User:Mdennis (WMF)/Staff uploads

Background

Based on requests by several community members, I have been talking to the staff attorneys on the Wikimedia Foundation's Legal and Community Advocacy team and several members of the communications team about clarifying ownership of copyright in uploads by WMF staff. To be clear, this is not about those situations where staff members upload photographs they have taken themselves. In those cases, the standard licensing templates serve well. This is specifically for instances where media is produced by other employees or contractors of the Foundation and that media is either owned/co-owned by the Wikimedia Foundation or licensed to it (conditions vary according to the contract with the individuals).

The purpose of this template is so that the community need no longer wonder under what authority a staff member is uploading media created by another staff member or contractor. It is akin to OTRS permission in that use of staff account provides clear connection to the Wikimedia Foundation and includes an individual assertion of agency. The community and reusers will thus know who is accountable for this assertion. If necessary, use could easily be restricted to staff accounts.

I am not myself very advanced in terms of template creation. I would really appreciate assistance from somebody with the actual coding of this mock-up to allow the name parameter to work optionally. Sometimes employees do not wish individual credit. In those cases, it would be better to remove the first and last sentences.

This template would be used alongside a standard licensing template. Alternatively, it could be used in place of it with a little additional work.

Usage

For the default CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, the usage would be: {{User:Mdennis (WMF)/Staff uploads|name=creator}}

If you want to add add a different license the usage would be: {{User:Mdennis (WMF)/Staff uploads|name=John Smith|license=Some totally free license}}

Example