File:Fort Leonard Wood EF3 tornado 31 Dec 2010.jpg

Size of this preview: 800 × 533 pixels. Other resolutions: 320 × 213 pixels | 640 × 427 pixels | 960 × 640 pixels.

Original file ‎(960 × 640 pixels, file size: 42 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. Information from its description page there is shown below.
Commons is a freely licensed media file repository. You can help.

This media file has been nominated for deletion since 14 August 2024.

To discuss it, please visit the nomination page.

Do not remove this tag until the deletion nomination is closed.

Reason for the nomination:

This file originates on this page of the US National Weather Service. However, the creator of the image is ambiguous because it (and all the other storm damage photos on the page) are all collectively attributed "These photos are provided by National Weather Service storm surveys, as well as from some of our media partners. Many thanks to those who provided pictures following the event". None of these media partners or any other third party are specifically named, and no distinction is made between images created by National Weather Service personnel and those sourced from third parties. It was taken on December 31, 2010 in Missouri.

The same photo appears on pages 4 and 123 of the NOAA publication Storm Data, Volume 52, number 12 (December 2010) (available on demand from https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/IPS/sd/sd.html ) again without specific attribution.

As employees of the US federal government, any works created by NWS employees in the course of their duties are ineligible for copyright and are in the public domain. (And because this photo was taken on a US Army base, Fort Leonard Wood, noting here that the same would apply if the anonymous photographer were a member of the Army, on-duty)

Other than that, images created in the United States by "media partners" and most other third parties are generally protected by copyright.

Without knowing at least who took this photo, we cannot know its copyright status. And if it were ever under copyright, we have no evidence of permission that this copyright was ever transferred away to put the image in the public domain.

At different times, various regional offices of the National Weather Service have held contests or other public outreach exercises that have made release into the public domain a condition of participation. However, there is no evidence that connects this image with any one of those initiatives.

According to the National Weather Service disclaimer linked at the bottom of the webpage, "The information on National Weather Service (NWS) Web pages are in the public domain, unless specifically noted otherwise." No particular form for such a notation is specified or required in the disclaimer, and a wide range of attribution styles is observed on past and present weather.gov pages. These range from very explicit, formal notices with the copyright (©) symbol, through to "Courtesy of ..." and "Photo by ..." notations.

Given that weather.gov pages have hosted thousands of third-party images of a period of over 20 years and across over 100 regional offices, no special significance can be attached to the fact that not all of these notations share the same wording or format. Indeed, it would be extraordinary if they did.

Taken together, all of the above creates significant doubt under the precautionary principle as to whether this image is in the public domain.

I am not suggesting that it is necessarily protected by copyright; I'm saying that considering all the evidence together, we simply do not know whether it is or isn't, which means we must delete it.

If this template was added because you clicked "Mark for deletion" in the left menu (right when using Vector 2022 skin), please make sure that all necessary pages have been created. If they haven't been created after a few minutes, or if you added this template manually, you should complete these steps:

Visit the deletion requests subpage and place the following code:

{{subst:delete2|image=File:Fort Leonard Wood EF3 tornado 31 Dec 2010.jpg|reason=This file originates on this page of the US National Weather Service. However, the creator of the image is ambiguous because it (and all the other storm damage photos on the page) are all collectively attributed "These photos are provided by National Weather Service storm surveys, as well as from some of our media partners. Many thanks to those who provided pictures following the event". None of these media partners or any other third party are specifically named, and no distinction is made between images created by National Weather Service personnel and those sourced from third parties. It was taken on December 31, 2010 in Missouri.