[WikiEN-l] Unlicensed use of images

[Michael Snow]

Speaking, as we have been, of images and user pages, I just had to 
remove an image from quite a few user pages along with a couple 
articles. This is an image I venture that many people would recognize.

In this case the problem was not a bogus claim of fair use; it was a 
bogus claim that the image was in the public domain. So, I would like to 
take this opportunity to remind everyone of some very important points:

1. Many, if not most, photos on US government websites are *not* in the 
public domain. Like many companies, the government makes considerable 
use of stock photos. If the site doesn't clearly indicate that the image 
was created by a federal government employee, you should assume that it 
wasn't.

2. "Royalty-free" is a marketing term in the stock photo industry. It 
means that if you buy a license to use the picture, you won't have to 
pay royalties every single time you use it. Royalty-free most assuredly 
does *not* mean that a photo is freely licensed, in the sense that it 
could be used on Wikipedia.

3. The image description page for *every* picture should credit the 
photographer or artist if known. The immediate source is also helpful to 
know, but this source may well have the image second- or third-hand.

4. When you find an image on another website, if you can't figure out 
who took the picture or where it came from, it is almost certain that 
the website operator is not in a position to license its use on 
Wikipedia. It is actually quite possible that the use of the photo on 
the website is already a copyright infringement.

5. Even when using content that has passed into the public domain, the 
author or creator should be identified. This is vital in order to be 
able to demonstrate that the content is, in fact, in the public domain. 
Knowing when the content was first published is also extremely helpful.

Anything that is tagged as being in the public domain without satisfying 
these principles should be treated with great suspicion.

--Michael Snow