you disagree with me. Cheers, JYolkowski // talk 22:19, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Dealing with bogus claims

A major problem we have is that many images have fair use tags on them where there is no plausible fair use rationale. The problem is particularly acute for casual editors who edit in a fairly limited range of subjects and see Wikipedia narrowly, as a venue for publication of material of interest to them, rather than as the broad project it is. Such casual editors are perhaps conditioned by the world of free web sites and blogs, where copyvios are generally tolerated until a DMCA takedown request is received. These editors see the fair use tags as a reasonable workaround for Wikipedia's otherwise stringent copyright policy.

Sadly, many seasoned Wikipedians have an unjustifiably broad view of fair use. One might speculate that the overall inclusion bias plays a role in this, as well as the fact that we have never done an especially good job of articulating the limitations of fair use on policy pages. In any case, it is difficult to achieve a consensus that a purportedly fair-use image should be deleted.

I believe that some sort of more streamlined process for such deletions is called for, particularly with recently uploaded images. Perhaps we should delete purportedly fair use images in the absence of consensus rather than keep them. Progress is already being made in articulating the handful of cases where fair use images are acceptable here, though loopholes remain; perhaps closing the loopholes is sufficient. I think the Time magazine cover debacle is ample evidence that a supermajority of editors will not agree to delete fair use images if the images are useful and topical, regardless of the strength or weakness of the fair use argument.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 04:28, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Our biggest "bang for the buck", which we are already doing and seems relatively uncontroversial, is to break out categories for which the fair use rationale is a boilerplate, such as corporate logos used on the corporations' pages, album covers, and the like. One can keep subdividing; for instance, photos of deceased persons can't be replaced by a Wikipedian with a camera, so there is a whole category of rationales that include "person is dead" somewhere in them. On the flip side, there are images that are almost never going to be fair use, such as AP photos of sports events. Since these are going to be rare, I don't see any problem with making uploaders jump through higher hoops ("this is the only photo in existence", "it was the only perfect 10 ever scored", etc) - if the picture is as critical as the uploader maintains, then it shouldn't be a problem to come up with the rationale. Processwise I think it's important to come up with more predecided rationale components, so as to minimize the amount of per-image debate, and also to make some estimates of time and effort, so we are actually doing something that will keep up. Stan 05:18, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd suggest the following:

1. CSD I6: Fair use image without a rationale: Any image tagged as "fair use" without a fair-use rationale for at least one of the pages it's used on may be be deleted at any time starting seven days after it was uploaded.
2. CSD I7: Fair use image with a clearly bogus rationale: Any image tagged with any "fair use" tag, with a clearly incorrect rationale (eg. fair use rationale mentioning an event, when the picture is of a person) may be deleted at any time.
3. Removal of images without rationale: Any image used in an article without a fair-use rationale that explicitly applies to that article may be removed at any time by anyone; such removal is exempt from the 3RR.
4. Fast-track deletion of bad fair-use claims: Images that appear to directly contradict one or more of the points at Wikipedia:Fair use#Policy can be listed for fast-track deletion. If, after three days, there is no explanation of why it does not contradict the policy, it will be deleted.
5. Blocking of users: Any user who repeatedly uploads images that fall afoul of one or more of these policies, or who repeatedly inserts fair-use-tagged images in inappropriate articles, may be blocked for periods of up to a week.

--Carnildo 07:31, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Scratch that. First, the entire contents of certain subcategories of Category:Fair use, such as Category:Yu-Gi-Oh!_images and Category:Pokémon images should be shot. Then we should discuss what to do with the rest. --Carnildo 08:34, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, without commenting on the specific encyclopedic merits of Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh!, I'd think single frames from an animation, used to illustrate a character in said animation, would have a much stronger fair use claim than most: they contain only a tiny fraction of the original animation, have no use whatsoever as substitutes for it, and generally promote the original work rather than competing with it. I agree, however, that the card or Pokédex images may have a weaker claim. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 12:32, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Unlike most people, I've actually reviewed Category:Fair use images end-to-end, and there is clearly massive confusion about what constitutes a "fair use rationale" - they range anywhere from "I feel this is fair use", as if "feeling" was somehow significant, to multiple paragraphs linking to relevant bits of the US Code. As we've learned with other initiatives, this kind of administrivia works better with templates and categories than with people composing their own verbiage. It may even be that there is no reason to allow any handcrafted rationales, and we can simply require that all images must be able to choose from a list of pre-approved rationales, each of which connects to extensive description with examples. Stan 14:03, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that's a really good idea. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 14:11, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Factionalism

OK guys, this business of factions is getting irritating. It does not help us if there is one group taking Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use as their policy development locus, and a different group using Wikipedia:Fair use review, and having editwarring over the two. If you look at some of the discussion on the respective talk pages, there is quite a lot of similarity, and everybody involved wants to end up in the same place, so let's stop working at cross-purposes. We need both people to develop better templates, and people to take action once developed, and they aren't necessarily going to be the same people. We don't have to panic about fair use images, but at the same time we absolutely must have process that will keep with the influx. Stan 13:18, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm thinking that fair use review can be used as centralised discussion for images needing fair use review. WikiProject Fair use has not done much on this front thus far -- fair use review is a first step to something, at least. Johnleemk | Talk 10:01, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

It's cool to have the two pages, especially if one is going to get daily updates and the other not. But if they're not cross-referencing each other, that's not so good. Stan 13:47, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Definitely. Johnleemk | Talk 14:10, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Created a tag for sheet music

{{sheet music}}

I hope this is acceptable. One of the things that has bothered me is people taking copyrighted musical compositions, engraving them, and incorrectly releasing them under the GFDL. (It's a different situation with public domain, obviously.) That's like setting the text from some copyrighted book and claiming you then own the copyright. – flamurai (t) 17:46, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Postage stamps

One of the messy areas for fair use is postage stamps, because while the source is intrinsically known (country name is right on the image), copyright status is not so easily determined (I've researched this some, but for many countries it's still a mystery), and being honored on a stamp is usually noteworthy in itself, even more than being on the cover of TIME :-) . So I've tried my hand at writing some guidelines at Category:Fair use stamp images - maybe not the best place, but conveniently close to the images themselves. Probably want to be a separate page eventually, since we'll want some specific examples of legit and not-legit. Next step is to try them out on some images (Canadian and US would be best, since recent stamps are definitely known to be copyright), see what needs to be clarified further. Stan 18:28, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Art

First, can someone who has more time than me check what's up with File Upload Bot (Cobalty) (talk · contribs)? This seems to have been a bot that uploaded lots of reproductions of paintings, making PD or fair use claims, but most of these images seem to be of copyrighted artworks. See e.g. Andrew Wyeth, and there are lots more of that kind.

Secondly, when is an artwork published? Circular 40 of the U.S. Copyright Office gives some indications, but doesn't say what's the case with a painting that exists in only one copy. They just state that selling it (including through an auction or gallery, where the work would be exposed to the public) does not constitute publication, and the Berne Convention, §3.3 also says that "the exhibition of a work of art [...] shall not constitute publication" (emphasis mine), and 17 USC 101 concurs: "A public [...] display of a work does not of itself constitute publication." Are such works considered essentially "unpublished" unless facsimiles are produced or reproductions are reprinted in an art book? Wouldn't that mean that most artworks are protected until 70 years after the painter's death in the U.S. (and anywhere else where 70 years p.m.a. applies)? If so, please note that this bot mentioned above also tagged any artwork created prior to 1923 as PD, which would be utterly wrong. Lupo 08:00, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

ACK Lupo. I would like to add that a publication could be made via publishing in printed sources (e.g. newspapers, art magazines) --Historiograf 23:36, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Further summary and discussion at Wikipedia talk:Public domain#Artwork. Lupo 08:57, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Main Page

I didn't think fair use images were allowed on the main page, yet over the last week or so its been done several times... --Admrb♉ltz (T | C) 00:29, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I do not know who picks for the pics to be on the main page. Was this more in the TFA or the Current news sections (or DYK or Today in History..). User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire) Fair use policy} 00:35, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Well the last couple of days it has been the Featured Article, they are doing good w/ the DYK and Current News. --Admrb♉ltz (T | C) 00:36, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok. Then I can suggest to that we could bring it up to the FAC director User:Raul654. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire) Fair use policy} 00:56, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

*nods* though looking at WP:FU there is only a mention that they can not be used in templates, but if the board says OK, it can be in a Main Page Template... --Admrb♉ltz (T | C) 01:44, 5 March 2006 (UTC)