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File:David Reuben 1971.png
Hello, I hope you’ll consider reversing your deletion of this image, if that’s possible. I was engaging in a conversation with TAnthony on its talk page, and was in the process of responding. Closer scrutiny of the existing image (a publicity photo from The Flip Wilson Show) reveals that it is not, in fact, a free image. It was incorrectly uploaded to Wikimedia Commons; it is clearly not the work of its uploader, and there is no reason to think that the copyright holder gave permission — therefore, it should not be on WC. So their argument that a free alternative to File:David Reuben 1971.png exists, while made in good faith, is incorrect. Starfishprimo (talk) 00:17, 10 April 2026 (UTC)
- (talk page watcher) Hi Starfishprimo. Are you asking about File:Flip Wilson Geraldine 1971.JPG? I’m not Explicit, but this file seems (at least at first glance) to OK for Commons, which would mean File:David reuben md.JPG would also be OK for Commons. The person who uploaded the uncropped file isn’t claiming it to be their “own work”; they’re claiming it was a publicity photo released by its copyright holder without a proper copyright notice. Publicity photos released during that period of time (i.e., prior to 1 January 1978) were required to have individual copyright notices in order for them to be considered eligible for copyright protection (
{{PD-US-no notice}}); those that didn’t entered into the public domain (due to changes in US copyright law) on 1 January 1978. In many cases, providing a proper notice and other copyright formalities for such photos were simply not done because the copyright holder just didn’t think it was worth to do. Generally with publicity photos, the copyright notice appeared either in the border of the photo or on the back of the photo; this is why the uploader provided links to both the front and back of the photo. Those links are dead now (the photo seems to have been sold so its listing was removed by eBay), but it’s kind of unlikely that the uploader would’ve gone to the trouble of adding them if they did show the photo had a copyright notice. Did you by chance find the same photo with a visible copyright notice (border or back) on some other website? If you did, then that might be something worth starting a c:COM:DR about for the the file, but otherwise it’s unlikely going to end up being deleted just because of some dead links. FWIW, the full image (front and back) that was uploaded to Commons here, and I don’t see a copyright notice. — Marchjuly (talk) 00:42, 10 April 2026 (UTC)- (That was indeed the alternative image linked in the F7 tag.) —Cryptic 01:16, 10 April 2026 (UTC)
- Thanks, Marchjuly, for your thorough response. You’re correct on all counts; not sure how I missed that the back of the image was uploaded to Commons, but it makes it clear that it was not copyrighted. Although I’ve been editing for more than a decade, I’m new to uploading images. I have seen no evidence that image is under copyright, and I have no interest in havbing it removed. Starfishprimo (talk) 00:49, 11 April 2026 (UTC)
