User:Abd/Bystander photos/Deletion discussions
Deletion discussions are listed here if a "bystander selfie" is a possible issue. So these will involve photos of the subject claiming copyright who is usually the uploader. One discussion involves a old possible bystander selfie from long ago, where the unknown death date of the unknown "photographer" was raised as an issue for public domain. Another involved a photo of a reporter with a famous person, and the story developed that the camera did not belong to him (not a classic bystander selfie), but that the user of the camera gave him the film, thus effectively abandoning claims (similar to bystander selfie in that way). Most of these discussions include comments that if the subject is in the photo the subject could not possibly be the photographer, which misses the point that it is very possible that a subject is at least a co-author and may thus have the right to release the photo.
One remarkable and contentious discussion featured a prominent Wikipedian in a selfie with the most famous Wikipedian of all. After much typical argument, about how ridiculous the arguments of others were, the uploader finally claimed that he had used a self-timer. Which seems implausible because the photo was tilted, but who is going to say he was lying? Besides, maybe he put the phone on someone's head. In fact, "self-timer" would not be the issue as much as who or what holds the camera, but it's all moot. The strongest legal opinion we have is that the subject owns ordinary bystander selfies, or may be treated as owning them. The whole thing has been a misunderstanding of copyright law, at least in the U.S. Because co-authors may have rights in other countries that they do not have in the U.S., it is possible that the situation would be different elsewhere, but the WMF legal opinion was that the subject is the sole author for purposes of copyright. My sense is that the strongest reason for this is the obvious abandonment of rights in returning the camera to the subject. The role of the bystander has been very limited, normally, and professional photographers have said that they would never claim copyright if taking a photo as a bystander. There is no known case where such a claim has been made.
- Nom 3 January 2012 MGA73
- Closed deleted 30 March 2012 Jameslwoodward
- Nom 24 June 2007 Chanueting
- (claim photo taken with subject's camera, so death date of unknown photographer would have mattered, not subject's death.)
- Closed kept 31 October 2007 Ejdzej
- Nom 28 April 2011 Krzysiu
- Keep/Delete votes 30/10. Keep closed based entirely on OTRS permission from Hamid Mir, so "bystander selfie" fact was ignored. One voter claimed that the identity of the photographer was known. If that evidence is accepted, then this wasn't a simple bystander selfie, the camera was actually a son of Bin Laden, using his own camera, and he handed the film to Hamid Mir. This is very similar to a bystander selfie in that the bystander hands the camera to the subject, thus transferring of the latent image.
- Closed kept 3 May 2011 Geo Swan
- Nom 21 September 2010 FunkMonk
- prior discussion of above. 7 Keep votes, no Delete. Deleted on classic "bystander selfie" argument.
- Commons:Undeletion requests/Archive/2010-11#File:Hamid Mir interviewing Osama bin Laden.jpg undid this first deletion. The filer of the second DR apparently did not see it. It pointed to other bystander selfie pages.
- Closed deleted 22 October 2010 Rama
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- nom 11 June 2009 Pieter Kuiper "Who made the photo?"
- closed kept 12 June 2009 Abigor "Bad Faith nomination"
- 2nd nom 2 August 2009 Teofilo bystander selfie argument
- 7 keep votes, no delete. Arguments claimed bystander selfie copyright owned by subject(s).
- Closed kept 5 August 2009 Abigor
- nom 12 November 2010 Pieter Kuiper "to make the point" on the undeletion request re Hamid Mir.
- closed kept 23 November 2010 Yann "No valid reason for deletion."
- 2nd nom 9 December 2010 VernoWhitney bystander selfie argument
- ultimately, self-timer was claimed. It was also pointed out that the photo was tilted, which would be less likely if a self-timer was used (how was the camera held?) -- but the point was not pushed, the nominator gave up.
- closed kept 21 December 2010 Yann "No new argument since last time." (which was not quite correct, the self-timer evidence was new).
- Commons:Deletion requests/File:Dwight Noga.JPG one argument given by delete closer was copyvio.
- nom 16 November 2010 Anatiomaros bystander selfie argument
- File was uploaded 21 July 2009, apparently placed on Commons user page that day, User page immediately deleted. WP, meta, mediawiki pages on the user were deleted. tl.wp page still exists. User pages cross-wiki deleted, user indef blocked on WP for vandalism, but user was not a vandal, the actual offense was apparently repeated recreation of his user page in mainspace: [1]. No unblock request information. Welcome to the Wiki. Now go away and don't come back.
- closed deleted 17 November 2010 George Chernilevsky "out of scope, poor quality, copyvio"
- Commons:Deletion requests/File:Robert Scott Kellner in 1960.jpg August, 2009, Bystander selfie. Kept (unanimous except for nominator, "photographer's permission is missing").
- nom 2 August 2009 Teofilo bystander selfie
- Acknowledged by uploader as bystander selfie. 4 !votes Keep with explicit arguments of non-copyright by bystander.
- closed kept 9 August 2009 Abigor "per discussion."
- nom 6 February 2015 Jameslwoodward (the second discussion) "The uploader is the subject of these images and therefore cannot be the photographer. The claim of "own work" is clearly not correct."
- File was protected from prior request, unprotected 13 February 2015. (User may have attempted to comment, could not.)
- closed deleted 15 February 2015 Ellin Beltz
- nom 12 January 2015 Russavia "Clearly not own work"
- closed deleted 20 January 2015 Yann based on a publication elsewhere, permission needed. Bystander selfie issue not addressed.
- nom 12 January 2015 Russavia "gifs have imgflip.com watermarks, unlikely own work in the circumstances. Other photos are also unlikely to be own work."
- Imgflip issue was addressed.
- closed kept 4 February 2015 Jameslwoodward
- 2nd nom 15:39, 5 February 2015 Elcobbola "uploader is the subject, not the author."
- reopened first nom 6 February 2015 Jameslwoodward "[User] "is the subject of all of these images and therefore his claim of "own work" is clearly incorrect." Edit summary: speedy.
- closed deleted 12 February 2015 Yann
- nom 15 February 2015 Ellin Beltz "subject cannot be photographer"
- closed deleted 22 February 2015 AFBorchert "this claim does not appear to be sufficiently trustworthy." (Claim was "own work," which was based on his common opinion that bystander selfies are own work, which can be seen in many old discussions. The videos, in particular, were obviously bystander selfies, because the camera moves.)
- nom 15 February 2015 Ellin Beltz "subject cannot be photographer"
- closed 22 February 2015 AFBorchert per doubt about "own work," and COM:PRP.
- nom 3 February 2015 Jameslwoodward "three are photographs which include the artist"
- Uploader raises point about ownership through owning the negatives. (Which raises an important bystander selfie argument.
- closed 4 February 2015 Jameslwoodward keeping all but three. Classic bystander selfie argument is given that does not consider subject ownership as a possibility. The remaining bystander selfie was restored by OTRS agent 5 February. There was no change in "authorship."
- Discussion at [2]
![[2]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jameslwoodward&oldid=153226026#File:Sgarbi_Macellari.png){kind=link}
- nom 10 November 2014 Jameslwoodward
- "feature a picture of him and all of which are claimed to be "own work". One has the watermark "M Silva". I think that if we want to keep these, we need licenses from the actual photographers."
- closed deleted 17 November 2014 INeverCry "per nom"
- nom 15:05, 11 March 2015 Thibaut120094 withdrawn [3]
- nom 14 March 2015 Jameslwoodward "the listed author is the subject, which cannot be correct."
- various problems asserted, not just a selfie argument. There were photos that probably should have been uploaded to Wikipedia for fair use, so this is not an uncomplicated bystander selfie case. As this is written, some photos were not deleted yet. They could easily have been bystander selfies.
- closed deleted 19 March 2015 Ellin Beltz various reasons.