User:Brianjd
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My global user page contains information about me. The remainder of this page is not about me, but rather about this project, Wikimedia Commons (also known around here as just ‘Commons’). All references to articles are to the English Wikipedia (except where otherwise stated).
Commons is a repository of free (as in freedom) educational media. Commons accepts contributions from the public, but if contributed media is outside Commons’ scope or has legal or ethical issues, it may be deleted.
Commons media can be directly embedded into pages on Commons and other wikis, such as the various Wikipedias in different languages. This embedding does not create additional copies of the media: it simply embeds the original copy. Therefore, if the original copy is deleted, the media will also stop appearing on all the pages it is embedded in, including this page.
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Jurisdiction[edit]
Commons inherits rules from relevant jurisdictions, as well as defining its own rules. Relevant jurisdictions always include the jurisdiction where Commons is hosted; they usually also include other jurisdictions.
It seems like, except for the fact that the jurisdiction where Commons is hosted is always relevant, there is no universal rule about which jurisdictions are relevant. But there are two main places with specific rules about which jurisdictions are relevant: the copyright policy and the personality rights guideline.
Scope[edit]
Commons’ scope (for media) is defined by three criteria:
- Freedom. Media must be free (as in freedom); specifically, it must have a suitable copyright status. In practice, both here and elsewhere on Commons, this is treated as a separate issue to scope; it is discussed in its own section.
- Educational use. Media must be ‘realistically useful for an educational purpose’. This is discussed in this section.
- Format. This is not discussed here.
Media that is outside this scope is usually referred to as ‘out of scope’.
In-scope media subject to generic ‘out of scope’ deletion requests[edit]
Some media is clearly in scope, but is subject to generic ‘out of scope’ deletion requests. Examples are given below.
- In-scope media that was subject to generic ‘out of scope’ deletion requests.
-
Two musical staffs with treble and bass clefs, each with two octaves of notes labelled, showing how the notes continue from one staff to the other with only one ledger line. This image is clearly in scope because, for anyone who recognizes musical notation, this image has an obvious educational use. (full description; deletion request) -
2015 shaped sunglasses being worn by a child. This image is clearly in scope because it is in legitimate use at the Wikidata item New Year's glasses (Q16933125) (and has been since 16 August 2018). (full description; deletion request)
The ‘2015 shaped sunglasses’ case is particularly damning:
- That deletion request included 1 762 files, of which many were clearly in scope. The nominator relied on the advice of other users (including the then-administrator Yasu) at the Commons help desk and the Japanese village pump. It seems like no one considered the possibility that some files might be useful. One user (RZuo) admitted that some photos could be good stock photos, but went on to say that having so many rather private photos is useless for commons.
- Even worse, that category of files had a second deletion request. (To be documented here.)
The broader issue gets even worse too: some of these deletion requests lead to deletion. An example is given below.
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This image is clearly in scope because:
- It depicts a bikini barista. Bikini baristas are clearly in scope because they have their own article, Wikidata item (bikini barista (Q4907411)) and category. This is reinforced by the fact that the same user who uploaded this image, NeoBatfreak, also uploaded a variety of other images of bikini baristas.
- This image is even more valuable because it shows a bikini barista from a different venue to most of the other images referenced above, which seem to be the only images of bikini baristas on Commons.
But it was deleted per a generic ‘out of scope’ deletion request. It was undeleted per an informal undeletion request made to the deleting administrator.
‘Consent’[edit]
The term ‘consent’ can refer to two very different things:
- Consent of the subject, as in {{Consent}} and Commons:Country specific consent requirements.
- Consent of the copyright owner, as in Commons:CONSENT (which redirects to Commons:Email templates/Consent).
These are very different things because the copyright owner is usually not the subject and copyright is handled differently to privacy.
Privacy[edit]
The term ‘privacy’ can refer to many different things. Here, it refers to restrictions on collecting and sharing information about people, including images of people.
Personality rights[edit]
Here, the term ‘personality rights’ refers to a person’s rights to restrict use of their image.
There is inconsistency as to whether personality rights apply when the subject is not ‘identifiable’. Even the relevant Commons guideline is inconsistent. It is called ‘Photographs of identifiable people’, but its summary says nothing about identifiability:
Commons respects the legal and moral rights of people depicted in our photos. These rights may affect how we host photos and how they can be re-used, including whether consent is required. The legal rights of the subjects constitute non-copyright restrictions on use of photos. These rights vary by country.
The guideline itself also suggests that personality rights can apply to subjects who are not ‘identifiable’, with statements like:
- ‘… even if the person is unidentifiable …, certain legal and ethical issues may remain.’
- ‘The provenance of an image may taint its use irredeemably. A "downblouse" or "creepshot" photograph is not made ethically acceptable just because the subject's face is cropped out. A paparazzi telephoto shot of a naked sunbather does not become acceptable merely by pixelating the face.’
From January 2023 to February 2023, there was a failed proposal to remove the word ‘identifiable’ from the guideline’s name.
It gets worse: actual Commons practice is sometimes inconsistent with that guideline. For example, consider this widely used image of topless women sunbathing. According to its deletion requests, it has no personality rights issues because the subjects are not ‘identifiable’.
Identifiability[edit]
According to this image’s deletion requests, the subjects are not ‘identifiable’.
Copyright[edit]
Copyrights are legally enforceable. Because of that, Commons takes copyright seriously: copyright status is one of the criteria of Commons’ scope and has its own Commons policy.
Copyright complexity[edit]
Despite copyright’s importance, it is far too complex for most people to understand.
Copyright is so complex that its Commons policy page contains not only the actual policy, but also an overview of complicated copyright laws through an example-based tutorial for non-lawyers. That overview is highly simplified, with links to many other pages with more details, but is still complex. Shown here is a Commons licensing tutorial developed as part of a usability project; this is even more simplified, but is still long.
Even the rules for free (as in freedom) works are complex, due to the variety of free licenses and situations involving multiple licenses (and sometimes multiple works). The Help desk discussion ‘How do I cite an image on Wikimedia commons outside of wikimedia projects?’ (archived in November 2021) links to:
- Instructions for using Commons material elsewhere. This page is complex (for the reasons given above), but is still incomplete. It says: If the file is available under multiple licenses, you can use any of them. But it does not explain that some files contain multiple parts, each released under a different license, and in this case, users must comply with all the licenses. It then says: If none of the licenses suits you, you can try to contact the creator and negotiate a special arrangement. Otherwise, you'll have to use a different file. But it does not explain exceptions to copyright like fair use.
- An attribution generator. This is supposed to do the hard work for you, but still asks several annoying questions before presenting the license notice and also includes complex instructions on how to use it. Even for a public domain work, it warns that (in Germany, but this also applies to some other jurisdictions) the author retains some rights that cannot be waived.
The variation of individual licenses is complex enough, but some material is released under multiple licenses, where users may choose any one license to comply with. As a particularly egregious example, the file Server-kitty.jpg has this crazy triple license scheme:
- CC BY 2.0: a permissive license
- GFDL 1.2+: a copyleft license
- CC BY-SA 3.0: also CC (like CC BY 2.0), but copyleft (like GFDL 1.2+); added as part of the GFDL migration
(This was the subject of the Village pump discussion ‘File:Server-kitty.jpg: triple licenced CC BY 2.0, GFDL and CC BY-SA 3.0’ (archived in November 2021), which did not go anywhere.)
A different situation is where a work contains multiple parts, each released under a different license. In this case, a user who uses the whole work must comply with all the licenses. Sometimes, it is hard to tell which parts are present and which licenses apply. For example, a screenshot of a web page of a Wikimedia Foundation project may depict MediaWiki (the software used by the Wikimedia Foundation), the project’s contents, or both; MediaWiki and Wikimedia Foundation projects’ contents are released under different licenses. More specifically, the Wikipedia screenshot shown here depicts the project’s contents but does not depict any copyrightable part of MediaWiki. But the screenshot’s description contains only the generic notice {{Wikipedia-screenshot}}, which refers to three different (and mutually incompatible) licenses, with no clarification on which apply to this specific screenshot.
Acceptance of copyright violations[edit]
Commons takes copyright very seriously (at least for media); copyright is one of Commons’ core principles. But outside of Commons, copyright violations are commonly accepted. This is because of copyright’s complexity, together with its impracticality (even for people who understand it).
For example, in revision 609375845 (an edit to Commons:Deletion requests/File:USAir 427 Crash Site.jpg), Rubin16 (a Commons administrator) added a link to a Google Street View screenshot uploaded to an external site. Surely this screenshot was posted by Rubin16 for the purpose of responding to that deletion request; surely this was a copyright violation (at least it would be if not for fair use). Google Street View screenshots uploaded to Commons are quickly deleted as copyright violations; an example is Knilles Ynsesstrjitte.jpg, which was deleted less than 7 hours after being nominated for deletion. (To further complicate matters, taking that screenshot also violated Google’s guidelines: You may not screenshot Street View imagery … for any purpose. … All uses of … Street View content must provide attribution … (emphasis in original).)
Search engine reliability[edit]
Search engines are useful for checking whether media is in scope and for checking its copyright status. But they are not always reliable: they sometimes fail to find things that should be easy to find. For example, as of 17 January 2023, DuckDuckGo fails to find the Flickr image British Columbia-Yoho National Park-Yoho Lake-P1040446 (uploaded to Commons as Michael Peak from Yoho Lake.jpg) when searching for the title in these formats:
- With the photo ID in parantheses like it normally is on Commons: British Columbia-Yoho National Park-Yoho Lake-P1040446 (36710284342)
- With quotes: "British Columbia-Yoho National Park-Yoho Lake-P1040446"
- With quotes and the term ‘Flickr’: "British Columbia-Yoho National Park-Yoho Lake-P1040446" Flickr
This is also true for the following Flickr images, which were uploaded to Commons and later deleted (and show women wearing only bikini bottoms, one with a nipple visible):
- IZIBA2004_102 (But the search with the photo ID did, at one point, find the Commons file IZIBA2004 056 (1924606).jpg, originally uploaded to Flickr by the same user. It also, at one point, found this user page, with this extract: Commons:Deletion requests/File:IZIBA2004 102 (1924810).jpg; Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Panty lines: just the origin of COM:NOCREEPSHOTS and the issue of drawing attention, both in the comment by Rhododendrites, everything else done already. That text has not been on this page since all its content was moved to a separate page for old content, more than 2 months ago.)
- Romania-2480 - Really............... I didn't know... (But all three searches do find a Wikipornia post citing the Commons upload of this file.)
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Media used on this page[edit]
2015 shaped sunglasses (15827579308).jpg[edit]
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This image is in legitimate use at the Wikidata item New Year's glasses (Q16933125) (and has been since 16 August 2018). That means it is clearly in scope. But it was subject to a generic ‘out of scope’ deletion request, along with 1 761(!) other files.
Used in this section:
Licensing tutorial en.svg[edit]
This Commons licensing tutorial was developed as part of a usability project; it is a highly simplified description of how copyright laws apply to Commons, but it is still long. This shows how complex copyright is.
Used in this section:
PINK PANTHERZ Expresso (Fresno Ca.) bikini barista with face mask.jpg[edit]
This image depicts a bikini barista. Bikini baristas have their own article, Wikidata item (bikini barista (Q4907411)) and category. That means that, in general, bikini baristas are in scope. This is reinforced by the fact that the same user who uploaded this image, NeoBatfreak, also uploaded a variety of other images of bikini baristas.
It seems like the images referenced above are the only images of bikini baristas on Commons. This image shows a bikini barista from a different venue to most of the other images. That means that this image is even more valuable and is clearly in scope. But it was deleted per a generic ‘out of scope’ deletion request. It was undeleted per an informal undeletion request made to the deleting administrator.
Used in this section:
Topless Barcelona.jpg[edit]
As of 19 January 2023, this image is used in the article List of social nudity places in Europe, articles on toplessness or topfreedom in 4 other Wikipedias, the article for G-strings in the Japanese Wikipedia, the entry for sun tanning in the Traditional Chinese Wikipedia, the entry for topless in the Italian Wiktionary and the entry for 「曬」 in the Traditional Chinese Wiktionary; it is even used as a generic image of a Barcelona beach in an article on public domain administration on the Catalan Wikipedia.
According to this image’s deletion requests, it has no personality rights issues because the subjects are not ‘identifiable’.
Used in these sections:
Treble clef and Bass clef.png[edit]
For anyone who recognizes musical notation, this image has an obvious educational use. That means it is clearly in scope. But it was subject to a generic ‘out of scope’ deletion request.
Used in this section:
You are currently unable to edit Wikipedia0.jpg[edit]
This Wikipedia screenshot depicts the project’s contents but does not depict any copyrightable part of MediaWiki. But its description contains only the generic notice {{Wikipedia-screenshot}}, which refers to three different (and mutually incompatible) licenses, with no clarification on which apply to this specific screenshot. This shows how complex copyright is.
Used in this section:
Disclaimer[edit]
To be clear, when this page (or its subpages) embeds Commons media, that does not imply anything except that the media is relevant to each part of the page where it is embedded. In particular, it does not imply that I endorse that media or that it is suitable for a general audience.
But there are two protections:
- As explained in this page’s introduction, that media appears only when it is still available on Commons for normal use, which implies the Commons community has accepted (or, at least, not rejected) that media.
- That media embedding complies with the principle of least astonishment: each media item is used only where it is relevant and each instance has an accurate description.