Third-party photos hosted by the NWS uploaded by WeatherWriter

• File:The August 6, 2023 EF2 tornado south of Edinburg, Illinois.jpg
• File:A tornado on April 16, 2024.jpg
• File:The Gary, Indiana tornado on February 27, 2024.jpg
• File:Tim Marshall photograph of the 2023 Matador, Texas tornado.jpg
• File:A tree snapped in Clinton, Iowa from an EF0 tornado.jpg
• File:June 7, 2021 Weld County EF2 Tornado.jpg
• File:F4 damage to the Twin Cinemas in Van Wert, Ohio.jpg

These images were all sourced from webpages of the US National Weather Service but are the work of third-party photographers. However, we have no evidence that any of these images are in the public domain or available under a free license.

For many years, hosting such images on the Commons was done in good faith under the rationale that:

• public submissions to the NWS all entered the public domain and
• all files hosted on NWS websites were in the public domain unless they carried a formal copyright notice

An extensive review of this rationale in 2024 revealed that neither of these beliefs held up to scrutiny. These findings were confirmed in an RfC conducted from August to October 2024.

Per COM:ONUS it is the responsibility of the person uploading an image to the Commons or anyone arguing for its retention here to provide evidence of permission from the copyright holder. For anyone interested in seeking the permission of the creators to retain these files, I offer, as a head start, the following notes left over from when I investigated them:

File:The August 6, 2023 EF2 tornado south of Edinburg, Illinois.jpg

Photographer still owns the copyright. Stopped responding September 12 when asked about releasing it. VRT ticket:2024102810003738

File:A tornado on April 16, 2024.jpg

Photographer still owns the copyright. Stopped responding September 12 when asked about releasing it. VRT ticket:2024102810003756

File:The Gary, Indiana tornado on February 27, 2024.jpg

Photographer and this image easily findable on X; in the thread that follows, they grant permission to multiple media agencies to use, but they eventually stop responding. In my records, I noted that I had also messaged this creator, but I cannot find where I did that, so this might be an error. Anyway, I have messaged them on October 28 and will update this entry if they reply. VRT ticket:2024102810004308

File:Tim Marshall photograph of the 2023 Matador, Texas tornado.jpg

I was in correspondence with Tim Marshall about two other images of his hosted on the Commons. He was initially very responsive and seemed open to the idea of free licensing, but stopped responding on October 2, as soon as I showed him the release template. VRT ticket:2024100110011645

All these images were taken in the US after 1989, and therefore automatically protected by copyright at the instant of their creation unless ineligible for some reason. Unless anybody can provide any evidence of ineligibility for copyright, or permission from the respective copyright owners, we must delete all the files listed in this request per COM:PRP because as far as we can tell, they all are protected by copyright. --Rlandmann (talk) 10:25, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

• Keep File:F4 damage to the Twin Cinemas in Van Wert, Ohio.jpg. Per the National Science Foundation, the photographer of this image is a NOAA employee (and notes they were on official duty). The NSF photo is of the same structure from a difference angle. There is no evidence to dispute what the National Science Foundation says either. WeatherWriter (talk) 12:00, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not seeing it -- can you show me where the NSF says either that Paul Van Dyke worked for the NOAA or that he was on official duty when he took the photo? --Rlandmann (talk) 13:10, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  I found a document that identifies Paul Van Dyke as a "volunteer ham radio spotter" who accompanied NOAA staff during the damage survey. It doesn't say he was an actual NOAA employee. Ixfd64 (talk) 16:43, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  I also just got a super-quick response from NWS Northern Indiana to say that Paul Van Dyke's photos are attributable to him personally. I forwarded this response to the VRT: ticket:2024102810012853.

  This is another example of why we can't rely on fourth-party attributions to make determinations about copyright and licensing (as already ratified in the RfC), no matter how reliable the fourth party is. And even if the NSF had said that Mr Van Dyke had been an on-duty NOAA employee (which I'm still not seeing...) --Rlandmann (talk) 21:41, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  Well, I misread the NSF post. However, the document found by Ixfd64 + Rlandmann getting "attributable" from NWS confirms my IRL knowledge at least. The photo is free to use as he was apart of the survey team, even though he was not active NWS staff. Just the same as my IRL time with NOAA-related surveys/projects went. Since there is no immediate evidence, COM:PRP means the Commons must delete this photo. However, for the record, this photo is free-to-use as it was taken amid a formal survey...just has to be deleted per COM:PRP as there is no public declaration from Mr. Dyke. WeatherWriter (talk) 03:58, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

  You have reached an incorrect conclusion, and this is a good example of the dangers of overgeneralising from insufficient data. I have now had a second response from NWS Northern Indiana stating that although Mr Van Dyke was embedded within an NWS survey team, he owns the copyrights to his work, and his permission to the NWS to use his work extended only to their web story.

  As for the NSF, he might have had a different arrangement with them, or someone at the NSF might simply have made the same mistake that you (and very many others on the Commons) made and just assumed that "on weather.gov = free to use" (for any of the various reasons that people have believed this).

  More broadly, we now know that we cannot simply assume that work done by individuals who are not NWS/NOAA staff on NWS/NOAA projects or activities is necessarily free to use. We now know that this varies on a case-to-case basis and we need to check, rather than just guess. --Rlandmann (talk) 21:48, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

   Delete All per @Rlandmann. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 19:06, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Deleted: per nomination and COM:PCP, not public domain. --Abzeronow (talk) 01:55, 4 February 2025 (UTC)