User talk:Dantus21

Welcome to Wikimedia Commons, Dantus21!

First steps tutorial Our first steps tour and our frequently asked questions will help you a lot after registration. They explain how to customize the interface (for example the language), how to upload files and our basic licensing policy (Wikimedia Commons only accepts free content). You don't need technical skills in order to contribute here. Be bold when contributing and assume good faith when interacting with others. This is a wiki. Getting help More information is available at the community portal. You may ask questions at the help desk, village pump or on IRC channel #wikimedia-commons (webchat). You can also contact an administrator on their talk page. If you have a specific copyright question, ask at the copyright village pump.

Goodies, tips, and tricks Put Babel boxes on your user page so others know what languages you can speak and indicate your graphic abilities. You can find the files you have uploaded in your Uploads. Please sign your name on Talk pages by typing ~~~~. To link to an image page without embedding the image, type: [[:File:Foo.jpg]], which produces: File:Foo.jpg. You may enable gadgets (custom features) for your account. There are several tools to upload files. Have you edited Wikipedia before? This guide might be useful. Made a mistake? Do you want to have a file renamed or moved? Use the move link and wait for an authorized user to rename it. Do you want to have your recently uploaded picture removed? Tag it as {{speedy|reason here}}. For more information read the deletion guidelines.

-- Wikimedia Commons Welcome (talk) 19:23, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Photos

Hello Dantus21! I'm really grateful for your work finding images of jazz musicians for infoboxes. With the exception of the Gottlieb collection of the 1940s, there is a severe shortage of free photographs of jazz musicians. If I could understand your methodology for finding free photos, I'd like to help in this process. Some that have poor quality or no free photographs include w:Gigi Gryce, w:Hank Mobley, w:Bobby Timmons, w:Richie Powell, etc. SelfieCity (talk) 19:31, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Hello SelfieCity

Thank you for your kind response! I’m happy to see that you’ve noticed my contributions :D

Going back to your question, all of the jazz photos I upload (and most of the other stuff) come from press/publicity photos dating up to 1977. That is because before 1978, any works that had no copyright notice (basically no copyright symbol) on them automatically became public domain in the US (Night of the Living Dead is a great example), and press/publicity photos rarely (if ever) had copyright notices on them. This chart here is very helpful if you want to get more familiar with US copyright laws on this. PascalHD also gave an explanation on this to me here recently, and he’s been uploading press photos much longer than I have.

There any many sites you could find these press photos, but I usually search for them on Ebay and Worthpoint (Worthpoint generally has a better backlog of auctioned material, although you have to either screenshot or use inspect element to save the photos). I usually put in ("artist name here" press photo) or something like that when searching up photos. On Worthpoint I'd suggest to put the filter option on "title only" to help make the results easier to sift through. I prefer to upload press photos that have a date stamped on the back to 100% confirm the date, but it’s not required if the date can be inferred by other means (record label logos are one hint). I also try to upload press photos that have a higher res version elsewhere online, as the scans in the listings are often watermarked or not great quality. Note that you don’t have to purchase the photos and can just simply upload the scans of them from their listing.

If you have any questions feel free to ask me! Best of luck! Dantus21 (talk) 21:29, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

This is really helpful! Thank you! One of the problems for me is that I find mostly album covers rather than press photos, even when I search for press photo. I assume album covers are still copyrighted? I know many of Blue Note's album covers are still being produced and distributed as CD album covers. SelfieCity (talk) 15:05, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

I've tried one just now: File:Miles Davis Press Photo.jpg. There are some marks on the back, but I don't think those are copyright? Thanks again! SelfieCity (talk) 16:06, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

That looks good! Great find! Dantus21 (talk) 16:17, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Yeah unfortunately most album covers are copyrighted, and I used to see those a lot too as I was searching for photos. What I usually do (at least on Worthpoint) is set the search preferences (it’s that abacus looking thing) so that “Search by title only” is on. It helps narrow down the results to publicity photos and makes it easier to find what you need. Dantus21 (talk) 16:17, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! I see that as well and it has helped me search through the website already! SelfieCity (talk) 18:33, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Awesome! Best wishes and happy uploading! Dantus21 (talk) 01:17, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks again! I was working on finding more quality images when I stumbled into File:Lucky Millinder Billboard.jpg. This file comes from an advertisement in Billboard prior to 1978 with no copyright notice. This could be another possible route for finding public domain images. SelfieCity (talk) 14:10, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, magazine ads are another way of finding public domain images (This is an example I found). I personally have a harder time finding ads than publicity photos, but that’s possibly because I haven’t found a good searching system for it yet. I’d suggest that when you upload pictures from them to also upload the full ad (Like here), as ads can be used for educational purposes as well. Dantus21 (talk) 18:19, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

File:Queen A Night At The Opera (1975 Elektra publicity photo 02).jpg

File:Queen A Night At The Opera (1975 Elektra publicity photo 02).jpg has been listed at Commons:Deletion requests so that the community can discuss whether it should be kept or not. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this file, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it, such as a copyright issue. Please see Commons:But it's my own work! for a guide on how to address these issues. Please remember to respond to and – if appropriate – contradict the arguments supporting deletion. Arguments which focus on the nominator will not affect the result of the nomination. Thank you!

さえぼー (talk) 06:22, 19 December 2023 (UTC)