Template talk:EdictGov-India

PD or copyrighted ND

@Yann: This license tag is morass of inconsistencies that I think need to be fixed:

• It uses the naming convention of a public domain license and categorizes files that use this license into a subcategory of Category:Public domain, but it prominently uses the "Copyrighted" icon and the text says "This work still copyrighted".
• It uses the Share-Alike icon, but strangely has no other reference to a CC-like Share Alike requirement.
• And even worse, it uses the No Derivatives icon with a "No Derivative Works"-tooltip along with text that says "Use original text only", in express violation of COM:L which prohibits ND licenses.

So are Indian legislative acts, legislative reports, and judicial judgements in the public domain, or are they copyrighted? If they are public domain, then the rest of the restrictions on this tag are incorrect. If they are copyrighted and the characterization of the restrictions is accurate then I think we may have a worse problem. —RP88 (talk) 14:15, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

@RP88: And now? Regards, Yann (talk) 14:44, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Translations and modifications need to "contains a statement at a prominent place to the effect that the translation has not been authorised or accepted as authentic by the government".

This warning is not a copyright restriction, in my opinion. It is just a warning for reusers, that they cannot rely on translations or copies for legal references. Regards, Yann (talk) 14:48, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Are you asserting that Indian legislative acts are actually in the public domain? I can't find any evidence of that. It's long standing position of Commons that unlike the U.S. Government, the Indian Government does hold copyright to its creations. Section 52(q) of the law linked to by this template does not authorize modifications as COM:L requires, it only authorizes reproduction, publication, and translations (but only to an Indian language). That section can't be a "not copyright restriction" since it's actually in the 1957 Indian Copyright Act! —RP88 (talk) 14:59, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes. In most (all?) countries, the text of the law can't get a copyright. That's because anyone should have access to the text, should be able to copy and discuss it, etc. That's also the case in France, for example. And the law is not a work from by the government, but by the Parliament. Regards, Yann (talk) 16:28, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

But unlike most countries, India's copyright law does not exempt the text of the law from copyright. India's copyright law explicitly applies to "government works" and the copyright law defines "government works" as any work which is made or published by or under the direction or control of (a) the government or any department of the government, (b) any legislature in India, and (c) any court, tribunal or other judicial authority in India (see section 2(d)(k) for the definition of "government work" and section 28 which gives government works a copyright term of 60 years).

You can actually see a bit of the backstory with regard to the old PD-IndiaGov (note slightly different spelling) which for years redirected to {{Copyvio}} until Jarekt changed it a few months ago to redirect to your new template. Some pointers and a bit of the backstory stretching back to 2005 can be found in the archives. It looks like a lot of the files currently relying on this template could use {{PD-India}} instead. —RP88 (talk) 17:15, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

I am open to change the wording of the template, but section 52(q) makes a clear exception. See s:en:Indian Copyright Law. I think we should be able to host a copy of the Indian text law in Commons. Asking @Clindberg: What do you think? Regards, Yann (talk) 17:18, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

While I'd love to be able to host these laws on Commons, doing so would be a violation of COM:L, which requires all files on Commons to be usable by anyone, anytime, for any purpose. Indian copyright law section 52(q) only authorizes a very narrow exception: reproduction, publication, and translations (but only to an Indian language). For example, it doesn't authorize modification, which COM:L explicitly requires. I've argued in the past that Wikimedia Commons licensing policy is overly strict, but for Commons to host these files, we'd need to get wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy relaxed so that Commons can have an EDP like en.wp. —RP88 (talk) 17:42, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Hrrrrm. In the U.S., these would be {{PD-EdictGov}}, so no issues there. The government copyright is inherited from Crown Copyright concepts, which does tend to copyright the text of laws. But, the law does contain this provision, which does limit that copyright. The full section seems to be:

(1) The following acts shall not constitute an infringement of copyright, namely,-

(q) the reproduction or publication of-

(i) any matter which has been published in any Official Gazette except an Act of a Legislature;

(ii) any Act of a Legislature subject to the condition that such Act is reproduced or published together with any commentary thereon or any other original matter;

(iii) the report of any committee, commission, council, board or other like body appointed by the government if such report has been laid on the Table of the Legislature, unless the reproduction or publication of such report is prohibited by the government;

(iv) any judgement or order of a court, Tribunal or other judicial authority, unless the reproduction or publication of such judgement or order is prohibited by the court, the Tribunal or other judicial authority, as the case may be;

(r) the production or publication of a translation in any Indian language of an Act of a Legislature and of any rules or orders made thereunder-

(i) if no translation of such Act or rules or orders in that language has previously been produced or published by the government; or

(ii) where a translation of such Act or rules or orders in that language has been produced or published by the government, if the translation is not available for sale to the public:

PROVIDED that such translation contains a statement at a prominent place to the effect that the translation has not been authorised or accepted as authentic by the government;

(2) The provisions of sub-section (1) shall apply to the doing of any act in relation to the translation of a literary, dramatic or musical work or the adaptation of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work as they apply in relation to the work itself.

These limitations are on the same order as freedom of panorama limitations, except the above does seem to refer to specific acts. Section (2) does say that derivative works are allowed, though the provisions apply to those too. The restrictions seem to be, for an Act of Legislature, you have to reproduce any original commentary as well -- if you don't, then you are infringing copyright. Some derivative works are possible, though publishing without associated commentary would not be OK. Publishing a portion might be OK if you include the commentary of that portion -- not completely sure. Section 1(r) seems to imply that translations to just any language are not OK, but then section (2) does seem to say that it is OK (provided, again, that associated material is present if an Act of Legislature). As for reports and judicial decisions, it sounds like the government or court can explicitly prohibit individual items from being reproduced (something not mentioned on the tag, which should be there). {{PD-IDGov}} is a similar-sounding tag (which also has a provision that the government can preclude reproduction on specific works). It is somewhat borderline to me... there are lots of derivative works which are kind of precluded, but it may not be a blanket restriction on derivative works. Commercial use would also seem to be fine. I think the tag should probably contain the full text of that law section (at least the q and r sections), so the limitations are documented. I can understand opinions to the contrary -- these have a lot of gray area, where there are limitations imposed on uses backed by copyright, though it's not nearly the normal restrictions -- most uses would seem to be OK. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:18, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

OK, it sounds like Carl and I both agree that Indian copyright law does copyright the text of laws, so a "PD" tag and category is inappropriate for these files. We do appear to disagree about whether these files run afoul of COM:L, but since I want to find a way to keep these files ;-) I'm willing to find a solution. I suggest a new template whose name does not contain PD (perhaps "EdictGov-India") and the style and categorization follows the style of other templates that rely on the {{Copyrighted-Layout}}. I'll put a suggestion as subpage in a few minutes. —RP88 (talk) 19:17, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

What do folks think about the following to be used as {{EdictGov-India}} as a substitute for the current template (the existing template would be changed to a redirect):

{{PD-India-Gov/EdictGov-India}}

—RP88 (talk) 20:20, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

OK, fine for me. Yann (talk) 21:17, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm good with that. Most of the files using it seem appropriate, but not all -- things like File:V S Sampath.jpg or File:DAENewLogo.png should not be covered. File:Indian Election Symbol Mango SVG.svg is odd... it's marked as derivative of File:Indian Election Symbol Mango.png which has a CC-BY-SA license. It might be OK under that latter license, if the one on the .png is valid, but it shouldn't keep this license. The actually seems pretty close to {{PD-IDGov}}, where works are essentially PD unless they are specifically prohibited from publication, other than the condition attached to Acts of Legislature (which is enforced by copyright). Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:12, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

OK, I've nominated the first two for deletion at Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:EdictGov-India. I edited File:Indian Election Symbol Mango SVG.svg to use the same license as the one from which it was extracted (File:Indian Election Symbol Mango.png), but I'm not sure those files have valid license. The latter two should probably also be nominated or deletion. —RP88 (talk) 23:04, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

@Clindberg and RP88: Thanks a lot for fixing this. Regards, Yann (talk) 08:23, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy - Government of India

Please see the discussion at VPC too. Jee 14:12, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

In the lights of Government Open Data License - India, I think we need a new template (like {{GODL-India}}) to allow to host "all shareable non-sensitive data available either in digital or analog forms but generated using public funds by various agencies of the Government of India" with "proper attribution" in Commons. Pinging Yann, RP88, Clindberg and Shyamal for opinion. (It seems files like this will not fall under this license (EdictGov-India); but seems a good candidate for the new license (GODL-India).) Jee 06:16, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, sure. It seems a good idea. Regards, Yann (talk) 07:33, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

I just created the template. Please check for any corrections and/or improvement. Jee 05:29, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

(discussion moved to Template talk:GODL-India for convenience) Jee 05:46, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

localiazing

This Templet is localace in indic lang plz help.--Lokesha kunchadka (talk) 06:06, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

@Lokesha kunchadka:  Done Yann (talk) 16:36, 23 October 2018 (UTC)