Commons talk:Permission/historical proposal

I find that points 3 & 4 of this proposal are problematic:

3. When a user declares on the image description page or in a deletion discussion that they have permission to post an image, yet there is no evidence.

4. When a user declares a free license for a work that they did not make.

Wait - in 99% of cases "there is no evidence" that a user, often anonymous, has the permission to add given content / is the author / copyright holder - we simply assume their good faith. That's how we've built Wikipedia and Commons.

While points 1 & 2 ("professional work") are obviously needed to minimise the number of copyvios, points 3 & 4 target users who upload non-professional, properly licensed images. Unless there are legitimate reasons to suspect a copyvio or ignorance this policy should not enable anyone to demand that others provide evidence for the authorship / real name / license / date / anything else of the image. At this point this proposal is used (really is - not just hypothetically!) to freely harass users and tag random images with the "missing evidence" template - not because there's any suspicion about the resource or the uploader, but with the happy excuse the policy says so.

The "extreme example" under the proposal is absurd - it creates a false impression that a mass of clueless users by default misleads others about the licenses. This assumption is then used as a basis for the demands that long-time users request their father / girlfriend / friend to send a separate permission to OTRS. Note also that these points in their present form are not enforceable and pointless, as instead of using one's own account to upload properly licensed images taken by one's brother (forbidden under this policy) one can create a new disposable account to upload those images and avoid any questioning.

Therfore I suggest modifying points 3 and 4 of this proposal and adding the condition "and only when there exists a reasonable suspicion that the uploader does not have the permission to upload the image / that the license is fabricated or misunderstood." and the requirement that this suspicion be put in words when tagging the resource. Or removing these points altogether.

Let me stress again that these are not theoretical considerations, but a reaction to real cases of "evidence-harassment" on Commons, where the "tagger" feels no obligation to justify their deletion requests other than "the policy says I can". It also makes it impossible to upload a lot of fine resources created by grown-up, license-aware people, who are happy to let you contribute their photographs, but do not care enough to sign any special permissions and send them anywhere.

tsca (talk) 12:19, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Kameraad Pjotr 16:13, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

But it's demonstrably wrong with respect to "how we've built Wikipedia"; policy says and has long said that "If the material, text or media, has been previously published and you wish to donate it to Wikipedia under appropriate license, you will need to verify copyright permission through one of our established procedures." These include OTRS and verification of the license at the point of publication. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:51, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Bits I don't understand

We're told:

It is recommended that this release come in the form of a known free content license in order to prevent disputes on whether the release provides all the required freedoms, such as Creative Commons Attribution and Attribution Share-Alike, or the GFDL.

Obscure. How about:

This release must be via any one of (i) Creative Commons Attribution, (ii) Attribution Share-Alike, and (iii) the GFDL in order to avoid problems in the future.

Further:

The common method to obtain permission on an image is to: / Upload the image and place {{OTRS pending}} on it.

People who (like me) have never done this will not understand the meaning of "placing {{OTRS pending}} on" an image.

This will alert admins to the fact that permission is going to possibly be obtained for an image and not to delete it immediately.

Eh? For one thing, your potential donors are likely to be new here and thus unaware of the meaning of "admin". How about

This will alert people who are on the look-out for improperly uploaded material to the fact that permission has been requested, and they will then not delete it immediately.

More:

Send an email specifically requesting a free license grant on the image. It is recommended that you use a template for your message.

How about:

Send an email to XXX@YYY.ZZZ saying that you are the copyright holder of the message and specifying the licence under which you are releasing it. We recommend that you use a template for this message.

More:

When you receive a reply, forward it to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org. Once an OTRS volunteer verifies it they will tag the image with {{PermissionOTRS}} and reply back to you.

Eh? I get a message from Wikimedia that's merely intended to be sent back to Wikimedia -- then why send it to me in the first place? (And what's the purpose of the final reply to me, or is it just to reassure me that the whole process is complete?) -- Hoary (talk) 14:37, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

You (a Commons editor) send a message to the rightsholder asking for permission to release a certain portion of their rights for certain files. The rightsholder replies affirming such release. You then forward their reply to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org. Once an OTRS volunteer verifies it they will tag the image with {{PermissionOTRS}} and reply back to you so that you may take the appropriate action, which could include creating or modifying one or more categories, galleries, templates, or image description pages, or uploading more files with the same {{PermissionOTRS}}.   — Jeff G. ツ 04:14, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Another question. Imagine: User:AcmeCorporation (an employee of Acme Corp) is sitting on a pile of two hundred Acme "professional quality" images that Acme wishes to contribute to Commons, a dozen or so at a time. Does AcmeCorporation infer correctly that they have to go through this rigmarole every time they want to contribute a batch of these files, or can AcmeCorporation somehow register with Wikimedia that yes, "User:AcmeCorporation" really does speak for Acme Corp and has the right to copyleft its output? (And should/can this employee call themself "AcmeCorporation"? [In en:WP, such a name would be a no-no.]) -- Hoary (talk) 14:37, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

On your last point, you may see the example of User:Studio Harcourt. It is a very famous french photography studio who uploaded on their own a bunch of portraits. Indeed, we only indeed confirmation on OTRS that it was their doing, not a permission for every file. Jean-Fred (talk) 23:31, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, now this is a useful tip. Many thanks. (Though I still wonder about the other points [or non-points] that I raised.) -- Hoary (talk) 10:49, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Discussions about permissions and other proposals

I would like to make the people here aware of the discussions at Commons talk:Grandfathered old files and Commons:Village pump#Propose that COM:GRANDFATHER becomes a guideline and also the newly created guideline proposal Commons:Verifying permissions, which has similarities with Commons:Permissions. S_peakF_ree (talk) 20:34, 10 March 2012 (UTC)