User talk:Theeuro

Welcome to the Commons, Theeuro!

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Re:Euro coins

Cross-posted to my talk page as well

I did respond to UP3's comment/question, on his talk page. I reply on the talk page of the user who asks me the question and expect them to respond on my talk page; I apologise if this caused any misunderstanding.

The issue with these images was not that the ECB does not allow them to be used, but in the license of the specific images they had on their site: their images are licensed under the statement that "Where the information is incorporated in documents that are sold (regardless of the medium), the natural or legal person publishing the information must inform buyers, both before they pay any subscription or fee and each time they access the information taken from the ECB's website, that the information may be obtained free of charge through the ECB's website". This is more than a simple attribution license and too restrictive, and is beyond what we allow on Commons in terms of licensing.

I would like to point out that the Eurocoins license template, located on every image that was up for deletion, had a {{Tfd}} tag displayed on it. I think that having 300+ notices that the Eurocoins were up for deletion was probably notification enough. We could have gone around and spammed the talk pages of all the 100+ users who uploaded them, but in a case like this notifying the uploader does nothing to prevent the image from being deleted; this is not a case of "we need a source or it will be deleted", it was a case of "these images used to be okay but the fact that license does not fit with our policies has been pointed out". In cases where a license is determined to be outside of policy or to be unfree when it was previously thought allowable - a case which unfortunately does happen due to misunderstanding or license creation and usage before it has been approved - it is policy to put the template itself up for deletion, which encompasses all images it is tagged with. The {{Tfd}} tag appears above the license and on every subsequent image up also up for deletion, which should be notification enough. If we made public announcements on the village pump every time images were up for deletion it would start to look like COM:DEL, which is where notifications of deletions are and belong.

There is no way to have future images from the ECB website deleted; they are not within policy and changing the license is not going to change the fact that they are from that site, which does not allow unrestricted free or commercial use. I noticed your comment on the (closed) IfD page: "The copyright extends only to the point where exchange of monies might take place for the images." This is true, and this also means that unrestricted non-commercial use is not allowed. We, when using these images on wikipedias or other wikimedia projects online, may not profit from them; but when it comes to making a DVD version of wikipedia for use in schools (which are sold and profited from), or when others use our images commercially (which does happen), that license is too restrictive. This means that images from the ECB site are not within our policy, despite the fact that they are free for public download and use in the general sense of the term. No matter how much someone advertises that they have "images you can freely download and use", if there is a "but you have to do this and you can't use them commercially unless you do this" disclaimer/restriction, and that disclaimer/restriction is not within Commons policy, the images cannot be used.

It is unfortunate, but images of Eurocoins are hardly available only from the ECB. I know of at least one Commoner who has mentioned that he has a near-complete set of euro coins and is willing to take photographs of them; in this way and possibly by finding them on other sites that allow images to be used within Commons policy, we can restore the images that were lost because of that license.

Just a side note; I saw your talk page when coming here to respond to your question, and noticed you state you have a position with the ECB (or close to them anyway). If you can get them to change their policy on image use all the better; we can then restore images! However, until then, they must (very unfortunately) remain deleted. Regards, -- Editor at Large • talk 12:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The images from your site are fine to upload, as long as you took them yourself or got them from another free source which we can verify fits with our policies. As for the images on en.wp that use that license, I am not sure how they fit in with wikipedia licensing... I believe Yonatan may have brought up the issue on the English wikipedia, though I am not sure; he may have just marked the particular image UP3 pointed out. I'll ask him and see. -- Editor at Large • talk 19:42, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I have nominated all of these images for deletion on en. They will probably be tagged properly soon enough. Yonatan ^talk 19:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

What is the proper tag then? —-Theeuro 09:04, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Do you not understand that the ECB allows use of the images of the euro coins. What about the ECB allowance is unclear? It is a bit difficult to understand, so I can sort these things out for you- I have an office at the ECB and know first hand that the images are in fact allowed to be used for this sort of thing. So before you go deleting more images that cause the rest of us extra work to get them back online, please discuss the situation with me first. I can probably help you to understand what the ECB does allow and what it does not allow- and for understanding copyright restrictions in general.

Basically- nobody- even the ECB can claim or otherwise impose a copyright restriction over any of the euro coin images. The only way this would be remotly applicable is if someone put a euro coin on top of a patterned cloth, photographed it and called it a photographic work of art. But then, the ECB does not allow for that, because NOBODY CAN CALIM COPYRIGHT OR RESTRICTION OVER ANY OF THE EURO COIN IMAGES.

The ECB does not allow the image to be modified in any way and requires the statement that the images are available for free from the ECB website. You can even use the image of a euro coin in an advertisement. You can use an image for the cover of a book that sells for 1.000 euro. You can even use the image for the subject of an artistic work. The source of the image is irrelevant because it is only the image of the coins themselves that are made available. What is done to them afterward- graphically altering and such- are what the ECB has a poblem with.

--Theeuro 09:04, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I understand the ECB allows use of the images of euro coins. I also know that where the information is incorporated in documents that are sold (regardless of the medium), the natural or legal person publishing the information must inform buyers, both before they pay any subscription or fee and each time they access the information taken from the ECB's website, that the information may be obtained free of charge through the ECB's website. With this restriction in place these images are not allowable under Commons policy. It is not images of coins in general, it is those specific images, on that specific site. Saying that they are fine because "Basically- nobody- even the ECB can claim or otherwise impose a copyright restriction over any of the euro coin images" is like saying this image is not copyrighted because you there are no copyright restrictions on a pile of tea.

It is the photograph itself, NOT the subject, that is copyrighted. You can argue that in the photographs of coins there is artistic merit; in the angle of the shot, the lighting, and the composition. While minimal, it is there. A straight-on shot of a painting that is in the public domain is not copyrighted, because there is no artistic merit when it shows only the painting. However, for three-dimensional objects, there is arguable artistic merit put into the composition of the shot. The ECB has stated on their website that there are restrictions on the photographs. These restrictions are not within Commons policy. Thus the images from the ECB website are not allowable on Commons. If the ECB changes their license, or something changes, the deleted images can be restored; they do not need to be re-uploaded.

I would also like to point out that I did not vote on the deletion request, and was not the closing administrator. I was asked, because of the large number of images involved, to help with deletion. I did so and deleted about half of the images. If you would like to request undeletion, please visit COM:UNDEL to make your case for reinstating the template and images. I did not delete anything because I did not understand, and while my knowledge of general copyright restrictions may not encompass everything there is to know, I do understand Commons policy well and I know that the statement on the ECB website means we cannot use their images unless it is changed. I appreciate your offer to explain but I am afraid that will not change the statement on the site and how the statement fits with our policy. -- Editor at Large • talk 22:24, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Eurocoin images

Hi. It would be excelent if you give the images of the eurocoins onto Wiki Commons (if they have compatible licenses) - I want to see some images on czech Wikipedia. But I think we shouldn't name that images same as they were, because every image had different name and it wasn't easy to orientate there. - UP3 18:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Please note my comments to your observations here. Regards, Mschlindwein 22:24, 3 May 2007 (UTC)