Dream Theater Wikipedia Page Main Picture

[ReaPsTA]

I have no idea why this bugs me, but the main picture of Dream Theater on Wikipedia is an old one with Mike Portnoy in it.  What purpose does it serve to have a picture of the band that's not its current lineup?

[John94]

It seems nit-picky but I completely agree. Somebody changed it to a recent one and I think Wiki just changed it back. No point for Wikipedia deleting edits if they are not accurate when they don't even allow an up to date picture of the band.

[wolfking]

You know, I wouldn't get too concerned over this, profile band pics are always out of date, doesn't matter who the band is.

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

I still chuckle over the day where the drummer's name was changing every minute or two until wikipedia finally locked the page.  

EDIT:  Found it:

https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=16641.0

[Dillster22]

This annoys me too. There was a recent picture at one stage but it was removed due to copyright or something.

[TheGreatPretender]

Ir bugs me because LaBrie looks like a caveman in that picture.

[ZKX-2099]

The A7X pic has The Rev in it... 

[ReaperKK]

Maybe Mike Portnoy Changed it back *puts on tinfoil hat*

Seriously though, it's wikipedia, doesn't matter that much.

[Mebert78]

Well, I've been told in the past by someone that Wiki doesn't allow copyrighted photos, so if someone tried to upload the new band pic with Mangini in the parking garage it would likely get deleted.  But if someone here has a photo they took of the band with Mangini or whatever, then it would be fine.

[Shadow2222]

I still chuckle over the day where the drummer's name was changing every minute or two until wikipedia finally locked the page.  

EDIT:  Found it:

https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=16641.0

I love how one of the first names it was changed to was Mike Mangini 

[robwebster]

Well, I've been told in the past by someone that Wiki doesn't allow copyrighted photos, so if someone tried to upload the new band pic with Mangini in the parking garage it would likely get deleted.  But if someone here has a photo they took of the band with Mangini or whatever, then it would be fine.

Right, it's a little more complicated than that, but equally ridiculous (if not more so!), so I'm gonna explain, to the best of my understanding.

There are various different levels of fairness.

A copyrighted photo is not allowed to be used.
A fair use photo is a photo that is copyrighted, but available for promotional purposes, and permitted by the artist.
A free use photo is a photo that is available no matter who you are, usually user-created.

Fair use and free use are equally legal, but because they're copyrighted, Wikipedia refuse to use a fair use photo when a free use photo is available. It's absolutely moronic. They're equally legal, but they're such ardent sticklers for detail that they've somewhere along the lines decided that free use photos are more equal than others, and so a shit picture taken by a blurry hobbyist is somehow preferable to a promotional shot designed to promote the fucking band.

I'm drunk, so a little more vicious than I'd usually be, but it's honestly one of the stupidest things about wikipedia. They favour crap photos over tailor-made photos. Absolute nonsense.

NB: I've not studied the policy rigorously, so I could be wrong on the details, but I've tried to update images before and been shot down for basically this reason. 100% mad.

[TL]

You think that's bad? Billboard.com's most recent picture of DT has Derek Sherinian in it, and they're listed as not having any upcoming releases or tour dates.

[darkshot]

Spotify and I think even iTunes have the pic with Sherinian in it.  I have no idea why they cant use an updated promo pic.

[TL]

Spotify and I think even iTunes have the pic with Sherinian in it.  I have no idea why they cant use an updated promo pic.

Obviously it's too much to ask for them to update one thing in the band's profile once every 15 years.

But yeah, it's just flat out lazy. I mean, while Dream Theater may not be a household name, they're far from obscure. It's even worse when you consider that most of these pages went up well after JR was in the band. For example, iTunes and Spotify literally didn't exist when Derek was still in the band.

[blackngold29]

This is fixed by: Someone taking a picture of the new lineup that they give permission to use and putting it on there.

Quite simple really.

[TheGreatPretender]

This is fixed by: Someone taking a picture of the new lineup that they give permission to use and putting it on there.

Quite simple really.

I've seen a whole bunch of Facebook, people taking pictures of the band at the meet and greet and stuff.

[robwebster]

This is fixed by: Someone taking a picture of the new lineup that they give permission to use and putting it on there.

Quite simple really.

Won't be better than the exactly-as-legal promotional pics, so it's not really a hoop that should need to be jumped through, but yeah. More or less.

[ariich]

Wikipedia doesn't allow use of promotional pics in their articles (presumably as it could be seen as advertising). It has to be an non-promitional photo, dunno if there are any about yet with MM.

[Ice Warrior]

NB: I've not studied the policy rigorously, so I could be wrong on the details, but I've tried to update images before and been shot down for basically this reason. 100% mad.

As a Wikipedia contributor, let me clarify:

The aim of Wikipedia is to create a free encyclopedia whose content can be legally used by anyone for any purpose. It's not about creating a web site with free access - you should be able to mirror the content, print it, sell it. This means that it's not enough that the content on Wikipedia is legal, it should be legal to print it and sell it for anyone as well. So it is strongly encouraged that all content that is used is either not copyrighted or under the same or similar terms as the license used by Wikipedia articles. That's the free content that you're talking about.

Fair use does allow the use of any copyrighted work if certain conditions are met, and this mostly means that often you can legally put a picture or a sound sample in an article, and the article can still be legally reproduced or sold. It's anything but not legally equivalent to the free content - you can't always legally distribute the pictures without the articles, it's not legal worldwide, the picture itself can't be modified and it's not really clear when a use is legal. In particular, these photos can't be part of the Wikimedia Commons which is meant to be a repository of free content (such as photos, sounds, diagrams). This is why fair use content is strongly discouraged, and it is only allowed if there is no free equivalent. Some Wikipedias don't allow fair use content at all - for example the German Wikipedia doesn't because Germany doesn't have such laws.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fair_use#Rationale

Promotional photos are OK as long as the photographer has released these photos under an acceptable license.

[robwebster]

First off, cheers for the clarification! I will apologise again for my drunken curmudgeonliness and refusal to even try to comprehend. :p

Presumably, then, that'd mean the German wikipedia doesn't have any album covers on it? Surely, you guys are never going to make an English wikipedia with no album covers, and the German wikipedia is never going to precisely match the EN one, so I'm not entirely sure why homogenousness is such a virtue considering it's something that's definitely not going to happen. I'd be more concerned about making each wiki the best that wiki could be, than making it as simple for everyone else as possible.

I'm more interested in the wiki than the users, I guess. I honestly think that this, for instance, looks kind of awful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Amy_Pond.jpg
...and I think it's a crying shame that the rules favour that as the page's picture over an otherwise equally usable promo shot, which would look orders of magnitude better. I guess in my ideal world, it'd be quality over replicability. Where possible, I'd definitely use the fair ones. On Wikimedia Commons, or de.wikipedia, I'd use the free ones.

But then, I believe all images have to go through Wikimedia Commons?