Wikipedia talk:File copyright tags/Archive 2

message: Hey all, sometime in the past, the entire article was duplicated in itself, with headings and discussions repeated. I just trimmed it down by removing the top half, in the theory that people prefer to reply to the part on the bottom. My apologies for any lossage involving people who were talking in the upper parts. --Improv 19:47, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article surgery 

message: I am creating a new image tag, Template:Unknownsource.  It should be used in the case where the license of an image is assumed or suspected to be usable with another tag (perhaps Fairuse, Promophoto, etc.) but the actual original location and copyright status is not known for certain.  This differs from Template:Unverified which is used when the license is totally uknown.  An example of an image where I think this tag is justified is :Image:Alexis Bledel.jpg, where fair use promotional photo is assumed, but the image does not have a known source or credits for its creators.
The text of the notice currently is:
:This is a image with an unknown source. Any assumptions about the copyright status or license of this image is opinion or speculation.  Use of this image in articles should be avoided if an alternative is available with  more clear copyright status.
Comments welcomed.  Thanks.  --ChrisRuvolo 01:30, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unknown Source 

message: Have tried looking around to see if the BBC permits its images to be used online, their site policy says you can use its media for personal non-profit use, which I guess makes it not permitted on Wikipedia?  Does anyone know if the BBC have permitted their images to be used? --PopUpPirate 22:02, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)
: As the front page of http://www.bbc.co.uk has a copyright notice, I'd assume all their content to be copyrighted unless you find something stating differently. Note that http://www.bbc.co.uk/terms/ says: "You may not copy, reproduce, republish, download, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use bbc.co.uk content in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use. " So it seems that no, we cannot make free use BBC images. -- Infrogmation 16:59, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: BBC

message: I've become interested in taking photographs to illustrate articles. If I take a picture of, say, a Coca-Cola can, can I release that into the public domain or under the GFDL? Or since it is a photograph of a presumably trademarked design, can I not do that? — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:14, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As I understand it, you can release any extra rights you would have over the fair use of the product under any license. So someone using it would have to comply with fair use and whatever you specify. Trademarks are a different matter - if they're old enough to be PD as copyrights, the only restrictions are on using them in a way that violates the trademark (like selling the image on a soda can). --SPUI (talk) 01:48, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: A trademarked word cannot be copyrighted, and is free for you to use with or without the trademark symbol. Logos, however, are frequently copyrighted in addition to being a trademark. I am not a lawyer, though, and this isn't professional legal advice. Deco 06:52, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  photographs of trademarked products 

message: I took the liberty of changing the template icon from :Image:Hammer and sickle.png to the more discrete and correct :Image:Flag of the Soviet Union.png. Salleman 19:04, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: New icon

message: Currently, it seems like you have to accept current, and future, versions of the GDFL when uploading your own works. I have always found it strange to release something under a licence you have never seen, so I wonder why it shouldn't be possible to specify the version which should be applied. Jonas Olson 22:00, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Releasing your own works under a certain version of GFDL 

message: I have used a chart from the PDF of a UN report on HIV for the AIDS in Africa article (Image:UNAIDS 2004 HIVAfrica85-03.png).
I cannot conceivably imagine they would object to the dissemination of this information and have put a  tag on it. However, the copyright blerb reads:
:All rights reserved. Publications produced by UNAIDS can be obtained from the UNAIDS Information Centre. Requests for permission to reproduce or translate UNAIDS publications—whether for sale or for noncom-mercial distribution—should also be addressed to the Information Centre at the address below, or by fax, at +41 22 791 4187, or e-mail: publicationpermissions@unaids.org.
Should someone email them and ask permission to reproduce graphs? Or does fair use cover this? It would probably be useful for the future to have their permission. UN material probably merits its own category and template notice too. TreveX 20:28, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Charts from United Nations reports 

message: thumb|50px|Ann CoulterFor a screenshot to qualify as fair use, does it need to include the entire screen, or can it be siginificantly edited down? I've seen some images which have had all the identifying marks removed that have still been listed as screenshots. thumb|50px|Tidus. Here are two examples I've run across. Thanks of any input. -Willmcw 03:03, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
Fair use does not require the entire image to be used. (For instance, one of the classic fair uses is to use a brief quote from a book - this is essentially the same as cropping an image.) – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 13:42, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
::Thanks. But can any screenshot, edited down to remove identifying text, be freely used? If there's a copyrighted image that is on a website, computer game, etc., which is then isolated on its own so that it no longer aqppears as a screenshot, haven't we basically just copied that photo or artwork? What would keep us from going over the Corbis website and taking screenshots of their collection to add to articles? On a second issue, should all screenshots, since they are a form of fair use, be at the lowest usable quality? Thanks for your time and attention. Cheers, -Willmcw 22:10, May 8, 2005 (UTC)
:::The screenshot tag is currently kind of a mess.  For example, if I take a screenshot of the open-source video game nethack, it's difficult to see how the screenshot can be non-free, but it's classified along with screenshots of copyrighted programs.  Moreover, there are three different possible sources of copyright on a screenshot: copyright on the program, copyright on the data displayed, and copyright on the screenshot itself.  The last of this is probably void, since there is so little creative expression involved in taking a screenshot (although this involves selecting data, UI themes, cropping, rescaling, and so on). A screenshot of copyrighted data (for example, a screenshot of the GIMP displaying a copyrighted image) is certainly a derived work of the data.  A screenshot of free data but a copyrighte program is pretty ambiguous - on the one had, you could view it as a photograph of a new model of car, for which the car maker doesn't get copyright, but on the other hand any modern program contains a number of custom images and layouts as part of its UI design. 
:::For this reason, screenshots are just treated as fair use here.  So yes, they should be of just-good-enough quality.  This is true for practical reasons too: screenshots rescale badly. --Andrew 22:59, May 8, 2005 (UTC)
:::How would the Corbis example be fair use?  Just because it's a screenshot doesn't make it fair use.  Fair use is applied on a case-by-case basis.  Image X may be fair use if used in article X but not article Y.  The article on fair use does a fairly decent job of explaining it, I think. kmccoy (talk) 08:07, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  screenshots 

message: A few pics from here have been uploaded for an article on fish parasites. The pics were donated by the maker to the US Fish and Wildlife service.  was the best tag I could think of, can someone suggest something better? --nixie 00:25, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Pics donated to US government

message: What is to be done with all the pictures that have been tagged with non-free licenses? There are hundred and hundreds of images tagged  and in the Non-commercial use only images category. I'm sure that this has all been discussed before, but are these images allowed to remain? — Asbestos | <FONT COLOR=#808080>Talk</FONT> 10:51, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Non-free pictures

message: Is there a reason why there is PD-user but not GFDL-user or just noone needed it so far?  helix84 19:25, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: See: .  --ChrisRuvolo (t) 19:50, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: -self and -user are different things.  helix84 20:24, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Doesn't seem that different to me.  See Template talk:PD-self.  --ChrisRuvolo (t) 22:49, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  GFDL-user 

message: Hi. Does the fair use rationale behind the "logo" and "coatofarms" tags apply to the arms or logo as a conceptual idea; or to the specific artwork inherent in them; or both? Obviously the "conceptual idea" is in most cases governed under some sort of trademark law (or heraldic law in the UK) while the artwork is presumably regular copyright. If the rationale only extends to the idea, then that would mean that we'd have to redraw many logos/coats-of-arms from scratch ourselves; if only to the artwork — well, that would be pretty pointless & we'd really be up the creek!; and if to both, then we're OK and all the thousands of arms and logos can stand as they are. Thanks, oh legal experts, for your help. Doops 21:55, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Logos / Coats-of-arms 

message: The University of Virginia is posting these on the Web at ... http://etext.virginia.edu/salem/witchcraft/archives/MassHist/ ... and they are all original documents.
As I understand, all court documents – be they either from the present Government or a former "overthrown" government that has been amalgamated into the present – are public domain UNLESS they have been officially labeled: classified, confidential, secret, or top secret.
If this is not so, please explain else-wise. I have already uploaded one of the images to a webpage that I started entitled Mary Walcott.
WB2 07:34, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  salem witch trials &ndash; actual documents