Link83

Welcome to Wikimedia Commons, Link83!

First steps tutorial Our first steps tour and our FAQ will help you a lot after registration. They explain how to customize the interface (for example the language), how to upload files and our basic licensing policy. You don't need technical skills in order to contribute here. Be bold contributing here and assume good faith for the intentions of others. This is a wiki—it is really easy. Getting help More information is available at the community portal. You may ask questions at the help desk, village pump or on IRC channel irc:wikimedia-commons #wikimedia-commons (direct access). You can also contact an administrator on their talk page. If you have a specific copyright question, ask at Commons talk:Licensing.		Goodies, tips and tricks Put Babel boxes on your user page so others know what languages you can speak and indicate your graphic abilities. All your uploads are stored in your personal gallery Please sign your name on Talk pages by typing ~~~~ Use the CommonSense tool to find good categories for your files (then other people can find them too!) To link to an image page without embedding the image, type: [[:Image:Foo.jpg]], which produces: Image:Foo.jpg If you're copying files from another project, be sure to use the CommonsHelper Made a mistake? Did you want to rename or move a file? Simply upload the file again and mark the old one like this: {{bad name|correct name}} For more information read the full deletion guidelines.
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File:SNES2Package.JPG

Hello. I delete this image. Problem is, the owner of rights is not the eBay people, but Nintendo. If we want to use this image on Commons we need to request Nintendo to release the image in a free license. Thanks for your contribution anyway. ~ bayo or talk 20:28, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi Link83, I hope you don't mind me answering in Bayo's place. You are not currently on Wikipedia, you're at the Wikimedia Commons. We are a host of "free" media. By free, we mean that anyone can use it for any purpose (including commercial ones), can make derivative works from it, and can do all this without being required to request permission from or in any way notify or compensate the author. You are right that Wikipedia has a lot of package shots, but these are for the most part used under fair use guidelines - where you are allowed to use an image which you do not hold the copyright to as long as it is for critical commentary (or something along those lines. See WP:FU for more info). However, Commons requires that anything we host be free, and these packaging shots would not qualify, as Nintendo still hold the copyrights, and wouldn't like it if you used them to say that their products are worthless pieces of kiddy junk. They may give out the images for free, as in without asking people to pay for them, but this is not commons's definition of free.

As for your other point about shape/designs being copyrighted, functional items cannot be copyrighted - you can't copyright the shape of a car, though you could copyright a picture of the shape of the car as the picture is not functional.

Hope this helps. Please feel free to contact me if you have any more questions. -mattbuck (Talk) 02:33, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello. Maybe the misunderstanding is what said Mattbuck. Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia (not all) dont have the same policy; and you should not find any packaging on Wikimedia Commons. On the English WIkipedia, you should find packaging, but only under fair use (else it should be a wrong license).

I can restore the image, but i must open a request for deleting. And i know the result will not be a keep (its a common case). ~ bayo or talk 09:34, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Thank you both for your replies - I understand now :o) I had thought I was uploading the picture to Wikipedia, not Wikimedia (in fact I hadnt even heard of Wikimedia!) I must have been re-directed at some point. As you may have guessed I am new to all this! I have just uploaded the image to Wikipedia with a fair use policy so hopefully I shouldnt have any more problems. Thanks for your help - Link83