Commons talk:Copyleft trolling

Draft feedback

I started a draft. I feel pretty good about it, although there are still a couple placeholders. I don't think we're going to find a consensus for any enforcement, but perhaps we can come to a consensus about a guideline. I've tried to define copyleft trolling, give some tips to distinguish it from other types of enforcement, explain what I think there is strong consensus for in terms of principles, and detail some of the ways we've dealt with it in the past. The point isn't to provide anything prescriptive, but to document "this is something we care about and could do something about".

Pinging some of the users active in the VP discussion: @Nosferattus, SHB2000, King of Hearts, Normanlamont, Adamant1, Jeff G., Chris.sherlock2, Jmabel, Nil Einne, Yann, Enyavar, Bluerasberry, and Julesvernex2: (sorry if I missed anyone -- I just pinged those whose name stood out more than once in that thread) — Rhododendrites ^talk |  15:35, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

• Thanks Rhododendrites, this is a great start. I think the 'Victim of copyleft trolling?' section is a key one, as many users will likely land on this page only after being hit with a claim. I've reached out to CC for their feedback on which jurisdictions/scenarios Pixsy & Co. are more likely to pursue legal action, and what actions victims can consider to decrease the odds. As you said, we need to fall short of providing legal advice, but hopefully there's some useful stuff we can include. --Julesvernex2 (talk) 17:25, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Great start! I agree that we'll need to fall short of providing legal advice. Maybe we should also point out the fact that CC-4 gives a 30-day grace period? SHB2000 (talk) 21:32, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  @SHB2000: That's in there, but remember that grace period only applies to restoring the license. It doesn't stop the demands for money; it only means you can continue to use the image once you've paid. With the older licenses, if you pay a fee, fix attribution, and continue using the images, you could be sued again because you didn't have a 30-day window to restore the license. It's not much of a fix, but it does reduce some of the harm. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  22:17, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

• This is a nice start. Thanks for your work on it. So far I've been rather disheartened that it seems almost impossible to build consensus to do anything about copyleft trolling here. Maybe this page will help to inform people so that we can start to build some consensus around defending our values and protecting reusers. Nosferattus (talk) 03:51, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

• Thanks all. I'm going to move this into projectspace and remove the essay template (without replacing it with anything). Here's my question: should this be shaped into something that can be proposed as a formal guideline? Or should it be a "help" page? It's explaining and articulating some principles rather than prescribing any particular behavior, which makes me think it could be out of place as a guideline, but maybe being a guideline would give those principles more weight? Curious about your thoughts. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  13:27, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you for doing this. I’m sure it will help a lot of people. Normanlamont (talk) 16:56, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites: I like it, but I had to add a word. I suggest making it a guideline.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 12:56, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Finally took the time to fully read this. It is a great overview on the current situation, and a solid foundation to build on once the community decides on further actions. --Enyavar (talk) 15:38, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Negotiation

@Nosferattus: Regarding this, to me the line you removed is less telling people to pay trolls and more telling people they don't have to pay the amount stated, which seems useful to know. What about modifying that line to start with "If you decide to pay the fee..."? Certainly we shouldn't tell people not to pay, as ignoring the demands can turn accidental infringement claims into "willful infringement". — Rhododendrites ^talk |  14:19, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable. FWIW, I do think ignoring the monetary demand is an option and we should not preclude that. Nosferattus (talk) 17:22, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Definition

I think the article needs to have something in the lead about valid licence enforcement (rather than half way down) including your comment about otherwise the image would be functionally public domain. The lead sentence mentions "for minor licensing violations". The current Diliff case was brought about by a user who admitted they didn't read the licence conditions at all, thought the image was public domain, and didn't attribute Diliff at all. That's not a minor licence violation. They essentially treated the image as "If it's on the internet it must be free". And we also don't know anything about this person. They could work in the advertising dept of a large corporation for all we know. So in fact it might not fit into the model described and be indeed a perfectly reasonable example of licence enforcement.

The main issue for which we actually have facts, is that Diliff has employed Pixsy for licence enforcement. What is definitely different about the Diliff case is there was no prior intent to upload images from which an income stream would arrive as Dillif was active here for years. Diliff has himself expressed that he has tried to intervene to help out the less egregious misuse and personally has no desire to demand big fees from individuals or tiny businesses.

I think this is more of a case of where Pixsy has been used as a blunt tool for licence enforcement of misuse by large corporations, with collateral damage. Can we distinguish that somehow? The idea that Diliff personally wishes to seek large fees from minor licensing violations from individuals and small businesses is false, as Diliff has explicitly said that is not their intent. Really, we need something saying please don't use Pixsy for licence enforcement. -- Colin (talk) 09:00, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

@Colin: Let us consider either rearranging file description pages to put the licensing first, or putting a "Licensing" link (in the appropriate language, to the licensing selection further down) above the file display. I don't know how feasible either would be.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 13:01, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

So proposed at COM:VPP#Make licensing easier for reusers to see.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 13:20, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I've been reading more on this. The Pixsy ban proposal, which failed had useful input from one user who made use of Pixsy while claiming to be behaving honourably. They made use of a template User:Josve05a/Pixsy that appeared in their image description page that warned users the image was protected against "image theft" by Pixsy. This might be a useful pattern to follow, though the Media Viewer doesn't pick it up.

The CC Enforcement principles do not mention anything about "differentiate between independent/small-time reusers and large corporations" which this page does. I'm getting the feeling that this is more of personal viewpoint than something that really should appear on this page. I don't think any enforcement practice could request information on company turnover and even independent and apparently small firms can have turnovers or routine business expenses for which a few hundred quid is a minor trouble. The article later notes that Pixsy only pursues commercial re-users. I suggest this be reworded to say trolls go after private individuals and non-commercial operations.

CC's licence enforcement page says "We believe it is important that reusers make their best efforts to comply with the terms and conditions of the license, and we support enforcement of the licenses when CC-licensed materials are being used without regard to those simple terms." Note this "without regard to those simple terms". I think an important distinction is where there has simply been "image theft", that the image has been taken and reused "without regard to those simple terms". This is quite different to when the attribution is simply wrong in some way. I would be interested to know if Pixsy's search is cleverer than just an image search but seeks out attempts at attribution such as mention of the photographers username or real name. CC say "The CC licenses reflect a deep-seated belief that authors deserve credit for their work, consistent with moral rights in force around the world." Clearly CC see a difference between a good faith attempt that didn't quite reach the mark, and complete disregard and disrespect for the content creator.

The CC Enforcement principles demonstrate best practice. But we are a broad church and there's a gulf between saintly behaviour and unacceptable behaviour. They highlight "not a scheme to trap" and "When enforcement becomes profitable, especially when licensors act in a way that suggests they want reusers to violate the license so they can collect fees, it crosses over into trolling and runs counter to these principles." I think there is a level where enforcement is not compliant with CC's own (quite recent) enforcement principles, but has not reached the level of copyleft trolling. I think that line gets crossed when there appears to be a prior intent to create and upload works with an apparently free licence that then traps reusers making minor attribution mistakes, targets any and all non-compliant reusers including non-commercial reusers, and which operates at a scale that is a "business model". This line could be the kind of hard line around which we developed a policy for deletion of such images and banning such users. Below that line is behaviour that we don't regard as best practice and doesn't comply with CC's enforcement principles. I suspect there could be a wide range of opinion among professional photographers of the application of forgiveness and spending one's time helping commercial users comply that would appear to load that "cost" onto the photographer rather than onto the reuser business. One spends an evening helping a chain of BMW car dealers comply with the CC terms, on an image they reused "without any regard to" the photographer, and get diddly squat in return. In contrast, in our broad church, are creators who either explicitly give away their works without strings, or attach strings merely in the hope that some will comply but not care when some don't. This range of attitudes is important to Commons as we take images not just from Commoners and not just from saintly Commoners, but scraped off the internet from people we don't know, don't share all our values and whom we can't actually ban.

The core of CC's definition of copyleft trolling is "licence enforcement as a business model". As with any business model, it requires an intention to lure "customers", to require all "customers" to pay, and to operate at scale. Being non-compliant with every single one of CC's enforcement principles is not quite enough to reach what I believe they mean by "copyleft trolling" but it isn't good either. I think there could be an argument that FP and QI require either a CC v4 licence or PD or CC0. I suspect that would probably rule out a huge number of images taken from other websites such as Flickr, which AFAICS, still use CC v2. -- 12:08, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Wikicon proposal

Just a heads up to those interested, after digging into this quite a bit over recent weeks I decided to propose a session about copyleft trolling at this year's WikiConference North America. I framed it around poka-yoke, or "error-proofing". (i.e. talking about what the issue is, but focusing on how to prevent it rather than how to squash it). I plan to gather some of the ideas floated here and at the VP, put some visuals together for them, and hopefully gather some ideas from the big crowd who attends there. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  03:36, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

I could help raise awareness at the German Wikicon this October, probably in one of the (shorter and less formal) lightning talks. Right now there is also time for topic proposals for the official agenda. --Enyavar (talk) 15:38, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

VPP and DR closures

The two long threads that sparked discussion on this subject have now been closed.

On June 24, IronGargoyle closed Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Diliff as

Kept: A clear majority here support keeping the images in question given their high quality and within-scope status. Commons policy does not provide a justification for mandating the deletion of these images. There is no consensus about forced watermarking, but it seems discussion is ongoing at the Village Pump to determine how best to deal with similar cases in the future.

Today Matrix closed Commons:Village pump/Proposals#Prohibit copyleft trolling with this statement:

This discussion has run its course, and I am hence closing it. Out of these proposals, it is clear numerically that proposal no. 4 is the most successful.

• The help page Commons:Copyleft trolling has been created, and subsequent comments can be made on its talk page.
• Idea is we can convince users to switch to CC4, and then they can continue to use firms such as Pixsy.
• Authors who still do not switch to CC4 should accept forced watermarks so proper warning is given to reusers.

Per the successful proposal, I am also adding the template to make Commons:Copyleft trolling an official guideline on Commons.

Both of these discussions had some problems whereby earlier participants were operating according to incomplete information. In the DR, the comments after Diliff finished responding are a bit more complicated than the row of keeps at the start. Given the complexity but preponderance of keeps, IronGargoyle sensibly closed as keep while pointing to the Village Pump thread for more general guidance.

In the VP discussion, the three bulletpoints Matrix listed are based on the three bulletpoints in the proposal, which were worded before we have complete information about CC4 and Pixsy. Namely, (a) CC4 doesn't require that reusers be given a chance to correct a violation to avoid demands for money; it provides a window for reusers to restore their license to avoid being sued again after paying those damages. i.e. It doesn't protect against someone seeking damages the first time. (b) Per my conversation with Pixsy, they simply do not deal with images licensed with CC4. They may just think it's too legally blurry or they may want the ability to go after people more than once, but my sense is they're operating under the same mistaken assumption about CC4 that we were, so it's possible they'll modify the policy in the future.

So I'm mainly just hoping to get IG and Matrix to share their thoughts about the discussions the other closed and ask what their recommendation is, following those, to modify this page. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  13:26, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

I closed the VP discussion because it was stale (last comment was 21 days ago) and the most successful proposal was number 4. I think Julesvernex2's comment provides some insight into why CC4 is still better. The most important part IMO was, "most courts will hesitate to award material damages for temporary infringements. As long as there are CC2/CC3 licences out there, Pixsy has bigger fish to fry". The conclusion we can draw from this is that CC4 is still the better choice and we should still encourage its use over CC2/3. Is the limitations of CC4 a thing that should be at least mentioned in this help page? Absolutely. Does it change the crux of this proposal? No. That's my personal take at least. —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 17:28, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

@Matrix: Thanks. One more question for you. You closed with Authors who still do not switch to CC4 should accept forced watermarks so proper warning is given to reusers. - given that you've also added the guideline template to this page (and guidelines have some degree of enforceability), how would you word that bit for inclusion here? Or perhaps no change? Right now this page primarily explains the concept of copyleft trolling, tries to list some ways it can be differentiated from other forms of enforcement, explains why it's contrary to the spirit of Wikimedia/Commons, and offers some ways Commons has dealt with it in the past. i.e. it's not prescriptive. Is that consistent with your closure? — Rhododendrites ^talk |  17:36, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

The current page does indicate solutions on the section "How Commons handles copyleft trolls". Notice the use of the word "should" in my summary. Ultimately this is a very messy problem, and there is no "one size fits all" solution. This is something that should be handled according to the specific circumstances, and this guideline offers ways that this could happen. I hope this answers your question. —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 17:11, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't have strong feelings about this in any particular direction (which is one of the reasons I decided to close the DR). The numbers and weight of arguments in reference to policy seemed to mandate a keep. I also don't see a problem with Matrix's VP close. Is there some more precise aspect of it you wanted me to comment on? I caveat this by saying I'm not sure why my comment beyond the DR close should have any particular weight. IronGargoyle (talk) 17:35, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites, Matrix, and IronGargoyle: My question is how should this page be updated in light of the village pump discussion? Since it seems there was consensus for Proposal #4, should we modify the "How Commons handles copyleft trolls" to include those suggestions? In other words, should we replace the "No standard practice" section with a section saying that verified copyleft trolls should be asked to upgrade to CC4 and if they refuse their images should be watermarked? That would seem to be the logical conclusion, IMO. Nosferattus (talk) 00:21, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

That was largely my question above, too, but the reply from Matrix indicates, to me, that there is nothing prescriptive there. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  03:34, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Well we seem to be caught in a catch-22. No one wants to take any action against copyleft trolls because there are no prescriptive guidelines. And there are no prescriptive guidelines because we aren't taking any consistent action against copyleft trolls. Proposal #4 seemed to have consensus, and that was confirmed by Matrix's closure. So shouldn't we add the wording from Proposal #4 to the "How Commons handles copyleft trolls" section? Otherwise, we are effectively enacting Proposal #5 (to just create a landing page), which did not have consensus. Nosferattus (talk) 21:37, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

@Matrix: Would you mind clarifying your comments? Nosferattus (talk) 21:39, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

There are a lot of implementation problems that still need to be discussed. For example, what's the threshold for a forced watermark? How do we put the watermark in bulk? What should it say? How will we deal with images still in use? I wanted to turn this into a guideline (since it still offers valuable information) but to turn this into anything prescriptive we still need details on how we would execute forced watermarks, we can't just say "put forced watermarks" and leave for the day. —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 14:54, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! That is very helpful guidance. Nosferattus (talk) 03:11, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

What is the threshold for a forced watermark?

Per Commons:Village pump/Proposals#Proposal 4 and the discussion above, we need to decide what is the proper threshold for a forced watermark. My suggestion would be:

1. There is consensus that the author of the work(s) or their proxy is engaging in copyleft trolling per the definition given here. This must be established on a case-by-case basis through evidence and discussion.
2. Following the establishment of copyleft trolling (#1), the author of the work(s) does not agree to switch to a CC4 license within 30 days of being asked to do so. (If the author does not have an account on Commons, this can be asked on Flickr, or wherever the images were originally posted.)
3. If the author subsequently switches to a CC4 license, the watermarks can be removed.

Nosferattus (talk) 01:19, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

How do you intend to apply forced watermarks? Ok if there is a few images to add manually but if there is a few hundred or thousand is going to be impossible. Bidgee (talk) 08:57, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

ImageMagick. Nosferattus (talk) 20:02, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I still don't get how CC4 is a solution here. Yes, for the time being it would mean you can't work with Pixsy but for every case where (1) is satisfied without using Pixsy, if they switch to CC4 they can just continue on as they have been. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  13:20, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I assume that very few authors are willing to put in the time required to do this without Pixsy (manually search for misattributed images, hunt down the users, handle the negotiations, retain a lawyer if the case gets to court), so this only seems like a potentially sizeable issue if there are Pixsy competitors willing to work with CC4. Is that the case? I can try to find out if nobody has looked into this yet. -- Julesvernex2 (talk) 17:36, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Philpot, one of the cases mentioned on this page, did not use Pixsy AFAIK. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  18:47, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't know if CC4 is a good solution or not; it's just the only solution so far that has gotten any support. Please propose other solutions if you have ideas. Unfortunately, the Commons community seems to prefer shooting down ideas over finding solutions (and the perfect is always the enemy of the good). Nosferattus (talk) 20:00, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't think CC4 is a solution. We should certainly encourage it across the board, and I would support a requirement that images created (and not just uploaded) after [whenever such a proposal would be enacted] cannot use older CC licenses across the project. But I don't think we're going to find a bright line for when forced watermarking is required because opinions vary so much about what should qualify as "copyleft trolling" and what the best approach to dealing with it is. We've thus far been very inconsistent. My hope is that having this guideline will provide a sort of rubric to evaluate future cases, and to establish that there are multiple possible remedies on the table. Many of the !votes in the Diliff DR talked about the practice not going against any Commons policy or guideline. Well, that's different now, to an extent. Not arguing to relitigate that case, but it'll be interesting to see if the next case will be different.

Here's a constructive next step you could take: establish, for the cases when we do use watermarking to protect users against copyleft trolling (regardless of how those cases are determined), how exactly should this watermarking take place. Maybe you could work on an essay/information page on the subject, trying to sort out all the practical bits (wording, placement, coloring, size, tips for adding them, information on how Wikipedias can crop using templates, etc.). I wouldn't take the Philpot case as prescriptive, but an example of how it's been done before. That text never really went through a proper discussion AFAIK, so whatever the discussions that happen over this hypothetical information page find may result in those watermarks being changed to align with TBD best practices. — Rhododendrites ^talk |  20:16, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites: Some other ideas for condition #2:
A. Following the establishment of copyleft trolling (#1), the author of the work(s) does not agree to allow good faith reusers a 14-day grace period to correct attribution errors before demanding a fee or initiating legal action.
B. Following the establishment of copyleft trolling (#1), the author of the work(s) does not agree to discontinue the problematic actions identified in the discussion.
Do either of those sound more workable? Nosferattus (talk) 20:28, 7 July 2024 (UTC)