Template talk:Infobox album#"Released" parameter and future dates

A modification was done somewhere and now all the "this_year" say 160. (CC) Tbhotch^™ 18:12, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

:I believe that I have fixed this problem. Affected pages may need a null edit. If a page is still having problems, please link to it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:32, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

::Almost Healed. I started a discussion at VPT but if you think you have it sorted I'll revert for now. Primefac (talk)

:::Ping to {{u|Gonnym}} who seems to have caused this to happen. Primefac (talk) 18:58, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

:::It looks like the problem is indeed caused by Gonnym. For example, June 4, 2010 is now displayed as June 04, 2010 (based on Bionic (Christina Aguilera album)). Regards, Nature Moon (talk) 22:12, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

The doc currently says that "only the record label that the album was originally released on should be specified". While I fully agree with this, there are some cases when a band had signed contracts with two labels at once, and both are considered original. For instance, Black Sabbath had contracts with Vertigo in UK and Warner in US since their first album, and then for a couple of decades. So it somewhat disappoints me when someone removes Warner, but I have no formal reasons to argue. Should the doc mention a possibility of such exceptions? Like, "Note that there are cases when an artist had originally signed contracts with more than one label". — Mike Novikoff 22:44, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

:If its clear that someone was signed to a joint deal, both labels should be listed. >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 21:02, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

I believe that there should be a parametre for distributors, so as to not confuse readers as to who is the label(s) and the distributor(s) of a release. ValenciaThunderbolt (talk) 15:29, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

:Disagree, distributors are superfluous information. Independent artists might release an album straight to a platform so there wouldn't be a distributor anyway. The distributor simply helps the album/song get to the chosen channel (store or streaming). Other than that, they don't do very much. Many distributors are owned by the big three record companies anyway. Record companies can also behave as distributors e.g. BMG Records is often a distributor for an artist's independent label, but they also release music themselves as a record label in their own rights. >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 21:05, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

::You make a good point, but it isn't always the case when it comes to distributors in, say, South Korea, where the label doesn't own the distributor (unless you're Hybe and YG, who are shareholders in the one who distributes for them). ValenciaThunderbolt (talk) 21:34, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

:::introducing a separate field will likely just confuse things further as there will be arguments over when a company is a distributor versus label. The infobox is a summary of the most relevant information. Distributor is nowhere near as important as the record label, its the latter that pays for the marketing and arranges distribution. Happy to see what others think. >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 21:57, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

I propose we remove the text "is significantly different from the original and is widely distributed and/or" so that less alternative cover art can be inserted into music articles.

The history of this text is that a consensus was formed against the casual inclusion of alternative cover art images in March 2011 at the Wikipedia:Non-free content/Cover art RfC. {{u|Masem}} said the following: "Stronger discouragement of alternate cover art just because it exists. More an issue in the music projects, but NFCI#1 should only apply to one cover image, no more. Secondary and alternative covers should require good demonstration of meeting NFCC completely and cannot rely on simply meeting NFCI#1. In terms of wording, all we need to say for now is that NFCI#1 only gives a maximum of one allowance of a cover image per article; any further uses must be justified another way."

In October 2012, {{u|Jheald}} acted against this sentiment by changing the template text to say, [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3AInfobox_album%2Fdoc&diff=prev&oldid=517341173 "An alternate cover that is significantly different from the original and is widely distributed and/or replaces the original has generally been held to pass this criterion."] I don't think Jheald's change agrees with Wikipedia policy listed at WP:NFCCP. The problem is that the alternative covers generally do not answer all ten of the policy requirements, especially minimal usage and contextual significance. Binksternet (talk) 23:42, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:I strongly agree that the addition of the extra wording will increase risk of additional artwork being added to articles in violation of Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria. I support the removal of the extraneous wording.

:Multiple cover art images is highly discouraged from Wikipedia, per Wikipedia:Image use policy#Fair-use/Non-free images.

::Some usage of copyrighted materials without permission of the copyright holder can qualify as fair use in the United States (but not in most other jurisdictions). However, since Wikipedia aims to be a free-content encyclopedia, not every image that qualifies as fair-use may be appropriate. As required by the Wikimedia Foundation to meet the goals of a free content work, the English Wikipedia has adopted a purposely-stricter standard for fair-use of copyrighted images and other works, called the non-free content criteria. In general, if the image cannot be reused (including with redistribution and modification rights) by any entity, including commercial users, then the image must be considered non-free.

:Per the Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria, "There is no automatic entitlement to use non-free content in an article or elsewhere on Wikipedia." Per rule 3a of the policy, Minimal usage: "Multiple items of non-free content are not used if one item can convey equivalent significant information."

:Basically, one cover image is acceptable, multiple cover images are against policy. To go back to the earlier posted text, it might be okay in the US, but Wikipedia's goal is to be a global resource and some other countries have stricter copyright rules, it is best to not egregiously attach multiple copyrighted artwork to album articles and similar usage articles. Mburrell (talk) 03:54, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

{{re|Binksternet|Mburrell}} My apologies for not getting back to you sooner. I have been in the process of moving house; and now, thanks to the UK having decided to no longer roll over copper telephone lines, I find myself without home internet until I choose a (more expensive) full-fibre supplier and wait until it gets installed. So also apologies in advance that any replies to this thread may also be delayed.

{{re|Binksternet}} I think you mis-read the results of that 2011 RfC. The key result of that RfC was that there is not some special "exception" or "allowance" made for cover art, but that its inclusion represented the normal workings of NFCC #8 : that seeing how the album was presented and marketed and how it was identifiable to a large number of people represented valuable information about the topic of the article, which would not be conveyed if it was not included.

Masem introduced a very late additional proposal that this should only extend to one cover item. It did not receive widespread discussion, little support from those who were not already against cover art, and was not included in the final close. Its whole line that we are making an "allowance" for cover art goes against what was the mainstream view.

The issue of alternate cover art continued to be discussed at WT:NFC (eg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content/Archive_54#What_constitutes_contextual_significance_when_it_comes_to_alternate_cover_art? September 2011], six months after the RfC), without a sense that it was a "closed" question. When I edited the present advice into the template in 2012 (based on wording workshopped at WT:ALBUMS over several threads in 2009 after a series of FFD decisions) I gave full notification at WT:NFC ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content/Archive_57#Multiple_non-free_images_in_an_article October 2012]), and received no pushback. So this was not some edit made in secret in a corner: it represented mainstream thought and practise, and was made with full disclosure to the NFC policy discussion board.

It is factually wrong to say that "consensus was formed against the casual inclusion of alternative cover art images in March 2011" and it is factually wrong to say when I added the current guidance to the template that I was acting against prevailing sentiment. I would ask you to withdraw both those assertions.

{{re|Mburrell}} The NFC policy actually developed very much with an eye to US fair-use law and precedent. As you quote, the NFCC is more restrictive -- but it is so in a limited particular number of well-defined ways, for particular well-defined reasons: 1. We don't accept NFC (even if the law would allow it) if equivalent free materials could be created instead, because we want to encourage the creation of those free materials. 2. We try to set the line to include only what a advertising-supported verbatim commercial reuser could reuse under U.S. law, because we want to make it possible for our content to be re-used at scale automatically as-is (ie not using any additional leeway WP might have as a not-for-profit org with an educational objective). 3. As a large organisation, a potential Goliath, we need to be ever-conscious of our reputation -- we want to be seen to be treading lightly, not hurting any potential Davids, cautious in our use of NFC, not using NFC in any way that could be seen as unreasonable or without good purpose.

At the same time, our driving purpose is to be as good an information resource as we can for our readers. This is the balance NFCC #8 tells us to find: if an image does add something significant and worth having to our readers' understanding of the topic, and is compatible with the other NFC criteria then we want to include it. There is no particular good or virtue served by adopting a more puritanical hair-shirt position. It would merely leave our readers under-informed.

You raise the issue of other countries. As mentioned above, the NFC criteria were very much crafted with an eye to US law. No claim is made that the NFC criteria are compatible with non-US law. Technically somebody could perhaps make a takedown claim based on lex loci protectionis and non-US visibility. But to the best of my knowledge, no such takedown request has ever been made. In part this may be down to the perception that en-wiki is a US-founded US-domiciled service with a significant readership in the US so US courts might not hurry to apply non-US law to it. But I think a greater part is the "reasonableness" alluded to above -- so long as we have a reputation for considered carefulness, what we are taking is serving a reasonable purpose, is no more than needed for that purpose, and we're not stomping on anybody unreasonably to achieve that purpose, and we acknowledge the in-copyright non-free status of the work, then copyright owners (even international ones) seem prepared to go along with that claim of "U.S. fair use" in the template on the file page. At any rate, on the limited occasions that I've talked to individuals from Foundation Legal about it, they have seemed comforable with NFC policy and practice on en-wiki, and not identified any need or desire to restrict or tighten it.

Yes, the NFC policy does mean that entities that are not under US law cannot automatically re-present our pages verbatim at scale including their NFC content. But that's the choice we as a community made when the decision was taken to have NFC and an NFC policy. And it's not clear that there's really any benefit in trying to increase from 61% compliant to 63% compliant with the local non-US law (or whatever) -- you're either compliant (and pages can be reused automatically) or you're not (in which case NFC images are going to have to be checked); being that little bit more partially compliant doesn't really help. There's also a strong case that showing US fair use done well is actually one of the most beneficial things in non-fair-use countries, as it encourages people and legislators to see (a) that US-style fair use can be reasonable and workable and produce reasonable results; and (b) encourage people to ask 'if that can be legally used there, why shouldn't it be legally usable here too?' -- in line the kind of reasonable liberalisations that fit with the Wiki movement's access-to-knowledge agenda, that Foundation public policy reps quietly make the case for in representations in cities around the world, and which have indeed come to pass to different degrees in some countries. It's maybe also worth remarking that, of all the different types of NFC, faithful product representations are some of the images most likely to be considered legitimate in different jurisdictions, or to be considered to be reproduceable by "implied licence", or to be least likely the target of takedown requests, which is why of the different types of NFC they are probably the most widely accepted on international versions of Wikipedia. Besides, if somebody is outside the U.S., isn't it better if they can see the image, and then decide for themselves whether to include it in their non-US project (depending on what their local law happens to be), rather than not see it at all, and never have the choice ?

But to return to the main question. The key issue for the NFC analysis is: what are cover images here for? If we had cover images just for the sake of having an image, then perhaps one would be as good as another, and any particular one would be enough. But, per NFCC #8 and that RfC, the images are not here just for the sake of having an image. They are here because we believe that how the album was presented and marketed and how it was identifiable to a large number of people is significant information that is highly relevant to the knowledge that people would want to have of the subject. If in another era or a major other part of the world the album was presented and marketed and identifiable by an entirely different image, by the same logic what that image looked like is similarly significant information. Does just one of the images convey the "equivalent significant information" (NFCC #3a) as presenting both images? No, because the first image does not tell us anything at all about what the other cover looks like, so does not convey the relevant significant information about it.

That's the policy basis for including alternate covers.

We don't want our articles lighting up with NFC like Christmas trees. But the text, tracking FFD decisions, guards against this by specifying that any alternate cover has to be significantly different; must have been widely distributed (usually understood to be the principal release in several of the album's most significant territories) or have utterly replaced the original -- and even then we warn that these are not cast-iron criteria, and that even then there is still discretion that it may not be accepted.

We do want our articles to be as informative as possible, and to convey to the reader as much significant relevant understanding of the topic of the article as we can -- which is why, if an alternate cover meets the criteria above, in general it should stay in the article. Jheald (talk) 23:52, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Carly Rae Jepsen's "Shadow", the original song wasn't released as a single but its remix version was released as a single. [https://music.apple.com/kr/album/shadow-george-daniel-remix-single/1703648927] In the remix, however, the original song isn't included, unlike Aurora's "[https://music.apple.com/us/album/apple-tree-georgia-remix-single/1640555962 Apple Tree]" and "[https://music.apple.com/kr/album/daydreamer-kda-london-dub-single/1484463494 Daydreamer]". In Aurora's case, I and another user decided to regard these two singles as promotional singles because their original songs are included in their remix versions anyway.

But Carly Rae Jepsen's "Shadow" (Remix) isn't included on her The Loveliest Time, so I opened discussion about this and one user replied to the discussion, saying "for this you'd want to put (Remix) after "Shadow" in the infobox". But I can't see this case on {{Infobox album}} criteria, so I want to ask how about adding this content on there. Camilasdandelions (talk!) 01:37, 21 May 2025 (UTC)