File talk:Wheal Owles historic tin mine Cornwall UK.jpg

Higher resolution version

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I was inordinately proud of this photograph. I had saved my pocket-money for months to buy a camera and this was one of the first photographs I ever took with it. Nice, isn't it? GrahamN 18:08 Jan 27, 2003 (UTC)

Yes it's very nice. You don't have a higher resolution version of it do you? Then it would be even nicer! CharlesC 23:25, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Second the motion. 68.39.174.238 08:42, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

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Thank you for the kind words. My eleven-year-old self would be chuffed to bits to see his photograph featuring prominently in an encyclopaedia. (My present self is quite chuffed, too!) As regards the resolution, it is only a very small print (as was the norm in the 1970s) and this image was the best I could get from it. If I find time I'll dig it out again and have another go. I'll also have a rummage round and see if I still have the negative
...but not until the licensing question has been resolved (see below).
GrahamN (talk) 01:56, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

This mine was featured in the 1961 film Doctor Blood's Coffin starring Kieron Moore and Ian Hunter. Nyaxter (talk) 08:40, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Licensing

It says on this page that I released this photograph into the public domain - but I don't think I did. I certainly didn't intend to. It is a while ago now that I scanned it and uploaded it, but I'm sure that I would have picked the GNU licence rather than public domain. Is there a definitive way of proving this, one way or the other? And in either case, is there anything I can do now to correct it?

(I uploaded several other photographs to Wikipedia at around the same time. The two that I have been able to locate both say that I released them under the GNU licence - see [1] and [2]).

GrahamN 02:18, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

The image was transferred to Commons in 2008 from the English wikipedia, tagged as PD. To see how you originally uploaded it in 2003, you'd have to ask in the English wikipedia, perhaps an admin there can have a look at the original file description (now deleted, but admins should be able to see it). --Rosenzweig τ 05:58, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

When you uploaded the image you did not put any copyright tag on it or provide any information about the copyright. Later another user slapped PD tag on it. Ruslik (talk) 08:26, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

So I presume you effectively licensed it under whatever the default license was for contributions to Wikipedia at that time. That's a bit before my time, but wouldn't it have been GFDL 1.1 or 1.2? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Avenue (talk • contribs) 14:40 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Ruslik just said it was uploaded without any copyright info or claim by the author. Since it's been labelled PD this long, it would be best not to try and change that now. Rd232 (talk) 15:11, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your replies and the clarification.

I'm puzzled, though. How can it be possible for me to have uploaded an image with no copyright information at all? I assumed, as Avenue says, that by default, anything typed or uploaded into Wikipedia in those days was automatically covered by the GFDL - because as I had understood it at that time the GNU licence was fundamental to the whole ethos of the project. The fact that my contributions and any derivations of them would be uncopyrightable and open for all in perpetuity was one of the main attractions of Wikipedia for me. (And, as an aside, I've never understood what was supposed to be so wrong with the GFDL that Wikipedia had to drop it and adopt this strange new "Sussex-by-the-sea" thing instead).

GFDL was certainly the default in 2003, but I have a hazy memory that there was a box to tick if you were uploading something that was already in the public domain and which therefore couldn't be licensed under the GFDL. But surely in either case, whether I ticked the box or not, there would be copyright information attached to the image? If I ticked the box it would be explicitly public domain and if I didn't it would be explicitly GFDL. So what happened? Did I tick the box or not? And how did this information subsequently get lost?

Please could somebody kindly check the history of these two other files, which I seem to have uploaded later that same evening? [1] and [2]. (I'm pretty sure there were others, too, but they must have been deleted since). Did those images have copyright information attached to them at the time? If so, how? If not, how did they come to be licensed under the GFDL? Did somebody "slap a GFDL tag" on them at a later date, in the same apparently arbitrary way?

Sorry to make a fuss about this, but I've been asked for a higher resolution version of this image, and I'd like this question resolved before I go to the trouble of making it. Thank you.

GrahamN (talk) 20:27, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

In the first case you wrote: "Detail of the Magna Carta monument at Runnymede. I took this photo some time in the early Eighties. --GrahamN 23:56 Jan 27, 2003 (UTC)". A user then (in 2004) slapped GDFL tag on it. The same happened to the second image. Ruslik (talk) 07:15, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, in the early days Wikipedia didn't require license tags (or at least didn't have timely enforcement of any requirement). When this was tightened up, if the uploader couldn't be contacted (and your en WP talk page does give that impression) the choice was usually between applying what was believed to be the suitable license tag, or deleting the image. I think the PD tag was misapplied here, and we should replace it by what the implicit license was when it was uploaded. (I don't see why the length of time the tag's been there should make any difference - if you didn't apply it, it isn't valid.) Of course, you could also add any license tag you like, since it's your image. --Avenue (talk) 10:11, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for checking that, and for your comments.
Not having a user talk page doesn't mean I can't be contacted. Then as now, if anybody wants to comment on anything I have done they can do so at the talk page of the place that I did it - exactly as you have done here, in fact. But if they want to talk to me behind other people's backs, or to contact me about things other than my actual contributions here, then they can't. Which suits me just fine. (In my early days here far too much of my time was wasted on dealing with backstabbers and irrelevant bickering, mainly over Israel/Palestine). ...However, there are no questions about copyright on the talk pages of any of those three images. It looks as if nobody even tried.
But never mind, that's in the past now. Just to clarify, are you saying that I'm within my rights now simply to edit the page and change the tag from public domain to GFDL? Is that an indisputable fact, or a contestable opinion? Why did Rd232 say that "it would be best not to try"?
Thanks again for your time.
GrahamN (talk) 00:48, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Nothing is incontestable on a wiki, but I strongly believe that as the photographer you are the only one who can place the image under a new license. I presume the original license was either GFDL 1.1 or 1.2, as dual licensing was merely optional for a long time afterwards (see e.g. meta:Guide_to_the_dual-license). I can't speak for Rd232, but he might have been concerned about people who have reused the image in good faith since it was tagged as PD. --Avenue (talk) 13:17, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I changed the license to CC-BY-3.0, if you do not object. Ruslik (talk) 08:14, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I object. Absence of objection from the author is not enough to give the license force, so I don't think that improved the situation at all. I've removed the license tag and replaced it with {{No license own work}}. Graham, could you please indicate which license you think you've licensed the photo under, and any others you'd be willing to apply? --Avenue (talk) 13:17, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

The copyright holder can now license the image under any license he wants irrespective of what he meant in 2003. Ruslik (talk) 11:58, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

True, but we'd be on safer ground if he does this himself. --Avenue (talk) 17:02, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the advice. I find it a little surprising that it would be that easy, but if you are sure about it, then I will change the licence tag to my preferred licence. (I'm not really up to speed with the nuances of all the different licences that are now used on Wikipedia, and I'm a bit busy at the moment, but when I find time I'll look into it and make a decision. Thanks.) GrahamN (talk) 01:21, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

On Christmas Day, and without bothering to explain himself on this page, somebody added a notice to the file threatening to delete it. Happy Christmas to you, too, Yann. I've just removed that notice and changed the copyright information so that it is the same as for File:London arch.JPG, a picture I uploaded at more or less the same time as this one, in 2003. Whether this is the best thing to do I'm still unsure. But I wouldn't have questioned it if those tags had been put there years ago by somebody else, as happened with the London Arch picture, so it seems fair. I hope this is acceptable to everybody. Happy new year. GrahamN (talk) 02:41, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Possible identification

According to Google Lens, it thinks this picture is of Wheal Owles. Other photos of that site look convincingly similar. KeithTyler (talk) 07:41, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

See: en:Wheal Owles KeithTyler (talk) 07:44, 30 January 2023 (UTC)