Template talk:Free media

Conflict if in combination with non-free licenses

There is a basic issue with the use of this template: If there are more than one license templates specified on a file and one embeds this template "Free media" but the other one belongs to a non-free license, nonetheless the file is categorized as free media. That occurs e.g. with screenshots. Is there any magic to prevent the template from applying the category free media if another license is specified in addition? --Chris2map (talk) 19:44, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Ideally, there should be one licence template per file only. Otherwise, I would understand it as published under multiple licences and one can choose one of them. This does not contradict the categorisation. Do you have a specific template in mind? --Tigerfell  (Let's talk) 09:39, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Many images are composed of different components and sources. Therefore, these files would also have to have several license specifications. E.g. for the background (map, aerial photo or photo), any spatial data, map style, software interface, as well as possible edits by the uploader. Trademark and personal rights left out. The more I try to gather information about the legal requirements, the more I think we will never be able to use this category All free media safely. So I would scrap these for now and use Category:Files by license.

Example files:

1. File:CartoPartie 28 08 2021.png
2. File:Footway-crossing.jpg
3. File:Flyer Junta OSM Latam 2022-09-24.png
4. File:Importacao IPP 2021 2.png
5. File:A-RIO OLYMPICS-8.jpg
6. File:512MB Austria TextSearch.png

--Chris2map (talk) 09:53, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

I guess we first have to ask what the category is supposed to contain. I assume Władysław Komorek just created the category because it existed in the English Wikipedia. There it says "This category contains all freely licensed media hosted on Wikipedia." Looking at your examples and ignoring personal rights and trademarks, the last three examples potentially not belong into the category. That is not because they mix free and unfree licences but because I doubt that their licences are correct. No. 4 completely lacks licencing information. No. 5 has some unfree Windows interface design parts in it but that part is probably not relevant for that image, so you could just trim it off. Regarding image no. 6, I would say that the map could be licenced under CC BY-SA 2.0 but I am not sure about the interface. "All free media" is probably not correct. I do not see any advantage in this category because all images that appear in other categories like Category:CC BY-SA files appear in this super category again. So I am against this category, too but for other reasons. --Tigerfell  (Let's talk) 14:36, 18 December 2022 (UTC)