Wikipedia:Image use policy
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This page documents an English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow. Changes made to it should reflect consensus. |
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This page in a nutshell: Be very careful when uploading copyrighted images, fully describe images' origins and copyright details on their description pages, and try to make images as useful and reusable as possible. |
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This page sets out the policies towards images—including format, content, and copyright issues—applicable on the English-language Wikipedia.
For information on media in general (images, sound files, etc.), see Wikipedia:Creation and usage of media files. For information on uploading, see Wikipedia:Uploading images, or go directly to Special:Upload. For other legal and copyright policies, see Wikipedia:List of policies#Legal.
Contents
Selecting images for uploading
Copyright and licensing
Before you upload an image, make sure that the image falls in one of the four categories:
- Own work: You own all rights to the image, usually meaning that you created it entirely yourself. (example, see below for details)
- Freely licensed: You can prove that the copyright holder has released the image under an acceptable free license. Note that images that are licensed for use only on Wikipedia, or only for non-commercial or educational use, or under a license that doesn't allow for the creation of modified/derived works, are unsuitable. (example, see below for details) When in doubt, do not upload copyrighted images.
- Public domain: You can prove that the image is in the public domain, i.e. free of all copyrights. (example, see below for details)
- Fair use: You believe that the image meets the special conditions for non-free content, which exceptionally allow the use of unlicensed material, and you can provide an explicit non-free use rationale explaining why and how you intend to use it. (example, see below for details)
User-created images
Wikipedia encourages users to upload their own images. All user-created images must be licensed under a free license, such as the GFDL and/or an acceptable Creative Commons license, or released into the public domain, which removes all copyright and licensing restrictions. When licensing an image, it is common practice to multi-license under both GFDL and a Creative Commons license.
Such images can include photographs which you yourself took. The legal rights for images generally lie with the photographer, not the subject. Simply re-tracing a copyrighted image or diagram does not necessarily create a new copyright—copyright is generated only by instances of "creativity", and not by the amount of labor which went into the creation of the work. Photographs of three-dimensional objects almost always generate a new copyright, though others may continue to hold copyright in items depicted in such photographs. Photographs of two-dimensional objects such as paintings in a museum often do not (see the section on the "public domain" below). If you have questions in respect to this, please ask the regulars at Wikipedia talk:Copyrights.
Images with you, friends or family prominently featured in a way that distracts from the image topic are not recommended for the main namespace; User pages are OK. These images are considered self-promotion and the Wikipedia community has repeatedly reached consensus to delete such images.
Some images may contain trademarked logos incidentally (or purposely if the image is either freely licensed, covered under freedom of panorama, or being too simple to be copyrightable). If this is the case, please tag it with {{trademark}}.
Try not to use color alone to convey information, as it is inaccessible in many situations.
Free licenses
For a list of possible licenses which are considered "free enough" for Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Image copyright tags. Licenses which restrict the use of the media to non-profit or educational purposes only (i.e. non-commercial use only), or which are given permission to appear only on Wikipedia, are not free enough for Wikipedia's usages or goals and will be deleted.[1] A list of websites that offer free images can be found at Wikipedia:Free image resources. In short, Wikipedia media (with the exception of "fair use" media—see below) should be as "free" as Wikipedia's content—both to keep Wikipedia's own legal status secure and to allow as much re-use of Wikipedia content as possible.
If the place where you found the image does not declare a pre-existing free license, yet allows use of its content under terms commonly instituted by them, it must explicitly declare that commercial use and modification is permitted. If it does not so declare, you must assume that you may not use the image unless you obtain verification or permission from the copyright holder.
Public domain
Public domain images are not copyrighted, and copyright law does not restrict their use in any way. Wikipedia pages, including non-English language pages, are hosted on a server in the United States, so U.S. law governs whether a Wikipedia image is in the public domain.
Images may be placed into the public domain by their creators, or they may be public domain because they are ineligible for copyright or because their copyright expired. In the U.S., copyright has expired on any work published anywhere before January 1, 1923. Although U.S. copyrights have also expired for many works published since then, the rules for determining expiration are complex; see When does copyright expire? for details.
In the U.S., reproductions of two-dimensional public domain artwork do not generate a new copyright; see Bridgeman v. Corel. Scans of images alone do not generate new copyrights—they merely inherit the copyright status of the image they are reproducing. For example, a straight-on photograph of the Mona Lisa is ineligible for copyright.
If you strongly suspect an image is a copyright infringement you should list it for deletion; see Deleting images below. For example, an image with no copyright status on its file page and published elsewhere with a copyright notice should be listed for deletion.
Fair use images
Some usage of copyrighted materials without permission of the copyright holder can qualify as fair use in the United States (but not in most other jurisdictions). However, since Wikipedia aims to be a free-content encyclopedia, not every image that qualifies as fair-use may be appropriate.
Unauthorized use of copyrighted material under an invalid claim of fair use constitutes copyright infringement and is illegal. Media which are mistagged as fair use or are a flagrant copyright violation can be removed on sight. Editors who notice correctable errors in fair use tags or fair use rationales are urged to fix them, if able. Voluntarily fixing such problems is helpful to Wikipedia, though many errors may be impossible to fix.[why?] A user may be banned for repeatedly uploading material which is neither free nor fair-use.
See also:
Watermarks, credits, titles, and distortions
Free images should not be watermarked, distorted, have any credits or titles in the image itself or anything else that would hamper their free use, unless, of course, the image is intended to demonstrate watermarking, distortion, titles, etc. and is used in the related article. Exceptions may be made for historic images when the credit or title forms an integral part of the composition. Historical images in the public domain sometimes are out of focus; display dye dropouts, dust or scratches; or evidence of the printing process used. All photo credits should be in a summary on the image description page. These may be tagged {{Watermark}}.
Privacy rights
When taking pictures of identifiable people, the subject's consent is not usually needed for straightforward photographs taken in a public place, but is often needed for photographs taken in a private place. This type of consent is sometimes called a model release, and it is unrelated to the photographer's copyright.
Because of the expectation of privacy, the consent of the subject should normally be sought before uploading any photograph featuring an identifiable individual that has been taken in a private place, whether or not the subject is named. Even in countries that have no law of privacy, there is a moral obligation on us not to upload photographs which infringe the subject's reasonable expectation of privacy. If you upload a self-portrait, your consent is presumed.
What are public and private places?
For the purposes of this policy, a private place is a place where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy, while a public place is a place where people have no such expectation.
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Legal issues
There are a variety of non-copyright laws which may affect the photographer, the uploader and/or the Wikimedia Foundation, including defamation, personality rights and privacy rights. In consequence, the commercial use of these pictures may still be unacceptable unless the depicted person agrees.
Defamation may arise not only from the content of the image itself but also from its description and title when uploaded. An image of an identified unknown individual may be unexceptional on its own, but with the title "A drug-dealer" there may be potential defamation issues in at least some countries.
Another factor to consider is the established reliability and past respect for copyright of the source of publication of a photo. Some tabloid newspapers and magazines have had legal issues with respect of original copyright for sake of getting their stories out, and images from such sources may be problematic to use on Wikipedia for both legal and moral reasons.
Moral issues
Not all legally obtained photographs of individuals are acceptable. The following types of image are normally considered unacceptable:
- Those that unfairly demean or ridicule the subject
- Those that are unfairly obtained
- Those that unreasonably intrude into the subject's private or family life
These are categories which are matters of common decency rather than law. They find a reflection in the wording of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation.
The extent to which a particular photograph is "unfair" or "intrusive" will depend on the nature of the shot, whether it was taken in a public or private place, the title/description, and on the type of subject (e.g. a celebrity, a non-famous person, etc.). This is all a matter of degree. A secretly taken shot of a celebrity caught in an embarrassing position in a public place may well be acceptable to the community; a similar shot of an anonymous member of the public may or may not be acceptable, depending on what is shown and how it is presented.
Examples
- Normally do not require consent of the subject
- A street performer during a performance
- An anonymous person in a public place, especially as part of a larger crowd
- Partygoers at a large private party where photography is expected
- A basketball player competing in a match open to the public
- Normally do require consent
- An identifiable child, titled "An obese girl" (potentially derogatory or demeaning)
- Partygoers at a private party where photography is not permitted or is not expected (unreasonable intrusion without consent)
- Nudes, underwear or swimsuit shots, unless obviously taken in a public place (unreasonable intrusion without consent)
- Long-lens images, taken from afar, of an individual in a private place (unreasonable intrusion)
Alternatives
If an image requires consent, but consent cannot be obtained, there are several options. For example, identifying features can be blurred, pixelated, or obscured so that the person is no longer identifiable. Also, the picture may be re-taken at a different angle, perhaps so that the subject's face is not visible.
Uploading images
Format
Generally:
- Drawings, icons, logos, maps, flags and other such images are preferably uploaded in SVG format as vector images. Images with large, simple, and continuous blocks of color which are not available as SVG should be in PNG format.
- Software screenshots should be in PNG format.
- Photos and scanned images should be in JPEG format, though a PNG may be useful as well, especially for software screenshots when only a raster image is available. (JPEGs are a lossy image format, and PNGs allow further editing without degrading the image.)
- TV and movie screenshots should be in JPEG format.
- Inline animations should be in animated GIF format.
- Video should be in Ogg/Theora or WebM format.
Generally speaking, you should not contribute images consisting solely of formatted or unformatted text, tables, or mathematical formulas. In most cases these can instead be typed directly into an article in wiki markup (possibly using MediaWiki's special syntax for tables, math). This will make the information easier to edit, as well as make it accessible to users of screen readers and text-based browsers.
In general, if you have a good image that is in the wrong format, convert it to the correct format before uploading. However, if you find a map, flag, etc. in JPEG format, only convert it to PNG if this reduces the file size. For further advice on converting JPEG to PNG, see Wikipedia:How to reduce colors for saving a JPEG as PNG.
Most of the maps on the CIA World Factbook website were coded as JPEG, but are now coded as GIF. To update these photos, download the GIF picture from the CIA factbook, resave it in PNG format, and upload it to Wikipedia.
Try to avoid editing JPEGs too frequently—each edit creates more loss of quality. If you can find an original of a photograph in 16-bit or 24-bit PNG or TIFF, edit that, and save as JPEG before you upload. A limited variety of edits (crops, rotation, flips) can be performed losslessly using jpegcrop (Windows) or jpegtran (other); try to use this where possible.
Avoid images that mix photographic and iconic content. Though CSS makes it easy to use a PNG overlay on top of a JPEG image, the Wikipedia software does not allow such a technique. Thus, both parts must be in the same file, and either the quality of one part will suffer, or the file size will be unnecessarily large.
Direct SVG support is implemented as of September 2005 (see meta:SVG image support). The SVG is dynamically rendered as a PNG at a given size when inserted into an article. If you find that a SVG image is being cropped too closely by Wikimedia's rendering software, one way around this is to draw a box around the image at the distance it should be cropped, and set the box to have no fill and no stroke color.
Images containing text
If you create an image that contains text, please also upload a version without any text. It will help Wikipedians translate your image into other languages.
Cropping
Within reason, crop an image to remove irrelevant areas. But do not "throw away information"; for example, if a photograph shows George Washington and Abraham Lincoln together at a birthday party, and the article you're working on requires only Lincoln, consider uploading both the original image and the crop of Lincoln. Also, if an image has captions as an inherent part of the artwork (as with book illustrations, early cartoons, many lithographs, etc.), don't crop them, or upload the original uncropped version as well.
Animated images
It may be preferable to convert a long or color-rich animation to Ogg/Theora format instead of GIF. Ogg does not allow an animation to play automatically on page loading, but it can contain audio and has generally better resolution.
Inline animations should be used sparingly; a static image with a link to the animation is preferred unless the animation has a very small file size. Keep in mind the problems with print compatibility mentioned elsewhere on this page.
Uploaded image size
Wikipedia and its sister projects are repositories of knowledge, so images should be uploaded at high resolution whether or not this seems "necessary" for the use immediately contemplated—"saving server space" is not a valid consideration in general, though there is a 1,000 MB (1 GB) limit.
- Exception: If the image is copyrighted and used under fair use, the uploaded image must be as low-resolution as possible consistent with its fair-use rationale, to prevent use of Wikipedia's copy as a substitute for the original work.
- The servers automatically handle the scaling of images (whatever their original size) to the sizes called for in particular articles, so it is neither necessary nor desirable to upload separate reduced-size or reduced-quality "thumbnail" versions, although compressing PNGs may be useful. (A free-download program "Ping Gauntlet" from Ben Hollis runs through various compression schemes to find the smallest file size. License restriction available on the web site.)
Image titles and file names
Descriptive file names are also useful. A map of Africa could be called "Africa.png", but quite likely more maps of Africa will be useful in Wikipedia, so it is good to be more specific in a meaningful way, e.g. "Africa political map Jan. 2012.png", or "Africa political map with red borders.png". Check whether there are already maps of Africa in Wikipedia. Then decide whether your map should replace one (in each article that uses it) or be additional. In the first case give it exactly the same name, otherwise a suitable other name. Avoid special characters in filenames or excessively long filenames, though, as that might make it difficult for some users to download the files onto their machines. Note that names are case sensitive, "Africa.PNG" is considered different from "Africa.png". For uniformity, lower case file name extensions are recommended.
You may use the same name in the case of a different image that replaces the old one, and also if you make an improved version of the same image – perhaps a scanned image that you scanned again with a better quality scanner, or you used a better way of reducing the original in scale – then upload it with the same title as the old one. This allows people to easily compare the two images, and avoids the need to delete images or change articles. However, this is not possible if the format is changed, since then at least the extension part of the name has to be changed.
Required information
- An Image copyright tag
- Description: The subject of the image. This should explain what the picture is of (ideally linking the article(s) it would be used on, and other identifying information that is not covered by the bullets below. For example, a picture of a person taken at a public event will often identify that event and the date of the event. (This is different from the image's caption or alt-text, and might be more descriptive than these.)
- Origin (source): The copyright holder of the image or URL of the web page the image came from
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- For an image from the internet the URL of an HTML page containing the image is preferable to the URL for just the image itself.
- For an image from a book this is ideally page number and full bibliographic information (author, title, ISBN number, page number(s), date of copyright, publisher information, etc.).
- For a self-created image, state "Own work" (in addition to an appropriate copyright tag, such as {{self}} or {{PD-self}}).
- Author: The original creator of the image (especially if different from the copyright holder). If the image is being uploaded with the permission of the creator, contact information should be provided.
- Permission: Who or what law or policy gives permission to post on Wikipedia with the selected image copyright tag
- Date the image was created, if available; a full date, if available, is better than simply the year
- Location at which the image was created, if applicable and available. This can be as specific as a GPS-derived longitude and latitude.
- Other versions of this file on Wikipedia e.g. cropped or uncropped, retouched or unretouched.
- Rationale for use (only required for non-free images). A separate non-free rationale is required for each use of the image on the English Wikipedia. Details of what is required for the non-free rationale is described in more depth on the non-free content page.
Adding images to articles
Content
The purpose of an image is to increase readers' understanding of the article's subject matter, usually by directly depicting people, things, activities, and concepts described in the article. The relevant aspect of the image should be clear and central. Wikipedia is not censored, and explicit or even shocking pictures may serve an encyclopedic purpose, but editors should take care not to use such images simply to bring attention to an article.
Placement
See Wikipedia:Image markup for recommendations on the best markup to use. For ideas and examples of how to place images, see Wikipedia:Picture tutorial.
Image galleries
Images are typically interspersed individually throughout an article near the relevant text (see WP:MOSIMAGES). However, the use of a gallery section may be appropriate in some Wikipedia articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images. The images in the gallery collectively must have encyclopedic value and add to the reader's understanding of the subject. Images in a gallery should be suitably captioned to explain their relevance both to the article subject and to the theme of the gallery, and the gallery should be appropriately titled (unless the theme of the gallery is clear from the context of the article). Images in a gallery should be carefully selected, avoiding similar or repetitive images, unless a point of contrast or comparison is being made. Just as we seek to ensure that the prose of an article is clear, precise and engaging, galleries should be similarly well-crafted. See 1750–75 in Western fashion for an example of a good use of galleries.
However, Wikipedia is not an image repository. A gallery is not a tool to shoehorn images into an article, and a gallery consisting of an indiscriminate collection of images of the article subject should generally either be improved in accordance with the above paragraph or moved to Wikimedia Commons. Links to the Commons categories can be added to the Wikipedia article using the {{Commons}}, {{Commons-inline}}, or {{Commons category}} templates. One rule of thumb to consider: if, due to its content, such a gallery would only lend itself to a title along the lines of "Gallery" or "Images of [insert article title]", as opposed to a more descriptive title, the gallery should either be revamped or moved to the Commons.
Articles consisting entirely or primarily of galleries are discouraged, as the Commons is intended for such collections of images. There is also consensus not to use a gallery of group members as the lead image for articles about large groups of people such as ethnicities.
Using animated GIFs to display multiple photos is discouraged. The method is not suitable for printing and also is not user-friendly (users cannot save individual images and have to wait before being able to view images while other images cycle round).
Fair-use images should almost never be included as part of a general image gallery, because their "fair use" status depends on their proper use in the context of an article (as part of analysis or criticism). See Wikipedia:Fair use for details. An example of an exception might be a gallery of comparable screenshots from a video game as it appears on two different platforms, provided that the differences are relevant (e.g. if the article discusses a controversy in the gaming press about the matter).
Collages and montages
Collages and montages are single images that illustrate multiple closely related concepts, where overlapping or similar careful placement of component images is necessary to illustrate a point in an encyclopedic way. (See File:Phoebian Explorers 2 PIA06118.jpg for an example montage.) The components of a collage or montage, as well as the collage or montage itself, must be properly licensed; and (as with galleries) fair-use components are rarely appropriate, as each non-free image used in the creation of the montage contributes towards consideration of minimal use of non-free images. If a gallery would serve as well as a collage or montage, the gallery should be preferred, as galleries are easier to maintain and adjust better to user preferences.
Image queuing
If an article seems to have too many images for its present text, consider moving some of them temporarily to the talk page, possibly using the <gallery>. However, fair-use images should not be moved to talk pages, for two reasons:
- fair-use images can only be used in articles (not e.g. talk pages or user pages), as specified in the image's fair-use rationale; and
- fair-use images become subject to deletion if not actually used in an article—see Wikipedia:Fair use#Policy and Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#Images/Media.
Displayed image size
Images adjacent to text should generally carry a caption and use the "thumb" (thumbnail) option, which displays the image at a width determined as follows:
- A1. For a user not logged in, the width—before any scaling due to
upright(see B below)—is currently defaulted to 220px (pixels). - A2. For a logged-in user, the width—before any scaling due to
upright—is as set in that user's user preferences (and this setting is 220px, unless the user has changed it). - B. If the
uprightparameter is present, then the initial width determined by A1 or A2 is multiplied by the upright scaling factor. This allows article editors to adjust the user's "base" image-size preference, according to the characteristics of a particular image. For example:|thumb|upright=1.4might be used for an image with fine detail, so that it will be rendered "40% larger than the user generally specified".|thumb|upright=0.75might be used for an image with little detail, which can be adequately displayed "25% smaller than the user generally specified".- "Landscape" images (short and wide) often call for
uprightgreater than 1. Similarly, "portrait" images (tall and narrow) may look best withuprightless than 1.
Notes:
- A common mistake is to omit
thumb, without which the image will usually display at a huge size. |thumb(withuprightcompletely missing) multiplies the width by 1.0 (i.e. does nothing)|thumb|upright(withuprightpresent, but no multiplier given) multiplies the width by 0.75 by default- The lead image (appearing at the top of the page) should usually be no wider than
upright=1.35(which is the default equivalent of 300px at preference selection of "220px").
See the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images § Size for further guidance on expanded or reduced image sizes. Except with very good reason, do not use px (e.g. thumb|300px), which forces a fixed image width. In most cases upright=scaling factor should be used, thereby respecting the user's base preference (which may have been selected for that user's particular devices). When px is used, the resulting image should usually be no more than 500 pixels tall and no more than 400 pixels wide, for comfortable display on the smallest devices "in common use" (though this may still cause viewing difficulties on some unusual displays).
Images used in infoboxes are generated by many different means. The most common method used to implement upright is Module:InfoboxImage (see documentation there). Alternatively, infoboxes can use standard image syntax in the form of [[File:Westminstpalace.jpg|frameless|center|upright=scaling factor]]
Deleting images
- Consider contacting the user who uploaded the image, telling them of your concerns. You may be able to resolve the issue at this point.
- Add a deletion notice to the image description page
- If it is an obvious copyright violation: use the {{db-f9}} or {{db-filecopyvio}} tag
- If it falls under certain of the other conditions listed under WP:CSD#Files: use {{subst:nsd}} for files that lack a description of its origin, {{subst:nld}} for files that lack licensing information, {{subst:nsdnld}} for files that lack both of these, {{subst:npd}} for files that have a licensing statement but no evidence that it really applies
- If it is tagged as non-free but obviously fails the non-free content policy in certain ways: use {{subst:orfud}} if it isn't used in any article, {{subst:rfud}} if it is replaceable with a free file, {{subst:nrd}} if it lacks a non-free content rationale, {{subst:dfu}} if the rationale is in some other way obviously insufficient
- In all these cases, the file will be deleted by an administrator after a waiting period of a few days.
- If the file is tagged as freely licensed but you have reasons to suspect this tagging is false: list the file under files for discussion, by adding the {{ffd}} template on the file and then adding a listing to the Wikipedia:Files for discussion pages following the instructions in the tag.
- Same if you think it should be deleted for some other reason: list the file under files for discussion, by adding the {{ffd}} template on the file and then adding a listing to the Wikipedia:Files for discussion pages following the instructions in the tag. This process may be used for images that are low quality, obsolete, unencyclopedic, likely to remain unused, or whose use under the non-free content rules is disputed.
- In each case, give proper notification to the uploader, following the instructions in the deletion tag.
To actually delete an image after following the above procedure, you must be an administrator. To do so, go to the image description page and click the (del) or Delete this page links. Administrators can also restore deleted images.
See also
- Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in image deletion discussions
- Wikipedia:Finding images tutorial
- Wikipedia:Graphics tutorials
- Wikipedia:How to create charts for Wikipedia articles
- Wikipedia:How to upload a photo
- Wikipedia:Image dos and don'ts
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Music samples – a related guideline for copyrighted music samples
- Wikipedia:Media
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Images and Media/Illustration taskforce
- m:Help:Redirect#Images linking to a specific page
- Category:Images requiring maintenance
