Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Hogwarts Legacy

This deletion discussion is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive. You can read the deletion policy or ask a question at the Village pump. If the circumstances surrounding this file have changed in a notable manner, you may re-nominate this file or ask for it to be undeleted.

Files in Category:Hogwarts Legacy

While the Youtube video itself is released under a free license, the game that is displayed, Hogwarts Legacy, is not.

• File:Hogwarts Legacy Official 4K Reveal Trailer.webm
• File:Hogwarts Legacy – Official 4K Reveal Trailer.webm
• File:Hogwarts Legacy.png

Zaxxon0 (talk) 08:17, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

 Keep If the Flickr account is genuine, it has the right to license the video under a free license, including the derivative work. Yann (talk) 08:20, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

 Delete. This is a perfect example of a situation where I would be inclined to assume that the license on the YouTube video was set incorrectly, and that the video is actually non-free. While it's certainly possible that the developers of Hogwarts Legacy somehow managed to get all of the rights lined up to release this content under a free license, it is also highly improbable; the safe thing to do is assume it was a mistake until we've confirmed otherwise. Omphalographer (talk) 08:28, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

@Omphalographer:  Comment I would like to reply and say that I don't think the license was set incorrectly, as Warner Bros has released multiple game trailers under the same license across multiple accounts. See Mortal Kombat X trailer, Gotham Knights trailer, MultiVersus trailer, etc. This seems to be a pattern that Warner Bros is doing intentionally. Di (they-them) (talk) 16:03, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

@Omphalographer: On what basis do you assume that the license at the source is not valid? Just suspicion without any evidence is not useful. Yann (talk) 08:49, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

What leads me to doubt the validity of the license is that this video embodies rights which are tied up in major, active video game, movie, and book franchises. It would be practically unheard of for Portkey Games, Warner Brothers, and/or JK Rowling to all agree to release these rights under a permissive license, even partially; it seems far more likely that the license displayed on Youtube is inaccurate. Omphalographer (talk) 09:30, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

This is only the trailer. Nowadays, some majors publish trailers under a free license. This is not new. Yann (talk) 09:37, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

There was a similar case with the trailers of Age of Empires games, published on their own YouTube channel. They were also deleted, despite CC BY license (Channel, example video). One suggestion was to ask the publisher(s) whether the licenses are legit or were entered by mistake. I tend to say that these licenses are legit, because the companies care very much about their copyright (and the Trailers cover only a very small part of the game), but of course I cannot be 100% sure (only my opinion). I just wanted to share some information :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 11:32, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Maybe getting an official statement in this case and also Age of Empires might be the best way, so that we have certainty. But I don't know which instances or people to ask there, maybe this can be done by somebody with more experience :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 11:35, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Maybe in combination with VRT if it works --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 11:48, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I wrote to WB by email, and posted a message on the FB page. Yann (talk) 11:54, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

What does it mean to release rights to "only the trailer", though? Could a musician sample the music from the trailer and use that in their own track, for instance? Could a 3D artist trace the flying car in the introduction and sell models of it? Could an AI model trained on the narrator's voice be used to read an audiobook?

I have a sneaky feeling that, if you tried to actually do any of these things, WB and/or other rightsholders would put an end to that very quickly. Which means that the license is effectively CC-NC and/or -ND, regardless of what it says on Youtube. Omphalographer (talk) 19:55, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

In the old days, film studios often released publicity photos into public domain, simply by not including the required copyright notice. I don't see how this is any different. Ixfd64 (talk) 17:23, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

 Keep per Yann. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:33, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

 Delete per Omphalographer. Nosferattus (talk) 17:49, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

 Keep Warner Bros is a multibillion international media conglomerate. If their trailers are licensed under a free license because of an incompetent social media manager then that is quiet frankly not our problem. --Trade (talk) 21:08, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

 Keep Even if it was released "accidentally", CC licenses are irrevocable. Plus, the company clearly gave the social media manager (or whoever uploaded the video) the right to upload it, so it's not a case of it being released by somebody without the authority to do so. Di (they-them) (talk) 03:53, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

 Delete This case is very similar to that in Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Videos by Bandai Namco. I recommend reading the comment written by the administrator who closed the deletion request. My theory is that the PR department of Warner Bros. Games, the publisher of Hogwarts Legacy, uploaded the videos and put the CC BY 3.0 tag without understanding the legal implications behind it, and without the knowledge of the legal department of the publisher. FunnyMath (talk) 16:55, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

This seems a good reasoning, but it is in fact wrong. The files deleted there are still under a free license on YT, 10 years after being uploaded there, so it is not an accident. Yann (talk) 17:53, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Does this mean you will start an Undeletion Request? It has been written in the DR that these files are valueable and can replace mamy fair use files at en.wp. C.Suthorn (talk) 18:33, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

May be. I wrote to Bandai Namco, but it is difficult to find the right address to reach them. Yann (talk) 20:51, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Although we disagree, I'm glad that you are taking the initiative and contacting the publishers. I'd love to be proven wrong! FunnyMath (talk) 06:21, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Maybe we can establish a volunteer group who contacts the publishers whether the trailers are free (Warner Bros., Videos by Bandai Namco, Age of Empires, ...) or not. This could give us the clarity we need and would solve the discussions. Otherwise we can only speculate and will have upcoming deletion requests in the future. Cheers! --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 12:27, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

We already have proof that the YouTube videos were uploaded under a free license. If someone want these videos deleted then it is gonna be a courtesy deletion Trade (talk) 22:33, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

@Yann: Did you write to Bandai Namco's legal department? And did you ask clearly whether they intend to release content under a license that allows for free, commercial re-use including derivative works, such as CC-BY does? Gestumblindi (talk) 21:35, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

@Gestumblindi: I couldn't find any way to contact Bandai Namco's legal department. If you find that, please give it to me. I got an answer from Microsoft saying my message will be forwarded to the appropriate team. Yann (talk) 22:03, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Does it matter if the videos were released under a free license intentionally? At the end of the day they were still released under a free license Trade (talk) 22:34, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

But by whom? If some member of Warner Bros.' social media team clicked the "CC-BY" button when uploading the video, they didn't necessarily have the authority or permission to do so. And then there was never, actually, a valid release under a free license. Such decisions need to be made at a high level of a legal department, as the repercussions are far-reaching, and in this case, I don't really believe that this is likely. Gestumblindi (talk) 09:39, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

This kind of arguments does not hold water on courts. Imagine WB saying to the judge: "Sorry, but we don't know what our social media staff does." Yann (talk) 11:04, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

No, that's not how it works. If I boldly declare all Harry Potter books to be in the public domain, that is of course null and void, as I don't have the rights, don't have the authority to put them in the public domain. And this would still be the case if Joanne K. Rowling paid me for some publicity work. It's the same thing if one of many thousands of people who are in some capacity paid by Warner for social media work (maybe not even direct employees, maybe a subcontractor) without legal authority (by mistake) "issues" a free license (that is, clicks the wrong button in YouTube). Gestumblindi (talk) 20:38, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

This looks like a strawman argument... Not much reason to discuss it. Yann (talk) 07:56, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

 Weak keep. I understand the concerns, but it's really not our job to second-guess the licensing on an official source. Let's avoid copyright paranoia. It may seem unlikely that a major brand would release content under a free license, but in the old days, film studios often released publicity photos into public domain simply by omitting the required copyright notice. Releasing a trailer under a CC BY license isn't that much different in my opinion. I know "we can get away with it" goes against the precautionary principle, but I can't imagine Warner Bros. Games would have a leg to stand on in court because an official YouTube channel would be considered authoritative. Such a mistake would be on Warner Bros. Games, not us or anyone else. We should do a courtesy deletion if the video was not supposed to be released under a free license, but I don't think we need to take any action until we hear back from the company. Ixfd64 (talk) 18:39, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

 Delete - very strongly. I will not process this DR as I was the admin closing Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Videos by Bandai Namco mentioned by User:FunnyMath, but I will add my opinion here. A CC-BY license for a trailer such as File:Hogwarts Legacy – Official 4K Reveal Trailer.webm would mean that people can take everything from this trailer for their own, commercial purposes; that everyone is allowed to make their own movies, games etc. based on this content, print everything on T-shirts, mugs etc. and sell them, with the only condition being that the author is mentioned. That's what CC-BY means. People need to understand that: It's not a license for the specific trailer only, it's a license that explicitly allows derivative works. If taken seriously, this means that Warner Bros. would basically waive nearly all their rights for substantial parts of a major intellectual property of theirs. This would be a major revolution and a completely unprecedent approach by a company such as Warner Bros. - it would be big news, not hidden away in a random YouTube licensing field. And therefore I see this as a case not only like the Bandai Namco one, but also the other precedents such as Commons:Deletion requests/Files found with "Disney Channel Canada" and the Ubisoft case. In all these cases, the files were ultimately deleted because of the crassly implausible licensing (and, in Ubisoft's case, ultimately Ubisoft's confirmation that they didn't really intend such a thing). If there is ever a case to apply COM:PRP, then it's this kind of case. Arguments like "The files deleted there are still under a free license on YT, 10 years after being uploaded there" are easily refuted, as the most plausible explanation for that is simply that, of course, no one took the CC-BY licensing really seriously and started to make and sell the derivative works allowed by this license. But on Commons, we need real licenses people can rely upon. Gestumblindi (talk) 20:02, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

IMHO, this is not a sound reasoning. The CC may not be what Warner Bros intends to do initially, but it is still a valid license. I don't see why a court would say that this license is not valid. Yann (talk) 20:36, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

That's what trademarks are for. A lot of company logos are in public domain because they are too simple to be copyrighted. However, you could land in legal hot water if you used them in certain ways. I also don't think the {{Attribution-Ubisoft}} case is applicable here. For one, the permission was thought to apply to all game screenshots and not just specific trailers. Furthermore, Ubisoft did not specify a license and said that it reserved the right to have images deleted under certain conditions. Here, we have a clear indication of a Creative Commons license. Ixfd64 (talk) 20:46, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

In the Disney Channel Canada case, we also had "a clear indication of a Creative Commons license". As it turned out, Disney Channel Canada isn't even part of Disney proper and has no authority to issue a free license for Disney material. - In the Warner Bros. case, I think it is highly likely that nobody from Warner's legal department has ever heard of their content being licensed under CC-BY, and it was someone from their social media team, with no authority to issue such a license, which would make it invalid in any court. That's the most likely case, far more likely than assuming that Warner all of a sudden embraced free licenses - and therefore: COM:PCP ("significant doubt"). Gestumblindi (talk) 21:37, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

en:Implied authority or en:Apparent authority would apply in this case? The YouTube channel this video was posted on is linked to from the home page of the official website for the game and the YouTube account is "verified". A reasonable person would seemingly be correct to believe that there was authority and intent to release the video under a Creative Commons license. This is not much different to going to the official website of Warner Bros Games, looking in the footer at the terms of use, and reasonably expecting whoever published those terms of use was authorised to do so. The chance of a game studio not acquiring moral rights from contributors of content in the video (e.g. 3D modellers, voice actors) is small, but remains a possible liability for commercial use of the video. Users of Wikimedia Commons content (let's call them X), depending on their use case, should be careful with using any Wikimedia Commons content without first having a contract with the original author (let's call them Y) who accepts liability for any copyright infringement claims on the works they've published. This protects X in the case that Y receives a copyright infringement claim from a voice actor, musician, screenwriter, etc, in the case that Y didn't adequately acquire moral rights. Dhx1 (talk) 03:40, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Noting too that Commons:General disclaimer states "Your use of any such or similar incorporeal property is at your own risk". I think it's fine to advise users with templates such as {{Trademarked}} of some of those specific risks that are obvious, but ultimately, end users may still have a legitimate use case such as parody/fair use, or deriving a new work that is suitably different from the original to not cause a copyright or trademark claim to have an impact. In any case, users universally take on liability for any Creative Commons content they use that some random third party comes along to claim copyright infringement, correctly or incorrectly, for a work that is derived from a work that is derived from many works (music score, music performance, voice actor script, voice acting performance, etc...). Dhx1 (talk) 03:59, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

 Keep "people can take everything from this trailer for their own, commercial purposes" is not true. See [1] from Creative Commons FAQ that clearly states that trademark rights are not impacted by a Creative Commons license. You can't just take a trademark from this video (such as the Warner Bros Games logo) and start using it to advertise some other random product. I've added a c:Template:Trademarked template to the file. Along with other commenters, I also disagree with trying to second guess whether a large multi-national company has permission to apply a Creative Commons license to their own works. We don't second guess whether newuser123878 uploading a photo of an animal actually took the photo and had the rights to do so, or whether newuser123878 was employed by a company and were on the clock when they took the photo, thus their employer would own the copyright for the photo. Why then should we second guess only large multi-national companies that are less likely to make copyright licensing mistakes? Deletion of this video would also be inconsistent with decisions for e.g. c:File:Dua Lipa samples from 5 songs.webm which is a Warner Music NZ Creative Commons licensed video music compilation that has previously passed administrator licensing review. Dhx1 (talk) 02:39, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Though you're right that trademarks are still valid and can be enforced, there is more than enough content in this trailer that is not specifically trademarked, but copyrighted, and were I wouldn't expect that they want everyone be able to use it for commercial purposes. And previous cases have shown clearly enough that especially in "large multinational companies" there are so many branches and individuals involved that invalid "licenses" issued by employees or even not directly affiliated entities (e.g. Disney Channel Canada) are a common occurence. As I said before, the doubts are more than strong enough for COM:PCP to apply. Gestumblindi (talk) 10:33, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Warner Bros Games has uploaded numerous Creative Commons licensed game trailers per [2]. Warner Bros UK & Ireland and Warner NZ also have uploaded Creative Commons licensed movie trailers, musician interviews, music video samples, etc, for example [3] and [4]. YouTube further requires uploaders to opt-in to a Creative Commons license[5] and thus it is almost certainly not an "oops pressed the wrong button" mistake, particularly for a company that has repeatedly and selectively used a Creative Commons license across multiple social media accounts from multiple divisions of the company. Game trailers are also highly unlikely to be a case of misuse of Wikipedia for marketing purposes (see en:Conflict-of-interest_editing_on_Wikipedia#The_North_Face) because the trailers would only be relevant to an article describing the game. Dhx1 (talk) 19:31, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

@Yann, Gestumblindi, and FunnyMath: I found a page with contact information that might be useful. Ixfd64 (talk) 03:27, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. I will send a copy to these addresses. But it is for Bandai Namco that I couldn't find the contact info. Yann (talk) 07:02, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for providing that information. I'll have Yann update on us for now. FunnyMath (talk) 17:18, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

 Keep per Ixfd64. It's not our job to second-guess the licensing on an official source. Otherwise we won't be able to keep any externally sourced (YouTube, Flickr, etc.) free content, as there's no way to verify the account holders' intents for each case. Wcam (talk) 20:45, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

It's more than just that. If you get into technical second-guessing everything, you can't trust any content on Wikimedia Commons because how do you know if the person taking the photo was on the clock of their employer (who then would own the copyright), or taking the photo in their own personal time? And then you can get some interesting cases such as a federal government releasing a work where they don't have all copyright contributor permissions (such as background music). But the federal government may have en:State immunity so the copyright contributor may not be able to pursue the federal government, but may instead pursue derivative works from that which the federal government released. Or alternatively, maybe the federal government did have permission to release because they paid for the performance and the contract granted permission to release freely under a derivatives-allowed license. The end result of overdoing the second-guessing is en:Tragedy of the anticommons similar to the mess of patent pools. Dhx1 (talk) 20:12, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

 CommentIf a license exists for a long time on an official outlet, then not sure we should be questioning it. If the license is changed fairly quickly, then of course respect that and delete. But it's not like the legal department is the only one who is allowed to authorize a license -- as long as it seems to be coming from the company (and not an associated but separate company), it may be valid. It may be a mistake, or other people in the company may disagree, but you can't simply claim "mistake" and revoke an irrevocable license if it's been there long enough, I don't think. Granted, such companies have the ability to file lawsuits and claim otherwise, even if probably bogus, to make you go to court etc. That all said, the given license would just be for the video itself -- if it is derivative of any other preexisting copyrights such as character copyrights, then those would be unaffected and we'd need a license for those too to host here, which is not likely to happen. I'm not sure on that score, as I did not look through the videos, but if these can be considered derivative of other existing copyrights it may be safer to delete. The .png screenshot is probably fine, based on just the license for the game video. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:15, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Sounds like we might wanna ask the legal department for advice. After all, they are gonna be the ones dealing with Warner Bros once they find out the implications of the license Trade (talk) 00:12, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

 Keep — Wikimedia Commons cannot reasonably expect to determine intent in this case. Licensing the video as Creative Commons is a conscious decision. ElijahPepe (talk) 06:45, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

 Comment IMO it is significant that neither Warner or Microsoft cares to answer, so they don't worry much that the license on YT might be wrong. Yann (talk) 07:56, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

 Comment As I said above, I think that's because no one actually takes this license for real and starts commercially using that content for derivative works allowed by that license. Warner's lawyers would certainly be up in arms otherwise. But we need real licenses. Gestumblindi (talk) 10:08, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

That's still not permission. They may not care until someone actually uses it beyond fair use, and their lack of action here won't help the infringer. While it was about an insignia law and not copyright, there was someone who used the state seal of Alaska on commercial products, and one of his arguments was that he asked permission and nobody told him he couldn't (Robart said that because no one said anything to him, he thought that his using the medallion without permission was not an issue for anyone in the government.) That didn't fly (nor did any of his other arguments, on appeal anyways); he was found guilty.[6] I still think the license is valid, at least for any expression new to the videos, but does not extend to any underlying works they are derivative of. If there are no such works, then it may be OK. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:49, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

 Comment I would like to point out that is very unlikely that the license was chosen accidentally, as Warner Bros has released multiple trailers under the same license across multiple accounts. See Mortal Kombat X trailer, Gotham Knights trailer, MultiVersus trailer, etc. This seems to be a pattern that Warner Bros is doing intentionally. Di (they-them) (talk) 03:01, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

 Keep that’s like saying “the trailer is of a copyrighted movie” or “the poster is…” or “the FOP art is…” yet lo and behold we have tons of PD works that have bits of a copyrighted whole in them. Individual works have individual licenses. These are individual works. As I’ve said before, we aren’t copyright lawyers and we certainly aren’t copyright gods. Dronebogus (talk) 19:29, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

 Weak keep per Ixfd64 -Veracious (talk) 03:37, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

 Keep George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead lost its copyright and entered the public domain due to a clerical error, unlike the intentions of the producers. In fact, that film is also on Wikimedia, but it was never removed from Wikimedia; rather, it was certified as Wikimedia's featured media.There is no need to give Hogwarts Legacy special treatment. 萩原麻行 (talk) 04:53, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

 Keep I keep thinking about this one. For a derivative work, we don't need a full license on the underlying work, just permission for its use as shown in the derivative work. Yes, that means that some uses of this work may be more considered a new derivative of the original work, which would not be OK -- much like de minimis works may stop being de minimis if you focus on the copyrighted element, and that sort of thing. If we accept the license as being valid, then given they are the copyright owner of the underlying works, then we could also take it as permission for any underlying works, though only as used in this particular work and not if used in any other way. It's definitely not unfettered permission for any underlying work, but don't think we need that. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:26, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't quite get "then we could also take it as permission for any underlying works, though only as used in this particular work and not if used in any other way": How is this compatible with CC-BY-SA expressly allowing derivative works? Wouldn't that mean that derivative work of the derivative work must be allowed? Gestumblindi (talk) 18:08, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

The license is for the new, additional expression in the video -- they aren't licensing the underlying works. You do need permission from the copyright owner of any underlying works to distribute this particular work, but that seems implicit with the CC-BY license given they are the same owner. That does not mean the underlying works are licensed the same way. For example, take a photo of a statue -- we need the photograph to be freely licensed, and then also permission from the sculptor to allow distribution of that photo -- but we do not need a full free license on the sculpture itself. That would be overreaching for our needs, I think. You can use the photo itself in derivative works, but if you use the photo as a guide for your own sculpture, that's not fine -- the result is a new derivative work of the statue, with the licensed photographic expression being irrelevant. You should be able to make a derivative work using parts of the video, as they would depict the underlying works (characters probably) the same way as given permission to in the video. There would be no permission to make other derivative works of the characters however -- that wouldn't be derivative of the video at all. Copyright owners should be able to license particular derivative works like this if they want, without full unfettered licensing of the underlying works. Derivative works using the video's expression should still be OK, I think. To me, that is still essentially "free". Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:53, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Now I get what you mean, thanks for the detailed reasoning. That's actually a plausible argumentation. However, I still don't think that Warner would license anything under CC-BY and even allowing "to make a derivative work using parts of the video", the video's expression, doesn't look like something they would allow. My approach is still that this purported CC-BY license was probably chosen by someone from their social media team without actual knowledge and approval by the legal department, it seems more likely to me. Gestumblindi (talk) 09:15, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Whatever the internal process is supposed to be, the public can't possibly know, and not sure it should matter. It's been this way for almost three years. At some point, probably long before this, even if it was a mistake it's still validly licensed to me. If an intern gives the license in error and is corrected relatively quickly, fine, we would treat that similarly to anyone else. But if someone leaves a free license on a file for years, even if they did not fully understand the implications, it's still valid. To me, you are arguing that such licenses are always revocable since you can always claim "mistake". Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:59, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

No, I'm not arguing that the licenses are revocable, I'm rather arguing that there is a quite high likelihood that they are invalid to start with, if not issued by the actual rights holder; to quote myself from further up in this thread: If I boldly declare all Harry Potter books to be in the public domain, that is of course null and void, as I don't have the rights, don't have the authority to put them in the public domain. And this would still be the case if Joanne K. Rowling paid me for some publicity work. It's the same thing if one of many thousands of people who are in some capacity paid by Warner for social media work (maybe not even direct employees, maybe a subcontractor) without legal authority (by mistake) "issues" a free license (that is, clicks the wrong button in YouTube). Given the fact that companies like Ubisoft or Warner really aren't known to be advocates of free knowledge and free licenses - quite the contrary -, using a CC-BY license is, to me, uncharacteristic enough to assume that Warner's legal people probably never gave authorisation for such a license, just like Ubisoft where there ultimately was an official statement to that effect, ergo: COM:PCP applies. Gestumblindi (talk) 20:35, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Yet, there is a team paid to publish videos on behalf of these companies, including setting the license of what they publish. I can't imagine that they choose the wrong license by mistake. Especially when this license is online for 10 years. Yann (talk) 20:49, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

The company is the rights holder. If a company account has the license, that would appear to anyone outside the company to be completely legitimate. And it probably is. There is nothing in copyright law that it must be a company lawyer who can put a license on anything. If it's an account from someone who is not a copyright holder, I would completely agree. But a mistake by the copyright holder is only a mistake from their perspective -- it would still be a valid license. If the company's representative on that site puts that license on it, well, then that is the license. Mistakes somewhat quickly corrected we would give them the benefit of the doubt, but for me, not when it gets to years. I fail to see any reason how a court would rule it invalid, really. If you are saying that we can't assume that the license to use any underlying works exists, then maybe, but the game company should have those rights. That's about the only thing possible to me, is if the agreement with the game company does not extend to being able to distribute marketing materials like that. But on its face, it would seem to be a legitimate license from an official channel. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:02, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

 Comment I would also like to point out that Commons has precedent for allowing major corporate works that the company has released under a CC license. See Commons:Deletion requests/File:Luke Skywalker - Welcome Banner (Cropped).jpg and Commons:Deletion requests/File:The Wolverine Trailer Exclusive (2013).webm. In this case, both of these files contain material that one would assume is held under copyright, but they were kept because the relevant companies released them under an irrevocable CC license. Di (they-them) (talk) 16:09, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

 Delete We cannot assume that the social media manager who published the video under a free license had the authorisation to do so. --Gnom (talk) 17:18, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

@Gnom:  Comment Considering the fact that this has been done across multiple Warner Bros. accounts by multiple social media managers, it seems very likely that this is something that the company is doing intentionally. (See Mortal Kombat X trailer, Gotham Knights trailer, MultiVersus trailer, etc.) Furthermore, even if the company didn't ask for this, they still gave the social media manager the right to upload and release the video for marketing purposes, meaning that they did indeed have the authorization to release it under a free license. Di (they-them) (talk) 17:48, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

That the social media managers were authorised to upload and release the videos for marketing purposes does not include a right to release them under a free license. For example, the composers of the music used in the videos (who are regularly not employees of the game publisher, but independent contractors) definitely did not give game publisher the right to release their music under a free license. If someone (e.g. me) re-used this music in their own video, claiming that they had the right to do so under the free license, you will agree that the composers would go berserk. They probably made a mistake in the settings for the channel. We had the same issue with Disney a while back. Gnom (talk) 18:26, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Just for transparency, I asked Gnom in German-language Wikipedia whether he could contribute something to this discussion (he's an expert, see his user page). If I may add something, as Gnom mentions the music in the trailer: If the CC-BY license would be interpreted in a way that the music is only freely licensed in the context of the trailer and can't be reused outside of this context, this wouldn't be a CC-BY license at all, but CC-BY-ND (no derivatives) - but the video is (implausibly) licensed as CC-BY, which allows derivatives, so, if the license were for real, you could use that music for your own projects. Gestumblindi (talk) 16:38, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

 Comment It is a bit problematic that we get no official statement on that topic. I worry that with missing this, we could have this question over and over again, when a (questionable) CC licensing of a trailer or picture by a company account in the near future occurs again. For me, both sides have good arguments, but it may be very complicated to make a decision, in my mind --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 17:52, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I also contacted m:User talk:Slaporte (WMF), WMF Legal counsel. Yann (talk) 22:57, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

You may wish to email him as well as he doesn't seem to be very active on the wikis. Ixfd64 (talk) 19:18, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

---

 Kept, mostly per Dhx and Carl Lindberg. FunnyMath cited Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Videos by Bandai Namco, but Bandai Namco published multiple files, where they obviously did not have copyright, so Bandai Namco was not a trusted person. Here the situation is another, I do not see good reason to mistrust Warner Brothers. Taivo (talk) 13:06, 15 September 2023 (UTC)