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	Images and Media (inactive)
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 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 December 4 § Category:Fair use images. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:13, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There is an ongoing RfC that may be of interest to editors here regarding the removal of image collages from individual year articles at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Years § RfC: Removal of image collages. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:26, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that a relevant edit to the section "Free licenses" that should be taken into account would be:

If an article has a CC-BY license, this doesn't necessarily mean that all figures in this article have the same free license. As mentioned here, CC-BY licenses allow the use of copyrighted material, provided that this is explicitly identified as being excluded from the free license. Always scrutinize figure captions for statements like "Reprinted with permission from", "©" or "Image:Source", which signal that these figures are not covered by the free license.

What do you think? Should this be added to the page?

User579987 (talk) 06:49, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@User579987, it sounds like you are concerned about someone mistakenly uploading an image that is non-free, because they saw it in a larger publication (e.g., a book or article) that is free, so they assumed that everything inside the publication was free. Do I understand your concern correctly? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:41, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing Exactly; that's what I meant. I believe it's an important exception that should be looked out for. I admit that some of the words I used are a bit complicated and difficult to understand. Perhaps we can rephrase it using simpler language. User579987 (talk) 14:01, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing : Maybe a version like this :

Important note: If an article has a compatible free license, this doesn't necessarily mean that all images in this article have the same free license. Despite the general freedom granted by the free license, there might be specific components that are copyrighted and these copyrighted components should be clearly identified as being excluded from the free license. Even in free articles, always check image captions for statements like "Reprinted with permission from", "©" or "Image:Source", which signal that these images are not covered by the overall free license.^[1]

What do you think? User579987 (talk) 14:06, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is pretty good, and I wonder if we can make it even shorter. Perhaps as short as "Watch out for sources using multiple licenses. Sometimes an article will have a compatible free license for the text but use a non-free license for specific components (e.g., a photo or diagram)." WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:13, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing That's great as well, but I think clarification is slightly better as the paragraph I sent isn't very long and to avoid templates like Clarify since this article is normally read by beginners and in my opinion needs to be as clear as possible. I also think it's worth clarifying by mentioning examples like "Reprinted with permission from", because some articles clearly mention this exception by saying, "The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material", while others use more vague statements like "Image: Oxford University Press" for example to state that images are copyrighted. Perhaps some clarification won't do much harm. User579987 (talk) 04:28, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that a credit line alone is evidence of the material being non-free. A CC-BY license is free and requires a credit line. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:23, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing I had the same doubt regarding statements like "Image:Oxford University Press". Does this mean this figure is excluded from the free license or not? However, after asking a question here about a figure in which I found this statement, I was told that this was a method of informing that this figure is excluded from the free license. Not quite sure though. Do you prefer omitting this example "Image:Oxford University Press", and keeping the other two: "Reprinted with permission from" and "©"? The latter two are stated in the reference I provided, which says, "For instance, some licensors individually mark pieces of content to which the license does not apply with explanatory text such as “(c) copyright holder--used with permission” or “The CC license does not apply to this picture." So these two are without doubt, but "Image:Source" may be a bit doubtful indeed. Should we remove it and keep the other two?

User579987 (talk) 17:33, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would reasonably argue that if work by group A that is published CC, but includes an image or other element that they credit, without mention of copyright, to group B, it is best to assume that group B's work is copyrighted, unless specifically stated by the credit that it is used under some type of free license. So the "Image:Oxford University Press" is where we should assume that it is copyrighted unless proven otherwise, and included in the CC work via fair use. Masem (t) 03:50, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Masem @WhatamIdoing After some consideration, I think we can add the first two examples: "Reprinted with permission from" and "©-Copyright holder" because these two have a reference to support them. On the other hand, "Image: Source" till now is lacking a reference. I kinda believe it means exclusion from overall free licensing, but without references, it can be easily challenged (WP:CITE). Maybe we can start an RFC or another similar method to verify if "Image: Source" really means exclusion from overall free licensing and should be added to a Wikipedia policy page to make sure it reflects consensus.

What do you think?

User579987 (talk) 03:59, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it'll be better than what we have, so you should do that.

(The problem with credit lines is that "Image: Oxford University Press" is probably copyrighted but "Image: Wikimedia Commons" is not, and the difference may not be immediately obvious.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:22, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are we really uploading screenshots from Youtube now? That almost feels like cheating. It was funner when we had to take the pictures ourselves or scour flickr for scraps. That was more like the wiki-way. Anyways, thoughts on this image? ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 14:18, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What issue is there with the image? -- Whpq (talk) 14:23, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I was just reading this and wanted to confirm that the image was free to use. Looks like it is? Thanks for the quick reply. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 17:11, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@WikiOriginal-9, it looks like it's licensed correctly. c:COM:VPCOPY is usually a more reliable place to ask about the copyright of images. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:54, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]