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Template:PD-India-Gov

Per this discussion. Should the same be done to this template? Since it's obviously not free enough either for wikipedia. Garion96 (talk) 17:48, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

The issue I had with the PH Government template is that it didn't allow for their works to be used commercial. I am not seeing that language in this one, but the no modifications might hurt us with this one. I'll ask around and get back to you. User:Zscout370 18:01, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for checking. I'm not that sorry, I thought the same but wanted confirmation to be sure. Do the same as with the philippines tag, redirect to Template:No license? Garion96 (talk) 18:09, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. User:Zscout370 19:01, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Orbicle's request for unblocking

Hello, Zscout. I hope you don't mind if I ask you to take another look at the case of User:Orbicle, whom you blocked indefinitely for copyright violations. I'm hoping that some administrator will agree to unblock him, but I feel it's courteous to ask you, as you were the one who placed the initial block. Please don't think I don't take copyright seriously. I do, and was in fact involved in cleaning up part of the mess, at Jkelly's request. I just don't think that Orbicle was fully aware of how important our copyright policy is. There are people who imagine that if something is published on the internet, it's "up for grabs", so to speak. At the very least, I think we could say that he was surely motivated by a desire to improve the quality of the encyclopaedia, and not by a desire to get the Foundation involved in some messy lawsuit! This case was discussed at the Admin noticeboard, but was then archived, and I feel that Orbicle may have been simply forgotten. It was also discussed here at the WikiProject Opera talk page, as I was modifying some of Orbicle's edits, and someone wanted to know why. People felt there that he had done good work, apart from this serious violation, and that it would be a pity to leave him blocked permanently. An administrator turned down his request for an unblock, and then there was silence. I don't know if admins are watching his page.

I left a message for him, suggesting that linking to the page at Meta about avoiding copyright paranoia was not the best way to ask for an unblock. Next time he logged on, which was quite recently, he removed it. He didn't attempt to replace the unblock request template after his request was denied, but I'd like you to consider unblocking him now that the mess has been cleaned up. I really don't think there's any danger that he'll copy sources into Misplaced Pages again, and a lot of the work that he did was untainted. There were stubs and disambiguation pages that I think could only have been original. I'm sure he'd be prepared to promise to follow our copyright policy in future, but I hate to see people forced to grovel, and I think if he made that promise, it should be enough. I suppose it's not actually necessary for him to agree with all the policies in order to be a productive Wikipedian. It should be enough simply to follow them. Thanks for your consideration. Cheers. ElinorD (talk) 23:55, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Don't want to nag, but . . . any chance that you'd consider it? I really don't think that further copyright violations are likely? ElinorD (talk) 15:31, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

User:Tobias Conradi block

You just blocked the user indefinitely per the WP:CSN board's decision, but from reading (and participating) in the discussion regarding possible sanctions that it would be a promise not to recreate the material (did he do that again?), and up to a week's block for violations of WP:CIVIL, with escalating blocks after the 2nd. Just looking for clarification for the block (he's not helping himself by immediately editing under the IP address), but just looking for clarification. Thanks! SirFozzie 01:36, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Yall wanted to try a civility parole, but since he seems to wanting to break it hours after it was suggested, I deemed him persona non grata based on his prior behavior and the way he pretty much will disregard the project, thus, issuing the indef block. User:Zscout370 01:42, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

No Problem :) Just a bit confusing to see the CSN discussion referenced in the block log, when that was not what consensus was at the time. Sorry for bothering you! SirFozzie 01:50, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Zscout... I'd have let this run a bit longer. But I won't overturn unless consensus at Misplaced Pages:Community_sanction_noticeboard#User:Tobias_Conradi seems very clear. ++Lar: t/c 11:36, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

You should be aware that there is further discussion on AN and on CN about this, you really ought to turn up and speak to what the circumstances were. Hope that helps. ++Lar: t/c 12:34, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I spoke to the CN. User:Zscout370 15:28, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Salting of File:Virginia massacre.jpg

This image was inappropriately uploaded before without a proper fair-use rationale, and was rightly deleted. However, I feel that it can fall under fair use guidelines as an irreplaceable picture illustrating this event firsthand, as per Image:West entrance.jpg and Image:VictimLibraryWindowColumbine.jpg, similar fair-use pictures used to illustrate Columbine High School massacre. Would you be willing to unsalt the page given the following fair-use rationale?

Thank you for your time. Krimpet (talk/review) 05:38, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

No; it violated the US law on fair use. There is a set of tests that the image must pass. Currently, the image fails the 4th test, since news organizations are using the photo for commercial purposes. If we use it now, one day after the event, the commercial use of the image will be undercut, thus not fair use. User:Zscout370 05:40, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

By that reasoning though, wouldn't Image:Cho Seung-hui 3.jpg violate the fair use test too? It's being distributed by news organizations for commercial purposes in the same exact manner. Krimpet (talk/review) 07:02, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes. As for the Columbine photos, the event occured long ago, so the commercial use of the photos will not be affected buy us using them. User:Zscout370 07:11, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The Collegiate Times does not own this photograph. A Virginia Tech freshman student who took it on his cell phone owns it. Contrary to the proposed rationale above, he does not work for the CT. Based on his willingness to share it with others, I have little doubt that he would be willing to release it under a GFDL if asked, but I have been hesitant to do so for obvious reasons - do we really want to be emailing traumatized students? At any rate, while I fully agree 100% that all news media photos should be deleted on sight, this one is not a news media photo - it is an individual's photo that a news media agency was using with his permission. At any rate, salting it when the only uploader is an admin is somewhat of an overkill. I request that you reconsider your deletion of the image. Thank you. --BigDT (416) 22:26, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

No. User:Zscout370 23:52, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a deletion review of ]. Since you closed the deletion discussion for this article or speedy-deleted it, you might want to participate in the deletion review. BigDT (416) 00:51, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Responded there. User:Zscout370 01:22, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, against my better judgment, I have emailed the photographer and asked if he would be willing to release the image under the GFDL. My one foray into asking a student to release photos of the vigil @Tech was successful ... so who knows let's hope for 2/2. The main picture right now on Wikinews was taken by a student at Tech. Obviously, as we all would, I would love to have this image released under a free license. I have no idea if that will happen, though. --BigDT (416) 01:34, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

If you needed time to ask for the image, that is fine. At least you are getting the hints I am trying to drop; we want to have free content and just having fair use after fair use photo on the article is not a way we should try to present ourselves to the world on such a high profile article as that now. I also let folks at Wikinews know that we need a better licensed photo of the shooter, since I still feel uneasy snipping the photo from the AP/Fox News. User:Zscout370 01:36, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Let me run this by you. The photographer replied to my email, said that he loves Misplaced Pages and would love for us to use his pic, and said he would release it under the GFDL and even copied/pasted the GFDL text from the image tag. However, he has added this requirement to the end of the email: "I am a full proponent of Misplaced Pages and would love to have my picture included on the website, provided my full name, William Chase Damiano, is incorporated into the image or used as a caption." A watermark is out of the question. I looked through our policies and couldn't find one specifically on caption credits. Is that an acceptable requirement? I asked him if he would be willing to waive it, at least for Wikimedia, as it would be virtually impossible to enforce with other languages. --BigDT (416) 02:42, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to pop in. You could create a GFDL image copyright tag that states "Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the Invariant Sections being just "Photograph by William Chase Damiano", with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License"." The Invariant Section would legally have to stay with the photograph in any GFDL reproduction of it and could effectively act as a byline (though it would not force the redistributer to format it as a byline). --Iamunknown 02:47, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I don't even think we need to go that far. I don't know chapter and verse off hand, but I think the GFDL requires you to maintain copyright statements, so a copyright statement on the description page has to be maintained anyway, right? But the requirement that I don't know that we can live with is that his name be used as a caption. --BigDT (416) 02:57, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Pretty much, another way you can do it is forward the email to WP:OTRS and I can tag the image as OTRS Confirmed and we can put the above what Iamunknown wrote. As long as we got the permission, the license and the conditions, and all of the conditions you stated are acceptable for Misplaced Pages, we can use it. User:Zscout370 03:08, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok ... it's uploaded as Image:Virginia Tech massacre Damiano photo from Holden Hall.jpg. I have forwarded the email to en-permissions. --BigDT (416) 03:51, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Works for me. I'll add the template tomorrow morning. User:Zscout370 05:26, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Image:Cho Seung-hui 3.jpg

Hello, Zach! I noticed that you deleted Image:Cho Seung-hui 3.jpg (per the above). I'm hoping that you could explain in greater detail why the fair use rationale was invalid. (I'm not a copyright expert, so please bear with me.)
You seem to imply above that we have a legal obligation to not compete with commercial entities, but I've only seen that concept applied to photographs that belong to the commercial entities themselves. In other words, press agencies own the copyrights and sell publication rights to affiliated news organizations (or the actual news organizations own the photographs outright).
Why would this concept apply to a photograph supplied by a police department (for which no member of the press owns the copyright)? Why do profit-making entities have a special legal entitlement to make a fair use claim that we can't? It's been suggested that the rationale ordinarily applied to mugshots applies here.
Thanks for your time! —David Levy 13:46, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Mugshots are copyrighted unless otherwise stated. In Virginia, unless there is something I have not found yet, the mugshots are copyrighted. If we got the photo ourselves from the Police Department, then it would be fine, since it is coming from the source. But if we take it from the AP, then it would not be good. Plus, as I told the user above, since the event just happened two days ago, we cannot automatically claim fair use on something. Give it a few months, and once the clamor subsides, we could claim fair use. User:Zscout370 15:19, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, mugshots usually are copyrighted, but we can claim fair use. That's my point.

Under the fair use doctrine, we cannot publish a copyrighted image if this will substantially reduce its value to the copyright holder. The news organizations do not hold this image's copyright. They're claiming fair use, and we have as much right as they have.

It makes absolutely no difference whether we received the file directly from the Virginia State Police (which released the image for this purpose) or from a news organization. The latter holds no copyright and cannot generate one by simply publishing the image.

I don't understand your argument about the event's recentness at all. What bearing does that have? The photograph will still be copyrighted in "a few months," and its subject won't be any deader than he is now. —David Levy 15:55, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

In a few months time, the press agencies will not be selling the photos, so the market value of the image will have been exhausted. User:Zscout370 19:09, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Again, the press agencies do not own the image in question. They possess no exclusivity, and their ability to sell it is not our concern. —David Levy 19:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I found this on the website of the Virginia State Police: "MEDIA making inquires regarding the Virginia Tech incident should call the Virginia Tech Media Line at (540) 231-5396 or visit their Web site at http://www.vt.edu/." Maybe we could ask the VTML and see if they could release us photographs of the shooting, in partiuclar, the shooter. If we can get it directly from the source, then I will stop my persuit about the image. User:Zscout370 00:26, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

That would be of benefit only if the copyright holder agrees to release the image(s) under a free license. You're welcome to try. —David Levy 00:39, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Probably due to my location and schedule, I am giving this task to Wikinews. User:Zscout370 01:16, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Tobias Conradi

Hi, as you've been involved in blocking or unblocking Tobias Conradi during the past six months or so, I'm making this courtesy edit on your talk page to notify you that there has recently been an inconclusive community sanction discussion, and I have taken this to arbitration. --Tony Sidaway 15:48, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I saw it on the Noitceboards, but thanks for the heads up. User:Zscout370 19:08, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

WikiCAst- FA summaries..

Hi, Sorry to be a pain, but way-back you taped some Featured Article summaries for WikiCast. The summaries I think if taken from En would "in the orginal" be GFDL. A recording of them would might also thus need to be GFDL.

Can you clarify this or amend the license for the files on commons? ShakespeareFan00 17:23, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, if they are no longer needed, just delete them. User:Zscout370 03:04, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Problem is, they may still be of use, I would strongly recommend changing them to GFDL license, which resolves the issue ShakespeareFan00 14:01, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Africa

Are you sure it needs full protection? Picaroon 04:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. It was put under semi protection and that crap still happened. User:Zscout370 04:48, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Redirect reverted

Just to let you know, I reverted your redirect of Margaret Tyndal Winthrop here. In future, if you redirect like that, please merge the information back to the John Kerry article. In my opinion, a redirect is not justified, because she has links going both ways, to John Winthrop, Robert Charles Winthrop, and James Bowdoin. Do you mention her in all these articles? Unless you create a family article, like Dudley-Winthrop family, it is best to leave these as separate articles for now. Carcharoth 12:41, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

The reason why I made the redirect because of an OTRS email we got over the article and the contents. I'll will look at the contents later and see what to do next, if anything. User:Zscout370 15:13, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, lets go with the merge. User:Zscout370 15:15, 20 April 2007 (UTC)