Commons talk:Works by non-U.S. governments declared to be in the public domain globally

There has been significant debate about the hosting on Commons of non-U.S. public domain files whose copyright has been restored under U.S. national Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA).

Since the URAA does not take into account the copyright status of works outside U.S. territory, this creates a serious anomaly in which many works are public domain according to the law of almost all countries except in the U.S. This is particularly problematic for non-U.S. Government-created works that are public domain in the source country, but where that public domain status is ignored for the purposes of U.S. law. The courts in the U.S. are of course bound by their local laws, and may accordingly provide legal relief to a plaintiff who attempts to rely on U.S. copyright protection even in respect of works that were and still are public domain or otherwise out of copyright according to the law of the source country.

Since the Wikimedia Foundation servers are based in the U.S., Commons cannot set aside U.S. law, and it has been suggested that all affected files must therefore be deleted. In fact, that should not always be necessary, and following a statement of the WMF legal team we may be able to set up a policy that should save at least some of these files.

I am proposing a new policy that provides a mechanism for certain files that are public domain in their source country but potentially subject to copyright under the laws of the U.S. to be legally hosted on Commons. It would apply broadly, and would not be not limited solely to works whose U.S. copyright has been restored under the ARAA.

If approved, we would need to modify the review at Commons:WikiProject Public Domain/URAA review.

Comments are welcome below, especially views on pros, cons and ideas for potential improvements. Please don't attempt to !vote yet, as that tends to close down discussion. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:23, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Applying this to orphan works?

Hello, Thanks for this, it is nice to see that some tentative is made to find a solution against URAA. But this won't help much, because the requirements are nearly equivalent to a {{PD-author}}. If we are able to contact the potential copyright owner, we can also ask for the usual permission. The problem is for anonymous work, when we can't contact anyone. Unless this is broaden to also cover anonymous work, it won't help much. Regards, Yann (talk) 17:51, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

No, it's not about orphan works. It's primarily about a way for us to keep non-US government works that are locally copyright-expired and thus public domain, but which due to URAA the US courts will not accept as being public domain. It's a way for us to record general public government declarations to the effect that "when we say public domain, we mean worldwide" without having to ask for that declaration for each and every work that might otherwise fall within the ambit of URAA. For more background, see M:Wikilegal/Use_of_Foreign_Works_Restored_under_the_URAA_on_Commons. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:16, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

This is very disappointing. As it was said below, your proposal is not much more than simplifying the application of {{PD-author}}. When the author is unknown, no copyright claim can be made within one country, let alone outside of it. That's the REAL issue we need to find a solution for. Regards, Yann (talk) 13:59, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Um, I'm not quite sure why you should think it 'very disappointing' that I've written a proposal largely to help deal with ARAA problems rather than the quite distinct issue of orphan works. The latter is of real importance of course, but is much more difficult to deal with and ideally needs changes to international copyright law. I am involved in this initiative which attempts to improve the legal situation within the EU. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:49, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

When the author is unknown to everyone, then no copyright claim can be made. However, there is always a possibility that the photographer's heirs have kept the original negatives, or other documentation of authorship. In that case, the heirs could easily sue people for using the images, but other people won't know whom to ask for permission. A pity, but there is nothing that we can do about it. --Stefan4 (talk) 15:18, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Global public domain?

We should not use the term "global public domain", as there's not really such a thing. Calling it "released to the public domain globally" is better.

 Done --MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:00, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

It is not true that "the URAA does not take into account the copyright status of works outside U.S. territory"; it does. It is US copyright law itself that does not include the rule of the shorter term. (Quite correctly, in my opinion; courts of one country should not be trying to interpret laws of those of another country, and the rule of the shorter term encourages legislatures to increase copyright length in their country to maximize their copyright exports.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:44, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

 Done --MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:01, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Interim proposal: Handle such images through OTRS, starting (almost) immediately

A simpler way would just be to piggyback on OTRS, with templates that read something like "OTRS-pending: An editor has sent notification to OTRS that the copyright owner has publicly claimed that the US copyright on this work will not be enforced." and "OTRS: This file is in the public domain in the country of origin. OTRS has verified and recorded a noticed that the US copyright will never be enforced. See ticket nnnn."

We can trust the OTRS team to be conservative in judging what is and is not a valid "quit-claim" of ownership of the US copyright, and we would not have to wait for this proposed policy to come into effect to enjoy the benefits of it. The only possible downside I can see is that there may be a flood of OTRS requests.

I recommend using the OTRS method above on an interim basis until or unless we agree on a better way, starting as soon as the OTRS team verifies that they are willing to do this and that they have the bandwidth to handle the additional requests. Davidwr (talk) 23:29, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. This is (sometimes) happening already, and that is absolutely fine. However, we do need something written down as policy, as at the moment files are being deleted due to legal confusion in this area. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:04, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Okay, fine, make it an interim policy then. Something along the lines of 1) Don't delete files that have OTRS-pending in the last 30 days, 2) don't delete files that have OTRS permissions on file, 3) if there is a file that is in the public domain in its country of origin but not clearly in the public domain in the United States AND which the presumed US copyright owner has clearly stated that they will not enforce the American copyright, any person may notify OTRS and put an "OTRS-pending" template on the file, 4) OTRS is required to verify the legitimacy and applicability of the presumed copyright owner's claims and verify that they are also binding on any successors-of-interest under US law before updating or removing the OTRS template, 5) OTRS is expected to err on the side of legal caution. 6) If OTRS declines to recognize the permission and the permission came from a published source, they should add a note to the talk page explaining what the source was, what the source said, and why it was declined. 7) As a group, OTRS volunteers should reconsider or further explain past OTRS decisions made under this interim policy if requested, provided that there is a reasonable basis to do so. Davidwr (talk) 17:17, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

No objections to something along those lines, but it might take as long to get that agreed as an interim policy as to get the final policy sorted out. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 08:35, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

In a way, really, this is what the tags {{PD-author}} or {{PD-copyright holder}} or {{CC0}} are already for (and there are probably others). OTRS for that kind of thing would be welcome, especially for large-scale dedications, but I'm not sure it's really required. A copyright owner has valid rights, and is disclaiming them -- it's similar to a license, and we would subject the public domain claim to the same criteria we would subject a claim of CC-BY (in terms of its validity), really. We've been doing that kind of thing on a per-work basis already. {{PD-Highsmith}} is an example of an author explicitly dedicating a large number of their works to the public domain, though the declaration was to the Library of Congress, not us. I'm not sure we need to do anything drastically different, though of course the guidance here may help avoid ambiguous "public domain" declarations if it's followed. The larger question to me is about works by foreign governments -- those can be a really different situation than privately-held copyright. Particularly with laws which have a specific term for government works, that could theoretically amount to a form of PD declaration by the copyright owner already -- it's possible a U.S. court could say that is a form of abandonment, especially if they have never given any indication of claiming foreign rights beyond those terms. But it's definitely ambiguous. So, I guess we could use this policy to clarify that we need some sort of worldwide statement from a government. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:02, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

As a long term OTRS volunteer, I would much rather Commons avoided relying on OTRS volunteers when there are alternatives. OTRS is always short of volunteers (a situation that may well become more of a critical issue over the coming year), has the distinct issue of not being a transparent process and excludes casual volunteers who may want to help out without having to set up OTRS accounts or get "vetted". We already have the special flag of licence reviewer and setting up a way of recording releases on Commons (such as a simple table with serial numbers, or having a bot maintain something similar) may encourage more non-admins to become trusted licence reviewers and remain fully transparent. --Fæ (talk) 13:54, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, both for the reasons of lack of OTRS capacity and also because there is no need for a government to keep a global public domain declaration confidential we should indeed avoid relying on OTRS as far as possible. The {{PD-author}}, {{PD-copyright holder}} and {{CC0}} tags are not generally useful where works have been uploaded by a third party, where they entered into the local public domain by copyright expiry, and where the government has confirmed in writing that that applies worldwide. That is not an uncommon situation. One of the points of this policy is to have somewhere central and public to store such declarations. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 21:20, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

The existing tags are fine for when works have entered the public domain locally -- if their U.S. rights still exist, those have to be licensed just like anything else, and those tags suffice (if they are applied validly). For the other situations, where we need the rights owner (or potential rights owner anyways) to provide a license or PD declaration, then yes we would need something else. OTRS is probably required for individuals, but if we can get governments to issue a declaration, that would be most helpful, and this is a good as any place to document those (along with the government tags for that country). Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:26, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

User:Fæ: You wrote: We already have the special flag of licence reviewer and setting up a way of recording releases on Commons (such as a simple table with serial numbers, or having a bot maintain something similar) may encourage more non-admins to become trusted licence reviewers and remain fully transparent. Yes, the use of "license reviewers" reviewing and preserving "worldwide quit-claim declarations" or similar statements by purported copyright-holders would be an acceptable short- and possibly-even long-term solution to the problem. Davidwr (talk) 19:46, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Re-focus and simplify

Thanks for the comments so far. The discussion has focused my thinking, and it has become clearer that what I am really trying to do is twofold:

• Write down in one easily-accessible place a policy that says "a release to the public domain globally" or "a confirmation of public domain status globally" acts as a quit-claim of ownership of any US copyright, and allows us to host a 'public domain' file here that might otherwise be copyright-protected before the US courts.
• Provide a place where we can publicly record global public domain releases or confirmations by large copyright owners (especially non US governments). This is particularly important where the confirmation covers works that will in the future automatically fall into the public domain when their local copyright expires.

On that basis, I think we can simplify the proposal by getting rid of the suggested {{Globally released}} tag. Such a tag is not needed for one-off files (they can be dealt with by OTRS), nor for large one-off specific releases to the public domain (which normally are given their own special-purpose tag). More important are government confirmations that their own copyright-expired officially-created works are considered to fall into the public domain globally - and rather than a new tag, an easier way of recording that would be to modify each government's PD tag, where appropriate, to link back to the policy page here.

I will make some changes along those lines, and look forward to more discussion. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:36, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Now done. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:13, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Individuals

We might want to add a clarification that individuals who have no relation to governments are not recommended to follow this procedure, but recommended to simply give CC0 dedication (or other free licenses). Otherwise, there is a chance that a pile of not-so-clear and revocable statements could be sent from individuals. I think we should be recommending CC0 where possible, especially to individuals. Governments are also recommended to give CC0, but I believe the point of this proposal is to accept weaker statements, to some extent. --whym (talk) 12:00, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

I entirely agree. I will work on making that clearer. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:52, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

 Done --MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:00, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Possibility of revocation

Am I reading it correctly that it will create a class of contents on Commons whose permissions can theoretically be revocable? If so, should there be some clear disclaimers regarding possibility of revocation indicated, probably as part of relevant license templates on each file page? And should Commons:Licensing mention it as an exception? --whym (talk) 12:06, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

It's not a new situation; copyright extensions are sometimes retroactive, and we've had to delete images for that reason before. The UK could extend Crown Copyright at its whimsy already, so the difference between this and what we already have with Crown Copyright is not that big.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:22, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

A key difference: The class of files subject to copyright restoration by a change in law or Constitution is "all files originating in that country" or, if the United States constitution were changed, potentially "all files in the project." The class of files that could change without a change in copyright law by the last country-of-origin copyright owner "quit claiming" the US copyright then it or a "successor of interest" going back and trying (and possibly successfully) re-asserting the US claim is a much smaller group of files, one which could be labeled with a template. I'm not a lawyer but I would speculate that as long as the "quit claim" was genuine and would be legally binding in the country of origin (vs. someone defacing the US-copyright-holder's website to put up a bogus announcement, or possibly the web-site manager acting without proper authority from higher-ups), United States courts would honor it, making the class of files that were "released to the public domain globally" which could later have their US copyrights restored without a change in US law exactly zero. Davidwr (talk) 19:53, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

If by "theoretically" you mean without any change in United States law and without any "controlling ruling" by a United States court being overturned, I'm going to suggest being very cautious to prevent downstream users from being deceived. In such cases, we should not be hosting stuff on the Commons until or unless we have a Commons-wide discussion of how to label such content. As that possibility is more general than this discussion, a new discussion should be opened if we want to go down that road. For the time being, we should not host such material. Personally, I think that most of the cases we are talking about, especially when the only possible people or entities with any valid US copyright claim publicly announce that they will not enforce such a claim in the United States, would be considered an "irrevocable covenant," similar to a "quit-claim deed," in US courts. I have no problem with such material being hosted on the Commons as long as the validity of the public announcement is checked out and as long as a copy whose authenticity will not be questioned by a US Court is kept somewhere. Davidwr (talk) 19:33, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't see how there is a possibility of revocation, any more than a Creative Commons license could be. As you note, such a statement would probably serve to eliminate rights -- it's much harder to try to reclaim rights you've given up completely than something like a Creative Commons license. All of this is basically a form of {{PD-author}} so it's nothing new (though governmental declarations, the prime focus probably, would probably end up being part of a special tag just for that country.) We've had {{PD-UKGov}} for years -- this discussion is more about what kind of statement we would need to assume their U.S. rights have been terminated or disclaimed. Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:38, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Agree with Carl Lindberg here. Now that the policy has been restricted to governments, this concvern is of less practical importance. As has been mentioned, a UK government declaration has been accepted for many years already, so this is not new. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:04, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Some comments

All Government-copyrighted works become public domain worldwide when their copyright expires.

This statement is unclear and therefore a bad example. Is it enough if the copyright has expired in at least one country (without regard to which country it is), or is it required that the copyright has expired in the source country of the work? I suggest a clarification: add "in the source country" at the end of the sentence.

It is clear, I think, and is based on an example (UK government declaration) that has been accepted on Commons for many years now. Bear in mind that the declarant will normally be a government, and it would make no sense for them to refer to their home copyright as being 'in the source country'. In most cases that meaning will be perfectly clear from the context. We should not I think now retrospectively reject a UK government declaration that has long been relied on here. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:21, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Other issues:

• The page should stress more carefully the need to identify the copyright holder of the work. For example, the British Government appears to be the copyright holder to British currency, so the British government can therefore give permission to people to use British currency images. On the other hand, there is a statement somewhere on the Swedish central bank's website that the central bank can't grant any permission whatsoever because the copyright belongs to the individual engravers. Due to varying national legislation, it can be hard to find out who the copyright holder is: the government or the individual author.

 Done --MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:21, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

• It says that "Where the rights-holder is a government or government department, the declaration would normally be issued by the copyright office, patent office, department of legal affairs or the like." Is this always so? In for example Sweden, some government agencies such as the central bank are meant to be managed independently, and in that case, higher authorities such as the parliament might not be able to give any permission without first changing the law. There may be a big mess where the permission for some works needs to be given by some central agency whereas the permission for other works needs to be given by the agencies which produced the material. --Stefan4 (talk) 15:49, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

 Done. Wording removed as it many not be relevant in some countries. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:21, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

• So then we should make a list of these exceptions. In commonwealth countries, however, copyright law is generally pretty similar. I imagine the same is likely of the countries that were colonies of France, Spain, and the Netherlands to their respective colonizer. We shouldn't be using the odd-ones-out as a precautionary reasoning, but rather figuring out which countries such differences exist within. - Floydian (talk) 00:45, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
  • For each country, we would need to find out who can give permission, and whether there is a sole person who can give permission for all material. I'm not sure if we have such evidence. --Stefan4 (talk) 17:31, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry I have been away from this page for a while. Some offline stuff (WMUK) has intervened. I haven't forgotten and will integrate the above suggestions as soon as I can, probably on Friday --MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:20, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Still short of time. Will need to delay doing the updates until Tuesday, now, unless anyone wants to jump in before then. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:05, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Updates now complete. Ready for more feedback. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:21, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Restriction of the policy to governments and government entities

To avoid possible confusion I have suggested restricting the policy to the specific area in which it will actually make a real impact, namely government works that have gone out of copyright in the source country but which still have residual protection in the US. The policy now relates only to official copyright disclaimers, and not to bulk releases of content under a licence. Bulk releases can continue to be handled in the existing manner - with reference to OTRS if needed. This policy avoids the need for us to refer each and every 'public domain' government work that still has protection in the US by URAA or otherwise to an OTRS volunteer. It provides for a public declaration that we agree can be relied upon sufficiently not to have to handle files case-by-case.

Do editors think that we might now be getting close to the point at which we could call for a vote? --MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:21, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

If we restrict this to government works, the policy should be renamed. Also, the phrase "Non-U.S. Government works" means all works except those by the U.S. Government. I think what we mean is "Works by governments outside of the United States." This will need to be changed throughout the document, but especially in the opening paragraph. Davidwr (talk) 02:38, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

 Done --MichaelMaggs (talk) 03:41, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I think we shouldn't limit this just to "Government" works. However, I'd rather have a "Government only" exemption than no exemption at all. Davidwr (talk) 02:38, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Brief opinion

I remain extremely skeptical of this policy. Let me focus on Commons:Hosting_of_content_released_to_the_public_domain_globally#Examples_of_acceptable_global_public_domain_declarations. Whereas you would interpret a statement like "All Government-copyrighted works become public domain worldwide when their copyright expires" as an explicit release of rights, I would interpret it as a simple mistake of fact. This is akin to saying: "I didn't put a copyright notice on this drawing, so that means anyone can use it." We would never accept this as a valid license statement, nor do I think any court would. Likewise, a statement that "we will not enforce copyright in this work" is not the same as saying "we release rights to this work," because people can lie. Even if you had a written contract from them saying they would not enforce copyright in the work, and they subsequently did, all you would get out of that is a potential counter-suit for breach of contract. It would not enter into the infringement case.

I am absolutely willing to accept works which a qualified legal authority has explicitly released the rights to. Even a simple statement would suffice, like: "for any government works expired in our nation, we release all rights worldwide to those works." Our existing policy clearly permits this (although it'd be nice to catalog somewhere on-wiki all such releases). But I can't accept this kind of wishful thinking about confusing quasi-legal language. Dcoetzee (talk) 10:06, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

• There is another problem with "we will not enforce copyright in this work". It only means that the copyright holder won't sue, but in some cases, the copyright holder doesn't even have to be involved in the legal process. For example, let's say that a guy is violating your copyright "intentionally or with gross neglect" (uppsåtligen eller av grov oaktsamhet). You make the decision not to sue. Independently of this, I go to the nearest police station and report the guy. The case is processed by the police and the violator ends up in prison for two years, all of this without your involvement.

In the usual copyvio case in Swedish courts, the copyright holder sues the copyright violator, but it doesn't always have to be that way. --Stefan4 (talk) 21:23, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

• If the violator ends up in prison for two years without any contact of the copyright holder, that's justice run a muck, especially when the defendant could in-turn produce these statements from the copyright holder. Most of the world has trials and judges to deal with these sorts of things, this sounds like a horror story from some kangaroo court. - Floydian (talk) 18:55, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Why do you think that such laws are strange? There may be cases where it is discovered that a person has been engaging in file sharing and violated the copyright of lots of different works where it may be impractical and require too much effort for a court to locate all copyright holders. The law is meant to help the simplify those cases. If the defendant is able to produce statements from the copyright holders, then that is a completely different thing, because in that case the copyright holder is involved in the case in some way or another. --Stefan4 (talk) 18:18, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
    • In the U.S., which is really the only country relevant for this policy, I'm pretty sure you need to have standing in the copyright in order to bring a lawsuit -- a "legal or beneficial owner" only. 17 USC 501(b). There is a thin sliver of violations which may qualify as criminal violations (mostly regarding commercial music records) in which case you'd need a government prosecutor to bring charges. So in this case, to me, a promise not to sue effectively means they are free. I guess there could be a transfer of works to another owner who could sue, but when it comes to governmental works, we are probably already beyond the pale in worrying about theoretical possibilities. I don't think anyone here has ever brought up a case of a government bringing a copyright lawsuit in a foreign country -- especially one after the rights have expired in their own country, which is all we are talking about there. The nature of that type of copyright is very different and could end up with different results -- there is hardly ever going to be a commercial interest to protect, and other aspects could very much affect the outcome of an actual lawsuit. I agree a statement like that on a private copyright may not qualify, particularly due to the possibility of transfers, but the nature of governmental works is again quite different. A statement of the type that Dcoatzee mentioned would, to me, very possibly serve as abandonment of copyright in court. It is not at all akin to a missing copyright notice, which is simply the absence of a copyright claim -- rather, that statement speaks explicitly as to what potential re-users can expect the status to be. It would absolutely enter into an infringement case, and be very significant. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:17, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Support

This seems to be a good initiative as it gives a practical and immediate solution, if only for works by governments. PD-government works are generally of very low risk of lawsuit, as these works were declared PD by the government itself. Even if this policy does not cover every possible legal angle, it provides a reasonable approach. We at WMIL are currently in contact with our Justice Ministry in order to issue an explicit statement regarding the global status of PD works by the israeli government.
On a broader scale, URAA also affects many non-government works. The issue of URAA has to be addressed by the WMF, for the current situation threatens Commons as a global project. • Yael Meron • 06:58, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Talking about the URAA is missing the point; the reality is that the URAA is the sole case where US law actually supports the rule of the shorter term. The WMF has addressed the issue; the lack of the rule of the shorter term is part of US law, which they must follow, and they have no plans for moving to another country.

I fail completely why this threatens Commons as a global project, especially when the continuous deletion of works in the public domain for more then half the world's population (all in life+50 or life+60 countries) goes on.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:11, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I support this proposal. Thank you.

The free knowledge movement also needs a canonical place to host works that are in the public domain for half of the world's population. I am interested in creative solutions here: this may need to be done by a separate entity based in a L+50 country, however. --SJ+ 23:06, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

http://wikilivres.ca ? Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:34, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Other countries

Until now I think we have presumed that governments will not sue on copyrights they don't own by domestic law. Writing a policy to allow governmental works from countries having made some statements is unnecessary, unless we disallow non-copyrighted works from elsewhere. So what is the point? How should those other countries be treated? For acknowledging the governmental statements we don't need a policy, just a template. –LPfi (talk) 17:33, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

They almost certainly wouldn't sue, but... policy has generally been to delete foreign government works restored by the URAA, even if they have expired in their source country -- unless they have made a statement regarding them. The opinion at m:Wikilegal/Use of Foreign Works Restored under the URAA on Commons#Works_Released_Into_the_Public_Domain_By_Foreign_Governments states that such statements may not be ironclad, but would at least be much better in writing. This policy basically states that we consider such statements to make the works "free" in the U.S. as well, regardless of any uncertainty mentioned by Wikilegal. That has been practice, before and since. The implication though is that government works in other countries which were (presumably) restored by the URAA, and do not have such a statement, continue to fail the "free in the U.S." part of policy (until 95 years from publication) and still get deleted. That is the importance of the "having made some statements". Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:45, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm primarily thinking of Finnish works that never got a domestic copyright, such as legislation and statements by official bodies, including most graphical works that are included (such as most municipal coats of arms). Policy has been to regard those works as free. –LPfi (talk) 00:09, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes -- legislation and the like would fall under {{PD-EdictGov}} for the US; URAA is not an issue there. Coats of arms -- if there are particular rules about those in a particular country, I think we have allowed those. The blazons are generally not copyrightable; it's each individual drawing -- so representations drawn by people elsewhere would be copyrightable. The U.S. may technically grant those a copyright, if drawn by private citizens in countries which disallow copyright, but we have typically allowed those I think. It's more for non-edict type works from governments, such as say photographs, where the URAA question crops up if a country has not specified. Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:53, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

For Finland, the CoAs (including the graphic representation) have been PD either as part of a decision by an official body or as COM:TOO derived works of earlier CoAs. But do we think an artist, who composed the CoA for an official body, could claim copyright in the USA (probably not, as it would be work for hire in the USA)? Or do we think a municipality representative would claim copyright in the USA? They would have to do that based on some general authorisation, as an official entity hardly could authorise anybody to protect copyright they do not own (as they do not in Finland). The same of course applies to stamps, photographs etc., where included in a decision or statement and thus not under copyright (what included works still have copyright is convoluted, what is interesting here is that some such works are free).

I am afraid that this proposal, if accepted as policy as worded, could be used to raise DRs for these kinds of works.

–LPfi (talk) 10:20, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

This proposal is pretty much the status quo. I was speaking about coats of arms drawn by private citizens, not really municipalities. Per Commons:Coats of arms, the general designs are not really copyrightable, but each individual drawing could be. But if a country exempts those things from copyright law, we do typically follow that for that country (much like FoP, which is far more likely to be a problem for sculpture in the U.S. than this type of thing). The usual question is about government works that countries do protect, which have expired there, but which per the rules of the URAA might still have U.S. protection. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:19, 4 February 2021 (UTC)