User talk:Jimbo Wales

If Google can do it, why can't we?

Per this statement:

Can Google determine copyright ownership?

No. Google isn’t able to mediate rights ownership disputes. When we receive a complete and valid takedown notice, we remove the content as the law requires. When we receive a valid counter notification we forward it to the person who requested the removal. If there is still a dispute it’s up to the parties involved to resolve the issue in court.

WP has some qualified and unqualified but well-meaning volunteers who are making determinations as to what is or isn't a copyvio, and at times are removing legitimate images as copyvios or not fair use because they don't fully understand either, and that doesn't even scratch the surface for the many varieties of copyright/fair use laws in different countries. WP is an educational source which already protects us in many ways under fair use, so why are we not taking advantage of that in our project wikis like en.WP, de.WP, fr.WP, etc.? I can understand the repercussions that apply to Commons uploads but some of what is happening on en.WP is concerning. Why not make the uploader responsible, or is that already the case? Atsme 💬 📧 21:04, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Google is a search engine and by design and intent, its human curation is minimal. It links to web search query relevant websites with little regard to reliability or unreported copyright violations. If you go searching for unreliable garbage, Google will serve it up to you, within reason. Wikipedia has an explicit goal to create freely licensed text summarizing reliable sources, without copyright violations, curated by intelligent human beings, and made freely available to humanity in every significant human language. Both ventures are important and worthy, but their underlying principles are different. Attempting to apply Google's policies to Wikipedia just won't fly. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:25, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Cullen. I get your point, but I'll just add that, technically, Google is a tad more involved than just being a search engine: Google LLC is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, a search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware. OTH, the WMF, is an NPO (charitable foundation) that consists of several WikiProjects, sister projects, and of course Commons, "a media repository of free-use images, sounds, other media, and JSON files". I think it's safe to classify en.WP as an educational resource of sorts, and as such, it opens all kinds of doors to fair use. Of course, copyright laws and all other legal decisions remain with WMF attorneys, not WP contributors, few of whom are copyright experts. It's always better for us to err on the side of caution - I get that - however, I am somewhat concerned that, far too often, some editors tend to disproportionately give more value to the interests of for-profit businesses over the educational/historic value of fair use inclusion where applicable & very much needed, such as a biography or BLP that has no images. I admittedly get a little frustrated when creating or editing articles of historic/educational significance when they lack coverage, which is customary for notable women throughout history. When I get lucky and find the perfect image for an article, upload it as fair use, and then discover a half-hour later that it was deleted per CSD, despite it being legal fair use, it can be an incentive killer. WP bureaucracy, policy and rules are typically the culprit, and IAR only works when there's consensus. It makes no sense to me for us to have criteria in WP:NFCCP policy that contradicts the very reason we opt for fair use in the first place.

WP's mission statement reads “to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally”. I get all the legal aspects and the why nots...but are we inadvertently empowering or engaging for-profit businesses to develop free or PD licensing if we are disportionately respecting the "original market role of the original copyrighted material", and not properly utilizing fair use? As a former professional in that industry, I was supportive of the protections but I have a much different perspective today that aligns more closely with education and history. I'm of the mind that some editors are simply working too hard at diluting our fair use options when the opposite should be true. Jimmy's an idea man, and I trust his judgment, so hopefully he can contribute some ideas to this discussion. Atsme 💬 📧 19:47, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

I think we get the balance right. Fair use is important, and we both should and do rely on it in relevant cases. A canonical example would be the Pulitzer Prize winning photo we show in Elián González.

But encouraging more use of fair use opens the door to a lot of nonsense, and closes the door to a strong incentive for people to create freely licensed content.

I strongly support Wikipedia:NFCCP.

But this is the sort of discussion that might be more informative all around if we were discussing specific examples.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:25, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree and hopefully will have something to share by tomorrow - stay tuned. Atsme 💬 📧 01:45, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

With respect to the non-free content policy providing a "strong incentive for people to create freely licensed content", File:Olympia Dukakis still at Pride Parade, from film Olympia by Harry Marvomichalis.jpg is a good example. It was originally uploaded as non-free content but the copyright holder agreed to release it under a free license when its use as non-free content to was challenged. See this FFD entry for the discussion. -- Whpq (talk) 13:59, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

• Jimmy, the above image works fine to demonstrate part of what raises my concerns, but there are many situations that are similar and some not so similar but with the same results. To begin, based on my experiences, the aforementioned image identified under Ticket#2021041810000446 would have been fine as a fair use image, would it not? WMF was protected legally; however, by not accepting it under a fair use license, an Otrs (now Vrt) volunteer obtained permission from the (possible) owner of the copyright under circumstances they did not/could not properly verify, and that is what concerns me because of potential liability resulting from licensing an image under a free license without actually verifying that the license came from the actual copyright holder. It affects all volunteers, because we do not have the ability, much less the legal knowledge to pursue a proper license under a substantial number of situations. We cannot provide positive identification in various situations that the emails actually came from the copyright owners - we simply AGF. Our forms are not Adobe sign E-signatures. In the first example, the email address did not originate from a person's or authorized agent's identifiable email address, rather it came from a wide-ranging info@[whatever url.com] address, so anybody (including those without authority within the business or organization) could have sent us the free use form. Does that put the WMF in a precarious situation, and/or the volunteer who accepted the email and tagged the image with a free license that possibly should have remained "fair use"? That is one of the concerns that I would like to get cleared-up, if possible, and I hope it's not an issue but if that is the case, then I point to my original question in this thread.

  Another situation involves potential misunderstandings by good faith volunteers relative to wire services, and the fact that wire services don't automatically own copyrights of material they distribute when acting as a PR wire service. See the following sequence of events that created a substantial time sink - and I am not saying any of it was acted out in bad faith. In fact, I believe the opposite is true. One of the involved editors Whpq provided the first example above, another is an admin Fastily who did everything exactly as they should have and is an admin whose judgment I respect and trust, and two other contributors, Clindberg and Marchjuly who I would collaborate with in a heartbeat, despite my concerns of disproportionate respect for wire services et al (based on the policy you support, Jimmy) vs fair use that contributes to the stated mission of the project. I am not here to complain rather I just want your input for guidance, so please do not misunderstand my intentions. I truly do appreciate the diligence and reserve of the aforementioned thoughtful editors, but we need a more efficient system. Following is a chronological sequence of events to demonstrate the time sink for all of us:

1. Original question after a file was tagged for CSD.
2. Challenge and discussion
3. Commons Village Pump discussion

It's all relative to the following:

1. Stanford
2. Cornell

Complex copyright laws that most volunteers do not fully understand (and are not expected to because we're not lawyers), including editors who are far less experienced in such situations or perhaps lack professional familiarity with relative copyright processes, are typically at the root of the issues. I do not claim infallibility because one law in particular that causes confusion is this one 1926-1977 that resulted in the Commons license PD-US-defective notice tag, not to mention all the variables that it entails. Not unlike other editors, I take my work seriously, and when an image I've uploaded under fair use is deleted within 20 minutes of the upload I am motivated to question it from both an en.WP and Commons perspective. I'm of the mind something needs to change to make the process more efficient in light of what I have presented above. I have also seen situations that have cost the project historic images, or useful images in general - it happens all the time. It is always better to err on the side of caution, but I'd rather not see hair-trigger deletions of historic images resulting from over-compensation or disproportionate protection under the misinterpretation that wire services own the copyrights to everything they distribute. But again, that's just one of several issues that I believe can be made to be far more efficient, but because of the potential liability to WMF, it may (or may not) be something for legal to consider. Atsme 💬 📧 18:36, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Since I was pinged in the above post, I guess it's OK to comment. I don't think I've ever actually posted anything here on this user talk page. It is a bit intimidating to be honest, but here I go anyway. The terms "fair use" and "non-free content" are used interchangeably on Wikipedia by many editors and even in some templates/notifications related to non-free content use created by the community, but they're not really the same thing when it comes to non-free file use on Wikipedia as explained here and here. I think it’s important to keep this in mind when discussing this kind of thing. So, while Astme might have uploaded a file in accordance with fair use, the disagreement was over whether the file was uploaded in accordance relevant Wikipedia policy. I don’t have firsthand knowledge as to why Wikipedia's policy was set up to be more restrictive than fair use (there are probably discussions buried in the WT:NFCC archives), but it was. So, relevant Wikipedia policy requires more than fair use, and a non-free file needs to meet all ten of the criteria listed here for it to be considered OK to use. When an editor has concerns over whether these criteria are being met, they may tag, prod or even nominate the file for deletion/discussion. An administrator review almost always takes place before any file is deleted and any deletion of a file can be challenged after the fact per WP:CLOSECHALLENGE. That is my understanding of how things are supposed to work.

So, Atsme uploaded a file as non-free content and added it to an article. Another editor (Whpq) came across the file and found what he believed was an issue and tagged the file for speedy deletion, and administrator (Fastily) reviewed the tag, felt that it was appropriate, and then deleted the file. The speed by which the file was deleted might seem to be too fast, but I've seen other pages and articles deleted just as fast if not even faster after they've been tagged for speedy deletion by someone. I've also seen pages speedily deleted by administrators without any tagging, warning or notification. Anyway, the file was deleted and Atsme posted a query on Whpq's user talk page about it that began with Are you auto tagging?. There were probably lots of other ways to to ask about the file than one which might be seen as an accusation of WP:MEATBOT, but Whpq explained why he tagged the file, and I commented on what I thought the issues were.

The file was restored by Fastily, who started a discussion about it at FFD (the link to that discussion is provided above by Atsme) where further discussion takes place. At this stage the file was still licensed as non-free content which meant that the discussion was about whether the file met all ten criteria. A couple more editors participated in the discussion and you can read what they wrote yourself. That discussion was closed after Atsme, based on some new things she learned about the file, uploaded the file to Commons as "PD-ineligible-no notice" and requested that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The only problem I have with any part of that FFD discussion is this Based on some of the delete arguments, I am now wondering if other legitimate images have been deleted based on the same or similar reasons - and I must say that it is not a good sign when we're trying to build an encyclopedia. Collaboration/inclusion is key to building whereas resistance/deletion for no valid reason is quite the opposite. comment made by Atsme in one of her later posts in the discussion which like the Are you auto tagging? comment above seems to imply that others were automatically wrong just for disagreeing with her assessment. It's not only that they were wrong this time, but possibly on prior occasions as well. There have been lots of FFD discussions over the years; many ended up with a consensus to delete or remove, and many ended up with a consensus to keep or relicense. Atsme is more than welcome to dig through the FFD archives looking for files which she believes were incorrectly deleted due to "wrong" WP:!VOTEs being made. She can then seek to have the files restored based upon CLOSECHALLENGE.

The FFD discussion was ended when Atsme decided that the file was actually PD and uploaded it to Commons. I didn't agree with that assessment; so, I started a discussion about it on Commons. I didn't nominate the file for deletion, but rather started a discussion about it. Another editor responded to my query and expressed similar concerns. Atsme's first post in that discussion included the sentence I already explained in detail at the FfD that those images are PD. The links you provided are capitalizing on PD photos. The email correspondence I received from newspapers.com in response to my query to them about their copyright clearly states, and I quote (my bold text): "Our Newspaper.com Basic subscription only covers non-copyrighted content on the site." I don't understand why you followed me here to Commons to beat a dead horse. which once again seems to automatically assume that she was right and those disagreeing with her were wrong. Another editor (who is a Commons administrator, a Wikipedia administrator, and a VRT volunteer) subsequently posted his concerns about whether the file is really PD; so, it's not like just one person was expressing concerns about the file's licensing. The rest of the discussion is there for anyone to see (the link is provided above by Atsme) . Eventually, things were resolved when Atsme was further able to clarify the provenance of the file. She apparently was working on tracking down the real source of the photo while all of the aforementioned discussions were taking place. It probably would've been helpful at the time to know she was making such efforts and most likely everyone disagreeing with her would've been happy to wait until the VRT team could resolve the matter.

In my opinion, I don't think the process failed. A file was uploaded, concerns were raised, discussion ensued, and things were eventually resolved. There was a lot of disagreement along the way, but things ended up being resolved. I imagine that the same thing happens quite a lot in all type of WP:XFD discussions. Is Wikipedia's non-free content use policy too restrictive? I don't think so, but there are plenty of editors who feel strongly that it is. So, maybe the time has come to have another discussion about such a thing at WT:NFCC. If the policy as a whole is OK in principle, but rather some of the individual ten criteria need some reassessing or even possible need to be dropped altogether, then that's fine too. Once again, though that seems to be a discussion better suited for at WT:NFCC than on any one editor's user talk page. A consensus can change over time, but it should be changed the right way.

FWIW, I personally think things would be much easier if the WMF and its copyright experts stepped in and took over non-free content assessment on Wikipedia. There are almost 900,000 files currently uploaded locally to Wikipedia and my guess is that the vast majority of these are non-free. That's with the current non-free content use policy having been in effect all of these years. So, if the consensus turns out to make this policy less restrictive (which is fine if that's what the community wants), then I think it would be reasonable to expect that the number of non-free files uploaded will explode in a relatively short period of time. However, unless someone is going to start trying to track down US copyright lawyers who are also Wikipedia editors and convince them to start participating in FFD discussions and assessing non-free content use, it's going to be left to discussions involving volunteer editors. If part of the problem is, as Atsme posts above, that these volunteer editors include those editors who are far less experienced in such situations or perhaps lack professional familiarity with relative copyright processes, are typically at the root of the issues., then maybe only "copyright experts" should be allowed to participate in such discussions. Moreover, maybe if all non-free files were be vetted by a group of "copyright experts" before they're allowed to be used, then there would be problems to try and sort out later on. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:22, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

I posted quite a bit of wall of text above and my apologies for that. If people don't want to wade through it all, then I completely understand. I think it's important, however, to figure out what (if anything) is wrong with current Wikipedia policy and then perhaps what to do about it. The best place to do that would be at WT:NFCC, but I think the relevant question that needs to be answered before anything else is tacked is "What should Wikipedia policy on the use of copyrighted content be, total fair use or limited fair use?". If the community as a whole is unable to agree upon that, then trying to figure everything else out seems pointless. The current policy seems to reflect a "limited fair use" approach and although that might've have worked fairly well up to now, maybe it's time to reassess and figure out if its the best thing moving forward. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:10, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree with a lot of what Marchjuly said, except for the bit about WMF getting involved, which I think won't happen for lots of reasons. Atsme, lots of people get upset when files they upload get deleted or nearly deleted, particularly if the file required a lot of effort to get and appears to get deleted after a few mouse clicks. But I think it important to see the process too from the POV of those admins and volunteers who review images for deletion and an awful lot of images are deleted for good reason. Most people have not the first clue about copyright but upload stuff anyway. I think your argument for just trusting the uploader would be less instantly dismissible if your example wasn't one where your upload under the non-free criteria was so quite obviously wrong. In one sense you are right, the uploader is legally responsible for what they upload, and the community isn't legally responsible. But the community believes that our free content mission requires community review of content to ensure to our best ability that it is freely reusable. It isn't perfect but then neither are we all professional writers and that doesn't seem to stop us trying.

You ask if Google can do it then why can't we? But a Google approach would require Wikipedia to say "Wikipedia is not free content. You can't just freely reuse it. Most of the content here was likely just copy-pasted off some other part of the internet, and its owners haven't got round to sending us a Take Down notice. Our volunteers are deluded and clueless. They think they are creating a free resource. But a lot of it isn't. We don't know which bits. We haven't even looked. Honestly, if you are looking for a picture to use, go to a stock photo agency. Photos cost pennies these days, so why risk it?". -- Colin°^Talk 07:53, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

I happen to be one of those volunteers as a member of VRT (previously referred to as OTRS agents), so you're preaching to the choir, and I would very much appreciate it if your responses would be less condescending, intentional or otherwise. I've long since learned that flat-out calling someone wrong has contributed to a dwindling crow population. I believe Commons should more strictly adhere to copyright law and reject fair use as we're doing now but en.WP should be less strict and more open to accepting fair use images for our articles. I am very much up to speed on licensing and what copyright entails, not only because of my work on WP, but because of my RL professional/first-hand experiences. I initially posted to Jimmy's TP for his input, although I also appreciate input from others who are knowledgeable about copyright and fair use as I work to gather information/thoughts/ideas for a potential WP:VRT presentation during Wikimania. Jimmy requested examples of cases which I provided with respect and consideration for the editors I mentioned (and courteously pinged them), and I would appreciate the same consideration in return. My current focus is on the degree of risk and liability on behalf of volunteers and WMF relative to their extent of involvement in determining what is or isn't copyright infringement or fair use in instances where we actually have no means of verifying that a person/entity actually does own the copyright. I tend to liken the depth of involvement in making such a determination to be on parallel with the risks involved when a homeowner hangs a "Beware of dog" sign on their yard fence, and their dog bites the meter reader. IOW, WP editors/WMF are assuming responsibility when making such determinations, all with good intentions in an effort to protect the copyright holder (thus, the dog owner taking the extra step to hang a sign to protect innocent people from being bitten by their dog). By taking on such a responsibility, are we admitting that there may be a copyright issue? Does that open the door to liability if we tag an image under a free use license only to later discover that the license submitted was an incorrect license and not free use after all? What happens then? Who takes responsibility for having accepted the free license? I'm of the mind that a fair use license provides a bit more protection for volunteers & WMF, especially in dubious or questionable situations wherein we cannot verify the person who submitted the license as being the copyright holder. Perhaps Commons should adopt an e-sign process to replace the OTRS release generator? On en.WP, our first consideration should be on improving articles and providing our readers with the kind of information they need to better understand what is presented - and pictures speak a thousand words - but the current process sometimes fails us when a CSD nom made unwittingly by a volunteer results in the deletion of a fair use image. That doesn't even count the back and forth discussions after a file is deleted and what transpires afterward, or the time sink it creates for volunteers. Efficiency, accuracy and making good judgement are important to building an encyclopedia, and that is pretty much the crux of my concerns. Atsme 💬 📧 19:47, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Atsme, your opening post: "WP has some qualified and unqualified but well-meaning volunteers who are making determinations as to what is or isn't a copyvio, and at times are removing legitimate images as copyvios or not fair use because they don't fully understand either" (my bold). I would suggest heeding some of your own advice about "flat-out calling someone wrong". The other editors at those discussions seem to understand both fair use law and Wikipedia's non-free content policy. Uploading an image that didn't meet policy suggests you didn't understand the latter, are unhappy about what you learned, and now would like it changed. I'm not sure what alternative explanation there might be except that perhaps you fully understood our non-free image policy but uploaded an image you knew would be deleted in order to make a point. You don't seem to be arguing the policy is unclear or that your image was an edge case. Your post here is to change that policy and, apparently, be more like Google. The others in the linked discussions managed to avoid personal attacks, whereas your approach both then and now is to claim you alone are right, extremely knowledgable, and yet surrounded by idiots who just don't understand.

Your rational for changing policy -- "some editors tend to disproportionately give more value to the interests of for-profit businesses over the educational/historic value of fair use inclusion where applicable & very much needed, such as a biography or BLP that has no images." -- isn't particularly original. When it comes down to "very much needed", I'll side with the press photographer who takes photos for a living and has to pay their mortgage and feed their kids, over "My Wikipedia biography article has no lead image".

But I very very much hear your condescending "I was talking to Jimmy, actually" message, so, you know, unwatching. -- Colin°^Talk

(edit conflict) I'm not sure I get what you mean by but the current process sometimes fails us when a CSD nom made unwittingly by a volunteer results in the deletion of a fair use image.. Obviously, it's in reference to the initial tagging of the file by Whpq and again implies that he did something wrong even though you don't you don't flatly come out and say he did. What should he have done differently? Should he have done nothing at all? He tagged the file for speedy deletion because he thought it didn't meet WP:NFCC#2 of Wikipedia's non-free content use policy and thus was eligible for speedy deletion per WP:F7; he didn't tag the file for being in violation of fair use. You originally uploaded the file with this non-free use rationale which gives its source as "Associated Press International"; that's the information Whpq was working on when he assessed the file. For the sake of argument, let assume that Whpq did make some error and tagged a file for speedy deletion that shouldn't have been tagged; maybe he was just "auto tagging" files without giving them any thought to them like you seem to suggest in your original post on his user talk. OK, so now there's still just a incorrectly tagged file awaiting administrator review and nothing has been deleted yet. Fastily who is an administrator and also is a VRT volunteer reviews the tag and deletes the file. He then posts this on Whpq's user talk page stating that he felt the tagging and deletion of the file were correct, which it my book means that Whpq did nothing wrong. You posted an admin Fastily who did everything exactly as they should have and is an admin whose judgment I respect and trust above which seems to mean that Fastily should've deleted the file. Is that correct?

Fastily did subsequently restore the file so that further discussion about it could take place on FFD where it was better to do so. So, the discussion moved to FFD and continued to discuss the non-free use of the file. Fastily started the discussion and didn't !vote. I, Whpq and you pretty much restated what we posted on Whpq's user talk page, two new editors showed up mainly to discuss the possibility of the file being within the public domain (they didn't really !vote either way on what should be done with the file). It's possible that some more editors would've commented on the file if the discussion had remained opened, but you uploaded the file to Commons as PD and then requested that local non-free file be deleted. I'm assuming that's where you think the discussion should've stopped, but I didn't agree with your assessment that the file was PD; so, I asked about it at COM:VPC.

Some other editor's commented at Commons that they also had concerns as to whether the file was PD for the reasons you were claiming; one of them is a Commons administrator, a Wikipedia administrator and also a VRT volunteer. More discussion ensued, but that pretty much stopped as soon as you posted that you had clarified the original source of the file. Nobody was criticizing you throughout any of this, they were disagreeing with you over first your claim that the file met the WP:NFCCP and then your claim that the file was PD; moreover, once you clarified the original source of the file, everyone pretty much backed off and thanked you for your efforts.

Near the end of the Commons discussion, you posted Over the past week, I have been in correspondence with an executive and his assistant at Santa Anita Park, and just today received copies of the original photographs that were taken by the track's staff photographer at the time. I'm not sure what over the past week exactly means, but you made the comment June 19 (per my time zone). When did you start discussing things with the race track? Was it part of your research of the file before you uploaded it as non-free content? You newspapers.com about the photo so maybe you also contacted the track at roughly the same time. Did you try and contact them after the file was deleted the first time? Whpq tagged the file for speedy deletion on June 17 (again per my time zone) and the ensuing discussions about it took place over the next two days. Were you discussing things with the track while all of this was taking place? Why didn't you let any of the others involved know you were in contact with the track? Perhaps, if you did that, then the time sink you're unhappy about might've been mitigated. It wasn't only myself and Whpq who were disagreeing with you, but also others including administrators and VRT volunteers; so, at some point, if Whpq and myself were completely wrong and wasting everyone's time, then one of those others would've or should've said so.

Anyway, moving forward, it's not clear how we should proceed. If you feel actual changes to the policy are necessary, then you can propose them at WT:NFCC. If you want complete "fair use", then propose so; if you want a lesser degree of "limited fair use", then propose that. If you feel that non-free content review and assessment should be left to VRT volunteers and administrators and perhaps those who have RL experience in the matter like you do, then you can propose that as well. I'm not sure how often frequent FFD, but if you feel you can help make things better there by making sure nobody !votes incorrectly, then please do so. There are always lots of files being discussed and not lots of editors discussing them. If we all mucked things up this time around, then perhaps through your efforts something similar can be avoided in the future. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:42, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Please re-read my opening statement. BTW, I pinged you as courtesy which I felt obligated to do, not as an invitation. My concern continues to be focused on the process and stringent criteria that, from my perspective, conflicts with the purpose of fair use. My concerns were not specifically about any editor(s) who participated in any of the discussions. The accusations that it was anything more are what I consider aspersions and PAs. My statements support my position and represent a pragmatic and wide-ranging view relative to both scope and time frame, and covers at least a decade of experiences with fair use deletions. If you and Colin are of the mind that every FfD and CsD over the past decade are 100% the result of flawless judgment calls by qualified editors who understand copyright law, then I recommend reading this article, and while there, keyword search "hegemony of the asshole consensus" and read it. CSD actions disappear quickly so it's difficult to gather supporting evidence to make a fact-based determination. Not every admin responds as thoughtfully and commendable as Fastily did when he reverted his action, and respected my challenge by opening a case at FfD. Also keep in mind that not every editor challenges a CSD, perhaps because they don't feel qualified enough in copyright law to do so (not intended to be an insult). I certainly understand why Jimmy believes the balance is right - we can't prove a negative - which may explain why he requested specific examples.

Whpq provided what he believed to be a good example, and so did I, but because my example included your comments, opposed your POV, and unexpectedly turned out that I was correct about UPI not being the copyright owner, my argument has been misrepresented as a flawed example starting with Colin's comment followed by the aspersions and attempts to discredit me. I would much rather think of successfully challenged deletion cases as lessons learned which lead the way to a better understanding of potential flaws in a process. Now that you've brought editor behavior to the forefront, let's analyze your behavior, Marchjuly, starting with the FfD discussion and how, after I ended my participation there, you followed me over to Commons and started a discussion at Village Pump about that same image. It seemed more like WP:DIDNTHEARTHAT behavior or worse, a bit like wikihounding because it didn't stop at FfD or Village Pump. You also followed me over to the BLP which arguably left an ambiguous impression as to your motives because articles about female jockeys don't appear to be of special interest to you based on your long list of contributions. I'm sure you have valid reasons for that pattern of behavior. I chose to AGF, and I'm certainly not saying that you have not done good work on the article because you have, and for a while, I was actually enjoying the collaboration until I read your most recent comments about me here. I appears to be a passive-aggressive approach which is supported by your walls of text, aspersions, recent interrogation of me, and scolding instructions as to what I should say, how I should say it, and how I should present my case, as if you are Captain Thought Police and that I need schooling, all of which was based on yours and Colin's misinterpretations and misrepresentations of my intent. It's that kind of behavior that serves to reinforce my concerns about our fair use criteria and how that criteria is being enforced. I think the behavior deserves a higher level of scrutiny. I've decided to take the high road and end my participation here rather than subject myself to what is beginning to feel like bullying and abusive behavior which is clearly noncompliant with WMF's Code of Conduct. Atsme 💬 📧 14:45, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Disagreeing with you does not violate the Code of Conduct. Marchjuly clearly and civilly explained the basis of his disagreement with you (and, frankly, he and Colin have a point in that your initial comments don't seem to demonstrate an understanding of the difference between fair use and WP:NFCC). Your treatment of Marchjuly, and your invocation of the Code of Conduct to threaten him, is deeply inappropriate.

You frequently cite Rob Fernandez's article, usually to imply that people who disagree with you are part of an "asshole consensus", but I'd invite you to read it more carefully. One of his central points is that Wikipedians win disputes by raising the cost of disagreeing with them, rather than by having better arguments or understandings of policy. This is exactly what you've done to Marchjuly. The next time he sees you upload a file with a dubious or incorrect rationale, he'll probably think twice before tagging it—not because you've suddenly developed a better understanding of WP:NFCC, but because you've demonstrated how viciously you'll go after him if he crosses you. Fernandez's point is that this dynamic is unhealthy but also dominant on Wikipedia. MastCell ^Talk 16:52, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Classic tu quoque, MastCell, and yet again you misinterpreted my comment. It’s quite obvious that you are prejudiced against me. What you’ve been doing is wikihounding. Your accusations are, to use your terminology, "deeply inappropriate" and unbecoming for an administrator. The pattern you’ve established dates back a few years now, and I've asked you in the past to stop your relentless attempts to disparage me. That diff demonstrates your patterned behavior and how far back it goes. Lo and behold, here you are again with your one and only edit in this entire discussion on Jimmy's TP where you showed up to purposely disparage me. Marchjuly and I don't need your interference; we have worked through our differences because there's mutual respect between us. Atsme 💬 📧 19:07, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

@Atsme: My disagreement with you over this file, first on English Wikipedia and then on Commons, was nothing personal. I don't think it amounts to bullying or stalking, but it's not my place to tell you how to feel. So, I'll step away from that now, but you can decide to take further action if you want.

My edits to Tuesdee Testa were also what I believe to be have been good faith attempts to improve the article. Since this is where the file was being used, I looked at the article. I don't really know anything about the subject herself or women jockeys in general (I know a bit more now), but thought there were still some ways that I could try and improve the article. Same goes for my comments at Talk:Tuesdee Testa. Just for reference to anyone else reading this, another editor (who is a Commons and Wikipedia admin as well as a VRT volunteer) who also disagreed with you on Commons is also participating in those article talk page discussions. I'd like to think that if my edits or behavior in either case were a problem that he would've let me know. Again, if you feel my edits to the article were unconstructive or disruptive, then you can revert them if you want or improve upon them as you deem necessary. If you think my talk page posts were unhelpful, feel free to ignore them or even collapse them per WP:TPG#Off-topic posts. I will be stepping away from that as well. FWIW, I do have a copy of a source that was sent to me per WP:RX#1969 The New Yorker article that might have value for the article. I'm not sure whether you can access the source yourself. If you can't and want to see it, then I'm sure the person who sent it to me would probably be happy to send it to you too.

My edits here on this user talk page might've been a bit defensive, perhaps because I felt a bit under attack. I know an editor doesn't need to be pinged to participate in a discussion, but this page is (to be honest) not really just any other talk page. I was pinged though which I thought meant that it would be OK to post my take on things. If that was a mistake, then my apologies to all involved, particularly the editor whose user talk this is. I don't think I posted anything uncivil and I tried to support my comments with quotes or links whenever I thought it was necessary to do so, but again if you or anyone else feels I crossed some line and posted something inappropriate, then you or they are free to seek my sanction. I'm not trying to play the victim here, but everyday brings new learning moments and I will treat all of this as such. I won't be posting any more here except to answer direct questions if someone has any, but would prefer they be made on my user talk. — Marchjuly (talk) 20:39, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@Atsme, I mean maybe people are disagreeing with you cos you're wrong? Something to consider when a lot of people disagree with you? If editors are "removing legitimate images as copyvios or not fair use" I'm fine with that. I'd rather err on the side of caution. OK? We just disagree. You know -- better X allowable images be deleted than one be wrongly allowed. I don't know what X is but it's not zero. (Full disclosure: I only skimmed the material above, but I get what's going on.)

You know, we shouldn't really have fair use pictures at all, because a tip-top priority is to be reusable, and a person copying a picture without the accompanying discussion -- she's turning a fair-use image into an illegal one, and probably doesn't even know. (Full disclosure: I personally don't care a tinker's dam about downstream users and I'm not alone, and I frequently ignore rules. But this is a rule that I feel must be followed even tho I don't agree with it. So should all. It's core. If this is where you're coming from -- you don't care that much about downstream users, and that is coloring your approach, that's fine and only human, but: be like me.)

Anyway, we do allow fair use. I'm glad, it's a fair compromise because it makes the Wikipedia a lot more fun to look at and more informative too. But it is a compromise of a core value. I wouldn't push it.

So if there's an image, and four people are saying it's OK to use, and three are saying it isn't, that enough for me (assuming reasonably cogent arguments): out it goes, for my part. Disputed? Out it goes. There's no way to know for stone sure -- "a law is guess about what a judge will do". Better safe than sorry. (Yes I get that we won't really be sorry in real life, but I also won't be sorry if a slip a pack of smokes off the counter into my pocket when no one's looking... but I still don't do it. There's more to all this than what we can get away with. Don't forget, we're huge, that means we have to be especially careful.)

And good grief do I run across a fair amount of copyvio for text (I don't much deal with pictures). People paste in whole long paragraphs, and man you can't do that. It's annoying to have to boil down 15 sentences into two for a subject which I don't know or care about. It's energy wasted. So my wish is that editors would be stricter about fair use. At least for that. Probably pictures too.

I mean, I get it though. I get the emotion. Gads I'm so gosh-darn frustrated right now because I just wrote Loyal slaves monument and I can't find a free picture, which would greatly enhance the layout and be a little bit informative, and there's even one that's free to use but not by commercial entities. But the text description is sufficient, there's no discussion of the layout of the bas-reliefs and so forth, and no need to shoehorn that in -- it shows a reaper and a mammy stereotype, it doesn't matter their exact poses etc. And, you know, my articles are my babies, I want them to be as snuggly and user-friendy as possible. So I get it! I know how people feel about this stuff! But the Wikipedia doesn't care about our feelings nor should (in this case).

We've lost good editors because they just can't accept this. User:SchuminWeb, another guy I forget his name, and surely more. It's a shame. We don't want to lose any more. Herostratus (talk) 21:02, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Marchjuly - perhaps you missed the following in my opening statement (my bold underline for emphasis): Another situation involves potential misunderstandings by good faith volunteers relative to wire services, and the fact that wire services don't automatically own copyrights of material they distribute when acting as a PR wire service. See the following sequence of events that created a substantial time sink - and I am not saying any of it was acted out in bad faith. In fact, I believe the opposite is true. One of the involved editors Whpq provided the first example above, another is an admin Fastily who did everything exactly as they should have and is an admin whose judgment I respect and trust, and two other contributors, Clindberg and Marchjuly who I would collaborate with in a heartbeat, despite my concerns of disproportionate respect for wire services et al (based on the policy you support, Jimmy) vs fair use that contributes to the stated mission of the project. I am not here to complain rather I just want your input for guidance, so please do not misunderstand my intentions. I truly do appreciate the diligence and reserve of the aforementioned thoughtful editors, but we need a more efficient system. I have also complimented your work on the article, and strongly believe that my quoted statement expresses my sentiments about you and everyone else who was involved. It wasn't until the wrongful accusations about me started appearing in this thread that I became defensive. I don't want to rehash it because it was hurtful - bygones now - and I happily accept your olive branch and will throw in a big air hug. Misunderstandings happen, but I want you to know that I sincerely meant everything I said in the aforementioned quote. 🤗 Atsme 💬 📧 10:59, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

I've read through the associated discussions but basically at the end of the day, the issue is that there's no such thing as there exists for other types of copyrighted works (such as recorded music) to easily track down an image's origins. Thus, the onus on this is on the image uploader to do their best to try to validate it as much as possible to make sure if the work is free or non-free. If one of the volunteers that reviews images seems something that looks clearly wrong (eg: the use of what appeared to be a press image (which later turned out to be initially published in what is now PD) being used against NFCC#2), they're going to follow policy. In this case, it took work to correct, but that's the work that should have been done before uploading knowing that the image appeared to be a NFCC#2 failure. But in more general cases, I myself often turn to Flickr to look for free images and even after finding something marked CC-BY or CC-BY-SA, I still have to ask myself, "does this uploader appear to have the rights to have published that image as CC?" and avoid the flickr washing issue, and that usually requires a minimal amount more research. Maybe this onus isn't stated in policy but in practice this is how it is handled - it is up to the uploadered to make sure they justify the image has the correct licensing (which includes researching origins as necessary) and meets NFC, if its non-free. Maybe in the future, Google or some other site will have an engine that you can plug in a image and it will spit out the original source, the original copyright owner, and its current copyright status, but that's well beyond Google's own capabilities right now. --Masem (t) 23:35, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

OTRS image decision appeal

I know, you don't overrule things any more. But in the spirit of WP:IAR, I need to try. I'm writing an article about an actress (also game inventor, TV producer, singer, author ... yeah, she's impressive ... but actress is the important part here). I wrote her and asked if she would release some photos under a free use license. She did, she sent in half a dozen head shots with a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike release. (They're gorgeous. For example:

). Head shots are images that actors use to apply for jobs, they mail them in to shows to get auditions, owning the right to reproduce them in the hundreds or more is the whole point. If she had put them up on her website with a statement that she owns the rights to them and releases them under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike, we would be accepting that without batting an eye. But I said she could also email them with that statement to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org, per the OTRS form. OTRS says they accept her identity, but won't accept her word, she needs to produce the contract for the images. The images are 30 years old. The photo studios she had them taken have closed. Who of us keeps paperwork for a relatively minor purchase for 30 years? If she had put the statement up on her website, we'd have accepted it; but because she emailed it, we won't? Can we ignore some unreasonable rules to clearly benefit the Encyclopedia here? --GRuban (talk) 22:21, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, obviously I won't intervene directly as that would be unwise for a number of reasons. But I'd love to hear more. In particular, rather than recriminations or blame, I'm interested in how we might improve the situation. Perhaps those involved in the OTRS process might explain how decisions like this are made and we can all reflect together on whether that's the right thing to be doing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:03, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

It's theoretically possible that the photographer still owns the copyright on these photos. People often think that they own the copyright on their wedding photos only to find that they don't.[1] Although it might seem excessive to ask for documents for photos that are thirty years old, OTRS has tried to get it right.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:41, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

But how about the notion that if she had posted the photo on the website with a caption saying it's licensed CC BY-SA, it wouldn't be questioned at all? Is that true? There are two separate policy questions here: (1) what degree of proof should we require? - a valid question about which there will be multiple plausible contenders and (2) are we reasonably consistent across different paths of uploading? For now, I'm more interested in that second one.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:21, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Jimmy, do you see what I was trying to relay to you earlier? Everybody has a their own version of what does or doesn't make it acceptable, and there is no verifiable way for us to prove otherwise. OTRS/VRT agents/members are not WMF copyright lawyers. You might want to reconsider Google's approach and possibly use the e-sig method I suggested earlier, which places the responsibility on the uploader. The e-sig process requires some form of valid identification so that further substantiates that the signature comes from the actual person or authorized personnel if representing a company. It's a relatively inexpensive Adobe .pdf/e-Signature form that realtors and banks use. Atsme 💬 📧 16:28, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I think this misses the point of what we are concerned about though. The safety of the WMF, given the way section 230 works, is not really a massive issue. It's already absolutely the case that everyone is responsible for their own uploads. We also care, though, about re-users - the content is not just meant to be safe *on this website* but part of a repository of human knowledge that is free (freely licensed) for everyone. I have no doubt that an e-sig process is a good idea - my point is that the comparison to Google isn't very compelling.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:52, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

If one posts it on their website, they are taking the responsibility, and not asking us to post it on our website. In that case, we can more readily assume, their public act of asserting the rights is known to the world including any other person who could putatively claim rights. Also, in that case everyone in the world can go to that website and take the photo, so republishing it here is almost of no additional consequence. Without that public act, when they privately ask us to post it on our website, we in our care ask them to demonstrate they have the rights, and 'it's a picture of me' does not do that, whereas 'it's a picture by me' or 'it's a picture I have contracted the rights for' does. We can then tell the world, when we publish, they say, it's a picture by them, or its a picture they say they fully own, and they are licensing to you world. (Now, somewhere in the process before or after, doubts may arise, as for example, 'how can you say it's yours when it's published elsewhere with credit or apparent ownership to another') Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:53, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't find this argument very persuasive. People post things on their website all the time and it might or might not mean anything. People upload stuff to flickr and claim it is CC licensed and it might or might not be. That seems very different from someone writing to us from an official address and making a specific claim in writing. I don't see how we should be lax in the first case and strict in the second case really.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:52, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Your argument is quite meritless. It's not a matter of being lax, it's a matter of seeing what actually exists. When there is already a free publication of the picture, we literally see the rights are already given away. (then too, in seeing a contract, we literally see the rights are already given away.) Moreover, your 'lax' assumption is invalid, we can still question and make objections to the prior publication. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:50, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

But she did say 'it's a picture I have contracted the rights for'. --GRuban (talk) 12:39, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

GRuban, There is saying and there is saying, a very concrete way to say it is, 'here is the contract.' Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:27, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

It is not reasonable to expect people to have a copy of a contract like that. They typically won't. And a physical paper contract is not required *at all* to be a legally binding agreement.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:52, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

But the point is that we accept "saying" on people's websites without demanding they post the contract. It's not reasonable that now that the "saying" is by email the contract is required. --GRuban (talk) 14:31, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

This is what I do find compelling. It makes no sense to me that if someone says it in email, we pretend they might be lying and demand a contract, but if they post it on a website, we automatically assume it true.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:52, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

So what? Yes, we accede to their very public act, because it is so public as notice to the world. But when they choose to make us determine in private, then we ask for the contract they say exists, to know notice has been given to the other party. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:47, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

That strikes me as completely invalid. Since the information they tell us in email is added to the image page here, that's an extremely public notification - generally more public than anyone's private website would have been.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:52, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Since this contradiction is felt to be compelling, I wonder if we could have some examples demonstrating that it is actually true and routine. Does OTRS typically accept a CC BY-SA or personal copyright declaration underneath a studio photo on an actor's personal website? Or indeed, professionally taken photos on anyone's personal website or blog? It strikes me as a little gullible. -- Colin°^Talk 17:06, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

More than that, it depends on the OTRS person taking the ticket! Here, read this:

Hi, I'm a Commons and WP:en admin who responded to a protected edit request at en:Talk:Brianna Wu to use these images, which the subject apparently released with the express purpose of use in Wikipedia, therefore I'm aware of the problem. From my point of view, the assertion by the pictured person that she releases the images as CC-BY (and, we assume, has obtained the rights to them or the photographer agrees) should be enough. My understanding of our usual practice including at OTRS is that with PR photos or headshots submitted by the depicted persons, we tend to take it as a given that the depicted people have obtained the rights to them. It's not as though we could realistically verify the existence or contents of the agreement between them and the photographer (and that person's identity) in any case. I don't think that there's any particular need to deviate from this practice here and let the subject jump through additional bureaucratic hoops. Would you reconsider your deletion of these images? Thanks, Sandstein (talk) 10:42, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Hi! Sure will. First of all, I didn't tag the files. I just deleted 1 week after the tag has been placed without any reaction by the uploader. The files have been in the pile of media missing essential information. We don't have time to check and search the web for each and every file. Yes, some generally valid fall through the cracks. The problem is that uploaders just make too many mistakes and don't follow up. You probably know. :-) Another problem was that the uploader only gave the url to the original photographer, therefore the file has been tagged by another user (a sysop as well) as no permission. I found the file on her website. I'll restore and change the source. That should take care of it. Will leave msg on enwiki as well. Thanks for letting me know about the discussion on enwiki. --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 17:08, 28 May 2015 (UTC)"

If the OTRS responder was Hedwig, it would have passed fine. It wasn't. --GRuban (talk) 17:55, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Whoever that is is just making it up, poorly. It is not at all customary to assume that the person in the headshot owns it. Indeed, as a matter of the customary trade the statement is preposterous. Professional photographers customarily retain the copyright, it is part of being a professional. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:27, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

User:Sandstein is still, as he wrote then, an administrator on EN Wikipedia and quite respected - since 2005. He wrote there he was at the time also an administrator on Commons, and I have no reason to doubt him. User:Hedwig in Washington is still an administrator on Wikimedia Commons - since 2006. I don't think insulting either of them is called for. --GRuban (talk) 18:56, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

No one was insulted. They are just plainly wrong. And no length of being an administrator is any vouch-safe of being right. Indeed, the idea that someone would argue that -so in so is an administrator so they are right -- just makes no sense. As I said, it does not matter who they are, they are still wrong. So, there is no reason for you to go into who they are. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:18, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

The experience and reputation of those offering their opinions is not a guarantee of being right, but is still rather important. As to the first point, you may not feel insulted by being told you were "making it up, poorly", but let me assure you, most people would. At the very least, you should say they were making it up well! --GRuban (talk) 20:14, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

It's not at all important who they are, either they know a simple custom of the photography trade or they do not. It is making it up poorly, to claim the professional head shot photographer does not retain the copyright. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:25, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

What you describe is plainly invalid, worse, it is unethical. In what you describe, there is no public notice to anyone before free, possibly faulty licensed publication to the world. Our publication cannot be the same as the notice, you've stripped the putative rights holder of all chance of notice before giving their rights away to the world. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:23, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

No, actually, OTRS is specifically saying, since you emailed us, we will no longer accept a note on your website, don't bother to make one. --GRuban (talk) 16:26, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

This appears to be a photograph, executed by a professional photographer in a Canadian studio. Initially, the copyright is owned by the photographer or the studio. An assignment of copyright appears to be possible in Canadian copyright law (see here). But then there should exist a contract for this. Otherwise, we would normally assume that the photographed subject received an ordinary license to use it which does not imply the freedom to sublicense these photographs under a Creative Commons license. The inherent problem we face here is the risk for possible users who re-use such photos as they trust the free licenses at Wikimedia Commons. --AFBorchert (talk) 08:11, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

The same issue has also been raised at the Commons OTRS board and answered. --AFBorchert (talk) 10:56, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

The strict standard of proof would be a contract, as the photographer usually retains the copyright unless stated otherwise in writing. This is similar to someone uploading an image to Flickr and claiming that it has a CC license, which sometimes it doesn't; this is known as Flickrwashing. The admins on Commons usually accept that an image on Flickr is CC as long as it does not produce multiple hits on Tineye etc.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 12:18, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Which is exactly what is being asked for here. Here is her Instagram, with a (slightly blurrier) copy of this photo since 2019. But OTRS says they need a contract; and now that she sent it in email, just putting a CC-BY-SA license on her Instagram will no longer suffice, though originally it would have. --GRuban (talk) 12:57, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Free licenses on other sites are not always taken at face value, see c:COM:LL and c:COM:PRS. We maintain blacklists for various sites like, for example, this one for Flickr. --AFBorchert (talk) 15:29, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Sure - I've nominated plenty of false licensed images for deletion myself - but they are accepted in general for reasonable cases, which this is one of. Note no one is saying otherwise, no one is saying "if you had put this up on your site we'd be demanding a contract". They're just saying "since you emailed it, now we are demanding a contract". --GRuban (talk) 16:23, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I am not a copyright lawyer, but my understanding is that when there is a work for hire the default state is the person hiring gets the copyright. I do understand that many photographers have a contract that allows them to retain ownership, but in the absence of a contract I don't think they would. I could be wrong. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 12:34, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

The photographer is generally considered to be the first owner of copyright unless stated otherwise. Since Naruto was found to have taken the famous monkey selfie photos, they were ruled ineligible for copyright under US law.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 12:43, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Work for Hire for studio photography is unusual, and generally discouraged.[2][3] Look at all these famous people -- yet all of the photos are (c) Rankin Photography Ltd. A professional would have a contract, but even assuming there wasn't one, it default would be that the photographer has the necessary rights. GRuban, there are lots of "rights" one could have, including a right to make copies and distribute them. If I buy a DVD, I have the "rights" to play it at home and I can sell it second hand on eBay. I have no more right to offer Star Wars with CC BY-SA than Laura McKinlay has for their studio photos. I am sympathetic to the problems that copyright duration is long and often simply a hindrance to reuse rather than something actively being monetised. But this is not Commons OTRS team's fault. Have you tried asking if they have more recent photos? -- Colin°^Talk 13:37, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

But she didn't buy a DVD for the purpose of personal use, she bought a head shot with the explicit purpose of copying and redistributing it to as many people as she needed. A better parallel would be George Lucas being unable to offer Star Wars unless he included a copy of every contract with every cameraman! I'm not saying the Commons OTRS team is evil, I'm just saying they're wrong. Since we would have accepted her claim for this on her web site if she hadn't mailed it in, we should accept her claim now that she has. --GRuban (talk) 14:12, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Analogies wrt copyright don't always work because it isn't rational. I'm just saying that having "rights" is too vague. See this: "You must own or control copyright in the work. Only the copyright holder or someone with express permission from the copyright holder can apply a CC license or CC0 to a copyrighted work." It is a specific right, and it isn't necessary or even desirable for a photographer to transfer that right just so someone can make copies. For example, the CC BY-SA licence I attached to my photo of the Royal Albert Hall allows anyone to make as many copies as they like and distribute them to as many people as they want. But I still own copyright in that work. -- Colin°^Talk 15:11, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this up, GRuban. See the section directly above this one User talk:Jimbo Wales#If Google can do it, why can't we? wherein I presented a case about fair use uploads on en.WP relative to situations not too unlike yours. See my comment, as it addresses the logical fallacy of verification. While we encourage images to be uploaded to Commons, OTRS has much stricter, legal considerations relative to copyright infringement because the licenses they approve are free licenses, whereas en.WP can approve a fair use license (educational, historical) that is restricted, and basically protects intellectual property and arguably, the market value of the image, the latter of which is the only real reason for copyrighting. It's all about the money. I just attempted to get Jimmy to review our Fair Use criteria on en.WP because images that pass the fair use criteria get deleted from time to time (more likely by mistake). My suggestion to you is that if you cannot find any comparable free images, reduce the size of the image you have to around 200kb and try uploading it directly to en.WP using the fair use license option. If anything changes relative to OTRS (VRT members) acceptance of images, I proposed a e-Signature type of form by the uploaders which can be written in a way that places the liability directly on the person who signed the form. Atsme 💬 📧 15:32, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Atsme She is a living person. Fair use won't work. Non-free content should not be used when a freely licensed file that serves the same purpose can reasonably be expected to be uploaded, as is the case for almost all portraits of living people. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 15:41, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

ONUnicorn, they're historic images to show who she was 35+/- years ago, so living or not, it would not apply in this instance. Regardless, the images will probably qualify as PD anyway because there is no valid copyright license on the work. The dates the images were taken probably satisfies "published" if she distributed them to an agent or magazine, whatever, for public distribution: The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public display, constitutes publication. Atsme 💬 📧 16:14, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

GRuban, you are legally responsible for your uploads. While few of us take legal advice before uploading, I would strongly recommend ignoring advice that suggests you use a mythical "fair use license option". Fair use is something publications fall back on in the absence of any licence or instead of acquiring one; it isn't a kind of licence. Wikipedia's policy Wikipedia:Non-free content is considerably stricter than US law. -- Colin°^Talk 15:55, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

There is nothing mythical about historic "fair use" so please stop spreading misinformation. Atsme 💬 📧 16:30, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I quoted your "fair use licence option", which is very much a mythical and entirely imaginary concept, not 'historic "fair use"', whatever that is. -- Colin°^Talk 16:40, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

There is nothing in my comment that refers to "fair use" being mythical which appears to be your opinion. Following are some links to helpful information that you may find useful: very informative, Digital history, see subsection Historical photographs and this link. Atsme 💬 📧 10:36, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Every working actor (and many people who wish to be working actors) have studio photographers take "headshots". As someone said earlier it is a case of "work for hire". The photographer takes the picture for a one-time fee and the actor owns the copyright. These pictures are used by casting directors and agents. Even in today's digital world the 8 x 10 headshot still exists. Pack My Box (talk) 15:39, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

There's also the following in copyright law: Under copyright laws that were in effect before 1978, a work that was published without copyright notice fell into the public domain.[1] If the work did not include the word “Copyright” or a © (a “c” in a circle) and the name of the copyright owner, the work would enter the public domain. This rule was repealed; copyright notice is not required for works first published after March 1, 1989 (although works first published prior to that date must still include notice). It would apply to all of her images that were published prior to March 1, 1989. And that would include this headshot, as well as all the others. First have her check the back of the photographs to see if there is a © symbol or proper notification stamped on them. She can submit a photo image of the backs of those originals under the same ticket number. If was I was handling the case, I would apply the PD tag on them because based on first appearances, they are actually public domain if they've been published. If they are unpublished, then her CC-BY-SA 4.0 license would apply. Atsme 💬 📧 15:49, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

That's for the US, she's Canadian. --GRuban (talk) 16:23, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

As an OTRS/VRT member, I'm trying to help you here because you have helped me so many times in the past, but if you've already made up your mind that because she's Canadian I can't help you, then fine. I'll move along. Atsme 💬 📧 17:06, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Quite, let me rephrase with apologies. It's not that you can't help because she's Canadian, it's that the copyright law you're citing is US law, so won't apply to a Canadian copyright. Thank you for your support. --GRuban (talk) 18:35, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

No headshot does not mean work for hire. When it is work for hire. There is a contract that says it is work for hire. Show the contract. Handing photos to people to use in their hiring is not publishing the photo. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:58, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

You are right. I just talked to some industry friends and they tell me I'm totally wrong. It's not a "work for hire" situation. Photographer generally retains copyright but the client has the the right to use the images for personal publicity. That covers the normal use of headshots. Pack My Box (talk) 18:16, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

If we accept the idea that the person who pushes the button on the camera is the initial owner, there are many ways that that can transfer without having a written contract. For example if, while on vacation, I ask a stranger to to take a picture of me with my camera, it's clear to both that I own the picture. Whether you want to consider that to be an implicit verbal contract or whatever. IMO demanding a copy of a written contract to prove ownership is taking it too far. North8000 (talk) 16:08, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

It's not in the least too far, to expect contracts from professionals, who are in the business of promoting themselves. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:19, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Some real world examples are a semi-professional musician who has a photo which was taken by their spouse or a semi-professional band who had a friend snap a picture of them. In each case there would seldom be a written contract.North8000 (talk) 16:30, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

North8000, that's not a straightforward situation, but is a commonly asked question. See [4][5][6][7], and many others. But this isn't the friendly tourist case; it's a professional studio photograph. -- Colin°^Talk 16:40, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Alan, are you honestly saying you have all the contracts from every purchase you made in the course of your business 30 years ago? --GRuban (talk) 16:36, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

GRuban, your frustration with the unfairness of this is quite understandable. But it is what it is. -- Colin°^Talk 16:40, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Certainly, every one where I claim rights arising from it. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:34, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I understand that it being taken by a pro probably calls for some extra scrutiny, but the fact that it was 30 years ago certainly calls for some slack in the other direction. That said, do you have a copy of the contract so that you can use your grade school picture of yourself, taken by a professional photographer? :-) North8000 (talk) 20:43, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Why would I promote myself with a eighth grade picture? Moreover, it's not not in the least difficult for me to take a picture of myself, right now. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:52, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Copyright law lasts 70 years after the death of the photographer. So 30 years after the photo was taken? pah! Blame Disney. That contract wouldn't have allowed you to post it on Wikipedia anyway. I don't know about your school photographer but here they do not get paid by parents just for the pleasure of taking the photo -- that bit is free. They only get paid when you buy prints. And if you want more prints, you pay more. So why on earth would their contract give you the rights to make your own prints? -- Colin°^Talk 08:00, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

@GRuban: I haven't read the whole thread, only the part that mentions me. As far as I can remember, the uploader/user/photographer(?) had difficulties with our requirements on how to write what where. I helped a lot of customers by fixing sources, licenses, and whatnots. Lots of whatnots. Still do. Happily. For more details, an OTRS volunteer has to take a look if there is some info in the system. I do make mistakes, espacially in the beginning as an admin. At +160k edits, I'm still not 100% error free. If someone thinks that my decision was wrong, a deletion request needs to be started. Cheers --Hedwig in Washington ^(TALK) 02:27, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

No complaints about you, Hedwig! You did the right thing then, I only hope the right thing happens again now. Kohlrabi Pickle's note below terrifies me. --GRuban (talk) 02:36, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Pre-2012 Canadian copyright law for photos

Folks, the inimitable Atsme may have saved the day here. She found this https://capic.org/copyright-laws/ which says that until 2012, in Canada, by default, unless a contract says otherwise, the purchaser of a photograph taken on commission owned the copyright to the photograph. Not the photographer! As there were 1980-1990 photos, they should thoroughly qualify. I'm going to repeat this to our OTRS contact and see whether he accepts it. Thank you all. (Backed up in these places also: http://www.open-shelf.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Copyright-in-Photographs.pdf https://www.dpreview.com/articles/0451558518/canadian-photographers-own-copyright). Atsme, if this works, I owe you big time. Jimbo, my apologies for hijacking your page, that was not my intent, but it certainly got there. I still think we need to accept subjects' word in email if we would accept it on their web page, but for me at least that will be an argument for another day. --GRuban (talk) 00:06, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Not a problem, the "hijacking". I'm glad this particular issue was resolved, and I'm glad to have hosted (and I hope it continues a bit longer) a conversation about the broader question of inconsistency between different modes of testimony to us.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:01, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

This has always been my understanding. Though I was not aware of the 2012 change, good to know. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 00:09, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

If this is the case, then it is certainly useful for Canadian bios. However it is important to recognise that this is not the case in other countries and other time periods. If copyright was something folks could work out rationally and with sensible arguments, we wouldn't be in the situation where "pre 2012 Canada" was some exception, or "pre 1989 USA if there's no (c) statement", etc, etc, was the only way to use some works. For that reason, I think we should remember that the admins on Commons who deal with this have a jolly hard job and cut them some slack. It must be a little tiring for them when folk turn up and assume they can work out copyright law from first principles of basic common sense. -- Colin°^Talk 08:00, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

I am accustomed to dealing with these issues on a daily basis, and focus primarily on permissions tickets in English speaking countries so this was a relatively easy one. It was my pleasure to help. In an effort to benefit submitters and VRT members alike, I have also put forward suggestions for changes to the OTRS Release Generator that will streamline the process and substantially reduce the seemingly infinite back and forth issues we have to deal with in the permissions process but finding the right tech to carry out the process has not been easy. Hopefully Jimmy can help. I have also made a suggestion that may do even more to streamline the process and combine everything in one docu-sign style submission by the uploader, as well as take the guesswork out of the process and provide uniformity. The process would utilize either the Adobe e-Sign/docu-sign verification process, or other alternatives such as this one. I believe it will provide the verifiability we need and establish responsibility where responsibility is due. It will also eliminate a lot of the frustration we encounter when people upload their images and other intellectual property. Atsme 💬 📧 09:55, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

@GRuban I had exactly this discussion with OTRS some time ago, and sadly it didn't go well. I had written to Singaporean politicians to ask for their photos for Wikipedia, and the position is exactly the same in Singapore copyright law: the purchaser of a commissioned photo owns the copyright, not the photographer. Sadly, the consensus at OTRS was that I still needed to produce the contracts between the politicians and the photography studios. While I appreciate that they were just doing their jobs, I found the position unreasonable and overcautious. There are safe harbour provisions for content hosts like Wikipedia so that we are free from liability if the copyright is contested and we take down the photo within a reasonable period. In any case, our full discussion is here: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Gan Siow Huang 1,jpg. Kohlrabi Pickle (talk) 01:27, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Hurrah, hurrah! OTRS says "Dear Laura, dear George, thanks for your efforts! Your permission has been added to the file pages." Happy, happy, joy, joy! Kohlrabi, my fine pickle, we may well investigate and appeal your issue as well if it is really identical ... but later! Just for now, I am breathing a heartfelt sigh of relief, and treasuring the few hairs I have left that did not turn white at your notice just above. Thank you all here one more time, and especially Atsme. --GRuban (talk) 15:44, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

"Constitutional Monarch of Wikipedia"

Hey, Jimbo. Just a thought: upon reading about your self-identification as the "constitutional monarch of Wikipedia" in your 2014 interview with The Guardian cited in your Wiki bio, as well as reading the Wikimedia movement article, and refreshing myself with a bit of Roman history, it occurs to me that as the Wikimedia Foundation is a body authorized by the state to act as a single legal entity in the State of California, I've come to the conclusion that a more appropriate title for you should actually be "Pontifex princeps de Collegium Wikimedia" or "First priest of Wikimedia College" (shortened in conversation to Pontifex princeps), because if the Wikimedia movement is a social movement that holds forth as its purpose the goal of making the sum of all human knowledge freely available to everyone, what we are effectively doing is creating common knowledge of the information necessary to proliferate the social institutions that enable representative democracy within a framework of laws where no administrator of the law is free from its administration to be able to exist. As the Wikimedia movement is a social movement dedicated to such a moral purpose, this arguably makes Wikipedia contributors, administrators, and Foundation executives effectively the monks, grandmasters, and priests of a democratic civic religion by inscribing this knowledge into electronic stone.

Apologies that my Latin isn't that great; only studied it once when I was 12. I also would like to take this opportunity to deliver to you my sincerest thanks for having begun this project two decades ago. I believe that all of the time that I have dedicated to it has all been well-spent. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 01:04, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

:-) Thank you for this amusing note!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:58, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Inside Wikipedia's endless war over the coronavirus lab leak theory

CNET, for the interested. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:34, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 June 2021

• News and notes: Elections, Wikimania, masking and more

• In the media: Boris and Joe, reliability, love, and money

• Disinformation report: Croatian Wikipedia: capture and release

• Recent research: Feminist critique of Wikipedia's epistemology, Black Americans vastly underrepresented among editors, Wiki Workshop report

• Traffic report: So no one told you life was gonna be this way

• News from the WMF: Searching for Wikipedia

• Humour: Wikipedia's best articles on the world's strangest things

• WikiProject report: WikiProject on open proxies interview

• Forum: Is WMF fundraising abusive?

• Discussion report: Reliability of WikiLeaks discussed

• Obituary: SarahSV

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:15, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Omission of African American subject from Wikipedia

I'd like to follow up on this subject with you Jimbo. Where is the entry on Westfield, Alabama? Westfield High School (Birmingham, Alabama)? These are the type of communities and schools, the hometowna for people like Willie Mays, that Wikipedia excludes. Just today I got notice that a cemetery with several notable African American burial sites isn't notable. We have room for every professional athlete who's ever played but not these subjects. It's not right. FloridaArmy (talk) 11:28, 29 June 2021 (UTC)