Commons-l June 2006

commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org

28 participants
20 discussions

Brion is *the man*
by Essjay 16 Jun '06

16 Jun '06

Important notice: Brion totally rocks. Images can now be undeleted...Yes, I said undeleted. I'll be leading group worship at the Church of the Almighty Brion at 7PM UTC tomorrow. Essjay -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia http://www.wikipedia.org/

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Image uploads now undeletable
by Brion Vibber 16 Jun '06

16 Jun '06

Uploaded files which are deleted can now be undeleted; admins can also view the deleted files without actually undeleting them. This is integrated into the existing Special:Undelete in what I hope is a fairly clear and intuitive manner. It's my hope that this will encourage admins to tackle the deletion backlogs a little more aggressively, since mistakes will be easier to undo. I've tested it both offline and on the live servers and everything seems fine so far, but if you do encounter problems please report them at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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Category:Own work
by Magnus Manske 16 Jun '06

16 Jun '06

What to do with [[Category:Own work]]? Instead of asking each and every author for a license (with many authors probably unreachable), how about this: 1. People who upload their own work at the commons obviously want them to be realeased under a free license (otherwise, they'd go to flicker or something) 2. As they didn't chose a license, they either didn't know they have to, and/or don't care about these "legal technicalities" 3. In order to grant their obvious wish to release these images under a free license, we add GFDL and CC-BY-SA-2.5 to all of these images 4. We leave {{OwnWork}} and change it into a notice that the license information below is assumed, and if the author doesn't agree, (s)he should write a note on the talk page or fix it directly 5. Where the author is easily reachable, leave them a note what we did Wikimedia projects live on "assume good faith", and IMHO we should do so where peoble uploaded their own images and just forgot to add {{GFDL}}. Magnus

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some statistics
by Zirland 15 Jun '06

15 Jun '06

Speaking about statistics... I looked on WhatLinksHere of deprecated {{PD}} tag and it gives 22.500 < x < 23.000 links. I seriously doubt anybody can solve this manually. Deprecated {{Redundant}} gives "only" little less than 1.000 links. What shall we do with it? -- Zirland

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An idea to help solve Commons copyright woes
by Brianna Laugher 12 Jun '06

12 Jun '06

Hello, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests frequently sees recurring copyright debates, which I believe is basically because we are a bunch of amateurs trying to make decisions on complex international copyright law. This is no slight on the people who take part in these debates (I am one of them), but it simply seems to me quite silly. No one can be sure who is right, we argue in circles and it's really inefficient. I really feel out of my depth trying to argue on copyright cases, but I do it because *someone* has to - there just isn't enough attention given to these cases. And yet Wikimedia has a legal department: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_department . Villy (Jean-Christophe Chazalette), who is part of it, used to be quite active on Commons but hasn't been for some time. Therefore I propose that we (Commons community) ask the Legal department to create and fill a permanent position known as something like "Commons liaison officer" (CLO). Their job will be to mediate requests for copyright advice between Commons and the juriwiki mailing list/Legal department. Hopefully we could have a turn-around of about two weeks on any given issue. I hope this would be considered appropriate for the Legal department, because Commons is handling the vast bulk of media copyright issues, unlike text copyright issues which are spread almost everywhere else. Of course they should not be bothered with every little issue. Only things that cannot be resolved on [[COM:DEL]] should be taken to the CLO (presumably by admins). (For example we would not ask them to try and find the source of an item. The onus is on the uploader to provide the source. If they cannot, we have to delete.) The advice they offer should be recorded, interpreted as a precedent and binding. I hope to draw some attention to this issue here (and the Village pump) and if there is more or less unanimity, I will post a request to juriwiki and the foundation-l mailing list. Here are some recent issues that I would like resolved: * To what extent are we bound by local laws and to what extent are we bound by Florida's laws (as the home of our servers). Country copyrights vary considerably with regards to duration of copyright, "freedom of panorama" (Panoramafreiheit) /whether public objects such as statues and even buildings can be freely photographed and there is a lot of confusion about this. Should we respect local law always or interpret in terms of US law? (Big discussion at the moment about a photo of the interior of a German railway station: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:Berlin_H… ) * There was recently a discussion about the "Against DRM" license ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:ADRM ). * Logos. This has still not been sufficiently resolved, in that there is not a clear enough solution that everyone is aware of. Do we consider copyright independently of trademark status? Is that even possible? ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:CSU-Logo… ) * "Agencia Brasil" license ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Ag%C3%AAncia_Brasil ) also has been debated several times. Related to the wider issue of, "if a website says "these images can be used freely, can we interpret that as allowing commercial use and derivative works, and thus Commons-compliant? Or do we need to check each time whether they intend to allow these specific rights?" * Photographs of commercial products such as: Pokemon/Star Wars/Simpsons toys, box of Pringles, also people in dress-up outfits of characters such as Lara Croft/Chewbacca. Eloquence has raised this before ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#May_21 ) but I doubt even he would think this has been satisfactorily resolved. * US presidential portraits ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Official_paint… ). * Photographs of art - if the artwork itself is old enough to be PD, is it true that any photograph of the art itself is also PD, but any photograph of the art in its frame or on a wall is not? (Because it is 3-D, not 2-D anymore) * Personality rights. What permission is required of people photographed, if any? (eg "Can I take your picture"/"Can I publish your picture on a public database that allows commercial use?") Is this a copyright concern or a "other law" concern that we don't need to worry about? What if the people aren't recognisable (and how can you decide that anyway?)? ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#All_pictures_o… , also some of the "visible thong" pictures on http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/G-string have been nominated before) * Stock xchange images (current: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:SXC villy also wrote http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Aurevilly/sxc.hu_%282%29 but it seems to have stalled). What should be done with the existing images (which are intentionally not categorised in any way as such, so they might be hard to find), what do we have to do (if anything) in order to use current images? I don't really want to discuss any of these issues right now. I want to discuss whether or not other people think it would be appropriate to seek professional legal advice on issues like these and whether or not they think my idea of asking for the appointment of a CLO is a good idea or not. Thanks, Brianna /user:pfctdayelise

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Opinions on some issues (was Re: An idea to help solve Commons copyright woes)
by Anthony DiPierro 11 Jun '06

11 Jun '06

On 6/11/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher(a)gmail.com> wrote: > * There was recently a discussion about the "Against DRM" license ( > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:ADRM ). > The discussion is at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Licensing/ADRM I never liked these anti-DRM clauses. It should be noted though that many of the current licenses have them. The GFDL, for instance, states that "You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute." Personally I think it's better to state things as a permission, rather than a restriction. IOW, I'd favor "You may circumvent any technical measures which attempt to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of this work." [the exact wording might have to be put into better legalease] Since circumvention only has to happen once to free the work from any DRM, I don't see the potential harm of any DRM restrictions that don't have the power of law backing them up. > * Logos. This has still not been sufficiently resolved, in that there > is not a clear enough solution that everyone is aware of. Do we > consider copyright independently of trademark status? Is that even > possible? ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:CSU-Logo… > ) > It's possible to consider the effects of copyright law independently of the effects of trademark law. I'm not sure how useful of an exercise this is, though. As I understand it, trademark law, even internationally, doesn't restrict the types of uses which commons was created for. Does commons want to create a repository of content which you can then use in your car commercial? If so, then I guess trademark law is important. If not, then I think it'd be good to hear some input from lawyers in various jurisdictions as to what restrictions trademark law *does* impose. > * "Agencia Brasil" license ( > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Ag%C3%AAncia_Brasil ) also > has been debated several times. Related to the wider issue of, "if a > website says "these images can be used freely, can we interpret that > as allowing commercial use and derivative works, and thus > Commons-compliant? Or do we need to check each time whether they > intend to allow these specific rights?" > That's an interesting question, though not really at all a legal one. Personally I'd say the answer is somewhere in between, (try to get an explicit license, and don't delete immediately, but possibly delete if no response comes). Of course, Wikimedia Commons pretty much relies on the false assumption that it's possible to issue a non-revocable license to everyone in the world. So getting too technical about such things is bound to fail. > * Photographs of commercial products such as: Pokemon/Star > Wars/Simpsons toys, box of Pringles, also people in dress-up outfits > of characters such as Lara Croft/Chewbacca. Eloquence has raised this > before ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#May_21 > ) but I doubt even he would think this has been satisfactorily > resolved. > This is similar to the trademark law question. And I think it comes back down to the question of what type of use is commons contemplating. Probably the majority of images on commons could be cropped and used in some way which might violate someone's IP rights in some jurisdiction. On the other hand, it seems very unlikely that someone is going to lose a lawsuit for using a photo of a can of Pringles. You could construct a hypothetical, but it'd be little more than a mind experiment. It would be nice to hear from some legal experts (licensed or not) in various jurisdictions as to whether or not this is true. What type of cases have been lost over things like this? We live in a world where the Girl Scouts were threatened with a lawsuit for singing copyrighted songs at the campfire, so maybe there are some such ridiculous situations. > * US presidential portraits ( > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Official_paint… > ). > In this discussion and the previous one I've seen a lot of just plain old incorrect statements of legal facts. From what I've read it seems to me that the works are probably technically copyrighted, but that it's unlikely anyone is going to get sued over them. Legal experts should certainly be involved in determining if that's the case, but the bigger question is what to do in such a case - similar to the one about something "freely licensed" without a specific license. > * Photographs of art - if the artwork itself is old enough to be PD, > is it true that any photograph of the art itself is also PD, but any > photograph of the art in its frame or on a wall is not? (Because it > is 3-D, not 2-D anymore) > That statement is not true in every situation nor in every jurisdiction. > * Personality rights. What permission is required of people > photographed, if any? (eg "Can I take your picture"/"Can I publish > your picture on a public database that allows commercial use?") Is > this a copyright concern or a "other law" concern that we don't need > to worry about? What if the people aren't recognisable (and how can > you decide that anyway?)? ( > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#All_pictures_o… > , also some of the "visible thong" pictures on > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/G-string have been nominated before) > In the US it's not copyright law, but "other law". But I don't think that means it can be ignored. I'd say privacy rights are more similar to copyright law and that images (or other content) which violates privacy rights shouldn't be allowed. But publicity rights are more like trademark law - they only affect particular types of uses. Then again, publicity rights tend to have a greater reach than trademark rights. I've just recently learned that some US states even recognize publicity rights after death. See (and listen to) this story on NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5440241 If such a case holds up this could have a huge chilling effect on things like Wikimedia Commons. It'd be so bad I'd be inclined to say that commons should outright ignore such laws. Of course, I fail to see how such a ruling could possibly be found consistent with the First Amendment. > * Stock xchange images (current: > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:SXC villy also wrote > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Aurevilly/sxc.hu_%282%29 but it > seems to have stalled). What should be done with the existing images > (which are intentionally not categorised in any way as such, so they > might be hard to find), what do we have to do (if anything) in order > to use current images? > > I don't really want to discuss any of these issues right now. Heh, I do, but partly because I think there's a misconception involved as to what questions are involved. > I want to discuss whether or not other people think it would be appropriate > to seek professional legal advice on issues like these and whether or > not they think my idea of asking for the appointment of a CLO is a > good idea or not. > I think there are some places where it'd be nice to have input from legal experts, which is very different from getting professional legal advice. I also think there are lot of people who are giving really bad input on the legal matters, and something should be done to make it easier to filter them out. But in most cases I think the issue comes down to a policy question, and not a legal question. And I actually think one of the biggest problems is that people keep confusing the two. Anthony

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Chinese on Commons
by Brianna Laugher 06 Jun '06

06 Jun '06

While browsing in my Special:Preferences today, I noticed that we apparently support no less than five variants of Chinese: zh zh-cn (simplified, as used by the Chinese mainland) zh-hk (traditional) zh-sg (simplified) zh-tw (traditional) In translating the Commons namespace pages and templates, we seem to most commonly have zh-hans and zh-hant, corresponding to simplified and traditional characters. I think the "han" is to qualify the language as Mandarin (also known as Hanyu, literally the language of the Hans) rather than, say, Cantonese (zh-yue) or any other variety of Chinese. I have noticed that people seem to have stopped using zh-tw and zh-cn. Which makes sense: the country distinction is not what's important in this choice. AFAIK there are no major differences between Chinese as written in mainland China and Singapore, so I don't know why we offer that distinction. I don't even know why we still have people doing the man-hours of 'translating' between traditional and simplified when zh.wp is, after all, using some automatic converter. Should we ask for it to be installed for Commons? I don't know why it wasn't in the first place... I have a small suspicion that the traditional folks enjoy maintaining their translations, why is why no one's raised the issue, but it's just a hunch. Any thoughts? Brianna (user:pfctdayelise)

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Solving the "watch a category" problem
by Brianna Laugher 06 Jun '06

06 Jun '06

Well, lately my posts here are falling on deaf ears. But since this one is more technical maybe it will get some attention. :P Bug 1710: Ability to watch all articles in a category http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1710 (By 'watch', I assume this means 'receive notification when members are added to/removed from the category', rather than 'put all members on my watchlist automatically') Anyone who works with the category system would be well aware how much this is needed, so that the categories can be properly maintained. It doesn't seem like an official MediaWiki solution is going to show up any time soon. I had an idea for a solution: Make an article page, maybe for category X call it 'X watchlist' or 'X changes log', that you can put on your watchlist. Have a Bot somehow monitor the category (like, look at the category and compare the names of members to previous check) and report any differences on the article. Then by watching the article you will effectively get to find out any changes within the category. The bot would only need to check the category like once a day, I would say. And possibly you would want to not allow this for very very large categories like [[:Category:Public domain]] or [[:Category:Linguistic maps]] or whatever. But for country-level cats and below it should be OK. So... thoughts? Please fwd to wikitech-l if appropriate & if you're on that list. I look forward to you techy-types nutting this one out for me. :) thanks, Brianna [[user:pfctdayelise]]

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Welcoming Committee needs some help
by Brianna Laugher 05 Jun '06

05 Jun '06

Please help us stalk newbies! http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Orgullobot/Welcome_log When they are new is our best chance to catch them and correct their mistakes, before they upload 200 images under a wrong license and no categories... these are the two most important mistakes. Uploading stuff under unacceptable/wrong/no license or no source, and not categorising good images. Orgullobot automatically welcomes around 50-70 new users per day, who have made at least one edit or upload. EugeneZelenko and I cannot check this many people. As we know it takes 2 seconds to upload a copyvio and 2 months to get rid of it... but the earlier we can catch them the quicker they can be deleted. Be ruthless! So all you need to do is just check their contribs and if they have made any mistakes, correct them (if you want) and tell them how to correct them and what they did wrong. e.g. post {{please link images}} when they should categorise. Use NSD and {{copyvio}}, tell them there's no originality in screenshots, there's no fair use, use CommonsHelper to transfer images...etc. Once you've done this remove their name from the log. If, by some miracle, they don't make any mistakes, you may want to congratulate them, or else just move onto the next person. :) Note YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE AN ADMIN TO DO THIS! You just have to have a decent understanding of what's OK and what's not, and what the correct procedure is. Hope to see some new eyes on this log soon! Brianna

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Deleting the old WeatherBot images
by David Benbennick 04 Jun '06

04 Jun '06

Recently I was asked [1] to delete the obsolete WeatherBot images. (Background: Over most of 2005, User:WeatherBot uploaded about 25000 images depicting current temperature worldwide. WeatherBot is now defunct, and the old temperature maps are no longer used. Deletion was discussed in a bunch of places on the Commons over many months.) Today, I started deleting the old maps, with a bot. My bot archives each image before deleting, so if it makes a mistake, any image can easily be restored. I deleted 2284 images (in 88 minutes, or 2.3 seconds per). Then Duesentrieb pointed out [2] that by flooding the deletion log, I was breaking his CommonsTicker tool. Duesentrieb suggested I should post to the mailing list before continuing. (My bot stopped running automatically as soon as he posted his comment to my talk page.) At full speed, the remaining 23000 images will take about 15 hours to delete. Does anyone else have a tool that watches the delete log? If you'll be affected by me deleting 23000 images, please let me know. I'm open to suggestions. Two possible ideas: I could run the bot in 3-hour chunks at a particular time each day. I could also throttle the bot slightly. As slow as 1 image every 10 seconds would still get the job done in 3 days. If no one says otherwise, I'll plan to restart the bot next Saturday, June 7, and allow it to run at full speed until it's done. -- Commons:User:Dbenbenn Links: [1]: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dbenbenn#Deleting_WeatherBot_im… [2]: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dbenbenn#Weather_Images [*]: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:WeatherBot

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Commons-l June 2006