MediaWiki talk:Licenses/Archive 1

Include "unknown"?

Is it a good idea to allow an unknown option? after all, if they don't know what the licence is they shouldn't upload it. -- Joolz 13:06, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

If there would be no such option people would choose just any of the given licenses to upload their file and then we would get masses of wrongly tagged images. With the unknown option included, these images are properly tagged as "unknown", anyway. --:Bdk: 15:56, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

---

general discussion may directly go to Commons talk:License selector --:Bdk: 11:39, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

NPOV license recommendations

I've removed the "recommended" from the complicated triple/dual-Share-Alike/GFDL arrangement. Personally I think the best choice is the public domain (with the "free use" disclaimer). There are arguments on the copyleft and the PD side, and I used to be a copyleft proponent myself, so I won't try to make the case that we should recommend the PD instead.

What I think we should do is start the selection with a "Your own work" section, and under this have:

• multi-license share-alike
• multi-license attribution
• public domain

Then we could have another section for "Free content from other sources" (or something more catchy), with the whole array of licensing options. The question is, can we agree in consensus on the list of licenses that would be acceptable for your own work?--Eloquence 22:45, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I think we should officially recommend for own work one of

• PD-self
• self2|GFDL|cc-by-2.5
• self2|GFDL|cc-sa-1.0
• self2|GFDL|cc-by-sa-2.5,2.0,1.0

Basically: if you don't release all rights, you should multi-license under the GFDL, which is best for Wikipedia, and also under some other license, since the GFDL is unwieldy for images. Also, if you release under cc-by-sa-2.5 or cc-by-2.5, you might as well release under the previous versions too (which is nicer for WikiTravel, for example). dbenbenn | talk 23:07, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

There are no higher versions of CC-SA or any other "no-attribution" license than 1.0. This is explained in this press release. In addition to the simple fact that practically nobody wanted to give up attribution while upholding other requirements, the legal impossibility of giving up attribution rights in countries where moral rights guarantee them has impaired development of these licenses. I think CC-SA 1.0 should not be part of the "Your own work" selection because of this legal issue--Eloquence 23:41, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Alright, I won't argue with that. dbenbenn | talk 00:18, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Why GFDL-en?

I think GFDL-en should be deleted... or added GFDL-es, GFDL-fr GFDL-de and so on.

I don't see any practice difference between GFDL and GFDL-en

Other question. Can I translate this MediaWiki? Does it work MediaWiki:Licenses/es?

Thanks! Sanbec ✉ 08:50, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Template:GFDL-en ends with "Subject to disclaimers" while Template:GFDL does not. Apparently someone at the English Wikipedia decided it would be a good idea if w:Template:GFDL had disclaimers. You can't discard disclaimers, so technically, when copying a picture from the English Wikipedia that's tagged GFDL, you have to use GFDL-en. It has nothing to do with the language the template is written in.

As you've surely found out by now, MediaWiki:Licenses/es doesn't work. dbenbenn | talk 19:06, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Add NOAA?

Please add {{PD-USGov-NOAA}} to the box, as many NOAA images are being uploaded in wake of the busy hurricane season in the Western Hemisphere. --Mrmiscellanious 01:55, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I think all these PD-USGov-* licenses should be added for easy access. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 18:42, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

can someone add links to each of these like {{GFDL}}? — Omegatron 17:14, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I belive only the most common tags should be in the dropdown list. Haveing to many is confusing, and makes finding the right one hard. Legally, PD-USGov would be enough, I don't see any need for all the special ones. If people want them, they should add them by hand. We can keep the most common ones, like PD-USGov-NASA, for all I care, but please don't add 30 more. -- Duesentrieb^(?!) 20:20, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

2MASS Atlas

I've added a boilerplate template called {{PD-2MASS-Atlas}}, for any images released in the 2MASS (2 Micron All Sky Survey) Atlas. The license page is at [1]. Seems like a fairly appropriate generic license. There's already a 2MASS image in en.wikipeida.org that needs this licence, w:Media:IC10.jpg.

Too specific a license for the license selector box that everyone sees when they upload something. --Pmsyyz 12:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Creative Commons Attribution and Attribution ShareAlike 2.0

Is it possible to add 2.0 licenses? There are many images come from flickr.com, where this version is used. See also Commons:Village pump archive-31#Using images released under CC Attribution 2.0. --EugeneZelenko 14:51, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I'll second that request. heqs 23:39, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

An error

"GFDL-self|GFDL content created by the uploader" should not be under section "Free license" but under the section "self created" if it is to make sense. / Fred Chess 07:53, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Improvements

• {{Attribution}} should be added
• GPL|GNU General Public License should be removed
• LGPL|GNU Lesser General Public License should be removed
• cc-sa-1.0 should be removed
• Should MediaWiki:Licenses/es include country specific licenses such as Template:Cc-by-sa-2.5-es for Spanish instead of Template:Cc-by-sa-2.5? Fred Chess 11:39, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

/ Fred Chess 11:36, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your proposed addition/removal. I'd leave the localised CC licenses aside for the moment and have a look at the other licenses in the menu. I would remove the following entries as well:

• PD-US|First published in the United States before 1923 - public domain
• PD-Soviet|Work published in the Soviet Union before May 27, 1973 - public domain
• PD-AR-Photo|Argentina's Law 11723 for all photographic works 25 years after their first publication.

PD-US causes a lot of confusion. Most of the usages of that template are in fact PD-US-Gov. As its valid application also affects only a very tiny fraction of uploaded media files compared to the other ones I'd remove it anyways. PD Sovjet is also not that much and a lot of sovjet photos uploaded here are in fact taken past 1973. PD-AR-Photo also sounds a little bit too narrow to me for a general purpose license selector, but that's maybe due to the fact that I am not that much active in latin american topics. Arnomane 20:58, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Potentially unfree

Given the trouble with Copyrighted Free Use images, perhaps we can move this to a new subsection entitled "Copyrighted/potentially unfree images", given that images in this section seem to be the greatest violation of our policies. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 15:13, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

PD-Soviet

Please remove "PD-Soviet|Work published in the Soviet Union before May 27, 1973 - public domain" (second line from bottom) as the template has been deprecated. --Matt314 16:32, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Done. -Samulili 17:58, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Adding?

Hi, is possible to add {{PD-BrazilGov}} and {{Agencia Brasil}} on this list? Lugusto • ҉ 15:49, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Bold edits

I was a bit bold and removed a bunch of stuff that does not, IMO, get used often enough to warrant being here. People can still write stuff in. This is not supposed to be a compehensive list.

Also now in Firefox the entire list shows without a scrollbar, this is an improvement IMO.

I don't have a problem if other language versions of this use different licenses. For example ES and PT could do Agencia Brasil, DE can do GFDL-GeoDBase, etc etc. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 15:38, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• Well, it makes for an annoying work slowdown for people who use the licenses you deleted -- more annoying, on balance, than using a scrollbar, in my opinion. Also, some of the deleted licenses were labelled as "best practices." Their deletion from the upload form suggests that those options are somehow being deprectated by the project, which would seem to demand a bit of discussion. --Malepheasant 09:23, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

• • I re-added {{self|cc-by-sa-2.5}}, which is what I believe you were using, and removed one of the duplicate 'I don't know know what the license is' lines, so now it is still not scrolling.

  The 'best practices' line was added by Eloquence some time ago. I sincerely doubt that there was any kind of community discussion to decide what constituted best practices. Informally, I think any admin here would agree that any combination of GFDL, CC-BY and/or CC-BY-SA, OR PD-self, will be considered best 'practice'. There are a good number of other combinations which we have never listed on the drop-down box. That doesn't mean they're frowned upon or discouraged.

  I personally use cc-by-sa-1.0,2.0,2.5. So I have to add this for all my images, since it has never been in the drop down box. If you routinely upload your own work, it can be helpful to create a small boilerplate you can copy and paste each time you upload. see e.g. 'Picture info'. regards, pfctdayelise (说什么?) 07:11, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

GDFL/CC 2.5

Hello everybody. I've been working on the Commons for about two weeks; previously I had done all my image work on Wikipedia itself. Recently there has been some re-organizing of the image license choices in the Upload drop-down menu so that the GDFL is combined with CC 2.5. When an image is uploaded, it tells a casual observer that they may choose between either of those two licenses. I don't want my images licensed under GDFL (with a few exceptions), but only under CC 2.5 - so the drop-down menu choices aren't helpful. Can somebody explain why this change took place? The GDFL doesn't require attribution, and it seems these two licenses aren't equal and can scuttle the purpose behind the 2.5. --DavidShankbone 20:13, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

OK a couple of points. First of all "CC" is not a license. You must mean either "CC-BY" (Creative Commons Attribution license) or "CC-BY-SA" (Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license). Please be more specific.

Secondly, the GFDL absolutely does require attribution! What on earth makes you think it doesn't? --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 05:13, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Seconding PFC here, where did you get the idea that the GFDL doesn't require attribution? It is ironic that you'd prefer CC-By-SA-2.5 over the GFDL for attribution reasons:

"and/or (ii) if the Original Author and/or Licensor designate another party or parties (e.g. a sponsor institute, publishing entity, journal) for attribution in Licensor's copyright notice, terms of service or by other reasonable means, the name of such party or parties" --cc-by-sa-2.5

So if a downstream user submits your cc-by-sa-2.5 work to a website whos terms of service demand attribution to them, you don't get attribution at all! This was the entire point of the ill-fated cc-wiki license which was created at the request of some commercial wiki operators, ... people objected loudly, so the terms were slipped into cc-by-sa-2.5 when it came out. It's one of the four reasons that I do not use the CC-By-SA license for my own works. --Gmaxwell 05:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Hyperlink to full text of licenses?

It would sure be nice to have each of the licenses listed here hyperlinked to the full text of each license. I'm trying to figure out which one I want to use for some of my submissions. The brief descriptions are useful, but I can't definitively know which one I want without being able to see the full text of the license. Seems like this would be an appropriate page from which to have links to the full text... Thanks! Philiptdotcom 04:55, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Alas, we can't hyperlink from the dropdown. --Gmaxwell 05:15, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Too bad; but thanks for the reply! Philiptdotcom 05:40, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

We are working on a new upload page just for people who are uploading their own works. You can see it here. We could include links to the license text.. although I'd rather have a link to a page which describes each option in breif and links to the text. --Gmaxwell 05:44, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The danger of license traps ..

.. is that those people who never trigger them might get the impression that the "trapped" licenses are acceptable on Commons, simply from seeing them in the License Selector. There has to be a better solution; I doubt that multiple traps are significantly more effective than a single one.--Eloquence 14:28, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

You missed the point of the traps. If someone has a BY-NC-SA image, and that option isn't available, they'll pick the nearest option, which will be a valid license. Giving people invalid options is at least a way of making them give accurate answers, which is what we need to know the most. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 23:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

What if a person has an image of his or her own? And he or she is publishing it the first time. The person comes here and looks at dropdown selector and goes: "Oh, they accept cc-by-nc-sa here. I'll use that." In that case the trap isn't a trap at all. It is bad advice instead. Samulili 09:58, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Those license traps were under a heading that said "from Flickr", so I don't think that would happen. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 06:28, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I didn't know that. That sounds better. Samulili 12:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

This page on :w:en:

On w:en:MediaWiki talk:Licenses, there's been a suggestion that CC-by-sa-2.5 (and CC-by-2.5) should not be in the list of preferred options for self-licencing, due to possible problems with using a CC-licenced image in a GFDL work. What do Commonists think should be done about this, either here on Commons or on :w:en? ais523 (w:en:) 17:09, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

There is no possible problem with mult-licensing, nor should anyone who is willing to by-sa or by their own work have an issue providing an additional grant under the FDL. Which is what we recommend. (the actual license selector isn't at this page because of the multiple upload pages at commons). --Gmaxwell 17:31, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

"Public domain or GFDL if the PD release is invalidated"

PD-self|Own work, all rights released (Public domain or GFDL if the PD release is invalidated) — What exactly does this mean? Choosing this option yields only a PD-self tag. What does the GFDL have to do with it? heqs 11:25, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

That's old, it should've been removed. Thanks for bringing that up. Samulili 11:59, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Newbie uploading problem

I noticed that someone tried uploading their own images without using the selector form, and now needs to go back and add the license tags to a bunch of images they uploaded.

But where is the list of license wikicode found in the selector menu? I am referring to the "own work" upload page: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Upload&uselang=ownwork

I can only find it by looking at the source for the upload page. By using my browser to get the source text for the selector menu:

<select name='wpLicense' id='wpLicense' tabindex='4' onchange='licenseSelectorCheck()'>
<option value=''>None selected (add a license tag in the summary box above, or this file will be deleted)</option>
<option value="" disabled="disabled" style="color: GrayText">Best practices</option>
<option value="self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-all" title="{{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-all}}">  Own work, copyleft, attribution required (Multi-license GFDL, all CC-BY-SA)  </option>
<option value="self|GFDL|cc-by-3.0" title="{{self|GFDL|cc-by-3.0}}">  Own work, attribution required (GFDL, CC-BY 3.0)</option>
<option value="PD-self" title="{{PD-self}}">  Own work, all rights released (Public domain)</option>
<option value="" disabled="disabled" style="color: GrayText">Better practices (multi-licensing)</option>
<option value="self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-3.0" title="{{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-3.0}}">  Own work, copyleft, attribution required (GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0)</option>
<option value="self|GFDL|FAL" title="{{self|GFDL|FAL}}">  Own work, copyleft, attribution required (GFDL, Free Art License)</option>
<option value="" disabled="disabled" style="color: GrayText">Good practices (single license)</option>
<option value="self|cc-by-sa-3.0" title="{{self|cc-by-sa-3.0}}">  Own work, Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0</option>
<option value="self|cc-by-3.0" title="{{self|cc-by-3.0}}">  Own work, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0</option>
<option value="self|GFDL" title="{{self|GFDL}}">  Own work, copyleft, attribution required (GFDL)</option>
</select>

How is a newbie supposed to find the following wikicode for these license tags:

Best:
{{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-all}}
{{self|GFDL|cc-by-3.0}}
{{PD-self}}

Better:
{{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-3.0}}
{{self|GFDL|FAL}}

Good:
{{self|cc-by-sa-3.0}}
{{self|cc-by-3.0}}
{{self|GFDL}}

To many newbies it is a nightmare having to navigate an upload form that requires typing and a selector menu.

Nothing in the prose text instructions indicates that a license is REQUIRED !!!

It may be obvious to us, but not to newbies. And they don't realize what the license wikicode looks like, so how are they going to fix mistakes? Doh!

We are talking several levels of abstraction here!

1. Copyrights
2. Typing
3. Selector menus
4. Wikicode

And we don't even explain why some tags are "best" or "better" or "good." --Timeshifter 20:36, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey, does anyone at wiki use the rest of the web for the last ten years?

CGI folks, not pull down tabs, boxes to check, boxes to fill, not "guess and type in". When batch loading a bunch of photos, how to do it for speed?

This is not intuitive, it is very wiki, but not intuitive. If a person has to shift off the page for fifty times to find this and that they will NOT donate. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Akha (talk • contribs) at 20:45, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with User:Akha. This should be framed: "This is not intuitive, it is very wiki, but not intuitive." :-)

There is a related discussion here:

MediaWiki talk:Uploadtext/ownwork#What are the best licenses for donating one's own images? --Timeshifter 21:15, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

To edit a photo and get the copyright violation tag off it, there is no step by step, type this or that in, your guess is as good as mine.

CGI. Pick an item, when complete it will load. If not complete it will not load. It will NOT load if incorrect. [who made this post?]

Please sign your posts. Do you know which button to click to do that? It is the 3rd one from the right at the top of the comment form. It is difficult to carry on a discussion without knowing who is replying to whom, and when. --Timeshifter 00:35, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Another problem for both newbies and more experienced editors is that the parts of the form are not explained. I am talking about the form that is already included in the upload page:

{{Information
|Description=
|Source=self-made
|Date=
|Author=
|Permission=
|other_versions=
}}

"Permission"? "Other versions"? What date? Date when the photo was taken, or the date when a diagram was uploaded? Or what? I, and many others, have been asking these kinds of questions for months, and even years. Do admins read this page in more than a cursory manner? Are admins working together on these issues? Are admins consulting each other on fixing these problems?

Best:
{{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-all}}
{{self|GFDL|cc-by-3.0}}
{{PD-self}}

Better:
{{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-3.0}}
{{self|GFDL|FAL}}

Good:
{{self|cc-by-sa-3.0}}
{{self|cc-by-3.0}}
{{self|GFDL}}

Can an admin paste the above list into the instructions on the upload page?

That way people can just copy and paste into the form. Also people can go back and fix mistakes. Otherwise there is no easy way to go back and fix license mistakes on images that are already uploaded. See the previous comments from the other poster in this thread. --Timeshifter 00:41, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

The edit request is for the "own work" upload page: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Upload&uselang=ownwork

It seems to be partially based on this MediaWiki:Licenses page. --Timeshifter 02:09, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Did you know that if you hover over a license in the license selector, it displays the wikitext? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 03:39, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Now I do. Thanks. There is a problem though. One can't copy the wikitext code. Even typing the code is difficult. Try typing in a Notepad (or other text editor) window while hovering over the selector menu. It can't be done, as far as I know, in a Windows environment. The mouse cursor can't be in 2 places at once. I tried several different ways and couldn't find a way. So one would have to go back and forth to copy it character by character from memory.

Another useful thing about the selector menu is that one can click on one of the selections and it will show the license box below. But unless one figures this out by accident it is unlikely to be noticed. So it might be useful to note it somewhere in the introductory text. Along with mentioning the hovering method for seeing the wikicode.

I just discovered an obscure way to copy the wikicode. It works in the Firefox browser, but not in Internet Explorer. One can hover over a selection, and then right-click it. Then click "properties" from the popup menu. Then copy and paste the wikicode from the properties box that comes up. A long way to go to get a tag. --Timeshifter 05:07, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) There is related discussion at a "User-friendliness" talk section here:

• wikipedia:MediaWiki talk:Licenses/en-ownwork#User-friendliness

Here is the suggested license tag table for the commons "own work" upload form in a cleaner format:

Compare it to the suggested license tag table for the wikipedia "own work" upload form:

• wikipedia:MediaWiki talk:Licenses/en-ownwork#User-friendliness --Timeshifter 18:35, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Discussion is continuing in a more focussed way here:

• MediaWiki talk:Uploadtext/ownwork#Table of license tags. Links for more info --Timeshifter 13:50, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

No {{GFDL}}?

Why do we not have GFDL on it's own? This is a perfectly valid option (though I don't recommend it).  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 15:04, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

There is "self|GFDL|Own work, copyleft, attribution required (GFDL)".--Trixt (talk) 21:38, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually we need to phase out GFDL from the upload options now that we are migrating to Creative Commons as the preferred license. GFDL was never an appropriate license for media files and was only an option because Wikipedia itself was GFDL. Kaldari (talk) 18:49, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

PD-old-70 and PD-old-100

{{editprotected}} The menu should use {{PD-old-70}} and {{PD-old-100}}, which are more specific than {{PD-old}}. In particular, PD-old-100 obsoletes the long, unnecessary warning.

I believe this requires changing:

PD-old|Author died more than 70 years ago - public domain

to:

PD-old-70|Author died more than 70 years ago - public domain
PD-old-100|Author died more than 100 years ago - public domain

Thanks. Superm401 - Talk 18:21, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Agree it's better to use one of those but I hate to make it even more confusing for uploaders. Not knowing better, if I read those last two lines, I'd be like "What's the difference? They're both public domain. I'm not gonna go look up when this guy died." etc. Maybe we can combine some others. PD-Art needs some clarification too. Rocket000 ( ) 17:06, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree - it is not clear that this change is an improvement for most users. Restore {{editprotected}} when there's some agreement on what to do here.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 01:02, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

If it's very very old, you know it's {{PD-old-100}}. If it's not very very old, you have to check the death date any way to make sure it's even PD. If you're concerned about keeping the list the current size, how about removing {{PD-USGov-NASA}} (in addition to removing PD-old)? Superm401 - Talk 00:40, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

It might be okay to have "PD-old" and "PD-old-100". The first is just a general "it's old enough to PD but I'm not sure exactly how old or can't be bothered to check", while the second is for works where it's obviously centuries old. Dcoetzee (talk) 21:55, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Using PD-ineligible for own work not recommended

Recently, I've noticed a bunch of files being nominated for deletion because they were tagged with {{PD-ineligible}} when they probably should've been {{PD-self}}. Most of the files seem to have been simple photos shot with a digital camera, and it's quite possible that their authors though they were "too simple to be copyrighted", even though under most jurisdictions this would not actually be the case.

In general, if an author does not wish to assert copyright on their work, and believes that it might even be ineligible for it, we'd still prefer to see it tagged with {{PD-self}} rather than {{PD-ineligible}}, especially at upload time. After all, anyone can always tag the image as ineligible later, if they believe it to be so, but only the author can explicitly release a copyrightable work into the public domain (or release all rights to it — let's not get into that debate).

Thus, to reduce the odds of such cases happening in the future, I've appended "not your own work" to the PD-ineligible entry on the license menu. However, I'd like to ask for help in making equivalent changes to the corresponding entries on the license menus in other languages. In particular, given that I've noticed several Japanese photos among the ones nominated for deletion, I'd be glad if someone who can write Japanese could update MediaWiki:Licenses/ja (or tell me what to write there).

(Note that there's also a little-known option to combine the two tags by writing {{PD-ineligible|PD-self}}, which produces a result like that seen on File:1x1.png. If we wanted, we could add such an option to the license selector, with a caption such as "Own work, too simple to be copyrighted" or something like that.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:45, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I am the one who nominated all these images for deletion. Yes, I think it much better to explain that {{PD-ineligible}} is "not for your own work". I think most users who wrongly use this template didn't read or understand it. Yann (talk) 21:01, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen that happen too - in fact, I would go so far as to make this a strict rule: no one who is uploading their own work should ever use PD-ineligible, even if the work is PD-ineligible. They should be releasing it under a free license. This avoids second-guessing later about whether it's eligible or not. Dcoetzee (talk) 21:53, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Add CC0 Waiver Option for License Dropdown Choice

Hi, I work for Creative Commons and I'd like to suggest adding a new option in the licensing drop down choice on file upload for CC0.

CC0 is a new waiver that enables authors to release their work properly into the public domain so that their choice is universally meaningful across all jurisdictions.

You can read more about CC0 here:

http://creativecommons.org/about/cc0

and actually use the tool here:

http://creativecommons.org/license/zero/

(Despite the URL, it is not actually a license, but a waiver. This should be fixed soon.)

Depending on how you want to display the waiver information, you can use our art available here:

http://creativecommons.org/about/downloads/

CC0 is designed to work internationally, so we think it'd be ideal for Wikimedia Commons to use it, as we've heard you've run into issues with standard the standard PD disclaimer.

One consideration, however, is that it might be confusing to put a waiver in a drop down labeled "License". It is important from Creative Commons' perspective that we distinguish that the tool is a waiver, and not a license, so it might be worth while to indicate as much by changing the label to something else.

Thanks!

Fred (talk) 22:12, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Another issue to consider is whether or not the inclusion of both Public Domain and CC0 will cause confusion, since, in the US at least, they are basically the same thing. I can imagine an endless stream of inquires as to which one people should choose. Of course we could replace Public Domain with CC0 but that would be problematic as well since people are far more familiar with the term Public Domain. My personal preference would be to wait until CC0 has more widespread adoption and familiarity. CC0 would be perfect for Flickr though as they don't offer any public domain option at the moment. Has anyone approached them yet? Kaldari (talk) 15:30, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

We'd (obviously?) suggest replacing the "Public Domain" option with CC0 since CC0 is a more robust tool designed to achieve the same ends - releasing a work into the PD. To avoid confusion, the drop down menu could identify the PD option as "CC0 Waiver (public domain)" or "Public Domain (CC0 waiver)" instead of just "Public Domain". With respect to Flickr, CC0 might not be appropriate for the large amount of PD works on Flickr as it's designed for currently copyrighted works, not works in the public domain already like those created by the federal government or pre-1923. Fred (talk) 19:21, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm pretty much neutral on the idea, although if we do implement it, I would only support listing it as "Public Domain (CC0 waiver)", at least until "CC0" is more established. Kaldari (talk) 16:38, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Might be worth considering using "all rights released" or something similar instead of or in addition to "public domain": IME new users all too often end up mistaking "public domain" for "published on the web". —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:02, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd be worried that All Rights Released is too close to All Rights Reserved visually (I actually read it that way when I first read your suggestion). Maybe All Rights Waived? "Public Domain (CC0 Waiver, All rights waived)" might work. Fred (talk) 16:03, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, yes, you have a point. I'd personally put the name of the waiver/license first, though: e.g. "CC0 waiver (all rights waived / public domain)". —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:38, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm excited about the development of CC0 Waiver. I think it's important to provide this as an option because the full waiver text is considerably more specific, complete, and well thought-out by real lawyers than our present minimalistic waiver text. I also look forward to using it on Flickr, where so far I have been compelled to add a waiver to the description of every single image I wish to release into the public domain (Uploadr helps, but it's still highly annoying).

I do have a point of feedback though - I'd like it if the summary page emphasized that no attribution is required, since this is practically speaking what differentiates it from the other Creative Commons licenses. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:07, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

There's another IMHO significant distinction: in clause 1(iii), the CC0 waiver also waives "publicity and privacy rights pertaining to a person's image or likeness depicted in a Work". Of course, this clause has no effect unless the waiver is applied by a person depicted in the work, but it's still something I don't recall seeing explictly waived in any other license (or waiver) here on Commons, and I rather suspect that we may have bits and pieces of text on various policy and help pages written with the assumption that free content licenses only affect copyright and leave publicity and privacy rights untouched.

Also, the existence of this clause seems to mean that we really need to keep track of who has applied the waiver to any given work, since multiple persons may have distinct claims to the work affected by the waiver. Indeed, I assume it would be possible e.g. for the subject of a photograph to waive his or her publicity and privacy rights with the CC0 waiver while the photographer licenses the same file under e.g. CC-BY-SA. How are we going to tag such a file? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 07:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Great, thanks for the feedback. Including language on the CC0 deed stating that Attribution is not required is something we've been planning on rolling out as part of norms feature, but now we're considering expediting this change.

As to the point about publicity rights, its important to distinguish between those rights that the affirmer is waiving those rights that they cannot waive, such as those of people who may be in the work. That is, I can waive my publicity rights of a photo that I both own and am in, but I cannot waive those of my friend who happens to be in a photo I took. The idea is to waive all rights that the affirmer has to waive, not all the rights that could exist (which would be impossible for any license to do). Does that help? Fred (talk) 21:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

While I agree with the language waiving publicity rights where possible, I think Ilmari's point is that this is actually a little bit "freer" than any existing tag currently in use by Commons, so we have to be careful we're not contradicting this anywhere. The {{Personality rights}} warning should be fine, since it does not say "personality rights apply to this work" - only "[b]efore using this content, please ensure that you have the right to use it under the laws which apply in the circumstances of your intended use". Mostly though, this is a non-issue, since most works are not self-portraits.

Regarding the separate release of rights by multiple parties, this is a larger issue that requires revisiting. Some works have multiple authors, or are derivative works having both an original author or authors and a new author (such as a photo of a sculpture). Some works have associated model releases. We're probably going to want a general scheme of dealing with all these. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

 Added, in addition to CC-BY-SA. In case we need to tweak it later, this is where I edited:

# 02:08, 21 June 2009 (hist) (diff) MediaWiki:Licenses/icommons ‎ (** cc-zero|CC0 waiver, all rights waived (Public domain)) (top) [rollback]
# 02:05, 21 June 2009 (hist) (diff) MediaWiki:Licenses/ownwork ‎ (**cc-zero|Creative Commons "Zero" waiver) (top) [rollback]
# 01:53, 21 June 2009 (hist) (diff) MediaWiki:Licenses ‎ (add cc-zero per talk, feel free to tweak or remove PD as well) (top) [rollback]

Cbrown1023 talk 02:10, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

It is not in commons' interest to decrese the public understanding of copyright. Thus replaceing the public domain with some CC branded jargon is counterproductive to our interests. PD-self is dirrect and to do the point. CC0 not so much.Geni (talk) 12:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

We're keeping both options, not replacing one with the other, as far as I know. CC0 is more complex for a very good reason - it's much better thought out than our public domain waiver, and releases more rights. Moreover, awareness of this option by people who regularly use Creative Commons licenses will help enlarge the public domain. Commons has a clear interest in increasing that awareness. Dcoetzee (talk) 19:09, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi everyone, just a quick update from CC. We just rolled out some changes suggested above to the language on the CC0 deed. More specifically, we signal that CC0 works do not require attribution and that reuse should not be considered endorsement. Take a look here. Thanks again for the feedback! Fred (talk) 15:48, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Why not warn uploader that google is not a good source?

Google is not a good source but users keep adding this. Why remove message that it is not good [2]? --MGA73 (talk) 20:40, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, it is better that the uploader writes "Google" as source rather than "Own work" if s/he found the image on Google. At least we know that the license is wrong. Yann (talk) 22:04, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that particular warning message wasn't necessarily helpful, as it instructed people to get permission but didn't explain how or what kind of permission. I think such explanations are a bit too complicated to put into the drop-down menu and are best handled elsewhere. Also, the warning message was not added consistently, as there are multiple places in the list for uploads from Google. Kaldari (talk) 22:34, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, problem is that we manually have to warn the uploaders when the images are uploaded and seven days later we can delete the image. If we decide that we do not need to warn uploaders I suggest we make a modified template for these images and put them a special category. Then we could just make a bot delete them. If we can find a good text it should be possible to add it on all relevant places. --MGA73 (talk) 19:09, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Files uploaded without a license

I changed "subst:nld" to "subst:uwl" (uploaded without license) to avoid that a "no license" template is added during upload. Instead User:Nikbot will tag the file and inform uploaded shortly after if no license is added manually. If template is added during upload then uploader will not get a notice on the talk page and we have to leave a note manually when we are cleaning up Category:Media without a license if we want to avoid to delete files without informing the uploader first. So this trick should help us cleaning up the category. --MGA73 (talk) 18:40, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Stronger wording

I propose that we change:

Not self-made, but has been released under: 

to

Not self-made, but the source clearly states that it has been released under: 

to make people think twice about whether *they* are allowed to release someone else's work. Any objections? --99of9 (talk) 13:59, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Phasing out GFDL from the upload form

Now that all Wikimedia projects are migrating to Creative Commons as the preferred licensing platform, we should phase out using the GFDL on the upload forms. GFDL was never an appropriate license for media files and was only an option because Wikipedia itself was GFDL. Now that that has changed, there is no reason for us to encourage people to use GFDL as a media license. To that end, I would like to propose that we begin to reduce the GFDL options on the upload form, giving preference to Creative Commons licenses and dual licenses. Specifically:

• remove "GFDL-en|GFDL content with disclaimers from English Wikipedia"
• remove "GFDL-it|GFDL content with disclaimers from Italian Wikipedia"
• remove "GFDL-ja|GFDL content with disclaimers from Japanese Wikipedia"
• remove "GFDL|GNU Free Documentation License from another Wikimedia project"
• remove "Wikimedia project screenshot|Screenshot of a page included in a Wikimedia project licensed with GFDL (not Wikinews)"
• remove "self|GFDL|FAL|Own work, copyleft, attribution required (GFDL, Free Art License)"
• remove "self|GFDL|Own work, copyleft, attribution required (GFDL)"
• add "Wikimedia project screenshot|Screenshot of a page included in a Wikimedia project licensed with CC-BY-SA"

Please note that this still leaves multi-licensing options which include GFDL and people are still free to add GFDL tags to their images manually. Kaldari (talk) 19:22, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Which are the significant third-party image and media sites that use the GFDL as one of their licenses? +sj + 23:23, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't like the fact that the extra information about (the disclaimers, the FAL) would be removed without replacement or in some other way capturing that extra information for media currently so tagged... what would something currently tagged with one of these licenses be migrated to? +sj +

Why would there be any migration? GFDL is still a valid license, and people will probably continue to use it both alone and in multi-licensing arrangements with other licenses. Here, we are considering whether we want to stop promoting it's use through including it in the licensing options dropdown menu. I think we probably do - it is obviously not a good license for media.  — Mike.lifeguard 01:44, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd just like to echo what Mike said. This proposal is not about deprecating any licenses, it is simply about whether or not we still want to include all the GFDL options on our drop-down license list on the upload form. People can still manually upload images under any license they want or change the license tag after uploading to something different if they choose. Kaldari (talk) 15:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Agree, GFDL license needs to be removed from the upload form. Most people choose their license from the dropdown form, so we shouldn't encourage the to use the GFDL there. Regards, -- ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 14:27, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

[copied from LMTF] Per COM:L, GFDL <1.3 still are "free" licenses in the sense we have always understood it, so there is no reason why we should forbid uploads under those licenses. It seems sensible, however, to remove them from the dropdown list of the standard upload form, since the foundation (and "we") think it is not so suitable for commercial reuse, and we know it is not so suitable for media. --Eusebius (talk) 14:39, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you. If for some reason an experienced user wants to specify a GDFL license, he can type the tag in the "Permission" field. Sv1xv (talk) 16:38, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Whatever else we do, it would probably be a good idea to ensure that, by the time the licensing update officially happens on 15 June 2009, every licensing option we offer on the drop-down menu that includes GFDL 1.3 also includes CC-BY-SA 3.0 (since, after all, those files will end up available under CC-BY-SA via the GFDL 1.3 relicensing clause anyway). —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:04, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

My only fear is that if someone stumbles across GFDL media on the web and tries to upload it, they may be quite perplexed about how to go about it. It might be sufficient to merely relegate it to the bottom of the list and add "(not recommended)" after it. Dcoetzee (talk) 21:51, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, true. Although it seems we don't currently support that case anyway: the closest thing we have is "GFDL|GNU Free Documentation License from another Wikimedia project". —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 14:48, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Where else on the web do people use GFDL licenses for images besides Wikimedia projects? I've never encountered such a thing myself. Kaldari (talk) 15:52, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Some other wikis that have simply decided to follow Wikipedia's license choice, perhaps? (Hopefully many of those will also decide to update their license now that we have, but most likely others either decide not to or simply forget and let the deadline pass.) Anyway, it's something that we'll need to keep in mind at least when updating existing license tags: not everything tagged with {{GFDL}} can automatically be relicensed. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:59, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Good point. I don't think it's a big enough issue, though, to really worry about, as most wikis seem to be more text oriented (or rely heavily on fair use images). Plus we've started an outreach project to try to make sure that the other major wikis are migrating their licensing as well. Kaldari (talk) 22:29, 3 June 2009 (UTC)