Wikipedia:Media copyright questions

Media copyright questions

Welcome to the Media Copyright Questions page, a place for help with image copyrights, tagging, non-free content, and related questions. For all other questions please see Wikipedia:Questions.

How to add a copyright tag to an existing image

1. On the description page of the image (the one whose name starts File:), click Edit this page.
2. From the page Wikipedia:File copyright tags, choose the appropriate tag:
   • For work you created yourself, use one of the ones listed under the heading "For image creators".
   • For a work downloaded from the internet, please understand that the vast majority of images from the internet are not appropriate for use on Wikipedia. Exceptions include images from flickr that have an acceptable license, images that are in the public domain because of their age or because they were created by the United States federal government, or images used under a claim of fair use. If you do not know what you are doing, please post a link to the image here and ask BEFORE uploading it.
   • For an image created by someone else who has licensed their image under an acceptable Creative Commons or other free license, or has released their image into the public domain, this permission must be documented. Please see Requesting copyright permission for more information.
3. Type the name of the tag (e.g.; {{Cc-by-4.0}}), not forgetting {{ before and }} after, in the edit box on the image's description page.
4. Remove any existing tag complaining that the image has no tag (for example, {{untagged}})
5. Hit Publish changes.
6. If you still have questions, go on to "How to ask a question" below.

How to ask a question

1. To ask a new question hit the "Click here to start a new discussion" link below.
2. Please sign your question by typing ~~~~ at the end.
3. Check this page for updates, or request to be notified on your talk page.
4. Don't include your email address, for your own privacy. We will respond here and cannot respond by email.

Note for those replying to posted questions

If a question clearly does not belong on this page, reply to it using the template {{mcq-wrong}} and, if possible, leave a note on the poster's talk page. For copyright issues relevant to Commons where questions arising cannot be answered locally, questions may be directed to Commons:Commons:Village pump/Copyright.

Click here to start a new discussion

(For help, see Wikipedia:Purge)

Image question about a situation I'm currently in

I just uploaded File:Myliobatis goodei, Southern eagle ray, underside.png and File:Myliobatis goodei.png, Southern eagle ray, topside.png (that extra .png in the file name was accidental, I requested for it to be renamed). Both here and here it makes it very clear that there are no rights reserved, and the images are in the public domain. I had mistakenly assumed that because Ezequiel Mabragana was the identifier, that was also the license holder. However, after uploading the image, I had realized that per the second URL that I had linked to, the license holder is "Unspecified." The reason I brought this up here is because considering the author is a mandatory part of uploading the file, I would think that I couldn't just remove it altogether. What would be the best thing to do now? Can I just remove the author parameter or would that be in violation of some policy? I looked at WP:FCSD, and I didn't really find anything that says something like this would be a criteria for speedy deletion. Also, I apologize if the answer is obvious - image copyright is one of the fields in Wikipedia that I really don't know as much about as I should.--SkyGazer 512 ^{talk / contributions / subpages} 01:22, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

The author is given as unspecified on that web site, but there is no reason to believe that the public domain grant is invalid. In this situation you can identify the author as the website or its publisher. Missing author should not require speedy deletion if it is clear that the thing is in public domain, as the author does not need acknowledgement. However we just need to prove it is public domain. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:17, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, this was very helpful to know for this time, and will also help me when uploading images like this in the future. I've now changed it to the correct author.--SkyGazer 512 ^{talk / contributions / subpages} 02:28, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

@SkyGazer 512: You should upload these files to Wikimedia Commons, not here. Regards, Yann (talk) 13:57, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Yann, would it be best to just upload the same images to the Commons and then put {{subst:Now commons dated}} on the old files?--SkyGazer 512 ^{talk / contributions / subpages} 14:03, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes. Yann (talk) 14:15, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

 Done. Now just waiting for them to be deleted.--SkyGazer 512 ^{talk / contributions / subpages} 14:48, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Adding an image from online obituary

I am editing the page for Beatrix Hamburg who has recently passed. I would like to upload an image of her to her wiki page but am unsure if an obituary photo in a online news article would be a violation of copyright laws. I have found many photos of her on sites like the New York Times and Washington Post. Thank you for your help! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emryl (talk • contribs) 23:17, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi Emryl. Wikipedia generally prefers that all images be available under a free license or within the public domain because it's want to make sure the content it provides is available for anyone anywhere in the world to use as freely as possible without out have to worry about any restrictions; however, Wikipedia also recognizes that in some cases, particularly with respect to images, that it may be hard to do so it does make allowances similar to the US concept of fair use. Wikipedia does permit non-free content to be uploaded and used as long as it can shown to satisfy its non-free content use policy.

One of the generally accepted type of non-free use per item 10 of WP:NFCI are images of deceased individuals, and such images are generally allowed to be uploaded as long as (1) there's no reasonable expectation that a free equivalent can neither be found nor created per WP:NFCC#1 and (2) they don't infringe upon the commercial opportunities of the copyright holder per WP:NFCC#2. So, if you believe you can find an image which satisfies relevant policy, you should be able to upload it under the copyright license {{Non-free biog pic}} and use the non-free use rationale {{Non-free use rationale biog}}.

One last thing about images of deceased individuals is that even though for obvious reasons a new image cannot be created, there still may be a reasonable expectation of finding an existing free or public domain image, or an copyrighted image which the copyright holder might not mind converting to a free license, etc. Sometimes contacting the copyright holder as explained in WP:PERMISSION can be fruitful and lead to an image which is not subject the restrictions placed on non-free content use. There's a tendency for some editors to assume that any image found online of a someone has just died is automatically going to considered acceptable non-free content, but that is not always the case. Non-free content should be considered sort of a last option when there's no reasonable reason to believe that free equivalent cannot be used instead. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:00, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

File:Peachtree tshirt 2009.jpg

I don't think Wikipedia can keep this file. The photo can be licensed as "own work", but not the logo on the T-shirt itself, which seems to come from here. The main focus of the photo is the logo (without the logo all you'd have is a plain white T-shirt), so doesn't seem like de minimis, so this would need to be treated as a derivative work in my opinion with the photo being freely licensed, but the logo being treated as non-free content. Since there's no way in my opinion to justify this type of decorative non-free use given what's written about the official T-shirts in Peachtree Road Race#T-shirts, I think this needs to be deleted. The question is whether that needs to be done via WP:FFD or whether it can be tagged for speedy per WP:F9 or some other reason. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:32, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

It's rather old for a speedy, which is usually for recent images. I've tagged it for FFD at Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2018 April 23#File:Peachtree tshirt 2009.jpg. ww2censor (talk) 09:37, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

File:Cover image of Wookwan's Korean Temple Food Cookbook.jpg

Hi, I'm the one who owned copyright of this image, and I uploaded it. Can I ask why my image has been deleted? Please advise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Icphub (talk • contribs) 22:08, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Icphub: It seems the image was not uploaded here but was on the commons and deleted there because it was a book cover whose copyright is usually owned by the publisher or designer but you claimed it was your "own work". Is this c:File:Cover image of Wookwan's Korean Temple Food Cookbook.jpg the image in question? I presume it was a photo of this cookbook. By own work, did you design the book cover yourself for the publisher or did you just photograph it? In the latter case you are not the copyright holder you just took a photo of the book, but if you did design the book cover then you need to verify that with the OTRS Team. Good luck. ww2censor (talk) 22:50, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your advice. Yes! I'm the design of this cookbook, and my company is the publisher. Let me try to contact the tean you mentioned, or just take a picture this book by myself. Thanks once again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Icphub (talk • contribs) 22:57, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Icphub: You will have to be patient because the OTRS Team are backlogged about 60 days and taking another image of the book will still require verification you own the copyright. You could upload an image to a page on the publisher's website with a free copyright license statement but remember that in releasing an image under a free license, anyone can use the image for any purpose. BTW, you need to sign your posts by adding four tildes, like this ~~~~, to your posts like this one but not to articles. ww2censor (talk) 23:13, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

File:United World Federalists license-plate topper.jpg

Uploaded as "own work" back in 2006. While I believe the uploader took the photo, physically owning something does not automatically mean there has been an official transfer of copyright ownership. So, the question is whether the design on the license plate topper should be treated as protected by copyright. It looks simple enough to be PD-logo, but I'm not sure. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:14, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Picture of an author from his relative's own collection

Hi, I am working on adding a photo of Harold Berson, a children's author who died in 1986, to the infobox on his Wikipedia page. The photo was sent to me for the purposes of adding to the page by the author's nephew. It is from the nephew's own family photo collection and was taken in the 1950s.

I assume I need to provide evidence of permission. Is a copy of my email thread with the nephew sufficient? Any guidance otherwise?

Wiltonj (talk) 14:22, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

address to send my email

I want to send a form requesting permission to use with a free license CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Is the correct place to send the filled out form still at permissions@commonswikimedia.org ?

--Toploftical (talk) 13:06, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi Toploftical. If you mean that you want to give your permission for a file that you hold the copyright on to be released under a CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, then I believe you can send your email to either permissions-commons@wikimedia.org or permissions-en@wikimedia.org. Please see WP:CONSENT or c:COM:OTRS#Declaration of consent for all enquiries for some example emails you can use for reference. -- Marchjuly (talk) 13:40, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

thanks --Toploftical (talk) 13:51, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

License agreement / License statement template

Hello, Wikipedia community!

I am new here and would much appreciate help regarding the uploading of images. I with a couple of friends am running a campaign to protect the river Vydrica [1] in our country, Slovakia. In the process, we created some nice photos of nature which we would like to upload to Wikimedia Commons. I am uploading them for the team.

That means, in the file upload wizard (https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:File_Upload_Wizard&withJS=MediaWiki:FileUploadWizard.js)

they fall under the category This is a free work. / This file was given to me by its owner.

To do it all correctly, I should provide a license statement / license agreement and send it to Wikimedia. It will be no problem to obtain these, but I did not find a template. Where can I find one? Should they be printed out and signed manually?

Many thanks, I am looking forward to enriching Wikipedia by our work!

Dalibor

--Larch150 (talk) 07:09, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Larch150 the procedure is found on the OTRS Team's page on the commons. Please upload them on the commons and not here. That way other language wikis can use the images too. It is not quite as easy as stating This is a free work. / This file was given to me by its owner, because that does not state a specific free license. We need copyright holder's verified permission as well the name of the photographer. It would be easier for each photographer to get their own wiki account and then upload their own images, then they don't need to submit their permissions for images you would upload. Besides which the OTRS team are backlogged about 60 days so permission verification is taking a long time. ww2censor (talk) 08:20, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

British_Airways_Flight_5390

I wonder if someone better versed could evaluate the possibility of the fourth image here [2] might qualify as fair use in British_Airways_Flight_5390 -- unique historic image or whatnot. I think probably not but it's too good to not get a second opinion. Thanks! EEng 21:12, 29 April 2018 (UTC)