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Copyright status of photos by French photo studio Harcourt

For a while now, photos by French photo studio Studio Harcourt have been frequently nominated for deletion (by User:Günther Frager, among others). I've noticed in recent discussions that there seems to be quite some confusion about their copyright status and wanted to discuss that here.

One fact that does not seem to be controversial is that several years ago, a French court decided that photos by Studio Harcourt are produced under such tight regulations that they are to be considered collective works as far as French copyright is concerned. Which means that they enter the public domain in France 70 years after first publication. In the US, the URAA restored the copyright for those photos which were still in copyright in France on January 1, 1996. Since France still had a shorter copyright term on that date (50 years + 8 years and 120 days of wartime extensions), Harcourt photos up to 1936 should be in the public domain in the US (as of 2024), while later Harcourt photos are still protected in the US.
In 1991, the French state (minister Jack Lang) bought 5 million Harcourt photos/negatives from 1934 to 1991, see here (article from Le Figaro). One claim that I have seen repeatedly, usually made by User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), is that the French state released all of those photos under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. RAN added that claim to the Category:Photographs by Studio Harcourt hereand again here and has repeated it in various deletion request discussions. The article from Le Figaro (which RAN also linked to) does not support that claim of a release under a CC BY 3.0 license (which could have happened no earlier than 2007 since the CC 3.0 licenses were introduced in that year). When I asked RAN (at Commons:Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard/archive/2023#User:Studio Harcourt) about evidence for his claims, he replied The statement is based on the license they were uploaded with. Which, from the context, apparently refers to several files uploaded by User:Studio Harcourt in 2010 (see Special:ListFiles/Studio Harcourt).

But User:Studio Harcourt is not the French state (but the studio itself), and the photos that were uploaded in 2010 were from the years 1998 to 2008, so not part of the 5 million photos bought by the French state in 1991. I fail to see how several photos uploaded by this user in 2010 with said license can lead to the conclusion that the French state released all of the 5 million photos it bought in 1991 under a CC BY 3.0 license. As I see it, there is still ZERO evidence for this claim, and it is just an unsubstantiated claim.

Another claim which popped up recently is that the Harcourt photos from 1934 to 1991 bought by the French state are not under copyright. This was claimed by User:Tisourcier and User:Ruthven, and User:Asclepias also seems to have adopted it. Apparently it goes back to a VRT ticket by User:Studio Harcourt. As [1] shows, there are two of those. The older Harcourt ticket (2010061710041251), according to User:Ciell, only covers files uploaded by User:Studio Harcourt (“I think it's safe to say that the images uploaded under the specific account are okay, and the release does not cover any future uploads beyond the ones made by User:Studio Harcourt.”), while the newer ticket (2020112910005534), according to User:Ganímedes, "only covers a specific file".

In that ticket ( which is apparently from 2020), a woman named Agnes BROUARD, working for Studio Harcourt Paris and Chargée de la valorisation des collections, writes (confirmed by User:Ruthven on their own user talk page here): « Il me faut vous indiquer que nos archives de 1934 à 1991 sont désormais propriété du Ministère de la Culture, conservées par une entité appelée Médiathèque de l'architecture et du patrimoine et diffusées par l'agence photographique RMN-Grand Palais. Ce fonds photographique n'est pas soumis à un droit patrimonial donc quiconque possède un portrait de l'époque 1934-1991 peut l'utiliser librement et vous pouvez réutiliser un portrait trouvé sur internet. » Which says that the Harcourt archives from 1934 to 1991 are now property of the French Ministry of Culture (as discussed above), and more importantly, that for that archive there is no "patrimonial right" (that is, the economic/proprietary part of copyright as opposed to the moral right to be named as author) and "that anyone who has a portrait from the period 1934-1991 can use it freely and you can reuse a portrait found on the internet" (translation by User:Tisourcier on my user talk page). So basically she is declaring that there are no restrictions at all on Harcourt photos from 1934 to 1991 (except that you have to adhere to the moral rights part of copyright, which means among other things you have to name the author when reproducing the photo).

That sounds great. But is it actually a declaration we can use and rely upon? It is not in any way a formal declaration of the way we usually require for VRT permissions. It is more like just another claim, made by a Harcourt employee in 2020, almost 30 years after the 1934 to 1991 archive had been sold to the French state. Why should what a Harcourt employee claims be considered binding for photos that are actually the property of someone else, namely, the French state? The French state which does claim a copyright over Harcourt photos, compare [2] (there are many more examples)? That copyright claim may not be correct for any Harcourt photos before 1954 because of the collective work status, but taken at face value it is in direct contradiction of the claim made by Madame Brouard. So the "not under copyright" conclusion, based on what Madame Brouard wrote, is speculative and shaky at best. I don't think we can rely upon that for literally millions of images.

So my conclusion from all this is:

There is ZERO evidence for the "CC BY 3.0" claim.
The "not under copyright" claim is speculative and shaky at best.
We should not rely on either of them and instead only rely on the French collective works status plus PD-1996 (for the US) part, which would mean that as of right now, only pre-1937 Harcourt photos are ok for Wikimedia Commons (and, starting in 2033, photos from 1937, in 2034 from 1938 and so on).

We really ought to sort this out. Yann und Ruthven have started closing deleted requests as keep based on these dubious claims (I've explained why I think they're dubious). If we're keeping files, potentially very many of them (5 million photos ...), we ought to be sure about the reasons. At present, we are not. Thoughts? --Rosenzweig τ 09:36, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Just to put in context: The quote comment is the answer to this question, nothing else. I didn't evaluate the CR status because I'm not French speaker and it was not requested anyway. --Ganímedes (talk) 10:54, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I had the perplexity when the DRs I opened were closed. Some were closed with the argument the French government released with CC-BY and others with they are in the public domain, even by the same closing admin. It is still not clear to me who is the copyright holder: Harcourt or the French government (i.e. was the rights transferred when buying the collection). If the latter is the copyright holder the ticket from Harcourt claiming they are in the public domain is void, and the claim that they have CC-BY is dubious as we don't have a VRT ticket from the French government. If Harcourt is still the copyright holder, it would be important to get the context of the email. Once thing is saying you can use the photo freely in your blog without problems (more on the fair use side), and another is you can compile a bunch of photos, create a book a sell it without paying them a dime. I'm not expert in French law, but is it possible to put a work on the public domain? (that is not the same as licensing under CC0). Günther Frager (talk) 14:41, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To answer the French law-related question... if I recall correctly:
- It shouldn't directly affect the legality of hosting the file, since Commons is based in the US, where public domain dedications are clearly possible.
- As I recall, under French law, rights are separated into economic and moral rights, as is the case in many continental European countries. The moral rights are often inalienable (can't be given up), but the economic rights can be given up. (You'll note that CC0 contains a waiver of moral rights insofar as much as that's possible; that would depend on the country.)
- It's often said that, because moral rights cannot be given up, that public domain dedications are impossible in France (or other European countries). But this is highly misleading. "Copyright" is, of course, a term of art in America, as is "public domain," and these concepts exist in slightly different forms in other systems.
- Under French law, moral rights are not only inalienable, they're also perpetual. Anyone who says that the inalienable nature of moral rights under French law means that PD dedications are impossible would have to say that no work is in the public domain in France. But this isn't true; when we talk about the French public domain, we're talking about the expiry of economic rights.
An email which says that a work is in the public domain really must be interpreted either as a permanent waiver of the economic rights or, if not that, then an explicit and perpetual license to all the economic rights to the work — since this is what it means for a work to be in the public domain in France. While the CC0 terms are more detailed and clear, this doesn't mean that such a dedication or license isn't valid in France — except for the general limitation on waiving moral rights.

Also, French law provides for oral and even implied contracts to be considered binding. There's no reason to think that an explicit and clear "public domain dedication" would not be considered as binding. I honestly think that the whole notion that public domain dedications are impossible in many countries is based on confusion between economic and moral rights. Otherwise, you would have to accept that these countries only allow for copyright licenses to be made in a very specific form, above and beyond the formal requirements for other binding contracts or licenses, and that, failing that, the interpretation would be that there is no license at all — and I don't see any reason to believe that — or you'd have to believe that CC0 and other tools have no validity, even with fallback provisions.

Now, CC0 is a bit better, both because it is more explicit and because it contains fallback affirmations relating to non-exercise of waived rights (though these may mean nothing with respect to unwaivable moral rights). But that doesn't mean "this work is dedicated to the public domain; I give up my copyright" can't be interpreted as a valid license or dedication.

Of course, that is entirely separate from whether or not there was an actual message sent by the actual copyright holder to that effect. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 15:47, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Rosenzweig,

Thanks for the ping. I hadn't seen the second ticket from 2020, and that actually looks like a very interesting one. It is a forwarded email (and I prefer direct emails when working with permissions) but my reading from the exchange there (again, with my limited french knowledge) is that it support the statement as shared on @Ruthven's talkpage that you mention. The ticket #2020112910005534 was send to support the release of a single image as @Ganímedes mentions, yes, but with this more general statement in the mail it could in theory support the release for all images 1934-1991. Ciell (talk) 15:08, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also: the issue of the French claim by photo.rmn.fr was mentioned, and links to a court case ruling from 2014. (and this absolutely goes beyond what I can read in French, sorry!) Ciell (talk) 15:19, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here is what the Court of Appeals decided, with respect to the ownership of the works:

"[...] Most importantly, the Court held that the photographs bearing the Harcourt logo which had been made by the photographer must be considered collective works, for which the copyrights [droits de l'auteur], including moral rights, are owned by the studio.

"Concretely, the photographer is deprived of all rights to the works, and he is not entitled to anything except for the simple proportional remuneration which the studio agreed to give him upon the sale of his works. More importantly, the decision denied the photographer the moral right to attribution of which no author may in principle be deprived."

So the conclusion here was that photographs taken by an individual photographer working for a studio and, at least in this case, marketed as the studio's work, are collective works, to which all the rights only ever belonged to the studio, not the individual photographer. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 15:59, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That was the court case which I mention in my very first bullet point above (“One fact that does not seem to be controversial is that several years ago, a French court decided that photos by Studio Harcourt are produced under such tight regulations that they are to be considered collective works as far as French copyright is concerned.”) Note that the case made that decision only for Studio Harcourt photos and not for any studio photo, which is sometimes also claimed (by User:Tisourcier for example in Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Tisourcier). --Rosenzweig τ 16:09, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @D. Benjamin Miller. So that only serves us limited purpose.

@Rosenzweig I am not sure you are linking to the official French government inventory with the link above: here is the same image but in their "Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie"/Open heritage Platform (nonetheless, also with a "C" in front of the mention of the Ministère de la Culture). Any reason why you link, to what looks to me, a third party/private vendor? Ciell (talk) 16:26, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ciell: rmn.fr is the en:Réunion des Musées Nationaux, the (public) agency mentioned by Agnes Brouard as the distributor of the photos (« diffusées par l'agence photographique RMN-Grand Palais »), also at the gouv.fr website you linked to (diffusion GrandPalaisRmn Photo). I'm not sure why the photos are presented on two web sites. --Rosenzweig τ 16:45, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Their open heritage platforms openend in 2019 (or that's what wikipedia told me), so maybe that's why. Ciell (talk) 16:57, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But maybe you should try and reach out to the French government with your questions, if you doubt the analysis of the previous copyright owner, @Rosenzweig? I have to say it seems almost unfair to expect others to do so, when you think a statement from the original photograph studio is insufficient?

I am not one who wants us to host illegal content, but on the other side we should not want to take things down without having had a conversation with the current rights holder... (or the custodian, whatever you want to call them). Ciell (talk) 17:05, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll pass on that, if anyone wants to do this, it should be a native speaker, possibly also resident of the country. Though RAN had announced he'd get in touch if I remember this correctly. Maybe he did get a meaningful answer? --Rosenzweig τ 18:20, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosenzweig: @Ciell: I confirm what D. Benjamin Miller said about the French court case of PIERRE-ANTHONY X VS. HARCOURT linked above. The judges (the judgement has been confirmed by the court of appeals) mention interesting facts, namely:

At Harcourt, the photographers yield their copyright to the studio in exchange of 10% on the sales, in which the photo is sold as a collective work.
The photos published by Harcourt must be considered as collective works.
The moral rights of the original author do not hold anymore, as the moral rights are now owned by a group of authors.

This last statement may be a surprise, given all the discussions about CC0 in France, but it is justified by the French law 113-2 alinéa 3 of the Code de la Propriété Intellectuelle. A collective work can be initiated by a company (here it's Harcout), and the consequent publication under a collective name makes the work of the single photographer indistinguishable from the work of the group. --Ruthven (msg) 15:23, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, why not let several French contributors involved by PD-France and Studio Harcourt case, precising the legal aspects and confirm the data about it ? The "collective work" judgement is one the main points, but the PD official statement by the author Studio Harcourt at the root as the author of these photographs (VTR), is clearly relevant to determine that those published between 1954 and 1992 are also PD-France too. Edit : copyright mentions of RMN website are not 100% reliable (copyvios). Tisourcier (talk) 11:39, 18 July 2024 (UTC)Tisourcier (talk) 11:32, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, more than unreliable, RMN copyright claims are copyfraud or completely absurd. RMN has never been the copyright holder of the documents they host, they are only the caretaker. Sometimes, they claim a copyright because they digitize the work, but it is not even always the case. They even claim a copyright on works digitized by other people or institutions. I once wrote to them about that, but never got an answer. Copyfraud is not punished by French law, so plenty people and organizations claim a copyright which has no value (i.e. copyright claims on old books recently reprinted, etc.). Yann (talk) 12:55, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's not just RMN, it's also the Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie of the French Ministère de la Culture, see the the link provided by Ciell above. And yes, we have seen some French institutions making dubious copyright claims, namely the Bibliothèque nationale. That does not mean that everything they claim is automatically false and can be disregarded. Both the RMN and the French ministry making these copyright claims is just another small sign, another piece of evidence regarding the question we have, contributing to the doubt about the “not under copyright” claim. --Rosenzweig τ 17:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The statement by Harcourt is just that: a statement. A claim. An opinion. While Studio Harcourt can be considered the author of these collective works, they sold the bulk of their earlier production (5 million images from 1934 to 1991) to the French state. Presumably they sold them including the rights (copyrights, usage rights) to them, or else it wouldn't make much sense that the French state is distributing these images by the RMN agency. So the statement comes from an institution which authored these collective works, but (as we must assume) no longer holds the rights to them. The statement we're talking about claims that millions of images from the years up to and including 1991 are not under copyright, or « pas soumis à un droit patrimonial ». The only way 1991 portrait photographs can be in the public domain (or equivalent) in France is if the rights holder explicitly released them into the PD, put them under a CC0 license or similar. For such a thing, we require either a clear public statement from someone who is clearly the rights holder, or an explicit permission/consent text of the kind available at the COM:VRT page, something along the lines of I hereby affirm that I am/represent ..., the creator/sole owner of the exclusive copyright of the work(s) as shown here, and have legal authority in my capacity to release the copyright of that work. I agree to publish the above-mentioned content under the following free license: ... etc. etc.

Since this is about potentially very many images (5 million photos), we absolutely should have such a clear declaration. Especially for the protection of our re-users. But we have NONE of that here. There is no clear declaration of who the owner of copyright is, nor who released them under what license. There is just a vague statement that there is no copyright and anyone can use the photos freely, by a person of unclear legal status as far as the copyrights to the photos are concerned. That cannot be acceptable. --Rosenzweig τ 12:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but it would be much better if you stop making false statements. We have a declaration by a person in charge that these images are in the public domain. Why do you always say the opposite? Yann (talk) 12:58, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Yann: Please refrain from such accusations. Accusing me of "making false statements" is basically calling me a liar, and I don't appreciate being insulted in that way. What we do have (in ticket 2020112910005534, the French text is above) is a claim, a statement by someone apparently working for Studio Harcourt in 2020, with the title or post of Chargée de la valorisation des collections. Valorisation translating to something like exploitation (in an economic sense) or promotion. So if she is “in charge” of anything, it's not copyright questions or legal questions in general, it's the promotion or economic exploitation of the Studio Harcourt collections. Which since the sale in 1991 do not anymore include the older 1934 to 1991 photos we're talking about here. It's in no way clear if she is in any way authorized to make copyright-related statements for Studio Harcourt, and it's not in any way clear if Studio Harcourt even still has any rights to those older photos. Though it must be assumed the French state acquired those rights along with the photos themselves, because why would you buy such a massive amount of photos without the proper rights to utilize them? Her text is also not a “declaration”, at least not one of the kind we require for VRT permissions (as outlined in my previous post in this thread). So whatever her statement is, it's not a sufficient basis to declare these 5 million photos to be in the public domain or “not under copyright” or « pas soumis à un droit patrimonial ». --Rosenzweig τ 17:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosenzweig: Who would be more knowledgeable about the copyright status of these images than someone working for Studio Harcourt? I am quite fed up with people (not only you) pretending to know more that the very people employed by the institution(s) concerned by the documents. Yann (talk) 12:29, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Yann: That would be someone actually declaring that they are the owner/holder of the copyright and authorized to make such statements, as outlined in more detail somewhere else in this thread. Not just anybody working for a company which may or may not be still holding rights to these photos and vaguely saying that there is no copyright for them and and anybody can use them. You may think that is enough. I don't. --Rosenzweig τ 12:56, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"why would you buy such a massive amount of photos without the proper rights to utilize them?" Presumably you'd acquire some sort of rights to reproduce, but not necessarily rights that were tantamount to owning the copyright. Plus, of course, eventually they will come out of copyright.

FWIW, it is pretty common for archives and libraries to acquire large collections without acquiring copyrights. I wouldn't presume anything either way about this case without some sort of evidence. - Jmabel ! talk 20:59, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

While I agree with Rosenzweig that the situation is unclear, I would urge us not to rush to deleting, especially because it is such a large set - rushing into this will actually do more bad than good. As @Tisourcier mentions: please get French contributors involved to figure this out. Commons is not an island in the big wiki-ocean, and we as admins should not be tasking decisions (like deleting images at this scale) that effect the other projects lightly, but with due consideration. Ciell (talk) 16:55, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Presumably they sold them including the rights (copyrights, usage rights) to them, or else it wouldn't make much sense that the French state is distributing these images by the RMN agency."

I don't see why we should presume that they specifically assigned the copyright, rather than giving a license. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 19:32, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK, if that is what is happened, we would need a confirmation as well. Also a clarification who would actually be the copyright owner and who would be authorized to put the photos in the public domain (or equivalent, or under a free license) and if that happened. All clearly and unmistakably spelled out. We cannot keep so many (and potentially many more) images with just a "maybe, maybe not" assumption. Per the precautionary principle, such an unclear situation would mean the files would need to be deleted and no new uploads accpted. --Rosenzweig τ 06:22, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Info The French Ministry of Culture bought in 1989 the negatives and client records from 1934 until 1979. Later in 1991 during the bankruptcy of Studio Harcourt the Association française pour la diffusion du patrimoine photographique (AFDPP) acquired the negatives from 1980 until 1991 [3]. The source gives very precise dates on the acquisitions, so it might even be possible to find public records about them. Günther Frager (talk) 18:36, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Günther Frager, beyond the acquisition: the question on the table now, is about the correct copyright status for all of these these images. Are the images Public Domain, available under CC BY-SA, or does the French state claim full copyright? Ciell (talk) 18:59, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ciell: yes, the main issue is determine who owns the copyright, but this information is still relevant. If the source is right, on November 14, 1989 Jack Lang and Studio Harcourt signed a document and we might get a copy of it and see whether the patrimonial rights were transferred or not. The other point is that the negatives form 1980-1991 were acquired during a bankruptcy and might have different conditions. I don't know about French intellectual property law, but in some countries intellectual property is treated as a normal asset when a company is liquidated. Günther Frager (talk) 19:22, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

One interesting fact in that text (thanks for the link) is that the current Studio Harcourt Paris company may be not identical with the "old" Studio Harcourt, but some succesor company (it's not entirely clear though, they call it le nouveau studio Harcourt-Paris). Which makes me wonder if the current company still holds any (intellectual property) rights to the assets of the "old" company, or not. --Rosenzweig τ 06:25, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

About your second bullet point relatively to R.A.N., there is a misunderstanding by R.A.N. I had already replied directly to R.A.N. when he asked questions, there last year and here last month, including a link to the previous reply and a link to a detailed recap there (in French, but anyone can read it with machine translation). Unfortunately, either he doesn't read the replies to his questions or he doesn't care. I reverted his comment on the category page, to which you refer, but he reverted the revert. I'm not entering into an edit war with him. But that comment is still problematic for unsuspecting users and it would be good if someone volunteered to revert it again. -- Asclepias (talk) 15:44, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Asclepias, I want to call to your attention that you wrote, "I'm not entering into an edit war with him" (@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )) then you immediately elicit others to do it for you. Respectfully, -- Ooligan (talk) 16:38, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I see that Tisourcier is busy canvassing on various user talk pages in this matter. One thing he mentions elsewhere is that Studio Harcourt would still be the author as far as the moral right (to be named as author etc.) of French IP law is concerned. I agree, since the photos were declared by the court to be collective works, there is no human author, but this (corporate) collective author.

BUT we're not talking about the moral right here, but about the "patrimonial right" (that is, the economic/proprietary part of French IP law as opposed to the moral right). And that is still very much unclear until we get a clearly spelled out statement (as detailed elsewhere in this thread) by whoever is the actual owner of that right, or was the owner at the point in time when the claimed release into the public domain (or similar) took place. --Rosenzweig τ 12:00, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosenzweig, @Ciell and others- here is a link and translation below of a portion of a different webpage of the same Agency provided by @Günther Frager above that may be relevant: https://mediatheque-patrimoine.culture.gouv.fr/mentions-legales-conditions-generales-dutilisation-et-credits [4]

"All images and photographs on this site are the property of the State. The photographic credit has the following: © Ministry of Culture (France), Médiathèque de l'architecture et du patrimoine (MAP), RMN-GP distribution. Any non-commercial reuse must be the subject of a request for authorization at the following address: mediatheque.patrimoine@culture.gouv.fr

Similarly, for any commercial and/or editorial reuse of images, please make a request to: mediatheque.patrimoine@culture.gouv.fr

Unless otherwise stated, MAP images are disseminated by the Photographic Agency of the Meeting of National Museums and the Grand Palais (Rmn-Gp)." (emphasis added)' -- Ooligan (talk) 18:42, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the link and translation. So they say that all images they show are the property of the state, which is basically what we already mentioned above. The question is if they're correct or if this is some sort of copyfraud as mentioned by Tisourcier and Yann above. --Rosenzweig τ 06:53, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The ministry and the RMN claim that there is a copyright on everything they have in their collection, whether it's public domain or not. It doesn't matter how many times the quote by the ministry is repeated nor how it may be decorated with bolding and underlining, that still does not make it better. Take randomly any example on their websites, e.g. this image by Jean Bardin (1732-1809) (on Commons here), this 1903 postcard by Jean Giletta (1856-1933) (on Commons here), as well as the the pre-1954 Harcourt photos and thousands of other public domain images. If we applied the notice, nothing could be on Commmons. It doesn't mean that the notice is false, some items in their collection are copyrigted by someone, but the notice is only correct in the manner that a broken clock may occasionally give the correct time. The notice is useless to determine the copyright status of the items. The actual copyright status of the items must be determined by other means and other sources. In the case of the Harcourt photos, the best source would probably be the contracts of donation. We don't have that. The second best source, which we do have, is the statement by the Studio Harcourt. The owners of Harcourt, who acquired the Studio and the intellectual property of the trademark, are directly concerned, they must have examined the question of the copyrights seriously and, through the years, they naturally must have received many similar queries from the public. It would be irresponsible from them to give the answer that they give if it weren't true. Can they be mistaken? Yes, in theory anybody can be mistaken. Still, it's the best source we have. They can be assumed to have looked into this matter more in depth and to know more about it than we do. -- Asclepias (talk) 20:24, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you that we should not trust when RMN states their own the copyright of a work, but it doesn't mean that almost all works published by RMN have no copyright. The analogy of the broken clock would be correct only if a high percentage of what RMN hosts is the public domain. What I don't agree with you is the other reasoning. Namely that we must trust blindly what an employee of a company that was bankrupt and passed hands a couple of times said in an email that was later forwarded to the VRT. I don't buy that a normal employee consult their legal team before answering a random email that probably is not going to generate a financial benefit. Even on the technical level there is no guarantee on the authenticity of the original email (Note, it is not something I'm doubting). Is the only evidence we have about the copyright status? Probably yes. Is is enough to host 5,000,000 images here? Probably not. If they made such statement in that email, it means that either they waived their rights in the past (presumedly before transferring the negatives) or they still hold the copyright and are fine with other people exploiting their pre-1991 work. In the former they should point us a legal document. In the latter, they should be able to grant an explicit free license as Rosenzweig suggested. Günther Frager (talk) 01:03, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Prelimary summary

So to recap the discussion as I understood it:

Nobody seemed to have a problem with the collective work status (in France) of the Harcourt photos. So any photos older than 70 years are in the public domain in France, and any Harcourt photos up to 1936 (before 1937) are also PD in the US and therefore ok for Wikimedia Commons.
Nobody came forward to support the released under CC BY 3.0 theory, not even RAN (though all relevant users were pinged and sometimes even separately notified by others). Asclepias specifically disagrees with that theory. So I think we can without any qualms declare this theory to be as dead as the dodo and completely debunked.
For the third point, the theory that Harcourt photos from 1934 to 1991 are in the public domain, we have exactly one piece of evidence: that a Harcourt employee claimed so in an e-mail that the VRT has in its system. Some people want to believe it, but there are no details how and why all those photos would be in the public domain, who put them there and where that would apply (France only or also in the US?). COM:VRT demands a rather detailed and outspoken declaration from anyone wanting to release media under a free license. I don't see why there should be a lesser standard for the Harcourt photos, especially considering how many images we're talking about here. Only a part of the 5 million images will be relevant for Commons, but as Harcourt was considered a celebrity studio, that might still be a few percent. Even 3 % of 5 million are 150.000.

Which means:

Harcourt photos before 1937 are ok for Commons as French collective works with PD-1996 in the US. Later photos are still protected in the US, they will expire there starting in 2033.
Only the files uploaded directly by User:Studio Harcourt in 2010 are licensed under CC BY 3.0, but not all photos which were acquired by the French state (as claimed by RAN).
All other Harcourt files are not covered by these two points and are here because they are claimed to be in the public domain, a claim that is only backed up by very little and vague evidence. My opinion is that for so many files, we should have a PD declaration which is at least as solid and explicit as those usually demanded by the VRT. What we have at present is nothing of the sort. And if we don't have such a proper declaration, the files should all be proposed for deletion and deleted per the precautionary principle. Anybody wanting to keep them is free to facilitate the sending of such a proper declaration (by whoever may actually be authorized to do so) to COM:VRT. --Rosenzweig τ 19:12, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone else have another reply to the Harcourt photos subject? If there are no substantial changes, the next step would be a deletion request (or several, because there are hundreds of files) for any Harcourt photos not uploaded by User:Studio Harcourt or from before 1937. --Rosenzweig τ 12:13, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosenzweig.

Has Wikimedia France @Wikimedia France been notified or will they be notified about an issue that could affect many current files related to French culture on the Commons and possibly affect 10,000's future potential uploads related to French culture? (I don't know if that ping is effective.)

Additionally, since the Ministry of Culture of France [5] has a legal agreement (no agreement link) with Harcourt, will the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Department be notified to see if they would be willing offer their support by only 1. requesting an official copy of this document, 2. Posting this agreement to wikimedia, if legally allowed to post it.

WMF Legal webpage does state, "Note: For legal ethical reasons we unfortunately can only represent the Wikimedia Foundation and cannot be the attorney for the community or movement organizations, though the legal team often provides strong support to the community in many ways consistent with Wikimedia Foundation goals." WMF Legal could "provide strong support" to the Commons Project, consistent with Wikimedia Foundation goals, through a request for a copy of the "Harcourt agreement" from the appropriate department of the French government and (if legally acceptable) post it to facilitate a future further discussion.

Of course, they would not give a legal opinion- just handle the request for the actual document that pertains to this discussion. With WMF Legal's "support," @Slaporte (WMF) the Commons would benefit by actually being able to read this agreement.

Thank you, -- Ooligan (talk) 21:10, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

All I can say is that I did not notify anybody. A number of French native speakers and/or residents of France are involved here, they would be best equipped to do that if they want to. --Rosenzweig τ 08:54, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PD-NWS

Can an administrator come figure out what should happen with Commons:Deletion requests/File:Damage from the 1968 Charles City tornado just south of the Cedar River looking north.jpg. The deletion request was opened up on July 10, so it is over a week old. However, the main concern involves the actual PD-NWS and the deletion request nominator has stated up to maybe 150+ images are affected, including potentially an image uploaded by a Commons Administrator. I am posting here since maybe a single image deletion request isn’t the best method for this discussion. Or, maybe it is. I don’t know, but the discussion is very forum-like and needs solving or some level of actual administrator involvement. WeatherWriter (talk) 16:49, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently the discussion there is ongoing, so I don't see a need to close this DR now. --Rosenzweig τ 13:04, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is a new discussion here about the template. Scroll way down to see… WestVirginiaWX (talk) 01:09, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Update: the aforementioned discussion has been closed as delete. There is a new discussion here to determine the future of the template. See that discussion. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 18:41, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

URAA-restored copyrights of old European postcards

Moved from General Village pump:

In response to Commons:Deletion requests/File:Roermond 1931.jpg I would like to start a discussion on how to treat the many old European postcards, wich are dated between 1 jan 1929 (US:PD-1923) and 1 januari 1954 (PD 70 years Europe / PD-anon-70-EU)

Background: Most of the old postcards where published by big postcard publishers such as Category:Postcards published by Nels/Thill, wich mostly bought the works of local photografers or send employees to take pictures. If the photografers had some reputation the name is mentioned on the postcard (PD 70 years after death)(otherwise 70 years after publication). The original glass plates or negatives have almost certainly been lost, the same with the compagny records. The publishers at that time wanted recent images and not outdated ones. Glass plates took a lot of space and where reused. Celluliod negatives less so, but stil took space and effort to maintain for no commercial purpose. There was a lot of disruption during the Second World War (occupation, cessation of activity, employees fleeing or taking other occupations, destruction of buildings), so many archives where lost. If the picturearchives of Nels/Thill stil existed they would certainly be treasured and preserved. It is safe to assume that they no longer exist. If no name of the photografer is given it is imposible to research it. If the photografer still lives he could claim out of memory that it is his work, but for descendants this is imposible. Who would remember the many (commercial) pictures his father took? For any legal procedings there has to be some minimal element of proof.

There where also many small local publishers, wich only published local postcards. I always assumed that the publisher also took the pictures, so I treated them as such for licensing purposes. (70 years after death)

How do we apply this knowledge to the postcard URAA-restored copyrights cases? My suggestion is to apply URAA to postcards where the photografer is known. The risk is small that someone will go to an US court for the license rigths of an European village picture postcard with no commercial value. (or very marginal one) But it still exist. In de anonymous cases the precautionary principle should not apply if there is no risk.

In the very unlikely event the authorship is claimed/or discovered and URAA applies, we delete the file.
there are no US connections. These are local images, taken by a local photografer. The photografer could later move to the US, but then this is no longer an anonymous case. (he/she has to make his name known)
there are considerable costs to starting an US legal proceding with foreign elements, for postcards wich may have historic value, but none or very marginal commercial value.
most old postcards are of low-quality and low resolution in black & white. Technicaly the use is limited. The value for Wikimedia is showing how things where.
for any legal procedings there need to be some element of proof. Otherwise everyone can claim rigths to the image. If there are no records or original material this becomes imposible. There is only one negative. Prints can be duplicated and have no proof value. Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:44, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PS: I have no expert knowledge how US law is applied in these European cases, so feel free to comment. (I suspect it is not as simple as 70 years becomes 95 years) Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:42, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by "Europe" in this context? EU? The whole continent? Something else? Also, might this be better discussed on Commons:Village pump/Copyright? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:20, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Generaly the EU. (I dont think the licenses to change in GB with the brexit) But more broadly al countries with 70 year PD license conditions. I forgot there was a subsection for Copyright. I will move it there.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:30, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's a good compromise. Please see also {{Orphan works}}. Yann (talk) 11:26, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I do not agree that we should host items whose US copyright is known not to be expired and which is not under a free license, regardless of whether the original author is known or not. Photos can well be anonymous to the general public and still have active US copyright, possibly even with a known owner. For instance, the copyright of a work for hire (which would be the case for employees sent somewhere to take a picture), will rest with the publisher even if they don't know themselves which of their employees took the picture at hand. Felix QW (talk) 11:49, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Postcards are by definition published works (there are recent trends to make your own postcard, but we are discussing old postcards). Just as by other publications there are attributed articles/parts where authors keep their rigths independant of the publisher an parts where authors and other creative people are paid once for their work and the copyrigths go to the publisher. So for postcards without photographer attribution the copyrigths are by the publisher.Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:25, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Per Commons:Licensing, Wikimedia Commons only accepts media that are explicitly freely licensed, or that are in the public domain in at least the United States and in the source country of the work. Regardless if the photographer (or author in general) is known or not. Which wouldn't make sense anyway, because the old US copyright terms (which are the type restored by the URAA) are generelly based on the date of first publication, not on the person of the author. Also, Commons:Project scope/Precautionary principle lists several arguments of the type "we can get away with it" and clearly says that they are against Commons' aims. --Rosenzweig τ 13:22, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confused here. The way I see it, anything from 1929 from a country that gives 70-year protection to anonymous or corporate work would still have been in copyright in its native country through 1999, so URAA would have restored its U.S. rights in 1996, making them good through 2024. Similarly, anything from 1950 would have U.S. copyright through 2045. This would seem to preclude uploading to Commons at this time. What am I missing? - Jmabel ! talk 18:59, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jmabel: Not all countries already had the 70 year terms on the URAA date (January 1, 1996 for most countries). The Netherlands and Germany already had them, but France still had 50 years + wartime extensions (another 8 years and 120 days). See en:WP:Non-U.S. copyrights for a list. So a 1935 postcard from France might have escaped the URAA. --Rosenzweig τ 12:03, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If I read the en:Copyright Act of 1976 correctly, it gives a term of 75 years for anonymous, pseudonymous works, and works made for hire. (pre extention 1998). So if the URAA-restoration restored the 1976 rules it is 75 years after publication for postcards without attribution. The jurisprudence cases dont involve anonymous, pseudonymous works, and works made for hire.

Furthermore the WMF position with the URAA-restoration is more nuanced: see guidance in: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Legal/URAA_Statement.Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:30, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The URAA restoration means it will be treated as a US work with notice and renewal, and it gets any extensions a US work would, thus 95 years after publication.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:50, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not quite: the en:Copyright Term Extension Act does not work retroactively. All files wich where in the PD in 1996 remain in the PD. For postcards wihout attribution it makes no difference as 1996 - 75 = 1921. But for postcards with attribution it could in some cases be PD, as the 1976 rule it is the livetime of the author + 50 years.Smiley.toerist (talk) 21:20, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The US "lifetime + 50 years" (50 years pma) term from 1976 (extended to 70 years in 1998) did and does not apply to works published before 1978. For those, the old rules based solely on the year of first publication still apply. See Commons:Hirtle chart. --Rosenzweig τ 00:27, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is a good reason why there is no jurisprudence case which involves anonymous or pseudonymous works. The author(s) needs to make themselves known to make a copyright claim. Even if the authors makes themselves known now, they cannot claim a copyright in the country of origin, so it is very unlikely that they would claim a copyright in another country. IMO this is a good argument to accept old anonymous or pseudonymous works affected by URAA. Yann (talk) 20:11, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Without wide community consensus to do this, we would still need to delete because URAA automatically restored US copyrights of many European works, and these copyrights were still in force in 1996 even if nobody could enforce them. Abzeronow (talk) 20:14, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, but this is not something completely new. There was a discussion about URAA 10 years ago with a wide community support, although it was later overturned. Yann (talk) 20:18, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There are also many postcards coming from GLAM institutions/projects, with no mention of US-licenses. For example File:Station Roermond; circa 1900.jpg. In this case an US license can be added, but in many other cc-zero is unclear. The institution does its own copyrigth research but does not need to consider US licences. The projects work on the basis of trust.Smiley.toerist (talk) 21:40, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The old U.S. 75 year terms are likely irrelevant -- European postcards needed a copyright notice, and also to have been renewed, for the U.S. copyright to still exist normally. Both would happen almost never, though if by chance they did, the URAA date does not matter -- US copyright would be pre-1929 only, the full 95 years. Otherwise, it would matter what the copyright status was in its country of origin in 1996 for the URAA restoration. That varied in Europe -- while countries were supposed to have implemented the EU copyright extensions by then, not all countries did until after the URAA date. Italy was effectively 56 years (and 20 for simple photos), France 58 or 59, and I think Portugal was 50 years. Most later additions to the EU were also 50 years at the time. Spain was pretty much still 80 I think. en:Wikipedia:Non-US copyrights has some further information on that, but it does not always denote what the terms were on the URAA date. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:34, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is there some script I could use to add an US license to manualy selected postcards older than 1929?

This would facilitate scanning/working EU postcards categories and Glam files for missing Us licences.Smiley.toerist (talk) 06:32, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty easy thing to do with VisualFileChange, assuming you can sanely make a search that will turn up a reasonable number of such files. (You can select within the search result.) - Jmabel ! talk 20:41, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I Will look into it after I Come back from my travels. I could select on source = 'Collectie van het Utrecht Archief'. Smiley.toerist (talk)\ Smiley.toerist (talk) 18:44, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

.

VisualFileChange is a mass delete script. This is not what I am looking for. I just want to add PD-1923 to the selected files in Category:Collection Nederlandse-Spoorwegen from Het Utrechts Archief wich are older than 1929.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:11, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In practice this category contained very few old postcards. By the first four files I manualy added PD-1923.The rest are nearly all postwar pictures taken by the Dutch Railway photografers and released under Cc-zero by Utrecht archive. Much more usefull is the Category:Postcards of train stations in the Netherlands for examples. Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:27, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

VisualFileChange is much more than a "mass delete script". In the upper left of the program you can choose what you want to do (which Action), and one of the options is text replacement. A few months ago I used VFC to change the license tags of roughly 200,000 files in a few weeks. --Rosenzweig τ 10:02, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't use {{PD-1923}}, which is a redirect to the more appropriately named {{PD-US-expired}}. - Jmabel ! talk 19:03, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Copyrightability of microprocessor die shots

I watched several die shots now and am wondering now if they are copyrightable under some circumstances. Some may argue, this is only a scan or a identical reproduction just on a very smart scale (faithful reproduction), without own creativity effort. I am curious about this topic. What do you think?

Thanks --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 15:26, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would say not. These are a simple utilitarian artifact of the design. They are not a creative endeavour.

Very high resolution images (which would have to be of tiny portions) might be regarded as a reproduction of a copyrighted work, at least in portion. But not whole-die shots for anything since the '60s. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:54, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Maskwork rights are a whole weird little rabbit-hole of copyright law. See: en:Integrated circuit layout design protection. TL;DR: in the US, for anything other than mask ROM (which may embody a copyrighted work), maskwork rights only last ten years. Omphalographer (talk) 20:13, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They are also not subject to the normal regime of derivative works and other things like normal copyright. It's a different form of protection entirely. The photo may still be copyrightable on its own, though. Far from guaranteed and could well differ by country, but we might treat it as like photos of coins, where we generally will assume a photographic copyright. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:17, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note about modern die. What you see in that example photo of the fully manufactured "chip" is similar to taking a photo of the icing on a cake. You do not see the cake's recipe and what layers lie below the icing. You do not see the many chip layers (there can be over 100) that are covered by other layers, insulating layers and those connections between various layers. -- Ooligan (talk) 15:37, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

David Low (cartoonist)

Are the pre-1927 works of the eminent cartoonist David Low (died 19 September 1963) protected by copyright ? His earliest works were published in his homeland New Zealand. Between 1900 and 1919 he worked in Australia, producing many caricatures for The Bulletin. From the information given in an earlier version of the upload wizard, I am unable to upload copies of this early work due to his comparatively recent death, but not according to the later upload wizard or from my reading of the Wikipedia article on Copyright law in the United States. Doug butler (talk) 02:05, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Doug butler. Commmons requires that the content it host be within the public domain in both the US and its country of first publication. If the publication dates you're giving are correct, then these could be {{PD-US-expired}} under US copyright law, but whether they're OK to upload probably depends on whether they were still eligible for copyright protection in their country of first publication per COM:Australia#Non-government works. Since Australian copyright law allows works to retain their copyright status for 70 years en:post mortem auctoris (p.m.a), it would seem that they would still be protected under Australian copyright law until January 1, 2034 (the p.m.a. countdown starts at the begining of the next year following the author's death, i.e. 1963 + 1 + 70). I might be completely wrong here, but it seems that they can't really be uploaded to Commons until that time. Now, having said that, if these are within the public domain under US copyright law, then it might be possible to upload them locally to English Wikipedia under a en:Template:PD-US-expired-abroad license because English Wikipedia is only governed by US copyright law. In a sense, they are treated as "US only public domain" files for use on English Wikipedia, and thus aren't required to meet Wikipedia's non-free content use policy. You can find some examples of files licensed as such at en:Category:Images published abroad that are in the public domain in the United States. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:33, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Doug butler (talk) 08:09, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Doug butler: According to COM:New Zealand, there's a 50 year p.m.a.; so, it's possible Low's works are already within the public domain under New Zealand's law copyright law if that's considered the binding law because he was a New Zealander. I'm not exactly sure which law is binding here, but perhaps someone else can clarify. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:43, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It has to be out of copyright in both New Zealand and the United States. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 01:07, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My previous post was perhaps unclear. If it was published prior to 1929 outside of the US, then it would most likely be PD in the US per {{PD-US-expired}}; however, I don't know whether Australian or New Zealand copyright law applies since author was a New Zealander but apparently the works were first published in Australia. Does the en:rule of the shorter term somehow apply here? -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:07, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know; it would have entered the public domain in New Zealand in 2014. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 02:28, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But not in Australia (the copyright still has ten years left there) WestVirginiaWX (talk) 02:29, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I’d say if it was originally published in New Zealand; then it would be okay to host (but only if it was before 1929); but if it was originally published in Australia, then it still has 10 more years left. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 02:31, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The story is: I have copied and cleaned up over 100 caricatures from a disintegrating folio (or similar) book Caricatures by David Low, published in 1915, endorsed on the cover "Taken from The Bulletin and other sources". Mostly Australian but many NZ, and possibly a valuable source for illustrating WP articles. Many could be used under "fair use", but it's easier (for me) to copy all of them to Commons. A list of subjects is at [6] Doug butler (talk) 22:29, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They would likely be in the public domain in the United States; so “fair use” isn’t necessary; but it wouldn’t meet Commons copyright criteria. So it would need to be put on Wikipedia locally. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 22:39, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm starting to understand. Quantum Theory has nothing on Copyright Law. Doug butler (talk) 22:49, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The New Zealand ones though can stay up in my opinion; the ones that can be proven to be initially published in NZ. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 23:30, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Doug butler: with the further complication that governments and courts can change copyright law, including retrospectively. - Jmabel ! talk 23:33, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That said: @Doug butler perhaps we should do the uploads while the content is readily available, then list them in Category:Undelete in 2034 and delete them. A decade from now, they could be restored. Would you be open to doing the uploads if this doesn't immediately make this into available content on Commons? - Jmabel ! talk 23:39, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In the upload you'd tag with {{PD-old-auto-expired|1963}}; you'd add the list to Category:Undelete in 2034, and then ask at COM:AN to have them deleted. - Jmabel ! talk 23:42, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In this particular case, since the uploader wants to use them on enwiki in the meantime anyway, it may be easier for the uploader to upload all the Australian ones to enwiki where they are already considered free and tag them with "Transfer to Commons in 2035", rather than having to upload them twice. As a side effect, this also prevents a host of enwiki files suddenly becoming duplicates without being tagged there. Felix QW (talk) 07:01, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Upload to Wikipedia completed, with the transfer in 2035 tag. A long grind but it's out of the way. There's a neat table in my workspace. No reason to treat NZ pictures differently from Oz. Doug butler (talk) 07:12, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Possible issues with Template:PD-NWS

Admin note: there is probably a topic here that merits some discussion, but as of this writing Commons:Deletion requests/File:Damage from the 1968 Charles City tornado just south of the Cedar River looking north.jpg still needs to play out to a conclusion, and even then it may not be clear how general that conclusion may be in terms of other images from U.S. National Weather Service sites. - Jmabel ! talk 06:04, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So, there is a situation which may have developed regarding the Template:PD-NWS (used for thousands of images), and Commons Administrators need to help solve this debate ASAP. WeatherWriter (talk) 00:55, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Background

This whole discussion began in a deletion request: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Damage from the 1968 Charles City tornado just south of the Cedar River looking north.jpg.
That deletion request is now over 81,000 bytes.
In that deletion request, there came about several questions regarding the Template:PD-NWS:

Is that template solid for pre-2008 images, as this is the earliest internet archive record of it existing? – {Original reason for deletion request}
Does it cover all of the National Weather Service (NWS) offices (i.e. National Weather Service Norman, Oklahoma, National Weather Service Binghamton, New York, ect...) or does it only apply to specific NWS offices?
When it says "unless otherwise noted", what does that specifically mean?

That second question above is what the deletion request evolved into.

Now, there is oddities and weirdness.

The NWS headquarters has this disclaimer, "The information on National Weather Service Web servers and Web sites is in the public domain, unless specifically annotated otherwise, and may be used freely by the public.".

Several of the other NWS field offices have similar statements:

NWS Sioux Falls, South Dakota - This is what Template:PD-NWS links to: "By submitting images, you understand that your image is being released into the public domain. This means that your photo or video may be downloaded, copied, and used by others"
NWS Omaha/Valley, NE "Submitted images will be made available to use by anyone in the NWS and will be in the Public Domain."

Others, like NWS Norman, Oklahoma link to the NWS Headquarters disclaimer using a linked up "disclaimer" button at the bottom of webpages.

Some offices do not appear to even have a disclaimer anywhere, or at least none I can easily find.

NWS La Crosse is the specific office for why this discussion is being opened.

Mid-Deletion Request, Hurricanehink started an email chain with NWS La Crosse. In that deletion request, NWS La Crosse replied (per Hurricanehink): "The information that has been passed down to me is : An individual who posts a photo on a NOAA website is not placing their photo in the public domain. By posting the image, the copyright owner is giving NOAA permission to use the image on the website" So for your uses, unless the images are already in the public domain (you can find them on other websites or a license allows for it), you will need to check with the owner."
NWS La Crosse's email above goes against the disclaimer on the NWS La Crosse "photos" webpage, which states, "Please note that this is a government site and in the public domain, so no copyright privileges will exist."

This is why a Commons Administrator is needed ASAP. We have two major questions, which affect thousands of images (including current Featured Pictures on EN-Wiki), and NWS seems to be disagreeing with itself now. A single deletion request should not be the place for a discussion this large, hence why it is being brought here. WeatherWriter (talk) 00:55, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It also goes against two other disclaimers. The general disclaimer and the FAQ on NWS Norman’s website. It also goes against the terms of photo submission on NWS Sioux Falls. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 00:59, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Non-Administrator Discussion

Back in November 2023, Template:PD-NWS was changed because of a specific deletion request, which determined images produced by Getty Images on NWS webpages are indeed copyrighted. Given NWS La Crosse sent that new notice/email out in 2024, it appears NWS La Crosse has a different guideline from the headquarters. My personal solution would be to have a 2nd exemption rule, similar to the current Getty Image exemption on the template, specific for NWS La Crosse. Thoughts on this proposal? WeatherWriter (talk) 00:55, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Question, does this affect images that were submitted post 2009; or just the ones taken before then? WestVirginiaWX (talk) 01:00, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And another question, would the exemption you’re talking about apply retroactively? WestVirginiaWX (talk) 01:06, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For my proposal, it would be for all NWS La Crosse images, 1970 to 2024, (the years NWS has existed) and it would apply retroactively. Basically, no image from NWS La Crosse webpages, submitted by non-government people, would be allowed on the Commons. That is an easy solution to this whole debacle, since NWS La Crosse appears to not go by the NWS Headquarters statements and is on their own, per se. WeatherWriter (talk) 01:08, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That could also solve the dilemma of having to delete hundreds of files despite multiple things saying that images are in the public domain unless otherwise noted. So I’m going to

Support this proposal. But I don’t entirely know whether or not my opinion is necessarily binding (I don’t know if the votes count for all editors or just administrators only; or if votes are even necessary) WestVirginiaWX (talk) 01:12, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion; the precautionary principle line is only being breached for images coming from NWS LaCrosse; but not the other offices. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 01:13, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I do want to clarify that my support “vote” does not extend to NWS LaCrosse images that were created by that office itself. Only to images submitted to that office. Although just to be safe; you might want to consider asking the uppity uppities at the NWS headquarters to clarify once and for all. Just so we don’t end up having a similar discussion a few years from now. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 01:19, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would also like to add to the proposal though. I think any image submitted to the NWS from a news site that still has the banners/watermarks/tickers/etc. still on them should also be deleted; even if there isn’t an explicit copyright notice. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 01:49, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree that the NWS disclaimers (universally) are legally enforceable to require the submission to be released into the public domain in order to submit it to them. The question here is specific - only regarding non-NWS/government employee images that are submitted to the NWS to be featured on their website. There is no way to confirm what disclaimer the person submitting the image saw when submitting it in most cases, given that submissions are generally through email rather than a form. As such, the precautionary principle should apply, since there is no way to confirm that a photographer actually saw (much less agreed to) a specific disclaimer when doing so. The NWS cannot on their end waive the copyright rights of a photographer, and them marking an image as copyrighted (or failing to do so) does not affect the rights of the photographer. Yes, in an ideal world, we would be able to trust third parties (especially government organizations) to accurately describe the images they host as copyrighted or not. But ultimately this is not a ideal/perfect world. I do not see how an image being hosted on a NWS server should be treated any differently than any other agency/government/organization that "typically" releases their images into the public domain. If the image is not owned by that agency/government/organization, they do not have the authority to decide to release it into the public domain. Berchanhimez (talk) 03:38, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Of note, the PRP has already been tested with respect to images that are hosted on NWS servers but are not taken by NWS photographers and have not explicitly been released to the public domain elsewhere - Commons:Deletion requests/File:Aerial view of homes destroyed in Rolling Fork, Mississippi.jpg. There is zero reason that a private photographer should be treated any differently than a pool photographer or someone who licenses their image to an organization like Getty. The presumption is that every photograph someone takes, they hold the copyright for, and absent an explicit release into the public domain, we should presume they still hold this copyright. I am of the opinion that the NWS disclaimers are not adequately prominent on the submissions to qualify as an explicit release - whether the NWS legal team feels differently is irrelevant. Given this is a question over whether the disclaimers are adequate or not (at least in cases it can be proven that the photographer saw and agreed to those disclaimers when submitting), roping WMF legal in for their official opinion on whether it counts may be a good idea. Berchanhimez (talk) 03:49, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Request: why don’t we try to contact some of the people who submitted the images and see if they would be willing to release the images themselves under a suitable license? WestVirginiaWX (talk) 03:58, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's acceptable for this case just as it is for any other time someone wishes to use an image on Commons (or Wikipedia/another project) without it having an explicit licensure/release. Any editor should feel free to contact the photographer for any image to ask them to release it into the public domain/an acceptable license - with the photographer emailing the VRT to do so. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:05, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To get what Berchanhimez said straight: NWS disclaimers don't mean anything? Why do we use website disclaimers then? We allow Flickr disclaimers to work same with YT disclaimers on video descriptions. If NWS disclaimers are not allowed, I request we remove all disclaimer usage then. WeatherWriter (talk) 04:01, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As much as this would be a burden and a pain on all of us; I am not opposed to that. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 04:03, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Now if it is clear that they DID release it under a license; then the disclaimer shouldn’t matter. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 04:06, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I AM. I find that ridiculous. Just as WeatherWriter said, NOAA has a disclaimer. ChessEric (talk) 04:07, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Flickr/Youtube disclaimers are "positive affirmation". The site requires someone to explicitly select that they are not uploading it under "all rights reserved", and when they do so they are presented with a clear and universal disclaimer of what their selection means. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:06, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not buying that. It is still disclaimers. If one disclaimer cannot work, none can. WeatherWriter (talk) 04:07, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So if I say "by replying to this you agree to give Berchanhimez 1 million USD", that disclaimer (as absurd and legally unenforceable as it is) should be treated as a legitimate disclaimer? Get real. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:09, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(As written below); I don’t think that would be legally enforceable. (In other words your hypothetical idea of getting rich quickly won’t work, no one in their right mind would pay any Commons editor a million dollars, regardless of what currency it was in); but I get the idea. Although I also get ChessEric’s idea too of “sucks to be you if you didn’t read the disclaimer”; so I think that issue might be better suited for an administrator (or better yet WMF legal) to handle. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 16:30, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

May I ask what exactly you mean by that? ChessEric (talk) 04:08, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Go try to upload an image to Flickr/a video to Youtube and select a creative commons/public domain licensure for it. Tell me that is equivalent to emailing your image to a NWS office. It's not. For one, there is no guarantee by the NWS that any photographer who emailed an image to them that they chose to use actually saw the disclaimer (I can email any NWS office without ever going to the NWS website by any number of means, for example). For two, there is no evidence that the disclaimer of "by submitting this it's in the public domain" is sufficient. Flickr/Youtube both require positive action - i.e. explicitly selecting that you are choosing to release the image. In other words again, they both presume copyright and require the user to take an explicit action to waive that right (either by licensing under a free license or the public domain). The NWS disclaimer is not equivalent to that, since it just states "any image uploaded/emailed to us may be public domain" or similar wording.

Again, if people seriously want to debate whether the disclaimer counts, contact WMF legal and have them issue an official opinion. Failing that, the precautionary principle applies and we cannot assume that a passive disclaimer like that is acceptable. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:12, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's not our responsibility to check with every person to see if they read a disclaimer. It's like signing a contract. If I sign a contract and later discover that there is something in there that I don't like, I can't come back later and say I didn't see it because I would've seen it had I read the entire contract. Same thing applies here. If they didn't read it, that's on them. It's not our problem. ChessEric (talk) 04:17, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And what if they didn't read it because they emailed the office directly saying "hey, I took some images of this recent tornado, hope they may be useful to you" without ever having gone to their website? Berchanhimez (talk) 04:29, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

With all due respect, it wasn’t a recent tornado. It was more than half a century ago. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 04:32, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Which makes it impossible that they read this disclaimer, because the NWS website didn't exist half a century ago. Thanks for proving my point for me. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:33, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That wasn’t necessarily my intention but okay. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 04:35, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless if it was your intention or not, it did a very good job, because it shows clearly that this purported license template is being applied to at least one image that it is impossible for it to have applied to. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:40, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But to answer your question the way you put it. I don’t know. If I were to speak for @ChessEric, he’d probably say “sucks to be the copyright holder”; if it were my opinion though, I’d say if they didn’t say anything, then “sucks to be them” if they wanted it copyrighted; unless that is they specifically indicated the intent to copyright (then the weather service would indicate whenever a work is copyrighted, like they always do); as noted in the past; the National Weather Service always indicates whenever a work is copyrighted. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 16:36, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Berchanhimez, with all due respect, you have 125 contributions total on the Commons. Several of which is regarding this issue. The previous deletion request is already over 81,000 bytes in size. Given the implications of this (including that a Commons Administrator has violated copyright rules/laws), we need to let actual administrators handle this. I opened this specifically to get administrators. This goes for everyone honestly, can we stop the debate and let the administrators sort this mess out? They already have now like 90,000 characters of text to sort through. WeatherWriter (talk) 04:12, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Attempting to gatekeep this discussion is inappropriate. Further, attempting to make the claim that I don't understand copyright or Commons rules when I have never had an image deleted here nor have I had any copyright issues in multiple good articles on Wikipedia is inappropriate. Please do not attempt to gatekeep people from commenting here any further, given that multiple enwp editors who weren't admins here are being invited to comment here. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:14, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah @Berchanhimez isn’t getting a million dollars. Nice try! WestVirginiaWX (talk) 04:15, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@WestVirginiaWX: ...okay. That's a little too far. We may not agree with them, but we should still respect them. ChessEric (talk) 04:16, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was only trying to be funny. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 04:18, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Now is really not the time for that. ChessEric (talk) 04:21, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well I’m sorry. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 06:27, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Berchanhimez -- It appears you are attempting to gatekeep in fact. You have just directly stated the Commons had violated copyright rules and laws for over a decade, implied that a Commons Administrator violated copyright laws (unintentionally), and that countless deletion discussions regarding this issue, which were closed, mean nothing. You are bludgeoning the process. Please let the administrators figure out what to do. You should read Commons:Deletion requests, as it states: The debates are not votes, and the closing admin will apply copyright law and Commons policy to the best of their ability in determining whether the file should be deleted or kept. Any expressed consensus will be taken into account so far as possible, but consensus can never trump copyright law nor can it override Commons Policy. Only administrators can close this and solve this debate. Right now, none of us, not you, me, ChessEric, any of us, can solve this issue. Only the administrators can. In fact, per Commons:Deletion requests, our thoughts don't really mean much. Sorry to tell you that. This entire thing was opened to try to get an administrator to solve the extremely long debate. My thoughts don't matter in this. Your thoughts don't matter in this. It could be 10 people saying to keep and it could be deleted. It could be 10 people saying to delete and it could be kept. The admin gets the final say while applying copyright laws. The fact you don't know that says you are not experienced enough or familiar enough with this topic, which goes back literal decades. There are at least 10 discussions all linked together regarding this topic. So please, let the admins do their work. That goes for everyone here. Stop the debate and let the admins sort it out. WeatherWriter (talk) 04:21, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Alright everyone: @WeatherWriter is right on this. This was intended to get the attention of administrators (to which none of us are); and everyone here including myself has turned this into the very same forum that accumulated 80 something thousand bytes and veered way off topic very early on. For our sake it might be better to let the admins handle this. Since according to @WeatherWriter, none of our opinions are binding. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 04:24, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is in fact you and other "weather editors" (as ChessEric called them on enwp trying to gatekeep) that are bludgeoning this discussion. Further, it is WMF legal that gets the final say on copyright laws, not volunteer admins on Commons. The fact that some "weather editors" are admins on commons, and/or the fact that your collective bludgeoning (which has resulted in multiple ArbCom requests and at least one case in the past) have resulted in admins here not being able to apply the precautionary principle appropriately is irrelevant. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:28, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, can we please stop the back and forth gate keeping accusations? That goes for both of you. @Berchanhimez @WeatherWriter WestVirginiaWX (talk) 04:34, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And I’ll further add that I don’t even know what gate keeping is. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 06:23, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Though it probably makes sense to wrap up the DR conversation first, just posting to say that I'm in complete agreement with Berchanhimez's understanding of copyright and its applicability to this scenario, including the need for a "positive action". I also agree with them that there is a lot of bludgeoning by people with "Weather" or "WX" in their usernames in this discussion and in the DR. Consigned (talk) 09:23, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I haven’t been trying to bludgeon the process (although I agree that may have been the end result); I’ve only been trying to stop the argument that happened. Yet others on here (not naming no names) seemed to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to it and kept right on arguing and only escalated further. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 16:23, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Canvassing note

Some accusations and counter-accusations that probably need not concern most readers

To note for administrators, User:WeatherWriter has canvassed at least a dozen "weather editors" to this discussion on the English Wikipedia (see their contributions). While I am not advocating for any individual editor to be removed from this discussion/have their opinions nullified, it should be noted that the "weather space" has resulted in at least one arbitration case due to inappropriate canvassing/collusion (including off wiki/private communications), and that the topic area has a history of immature (at best) editors who bludgeon discussions to attempt to stifle actual resolution of them. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:38, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

~~Berchanhimez is a troll.~~ The supposed canvassing alerts (example of one here) was sent to all editors who actively edit weather-related articles and upload images. Given there are several articles (some featured articles, featured article candidates, Good articles, GANs) and several other highly-viewed articles that use this template, all editors were told to not upload under it until the Commons could figure out what to do. A link to this discussion was not given to editors.

What is actually amazingly funny is how this discussion was started at 00:55, 2 August 2024, and the most recent EN-Wiki notification was sent at 23:54, 1 August 2024. So, Berchanhimez has accused me of canvassing a discussion which had not yet begun. I would really like to see how I can canvas for a discussion that does not exist yet. WeatherWriter (talk) 04:46, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They were sent to specific editors, rather than to a wikiproject. While giving notes to wikiproject talk pages is generally appropriate, cherry picking editors is not. Further, canvassing to an upcoming discussion (in your words "There will be a discussion starting on the Commons Copyright Noticeboard within the next few days") is no different than saying directly "please go comment on this discussion". Berchanhimez (talk) 04:48, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

May I ask how? This isn't us trying to come to a consensus or agreement about something; it's us attempting to figure out what we should do moving forward. I've checked those edits and many of them don't even link to here. ChessEric (talk) 04:45, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A link isn't required for it to be canvassing. The note stated explicitly that there would be a discussion on a specific page, and was all but explicitly inviting the editors to come comment here. That is textbook canvassing. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:49, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can we please stop accusing people of stuff?? What happened in the past is in the past. We can’t change it. Many of these supposed canvassing incidents were that of @WeatherWriter pinging recently active editors to remind them of an ongoing discussion. I would have done the same thing. Let’s please stop trying to make @WeatherWriter or anyone else look like the bad guy. Please? This is rapidly veering way off course. Can we please remember that this is about the PD-NWS template; NOT about what WeatherWriter supposedly done in the past. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 04:46, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's quite funny (to me) that me making this note for administrators' attention has resulted in the same editors continuing to bludgeon and now resorting to personal attacks against me because I called out the canvassing. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:49, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It ain’t a personal attack. It’s me politely asking you to please calm down and quit accusing people of things without just cause. It’s just me trying to keep you from getting blocked. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 04:53, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Calling someone a troll is a personal attack. I deliberately did not indent this to you as I was replying in general rather than to you directly. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:54, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Now I’m going to be as polite as I can here. If you keep accusing me or anyone else of stuff and you don’t have a good reason to do so; I will start reverting your accusation comments. And furthermore, I didn’t call you a troll, it was WeatherWriter that did so. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 04:55, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No dude. That will get you blocked. Please take back. ChessEric (talk) 05:00, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Might I ask what part you want me to take back? @ChessEric. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 05:01, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can we all stop arguing and stop the needless back and forth accusations please? @Berchanhimez @WeatherWriter @ChessEric. This is rapidly spiraling into a very heated and un-civil argument and to be honest. As @ChessEric mentioned; if it don’t stop, we all will end up getting blocked. I am going to

abstain from making any further comments until this cools down. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 05:05, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@ChessEric, exactly what did you want me to take back? WestVirginiaWX (talk) 05:08, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Everything. Let admins decide stuff like whether comments should be reverted because what you just said could be considered a threat, even if it was in good faith. Trust me; I learned the hard way. ChessEric (talk) 05:09, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And as for @Berchanhimez; I am not personally attacking you (even though I did leave you a warning on your talk page politely asking and pleading you to quit the arguing); I am calling out this entire discussion and everyone here. This is a blanket statement for everyone. You all have got to quit arguing. That goes for not only @Berchanhimez, but the rest of us here. Please. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 05:10, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@ChessEric, what do you mean by everything? You know what, don’t answer. Just go in on my behalf and cross out any of my statements that you are referring to please. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 05:13, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Not to criticize or anything; but I just looked at @Berchanhimez‘s contributions and curiously there is a three year gap where that user has a whopping zero edits between 2021 and June of this year. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 05:52, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But let me be clear, it is far from enough evidence in my opinion to call the editor a “troll” or an equivalent thereof. Again my criticism is not on @Berchanhimez alone. I am not personally attacking anyone. My criticism is to this entire group. Everyone including myself (yes I am criticizing myself) is at fault here. Everyone who participated in the argument is at fault. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 05:57, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What here is an admin issue?

@WeatherWriter: you are saying this is something for admins to decide. I don't really see what here is an admin issue. At some point, it will presumably be an admin who decides that the discussion has reached a conclusion (or a point of diminishing returns) and decide which side has the stronger arguments, but other than that there is no specific role for admins as such here. We (admins) are presumably all fairly knowledgeable about copyright, but many of the strongest copyright experts on Commons are not admins, and certainly I would listen far more to what they have to say about this matter than what some random admin has to say.

Offhand, this looks pretty thorny. It looks like the NWS does not handle this consistently; like some NWS sites may handle this better than others; and like it is difficult to determine whether any of them are careful enough to meet the standards of Commons' precautionary principle, except where we know that a particular image was made by a federal government employee. This is probably going to involve a lot of separate judgements, with a lot of different people able to bring their respective competences to sorting this out. - Jmabel ! talk 05:10, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh. Well in that case, we can basically ignore this entire discussion that got opened here. My hope was that an administrator would decide whether the email trumped the disclaimers and/or how the disclaimers work with that email. That was my original hope for administrator intervention. The deletion request has so many moving parts, that this was sort of opened to try to solve one of those "parts". Looks like it won't and we just have to wait for an administrator to close the deletion request, however long it may take for a clear conclusion to be reached. Also, it is probably for the best we close this. This has now turned into something as long if not longer than the deletion request. WeatherWriter (talk) 05:14, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I want to try to solve this, but it seems every part becomes so disorganized so quickly. Like you said, it will probably take several "ruling". I had an optimistic approach, hoping starting something here would solve a chunk of the issue. It just became a disorganized mess. WeatherWriter (talk) 05:20, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hey @Jmabel: , since this was opened and has led (and will continue to lead) nowhere, can we close this entire discussion as solved, with the understanding that the deletion request just need to finish normally and will eventually be closed? That seems to be the big takeaway here as that will be the true first step to solving the NWS debacle. WeatherWriter (talk) 05:31, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To all who may concern: since this conversation got heated because one or two editors (not naming no names) started accusing one another of stuff. Here’s my new idea on how to quickly get things on track again. @WeatherWriter, can you please ignore and DON’T reply to any accusations made by anyone else. Everyone else, can we please do the same? WestVirginiaWX (talk) 05:33, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So long as people don’t make accusations (and more importantly the other party ignores any that are made); this discussion can continue to go on smoothly. The more we just ignore those accusations above; the quicker they will go away and it won’t get back to the heated mess it was earlier. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 05:41, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you whoever closed the above discussion. Can we PLEASE remain civil and focused from this point on? WestVirginiaWX (talk) 06:04, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And let’s also remember this. The discussion is not a democracy; it is a dictatorship (the dictator being the closing admin) and our opinion won’t really matter a whole lot if it even matters at all. Let’s not post opinion votes because it is going to have little or no impact on the outcome of this. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 06:31, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this isn't an admin issue, it's a community issue, but this is the right place to get community input. Still it makes sense to wait for the DR to play out so that we don't have to have the same debate at two places at one time. Consigned (talk) 08:56, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well from what @Sir MemeGod told me on the deletion request; he told me that he was going to contact WMF legal about it and ask them to issue an official opinion. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 18:40, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I’m still deciding whether I should or shouldn’t. Sir MemeGod ._. (talk - contribs) 19:09, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We probably should on this because no one seems to be able to agree on anything. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 19:17, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would encourage anyone contacting WMF legal to ask them to opine on whether the fact that a disclaimer is included on some pages about submitting to them covers images they get from, for example, Twitter, or submitted through email directly, or apps like mPING, etc. - I suspect they will say that the disclaimer is sufficient if and only if the image concerned can be shown to have been submitted through a format that the photographer saw the disclaimer - and in that case, since we do not know the provenance of any image on the NWS website that is unmarked/uncredited, we cannot assume that it was submitted with the disclaimer. In other words, simply asking the WMF if the disclaimer is sufficient or not will not provide an answer to the questions raised here. Berchanhimez (talk) 22:23, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would think that if they got a picture from Twitter/X or Facebook (which they very rarely if ever do); they would ask the person first. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 22:25, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This NWS Webpage is a key one to look at. It is on tornadoes from 1979. The "Tornado Photos" tab is clearly marked with the copyright symbol. The "Damage" tab is clearly marked courtesy of without the copyright symbol. NWS always asks. That webpage basically disproves the theory that they do not ask the copyright status, even for historical photos. They clearly mark it as well, as evident here. Commons:Deletion requests/File:Twin tornadoes.jpg and Commons:Deletion requests/File:The Andover, Kansas EF3 tornado.jpg are two key previous deletion requests regarding this overall topic: one deleted and one kept. The disclaimer is indeed valid and is upheld on the Commons in the past, even when it has been directly assessed. Given NWS La Crosse even has the disclaimer on their own webpages, I would not be surprised if that email was actually some error on the return of whoever that meteorologists asked regarding it. Either way, the Commons has a clear stance on it and honestly, a clear precedent. The disclaimer works and ideas that it doesn't have no proof, while the idea of it existing does have proof (all the disclaimers alerting people when they send in photos). Every email to NWS is also FOIA requestable...i.e. in the public domain to begin with. This includes non-NOAA personnel. When you email the NWS, your email and their responses are open to public record in the public domain. (You can view some already requested emails regarding Hurricane Dorian here). That is why the disclaimers are all very clear on "it is public domain". When they send it to NWS, it is up to the user/photographer to know the terms and conditions of sending an email and/or photograph to the U.S. government. If I was assessing the situation, it seems clear the disclaimers are in place, are understood on several websites, linked to on almost every NWS webpage, and the general knowledge the U.S. government produces public domain info is widely known. So, to me, the disclaimers hold up and ideas to disprove them have no ground and/or no evidence to say they are not upheld...at least no evidence has been presented yet. WeatherWriter (talk) 22:47, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The only plausible evidence is that email that @Hurricanehink received. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 23:29, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Again @WeatherWriter, the “sucks to be you” principle (the “you” being whoever the copyright holder was), correct? WestVirginiaWX (talk) 23:34, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Elaborating; I’m referring to another comment I made on here about how it was “sucks to be you if you didn’t read the disclaimer”.) WestVirginiaWX (talk) 23:35, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And also @Berchanhimez, I happen to know from experience that mPING does not allow photo/video submission. I know this because I’ve used mPING before. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 23:32, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We don't get to assume anything. If the argument is that the disclaimer is sufficient, then it is only sufficient if it is actually presented to and agreed to by the person when they submit. We also do not "trust" (even if we "think") that the NWS has obtained copyright permission to release it into the public domain. Something being FOIA requestable does not impact the copyright rights of the photographer/person writing the email. The fact that something is "public information" does not have any impact on copyright status - as an example, the Library of Congress routinely accepts copies of copyrighted works as part of their mission, but the mere fact they accept them and display them does not impact the copyright of the creator. Likewise, the FBI and other investigators routinely accept imagery during criminal investigations - including notably the January 6th investigation - but the fact that someone submitted an image for use in an investigation (and that the image may be used by the investigators for non-commercial purposes) does not impact their copyright of it. There are many examples of the NWS "accepting" (either for internal use or possibly for publication) photos from locations where there is no disclaimer present - such as [7], etc. Of note, their twitter information page contains no disclaimer that by tweeting an image at them, even if they reply, releases it into the public domain.

It's also important to consider here the fact that the government generally has wide latitude to use copyrighted images under fair use - in some cases even wider latitude than private individuals may have. If the NWS has seen a copyrighted image that they intend to use for an educational purpose, they can post it on their website regardless of whether it's been released or not. This may be part of the reason that they don't seem to "care" about it as much as some people think they do - because while they try to mark if images are copyrighted or not, they themselves are not legally liable for failing to do so. On the other hand, if Commons accepts images that are copyrighted, they are legally liable for representing them under an inaccurate license. Furthermore, Commons requires that any disclaimer/etc be irrevocable - this is contrary to the NWS's policy, which is that a person who did not intend to release their image into the public domain can rectify/revoke their purported release by emailing them. See, for example, the FSD office disclosure: "If we receive complaints of copyright infringement, the image in question will be removed immediately".

So to summarize, the disclaimer is not present nor linked to through all submission mechanisms, but only some of them. Where it is linked to, the wording varies between offices and is not clearly irrevocable as required by Commons. Hence my comment that if people wish to bring WMF legal into this for an opinion, it is not sufficient to ask WMF legal "does this disclaimer count" - we would need an opinion from them that the disclaimer is sufficient, that it is sufficiently displayed on any possible mechanism by which a photographer submits their image to the NWS resulting in it getting posted, and that it is sufficiently irrevocable. Otherwise PRP applies. Berchanhimez (talk) 23:48, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I’m no expert; but the “complaints of copyright infringement” clause is mainly for someone who for example tries to submit Reed Timmer’s (and others) storm chasing videos (and the like) to the weather service; or if they didn’t know the policy. And it’s not going to be something you do 5 years later; it’s something that is done in a matter of days or weeks; maybe a month or two at most. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 00:32, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Revocable is revocable. Commons doesn't allow for licenses that allow for it to be revoked 5 seconds later, or a few days later, or a few weeks later. Berchanhimez (talk) 00:34, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Let me put that another way: let’s say I’m Reed Timmer (I’m not really; but for the purposes of this analogy, let’s pretend that I am), and I take a picture of a tornado say in Illinois; and someone pretends to be me and uploads it to the weather service; or someone uses my picture and they claim that they “took” it; and they upload it to the Weather Service, again without my knowledge and consent; and I then contact the Weather Service and ask them to remove the picture. That’s what the disclaimer means there. It’s to prevent people from using someone else’s pictures and pretend like they took it. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 00:38, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And it’s to prevent someone from taking a clip out of the movie Twister and claim that they took a picture of a tornado. Make since? WestVirginiaWX (talk) 00:41, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But generally; unless the uploader themselves were violating someone else’s copyright; the public domain thing is likely irrevocable. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 00:42, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Furthermore; the National Weather Service does (and I have a written policy to prove it) indicate whenever something is copyrighted. Go read it. It’s the NWS Norman FAQ. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 03:22, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, a written policy for one office does not mean every office follows that. Second of all, we do not trust third parties that claim the copyright status of images unless they have proven to be solid and/or follow good practice. As an example, Commons allows Flickr/Youtube licensure to be used, because both of those sites default to copyrighted and require the user to take explicit, affirmative action to release their work under a non-full-copyright license. Berchanhimez (talk) 05:29, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Listen: we can argue about it until the end of time; but unless you’ve got hard core evidence, I’m going to stand my ground when it comes to my

And not to discount your opinion, but you seem to be somewhat inexperienced compared to some of the other editors when it comes to Commons; I don’t mean that as an attack, I mean that as politely asking you to make sure that you have all the information on the copyright policy.

I’m saying this because I know how rules can be complicated. I am very active on Wikipedia; there are a lot of rules there that I didn’t know about until I ended up violating them by mistake and had a warning posted or had my edit reverted (some of them when I was an IP editor); the point being that I used to (and to a certain extent still am) the new guy who didn’t know what he was doing; and the last thing I (or anyone else) want to see is for you to end up embarrassing yourself if you do end up getting something wrong. Because I know from experience on this discussion that there are certain people (not naming no names) that seem have been heavily scrutinizing everything you say and openly criticizing stuff. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 05:46, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And also; it’s important to note that the National Weather Service is an agency of the United States government. Anyone submitting a picture to them is very likely doing it for the public interest. If they were wanting to keep it copyrighted; they would submit it somewhere else like to their local newspaper or television station; or onto Facebook or something like that. Someone like that isn’t going to email the NWS with a picture like that. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 05:50, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how many times myself and others have to point out to you that it doesn't matter if the people were "very likely doing it for the public interest". It doesn't change the facts. We don't get to assume things just to include images. You are the one who has repeatedly ignored this principle, and based your arguments over what you believe (you admit your opinions). It doesn't matter what you think the people who submitted them intended to do - commons does not assume it in the absence of specific evidence that they agreed to the license/status in play. Every time you have replied you have attempted to "deduce" or "assume" what the people who own the copyright to those images meant to do - and that's a clear sign that we cannot accept them on commons. You also have further made these vague threats, insinuations, and attacks against me repeatedly now - if you continue to do so I will be asking an administrator to step in and correct it. Berchanhimez (talk) 06:28, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Abstaining from further comment after this: I have not made any threats or attacks. And I certainly do not appreciate the accusation of doing so. I am again merely trying to save you from getting accusations of gatekeeping and etc. from other people (mainly Weather Writer). I am in NO way accusing you of anything. And furthermore, the “assumptions” that I am making are based on written statements by the NWS itself. I think (especially after what you just said) it is probably best for me to just stay out of it henceforth and not reply back anymore. I’ll let the other editors argue their opinions. As I said in a previous deletion discussion; I have said my piece. It’ll go however it’s going to go and there ain’t nothing I can do to change that; I’ve put my two (hundred) cents into it; so I should probably stay out of it. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 06:43, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@WeatherWriter, WestVirginiaWX, MemeGod27, Sir MemeGod, and Berchanhimez: STOP. I opened this section to ask what here is an administrative issue, because, as an admin, I was trying to work out whether there was actually some action an admin might need to take. I did not say "would everyone please [angrily] rehash everything from the sections above and from the DR?" I suppose I'm an involved party, after a fashion, but if anyone continues in this section for any purpose other than to apologize to me, or to each other, I will be reporting them at COM:AN/U and requesting disciplinary action. (Consigned stayed on topic, so I have not pinged them, and I acknowledge that this was cross-posted with WestVirginiaWX's saying they are done discussing here.) - Jmabel ! talk 06:52, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies, I guess that I overreacted the to the entire situation. It’s a very large scope of potential deletions, and I got too heated up about the issue. Sir MemeGod ._. (talk - contribs) 15:21, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Further discussion on the future of the PD-NWS template

Convenience link: {{PD-NWS}}. - Jmabel ! talk 03:57, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Since the above deletion discussion was closed as delete. I am making this section here to facilitate further discussion on the future of the template. Anyone who wants to present their opinions and ideas on what we should do with the template can post the comments here. But please, I know I speak for Jmabel when I ask that we don’t snipe at each other. Thank you. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 06:00, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I stand by my comments in the earlier discussion and the deletion request in question that the template should only be used on images that can be confirmed to have been submitted through a source where the person read an explicit disclaimer and agreed to it explicitly. This necessarily means that a significant portion of images tagged with that tag may be deleted - but we can't simply use that as a reason to allow a tag with significant question over whether the image creator/photographer understood the fact that by submitting it to the NWS they give up their rights to it. What NWS lawyers decide about what they host on their servers is also irrelevant to what we do here on Commons - though I do think that it is likely that any photographer who submitted their image has a legal claim against the NWS that the disclaimers are either insufficient or not well publicized. Other website disclaimers that are commonly accepted (ex: Flickr/Youtube) require positive action by the uploader to waive, license freely, or otherwise give up their copyright rights to their image. The NWS does not require this sort of positive action, and in fact they accept image submissions through direct email, social media posts, etc. in places that they do not post a disclaimer at all.

This is not to say that no NWS office image hosting can be used. It needs to be evaluated on an office-by-office basis, however. If an office provides (via email, preferably to VRT so it can be stored and not just based on someone's word here) a statement that they only post images where the submitter has explicitly (in the email/in a tweet reply/etc) released them into a public domain, then that office's images may be "whitelisted" for use of this template until such time as that changes. But absent those confirmations, the mere absence of a copyright notice from the NWS and a disclaimer there is no evidence that the person submitting it to them has seen cannot suffice as evidence that the image is in the public domain.

This may even extend past this tag. License laundering is not permitted, and the mere fact that a person didn't post it online prior doesn't change the fact that we shouldn't take the NWS's "word" at it any more than we should take any other website/organization's word for it. Absent a clear determination by WMF legal that any particular disclaimer is sufficient, I see no reason to require any less for images hosted on NWS servers than we require for images hosted on any other website - clear, explicit, and irrevocable licensure/release to public domain from the photographer. Berchanhimez (talk) 17:01, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly; despite the number of arguments we’ve been in in the past few days over this. The way you put it makes a whole lot of sense to me and I have to at least somewhat agree with you there. We shouldn’t trust the NWS anymore than Joe down the road. We don’t assume everything on YouTube or X or Facebook is PD do we? Of course not. (YouTube actually contains a massive amount of copyright violations, but that’s besides the point). I think the PD-NWS template should stay; but be modified to only accept images that we know are PD. Similar to the PD-NASA template. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 18:30, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But I think all of your points actually seen reasonable now that I’ve looked at it. I’m going to

Support @Berchanhimez’s idea. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 18:32, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @WeatherWriter @ChessEric @Hurricanehink @Rlandmann @Consigned @Ks0stm @ChrisWx @HikingHurricane @TornadoLGS @Jmabel; we would really appreciate your comments on the matter. Although everyone else’s response (if they do choose) is also welcomed. Thank you. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 18:45, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Forgot to ping @Sir MemeGod. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 18:46, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To add thought to my vote. I do think that anything made directly by or on behalf of the survey teams should also be considered PD. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 18:48, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose deletion, the PD-NWS template also falls under employee-created images, which are PD and the entire deletion discussion revolved around non-employee created images. Sir MemeGod ._. (talk - contribs) 18:57, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose full deletion with proposal — The PD-NWS template has been upheld at dozens of deletion requests. It is clear NWS has disclaimers, including NWS headquarters stating all content is public domain unless otherwise noted. The image / specific deletion request which kicked this discussion off was not deleted on grounds of violating the template. The specific administrator closing remarks deleted it on the precautionary principle, only due to that single NWS email. That email also specifically referred to that image/that specific webpage. Even that NWS office (NWS La Crosse) has their own disclaimer noting images are public domain. In my view, this was a one-off image/webpage. With that being said, my proposal is to have a 2nd “extra” note which states webpages of NWS La Crosse are off-limits for the disclaimer under the precautionary principle like PD-NWS does right now with Getty Images.

However, no other NWS office has questioned the disclaimer or even eluded to it not being the ongoing operational disclaimer. In fact, almost every NWS webpage links to the NWS Headquarters disclaimer. So, I am extremely opposed to anything regarding the entire template being changed/removed. My conceding comment (I oppose now, but would be content if consensus fell that way) is to assess every image individually. The only real issue with that specific image was the NWS email, given NWS La Crosse linked the webpage to the NWS HQ disclaimer. So, there is my thoughts and proposal. TL;DR — Hard opposed to deleting the template and/or making it specific office by office. I propose just NWS La Crosse being excluded as they created their own precautionary principle rational that only affects their office and their webpages. WeatherWriter (talk) 20:23, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment — Here is several previous discussions regarding the PD-NWS template, so everyone is aware of the precedent regarding it on the Commons (WeatherWriter (talk) 20:31, 7 August 2024 (UTC)):[reply]

Commons:Deletion requests/File:The Andover, Kansas EF3 tornado.jpg — Kept
Commons:Deletion requests/File:SD Tornado.jpg (Kept)
Commons:Deletion requests/File:2020aug-derecho-corn-sunset-Adel-IA.jpg (Kept)
Commons:Deletion requests/File:2019 Allen, SD tornado.jpg (Kept)
Commons:Deletion requests/File:2020aug-derecho-damage-Scranton-Iowa.jpg (Kept)
Commons:Deletion requests/File:EF2 tornado near Wrights, IL.jpg (Deleted - Closing administrator reason: "Deleted: per nomination, in particular due to the "watermark in the source for this photograph that says © Tom Stolze"."
Commons:Deletion requests/File:Dead Man Walking Jarrell 1997.jpg (Kept)
Commons:Deletion requests/File:Damage from the 1968 Charles City tornado just south of the Cedar River looking north.jpg Deleted — NWS La Crosse email caused precautionary principle deletion.

Adding this so that everyone can reply. We don’t need SineBot. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 20:44, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That’s alot of keeps. I’m indifferent when it comes to how we should proceed; with the exception of the fact that the template itself shouldn’t be deleted. If you read my proposal, it’s very much in line with @Berchanhimez on what the procedure needs to be. That procedure is to only accept stuff confirmed to be PD. But treat mine as only weakly in favor as that (I still really think they’re all PD and that the person who sent us the email didn’t know what he was talking about, but that’s just me) WestVirginiaWX (talk) 20:49, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For a few weeks now, I've been poking around the ~1400 images that use this tag. So far, I've been able to identify about 5 6 8 different types

0. Images sourced from weather.gov or other NWS sources that explicitly credit the NWS/NOAA or its employees. (Many more recent images do this)

1. Images sourced from weather.gov or other NWS sources that the original source does not credit to any third party and which are of a kind which can be presumed to be the work of NWS/NOAA employees and therefore free of copyright. Examples include: weather maps and charts, infographics, radar and satellite images (very many of the images I've seen)

2. Images sourced from weather.gov or other NWS sources that the original source credits to third parties but which are covered by an unambiguous disclaimer that either release them into the PD or under a free licence. (there are very few of these)

3. Images sourced from weather.gov or other NWS sources (like the one that kicked off this discussion) that the original source credits to a third party but whose copyright and licencing status is ambiguous due to technicalities (there are a few hundred of these, the bulk of the images that are not in category 1.)

4. NWS/NOAA images that are mistagged. As currently worded, the tag is only for use of images sourced from an NWS/NOAA website, but some images have been tagged with this when they're work of the NWS/NOAA but actually hosted elsewhere, usually YouTube or a social media site. There's a small number of these.

5. Other images that are mistagged. Images that do not appear to be connected to the NWS/NOAA at all, but usually from some other US government source. I've only seen a couple of these.

6. Images sourced from weather.gov or other NWS sources where the source description on Commons does not allow the copyright and licencing to be verified. This is either because the source data provided is very vague or because the source URL points directly to an image file on a NWS/NOAA website but not the page that includes or included that file, so we can't see what the licence information is.

7. Images sourced from weather.gov or other NWS sources that the original source does not credit to any third party and which are of a kind which cannot be presumed to be the work of NWS/NOAA employees and therefore free of copyright. The wide number of different ways in and conditions under which the NWS has accepted third-party content over the years introduce significant doubt about the copyright and license status of these images. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rlandmann (talk • contribs) 08:09, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Since our collective understanding of the copyright and licencing issues at play has evolved considerably since this tag was first established (and do appear to have changed substantially on the NWS end too...) I say we deprecate this specific tag and replace it with a pair of tags:

a tag that covers only categories 1 and 4 -- work of the NWS/NOAA, regardless of where it's hosted. I would take {{PD-USGov-NASA}} as a starting point.
another tag to cover category 2 images on weather.gov specifically. The fact that there certainly are usable third-party images in that category needs to be highlighted, in paticular to avoid future scenarios like this one.

Rlandmann (talk) 23:21, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This also calls into question the PD-SPC template too. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 00:42, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For clarity, I agree that categories 1 and 2 do not need to be deleted. However, I disagree that we can "presume" that images are a creation of a NWS/NOAA employee in the absence of explicit information that suggests that - Commons:Precautionary principle applies and we should not assume the images were created by a NWS/NOAA employee unless they were images clearly taken as part of the duties of a NWS/NOAA employee (such as images published in a specific tornado damage report, for example). Images in category 3, 5, and 6 should be presumed to be deleted unless evidence of their provenance/licensing is presented. Category 4 should be fine if/when the template (PD-NWS) is updated to reflect that it's images produced by NWS/NOAA employees rather than just hosted on their website. I feel that category 2 can be covered sufficiently by simply a normal PD tag with the source and disclaimer sufficiently noted. Berchanhimez (talk) 00:54, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, I don't disagree with Rlandmann necessarily, just with others arguing that images hosted on NWS servers can be presumed to be the work of NWS/NOAA employees or released to the public domain, unless proven otherwise. Berchanhimez (talk) 00:56, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If they were obviously made by a NWS survey team (eg. They’re on the damage assessment toolkit site), then we don’t need to waste time with a senseless DR that’ll do nothing but waste our time. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 01:03, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I don't advocate for images that are obviously created by a NWS survey team (as an example) being submitted. But as Rlandmann points out, there are a significant amount of images that are not clearly part of a NWS employee's official duties yet have this tag. Berchanhimez (talk) 01:26, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah based on the deletion discussion findings, those need to go. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 01:31, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I shall remain opposed to any significant alterations to the template. As a researcher IRL, I understand the copyright templates and I shall continue to upload images from the webpages. The current disclaimers are true. That was a one-off instance involving a photograph which was taken years before NWS became an organization to begin with. My proposal remains as is and I will not support anything besides what I linked above. Each image needs a deletion request if templates are changed. End of story. My explanation is above, so I probably do not need to comment or reply any further here. I feel consensus will not fall with the truth, so just like how the Tornadoes of 2022 Wikipedia article has confirmed false-fake information on it (community consensus confirmed it should remain even, VNTIA), the ideology of "verifiability, not truth", continues here. Such a shame. Well, Internet Archive will probably grow a couple hundred images shortly. With that, I rest my case. WeatherWriter (talk) 01:39, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t consider myself to be in support of major changes either; I consider myself to be more of a neutral. But I agree with the people dishing out the pro-change arguments because they are based on the law. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 01:42, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately @WeatherWriter, this isn’t an argument about how “shameful” or how “difficult” (my original argument) it’s about the law. The law is the law and we can’t change it. End of story. The only question is whether or not the disclaimer is sufficient. The only binding opinion on thus would come if WMF Legal ends up getting involved; but barring that, the “prosecution” as I’m going to call it, has a good case. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 01:46, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But I do agree with you that sometimes consensus can be wrong. 110% agree there. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 01:47, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@WeatherWriter, I hope you realize that the “verifiability not truth” link redirects to an article about an airport in Latvia. Just want to pass that along just in case you didn’t know. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 02:10, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But just for the others, since I doubt that WeatherWriter was intending to link to an article about a Latvian airport that has nothing to do with this discussion; I’ll fill in here what I believe they were intending to link; it is w:WP:V. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 02:14, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is absolutely inane. Wikipedia policies don't apply to Commons - the applicable policies are Commons:Precautionary principle and Commons:Licensing. To be specific: where there is significant doubt about the freedom of a particular file, it should be deleted (from PRP) and Wikimedia Commons only accepts media that are explicitly freely licensed (from Licensing, emphasis mine). Your personal belief about the disclaimer does not mean that that disclaimer meets those policies, and your comment that "[you] shall continue to upload images from the webpages" just implies your intent to violate Commons policy going forward. It does not matter what you think the truth is. Berchanhimez (talk) 02:56, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Berchanhimez, if you were referring to me (pinging myself @WestVirginiaWX), that would NEVER be my intention. I have only uploaded PD-NWS files that were directly produced by the NWS (category 1 I think); or by their survey teams (as in the case of a particular tornado damage picture from Wayne County, West Virginia), so you don’t have anything to worry about if you were referring to me. Now obviously if you were NOT referring to me, well I generally can’t speak for other people on what their intentions might be. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 03:46, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I think I see who you’re referring to. (I’m not going to mention so and so’s name just because I don’t want to cause problems or be accused of personal attacks. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 15:06, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I just want to go on the record and say that as much as I used to agree with you @WeatherWriter; I have to very strongly disagree with your statement on how you “shall continue to upload from the webpages”; I have to agree with @Berchanhimez on this, continuing to upload like that could potentially constitute a copyright violation and you can ask @Sir MemeGod, they got blocked for a week over that. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 16:10, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Berchanhimez: , the "presumption" I mean in category 1 is images published on NWS pages that do not have any third-party attribution. I base this on the general NWS disclaimer that "The information on National Weather Service (NWS) Web pages are in the public domain, unless specifically noted otherwise"; and I think it is the same presumption that we use for other US Government sources.

Also, how do you feel about this as a way to cover 1 and 2? Rlandmann (talk) 03:09, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree we can use that general disclaimer. I am unaware of any other website that allows and publishes user submitted content that we accept a "passive disclaimer" like that as proof of, as Commons:Licensing states, explicitly freely licensed. I think that may be able to be handled on a case by case basis (ex: if an office confirms via email to VRT that the images hosted on their sub-site have all been explicitly freely licensed by the copyright holder), but that we cannot presume they are freely licensed based on a passive disclaimer that there is no evidence the submitter saw. Berchanhimez (talk) 03:36, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Berchanhimez: . So that I can verify that I understand you correctly, is your position that we can't assume that the two uncredited photos of tornados at the top of this page are works of federal employeees in the course of their duties and therefore in the PD? (These are examples of "category 1" images I'm talking about) Rlandmann (talk) 05:37, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely not. For one, NWS employees are not out in the "field" during tornado outbreaks - they are in the office issuing watches/warnings. They may very well have been taken by NWS employees - but they were not taken in the course of official duties even if so. Berchanhimez (talk) 06:26, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks; let me revise the category scheme accordingly. -- Rlandmann (talk) 07:27, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That’s exactly right. NWS employees are NEVER out chasing twisters. Just about any tornado picture from the weather service should therefore be assumed to be copyrighted. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 15:03, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good. I agree with the new categories, and will only add that other than things that are obviously the work of NWS/NOAA employees in their official duties (i.e. weather maps, earth imagery, graphs/charts/depictions of damage/etc, and the like), we really can’t act like they “might be” the work of the agency/employees in their official duties. There will need to be a clear line drawn when the next edge cases come up - when an image is highly likely to be NWS “official act” but no proof of it - and that question can be decided then without affecting the many other images that fall into the categories that clearly cannot use this template.

I’ll also note here that this discussion does not change anything about any user’s ability to contact the NWS and ask them to send VRT proof of the image’s origin. If an image may be “NWS official” or public domain confirmed by the NWS, I doubt the NWS would balk at sending an official email to the VRT confirming its status and more importantly how they determined that status (ex: an email saying “the photographer emailed us this image with the statement ‘I release this image into the public domain for NWS or anyone else to use’” for example). Berchanhimez (talk) 21:49, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree 100% on that. Anything that the NWS can confirm was released into the public domain and they say that to VRT, I’m more than happy to support keeping the file. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 02:06, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Berchanhimez, @Rlandmann, did you ever look at the comment above the “I agree consensus is wrong” part? WestVirginiaWX (talk) 03:36, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I’ll repeat the same comment I’m referring to. It is not about how “shameful” or how “difficult” it is. You two are 1,000% right when you say it’s an issue about the law. No consensus on this discussion will ever change the law. You can have 97% of the people say to keep and if the law says it needs to be deleted; well that file is gonna be gone. See my point? WestVirginiaWX (talk) 03:40, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree only if it’s obviously government produced (eg. weather.gov forecast graphics; and damage survey pictures; among others). WestVirginiaWX (talk) 03:53, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the template wording. I think that is an excellent idea. Some of the hardliners like WeatherWriter probably won’t like it, but I still think the template proposal is a good idea. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 03:55, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry @WestVirginiaWX: , the discussion is already so tangled up that I don't know what you're pointing me to. Can you give me a phrase to search for? -- Rlandmann (talk) 05:51, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I already did. I’ll just repeat what I said earlier. I’ll repeat it here. I said “Unfortunately [pinged WeatherWriter], this isn’t an argument about how “shameful” or how “difficult” (my original argument) it’s about the law. The law is the law and we can’t change it. End of story. The only question is whether or not the disclaimer is sufficient. The only binding opinion on thus would come if WMF Legal ends up getting involved; but barring that, the “prosecution” as I’m going to call it [which would be you, @Berchanhimez, and the others who are advocating for the depreciation of the tag as we know it], has a good case.” WestVirginiaWX (talk) 14:59, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As for the template wording I was referring to. I was referring to your proposal that you linked here. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 15:00, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think also I was mainly referring to Berchanhimez about looking at “my comment above that”; because at the time I thought they were referring to me (it seems like they’re referring to someone else). But the messages above still apply to you and anyone else. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 15:09, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ok @Rlandmann, hate to further complicate things. But there apparently is already a template specifically for the survey teams titled PD-DAT, though only for if it appears on that website. This issue also calls into question the PD-SPC tag. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 17:11, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And to further complicate: there is a PD-USGov-NOAA tag for works by NOAA employees in general. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 17:21, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes; the current state of the templates is a tangled, overlapping mess. But we don't need to "boil the ocean" and try to fix everything all at once.

I think a good, short-term goal here is to at least separate the weather.gov content that's provably known to be free, vs stuff that isn't. This is probably a few months' work. I think it's also good to keep the end-goal in focus. This whole situation (and some of the DRs before it, here and on English Wikipedia, arose because of the ambiguous and inconsistent way that the NWS websites have historically handled third-party content. We want uploaders, re-users, and admins to have a high degree of certainty not just about the copyright and licence status of an image, but the evidence and reasoning that is based on.

Right now, I'm seeing the template I proposed as an interim solution to get that initial split. I will also draft and propose a template for the "category 2" images. I don't know if it will be required in the long term. Berchanhimez is right -- anything that template could contain would already be covered by one of our existing licence tags. If it proves un-necessary, then at least the split has been achievde and the interim template could easily be replaced by a bot later. Rlandmann (talk) 21:51, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, there's a lot above and I didn't read it all, but "stored on the web servers of" in the current template is certainly not a sufficient criterion. Obviously, something like this template should be fine for what was created by federal government employees at NWS. There may be some other specific cases that are also OK. If so, I'd suggest that those cases be enumerated, and that the template be parameterized with a "switch parameter" to indicate which case is met. (If it's unclear what I mean by a "switch parameter", have a look at how parameter "legal" functions in {{Published}}.) If the "switch parameter" is present, then the template when included will display only the text for the relevant case. If not, it will contain a bullet list of all cases it covers, but will also place the file in a maintenance category indicating that the switch parameter value needs to be added. I presume the bulk of existing files using the template are from federal gov't employees, so it should be pretty straightforward to use VFC to do a semi-automated addition of that parameter and value to large numbers of files. Similarly for other valid cases, which I imagine cluster in existing categories. That's about all I have to say here; I know it isn't very spelled out, so feel free to ping me if you need more. - Jmabel ! talk 04:08, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 04:22, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The more I think about it (and you just reinforced this) the more I think that going by just the NWS disclaimer alone is a really stupid idea. “Stored on the webservers of” is a really stupid idea that is really only a lawsuit waiting to happen. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 04:26, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Another email from the NWS

A few weeks ago, I reached out to the Sioux Falls office. I asked:

"We can see that for many years, NWS has had a policy[1] that when somebody submits an image to you, they release it into the public domain. What we don't know is how far back this policy goes. The earliest archived record of that policy we can find is 2009, but the NWS has been sharing public submissions since long before that!

Is it safe for us to assume that all images on weather.gov that are credited to a member of the general public are all in the public domain, regardless of how far back they were submitted to you?

Many thanks for any light you can shed on this question!

[1] -- https://www.weather.gov/fsd/disclaimer"

Today's reply:

Our apologies for the delay in a response, but we wanted to run your question through our legal team before replying. No, not all images credited to members of the general public are in the public domain on weather.gov. In some cases, the credited image creator has only given permission for the National Weather Service to use the image on NOAA websites.

The disclaimer page that you cited in your email was created specifically for a prior photo submission contest and since has been used occasionally when requesting images from the public taken during specific storm events. It is the opinion of the legal team that they "do not believe a disclaimer, alone, can be used to transfer a copyright holder's ownership interest to NOAA or to abandon the copyright interest to the public domain". Since then, we have removed the questionable language on the disclaimer page.

For images verified to be in the public domain, a collection of weather-related images can be found within the NOAA Digital Library: https://www.noaa.gov/digital-library .

National Weather Service - Sioux Falls, SD

I hope this is of use. --Rlandmann (talk) 15:23, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is definitely of use. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 15:28, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone else all of the sudden support these “radical” changes to the template? Because I do. Radical changes or complete removal, one of the two. I am sorry for not believing you earlier. And I’m sorry for the mess it caused. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 19:11, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly suggest a radical change instead of outright deletion of the template. With recent correspondences from the LaCrosse and Sioux Falls offices of NWS, it is becoming clear that not all image files held by NWS in general is automatically in PD. Files, of course, should undergo intense license reviews and a mass nomination of images in a suspected subcategory is not appropriate/not advisable (unless the entire subcategory itself contains 100% unfree files). It seems my creation of Category:National Weather Service-related deletion requests is very timely for this thing. Once this thread is archived, a link to this discussion should be added at the said category page. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 19:57, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We need MAJOR changes to that template and fast. This will be a strong and speedy support for me. Only images that can be verified to be PD; such as ones actually taken by employees; or submissions that are confirmed by the National Weather Service to VRT; otherwise, mass DR. As much as @WeatherWriter is going to hate this (see above); the law is the law and we can’t change that. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 00:39, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I would support significant changes to the template per the above and file specific deletion discussions (over time, not all at once) as to their provenance/licensing. I'm going to try workshopping wording in my sandbox that attempts to reflect recent developments and consensus - please feel free to edit it also User:Berchanhimez/sandbox, especially to properly include links to these email confirmations/deletion discussions. Berchanhimez (talk) 00:41, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn’t implying the mass deletions be all at once either. I was referring to it as such because a slew of pictures are now in violation of policy. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 01:08, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed; there's no need for mass deletion; the majority of files in this category are just fine. But I've already kicked off that intense license review. --Rlandmann (talk) 03:57, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree too; and let’s summarize my position again: major, sweeping changes are necessary; and they need to be implemented quickly. It doesn’t necessarily matter how we handle the deletion of the copyright-violating images. You can make a thousand AfD’s for all I care. But the template in particular has got to be changed ASAP to prevent unsuspecting editors from accidentally committing a copyright violation (and making our job a lot harder). WestVirginiaWX (talk) 04:15, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Updating the template

I've started a discussion on the template's talk page at Template talk:PD-NWS#Updating PD-NWS template re: content submitted by third parties to discuss specific changes to {{PD-NWS}}. Consigned (talk) 12:18, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Mass deletion request

Just a heads-up that I've opened a mass deletion request for seven third-party files here. --Rlandmann (talk) 13:04, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I just nominated another file for deletion. The 2020 derecho sunset picture. Conditionally support deletion unless there is proof of PD status. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 14:14, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve also renominated the 1997 Jerrell tornado image. Trying to get the major ones first because those are the ones that have the potential to affect a lot of stuff. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 16:42, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

More new discoveries!

In the course of my review of these third-party images, I came across this image -- File:Niles Park Plaza 1985 tornado.jpg. It's interesting for two reasons:

First, it provides evidence for yet another mechanism by which various NWS offices at various times have accepted third-party images (via email or physical postage!) And, as usual, there is no mention that images so submitted will enter the public domain.

Second, and more interesting, it sheds new light on a question that has come up around how to interpret the words in the weather.gov genera disclaimer that "information" on the site is in the public domain "unless specifically noted otherwise". @WeatherWriter: has claimed in a number of places that a formal copyright notice similar to "This image Copyright © Mary Smith" is the only valid form of such a notation. Such notices are found from time-to-time on various NWS web pages.

I and others reject this interpretation that a notice in such a format is the only valid way that an image under a third party's copyright an be "specifically noted", and the NWS page this image was sourced from provides a great illustration of this.

The submission process for the project to document the May 31, 1985 tornado outbreak says nothing about submitted materials entering the public domain; it merely allows the NWS to post the information on the web.
The third-party contributions towards this project are posted to this page and their attributions are all in the form "Courtesy submitter's name"

This example connects a specific submission process with a specific set of images. And for these images at least, third-party ownership is "specifically noted" in a format other than a formal copyright notice. --Rlandmann (talk) 10:16, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you’ve got to admit, WeatherWriter also claimed that you “created chaos” too. Even though you didn’t. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 12:17, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But I get your point loud and clear WestVirginiaWX (talk) 12:18, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Images attributed to a third party with a known copyright policy

Two more images that came up in my review today are noteworthy because rather than just being credited to private citizens, they're credited to organisations with documented copyright policy. Specifically, this image is credited to the Ohio Department of Transportation, which doesn't allow commercial use of their materials; and this one is credited to the NFL, whose copyright policy is as strict as you'd imagine. --Rlandmann (talk) 13:32, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Really spiraling downhill is it? WestVirginiaWX (talk) 13:42, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here is my idea; we need to majorly scrutinize ALL files that aren’t created by an NWS employee acting in their official duties. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 16:35, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And as for the NFL image; if it is here on Commons, I want it a DR put on it ASAP; and I’d be just about willing to support putting a speedy delete tag on it. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 16:36, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

More evidence against uncritical reliance on the NWS general disclaimer

User:WeatherWriter recently pointed out that a specific image that had been credited to a third party on weather.gov was specifically licenced CC-BY when the NOAA uploaded it to their Flickr stream. The NWS general disclaimer cannot be reasonably interpreted to mean that all images credited to a third party are in the public domain. This one, according to the NOAA, was not. --Rlandmann (talk) 22:13, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That said, I would not in general assume that a government agency claiming a CC license on Flickr necessarily means the work is not public domain. I've seen quite a few do just that with PD works, especially PD-expired. - Jmabel ! talk 02:49, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly a possibility that the Flickr licence is wrong, but in that case, the image is not necessarily in the PD, but could well belong to its creator, Fred Stewart.

The moiré pattern makes me very sure this is a scan from a physical publication rather than a photographic print or negative, but without knowing when and where it was published, we can't assume that copyright did not exist or is expired. And, in common with the rest of these, if it was under copyright at the moment it was uploaded to an NWS web server, we have no evidence that permission was ever given to place it in the public domain.

Of all the possibilities (under copyright, PD, or CC-BY), my personal feeling is that CC-BY is the least likely to be true. But I don't have any actual evidence not to take the NOAA at their word in this instance! --Rlandmann (talk) 03:22, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Compatibility of "ShareAlike" licenses with Commons

I was recently looking through the different "CC BY-SA" licensing options on here to use for personal photographs I'm thinking about uploading. One of the licenses I'm considering using is "CC BY-SA 4." Although I couldn't help notice that one of the conditions of it is that "if you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original." Which just seems counter to the goals of the projects. Since we don't allow for non-commercial licenses and someone obviously can't transform or build a work into a commercial product if they then have to release it under a "CC BY-SA" license. Although the license also seems to say people can "remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially." So I'm kind of confused here. Can anyone explain exactly how it works? Adamant1 (talk) 02:29, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Adamant1: CC-BY-SA is very compatible with Commons, it is stricter than CC-BY in the sense that any derivative works must be licensed as CC-BY-SA where derivative works of CC-BY works could have non-commercial or no derivatives added, so you can't make a DW of a CC-BY-SA that restricts things the original license doesn't so commercial use is always allowed under CC-BY-SA. I hope that helps. (Finishing up my packing for Wikimania 2024 so starting tomorrow, I'll probably be very slow to respond to things for 10 days or so). Abzeronow (talk) 05:10, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is no reason that a commercial work can't be licensed under CC-BY-SA. Sure, that would mean that others could then use your work and perhaps "out-commercialize" (i.e. compete) with you, but that doesn't mean you can't try. Furthermore, if someone were to remix something into a logo, brand mark, or other distinctive "identity" for their business, the fact that it would have to be licensed under CC-BY-SA does not affect their ability to avail themselves of trademark or similar protections.

A similar situation is the existence of personality/likeness rights - images of identifiable people are allowed on Commons even though the subject may very well still maintain a legal right to prevent certain uses of their likeness without their permission. There's a list of some other rights that may still apply without affecting Commons here. Ultimately, Commons' purpose is not to host only images that can be used for any reason by anyone without fail - the purpose is merely to host images that a reuser does not have to "worry" about copyright/licensure for their use. It doesn't guarantee they will be able to successfully use any image commercially - but if they want to try, they do not have to deal with copyright/licensing of the image here to do so. Berchanhimez (talk) 07:29, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That type of license was part of the original concept of "free", particularly when used with computer code -- it's called en:Copyleft, and the idea was that the content (or code in their case) was itself "free", in that a derivative work could not make it proprietary again. If you wanted to make use of such code, then give back. Importantly, the share-alike condition only applies to derivative works, not simply any use. For example, including such an illustration in a commercial book should be fine -- the book is a collective work (a selection and arrangement of the contained works) of the text and the illustrations. Use in a collective work does not trigger the condition, so the book's text is one copyright, the collective work is another, and the illustration is still its own copyright. Only the illustration itself remains licensed CC-BY-SA; the book's text and arrangement can have any license they want (or none). That could be considered a commercial use of the illustration, but it's fine per the license. If the book author makes any modifications to the illustration itself, then that result must still be licensed CC-BY-SA, but not the entire book. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:31, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I found this post and response an interesting expansion on your point: https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/8357/in-which-cases-must-i-relicense-my-product-under-the-cc-by-sa-license - Consigned (talk) 22:27, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

GODL or copyvios?

Do these uploads fall into {{GODL-India}}? (ping Lakhan_Singh_Bhargav) --Geohakkeri (talk) 16:36, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, I blocked Lakhan Singh Bhargav for uploading copyvios after warning, and I deleted 2 files. Even if in the unlikely event that the GODL would cover these, the author, source, and license were wrong. Yann (talk) 15:39, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Old WoRMS logo

There is an old WoRMS logo on Commons, which, according to Marchjuly's answer, is, according to WoRMS, not free, but whose upload may just have been a mistake. There also is a version on the English Wikipedia, where it was stated that it is not free. According to WoRMS, the former has to be deleted due to the CC-BY-NC-SA being not free enough for Commons.

The reason for my question here is just that there are 2 versions, essentially the same, representing the same thing – the old logo of WoRMS. Alfa-ketosav (talk) 21:09, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

While the current terms of use specify that only text is under CC-BY, the terms of use at the time of upload only regulated that

Unless otherwise stated, these web pages and associated information are free to use on condition that they are cited (CC-BY).

This suggests to me that the logo used at that time was indeed covered by this licensing text.

The license text changed with the relaunch under the new logo in November 2017, so while the old logo seems to be covered, the new logo would indeed by available only under a non-free license.

There is a small complication in that the mention of "CC-BY" on the old web pages is not hyperlinked or concretised with any particular version number. Therefore, it might be more appropriate to tag the file {{Attribution}} given the unambiguous intent of the copyright holder to release it under those basic conditions of CC-BY but not pretending that any particular CC-BY license has actually been invoked. Felix QW (talk) 06:56, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Felix QW: We could use the then-current CC-BY license. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 22:17, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Help Force banner

https://cphelpforce.com/

I am making a page for the Help Force, a Club Penguin and CPPS gaming team. I have received permission to use the site banner on Discord from one of Help Force's leaders. Which license is it under? Sekundenlang (talk) 10:50, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The permission you received is the license; that’s what the word means, basically. --Geohakkeri (talk) 10:54, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but which CC license is it under? (I will take a screenshot of the Discord conversation where I was given permission and upload it as proof I have permission) --Sekundenlang (talk) 11:13, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That’s not a very good proof. Please follow the prosedure laid out on COM:VRT. --Geohakkeri (talk) 11:24, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

None. "You can use this banner on Discord" is not a Creative Commons license. Omphalographer (talk) 03:30, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, then how am I supposed to use the banner legally? --Sekundenlang (talk) 10:04, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Disregarding the question of COM:SCOPE, the banner can be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons only if the copyright holder gives a free license to it. So there should be a clear indication of the license on the Help Force website. Alternatively, they can contact VRT and give the license that way. --Geohakkeri (talk) 16:05, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The bottom of the Help Force website says:

(as you can see at https://cphelpforce.com/) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sekundenlang (talk • contribs) 12:48, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

CC BY note in YouTube shorts

Hi!

YouTube allows to mark own short clips with a CC BY license. The big problem is, that, for example as a reviewer, it is hard to proof the stated license. This can afaik only be done by searching for CC BY licensed videos.

How to handle this issue? (Little example: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=computer+shorts&sp=EgIwAQ%253D%253D)

Thanks and greetings --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 14:46, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@PantheraLeo1359531: not sure I follow what you want here. When you say "reviewer," do you mean as the formal "license reviewer" or just as an arbitrary person looking at this after the fact. I assume "proof" => "prove", but prove what to whom (just validate the claim for yourself? prove it to some unstated third party? etc.)?

I'm afraid the link clarifies nothing, because you don't say anything about what that link is supposed to exemplify. - Jmabel ! talk 21:30, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If the uploader has granted a CC license, the YouTube videos typically display a notice in the description. However with Shorts videos, there is no CC notice in the desc, even if it is granted. The only way to find or confirm is by searching with filters. This can cause confusion and uncertainty. PascalHD (talk) 00:19, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for clarification, this is what I intended to say :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 07:29, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's a simple solution to see if a Short has a CC License, for example the link usually goes "shorts/(video url)" the solution is to replace that part with "watch?v=(video URL)" For example: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/71R4dLouc9M we replace it with This: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71R4dLouc9M . That way the video opens in the regular YouTube video tab instead of the Short format. Hyperba21 (talk) 21:40, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, that's a marvelous solution, thank you very much! :D --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 06:53, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is even simpler: just replace "shorts" with "watch":

Glrx (talk) 15:41, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Glrx: Thanks. Has anyone asked YouTube why they do not display the license with the Short format? — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 17:33, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jeff G.: I have no information. Glrx (talk) 15:35, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

File:Ceteris Paribus Overview.png lacks attribution

Stated as own work, but appears to come from here, which states that it is freely available, but requests an attribution link. (That said, it is one of the more inane graphs I have seen for several reasons, and I hope nobody uses it, but I'm really only here for the attribution issue, "inanity" not being a point of policy.) Mathglot (talk) 20:58, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Convenience link: File:Ceteris Paribus Overview.png. - Jmabel ! talk 21:31, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing here that appears to be copyrightable, and it is not literally the same file as that one on wallstreetmojo. - Jmabel ! talk 21:32, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Strange graphic. Does it illustrate that you can write "Ceteris paribus" on a chart? Enhancing999 (talk) 10:18, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Enhancing999: well put. - Jmabel ! talk 20:14, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For info: Was used here, but recently removed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:50, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

File:Docos 2023.png

File:Docos 2023.png is licensed as {{CC-by-SA-4.0}} which seems incorrect. The logo seems simple enough to be be PD in the US per c:COM:TOO United States, but it's country of first publication might be Australia based on en:Famous (TV channel)#Logo history. Can Commons keep this per COM:TOO Australia? If not, then it probably would be OK to reupload locally to English Wikipedia as en:Template:PD-ineligible-USonly.

The same uploader also uploaded quite a number of other logo files as their "own work" and these might also need to be assessed to see whether they're OK for Commons and just need to be relicensed. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:52, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

CC licensing "with an active link required"

Commons has a hundred images which say in their description something like, from File:Bitcoin (38461156880).jpg:

Credit www.quotecatalog.com with an active link required.

Is it within COM:LICENSING to add a requirement like this to a CC licence? It sounds like I wouldn't be able to print such a photo in a book or include it in a TV show because there wouldn't be an "active link". Belbury (talk) 08:53, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, that's clearly an impermissible condition on reuse. Do you want to create the deletion nomination or shall I? Omphalographer (talk) 17:15, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'll get it. Belbury (talk) 17:46, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, that would preclude use in print. - Jmabel ! talk 19:11, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's what I thought. Request now open at Commons:Deletion requests/Files found with "with an active link required". Belbury (talk) 21:24, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You are supposed to have an active link if possible, or in a book print the URL, I think, with the CC licenses. I guess the question is if that statement is an addition to the CC-BY requirements, or an alternative license. It's pretty close to a free license but it does leave some questions. Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:41, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The only URI that a Creative Commons license should require is to the source of the work, if possible (per the CC wiki), and there's no requirement that it be an "active link". The links required by these file descriptions aren't sources; they look more like attempts to promote web sites. Omphalographer (talk) 01:49, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't Wikipedia requiring the same? Enhancing999 (talk) 10:13, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Any condition provided for outside of the license is not part of the license and does not constitute an additional restriction. This is explicitly provided for in the license text: "This License constitutes the entire agreement between the parties with respect to the Work licensed here. There are no understandings, agreements or representations with respect to the Work not specified here." D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 02:46, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In the original upload on Flickr, there's one license (CC-BY 2.0) in the metadata and another completely different and incompatible license ("Image is free for usage on editorial websites if you credit <some web site> with an active link") in the description. I don't think there's any reasonable interpretation of the author's intent which would allow us to ignore the license outlined in the description - they clearly meant that text to have some effect on how their photo could be used. Omphalographer (talk) 05:55, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright of "remixed" works

I asked this at the English Wikipedia's Teahouse, but was told it would be better to ask here, so I am just going to copy and paste what I wrote over there:

I am writing a draft article on graffiti characters, and in my research I learnt about the influence of Vaughne Bodē's comics on early modern graffiti and I realised I've seen his characters painted in my local town. I wanted to take a photo for the article, but figured that as Bodē (or his son now) owns the copyright to the character, that wouldn't be appropriate.

However, today while browsing graffiti images on Commons, I've found lots of photos of graffiti works with characters from The Simpsons, Dragon Ball, and Disney, sometimes drawn very much in the original style. Are these works okay because they're "remixed"? In this case, would it be okay for me to upload a work with a character of Bodē's in a graffiti piece? Thank you for any help! -- NotCharizard ^🗨 09:15, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are these works okay because they're "remixed"? In short: probably not. Unauthorized derivative works of copyrighted content (like cartoon characters) are still derivative works when photographed, even if freedom of panorama would otherwise permit a photograph of public artwork to be reused. (Or, to put it another way: you can't "launder" an unauthorized derivative work through the freedom of panorama.)

Determining whether the use of a character in public art was authorized can be difficult; about the best advice I can give there is to use your best judgement. Omphalographer (talk) 17:34, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It also may be further complicated when the work in question is a parody. - Jmabel ! talk 19:13, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Copyleft trolling

I have recently become a victim of copyleft trolling by photographer Thomas Wolf (User:Der Wolf im Wald).

He claims himself that he uses Wikipedia as a way of advertising for his professional photography company. When people use his images without the correct authorship attribution, he asks for a hefty fee and threatens with legal action. He sends misleading emails in which he does not mention that his photos where published under a creative commons license, nor does he mention that the correct attribution is missing, he just asks to pay. His way of working is not in line with the creative commons guidelines for license enforcement (https://creativecommons.org/license-enforcement/enforcement-principles/), which are: - The primary goal of license enforcement should be complying with the license. - Legal action should be taken sparingly. - Enforcement should not be a business model.

As he is publishing under an older version of the CC license and not the recent CC-4.0 license, he is apparently able to threaten with legal action and asking for high financial composition, without asking for a correction first (30 days period).

I am aware that I made a mistake and that I should have put the correct attribution. I am sorry for that. I took the image from a Wikipedia page and I should have clicked to the image page on Wikimedia to read the full requirements. Nevertheless, I want to warn other users for Thomas Wolf. After reading the Wikimedia page on Copyleft trolling, I therefore decided to write this post. I am clearly not the only victim of the scam by Thomas Wolf. Others have extensively reported on this copyleft trolling by Thomas Wolf: - [8]https://kanzleikompa.de/2020/09/21/amtsgericht-wuerzburg-creative-commons-abzocker-thomas-wolf-photomedia-handelt-sittenwidrig/ - [9]https://www.reddit.com/r/COPYRIGHT/comments/1cb2mmv/copyright_infringement_email_from_thomas_wolf/

I personally think that Wikipedia is being misused for marketing purposes of a commercial photographer and copyleft trolling. So I hope that this warning will prevent further victims. 2A02:A45A:7DF6:1:B48B:6D2B:D814:2FEC 18:06, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So you didn't attribute the photographer ? Did you try to pass his work as your own? And now you are accusing him of "copyleft trolling"? This seems more like you are trying to harass one of our contributors. Enhancing999 (talk) 09:10, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Policy for Portugal

(this discussion has started first on the unofficial Wikimedia Discord server, under #commons, in the #"Policy on FOP in Portugal" thread. feel free to contact me there!)

as the country where I am based from, I have read the copyright policy for Portugal many times over. however, it is lacks a lot of information on the specifics. the cited paper by Teresa Nobre gives a good starting point (may be directly adapted as CC0).^[1]

besides that, there are some copyright questions that I have regarding freedom of panorama in Portugal. the use and distribution of works under FoP in Portugal is allowed under two conditions:

the photographed object must be in a "public location", and
the photographed object must be "permanently located" in said location

please beware that I am in no way educated about copyright law, these are questions and doubts that I am raising for others to answer.

"Public place"

the definition of a "public location" is given by another paragraph of the text:

A public place is understood as a place to which access is offered, explicitly or
implicitly, for remuneration or without it, even if the right of admission is reserved.

according to Nobre, this includes any public outdoor space, such as streets and squares, as well as public indoor spaces.

to me, the deciding factor seems to be intentionality. an entity decides where access can be given for the people, and so excluding any private property, possibly even if it is outdoors and not otherwise located in a public space.

privately-owned spaces would still qualify under this definition if they grant access to the public, such as stores, malls, stadiums, transportation stations, airports, schools, universities, GLAMs, workspaces, etc.

my question is how does privacy laws apply to this, many of these places have a "no photographs" warnings up front. for Commons, would this interfere with the FoP policy?

"Permanently located"

under Nobre's interpretation, "permanently located" means that a work is intended to be located in a given place for an indefinite amount of time or until the end of its existence, regardless whether it really does remain there.

the law gives the example of architectural works, however, it includes any type of work 3D or 2D. some types of works are made to located indefinitely until they are just discarded, such as posters, billboards and building emergency plants. under the best case interpretation, these would be following the intentionality factor, fall under FoP, despite not actually remaining there forever.

I wish to better understand how to interpret these policies more rigorously. cheers.

References

↑ Nobre, Teresa (2016). Best Case Scenarios for Copyright: Freedom of Panorama in Portugal (PDF). Communia.

Juwan (talk) 13:58, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

pinging @DiogoBaptista and GualdimG: and feel free to ping others. Juwan (talk) 14:05, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As an expert on the matter, I ask DarwIn to analyse it. Thank you, ̴̴̴̴̴GualdimG (talk) 20:52, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@JnpoJuwan @GualdimG Hello, my 2 cents: My understanding is that the "no photographs" warnings in Portugal do not interfere with FoP at all, though you still should respect them, of course. They are a kind of general rule for these spaces, though you can get permission to photograph them occasionally - I've been in countless guided visits to museums and monuments where photos are generally not allowed, but were permitted in that specific occasion. As a rule of thumb, you should always ask the staff if you can photograph inside. As for outside photos, they are OK with FoP as long as you stay in the street or another public space. There are special provisions and many court cases related to photos of people in public spaces, but I couldn't find the same for buildings and artworks, at least in a quick search. In the same way, a Google search on "feitas para serem mantidas permanentemente em locais públicos" limited to results from Portugal has not returned a single court case, which makes me think this is not exactly a matter of contention here. As for the character of "permanent", I follow the interpretation that the given work is intended to finish is life there in said public space. This covers anything that is intended to be like that, as you said. It would not cover stuff like public advertisements that were intended to be reproduced in many different contexts, such as magazines, webpages or outdoors. Darwin ^Ahoy! 22:26, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

File:Origyn.svg

I had a logo from a website for a foundation how can I make sure it is not deleted what kind of things do I need to do ? Swanosten (talk) 17:39, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Swanosten: Hi, Please read the message on your talk page, and the linked pages. Yann (talk) 17:47, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Let's discuss this file

en:File:Sobeys logo.svg

The file is not on Commons under the belief that it may meet the threshold of originality under its source country. I'm no expert at Canadian law especially since I don't even live there, but I do not believe it meets the ToO in its source country under Template:TOO-Canada ("Unlike other common law countries, Canada's threshold of originality veers closer to that of the United States.") as it's just circles and text.

Should I move it here? AuroraANovaUma ^-^ (talk) 18:35, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I moved it here. There are more complex logos than that logo that are hosted here and come from the same country. AuroraANovaUma ^-^ (talk) 18:52, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Mascot imagery copyright query

Moved from COM:AN#Overwritten file

File:20180206 UM-NW Benny The Bull 7DM27126.jpg is a photo of the en:Chicago Bulls' mascot en:Benny the Bull. There are two versions of this file: the originally uploaded version showing Benny as part of a much larger scene and a cropped/enlarge version showing just Benny. Are both versions OK for Commons? Team mascots/character images seem, in some cases, to be eligible for copyright protection per COM:CB#Costumes and cosplay and COM:DW#If I take a picture of an object with my own camera, I hold the copyright to the picture. Can't I license it any way I choose? Why do I have to worry about other copyright holders?.

Would the mascot imagery be considered copyright protected in this case. Is it possible that the originally uploaded version could be considered COM:DM since it shows Benny as part of a larger crowd scene, but the cropped version would be a copyvio because it focuses too much on Benny? FWIW, there are also several other photos of Benny being used in the article (File:Benny the Bull 1a.jpg, File:20180206 UM-NW Benny The Bull 7DM27157.jpg and File:BennyBull.JPG); so, whatever's decided about the first two photos also most likely applies to the other three. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:20, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I suppose the issue is whether the character is under a copyright. It is quite possible that it is in the public domain due to lack of notice prior 1989. Yann (talk) 06:41, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The article about the mascot states it's most recent incarnation/version was introduced in 2004 and all of the photos referred to above were taken after that date except for one taken in 2003 (which might be an error). This wesbite shows a photo of various different versions of the mascot over the years, and they're quite different from each other. This Chicago Tribune article shows the mascot as it looked in 1974, and it's quite different from the current-day version. This The New York Times shows the mascot in 2003, and it's not as different but still different enough. Older versions of the character released prior to March 1, 1989, might be no longer eligible for copyright protection. It seems that the newer versions introduced after that date could be, and these photos might be affected by that. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:09, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ah yes, it is more difficult if each new version has a separate copyright. Yann (talk) 06:53, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I added {{Costume}} to the file just incase :) AuroraANovaUma ^-^ (talk) 14:13, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Does this map cross the threshold of originality?

File:Super Outbreak Map.jpg was created in 1974 by meteorologist Ted Fujita (1920-1998). It's been tagged PD USGov because it was sourced from a .gov website, but its creator is identified on the map itself.

As presented on the web (context, direct link), there's also no copyright notice on this pre-1978 file, but we don't know whether there was one on the original medium.

Does it meet the US threshold for originality anyway? Rlandmann (talk) 09:29, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The source color map is already on Commons: File:1974 Super Outbreak Fujita color map.jpg. Glrx (talk) 15:43, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I think this establishes {{PD-US-no notice}} for the original map/poster. -- Rlandmann (talk) 04:36, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Whether it does or doesn't, it was made by the NWS. Anything made by the NWS is in the public domain unless otherwise noted. AuroraANovaUma ^-^ (talk) 16:44, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@AuroraANovaUma: What makes you think it was made by the NWS? It looks like it was the work of Ted Fujita at the University of Chicago. -- Rlandmann (talk) 04:31, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

URAA cases

I note again deletion requests of images in PD in Europe because a supposed copyright in USA because of URAA, like Commons:Deletion requests/File:Torsten Jovinge Kvarteret Bergsund 1931.jpg. Do we have a category of such deletion requests/URAA cases? I would like to obtain some quantative data how often this is occurring. Thanks, Ellywa (talk) 11:17, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ellywa: Category:URAA-related deletion requests and children. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 13:17, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Jeff G.! Ellywa (talk) 15:14, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ellywa: You're welcome. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 15:42, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Album Cover Copyright Questions

Hey! So, I want to compile some articles here on some Contemporary Christian Music albums from the 80s/90s, using information from different magazines and such. However, I am encountering problems with the cover images for the Wikipedia pages. Every time I upload one, it says it is being taken down due to an incorrect Creative Commons label. Any help here would be greatly appreciated - which CC do album covers fall under? I got the image I want to upload from the media services online for it, from here: https://a5.mzstatic.com/us/r1000/0/Music4/v4/a0/be/0f/a0be0f13-af9b-2988-8991-e511068f3673/00017627108453.jpg.

Please let me know how to upload/format the CC so I can upload it without issue. Adrizacks98 (talk) 21:40, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Album art is almost always copyrighted and thus is not eligible to be uploaded here at Wikimedia Commons per COM:L. However some Wikipedias allow copyrighted images like album art in certain cases under "Fair Use" - the policy on English Wikipedia is at en:Wikipedia:Non-free content. Specifically it will usually be allowed if it's used to illustrate an article about the album in question, but if there isn't an article about the album, it probably isn't allowed; I don't see any albums by en:Steve Green (singer) which have articles, so this album art wouldn't be allowed. An example of an album with album art is en:At Folsom Prison, and you can see the album art's copyright/Free Use information at en:File:Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison.jpg#Summary. Consigned (talk) 22:13, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the prompt response! I appreciate the input.

I am trying to publish articles from that singer in particular, but for each article, I need to post an album cover. How can I upload it under Non-Free content? I plan to try and publish at least 2-3 articles this weekend if I can solve this copyright issue with the cover art. Other albums I checked had the same Non-free content so I would like to publish some as well. Adrizacks98 (talk) 22:33, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

NP, happy to help. The album art won't be allowed until the article exists, so first create the article, then upload the photo to Wikipedia (not here at Wikimedia Commons) and include it in the article. Though it's long I do recommend reading the Wikipedia non-free rules at en:WP: Non-free content since copyright is treated quite seriously, and those are Wikipedia-specific rules different than here on Commons (again non-free material simply isn't allowed here on Commons). When uploading the file, you can use a template like en:Template:Non-free use rationale album cover to include the non-free justification, which is used on the Johnny Cash file I linked above. Consigned (talk) 22:49, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PS I agree with Marchjuly below that first you should get the album articles published and stable before taking the time to upload the album art. Consigned (talk) 22:52, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Adrizacks98. English Wikipedia articles about albums aren't required to have an album cover image, and the presence or lack of any such image has nothing to to do with en:Wikipedia:Notability (music)#Recordings. So, if the album articles you say you're going to create are anything like en:Draft:Steve Green (album), it might be much better for you to focus on establishing the Wikipedia notablity of these albums first, and then worry about uploading album covers later. Non-free content can't be used in drafts per English Wikipedia's non-free content use policy; moreover, there's not much point in uploading non-free files that either have no valid use or are going to be used in articles that have a good chance of ending up being quickly tagged or nominated for deletion. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:50, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A correction to Consigned's remarks above: "copyrighted and thus is not eligible to be uploaded here at Wikimedia Commons" should read something like "copyrighted and would require that the holder of the copyright offer a free license in order to be eligible to be uploaded here at Wikimedia Commons" (along with the fact that no one but the copyright-holder can offer that license). - Jmabel ! talk 23:07, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Up until 1989 you were required to register the album cover for a copyright, separate from the music and small labels may not have gone through the expense, or they may have avoided copyright in the hopes of having the image reproduced as free advertising. You have to search the USCO database. --RAN (talk) 00:24, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- To have a properly registered copyright, yes. But as I understand it, you could get 28 years protection (with some caveats) from just notice without registration, and anything from 1964 or later turned out (with the new law) not to need to renew, so just notice without registration got them 95 years. - Jmabel ! talk 06:01, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Have you seen cases of record labels neglecting to post notices/register/renew copyrights on album covers? I would think that would be one of their top priorities. For convenience of other readers, the rules on US copyright notices/registration/renewal are at COM:HIRTLE. Consigned (talk) 11:46, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Big labels performed all needed paperwork, small labels may not have. --RAN (talk) 16:57, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You were not required to register a work -- you just needed to have a copyright notice on it, before 1989. Between 1978 and 1989, if you forgot a copyright notice, you could register it to possibly not lose the copyright. Works published before 1964 did need to be renewed 27/28 years after publication; while you did need to register to do that, you could send in your first registration along with the renewal. Carl Lindberg (talk) 12:21, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Consigned and Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): even labels as major as Columbia or Capitol were often remarkably careless about maintaining copyrights on album art. For example, they often ran U.S. ads that depicted an album jacket at reasonably high resolution (though usually in black and white) and failed to post a copyright notice. Tons of this to be found in the "underground papers" of the late 1960s and early 1970s. - Jmabel ! talk 18:52, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

* Yes! The lack of symbol was on purpose to maximize free distribution of the publicity images, the product that made the money was the music. I have been trying to figure out the year they started adding the copyright symbol to ads and publicity images, and adding to each category. It appears to have stared for some in the mid 1980s. I have been going through Billboard and eBay looking at the advertisements for both the band and ones with album covers. I think we decided that the low-res magazine image (devoid of copyright symbol) does not mean that the higher-res album cover (with copyright symbol) can be hosted by Commons. We can only host the version devoid of the symbol. It was a compromise on whether all versions are voided of copyright by having some copies devoid of the copyright symbol. The lack of symbol was on purpose to maximize distribution. --RAN (talk) 19:42, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Correct as to the effects of this, though not a matter of compromise here on Commons, simply of law. - Jmabel ! talk 20:35, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

File:陝西省鎮巴縣地名志書影.jpg File:鎮巴縣行政區劃沿革１.jpg File:鎮巴縣行政區劃沿革２.jpg This appears to be (Seemingly) OCLC 865692099. Issued by local government office in China? Potential Copyright Infringement? I believe the pages are from this book. Geographyinitiative (talk) 16:15, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Song lyrics/manuscript

Is File:Jesus is my Paradise.png OK as licensed for Commons or does it need to be treated as a COM:DW? en:Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, the writer of the lyrics, died in 2023 and the date the manuscript was created looks like August 2014. -- Marchjuly (talk) 18:54, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That is clearly a derivative work. Owning the physical manuscript of a creative work (like these lyrics) doesn't convey rights to that work. Omphalographer (talk) 01:43, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Flickr images uploaded by Orizin

Orizan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)

Orizan has uploaded quite a lot of old print advertisements (e.g. File:1957 Pillsbury Frosting (8267230877).png) and is citing Flickr as the source. It's possible that some of these are either OK to relicense as {{PD-US-not renewed}} or {{PD-US-no notice}}, but I don't think Flickr can be considered the original source in any way and most likely it's a case of unintentional COM:LL by the Flickr account holder. Orizan hasn't edited Commons since December 2021 and doesn't seem to be active on any other WMF project; so, I don't think they'll be around to try and help sort things out. Orizan has uploaded lots of files and perhaps not all of them are problematic, but they seem to have been just assuming anything uploaded to Flickr is automatically OK for Commons just because the Flickr account holder licensed it as such. Some files, like the aforementioned advertisements and File:Alcatraz Landing at Pier 33, San Francisco (29581678632).jpg, are either a case of COM:2D copying or COM:DW; so, it might take a bit of time and a few people to sort things out. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:25, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

May 2024 law review publication for European Union / evolving definition of public space

This recent publication, Shtefan (2024) on freedom of panorama in the European Union, has (I am told) useful case law relevant to the policy recommendations here.^[1] Best, RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 07:59, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@RobbieIanMorrison some Spanish court ruling mentioned in the paper may affect COM:FOP Spain, in particular, regarding the location of a work. To quote:

In a case in Spain, a dispute arose over the image of a house built on a rock. Part of this house can be seen from the public road, while the photo shows another part that faces the side of the abyss under the rock. The defendant argued that such a picture could have been taken from the sea or air, which are public places, and therefore the rule of freedom of panorama should be applied to this case. The local court of Madrid rejected these arguments and noted that the rock on which the house is built is not by a public road where pedestrians and vehicles can move. Although the building is located near a public road, capturing the image in question from the road would have been impossible. The sea and airspace do not fall under the concept of a public highway, although they are spaces belonging to the public.
— cited source: SAP M 11756/2014 – ECLI:ES:APM:2014:11756 (n 13)

_ JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 08:22, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]