Wikipedia talk:Non-free content

See also: Wikipedia talk:Non-free content criteria exemptions

Fair use for BLP

What is the policy around using fair use images for living BLPs where there are no free alternatives currently? R. G. Checkers ^talk 01:32, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

Hi R. G. Checkers. In pretty much all cases, such a non-free image isn't going to be considered to meet WP:NFCC#1 if used for primary identification purposes at the top of or in the main infobox a stand-alone article about a living person simply because no free-equivalent image currently exists; in other words, a non-free image can't be used by default until someone finds a free-equivalent to replace it. FWIW, if Wikipedia's non-free content use policy allowed such a thing, there would most likely be no stand-alone articles about living people without an image in the main infobox. The reason such images are not allowed is because as long as someone is alive, it's not totally unreasonable to expect that at some point in time someone (even the subject of the article themselves) will either be able to find or create a freely licensed image that's capable of serving the same encyclopedic purpose as any non-free one. Of course, there's almost always an exception to any rule, including NFCC#1 (as explained in item 1 of WP:NFC#UUI), but in general such images are not allowed and typically considered to be eligible for speedy deletion per WP:F7. Now, if you've got a specific article/person in mind, it might be easier for someone to give you a more specific answer.

Finally and just to clarify a bit, using such an image would almost certainly be problem free if fair use is what mattered, but Wikipedia's non-free content use policy has been intentionally set up to be more retrictive than fair use. One of these additional restrictions is WP:FREER, and this is why such images almost always tend to not be allowed. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:15, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

I'm going to add an actual info reference of the template FIELD names next to the criteria points

Surprisingly, the text on the criteria list doesn't match the terminology in the NFC template fields. That makes it a bizarre incoherent mess for a person to faithfully correctly set a rationale page, and makes it a kafkaesque nightmare to fix the reasons why a poorly programmed removal bot wrongly removed a non-problematic picture that clearly had every template field correctly filled in.

So for example, the template says "Source" and links usefully to NFCC #4. But NFCC #4 has no mention of the word "Source" whatsoever. So I'm going to parenthetically add "(Source field in template).

Same problem with several other points. CTRL+F fails, because the words are totally different and the usable information isn't called out. I'm going to fix that. I'm writing this talk page because many users delete indisputable nonproblematic excellent quality edits, with zero articulable reason in the summary and zero articulable issue raised, because they wrongly believe that any change must be pre-approved on the Talk page. So, here's the Talk page topic.RandomEditor6772314 (talk) 21:40, 30 August 2026 (UTC)

I just noticed that the actual page content comes from the almost exactly similarly named https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-free_content_criteria page, so, in a Kafkaesque nightmare, I'm going to open the discussion and make the edits there instead. DISCUSSION HERE: SELF-CLOSED.RandomEditor6772314 (talk) 21:45, 30 August 2026 (UTC)

In an even worse kafkaesque nightmare, I now see that the Talk page for similarly named page (transcluded to the other page) in fact links to a Talk page title/location for the other page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-free_content - Criteria information can't be edited, because it's transcluded

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-free_content_criteria - can be usefully edited, yet, the Talk page links to the apparent talk page of the "other" article.

DISCUSSION: RE-OPENED.RandomEditor6772314 (talk) 21:49, 30 August 2026 (UTC)

Non-free use rationales aren't required to use templates; they can be written out in long-form as long as they include the required information. So, it's not clear whether you the changes you made were actual improvements. You probably should see whether there's a consensus to that such additional clarification is needed first and only then figure out the wording. -- Marchjuly (talk) 03:00, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

Complaint about NFCC 3b and WMF media usage in general

I will start by saying that I have mostly followed WMF projects' rules as much as I can. I even got the chance to reach out to an artist so I could have an image of him on Wikipedia, probably the only time I will ever get a chance like that. And what brought me here is this removal discussion. I'll quote it so I don't rewrite my statements.

I personally don't get Wikipedia's stigma against non-free images [...] I took a better look at the NFCC and saw that it is based on a document from March 23, 2007, like three months away from me being born and the first iPhone releasing, no wonder why Wikipedia feels so behind while Genius and publications get to have such high quality works.

By the way, what gives with the push for Commons? I also wondered what the push was for CC BY SA in general, I hardly see media under CC BY, or even CC0, which is my personal choice. Not that it is a bad license of anything, copyleft is a small bit of protection when auto-copyright exists. But I could not mind for that at all if it weren't for these criteria demands.

3b is my first issue...and my biggest pet peeve

An entire work is not used if a portion will suffice. Low-resolution, rather than high-resolution/fidelity/bit rate is used (especially where the original could be used for deliberate copyright infringement).

What in hell? Purposely making imagery smaller? Sorry for my tone LOL, but damn, doesn't the WMF know how much information it is holding that people rely on? And for the amount of money they get, you would think the least they can do is give a capped resolution of 544x544? YouTube Music uses this for its thumbnails, it is more than fine enough.

I have an example of where this can be a little warranted, as well. Certain small details in album artwork get lost when it is resized like that. See this comparison of Wikipedia's file and YouTube Music's file. You can see the smaller text of it more greatly. And that is not even going into how Genius flat out hosts the artwork in all of its resolution.

You might be thinking about #2, where "non-free content [should not] used in a manner that is likely to replace the original market role of the original copyrighted material", and that is just the thing, it is for the original market role.

Here is where I am going with this. 300 Entertainment isn't going to care if I post the album artwork for Good News, but they will sure care if I post the audio files from the album. And like that, Getty Images, isn't going to like if their iStock images are pirated (watermark-less). I have an idea I will put into a table.

If it is an...	...then
TV, movie, or music work	You are not permitted to use the full work. Let's say under 30 seconds of it is fine. Cover artwork can especially appear for the infobox.
Asset-based group (selling images, audio, etc.)	You are not permitted to use any of the works. Only if they ever give Wikimedia explicit permission.
Live ticketed event	Only permitted to use the poster for it. No videos. Images if the company allows it, as well as other rules, etc.

Should be fine.

Oh, and some other things that don't matter as much but I'd like to say

• Non-free material is only allowed on its single article. (#7)
  • I guess it sounds correct but if it was upped just a little, it would be a neat addition for articles. For example, the album Good News can appear on Megan Thee Stallion page as it is her debut studio album.
• Non-free material can't appear on hover pop-ups. (See the image to the right).
  • This is just odd, it reminds me of how YouTube's "Marked for Kids" content can't be played using the miniplayer.
• Faceless/ugly picture biographies
  • For faceless pages, you don't really know what the person could be referencing, and you have to search for it outside of Wikipedia. I know Wikipedia can use fair use on bios, as Technoblade has one.
  • For bad pictures, I don't really know. It can't be that bad to have a fair use image for a while until someone finds a good Commons license, right? Takeoff only has two pictures on Commons where you can hardly see his face because of the lighting and his glasses.

Sorry again if I come off as an angry Internet person writing a wall of text. But WMF, or at least the English Wikipedia should know that we do live in a world where copyrighted media does exist and is absolutely consumed most. It is nice that the Commons exist as a way to pick from free content but Wikipedia is limiting itself by these weird choices.

Thanks, even if you read a little bit of all that.

From Gemdation (talk) 14:25, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Just realized that in my fury of low quality images I forgot to go on about the "stigma" I was talking about in the beginning. Basically it feels like there are so more hurdles to go over to get a copyrighted/non-free image on a page. I tried my best for the music albums I wanted alternative covers on, such as Hot Pink and Detour. But for The Life of a Showgirl, it somehow wasn't enough to escape the NFCC. Also don't mind me saying "ugly images" heh, it was just a blunt reference to Wikipedia infamously having unflattering images at times. Also should've mentioned how Genius has full resolution pictures and they are a for-profit site. Gemdation (talk) 16:19, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

It is critically important to understand that Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia; free as in gratis, not free as in beer. See Wikipedia:Gratis versus libre for a better understanding of this concept. Wikipedia is part of the Free-culture movement. The more non-free content we hold, the less free we are. As an educational resource, we have extremely wide liberty to use non-free materials under fair use doctrine. We do not because we are free and intend on remaining that way. Wikipedia became one of the top ten websites in the world by traffic in part for this reason. We will not be walking away from that ethos. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:36, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes, yes, I know about WMF's family of projects. Though my point was to not eradicate CC BY SA if that was what got through. My point is that so much of Wikipedia articles can be just a little bit better if small things like good enough resolution and that pop-up thing like earlier.

Here's an example, Backrooms is a remarkably popular film for various reasons, couldn't the page be better with a frame (yes it could be a single frame) from a behind-the-scenes video posted by distributor? You wouldn't be able to, or it would probably get taken down.

Even then, let's say we can't have anything but that infobox thumbnail. Why is it low quality? Does a literal smaller image make it less non-free? I will say it is pretty nice that Wikipedia snuck in an .ORG domain while everyone else was commercial. But this 'ethos' can be a bias, too. Non-political of course, but it is still a bias being pushed for. Gemdation (talk) 18:49, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't for sale and never will be. Thus, the .org seems rather appropriate. To inverse your argument; a little bigger image with a little higher resolution would be good, no? Ok, how about another step bigger/better? How about 5x as much? Why not maximum resolution? We're not selling the article, right? Any single image of non-free content isn't changed because it's still a single image of non-free content, right? I mean, 1 image is 1 image, right? So why all the constraints? --Hammersoft (talk) 19:54, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

I have no idea what any of this is supposed to mean, I made sure none of my statements would be misinterpreted. At the end of the day it is only a complaint, a critique even, because I thought something could be done better. Gemdation (talk) 20:05, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

What I'm noting is that an argument to increase the size/quality of an image really has no end. If it's a good enough argument to increase it a little, it's a good enough argument to increase it a lot. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:20, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Okay, now that I'm back and had a bitof time to think I still don't know what this could entail. I gave an example earlier that 544x544 is decent, since it seems to be a big deal to not have too much. Not too small as Wikipedia, and not too big as Genius. And I am not trying to commercialize Wikipedia of course...that kinda reminded me of one of these logical fallacy things LOL Gemdation (talk) 16:16, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Free beer IS gratis. Maybe libre beer could mean it has been freed from containment and is beginning to soak into your shoes, but in any case I think something got tangled somewhere.

You are at librety to express gratisude for the beer. :) TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 01:07, 18 October 2026 (UTC)

Well, if I'd had as many beers as you obviously have had I dare say I'd at least spell 'gratitude' correctly! hahaha :) --Hammersoft (talk) 01:23, 18 October 2026 (UTC)

Hi Gemdation. I think you've misread or misunderstood WP:NFCC#7. There's nothing in Wikipedia's non-free content use policy that states non-free content can only be used once; NFCC#7 only says that non-free content needs to be used in at least one article (otherwise it's considered "orphaned non-free use and eligible for speedy deletion per WP:F5). As for you comments about NFCC#3b, I'm pretty much in agreement with Hammersoft. I'm only going to add that images have never been a requirement for creating a Wikipedia article (that's always been WP:N); so, while adding images is nice in many ways, the priority for Wikipedia has always been on providing high-quality reliable sourced and verifiable textual content. Commons, on the other hand, has from the start prioritized providing high quality media content. Unlike social media and other sites, though, the purpose of Wikipedia and Commons isn't to promote the subjects of the content they host; so, a Wikipedia article about Good News (Megan Thee Stallion album) only needs an image that sufficient enough for readers readers to identify the subject of the article; it isn't trying to promote the album and get people to go and purchase it like Megan the Stallion's or her label's official YouTube accounts might be trying to do. If an artist or their label wants to make a high-resolution copy of their album covers available under an acceptable free license, I'm sure Wikipedia and Commons would have no problem hosting it. -- Marchjuly (talk) 03:03, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Hello, and yeah, I see sometimes there are little song clips (Hot Pink (album)#Music and lyrics), screenshots (Focus (Ariana Grande song)#Music video). Though I barely see them, most likely because people believe that they can't or shouldn't add anything else that is non-free other than infobox art covers. And about the images never being a requirement, don't you think they should? I did say "For faceless pages, you don't really know what the person could be referencing". I see on those non-free rationales that there is a box for being replacable [with a file using a free license], why not get a non-free file while the article waits for a free file?

This is all quality of life, the point is to make Wikipedia a little more nicer by default. Not many media publishers are aware/care that items can be submitted to Commons, like I do not think I would have ever seen semi-popular video game cover use a CC license if it wasn't for one indie game (Celsete). And even then I see the file details and it still bugs about some "contains a specific depiction of a non-free work [...] that was intentionally released under a free license". What? So what is the point of taking it to Commons if it has a big red warning? I am aware of trademark disclaimers and de minimis but that game cover could've totally been high quality if non-free files had the chance to be. Gemdation (talk) 16:16, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

To be sure I understand what you're asking; you're saying that:

• We should allow non-free imagery while waiting for a free image.
• We should require images (which might be non-free) on biography articles.
• We should permit higher resolution non-free images up to 544x544
• We shouldn't worry about being sued by a rights holder of album cover art
• We should deprecate WP:NFC#UUI #6, which allows the use of a non-free image only once if it has a dedicated article about it, and instead allow a non-free image to be used in multiple places.
• We should allow for non-free images to be used even when free license images exist of the subject if the non-free images are higher quality

Is that a good quick summary of what you'd like to see change? --Hammersoft (talk) 18:56, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

For a second when I glanced at this I was actually on the way to some change, and uh, sad.

Keep in mind that I not in a WMF staff position to know fully about subjects. My complaint is an equivalent of a GitHub Issue, where problem(s) are just pointed out mostly, and not a Pull request where something is directly solved for the repo managers.

As for the points:

• I think that is fair for biographies and limited-time events.
• Pretty much. There is a page on why bio pages need particular care. There should be care to not confuse people.
• Nice. 544x544 for album covers. Haven't thought of the rest of medias.
• But don't you have that "extremely wide liberty to use non-free materials under fair use doctrine". If you mean media platforms like SteamGridDB which sometimes have takedown requests from Nintendo, it is because they aren't in fair use I believe.
• This is one of the things hard to understand with all that's been said, so I'll just say it should be fine for a non-free file to appear on multiple pages. The Template:Non-free use rationale album cover's singular article box implies that it can only appear on one page.
• Quality control is here for this. The infobox page for Takeoff isn't the best, but it gives a general look at him. The other day I saw an image of North West that looked like it was taken on a flip phone, I can't show it to you now since it ended up being deleted but it did not give a good general look at her.

Gemdation (talk) 19:55, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

The above being the case in general agreement with what I've said, the answer is...extremely unlikely to happen. Ok so first off from a procedural standpoint; our discussion here will have absolutely no impact on the WP:NFCC policy or WP:NFC guideline. To do that, a RFC would need to be started, and carefully scoped as to what is exactly the desired outcome. For such an RFC to succeed, it will almost certainly have to be focused on a single issue in the above list that you would like to see change. If you try to make it about more than one, the chances of success go to zero. Now, that doesn't mean I think any of these would succeed. I think it extremely unlikely that any such changes would gain traction. But, don't let that dissuade you from attempting it. Pick one. Start with just one...just one. We can discuss that one here and if you still think there's hope for it to move forward, then constructing an RFC would be the way to go. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:06, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Concerning films

Would public domain films with characters still copyrighted (e.g. a LOT of Porky Pig cartoons), fulfill all requirements for non-free media? Not using Porky's (or any other copyrighted character) appearance beyond these public domain films might count as a minimal extent of use.Go D. Usopp (talk) 10:40, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

If a film is public domain then the film's depiction of those characters would also be public domain, but more modern depictions of the character may still be copyrighted. See Mickey Mouse for an example. The infobox image is public domain, but further down the article there is a nonfree modern rendering of Mickey. -- Whpq (talk) 21:08, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

Rename "Category:Marker templates"

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2026 October 16#Category:Marker templates. —⁠andrybak (talk) 01:12, 17 October 2026 (UTC)

Question about minimal usage

Hey all. I was considering taking on a GA review of the article about Tove Jansson's artistry, but I noticed that the article makes extensive use of non-free images. This makes sense given the subject, as it's important to illustrate a subject that is so fundamentally visual. But I've not come across an article with so many non-free images before, with this one including one for every section/subsection. Before taking this on for review, I wanted to come here first to clarify whether this article's use of non-free images is compliant with NFCC3A. If it is, I'll be happy to take the review on; but if it isn't, how many images would need to be removed and how can I tell whether usage of non-free images is minimal? --Grnrchst (talk) 10:58, 19 October 2026 (UTC)

@Chiswick Chap: Courtesy ping to nominator. --Grnrchst (talk) 10:59, 19 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. There are 8 images by Jansson in the article, and as you say, their use is dictated by the subject and by the sources cited in each section. The usage is minimal as there is just one image for each section, chosen to give both an idea of the range of work (e.g. 'Murals') and to illustrate the multiple scholarly and critical comments on that type of work. The test is whether the article would be seriously damaged by the removal of the images, and I'd suggest that the answer would be a definite 'Yes' to that, the article couldn't be written (indeed, wouldn't have been created) without the images in mind. 8 non-free images may be more than usual, but it is by no means a record, and as we agree, it is rather few for an article on an artist's range of work: and as I hope the article demonstrates, Tove Jansson's artistry spans an exceptionally wide range. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:15, 19 October 2026 (UTC)

minimum usage is not measured by images per section, its overall are we using just enough pictures overall to help the reader understand the article. We also need to consider overall usage so this includes non free on Jansson's bio page. That all said, the only thing that stands out in my eye here is the photo of the mural painting which is probably better on the bio page since this page is about her works. Each of the other nonfrees appears to meet NFCC#8 (discussed in context if the article, with sourcing) and there is sufficient variety of the work that each example appears unique. This includes the works on her bio page too. Masem (t) 13:03, 19 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, I've moved that image, so we're ready for the GAN review. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:20, 19 October 2026 (UTC)

@Masem: Thanks so much for confirming! --Grnrchst (talk) 13:29, 19 October 2026 (UTC)