Commons talk:Publication

Sculptures? Buildings?

So how does this apply to a sculpture or a building, where there is only one item, no other copies, and public presentation would seem to be the only thing resembling "publication"? - Jmabel ! talk 15:46, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I know that the US laws changed (in 1978, I think), and previously any public display did constitute publication. So for example, sculptures publicly displayed in the US before a certain date and with no copyright notice/registration were considered published and in the public domain. cmadler (talk) 16:23, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Different countries define publication differently, so I suppose that there are lots of cases where some countries regard a statue as "published" whereas some other country regards the same statue as "unpublished". According to the Berne Convention, the source country of a building is the country where it is located (or something similar), but the distinction between published buildings and unpublished buildings may affect the copyright term in some countries. --Stefan4 (talk) 16:36, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Does the copyright lasts indefinitely if an image was not published?

This needs to be clarified here, as it is a common issue (what to do when we can't find evidence image was published outstide Commons). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 07:35, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

This is a complex matter which depends on national law. In the UK, the US and several former British colonies, the copyright law contained a bug such that unpublished works remained copyrighted indefinitely. Some countries, such as the UK and the US, later fixed their laws, but with complex transitional rules for pre-existing works which still need to be considered for several decades. Other countries, such as India, still haven't fixed the copyright laws, meaning that some kinds of unpublished works still are subject to infinite copyright protection. Then there is the EU which decided that while an unpublished work can enter the public domain at some point, it becomes re-copyrighted for 25 years (with the new copyright belonging to the publisher rather than the author's heirs) if it ever becomes published at some point. I guess it would be a good idea to add information to the country sections on this page.

Consider this situation: A work remains unpublished for a long time. The copyright doesn't expire in the UK or India because of rules for unpublished works, but it expires in the EU. Later, the work is published and is given a 25-year copyright term in the EU. At this time, the copyright belongs to the author's heirs in the UK and India, but to the publisher in the EU. This creates a nightmare if you want to get permission from the rightsholder. --Stefan2 (talk) 11:45, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• In the European union, Publication right (usually 25 years) applies if a previously unpublished work is published after its original copyright has expired. Exact details differ by jurisdiction. Buidhe (talk) 04:35, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
• In the US we have {{PD-US-unpublished}} which states: "This work was never published prior to January 1, 2003, and is currently in the public domain in the United States because it meets one of the following conditions: its author died before 1952; the death date of its author is not known, and it was created before 1902; it is an anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made for hire, and it was created before 1902." The default lifetime for an anonymous work is set at 120 years, the longest a person can live. Generally this is used for manuscripts. --RAN (talk) 02:44, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Publication in the US before 1978

See User:Clindberg's detailed explanations in Commons:Deletion requests/File:Minerva Kohlhepp Teichert 1908.jpg. --Rosenzweig τ 11:59, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

For publication in the US before 1978, see the "Before 1978" section of the page at Commons:Public art and copyrights in the US. It is an excellent summary. —RP88 (talk) 20:35, 10 August 2022 (UTC)