Bigandbeautifulgirl

December 2007

This is the only warning you will receive for your disruptive edits.
The next time you delete or blank page contents or templates from Wikipedia, as you did to Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images/2007 November 29, you will be blocked from editing. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 05:08, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

You have been blocked from editing for a period of 3 hours in accordance with Wikipedia's blocking policy for vandalism: disruptive editing by removing templates from images without provenance of their free status. Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make constructive contributions. If you believe this block is unjustified, you may contest the block by adding the text {{unblock|your reason here}} below.

—C.Fred (talk) 05:57, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Copyrights

Hi, I should have asked this in more polite way earlier (sorry about that) but do you hold the copyrights to the photos you have been uploading? Videmus Omnia ^Talk 05:55, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Its all right. I got them from my flickr account. Is that a problem? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigandbeautifulgirl (talk • contribs)

Not in and of itself. The question is, do you hold the copyrights to the photos? Where did you get them before you put them on your flickr account? —C.Fred (talk) 05:58, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

A friend of mine sent them to me, and I uploaded them on my flickr account. I don't know what sites they were from. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigandbeautifulgirl (talk • contribs)

"I don't know what sites they were from" equates to them coming from another web site - which means they are almost certainly under copyright. —C.Fred (talk) 06:04, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, excuse me for being new to this site and uploading anything at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigandbeautifulgirl (talk • contribs) 06:11, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid that if you weren't the person to take the photos, you can't upload them under a free license. See Wikipedia:Copyrights. By all means, please feel free to improve the encyclopedia, but please, please don't violate anyone else's copyrights when you do so. With respect - Videmus Omnia ^Talk 06:05, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I really do not know if they were from a website or from their acutal files to tell you the truth. With all due respect, is it really like this when anyone uploads a photo, and the administrators goes all over them like white on rice? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigandbeautifulgirl (talk • contribs)

The problem is that Wikipedia is a free (libre) encyclopedia. Whenever possible, submissions should be free; copyrighted photos are not. Photos are also relatively easy to be tracked by the copyright holders and are prone to have their copyrights guarded actively. Further, copyrighted photos of living people have very strict Wikipedia guidelines that must be met before the photo can be used. In any case, the source of the image must be specified when the image is uploaded; not knowing where the image came from does not meet this requirement. —C.Fred (talk) 06:16, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid so. Images are particularly sensitive because the Wikimedia Foundation can be sued for violating copyright. The mission of the encyclopedia is to create free content, as a matter of fact, I specialize in requesting free licenses from copyright holders. I've written a sort of how-to guide on requesting permissions at User:Videmus Omnia/Requesting free content, feel free to use anything helpful. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 06:16, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I understand. Also, is it safe to upload images from a friends account on flickr? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigandbeautifulgirl (talk • contribs) 06:24, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

As a general rule, no. The exception would be if a friend of mine has a flickr account. I know he takes his own photos, so if I saw one there that would add to the Wikipedia, I would email and ask him 1) if he took it, 2) if he is willing to license it under CC or GFDL so I may upload it. (Since under either of those two licenses, the images would be free for Wikipedia purposes). —C.Fred (talk) 16:09, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

So technically, I can't upload pictures on Wikipedia from a friends account? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigandbeautifulgirl (talk • contribs)

The simple answer is no, you can't upload pictures to Wikipedia that you found on a friend's account. "A friend's website/flickr account" is not sufficient source information for Wikipedia purposes.

The technical answer is that, after you find out where your friend got the pictures, the same rules apply as any other picture. If the picture is of a living person, the picture must be, from the standpoint of reproduction rights, free (GFDL, Creative Commons licensing, or released by the photographer into the public domain). —C.Fred (talk) 17:52, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, all right. I didn't know all of that. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigandbeautifulgirl (talk • contribs)

No problem. Images are a sensitive area right now: there's lots of debate about how to deal with new images, what to do with old images, etc. That's why questionable images get tagged that there's discussion going on. And that's the key, a lot of the time: to discuss what's going on, where the image is from, why we need one, whether anybody can get a better one, etc. Of course, if you have any questions down the line, feel free to leave a message on my talk page; even if I can't answer the question, I'll get you on the track of somebody who can. Happy editing! —C.Fred (talk) 22:46, 4 December 2007 (UTC)