Commons talk:Photographs of identifiable people/Update 2013/Examples

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Scope Review 2013 links: Discuss stage 2 of this review Translation Help your community by translating the review Background Main review page: Background and process FAQ Links to current rules Project Scope Photographs of identifiable people Discussion: Introductory Scope wording Aim of Wikimedia Commons Excluded educational content Discussion: Files Must be a media file Must be an allowable free file format Must be freely licensed or public domain Licensing terms Evidence Precautionary principle 'Realistically useful for an educational purpose' PDF and DjVu formats Discussion: Pages, galleries and categories General pages, galleries and categories User pages, galleries and categories Discussion: Areas of particular concern Censorship "Neutral point of view" Discussion: Identifiable people Lead Legal issues Consent Moral issues Identification Examples Removal requests Other image sources Other proposals Other proposals

Proposal 1

• Please discuss the above proposal here

This topic appears to be of lesser interest/priority to the community than some of the others in this review, and I propose that we should close it down now. That will allow us in part 2 of the review to focus our full attention on the most important and/or contentious issues. Please comment at Commons talk:Project scope/Update 2013/Stage 2. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:17, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Case Study 1

This first File:US Navy 030317-N-5319A-016 Signalman 2nd Class Diver (DV) Harlold Bickford a mammal handler from Commander Task Unit (CTU-55.4.3) brushes the teeth of a Bottle Nose Dolphin.jpg provides an example of how a picture involving human beings should be registered. To quote the description annexed to this file:

Central Command Area of Responsibility (Mar. 17, 2003) -- Signalman 2nd Class Diver (DV) Harlold Bickford a mammal handler from Commander Task Unit (CTU-55.4.3) brushes the teeth of a Bottle Nose Dolphin in the well deck aboard the USS Gunston Hall (LSD 44) operating in the Arabian Gulf. CTU-55.4.3 is a multinational team consisting of Naval Special Clearance Team-One, Fleet Diving Unit Three from the United Kingdom, Clearance Dive Team from Australia, and Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Units Six and Eight (EODMU-6 and EODMU-8). These units are conducting deep/shallow water mine counter measure operations to clear shipping lanes for humanitarian relief. CTU-55.4.3 and USS Gunston Hall are currently forward deployed conducting missions in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the multinational coalition effort to liberate the Iraqi people, eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and end the regime of Saddam Hussein. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 1st Class Brien Aho. (RELEASED)

To summarize, we have a depicted human person, we have a consent, we have a photographer and we have a copyright release. You have even an interresting description of the context. If you want to use this picture as the basis of a cartoon entitled "Colin Powell facing a mass toothache, Navy at rescue", you have all the informations you need to properly register your own derived work.

Case Study 2

File:Masturbating with a toothbrush.jpg: This second file started its career here, in http://commons.wikimedia.org, as File:Dcp01053.jpg. It has a long history of edit-wars about names, redirects, categories etc. all of them related to avoid... or to enforce the Thoothbrush Incident. But, strangely enough, the basic question of the free/non-free nature of this picture has never been discussed. The description annexed to this file is limited to:

en=A woman masturbating with an electric toothbrush|date=2011-05-06|source={{own}}|permission={{self|cc-by-sa-3.0}}

At first sight, such a cryptic description seems to assert that (1) the depicted person is also the photographer, (2) this person is giving an explicit consent for an open publication, (3) this person is also releasing her copy-rights, so that the work can be universally copied, distributed, transmited and even remixed or adapted. But this is not so simple if we ask the question: how was the shutter button pressed? The answer is not clear from the picture or the description. May be an ingenious device was used, operated by the hand not shown. May be the toothbrush was an intelligent device with an embedded remote command. Or... may be the description is simply deceiving.

And therefore, we have to consider the context. This file, originally uploaded as File:Dcp01053.jpg, is a member of a set of 19 files uploaded by the same user, the upload dates ranging from 2008 to 2012. In this set, we have:

• a 50 years old penis (sic), with medical assertions (scars, phimosis at 5 y/o, etc) ;
• some other penises ;
• a beheaded man, the picture being named ShareIMG 6238x.jpg. May be the other penises holder ;
• a 100 lire coin, 1966obverse, with alleged grumi spermatici ;
• a series of 12 pictures, probably of the same person, described as "model Titti" in six of the 12 annexed descriptions.

The probability of all the twelve pictures being about the same human being comes from (1) the very sight of the pictures, especially concerning the moles and the very apparent vein pattern of the depicted person (2) the inital names of the uploaded files, mostly ranging from DCP01040.jpg to DCP02400.jpg (3) the EXIF data, most of them about a Kodak DC210 Zoom (V05.00) camera. In any case, it is clear that the uploader cannot be at the same time the "50 years old penis", the beheaded man... and the "model Titti". And once the deceiving nature of one or another description is proven, AGF reverts from 'assume good faith' into 'prove that you are acting in good faith'.

An important concern comes from the large gap between the generation of the pictures (mostly in 2001, from the EXIF datas and the descriptions) and the publication (mostly in 2008). Does the model Titti give a written consent for this 2008 publication over the whole World Wide Web of the corresponding pictures taken in 2001-2004 in a context (private pictures in private places) that was not implying such a consent? Moreover, does the model Titti give a written consent for being categorized under such name (i.e. is this name an additional breach of privacy, or something else)?

A last concern comes from the 2011 release of three more pictures, three years after the 2008 release. These pictures, whose original names were Dcp01043.jpg, Dcp01053.jpg, Dcp01063.jpg, are forming an hardcore series (piss, brush and protude), and everything is done to connect this series with the 2008 series (the names, the remaining exif, etc). Has model Titti given an additionnal written consent for the open publication of this additional series, in such a context that facilitates her identification and makes her the "worldwide toothbrush of the year"?

It doesn't seems that the copyright problems of this series are solved. If you care for birds and want for to launch a campaign "save the albatrosses, recycle your toothbrush", may be you better search for another picture to illustrate your campaign. A free picture, for example. Pldx1 (talk) 22:05, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

The series of images you mention may well be problematic, but I have to confess I can't see how your comments feed in to the general rules on photographs of identifiable people. Did you have any specific rule change to suggest? --MichaelMaggs (talk) 07:05, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

User:MichaelMaggs seems to be ashamed with the publication of the File:Masturbating with a toothbrush.jpg. And he has censored the apparition of that picture in my contribution some lines above, replacing it by a link. The very idea that the policymakers can discuss about a picture --and about the principles involved in the worldwide publication of that picture-- without showing that very picture is, how did you say, a little bit astonishing. Pldx1 (talk) 14:02, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

They can easily follow the link if they need to. Showing a picture that is probably w:NSFW on a policy discussion page strikes me as inappropriate too. --Avenue (talk) 21:38, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

"probably NSFW?" - makes me wonder where you work, Avenue? :-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Colin (talk • contribs)

That can also mean "I haven't looked at it, just judging from the filename". :) darkweasel94 22:35, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

True, 'though even from the filename it's pretty clear. :) Poorly worded, sorry. --Avenue (talk) 06:06, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

• Is someone suggesting that consent would be required in either the dolphin or the masturbation image? If so I would offer that is an unreasonable position for commons. The threshold for being deemed identifiable would be too low. Saffron Blaze (talk) 17:04, 1 August 2013 (UTC)