Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems

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Unclear instructions[edit]

The instructions at WP:CP for using {{copyvio}} seem inconsistent with how said template actually works. CP says to replace the text with {{subst:copyvio}}, while the way the template works, and as the template itself says, one is meant to put {{subst:copyvio}} above the problematic text, and {{copyvio/bottom}} below. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 15:53, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Maddy from Celeste: I believe {{copyvio}} is meant for when the entire article is problematic. Adding {{copyvio/bottom}} is meant for when only a portion of the article is problematic. ARandomName123 (talk)Ping me! 23:12, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@ARandomName123 Maddy from Celeste; Reworded with this edit. There are people that blank it (especially if intending for deletion) but if there's going to be selective removals it's best to just let the template hide the content from reader view. People don't know about copyvio/bottom so I added a little qualifier for that as well. Thanks for bringing this up! Sennecaster (Chat) 01:13, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, that's excellent! -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 08:06, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What does this sentence even mean?[edit]

“ New listings are not added directly to this page but are instead on daily reports.”

Come on. Please fix this. Volunteer Marek 17:58, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes that isn't clear, I've rephrased it now. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 06:32, 2 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Category:AFI 100 Years... series is a wretched hive of scum and villainy[edit]

I don't want to put this in a normal report because it concerns an entire category of not-entirely-obscure pages which have been copyvio for many long years, so I infer that something unusual might be going on such that the pages are maybe de facto protected or something, and that's out of scope for a bog-normal report. You guys figure it out.

So, every article in Category:AFI 100 Years... series is list articles, and all (I think) consist mainly of the complete lists -- 100 entries, usually. The lists were produced by the AFI, American Film Institute, based on a vote), which:

  • The AFI decided who would get to vote. ("over 1,000 leaders in the creative industry") -- intellectual work.
  • The AFI decided which works would be on the ballots given to the voters -- intellectual work.
  • Each voter made subjective judgements. -- intellectual work, altho the voters aren't copyright holders.
  • (For whatever it's worth, at least some of these lists were published in books, which if still in print would cause financial harm to AFI. (I'm virtually sure the books aren't in print, but still; and people selling their used copies could lose sales.)

I don't know if the AFI then made a purely mechanical tabulation of votes (I'm sure they didn't legally bind themselves to have no right to tweak the list orders, so who knows how it went down) but even if so, that doesn't cancel the earlier work.

So if these aren't copyvio lists I don't know what would be. Herostratus (talk) 05:15, 26 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You are right about lists like these in general. But see the template at the top of Talk:AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies and the talk page discussion there. AFI put the lists in the public domain. StarryGrandma (talk) 07:20, 26 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oh jeez I'm an idiot, I did look at talk on a couple of the pages but not that one, and didn't notice that, sorry to bother, thank you. Herostratus (talk) 23:45, 27 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Freedom of panorama (US only)" and the Berne convention[edit]

Can someone point me to legal precedent justifying our template {{Freedom of panorama (US only)}}, under which images that would clearly be copyvio in some other country (such as France in which images of buildings are subject to the copyright of the architect) are claimed to be ok to host on Wikipedia because it respects only US copyrights? The images themselves were taken in that other country and, as such, are clearly under a non-free copyright, the copyright of the architect. Our article Berne Convention states that the US, as a participant, is required to respect the copyrights of other Berne convention countries. It has no obvious exception for "if that same image were hypothetically taken of a different building in a different country that had FOP it would not be encumbered by copyright". To me this seems as specious as "if this artwork were painted by a different person in a different country it would not be copyrighted" or "because this foreign work was not registered for copyright in the US it does not count as copyrighted" or "because we want to have images of these buildings we should be allowed to violate copyright". But I am no legal scholar, so maybe there is some subtlety that I am missing? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:22, 28 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think its not exactly clear that a photo taken in France but first published in America is necessarily considered to be a French work. I believe its open to interpretation. Herostratus (talk) 16:27, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright templates[edit]

There is a discussion about copyright templates which could use some additional input. Please join in the conversation here. Primefac (talk) 07:15, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Moving instructions not directly related to Copyright problems[edit]

What the title says. The page is clunky, and the actual "problems" require a decent amount of scrolling to get to. The instructions are long, not friendly to new people to begin with, and is either duplicated or contradicted in other areas. The non-listings part of this entire page is treated as basically SOP policy/guideline/guide by the community, and hosting it on what's essentially a daily "to do" list is probably not the best. So. Here's a few solutions that I thought of, others probably have better ones. These can be considered independently.

  1. Split the instructions into its own page, titled something like "Copyright cleanup instructions".
  2. Rewrite it to be less wordy in all areas.
  3. A lot of the cleanup instructions are essentially mirrored over at WP:CV101, so we could condense everything that isn't specific to copyright problems over to that and link it.
  4. Rewrite other policies, guides, and guidelines to contain the guidance at CP (some of it is already thereand remove it entirely.

TLDR; page long, guidance should be put elsewhere. Thanks, Sennecaster (Chat) 01:45, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The main problem I see is with WP:BACKWARDSCOPY... it could go into WP:CV101 but if we are to move out stuff from here that page should be completely restructured really. – Isochrone (talk) 17:21, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, if content is moved out, then WP:Copyrights#Copyright violations needs to be amended as appropriate, as it links here. – Isochrone (talk) 17:40, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've rearranged the header a bit-- I'm considering moving the backwardscopy instructions to CV101 if there aren't any objections? I know it isn't great but it seems to be the most relevant page.
The other solution is making a new page altogether for most of this stuff, but I doubt adding another explanatory essay is going to make anyone happy. – Isochrone (talk) 19:34, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:IOWN and should be merged into WP:CV#Information for copyright holders. Most of rewriting can be merged into WP:CV with a bit of relevant stuff about rewriting on CP pages specifically kept. Obtaining/verifying permissions section is duplicated in WP:Requesting copyright permission and WP:CV#Contributor is copyright holder. Sennecaster (Chat) 19:08, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have boldly merged WP:BACKWARDSCOPY into WP:Mirrors and forks, and have significantly changed the wording of it to make it more understandable to non-copyright versed editors. Hopefully it's fine. – Isochrone (talk) 23:18, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]