User:TransporterMan/Sandbox/13

A Copyright Cheatsheet to Posting Images on Wikipedia

Warning If your images are not already in the public domain you will be giving up important and potentially valuable legal rights if you upload images to Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons. Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons will not accept images unless: (a) they are already in the public domain, (b) you donate them to the public domain, or (c) you upload them with a kind of copyright license which they will accept. While there are a number of technically-different licenses which they will accept, they all have this in common: They allow anyone in the world - not just Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons - to reuse or adapt or modify and reuse the work however they like, including commercially, without any compensation or notice to you whatsoever, forever. The only restrictions that they will allow on that licence are a requirement that anyone who reuses the work must attribute it to you (give you credit for it) and/or a requirement that any adapted or modified version of the work be licensed to the world with the same kind of license that you granted to them. They will not accept non-public domain works if any attempt is made to restrict the license beyond those restrictions (for example, an attempt to limit the license to only be used in Wikipedia or to only be used non-comercially). It is further to be noticed that if the uploaded image is an image of another work (for example, a photograph of a statue), the foregoing applies - in most cases, the exceptions will be discussed below - to both the underlying work (the statue) and to the image of that work (the photograph): both must either be public domain, donated to public domain, or given with a Wiki-acceptable copyright license.

Upload to Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons?

Always Wikimedia Commons. While you can upload directly to Wikipedia, all images there are being moved to Commons and your copyright assertions may be re-reviewed at that time. Once and done is better. Click on the link in the last sentence to take you directly to the upload page, but you must create a user account in order to upload images (unless you already have a user account on English Wikipedia; if you do, it will work at Commons as well). Do not make your institution name your username or include it in your username; while doing so can be okay at Commons, it will not be acceptable at English Wikipedia and it will not make uploading images any easier.

For most unpublished artworks (and they're not generally published until they're reproduced, see Wikipedia:Public_domain#Artworks), Commons:Template:PD-US-unpublished is generally needed to get them into PD, i.e. (for use in 2017):

• its author died before 1947 (70 years before 2017);
• the death date of its author is not known, and it was created before 1897 (120 years before 2017);
• it is an anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made for hire, and it was created before 1897.

That section of WP:PD also says

• "To show that a work was published, one could look for printed works that contained reproductions of the artwork: art prints, art books, a catalogue raisonné of the artist's works, exhibition catalogs, and so on (although it is not clear when publishing a thumbnail constitutes publication of the original work). Reasonable effort should be made to find the earliest publication. If any is found from before 1923, that's good enough and the work is in the public domain. Remember, though, that "publication" means "lawful publication", which implies the consent of the author of the original."
• "If only a publication after 1922 can be asserted, the work should not be assumed to be in the public domain without evidence. If it was published before 1978 and had no copyright notice (on that publication) or if it was published before 1964 and the copyright was not renewed it should be in the public domain".

If published before 1978 without copyright notice Commons:Template:PD-US-no notice but note that this is published; the lack of a copyright notice on the original work may not mean anything.

Published (whether or not registered no renewal - whether because simply not renewed or never registered in the first place - means PD) 1923-1963 no renewal Commons:Template:PD-US-not renewed this page can be very helpful with this

Published before 1923 in US: Commons:Template:PD-US

Don't run to Mommy

Everyone who has worked in dispute resolution has seen it. An editor, usually but not always a newcomer, attempts to edit an article and comes into conflict with another editor. After a terse exchange or two, often involving conduct allegations, the editor requests moderated content dispute resolution at Third Opinion, Dispute Resolution Noticeboard, or Formal Mediation. And then they are rebuffed by a dispute resolution volunteer who tells them that there's not been enough discussion about the content dispute and that a case won't be accepted until there has been extensive discussion on a talk page — and edit summaries and conduct discussions won't count.

Requesting dispute resolution without extensive discussion is like running to Mommy: One child yells, "is", the other yells, "is not", the first one yells, "is", and one runs to Mommy to get a decision.

The discussion rule

The reason for the discussion rule is simple: Wikipedia expects every editor to work collegially and collaboratively to improve the encyclopedia. Thus, when conflicts arise, as they inevitably will, there is an expectation that editors will at least make a serious, good faith effort to work out the conflict between them. That's done by discussion. Without discussion, with both parties carefully explaining the reasoning behind their positions and then discussing why one may be correct and the other may not be correct, that serious, good-faith effort cannot be said to have occurred. It is only when it has occurred and the parties remain deadlocked that dispute resolution is appropriate. To do otherwise encourages a lack of collegiality and collaboration. The discussion rule enforces those expectations.

There is also a second factor. Moderated content dispute resolution is a type of mediation not a tribunal or form of arbitration and is not authorized to make, and will not make, judgments about content. That is, it will not look at two editors' desired content and say that one wins and one loses. The purpose of moderated content dispute resolution is to help the parties engage in discussion with a view towards trying to get the parties to come to consensus. Allowing editors to run to Mommy without sufficient discussion tends to put dispute resolution into the position of being an arbitrator rather than a mediator.

References