Commons talk:Simple media reuse guide

Just translate this page into Traditional Chinese.

Read in my sub userpage for the draft. Thank you for the beautifully text and layout! --Shangkuanlc (talk) 15:27, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

I think you better put it as the subpage, like I did with Commons:Simple media reuse guide/id, you can put it as Commons:Simple media reuse guide/zh. Bennylin (yes?) 12:08, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Personality rights, trademarks, etc.

You say "All media files on Wikimedia Commons can be used by anyone for any purpose including commercially and each media file has information about which license it uses." The first half of this sentence is simply not true. Some examples, all of which I believe hold in almost every country in the world:

• You can't use a picture of an identifiable person in an advertisement or in a way that implies an endorsement of a product or service, unless that person has has signed over those rights.
• You can't use a trademarked logo of a company except in very restricted ways.

Furthermore:

• A significant number of Commons' images would violate obscenity laws or similar laws if published in many of the countries that are more conservative in this respect (to take an extreme case, consider Saudi Arabia).
• A significant number of Commons' images would violate other laws in various countries: e.g. publication of most Nazi-related imagery is illegal in many otherwise very open European countries.

I could give other examples, but I'm sure you get the point. The current wording is quite misleading. - Jmabel ! talk 23:52, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi Jmabel, thanks for the feedback, can you think of a way of saying it succinctly and linking to somewhere with a kind of checklist? The reason I've been writing this is because the current guidance is horribly complicated (a reflection of how complicated it is). Thanks again --John Cummings (talk) 17:42, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

If I had a great rewording, I'd have provided it! It may be that there is no simple way to say this. But as they say, "Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler." It seems to me that it is necessary to say something like the following:

• With respect to copyright, the files hosted on Commons are intended to be available for any use including commercial. However, there are several caveats:
  • Most content from the last century or so is "available under a free license" rather than being in the public domain. Typically, these licenses require (1) attribution of the author (typically the photographer) and (2) a clear statement of the license used, often involving a statement or (if used online) a link to the license terms. Details are available on the individual file pages.
  • Trademark laws still apply. For example, a logo may be too old or too simple to copyright, but it can still be subject to trademark law.
  • Personality rights still apply. For example, if you want to use the image of an identifiable person in a way that implies endorsement of a product or opinion, you still need that person's (the subject's, not the photographer's) permission. Also, many countries have stronger limits on publishing photographs of identifiable people without their permission, especially if the use of the picture could be seen as in any way derogatory.
  • Regardless of an image appearing on Commons, certain jurisdictions may have laws against republishing it there, such as laws about depicting naked people, or about hate speech (including limits in several countries on reproduction of Nazi imagery).
  • Finally, Commons' processes are not perfect. Users sometimes upload images that shouldn't be here, and while our community tries to remove these images as quickly as possible, we are not perfect. At any given time, there will be some images on Commons that have copyright issues we have not yet detected. Therefore, Commons cannot take legal responsibility for your reuse of images hosted here. We provide a service to the best of our ability but, again, we are not perfect.

I know that's more than you want. Boil it down however you want; maybe sum it up with a short bullet list and a link to where it is fleshed out. But otherwise, I think you will be giving people bad advice.

- Jmabel ! talk 15:34, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks very much Jmabel, this is good and I will integrate it into the guide, thanks very much. I really wish there was a guide/decision tree thing that would take people through this sort of stuff that I could just link to. John Cummings (talk) 10:39, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Not good examples

@John Cummings: Unsplash and Pixabay are not good examples of repositories of royalty free images. Used to be, duped a slew of up-and-coming photographers to prop their cred and a few years in changed their licensing terms (and 500px is another example). There’s no reason for this guide to be leading prospective reusers away from Commons when it is hosted in Commons and often reusers help in curating — but misleading reusers off to copyfaud scammers seems to be a disservice. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 04:48, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Anyone is free to remove the link. After all, the original page was made years ago. Bennylin (yes?) 12:09, 28 February 2023 (UTC)