Commons:Upload, delete and undelete

Upload, delete and undelete is a method for uploading to Wikimedia Commons files that are not yet free to use, and so, they will not be publicly available from the moment of their upload. They are not in the public domain, and they are not published under a compatible licence. But they will enter public domain in the future, when their copyright expires.

At this time we do not have firm rules as to when this is and is not permitted.

Non-administrators wishing to use this process should always arrange this in advance with an administrator. Otherwise, they are in the position of any other user uploading copyvios. If you do not have some administrator you are routinely working with, please make requests for such uploads at COM:AN.
Please do not expect that all such requests will be granted.
- Requests are more likely to be granted for works where we know the date at which the materials will enter the public domain, and that is within 20 years of the present time
- Requests may also be granted when there is significant likelihood that equivalent materials will not be available when copyright expires. Examples: photographs of an endangered building that is still in copyright in a country that does not allow Freedom of panorama for buildings; photos you have taken of something that is already destroyed.

Steps:

Users upload the files. Please provide good descriptions, categories, etc., because you will not be able to revisit these files and edit them later.
The files or the directories of the files; and/or instructions about the files, are recorded in some way and/or categorised under a subcategory of Category:Undeletion requests which indicates the year when they enter the public domain. See Category:Undelete in 2049 for a good example.
User informs the administrator when files are ready for deletion.
Administrators delete the files.
Administrators undelete the files when they enter the public domain, or become "free" in other ways.

This should be done in relatively small, well-defined batches to minimize the time in which these not-yet-usable files are visible on Commons.