Commons:Flickr files
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Only Flickr images tagged as  (CC-BY) or  (CC-BY-SA) are allowed on Commons. If in doubt, please use the Flinfo tool or ask on the talk page.Some more advanced information can be found at Commons:Flickr files/Guide. |
Flickr (link) allows free hosting of imagery under a variety of licenses, some free and some non-free. Flickr allows its users to select the license of their choice and to change it at any time, without any logs of the prior copyright status of the image. This means there is no easy way to check whether an image currently marked as non-free was uploaded under a free license. This causes problems for the use of these images on Wikimedia projects.
Commons uses a review process for verifying the copyright status of images uploaded from Flickr, which allows for the verification of freely licensed images by a bot or trusted user (admins and community approved users) and identification of images where the Commons license is different. This method cannot tell if the image was ever freely available.
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[edit] Flickr review
As a result of Flickr review, by bot and by human, hundreds of images have been identified as possibly unfree. In the past, when Flickr images have been nominated for deletion, there was generally no consensus about whether to delete these images. Factors such as value of the image, how trustworthy the uploader is and the time gap between upload and discovery of the possibly unfree status are all relevant to a decision on what to do with these images.
[edit] Becoming a trusted user
A user who is not an admin can request permission from the community to review images at Commons talk:Flickr files/reviewers. The community has seven days to raise any objection to the review permission.
Reviewers who regularly erroneously tag images may have their permission revoked on this subpage.
[edit] Questionable Flickr images
Some Flickr users may upload images they don't have the rights to, then license those images as free. Commons:Questionable Flickr images lists Flickr users and discussions where we have concluded that certain images marked as freely licensed on Flickr are too questionably licensed for Wikimedia Commons.
[edit] Guidelines
- Images should be tagged with {{flickrreview}} for review by bot or trusted user.
- Images verified as freely available should be considered free, even if the license on Flickr changes.
- Images which are no longer freely available at time of review should be marked as possibly unfree pending a decision on what to do with them on Commons talk:Flickr files.
[edit] Static links
One problem when checking licenses of images coming from Flickr is some users provide the static link to the image on Flickr, instead of the description page showing the license. That makes the verification very difficult because you have to search Flickr images hoping you'll find the good tag that will lead you to the good image.
For reviewers, here is an easy way to find the description page from a static link. Extract the image ID from the static URL and append it to http://www.flickr.com/photo.gne?id=. For instance, the description page of http://farm1.static.flickr.com/153/357298706_b406a56e06.jpg is available at http://www.flickr.com/photo.gne?id=357298706.
[edit] Manual
[edit] The Commons on Flickr
The Commons on Flickr hosts a number of files from various institutions that state that they have “No known copyright restrictions”.
What this means for Wikimedia Commons is unclear, and beware that some institutions (such as the Smithsonian Institute’s Right Statement) flatly contradict “No known copyright restrictions”, asserting copyright and “No commercial use”. One must thus be cautious about uploading such images to Wikimedia Commons.
See: {{Flickr-no known copyright restrictions}} and mail on commons-l, with discussion by George Oates, Flickr employee heading The Commons, expressing some reservations (The Commons on Flickr announcement).
[edit] Searching Flickr
A great way of finding images on Flickr that can be uploaded to Commons is by using the search tools at Flickr. You can search images that are licensed by-2.0 or by-sa-2.0. The {{Flickr free}} template lets you search for images under either license.
[edit] Changing licenses
However, because licenses are not set in stone, asking the uploader to change the license is a possibility. More often than not, there will be no appropriately licensed Creative Commons images, or no Creative Commons images at all. If this is the case, you may decide to politely ask those who have uploaded an image if they would be prepared to release rights to it. This works in most cases, and if it doesn't you can try for a low resolution version (see below). Requests are best made by sending a Flickr mail; in any case you'll have to create an account if you want to make requests. If making a request, be specific: the picture must be licensed with CC-BY (attribution) or CC-BY-SA (attribution and ShareAlike). Permission granted without the license on the image page being changed is undesirable.
[edit] Lower quality images
_(male).jpg)
Some uploaders aren't willing to release the full resolution versions of all or some of their pictures. Some may release poorer pictures but not their favorites. Others may be photographers and thus unlikely to release material from which they make their living. In some cases other images are available and can be used instead, but if there is no other option it may be wise to give them this choice as well. Many are prepared to release a small version of the image (e.g. the "small" size shown as a preview). Permission may be given in three ways: getting them to upload the image as a new file at lower resolution and licensing it differently; having them post a comment on the image like "I release this image under CC-BY-SA 2.0 at 240 by 180 or lower resolutions" (this will require a trusted user to approve the upload after inspecting the comment); or getting permission via email (see Commons:OTRS). The last option may be the easiest, since you can just forward their permission statement sent through Flickr mail (via external email) to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org (but make sure their statement makes it clear what file(s) are being released and under what license). When uploading such an image please note (e.g. in the description) that only the low resolution version is free. Other forms of lowering the quality might also be used, e.g. cropped or black-and-white versions.
[edit] Uploading images
[edit] Guidelines
When you're uploading images from Flickr, please:
- Upload the largest version of the image, and
- Use the Flinfo tool for providing an already filled out version of Template:Information for a picture at Flickr identified by its id.
- It would be polite and collegial to leave a message on the image's Flickr page stating that it was uploaded to Commons.
[edit] Tools
The following tools can assist:
- Upload work from Flickr
- This requires downloading the image to your computer and then uploading it; consider instead these direct tools:
- Bryan's upload tool page (from User:Flickr upload bot, can take up to 24 hours)
- Magnus' upload tool page (instant copying)
[edit] Video
- See also: Commons:Video
Flickr now allows video files to be uploaded. However, these cannot currently be transferred easily like photos can. To get an uploadable copy of the video you can either download it or ask the uploader to provide you with a copy (e. g., by email). To download them, a flash ripper of some sort is needed, e.g., the Firefox extension DownloadHelper (which has the advantage that you shouldn't need administrator status to install it). Because they are in Adobe Flash format and Commons uses .ogg files only, they must first be converted before upload is possible (see help:converting video for options).
Videos can be uploaded from the Upload work from Flickr page, though the toolserver software (Flickr2Commons and Flickr web tools) can only handle images as of January 2009.
[edit] See also
- COM:EIC#Flickr - links relating to Flickr in the Editor's index to Commons
