User talk:Just James/Archive 3

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This was the time I had some trouble with some copyrighted images. Administrator Ilmari Karonen provided me with some guidelines for uploading images.--Just James 01:07, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Unfree images

I note that you've uploaded several images that have been taken off various websites, even though you've tagged them as your own work (using the {{GFDL-self}} template):

  • Image:White Island Smoking.JPG: Uploaded with the summary: "{{GPL}} Google Earth Image". Images from Google Earth are most certainly not licensed under the GPL.
  • Image:Gths emblem.jpg: Tagged as {{GFDL-self}}, yet this is clearly the logo of a school. I very much doubt you designed the logo yourself. Also a redundant copy of Image:Gymea technology high school emblem.png.
  • Image:Heard Island frigate.jpg: Copied from [1], not freely licensed according to [2].
  • Image:Heard island peak mawson.jpg: Copied from [3], not freely licensed according to [4].
  • Image:Hamilton island.JPG: Tagged as {{GFDL-self}}. I very much doubt that you took this photo yourself. Unless freely licensed, this image will not satisfy our fair use policy, since a free replacement could be created.
  • Image:Gths-aerial1.jpg and Image:Gths-gate.jpg: Copied from [5]. In the absence of a copyright statement on the site, the images must be assumed unfree. In any case, I doubt you took them yourself, even though you tagged them as such.

I've deleted the obvious copyright violations, and listed the remaining one (Image:Hamilton island.JPG) on WP:PUI. Please do not upload such unfree images in the future (without a good fair use claim), and definitely please don't tag them as your own work. Thank you. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:31, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Please accept my apology for breaching copyright. It's just that whenever I upload images to wikipedia, all the different license tags confuse me. I'm never certain as to which tags are the appropriate ones to attach to my images.--Just James 04:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Apology accepted. In the future, I'd suggest looking at it less from the point of view of "what tag should I use?" and more from "is it OK for me to upload this at all?". As a rule of thumb, anything you find on the web is probably not OK, unless a) it is clearly licensed as free content, or b) you can make a good case for using it on Wikipedia even though it's a copyright violation.
That said, we really ought to have some kind of flowchart for license selection. Let me try to sketch a one here for you:
  1. Did you make it all by yourself, without basing it on or including in it any copyrightable material by others?
  2. Did the creator explicitly release it under a free license which allows unrestricted copying, distribution and modification even for commercial purposes?
    • If so, choose the tag that matches the license. (There almost certainly already is one.)
  3. Did you make it based on a freely licensed work?
    • If so, does the license for the original work include a "share alike" clause?
      • If yes, you must license your modified version under the same license (see point 2).
      • If not, you're free to choose your own license, just as if you'd made it all by yourself (see point 1), as long as it is no less restrictive than the original. (For example, you generally cannot release a modified version into the public domain unless the original was in the public domain too.)
    • Using the same license is always the simplest option, and should always be OK.
    • In any case, you're generally required to indicate who made the original — if not by the license, then at least by common courtesy.
    • Modifying (free) images already on Wikipedia falls into this category.
      • If you reupload your modified version over the original, the file history will show the original uploader (and the image description will presumably already show the original author, if different).
      • If you upload your version with a different name, link back to the original image and note the name(s) of the original author(s).
      • Keeping the existing license tag is generally OK. For modifying public domain images (such as photos of old artworks), the {{PD-retouched-user}} tag may be useful.
  4. Is it ineligible for copyright (for various reasons) or has the copyright expired?
    • If so, it might be in the public domain. Choose a tag explaining why.
    • Be careful. For example, while works created by the U.S. federal government are by law ineligible for copyright, works created for the federal government by contractors are not. Telling the difference may be difficult — if in doubt, ask.
  5. Does it pass our fair use criteria? At a minimum, this means it must be necessary to properly illustrate the article, irreplaceable and no larger than necessary.
    • If so, it might be OK to use it on Wikipedia even though it's not freely licensed. You need to write a detailed explanation of why this is so, and tag it accordingly.
    • The attitude towards such "fair use" images has been getting stricter lately. Many such images on Wikipedia might not pass a careful examination any more, and only exist because no-one has gotten around to nominating them for deletion yet. This is not an area where "I've seen worse cases" is a good justification. If in doubt, don't.
    • You own Utopia planitia.jpg may be a borderline case. It's small enough, and impossible to replace with a free alternative, but there may be some doubt as to whether it's really necessary for proper discussion the subject and not merely decorative.
  1. If it's none of the above, you probably should not upload it.
If you find the later questions confusing, note that you don't have to understand them, as log as you just don't upload any such images. A perfectly good guideline that will keep you out of trouble is "only upload images you made all by yourself". If you're not sure whether a particular image is OK or how to tag it, you can also ask for help from others. Also note that uploading any images matching points 1–4 directly to the Wikimedia Commons is usually a good idea. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 08:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)