Commons talk:When to use the PD-signature tag

An observation

I think we should put this on hold until we either find 1) case law specifically pertaining to signatures, rather than using our own home-brewed reading of US law, or 2) legal advice to the same effect. Lewis Collard! (lol, internet) 08:47, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I think there is a real need for some general guidance even in the absence of explicit case law, for example to avoid repeatedly having to discuss this issue in DRs such as Commons:Deletion requests/PD-ineligible signatures? and Commons:Deletion requests/More signatures. Decided cases cover only a very small proportion of copyright law, and Commons could not function if we were to adopt your proposal (1). Legal advice we obtain from wherever we can, including practitioners' texts, but in the absence of a fund to allow us to obtain international copyright advice on a full fee-paying basis we have to do the best we can. That is already hugely better than the vast majority of image repositories on the internet, and we are getting better. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 20:07, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with MichaelMaggs; that would amount to paralysis. Signatures would seem to uncopyrightable just about everywhere, so it is likely that no one would even try to bring a lawsuit regarding them in many countries. The U.S. Copyright Office bluntly saying A signature is not protected by copyright doesn't leave much room for other interpretation. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:42, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Trademark

I propose to add the {{trademark}} tag to signatures as well, as certain signatures are trademarked even if not protected by copyright, e.g. Audrey Hepburn's (see [1] - "Signature trademark licensed by Sean Ferrer and Luca Dotti..."). I'm just not sure whether it should be added only to signatures which are known to be trademarked or to all of them (the template says "This work contains material which may be subject to trademark laws in one or more jurisdictions", so there's a "may"...) Gestumblindi (talk) 20:43, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Signatures are capable of being protected by trademark, although the vast majority of them are not. I don't think the {{trademark}} tag should be used indiscriminately; instead, use it to tag signatures which are known to be trademark-protected. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 21:28, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I have added a section to explain this. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 14:58, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

India

Does any one knows about India? It is not ok for UK and assuming that India is one of the "Common law countries" I would expect that it is not ok. But I would prefer to "know" and not just "expect". --MGA73 (talk) 23:02, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I suspect no one really knows. The section here you quote suggests many UK signatures may be copyright (the UK has a much lower bar on originality than the US) but there probably is no relevant case law. Anyone stating that a particular UK signature is or is not copyright will merely be giving an opinion, though possibly an informed one. As for India, because law in India is based on English common law, the situation there may be the same (or may not be!). The only way anyone will ever "know" is when a case is decided in the courts. What seems agreed is that a signature is an artistic work rather than a literary one so it is potentially copyright if it shows sufficient originality whereas the mere words of someone's name would not be subject to literary copyright. Many "Indian" signatures appear at http://www.indianautographs.com/ and the fact that "© copyright 2010. Thakkar Numismatic and Art Foundation. All rights reserved." appears at the foot of each page suggests to me the site owner does not care about people's copyright rather than that he has assured himself over the legal situation. My personal view is that these signatures should be deleted (for reasons of privacy rather more than copyright) unless there is evidence that the individual has suitably released their signature. en:Wikipedia:Signatures of living persons takes much the same view but it is not clear whether "the person has publicly published their own signature" in the case of those on the Indian website. Thincat (talk) 10:41, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

That is basically my take. I doubt it has come up often in court cases, so it's going to be hard to tell for most countries. Even this UK source thinks that signatures probably aren't copyrightable even in the UK. Canada has a similar threshold at least in wording (skill, labour, and judgement), but they seem to have a bit higher threshold in recent years -- Tele-Direct v American Business Information (about library copying of court decision compilations) denied copyright protection to a phone book (much like Feist vs Rural) and CCH Canadian Ltd. v. Law Society of Upper Canada appear to have backed away somewhat from some UK precedents (which defined original as simply not being a copy, and which I think some of the guesses regarding signatures were based on) and instead required at least some skill and judgement involving intellectual effort (thus rejecting pure sweat of the brow), though not as high as the U.S. requirement of creativity. But I'm not aware of any case which has explicitly considered signatures specifically (there or the UK). Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:27, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Is a photograph of an autograph of a celebrity subject to copyright?

Is a photograph/scan of an autograph of a celebrity on a book page or any other item subject to copyright? Is the nationality of the owner of the autographed item / owner of autograph (celeb) pertinent? --J Raghu (talk) 16:28, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Cambodia

The argument at this page makes a convincing case that a signature wouldn't be copyrightable in Cambodia: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Khem Veasna Signature.PNG. I am not a lawyer, so I cannot evaluate such a claim. Personally I suspect that copyright law isn't mature enough in Cambodia to know for certainty either way. Still, I think the above law is as close as we're ever going to get to figuring out whether a signature is copyrightable, and maybe we should add Cambodia as OK. Thoughts? Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 23:40, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Indonesia

Based on Law No. 28 of 2014, art 41 c):

alat, benda, atau produk yang diciptakan hanya untuk menyelesaikan masalah teknis atau yang bentuknya hanya ditujukan untuk kebutuhan fungsional.

Translated as:

tools, objects, or products that are created only to resolve technical problems or whose shape is only intended for the functional needs.

Hence signatures, which fall under "functional needs", would be unprotected by copyright? Juxlos (talk) 12:29, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

United Kingdom law

This article mischaracterizes the one UK court opinion mentioned. At present, it states:

"There are various sources that point in that direction, including the following:

The practitioners' text Copinger and Skone James on Copyright mentions, at para. 2-23, an unreported decision that a signature combined with a (presumably PD) shield device can be accorded artistic copyright."

Copinger and James, however, state that "Protection has been conferred on the artistic part of a simple trade mark,541 designs for packaging,542 mastheads and newspaper logos,543 and a signature and Union emblem.544" Footnote 544 reads "Daily Telegraph, March 1, 1977 (use of facsimile of Mr Clive Jenkins’ signature and his Union’s emblem)." The Daily Telegraph article, in turn, makes clear that this was primarily a libel trial; the Socialist Worker had published a satirical piece claiming Clive Jenkins and his union, the Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs were offering cheap holidays in Spain for its members, where they would tour Francisco Franco's jails and have ringside seats for the garroting of socialist militants. The piece included the union's emblem and Jenkin's signature. Although not entirely clear (and I haven't been able to find the issue of the Socialist Worker online), it appears that it was published in the form of an advertisement, with the union's logo at the top, and Jenkins's signature at the bottom.

The present article thus overstates the importance of the copyright claim vis-a-vis the libel action. More importantly, by stating the "shield device" (actually the union emblem) was "presumably PD"—which appears to be the interpretation of a Wikimedia editor, not of Copinger and James—it incorrectly suggests that only the signature was found to be under copyright, when in reality, it was the combination of the signature with the union emblem. --Usernameunique (talk) 18:51, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Taking another glance, the cited secondary sources cited appear similarly problematic. For instance, the quotation of Spilsbury omits the bolded paragraph below, which significantly tempers her analysis:

An individual's signature may be protected under copyright law as an artistic work. If so, the unauthorised reproduction of the signature will infringe copyright. The name itself will not be protected by copyright; it is the appearance of the signature which is protected.

It should be remembered that copyright only subsists in works which are the product of skill, judgment and labour. An everyday signature of a rudimentary nature is unlikely to satisfy these requirements. Similarly, if the name were written in a simple form, say, in block capitals, the reproduction would not infringe copyright. The more elaborate the signature, the more likely that it will be protected by copyright.

Meanwhile, the sentences from Oppenheim and the copyright clinic are passing mentions taken out of context. Oppenheim is using a humorous example to make the point that art does not have to be good to be subject to copyright. The copyright clinic line, taken from a section entitled "What is copyright?" is simply distinguishing between literary and artistic works, using a signature as an example of something that contains both an image and words; it does not suggest that a signature is actually copyrightable. And the idea that because Story "is writing from an anti-protectionist angle" his inclusion of a signature as a work that is "possibly" copyrightable is significant, gets the logic reversed. Story is trying to show that Princess Diana's intellectual property rights at the time of her death were meager, consisting of de minimus claims over such things as personal letters and her signature. He's clearly unconvinced: "Still, it remains an intriguing question whether writing your name requires sufficient skill, labour and judgment to qualify as an artistic work."

Pinging MichaelMaggs, who wrote this section. --Usernameunique (talk) 21:09, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm no longer much involved here, but I'm sure this page could do with your input. I wrote it a dozen years ago based primarily on a previous edition of Copinger and academic opinions of the time, in the context of the UK's historic 'minimalist' approach to originality. The starting position has changed significantly since then due to European influences, and most of those opinions and supporting cases - which were in any event only of potentially persuasive authority, not precedent - probably would no longer be of much interest to any court. The whole section needs to be completely updated with the latest legal developments, using the most recent edition of Copinger. MichaelMaggs (talk) 10:06, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Japan

What should I do given that this article says that, in Japan, calligraphic signatures are copyrightable? This doesn't necessarily mean that a calligraphic signature has been copyrighted, correct? And if so, that I should use another template rather than PD-signature? Which one would that be?

I came across the signature of Prime Minister w:Takeo Miki, who passed away in 1988, and although it is a calligraphic signature (drawn with a traditional brush in a vertical order), I would assume that this old signature from a government official during his tenure as prime minister would be fine to use? To be more specific, I found it at the end of this video. He is clearly displaying it for a camera as part of some documentary recording, so I would assume there is no intent to protect its copyright from Miki himself? And it would simply be an extraction of a signature from a single video frame, rather than infracting on the copyright of the documentary makers?

LaunchOctopus (talk) 01:06, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

Philippines

In the Philippines, while signatures are copyright-free, they may have personality rights, especially those who are living, pursuant to Data Privacy Act of 2012. Under the said law, signatures are considered personal information. Therefore, the subject may have the right to request deletion from Wikimedia Commons and even local Wikipedia if they feel that they violate their privacy. I would like to ask your opinion about that. Here are the references that you can read:

Privacy Policy Office Advisory Opinion No. 2020-005

Privacy Policy Office Advisory Opinion No. 2023-010

I recommend that signatures of living Filipino citizens must have personality rights template as a result of this.Ishagaturo (talk) 11:09, 30 January 2024 (UTC)