Wikipedia:Media copyright questions

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

Do photocopies and scans of works in the Public Domain have their own copyright in the US?

I found a higher quality version of an image on Wikimedia Commons, but can't find a definitive answer. - ChainSmoker82 (talk) 05:38, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Hi ChainSmoker82. You can find out some more about this at c:Commons:2D copying, but generally making a slavish reproduction of something (e.g. scanning or xeroxing) isn't considered sufficient to generate a new copyright. There needs to be some kind of creative input added to something for it to be considered a WP:Derivative work (see also c:COM:DW). However, there might be other issues involved which would make such an image unsuitable for Commons; for example, it might be illegal to create a high resolution photo copy or scan of something due to the copyright laws of the country where the work is published. Neither Wikipedia nor Commons are most likely going to accept such files. For currency, you might want to look at c:COM:Currency; for US currency, you might want to look at c:COM:CUR United States. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:24, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. Upon further examination, it appears to be a photo rather than a scan. Because of this, I'll need to seek permission from them regardless. - ChainSmoker82 (talk) 13:07, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

No, a photo of a 2-dimensional work would fall under the same rules as a scan ("slavish reproduction of something"), unless there's some kind of creative choices involved, which seems unlikely. --Orange Mike | Talk 03:45, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

National Maritime Museum Photo: Francis Curzon

I am trying to understand the copyright status of this photo [1] which is held at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. Their description suggests that it was taken by Francis Curzon, 5th Earl Howe, though study of his article leaves some slight question in my mind as to whether it was taken by someone in the cinematograph service for the Navy. (The RMG information on their exhibits is often somewhat inaccurate.) If it was taken by Curzon, this seems to be as a result of his duties as a naval officer. Therefore I understand that it is OK to use (though I could not point anyone to where that rule is written down). Thanks, ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 20:47, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

@ThoughtIdRetired if Curzon did take the photos as part of his duties, we would need to know if the authorities claimed Crown Copyright on them. If they did then they will be PD in the UK as the Crown Copyright is over 50 years old. If Crown Copyright was not claimed then the copyright is still in force as Curzon only died in 1964. It's a pity the RMG website is so lacking in recording any copyright information. Nthep (talk) 20:00, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Looking at his role in WW1, together with all the other photos taken by him of associated subjects (all on naval ships) and all (it appears) in the same place, some of which would have required a high level of access, I think it defies belief that these were "personal" snaps. I note that one of the pictures is of the cinematographic unit for the navy (the team that it was his job to command). If they were done as part of his duties, I understand that there is an automatic claim of Crown Copyright – he was a serving naval officer

Is it really likely that an heir of Curzon would go to the trouble of asserting copyright when they would probably have as much evidence on the matter as we do? Would the RMG be in a position to assert copyright – in other words, could Curzon have transferred the copyright to them when he donated the collection of photos? Does the community of Wikipedia editors have any experience of asking RMG a question like "was this picture under crown copyright?". From the website of this museum and also the Imperial War Museum, they seem intent on maintaining the fiction that they have a current copyright on every picture they put on the internet. Therefore it is a little difficult to believe that they will give an honest answer.

The reason for the extra questions is that there is a whole wealth of photos of our maritime history that are locked away behind the ambition of these museums to make money from concealing or misrepresenting copyright status. I have no wish to get involved in a big battle on this, but I am prepared to get into a dialogue with them if I know what to say. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 20:57, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Tamla-Motown logo

I recently uploaded File:Tamla Motown logo variant A.webp as "PD-ineligible-USonly". Is the tag correct, or is the logo completely non-free? --George Ho (talk) 01:19, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Assuming that the country of origin is the UK, then "PD-ineligible-USonly" is probably OK. Other countries may have a TOO closer the the US which might mean the file could be OK for Commons as "PD-logo". Copyright questions aside, the file doesn't really add much contextually to the article it's being used in and would most certainly not pass (at least in my opinion) WP:NFCC#8 if the file needs to be treated as non-free. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:12, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

File:Freedom-Fries-Menu.jpg

This image is claimed to be copyrighted only by its photographer, who released it under GNU/CC-BY-SA. However, the main feature of this image is a restaurant's menu. Does this prevent the image from being released as a free image? (2.55.175.176 (talk)) 08:08, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

The file was uploaded to Commons which means you will most likely need to raise any concerns you have about it there. You can try asking for opinions at c:COM:VPC. Personally, I think it depends on how the menu is viewed. If you see the menu as being nothing more than printed text on a sheet of paper (i.e. there are no images or anything else on it that would certainly be eligible for copyright), then you could try and argue it wouldn't be eligible for copyright protection. On the other hand, you could also argue that the ordering of the list required some creativity and that would enough to make it eligible for copyright protection. Personally, I tend to lean towards the latter interpretation and that seems to be what is being stated here and here. If that's the case, the file couldn't be kept on Commons without the c:COM:CONSENT of whomever created the menu since the photo would be considered a derivative work. The CC-BY-SA license would be fine for the photo, but that license wouldn't extend to the menu. The other imagery in the photo would most likely be considered de minimis or incidental, but the menu would be the problem. It's important to note that none of the individual items on the menu like "Freedom Fries" are eligible for copyright as words (they could possibly be trademarked), but the layout and the ordering of the menu items would likely be eligible for its own copyright. --— Preceding unsigned comment added by Marchjuly (talk • contribs) 11:34, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Special:ListFiles/Ngs61

Hello. Can someone verify if these maps are derived from free sources? --Minorax^«¦talk¦» 09:02, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Photos produced by the Louisiana state government

I wanted to add a more recent photo of Cleo Fields, a state senator in Louisiana. (The current photo is from his time in Congress more than 30 years ago.) I was going to add his official photo on the Louisiana Senate website, but I saw that copyright issues were less clear for state governments than for the U.S. federal government. Unfortunately, the Copyright status of works by subnational governments of the United States page doesn't mention Louisiana. Does anyone know if a Louisiana state senator's directory photo is "free" in Wikipedia terms? Flaggingwill (talk) 00:39, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, California and Florida are the only states in which content created by state employees as part of their official duties is legally within the public domain. There isn't a lot about Louisiana here, but it is listed as a "red" state on that website which means that "documents are presumptively copyrightable". There's also nothing about Louisiana in Copyright status of works by subnational governments of the United States, but that page might not be totally accurate. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to simply email the Louisiana State Senate and ask. I couldn't find anything about copyright on the body's official website, but there is an email address listed at the bottom. There's also no copyright notice on their website (or a few other Louisiana government related websites that I checked) that I could find, but that doesn't mean the content is public domain since copyright notices are no longer legally required (I believe) for content to be considered protected. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:21, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Uploading artist image to artist page with permission of artist

Hi there

Sorry I'm a bit lost trying to upload an image. The image was created of Victor Hugo(Salsa), Victor owns the copyright, he's my husband and I'm creating this page for him. I don't know how to proceed wih the upload and work through the error messages.

Many thanks in anticipation Saxon — Preceding unsigned comment added by Saxon RIvas (talk • contribs) 08:18, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi Saxon RIvas. There are actually two issues in play here: one do with images and one to do with the article you're trying to create. Both issues aren't really related to one another, but they are both things you should try and resolve before trying to upload any more images or create an article about your husband.

With respect to the images you're trying to upload, if you're able to get the c:COM:CONSENT of the copyright holder of the image, you can upload the file to Wikimedia Commons. Please understand though that it's the person who creates the image in question who is generally considered the copyright holder. So, in the case of a photo, it's typically the photographer who takes the photo (not the subject of the photo) who is considered to be the copyright holder. So, if the photo is of your husband, then he would not really be the copyright holder of it unless it was considered to be a work for hire or the person who actually did take the photo transferred their copyright ownership to him. If it's a photo of something your husband created (e.g. a painting or some other work of art), then your husband would be the copyright holder of the work he created that was photographed, but he still wouldn't be the copyright holder of the actual photo itself. You can find out more about these things in c:Commons:Licensing and c:Commons:Own work.

With respect to the article you're trying to create, you would be considered by Wikipedia to have a Wikipedia:Conflict of interest because you're trying to create content about your husband. Wikipedia doesn't prohibit conflict of interest editing, but it does highly discourage it because it can sometimes lead to serious problems and misunderstandings. I suggest you take a look at Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide, Wikipedia:The answer to life, the universe, and everything, Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, Wikipedia:Ownership of content and Wikipedia:An article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing because they explain some things, including some possibly negative things, about Wikipedia that you and your husband might not know about and they might help you decide whether a Wikipedia article is really a good idea. -- Marchjuly (talk) 12:48, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Canadian government agency copyright

I uploaded File:Neighbours 1952 cover.jpg some time ago. The file is owned by the National Film Board of Canada, a government agency of Canada. Would it fall under Crown copyright? Newfiebluejay (talk) 02:57, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Doodle created by a minor for identification purposes

Heyo, I tried to upload a doodle of my fursona that the artist has given me permission to use for signatures across wikis via Discord PMs. The artist, however, is a minor from the Philippines and has explicitly stated that all of their work cannot be minted as an NFT regardless of whether it is for commercial or non-commercial purposes. What is a more appropriate license for me to use? RockfordRoe (talk) 07:24, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi RockfordRoe. Unless the copyright holder (or their legal guardian perhaps) agree to give their WP:CONSENT (or c:COM:CONSENT) for their work to be uploaded to Wikipedia (or Wikimedia Commons), there's really no license that you can use that would make the file OK to use on Wikipedia. Basically, the copyright holder needs to agree to allow anyone anywhere in the world to download the file at anytime and use for any purpose (including commerical and derivative use); in other words, there's no license that Wikipedia would accept that would limit the use of the work to only you or to only Wikipedia. The copyright holder would still retain their copyright over the work, but others would be able to use the version of it that is uploaded pretty much anyway they want without needing permission as long as they complied with the terms of the license it has been released under. You can find out some more about this in c:Commons:Licensing since most of what's written there also applies to English Wikipedia. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:08, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Cyprus archive question

Hi! I am updating the PEKA (Political Committee of the Cypriot Struggle) page and would like to include a leaflet from the Cyprus State Archives that was published and translated by the BBC. I'm wondering if the picture is fair use because it is from an archive. I'm not super familiar with copyright for images so I wanted to check - in general I only ever use images from Wikicommons. The image is below, I can also provide the article link if that would be helpful. Also, if it matters, the leaflet is dated to 1957. Thank you for your help!! Kazamzam (talk) 17:05, 6 March 2022 (UTC) http://www7.bbk.ac.uk/hiddenpersuaders/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/PEKA-leaflet-.jpg

Talk:Asquith_Xavier#Request_for_comment_on_images_in_this_article

If you have an opinion, please share. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:45, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi - a bot is reverting my change for an image already accepted on a different page

Hi,

I tried to link to the image: ((File:Alto Neptune Filemanager.gif|thumb|The Alto Neptune file manager program)) on the page [File manager]. However, the JJMC89 bot says it is a copyright violation. This strikes me as odd given that the image is already linked to on the [Xerox Alto] page. I just used the link from there. I didn't upload this image.

I think it is a significant historical note to present on the [File manager] page.

Can someone help me proceed with how to overcome this problem? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drudru (talk • contribs)

Hi there. The reason that File:Alto Neptune Filemanager.gif can be used on the Xerox Alto page is because there is a fair use rationale, explaining why the image could be used on that page even though it is copyrighted and not under a Creative Commons license. In order to use it on another article, you would have to add a new fair use rationale for the new article. ... discospinster _talk 19:05, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

@Drudu: The bot did not state the file was removed because it was a copyright violation; the edit summary it left stated the file was removed for being a "WP:NFCC violation". Wikipedia's non-free content use policy is much more restrictive that the US's policy on fair use as explained here and there are ten specific criteria that need to be met for each use of non-free content. The bot removed the file because it's use in the "File manager" article failed criterion #10c, and adding a non-free use rationale to the file's page for that particular use should stop the bot; however, adding a missing rationale doesn't automatically make a non-free use valid as explained here and the file's use could still be challenged for other reasons. Generally, it can be quite hard to justify a file's non-free use in more general broader in-scope types of articles like "File manager" when the file is being used in more specific articles like Xerox Alto because of item 6 of WP:NFC#UUI, WP:FREER and WP:NFC#CS. Often a link to the more specific article where the image can be seen is deemed to be sufficient and any additional uses in more general articles are considered to be WP:DECORATIVE. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:37, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

yearbooks

before I get scolded again today, can someone offer any guidance in the use of images from yearbooks.

https://jacksoncountyhistory.org/items/show/141 https://jacksoncountyhistory.org/files/original/861c2ca17689821ea4cb2ce88317a03a.pdf

The link above is a yearbook from my hometown. The actual content is under the image of the cover in a pdf file. As you may notice, there are no copyright notices or markings. I got my hand slapped for using a screen capture from the 1971 edition of. the yearbook because classmates.com and some other sources used a similar screen capture. The wiki bot claimed that I violated classmate's copyright. I'm not sure that's correct.

second question this is an picture taken circa 1950 (based on the vehicles in the image and my knowledge of the subject). I'm trying to track down the son of the man who took the photo for express permission to use the photo. If the picture is that old, when does the copyright expire? How can classmates, or any of the yearbook sites scrape yearbook content if the content is copyrighted?

The Walton Hotel ca 1950

Thanks,

--Itsjustjody (talk) 03:25, 9 March 2022 (UTC)