Wikipedia talk:Images of living people

message: I don't quite understand this proposal; the second phrase "This goal could best be met by completely disallowing all images of living people" reads like a non sequitur to me. Please tell us what real problem (as opposed to a hypothetical problem) you're trying to solve here, and please note that for legal advice we tend to turn to our official lawyer since by far the most Wikipedians are not schooled in law. >Radiant< 23:04, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi - the quote is ".....by completely disallowing all images of living people in their Wikipedia biographies. ...", and the reason is as follows: This point occurred to me because I was trying to find a freely licensed image for the Derek Laud article to replace the fair use image that was there for about year previously. As a final step I contacted his agent, but it occurred to me at the time that Derek may have been unhappy with some points which were made in his Wikibiography (and maybe also about his characterization in another Wikipedia article.) I'm specifically referring to a drink-driving conviction, which I've recently edited out (see 23 October edit) since it's nine years old now. Well I guess - under the circumstances - it was to be expected that Derek hasn't provided a suitable image. Of course there maybe other reasons for him not providing a pic, but he hasn't even contacted me so I assume the worst. That's the real life case which led me to think about images in bios in particular. If a biography is kind to a celebrity there is a risk, however slight, that a suitable image is more likely to be provided, and also the reverse case. Well maybe you believe this point isn't worth consideration, so please let me know and maybe we should amend the proposal. Thnx--luke 06:13, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So because some people will likely refuse to provide free licensed images of themselves we should just outright ban all images of living people? I don't quite follow that logic, if someone would rater not have theyr image appear in theyr Wikipedia article then frankly that's theyr "problem". I don't see the need to "balance the field" on this, some bios will have pictures and other not, how is that a problem? --Sherool (talk) 09:14, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, some editors may be influenced to write a biased biography in order to persuade the subject to pose for a picture.  I hope that editor peer pressure is sufficient to prevent bias, as the pride in having a nice illustration of an article you edit is hopefully outweighed by the pride in having peers complement you for the balance and comprehensiveness of your prose.  It won't work in every case, and some editors completely ignore peer pressure, guidelines, policies and even the five pillars, but, there are established means of reducing bias, and much more powerful motives for bias than images.  This policy proposal has far too much collateral damage.    In the words of a cliché, it is a sledgehammer to crack a nut.  --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 09:30, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Huh? 

message: The idea of banning all pictures, including, say, US government pictures and other public domain images, from articles on living people seems totally mad.  So I won't particularly comment on that.  The idea of forbidding all copyright images would at least have the virtue of being clear, as compared to current policy, which appears to wish to forbid all copyright images of living people without anyone ever having weighed in on the subject.  I still think it's silly.  The idea that using promotional images which were created entirely for the purpose of identifying the subject in various media is "against wikipedia's principles" seems ridiculous to me.  Wikipedia's principles of course indicate that we should be creating a free content encyclopedia, but there is no particular reason to hold this ideal as being the most important thing we can possibly do on wikipedia.  If use of some particular category of images is clearly legal, as it appears to be with promotional images, then I don't see why we need to be proactive about going around and deleting them.  The logic that is usually made in such cases - the idea that if we delete non-free, but legal, images, this will lead to people immediately creating or acquiring free images - may work in some cases, but it certainly doesn't always work, and even so, as I've said before elsewhere, the whole rationale seems kind of Leninist.  By the same logic we should delete shitty articles, because it's more likely someone will create a decent article if they see a red link than a blue link.
A free content encyclopedia is obviously the ultimate goal of the project, but in the meanwhile, there is no greater quantity of free content in an article with no picture than there is in an article with a non-free (but legal) picture.  So, anyway, I oppose this. john k 10:25, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thoughts 

message: It is not clear to me whether either of these proposals allow an image which is currently used according to fair-use to represent a fictional character (and as such, the image cannot be replaced by a free image), to also be used to depict a living person.  Currently, this situation is not allowed by WP:FUC.  The image may be used to depict the fictional character as it is not replaceable, but not to depict the living person as a replacement free image could be found there.  The proposed wording seems not to make a statement where an image is used for multiple articles.  That said, this may not be the intention of the proposal; if WP:FUC still stands, the multiple-uses issue would be dealt with by that instead of by your proposal.  --Yamla 18:40, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I had noted the discussion. However this proposal would apply to all fair use images under the stated conditions, as it is intended to implement the principle of free content, although in a very limited set of circumstances for the reasons I gave earlier. This could include eg a book cover from an autobiography which is used to identify a person for an article, where there is no discussion of the book in the article. Comment:- I think these discussions indicate the absurd complexity which our current guidelines have reached--luke 05:33, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Multiple uses

message: * David Attenborough
* Aaron T. Beck
* Russell T. Davies
* Nick Robinson
:I didn't add the list. But I tagged 2 of these for review since I didn't feel they were giving an adequete rationale and the rationale for the template didn't appear to qualify them Nil Einne 11:47, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  some relevant examples .... 

message: This proposal is in accord with Jimmy Wales's statement of principles of October 2001, for the case of a strictly limited set of images. At the moment under WP:FUC it seems to be completely arbitrary as to which fair use images of living people are allowed. This is entirely wrong, and is the cause of much debate and argument, especially as apparently the criteria are interpreted so strictly in some cases, yet not at all in others. The proposal will clear the air, and in the process start to take us back to one of our core principles. ...06:38, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you refering to #5 of the principles (The GNU FDL license, the openness...)? In that case, it seems you have misunderstood the principle. The GNU FDL is adopted as a guard against copyright commandeering by reuser, not to limit the content of Wikipedia. -- Petri Krohn 19:58, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I feel the plain meaning is clear (as was discussed above too).--luke 10:08, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rationale for the proposal 

message: Fair Use is a longstanding allowed usage under US common law. English Wikipedia is by far the most popular of all online encyclopedias, and one of the reasons that makes it successful in terms of both contributors and readership has been its lawful use of images from all sources. ...07:14, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ....and against 

message: The David Attenborough article uses a book cover to depict David, and the book ("Life on Air") is referred to at one point in the article as follows:- His contribution to broadcasting was recognised by the 60-minute documentary Life on Air, transmitted in 2002 to tie in with the publication of Attenborough's similarly titled autobiography. Now, should this be allowable since it seems to me that the main use of the illustration is as an image of David Attenborough, not of the book? If it shouldn't be allowable then the best wording to cover this case would seem to be:-
Wikipedia strives to produce and distribute free content which is perpetually free for unlimited distribution, modification, and application for all users and in all mediums. This goal could best be met by completely disallowing all nonfree (copyright) images where the significance of the image is that it serves to identify a particular living person
but there maybe other examples where this form of words would not be the best... Any thoughts please.--luke 16:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For now I will rationalize the proposal page with this wording. However comments are still welcome. --luke 10:21, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For all my hemming and hawing about this, we have never allowed book-cover images to be allowed to illustrate articles about the people depicted. It's not fair use. Find another picture. Daniel Case 01:46, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It certainly qualifies as fair use if the book itself is a topic within the article.  None of our articles are only "about" the title subject, and just as adding the title Apocalypse Now to an article whose content had nothing to do with the film would not somehow enable us to use images from the film in that article, that an article is titled "Martin Sheen" would not prevent us from claiming fair use for such a screenshot where the film is a topic within that article.  Furthermore, for obvious informational reasons the article's layout should seek to arrange the images as close to the relevant content as possible, but I can't think of a reason why the failure to do this would disqualify fair use.  Postdlf 01:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The image should be near the section discussing the book, then. I did the same with J.D. Salinger and found a very commonly-used fair-use image (that will never be deleted due to Salinger's reclusiveness making replaceability impossible). Daniel Case 03:27, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

text: (For information - I've written trying to get hold of a free image for David. Maybe the BBC will oblige)--luke 19:01, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  wording for the proposal 

message: Consider this image of Britney Spears that's used in the infobox to identify her. I'm glad we found a free one, and that it's reasonably good quality. But how representative is it? If that were the only picture in the article, would you be able to tell what she looked like? She doesn't walk around all the time with her hair like that (well, maybe that's whay Kevin Federline left her, but anyway...), and so I wouldn't consider that image a representative one. Daniel Case 05:47, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: She dumped K-Fed's ass,  not vice versa.  But otherwise I agree. john k 05:24, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

text: How representative is any image though? People generaly don't walk around looking like they do at a promo shoot, in music video or at an award ceremony either. Anyway that's no reason to use unfree images since free licensed photos are evidently possible to get hold of ;) --Sherool (talk) 07:03, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If we aren't going to disallow fair use images of living people (and I concede this now seems unlikely) then at least we need a sensible policy, since free content as a principle seems to have been abandoned (even in this narrowly defined type of image)--luke 07:18, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Representativeness needn't just be a matter of the subject's age 

message: Anyone who uses Wikipedia free pictures to publish something in the future will still have to check that they are rights-cleared, especially if they are used for profit. Just because a picture is loaded by someone and released to Wikipedia, doesn't ensure that another person in the future will not claim a copyright for that picture. Any good lawyer can make a claim. Any for profit publication will have to go through the same rights clearance process, picture by picture, that other books use. 
I would rather have a useful encyclopedia here online, than an emasculated version someone can use for profit in the future. 
--Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 03:12, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rights clearing 

message: From the many objections on this talk page, it is clear that this proposal is not supported by consensus. (Radiant) 14:32, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sorry, but no 

message: To start I would like to ask a question. What are the advantages of the GFDL for Wikipedia compared to other libre licenses....see eg this essay, BSD and GPL licensing, Alternative terms for free software  10 common misunderstandings about the GPL, 1.The GPL is viral and there are many more refs on Wikipedia. The question of commercial reuse is often raised, so maybe one of the BSD type licenses would have been more suitable. Just a question, that is. Because I just read that Jimmy Wales is currently involved in talks on the future of the GFDL, and someone I admire a lot can do almost anything with FreeBSD ;)
I wrote the next bit on this discussion @ 08.07 UTC on 27th November:
There is a little more on free content *here* as well.--luke 07:49, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''impasse'' on fair use - perhaps the way forward