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Vogue Taiwan publishes videos on YouTube under a CC-BY license and English Wikipedia editors have been posting screenshots of those videos under those auspices. The problem is that many (if not all) of these videos have first been published on the Vogue YouTube page as all rights reserved. Commons has been lax in the past regarding these, although I think the discussions haven't gone through enough scrutiny (yes, I was involved in a later delete). I think we need to make an official decision. Are the editors at the Vogue Taiwan YouTube site copyright-washing, since Condé Nast is clearly not releasing them. or is the release legitimate since they are a subsidiary of Condé Nast?

  1. Commons:Deletion requests/File:Cindy Crawford and Kaia Gerber in 2017 (7).jpg - Kept
  2. Commons:Deletion requests/File:Kendall Jenner in 2019 2.png - Kept
  3. Commons:Deletion requests/File:Emma Roberts House Tour 2024.jpg - Deleted
  4. Commons:Deletion requests/File:Ariana Grande - Vogue 2024.png - Deleted
  5. Commons:Deletion requests/File:Emma Watson 2023 head and shoulders 1.jpg - Deleted.

Bastique ☎ let's talk! 17:19, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging people involved in the previous discussions: @Verbcatcher, @Bettydaisies, @P99, @The Squirrel Conspiracy, @Krd, @Brainulator9, @King of Hearts, @RevengerTime, @Günther Frager, @1989, @Rangel's Version, @TheLoyalOrder, @Aafi, @Adry9509, @Tanbiruzzaman, @Bjh21, @Nakonana. Bastique ☎ let's talk! 17:32, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Noting that I got a 3 day block over a CSD tag on this topic, so clarification would be nice. Definitely my fault, but clarity would be nice. All the Best -- Chuck Talk 17:44, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Would like to ping @GRuban: as well who helped develop the consensus for the images over at enwiki. PHShanghai (talk) 06:55, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Another one for the list: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Kourtney Kardashian 2019.jpg - Deleted. --bjh21 (talk) 21:49, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, yes. Delete them all, per my rationale in the first nomination. -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK) 01:26, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
just adding there's a whole category of potential images to delete Category:Screenshot images from VOGUE Taiwan YouTube account TheLoyalOrder (talk) 01:58, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think we need to be very cautious not to delete any image which originated on the Vogue Taiwan YouTube page. Bastique ☎ let's talk! 04:50, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think you might be underestimating the amount of work deleting 100+ images is going to take, especially spread across multiple A-list BLPs. If a deletion happens, there has to be a process for replacing all of the lead articles affected so they don't just end up red links. PHShanghai (talk) 06:56, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is almost certainly some kind of mistake on Vogue Taiwan's part, there's no way Condé wants their content licensed like that (as evidenced by the numerous other listings of the same content with broad restrictions). OR, it's a very smart marketing move by a savvy digital editor at Vogue Taiwan who realized releasing images of celebrities under CC licenses would inevitably mean stills from their content would be the default images for those celebrities on the internet once celebrity-oriented Wikipedia editors spotted the videos as ostensibly eligible for use on Commons. But either way, it doesn't seem like a legit license for the content. 19h00s (talk) 02:57, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Pinging @Bedivere as he was involved. All the Best -- Chuck Talk 02:58, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So I had to look up what exactly happened back in June [1]. So yeah, I might have been wrong on that one, or maybe not, who knows, after all Vogue Taiwan is owned by Condé Nast. Maybe asking them would clear up many things. Bedivere (talk) 03:20, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A discussion also happened at enwiki, over here PHShanghai (talk) 07:12, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just think about this for a moment- is Conde Nast as a company so incompetent that it cannot see one of their official subsidiaries has been publishing celeb content under CC for 6-7+ years now? To the point where even content of one of their biggest executives is also released as CC-BY? To have a CC license on *one* official video might be a mistake. To have a CC license on hundreds of videos spanning more than six to seven years is clearly not a mistake on Conde Nast's part. This is precautionary principle for the sake of precautionary principle.
Are we also implying that not a single person from Conde Nast corporate has ever visited a Wikipedia article as research for a video, let alone Wikipedia articles of some of the most famous people in the world, like Billie Eilish, Adele, Kendall Jenner, and Ariana Grande? I agree with Bedivere on asking Vogue Taiwan themselves as an explanation. But Wikipedians speculating that the biggest conglomerates in fashion have zero control over the release of their own content is speculatory at best. PHShanghai (talk) 07:06, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
CN and their subsidiaries have indeed made mistakes of this magnitude in the past. I would strongly caution against discounting human error as the source of this licensing choice until it can be proven that the licensing is correct. Just because a company is large & long-lasting does not mean they don't make huge mistakes that can be overlooked for quite a while. And sure, if someone wants to reach out to Condé, more power to them, but I can imagine that probably won't produce a satisfying reply. 19h00s (talk) 13:05, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@19h00s: The issue is not whether it is a mistake, but whether the license is valid. Speculating over the marketing strategy of some company is IMO complete nonsense. It is not for us to decide if the free license is intended or not. There is still a free license on YT, so how can you say it is not valid? Saying that a free license posted by a big company is not valid is undermining the very concept of a free license. So a free license by a small company is OK, but by a big company, it would not be? Yann (talk) 13:20, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can say it is invalid because Vogue Taiwan does not have the legal authority to release that content under those licenses; they do not own the content, Condé Nast does, and if Condé is not allowing other subsidiaries to release the same content under CC licenses, then why in the world would they want Vogue Taiwan to do it? I think editors on Commons put way too much stock into the choices digital editors at publications/organizations make when they upload content to third-party sites; there's literally no way to know if the license choice was made by a staffer who didn't know better or due to the company's actual policy of CC licensing. Regardless of how y'all feel about my conjecture re: the possible aims of whomever chose that license, I don't think it's responsible to trust the CC licenses when there are multiple examples of the same content being uploaded by other Condé entities without free licenses. 19h00s (talk) 13:29, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Vogue Taiwan does not have the legal authority to release that content under those licenses" "Condé is not allowing other subsidiaries to release the same content under CC licenses" What evidence is there for these statements? How do we know they don't give the right to all subsidiaries to release as CC and only Vogue Taiwan chooses to do it, or the contract for Vogue Taiwan is different for some reason, especially if these videos have had the license for years?  REAL 💬 ⬆   13:36, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I'm done here tbh. Sent an email to Condé's licensing team, will update if I hear anything. But I don't really feel like getting into a deep argument about the nature of corporate subsidiaries and media conglomerates. 19h00s (talk) 13:41, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Flagging that it appears at least two of the videos referenced in the first deletion requests listed above have now been changed to NOT include a CC license. No response yet from Condé but I included a link to this thread in my message, so those would have been the first examples they saw if they checked out this conversation. But I have not been following this for very long, so I don't know whether the disappearance of those CC licenses happened before today or if the licenses are just being hidden from view (tried in several browsers to make sure I wasn't missing them somewhere).
19h00s (talk) 15:35, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Would love to here an example of a mistake of this magnitude on Conde Nast's part, purely out of curiousity. Human error is a problem yes but "human error" across hundreds of videos for 6-7 years is a clear systemic issue on CN's part if this is a mistake by the uploaders on the VT youtube channel. PHShanghai (talk) 00:41, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As I said, I'm not interested in delving into a debate over the technicalities here, and tbh there's more than enough info on Condé's various mistakes in a basic Google search. I emailed CN's licensing team and added an update based on what seems to be a change to the licensing in the two videos I linked above. If I see another update to a license or hear from Condé, I'll circle back. Otherwise, I leave it to other editors and advice from WMF. Enjoy your weekend! 19h00s (talk) 01:05, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Entirely agree with PHShanghai, Yann, and everyone else. When an agent of Condé Nast puts a license on a video owned by Condé Nast, we should take their word for it. That's called Apparent authority: "a situation where a reasonable third party would understand that an agent had authority to act". https://www.youtube.com/@voguetvtaiwan has 1.14M subscribers, and 10K videos, this is not a small channel that no one has noticed. They've been licensing videos this way for years, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KH9gcoV8u4 is one from 5 years ago, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I2ZmpJ8DO0 is one from 3 days ago. This is not just a mistake that might have slipped through. They're not all indiscriminately licensed Creative Commons either, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIICchcwZdg, 1 day ago, isn't. Every sign points to this being both intentional and authorized.

We are at a busy intersection. The official crossing signal above the crosswalk says "WALK". We should walk. "But the signal could be broken." "The signal could have been put up in error." "The signal could have been forged and put up by a troll." "The signal was put up by the town Public Works Department, and intersections are under the jurisdiction of the town Traffic department." "Another intersection on this same street doesn't have a signal, or it isn't saying WALK, so this one must be wrong." Yes, all these things are possible. (The sun might not rise in the morning; there could be an eclipse. The most powerful country in the world dedicated to the rule of law might elect a recently convicted felon to lead it. Naah, that last one is just ridiculous!). But they aren't reasonable. We can't live by assuming that everyone is either evil or an idiot, only that some people are. We need to take reasonable care, but this is beyond that. Sure, feel to write for clarification. But they put up the sign, it's a very clear sign, it's not drawn on a piece of cardboard with a crayon, and they have the authority to put it up; so until we actually have clear evidence that the crossing signal is broken, we should walk. --GRuban (talk) 14:41, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment I have asked Joe Sutherland from WMF. Yann (talk) 13:58, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perfectly put. And very funny poignant commentary. PHShanghai (talk) 00:50, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Except two of the videos in question have already had their CC license removed. Which tells me (as is the case often when one organization or branch allows some content from another) that Vogue Taiwan intended to release its own videos as CC-BY but someone did not pay attention to the default when providing other videos.
This happens all the time.
Bastique ☎ let's talk! 07:12, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, at Commons, we abide by the Commons:Precautionary principle, that where there is sufficient doubt about the freedom of a file...we delete it. There is sufficient doubt here as expressed by not an insignificant number of active Commons editors. Bastique ☎ let's talk! 07:18, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Except that this goes way beyond any precautionary principle. OK, the license of one video was changed. But what about all the others?
GRuban's message above says it all. We should abide by the law, not by some imaginary reasoning. I doubt a judge will accept a reasoning with "Sorry, but the license which was published by our subsidiary company there for years is wrong." Yann (talk) 09:53, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Others are being changed too. Most probably a result of this discussion and backroom contact with the organization, making the scenario even more likely that Vogue Taiwan was making a mistake and are currently fixing it. It takes a lot of time and effort for the average user to change licenses on multiple videos on YouTube. I looked into it when this first came up and it wasn't entirely obvious how to do it--and there's no way to do it with multiple videos.
The argument "we can get away with it becuase Vogue Taiwan didn't catch their mistake for years" or "oops, your bad--we got it while it was out there and now it's ours forever" should not fly.
It is entirely likely that:
1) Vogue Taiwan was making a mistake for years and that
2) Conde Nast didn't catch on because the videos weren't being reused as a whole by anybody and that 3) nobody from CN or VT recognized the screenshots on Wikipedia as they came from a single frame of those videos and that
4) nobody from CN or VT searched for links back to the YouTube channel (because why would they?) so they didn't know that Wikimedia was reusing their content.
The surprising thing is the doubt that this is quite possible coming from active Commons admins who have dealt with this sort of thing before many times in the past. Bastique ☎ let's talk! 19:21, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"It takes a lot of time and effort for the average user to change licenses on multiple videos on YouTube." well, these are not average users, but trained payed staff. And yes, there have been similar cases, and they usually were closed as kept. There are more and more people and corporations using free licenses, and the people most reluctantly recognizing that are people on Commons. Now I won't argue for keeping the files when the license was changed, even if I doubt they could do anything if it comes to court. Yann (talk) 19:59, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that is an over-charitable interpretation of how media companies work and who works there. I know I said I didn't want to get into the details, but I very much agree with Bastique, I don't understand the doubt here. Nor do I get why it's such a big leap in logic to assume a media company doesn't want their intellectual property freely licensed; if this were any other type of company, I would be way more open to the idea that they really made this choice on purpose.
There is quite possibly a single person - or, at the most, up to two people - who work at Vogue Taiwan whose specific role is interpreting and applying their rights and responsibilities as a subsidiary of Condé using licensed Condé content. Or, even more likely, there is actually no one whose job is dedicated to that, and the function has been rolled into the purview of their in-house counsel or a hired counsel. How often does that person or people interact with the staffer arguably at the lowest end hierarchy-wise of a media company's social media team (i.e., the person who loads and structures social media content via a platform like Sprout or other professional tool in order to post it to YouTube)? I would guess they don't interact that often, and the social media staffer has probably had very limited training on the more complicated aspects of licensing like Creative Commons licenses because Condé and Vogue Taiwan are not in the business of releasing their content for free reuse; they are media companies, their single greatest financial asset is the intellectual property they own. And the person in charge of licensing for Vogue Taiwan - again, very easily just their in-house counsel - probably has a million other things to worry about, including ensuring that the print publication and website have correct licensing and copyright terms, a pretty big task given that Vogue Taiwan both licenses content from Condé and creates/commissions original content as well. So I actually find it incredibly likely that this was a) a true mistake, b) made by someone without much knowledge of licensing, c) overlooked for quite a long time by the people who are actually in charge of handling licensing content for Vogue Taiwan, and d) a very difficult thing to undo in a short period of time, even for social media professionals - even pro tools don't have the ability to change licenses en masse, I just checked in the business Sprout account I have access to.
I apologize if this or my other replies came off as snippy. I'm just very confused by the doubt. 19h00s (talk) 22:01, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Wikipedia editing community is so small and the Commons community is even smaller than the enwiki community. It is extremely unlikely that a CN or VT staffer reads the village pump and that reading about it would it have any impact on their content uploading.. The only actual realistic way their CC policies may be revoked is through, as you said, personally messaging and emailing the corporation and asking if VT is copyright-washing. If they already know that their content is being uploaded as CC and therefore makes the motion to have their CC licenses revoked, they're being very confusing and inconsistent about it as they are still uploading content under CC as recent as yesterday. PHShanghai (talk) 08:20, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not trying to nitpick here, and I am using a machine translation for this purpose so there could easily just be a mistranslation, but: The caption for that linked short, and the rest of Vogue Taiwan's shorts, includes language about VT's use of Condé content. The machine translation is telling me it says this: "Taiwan VOGUE is affiliated to Condé Nast Interculture Group. All foreign films are authorized by foreign countries for use in Taiwan. Taiwan VOGUE adheres to serving netizens and allows more Chinese-speaking audiences to see international films and Chinese subtitles, so we share them with everyone on this channel. If you like our channel, please subscribe to us. We will continue to work hard to bring more high-quality content." Presuming that "films" should be "videos". But that language is different from the CC license and is quite vague - "for use in Taiwan" could mean a range of things - implying that there is some sort of other agreement/license underpinning VT's ability to republish content. Again, machine mistranslation could be source of my interpretation here, but it's notable that they do include language about their rights in the captions. 19h00s (talk) 16:46, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt we have an apparent authority defense to agency right now. To have that defense, we must believe CN-Taiwan has the authority to publish the material with a free license. If CN-Taiwan were the only entity publishing the material, then that belief is reasonable, and we would have an apparent authority defense. However, if we know that other CN divisions are publishing the same material with all rights reserved, then the defense evaporates. We have or should have doubts about CN-Taiwan's authority. All is not lost. Presumably, the principal CN has now been notified and must act. If the principal fails to act within a reasonable time (say 30 days), then the principal will ratify the acts of CN-Taiwan. If the principal acts and the free licenses are removed, then we should remove the affected material. If I were CN, I would issue takedown notices. Glrx (talk) 17:21, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that we should wait for a response from CN in 30 days or so, and if they do not respond nor change their continuous and consistent use of uploading CC content under VT, then the acts of VT will be ratified and free for Wikimedia Commons to use. PHShanghai (talk) 08:21, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just found another video where the license appears to have changed: Live link for Margot Robbie video (no license, default to standard YouTube license), vs Archived link for Margot Robbie video (CC license, takes a super long time to load the caption/YouTube interface). A screenshot is currently the subject of a deletion discussion.
Also noting that Vogue Taiwan either has not released a video on YouTube under a CC license in a while or they have gone back and retroactively changed the licenses on all of their most recent videos. I've been scrolling for a bit and can't find a recent video with a CC license.
And finally, I noticed in one of the Chinese-language captions on YouTube that Vogue Taiwan staff had noted that the video was a re-upload with subtitles and closed captions (they used the abbreviation "CC" in the video caption) after suggestions from commenters asking for either better quality captioning or a different style/technical form of subtitles or captions. I do not want to impugn the English language ability of any Vogue Taiwan staffer, as they obviously have a great command of the language if they're working for Condé, a primarily English-language company. But is it possible that when uploading videos with closed captions ("CC"), someone at Vogue Taiwan mistook the "CC" of the Creative Commons license as the marker for closed captions, which seem to be broadly referred to in Chinese-language sources by the English-derived acronym "CC"? Could be wrong on any number of these conjectures, but the situation simply doesn't add up from where I sit - Condé has no reason to want their subsidiaries to release Condé-owned content for free use, this is not a company that has ever demonstrated any sort of commitment to open access or free reuse, especially when the content at issue is worth quite a lot of money in terms of licensing fees, which they can and do charge - so I'm trying to think through the most obvious possibilities for what happened here. 19h00s (talk) 17:25, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
All recent shorts appear to me as CC-licensed. The normal, widescreen videos seemingly aren't CC licensed at all Bedivere (talk) 19:46, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can't imagine that a language issue is to blame because the YouTube interface is available in different languages, so I'd expect that the staff has set the interface to their local language, especially if they doubt their English proficiency. Nakonana (talk) 22:18, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In the English interface of YouTube Studio it does not say "CC" anywhere, it just says "Creative Commons - Attribution". I tried changing my language to Chinese simplified and traditional, Simplified does not have "CC" in English but Traditional does. But this is only in the license dropdown menu, it is not visible till you click the dropdown and the default option is Standard YouTube license, so the only way I can see someone thinking this is closed captions is if they were pressing random buttons looking for closed captions without reading properly and/or not did not understand Chinese.  REAL 💬 ⬆   22:46, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can see both sides of this argument. However, speaking from a purely legal standpoint, I don't think it's reasonable to assume that one entity can republish content under a more permissive license when that content was originally published by another entity with all rights reserved, simply because the republishing entity doesn't own the content and therefore does not have the authority to republish it under different terms. This is true even if the two entities share the same parent company (and even if the republishing entity has a license to re-upload the material). Even if for some reason the shared parent company did intend to re-release the material under a CC license, I don't think that is something for us to assume. Aoi (talk) 01:35, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I don't think all videos/images are republished. Some are exclusive to the Vogue Taiwan channel, while others are republished from places like Vanity Fair. So, why not keep the ones original to Vogue Taiwan and delete the republished ones? I don’t think there are many published ones, but maybe I’m wrong, I’m not sure. Lililolol (talk) 20:56, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I guess I can write them an email asking about this? Should I? Lililolol (talk) 21:03, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, please write. They may well not answer, most people I write like that don't answer. But some do! It won't hurt. --GRuban (talk) 14:03, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Human intervention needed for PD-Art maintenance

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I've been working through Category:PD-Art (PD-old default) with a bot filling empty PD-Art templates with actual licenses, and I'm hopeful that more files can be processed automatically. However, I just created Category:PD-Art (PD-old default) with PMA inside 70 for files with a creator deathyear inside the last 70 years. These files are very likely to require human intervention to fix no matter what, so if you want to hunt down some international licenses, click through to Category:PD-Art (PD-old default) with PMA inside 70. – BMacZero (🗩) 21:52, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why did File:DER BRANDENBURGER ROLAND VOR DEM NEUSTÄDTISCHEN RATHAUS.PNG and File:DER ROTE BETER (THE RED PRAYER).PNG show up in this category? I'm guessing it's because BMacZeroBot added the proper creator template, but the data for the category was apparently pulled before that change.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:07, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Prosfilaes: I checked it out. The bot uses the creator's Wikidata entry to determine the date of death, and it looks like that entry has a competing deathdate entry of 1960; I guess the Creator template doesn't show it because the other is marked as preferred. The bot uses the most conservative (i.e. latest) deathdate available. – BMacZero (🗩) 05:55, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Files count reduced below 400 now. Yann (talk) 16:24, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Files count reduced below 200 now. Yann (talk) 12:37, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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Hello, To illustrate an infobox, I uploaded a photo that was deleted twice. After learning from my mistakes, I followed the full process of identifying the photo's author. As I understand it, the copyright holder has one month to provide consent before the photo is deleted. After uploading the photo, I requested permission from the author (Virginie Fauvel), who confirmed that she completed the form and sent an email via the Wikimedia VRTS release generator. I assume her email has not yet been processed, but I received the following message on my notification: "Copyright status: File:VF2025.png / This media may be deleted in one week." Could you please confirm that the picture will not be deleted in one week (as indicated) if the email is processed in time? If yes, please tell me own to properly upload a picture then because I did everything that was required. Thank you for your help. Best regards, Pauline Tab (I wasn't logged in when I wrote it, sorry)2003:C3:1F16:FAE2:AD64:CA71:2024:CBC2 15:24, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Pauline Tab: (1) I assume this is about File:VF2025.png. Please use links (for your account and while talking about specific photos) when asking questions like this; it saves the responder a lot of time.
(2) That "no license" tag, with the thing about one week, is not because of the VRTS status. It is because you have given no indication at all of what license applies to the photo. Presumably, we are pending confirmation of some particular license, which you should indicate on the file page. You can add the correct license tag and remove that message.
(3) You are saying Virginie Fauvel, the subject of the picture, is the author and owns the copyright. That seems unlikely: this does not look like a selfie.
(4) The file still needs categories.
(5) In any case, if the image is deleted and then later a valid license is received, the image should be undeleted. - Jmabel ! talk 19:30, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Jmabel,
Thank you so much for your complete answer.
4) First, I added categories thanks to your comment.
3) Virginie did not take the picture herself but the picture has been taken by her head of communication inside of her company, that's why to me, she's the owner of the copywrite. If she's not, then it's owned by the company, but can a company be designated as a copywrite holder ? And if it's possible then who will sign the VRTS (to me it's Virginie or the head of communication)?
2) So, if I understand well, I should write down the type of licence she selected in the VRTS ? And then when the VRTS will be reviewed, it will be accepted ?
Best regards,
Pauline Pauline Tab (talk) 09:19, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Pauline Tab: Virginie (or another person in another company in a similar position) should be able to provide the name of the copyright holder for you to use in {{Information}}. This is especially true in French companies, which I am told cannot legally assume or be assigned the copyrights of their employees / photographer due to a particularity of French law.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 13:52, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Usually, the photos are not deleted within a week. But even if yours is deleted before the VRTS ticket is handled, it can always be undeleted once the licensing confirmation has been checked. Gnom (talk) 21:24, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • We have received VRTs after deletion and they are restored, sometimes you have to remind people that they promised to send in the form. People are generally very lazy. --RAN (talk) 23:47, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Pauline Tab:

2) You should use the license tag corresponding to the license that is being offered (e.g. {{CC-BY-SA 4.0}} or {{CC-zero}}).
3) (a) You have Virginie as the author. Based on what you are saying now, that is not true. I believe that in France droit de auteur (moral rights including the right to be acknowledged as author) cannot be transferred, though I'm not expert on French copyright law. Patrimonial rights can be transferred, and that is what is relevant for VRT and licensing. (b) If the patrimonial rights have been legally transferred, this is likely to be a bit of a mess on the VRT side, because VRT are probably also going to need to see the document by which rights were transferred (though they may take her word for it, I don't know and I'm not on that team). (c) It would certainly be simplest if the author/photographer were accurately attributed and the email to VRT came from that person, on a domain associated with the company in question. If patrimonial rights have been transferred to the company, then probably anyone at the appropriate domain could write to VRT as a company representative but, again, they might need to produce the relevant document to show transfer of rights to the company. (d) "copyright" not "copywrite".
4) please do read Commons:Categories. Categories aren't something you can just make up. You need either to use existing categories (probably a 98%+ case) or in rare cases create new categories by making them subcats of existing categories.

Jmabel ! talk 18:26, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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Is this logo OK? Isn't it a bit complex to be {{PD-textlogo}}? Perhaps only lettering should be left.-- Carnby (talk) 22:37, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Might be OK. It combines three things: a standard representation of a globe, similar to the PD logo of the IWW; the lettering and rectangles, which are certainly textlogo; the lightning symbols, again very standard. So maybe OK, I'm not sure. - Jmabel ! talk 05:47, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Although different, it reminds of VNV Nation's logo. Both are pretty generic. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:18, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Lettering and lightning bolts are both pretty standard. Globe seems OK as Jmabel says so I'd probably lean towards this being OK. Abzeronow (talk) 19:58, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that it's ok as {{PD-textlogo}}. Even more complex logos have been denied copyright protection in the US. Reminds me a bit of File:American Owned American Made Logo.jpg which has some text and interesting shapes in it, but was ruled "insufficiently creative". In that decision the Copyright Office specifically called out the individual shapes in the design as non-creative works, then hit the applicants with "A mere simplistic arrangement of non-protectable elements does not demonstrate the level of creativity necessary to warrant protection." I think we'd imagine this logo is similarly made up of non-protectable elements (as folks note above), and arranging them in this manner would reach the same result. Ajpolino (talk) 00:21, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would definitely put this below COM:TOO US. Very little creativity beyond the text went into this logo. Bastique ☎ let's talk! 00:26, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
[edit]

Between 1963 and 1978, works could lose their copyright if they published in the US without proper copyright notice. Many newspapers during this time did not contain a copyright notice. As I understand it, the question is: how does this affect the copyright status of wire photos published in these newspapers?

I am continuing the thread from these discussions ([2] [3] [4]). There seems to be a wide range of opinions on this subject. Pinging editors who seem to be invested in these discussions: @Jameslwoodward, @Asclepias, @Yann, @Counterfeit Purses, @RAN, @Jmabel, @Prosfilaes, @Carl Lindberg, @Toohool, @Kieronoldham, @Denniscabrams, @Adamant1, @Bastique

I don't have a strong opinion myself, I just want clarity on what the policy is going to be going forward.

Thanks, SilverStar54 (talk) 23:02, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think a particular newspaper not having a notice is good enough evidence for a wire photo. I'm also not sure what evidence there was that AP etc. did not try to enforce copyright notices -- it's harder to divest copyright through the actions of others. A "relative few" copies without notice did not lose copyright, and if the AP was selling to thousands of newspapers then even quite a few not having notice wouldn't qualify for that. Copies of wire photos themselves can also be problematic -- that particular copy was likely kept privately in the newspaper's archive (they were printed there), and was not distributed. Actual distribution of copies lacking notice was also required to lose copyright -- technical publication without distribution of copies would not. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:36, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Each copy of the individual newspaper would count as a publication and the law requires that the copies be "authorized", not pirated copies. I would argue that they are in the public domain when a newspaper does not comply with the copyright formalities of a copyright statement. I was shocked at how few newspapers carried copyright notices in their masthead. The big city papers did, not many local papers. --RAN (talk) 23:44, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the ping. I'm going to defer to Carl Lindberg's comment here. I never bought the idea that if the a local newspaper published an otherwise copyrighted photograph by the AP without a notice that the original image would somehow magically lose copyright in that situation. There wouldn't be a reason to sell photographs to local newspapers if said images where PD to begin with either. As said newspapers would just share the photographs with each other instead of licensing them from the AP in the first place. But regardless, say the AP sells a photograph to a newspaper, who then decides on their own for whatever reason to publish it without a copyright notice. What does that have to do with the AP and their original copyright? I assume it wouldn't suddenly be null and void on the copyright offices or Associated Presses end. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:01, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • The AP would have worked much as it did without copyright at all. There would have been no easier or cheaper way to get a steady supply of fresh, relevant news and photos besides signing up to the AP. Yesterday's news is today's fishwrap. In reality, the law was complex and if you copied enough material flagrantly enough, the AP might sue you and that would be a costly battle. The AP didn't really have to dot its i's and cross its t's to keep its customers.
    Again, books are not usually published by their authors. If your publisher forgets a copyright notice, you lose copyright. There's no question I think that if the AP sent out a photo that was only used by newspapers that didn't use copyright notices, they would have lost the copyright. The question involves photos that presumably were published in large papers with copyright notices and at least one paper without, where we don't know what the ratios are.
    It's probably fair enough that without knowing what those ratios are, and the way modern judges have tended to be more sympathetic to would-be copyright holders than the laws at the time really call for, it's probably not reasonable to reuse post-1963 AP images, at least not without good evidence.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:57, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is mostly right. The newspaper industry largely considered copyright to be impracticable, and newspapers and wire services did not build their business models around it. The AP went so far as to get the Supreme Court to create a whole form of intellectual property (the hot news doctrine) to protect against wholesale misappropriation of their content, while not requiring the formalities of copyright.
One important point is that, before 1978, copyright notices generally had to be printed in the name of the owner of the copyrighted work. So a New York Times issue published with the notice "Copyright 1965 by the New York Times" only protected those works for which NYT was the author. It didn't protect works from wire services, syndicates, or other third parties; those would have needed their own, separate copyright notice specific to the work in question.
For 1978-1989 works, it gets a bit hairier, as the law changed so that a "Copyright 1980 by the New York Times" notice did cover any 3rd party works within the paper. That leads into the ratio question of how many copies of an AP photo were published with notice vs. without notice. Newspapers without copyright notice were still numerous, but diminishing as you get into the mid 1980s.
As for the question of what evidence there is that the wire services didn't enforce copyrights, flip the question and ask what evidence is there that wire services did copyright their works? The answer is: None. If they did, you would expect to see some evidence of that, such as at least one newspaper somewhere in the US that consistently printed copyright notices with their AP photos. But such evidence is nowhere to be found. Toohool (talk) 07:05, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not saying it's evidence either way but I looked for court cases earlier and couldn't find any from before like 2020. Enforcement of a copyright is different from having one to begin with though. It certainly wouldn't meet the standard of the precautionary principle. So I hesitate to say that AP photographs aren't copyrighted just because they never sued anyone for infringement. But it seems mostly like a non-issue if there's no actual lawsuits out there to cite. --Adamant1 (talk) 10:14, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for starting this discussion here, SilverStar54, and for the ping.
If we look at the law in effect at the time, I believe that this situation is addressed in section 6.

Sec. 6. That compilations or abridgements, adaptations, arrangements, dramatizations, translations, or other versions of works in the public domain, or of copyrighted works when produced with the consent of the proprietor of the copyright in such works, or works republished with new matter, shall be regarded as new works subject to copyright under the provisions of this Act; but the publication of any such new works shall not affect the force or validity of any subsisting copyright upon the matter employed or any part thereof, or be construed to imply an exclusive right to such use of the original works, or to secure or extend copyright in such original works.

The newspapers in this discussion are collective works. They have been assembled from multiple sources (eg staff reporters and newswire services). If AP has copyrights on those images, they are "subsisting copyrights". A copyright would apply to the issue of the newspaper (collective work) as a whole, but it does not change any existing copyright. Similarly, if there is no copyright notice, the issue as a whole is not copyrighted but any existing copyrights are not affected. Notice that it says in the margin of the law "subsisting copyrights not affected".
I am not a lawyer. I know some editors here are very experienced with copyright and copyright law. Perhaps a few of them are lawyers and can comment on my interpretation. Counterfeit Purses (talk) 04:53, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's not what this provision is doing. The idea of this provision is that, when a work whose federal copyright term has already begun (either due to publication or registration) is included in a compilation or some other larger work subject to copyright, the subsisting copyright is not extended, nor does the copyright owner of the compilation necessarily acquire a new copyright. The issue here is not inclusion in a new work per se, but a lack of notice on the republication of the existing work. The thing that might affect the force or validity is not the publication of the new work, but the authorized distribution of copies of the old work without notice (whether or not this occurs within the new work). D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 20:40, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just to be clear, are you saying this as a copyright lawyer? Or as a layperson like me? Counterfeit Purses (talk) 21:40, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not a lawyer. Since this is only a friendly academic discussion and nobody's giving legal advice, though, that doesn't matter. (Even if I were a lawyer, I wouldn't be speaking as one, nor would doing so make me more or less correct.) D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 23:08, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@D. Benjamin Miller I think this discussion has no hope of arriving at any useful outcome if all well-meaning editors jump in to give their received knowledge of copyright law. In the discussion that prompted this, I've already seen plainly incorrect interpretations confidently stated as fact by veteran editors. My hope is that we can arrive at a consensus that we don't know the answer to this question and ask the WMF to get a legal opinion that we can use as the basis for policy. Counterfeit Purses (talk) 16:48, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Counterfeit Purses: WMF Legal department almost never gives a legal opinion. If they do, they would loose the protection they have. Commons has worked for the last 20 years with informed opinions by knowledgeable volunteers, with very few legal issues (please see Commons:Office actions/DMCA notices). So we have to get all possible information, and form a consensus with that. Regards, Yann (talk) 18:56, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Yann If you're referring to Section 230 immunity, providing a legal opinion would have no bearing on that.
Further, the WMF already restricts what content is allowed via the terms of use. One of the things that is explicitly prohibited is "Infringing copyrights, trademarks, patents, or other proprietary rights under the applicable law". Commons should be asking for the WMF for assistance in determining whether or not we are infringing copyright in these cases.
If users held a discussion on the Village Pump and decided by consensus that we would ignore all copyrights, I am sure that the WMF would very quickly step in. Community consensus is fine for setting policy, but abiding by copyright law is a legal obligation for the WMF. Counterfeit Purses (talk) 20:41, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to say again something I've said before: I've had conversations with two people at WMF Legal about Commons' approach to copyrights, in a broad context. Both said that their personal opinion is that Commons is generally too conservative about copyright, restricting beyond what they would consider reasonable doubt.
I would be hard-pressed to name a site on the Internet that is more cautious about copyright than Commons. Compared to other sites where a broad range of people self-submit material, nothing comes close. I absolutely to not think we need to become yet more cautious. - Jmabel ! talk 20:51, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You might want to read this article, which deals with the issue a bit — the case law on subsisting copyrights is mixed. There are a number of issues with Grove Press with relation to international distribution (now affected by the URAA) and other facts that make it quite unlike the AP case.
The AP photos in question were not distributed to newspapers as published works with a notice, nor were copyrights registered for them. If publication occurred through the distribution to papers itself, then that publication occurring without notice resulted in the photos entering the public domain before being reprinted in the newspapers. If the publication occurred only when put in the newspapers themselves, then this was a first publication of the photograph, and there was no subsisting copyright, because "copyright" in the 1909 Act refers to federal copyright, which only applied to works that were already published or for which a federal copyright was already registered. The 1909 Act acknowledges (§2) what we might call "common-law copyright," which was (before the 1976 Act) governed by state law, but such an unpublished work was, until being published (or registered), not "copyrighted" in the sense that the 1909 Act uses teh word. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 23:20, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Once the admins decide that enough of a consensus has been reached, can I ask that a summary of it be added to a Commons policy page somewhere, and linked to from Category:Photographs distributed by Associated Press and Category:United Press International photographs?
It seems that this question has come up several times, so having a policy to point to would be helpful. If people want to challenge the consensus, it would also give them a place to do so (rather than just submitting deletion requests for every individual photo). SilverStar54 (talk) 01:27, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@SilverStar54: Sure, though it's not entirely up to admins to reach a consensus, only to articulate the consensus. Once a consensus is reached, really anyone could write what you are asking for. - Jmabel ! talk 04:22, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]


The following is an attempt to restore a comment by User:Jameslwoodward that was made as part of an edit that had many bad side effects. It was not intended as part of this particular thread--it was responding to an archived section on the same topic--but it rolled back a day or so of everyone else's activity. Jim, feel free to re-edit as you wish, I'm just trying to mitigate. - Jmabel ! talk 19:07, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are several things above that I am not comfortable with.

1) The copyright notice does not have to be on the masthead. NYT puts it on the front page to the left of its name. USCO Circular 3 at page 3 says
"Works Published as Periodicals or Other Serials
• Any location acceptable for books
• As part of, or adjacent to, the masthead or on the page containing the masthead
• Adjacent to a prominent heading, appearing at or near the front of the issue, containing the title of the periodical and any combination of the volume and issue number and the date of the issue."
2) I think that publication of an AP work by a newspaper without notice is a violation of its contract with AP and therefore unauthorized. Unauthorized publication of copyrighted works have no effect on copyright status.
3) I don't know why any AP works would not have a copyright.

Therefore I think we are on dangerous ground keeping any AP image unless its copyright has expired or we can show that the copyright was not renewed when required. .     Jim . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 15:20, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
END RESTORED CONTENT - Jmabel ! talk 19:07, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Jameslwoodward: it would seem that under that theory, no publisher could ever lose an author their copyright by omitting a notice, because the failure to preserve it was presumably unauthorized. Or am I missing something? - Jmabel ! talk 19:09, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. Look at it the other way - if someone published something at that time without a copyright and it included your copyrighted work (without your knowledge or authorization), should your copyright be lost due to their actions? Counterfeit Purses (talk) 20:08, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
AP photos were not included in newspapers "without the AP's knowledge or authorization," though. The AP authorized the publication of its photos in newspapers; that was the point of the AP. But, more generally, the question is whether publication was authorized, and not whether publication without a notice was authorized. The omission of notice, even accidental, would result in a loss of copyright. For example, the creators of Night of the Living Dead originally included a copyright notice, but the distributors, who were tasked with changing the title of the film, forgot to re-insert the copyright notice when adding the new title card. This resulted in the film entering the public domain, because the publication by the distributor was indeed authorized, even though the notice's omission was not intended by the original creators. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 20:54, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@D. Benjamin Miller In my example, Jmabel has not authorized the use of their copyrighted image. Does Jmabel lose their copyright? Counterfeit Purses (talk) 21:36, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Counterfeit Purses: completely irrelevant. Of course even under the old law a completely unauthorized use of your materials did not lose you copyright (though I'm not sure if repeated tolerance of that might have over time, and I'd be interested in someone's knowledgeable on that, even if it's not germane to this case). But that isn't what was going on here: a wire service was distributing content to its subscribers precisely for purposes of republication. This is not very different from an author handing a book to a publisher for publication. Clearly, pre-1978 in the U.S., that author lost their copyright if the publisher failed to include a notice. - Jmabel ! talk 21:54, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel Are saying that you believe an unauthorized use of copyrighted material in a collective work at that time did not invalidate an existing copyright if there was no copyright notice? But it would if the use was authorized? Counterfeit Purses (talk) 22:44, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm saying that at least some unauthorized uses would not invalidate a copyright. I have no knowledge either way of whether repeated unauthorized use (if not objected to) could invalidate a copyright (it certainly could invalidate a trademark). And, yes authorized publication without notice could invalidate a copyright. That's what notice was about. I gather that courts ruled that if the uses without copyright were a very relatively few, that could be overlooked and copyright retained, and I doubt that case law ever drew a bright line as to where you went from one situation to the other. But as D. Benjamin Miller has pointed out, we are drifting very far from the issue, which is that AP generally did not bother with copyrighting their material at all.
I personally have more experience with UPI than with AP. I can definitely say that when I worked at a radio station in the 1970s, there were no copyright notices in the UPI teletype messages that we received and on which we based our newscasts. - Jmabel ! talk 22:58, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What you said about UPI, @Jmabel --this is the crux of it right here. I am not opposed to using AP photos, but I'd like to know for reasonable certainty that AP did not issue copyright notices in their transmissions. Bastique ☎ let's talk! 00:13, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the author never authorized publication of the image, then, no, it did not count as an authorized publication. An unauthorized publication of a work could not begin the federal copyright term - nor could it result in loss of an existing copyright (common law or federal). Unauthorized publications, in short, do not count as publication.
However, you are missing the point that @Jmabel was making. We are not talking about a work being used without permission. The AP gave the newspapers permission to print their photos.
@Jameslwoodward posited that the AP would have contractually required the newspapers to print a copyright notice. This is unlikely; the AP's business model at the time didn't rely on retaining copyrights, and, in order to validly apply to AP-copyrighted material at that time, the notice would have had to have been specific to the AP (something I don't think was ever found). Putting those concerns aside, though, even if there were a contract requiring the printing of an AP copyright notice, accidental publication without a notice wouldn't be considered unauthorized; see my mention of the Night of the Living Dead case. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 22:00, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you wanted a system where a lack of copyright notice meant a work was in the public domain, period, then it would be up to the author to never distribute the works in any way that they could be copied. There are of course clashing motivations that lead to the conclusion that that was excessively unfair to the author, but if the author hands the work over for publication, then they need to make sure the publisher puts a copyright notice on it or lose their copyright.--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:11, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the owner of the copyright omits it, then the work is PD. But, if a newspaper licenses the use of a work from the copyright owner with a license that includes a provision that the newspaper must give notice, and the newspaper does not do so, the use is unauthorized and has no effect on the work's copyright. .     Jim . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 14:22, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Jim: Yes, that's the whole question. D. Benjamin Miller says above that it is unlikely that AP required a copyright notice. I don't know if it matters, but if there was a notice, it was never "(c) Associated Press" or "(c) AP". Yann (talk) 18:35, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(cross-posted) @Jameslwoodward: there are at least two big "ifs" there:
  1. This assumes there was ever a copyright notice in the first place, and that contracts required that copyright be indicated when republishing. Again, those of us who dealt with wire services in this period can't recall seeing such notices, and several people have cited indications there typically there were none: copyright was not part of the business model.
  2. I would agree with your reasoning for a one-off, but courts have certainly ruled in other matters that repeated failure over time to enforce a contractual provision in an ongoing business relationship, or even object to violations, amounts to implicit permission. Analogy: if I pasture cattle, and write a contract with you that you are required to maintain the fence, which we both completely ignore, it doesn't make my neighbor any less able to sue me when my cattle wander onto his land. I might be separately able to sue you, but I'm not off the hook simply for signing a contract passing my obligation on to you.
Jmabel ! talk 18:44, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Even if we assumed (1), which is highly implausible, I don't think there is any reason to accept the notion that the publication would be unauthorized in the sense required under the then-current law.
The 1909 Act said that "such notice shall be affixed to each copy thereof published or offered for sale in the United States by authority of the copyright proprietor." Any reproduction that took place with the proprietor's general assent had to include the notice.
The common law copyright could protect the author of an unpublished work from first publication, but, upon assenting to publication, there was no provision which would protect the author in case the notice was malformed.
Corporations lost copyrights when employees - or distributors - made errors regarding notices; this made no difference. It was ultimately the responsibility of the would-be copyright holder to make sure that copied actually bore a notice.
The reason for the notice requirements also tied into public policy. The general idea was that any item published without a notice was in the public domain. If you got a copy without a notice, you were supposed to be able to rely on that.
There might be a limited exception (and innocent infringement) in the rare case where the copies were of a truly stolen work, but there was certainly no desire to create a system in which a work could be considered "unpublished" just in case no valid notice was required. This would totally defeat the purpose of the requirement as it existed then, and would have presumably prevented almost any work from accidentally entering the public domain due to a failure to include a valid notice. As I said, the omission of notice by the distributor of Night of the Living Dead was fatal; this is a perfect analog.
I think this all comes down to anachronistic thinking. Today, public domain dedications must be clear and intentional. They did not have to be under the 1909 Act. And, even if the contract's terms were not followed (and, again, this is extremely unlikely), such publication was still made under the authority of the proprietor. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 08:05, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For the purposes of this discussion I think we can safely assume that the AP images had been previously published. AP was in the business of selling copy and images to newspapers. Counterfeit Purses (talk) 17:35, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, most AP images were first put out for public consumption via many newspapers on the same day. The question would be whether the AP distributing the items to papers was publication, or if publication only occurred once the items were put in the papers (although these would take place within a day of one another). In any case, the items were almost certainly distributed without notice to the papers (so, if that's publication, the later events are irrelevant) and then proceeded to appear in a significant number of papers without a notice afterwards. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 17:41, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is true that copyright notices did not have to be on the masthead. I do not see, however, why you would assume that AP photographs were required by contract to be printed with copyright notices. According to the Library of Congress, the AP only ever registered copyright on a few images before 1963, and never renewed any copyrights. As @Prosfilaes and @Toohool write above, the AP did not base its business model on copyright at that time. I find it extremely doubtful that the AP would have required publication to occur with an AP copyright notice. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 20:46, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I will grant that it is entirely possible that the AP did not require copyright notices. Even given that, if the paper had notice, then that would cover all editorial material in the paper, including AP photos. I think that virtually all periodicals pre-1989 had notice somewhere, so I still think we are on dangerous ground if we keep an image unless someone has search all of the places in the periodical that notice might legally be (see my quote from USCO Circular 3 above). .     Jim . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 15:49, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nowhere near all pre-1989 periodicals had a copyright notice. Many, many newspapers (especially local newspapers) did not. Go on Newspapers.com and look at local newspapers from that era and you will find many have no notices anywhere in the paper. And during the relevant era, any significant number of copies being distributed without a notice was sufficient to put an image in the public domain. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 17:39, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Having read the above, I don't see why wire photos should be singled out for special treatment. Works published in the US between 1963 and 1978 without notice are in the public domain. Some of the discussion above concerns the case where there is some copyright notice on the work – I think we all agree that in such cases the image is still protected (We should caution uploaders that the notice may not be in the masthead, as has been referenced above). But if there's no notice, then it's in the public domain. As D. Benjamin Miller notes above, even accidental omission of copyright notice in works of that era leaves a work in the public domain now. So we don't have to engage in an exercise where we imagine copyright agreements that AP may or may not have wished that it might have engaged in. Ajpolino (talk) 23:11, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think we're singling out wire photos because it is easy to identify them as not being the work of the newspaper. The newspaper can lose the copyright to its own work, but not to work that someone else may have already copyrighted. In my belief. Counterfeit Purses (talk) 00:11, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Jmabel points out UPI's lack of copyright notice above when transmitting photos to publications. I'd like to know with reasonable certainty that AP did the same thing. Only then would I be in favor of hosting these photos on Commons. As it stands, there's enough of a question to prevent hosting them. Bastique ☎ let's talk! 00:15, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Bastique, I don't think it would make any difference what the AP transmissions included. As D. Benjamin Miller said above Any reproduction that took place with the proprietor's general assent had to include the notice. It's hard to imagine now, but the notice carried the weight of the law during this era. Lose the notice, lose the copyright. Ajpolino (talk) 03:31, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Unless I missed something, nobody here is a copyright lawyer. Again, it's not as clear cut as you think and the precautionary principal is 100% in force when there's a significant question. Whether US law would compare this to the "movie distributor" example mentioned above is also a matter of question that I doubt has been resolved by US law. Unless that is resolved, whether the copyright holder provided a copyright notice is, actually, what we would rightfully consider here on Commons. It probably doesn't matter is not good enough, and nobody has provided proof that it absolutely doesn't matter. Bastique ☎ let's talk! 19:39, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Here are examples of AP photos as distributed.
    As you can see, @Bastique @Jameslwoodward, right through the 1980s AP photos customarily included no copyright notice (in the form in which they were distributed to newspapers). Additionally, many newspapers which published these photos did not include a copyright notice at all. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 05:39, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Counterfeit Purses I won't repeat D. Benjamin Miller exactly, but will point back to en:Night_of_the_Living_Dead#Copyright_status_and_home_media. An accidental omission by a distributor (which is what a newspaper would be here) resulted in the loss of copyright. I.e. a distributor can lose the copyright to someone else's work. Either way, we're talking about an era where notice is required to maintain copyright, and we have no evidence that wire services ever provided notice alongside publication. Ajpolino (talk) 00:33, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Something was bothering me about this comparison, and I realize now what it was. Referring to the newspaper as the "distributor" is deceptive. That may be the effect, but it is not their role. AP is providing a service to the newspapers, not the other way around.
    The difference is agency. The newspapers are not an agent of the AP. They have no rights or duties with regard to the products the AP is providing them. They have purchased the use of the images for their own product and service, which is, providing the news. They have no responsibility or obligation to distribute the APs images at all. The AP provided a service to the newspapers.
    In the case of the Night of the Living Dead, the distributor is an agent of the production company. Their sole role is to distribute that content. The loss of copyright is not simply that there was no copyright notice, it was that there was no copyright notice by a company that was acting as an agent of the copyright holder. An agent whose sole purpose was to distribute the copyrighted item in question. The distributor provided the service to the production company. In that way, these two things are the reverse of one another.
    This difference is enough to make these two things not parallel at all, therefore The Night of the Living Dead is, an unhelpful comparison.
    All that being said, I agree that the AP probably did not provide a copyright notice when sending the photos to the newspapers. But probably isn't good enough for Commons. Bastique ☎ let's talk! 00:17, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    First of all, there is absolutely no reason to think this "agency" distinction you bring up is in any way relevant. Nothing in the Copyright Act of 1909 mentions a distinction of the sort, and I cannot find any case law which uses this sort of distinction in any way that would be relevant to this case. The law relates to copies made under the authority of the proprietor — that is, authorized copies — and requires that substantially all have a proper notice.
    The newspapers certainly had rights — they had the right to include the content in the newspaper. Moreover, the "agent"/"client" distinction itself is highly dubious. The distributors of films paid for rights to films, just as newspapers paid for access to AP transmissions. Both film distributors and newspapers were making copies under the authority of the previous proprietor.
    You may say that the AP provided a service to newspapers — and sure, they did, but the relationship was a two-way street! Without newspapers buying access, the AP would have had no money, and nobody would have seen the AP's content.
    D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 05:10, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The purpose of that law is that anyone who receives a copy of the work can look at it and go "hey, there's a copyright notice on here, I'm going to have to wait until year+96 for it to be in the public domain" or "hey, there's no copyright notice here, I must be able to use it." When a court ruled that a foreign copy of the work marked "do not import into the US" didn't have to have a copyright notice, the next version of the law said "Yes, yes it does". It seems clearly counter to the purpose of the law that that a mass producer of works could retain their copyright despite there being no notice on the copies of the works being printed. The US Copyright Office's Copyright Compendium says "If a considerable number of copies have been published without notice, registration will be denied." The only thing it says about licensees is "A notice naming, a licensee alone (e.g., 11 Copyright 1960, Tinpan Music Co., U.S. Licensee.") will not be accepted." s:Copyright Act of 1909, with minor changes, stood until 1978. It says "Sec. 9. That any person entitled thereto by this Act may secure copyright for his work by publication thereof with the notice of copyright required by this Act; and such notice shall be affixed to each copy thereof published or offered for sale in the United States by authority of the copyright proprietor, except in the case of books seeking ad interim protection under section twenty-one of this Act." The AP licensed it to them, it was published by authority of the copyright proprietor.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:42, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for all the detailed analysis. FYI, I undeleted one file. Other deleted files should probably also be undeleted by the same rationale. Yann (talk) 10:52, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Added a short sentence to Category:United Press International photographs and Category:Photographs distributed by Associated Press. If someone knows how a copyright notice had to be included (did a copyright notice for the newspaper as a whole count, or did a copyright notice need to be included for each photograph), that would be helpful to add as well. SilverStar54 (talk) 19:08, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question?

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Hi, I have a question. This may sound dumb, but anyway—sometimes I find celebrity images licensed under CC BY-SA on GoodFon when I search on Google. However, when I search for the same image on paid sites like Getty Images, I can't find it. Does that make it eligible for use here? On Wikimedia? Lililolol (talk) 20:14, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do not upload anything off of Getty Images, please... AuroraANovaUma ^-^ (talk) 21:30, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
i didn't :) Lililolol (talk) 21:32, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I know you didn't, was just letting you know what not to do incase you end up wanting to do something AuroraANovaUma ^-^ (talk) 01:00, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Lililolol: I'm confused what you are saying (too many pronouns). "I can't find it" (Emphasis mine): what does "it" refer to? Are you are saying that the image isn't on Getty Images, or that it is on Getty images and they are are claiming exclusive rights (and the pronoun it refers to the CC license), or what? - Jmabel ! talk 22:07, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel Sorry for the confusion! What I meant is that sometimes I see celebrity images on GoodFon labeled as CC BY-SA, but when I check sites like Getty Images, I can't find those same images there. So, I was wondering—does the fact that they are marked as CC BY-SA on GoodFon mean they are actually free to use on Wikimedia, or should I be skeptical? Lililolol (talk) 19:06, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Lililolol: There is indeed a phenomenon called license laundering, where some untrustworthy people take copyrighted content from website A and anonymously re-publish it on website B, this time under a free license. This is of course copyright infringement. The problem for us is, know, to determine genuine instances of license laundering, which require us to delete the files from Commons in question, or not upload them in the first place. Gnom (talk) 19:57, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The absence of the image on Getty doesn't mean much. Getty does not have a lot of motivation to show CC-licensed images.
But, yes, this could be license-laundering. The first things I'd ask are: who are the images attributed to on GoodFon? Do they seem to be part of a consistent body of work by that person? (Consistent body of work would mean they don't seem to be everywhere all the time, their photographic style has some consistency, they don't seem to be using dozens of different cameras, etc.)- Jmabel ! talk 20:56, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
GoodFon is a wallpapers website that allow user submissions with (claimed) over 1 million wallpapers, and clearly some people are making wallpapers from editing photos they don't own. Also from all the ones I look at, I don't see CC BY SA anywhere or any license on the page, if I view page source I see CC BY NC 4.0 on everything. But maybe it's the default license and can be changed. In any case I think we need to see specific example to know.  REAL 💬 ⬆   21:17, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@999real The licenses don't appear on Goodfon's image pages, but they do show up when I search for a random celebrity name on Google, click on "Images" -> "Search tools" -> "Usage rights" -> "Creative Commons licenses." After that, all the images tagged under Creative Commons licenses will appear. Lililolol (talk) 23:02, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When you use that filter on google it will show results with all CC licenses including NC, ND which are not allowed here, you can't assume it is CC-BY-SA  REAL 💬 ⬆   00:54, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Right, see COM:LJ for why they are not allowed here.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 13:46, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Uploading a 1908 Book Label to Wikimedia Commons

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I’ve come across several book labels on Wikimedia Commons—most from the Digital Public Library of America @DPLA_bot—dating back to the early 1900s from a circulation library based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. I recently scanned a book label from the same company, found in a book published in 1908. This label contains detailed information about the governing rules, which I have not seen in the other uploads. There are no date stamps indicating when the book had been taken out or returned, and no one has added any other markings to the label that may flag it as a collaborative work.

The founder of the library, as well as the company that managed it, passed away in 1916. From what I’ve researched, the company went bankrupt before 1910. While the upload wizard suggests waiting 150 years, I’ve noticed many similar book labels from the same company already uploaded by various users, which leads me to believe this scan may be in the public domain.

I am seeking clarification:

  • Are public domain scans like this generally discouraged for upload on Wikimedia Commons, since I did not create the label itself?
  • If the publication predates 1929 and the company ceased operations before 1910, is it acceptable to upload now?
  • Do I truly need to wait until 2058 or 2060 to meet the 150-year guideline, even if it seems to be in the public domain?

LewisMoten (talk) 23:50, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@LewisMoten: one of us is at least somewhat confused, but I'll try to help.
  • Why do you think this would be discouraged? I'm missing that entirely.
  • If it was out there as a book label, that would have constituted publication.
  • Anything from the U.S. up through 1929 is out of copyright in the U.S. and may therefore be uploaded to Commons as {{PD-US-expired}}.
  • Most likely a U.S. book label from that period was never copyrighted.
Jmabel ! talk 01:13, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Upload Wizard says I can upload works I created by myself, but nothing created or expired by others unless the author granted permission, or I took a photo of old art/statues/buildings over 150 years old. Nothing about public domain... LewisMoten (talk) 09:30, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
oops... typo. "nothing created or inspired by others" LewisMoten (talk) 09:32, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It should have a "This work was created by someone else and it is free to share." but I am aware the UploadWizard has simplified options. Adam Cuerden (talk) 09:59, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh. Right Commons:First_steps/Uploading_files. Yeah, that was DREADFULLY written. I've rephrased it. Adam Cuerden (talk) 10:12, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Adam Cuerden: I did a further reword there. I agree with your intention, but not with your wording. - Jmabel ! talk 17:45, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
[edit]

Hello!

According to {{Top icon}} on enwiki, it says that images with attribution licenses are disallowed. However, if I were to add a disclaimer about the author and license in a tooltip, such that it shows up when the user hovers over it, would it still be a copyright violation? QuickQuokka [⁠talk • contribs] 09:58, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Technically, probably yes (though I don't think a tooltip would do unless you have some alternative for access on a phone), but why on earth would you want to encumber yourself that way when using something for this purpose? Just choose a different image. - Jmabel ! talk 17:55, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel: Well, the top icons don't appear on the mobile version of Wikipedia anyways, and it is a logo licensed under CC BY-SA with no non-attribution alternatives... Would that do? QuickQuokka [⁠talk • contribs] 09:40, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This template does not display in the mobile view of Wikipedia

QuickQuokka [⁠talk • contribs] 09:43, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds reasonable to me. Possibly some code (if possible) to produce a clear error message if this is ever shown in the mobile version?
Anyone else have thoughts?
Jmabel ! talk - 18:45, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel: Another concern is that the CC BY-SA 4.0 license requires either the license text or a URI to the license. It doesn't specify that the URI must be clickable, so having it in the tooltip may still be OK, but it's getting more questionable... QuickQuokka [⁠talk • contribs] 15:02, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

File:Wappen Bergerhausen.png

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Bei der Behaltenssentscheidung gegen den Löschantrag wurde übersehen, dass der Antrag auch aufs Copyright abzielte. Daher muss hier drüber diskutiert werden. Siehe Commons:Deletion requests/File:Wappen Bergerhausen.png GerritR (talk) 18:08, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, das müsste man halt mal recherchieren (zum Beispiel indem man bei der Gemeinde anfragt). Gnom (talk) 18:52, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Dieses "man" hätte der Hochlader sein müssen, ich sehe micht nicht dazu verpflichtet, solche Ermittlungen durchzuführen. GerritR (talk) 20:17, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sonst keine Meinungen dazu? GerritR (talk) 09:54, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Files keep getting flagged for no reason, no clear communication

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I'm at my wit's end and I want to quit this website, but I keep coming back because I love research. I singlehandedly wrote the Visayan pop article in just a day, and another editor rated it B-class. The fact that I keep getting "Your file will be deleted in 7 days and you might get blocked on Wikimedia" messages is really frustrating. I'm about to cry, though it's stupid. I've even emailed the Wikimedia team and kept asking for explicit instructions on how to avoid these messages and all that people on here give me is "Check our email template," "Ask other people," or redirects to pages like these. I'm begging for clear instructions at this point. This is affecting my mental health. If you look at various pages, I have contributed various photos with confirmed permission.

You can see on the files' pages that the permission for the files were confirmed. But last month, an editor wrongly flagged various image uploads of mine for deletion and threatened me with a block from WC. I emailed Wikimedia and it was acknowledged by a team member that my files were wrongly flagged. Isn't that irresponsible? But I did not get so much as a single acknowledgment or apology from that person, who still proceeded to wrongly delete some of those files (I managed to recover a few).

This is so irresponsible and all it's doing is alienating people like me, who are passionate about providing free information, capable of writing high-quality prose consistently, and can coordinate with photographers to obtain their written permission.

For this one, I clicked "I have obtained permission from the copyright holder" and checked the "I understand that this file will be deleted in 30 days if permission is not received" box, yet I got another one of those messages, saying they'll delete the file in 7 days because "there's conflicting copyright information" (I already made it clear that the copyright information and permission will be obtained within 30 days).

Please be responsible and communicate clearly. Bloomagiliw (talk) 22:26, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It says very clearly when I upload it that the copyright owner has 30 days to send their email of written permission, and I do coordinate with these people to get that sent. But how can that even be accomplished if the files keep getting flagged for deletion within 7 days (way shorter time frame than what I agree to when I upload the file) and the permission email asks for the exact link to the file uploaded on Wikimedia? Don't you get how frustrating and confusing this is? Bloomagiliw (talk) 22:31, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I contested the no license on the Vivoree Esclito file so you'd have the 30 days you'd need. Abzeronow (talk) 22:35, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate that. Thank you. Bloomagiliw (talk) 22:39, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Bloomagiliw: it's because you didn't indicate what license will be offered. The message came from a bot, and all it knows is that there is no PD or license tag anywhere on the page.
Do you know what license they will be providing? If so, just put the right tag there. If not, it's trickier, but say so and I can come up with something that will outsmart the bot till permission arrives.
Remember: even if these somehow get deleted, once permission arrives they will be restored. - Jmabel ! talk 22:58, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair it is really horrible UX for someone to use the built-in upload function and choose a built-in option saying they have 30 days to send to VRT, and then less than an hour later have a bot leave them a message indicating they did something wrong and saying their file will actually be deleted in 7 day. UploadWizard is supposed to make uploading files easier but in this case it actually seems to be doing more damage. Either we should change the bot (Ping @AntiCompositeNumber: as the bot operator) or we should change the UploadWizard workflow. Dylsss (talk) 23:29, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can exempt files with {{Permission pending}}, but I do not see a reason to do so for files with no license stated. If there is not even an alleged license, we have no justification for hosting the file. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 23:42, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If I add a license, I'll get hit with a "no evidence for license" again. 😐 How exactly does any of this work? I need to upload the file to obtain permission but I can't state a license until the permission has already been confirmed. (Coordinating with other people, especially in other timezones, takes time.) I also can't *not* state a license because then there'd be "no justification to host the file." Bloomagiliw (talk) 23:44, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Bloomagiliw: If you have {{PP}} and a license, and it's been less than 30 days, and anyone says "no evidence for license", they are doing it wrong, not you.
If you are uploading, you should already know what license is being granted. The email to VRT is presumably a confirmation to Commons of something you've already arranged, not a deus ex machina of a permission you didn't expect.
FWIW: you are working in one of the trickiest areas here, and it is inherently tricky. You are uploading materials to Commons for which a third party holds the rights, but they haven't previously granted the license that Commons requires. I don't think there is much we could do to make that simple, but if you have concrete suggestions as to what would make that simpler, I'd be really interested. In particular: are there any necessary steps you are belatedly learning that are not spelled out at COM:VRT? That would be worth knowing and fixing. - Jmabel ! talk 00:11, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I'm pretty new to Wikipedia, so I didn't know about the email permission thing before, but I did learn quickly. I always arrange it now before I upload anything; the problem is that, for example, with Vivoree Esclito's main photo, the photographer got a bit busy.
Mr. Sace Natividad did still send the permission in time. One of my very first messages was to inform him about the email procedure, and they said they received the template and would send it ASAP. It took him a few weeks to get back because, in his own words, he got really busy. He's a well-known professional photographer in Filipino music fandoms.
It's a real struggle for me because these pages I'm adding photos to are all of Filipino public figures. It's especially hard to find photos of them that are usable for Wikipedia for many different reasons, and that's why most of them have no photos at all. As a Filipino without the means to travel to fan events, I just want to help fix that. I've been able to do it with some pages (e.g. Alamat, Vivoree).
But yeah. Aside from everything I mentioned, I've also experienced premature and/or wrong flagging too many times recently. E.g. I uploaded a screenshot of an ad called "Mango on Top" on Bini (group)'s page. It was from a video that the copyright owner uploaded under a CC license that's clearly visible in the YouTube description.
Someone's bot tried to get it deleted, and the person running the bot threatened a WC block. It wasn't until I complained via email that someone else finally used a YouTube checker bot (and manual confirmation too) to confirm that it was indeed uploaded under a free license. The image is still up right now, but not without the WC block threat making its way to my talk page first, causing me pretty severe anxiety.
It's just really frustrating and distressing to spend so much time trying to do things right, and instead, even when you're not really doing anything wrong and/or the problem is super fixable, other editors go for the instant file delete/"You'll get blocked from Wikimedia Commons the next time you do this" and don't communicate properly.
At this point, I think the only thing that'd make uploading less of a headache for third party files is if I can tell the copyright owners to include links to the original files instead in the email of permission, instead of having to include links to them hosted on Wikimedia. But the email template does specifically ask for "exact links to the file on Wikimedia." Bloomagiliw (talk) 01:09, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is getting very far from copyright, but I am assuming the digression in your third paragraph is about File:Bini in "Mango on Top".png. Just so you know in the future: when uploading a free-licensed YouTube video or a still from that video, it is a good idea (though not an absolute requirement) to use the tag {{YouTubeReview}} requesting that an admin or license-reviewer verify the license. But again, that is not a requirement.
But perhaps you are referring to something else: I do see that User:Krd erroneously tagged it as missing permission (User:Ankry removed the tag 5 hours later and marked the file as reviewed). Krd is not a bot (you say this was done by a bot), and I see absolutely no evidence that Krd threatened you with a block. (If you were referring to something else, please be less vague, and if you were referring to this, it's not quite the way you characterized it.)
The only place on your talk page I see anything more than a pro forma mention of a block is a post by User:Doclys (who is not an admin). It looks to me like Doclys didn't look at the situation particularly closely, just saw a bunch of files that had had copyright issues and posted a warning notice. FWIW, if this situation came to the level of admins' attention, you would almost certainly not be blocked. As I said above, you are working in one of the trickiest areas here. It is almost inevitable that someone who is trying to get a lot of third-party permissions will sometimes have things fall through the cracks. Just try before you upload to be at least pretty confident people intend to follow through with their permissions, and also maybe write something on your (currently empty) user page that this is the sort of thing you are trying to do, so other users can get some context. And feel free to permalink the current discussion, which will eventually be archived. If this does get to a point where someone is trying to place inappropriate sanctions over this, you can reference this discussion, or ping me. - Jmabel ! talk 04:58, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. Just to clarify, I am definitely aware that Krd is not a bot, but there is a Krdbot used by this person. The "Mango on Top" situation was resolved most quickly out of all, but it was only one of the many files that their bot had wrongly marked for deletion. For example, a group photo of Alamat (a screenshot from a vlog by Pops Fernandez)° was taken down by their bot, yet strangely, a screenshot of member Ralph Joseph Lim, which is now still his current main photo, remains up. The source video is the same (Pops Fernandez's vlog, which she released under a CC license).
° This is obviously not the same photo as their main photo, which was also uploaded by me, but another one that I added to the body of their article. Bloomagiliw (talk) 06:56, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I did not name anyone specific because I'm not hoping (or expecting) to get anyone in specific "in trouble," but was kinda at my breaking point due to consistent lack of clear communication for months from different editors over this media issue.
E.g. My Bowen Yang screenshot from the channel Our Movie Guide got flagged and deleted for copyright violations but now, Bowen's main photo is a screenshot from the exact same channel and press junket uploaded by someone else, and all other screenshots from that channel/junket (Ethan Slater, Ariana Grande) remain untouched too. It just makes a person feel confused and like things are only wrong when they're the one doing it, especially without being given clear explanations on why these things happen. (Edit: So I did check and those files I mentioned on Bowen, Ariana, and Ethan's pages have now also been nominated for deletion because of "license laundering," which I understand. Again, though, I just wish I was informed of these things.)
Although I'm embarrassed by how heightened my emotions were when I began this talk, I'm just relieved to have clearer communication now on these things.Bloomagiliw (talk) 06:58, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've said a lot now, but I've noted all these things. Thank you for letting me know about all of them. Bloomagiliw (talk) 07:23, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

File:Identite-LouisMalle-1958-Sacem.png

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Is File:Identite-LouisMalle-1958-Sacem.png OK for Commons to keep? I'm not familiar with the {{PD-ID-France}} license it's released under, and it's not clear how to determine whether this is a legally valid ID photo per COM:FRANCE; plus, the source given for the photo states it copyrighted by Fonds Sacem, which might be en:Sacem. Anyway, if the file is OK to keep, then the non-free one currently being used in the main infobox or en:Louis Malle would no longer satisfy English Wikipedia's non-free content use policy and could be replaced by this one. -- Marchjuly (talk) 11:08, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Well, I would never rely on Sacem about copyright. They would probably claim a copyright on Mozart's works if they could. Yann (talk) 11:29, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Rapid Response 47

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Buenas ,se puede publicar el logo de Rapid Response como este (la cuenta esta afiliada por White House en EEUU)? AbchyZa22 (talk) 15:43, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@AbchyZa22: The image of the White House is the primary copyrightable element, so I think it depends on where they sourced that image from. If it is a licensed stock image, we would not be able to host it. I wasn't able to find that particular drawing online with some searching, so it may have been created by or for them specifically. In that case {{PD-US-Gov}} could apply. Sorry that that is not a definitive answer, hopefully other people can shed more light on it. – BMacZero (🗩) 17:09, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@BMacZero:look AbchyZa22 (talk) 17:19, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@AbchyZa22: That is good, since the image used in the logo appears to be the same one that's used on whitehouse.gov, I think it's probably safe to say that {{PD-USGov}} applies. – BMacZero (🗩) 06:55, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WikiAfrica/Artgate

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Hi, We have a number of recent paintings with {{WikiAfrica/Artgate}}, e.g. among others:

I wonder if this foundation really has the right to give a free license for these works. Usually, only the artist and their heirs have this right. If this is the case, it should specifically mentioned in the permission. According to [5], the permission letter states that Fondazione Cariplo is the "sole owner of the exclusive copyright of the works". I personally think this is not sufficient. Many GLAMs wrongly claim to be the copyright owner of the works they host. We at least need to know how they acquired the copyright. Opinions? Yann (talk) 09:03, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if the statement made by the institution is correct, then we are good. Gnom (talk) 13:54, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know the specifics of reproduction copyright law in Italy, but on face value this would only really make legal sense if the heirs gave the museum the copyright of the underlying works or the artist themself bequeathed their copyright to the foundation upon their death, similar to what w:Scott Burton did with the Museum of Modern Art. But that's super rare; artists almost never donate the actual copyright ownership of their work to a museum. More likely, the foundation in this case is claiming that they own the copyright of the reproduction they created (the photograph of the painting), and therefore saying that they have the right to release it under a free license on Commons. But that seems like an outdated or bad-faith legal interpretation on the foundation's part, if Italian law has similar reproduction rules as the US/UK, which I'm more familiar with; high quality reproductions (duplications) of works with an existing copyright don't automatically get their own copyright, they're subject to the underlying work's status, depending on the type of work and a range of other factors. In the US and UK at least, for the foundation's copyright statement to be valid, the artist or their heir would have had to fully sign over the copyright for the underlying painting, or sign some sort of agreement allowing the foundation to own the copyright of these reproductions, which feels illogical. (This of course all rests on the assumption that the underlying paintings are indeed copyrighted, which I have no way to know personally, again I'm not super familiar with Italian copyright law). --19h00s (talk) 20:58, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Artworks in Italy are under a copyright for 70 years after the author's death, and in several cases, the author died less than 70 years ago. Also this permission is used for works in the public domain, and for works still under a copyright, which confirms my doubt. Yann (talk) 21:05, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I'd agree with that assumption. And I'm just gonna take a wild guess that some folks at this foundation are probably not that familiar with the more complicated aspects of licensing/copyright/reproduction for works that are actually in copyright; their collection primarily comprises artwork far too old to necessitate thinking about respecting an artist's copyright, so it's probably not the first thing they think of when releasing images of art. Further, this isn't even an art museum or primarily art-focused foundation, but rather a nonprofit that supports a range of causes; they're most likely not art copyright experts and this could easily have been a mistake/oversight. 19h00s (talk) 00:21, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I nominated these works for deletion. Yann (talk) 23:30, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
[edit]

Hi!

Is this logo below the TOO? We need the German jurisdiction here, thanks :)

--PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 10:53, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I would assume that US law (which appears to be stricter about logos than German law) regards this as copyrighted. Gnom (talk) 13:55, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Gnom: what is that based on? I wouldn't consider this a clearcut case in the U.S. - Jmabel ! talk 18:52, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you say so. My expertise lies with German and European law, under which I would see it as copyrighted. Gnom (talk) 20:22, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@PantheraLeo1359531: Distilling the conversation above, the answer is, no, it's quite likely not below TOO in Germany. Bastique ☎ let's talk! 20:24, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Jerry_henderson_portrait.gif I can find tidbits about artists having drawn things a late as 1964 and the drawing was presumed to be created in the United States. It has not been 70 years.

In the case of artwork, does it strictly remain with the artist, or does it go with the heir of the model? The uploader is resisting deletion and changed the copyright to "PD-70". Graywalls (talk) 00:36, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Westboro Baptist Church

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Are their materials Commons license-compatible? Their footer states "Westboro Baptist Church © 1955-2025 (You may use any of our material free of charge for any reason.)" I view this as {{attribution}}</nowiki> type but I'm not sure. JayCubby (talk) 00:48, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Free of charge doesn't necessarily mean free for anyone to use for any purpose. Abzeronow (talk) 01:02, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But I would think "for any reason" does. Jmabel ! talk 02:47, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I personally agree with you, I guess the question is whether you strictly means an individual, as opposed to any legal entity. Also, a blog post of theirs states "never fear, all our stuff is still free to use including our parodies and memes"JayCubby (talk) 02:53, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's fair to assume they mean anybody, including legal entities. In Chile we wouldnt have such a problem though :-P Bedivere (talk) 03:07, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I also think that we are good here. Gnom (talk) 17:33, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WBC doesn't specify the need of attribution, so I'd say their license fits {{Copyrighted free use}} better than {{Attribution}}. In fact, we actually host some of WBC's files here. See Category:Works of the Westboro Baptist Church. AuroraANovaUma ^-^ (talk) 19:31, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We even have {{WBCWork}} for their files. (It seems that the template itself isn’t categorized. I guess that should be fixed.) --Geohakkeri (talk) 19:58, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Certain contents of the Formula 1 Exhibition (London)

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Hi, I've just gotten back yesterday from an overnight trip to London, which was mainly centred around a visit to the Formula 1 Exhibition at the ExCeL Arena. I'm planning on slowly putting up some of my photos from the visit in order to make sure photos of it do exist on record through Commons before it goes away, but I've a query on some of the copyright aspect:

Basically, are printed explanatory captions on exhibit walls (and their attached images) copyrighted when photographed, and would that make them inadmissible on the Commons? Its hard to explain without producing a photograph I've yet to upload.

As well as this, are exhibited documents such as Max Verstappen's FIA Super License certificate, 1960s/1970s British Grand Prix entry forms, correspondence between Enzo Ferrari and J. Eason Gibson, the front page of an FIA Rules and Regulations document, among others, copyrighted in some form? Reading COM:FOP UK, I have a feeling some of the stuff on the walls in the museum may not be uploadable, but the status of the letters strikes me as rather unusual. Hullian111 (talk) 19:11, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The UK has about the lowest threshold of originality in the world, and has no freedom of panorama for "graphic works", so any but the most trivial museum or exhibition texts are going to be protected by copyright. (Probably things that are literally just identifications and authorship info are OK, but not if they say anything past that.)
I would also expect that under the Berne Convention, correspondence is copyrighted. Ditto for certificates unless all of the copyrightable elements are very old (e.g. we might be OK for a certificate designed in the 1920s, even if the particular one we have is newer in terms of whose name is on it, etc.). - Jmabel ! talk 04:38, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah. Well that's me stuffed, then. Suppose I don't mind for the fact I don't need to upload each and every single exhibit, though; only problem now is that I've copied and pasted in copyrighted info plaques/captions into my upload descriptions, so they'll likely need removing and replaced now - see Category:Formula 1 Exhibition, London if anyone wants to go sort that out. Hullian111 (talk) 11:13, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The UK changed its threshold of originality to match the EU's during its period of EU membership. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 20:07, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@D. Benjamin Miller: so does that mean you would give different advice, and that more of this would be OK for Commons? - Jmabel ! talk 00:17, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Photographs of copyrighted documents would not be OK to add anyway, although a photograph of the exhibition taken such that such elements do not substantially figure (unreadable or truly incidentally included) would be fine. but I was just pointing this out. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 00:45, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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Hi!

I would like to archive files from an open-source camera. The MIT license is clear, but the CERN Open Hardware Licence has no template here, yet. As it is similar to the GPL, can it used as template here instead or should we add a template for the CERN OHL? Thanks :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 10:17, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

CC-BY vs CC-BY-SA

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Hi, despite my research, I've not found understandable information about licensing as CC-BY-SA. So please report (an give a link) if the indicated title has already been covered/answered.

I wonder know if, for a derived work from an original licensed CC-BY one:
  • I must attribute a CC-BY license
  • I must attribute a CC-BY-SA license
  • I shall attribute either a CC-BY or a CC-BY-SA license (upon my choice)
And, in the latter case (a CC-BY-SA licence), what are implications:
  • for a derived work of my work
i.e. restrictions for the licensee, between my licence (CC-BY-SA), and the original licence (CC-BY)

Thanks a lot, yours, En rouge (talk) 18:22, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You may publish your creatively derived work under any license, provided that you attribute the author of the previous work and that you indicate that the previous work is under CC BY. If someone publishes a work that derives from something created by you in your CC BY-SA work, they must publish their work under CC BY-SA. If their work derives from the previous CC BY work by the other author only, without including anything created by you, they may publish their work under any license with attribution to the other author and mention that the previous work is under CC BY. -- Asclepias (talk) 19:43, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@En rouge: I think Asclepias slightly misunderstood your question here (not entirely their fault, I didn't read it correctly at first either.) You seem to be asking what are your obligations if you create a work that derives from a work under either a CC-BY license or a CC-BY-SA license.
  • For both licenses, you must give attribution; in particular, you must attribute whose work you are using.
  • For both licenses, you must make it clear what came from the original work and what does not.
  • If the original work was offered under the CC-BY-SA license, you have the additional obligation that you must offer your own (derivative work) under the same license.
    • As a result, your work is necessarily CC-BY-SA, so a reuser has exactly the same obligation, both to the original author and to you.
  • If the original work was under CC-BY and you are offering CC-BY-SA, you certainly couldn't go wrong by saying that, but I'm not sure it's an obligation. Since you are publishing under a narrower license, I don't think you are obligated to indicate that some portions of your work could be used under a broader one. That is the one point on which I'm uncertain; I've always avoided that. Someone else may have more clarity on this point.
So, in particular, if you derive from a CC-BY image, and you license yours as CC-BY-SA (because the other way around is impossible) a further reuser of your work:
  • Must link the [relevant version of] the CC-BY-SA license. The original CC-BY license is irrelevant, because it cannot be used for this derivative work.
  • Must attribute both you and the author of the original work.
  • Must be clear what changes (if any) are theirs
  • Must license their work with the same version of the CC-BY-SA license as you offered.
Does that fully answer your question? Jmabel ! talk 00:41, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think my answer addressed the specific questions asked.
On the need to mention the CC BY license of the original work, please refer to section 3-a.1.C. of the CC BY 4.0 license:
"If You Share the Licensed Material (including in modified form), You must: [...] indicate the Licensed Material is licensed under this Public License, and include the text of, or the URI or hyperlink to, this Public License.
(In versions 1.0 through 3.0, it can be good practice under section 8.b.)
-- Asclepias (talk) 02:36, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

L. L. Cook postcards

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I'm going through the postcards in this category and can't see how it's determined that any of them are in the public domain: Category:Postcards published by L. L. Cook Co.

They could have expired copyrights, but I don't see evidence of that linked from any of the files Searching online also doesn't turn up any evidence that the copyrights are expired.[6] Rjjiii (talk) 19:45, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The CC licenses indicated there are almost certainly wrong, but I'd be willing to bet money that these are {{PD-US-not renewed}}. - Jmabel ! talk 00:44, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel the article I linked above says that "If the postcard copyright was renewed in a timely manner, the new expiration date is 2008." It seems very unlikely that they could have been renewed past that point due to the way the company's assets were sold off but not used. What are best practices for the commons out of:
  • Assume the copyrights expired by 2008. Continue to upload these.
  • Because it's likely the copyright expired by 2008, keep what's here but don't upload more.
  • Because it's possible (even though unlikely) the copyright was renewed to be active until the present day, nominate them for deletion?
Since using them under "fair use" isn't an option here, I'm unsure what the best course of action is, Rjjiii (talk) 01:23, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Rjjiii: The short version is that the linked article makes so many mistakes about U.S. copyright law as to be worse than useless. They seem to be assuming that there have been no changes in copyright law since 1952; in fact, there have been several large changes. If you need me to spell that out in detail, I can, but the reality of the situation is that for a 1952 U.S. work there are basically three possibilities:
  • The work did not carry a copyright notice, and so it was immediately in the public domain.
  • The work was originally copyrighted but did not have its copyright renewed circa 1980, so it has been in the public domain since January 1, 1981.
  • The work had its copyright renewed circa 1980 and will be copyrighted through 2047.
You might want to look at COM:Hirtle chart.
Jmabel ! talk 01:51, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You can look up copyright renewals for the relevant period at https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First - Jmabel ! talk 01:55, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Jmabel. That is helpful. I won't bother to nominate these for deletion, but also won't upload more of them. It's more likely than not they have not been renewed, but I don't have a way to determine that for each postcard, Rjjiii (talk) 03:05, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Rjjiii: yes, you do have a way to determine that; that's why I provided the link. If there is no activity from the relevant entity to renew them (and I'm close to certain that would be the case), then they were not renewed. - Jmabel ! talk 03:43, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel Are you sure? It says "(1978 to present)", but I may be misinterpreting that. These postcards were are all printed well before 1978 and could have been renewed prior to 1978? Rjjiii (talk) 03:46, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Rjjiii: Copyrights could only be renewed when the original was between 27 and 28 years old. So for the hypothetical 1952 example, the only possibilities are 1979 and 1980.
Yes, more legwork is involved if the original date is before 1951. The renewal listings are out there, but harder to search. - Jmabel ! talk 04:12, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, I've looked into more of these. In the 50s, L. L. Cook Co. started to print copyright dates. I don't know if they still printed cards without dates in the 50s, but I see printed dates as early as 1951. For the cards on the commons that show both sides, the back does not have a date, and so I don't think they would show up on that search tool. Rjjiii (talk) 06:04, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've found what I think are all of the pre-1978 catalogs online. I'm working back one year at a time to 1923. It doesn't look any of these were ever renewed. Rjjiii (talk) 06:18, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Rjjiii: Also, if you have front and back for a postcard from the U.S. before January 1, 1978, and there is no copyright notice (or one that is not correctly formed), then it is {{PD-US-no notice}}. - Jmabel ! talk 06:21, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Gotcha, and thanks again for the help, Rjjiii (talk) 06:31, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Annonymous photographer via other person.

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Hi, about N988VJ photo I mentioned it before (archived and can't discuss). In that case, whose copyright permission do I need to ask for if I want to upload it to Commons with VRT and don't want to wait until it become PD ? Tô Ngọc Khang (talk) 04:56, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If someone was willfully anonymous, then it is probably an orphaned work (there is a copyright owner, but no way to identify them or get hold of them). Your only hope would be to contact that "other person" and see if they will help you in making the connection. - Jmabel ! talk 06:23, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
However, given that the linked page says so emphatically, "This photo is copyright protected and may not be used in any way without permission," it is extremely unlikely they would want to free-license it. - Jmabel ! talk 06:25, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This photo was gave to Phil Brooks by Art Smit Roeters, and anonymous photographer gave it to Arthur via a collection. Arthur passed away and Phil Brooks also don't know who is the photographer of the photo. Tô Ngọc Khang (talk) 06:41, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

File:Picture of Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury.jpeg

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I would like some opinions on the licensing of File:Picture of Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury.jpeg. It seems highly unlikely to be the uploader's own work, but more like something found online somewhere. There's no information provided about the image's provenance and there's nothing in the EXIF data to indicate where the image comes from. This was a cross-wiki uploaded to Commons in 2015. which seems to be this uploader's only edit to Commons. Perhaps there's a way to relicense it so that it can be kept per COM:Bangladesh or some other reason. If not, then I guess it probably should go to COM:DR given how many times its being used. -- Marchjuly (talk) 10:49, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

File:YoungMashiurRahman.jpg

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File:YoungMashiurRahman.jpg is similiar to #File:Picture of Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury.jpeg being discussed above in that it's almost certainly not the uploader's own work. Perhaps there's a way to relicense it so that Commons can keep it. There's no EXIF data to speak of, and there's nothing in the file's description which might otherwise clarify its provenance. Unlike the Chowdhury photo though, this file is only being used once; so, perhaps tagging it for speedy deletion could work if it can't be kept. -- Marchjuly (talk) 11:17, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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