Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2012/10

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Star Trek Arrowhead

File:Emblem cropped.jpg[1] is there a problem here? I need find out what Commons policy is on this because it doesn't appear to have a source or true authorship, as the commons member did not own the copyright on this. If the logo can beused in this manner, can you help me with what needs to be done to get all the info needed. Doesn't this have to mention copyright ownership if this is fair use, and if so why would it be here on commons. Is it such a simple design that it cannot be copyrighted? All the info the better!--Amadscientist (talk) 05:48, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I will take the lack of answer to mean that there is no concern for use in this manner for commons.--Amadscientist (talk) 23:37, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure whether it is copyrightable or not. My impression is that though it is quite simple it may fall on the wrong side of the originality line, but I will leave the final word to editors more familiar with US copyright law (e.g., Clindberg). — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 11:42, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
My initial thought is that either inner or outer arrow is ineligible, but that the combination is eligible. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:31, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
It appears that the emblem is not a trademark, but may be the shared copyright of the original costume designer, William Ware Theiss (managed by his estate) and CBS which now owns the copyright to Star Trek. As a design with copyright notice this much is clear, the costumes themselves are the shared copyright of the designer and studio. Would this not include the emblem?--Amadscientist (talk) 20:26, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
A symbol doesn't have to necessarily be registered to qualify as a trademark; CBS/Viacom/Paramount/Desilu have been actively using this symbol in Star Trek material since its creation, and I've yet to see any use in competing media that would imply CBS is not protecting it. That being said, trademark doesn't bar entry to Commons files, that's what {{Trademarked}} is for. I would also say that while the shapes are simplistic, they are not common. If those elements were separated, they would still be easily recognizable as coming from this symbol (esp. the outside shape), which I believe is above the threshold of {{PD-shape}}. That's only my opinion, and I'm sure the opposite could also be argued. But I can't honestly say that I've seen that arrowhead shape used anywhere but this symbol.
As a counter example, File:Original Cartoon Network logo.svg contains letters on a checkerboard. If those letters were removed, it could be reasonably said that the checkerboard could have come from any of a thousand sources. I don't think the same could be said for that arrowhead. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 02:27, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm uncertain. I believe this may meet the threshold of originality in the US and don't see any clear examples of similar works at COM:TOO#United States. I would move to delete it just to be conservative. Dcoetzee (talk) 21:35, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
From the opinions of this post, I am going to go ahead and begin a deletion discussion by nominating the file for deletion.--Amadscientist (talk) 22:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Stone rubbings

Do images of stone rubbings have copyright? I am considering uploading an image of a stone rubbing I found in a book (the original 17th century stone stele with inscriptions appears to have been kept away from public view), but I'm not sure if that is OK. Axb3 (talk) 12:06, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, same as a pencil sketch would. Even if "2D scanning or photography is purely mechanical" applies in your jurisdiction, taking a stone or brass rubbing is a skilled process involving the application of creative art. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:32, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Anyway, since ideas and information are not copyrighted, you can copy the shapes, fonts and text of the stone rubbing and redraw it by yourself. I think this would qualify as derivative work of the original PD stele instead of the copyrighted rubbings.--Pere prlpz (talk) 22:36, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Questions from a newbie

Hi- a few (hopefully simple) questions:

-How do I note the "source" of a photo that is emailed to me by the subject of the photo? By the photographer?
-I'd like to post a photo that was emailed to me by the subject of the photo; it's a casual snapshot of my friend (who happens to be a notable person); another person took the photo with my friend's camera. Do I post the photo on Commons (with the OTRS Pending template), then ask my friend to email me the copyright template, then forward that email on to Commons? I guess the larger question here is, Is my friend (the subject of the photo) the copyright holder, even though she had someone else take her photo (with her camera)? Thanks in advance!! - Fifteendegreesbelow (talk) 23:59, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
It gets a bit tricky in those situations to be honest. I think we'd generally consider it a work for hire, and that the photographer implicitly gives up their copyright. As for source, put your friend's name in. -mattbuck (Talk) 01:40, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
Thank you! Now, what about a different case, a headshot photogaph emailed to me that was taken by a professional photagrapher during a photoshoot. My friend paid for the photoshoot and all the photographs. She doesn't even know the name of the photographer. Would this be a "work for hire" situation where my friend is the copyright holder; would she be the one I would need the copyright permission from? Fifteendegreesbelow (talk) 11:22, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
As a professional portrait photographer, I hold the copyright on all photos I make UNLESS I have specifically released my rights in writing to the photograph. In my photography business, as a special service to set my business apart from other photography studios, I normally release the right to make unlimited copies to the model/customer, but this is a 'limited release' done in writing while I retain the copyright. Modern cameras often automatically add in the 'metadata' the name of the photographer and a manner to contact the photographer. I suggest you look for that 'metadata' information and contact the photographer directly. Many photographers simply want credit for their work when it is re-used. PeteBobb (talk) 20:30, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
A work for hire is a photographer working within the scope of employment or both contracted (in a written contract) that the photograph is a work made for hire. Here photographer not known means no contract means no work for hire. What you got is a time for print agreement or something like that: she can use the photo for her purposes but copyright remains with the photographer. Such "permission" isn't sufficient for publication under a free license allowing anyone to reuse the file anywhere for any purpose. --Martin H. (talk) 20:26, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

File:Campina Tropeiros.jpg

Does the old email (in Portuguese) quoted on File:Campina Tropeiros.jpg look like an adequate PD release? Rd232 (talk) 11:42, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Well.. Yes, I guess. The uploader asked the prefecture if the images in the "Cartão Postal" section of their website were "free use" (uso livre), without any copyright restrictions, mentioning his intention to upload them here. The prefecture answered affirmatively.-- Darwin Ahoy! 18:22, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
OK, thanks. Rd232 (talk) 18:49, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

COAs in Russia and other USSR successor states

Looking at {{PD-RU-exempt}} I get the impression that Russian official coats of arms may be PD, and should have a {{PD-Coa-Russia}} tag. Maybe other USSR successor states too. Is that right? See also Commons:COA#Countries_where_official_coats_of_arms_are_PD. Rd232 (talk) 16:01, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Have a look into Category:PD-exUSSR-exempt license tags and you will see that the ex-USSR is really convienient in that area. In general, this question is difficult, as I tried to solve it about a year ago. Most copyright laws declare that official government documents are in the PD, but do we know if this also applies to the emblems printed on most public documents? In Germany, yes, and also in several other European countries - in fact those with a long heraldic tradition. But in Haiti, in Iraq, in South Africa? Can we just copy the central european point of view, as long we do not know better? And then there the problem that many uploaders of such images claim a copyright (and add a CC-licence) on their files, because the slightly modified the original image.--Antemister (talk) 18:26, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
Hm, fascinating. Some of them are vague, but eg {{PD-LT-exempt}} is explicit in that it excludes COAs from copyright. This needs more investigating - it looks like Commons:COA#Countries_where_official_coats_of_arms_are_PD can be expanded! Rd232 (talk) 21:15, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
Added some to the list. Rd232 (talk) 14:17, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Personal copyright and CC-BY-SA-3.0-NL

I wonder about the way user PeteBobb applies the copyright to his pictures. For example http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kijker_103AA_L2.jpg contains not only Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Netherlands, but also in the metadata: Copyright holder - 2002 Pete Bobb, Copyright status - Copyrighted, Online copyright statement - www.1st-class-photo.com. Is this right? Met vriendelijke groet, regards, Biccie (talk) 19:06, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Each and every photo has license-header:self|cc-by-sa-3.0-nl (or cc-by-sa-3.0).

I read the text of my release to wiki as saying "I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license - This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Netherlands license."' I see no conflict between maintaining that 1) I am the copyright holder, AND 2) that I am allowing the use under the wiki license. I do not believe that every photo given wiki automatically becomes 'Public Domain'. I believe with the release to wiki under the Creative Commons license that I am reserving the right to require: "Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one."' Also, 3) I retain the right to resell or give the rights to use these photos in other arenas without ever taking back or revoking the right for wiki users to use these photos under the Creative Commons license. Groetjes, PeteBobb (talk) 20:03, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

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Well, he certainly is the copyright holder, this doesn't change by releasing a file under CC-BY-SA - this license, after all, isn't about giving up copyright, it just gives people the right of free re-use under the terms of the license. So, neither "Copyright holder - 2002 Pete Bobb" nor "Copyright status - Copyrighted" is literally wrong (the file is protected by copyright, but freely licensed), but it seems a bit strange to me, too, especially as his website doesn't contain any statement regarding the freely licensed pictures, only his commercial services, as far as I can see. Gestumblindi (talk) 19:48, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
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Gestumblindi, you are correct that my website does not contain any statement regarding the freely licensed pictures. I assume that anyone with questions or comments on freely licensed pictures will use the 'Contact Us' button or 'Contact Your Photographer' button to leave a message.
Warm Regards, PeteBobb (talk) 20:16, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
I think that the biggest issue is, that people get confused by the copyright tags in the meta-data of the image. In most cases, it means that a photo was stolen (snatched from the web), but in this case we deal with a photographer (PeteBobb) who likes to share (some of) his images with the rest of the world. It might even happen in the future that people will request to prove that the photographer and the wiki-user are the same, by means of an OTRS ticket. To prevent this, PeteBobb can create a one-time OTRS-ticket where he declares that user PeteBobb is allowed to publish images from the www.1st-class-photo.com website, and list this on all his uploads. PeteBobb, feel free to contact me (or another OTRS user) now or in the future when you need help with sharing your pictures. The people that are now teasing you (as I believe it feels to you like that) actually try to keep Wikipedia clean from copyright infringements, and as a profesional photographer you should be happy with that from some point of view. Anyhow, thanks for sharing images with us (and the rest of the world), as this is the model that makes Wikipedia to what it is, a platfor for free knowledge. Edoderoo (talk) 20:57, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
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I think it silly that Photographer Pete Bobb has to separately certify that wiki user PeteBobb has photographer Pete Bobb's permission to upload Pete Bobb's photos.
I already have to certify this every time on every photo that I upload to wiki!
None of the landscape photos I have donated to Wiki are even found on my portrait photography website.
My website is simply a contact point for people who wish to contact the photographer and copyright holder of the photos.
But, to avoid problems, I sent a message to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org
"I hereby affirm that Pete Bobb is the creator of all the photos uploaded by user PeteBobb
I agree to publish that work under the free license "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 or Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Netherlands
I acknowledge that by doing so I grant anyone the right to use the work in a commercial product or otherwise, and to modify it according to their needs, provided that they abide by the terms of the license and any other applicable laws." (There is more, but I doubt that is needed to be quoted in this post!)
Let me repeat one last time that although I have sent this message to wiki, I still think that this is downright silly! Warm Regards, PeteBobb (talk) 05:46, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Studio Disney didn't find it silly that studio Disney has to separately certify that wiki user Disney has studio Disney's permission to upload Disney's movies.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:08, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
I think it silly that EVERY SINGLE photographer and author has to certify every photo and written contribution when they upload it and then recertify by sending e-mails to wiki later.
In my opinion, this should be part of the sign-up process before any member of the wiki community is allowed to contribute anything at all on wiki...
(Have you sent your re-certification to wiki that you were permitted to post your comment here on this thread on wiki? Or did you think that clicking on "By clicking the "Save Page" button, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license and the GFDL." was enough?)
I think that is silly to have to separately recertify after certifying! But I did it anyway... PeteBobb (talk) 23:48, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
The point is that when we upload pictures we certify them as pseudonymous users. Some of us want our real identity to be unknown. When there is a risk for doubt about the user representing the copyright holder (as when we also publish pictures professionally elsewhere), we have to prove the connection, which cannot be done on-wiki, but is done by OTRS. It could be done in the sign-up process, but as it is needed only for a few, it is better done separately by those. --LPfi (talk) 08:35, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
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Response from OTRS - Hi Pete Bobb, thanks for your contributions to wiki.
You don't have to ask an OTRS permission for your own photos, only if you are not the copyright older, what it's not in this case.
Yours sincerely,
(signed) Wilhiano Guilherme PeteBobb (talk) 18:31, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Concert pictures with video projection in the background

I would like to put some pictures on Commons I took during a concert a few months ago. What I am unsure about is, that some of them show projections of films that go along with the music of the band. The films are part of the artwork and concept of their live performances. Here are some examples from the same concert I found online: [2] and [3].
The films are copyrighted and not under a free license and so are the single frames I have caught in the background of my photographs. Two questions: Do I need to ask the video artist to send a permission for my pictures to OTRS? Do I have to expect a deletion request, because someone may say that a picture of a frame from a film (even if it is part of a scenery like a band on stage) that is strictly copyrighted can not be licensed with cc-by-sa? --Tsui (talk) 21:40, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I am not a lawyer, but I believe this is considered 'de minimis'. Check out the commons article for more information - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:De_minimis Warm Regards PeteBobb (talk) 23:10, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Some of my pictures show the projections behind the musicians quite clearly, rather not like the description of de minimis says.
So the question is: Is an OTRS permission by the video artist for my photographs that show single pictures from his films sufficient for Commons? --Tsui (talk) 15:20, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
I'd agree that the first example you linked to would not be de minimis. I believe that an OTRS permission from the videographer for photos showing single frames from the video would be sufficient (assuming they still own the copyright on the video, and haven't transferred it to the band, for instance). Another option would be to black out the screen. --Avenue (talk) 22:45, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. As he is part of the band, not as a musician but as the one doing the artwork (including the films), the copyright of the videos ist still his own. So I will contact him for an OTRS permission (and hope there will be no troubles here afterwards). --Tsui (talk) 22:52, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Help with copyright tag on old artwork

I just performed a history split on File:Deszcz.jpg. Because this file was uploaded over another one, the information the uploader wished to include ended up in the file upload comment rather than in the description page; as such, it was cut off and I do not know what the correct copyright tags are. The painting is from 1892 and the (Polish) artist died in 1924, so I tagged it with {{PD-Art}} and {{PD-1996}} but I'm not 100% sure that's correct. I'd appreciate any corrections you might have. Powers (talk) 02:09, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

PD-1996 is never for anything published before 1923; for those, use PD-1923.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:14, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
But that's the thing... I don't know when it was published. Powers (talk) 20:18, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
I was also always puzzled what "publish" means when talking about paintings. We usually have no information about any book publications. I can not think of any other type. --Jarekt (talk) 20:32, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Published when talking about paintings includes books, posters, prints, postcards. I understand there was a fair number of the latter two in the latter part of the 19th century. The US at that time made exposing it to the public in a way that they could make copies an act of publication as well; I believe that ended in 1978, and I don't know how it applies to foreign works.
The problem is, if you don't know when it was published, then you don't know whether it's out of copyright in the US. If it was first published in the US or with US formalities, it's possible it's still in copyright. If it was first published between 1989 and 2002, it's still in copyright until 2047.
I've never stressed publication with paintings, because it's a total pain. I suspect that most artists notable in their lifetime published relatively close to when they sold the painting. Assuming that Stanisław Dębicki was not an unknown, I'm happy to assume there were postcards or books published with the painting in his lifetime.
http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/exhibitions/Ryerson/CopyrightLaw/8 does mention some works where they appear to be claiming first publication was more then 20 years after creation for several works, including Picassos.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:16, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
So there's a very slim chance the artwork is still copyrighted in the U.S., but even if it isn't, we don't know exactly why it's in the Public Domain, because it depends on whether it was published before 1923 or after 1922. Should we delete it? Powers (talk) 15:15, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
We have barely started on working through URAA uploads, uploads that can be clearly shown to be copyrighted in the US, and we should start attacking our paintings on the slim chance in some cases that they weren't published in a timely manner?--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:01, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Prosfileas - and would assume publication not too long after creation in most cases per default, unless there is some strong, tangible indication that the work in question was first published later. Gestumblindi (talk) 20:05, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
See also Commons:Public art and copyrights in the US. A statue counts as published if it was placed "in a public location where people can make copies". Is an art gallery or a museum a public location? That is, if a painting was exhibited in an art gallery or at a museum without photo restrictions, does this mean that the painting was published at the art gallery or museum? --Stefan4 (talk) 14:39, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
That seemed to be what American Tobacco Co. v. Werckmeister (1907) turned on, whether or not copies could be made, so if they could take photos it would be PD.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:21, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
s:American Tobacco Co. v. Werckmeister looks like an interesting case, but how can we tell if photography was allowed at a museum in the 19th or early 20th century? --Stefan4 (talk) 23:21, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
You can't tell 100%, but the odds are pretty ridiculously high that paintings by well-known authors were published reasonably soon after creation. If there is documentation that a painting was unknown until much later or something like that, then reconsider. It's usually not worth trying to come up with irrefutable evidence -- it can be an impossible standard. In general, I agree with Prosfilaes -- presume publication around the time of creation, unless there are indications to the contrary. Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:03, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
I like this reasonable requirement, and I would like to be applied for every file uploaded here. Requesting a publication proof for 100-year old documents is ridiculous. Yann (talk) 08:01, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
I certainly disagree; the point about paintings is that we believe we can assert with high probability that they were in fact published within a reasonable time after creation. On the flip side, we can assert with reasonable probability that most photographs were never published meaning we can't assume that they were published.--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:40, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
I am talking about famous pictures, if you need a precision. So unless the uploader says that the image comes from a family archive, your assertion is not based on any objective or rationale point of view. Yann (talk) 09:18, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
100-year old documents is different from famous pictures. If a clearly old file has unknown publication date and is not a painting, it's generally a photograph, and museums and even magazines often have file cabinets full of unpublished photographs. "Famous pictures" is a set that will have to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:25, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
I resent the implication that I'm attacking anything. I just want to whether and how to tag this image. Powers (talk) 17:51, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
PD-1923. You can't disagree with that without getting into the whole mess of paintings in general, and the logical progression of deleting this painting is to delete a whole lot of paintings we can't clearly date an original publication. The issue isn't just about this image.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:25, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Can I upload a picture I took of title page of book published in 1762

Can I upload a picture I took of title page of book published in 1762?--Custoo (talk) 00:41, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Use {{PD-old-100-1923}} as licence. And please start new discussions at the bottom of the page, not at the top! --Stefan4 (talk) 07:55, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. I move it to the bottom of the page--Custoo (talk) 12:07, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Australian Rock Art

Example rock art image.

I recently uploaded a bunch of images at Category:Google Art Project works in Australian Rock Art. The paintings themselves are obviously public domain; however I'm unsure they qualify as PD-Art given the rough surface of the rocks. Some feature cracks or show the whole rock. Are they all PD-Art, none of them, or only some of them? Might some of them require cropping to be PD-Art? Dcoetzee (talk) 05:07, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Why are they obviously PD? Commons:Copyright_rules_by_territory#Australia says that unpublished works are under copyright.--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:19, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
They're typically well over one hundred years old (and in many cases much older than this). Nick-D (talk) 09:27, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
I would find it utterly absurd if rock paintings hundreds or thousands of years old, created long before copyright (or publication!) existed in Australia by unknown persons whose names and heirs are lost to history, could possibly develop a new copyright upon first publication. If they did, no one could ever prove that they are a legitimate heir to the original artist in order to inherit and defend those rights. I think the question of whether the photographs are PD is more pertinent. Dcoetzee (talk) 11:42, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Also, weren’t they "published" (shown publicly) at the time of their creation, just not to us modern people? darkweasel94 Diskussion/talk/diskuto 11:49, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Regardless of bizarre Australian copyright rules, PD-art is not applicable because there is a three-dimensionality to them -- at least as much as old coins, to which PD-art has been held not to apply. Assuming that the paintings are in fact PD in Australia, {{PD-art-3d}}, plus a license from the photographer, would probably be the way to go. cmadler (talk) 12:50, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
According to Duration of Copyright, artistic works "whose author died before 1955, whether published or not" are PD (p8). Also, Artists: Indigenous says "copyright in an artistic work usually expires 70 years after the death of the creator so there is no copyright protection for old Indigenous artworks such as rock art". So I think the underlying rock paintings (unless recent) are PD. cmadler (talk) 13:01, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Some countries (such as India) appear to have infinite copyright on unpublished works, and the United Kingdom provides copyright protection for many ancient unpublished works until the end of 2039. However, I would assume that the copyright holder would still be the author (or the author's heir if it is thousands of years old). If the work reaches a certain age, there is no way to prove ownership of copyright because all information about authors has been lost. Wouldn't this mean that the work de facto is in the public domain, since no one would be able to claim copyright? --Stefan4 (talk) 14:48, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
I believe that would have to be checked in a case by case status, depending on the surface. If the surface is plain and smooth, it's not different than a fresco, and PD-Art should apply.-- Darwin Ahoy! 18:16, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Is this real?

Image:Lauffen-Frankfurt1891-1991.jpg is significantly more than a simple geometric shape... 76.117.247.55 03:23, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Press photos made on or before 1963

I tried to find names of claimants in copyright catalogs, like United Press International or International News Photos, but I found none. I declare photos out of copyright because terms expired already. I wonder if any press photos taken on or before 1963 already lost copyright. Photos from Category:Allan Hoover are very old, and registration is not found. I wonder if using a press photo is all right. --George Ho (talk) 06:09, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Renewals for photographs can be difficult, as they could have been part of a book which did get renewed on time, or that sort of thing. But yes, I'm sure many photographs never had their copyright renewed. Carl Lindberg (talk) 12:09, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

How do we know the author of this work is allowing the use?

This image [4] claims a copyright in its summary against commons policy and a hidden category of "Copyrighted free use provided that..." But a look at the source[5] provides no actual disclaimer allowing use in this manner and there is no OTRS. Is this image being used within policy? Why does the image have a copyright notice added to the summary and as its license if this has been cleared in anyway to be used commercially and derivative works are allowed?--Amadscientist (talk) 20:03, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Uploads of that vintage are usually considered to be grandfathered in. Dankarl (talk) 20:51, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
COM:GOF refers to cases with some evidence of the copyright claim made. There is none here, so Commons:Deletion requests/File:Niankh.jpg. Rd232 (talk) 21:52, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Copyrighted free use provided that

{{Copyrighted free use provided that}} has 4k transclusions. How many of these should be using {{Attribution}}, and how many of the rest are dodgy? Should the template be deprecated? Rd232 (talk) 21:55, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

It's really the same thing as {{PD-because}}: some files need custom licence templates, but many claims are incorrect. --Stefan4 (talk) 14:51, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Good point - we should really include it in Commons:WikiProject Public Domain/PD-because review then. Rd232 (talk) 09:49, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

New file uploaded instead of new version

I have found an image file that has been over-written by the same user. Instead of uploading the new file they covered one of their other files and marked it as "cannot use previous". Not sure what to do - I've attempted searched for a solution but to no avail. Ideas? The image/s are here --Fountain Posters (talk) 00:08, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

It was uploaded within hours of the original upload, in May, so I think it's OK to have overwritten it, and certainly OK to leave it now. The only question is whether to delete the previous version, because of the "cannot use previous" statement. Rd232 (talk) 10:27, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
The previous version seems to be on the internet here (and other places), marked as an AP photo there, and predating upload here. I'd delete it. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:15, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Protection of architecture according to the Austrian act of 1895

Hi, I've been wondering whether the Austrian copyright act from 1895 did protect buildings and other objects of civil engineering or not. The content of the act is available at File:Urheberrecht 1895 Nr 197-198.djvu. The text (as transliterated here) states: "Als Werke der Literatur oder Kunst im Sinne dieses Gesetzes sind anzusejien:... Werke der bildenden Künste, als: Pläne und Entwürfe für architektonische Arbeiten... Die Werke der Baukunst sind jedoch ausgenommen."

Does this mean that buildings (I understand these to be "die Werke der Baukunst") were public domain, but plans and drafts of architectural works were not? I don't quite understand this, because this expert article defines buildings as a reproduction of the plan (which itself is a reproduction of the immaterial work). Did the law protect the original plan, but not the derived works?

This could be of great importance because there are some highly notable buildings in Slovenia that were built when this act was valid. The 1895 act was superseded only in 1929, when Slovenia was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. For example, this building was completed in 1901; the author, however, died only in 1962. Per the later valid Slovenian acts his work would be public domain only in 2033 (70 + 1 years since his death), and per COM:FOP#Slovenia photos of it can't be published on Commons until then. However, if these buildings were public domain when built, their photos can be used freely.

Another thing that has to be clarified to be sure whether these building are public domain is whether they were still public domain after the 1929 act became valid, because the Yugoslav copyright act applied for 1) "all literary and art works that were published for the first time in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia" (the Kingdom of Yugoslavia came into existance in 1929), and for: 2) "all literary and art works that of a Yugoslav citizen, no matter whether they were published in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia or abroad or were not published at all."(24/1930). Does this mean that if the author was still alive and a Yugoslav citizens, his works were retroactively protected according to this new act, even though they were public domain before? --Eleassar (t/p) 18:23, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

The whole "successor state" thing is very hairy and uncertain, AFAIK. In the absence of any specific info I would generally assume that a successor state's provisions will apply unless the copyright has already expired at the point when the new provisions take effect. But additionally, the point (2) you quote suggests the law may have been retroactive and could have restored expired copyrights. Rd232 (talk) 14:11, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Even if the buildings were {{PD-ineligible}} in Slovenia while the Austrian copyright law was in force, the copyright might have been restored by the en:Copyright Duration Directive if they were provided copyright protection in some other EU country. --Stefan4 (talk) 14:56, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. If I correctly understand, these buildings should be regarded as copyrighted if their author died less than 70 years ago, even if the cited 1895 Austrian act proclaimed them copyright-exempt? I'll also contact a lawyer (postgraduate researcher) who specialises in architectural copyright in Slovenia to see what does she say. --Eleassar (t/p) 07:13, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Hey if you can get expert and specialist opinion, that's always the best! :) Rd232 (talk) 09:48, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

1973 advertisement

I have a newspaper clipping from 1973 from a defunct newspaper, the Philadelphia Bulletin. On the back, there is part of an advertisement for phonographs showing the price. The name of the retailer has been cut off. I would like to photograph that advertisement and upload it. Since the newspaper no longer exists, is this possible? Downtowngal (talk) 18:51, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

You would need to check that there is no copyright notice anywhere on the advertisement. Since you are writing that a part of the advertisement is missing, I would assume that you need to locate a complete copy of the advertisement in order to verify that the copyright notice isn't on the missing part. --Stefan4 (talk) 20:07, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Uso de imagem

Irei publicar uma Unidade Didática na página da Educação Pr, gostaria de usar uma imagem de um moinho de vento que encontrei aqui. De acordo com as informações postadas a imagem está em domínio público aqui no Brasil. Como devo referenciar a imagem? Desta forma? Quais as informações que devo colocar?

File:Moinho de vento Aracati, 1859 José R. Carvalho.jpg

Obrigada, aguardo retorno se possível. Edilene

Esta imagem é em domínio público. Você pode empregar livremente a imagem e non tem obrigação de empregar nenhum crédito nela. Si você o considera interessante per os seus lectores, pode indicar o autor, o título, o museu donde ela é, e outras informações que trovarei em File:Moinho de vento Aracati, 1859 José R. Carvalho.jpg o possivelmente na web do museu.--Pere prlpz (talk) 12:10, 6 October 2012 (UTC) P.S.: Perdoe o meu mal português.
Tenha em atenção que, apesar da imagem ser domínio publico, tanto a lei Portuguesa como, creio, a Brasileira, obrigam à atribuição sempre que a autoria seja conhecida. O nome do pintor (José dos Reis Carvalho) deve ser publicado junto com a imagem.-- Darwin Ahoy! 18:22, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

How to upload a college transcript for Frances Hugle, a dead scientist

I am unable to determine a copyright category for this upload.

Is it possible/allowed to upload this file?

I also have resumes for this scientist. I would like to upload those as well since they provide supporting documentation for resolving editor disputes on the Frances Hugle talk page.

Or does Wikipedia prefer that these documents be placed elsewhere with links provided?

Cheryl Hugle (talk) 15:20, 6 October 2012 (UTC) Cheryl Hugle

I'm not sure the Commons is the right place for such uploads. Wikisource might be more appropriate, but you'll have to ensure that the documents are not copyrighted. — SMUconlaw (talk) 10:31, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
If we're talking about scans of original documents (e.g., created by Hugle), the scans would reside on Commons, while a cleaned OCR/transcription would reside on Wikisource. cmadler (talk) 18:49, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

European parliament

I want to upload the picture of Cyprus EEZ from here (page 62). After a while I found out that this document is from European parliament and therefore its copyright defined at this link (my bold):

As a general rule, the reuse (reproduction or use) of textual data and multimedia items which are the property of the European Union (identified by the words '© European Union, [year(s)] – Source: European Parliament' or '© European Union, [year(s)] – EP' ) or of third parties (© External source, [year(s)]), and for which the European Union holds the rights of use, is authorised, for personal use or for further non-commercial or commercial dissemination, provided that the entire item is reproduced and the source is acknowledged. However, the reuse of certain data may be subject to different conditions in some instances; in this case, the item concerned is accompanied by a mention of the specific conditions relating to it
Any partial reproduction of data or multimedia items from this website must also cite the URL link of the complete item or the web page from which it was sourced.

As far as I understand it, it should be equivalent to CC-SA, but I want to ensure before I will upload it. Thanks, טרול רפאים (talk) 16:39, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't believe so. "Provided that the entire item is reproduced" seems to mean ND, no derivatives allowed, even if they allow commercial use. If I well recall a similar discussion was brought on about EU bank notes.-- Darwin Ahoy! 17:53, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
This wasn't what I understand, but I assume that you are right :-( 19:14, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

PD-Chile?

I've stumbled upon a deleted image, which is an official portrait of president Michelle Bachelet, by the Chilean Government. {{PD-Chile}} is confuse, but seems to apply to Government works? If I red it well, it says something to the effect that anything that comes to the property of the state is free, if properly attributed. Is that right? May I restore the image? (It's the same image that appears in the cover of this book, but full length and clean.-- Darwin Ahoy! 18:17, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Pre-war postcards of Königsberg

Hello. This website has dozens of PD postcards of the lost city of Königsberg, published as late as 1939. Until 1945 it was part of the Free State of Prussia, Germany. Then in 1944/45 it was razed into oblivion, and a concrete Soviet monstrosity was built on its place. The place of the former city has been the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad since 1945 or so. I've little doubt that the postcards are PD in Germany, since they were all published before 1940. Question is, are they PD in the US as well? Do Russian copyright laws have anything to do with this? -- Darwin Ahoy! 18:35, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Why exactly do you think these postcards are PD in Germany? Copyright there lasts for 70 years after the death of the author, not after publication. --Rosenzweig τ 20:14, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
I believe they are, if it can be ascertained that they were published by a company or photo studio (or by an unknown part, I've seen some postcards that simply say "Union Post" or whatever on the back) without any identification of the author. Isn't it correct? -- Darwin Ahoy! 20:41, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
"without any identification of the author" is not a legal term. I suppose you mean they are anonymous works. But not having an author stated inside or on the work is not enough to make it an anonymous work in the legal sense, you would also need to know that the author was not revealed publicly elsewhere (in a magazine article or at a lecture, perhaps). At least that's the case for any German works created before July 1, 1995, for details see de:Anonymes Werk (Urheberrecht). It's practically impossible to prove that the identity of the author was never revealed publicly when even a public lecture is enough to do that, the name could also be stated in an article in some obscure magazine, on a photographic print or on another version of the postcard. For this reason, the German laws about anonymous works are practically worthless for us, and that is also why the German wikipedia does not utilise them (de:WP:Bildrechte#Bilder, deren Urheber nicht bekannt ist: „Für anonyme Werke bestimmt § 66 UrhG, dass das Urheberrecht bereits 70 Jahre nach der Erstveröffentlichung der Aufnahme erlischt (bzw. nach der Erstellung, falls das Werk 70 Jahre lang unveröffentlicht blieb). Sobald sich der Urheber zu irgendeinem Zeitpunkt zu seinem Bild (sofern es vor dem 1. Juli 1995 erstellt wurde) bekannt hat, gilt jedoch die normale Schutzfrist von 70 Jahren post mortem auctoris. Ein vollgültiger Beweis, dass dies nicht der Fall war, ist faktisch kaum möglich. Es ist immer denkbar, dass der Urheber seinen Namen auf einem Abzug oder bei einer entlegenen Publikation bekanntgegeben hat.“) --Rosenzweig τ 21:14, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
If I well understand, you are telling that it is not worth even going into US copyrights because those postcards are not PD in Germany (or rather, cannot be proved to be)? This recalls me of that infamous "we love Hitler" tapestry we discussed a while ago. It is strange that a law appeals to the inversion of burden of proof, but who am I to discuss it. I guess this ends the question, then. Thank you for your explanation.-- Darwin Ahoy! 22:17, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
The law in question is quite absurd indeed, but it's what we have to deal with. --Rosenzweig τ 00:46, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Rosenzweig, if it is not much trouble, and something easy to explain, could you please tell me what changed exactly in 1995, in the German law about anonymous works? I tried to read the translation of that article you have shown, but it was very confuse. Apparently the 1995 reform made it similar to our law, but I couldn't understand what changed in practical terms. I understand that it is immaterial to this case, since it's the rule of the longer term that counts there, it's only a curiosity.-- Darwin Ahoy! 23:14, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
The main difference IMO is that before, the name of the author just needed to be known somehow („[…] der Urheber auf andere Weise als Schöpfer des Werkes bekannt wird“) for the 70 years pma protection to take effect. Under the new 1995 law, the author him- or herself (or his heirs after (s)he died) has to acknowledge his/her authorship to achieve this. There are two other options that result in 70 years pma: use of a pseudonym that leaves no doubt about the real identity of the author, or registration in a special register for anonymous and pseudonymous works. --Rosenzweig τ 00:46, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Thank you very much, now I understand the difference.-- Darwin Ahoy! 14:02, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Königsberg is currently part of Russia. If a work was published in Königsberg during the German era, does that count as a German or as a Russian work today? --Stefan4 (talk) 22:12, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
I believe only German copyright has something to do with it, since the authors were German subjects at the time. Thinking about it, I don't see how Russia could have any legitimate claim on anything remaining from Königsberg, even the architecture. They are not the source country for nothing of it. -- Darwin Ahoy! 04:30, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

please help to clarify copyright-newbee

i would like to use some images from wikimediacommons. how can i find the copyrigt tag? i would like to use 2 images for a magazine article for which i wont get paid. can i use the images and how can i acknowledge it please— Preceding unsigned comment added by Rosh55 (talk • contribs)

The answer would depend on which files are we talking about, and especially on how are these files licensed in Commons. Then, we would need a link to the files to give more specific guidance.
Anyway, reading Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia should be useful.--Pere prlpz (talk) 21:52, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Copyright of a photo

See File:JeffreyNg-2008.jpg

Please help, because I'm not sure about the best license for this work.

I requested this photo from the author himself, and he sent it to me for use in Wikipedia projects. He has no experience with Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons. That's why he didn't upload it himself.

I uploaded it in his place and chose the license which seemed most suitable to me. Then I wrote him to confirm the license as follows: "I allow anyone to use it for any purpose including unrestricted redistribution, commercial use, and modification." He did so, and got the answer: "The license currently says Creative Commons. Are you saying you release this under public domain." [Ticket#2012100810008043]

Please, make the necessary modifications to the file page in the way, that "This file remains licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license" and inform the author, or if you think this is not the best license for the photo of a living person, give him a recommendation. BTW, this person on the photo agrees with the publication of his photo under any suitable kind of licenses.

Kabelsalat (talk) 12:12, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Files erroneously transferred to Commons

File:181madison.jpg says With permission from photographer Krzysztof Makara to be used on Wikipedia., but has an {{Attribution}} license ("use for any purpose"). I don't know what the licensing on Wikipedia was, but it shouldn't have been transferred to Commons. Is there any easy way to transfer files back? (And is it OK to do so in this case without resolving the contradiction first?) Rd232 (talk) 12:54, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Just delete it. This image can easily be recreated by re-shooting the photograph. There is no justification for such a non-free image to be used either here, or on Wikipedia. Past practice has been to delete such "Only on Wikipedia" images, even when they're historically significant and unrecreatable (see Commons:Deletion requests/File:Crusader1117.jpg). Andy Dingley (talk) 13:11, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Please wait some time before deleting it. I've contacted the photographer to clarify the status of that file. This is a 2006 upload, Commons was a new thing back then, this is not necessarily a "wikipedia only" license. But of course, confirmation from the photographer is needed.-- Darwin Ahoy! 14:10, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
en:User talk:Spyguy 999 and the ubiquitous copyright reservation on Krzysztof Makara's Flickr stream suggests that these images are a problem of unprovable author licensing at very least, if not simple incorrect claims for licensing when they were uploaded. Either way, it should fixed Real Soon Now (which hasn't happened on the other images, as SpyGuy hasn't edited in years) or be deleted. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:58, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
I pointed Krzysztof Makara to this thread, so if there are more photos by him here or in wiki.en, this is now a good time to fix them all. Depending on what Krzysztof Makara says (or does not says), they should be all deleted or kept. If you are aware of other photos by him here or in wiki.en, it could be useful to post the links here as well.-- Darwin Ahoy! 15:12, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
A few moments work gives at least these, Category:Photographs by Krzysztof Makara, 9 of them, all with the same issue. Raised at Commons:Categories for discussion/2012/10/Category:Photographs by Krzysztof Makara too. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:28, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

License check request

Could somebody do the license check for the following 2 files
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AK-103-1.png
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ak_12_by_dalttt.png
I 've uploaded both from the author's webpage and they are stated there to be under free license. So - just need to check everything is OK with the license set there and here...

Best regards
--RussianTrooper (talk) 17:54, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Cropped version of an image.

Hi, I just uploaded a cropped version of an image, that was released under CC BY-SA 2.0. How do I mention, that this is an altered version of the image? Could someone please take a look, if I did everything correct? This was my first upload here on commons. Thank you. --Marc-André Aßbrock (talk) 20:23, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Ok, thank you. --Marc-André Aßbrock (talk) 16:33, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Ecce Homo by Elías García Martínez

I've uploaded a reproduction of the original fresco by Elías García Martínez - File:Elias Garcia Martinez - Ecce Homo.jpg, expecting it to be absolutely safe, since everyone and his mother claimed the original artwork was a 100/120 year old painting, and the author died in 1934. However, while illustrating the articles, I stumbled upon a reference to this local newspaper article, which claims it is much more recent, from circa 1930. If that is the case, this conflicts with the URAA, and should be deleted and restored only in 2015, since the protection in Spain at the URAA date seems to have been 80 years after death? Am I missing something?-- Darwin Ahoy! 20:44, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Or perhaps it is 1934 + 95, therefore in copyright in the US until 2029?-- Darwin Ahoy! 20:55, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
If we must assume that it could have been published in 1934, then 1934 + 95 + 1, since they get a full 95 years of coverage, rounding up to the next January first. Next time something previously published will leave copyright in the US is 2019, for works published in 1923.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:20, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Why should we give credence to an Ecuadorean local website, over other sources BBC claiming it's "over a hundred years old" and "19th century" ? Andy Dingley (talk) 22:49, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Indeed. Upon a more extensive research, and avoiding all newspaper sources, which are not very reliable, I've found more concrete info on the painting on two scholar studies regarding its restoration published in the Ayuntamiento de Borja website: http://www.borja.es/noticias. The site links to two studies: One by Albarium and another by Instituto Valenciano de Conservación y Restauración de Bienes Culturales. The first starts by dating it as "circa 1930", which appears to be a typo, since they further on in the study say the precise date is unknown, but estimated by the Centro de Estudios Borjanos at the first decade of the 20th century, using as reference its sister painting by the son of Elias at the other side of the portal, presumed to have been painted at the same date. The Instituto Valenciano de Conservación y Restauración de Bienes Culturales dated it simply from the 19th century, on the other hand.
If it is of some interest, the study by Albarium does not recognizes any originality to the new Cecilia painting, since all that was done was a repainting of a previous existing work.
The image has to be deleted for now, in any case, since I miscalculated the copyright term in Spain (it is 80 y.o. for works before 1987) but I'll schedule it's undeletion for 2015, since the primary source seems to date it from 1900-1910, therefore PD-1923 and except from URAA.-- Darwin Ahoy! 03:59, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
"The image has to be deleted for now"
Why?
What is the point in even posting to Commons:Village pump/Copyright at all, if you're going to ignore the views of other editors anyway? Especially not if you're going to justify this in the deletion comment by hanging on to this highly dubious claim that it's a 1930 painting. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:17, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
What views have I ignored? I agreed with you. I posted this here because I miscalculated the term of protection in Spain, it is still protected there until 2015 even if it is PD-1923, so we can't keep it for now.
Anyway, I contacted Centro de Estudios Borjanos, who seem to be the best source for info on the painting, and they clarified the question. The painting was dated by them as from 1900-1910. Then, afterwards, the family of the painter told that they believed it was painted in the last years of life of the painter, around 1930. The date of the painting remains unclear for the moment.
A very good notice is that Centro de Estudios Borjanos gracefully allowed the reuse of the images from their blog under CC-BY-SA-3.0. I'm waiting for OTRS to check it, and when the process is completed I'll post it at VP.-- Darwin Ahoy! 15:27, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
I just read it, and it's a little bit ambiguous. Paraphrasing the exchange (I hope I'm reading the Spanish correctly), it went like the following. Darwin: "Great blog, would you be interested in release some of your images under the CC-BY-SA-3.0? (link)" Them: "We don't object to allowing use of them as long as they cite the source." Just to be sure they understand the terms of the license, could you ask them to do a standard consent form email? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 09:19, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Paintings

The sons and daughters of a deceased painter have inherited his paintings. They are willing to publish photographs of the paintings with a free license. Can I upload those pictures? Which templates should I use? Thank you! --NaBUru38 (talk) 08:48, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

They can use {{CC-BY-SA-3.0-heirs}} or other license templates with "heirs" in the name [6]. Please notice that they need to have inherited copyright about the works, which is likely, but isn't the same as having inherited ownership of the painting (the physical object, I mean).
Please notice too that if there are several heirs to the copyright of same works, probably the right to release the works under a free license needs consent from all heirs. This is unlikely to cause any problem in Commons (unless a realistic complaint were received) but it could cause a problem between the uploader and other heirs (or the heirs of the heirs) in the next decades. Then, if I were to be the uploader, I would like to keep a written permission from the other heirs, specially if the works could became valuable in terms of money.--Pere prlpz (talk) 09:40, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
I am a bit surprised about your statement that the heirs of the heirs could make problems with already given licenses. Of course the actual heirs should give permission per OTRS, but afterwards this should be cleared for the future. --Funfood ␌ 10:34, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Let's imagine one of the sons uploads the picture. Let's imagine painter becomes very famous and in 50 years a company wants to use the picture in commercials and, if the picture wasn't free, the company would pay a big amount for using the picture. Imagine that the painter's son who didn't upload the picture is dead, but he had ha son, who claims he rightfully owns a share of the copyright of the picture, and that he nor his father have never renounced to their rights by giving authorisation to release the picture under a free license. Depending on the jurisdictions, this unhappy heir of heirs might sue his uncle that uploaded the image, his cousins (heirs of his uncle) or/and the reuser.
Then, if I wanted to upload to Commons an image for which I had inherited part of the rights, I would prefer to keep some record of the consent of the other owners of such rights, just to avoid problems in the future. Sending a proof of this consent to OTRS would be perfect, but I think it's not mandatory, in the same way that we usually accept own work statements without a proof.--Pere prlpz (talk) 10:59, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Example: Commons:Deletion requests/Photos of works by Marian Iwańciów (2007-03-04) Uploader was in conflict with part of community then, but his claims was valid anyway. If OTRS permission was required, Commons would not have to wait until 2047. A.J. (talk) 14:42, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Promo language in image metadata

Looking over File:Avinash Sachdev FilmiTadka.jpg, I found the following remarkable language in the file's metadata:

FilmiTadka, the Big Daddy to tame all the bitches and pompous assess has arrived. We are about the bluntest journalism Indian Film Industry has ever seen. We will reveal every secret of Indian stars, their scandals, all the goods and bads of the world of cinema.We are not about dumbass journalism, where Kal se lekar Aaj Tak all have shown how Aishwarya is pregnant at least 100 times every day as‘breaking news’, NO, Never. But yes, we will be asking questions like why it happens that scandals never leave our stars why it happens that they all condemn it still become a part of it every time? After all it is showbiz, they like it, they won’t be paid if their faces are not out here in the media.Well they want it, right? We will give them what they want, but the rules are not set out by them this time it is the other way around. From their waste sizes to their sexual fantasies and career fears, from Rakhi Sawant to Aishwarya Rai, from Emraan to Amir, no one’s safe now, watch out kids run to mommies, FilmiTadka is here.

This is in the "Image title" field of the metadata. The extended details reveal other bits of tawdry website promotion. It seems inappropriate. Because the file is included in a Wikipedia article, this language also gets reproduced on that heavily trafficked site.

What can/should be done about this? -- Alarob (talk) 22:14, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, if you care, you could always edit the metadata, and reupload over the file. Personality, I don't. Yann (talk) 06:01, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
For how to edit metadata, see COM:EXIF. On whether to edit out this sort of thing: I'm not sure we have a policy. Even though it's embedded in the image, the metadata is not seen by many people who see the image. Rd232 (talk) 07:47, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Confusion over FoP country of origin

Please see Commons talk:Freedom of panorama#FoP based on location of building or nationality of architect?. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:55, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

File:Discuz-logo.png

hello there. i've got second thoughts on whether this particular file can be licensed as PD-textlogo. my first impression was that it is as simple as a textlogo can be - letters and kanji. but now i doubt it... can anyone help me by either reassuring that i am to leave it as it is here, or suggesting to nominate it for deletion ASAP? thanks in advance, and i am really sorry to disturb( --antanana 09:46, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't see nothing there that could be even remotely copyrightable, but those things also depend on the source country (which I've no idea what it is, in this case).-- Darwin Ahoy! 16:19, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
There are Chinese characters on the logo, so the source country might be China. China is a bit picky about typewriting because of calligraphy laws. See for example this New China article where it says that a company. was found guilty to violate someone's copyright of a specific rendering of the character
道
. However, if this logo violates calligraphy copyright, the claimant would be the font designer, not the logo designer. I don't know anything about thresholds for other kinds of works than calligraphy. --Stefan4 (talk) 17:06, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

thanks for the replies) thus i believe we can keep it, can't we? --antanana 12:40, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

User:Frans kannik

This user has uploaded a lot of images by da:Frans Kannik, who died in 2011. Do we have any indication that Frans kannik (talk · contribs) is the same as da:Frans Kannik? If it's the same person, there's not much use in adding {{subst:npd}} since he died last year, so I'm trying here instead. --Stefan4 (talk) 00:14, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I believe it is him, indeed, unfortunately. Fholbek seems to be close to the family, a cousin of the deceased, I believe, so you may try to contact him if you really need a confirmation. All hints, however, are that it is indeed the same person.-- Darwin Ahoy! 00:55, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Images part of a software package released under GPL

Is it possible to upload images, that are part of the source of software released under GPL, to Commons? If yes, what has to be considered regarding the upload?

As an example consider the software logo of Sumatra PDF. Sumatra PDF is released under GNU GPL v3. It's logo is part of the source code and available here. Could the image be uploaded to Commons, e.g. to use it on the German Wikipedia's article on Sumatra PDF?

Patrick87 (talk) 17:24, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

URAA and old german stamps

As you can see at this Commons-template, somebody has applied the URAA regulations of „restored works“ to old german stamps. That’s not o.k. for many reasons.

1) Owner of the copyright is the German Reichspost (German State) and URAA reactivates this copyright. § 104A—Copyright in restored works - (b) Ownership of Restored Copyright: >>A restored work vests initially in the author or initial rightholder of the work as determined by the copyright law of the source country of the work.<<

2) The copyright law of Germany defines at Art. 5 >> „Official works“ ... do not enjoy copyright protection.<<

3) there is an other reason that shows you the mistake. § 104A—Copyright in restored works (a) Automatic Protection and Term (2) Exception.: >>Any work in which the copyright was ever owned or administered by the Alien Property Custodian and in which the restored copyright would be owned by a government or instrumentality thereof, is not a restored work.<<

During second world war all foreign german affairs had been confiscated by Alien Property Custodian (ger. „Feindvermögensverwalter“). About its activities you can read at Der Spiegel Oktober 1952 – Copyright, Nachdruck gestattet. By the way, all US-stamps before 1978 are in the public domain.

  • Please delete the misleading template Not-PD-US-URAA from old german stamps. --Drdoht 09:36, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Your link doesn't explain where this has been done. Where did you see it? But anyway,
(1) The German Reichspost is (as far as we know...) only the owner of the copyright of old stamps in certain cases: stamps tagged/taggable with {{PD-Germany-§134-KUG}}. Generally the copyright rests with the stamp designer, as far as we know.
(2) See Commons:WikiProject Public Domain/German stamps review: stamps are not considered official works in Germany.
(3) Would only apply to {{PD-Germany-§134-KUG}} cases, but matters for those cases. We need better evidence than that Spiegel article that the relevant copyrights were confiscated by the Alien Property Custodian, but if they were, that means some stamps can be hosted which would otherwise be affected by the URAA.

Rd232 (talk) 09:50, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

citation of "Der Spiegel" serves only for side information about the "Alien Property Custodian". I never heart about it before. The german BUNA (Kautschuk)-Patent was used in USA without paying fees. Merck activities in US were confiscated at war time.
The mentioned "German Reichspost" (before 1945) has nothing to do with "Deutsche Bundespost". The copyright rules on german stamps have changed since their "outsourcing" 1997. --Drdoht 09:56, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I understand the Spiegel article was just indicative. We need either something specific about stamps, or a general statement that clearly includes stamps.
The copyright rules on german stamps have changed since their "outsourcing" 1997 - no they haven't. That view depends on the stamps being "official works" before the Deutsche Post was privatised, and we know they're not. Rd232 (talk) 10:31, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
I think that the critical thing is that the Berlin court decided that an official work has to be a literary work. Most stamps are artistic works, regardless of who the designer is. --Stefan4 (talk) 10:52, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
This cited „Berlin Court“ was a very very low court („Landgericht“), no prior justice. They had to judge only about their actual case, not about offical things in general.
In former times, the „Reichsdruckerei“ and „Bundesdruckerei“ had employed their own grafic designer, bound by UrhG § 43 Urheber in Arbeits- oder Dienstverhaltnissen. Today „Deutsche Post“ is looking for free designer, for example Prof. Hans Günter Schmitz. --Drdoht 14:03, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
The previous decision the other way (1986) was also a Landgericht (Munich), but was criticised by legal scholars. The Berlin decision is much more in keeping with the relevant legal theory, and has to be considered the prevailing view of the German legal system. PS Do you think you could change your signature so that it links to your userpage/usertalk page, as is the norm? Rd232 (talk) 14:43, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
UrhG § 43 is potentially useful - let's talk about that. Rd232 (talk) 14:46, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
§ 43 UrhG means that a employee has to leave all the rights he achieved during fullfilling his duties. His claims may be paid by cash. This is similar to national patent laws: in Germany you'll get one time „Erfindervergütung“ (ca. 500 €), in USA you'll get nothing. --Drdoht (talk) 21:45, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
The Alien Property Custodian stuff is primarily about seized Nazi (and Japanese) material from World War II. The clause was put into the copyright law to prevent copyright claims on (i.e. suppression of) seized atrocity evidence and that sort of thing. It *might* technically apply to certain stamps if you can find them in U.S. archives such as www.archives.gov, but only then if the copyright is not owned by an individual. "Administered by the Alien Property Custodian" means the material actually passed through that U.S. government office in the WWII time frame. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:54, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
The face of A.H. on german stamps is based on a portrait from his „Leibphotograph“ Heinrich Hoffmann. All of his works have been confiscated by the US and stored at National Archives source. --[[User:Drdoht |Drdoht ]] (talk) 21:26, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
Clarification: About 200.000-300.000 out of 1.5 million Hoffmann photos were confiscated by the United States. These 200.000-300.000 images are in the public domain in the United States (but not in Germany). The remaining Hoffmann images are copyrighted in the United States, unless published before 1923. --Stefan4 (talk) 22:59, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Blank World Map in a book?

Hello. I've been doing a lot of research on Wikipedia for a science fiction book I'm writing, and it so happens I'm really going to need to include a world map in the book. I chose this one: File:BlankMap-World-IOC.PNG, as the best one for the purpose.

Now the idea is to color the countries in the map as appropriate to show their different status as the story evolves, so essentially I'm going to be modifying the map a lot, even changing many of its borders to indicate critical geopolitical changes. Finally, the map will be included in the final pages of the book, to clearly explain to the readers how the situation evolved (one picture is worth a thousand words). Or course, I am willing to include a footnote quoting my source, Wikipedia, and identifying the original author for his deserved credit.

So my question is: is this allowed? And how do I contact the author of the original map, to show him my final modified map and ask for his approval?

Please help me out here, this is EXTREMELY important to me, and I don't want to do anything that's not OK. Thank you in advance. LJ Volkov21 (talk) 21:34, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Good. Thanks for that, I appreciate it. So how do I contact the author to ask for his approval? And what is the exact format the footnote under the map should have, to properly indicate the source of the original image and give credit to its author?

I was thinking of doing this: "Original image downloaded from (URL), created by Wikipedia user (username), modified version approved by original author." LJ Volkov21 (talk) 10:13, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

  • There are a few more things to be aware of here. You can publish a modified version of the map, as long as you follow the conditions of the license (GFDL or CC-BY-SA). These include releasing the modified map under the chosen license, including a copy of the license in your book (or a link to it for CC-BY-SA), and providing proper credit.
Here "proper credit" includes mentioning all the authors (or at least 5 of the main authors, for the GFDL), not just the uploader of the latest version. For a file like this, which is derived from an earlier map, which in turn is derived from an earlier map, identifying the authors will take a little work.
You don't need to contact the authors, let alone ask for approval (although most authors would be happy to hear about their work being reused). There's more information at Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia. --Avenue (talk) 13:40, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, this is starting to look really tricky... I see there's much more to this than to simply name the URL of where I found the map... But I guess I'll give it a shot. Sorry to insist so much on these questions, but honestly I really don't understand how copyright works.

If you follow the link that I left in the first message, you'll see that the map only has one previous version, and they're both by the same author, on September 2008. So how can I find out whether he created that file based on somebody else's work?

The link also mentions that the map is covered by the GDFL rules. I don't see any reference to CC-BY-SA, so I guess they must be two distinct copyright protection packages and only one applies. What is the GDFL license that I would have to copy to my book along with the map? Is it like a short text that explains the terms of the license? Or is it enough to explicitly include this link: [7] ?

I'll come back here whenever I have time to look into this more carefully, and then I'll make a new footnote and ask you if I've correctly included all the necessary info on that footnote. Thank you so much for your patience and help, I really appreciate it. LJ Volkov21 (talk) 22:55, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I see... So I can just use one of those maps instead? That's great. Makes everything much easier. Thanks a lot!

I'm really going to have to experiment with printing the map at different resolutions, because I will have to color the whole map and the PNG makes that easier... But as far as copyright goes, I guess the problem is solved. I'll just include a small footnote linking to the original file. Thanks again. LJ Volkov21 (talk) 22:55, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

{{PD-Austria}}

Could someone who knows something about the {{PD-Austria}} template comment here and in the discussion immediately below? The images seem to be more complex than the examples listed in the template, but it would be nice to have the opinion of someone else. --Stefan4 (talk) 23:01, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Reg File:Hakim Ahmad Shuja 1.jpg and my full and free permission for its use

Dear sirs Please refer to the above file/topic. I own this image, which is a photograph I took of an earlier photograph of the subject taken by my late grandfather, probably between 1925-26, and I assured and allowed this image's full and free use in 2011 when I took and uploaded this photo. I once again assure (as written on the file discussion page etc) that this is or was fully my possession and that I have allowed and given complete, full and free use of it to Wikimedia commons /Wikipedia, and for any subsequent use. I dont know what to do and how to give this source information and/or permission in technical language and as per formal licencing, and would be grateful if someone could please help and do the needful for me. Thank you very much, Khani100 (talk) 12:21, 14 October 2012 (UTC)Khani100

According to the dots pattern in the image, it looks like an image printed using rotogravure, most likely in a newspaper or another printed media. Did your grandfather work for a journal?--Pere prlpz (talk) 21:37, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

FoP in the Republic of Macedonia

Can anyone with better know of English language help us with this problem. --Smooth_O (talk) 14:32, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

✓ Done, I think. Rd232 (talk) 16:52, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

French legislation copyright

It's hard to believe that French legislation from 1889 (File:Décret instituant l'Exposition universelle de 1889.GIF) is subject to copyright. But I can't find a PD tag for it to replace the deprecated {{PD}}, or identify a clear statement in the French legal code that would allow me to start designing a tag. Help, anyone? Rd232 (talk) 16:52, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

{{PD-JORF}} is the template you're looking for. There is no provision in French positive law that legislation should be public domain, but a 1867 ruling states that laws, decrees, ordinances, circulars, and so on ‘have undoubtedly entered the public domain, and can be used by [the defendant, a publisher] as well as by anyone.’ It has been upheld since. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 17:08, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

URAA nicht auf Lichtbilder (photographic pictures) anwendbar

Was ist URAA? Auf 245 Seiten ein Handelsabkommen „An Act To approve and implement the trade agreements concluded in the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations.“ [von 1994, Text auch bei wikisource] .

1) Unterkapitel Subtitle A—Copyright Provisions (Sec. 511-514)

beschreibt >>Rental rights in computer programs,<< >>Civil & Criminal penalties for unauthorized fixation of and trafficking in sound recordings and music videos of live musical performances, << und um >>Restored works<< auf 5 Seiten (Sec. 514, p. 168-173)

Nur ein sehr kleiner Anteil von 2% dieses Handelsabkommens beschäftigt sich also mit der Wiederanerkennung von Werken, die im Zusammenhang mit stark kommerziellen Projekten der Computer- und Musikindustrie stehen. Es soll hiermit public domain verhindert und eine möglichst lange finanzielle Nutzung deren Veröffentlichungen ermöglicht werden.

2) Wie versteht man Restored works?

Die Zusammenhänge im Detail sind sehr verwinkelt, eine gute Zusammenfassung für mich gibt [8] Was für Werke der Musik- und Computerindustrie gilt, könnte natürlich in Analogie auch für andere Werke der Literarischen und Gemäldekunst gelten. Beispiele siehe auf dieser Website.

--> Wichtiger Indikator: Die Zeiten im URAA werden immer an das Todesjahr des Autors geknüpft.

3) Copyright

macht natürlich nur Sinn, wenn derjenige Urheber, der davon einen Nutzen hat, auch benannt wird. „URAA Sec. 514 - § 104A. Copyright in restored works - ‘‘(b) OWNERSHIP OF RESTORED COPYRIGHT.“ verweist hierzu auf die nationalen UrhG-Gesetze des Urhebers. >>A restored work vests initially in the author or initial rightholder of the work as determined by the law of the source country of the work.<<

4) Die Anwendung der URAA

erfordert also zwingend einen Blick in die nationalen UrhG. Werfen wir einen Blick in die nationalen UrhG, für die schwedischen, dänischen und finnischen liegen bei der WIPO engl. Übersetzungen vor, für die deutschen und österreichischen nur deutsche Fassungen. Bei www.juris.de existiert eine engl. Übersetzung des deutschen UrhG.

Diese nationalen Gesetze sind prinzipiell gleich strukturiert, im größten Teil werden Regulierungen betreffs Werken beschrieben („Urheberrechte“), im kleineren anschließenden zweiten Teil Dinge, die nur Ähnlichkeiten mit Werken aufweisen („verwandte Schutzrechte“).

5) Welche WERKE gibt es?

Ein Werk (engl. „work“) erfordert immer eine persönliche geistige Schöpfung, erst dann ist es durch das „Urheberrechtsgesetz“ geschützt. Zu den geschützten Werken der Literatur, Wissenschaft und Kunst gehören insbesondere (US-Definition sehr ähnlich):

  • Sprachwerke, wie Schriftwerke, Reden und Computerprogramme;
  • Werke der Musik;
  • pantomimische Werke einschließlich der Werke der Tanzkunst;
  • Werke der bildenden Künste einschließlich der Werke der Baukunst und der angewandten Kunst und Entwürfe solcher Werke;
  • Lichtbildwerke;
  • Filmwerke;
  • Darstellungen wissenschaftlicher oder technischer Art, wie Zeichnungen, Pläne, Karten, Skizzen, Tabellen und plastische Darstellungen.

a) Die Werk-Schutzdauer von 70 Jahren (alle EU-Staaten, durch EU-RICHTLINIE 2006/116/EG euroharmonisiert) wird an das Todesjahr des Urhebers geknüpft. Bei anonymen Werken bezieht man sich auf das Veröffentlichungsjahr.

b) Unter „verwandte Schutzrechte“ sind Lichtbilder aufgeführt. Sie sind keine besonderen persönlichen Schöpfungen. Ihre Schutzdauer von 50 Jahren (alle EU-Staaten) bezieht sich auf das Veröffentlichungsjahr bzw. Aufnahmedatum. Das Todesjahr des Photographen ist völlig unerheblich.

Prinzipielle Unterschiede und Beispiele
fast schon ein Lichtbildwerk (nearly a photographic work)

a) Ein Lichtbildwerk gilt als Kunstwerk und erfordert allgemein einen erhöhten Aufwand an Zeit, Geist, Ausbildung, Technik. Beispiele: Portraitaufnahmen im Photoatelier, Photographien unter Ausnutzung besonderer Licht- und Objektverhältnisse sowie Kameraeinstellungen.

b) Ein Lichtbild ist kein Kunstwerk, es kann prinzipiell automatisch aufgenommen worden sein. Beispiele: Bilder von Überwachungskameras, Paßfotos (oft aus Automaten), Pressefotos, einfache Photos, Momentaufnahmen, Schnappschüsse (angesichts Digicams explosionsartiges Auftreten), von Lichtschranken ausgelöste Photos.

Sprachlich wird in den nationalen UrhG (Links siehe oben) eindeutig unterschieden:

  • a) Lichtbildwerk (deutsch), photographic work (englisch), Fotografiska verk (schwedisch), fotografiske værker (dänisch)
  • b) Lichtbild (deutsch, §72 Abs.3; österreich §74 Abs.6), photographic picture (englisch), Fotografiska bilder (schwedisch, Art. 49a), fotografiske billede (dänisch, §70 Abs.2), photographs (im GB-UrhG), Suomi (finnisch, Sect. 49a.2)
6) Bedeutung für Wikipedia

Bei Commons sind verschiedenartige Bilder unterschiedlichster Qualität abgelegt. Die besten findet man unter „Qualitätsbilder“, sie erfüllen m.e. die Anforderungen an Lichtbildwerke. Die meisten Bilder sind nur Lichtbilder, die sich hervorragend zur Illustration von Wiki-Texten eignen.

--> to do:

Commons verwendet m.e. den Begriff „Werk“ (engl. „work“) bisher inflationär und ohne Bedacht. Richtig wäre m.e. stattdessen der Oberbegriff „Bild“ (engl. „image“). Dann wäre eine Unterscheidung in Lichtbildwerk (engl. „photograpic work“, ca. 5%) und Lichtbild (engl. „photographic picture“, ca. 95%) möglich. Für dänische und schwedische Bilder gibt es diesen feinen Unterschied bereits seit langem bei Commons (siehe templates {{PD-sweden}} und {{PD-denmark50}}).

--> to know:

Die Anwendung der URAA betrifft alle „Works“ und deren 70jährige Schutzdauer ab Todesdatum des Urhebers. Nur ein kleiner Commons-Bildbestand an echten „photographic works“ ist tatsächlich von URAA betroffen. Die Anwendung von URAA bei Commons betrifft daher NICHT den Riesenbestand an „photographic pictures“ und deren 50jährige Schutzdauer. URAA dient vorrangig der EDV-, Film- und Musikindustrie zur Verhinderung von public domains für ihre Werke in den USA.

--> my opinion:

Die Verfahren von URAA sind in den USA stark in der Kritik. Daher wird sich die mögliche Rechteinhaber-Industrie nur sehr zögerlich auf den Abmahnklageweg begeben.

- Höchste Vorsicht bei alten Filmausschnitten, Ablichtungen von Filmplakaten oder Szenenfotos. (abmahnfreudiger Industriezweig, sehr hohe Forderungen möglich)

- Vorsicht bei Ablichtungen von Gemälden, Portraits u.ä. aus Museen. Im Fall einer Abmahnung wäre es wenig erfolgversprechend, auf den Unterschied Lichtbildwerk oder Lichtbild zu bestehen. Recht haben und Recht bekommen ist zweierlei und nervenaufreibend.

- Ignorieren würde ich URAA bei Lichtbildwerken privaten Ursprungs, denn welcher Erbe eines Bildrechts (z.B. PD in Europa) würde in USA klagen, weil dort sein Bild nicht mehr PD ist. Welchen Schaden will er beziffern? Wie will er heute beweisen, daß das Bild damals nicht gleichzeitig auch in USA veröffentlicht wurde?

- Ablehnen würde ich URAA bei Lichtbildwerken amtlichen Ursprungs (Banknoten, Briefmarken, Wappen, Dokumenten etc), denn URAA darf sich nicht in die Integrität anderer Staaten einmischen. Alle nationalen UrhG bezeichnen diesen Bereich als "offical works", "public documents" o.ä. und schließen diese ausdrücklich vom Copyright aus. 1) Beispielsweise gestattet die Deutsche Bundesbank (Rechteinhaber) jedermann und weltweit, seine alten Banknoten abzubilden. Die DB hat kein Interesse an einem wiederhergestellten Copyright in den USA. - 2) Das Buch „Mein Kampf“ wird 70 Jahre nach dem Tod des berühmtesten Weltkrieg-I-Gefreiten in 2015 PD. Haben die USA Interesse, durch Wiederherstellung des Copyright dem Lizenzgeber neue Lizenzgebühren zukommen zu lassen? Rechtsnachfolger ist übrigens das FM München. - 3) Briefmarken sind generell „offizielle Werke“. US-Briefmarken vor 1978 sind in den USA public domain.

- Bei der Handhabung von PD-Lichtbildern privaten Ursprungs würde ich mich völlig www-frei fühlen.

Diese Diskussion wurde angestoßen von Túrelio, Stanzilla und Funfood. Dank an euch für den bisherigen Gedankenaustausch!

additional informations: engl. Wikipedia US-UrhG Hirtle chart old discussion Jan 2012

7) abstract

Commons got trouble from definitions of URAA. URAA refers only to "works" and to the "national acts on copyright". Most of the images at Commons are no „photographic works“ but simple „photographic pictures“.

Every european country knows about this difference in its national act on copyright. Simple images are called „photographic pictures“ (in contrary to „photographic works“), e.g. Sweden Art. 49a, Denmark §70 Abs.2 Finland Sect. 49a.2 Germany §72 Abs.3 Austria §74 Abs.6

Today there are some commons-templates for images showing this difference (eg see {{PD-sweden}} and {{PD-denmark50}}).

  • Photographic works are normally protected seventy years after the year in which its author dies. (URAA application is possible)
  • Photographic pictures are only protected for fifty years since first publishing or date of taking the photo. (URAA application is not defined and therefore excluded)

--Drdoht (talk) 21:56, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

There are three problems in your arguments:
  • The United States does not differ between "simple photos" and "complex photos". Basically, all photos are "complex" in the United States, unless you have {{PD-Art}} which means that there's no copyright at all. United States copyright law does not care about European definitions for "simple photos" but treats all of them as "complex photos" unless {{PD-Art}} applies.
  • German and Austrian courts have shown that there are almost no photos which are "simple" after the law was changed in the 1990s, so practically all German and Austrian photos are copyrighted for life+70 years in Germany and Austria.
  • URAA fully applies to photos, including photos which are seen as "simple" in one or more European country. --Stefan4 (talk) 23:05, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
(OT) Please tell that to the folks who kept {{PD-Austria}}. -- Liliana-60 (talk) 07:07, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean; the URAA restored copyright on no item that had its term of copyright run out in its source nation. If Austria only gave it 50 years from publication and that term had run out by 1996, then it wouldn't be restored in the US.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:34, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Interesting, but there are many problems with the many things you say. I'd start with your premise about the US respecting the "Lichtbild"/"Lichtbildwerk" distinction: A restored work vests initially in the author or initial rightholder of the work as determined by the law of the source country of the work. is not implying that the definition of "work" is to be the source country's one - rather it's about the determination of ownership. Other problems include your sweeping statements about official works. There are others, and maybe discussing these things in detail will turn up some useful conclusions, but I'm going to bed. :) Rd232 (talk) 00:00, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
The URAA is part of U.S. copyright law; unless specified differently for that section, terms such as "works" are defined by the regular U.S. copyright law definitions. For photographs, pretty much all of them qualify for copyright, unless only amount to "slavish copying" of another work (therefore, the PD-Art situation). Even something as simple as a mezzotint of a painting has been granted copyright protection on its own before, and there is no distinction between "photographic works" and "photographic pictures". The URAA refers to foreign law in two places; one is to define the copyright owner (you don't want to have different definitions of "initial copyright owner" depending on country, so that aspect will defer to the foreign law, as it generally does in all U.S. cases). The other is to disallow restoration where a work is "public domain in its source country through expiration of term of protection" ; that should indeed mean that if a foreign country has a shorter term for simple photos, that should be taken into account to determine URAA restorations. However if a work does not qualify for copyright in the first place, then that is public domain in the source country through lack of protection entirely, which is different than expiration of term, and therefore those works *could* be restored. Obviously, if a work is below the U.S. threshold of copyright protection, it's not a "work" and there is no restoration. Lastly, for Germany I believe, there have been somewhat recent court cases which decided that the EU copyright directives effectively changed the definitions substantially inside Germany, such that nearly all photos are now considered "works", even if they were not prior to 1995. We would only do that if we have that kind of legal precedent though -- the Italian law still has their fairly explicit "simple photos" definition even after they applied the EU copyright directive, so at the moment we are considering that shorter term still valid. But, we can't ignore the German legal precedents. Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:07, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Der ganze Text ist von vornherein Mumpitz, weil die Unterscheidung Lichtbild/Lichtbildwerk auch in Deutschland de facto aufgehoben ist und keinerlei rechtliche Relevanz mehr besitzt (von den paar Ausnahmen automatischer Fotos vielleicht mal abgesehen). Pressefotos, einfache Photos, Momentaufnahmen, Schnappschüsse sind regelmäßig Lichtbildwerke. Man mag das doof finden, aber die Gerichte sehen das nun mal so. --AndreasPraefcke (talk) 15:35, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Images of User:Julius07

Hi, I have found a lot of images (with small resolution) from this user (see: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Julius07) all taken from www.foto-julius.at in 2006, but:

  • at foto-julius.at I can't find any compatible licence with Commons
  • at his user page there isn't any information he is the same author of the site
  • I can't find any OTRS information

Am I wrong? --Rotpunkt (talk) 09:14, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

website terms say non-commercial use only, and there's even a price list for commercial use. This was also true in 2005 (archive.org link). So  Delete all, unfortunately. NB links mangled with "REMOVETHIS" to bypass spam filter, as site is blacklisted. Rd232 (talk) 17:00, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
It looks to me that the small-res pics on Commons are used by the photographer as a teaser for the high-res, commercial use pics offered on the website. In the absence of any tangible proof however it looks like the pictures have to go. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 17:11, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  •  Keep FFS! There is no reason whatsoever why a photographer cannot freely license a small image to Commons whilst retaining a commercially saleable high-res version elsewhere.
The only reason to delete this would be because we accuse Julius07 of making a fraudulent claim of ownership here as part of their licence claim. That's a serious accusation. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:36, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
AFAIK, no Andy, this document (Commons:OTRS) says: << Licensing images: when do I contact OTRS? I am the copyright owner but my picture has been previously published. >> So there is no problem only if julius contacts OTRS (AFAIK). --Rotpunkt (talk) 18:11, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
We could assume good faith and try to contact uploader, photographer or web-master, but if we can't get an OTRS permission, we'll need to delete the images.--Pere prlpz (talk) 18:46, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I think good faith is needed here. Remember that when these were uploaded six years ago, OTRS was brand-new, probably not widely known, and based on the state of the OTRS page at the time, looks like it was primarily used for recording permissions from third parties (e.g. I email a copyright holder, they email me back, and I forward it to OTRS). cmadler (talk) 13:01, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Rita Pereira 10-2012.jpg

Hello, please erase my real name in the metadata information. Thanks.--Cruks (talk) 08:23, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure we can do that. The best way for you would be to edit the EXIF data of the copy you have, and upload it as a new version. Then we would delete the first version of the picture. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 08:28, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
As Jastrow said. See COM:EXIF on how to edit the metadata; then upload a new version of the same file, and an admin can delete the old one (post at COM:AN to request that). It's best you do it yourself, but if you do need help, try Commons:Graphic_Lab/Photography_workshop. Rd232 (talk) 10:45, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Old british railway plans

Hi. I stumbled over some old British railway plans, more than a hundred years old. (Example) They were produced in 1903 by an unknown employee (or at least no name is on the plan) of the Scottish Highland Railway, defunct since 1923. As these were used for internal and licence purpose, I suppose they were never published at all. Can these be considered to be in public domain and usable here under pd-old-Tag? Regards --Kallewirsch (talk) 09:29, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

If they were never published, they are probably not in the public domain. If they were published, it depends to whom the copyright belongs. See Commons:Copyright rules by territory - full#United Kingdom. Regards, Yann (talk) 06:10, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

question about protocol for uploading a theatrical poster for a film

I would like to upload a theatrical film poster. Can you please direct me to a link so I can learn what I need to do to be compliant with Wiki Commons copyright standards. I've studied other theatrical posters and many state a fair use rational to justify inclusion in corresponding Wikipedia articles.

[9] [10] [11] [12] [13]

When the person who creates the poster art and the people who own the rights to the film are agreeable to share a low-res jpeg with Wikimedia Commons what is the preferred template or administrative steps to fulfill all copyright requirements? Thank you. Cameraf72 (talk)

Fair use is not allowed on Commons, so you can't publish these posters here. Sorry. Yann (talk) 05:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
If the copyright owners agree to release a low res version under a free license, you could upload it to Commons. You can see Commons:OTRS#Declaration_of_consent_for_all_enquiries for a message template.
Anyway, it's not usual that copyright owners of film poster release them under a free license. For this reason they are used in Wikipedias under fair use rational but not uploaded to Commons.--Pere prlpz (talk) 08:08, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I really appreciate it. Cameraf72 (talk)

Nationaal Archief-license

What is going on with {{Nationaal Archief-license}}? It has over 1000 uses, but is tagged "missing permission" since 2010 and "OTRS pending" since 2011! ?? ?? ?? Rd232 (talk) 18:54, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

German FOP issue

See en:WP:MCQ#Skulpturen Park Köln. A user suggests that many or all images in Category:Skulpturenpark Köln may fail COM:FOP#Germany because they only appear to be there temporarily. --Stefan4 (talk) 21:52, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

So the question here is whether it is intended having them only 2 years there or whether the two years are just a minimum promise to the creator and the sole reason for the 2 years-deadline is the lack of space. -- Rillke(q?) 22:21, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
de:Skulpturenpark Köln says (i) als „Ort für die Auseinandersetzung mit der zeitgenössischen Skulptur“ angelegt (ii) Es gibt keine Dauerausstellung, stattdessen werden nach zwei Jahren ein Teil der ausgestellten Skulpturen durch neue ersetzt. That's pretty clear: it's a location for contemporary sculpture, and there is no permanent exhibition - by implication because the intention is to stay fresh and contemporary. I suppose a court might say a duration of two years is far enough away from the usual sense of temporary to qualify for FOP (the examples at COM:FOP#Germany are much shorter than that, eg 2 weeks for the Reichstag veiling), but I'd want some evidence of that, otherwise I'd lean delete due to COM:PRP. There are some links at COM:FOP#Germany that might be a start for exploring the permanence issue more. Rd232 (talk) 22:45, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
So we need another precedent for a Dauerausstellung / befristete Ausstellung. Why must law be so complicated… -- Rillke(q?) 22:58, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Ideally yes - though I note that Commons:FOP#Permanent_vs_temporary does actually address this kind of case, using an example of three years. So not looking good. Rd232 (talk) 23:14, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
The next question to elaborate on is, whether it is really a public place. It seems to have a fence around it and according to the article it is daily open (and maybe closed at night). -- Rillke(q?) 23:06, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
I have no doubt that it's considered public - it's a place dedicated to the public. Rd232 (talk) 23:14, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Though actually COM:FOP#Germany mentions the case of Private property that cannot be freely accessed, e.g. because it is enclosed by a fence or there is some form of admission control - and the park seems to be owned by a foundation and may have admission control (though admission is free). So maybe my initial confidence was misplaced. Rd232 (talk) 23:22, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Before deleting all files, in case it should be required, we (someone) should/could also contact the artists. Perhaps we could gain permission at least for some of the sculptures. And some may not pass TOO — at least not the way they are shown in the photo. -- Rillke(q?) 23:06, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, always worth trying to contact the creators. But given the number of people there and the work involved in contacting them all, I'd say that should be left for potential undeletion if permission is obtained. Rd232 (talk) 23:14, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Skulpturenpark Köln seems the logical next step. Rd232 (talk) 23:36, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Issue from a 9 October discussion, and relating to Australian FoP

Moved here from the main Village pump page.

In an earlier thread here, it was suggested that Australian Freedom of Panorama under section 65 of the Copyright Act doesnot extend to paintings. This has resulted in a revision of the COM advice on FoP. Under the Act, "work" means "a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work". My reading of the definition of "artistic work" in section 10 of the act, is that paragraph 10(c) {which is the key provision to which s.65 refers) does in fact cover paintings, and is meant to comprehensively include any work of artistic craftsmanship, which may include those listed in a or b: that is, (c) is intended to be comprehensive. If that is right, then the recent discussion and revision of the FoP guide is incorrect. Anyone want to take a look? Hamiltonstone (talk) 13:23, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Looks like you might be right. Section 65(1) states: "This section applies to sculptures and to works of artistic craftsmanship of the kind referred to in paragraph (c) of the definition of artistic work in section 10." Section 10 states:
"artistic work" means:
(a) a painting, sculpture, drawing, engraving or photograph, whether the work is of artistic quality or not;
(b) a building or a model of a building, whether the building or model is of artistic quality or not; or
(c) a work of artistic craftsmanship whether or not mentioned in paragraph (a) or (b) ..."
The issue is whether work of artistic craftsmanship excludes paintings, sculptures, drawings, engravings and photographs. I, too, think it does not. We can look at it this way: according to section 10, an artistic work means (1) a work of artistic craftsmanship that is a painting (since it is mentioned in paragraph (a)), as well as (2) a work of artistic craftsmanship that is not a painting. In contrast, section 4(1) of the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 states:
In this Part "artistic work" means—
(a) a graphic work, photograph, sculpture or collage, irrespective of artistic quality,
(b) a work of architecture being a building or a model for a building, or
(c) a work of artistic craftsmanship.
In this case, it is clear that work of artistic craftsmanship is not the same as the artistic works named in paragraphs (a) and (b). — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 13:44, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Although not an authority, this essay provides helpful background, including the change in 2003 to Section 10(c) - it was previously "to which neither of the last two preceding paragraph applies", and amended to give more protection to works of artistic craftsmanship, which are intended to be things like jewellery and the like, where there is both utility and aesthetic quality. Rd232 (talk) 00:21, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Nice try, but the basic definition of "craftsmanship" relates to "a useful handmade object", which excludes paintings. See also here under Artistic Works. PS This thread would be better at COM:VPC. Rd232 (talk) 00:16, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
I think the sources you referred to are interesting but may not be conclusive on the matter. [14] appears to be a student essay, and while [15] is on the website of a law firm, it would have been good if some references to case law had been provided. Following the 2003 amendment to section 10(c), it seems that the definition of work of artistic craftsmanship has been widened. The term can no longer be limited to three-dimensional utility objects, otherwise the reference to paragraphs (a) and (b) makes no sense. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 11:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure the reference does make any sense taken literally; I think it's intended to ensure that the definition of "artistic" in "artistic craftsmanship" isn't unnecessarily narrowed - but that doesn't mean it somehow expands the definition of craftsmanship to include paintings! You can't get around the fact that paintings are not objects of craftsmanship, artistic or otherwise. If you want to do further research, knock yourself out, but I personally think it's a waste of time. Rd232 (talk) 16:47, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Rd232, where did you get that definition of craftsmanship? Also, the expression in the Act is "artistic craftsmanship" rather than just "craftsmanship". 202.14.81.51 22:40, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
from Muscat v Le (2003), citing George Hensher Ltd v Restawile Upholstery (Lancs) Ltd (1976). From page 3 of the essay linked above. Rd232 (talk) 23:27, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
See also Commons:FOP#United_Kingdom, which gives some more detail, linking UK definition in Hensher with Australian cases drawing on it. Rd232 (talk) 12:01, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, if it says "artistic craftsmanship", then it has to be both "artistic" and "craftsmanship". If you can conclude that it is not "craftsmanship", then it is not "artistic craftsmanship" either. Similarly, if it is not "artistic", then it can't be "artistic craftsmanship" either. In the end, it all depends on the law's definition of "artistic" and "craftsmanship". --Stefan4 (talk) 23:13, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

PD-old and CC for own photographs (captured in Germany and Switzerland)

Is this opinion correct and what should I do in such cases?

origin: User talk:Mattes#License changes (and reversions)

I removed the "CC" license on some of your images because I thought it contradicted the "PD" status of the images.

However, I have reverted all these changes, as I am not 100% sure that I was correct. Please accept my apologies. Ubcule (talk) 20:24, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

No problem. I licensed the photographic work with CC-BY 2.0 and the motif with PD-old. --Mattes (talk) 20:26, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
In the US- where Commons is based- one cannot claim new copyright on "faithful" reproductions of 2D images. Therefore, in the US, you do not own any copyright on those photographs, and they have the same "PD due to age" status as the originals.
My mistake happened because, under US law, if the image is "PD due to age", then it is non-copyrighted and cannot be CC-licensed. It also means that you do not own any copyright. (Both these mean that your CC licensing does not apply- the first because it contradicts the "PD" status, and the second because one must own the copyright on an image to impose a CC license).
However... in other countries, one can still claim a separate copyright on the reproduction. Although your CC license on those reproductions does not apply in the US, it is still relevant elsewhere.
Perhaps you could add some text to make clear that "PD due to age" applies to the original document, and that "CC licensing" applies to the reproduction (but only in countries that allow copyright on "faithful" reproductions).[...] -- Ubcule (talk) 12:18, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

</end> see Special:Contributions/Ubcule. --Mattes (talk) 16:13, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

  • Under US law (Bridgeman v. Corel), a faithful reproduction of a PD image (2D) does not get any new copyright protection, so under US law, only the PD template is needed. Wikimedia Foundation's official stated position is that faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain, and that claims to the contrary represent an assault on the very concept of a public domain...[I]n the absence of even a strong legal complaint, we don't think it's a good idea to dignify such claims of copyright on public domain works. And, if we ever were seriously legally challenged, we would have a good internal debate about whether we'd fight such a case, and build publicity around it. Based on that, not only is an additional CC license for the photograph not needed on Commons, it may actually be harmful in that it may validate such claims. (See Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag) cmadler (talk) 17:16, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
    • US law is US law. It's practical to use it for Wikimedia where we can, but Commons has a wider remit than that. So {{Cc-zero}} is certainly encouraged to give re-users elsewhere more legal certainty; the same should apply to free licenses that require attribution etc. What we could do with is a template that clarifies status in US and elsewhere. We tend to apply two PD tags (or sometimes a combined tag), but it's easily a bit confusing. I did try and develop {{COML compliance}} a while ago, which explicitly gives status in source country and status in US - see File:Abschied der Mutter von ihrem Sohn.jpg testcase. PD in US and freely licensed elsewhere is a situation we ought to accommodate. Rd232 (talk) 17:32, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
The problem as I see it is that there are two contradictory issues...
(1) Under US law there is no additional copyright on "faithful reproductions", so (as Cmadler implies) the CC license not only has no legal weight- as the photographer holds no copyright in the image- but is arguably misleading.
However, (2) Under jurisdictions that *do* allow copyright on faithful reproductions, we cannot assume that the photographer has released *their* (inherent?) copyright on the reproduction under *any* terms unless they state this explicitly. So, in fact, we *require* this permission to make clear that it's free in those countries(!)
I also think it would be useful if it was clearer that the "PD due to age" related to the original image/document and that the "CC license" applied to the reproduction (but only where applicable). But that would have to be done in a clear and simple way. Ubcule (talk) 19:03, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
The best thing to use here is {{Licensed PD-Art|PD-old|cc-zero}}. Otherwise, the file can't be used in the UK, the Nordic countries, Spain or many other places. The lack of a free licence prevents a lot of reusers from using the photo at all. --Stefan4 (talk) 22:42, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Never heard of that template, and Commons:When_to_use_the_PD-Art_tag didn't mention it. I've added a line there. Rd232 (talk) 23:14, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Republishing public domain/CC0 flags

GoSquared has released a collection of flag icons. The authors acknowledge they derived their icons from work on Wikimedia Commons.

I am in contact with the authors on a Hacker News thread, and I already mentioned that a link back to Wikimedia Commons would be nice.

But as for the license - what is the correct way for them to license these icons? Right now they are using a BSD-style license, which as we know is not ideal for graphics. The easiest and best thing would be to release the whole collection as CC0. It seems to me that one has to assert copyright to license it all as CC0. But the flags used are a mix of CC0 and various local public domain dedications. There is some murky procedure whereby you can claim copyright for some derivative works of public domain works. Is it enough to have added outlines, gradient effects, and to have rendered them at different sizes? The other option would be to list all the licenses from every single flag, but that seems super tedious. So what's the right thing?

NeilK (talk) 22:34, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

If the source flags are all PD or CC0, they can do what they like with them. An acknowledgement that they were sourced from Commons (maybe with a clear statement that the source files are either PD or CC0) would be nice, at least, but isn't necessary. They shouldn't claim copyright on PD works but whether they're allowed to or not I'm not sure. NB some of the files, eg File:Flag of Dominica.svg, are originally from the Open Clipart Library. Rd232 (talk) 23:10, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Having looked through dozens of the flags we list here, I'd say most are originally from the Open Clipart Library, which released them with a CC0 1.0 dedication (although we haven't tagged them all as such). I've seen a few that were released into the public domain by other authors, a few that rely on some legal argument that they're PD, and only a couple (File:Flag of Lesotho.svg, File:Flag of Montenegro.svg) that say (perhaps dubiously) that they're under a CC-BY-SA license. If those licenses are valid, and GoSquare have used those files, they would need to follow the license conditions. For instance, their LICENSE.txt file would need to mention which files these licenses apply to, and link to the text of those licenses, as well as credit the authors. (By the way, that LICENSE.txt file talks only about the "software", and no software is included.) --Avenue (talk) 00:24, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
CC-BY-SA for a flag is more than dubious. Perhaps I will look into that. As for the rest, yeah, that's pretty much what I thought -- although they could claim they've transformed them enough to assert copyright, and then make apply a more coherent license to the whole thing. NeilK (talk) 02:55, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Template:Attribution-PresidenciaBr

Hi! I would like to know how to proceed with {{Attribution-PresidenciaBr}}. Per Template talk:Attribution-PresidenciaBr this site changed at 04.07.2011 the terms of use which - IMHO - are no longer suitable for uploads uploaded here after 04.07.2011. The license template need an advice that historic uploads before 04.07.2011 (sourced with info.planalto.gov.br, now redirecting to planalto.gov.br) were valid and that the license template is not more usable after this date. That means: all files sourced with planalto.gov.br (which would indicate for an upload after 04.07.2011) should be deleted (if no other license are applicable). As I could verify only a small number of files are affected (example I and II)... Can you follow my argumentation? So, what should I do? Trying to edit the template? DR? DR on the affected files? Gunnex (talk) 08:55, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

You've got the right idea. You should edit the template and then do a DR on the files that were from after that date. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 12:40, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Template:Flickr-change-of-license for All right reserved pic?

Can I use Template:Flickr-change-of-license for picture that the author has changed it from CC to All right reserved? Tuankiet65 (talk) 10:55, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I believe that is exactly what that template is for :) In kind regards heb [T C E] 14:40, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

New copyright laws in Taiwan to be reviewed March 2013 relating to aboriginal symbols and motifs

Refer to:

On Commons we have various media relating to Taiwanese aboriginals. In Taiwan, it is expected that in March 2013, the Indigenous Peoples Intellectual Property Act is to be reviewed, so that:

"All ownership rights connected with the items, names, symbols and other intellectual property that pass the review next year would be returned to the applicable Aboriginal tribes... Companies or people that use names or items that originally belonged to Aboriginal tribes could potentially be restricted from using that item, product or name, should the tribe’s application pass the review... Netizens should also avoid posting pictures and symbols of particular Aboriginal signs online. If such signs have to be posted on the Internet for a particular reason, permission from the relevant tribes should be obtained to prevent future problems".

How will this affect Wikimedia Commons? It seems that the use of aboriginal symbols, motifs and the like will require permission from aboriginal tribes, if the law is altered. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 02:49, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

The cultural heritage stuff is generally considered separate from copyrights, which are about individual expression. There is (not yet at least) any international treaty dealing with such things, though several countries have laws surrounding such things. Odd that they seem to mention that even non-commercial use may not be OK -- but in the end, those would apply inside the borders of Taiwan, but not further. There is also fair use or similar rights, which would usually apply to that sort of thing. Although, from reading it does sound like most of that law is surrounding trademark, which could have some international repercussions, but probably not on Commons. Whey they are talking about "items, names, and symbols" that is primarily trademark. Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:43, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Check on release wording...

Morning. I've been looking at some material released by the National Library of Wales in the UK. Some of the material is released for non-commercial use only, so isn't appropriate for the Commons. Other articles and images have been released with the note that "it may be used for all purposes while respecting the moral rights of the creators".

Two questions really. Firstly, do others feel this is a suitable release statement to allow their use on the Commons? If it is, then what would the right license tagging/justification be? (this is pretty similar to the Open Government Licence, but not identical). Hchc2009 (talk) 07:50, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

The moral rights limitation also applies to all British {{PD-old-70}} works, and likely also to all British {{Cc-zero}} works. EU countries usually don't allow people to surrender moral rights. If you feel that it is an unfree limitation, then you probably have to delete every work created in the European Union. --Stefan4 (talk) 00:50, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

File:Brunnenplastik, Senta Baldamus, Tierpark Berlin, 528-634.jpg

This picture is probably allowed per freedom of panorama, like File:Brunnengefluester Saerbeck 4.jpg. But like the sculpture in that picture, I wonder if this sculpture is under unexpired copyright, given that it dates from 1961. In that case, would it need a {{FOP}} tag? PS, has Commons got a template like Wiktionary's wikt:Template:attention that I could leave on files or talk pages to point more experienced Common(s)ers to files like that, or is it best just to comment here? -sche (talk) 19:00, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the creator apparently died in 2001, so copyright persists until 1/1/2072, but this is allowed under German FOP. I've added {{FoP}}. Many images used under an FOP claim are not marked as such. cmadler (talk) 17:37, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Really free or not ?

Hi Commons. I wanna upload this picture taken in 1921 (more than 70 years) according this very reliable blog written by one journalist of L'Equipe. But the matter is L'Equipe put their name in "watermark" on this picture, like they still got rights on this picture.

So finally, is this photo uploadable on Commons ? Twilight-Brawl (talk) 18:33, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, the 70 years term of protection in France (and many other countries) is not from publication but from the year of the creator's death, if the creator is known. So, the photographer of a picture taken in 1921 may have lived still a long and happy live and died as late as e.g. 1960 - which, in this hypothetical example, would make the photo protected until the year 2030 (it would become free in 2031). The question now is: Who took the photo you would like to upload? If the photographer is unknown, {{PD-anon-1923}} might apply - if the photograph was published (not just taken) in 1921, this makes it free in the U.S. (because published prior to 1923), and if it's anonymous, but published first more than 70 years ago, it's free in EU countries (including France) as well. But just that this blog doesn't mention the photographer isn't enough proof that he never disclosed his identity to the public. More research would be needed. L'Equipe may indeed by the owners of still existing copyright. Gestumblindi (talk) 18:45, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
Ok, so I don't think it's a free picture. Thanks. Twilight-Brawl (talk) 19:54, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

What does 'in the manner specified by the author or licensor' mean?

Hi

I'm looking to use, change and adapt some free photos off here, for a project I'm doing.

A lot of the photos say I'm free so share, copy, distribute and adapt them.

Regarding attributing the original photographer they mostly give the following guidance, which isn't very useful:

"You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one."

What does that mean? Can I just say something like, "Original photograph by author's name"? Or if I'm supposed to use some special words where do I find them. It's not apparent from any of the actual image pages.

Can anyone clear this up for me, I'd be much obliged.

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.136.162.225 (talk • contribs) 19:40, 22 October 2012‎ (UTC)

I've always taken it to mean crediting the name they give—ie if Joe Bloggs specifies he wants to be attributed as Mr J Bloggs, that's how he should be attributed. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:06, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
Unfortunately it very often isn't made clear what form of attribution a licensor/author wants licensees to use. Commons:Credit line gives examples of minimum attribution requirements for different types of license where the author hasn't made their wishes explicit. NB one of the things that page doesn't cover is multiple authorship (eg if a file is derived from another by a different author, or where changes are made to a file by different people) - you need to credit everyone substantially involved in creating the work (trivial changes can be ignored), which can sometimes be a lot of people... Rd232 (talk) 09:54, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Deleting a bunch of photos without notice

Hello, the photos deleted at Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Leonfd1992 were all deleted under "copyvio" tag, when even if it was true that some of the files are copyrighted material, most of them were taken by the user with his mobile phone -a cheap model, hence the quality of the photos- but most of the photos unfairly deleted were family photos taken from family celebrations and family events. The user is a wayuu and he's new to this and very interested in contributing to the development of free knowledge in his mother tongue (Wayuunaiki) and in Spanish as well. I have spoken to him and he's afraid of being blocked for uploading family photos of celebrations related to his ancient culture. He does not speak a word of english and he's not perfectly fluent in Spanish. Please help. --Maor X (talk) 02:46, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

All these files are copyright violation grabbed from the Internet. The uploader was given proper warning, see User talk:Leonfd1992. In addition, the warning is merely an information graciously given to the uploader, but any copyright violation can be deleted immediately without warning. Please read the guidelines regarding copyright: Commons:Licensing. Also family pictures are out of scope unless there is an educational value. Regards, Yann (talk) 03:52, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
No, not all of them are grabbed from the internet. Look, I know this guy, he's from an aboriginal community whose culture is poorly documented on Wikipedia and he's used those photos to illustrate traditional dances, traditional items like amulets and weavings and events like the second burial, so they're not regular family photos. --Maor X (talk) 04:02, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Maor X is a good person, I know him personally, he may have made mistakes in commons, ignorance, lack of incentive to read the rules, little help from the community, however the truth says in Wikipedia in Spanish there are few items of this culture and the items that exist in this culture are short. Regarding the pictures, I do not know which pictures were erased, I have found some here that can serve, however, I also relied on the good sense to do things Yann. If the user does not agree, could referenced the deleted files, or simply visit the deletion log. A hug them both, hoping that this problem will be resolved soon and tell me, Right now it is 12 to midnight, I go to sleep --The Photographer (talk) 04:57, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Could you list pictures which are from Flickr with a valid license? I'd restore them. Regards, Yann (talk) 06:10, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
No, they are not from Flickr. Which part of "the user uploaded photos taken at a wayuu traditional ceremony with his mobile phone" wasn't understood? And lots of those photos were deleted under "copyvio" but no URL was provided, so how can you prove they are a copyright violation? --Maor X (talk) 15:47, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Pido la restauración de las imágenes. ¿Cuáles son las imágenes con copyvio? Entiendo que no aceptemos violaciones pero ¿Todas son copyvio?. Laura Fiorucci (talk) 02:34, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
It is a Huawei HB5A2H. I don't know if the phone camera puts the EXIF data on the photos, maybe because it is a very cheap and basic model. --Maor X (talk) 13:32, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

PD-Finland50

Commons:Deletion requests/File:SibeliusAndOrmandy1951.jpg has brought to my attention that {{PD-Finland50}} combines two different laws in a confusing way - and that there are contradictions and ambiguities that need fixing, at least between {{PD-Finland50/en}} and {{PD-Finland50/de}}, but also between Commons:Copyright_rules_by_territory_-_full#Photographs_that_are_not_works_of_art and the template (COM:CRT doesn't explain the creation/publication distinction). In Finland simple photographs are PD 50 years after creation (since 1991); before that the rule was 25 years after publication (since 1961), and the extension wasn't retroactive. So works published before 1966 became PD and remained so (1966 works become PD in 2016 in Finland).

Now besides contradictions in documentation, my problem is that combining these "50 years since creation" and "published before 1966" rules in one template is quite confusing and liable to lead to errors, even before we come to consider the complication of the URAA. I suggest splitting the rules into different tags, not least because anything PD under the published-before-1966 rule will straightforwardly escape URAA, so that can be included in the tag in some way, whereas under the 50-years from creation rule, that's only free of URAA issues if created before 1946. Comments? Rd232 (talk) 19:43, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

The pre-1966 photos can't be {{Not-PD-US-URAA}}, but they can still be {{Not-PD-US-published with notice}} or {{Not-PD-US-renewed}} because of a bilateral copyright treaty between Finland and the United States. On the other hand, it seems that photos published before 1929 are guaranteed to be in the public domain in the United States since the copyright treaty didn't apply before that date. Apart from that, yes, it would maybe be less confusing to split the templates, and uploaders should specify where the photos were published before 1966. It will also help with the URAA part for unpublished photos, or post-1966 photos. --Stefan4 (talk) 20:56, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
Hm, two of those templates don't exist. Should they? (Yay for more complications :( ) Rd232 (talk) 21:00, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure if we need more templates telling that a work is copyrighted; we already have {{Copyvio}} for that. For a Finnish work, check this table:
Date of first publication US copyright status
Unpublished PD iff {{PD-US-unpublished}}.
Published before 1923 In the public domain. Use {{PD-1923}}.
Published before 1929 PD if PD in Finland on 1 January 1996 due to lack of copyright relations. Use {{PD-1996}}.
Published after 1929, PD in Finland on 1 January 1996 Treat as first published in the United States (that is, check for notices and renewals). Use {{PD-1996}} if PD.
Published after 1929, not PD in Finland on 1 January 1996 Not PD in USA.
Published after 2002 Ignore all of the above and check if it is {{PD-old-70}} instead.

Stefan4 (talk) 21:19, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Are those images copyrighted ?

Hi, I'm looking for images of the Boosted Arcas rocket and have found two of them here [16].

The same photos can be found here [17], in the links identified by the "Boosted Arcas I" and "Boosted Arcas II" links.

The two sites claim for copyright.

In my point of view these images fall in the {{PD-1996}} category.

What do you think? can I use these images or not?

Regards. --Marcric (talk) 23:03, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

They are likely to be PD images much like File:Arcas.jpg. It is either {{PD-NASA}} or something similar. Ruslik (talk) 11:45, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
I disagree. Arcas rockets were produced by Atlantic Research Corporation, a private corporation, not NASA. NASA just used a few of them. Then, those images are likely to have been released by Atlantic Research Corporation, not NASA. Then, copyright is likely owned by that company and images aren't likely to be free.--Pere prlpz (talk) 13:15, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
My original point is: two different sources claiming the same images as copyrighted by them. But the images are cleary from the 60's ! I think they fit into the {{PD-1996}} category. Dont you think? --Marcric (talk) 16:51, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
No, the first link you provide identifies the second site as the copyright holder for the images. If the pictures were initially published only in a book by the rights holder (a book publisher) and published after '64 they would still be in copyright, the same would be true if they were published in 63 and copyright for the book renewed in 1991. Given the Boosted Arcas was only used from '63 onward I think it's highly probable the images are in copyright. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 17:55, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
  •  Comment The {{PD-1996}} template is only for works which were first published outside the United States and which were not made by an American. These photos were presumably taken by United States citizens and first published in the United States, so {{PD-1996}} should not be used. --Stefan4 (talk) 18:01, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

MOD News License

The UK Ministry of Defence posts certain photos under a "MOD News License" to be used for news reporting, see http://www.defenceimagery.mod.uk/fotoweb/20121001_Crown_copyright_MOD_News_Licence.pdf . Is this license free enough to be hosted on Commons? Oaktree b (talk) 02:24, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Quoting the license: "You are permitted to: Use the Information to publish journalistic material for the reporting of current news ONLY. (bold from original, underline substituted by me for upper case).
Quoting Commons:Licensing: Wikimedia Commons accepts only free content, that is, images and other media files that can be used by anyone, anytime, for any purpose. (again, bold and italics from original).
You can see that this license is clearly not acceptable in Commons and those images can't be uploaded here.--Pere prlpz (talk) 08:43, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Help with uploading images

I am just trying to upload content for someone on their page that is being taken directly from their website. I am getting constant edits stating that I am violating all the wiki rules. I just don't understand the lingo and need someone to to talk to me in real laymans terms. ECLSS101 (talk) 16:09, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

In short: if you copied images from http://www.brettwilliamsphotography.com and uploaded them to Commons, you need an explicit permission from photographer to do so. If you don't have such a permission, you are just stealing images and they need to be deleted.
If your images weren't from this website, please tell us where did you get them from to give better advice, although it would be the same for most websites.--Pere prlpz (talk) 16:46, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
If you do have permission from the photographer, you can provide evidence of this by following the instructions at Commons:OTRS#If_you_are_not_the_copyright_holder. --Avenue (talk) 18:09, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Probabilistic PD by date of creation or death of subject

In most countries, copyright expires based on the death of the creator, often 70 years later, with an alternate rule for anonymous works. However, sometimes we cannot locate the author or their date of death, nor definitely assert that the work is anonymous. In such a case, what should we do? By a most restrictive view, assume that the creator lives for 110 years (the longest possible for someone who died before 1942), so it anything created 180 years ago is PD (if it's a PD-70 country). However, it is obviously unnecessary to be 100% certain of PD, partly because it's impossible, and partly because we regularly accept things much less certain (for example, an previously unpublished iPhone photo by a new user - how do we know they didn't hand it to their friend to take it instead?). So assuming we can ascertain that the work was created in a PD-70 country, how many years after creation can we assume that it is PD, with a high confidence level?

Also, consider a portrait of a subject who died at 80, but obviously looks about 20 in the picture. Can we assume they are less than 40 years old, for example? (The actual number is not the point; I'm just asking if such probabilistic analysis is valid.)

After all, probabilistic defenses have sometimes been used at DRs and accepted by the closing admin based on common sense, though we don't have anything formalizing this. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 07:55, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

A probabilistic analysis based on works in Commons with known date and author would be useful. Anyway, as far as I know the current usual rule of thumb is assuming that the author died aged 100 years old and created the work when he was 10 years old. Then, works created more than 160 years ago are expected to be in public domain - except for special rules for unpublished works in some countries. I know that some uploaders and some deletion request have been less strict than this rule by using common sense in some way.--Pere prlpz (talk) 10:23, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
Such strict calculation is ridiculous. Almost nobody starts making pictures at 10, especially 100 years ago, and the life expectancy was about 60 years. A camera was a very expensive item, only rich people could afford, therefore not before people get a good salary or business, so even 20 years old is not realistic. Yann (talk) 18:06, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, I would assume the photographer in such cases aged not less than 15 to 20 years. A photograph might have been taken by someone e.g. as a photographer's apprentice, so we can't exclude the possibility of a really young photographer, but 10 years doesn't seem realistic indeed. Gestumblindi (talk) 18:50, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
I'd do it simple:
  • If the first publication is indicated, check if the author is named in that publication. If the author isn't named in that publication, it is less likely that the author is named anywhere else, so it seems safe to assume that it is an anonymous work, unless anyone is able to identify the name of the author. This makes it possible to use the slightly shorter anonymous term.
  • If the first publication isn't indicated, assume that the work isn't anonymous. Also, it can't be anonymous if the name of the author has been identified.
United States copyright law has some clause which says that you may assume that the author to an anonymous unpublished work died at least 70 years ago if the work is at least 120 years old. Essentially, this means that US law assumes that an author lives for 50 years after creating a work. Would it be safe to use this as a rule, and assume that any author died within 50 years after creation, unless we have an exact death year or evidence that the author still was alive after 50 years? --Stefan4 (talk) 01:20, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
It sounds not too unreasonable.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:48, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
Sounds acceptable. So essentially under this plan there is no difference between verifiably anonymous works and works where we cannot locate the author or their life term, as long as date of publication is known. For portraits where we don't know the date of publication, we can probably do something like "the subject is almost certainly less than xx years old" via an ad-hoc approach. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 11:05, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
It does not seems acceptable to me. We should not put a rule for not respecting COM:PRP. There are some case where it's wise to suppose PD, but really it has to be discuss case by case without a general rule. --PierreSelim (talk) 11:22, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
General rules are made when there is essentially no difference between the crux of various situations. In this case, it is when we have tried to locate the author but just can't. We want to treat such cases equally out of concern for consistency unless there is evidence to indicate otherwise (in which case general rules would not apply anyways). -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:09, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't see why it has to be discussed case by case; that's stressful to uploaders (since their work may disappear at any time no matter how careful they were to document it) and is going to fail both ways. Assuming the creator died by 50 years from creation is a conservative enough rule that there shouldn't be cases where a work is actually anonymous but it's problematic.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:07, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Verifiably anonymous works have special rules in the EU and elsewhere; if such an EU work is published before 1923, it will be clearly out of copyright in the EU and US without being 120 years old.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:07, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
  • NB1: German Wikipedia uses a "pragmatic principle" of accepting as PD works that are 100 years old and where either the author name or the author death date is not known despite "thorough research". de:Wikipedia:Bildrechte#Pragmatische_Regelung_bei_Bildern.2C_die_.C3.A4lter_als_100_Jahre_sind The relevant page warns that the rule may fail (the work may still be in copyright), and that uploaders may be personally liable for such copyright violations.
  • NB2: there is also the issue of en:publication right for previously unpublished works, which applies throughout the EU now AFAIR. Rd232 (talk) 11:58, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
  • NB3: One of the related issues is that we're often reduced to making assumptions anyway about first publication, because for old works this is often hard to track down reliably. So we end up assuming the work was published reasonably soon after creation. (I'm never comfortable doing that, but it happens quite a lot.) Piling assumptions on assumptions is multiplying error risk: if we know something was published in a certain year (or not later than a certain year, at least), it's less risky to make an assumption about death dates. Rd232 (talk) 12:03, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
    100 years is just too short for safety. I don't understand how publication relates to this; the creation date gives us a better approximation for the death date of the author then the publication date does.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:07, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Prosfilaes that 100 years is very short. I haven't made an statistical study but by picking just a few works from a few artists I found File:Frauenaurach C Haag 1839 001.JPG, a work that entered PD 146 years after creation (in a 70 years PMA country). I suppose there are some thousands of files like this in Commons, so 150 years is probably very unsafe. 160 years seems more reasonable (170 years in 80 years PMA countries).--Pere prlpz (talk) 12:13, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
I doubt there's all that many files like that. I'd rather give us a little flexibility with 50 years until death and risk a few overruns.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:39, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I just did some statistical modelling of the situation. I looked up the US life expectancy in 1900, which was 48, but this includes a lot of infant mortality, so I used the value for a 10-year old, which is 50, making for a total of 60 years (seems reasonable for that time). I looked up the current standard deviation which is 8, and it seems the variation in life expectancy back then would be similar. Then I assumed that a photographer would take his first photo at 10, increase his rate linearly until 20, and then keep producing at a constant rate until death. This is a bit annoying to model, so let's assume he begins photographing at a constant rate at 15; this simplification is well within the inaccuracies of the whole thing. Let , i.e. the number of years spent photographing. Then is normally distributed with mean 45 and standard deviation 8. The probability of a photo being taken more than years before death is . We can numerically evaluate , which represents the probability that any arbitrary photograph of that time was taken years before death. Here is a table for different values of :

Years Probability
40 0.1215
45 0.0585
50 0.0224
55 6.58 × 10-3
60 1.44 × 10-3
65 2.30 × 10-4
70 2.64 × 10-5
75 2.14 × 10-6
80 1.22 × 10-7

This isn't quite the false positive or false negative rate, since those depend on the distribution of when photos are created. (For example, if all photos were taken in 1600, then the false positive and false negative rate would both be zero.) But until I figure out how to do that, take these values as somewhat indicative of the false positive rate (but with a grain of salt). -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:07, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

You did a great work but:
  • It's very hard to get a good model, specially when trying to get accurate values in end of queue. I just point a few points that I would check and that may alter you results - please notice that altering it by a few sigmas would result in big changes in outcome, and that my points here are just guesses to check, and maybe reject.
    • Taking life expectancy from white males is the best choice with the date you used, but I think creators in XIX century had a life expectancy even longer, since a lot of them were wealthier than average.
    • Most works of art are made by people living more years than average, since the longer you live, the the longer your active life is. Then, the average time of death of authors of works would be even longer than life expectancy.
    • Assuming that standard deviation of life expectancy has not changed might be the best we can do with the data you used. Anyway, I think standard deviation were larger a century ago.
  • In Commons we have a lot of images of works of arts with known date of creation and date of death of author - maybe tens of thousands of images with machine-readable data. If we manage to get and count the data, we could use it to validate and calibrate your model or even to use our data distribution as a model.
  • As said, we need further research, but according to your results, only 2 out of one million of works of art were created 75 years or more before author's death. As I said a couple of days ago, I found File:Frauenaurach C Haag 1839 001.JPG (created 76 years before the painter's death) with very little search effort. Assuming that I am not extraordinarily skilled at finding such images (I tell you I am not), and even admitting that I was very lucky, I don't think I had found such an image if there were only 2 in a million of works of art in Commons.--Pere prlpz (talk) 16:50, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Actually there are some problems with my model that are not just due to inaccurate coefficients. I am working a new one that takes into account that the number of photographers has increased over time. Also I think the way I did the conditional probability might be a bit wrong. I don't really think crawling through actual data is necessary though; the point is just to choose a good heuristic for the number of years after which we can safely assume the creator is dead. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:10, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm quite suspicious of models that are inadequately grounded in reality (which, so far, this one appears to be). Models can be useful to give rough "back of envelope" estimates, but actual data would be a lot more persuasive IMO. --Avenue (talk) 02:13, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
It's a lot more difficult though. But the good thing is that 5-10 years is enough to change the probability by an entire order of magnitude. So maybe what we could do is take a false positive rate we consider acceptable from a model, and then add 5-10 years to the requirement. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 02:30, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Choreographic works, theatrical works

This is a bit on the verge, but just to make sure: are musical concerts and theatrical performances free for photography? The law in Slovenia states that choreographic and theatrical works are copyrighted. --Eleassar (t/p) 15:06, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with Slovenian copyright law, but I believe a single photo of a concert or performance would not generally violate the copyright in the underlying choreographic or theatrical work. If the stage design includes graphical works, a photo could easily violate the copyright on those. --Avenue (talk) 17:58, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. What about a series of photos? --Eleassar (t/p) 18:24, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Avenue: from what I understand, this is the judges' reasoning in France, where choreographic and theatrical works are copyrighted too. A series of photos would be OK as long as you can't reconstruct the choreography/stage direction from it. Keep in mind costumes may be copyrighted, too. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 18:51, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
About concerts we have Commons:Image_casebook#Concert_photography. Adding a section about theatrical plays would be great.--Pere prlpz (talk) 21:57, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
What about adding a new, comprehensive section titled 'Performing arts'? --Eleassar (t/p) 11:35, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Japanese film poster from 1963

Is it possible to upload the first image on this page? If yes, under which license? bamse (talk) 20:51, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

No. The image remains copyrighted in Japan until the end of 2013 and in the United States until the end of 2058. You have to wait until the image is in the public domain in both Japan and the United States. Upload on 1 January 2059. --Stefan4 (talk) 20:57, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for the reply. As for copyright in Japan, does this mean that I could upload it to ja-wikipedia on 1 January 2014? Under which licence? bamse (talk) 07:52, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
That is a question that you will have to take with Japanese Wikipedia. Note that Japanese Wikipedia is a bit picky with licences, for example by treating {{Cc-by-2.0}} as unacceptable whereas {{Cc-by-sa-3.0}} is acceptable, although anyone may "upgrade" a {{Cc-by-2.0}} licence to {{Cc-by-sa-3.0}}. See ja:Template:Cc-by-2.0. PD licences are a bit tricky. For example, ja:Template:PD-USGov is obviously seen as unfree. No idea about other PD licences. --Stefan4 (talk) 12:52, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm not used with Japanese Wikipedia, but in ja:Template:Cc-by-2.0 I understand that CC-BY is not accepted because it is enough free to be accepted in Commons. Wikipedias usually accept only images that can't be uploaded to Commons, although some of them often fail to enforce this rule - notably English Wikipedia. Accepting free images in local projects would undermine Commons mission, and complicate local project management.--Pere prlpz (talk) 22:34, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Unfortunately Japanese Wikipedia would also reject it until 2059. In Japanse Wikipedia, in addition to PD status in Japan, PD status in the US is also required for a file to be uploaded as a PD material. (w:ja:Template:PD-old-USJP) In this case, the {{PD-1996}} claim fails, and no other reason seems to establish its PD status in the US. --whym (talk) 05:55, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Death masks

Is a death mask a copyrightable work? The one in File:Posmrtna maska Ivana Cankarja.jpg was created in 1918 by the sculptor sl:Lojze Dolinar, who died in 1970, therefore his works are still copyrighted in Slovenia, the source country. --Eleassar (t/p) 11:49, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Don't see why not. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 09:21, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Because it is an exact replica of a human face and does not contain original work. We have a whole category containing death masks. Should all of them that could still be copyrighted per law of the originating countries and the US, if considered copyrightable, be proposed for deletion? --Eleassar (t/p) 10:38, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
A lot of them are PD-old though. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:25, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
And they're not perfect copies. They're (in many cases a very skilled) person's attempt at perfect copies. That does make a substantial difference. Sven Manguard Wha? 13:44, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
*Might* make a difference, might not. For the UK (with their skill, labour, and judgement determinations) it probably would be copyrightable. For the U.S.-style originality, it probably does not -- they are attempting to make an exact replica of someone's face, which is basically "slavish copying". It may take skill, but that is a separate consideration from creative expression. For example, a U.S. court case recently denied copyright protection to a 3D model of a car where they set up all kinds of electronics to measure the contours of the car. That involved great skill and expense, but was not creative expression. For a death mask, you may have to show that some of the the actual contours on the resulting bust were based on the sculptor's imagination, and not just the cast of the face. Are such works really an "expression of the mind", which is the general EU threshold? Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:04, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Files uploaded by User:Wingyannn

All files uploaded by User:Wingyannn seem to be from an online pet store [18]. Could anyone help nominating for deletion or copyright violation? Thanks. --Wcam (talk) 14:38, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

✓ Done - deleted user's 3 remaining uploads, as they were very similar to the user's other uploads previously deleted as copyvios. Rd232 (talk) 20:52, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Elisabeth Meyer (1899-1968) photographs from the Preus Museum on Flickr

Professional photographer, historically important photos on Flickr, CC-by-2.0. Do we need OTRS on these? (See File:NMFF.002537-18.jpg for example and links). If we do, what do we need to see? Dankarl (talk) 03:33, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I believe those don't need OTRS. They can be uploaded on commons if the source and author is linked. I think how you've done it on File:NMFF.002537-18.jpg it should be good. It is like what has been done on this file and much others. If I need to clarify anything a bit more let me know. --Wiki13 08:22, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
All of the photos are presumably {{PD-Norway50}}. However, this particular photo appears to be {{Not-PD-US-URAA}}, and the United States copyright term is life+70 years for any unpublished photos. Also, it seems that she spent some years in Germany and Hungary, so the source country might not always be Norway for published photos. Is the museum really the copyright holder? --Stefan4 (talk) 22:52, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
I do not see that question specifically addressed anywhere. By implication if they publish them with a free license they are the copyright holder or agent for the holder. My question is whether we trust a professionally managed museum (and this is the National Photographic Museum of Norway) to know what they're doing with respect to copyrights and licenses? Dankarl (talk) 22:06, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
BTW there were already several of her photos and a portrait of her on Commons; I added a few more and started Category:Photographs by Elisabeth Meyer. Dankarl (talk) 22:06, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
The use of a CC licence is in no way an implication that the museum is the copyright holder. We would need to find evidence that this is the case. If it isn't the case, then all CC licence claims are invalid. The museum might be using a {{Cc-by-2.0}} licence since it is the closest you can get to {{PD-Norway50}} (meaning that the images are in the public domain in Norway and all countries applying the rule of the shorter term, but not necessarily in the public domain in the United States). --Stefan4 (talk) 00:10, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
I emailed an inquiry to the museum. Dankarl (talk) 01:49, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Photos of people with awards

Have some PD photos of stars holding their Emmy awards and would like to upload them if it isn't a problem because of the award. Thanks, We hope (talk) 15:25, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

A photo of them holding an award probably won't infringe on the copyright of the award due to de minimis, as long as it's primarily a photo of the person, not the award. If you're the photographer, then just go ahead and upload them; if someone else is the photographer, please have them send permission to COM:OTRS. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 09:24, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm not so sure that the award in such photos is de minimis - after all, the purpose of a photo of this kind is to show "the person holding their award", isn't it? So, the award is an important element and a major part of the reason of taking this specific photo, which would be altered substantially if the award were removed from the photo. But I concede that it might seem overly cautious to forbid such photos... by the way, I see four images in Category:Emmy Awards which seem inappropriate indeed. The category description says clearly: Please note: The Emmy Award sculpture is still copyrighted. Please do not upload any image soley showing the award (e.g. without an award winner holding it). What about these images?
  • File:Emmy Award Icon.png - description says: "A stylized version of Emmy Award logo. This image, self created, only consists of simple geometric shape." I disagree - it's recognizably the Emmy award, even if stylized, a derivative work.
  • File:Emmy Award.JPG - this was cropped from File:Bruce Kennedy.jpg with the purpose of showing the Emmy award alone, so definitely not de minimis.
  • File:Emmy award.jpg - a fine photo of the Emmy award. Taken from the flickr account of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center where the photo was released under CC-BY 2.0, but I do not think that the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has copyright of the sculpture itself.
  • File:Emmy statuette.png - another photo, released by the photographer (via flickr) under CC-BY-SA 2.0, but also not de minimis.
I think I'm going to open deletion requests for these four images. Gestumblindi (talk) 14:15, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Which I have now done. Gestumblindi (talk) 14:30, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

One photo is a composite by NBC of their award winners. This is probably a better look at the photo but this one has missing network tags. The other seems to show the award in too much detail, so we'll forget about that. Would be interested in uploading the NBC composite if that can be done. Thanks, We hope (talk) 14:45, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

  •  Question Why do you think that the statuettes are copyrighted? en:Emmy Award suggests that awards have been given out since 1949. Distribution of the statuettes counts as publication, right? Do all statuettes contain a copyright notice? Have the statuettes looked the same since 1949? Might there be a unique design which has been used continuously since 1949 which is {{PD-US-no notice}}? --Stefan4 (talk) 15:00, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
    • Distribution to limited people for a limited purpose was "limited publication" under old U.S. laws and did not void copyright when there was a lack of copyright notice (as opposed to "general publication", which did). There was a 1991 ruling on the Oscar statuette which confirmed it was still copyrighted -- it was deemed limited publication through 1941, which was when it was registered for copyright, so its copyright will last until 2037. Not sure about the details surrounding the Emmy though. If they gave out copies without restriction, or sold replicas, etc., without a copyright notice, its situation might be different. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:06, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Have just nominated an upload of mine File:1962 Oscars Shirley Jones.JPG for deletion in case it's not de minimis. Know there are probably other Oscar/Emmy award photos here and wonder if they also need to go to DR. We hope (talk) 15:06, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Images of statuettes are likely to have been distributed since Emmy awards came into existence, and I think this constitutes publication under US law. Anyway, they aren't old enough to be presumed to be in public domain. Furthermore, US formalities to keep copyright alive are likely to have been followed. Then, I think we need to assume that the statuettes are copyrighted.--Pere prlpz (talk) 17:04, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
The Copyright and Trademark Policies page of the ATAS says 'A copyright notice for the statuette is no longer mandatory, but when used should read “©ATAS/NATAS”.' This suggests that earlier the notice was mandatory.
On the other hand, while they specifically claim that the statuette is "the trademarked property" of the ATAS and the NATAS, I don't see any specific claim of copyright ownership there. This makes me wonder why. --Avenue (talk) 20:45, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I think the same can be assumed re: Grammy awards, since they began in the mid 1950s. This means we have an Category:Academy Awards to go through and tag where needed and files like this File:Grammy.jpg also. We hope (talk) 17:22, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

What about File:Film Oscar.svg? This is, recognizably, the shape of the famous Oscar statuette. So, it's a derivative work of a copyrighted work (as the Oscar is copyrighted until 2037, as Carl Lindberg says) and not permitted here, I would say? I'm a bit baffled, however, as this file is here since 2006 and widely used in Wikimedia projects, and still no one has questioned its copyright status? May there be a good reason to keep it, after all? Gestumblindi (talk) 18:59, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
I think it resembles very little the actual Oscar statuette. It's a good place-holder for it, and some uses of it could be a trademark infringement, but I see it too different from the statuette to be a copyright infringement.--Pere prlpz (talk) 21:26, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
"I think it resembles very little the actual Oscar statuette" - I disagree. It's immediately recognizable, and otherwise it would be pointless, wouldn't you say? Gestumblindi (talk) 22:48, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
I think part of the reason it's immediately recognizable is confirmation bias. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:50, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Another example File:Nobel prize medal.svg, created to replace an image of the copyrighted medal, and File:P Harry Potter.png, used in commons:Fan art as an example of how can Harry Potter be shown without breaching any copyright. Both have essential characters in common with a copyrighted work, but they are free.--Pere prlpz (talk) 00:45, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Confirmation bias, maybe... Now I'd say I would have recognized it immediately in any case, even if first viewed out of context and without knowing what it's supposed to represent, but of course I'm saying this now and can't be absolutely certain that this would have been the case... Gestumblindi (talk) 00:48, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't see it. Flipping back and forth between it and w:en:File:Oscar_statuette.jpg, they're not very similar. Personally I see a sword over a hat or crown (or maybe a stone). The statue is recognizably humanoid; the SVG isn't. The statue has a clear distinction between base and statue, which the SVG doesn't.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:57, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Being a somewhat recognizable symbol does not mean there is copyrightable expression there. It's a pretty genericized version, to the point I don't think there's a copyright issue. The symbolic part could be an issue in some trademark-related situations, as mentioned, but that's a separate issue. Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:58, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Include Library of Congress in-publication data on registered images?

For those users who have registered their images with the U.S. Copyright Office, should in-publication data be added to the file description page? 68.173.113.106 22:36, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

General tagging guidelines

As explained in film still, movie publicity photographers were employees of the studio and except in rare instances, the photographer's name was not included anywhere on the photo. In this regard, File:Greta Garbo-1935-Karenina.JPG has been tagged by an editor with the rationale, "Copyright still unknown, even if anonymous. Omission of notice may not mean ineligibility." Hence, the rationale ignores the requirement of a notice for a copyright.

On another image, File:Mata Hari (1931) 102.jpg, the same editor tagged it on what seems to be a whim: "I bet this is one of unpublished photos." The file was later deleted.

Similarly, last month, the same editor tagged File:Ann Margret-publicity2.JPG with the rationale, "Still having doubts about the copyright (or public domain) status of this photo, no matter how convincing the description is."

While finding PD images, uploading and adding them to articles is a time-consuming yet important benefit to WP, the standards for tagging images seems to be getting very lax, to say the least. Can someone review these? Thanks. --Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 05:32, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

It may help to create a specific PD tag, eg here for US publicity photos published in a certain period. Then it's easier in practice to say "yes, this photo meets that PD tag's requirements", and discussion about the validity of the copyright status is centralised in discussion of the tag. Rd232 (talk) 06:36, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Tagging images depicting architecture

Hi, how should I tag this image, to indicate the public domain status for both the building and the photo? I'd like to also indicate the year (use the auto parameter). --Eleassar (t/p) 10:46, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Slovenian copyright law and pictures being deleted from Commons

Slovenian copyright law states (among others): - that work permanently displayed on public places are in free use - however, this work cannot be replicated in 3D and/or cannot be used for commercial purposes without creator's premission (lasting 70 years) - if work is used in non-commercial purposes, and author is stated, usage should contain data on author and source.

To avoid any problems, slovenian Wiki administrators are removing all possibly problematic pictures from Commons, and slovenian Wiki pictures are being changed to low resolution and added statement (example: http://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slika:Meksika-Ljubljana.JPG). On talk pages there is repeated statement that pictures in Commons require free licence and that this slovenian law prohibits publishing art, architectural,... pictures to Commons. My personal view is that some pictures in Commons are already equipped with limitation licence:

Question is: can we continue to upload media files to Commons, but administrators keep eye on them and add slovene&english warning about usage limitations? I will stress again that non-commercial use (= on Wikipedia) is permitted, limitations are only on further use, especially commercial. Will be happy to clarify, if needed. If your general answer on limited licence warning will be positive, I will work then with local institutions to produce satisfactory warning. Brg --ModriDirkac (talk) 21:16, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I think the non-commercial use only is the deal-breaker. According to out policy licenses that do not explicitly allow commercial reuse are not acceptable. --Jarekt (talk) 02:47, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
It's normal that Freedom of Panorama (FOP) limited to non-commercial use isn't enough for Commons. See Commons:FOP#Slovenia for details on Slovenia. Rd232 (talk) 04:20, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, NC is the problem. Note that, however, we have accepted various degrees of ND in FoP, generally of the form "no 3D derivs" (obvious, otherwise architectural copyright is essentially meaningless) or "no distorted derivs" (assumed to be more about moral rights of architect). -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:38, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
thx for sharing your thoughts. At least one of my examples (australian) shows in practice useless commercial use. Can't we release slightly modified warning that prior to using for commercial use user has to obtain grant of the author, like it is stated in example? Legislation like it is (not only in Slovenia) greatly affects information value of Commons/Wikipedia and I would like still find a way to keep this basic mission - adding multimedia support for Wikipedia. brg --ModriDirkac (talk) 08:43, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Regarding the Australian example, the GFDL is fine for commercial use on the web, or in sizeable printed documents. I know people have strong feelings about the GFDL, but saying it is "in practice useless" for commercial use is an exaggeration. It is a lot better for many commercial uses than an NC FoP photo. --Avenue (talk) 10:38, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
No, we can't. According to Commons:Licensing we only can accept images that can be used for any purpose, including commercial purposes. Changing this is possible but it would be a major change for Commons that would not affect just only Slovenian FOP images. It would change Commons mission instead.
Anyway, I think there are reasons to support uploading such images with full resolution in local Wikipedias.--Pere prlpz (talk) 08:52, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Thx. --ModriDirkac (talk) 09:57, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
It seems that wikimedia:Resolution:Licensing policy doesn't limit uploading the depictions of copyrighted publicly displayed works to low resolution images. What do you think? --Eleassar (t/p) 11:58, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
They're outright not allowed on Commons. Resolution limits of this sort would be up to each project's Exemption Doctrine Policy. However, keep in mind that an EDP has to be written in accordance with US law, which gives four factors to consider in determining whether a use constitutes fair use. Restricting fair-use-claim images to low resolution may support the fair-use claim on two of those four points, based on the 9th Circuit Court's opinion in en:Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation (2003) which addressed using thumbnails of copyrighted images in search results. cmadler (talk) 13:03, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
wikimedia:Resolution:Licensing policy specifically bars Commons from having an Exemption Doctrine Policy, which is what is required to host non-free images under limited circumstances. So, as Cmadler says, such images are outright barred on Commons. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:55, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the detailed info. How does this relate to FOP cases, which may be freely used and photographed for non-economic purposes, but not for commercial use and 3D form? --Eleassar (t/p) 13:35, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Actually, if it's regarding FoP, we don't care about US fair use law, because it's not going to be fair use in the US. It's going to be free. You can see this in all the high-resolution images on English Wikipedia of buildings in places without FoP. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:51, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
What about sculptures? --Eleassar (t/p) 11:14, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I don't understand why we allow photos of sculptures under FoP (from countries whose laws say these do not infringe copyright, such as the U.K.) when these would still infringe on copyright under U.S. law (if I understand it right). It seems to me that this violates our policy that images must be PD or freely licensed in both the U.S. and the source country. --Avenue (talk) 13:48, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
If I remember correctly, this rule is based on some guesses related to en:Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc. The case was about who's the copyright holder of a derivative work, and the conclusion was to use Russian law. For this reason, the idea is (I believe) that the United States copyright holder to photo of a recent statue is to be determined by the copyright law of the country where the photo was taken. If taken in an FOP country, then the photographer is the sole copyright holder to the photo. See also de:Hundertwasserentscheidung where a German court ruled that German FOP applies within Germany, even if the FOP in the country of origin is less restrictive. --Stefan4 (talk) 14:50, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
It is already well-known that when using a picture from country A in country B, country A's restrictions are ignored if they are more restrictive. So it is perfectly fine to use pictures of modern French buildings in the US, as we have done at enwiki. What you're talking about, however, is on whether country B's restrictions can be ignored if they are more restrictive. That is, will a US court rule that German statues are OK in the US because of German FoP? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 16:09, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
That's where en:Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc. comes in. Some people are arguing that this court ruling tells that the initial copyright holder in the United States has to be the same person as the initial copyright holder in Germany, if the photo was taken in Germany. Since the initial copyright holder in Germany is the photographer, the initial copyright holder in the United States also has to be the photographer. In Germany, the sculptor has nothing to say about how the photo is used, and so the argument is that the sculptor can't have anything to say in the United States either.
de:Hundertwasserentscheidung is the counterexample: Germany has more restrictive FOP than Austria. Someone took a photo of a building in Austria, and it was found that this was covered by FOP in Austria (confirmed by the country's highest court). Someone later published the same photo in Germany, and it was found that the photo violated the architect's copyright in Germany (also confirmed by the country's highest court). Austrian and German FOP both cover buildings, but there is some difference related to private and public places, and this is why it was covered by FOP in Austria but not in Germany.
As far as I have understood, it could go either way in a US court. It would be very nice if we could find some testcase. What happens if you take a photo of a statue in an FOP country and try to register it at the United States Copyright Office? Is approval/denial evidence that you are the sole copyright holder?
There was a long discussion about this earlier this year (either on this page or at CT:FOP). You might wish to read the archives. --Stefan4 (talk) 22:42, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

So what I've been thinking is: Why don't we allow non-commercial FoP? After all, we allow the GFDL. Comparatively, I think that requiring the printing of an entire license worldwide is a worse restriction than prohibiting commercial use in a few countries, most notably not including all of North America, over half of Europe, most of Latin America, etc. It would be very convenient if we could allow images that were dual-licensed under the CC-BY-SA for the US (and other FoP countries) and under the CC-BY-NC-SA for the source country (and other noncommercial FoP countries). -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:59, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Files on Commons are billed as "free for any use". GFDL may be impractical for many uses, but nothing in the license actually contradicts that claim. That's not true of non-commercial FOP cases, where you're straightforwardly just not allowed to use them for commercial purposes. As to whether we should allow non-commercial: well aside from the risk of confusing people (which already arises with people often treating CC-BY-SA or similar licenses as PD), no-one's been able to explain to me why Commons' educational mission wouldn't be better served allowing non-commercial than disallowing it. Especially as individual Wikimedia projects are allowed Fair Use exceptions. But there you are, that's how it is. Rd232 (talk) 20:58, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
Commons images are frequently used on pages containing advertisements for raising funds to the Wikimedia Foundation. This means that the images are used commercially and that any non-commercial images would have to be removed from pages containing the said advertisements, right? --Stefan4 (talk) 22:29, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
Wikimedia Foundation is a registered non-profit organisation, and soliciting donations on its own webpages in no way constitutes commercial activity. Rd232 (talk) 22:54, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
Actually yes, that could be a commercial use in regards to copyright law. If they are using the copyrighted expression to make money, it doesn't matter if they are non-profit or not, there is a commercial consideration to the use. Commons' educational mission is of course harmed by not allowing such photos, however, since the aim is also to be a repository of *free* images (free as in speech, not cost), that is not really possible with images you can't use to make money. Other projects can allow them if they have an EDP, since in educational contexts such photos would be fine (and I think most projects should have an EDP that at least allows this sort of photo), but Commons is not allowed to have such a policy. And the "free" aspect is part of our charter, mandated by the Foundation, and is not something we can easily alter. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:50, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Not much point arguing this but using the copyrighted expression to make money seems questionable here: asking for donations on all pages is just not like selling anything on those pages. NB "most" projects do not have EDPs, because most projects are tiny: see list of EDPs at m:Non-free content vs m:Complete list of Wikimedia projects. Rd232 (talk) 21:38, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, the details of the use would come into play -- not all uses are infringing, and that may not be. But selling photos of a copyrighted statue as a fundraiser would be a definite problem, regardless of the non-profit status. I just wanted to make the point that the non-profit status does not alter the "commercial use" considerations at all. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:41, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but there's too many negatives and qualifiers in your sentence. Just to make sure I understand you, Rd232, are you in favor of or against allowing NC? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:24, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Not that it matters, but: I've yet to see a convincing argument why it shouldn't be allowed, and obviously it would expand the range of content available for Wikimedia projects to use. Rd232 (talk) 21:38, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

"Courtesy of ..."

I come across a lot of photos in old books with no explicit notice of copyright but with a "Courtesy of ..." note, such as, courtesy of such-and-such a museum, or courtesy of some individual. Does "courtesy of" refer to the copyright holder, or does it just mean this is where or from whom the photo was sourced? And if a book publishes a photo with no explicit notice of copyright, can it be assumed the photo is anonymous? Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 10:53, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

(a) The cited party may or may not be the copyright holder, but it's a heads-up that there may be a separate copyright. (b) One use without attribution is not by itself sufficient evidence that a work is anonymous, especially in older works; there are plenty of examples of works of known authorship that appear elsewhere without attribution. Any more specific answer to either query depends in part on whether we are talking about a US work. Dankarl (talk) 03:29, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Maybe it would be better if I got more specific. Here is the photo I would like to upload. The book was published in 1931 in the US and is listed as public domain. The photo is "Courtesy of Edward S. Clark" and must have been taken between 1876 and 1899, when the ship was converted into a coal barge. Is there any tag under which a photo like this could be uploaded? Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 06:41, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Assuming that was not its first publication and that the work was published before 1923 at some point, it is {{PD-1923}}. You can use your judgement regarding just how likely that is for this particular photograph. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:10, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikivoyage file migration

On November 1 Wikivoyage is projected to be migrated under the WMF umbrella, and we currently discuss at the corresponding task force the details of the image migration from Wikivoyage Shared to Commons. One of the issues which surfaced is the licensing. Here, we since 2006 use OTRS to confirm the free license for files created by third parties who are willing to license them under CC-BY-SA but not willing to upload them on Commons or relicense them at external websites. Prior to 2006, a simple e-mail was sufficient and accepted as license. Now, previously Wikitravel Shared, and now Wikivoyage Shared host quite a number of files which were received from the third parties, with e-mail as proof (see here an example). The example I gave would normally not be eligible for Commons, since it was uploaded in 2007, but Wikitravel Shared does not have OTRS and accepted such files until the migration to Wikivoyage. The question is what we age going to do with such file. One approach is to reject all of them. Another approach is to treat them in the same way as Flickr - accept provided the file is licensed properly at Wikivoyage Shared. We are talking about thousands of files.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:48, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

I think we should accept all files uploaded to Wikitravel Shared (and Wikivoyage Shared) that satisfied their email quoting policies, since they were uploaded in good faith under the rules applying there. We should tag them with a template similar to {{Grandfathered old file}} to help keep track of them. If problems become evident with particular images or uploaders, we can deal with that through our usual deletion processes, under similar principles to those outlined at COM:GOF. --Avenue (talk) 22:22, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
PS The specific example you raise, [19], would probably not be accepted here because Georgian law only allows non-commercial FOP, but that is a separate issue. --Avenue (talk) 23:08, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Have you been able to find a date for the building? This is a general problem which I often encounter when moving files from Wikipedia: given any random photo of a building, it is very often impossible to determine the copyright status of the building since relevant information such as the year of death of the architect isn't easily available. --Stefan4 (talk) 23:33, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
No, I don't have any information about the building or its architect. I should have said "might not be accepted". --Avenue (talk) 02:07, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
The specific building is clearly {{PD-RusEmpire}}, and in the meanwhile I found the OTRS number from the uploader, so it should be safe.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:24, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Indeed I think dealing with the permissions like this would be the best solution, if it is acceptable for the community here.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:25, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Although I realise those images are very old, they are new here. I would strongly oppose uploading thousands of new files without a clear license statement. I think a more appropriate recourse is to move them to an external website operated by somebody else where they be safely archived until such time as clear permission can be secured from the original copyright holders. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:09, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
I disagree; they have been used in a shared manner for a long time much the same way our pre-2006 images were. I don't think it's worth the disruption to Wikivoyage to block them, much as it was too disruptive to remove the pre-2006 images. It was probably too hard to track down copyright owners for our 2006 material as a practical matter; it will likely be much much harder to do that for Wikivoyage material. Obviously any new material should follow OTRS, but the imported Wikitravel stuff should probably be marked with a hidden category and/or a template similar to {{Grandfathered old file}}, and have another section on COM:GOF to describe the Wikivoyage situation. I never like applying new deletion criteria to existing works. Obviously it's not perfect, and if a copyright owner turns up with a claim on it, we may not have evidence of the perpetual license, but the alternative is just too punishing. I don't think MediaWiki allows more than one "commons" type shared image site to be configured, so even if one were to be set up, I don't know how you would use it. And these images are likely shared between many wikivoyage language projects already. The import work is going to be hard enough already (the photos of non-free statues in non-free countries is going to be a problem as mentioned); I don't think it's a good idea to throw a roadblock like that in there. Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:39, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Carl Lindberg. It isn't perfect but it's not expected to be worse than our grandfathered stuff is. Of course, in case of rational doubt on any particular file a precautionary approach must be taken - and delete.
Having a different "commons" project with just different strictness in verifying permissions wouldn't be a solution: a file can be thought as able to be hosted lawfully in a WMF server or not, but intermediate positions are untenable.
If by "external website" you mean not uploading to any WMF server, this can be the right way for files with doubtful permissions, and I think that present Wikitravel Share would be the simplest place to store them - provided that it is not going to close.--Pere prlpz (talk) 15:13, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Omit Megadata

How can I retroactively omit megadata of uploaded images which were not supposed to be shown publicly (like the address of the photographer)? I would be very grateful for your help! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.246.2.248 (talk • contribs)

I presume you mean EXIF metadata. See COM:EXIF on how to edit it - if you remove/edit EXIF metadata you can upload a new version of a file and the old EXIF won't be visible any more. If you need help doing it try Commons:Graphic Lab (but it's best if you can do it yourself). Rd232 (talk) 18:51, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
You probably want to ask for the original to be deleted; Commons:Administrators' Noticeboard is the best place for that, right?--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:58, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, if you need the old revision deleted (as I assume you would if you're concerned about privacy) you can request it there or just at the talk page of any active admin. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:04, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Great, thank you. I'll try my best.

File:Chad Brassil Bunny.jpg and COM:GOF

It says that "The photographer and subject have given me permission to use this image for the encyclopedia." This seems dubious: is the permission only for "the encyclopedia", or is it for the specified licence? According to COM:GOF, "Prior to 8 January 2006, it was only required that the file was properly licensed and attributed, with no specific statement of permission being required on the image page." This seems partially met: it is properly licensed, but there is no source, except for a statement that "permission" has been given. On the other hand, both licences require attribution of the author. I believe that it's possible to use the attribution requirement to require non-attribution (that is, saying that you may use the work only under the condition that the author isn't attributed), and we don't know if this is the case here. Should the file be nominated for deletion, or should it be kept under COM:GOF? --Stefan4 (talk) 22:53, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

de:Vorlage:Musik-PD (Werk)

I asked user:Rd232 for help with license of File:Kadenz.mid, an old file with incomprehensible (to me) license in German. I DR that file in hopes that someone will find a proper license for it, but it was deleted instead. user:Rd232 found out that it was tagged with de:Vorlage:Musik-PD (Werk) on German Wikipedia, which claims it's an audio work that doesn't reach the threshold of originality; there is no equivalent on Commons, so it was converted to bare text. Should we add equivalent license tag on Commons, or should we just move the file back to de Wiki? --Jarekt (talk) 23:43, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

How do we know if a sound recording is below the threshold of originality or not? There are no examples of sound recordings at COM:TOO. --Stefan4 (talk) 23:48, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
de:Kategorie:Datei:Musik-PD (Werk) would be a relevant reference; probably we should ask on German Wikipedia for help on definition (though I've not always had much of a response from such questions). The interaction with US PD status is of course an additional headache. Rd232 (talk) 07:29, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Please check my two files

I've added two new files; can someone verify them, please. The issue was with: this logo. I think I've corrected my mistake, but I'm not 100%. Sorry if I'm wasting your time, but these licenses are a minefield! Thanks. Rage, Rage against... (talk) 12:05, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the logo (for me it's complex but somebody more knowledgeable should opine on originality threshold in source country), but if File:Epg media b...24x768.gif and File:Inview-EPG 4.gif weren't entirely made by you from scratch, a permission from author will be need. At least, the photo is copyrightable, and probably layout too.--Pere prlpz (talk) 14:57, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
File:In view logo 4col with strapline.jpg has been nominated for deletion. Was the photo of the woman taken by the TV station, or was it taken by someone else? The TV station is only allowed to license its own works under free licences, but not other people's works. --Stefan4 (talk) 15:45, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Which is the license tag?

Hi,

I want to upload an image of a historical telegram that can be found here Historical Telegram at page 14.

How should it be classified? It is like a picture of a famous painting?

Regards. --Marcric (talk) 13:18, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Apparently, the author of the telegram is Eduardo Gomes, who died in 1981, and Brazilian copyright does not expire until 70 years after the death of the author, so it won't be free for a very long time. —LX (talk, contribs) 13:49, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
OK, but if that is the case, How it is being used in a book? I just want to use it as a public domain information. It is a telegram from Eduardo Gomes to the President, concerning the first rocket launch from the new (at that time) en:Barreira do Inferno Launch Center. It is not anything private to him. --Marcric (talk) 13:19, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
In short: the fact that it can be used in a book in Brazil (assuming that this usage is properly covered by Brazilian law), doesn't mean that it can be used by anybody for any purpose according to Brazilian and US law.
Anyway, it could be usable in some wikipedias, although not in Commons.--Pere prlpz (talk) 00:51, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Checking the image again, I think the only copyrightable feature of the image might be the text, because the other elements are just the font, and a too simple layout - although threshold of originality may be different in every country. Text is very simple, too, - this telegram isn't a literary work of art - but here I'm less sure about how original need to be a text to be copyrightable.
Anyway, if the text is copyrightable but layout isn't, it will be uploadable to most wikipedias ever under quite strict citation rights, that are usually less strict for text than images.--Pere prlpz (talk) 15:25, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree, and I should have been clearer in my initial reply: The copyrightable element here is the text, and it's short enough that it should be possible to quote under textual fair use on most projects. In fact, having a second look, the font and the absence of any signs of aging of the paper seems likely that the text as shown in the PDF is a modern reproduction, so it probably has very little illustrative value as an image anyway. —LX (talk, contribs) 19:58, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Deletion of File:La seconde moitié.jpg

I am having issues uploading a couple of book covers to the commons. The files 'La seconde moitié.jpg' and 'Lancement maudite thumb.jpg' were recently deleted from http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janis_Locas. Please see the correspondence I had with an administrator below:


I have tried uploading this image as a copyright image in which I believe is fair use (cover art for a book). After filling out all of the required criteria, the upload button would not unlock to let me upload the image, nor did the form state that there was anything wrong with the information I had entered (form seemed to be locked or functioning improperly). This article is about the author of this book, and the image was supplied by the author of the book. If there is a more suitable license to use for this image then please let me know and I will obtain the required information. Thank you.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Deschenes Regnier (talk • contribs) 14:43, October 31, 2012‎ (UTC) Fair-use isn't allowed on Commons. The file should be uploaded to a local wiki as fair-use. Here's where you'd do it on fr.wiki, and en.wiki. Hope that helps. INeverCry 21:54, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

It wont allow me to upload because it is a file that has been previously deleted.

I really don't understand. It might be better if you asked a French-speaking admin like User:PierreSelim or User:Yann. Sorry. INeverCry 22:12, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Let me rephrase. I followed your link to fr.wiki, selected the 'l'interface montrant pas à pas la démarche' (or upload) link, and selected the La seconde moitié.jpg file from my CPU. The image begins to upload normally but then I get a prompt stating that this image has been removed from Wikipedia and refuses to to re-upload the image.

You might be better off posting this to Commons:Help desk or to the eqivalent page on fr.wiki. There could be a software bug causing the problem. There've been many of these going around recently. INeverCry 22:41, 31 October 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deschenes Regnier (talk • contribs) 2012-10-31T23:05:04 (UTC)

All book covers on French Wikipedia have to be available under a free licence. French Wikipedia won't accept any fair use book covers. See m:Non-free content: if it is fair use, it has to be a logo, a photo of a recent building or money. --Stefan4 (talk) 23:44, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
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