Category talk:Wikipedia non-free file copyright templates

I think there should be a Category:Free or non-free image copyright tags (or some better name) for tags like {{PUIdisputed}}, {{Money}}, or {{Flagimage}}, where the image might be public domain, or might not. What do you think? – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 13:16, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I didn't do this for two reasons:

1. The category would be very small, and editors interested in image tagging probably already know which ones are concerned ({{Coat of arms}} could be added to the list). The same reasoning lead me to place a small number of non fair use tags here: there are too few of them to really merit a seperate Category:Non-free non fair use image copyright tags.
2. As with all copyright issues, the default is non-free: if we are not sure, that should signify reuser emptor. If we know that a certain country's banknotes are PD, for example, the images can be labelled {{PD-because}} (or {{money-US}} for the best known example). This is already done with PD Norwegian coats of arms on Commons.

Physchim62 (talk) 14:28, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm worried about someone going through at a future date and nominating all orphan "non-free" images for deletion. But that would delete some valid, free images. Yes, image with those tags should be tagged with a better tag that specifies whether it's free or not, but that's not a reason for deletion, at least not without a reasonable search for the status of the image. See what I mean? – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 16:38, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Physchim62's second point. I think that image copyright tags like the ones listed above should actively encourage users to investigate the copyright status of each image and re-tag it if the image is free, but I'm concerned that a category named Category:Free or non-free image copyright tags may cause people to think that that set of images as a whole are "better" than unfree images. However, I might be in favour of a category name along the lines of Category:Assumed non-free image copyright tags or Category:Non-free image tags requiring investigation as to whether the images are free or something like that.

I agree with your last point. It's hard to figure out what to do though. For example, there are thousands of images tagged with {{coat of arms}}, most of which don't have any source information, and some of which may be copyright violations. A proper cleanup would likely be a huge amount of effort, making deletion a very tempting alternative. Not sure what the solution is. JYolkowski // talk 23:24, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I see your point. Maybe this shouldn't be split afterall. (And coats of arms are indeed a Big Problem.) – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 00:59, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Image copyright tag renaming

Please see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Image_copyright_tags for a centralized discussion on bringing our copyright tag names into compliance. MBisanz ^talk 03:42, 4 June 2008 (UTC)