The free picture library behind Wikipedia now holds over 147 million files
Almost every photo you see on Wikipedia lives on a sister site, Wikimedia Commons, where anyone may reuse the files for any purpose. Started in 2004, it holds more than 147 million images, sounds, videos and 3D models, and it bans the fair-use exceptions that other sites rely on.
Erik Möller proposed the idea in March 2004, and Commons opened on September 7 that year. Its files feed every Wikimedia project in every language, from Wikipedia and Wiktionary to Wikivoyage and Wikispecies, and can be downloaded for use elsewhere. Volunteers who register manage and edit the collection, which passed 100 million edits in July 2013.
The rules are stricter than on Wikipedia itself. Commons accepts only material released under a free licence, such as certain Creative Commons licences, or that is out of copyright, and it must have educational value. Fair use, which some individual wikis allow locally, is banned because it limits how a file can be reused. Doubtful files go to a deletion discussion, settled mainly by consensus when an administrator closes it, while blatant violations can be removed quickly.
Big institutions contribute in bulk. The US National Archives uploaded 100,000 digitised images in 2012, the Digital Public Library of America began adding its holdings in 2020 and uploaded more than two million files in 2022, and Europeana shares European heritage images the same way. Since 2018 users can add 3D models in STL format; an early one reconstructed the Lion of Al-lāt statue from Palmyra, badly damaged in 2015.
Because everything is free to reuse, Commons images spread widely. A study in September 2019 found that over half of reused pictures showed people, 15 per cent historical events and 10 per cent buildings. Scraping by developers training image-generating AI drove a 50 per cent jump in bandwidth use. The community rewards its best work through Featured pictures, running since November 2004, Quality images, since June 2006, and an annual Picture of the Year contest held since 2006. The site has also faced criticism over some explicit material it hosted.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
