Wikipedia

User:Ocaasi/Saeed

< User:Ocaasi

File: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Khalid-Saeed.jpg

Article: Death of Khaled Mohamed Saeed

This case involves a grotesque image of reported historical importance with disputed copyright status.

In order for the image to be used, it must meet Fair Use guidelines under all 10 criteria of our NFCC policy, including the Image Use Policy. Among the NFCC critera are that the image be previously published rather than leaked or stolen (NFCC#4), not replaceable by text (NFCC#8), the subject of commentary at the article (NFCCC#10), and not used to shock or attract attention or exploit the image of the deceased (NFCC#6->Image Use rules of thumb#10). To the extent that the image may have been taken from the Egyptian government through illicit means or without permission, there is a potential claim of contributing to the illegality or immorality of its origination. Wikipedia generally uses the maximal copyright definition available when foreign laws would be more restrictive than US law. There must also be local editorial consensus at the article talk page that the image is a necessary and significant improvement to the article.

Arguments against the image's use focus on all aspects of the file, beginning with its potentially illicit acquisition. There is a claim that Wikipedia needs explicit permission from Saeed's family since they are the copyright holders, the estate which controls his legacy. There are objections that even if the image met technical copyright criteria that it is not needed at the article or that its inclusion would be a misuse of the image and a detriment to readers. There are objections that the photo could be replaced by a version which the family grants permission to use directly.

Arguments for the image's use begin with the basic principle that Wikipedia is not censored. Images which may shock or offend are not as a rule excluded. To be included they must meet Copyright policy, NFCC, which is a version of Fair Use, but more restrictive than the US law definition. In this case, the image itself is the subject of commentary at the article. Although the image does illustrate the event of Saeed's death, its historical significance is well beyond that event. The photo was transmitted virally around Egypt and multiple RS confirm that the photo itself galvanized resistance to the Mubarak regime. The influential Facebook group We are all Khaled Said was started after Said's beating and the first protests it organized were in defiance of that act. In addition to prima facie meeting the technical requirements of NFCC, the image conveys what no text description could: that Saeed was beaten and did not die of asphyxiation, that the Egyptian government lied to cover up his death, the actual photo which became a historical artifact and itself an important piece of media which contributed to the protests and ultimately the overthrow of Mubarak.

Background

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Discussion

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External media

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Copyright
Said primary sources
Said secondary sources
Said photo republished in news sources

Policy and Guidelines

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Key Excerpts

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  • All creative works are copyrighted, by international agreement, unless either they fall into the public domain or their copyright is explicitly disclaimed. Generally, Wikipedia must have permission to use copyrighted works. There are some circumstances under which copyrighted works may be legally utilized without permission; see Wikipedia:Non-free content for specific details on when and how to utilize such material. However, it is our goal to be able to freely redistribute as much of Wikipedia's material as possible, so original images and sound files licensed under CC-BY-SA and GFDL (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts) or in the public domain are greatly preferred to copyrighted media files used under fair use or otherwise. If you want to import media (including text) that you have found elsewhere, and it does not meet the non-free content policy and guideline, you can only do so if it is public domain or available under terms that are compatible with the CC-BY-SA license. If you import media under a compatible license which requires attribution, you must, in a reasonable fashion, credit the author(s). You must also in most cases verify that the material is compatibly licensed or public domain. If the original source of publication contains a copyright disclaimer or other indication that the material is free for use, a link to it on the media description page or the article's talk page may satisfy this requirement. If you obtain special permission to use a copyrighted work from the copyright holder under compatible terms, you must make a note of that fact (along with the relevant names and dates) and verify this through one of several processes. See Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission for the procedure for asking a copyright holder to grant a usable license for their work and for the processes for verifying that license has been granted. Never use materials that infringe the copyrights of others. This could create legal liabilities and seriously hurt Wikipedia. If in doubt, write the content yourself, thereby creating a new copyrighted work which can be included in Wikipedia without trouble. Wikipedia:Copyrights#Contributors.27_rights_and_obligations
  • In the following, we will frequently refer to the "publication" of a work. A work is published when copies of the work are made accessible in some non-ephemeral form to the public at large with the consent of its author or copyright holder. WP:Public domain#Publication
  • Thus, a work is unpublished unless copies (which may be print publications, photos, postcards, lithographs, but also non-print publications such as replicas of a statuette) of it are published. It is of course implied that such a distribution of copies occurred legally, in particular with the consent of the copyright holder. An illegal distribution of copies (for instance one that itself would be a copyright violation) does not constitute a publication of a work. The right to publish a work is an exclusive right of the copyright owner (17 USC 106), and violating this right (e.g. by disseminating copies of the work without the copyright owner's consent) is a copyright infringement (17 USC 501(a)), and the copyright owner can demand (by suing in court) that copies distributed against his or her will be confiscated and destroyed (17 USC 502, 17 USC 503). WP:Public domain#Publication
  • "Free" content is defined as that which meets the "Definition of Free Cultural Works". Material that is not free is permitted only if it meets the restrictions of this policy. The stated mission of the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, is "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally." These concerns are embodied in the above requirements that all non-free content must meet, and our policy of deleting non-compliant content. Being generous to the world sometimes means being hard on ourselves. Please understand that these rules are not arbitrary; they are central to our mission. Wikipedia distributes content throughout the world with no restrictions on how people use it. Legally, we could use any copyrighted material for ourselves that is either licensed to us by the owner, or that fits the definition of "fair use" under US copyright law. However, we favor content that everyone can use, not just Wikipedia. We want them to be free to use, redistribute, or modify the content, for any purpose, without significant legal restrictions, particularly those of copyright. To honor its mission, Wikipedia accepts incoming copyright licenses only if they meet Wikipedia's definition of "free" use. This is a higher standard than we would need just for our own use. But our ability to use a work does not guarantee that others may use it. We reject licenses that limit use exclusively to Wikipedia or for non-commercial purposes. Commercial use is a complex issue that goes well beyond a company's for-profit status, another reason to be careful. In fact, we reject any licenses with significant limitations. That is not free enough. Wikipedia:Non-free_content_criteria#Explanation of policy and guidelines
  • Similarly, Wikipedia imposes higher fair-use standards on itself than US copyright law. There are some works, such as important photographs, significant modern artworks, that we cannot realistically expect to be released under a free content license, but that are hard to discuss in an educational context without including examples from the media itself. In other cases such as cover art / product packaging, a non-free work is needed to discuss a related subject. This policy allows such material to be used if it meet U.S. legal tests for fair use, but we impose additional limitations. Just because something is "fair use" on a Wikipedia article in the US does not mean it is fair use in another context. A downstream user's commercial use of content in a commercial setting may be illegal even if our noncommercial use is legal. Use in another country with different fair use and fair dealing laws may be illegal as well. That would fail our mission. We therefore limit the media content we offer, to make sure what we do offer has the widest possible legal distribution. Wikipedia:Non-free_content_criteria#Explanation of policy and guidelines
  • Legal position: Under United States copyright law, creative works published in the United States prior to 1923 are in the public domain. Some creative works published in the United States between 1923 and 1963 are still copyrighted. It is illegal (among other things) to reproduce or make derivative works of copyrighted works without legal justification. Unless a thorough search is conducted to determine that a copyright has expired or not been renewed, it should be regarded as copyrighted. Certain works have no copyright at all. Most material published in the United States before 1923, works published before 1978 without a copyright notice, with an expired copyright term, or produced by the US federal government, among others, is public domain, i.e. has no copyright. Some such as photos and scans of 2-dimensional objects and other "slavish reproductions", short text phrases, typographic logos, and product designs, do not have a sufficient degree of creativity apart from their functional aspects to have a copyright. Wikipedia:Non-free_content_criteria#Explanation of policy and guidelines
  • Copyright law only governs creative expressions that are "fixed in a tangible medium of expression," not the ideas or information behind the works. It is legal to reformulate ideas based on written texts, or create images or recordings inspired by others, as long as there is no copying (see plagiarism for how much reformulation is necessary). If material does have a copyright, it may only be copied or distributed under a license (permission) from the copyright holder, or under the doctrine of fair use. If there is a valid license, the user must stay within the scope of the license (which may include limitations on amount of use, geographic or business territory, time period, nature of use, etc.). Fair use, by contrast, is a limited right to use copyrighted works without permission, highly dependent on the specific circumstances of the work and the use in question. It is a doctrine incorporated as a clause in United States copyright code, arising out of a concern that strict application of copyright law would limit criticism, commentary, scholarship, and other important free speech rights. A comparable concept of fair dealing exists in some other countries, where standards may vary. Wikipedia:Non-free_content_criteria#Explanation of policy and guidelines
  • Anything published in other countries and copyrighted there, is copyright in the United States. Wikipedia:Non-free_content_criteria#Explanation of policy and guidelines
  • Never use materials that infringe the copyrights of others. This could create legal liabilities and seriously hurt the project. Wikipedia:Non-free_content_criteria#Explanation of policy and guidelines
  • Uploading an image file, audio or video file, or text quotation into Wikipedia, and adding that file to a project page, both raise copyright concerns. Editors who do either must make sure their contributions are legal. If there is any doubt as to legality, ask others for help, try to find a free equivalent, or use your own words to make the same point. Also, consider asking the copyright holder to release the work under an appropriate Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA) or a CC-BY-SA-compatible license (dual-licensing under a GFDL license is also possible). Wikipedia:Non-free_content_criteria#Explanation of policy and guidelines
  • If a work has no copyright or is licensed to Wikipedia under an acceptable "free" license, it is a free work and may be used on Wikipedia without copyright concerns. Restricted licenses to these works offer some legal rights, but Wikipedia ignores them because they are not free enough for its purposes. Instead, works covered by inadequate licenses are treated the same on Wikipedia as works with no licenses at all. If a work is not free, Wikipedia requires that it comply with Wikipedia's non-free use policy. As explained above, this policy is more restrictive than US law requires. Logically, material that satisfies the policy should also satisfy legal requirements as well. However, to be more certain of avoiding legal liability, and to understand the meaning of Wikipedia policy, editors should consider the legal rules as well. See fair use for further information, and the Stanford University summary of relevant cases, on the subject of fair use. Non-free material is used only if, in addition to other restrictions, we firmly believe that the use would be deemed fair use if we were taken to court. The Wikimedia Foundation reserves the right to remove unfree copyrighted content at any time. Note that citation sources and external links raise other copyright concerns that are addressed in other policies. Wikipedia:Non-free_content_criteria#Explanation of policy and guidelines
  • Images, photographs, video and sound files, like written works, are subject to copyright. Someone holds the copyright unless they have been explicitly placed in the public domain. Images, video and sound files on the internet need to be licensed directly from the copyright holder or someone able to license on their behalf. In some cases, fair use guidelines may allow them to be used irrespective of any copyright claims; see Wikipedia:Non-free content for more. Image description pages must be tagged with a special tag to indicate the legal status of the images, as described at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags. Untagged or incorrectly-tagged images will be deleted. From Wikipedia:Copyrights#Contributors.27_rights_and_obligations
  • Before you upload an image, make sure that either: You own the rights to the image (usually meaning that you created the image yourself); You can prove that the copyright holder has licensed the image under an acceptable free license; You can prove that the image is in the public domain. Wikipedia:Image_use_policy

Foreign law

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  • The Wikimedia Foundation is based in the United States and accordingly governed by United States copyright law. Regardless, according to Jimbo Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, Wikipedia contributors should respect the copyright law of other nations, even if these do not have official copyright relations with the United States. Wikipedia:Copyrights#Governing_copyright_law
  • In other words: a work that is not copyrightable in one country (even if that country is its country of origin) can still be copyrighted in other countries, if the work is copyrightable there. WP:Public domain#International_aspects
  • Because copyright expiry is governed by local laws, some special noteworthy cases exist, in particular for photographs. These cases are interesting for Wikipedia if a work was not published in the U.S., because then, the law of the originating country must be examined. There is a whole slew of country-specific image copyright tags for precisely that purpose; see the list of image copyright tags. However, being in the public domain in its home country does not automatically mean that the work was also in the public domain in the U.S. because the U.S. does not follow the "rule of shorter term". Wherever these country-specific tags are used, they should be accompanied by a rationale explaining why the image is thought to be in the public domain in the U.S., too. (Remember that Wikipedia is primarily subject to U.S. law!). From Wikipedia:Public_domain#Country-specific_rules
  • The servers which host Wikipedia are located in Florida, and so Wikipedia is bound to comply with United States copyright law. However, it is an international project, and many of our users and contributors are outside the United States. The project's aim is to produce and maintain a free encyclopedia, which can be used in any way which doesn't reduce that freedom...While Wikipedia prefers content which is free anywhere in the world, it accepts content which is free in the United States even if it may be under copyright in some other countries. For example works of the US federal government are in the public domain in the United States and widely used on Wikipedia, but they may not be in the public domain outside the United States...It is not always simple to determine the copyright status of a work first published outside of the United States. To determine the copyright status of a work in its country of origin (and there are at least 192 different national copyright régimes) it is typically necessary to know the date of death of the author, while to determine the copyright status in the United States it is typically necessary to know its publication history and its copyright status in the country of origin not on the date of uploading but on January 1, 1996. Wikipedia:Non-US_copyrights
  • A work can be in the public domain in the United States but still under copyright protection in its "source country": this is the case, for example, for Einstein's paper describing the theory of special relativity, first published in Germany in 1905. Any work published before 1923 is in the public domain in the United States, regardless of its source country, but German copyright protection lasts for seventy years after the death of the author (post mortem auctoris or "pma"), until December 31, 2025 in this case. A work can equally be in the public domain in its source country but still under copyright in the United States: any non-posthumous work published after 1922 by a British, French, or German author who died between January 1, 1926 and December 31, 1940 falls into this category. The copyright term of 70 years pma (which applies to all European Union countries) has expired, but its U.S. copyright was restored on January 1, 1996 by Act of Congress and will run until at least December 31, 2018 (95 years after publication, rounded to the end of the year). Wikipedia:Non-US_copyrights#General
  • Wikipedia articles may also include quotations, images, or other media under the U.S. Copyright law "fair use" doctrine in accordance with our guidelines for non-free content. In Wikipedia, such "fair use" material should be identified as from an external source by an appropriate method (on the image description page, or history page, as appropriate; quotations should be denoted with quotation marks or block quotation in accordance with Wikipedia's manual of style). This leads to possible restrictions on the use, outside of Wikipedia, of such "fair use" content retrieved from Wikipedia: this "fair use" content does not fall under the CC-BY-SA or GFDL license as such, but under the "fair use" (or similar/different) regulations in the country where the media are retrieved. Wikipedia:Copyright#Reuser's_rights_and_obligations

Fair Use and NFCC

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  • Some usage of copyrighted materials without permission of the copyright holder can qualify as fair use in the United States (but not in most other jurisdictions). However, since Wikipedia aims to be a free-content encyclopedia, not every image that qualifies as fair-use may be appropriate. Unauthorized use of copyrighted material under an invalid claim of fair use constitutes copyright infringement and is illegal. Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Fair_use
  • Rationale: To support Wikipedia's mission to produce perpetually free content for unlimited distribution, modification and application by all users in all media; To minimize legal exposure by limiting the amount of non-free content, using more narrowly defined criteria than apply under United States fair use law; To facilitate the judicious use of non-free content to support the development of a high-quality encyclopedia. There is no automatic entitlement to use non-free content in an article or elsewhere on Wikipedia. Articles and other Wikipedia pages may, in accordance with the guideline, use brief verbatim textual excerpts from copyrighted media, properly attributed or cited to its original source or author, and specifically indicated as direct quotations via quotation marks, <blockquote>, or a similar method. Other non-free content—including all copyrighted images, audio and video clips, and other media files that lack a free content license—may be used on the English Wikipedia only where all 10 of the following criteria are met:
  1. No free equivalent. Non-free content is used only where no free equivalent is available, or could be created, that would serve the same encyclopedic purpose. Where possible, non-free content is transformed into free material instead of using a fair-use defense, or replaced with a freer alternative if one of acceptable quality is available; "acceptable quality" means a quality sufficient to serve the encyclopedic purpose. (As a quick test, before adding non-free content requiring a rationale, ask yourself: "Can this non-free content be replaced by a free version that has the same effect?" and "Could the subject be adequately conveyed by text without using the non-free content at all?" If the answer to either is yes, the non-free content probably does not meet this criterion.)
  2. Respect for commercial opportunities. Non-free content is not used in a manner that is likely to replace the original market role of the original copyrighted media.
  3. Minimal usage. Multiple items of non-free content are not used if one item can convey equivalent significant information. Minimal extent of use. An entire work is not used if a portion will suffice. Low- rather than high-resolution/fidelity/bit rate is used (especially where the original could be used for deliberate copyright infringement). This rule also applies to the copy in the File: namespace.
  4. Previous publication. Non-free content must have been published or publicly displayed outside Wikipedia.
  5. Content. Non-free content meets general Wikipedia content standards and is encyclopedic.
  6. Media-specific policy. The material meets Wikipedia's media-specific policy. For example, images must meet Wikipedia:Image use policy.
  7. One-article minimum. Non-free content is used in at least one article.
  8. Contextual significance. Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding.
  9. Restrictions on location. Non-free content is allowed only in articles (not disambiguation pages), and only in article namespace, subject to exemptions. (To prevent an image category from displaying thumbnails, add to it; images are linked, not inlined, from talk pages when they are a topic of discussion.)
  10. Image description page. The image or media description page contains the following: Identification of the source of the material, supplemented, where possible, with information about the artist, publisher and copyright holder; this is to help determine the material's potential market value. See: Wikipedia:Citing sources#Multimedia; A copyright tag that indicates which Wikipedia policy provision is claimed to permit the use. For a list of image copyright tags, see Wikipedia:Image copyright tags/Non-free content; The name of each article (a link to each article is also recommended) in which fair use is claimed for the item, and a separate, specific non-free use rationale for each use of the item, as explained at Wikipedia:Non-free use rationale guideline. The rationale is presented in clear, plain language and is relevant to each use. Wikipedia:Non-free_content_criteria

Images

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  • Wikipedia's goal is to be a free content encyclopedia, with free content defined as content that does not bear copyright restrictions on the right to redistribute, study, modify and improve, or otherwise use works for any purpose in any medium, even commercially. But because free as in cost and free as in freedom are two entirely different concepts, images freely available on the Internet may still be inappropriate for Wikipedia. Any content not satisfying criteria, such as "non-commercial use only" images, images with permission for use on Wikipedia only, or images fully copyrighted are therefore classified as non-free. The licensing policy of the Wikimedia Foundation requires all content hosted on Wikipedia to be free content. However, there are exceptions. The policy allows projects to adopt an exemption doctrine policy allowing the use of non-free content within strictly defined limitations. There are situations where acquiring a freely licensed image for a particular subject may not be possible; non-free content can be used on Wikipedia in these cases, but only within the doctrine of fair use. The use of non-free images on Wikipedia must fall within purposely stricter standards than defined by copyright law as defined by our non-free content criteria as described below. Wikipedia:Non-free_content
  • Non-free content that meets all of the policy criteria above but does not fall under one of the designated categories below may or may not be allowable, depending on what the material is and how it is used. These examples are not meant to be exhaustive, and depending on the situation there are exceptions. When in doubt as to whether non-free content may be included, please make a judgement based on the spirit of the policy, not necessarily the exact wording. Wikipedia:Non-free_content#Guideline_examples
  • Some copyrighted images may be used on Wikipedia, providing they meet both the legal criteria for fair use, and Wikipedia's own guidelines for non-free content. Copyrighted images that reasonably can be replaced by free/libre images are not suitable for Wikipedia.
  1. Cover art: Cover art from various items, for identification only in the context of critical commentary of that item (not for identification without critical commentary).
  2. Team and corporate logos: For identification. See Wikipedia:Logos.
  3. Stamps and currency: For identification of the stamp or currency, not its subject.
  4. Other promotional material: Posters, programs, billboards, ads. For critical commentary.
  5. Film and television screen shots: For critical commentary and discussion of the cinema and television.
  6. Screenshots from software products: For critical commentary.
  7. Paintings and other works of visual art: For critical commentary, including images illustrative of a particular technique or school.
  8. Images with iconic status or historical importance: As subjects of commentary. From Wikipedia:Non-free_content#Images
  • Unacceptable use of images:
1. Pictures of people still alive, groups still active, and buildings still standing; provided that taking a new free picture as a replacement (which is almost always considered possible) would serve the same encyclopedic purpose as the non-free image. This includes non-free promotional images.
5. An image whose subject happens to be a war, to illustrate an article on the war. Use may be appropriate if the image itself is a proper subject for commentary in the article: for example, an iconic image that has received attention in its own right, if the image is discussed in the article.
6. An image to illustrate an article passage about the image, if the image has its own article (in which case the image may be described and a link provided to the article about the image)
9. A photo from a press agency (e.g., AP), unless the photo itself is the subject of sourced commentary in the article.
10. An image with an unknown or unverifiable origin. This does not apply to historical images, where sometimes only secondary sources are known, as the ultimate source of some historical images may never be known with certainty.
12. A commercial photograph reproduced in high enough resolution to potentially undermine the ability of the copyright holder to profit from the work. Wikipedia:Non-free_content#Images_2
  • Rules of thumb
  1. Use the image description page to describe an image and its copyright status.
  2. Use a clear, detailed title. Note that if any image with the same title has already been uploaded, it will be replaced with your new one.
  3. Upload a high-resolution version of your image whenever possible (unless the image is being used under fair use; see Fair use images for details), and use the automatic thumbnailing option of the Wikipedia image markup to scale down the image. MediaWiki accepts images up to 100 MB in size. Do not scale down the image yourself, as scaled-down images may be of limited use in the future.
  4. Crop the image to highlight the relevant subject.
  5. If you create an image that contains text, please also upload a version without any text. It will help Wikipedians translate your image into other languages.
  6. Try not to use color alone to convey information, as it is inaccessible in many situations.
  7. Use JPEG format for photographic images and TV or Movie screenshots; SVG format for icons, logos, drawings, maps, flags, and such; PNG format for software screenshots and when only a raster image is available; GIF format for inline animations; and Ogg/Theora for video.
  8. In general, there is no need to specify thumbnail size. Users can select their ideal size in preferences.
  9. Shocking or explicit pictures should not be used simply to bring attention to an article. Wikipedia:Image_use_policy
  • Privacy rights: When taking pictures of identifiable people, the subject's consent is not usually needed for straightforward photographs taken in a public place, but is often needed for photographs taken in a private place. This type of consent is sometimes called a model release, and it is unrelated to the photographer's copyright. Because of the expectation of privacy, the consent of the subject should normally be sought before uploading any photograph featuring an identifiable individual that has been taken in a private place, whether or not the subject is named. Even in countries that have no law of privacy, there is a moral obligation on us not to upload photographs which infringe the subject's reasonable expectation of privacy. If you upload a self-portrait, your consent is presumed. Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Privacy_rights
  • Moral Issues: Not all legally obtained photographs of individuals are acceptable. The following types of image are normally considered unacceptable: Those that unfairly demean or ridicule the subject; Those that are unfairly obtained; Those that unreasonably intrude into the subject's private or family life. These are categories which are matters of common decency rather than law. They find a reflection in the wording of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. The extent to which a particular photograph is "unfair" or "intrusive" will depend on the nature of the shot, whether it was taken in a public or private place, the title/description, and on the type of subject (e.g., a celebrity, a non-famous person, etc). This is all a matter of degree. A snatched shot of a celebrity caught in an embarrassing position in a public place may well be acceptable to the community; a similar shot of an anonymous member of the public may or may not be acceptable, depending on what is shown and how it is presented. Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#moral issues

Tagging

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  • We do not want downstream re-users to rely solely on our assurances. They are liable for their own actions, no matter what we tell them. We therefore show them and let them make their own decision. To that end we require a copyright tag describing the nature of a copyrighted work, sourcing material saying exactly where any non-free content comes from, and a detailed non-free media rationale for every use of copyrighted content in every article, justifying why use in that article is permitted. Wikipedia:Non-free_content_criteria#Explanation of policy and guidelines
  • Whenever you upload an image, you should meet the following minimal requirements. 1) Always tag your image with one of the image copyright tags. When in doubt, do not upload copyrighted images. 2) Always specify on the description page where the image came from (the source) and information on how this could be verified. Examples include scanning a paper copy, or a URL, or a name/alias and method of contact for the photographer. For screenshots this means what the image is a screenshot of (the more detail the better). Do not put credits in images themselves. Wikipedia:Image use policy#Requirements

Deletion

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  • These apply to files, images, and other media
F3. Improper license.
Media licensed as "for non-commercial use only" (including non-commercial Creative Commons licenses), "no derivative use", "for Wikipedia use only" or "used with permission" may be deleted, unless they comply with the limited standards for the use of non-free content. Files licensed under versions of the GFDL prior to 1.3, without allowing for later versions, may be deleted.
F4. Lack of licensing information.
Media files that lack the necessary licensing information may be deleted after being identified as such for seven days if the information is not added. Be aware that editors sometimes specify their source in the upload summary.
F5. Unused unfree images.
Images and other media that are not under a free license or in the public domain, that are not used in any article, may be deleted after being identified as such for more than seven days, or immediately if the image's only use was on a deleted article and it is very unlikely to have any use on any other valid article. Reasonable exceptions may be made for images uploaded for an upcoming article.
F6. Missing non-free use rationale.
Non-free files claiming fair use but without a use rationale may be deleted after being identified as such for seven days. The boilerplate copyright tags setting out fair use criteria do not constitute a rationale. This criterion does not apply to situations where a use rationale is provided but is disputed.
F7. Invalid fair-use claim.
  • Non-free images or media with a clearly invalid fair-use tag (such as a {{Non-free logo}} tag on a photograph of a mascot) may be deleted immediately.
  • Non-free images or media from a commercial source (e.g., Associated Press, Getty), where the file itself is not the subject of sourced commentary, are considered an invalid claim of fair use and fail the strict requirements of WP:NFCC; and may be deleted immediately.
  • Non-free images or media that have been identified as being replaceable by a free image and tagged with {{subst:rfu}} may be deleted after two days, if no justification is given for the claim of irreplaceability. If the replaceability is disputed, the nominator should not be the one deleting the image.
  • Invalid fair-use claims tagged with {{subst:dfu}} may be deleted seven days after they are tagged, if a full and valid fair-use use rationale is not added.
F9. Unambiguous copyright infringement.
Obviously non-free images (or other media files) that are not claimed by the uploader to be fair use. A URL or other indication of where the image originated should be mentioned. This does not include images with a credible claim that the owner has released them under a Wikipedia-compatible free license. Most images from stock photo libraries such as Getty Images or Corbis will not be released under such a license. Blatant infringements should be tagged with the {{db-filecopyvio}} template (or, for image files, the {{db-imgcopyvio}} template). Non-blatant copyright infringements should be discussed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files.
F11. No evidence of permission
If an uploader has specified a license and has named a third party as the source/copyright holder without providing evidence that this third party has in fact agreed, the item may be deleted seven days after notification of the uploader. Acceptable evidence of licensing normally consists of either a link to the source website where the license is stated, or a statement by the copyright holder e-mailed or forwarded to permissions-en@wikimedia.org. Such a confirmation is also required if the source is an organization that the uploader claims to represent, or a web publication that the uploader claims to be their own. Instances of obvious copyright violations where the uploader would have no reasonable expectation of obtaining permission (e.g. major studio movie posters, TV screenshots) should be speedily deleted per "Unambiguous copyright infringement" above, unless fair-use can be claimed. Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#files

Censorship

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  • Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so (see Wikipedia:Content disclaimer). Wikipedia cannot guarantee that articles or images will always be acceptable to all readers, or that they will adhere to general social or religious norms...Content that is judged to violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy, or that violates other Wikipedia policies (especially neutral point of view) or the laws of the U.S. state of Florida where Wikipedia's main servers are hosted, will also be removed. However, some articles may include text, images, or links which some people may find objectionable, when these materials are relevant to the content. Discussion of potentially objectionable content should not focus on its offensiveness but on whether it is appropriate to include in a given article. Beyond that, "being objectionable" is generally not sufficient grounds for removal of content. Nor will Wikipedia remove content because the internal bylaws of some organizations forbid that information to be displayed online. Any rules that forbid members of a given organization, fraternity, or religion to show a name or image do not apply to Wikipedia because Wikipedia is not a member of those organizations. Wikipedia:Not censored
  • Wikipedia's encyclopedic mission encompasses the inclusion of material that may offend. Wikipedia is not censored. However, words and images that can be considered offensive should not be included unless they are treated in an encyclopedic manner. Material that would be considered vulgar or obscene by typical Wikipedia readers[nb 1] should be used if and only if its omission would cause the article to be less informative, relevant, or accurate, and no equally suitable alternative is available. Wikipedia:Offensive material

Claims

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Rationale

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  • Under US law, the family would be the rightsholder of the image of their deceased relative. And under Mubarak's Egyptian law, it was a military dictatorship, and Fair Use as well as journalistic standards would support the 'leak' of that photo.
  • The family distributed the image to publicize his death.
  • NFCC copyright tag requirements state that Fair Use justifications are limited and must be present for each use. But it is not permission from the copyright holder that must be obtained each time, only the NFCC copyright justification which must be specifically tailored to every use on Wikipedia.
  • The image's accuracy or validity is not disputed and was reported on by multiple RS sources. The images are all meaningfully identical, so on those grounds it does not matter which version we use.
  • Policy only requires the image be addressed in the article directly, not that it be the titular subject of the page or even a particular section. the image is clearly a subject of commentary in the article.
  • The image is uniquely grotesque and seeing it is what changed history.
  • The image is placed below the fold and added with consideration of the photo's historical importance and the personal sacrifice it reflects. Wikipedia is not censored.
  • That few western media sources used the image is circumstantial and not indicative of law, nor binding on Wikipedia policy. There are cultural and commercial reasons which likely explain why it was not published, since few grotesque images are.
  • No plausible legal argument has been made and cited. We can always be sued. Fair Use is an affirmative defense in case that happens, and one which courts have upheld as a valid exception to copyright.

Objections

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  • The original image was stolen from the morgue or distributed against Egyptian law.
  • The image is of a dead individual and the family controls the rights to the image.
  • Even if the family released the image to a blogger, they did not release the image to Wikipedia.
  • There is no clear chain of custody from the family to the bloggers to the newspapers.
  • The image is not the "subject of the commentary" since it is not the title of the article.
  • The image is not needed to imagine the event or the image itself.
  • The image is used to shock readers.
  • The image is used to attract attention.
  • The image doesn't meet NFCC criteria.
  • No other major media sources used the image.
  • We could be sued.

Questions

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  • Does NFCC require the initial publication be legal or does it permit 'legal infringement'?
  • Are images of protesters holding the picture free and/or replacements?
  • Is the difficulty in tracking down the original photographer sufficient to make it irreplaceable?
  • Is the image owned by the state of Egypt, no one (legally), or the family?
  • Is the image a public domain press release?
  • Does the bribery of the morgue guard or violation of morgue practices or state law mean the image is illegal or immoral? If so, can we use it?
  • Can the image be replaced by text?
  • Is the image unnecessarily shocking?
  • Does the image exploit the deceased or violate their rights to privacy?
  • Does the image have to be the main subject of the article to be in the article?
  • Is using 'the whole image' rather than 'an excerpt' inconsistent with not using whole 'texts'?

Sources

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  • Washington Post: The next day, Said's mother was notified that her son was at the morgue. The cause of death, she was told, was severe cardiovascular asphyxiation caused by a high level of drugs in his system. The initial police report received by the family said Said had apparently died after he swallowed a bag that contained marijuana. Finding that account suspicious, relatives bribed a guard at the morgue to take a photo of the corpse. It showed Said's skull had been cracked and his face disfigured. After local prosecutors expressed little interest in pursuing the case, Kassem, who was a father figure to Said, began holding news conferences. Said's cousins created a page on Facebook to expose what they called police brutality. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/08/AR2011020806360.html
  • CS Monitor: Gruesome photos of Said, reportedly taken in the morgue and circulated on websites and blogs, support their story. They show his face broken and battered, and bruises on his body. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010/0618/Beating-death-of-Egyptian-businessman-Khalid-Said-spotlights-police-brutality
  • The National (United Arab Emirates): Witnesses said the two men attacked Said as he entered an internet cafe opposite his home and beat him to death. Two state post-mortems determined that he died of suffocation from swallowing a packet of drugs, however. Said's death, and a photograph taken by his older brother Ahmed, showing him covered with bruises, his teeth broken and jaw smashed, caused an outcry across Egypt. More than 225,000 people have joined a group called "We are all Khaled" on Facebook and many members of the social networking site have put his picture as their profile pictures. http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/africa/undercover-police-arrested-over-beating-death-of-egyptian-man
  • Almasry Alyoum: Al-Masry Al-Youm has obtained a copy of records of the investigation into the killing of Alexandrian Khaled Saeed, which show surprising findings by the appeals prosecution services... When Saeed’s mother returned to give a testimony for the second time, she stressed that she saw her son’s corpse at the morgue six hours after he had been killed. “He was on the trolley, wearing white shorts and a black T-shirt, barefooted, injured in the face and the back of his head, bleeding from his knees, hands, and feet, and he had broken teeth,” she said. ًWhen asked about the photos taken of the body, she said that Saeed’s brother took them on his mobile phone while he was at the morgue at 3:00 AM. She added that she has not since seen her son, and called for a new autopsy, describing the medical examiners’ report as incorrect. http://www.almasryalyoum.com/node/55686
  • NATO Review: A police report claimed he had died after swallowing a bag of marijuana. But Said’s family obtained photos of his battered corpse from a morgue guard. His jaw, twisted out of shape by a policeman’s boot, was enough proof of a cover-up. So in defiance of the Egyptian authorities, the photos were published online by Said’s cousins. They became a shocking, viral sensation. http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2011/Social_Medias/Egypt_Facebook/EN/index.htm
  • SFGate: Had it not been for a leaked morgue photo of his mangled corpse, tenacious relatives and the power of Facebook, the death of Khaled Said would have become a footnote in the annals of Egyptian police brutality. Instead, outrage over the beating death of the 28-year-old man in this coastal city last summer, and attempts by local authorities to cover it up, helped spark the mass protests demanding the ouster of Egypt's authoritarian president....Finding that account suspicious, relatives bribed a guard at the morgue to take a photo of the corpse. It showed that Said's skull had been cracked and his face disfigured. After local prosecutors expressed little interest in pursuing the case, Kassem, who was a father figure to Said, began holding news conferences. Said's cousins created a page on Facebook to expose what they called police brutality. http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-02-10/news/27740387_1_police-brutality-internet-cafe-morgue
  • ABCNews: Said's family told ABC News it was too dangerous for them to speak out now because of police stationed near their home, but his mother has posted on-line videos to protest the long delay in prosecuting the two police officers charged with her son's murder. Social media and on-line videos have played a huge role in publicizing alleged police abuses in Egypt in recent years. http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/egypt-face-launched-revolution/story?id=12841488&page=2
  • CNN: The photo of Khaled Said's beaten, bloodied, fractured face went viral online. The Egyptian man was allegedly beaten to death by police outside an internet café. He reportedly had possession of a video showing police selling illegal drugs. Saleh and others were shocked. Soon they had created a Facebook page. The name: "We Are All Khaled Said." Google employee Wael Ghonim, working at night online from Dubai, headed this effort. Administering the site anonymously under the pseudonym "el shaheed," which is Arabic for "the martyr," he filled the page with news about police abuse and torture...Soon, there were Facebook-organized protests to show support for Khaled Said. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/02/21/egypt.internet.revolution/index.html
  • Sandmonkey.org (Wael Ghonim's website): When the story went out, and people saw the pictures, they were of course enraged. About a 1000 people gathered after the Friday prayers to protest in front of the police stations, and there are plans to do sit ins and demos this entire week, demanding that people take action, before they become the next Khaled. http://www.sandmonkey.org/2010/06/13/on-khaled-said/
  • CNN: Mohamed ElBaradei, the former chief of the U.N. atomic agency and now an Egyptian reformist figure, joined thousands of people in Alexandria on Friday to protest the death of an Egyptian man and shine a light on police brutality. Khaled Said died after police dragged him out of an internet cafe in Alexandria on June 6 -- a fatality that has since become a lightning rod for human rights activists...A photograph of his pummeled face is on a Facebook page devoted to him....The death has sparked other demonstrations in Egypt in which crowds were forcibly dispersed and some were arrested, the group said... http://articles.cnn.com/2010-06-25/world/egypt.police.beating_1_brutality-mohamed-elbaradei-egyptian?_s=PM:WORLD
  • Human Rights Watch: "Witness accounts and the photographs of Khaled Said's mangled face constitute strong evidence that plainclothes security officers beat him in a vicious and public manner," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "All those involved should be speedily interrogated, and the prosecutor should fully investigate what caused the fractures and trauma clearly evident on his body." Photos of Said's battered and deformed face published on the internet show a fractured skull, dislocated jaw, broken nose, and numerous other signs of trauma. Khaled's brother, Ahmed Said, confirmed the authenticity of the pictures to Human Rights Watch. Nine witnesses came forward to describe the beating.http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/06/24/egypt-prosecute-police-beating-death
  • Daily Beast: Ghonim’s Facebook page started as a small campaign against police brutality but quickly mushroomed into an all-out effort against human-rights abuses in Egypt...Ghonim described himself as an amateur activist who was inspired to create the page after seeing photos of how the blogger, Khaled Said, had been brutally beaten to death and his maimed body left in the street. “That killed me. I felt in pain. And I wanted to do something,” he said. “It happened that I created this page, and it happened that 375,000 people [are] on it. So I'm using it to reveal the truth that the government is trying to hide.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-02-07/google-executive-wael-ghonim-admits-he-was-el-shaheed/
  • Jadaliyya (Arab Studies Institute publication): [The online activists] Facebook activities also included a commitment to demanding justice for the brutal killing of one of their own, Khaled Said. It was striking last October how every youth I encountered in and out of the university was talking about Khaled Said. His story, which came out of Facebook, not Al-Jazeera, the newspaper, or any other media, has by now received much international coverage... His family released a photograph to an activist of the broken, bloodied, and disfigured face from Khaled’s corpse. This photo, and a portrait of the gentle soft skinned face of the living Khaled, went viral. The power of photographic evidence combined with eyewitness accounts and popular knowledge of police brutality left no doubt in anyone’s mind that he was senselessly and brutally murdered by police officers, the very people who are supposed to act in the interest of public safety. A Facebook page, “We are all Khaled Said” was set up and we now know that activists from the Facebook group 6 of April Youth Movement, and Google executive Wael Ghoneim who is becoming a national hero as instigator of the Day of Rage (see below), were involved in this. The page led to a movement, first for justice to bring the killers to court to pay for their crime, and then, something much bigger. On the heels of the Tunisian revolution and fleeing of the dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the “We are all Khaled Said” group called for a Day of Rage, a march against “Torture, Corruption, Poverty and Unemployment” for January 25, 2011, the date the Regime designated to “celebrate” the police...The uprising took off in a way that no one anticipated. http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/612/egypts-revolution-2.0_the-facebook-factor
  • Newsweek: That month,a young Alexandria businessman named Khaled Said, who had posted a video on the Web showing cops pilfering pot from a drug bust, was assaulted at an Internet café by local police. They dragged him outside and beat him to death in broad daylight. Photos of his battered corpse went viral. Ghonim was moved by the photos to start a new Facebook page called “We Are All Khaled Said,” to which he began devoting the bulk of his efforts. The page quickly became a forceful campaign against police brutality in Egypt, with a constant stream of photos, videos, and news. Ghonim’s interactive style, combined with the page’s carefully calibrated posts—emotional, apolitical, and broad in their appeal—quickly turned it into one of Egypt’s largest activist sites. On Jan. 14, protests in Tunisia felled that country’s longstanding dictator, and Ghonim was inspired to announce, on Facebook, a revolution of Egypt’s own. Each of the page’s 350,000-plus fans was cordially invited to a protest on Jan. 25. They could click “yes,” “no,” or “maybe” to signal whether they’d like to attend. In the space of three days, more than 50,000 people answered “yes.” Posing as El Shaheed in a Gmail chat, Ghonim was optimistic but cautioned that online support might not translate into a revolt in the streets...Ghonim implored his Facebook fans to spread word of the protest to people on the ground, and he and other activists constantly coordinated efforts, combining online savvy with the street activism long practiced by the country’s democracy movements. Ghonim seemed to view the page both as a kind of central command and a rallying point—getting people past “the psychological barrier.” http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/13/the-facebook-freedom-fighter.html
  • Wired: When Khaled Said died, Ghonim said, the government claimed he’d choked on hash. But the internet allowed dissenters to counter those claims online, and as their voices grew, the government lost its power of deception, Ghonim said. Ghonim, as the anonymous administrator of the Khaled Said Facebook page, invited people to join the page and share their voices and suggestions for action. Within a few days, thousands of people had signed up. “It was an amazing story how everyone started feeling the ownership, everyone was an owner in this page,” Ghonim said. “People started contributing ideas.” Someone suggested a silent protest, where people dressed in black would gather in the street, turn their faces to the sea and stand silently for an hour before dispersing and going home. “People were making fun of the idea,” Ghonim said. But then thousands of protesters showed up in Alexandria. “It was great because it connected people from the virtual world, bringing them to the real world, sharing the same dream the same frustration the same anger the same desire for freedom,” he said. Then came the Tunisian uprising, which helped tip Egypt into its own revolution. Ghonim’s Facebook page again became a central point for expressing frustration. “Everything was done by the people to the people, and that’s the power of the internet,” he says. “There was no leader. The leader was everyone on that page.”...“People were so empowered … and now asking for their rights,” he said. “Extremism became tolerance. Who would imagine before the 25th if I tell you that hundreds of thousands of Christians are going to pray, and tons of thousands of Muslims are going to protect them, and then hundreds of thousands of Muslims are going to pray and tons of thousands of Christians are going to protect them.” When he saw what was happening he knew it was the beginning of the end and returned to his Facebook page to post a note. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/wael-ghonim-at-ted/
  • Daily News Egypt: http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/human-a-civil-rights/hrw-slams-egypt-for-beating-protesters-dp2.html, http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/human-a-civil-rights/eu-concerned-over-khaled-saeids-death-dp2.html, http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/human-a-civil-rights/hrw-urges-egypt-probe-police-in-khaled-saeids-death-dp2.html, http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/human-a-civil-rights/egypt-victim-of-police-brutality-becomes-protest-symbol-dp2.html,

Comments

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