File:Phase2bubbler.gif

PHASE 2 graffiti piece, utilizing the "bubble letter" style. New York City circa the early 1970s.

This photographic image is copyrighted to the artist who painted the graffiti piece which the photo captures, namely PHASE 2. It was published in a book called Style: Writing From The Underground co-edited by PHASE 2 and published in 1996, though it is uncertain whether the image was ever published prior to that. The entire image has been used, though it is of lower resolution than the original. The image is used in the article to illustrate the technique of "bubble letter" graffiti writing which the subject of the article pioneered. As such the image falls in line with acceptable fair use guidelines for images used "for critical commentary, including images illustrative of a particular technique or school." The image cannot be replaced by a free content image, because the artwork in question - graffiti by PHASE 2 from the early 1970s - is no longer in existence. Thus old photographs of these graffiti pieces are the only images available.

This photograph is copyrighted by Jack Stewart, and the above commentary is unpersuasive Photoarchiver (talk) 04:56, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

This work prominently depicts a work of illegal graffiti which might not be in the public domain and has not been released under a free license.

Occasionally graffiti will be kept, using the claim that an author might be denied any copyright relief based on an illegal act; however, there is no evidence of this legal theory being tested. See commons:Commons:Copyright rules by subject matter#Graffiti.

Official Commons policy is the precautionary principle, which rejects claims such as "The copyright owner will not bother to sue or cannot afford to." or "Nobody knows who the copyright owner is".

Complex understanding of the law may be required to determine whether the graffiti in this work would actually be eligible for copyright enforcement.

It is believed that the use of low-resolution images of graffiti,

• to illustrate graffiti in question,
• on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation,

qualifies as fair use under the copyright law of the United States. Any other uses of this image, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, may be copyright infringement. See Wikipedia:Non-free content for more information.

Fair use //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phase2bubbler.gif

true

To the uploader:

1. Please add a detailed non-free use rationale for each article the image is used in, which must also declare compliance with the other parts of the non-free content criteria, as well as the source of the work and copyright information.
2. For example non-free use rationales, see Wikipedia:Use rationale examples.
3. This tag is only for use on images of graffiti.
4. Template:Non-free use rationale logo may be helpful for stating the rationale.

Regarding uses other than in the original article:

• A detailed non-free use rationale is required for every article the logo is used in. Check the non-free use criteria and do not assume that existing rationales can be simply copied and pasted, as they may not necessarily apply.

To patrollers and administrators: If this image has an appropriate rationale please append |image has rationale=yes as a parameter to the license template.