Wikipedia talk:Public domain image resources

Images from Google books

What is the policy regarding extracting images from a PDF downloaded from Google Books (say) of a public-domain book? (Ignoring the fact that they will be of poor quality.) On the one hand, it seems similar to the Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. mentioned on this page: that the book and all its reproductions should be public-domain. On the other hand, the files have the following notice on the first page:

Usage guidelines
[...] Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. We also ask that you:

• Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for personal, non-commercial purposes.

[...]

• Maintain attribution The Google “watermark” you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.

To what extent, if any, are such "guidelines" binding? Shreevatsa (talk) 07:51, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Probably not very. See [[1]] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.66.173 (talk) 00:08, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Even Google agrees: [2]

We have gotten this question in the past. The front matter of our PDF books is not a EULA [end user license agreement]. We make some requests, but we are not trying to legally bind users to those requests. We’ve spent (and will continue to spend) a lot of time and money on Book Search, and we hope users will respect that effort and not use these files in ways that make it harder for us to justify that expense (for example, by setting up the ACME Public Domain PDF Download service that charges users a buck a book and includes malware in the download). Rather than using the front matter to convey legal restrictions, we are attempting to use it to convey what we hope to be the proper netiquette for the use of these files.

With at least some of the public domain books on the Google Books project, it appears that the book can be viewed in a page-by-page manner, among other viewing modes, without the need to download a PDF version. In such a case, it would presumably be permissible (perhaps by using the "Clip" functionality to select a portion of a page) to extract individual illustrations for reuse. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Elegie (talk • contribs) 05:08, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Possible vandalism?

In the General Collections section:

Google images hosts a large repository of LIFE images, Time claims blanket copyright to everything but this is simply bullshit.

The last part certainly doesn't belong. I'll change it. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 07:05, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

How do you know

How do you know if it's okay to use an image. There are many articles I would like to add images to and it's so easy to find a multitude of very good images; presumably some must be okay to use? How do you find out. Daniel Christensen (talk) 19:31, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

In general if there is no statement that you can use an image you may not. Copyrights can apply even when there is no copyright notice . --BozMo talk 15:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Back on February 27 I answered this question and more for you in some detail. Unless an image specifically says it is in the public domain or has some other free licence, then you MUST assume it is copyright and you can't use it here. I would suggest that you stop forum shopping for the reply you want to hear, i.e., that you can use copyright images. The answer is that you can't. ww2censor (talk) 16:05, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Lantern slide collection

Here's an extensive collection of what would seem to be out-of-copyright lantern slides. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:35, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

bookscanning.com

How is this website a resource for PD images? The website seems to be only about selling its services; i don't see any 'archive' or anything like that. Maybe this link ought to be removed?--Breandán MacAmhlaidh (talk) 09:10, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

 Done: Removed. ww2censor (talk) 13:24, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

4free…

It seems that, according to the terms of use of the websites 4FreePhotos and 4 Free Textures — here is an excerpt:

You are NOT, under any circumstance, allowed to copy the content of this website with any application or reuse the images, code, and content for creating a similar website, selling, renting, or any other type of activity similar to the one our website is running, … If you upload this image on a diffrent website it is mandatory to link to 4freephotos.com image page.

,

anyone who downloads anything from them is prohibited from uploading it to Wikimedia Commons.

--AVRS (talk) 21:42, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

How to automatically transfer fee images from wikipedia into commons?

Like this one? Of course, I can download/upload it, with credits, but I guess a good idea would be to preserve file history, right? Lotygolas Ozols (talk) 19:33, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

found it myself: Wikipedia:Moving files to the Commons. Lotygolas Ozols (talk) 20:32, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Art Renewal Needs to be Removed

The Art Renewal Project is listed under art as a source of copyright free material. There are two things wrong with this. First, the page it links to no longer exists. The second, and much more important, is that the Art Renewal Project is not a collection of classical art, is is a site that represents Classical Art Ateliers, training students in the style of the old masters, and all the art represented on the website is done by contemporary artists. I represent one such school. They are most certainly not copyright free. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stingwriter (talk • contribs) 23:09, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

USCITES

USCITES.gov is listed but the site asks for authorisation, thus:

 A username and password are being requested by http://uscites.gov. The site says: "hugo".

Dbagnall (talk) 12:48, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Open-i

Does anyone know whether all the images in the Open-i database are public domain? In particular, this image says "PHOTO COURTESY OF PAUL FETTERS FOR HOWARD HUGHES MEDICAL INSTITUTE". Does that limit its use in any way? RockMagnetist (talk) 19:58, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Since I posted this question the site has gone under maintenance. RockMagnetist (talk) 21:22, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

It's back again. RockMagnetist (talk) 05:13, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

sunthiweerapans@gmail.com

Azawai (talk) 19:45, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Pruning

Just removed a bunch of dead weight. Dead links were obvious. Sites where it said public domain but the terms say something else were obvious. Where I think it still needs more work is on the sites which keep getting added which are clearly just set up for ad revenue: a handful of images in a little frame dwarfed by ads on all sides, ads that look like more photos linking to paid stock photo sites, people's vacation galleries... In other words this page has turned into a web directory. Please use the talk page before adding back anything I removed. Much more work to be done to this resource... --Rhododendrites (talk) 04:44, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

inclusion criteria

In the time I've watched this page the majority of edits seem to be either adding or removing sites with commercial content, very little content, ambiguous licensing, rampant advertising, membership fees, etc. What is the inclusion criteria? Can I start a Tumblr, upload a picture I took, declare it public domain, and link to it here? --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  21:05, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Can we replace this with a link to the Wikimedia Commons page?

Why is this page here, if it is just a copy of the meta page? Why should anyone ever have to make the same changes to two different pages? Wouldn't it be better to just provide a link or a (soft) redirect? I'd also note that it's very confusing: the meta page has a notice that it is "kept for historical interest", which implies to me that I shouldn't edit it.

Actually, can we replace both this and the meta page with soft redirects to Commons:Free_media_resources/Photography? Klortho (talk) 05:51, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support - Good call. I had not seen either of those other two. Meta doesn't make sense just based on the scope of that project. There's something to be said for each language Wikipedia having its own list for accessibility reasons, but it keeps with the spirit of the Commons to combine them in that central location. Commons:Free media resources is showing some signs of neglect, for sure. I'd be willing to help go through them and merge. I did that to some extent here, where there's a persistent problem of people adding sites that (a) have a few pictures declared public domain along with much larger databases of subscription-only images; (b) someone's own images of indiscriminate vacation photos and such; (c) spam sites on some blogspot.com blog, with a few images declared public domain (which may or may not be), surrounded by ads. Centralizing it may help to get more eyes on it, too. --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  14:34, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

What is the status of paintings reproduced at BBC Your Paintings?

The website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/ https://www.artuk.org aims to show the entire UK national collection of oil paintings. A project is in progress to tag all paintings on the site. Can museums and other contributors claim copyright on images reproduced here? If not, at least in the case of older paintings it would make a useful resource at Wikipedia:Public_domain_image_resources#Art, especially if some caveat was included in the link explaining what is and is not covered by copyright.Waugh Bacon (talk) 04:55, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Commons discussion about what to do with this page and its counterparts at Commons and Meta

Just a heads up that I've started a thread at the Wikimedia Commons Village Pump which concerns this page: commons:Commons:Village pump#cleaning up, creating link inclusion criteria, and consolidating Free Media Resources. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:33, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

merging

i think this article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_image_resources and this article https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Free_media_resources/Photography

should mergeJonnymoon96 (talk) 21:35, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Embedded links

Looking at this page, much of it seems to be a list of external links embedded into the page. My understanding is that this is not something generally considered acceptable for articles per WP:CS#Avoid embedded links or WP:EL. I am just curious as if this of thing is considered OK for pages in the "Wikipedia" namespace. I'm not proposing a massive removal of links. Just curious. Thanks in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:28, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Free Image Search Tool?

Does the Free Image Search Tool still exist? I'm getting a 502 Bad Gateway message when I follow the link:

• FIST – Free Image Search Tool

Thanks for considering my question! Jscarboro (talk) 16:52, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Seems to be broken again? Liverpoolpics (talk) 15:19, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@Liverpoolpics: I did some looking around and found the new link. I just updated this project page with it. — Tartan357  ^(Talk) 03:56, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

@Jscarboro: Brilliant! Can the templates "howtoreqphoto" and "howtoreqphotoin" be amended to reflect this change? Liverpoolpics (talk) 12:40, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Tartan357: so please what is the new link? This page [3] is still outdated. ww2censor (talk) 15:00, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Think I've fixed the templates I mentioned above Liverpoolpics (talk) 20:02, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Liverpoolpics: Not for me, so I don't know what you fixed. Neither https://fist.toolforge.org/fist.php nor https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FIST work. ww2censor (talk) 22:12, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

removing random aggregator sites

@Aflin: regarding this, with edit summary "Undid revision 785359161 by Rhododendrites (talk) This is becoming a theme for Pixabay to remove competition's listings" -- that sounds like you're saying I removed the sites I removed because I'm somehow advocating for Pixabay? Weird. I removed one because of a bogus certificate. Thank you for fixing it. The fixed version runs into the same problem as the other one, though -- it's just another aggregator site. Anyone can download free images from the other sites on this list, host them on their own site, and claim to offer free images. We need more of a reason to include here -- like high-quality original content, a good reputation, etc. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 03:21, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm going to respond to this thread from User talk:Aflin here, since it's relevant to this page more generally. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:45, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

you added snappygoat, a website that you (or the person linked from your user page) has a connection to. Again, I'd point to WP:COI and WP:PROMO (regardless of whether you intend it to be promotion or simply trying to help, the burden is on you to find consensus to add it, not for others to find consensus to remove it (and, really, this applies even if there's no COI)).

I was not the first to remove it, which was an unregistered user. And it was Mindmatrix who initially removed freeqration.com (the other site caught up in this back-and-forth), though I realize you didn't add that site initially.

Snappygoat has many images, indeed, and perhaps some people would find it useful, but literally every image I checked is already available on others sites on the list. In other words, it appears to be an aggregator. This page is a spam magnet, with everybody either hosting a few of their own images or gathering images already available elsewhere, with little-to-no additional content. Perhaps it's genuinely to provide a helpful resource, to make a few cents from ads, to collect some data, to sell a premium service -- I don't know. But the page isn't a free-for-all such that free images=inclusion.

Of course, this highlights a bigger issue that I appreciate could cause confusion: this page is kind of an anomaly on Wikipedia. It's sort of a WP:LINKFARM, and is often treated as a WP:DIRECTORY (i.e. "include any site that has public domain images"). But it's still subject to basic policies of Wikipedia, which means it cannot be a directory and must be discriminate in what it includes or else needs to be deleted. It also needs to satisfy the external links guideline. Coming to a consensus about what that inclusion criteria is has been a challenge. There have been a handful of poorly attended discussions on how to best apply Wikipedia principles, but too few watch the page for it to really get anywhere. Maybe that's too much information. It's a mess of a page, and now that I think about it more, I don't know why we still have it -- it was created before all of our images were moved to Wikimedia Commons, which has its own list... — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:45, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites: A few things:

1) Thank you for bringing this discussion out in the open. Apologies for the pixabay accusation. The anonymous user who has removed the snappygoat link several times in the past was the same one who edited the pixabay description. That and investigation of the ip address let me to believe that the person was affiliated with pixabay.

2) Every site with more than ~100k public domain images is in part an aggregator. Snappygoat is just more upfront about it. An example from thousands:

https://pixabay.com/en/wolf-predator-canidae-canis-lupus-62898/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/137643065@N06/24218499562/

http://pickupimage.com/free-photos/Grey-Wolf-Canis-lupus-Next-to-Birch-Tree/2321327

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nature-animal-wolf-wilderness_(24218499562).jpg

https://snappygoat.com/free-public-domain-images-wolf_predator_canidae_canis/JOg7O7dGaC52JQF-xNDMcjOsiIKqI4ZnmsWeKn8rTA8.html

That image originally came from pixel.la (I think). It was transferred to Flickr, copied to commons, posted to pixabay from commons, and copied by pickupimage from pixabay. All point to the exact byte for byte picture.

3) Nearly every link here is a self promoted link. Snappygoat is no different in this regard. Any link should be judged on its merits, and not diminished just because it was posted by someone affiliated with the site.

4) Snappygoat has more full resolution PD/CC0 images that any other site listed, including commons. While that does not mean the posting of the link is not in violation of policy, it does mean that you should take the time to get consensus before unilaterally deciding to remove a link which has been there unmolested for a year.

5) I have no problem being held to wikipedia standards. But before you remove the snappygoat link, remove all the other self promoted, partially or fully aggregating sites on this list. I think you will find that there will be few left. The value of this list is that it allows people to find all the available resources. Snappygoat isn't just an aggregation of images. It is a search engine that allows you to find PD/CC0 images which would be difficult or impossible to find on any other site, including in some cases, the site of origin.

6) At bare minimum, you should wait for consensus on the above issues before removing snappygoat or freeqration links. And if there is consensus, then you need to remove all the other sites which aggregate images, including commons.

Aflin (talk) 22:26, 1 July 2017 (UTC)