Wikipedia:Media copyright questions

Media copyright questions
Welcome to the Media Copyright Questions page, a place for help with image copyrights, tagging, non-free content, and related questions. For all other questions please see Wikipedia:Questions. How to add a copyright tag to an existing image On the description page of the image (the one whose name starts File:), click Edit this page. From the page Wikipedia:File copyright tags, choose the appropriate tag: For work you created yourself, use one of the ones listed under the heading "For image creators". For a work downloaded from the internet, please understand that the vast majority of images from the internet are not appropriate for use on Wikipedia. Exceptions include images from flickr that have an acceptable license, images that are in the public domain because of their age or because they were created by the United States federal government, or images used under a claim of fair use. If you do not know what you are doing, please post a link to the image here and ask BEFORE uploading it. For an image created by someone else who has licensed their image under an acceptable Creative Commons or other free license, or has released their image into the public domain, this permission must be documented. Please see Requesting copyright permission for more information. Type the name of the tag (e.g.; {{Cc-by-4.0}}), not forgetting {{ before and }} after, in the edit box on the image's description page. Remove any existing tag complaining that the image has no tag (for example, {{untagged}}) Hit Publish changes. If you still have questions, go on to "How to ask a question" below. How to ask a question To ask a new question hit the "Click here to start a new discussion" link below. Please sign your question by typing ~~~~ at the end. Check this page for updates, or request to be notified on your talk page. Don't include your email address, for your own privacy. We will respond here and cannot respond by email. Note for those replying to posted questions If a question clearly does not belong on this page, reply to it using the template {{mcq-wrong}} and, if possible, leave a note on the poster's talk page. For copyright issues relevant to Commons where questions arising cannot be answered locally, questions may be directed to Commons:Commons:Village pump/Copyright.
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Official Portraits

Can portraits from official government websites be considered free, do they fall under fair use, or can they not be used at all? If the rules depend on the government, I'm specifically asking about the image here of the current Slovak PM. Thanks, Ezhao02 (talk) 02:25, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi Ezhao02. Copyright laws vary from country to country so it's hard to give you one specific answer that will cover every situation for every country. For the US, content created by employees of the US Government as part of their official duties is generally considered to be within the public domain as explained in WP:PD#US government works; however, this might not be same for a country like Slovenia as explained in c:COM:Slovenia. Official photos of US public officials (or even officials from other countries) taken by US Government employees are going to be within the public domain almost every time; an official portrait, however, painted by someone else might not be depending upon the arrangement between the painter and the US Government. The image you link to above is a photo (not a portrait) and it might be PD given what's written in c:COM:Slovenia#Not protected, but not sure. Perhaps others will have a more definite opinion or you can also try asking at c:COM:VPC.

If such photos are not PD, then they would fall under the US concept of fair use but they would still almost certainly not be able to meet Wikipedia's non-free content use policy (see [[:WP:NFC#Background]) because of non-free content use criterion #1 (WP:FREER); so, you couldn't upload them to Wikipedia as non-free content. Non-free images of still living people are pretty much never considered OK for Wikipedia, particularly when they going to be used primary identification purposes, and I don't see any way around that with this type of image. The best you can probably hope for is that the Slovenian PM get photographed at some event and that the person who takes the photo releases it under a free license or its a photo taken in country (like the US) where official government photos are almost always PD. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:45, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I think you meant Slovakia, not Slovenia. Thank you for your help, though. I'll look through those. Ezhao02 (talk) 02:51, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

​ So, sorry about that. Accordoing to c:COM:Slovakia there is c:Template:PD-SlovakGov, but there's no mention of photographs in that template. If you look at the bottom of the website you linked to which shows the photo, you will see a copyright notice, which might be an indication that all the content hosted by the website is considered "owned" by the Slovakian Government. -- Marchjuly (talk) 03:06, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. Ezhao02 (talk) 03:11, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

File:Signing ceremony for the Axis Powers Tripartite Pact;.jpg

This has been on my watchlist for literally years. I can't really make head or tail of the PD claims (and it was previously claimed as non-free). Is this PD? If not, should it be deleted? Josh Milburn (talk) 09:09, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Given that the Tripartite Pact was not signed until 1940, the current license, {{PD-US}} cannot be valid because there is no way for the image to have been published prior to 1925. I'm reasonably sure that does not answers all of your questions.  ★  Bigr Tex 03:14, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

J Milburn, This photograph is probably part of the Heinrich Hoffman collection at National Archives, which is {{PD-US-alien property}} and considered PD in US, but not in Europe as Hoffman died less than 70 years ago. (t · c) buidhe 08:16, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

@BigrTex: Yes, thanks; I agree that the current tagging is hardly informative! @Buidhe: Thanks, that's very useful. So it would be OK for the English Wikipedia, but not Wikimedia Commons? Do you think you could update the image page on that basis, or are you not confident enough about the attribution? Josh Milburn (talk) 09:42, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

J Milburn, I already did. (t · c) buidhe 09:43, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Apologies, was just coming back to thank you. We can consider this closed! Josh Milburn (talk) 09:44, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Proposed bot to help with copyright issues with Commons issues that are not PD-US

See discussion at Wikipedia:Bot requests. (t · c) buidhe 08:12, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

www.piqsels.com

I uploaded an image from www.piqsels.com but it was deleted. License was: Free for personal & commercial use, CC0, public domain, royalty free. but there is no creation date or author? Is there a problem with this site? אלטר (talk) 17:55, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

I find no evidence of such an upload by your account here at en-wiki. Can you provide additional information?  ★  Bigr Tex 02:41, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

A poster of "fugitives"

I would like to use this image [1] to illustrate this section: Gaza–Israel clashes (November 2018)#Photos_of_the_"fugitives". My question is if I'm permitted to do so under the fair use doctrine? The copyright holder is either Hamas or the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades and the montage is clearly meant to be disseminated. The image is a one-of-a-kind and there is no non-free image it could be replaced with. ImTheIP (talk) 01:49, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

The question will be whether it meets WP:NFCCP#8, "Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the article topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding." It's not clear to me that including the image provides context beyond what the sourced text in the section already provides. However, it has recently been pointed out to me repeatedly that significantly is subjective.  ★  Bigr Tex 03:58, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Albert Pike Memorial

After being on this article for several years, a bot removed File:Albert Pike statue protest.png citing "No valid non-free use rationale for this page." There's a rationale on the file and it passed a GA review so I'm confused. APK whisper in my ear 17:39, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

There is no separate rational for the use on the Memorial page, which is required under WP:NFCCE. --Masem (t) 17:41, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

To add, you can write a separate rationale for this use on that page, you just need to duplicate the current rataionale template and adjust it a bit to reflect why you're using it at the monument page (which there is tied to the controversiers around the the statue , as documented there). --Masem (t) 17:44, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

I just realized it was a redirect issue. Thanks. APK whisper in my ear 17:52, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

​​ I'm not sure it was a redirect issue since Brigadier General Albert Pike redirects to Albert Pike and not Albert Pike Memorial. The reason the bot was removing the file is because there was no rationale provided for the article about the memorial as Masem pointed out since the one you provided was techinically redirecting to a different article. You probably just added the wrong article name to the |article= when you uploaded the file; not a big mistake and one that you seemed to have fixed, but that's why the bot removed it. Nobody probably noticed the error until now (the use of images doesn't even seem to have been discussed in the GA review). FWIW, I think the bot has been set up to detect redirects and it wouldn't have removed the file if the article parameter link was redirecting to the article where the file was being used, but you'll have to ask JJMC89 about this since he runs the bot. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:21, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

@Marchjuly: Brigadier General Albert Pike was the name of the article for nine years until it was moved to Statue of Albert Pike, then moved again for further clarity to Albert Pike Memorial. So it was definitely a redirect issue, I just made the mistake of not fixing the redirect on the image page. Oops. APK whisper in my ear 15:15, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

That would be it. The file checker bots should follow the redirects and not complain on that but when there are weird page moves and redirects aren't left appropriately, the bot can't work those out itself and will cause that to happen. --Masem (t) 15:18, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

@AgnosticPreachersKid: That explains everything. I didn't catch that there were multiple moves involved. This kind of thing often happens when articles with non-free images are moved/merged/split. Often the last thing that people think to check is whether the rationale needs to be tweaked as well. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:36, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Too Much and Never Enough

I uploaded the book cover of Too Much and Never Enough under the claim of fair use at File:Too_Much_and_Never_Enough.jpg. The file is now orphaned because another editor uploaded the file to Commons at File:Too_Much_and_Never_Enough_Front_Cover_(2020_first_edition).jpg, claiming that it is ineligible for copyright. The book cover consists of a public domain photo, File:Donald_Trump_NYMA.jpg, and words. My question is, is this book cover actually exempt from copyright, or should I restore the fair use version? – Muboshgu (talk) 18:57, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Vampire Diaries Photos

I see you removed the cast photos from The Vampire Diaries Universe page. I can understand them being removed, but I pulled these photos directly from the individual shows' pages where they have been for years without removal. So shouldn't they be removed from there too?--Jonathan Joseph (talk) 18:09, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi Jonathanjoseph81. It's not clear exactly which files or which articles you asking about since you didn't provide any links, but generally it could be a case of WP:OTHERIMAGE and WP:NOBODYCOMPLAINED. The use of non-free file in articles isn't automatic and there are ten criteria which need to be satisfied each time such a file is used; so, it's possible that a non-free file might be considered OK to use in one particular article or in one particular way, but not OK in other articles or in other ways. For example, a non-free image of a record album might be considered OK to use for primary identification purposes in the main infobox or atthe top of a stand-alone article about the album itself, but it might not be considered OK to be used in other related articles, e.g. an article about the band who recorded the album, a general article about a music genre, a list article about similar albums.

Not all files you see on Wikipedia are licensed the same, and there are lots of restrictions on non-free use that most editors aren't aware of; so, they just assume it's OK to add a file the see being used on one page to other pages. Sometimes it can take awhile for such a thing to be noticed by someone and the file removed; this might seem confusing, but usually there's a good reason for it. Perhaps if you check the page history of the relevant articles, you'll find an edit summary explaining why the files were removed. If the file was removed by a bot or someone experienced in file related matters, there should be an edit summary explaining why the file was removed. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:40, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

FARC

Why is the Farc logo removed from FARC Dissidents? it claims to be the same organisation, and uses the same insignia. Norschweden (talk) 19:17, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi Norschweden. Each use of a non-free file is required to have a separate specific non-free use rationale per WP:NFCC#10c; so, if a non-free file is being used in more that one article or being used more than once in the same article, then a rationale specific to these additional uses needs to be added to the file's page. Files lacking the required rationale for a particular use can be removed per WP:NFCCE; this is why the bot is removing the file and what the edit summary it left here means. Simply continuing to re-add the file to an article without providing a valid rationale for its use is going to only lead to the file continuing to be removed by the bot or human editor. It's OK if you weren't aware of this since non-free use can be tricky; if, however, you keep re-adding the file to the article without providing the required rationale each time it's removed, you run risk of being blocked by an administrator. You can stop the bot from removing the file by adding a rationale for the use in FARC dissidents to the file's page; adding a rationale, however, doesn't automatically make a particular use policy compliant as explained in WP:JUSTONE, which means that a human editor could challenge the validity of the use by tagging the file for review or starting a discussion about it at WP:FFD.

For future reference, when a bot removes a file it almost always because that's what the bot is being set up to do. Bots are set up to look for files that have issues and they almost always leave an edit summary explaining why they are doing something; so, if you come across a bot edit and are not sure about it, it's better to ask someone (e.g the bot operator, a WP:PNB) for clarification or address the reason why the bot did what it did. If you simply revert the bot, it will do the same thing on its next run since the same issues remain. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:27, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

thanks, but then annother question, why is it not free? it's the logo of a terrorist organisation Norschweden (talk) 03:01, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

What one person considers to be a terrorist organization another person might see as a bunch of freedom fighters, but I'm not sure any of that matters when it comes to copyright law per se since copyright laws can and often due vary from country to country quite a bit. Copyright laws seem to focus more on things like how long ago something was created and how creative its elements are as opposed to what something is being used to represent; there may be moral rights or other types of non-copyright restrictions in play, but those are things that are often treated independently of copyright status. This is only my understanding of things and it might not be totally correct; so, perhaps someone else will be able to clarify things.

Anyway, from the article FARC, it appears that the organization (at least the primary part of it) has switched over (or is attempting to switchover) to being more of a political organization. Even so, if you feel the file should be freely licensed, you can change the licensing if you want; before you do so, however, you might want to ask at c:COM:VPC since Commons is where the file is most likely going end up needing to be moved if it is. As currently licensed though, the file is going to keep being removed from any articles for which it is lacking a valid non-free use rationale. -- Marchjuly (talk) 03:30, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Acceptable image size for non-free image

Please help me with a query about acceptable non-free image size. This page does not tell me the answer: [[2]]

I contributed this image: [[3]] to provide a photo of a deceased notable person.

Initially, through ignorance, I put up the full quality file. A warning message

This non-free media file should be replaced with a reduced version to comply with Wikipedia's non-free content policy and United States copyright law. A manual reduction has been requested. According to Wikipedia's policy for non-free content, the amount of copyrighted work used under fair use should be as little as possible. In particular, non-free media on Wikipedia should not be usable as substitutes for the original work. A high-resolution non-free image is questionable fair use and may be deleted per Wikipedia's copyright policy.

The size of an image may be reduced manually in an image editing program or by saving and re-uploading a suitably sized thumbnail.

Once a reduced version of this file has been uploaded: Please replace this template with {{subst:orfurrev}} (through source edit) or {{Orphaned non-free revisions|date=16 November 2024}} (through VisualEditor or Twinkle).

appeared explaining that I should use a smaller resolution.

So I uploaded a very small reduced file only 400x372 pixels. But now the Non-free reduce warning has appeared again and I don't know how to fix it?

I can find nowhere where it says what the actual size should be for this purpose - a photo of a deceased person in the infobox. I based the 400 width on the largest thumbnail. There is no explanation in WP:IMAGERES of what actual size I should use or what size the resizing bot uses, and I have not seen any sign of the bot working despite waiting several days. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cotswold Tiger (talk • contribs)

As IMAGERES points out, we're looking at the total pixel count in an image, and because image have a wide variety of aspect ratios, we can't tell you want that means in width or height. We want to keep images generally under 100,000 total pixels, so a 400x372 pixel images would be over that (148,800). You will need to reduce the width to about 325 pixels (height will come up to be about 302 pixels) to get under that. --Masem (t) 21:21, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks Masem for the explanation, I have reduced the image to 325x302 and hope the image will now be accepted.

Peyo and the URAA

But there is no record for GATT/URAA restoration, who anyone discuss about copyright of the Belgian cartoonist Peyo and the Smurfs? --ZmeytheDragon16 (talk) 03:55, 19 July 2020 (UTC)