Wikipedia talk:Replaceability of fair-use images/Archive 11/19/2006-12/19/2006

message: There are some countries (such as Japan) which have case law which forbids the taking of photos without the subject's permission, and punishments can include fines and jail time (though rarely the latter). How do we address this in these proposed guidelines? I'm currently attempting to find examples of this, but doing so (searching legal writings) in a second language is not an easy task. So, in the case of Japanese celebrities who rarely, if ever, travel outside of Japan, finding or obtaining free use images is extremely difficult, if not impossible, and I don't think Wikipedia wants to condone lawbreaking just to obtain an elusive free use photo. I don't know if there are any other countries with similar laws, but I imagine they exist. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:18, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What kind of cases are these? Are we talking people getting convicted for taking photots of celebreties performing in public or signing autographs or whatever, or are we talking perverts sticking camera phones up the ladies skirts on packed trains and such? There are usualy degrees of this stuff, and just because something is illegal doesn't nessesarily mean you can never photograph someone without written permission first. Though I'm obviously not familiar with Japanese law. --Sherool (talk) 01:00, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Getting free photos of Japanese celebrities is almost (if not entirely) impossible. Just check out the Japanese Wikipedia and see how many images there are there of celebrities. We have all these fair use image deletionists running around deleting thousands of images that will likely never have a free use equivalent,. They don't listen to anything anyone says about it, and they act as if those of us uploading the images had just crawled out from under a rock and are hardly worth their time.  It's very frustrating to deal with them even with detailed fair use rationale provided in addition to the existing fair use templates that are provided. The contracts these celebrities sign with their talent agencies almost always specifically forbid them from releasing any photographs not authorized by the agency, and the agency isn't going to release any of their images into the public domain or under any license that won't let them do whatever they want to do with the photos. That's how they make their money after all. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:02, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I believe California has a similar law against publishing a photograph of a person without their consent called the "Right of publicity". Fourdee 03:40, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Another item to consider

message: This is much needed. There is too much gray area in "replaceability". I think we need to now have a well worded guideline for what is "representative", as well. I have a problem with the PD guideline as well, but I think that could be fixed by taking out the hypothetical "is likely to" phrase. "Likely" is just too vague of a word. – flamurai (t) 12:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, this is something that is very much needed. Many fair-use images are being deleted without any replacement being available, and that damages the encyclopedia (IMO) more than having a fair-use image. —Locke Cole • t • c 23:13, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Dittos. I am seeing images deleted on the grounds that, theoretically, someone could go out and take a free image of them. Well, that is all fine and dandy, but it isnt always practical. IF aa free use image is available, it should be used, but if no free use images exist, it shouldnt give enforcers the right to go out and delete images when no replacement is currently available. I would think that all of us would cooperate in the finding of free use images, but using the policy as a stick for coercion (if I delete the fair use image that will force people to go out and take a photo of the subject and donate it) seems patently unfair and wrong. People are donating their time to make an encyclopedia. That type of coercion against volunteers is insulting. Caper13 01:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Love it 

message: California's Right of publicity statute and common law precedents may actually prohibit any use of the image of a person without their consent, especially for a commercial purpose which Wikipedia may potentially be used for.  Photographing people without their permission may also be an invasion of privacy in some cases.  How does this come into play? Fourdee 03:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Right of publicity]] 

message: I'm glad to see this page taking off, especially as it's my first-ever venture into crafting project policy.
Now I have an idea. Let's test these guidelines on some real subjects:
*Helen Mirren: I noticed when I was working on The Queen after I saw the movie a couple of weeks back (which I highly recommend, BTW), that the article about her lacked both an infobox and an image other than a bunch of stills whose use in an infobox would be impermissible. From what I can find out about her, she seems to be about as public a person as any prominent British actor. Would someone be likely to catch her and take a picture walking around on the streets of Islington, where she lives? If you hung out at the stage door after a theatrical performance and she came out, would she pose? would she want to?I know nothing about this ... can our British colleagues speak to this? And if you think you could create a free-use image, would you be interested in actually trying? (Seriously)
*Anna Wintour: Another Englishwoman, this time in New York. We have no picture currently of the legendary Vogue editor (we did once, but it got bounced for something having to do with bad sourcing and I didn't like it anyway). She appears in public a lot, but at some distance. If I called her office and said I was with Wikipedia and I'd like one minute to take a good free-use picture of her, am I likely to get it? Does anyone want to try? Or can you find a good picture on, say, Flickr and persuade someone to change the licensing? (Actually, I did this right now and — voilá — this picture is CC but with an NC endorsement (plus I wouldn't use it if I had my druthers), and this is great but you'll have to persuade the photographer to release it (And it doesn't sound like he'd be amenable). Try this one ... it would be my fave for the article. (In fact, I'm emailing the photographer right now).OK, maybe this was too easy. Daniel Case 04:58, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it was too easy. I got the Wintour photo I wanted (she's wearing sunglasses indoors — very representative) and it now graces the article. Daniel Case 19:40, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Now to try with Dame Helen ... Daniel Case 04:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A challenge 

message: Maybe it wasn't. Hereby hangs a tale that should be read by anyone who wonders why some of us were advocates for less strict fair-use enforcement.I uploaded the picture to the Commons only to find it deleted the next morning. Apparently the admin read the wrong license tags on the original picture. It took one more cycle and me uploading a screenshot of the Flickr page with the correct licensing indicated to get the image accepted. So, again, this calls into question the fact that we have no real policy page on dealing with Flickr images. What do we do if, in a situation like this, I can't get communication from the image author that clarified contradictory licensing info there? Is there some sort of default assumption that you stick with the more restrictive license? How does Flickr let this happen, for that matter? Is it some bug in their software that we should be aware of? And what are the implications of the answers to these questions for our replaceability guidelines? Daniel Case 04:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Now to try with Dame Helen ... Daniel Case 04:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The Anna Wintour Experience

message: There are questions many have involving musical bands and other predefined groups of people. There is some discussion on this at User:Quadell/non-free photos of bands. – Quadell (talk) (random) 18:40, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  groups of people 

message: As I've made clear, I think these proposed criteria are silly. But not only that, it's self-contradictory. First there's the no-nos:
An image of a living person is reasonably replaceable if that person: Makes regular, scheduled public appearances, or Frequently grants interviews in the news media or allows themselves to be photographed by professional photographers, or... 
Emphasis added. If a person makes public appearances OR is frequently interviewed, his publicity photo is replaceable. Compare and contrast with:
An image of a living person may not be reasonably replaceable if that person: Makes limited or unscheduled public appearances only (therefore their appearance cannot be predicted), or Rarely grants media interviews or allows few, if any, photographs to be taken of themselves for professional purposes, or ...
Again, "or". Makes no sense. If any one of the six listed criteria for replaceability is met, the first part says the image is replaceable. Not "may be", there's no room for wiggle, anybody who makes regular appearances or gives interviews or has a frickin' address is replaceable. Period. This is then contradicted by the second part which implies that failure to meet any of the criteria might be grounds for irreplaceability.
Here's my proposal: Copyrighted photographs which are intended for promotional purposes may be fairly used to illustrate articles, as long as they are appropriately tagged with . You wanna see whether the community consensus would support that? VoiceOfReason 06:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately, we lost that battle. We need to write effective and enforceable guidelines for replaceability. I appreciate the input on the wording (I never thought what I originally put up would become final policy anyway; that's why it's a proposal) but we can't refight the war that got us here. Daniel Case 06:24, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I'll agree that we need effective and enforceable guidelines to comply with the policy... at least for now. I maintain that the policy should be changed and would appreciate a link to the discussion which achieved consensus that this should be made policy so I can marshal counterarguments for a proposed change. In the meantime, the guidelines should be written as liberally as possible while still conforming to the policy. The guideline's mandate is that a copyrighted image may only be fairly used if "No free equivalent is available or could be created that would adequately give the same information." Adequately give the same information is flexible enough to allow for interpretation. What information is conveyed by a publicity photo? Not merely "this is how this person looks", not even necessarily "this is how this person looks" considering how heavily made-up such photos are. Publicity photos convey the information, "This is the way this person wants to be perceived in the public eye." No free equivalent could reasonably be created to adequately express this same information. Any replaceability guideline could certainly account for that. VoiceOfReason 06:43, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Your change doesn't fix the problem. There are two blocks, one of disqualifying criteria, one of qualifying criteria, each with six separate elements. One of them needs to be or for all six, the other needs to be and for all six. VoiceOfReason 06:45, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have been thinking more recently that it needs to be in the form of a table. There are two axes to balance here: likelihood that a quality, representative image can be created when the subject is available; and opportunity to take such an image. Some sort of sliding scale needs to be established. What if you have someone who doesn't make a lot of public appearances, and often unscheduled, but when they do has no objections to being photographed? And on the other end, a lot of celebrities are publicly visible, yet as the guidelines state not always easy for an amateur to photograph?I'll be working on this later. Daniel Case 14:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradictory criteria 

message: ON several occasions this "replaceable" tag has been put on maps concerning scientific and controversial matters, such as the Chernobyl catastrophe. It should appears clearly that such maps may not be replaced by a Wikipedian's drawing, which carries no legitimity whatsoever (in contrast with a map used in fair use from scientific sources, such as Nature or otherwise). Maybe someone following this policy here could add a subsection about such scientific images, which, by their very nature, needs to show their scientific origins. Claiming a Wikipedian can replace it by free content is only claiming that:
- anybody can draw his map, and all truths are equivalents
- Wikipedia is entitled to copy a map from a scientific source, and disguise its origins, claiming it is free content
Both are not acceptable solutions. Please consider carefully the scientific value of such images. Free content is nice and very well, but probably not appropriate for such topics (except, of course, if what you need is just a drawing of a molecule, which any university student should be able to do, and which carries no controversial value). Cheers! Lapaz 15:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A user made map is no less legitemate than a user made article. As long as it's done acurately based on the source data and the sources are properly referenced such maps are just fine. Raw information is not copyrightable, so it's perfectly fine to make our own maps so long as the information they are based on is referenced, just like it is fine to use copyrighed text as source info for writing our own articles about the subject. --Sherool (talk) 17:13, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maps and scientific content 

message: See this little furball I've gotten myself into. I uploaded, some time ago, a photo of Warren Moon to that article, showing him playing football, for the infobox (it already has another free-use one I found, of him and Marshall Faulk playing Madden).
:Note: Discussion in question has now been moved , where it's more appopriate.
I wrote a fair-use rationale pointing out the historical, unrepeatable nature of the image. Apparently that wasn't enough for someone, who also seems to believe that the Commons standard, under which copyrighted NFL logos visible in the photo are a no-no, is applicable to the English-language Wikipedia as well.
To his credit, he admits he may be wrong. So I referred him here as well. Daniel Case 17:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Photos that include copyrighted and/or trademarked logos are allowed on the English Wikipedia. Johntex\talk 17:25, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I know that, too. But look at all the ridiculous confusion this new FUC has caused. Daniel Case 19:53, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A reminder why we need these guidelines 

message: I'm seeing images tagged for deletion which link to this page as for an explanation.  As far as I can tell, its still being debated.  What's the story?  --OneCyclone 05:05, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have seen these links too. While I'm not sure if it's proper to do so when it's still a proposal, it does look like some people are very behind it. Daniel Case 17:42, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: So is this now policy?