Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria/Proposal

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This is a proposal for changes to certain aspects of our nonfree media policies, presented for community discussion. If approved, it would change the requirements for data on image description pages and authorize the creation of templates for certain common nonfree use rationales.

Background

The Nonfree Content Criteria (NFCC) is the policy that describes which uses of nonfree content (images and other media) are acceptable on English Wikipedia. Part 10 (NFCC#10) of the NFCC contains our requirements for information that must be included on the description pages of nonfree images and other media. A resolution by the Wikimedia Foundation, passed March 23, 2007, required that

"Non-free content ... must be identified in a machine-readable format so that it can be easily identified by users of the site as well as re-users."

The resolution also contained a deadline of March 23, 2008, although this deadline does not apply to projects such as English Wikipedia that had existing nonfree content policies when the resolution passed.

The resolution led to an effort to bring the large number of existing nonfree images into compliance with NFCC. There are about 400,000 nonfree images currently hosted on English Wikipedia, of which 170,000 are estimated to be noncompliant with NFCC#10.

At present, NFCC#10 requires three types of information for each nonfree image.

Attribution of the source of the image, as well as the copyright holder if different from the source.
A copyright license tag that indicates the image is nonfree.
The name of each article in which fair use is claimed for the item, and a use rationale for each use of the image.

Scope

This is a proposal for a way to bring Wikipedia's store of nonfree images into compliance with NFCC#10 in a manner that preserves as many of these images as possible while keeping the amount of labor involved at a reasonable level. The proposal includes both changes to the policy and new templates to facilitate tagging of images.

This proposal covers two aspects of the nonfree media policy:

The formatting of image description pages to facilitate machine readability.
The use of templates to simplify the creation of use rationales for certain common uses of nonfree images.

This proposal is only concerned with metadata (source, copyright tag, use rationales) on image description pages. It is not concerned with how we find and remove images that are inappropriate for Wikipedia because they fail criteria NFCC#1–9. Nor is this proposal intended to widen or narrow the range of images considered appropriate for Wikipedia. It is only about data requirements. Correct and well formatted data should make it easier to determine whether an image does meet criteria 1–9, however.

Goals

Save as many viable images as possible by tagging and sorting them in a usable way, developing tools, and encouraging participation for people to correctly label existing nonfree images.
Keep things as orderly and predictable as possible.
Get as close to 100% compliance as possible in advance of March 23, 2008 date set by Wikimedia Foundation (without regard to whether date was properly set or whether we are going farther than they require).
Attributions of copyright holders and use rationales should be as machine readable as possible, perhaps exceeding the requirements of the Wikimedia Foundation resolution.
Use approved bots, templates, tools, and procedures to minimize human workload.

Format of image description pages

The foundation resolution states that certain aspects of image licensing should be in machine readable format. Because of the large number of nonfree images, it is not practical for editors to review all images for compliance with NFCC#10, so scripts (bots) are used for this purpose. The following proposal is intended to facilitate this while streamlining the current requirements to make is easier for editors to create compliant description pages.

Proposal 1. Nonfree images uploaded after January 1, 2008 must have the following on their image description page:

An explicit statement of the source and/or copyright holder, in a template to be decided by community consensus. This template would be a sufficient license tag to mark the image as nonfree. It would include a "checklist" of criteria that all nonfree images must meet, such as being in low resolution.
For each article the image is used in, a template (to be developed by community consensus) that includes the name of the article in machine readable form along with a rationale for the use of the image in the article.

Images that do not have this information will be tagged and the uploader notified, and, after a delay determined by community consensus, may be deleted.

Unlike the current template {{non-free media rationale}}, this system would not require the repetition of information when a nonfree image is used in multiple articles. A mock up of the proposed format is available.

To the extent possible, the upload wizard should be modified to facilitate the easy creation of compliant pages for new images.

Images uploaded before Jan 1, 2008 must comply with the present requirements of WP:NFCC#10, or they may be tagged for deletion under existing deletion criteria. However, they do not need to meet the requirements of proposal 1. It is expected that, over time, all images would be converted to the new format through some combination of automated and manual editing.

Creation of nonfree use rationale templates

Four certain uses of nonfree images are generally (although not universally) accepted as not requiring further justification:

An image of an organization's logo on the article about the organization.
An image of a book cover on the article about that book.
An image of a album cover on the article about that album.
An image of a two-dimensional work of art on the article about that work of art.

Moreover, the images in the corresponding categories correspond to about 40% of the nonfree images on English Wikipedia. To make it easier to for these images to be in compliance, and recognize that these uses have broad support, we make the following proposal.

Proposal 2. Four templates will be created: {{non-free logo for the company}}, {{non-free book cover for the book}}, {{non-free album cover for the album}}, and {{non-free image of the 2D artwork}}. These templates will each have a parameter, article, that is used to name the article in which the image is used for the stated purpose. These templates will constitute adequate use rationales for the four uses described above; their contents will be determined by community consensus.

Only four valid generic rationales are created by this proposal; the validity of others is not yet widely accepted and this proposal will deprecate any others that exist. The existing {{Non-free use rationale}} template will be deprecated in favor of a modified version (subject to consensus) that among other things removes "source" information.

Free-form handwritten rationales will continue to be allowed as well, using the format from proposal 1.

Other generic rationales would need to be proposed and considered independently of this proposal. Semi-generic rationales (which include parameters other than article) may also be considered. However, no other rationale format or template will be permitted unless it has been approved and added to the list of acceptable rationale templates.