Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2020/12

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Playstation 5 jpg image

I took and edited the photo of my playstation 5 File:Immagine Playstation 5.jpg and uploaded it to wikipedia, I would like to know why it is reported for copyright since the photo is my property and therefore not covered by any copyright...— Preceding unsigned comment added by Gianlupisa1 (talk • contribs) 06:50, December 1, 2020 (UTC)

Hi Gianlupisa1. This is now being discussed at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Immagine Playstation 5.jpg where you're welcome to comment if you like. Just for future reference though, often in the case of photos like this there are two copyrights which need to be considered: one for the photo and one for the subject of the photo. Generally, just physically owning something is not considered a transfer of copyright. So, even though you may own the the copyright of any photo you take, you may not own the copyright on whatever your photographing. Since Commons requires that the photos it hosts be 100% free so to speak, often the permission of both copyright holders are needed to keep such photos. In this case, however, there seems to be an argument being made that the actual physical design of the game is fairly utilitarian and thus not eligible for copyright protection in its own right. So, things should be eventually sorted out as long as you took the photo and didn't get it from somewhere else. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:48, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

false information

Can I, if I have a false information about the author / source / license on a file, remove it myself? Oesterreicher12 (talk) 10:14, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

You can of course. However if any information (especially concerning the copyright) is false this may lead to deletion of the file. Ruslik0 (talk) 20:54, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

COM:FOP Taiwan

Reke has recently raised the possibility that Taiwanese copyright law allows free 2D FOP at COM:HD#User:Reke feels that my actions are destroying the precious and valuable works of other users, also including a Q&A section provided by Taiwanese Intellectual Property Office (that they affirm that 2D mural can be reproduced into profitable postcards). Are there any comments about such possibility? Many thanks.廣九直通車 (talk) 13:08, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Also refer to article 58 of Taiwanese Copyright Act.廣九直通車 (talk) 13:08, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

File:Binckhorst Den Haag in tranformatie (46929199454).jpg

Should this file have two copyright licenses: one for the photo and one for the mural of en:Elliot Page (formerly known as "Ellen Page"? COM:FOP Netherlands seems to indicate that photos or publically displayed artwork (2D and 3D) are OK as well as photos of buildings; so, I don't think this would be considered a copyvio. Just wondering though whether it would be better to have a copyright license for mural as well. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:24, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

If it is within the FOP exemption then no additional license is required. Ruslik0 (talk) 20:55, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

US government photo licensed as CC

Hi. I recently uploaded a photo, File:Jean Leising asks a question.jpg, which the USDA put on their Flickr. It is licensed under CC-by-2.0 according to its page on Flickr. However, the USDA is a federal agency so photos officially taken for it are PD (it even has its own template, {{PD-USGov-USDA}}). How should images like this that are listed at the source under what seems to be a stricter license than they can be licensed under be handled? Can I just replace the template, or do I need to do something more? DemonDays64 (talk) 15:56, 2 December 2020 (UTC) (please ping on reply)

Sometimes the content found on a US Government website comes from other sources as explained in en:WP:PD#US government works; so, not everything you find on a US government website is automatically PD. That might possibly explain the CC license, but another reason could just be that the employee who uploaded the photo just picked the license they thought was most appropriate without giving it much thought. If you look at some of the other photos uploaded to that Flickr account, you will find that many are licensed as PD. So, there might be a specific reason why this one wasn't or it could just be an oversight. The file is attributed as "USDA Photo by Bob Nichols" and note that some other photos attributed to Nichols from the same event like this and this are also licensed the same way; so, perhaps there was some agreement made between Nichols and the USDA regarding the licensing of the photos. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:50, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
@DemonDays64: The U.S. copyright legislation, including its provisions about some U.S. federal government works, determines the copyright status that works have in the United States, not the copyright status that those same works have in the other countries. A status such as PD-USGov indicates the status that a work has in the United States. In the template PD-USGov-USDA, the passage "the image is in the public domain" means "the image is in the public domain in the United States". If you have sufficient knowledge of the context of the photo and you can certify that it meets the conditions to be in the public domain in the U.S. as a PD-USGov work and you are prepared to take responsibility for the consequences of your assessment, you can add the template PD-USGov-USDA if you feel like you must make reusers in the U.S. rely on your opinion. Or you can just let the reusers in the U.S. make their own assessment of the legal status in the U.S. and let them come to their own conclusion and take their own responsibilities. In the case of File:Jean Leising asks a question.jpg, the metadata specify that the photo is in the public domain (which, considering the fact that it is accompanied by a CC license, should be interpreted restrictively as public domain in the United States), so you can probably add the US-specific template if you want. But, in any case, do not remove the CC license. Even if the photo is in the public domain in the United States for being a U.S. governement creation, the CC license indicates at least the status under which the U.S. government offers the photo in countries where it owns the copyright, other than the United States. And in cases where a photo is copyrighted in the U.S., such as explained in the comment by Marchjuly, the CC license applies in the U.S. -- Asclepias (talk) 10:55, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
Bob Nichols is apparently a USDA employee.[1] That would make it PD-USGov-USDA. I would assume the Flickr account has not bothered to go through the process to be allowed to use the U.S. Government tag at Flickr, which does happen, so they pick a CC license instead. If there is ever any doubt of PD-USGov status in the rest of the world, the CC license would fix that, so I'd probably keep *both* tags. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:00, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

1914 photo by George Rinhart (?)

Hi all! Do you think this image can be uploaded to Commons? Immediate source is here (Nr. 28). This file can also be found on Getty Images: here and here. According to the first link George Rinhart was the photographer. --Regasterios (talk) 12:19, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Same as usual: when and where was it first published and what are the bio dates of the photographer (if known)? The fact that collector Rinhart [2] is listed as contributor to Getty doesn't mean he is the photographer. -- Asclepias (talk) 13:32, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
These photos are from the Daily Mirror Archive, and likely to published at that time in Daily Mirror. --Regasterios (talk) 13:51, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
According to here and here, and here, it's an Underwood & Underwood photograph. If that is true, that is an American company, and would make it fine to upload. It's in the Daily Mirror archives as well, but they may have just licensed it (or vice versa). At the very least, it was definitely published at the time (widely), and simultaneously published in the U.S. and U.K. and probably others. If it's anonymous, the UK would have the shorter term ({{PD-anon-70-EU}}, if not and the photographer lived more than 25 years, the U.S. term would be shorter and the U.S. would be the country of origin ({{PD-US-expired}}). I would probably just use the {{PD-anon-expired}} tag. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:53, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
@Clindberg: thank you, thank you, thank you so much. :-) --Regasterios (talk) 20:25, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

✓ Done File:Belgian troops during the Battle of Hofstade in 1914.jpg. --Regasterios (talk) 20:51, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

And just for clarification, I don't think George Rinhart is the photographer, but rather the collector/owner: George R. Rinhart (Q100268668), described as "one of the world's preeminent photo collectors", who acquired the Underwood & Underwood company and many of its images in the 1970s. --Animalparty (talk) 20:25, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

1936 radio interview

What would be the status of this 1936 BBC radio broadcast, apparently unscripted, featuring an unnamed continuity announcer and Charles Lightoller, who died in 1952? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:50, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

I doubt that it was unscripted, BBC programmes at the time rarely were. However, we can assume that Charles Lightoller wrote the script and that his section of the broadcast will become public domain in 2023. The introduction by the continuity announcer could be trimmed to avoid possible copyright issues. Verbcatcher (talk) 01:21, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Works by Saddam Hussein regime

A few images contain copyright statements like "The source of this image was the Iraqi News Agency, an organ of the defunct old regime." (File:Iraq, Saddam Hussein (222).jpg, File:Iraq Saddam Hussein.jpg, File:Saddam Hussein (cropped).jpg, File:Saddam1990.jpg). I have scoured COM:IRAQ and I have not found a reason why these images, or any works by the government of Iraq from after 1970, would be public domain. Am I missing something? Wikiacc (talk) 02:09, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Government materials are public domain. Guido den Broeder (talk) 02:57, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
@Guido den Broeder: Where did you read that?   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 16:09, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
Iraq Copyright Law of 1971. Guido den Broeder (talk) 17:33, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
@Guido den Broeder: Thanks, I notified Commons talk:Copyright rules by territory/Iraq and Template talk:PD-Iraq of this discussion.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 17:56, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
Article 6.3 of the 1971 law says protection does not include collections of official documents such as texts of laws, regulations, international agreements, judicial rulings, and other official documents. I do not see any exemption for other types of government work, such as photographs. Aymatth2 (talk) 12:51, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
@Aymatth2: Thanks.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 13:11, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Collections are another issue. Government works are public domain not because of an exemption article, but because copyright is not granted to them. Guido den Broeder (talk) 14:58, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
@Guido den Broeder: And where did you read that?   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 15:27, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
The Interim Constitution of Iraq of 1970. Guido den Broeder (talk) 17:02, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Holy See Press Office copyrights

What is the use license from contents of the Holy See Press Room? No have any information in your webpage... Alex Pereiradisc 19:19, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

I assume you mean the Press Office of the Holy See. I can see no indication of a free license on their web site,[3] nor on the linked sites Vatican News,[4] L'Osservatore Romano[5] or Servizio Fotografico Vaticano.[6] You should not upload anything from these websites to Commons unless you can provide clear evidence that the material is public domain or has a free license. Verbcatcher (talk) 03:41, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
COM:Vatican City gives no indication of any general exceptions from copyright, that is there is nothing equivalent to {{PD-USGov}}. Verbcatcher (talk) 03:45, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Uploading a photo showing text from a page in a book?

Have a question about uploading a photo that shows the text from a page in a chapter of a book (i.e. this is not a title page of the book, table of contents page, or the like). If the page has only text (no photos) but is not yet in public domain, is uploading such a photo allowed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ecravn (talk • contribs) 17:13, 5 December 2020

@Ecravn: Hi, and welcome. What can you tell us about the name and lifetime of the author and photographer and the dates and countries of writing, photography, and publication?   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 17:26, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
@Ecravn: in most cases images of text only, unless of historical or graphical interest to the fields of typography & printing, or directly relevant to the needs of our sister projects (e.g. transcription into WS) are out of scope here. And regardless we can’t accept anything, textual or graphic, that is not free to reuse.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 02:51, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Photos of counterfeit products

Can Commons keep File:Mexican Federation of Football Patch on Counterfeit T-Shirt (13912210414).jpg as licensed? While the photo itself might be PD since it was taken by an employee of the US government, the team badge being photographed seems to be protected by a copyright that is owned by the en:Mexican Football Federation (fmf.mx). Now, the photo's description states it's from shipment of counterfeit goods seized by the US government; so, maybe there really is no applicable copyright which needs to be considered. Wouldn't knock-offs or counterfeit products, however, be considered a kind of COM:2D copying or be a copyright violation in their own right? Anyway, there seems to be very little encyclopedic value in using an image as a representative example of a team badge unless it was part of a discussion related to counterfeit merchandise, etc., which is not how it's being in any of the articles where it is being used. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:03, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

@Marchjuly: The counterfeit would certainly be subject to the copyright of the original, as would a photograph of it. The original log is on enwiki as Fair Use (en:File:Mexico FA.svg), so it seems that that copyright is a problem. I think there is potential high value in a photograph of a counterfeit but you are right about the usage, and the copyright problems seems unambiguous to me. – BMacZero (🗩) 19:41, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
The photo is clearly a DW of the logo; it doesn’t make any difference that it‘s a copy of an adapted copy (rendered in textile), as opposed to a first-generation reproduction. An unauthorized publication (here in the form of the counterfeit items) is ineligible for copyright itself, but it has no effect on the original copyright either.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 19:57, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
@BMacZero and Odysseus1479: Thank you for your input. It seems (at least to me) that you both are saying Commons can't really keep this file as licensed, right? So, if that's the case, the next question is how to deal with it. Is it a clear cut copyvio that can be tagged with {{Copyvio}} or would it be better to start a DR about it and discuss it further? -- Marchjuly (talk) 10:11, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
@Marchjuly: personally I’d tag it {{SD|F3}}, on the understanding that the patrolling admins (or anyone else) can convert it to a DR if they think it’s less than clear-cut.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 21:39, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

File:Balboa Studios.jpg

This seems almost certainly not to be "own work" based upon this, but it seems possible that it might be {{PD-US-expired}} if it can date in the file's description is correct despite that copyright is being claimed over it by "© Roy Export S.A.S" on the website linked to above. Same goes for File:Comique.png and File:Lou Anger 1911.jpg, but I can find out any more about the provenance of those photos except what's in each file's description. Can these simply be converted to PD or is something else required? -- Marchjuly (talk) 13:00, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Set of dubious pics

Of Uploads by HacıyevaGülnar - I've checked 3 so far; 2 were copyvios and I've deleted them. The third (File:Eldar şamının budaq, iynə, qozası.jpg) was wrongly claimed to be Own work, but was actually lifted from a website where it is cc-by-sa; I've corrected the source and author details. I don't have time to go through the rest just now, if anyone fancies a spot of detective work - MPF (talk) 00:37, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Source country vs simultaneous publication

It's entirely possible that this is a dumb question, so apologies in advance if I should have figured this out on my own.

Recently I've run into multiple cases where a work (scanned book) was published in a pma. 70 country where it is still in copyright, but also published in the US within 30 days and before 1925 (i.e. PD-US and not affected by the URAA). The Commons copyright policy requires works to be PD in both the US and in the source country, and I have previously understood that the works in question are treated as US works for Commons copyright policy purposes (i.e. can be hosted despite being still in copyright in the other country).

However, this understanding has been challenged, and going looking for guidance I cannot find anything that spells it out. It seems like this is an important enough point that it would be spelled out somewhere prominent if it were the case.

So… Is my previous understanding correct? Or not? Is there existing guidance for this anywhere? If so, could it be made more prominent? If it isn't, could it be?

This issue is just obscure enough that I'm hesitant to assume anything in particular from a policy's failure to address it directly, even though I usually apply a big pinch of "volunteer created policy, not necessarily exhaustive"-salt to it.


PS. On a general note, please keep in mind that sister projects like English Wikisource only requires a work to be PD in the US, so for the cases in question here they would be eligible for hosting locally. If a book scan (or image extracted from such a book) comes up for deletion solely due to non-US copyrights the relevant sister projects will appreciate the opportunity to evacuate the file there prior to deletion. --Xover (talk) 09:42, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

The Berne Convention says that for works simultaneously published in multiple countries (within 30 days), the "country of origin" is the country among those with the shortest terms. So in that case, the U.S. would technically be the country of origin, instead of the country where it was first published, or where the author is. The "source country" for URAA purposes is defined in a more common-sense way, but since it was "simultaneously published" in the U.S., it avoids the URAA by being deemed a "U.S. work". The policy is not "public domain in the U.S. and source country", but "public domain in the U.S. and the country of origin" -- so since it's PD in the country of origin (the U.S.) it's keepable per policy. I do see the Commons:Licensing summary uses the term "source country", but the actual policy text uses "country of origin" and that is what I have always assumed was the case. I think the main reason for the country of origin policy, is that any country which uses the Berne rule of the shorter term would use the U.S. to compare terms against per Berne rules, and treat it as PD in that country. The term "source country" only has legal meaning for the URAA. But, that can lead to situations where we keep a file even though it's still under copyright in the country it was published, i.e. its primary audience, which I can understand people feeling being "wrong". But that is the reason we would have kept such files in the past. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:44, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
Hmm. Would it be simplifying too far to say "If it was simultaneously published in the US, the country of origin is the US for the purposes of Commons copyright policy."? --Xover (talk) 18:27, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
Probably, because if another country's terms were shorter than the U.S., then that country would be the country of origin. Granted, we shouldn't host stuff which is not yet in U.S. PD, but that does happen. "Public domain in the U.S. and country of origin" is fine -- it's just the the definition of "country of origin" gets rather "interesting" when there is a simultaneous publication situation, is all. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:35, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
Hmm. Ok. Let me try to restate the problem. How can we express this sufficiently succinctly that it can be included in the same sorts of places (pages) that talk about, say, the URAA, no-notice, no-renewal, etc.? Simultaneous publication in general may need the full explanation (including edge-case warts and all), but if we scope down to just works simultaneously published in the US more than 95 years ago we might possibly be able to find succinct phrasing that while approximate is not actively misleading? If a work simultaneously published in the US would have already expired in the US, then any shorter term elsewhere becomes a theoretical consideration (aiui etc.). Or would it make more sense to focus on the shortest term? "For works simultaneously published in multiple (Berne) countries, the "country of origin" for copyright purposes is the country with the shortest effective term of protection for that work."
I am more than averagely interested in copyright issues as they apply to the projects, and I completely failed to find any guidance on-wiki for this, much less would be able to articulate cogently what the actual legal situation was for these works. I was also challenged on my understanding of this by experienced Wikimedians who can also be presumed "more than averagely" versed in the issues. Having some guidance on the issue somewhere more prominent than the COM:VP/C archives would be useful, is what I'm saying. :) --Xover (talk) 05:31, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

If we strictly follow the Berne Convention definition, it seems to me that there are some absurd results because of the fact that the U.S. didn't join the Convention until 1989. Under the definition of "country of origin", if a work is published simultaneously in Berne countries and non-Berne countries, then one of the Berne countries will always be the country of origin. So, take for example a news photograph from 1961, taken in the U.S. by a U.S. photographer working for a U.S. publisher. But because it was published simultaneously in Canada (and who knows how many other countries), its country of origin is not the U.S. I think the letter of the law has to be modulated with some common sense. Toohool (talk) 05:28, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

But the U.S. has joined now, so it is a Berne country. If a country ceases to exist, do we go by the extinct country's laws? I'm not sure there has been much guidance on such things, which is a problem, but presumably a country joining the union can affect such things. The main reason for the "country of origin" policy is to go by that letter, since that is what countries using the shorter term are doing, so such works are then PD in those countries -- the intent was to follow the letter. Agreed there is some gray area with the U.S., given the non-pma type terms of older works and date of accession, but the other countries agreed to that situation (that was the Uruguay Round Agreements). The main question really is what would be the country of origin today by the letter of the Berne Convention, given the old publication -- in other words, what would countries applying the rule of the shorter term use as the "country of origin" now, because that is the goal of the policy, to pick that country. Common sense does not necessarily have to enter into that. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:44, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

I obtained File:Entierro-1915.jpg from wikiart.org, where is it tagged as public domain.

I uploaded File:Entierro-1915.jpg, an image of a seminal 1915 painting from the Argentine artist Xul Solar . I downloaded the jpeg from this wikiart page, where it is listed as public domain on account of its age. The reviewer said probably not.

I think I accidentally wrote 2015 instead of 1915 for the date, but I have now fixed that. But it isn't clear what the problem is. If finding more information would verify that it is public domain, I'd like to work on that. But I don't know where to start. Perhaps the problem is that the painting was not created in the United States? – M.boli (talk) 02:08, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Pinging @JuTa: Since you reviewed this file, maybe you can help me to know what is the issue that needs addressing. Maybe the problem was my writing 2015? In which case can you re-review it? – M.boli (talk) 17:16, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
@M.boli: Artist is Xul Solar (1887–1963) so the painting is copyrighted in Argentina untill 70 years after 1963. So it is not free enough for Commons untill 2034. It can be uploaded to English Wikipedia. --MGA73 (talk) 18:04, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Following the suggestion of @MGA73: I have uploaded the file to English Wikipedia as File:Xul Solar, Entierro, 1915.jpeg, and re-edited the English Xul Solar page to use this copy. I will wait to see what happens when it is reviewed. I've left the version in Commons, along with the link from Xul Solar in Spanish wikipedia. But I will delete them if after a few days it still seems they are a copyvio. – M.boli (talk) 17:31, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Unresolved copyright issue with Neuron illustrations via NIH

Considering the quite popular files File:Chemical_synapse_schema_cropped.jpg File:Chemical synapse schema cropped az.jpg File:Chemical_synapse_schema_cropped_hy.jpg File:Neurons big1.jpg File:Neurons big1 ca.png there appears to be an unresolved old copyright issue: Commons:Village_pump/Copyright/Archive/2018/11#Neuron_illustrations_from_NIH_publications

For all I can tell, this concern may be right. This seems to be contract work licensed by the NIH; not work created by an NIH employee. Hence the "public domain" license likely is incorrect. But someone with knowledge about US copyright needs to resolve this, I cannot. 2.244.80.5 08:48, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Decoding satellite signals

A few days ago, some radio amateurs were able to decode the signal of the Chang'e-5 lunar probe and get some video of the probe flying in space. I was wondering what would the legality be of somebody (external from the operator of the satellite) decoding the signal of a satellite and obtaining some images/video, and after editing them, publishing under a free license. Would such content be allowed in Commons?--BugWarp (talk) 02:29, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Why should it be? How is it different from someone recording a TV programme and republishing it? Or, more aptly perhaps, descrambling a subscriber-only broadcast and republishing it?—Odysseus1479 (talk) 03:11, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
As with surveillance camera footage, the issue may relate to whether there is a human author. The consensus appears to be is that this is not reliably free, see Commons:Copyright rules by subject matter#Surveillance cameras which links to w:en:Threshold of originality#Pre-positioned recording devices and Commons:Deletion requests/File:Ursa Minor Dwarf.jpg. Verbcatcher (talk) 04:02, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
COM:Outer space appears to be a red link... Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:41, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
I've understood the law is pretty much the same as on international waters. The law of the "flag nation" probably is what counts. Intercepting a radio call hardly gives you any rights you wouldn't have otherwise. But the authorship question remains. –LPfi (talk) 21:34, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Question on recent uploads

Hello, I uploaded File:Graham Virgo 1.png and File:Graham Virgo 2.jpg. The content creator tells me that he has released the rights using the online link. Is there a way to check that that's gone through? Kohlrabi Pickle (talk) 16:13, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

@Kohlrabi Pickle: if the permission was sent to OTRS, I believe the best place to ask about its progress is the OTRS Noticeboard.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 20:28, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, Odysseus1479. Kohlrabi Pickle (talk) 01:38, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

File:Map - sd 19 - revelstoke.pdf

Would someone add the correct licence code reference for this file, since I am unfamiliar with such details. DMBanks1 (talk) 17:18, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

@DMBanks1: unfortunately there’s no suitable template, as the BC government website has an all-rights-reserved copyright notice. Unless the page you got it from has a notice making an exception, or you can obtain written permission, I don’t think we can host this map here.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 18:00, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
@Odysseus1479: The respective page from which the map was extracted states, "The maps below are made available under the Open Government Licence - British Columbia and you are free to copy, modify, publish, translate, adapt, distribute or otherwise use the information in any medium, mode or format for any lawful purpose." I assume this means it can be used. If so, what is the respective Wikimedia code for such use? DMBanks1 (talk) 18:19, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
@DMBanks1: that’s a different story; the terms of the BC OGL do look compatible to me. In License tags of Canada we have such templates for Canada, Alberta, & Ontario, but none yet for BC. I’m not certain what‘s best to do in the interim, but I suggest using {{Attribution}} in the licence section, with the above link to OGL-BC in the Permission field of the Information template. Do you need help doing that? Does anyone have a better idea?—Odysseus1479 (talk) 18:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
@Odysseus1479: I would greatly appreciate your doing it for me. DMBanks1 (talk) 19:03, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
@DMBanks: from a further look into the provincial OGL tags we have, I don’t think it will be too hard to make a BC version. It will take a little longer, but then we’ll have it … if I run into problems I‘ll fall back on the above ersatz solution to stave off deletion of the file. But could you please provide the URL for the page you quoted above? That will verify that the map is among the items covered by the licence, because the source link is for the ‘bare’ PDF, without context.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 21:05, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
@Odysseus1479: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/data/geographic-data-services/land-use/administrative-boundaries/school-district DMBanks1 (talk) 21:34, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
@DMBanks: ✓ Done—I hope it’s all in order. Have a look at my edits to the file page (I also added some categories, which help people find things) and you can use them as an example for any similar files you upload. BTW in case the government website gets reorganized in future, by way of insurance I checked that the Internet Archive has a snapshot of the page showing the permission statement over the list of district maps. So if the licence is questioned in future, and the link is dead, it can be fed into the Wayback Machine for verification.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 01:01, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
@Odysseus1479: Many thanks. If the file image is inserted to a Wikipedia page, does any special wording need to be added to that page, or is the underlying link to the Wikimedia file sufficient? DMBanks1 (talk) 01:46, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

@DMBanks1: you’re welcome. Regarding credits, the latter; AFAIK it’s been deemed sufficient to have the licensing notice & attribution one click away on a sister site in order to meet those requirements—not unlike how WP authorship is credited via the History pages, not right on the article pages.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 02:13, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Anonymous photographer, my phone

Hi, can I upload a photo by an unknown photographer, taken on my request and instructions with my phone? Guido den Broeder (talk) 22:09, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi Guido den Broeder. Try looking at Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2020/11#Selfie? for reference since it's a question that's similar to yours and you might find the answer helpful, but basically this is covered in meta:Wikilegal/Authorship and Copyright Ownership#Who Owns the Copyright to the Photo If a Friend or Stranger Takes a Picture of You?. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:24, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Zoom copyright

Hello! I’ve checked the archives and I don’t think my exact question has been asked—or if it has, I didn’t understand, apologies. I am trying to confirm that a television show would have the copyright for footage it aired of an interview conducted over Zoom. Specifically I would like to screengrab portraits of the academics interviewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbAgJ25dyFM The video is CC licensed but I wonder whether the interviewees have a copyright claim because they shot the video of themselves. Obviously this opens a wider can of worms but for now I’m just wondering about this one channel’s shows, which are a rich source for images of prominent Nicaraguans, and, mercifully, all CC-3-attribution licensed. Of course they could get a release and I might resort to asking if they did, depending on how many good screengrabs come from the Zoom interviews, but for now I’m wondering: do they even need a release? Many thanks! Innisfree987 (talk) 03:51, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

@Innisfree987: I believe each interviewee has a copyright claim because they shot the video of themself.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 04:00, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) But if the video has a CC licence, that ostensibly implies that the producers have permission from everyone with a share in the copyrights. So it rests on the conscientiousness of the producers: can they be trusted to have properly obtained authority to licence the material, or might they have just assumed they could?—Odysseus1479 (talk) 04:37, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
True: and, while I’ve only used studio interviews for portraits so far, 2020 is not the first time they’ve ever done remote interviews so presumably they know what releases they need for the rights... Innisfree987 (talk) 05:13, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
Well drat. I do see it (prompted the question after all) yet I have to suspect most newshows are not requiring interviewees to license the footage only “created” as it streamed on the show’s own broadcast... Maybe I will see if a producer friend can tell me how they’re handling this and what the rationale is. Thanks, I understand erring on side of caution, it just feels a little strange to me: by same token would people calling into a radio show own the sound recording they made by speaking into a phone? No, right? (Ah good I think I found the can of worms!) Innisfree987 (talk) 04:30, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Unsplash

Hi, I just want to make sure. Is it truth, that I can't upload any picture from Unsplash, if the picture has been published since 5th June 2017? Is there any chance to upload pictures after that date freely? I would like to upload picture from this profile: TRUNI. Thanks for help.--ScholastikosSVK (talk) 15:44, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

It is true, all Unsplash photos now have a non-commercial requirement, which is not allowed on Commons. You could get around this by getting the correct permission (CC0) directly from the uploader, if they would give it. – BMacZero (🗩) 18:03, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Is it allowed to apply additional copyright restrictions against photo uploaded to Wikimedia Commons?

I have recently came across a bunch of photo uploaded onto Wikimedia Commons in year 2012 by the user, with watermark on the photo and text description that come with the photo saying the image is for Wikipedia， the use of them on another specifically named internet encyclopedia is specifically prohibited.

Does this match Wikimedia Commons' requirement for images to be free?

They are like this:

C933103 (talk) 19:51, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

It looks more like a non-copyright restriction. Ruslik0 (talk) 20:48, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
It seems that the restrictions prohibit upload to https://hongkongbuses.fandom.com/wiki/Hong_Kong_Buses_Wiki per File:KMB AV GW7052 61M.JPG ("It is for the sake of the culture and order in EBTHK being not disturbed."). I can see that other files with a similar restriction have been deleted.
The question is if it is meant as a restriction or its a warning. We allow warnings like {{Personality rights}} and {{Non Nazi swastikas}}.
Uploader is sadly no longer active so we can ask. But I agree with Ruslik0. --MGA73 (talk) 20:56, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
It's a restriction based on the author's copyright because the author would have no legal ground other than their copyright to impose this restriction. Things would be different if they merely provided information or advice, but that's not what they do. They state a restriction. -- Asclepias (talk) 21:13, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
I agree that this is not an acceptable non-copyright restriction. Would it be acceptable to upload an image and forbid its use specifically by Google? What about allowing use only in print media and not on web pages at all? I doubt it. – BMacZero (🗩) 17:30, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
No we would not allow that. But what if someone wrote this on nude images "Do not upload them to Facebook" or "Do not show these to children!"? I think adding such restrictions is generally bad but I think the the intent behind is important. Perhaps the original language is more clear than the English text? --MGA73 (talk) 15:09, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
This is not a copyright restriction. They are merely pointing out that the other encyclopedia has upload restrictions, unrelated to copyright. Guido den Broeder (talk) 15:32, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
I don’t read Chinese, so I don’t know what else is written on the bars, but if there’s nothing there that could be considered essential to the author’s desired form of attribution, they should be cropped off per COM:WATERMARK. I agree that the EBTHK prohibition is not a copyright matter, nor indeed any significant restriction on reuse.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 21:15, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Proposed solution to a likely copyright violation problem at SergeantRutledge_image.jpg

This image File:Sergeant_Rutledge_image.jpg was misidentified as the 1960 theatrical poster for the film Sergeant Rutledge. It appears to be the 2016 cover for the DVD release, which is not public domain. The error arose because the image had been cropped to remove its identification with the DVD release. The actual 1960 poster is in the public domain, and I posted its image at File:SergeantRutledgePoster.jpg and revised the corresponding English Wikipedia article to use the public domain image.

Since File:Sergeant_Rutledge_image.jpg is used in several of the non-English Wikipedia articles about the film, simple deletion would cause problems for a number of articles. So I think the best solution is to replace the image at File:Sergeant_Rutledge_image.jpg with the image of the public domain 1960 poster. The previous versions of the image for that file would then be deleted.

Does this seem like a satisfactory solution? Easchiff (talk) 10:32, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it does seem a a satisfactory solution. Ruslik0 (talk) 20:54, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll go ahead with the overwrite, and document it on the talk page. Cheers. Easchiff (talk) 20:57, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Probably copyright violation of all files in Category:Sculptures in Hortus (Haren, Groningen)

I think that all files in Category:Sculptures in Hortus (Haren, Groningen) are not in line with the Copyright Act of the Netherlands:

  1. FOP is not applicable to these artworks because:
    1. They are not in a public place because there is an entrance fee required, see https://www.hortusharen.nl/en/practical-information/entry-fee-season-2019-2020/.
    2. The sculptures were put on display during temporary exhibitions, see Website Hortus Haren, so they are not permanently on this place, as is required for FOP in the Netherlands.
  2. As far as I can judge, all these artworks are contemporary art from Dutch artists, the artists cannot be dead for at least 70 years (they might even be all still alive), and therefor these artworks are not in the public domain.
  3. None of these files has an OTRS permission.

Could you please look into this? (If this is indeed so, would you please keep the category and put a message there that it is not allowed to upload photographs of sculptures exhibited in Hortus (Haren, Groningen)? I think it is not bad faith but ingnorance.) JopkeB (talk) 10:28, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

You are free to start a deletion discussion. Ruslik0 (talk) 10:10, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Copyright violation

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Victoria_Falls_National_Park_marker.jpg

Pi3.124, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

I need to report a copyright violation for the above item. There are photographs of information boards I created and I don't want them taken down but I do want an acknowledgment- how can I do this? The acknowledgment should read: Content created by Russell Gammon, Artwork Kevin Hogan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.155.51.188 (talk • contribs) 15:23, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

@197.155.51.188: This is a derivative work, a photograph of a different work. The underlying work (the sign) must also be free, just as I can't release Star Wars under a CC-BY license just by filming my television. Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Zimbabwe indicates that works created by the government are copyrighted for 50 years after publication. The status of freedom of panorama protections is unclear in Zimbabwe, but based on this map it appears unlikely. The person or organization who legally owns the copyright would have to explicitly state the free license it wishes to apply, and that license cannot be revoked (see OTRS for more information about submitting evidence of permission). If no valid rationale for this sign being completely free to republish can be found, then it must be deleted as a copyright violation. --Animalparty (talk) 19:10, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
@Animalparty: This sounds like the actual authors of the sign asking for credit -- which under moral rights they might have the right to do. Zimbabwe looks fine for freedom of panorama:
35. Reproduction of artistic works in public places
The copyright in an artistic work which is permanently situated in a street, square or other public place or in premises open to the public shall not be infringed by­
(a) the work being included in a graphic work, a photograph, an audio-visual work, a broadcast or a cable programme;
(b) the making of copies of the work, where the copies are greatly reduced in scale.
So, most likely the photo itself is not a copyright violation, and is fine, so the derivative work situation does not seem to be a problem -- unless this is considered more of a copy, and is not reduced in scale enough. (@Aymatth2: -- may want to add a FoP section for Zimbabwe based on the above. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:15, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
Done. See COM:FOP Zimbabwe. Aymatth2 (talk) 15:55, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
Their previous law from 1966 also had FoP though the wording was different.) If not for that clause, we would also need permission from the copyright owners of the underlying work to host it here. However violations of moral rights are enforced similarly to other copyright violations, and part of article 61 says:
(3) Subject to this Part, the author of an artistic work has the right to be identified as the author of the work for so long as copyright subsists in it, whenever­
(a) the work is published commercially or exhibited in public, or a visual image of it is broadcast or included in a cable programme service; or
(b) an audiovisual work including a visual image of the artistic work is shown in public or copies of such an audio-visual work are issued to the public; or
(c) in the case of­ (i) an architectural work in the form of a building; or (ii) a sculpture; or (iii) a work of artistic craftsmanship; copies of a graphic work representing it, or copies of a photograph of it, are issued to the public
However there are exceptions to that:
The right of identification conferred by section sixty-one shall not apply in relation to (a) any of the following descriptions of work­
[...]
(v) a work in which copyright originally vested in the State or in an international organisation.
unless the author or director has previously been identified as such in or on published copies of the work
If this is a government-owned work per their work for hire rules, I'm not sure it's a violation to not report the author names, since they are not identified on the poster itself. We have no idea what the contract for the work specified about ownership of course, but if not owned by the government, it would seem to be a violation that the names aren't there already. I don't think we would have any problem adding the credit either way, if we knew they were correct. Is there any place we could verify that? I don't see any reason to doubt the claim, but it would be nice to have a more verifiable source to the information. I'm unsure if an email to COM:OTRS would be a way to do that, though it could confirm details of copyright ownership of the underlying work and therefore existence of moral rights at least. That could take a while to process, of course. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:15, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

IA Book uploads with possibly in error licences...

https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?psid=18006985

I'd appreciate it if the experts here could reduce the number of items in this list as far as possible, by reviewing and determining more appropriate licenses if needed for the files (or affected categories concerned). Thanks. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 23:58, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

I've fixed a few already. Some are rather easy to verify as {{PD-US-no notice}} or {{PD-USGov}} (or sub-agency like {{PD-USGov-USDA}}) by viewing the front matter. Some have erroneous source metadata (e.g. 1971 instead of 1871), and others may be modern reprints (slavish copies with no new content) of old PD works, such as The Batrachia of North America (1963). I would bet cash money that the majority with copyright notices are {{PD-US-not renewed}}, but that requires significant work to verify. --Animalparty (talk) 02:20, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Question about licences on a file

My question is, if the licences of this logo: File:SDSS Logo.svg are okay and if the file can be used on commons? It was already uploaded in August 2017, but I still wanted to be sure. --Koreanovsky (talk) 19:24, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Edit: It is the logo of a party in Croatia, if this information is important. --Koreanovsky (talk) 19:31, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
I commented at COM:Deletion requests/File:SDSS Logo.svg. Anyone here familiar with Croatian copyright, specifically WRT COM:TOO? If so, please chime in there.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 09:12, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Copyright of widely-republished YouTube video with dead creator?

This might be a weird question, but I'm curious about the copyright on the YouTube video "Retribution". This video was very prominently related to the 2014 Isla Vista killings. The original video, uploaded by the now-dead perpetrator, was taken down from YouTube, but has been re-uploaded by many sites including The New York Times, without any notice that the video is still under copyright from the original author (and presumably, they don't own the copyright on it either). Could this possibly be uploaded here? Elliot321 (talk) 08:03, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

@Elliot321: the copyright on the video is presumably the property of the deceased creator’s heirs or estate, and will last until about 2085. The fact that it has been published by others, with or without permission, journalistic fair use or not, has no bearing on that. OTOH if the original publication by the author was under a free licence (which is an option on YouTube) it could have been hosted here, but now we’d need very good evidence of that, considering it can no longer be verified at the source.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 08:32, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
@Odysseus1479: Looks like it's the Standard YouTube License after all, sadly - from http://web.archive.org/web/20140524154716/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbv5Vpa-B-0 (you can view the page source to look for the license info). Looks like we'd need to contact his parents, from what I could tell of California intestacy laws. Might be worth my time. Elliot321 (talk) 08:45, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Presidential Transition website

Does the presidential transition website like https://buildbackbetter.gov and https://twitter.com/Transition46 is part of the US Federal Government? Images from it are in Public Domain? --A1Cafel (talk) 02:32, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

@A1Cafel: No, sorry, per https://buildbackbetter.gov/terms/ and lack of any free license on that twitter account.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 02:36, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

File:HonkyTonkPoster.jpg

Re File:HonkyTonkPoster.jpg. Clearly not "own work", but would it be public domain under the US "Published before 1964 without copyright notice" rules? O Still Small Voice of Clam 08:36, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

@Voice of Clam: Yes. I edited the file's description accordingly. Thanks, pandakekok9 09:19, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: pandakekok9 02:41, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Template:BollywoodHungama

Hi everyone! We have this template and it includes an OTRS permission. The template have been been discussed en a few deletion requests, on user talk pages, on IRC etc. My question is if we should continue with this template or if we should modify it, add a warning to it or perhaps depreciate or even delete it.

Years ago I never had any problems with it. I just clicked the link and checked if the photo was there and if it met the requirements of being from "parties and events" for example. But in 2020 I have noticed discussions and examples where photos sourced to Bollywood Hungama website were uploaded on other websites before and without the watermark. That leads to the question if the photos on Bollywood Hungama website actually belong to Bollywood Hungama and if we can then use the photos with {{BollywoodHungama}}.

My question at this point is if anyone have any contact with Bollywood Hungama or know more about their work. If we can't find good answer above then next point should be to discuss what to do with the template.

I'm pinging a few users that I know/think upload or check files related to BH: @GRuban, C1K98V, Jeff G., and CptViraj: --MGA73 (talk) 16:38, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Let me be a bit more specific.
We were able to come up with rules that usually were able to distinguish photos were likely really BH photos: real BH photos, we thought, were full length and had Bollywood Hungama watermarks, while those copied from other sites had no BH watermarks, and were awkwardly cropped just above the other sites' watermarks. We listed those rules on the page for Category:Unreviewed files from Bollywood Hungama to help Commons:License reviewers.
In many cases, I can't tell any differences, any way to tell that this is really a BH file, and not taken from another site. Clearly the other sites didn't take the image from BH, because no BH watermark, and in some cases higher resolution.
This is very worrisome. I sent emails to BH and the other three sites asking about this, but haven't gotten any responses. I see three options:
  1. Trust Bollywood Hungama files unless we can find the exact same file from another site
  2. Stop trusting Bollywood Hungama files after a certain date (the earliest date that we can find a probable copyright violation: the exact same file on Bollywood Hungama stamped with their mark, and another site not stamped with their mark; so far the earliest I see for that would be 2016, the nowrunning images)
  3. Stop trusting Bollywood Hungama files entirely (and remove the ones we have)
I really don't want to do #3, because we have so many great images from them, deleting them would be a noticeable blow to many India entertainment and related articles. However #1 is playing with fire. Commons:Project scope/Precautionary principle only says "significant doubt about the freedom of a particular file", but we have now found multiple files where there is significant doubt. If it were a Flickr user that had uploaded other people's images and claimed them as their own, we would add that user to Commons:Questionable Flickr images, and while that's not an absolute blacklist (as it says, "it is not impossible that a Flickr user could have uploaded some images they took that they did have rights to, and some images from another source that they did not"), we would need a very good reason to trust any of their images. I'm hoping that someone can find that very good reason, because BH has been a valuable source for us. --GRuban (talk) 14:47, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Than you very much @GRuban: . I think you have given a very good summary of the history and the problems. I also agree that #3 is not a good solution because we have no or very little reason to doubt the old photos. And as for the new photos then searching with Tineye and Google we can (at least in most cases) find the photos that may be a problem. So I'm thinking that if we could perhaps add a warning telling uploaders and reviewers to check Tineye/Google before they upload/review the files then that may be enough. Like with Questionable Flickr images that we can keep if reviewer checks and really make sure this particular photo looks good. --MGA73 (talk) 19:16, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Sorry to join late in the discussion. Yesterday I got a good example, thought to share here. See this Sayonee Event with upload date and time on Bollywood Hungama first. I was monitoring these event files which was first uploaded on Bollywood Hungama around 5:49 am UTC in the morning or 11:19 am IST. After 1 hours or so I got hits on the web see this. Did numerous check using Google ris, tineye both. Google helped showing hits later on, tineye didn't worked at all. While uploading files from Bollywood Hungama, we may have been choosing these methods Parties And Events or search. This are wrong way as parties and events don't show up date and time, while search only show up the date not time. The link which I shared above of the event, no other hits available till the time I'm posting this. Thanks--C1K98V (💬 ✒️ 📂) 10:02, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
@GRuban: Would you please share with me what you sent to BH? Via email is fine.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 02:32, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: BH specifically had a contact form, at https://www.bollywoodhungama.com/feedback/, rather than an email address, so I don't have a copy of what I sent them. Here, however, are emails that I sent to Pinkvilla and NowRunning, they're similar, and what I put in the BH form was very similar as well. The third site probably also had a form rather than an email address. If someone wants to contact BH, please, please do. It can't make things worse, only better. --GRuban (talk) 05:40, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
@GRuban: Thanks, I just sent BH an email message.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 05:54, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
As BH isn't responding to GRuban's emails, my opinion is that we stop accepting new BH files and keep the existing ones. I know we'll lack Indian entertainment pictures after this but we shouldn't let doubtful files' numbers increase. -- CptViraj (talk) 15:25, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

City/State government file

I have a diagram for a portion of the stormwater tunnel system built by the City of St. Paul Public Works Department in 1931, as well as officially approved blueprints for its recent reconstruction that are available on their website. I know US Federal Government and NASA material is allowable for upload, but I don't see a description of what's allowed for other units of government (State/County/City) and there isn't an obvious option for doing that when uploading. Any advice? Thx Ultracobalt (talk) 01:47, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

@Ultracobalt: Hi, and welcome. All of our US State/County/City Public Domain templates are in Category:PD-USGov license tags (non-federal), but I see nothing there for the City of St. Paul or the State of Minnesota, sorry. You are welcome to lobby the relevant legislatures to license their works freely or place them in the Public Domain.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 02:26, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the rapid reply, upon reviewing several of the templates (Florida is particularly interesting) it may be a matter of finding the right statutes for Minnesota already available and getting it documented here. I could grow old lobbying the Legislature :) Will dig into it and respond back Ultracobalt (talk) 03:02, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
@Ultracobalt: You're welcome, and good luck!   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 03:25, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

File:Jacoba van den Brande.png

I uploaded a 1794 painting and I am confused on what tags to use because it is from the Netherlands or even if it is acceptable for Commons at all. The copyright page for The Netherlands only confused me. SL93 (talk) 08:44, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

@SL93: Your tagging is correct. A painting from the 18th century is definitely in the public domain. pandakekok9 08:52, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
@Pandakekok9: Thanks. I appreciate it. SL93 (talk) 08:54, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
You're welcome. :) pandakekok9 08:55, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: pandakekok9 08:55, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

When moving files from Wikipedia, is not stating the source correctly in the first revision causing a copyright violation?

This question comes from w:ja:利用者‐会話:ネイ#Status in preparing files for Commons where I was discussing with User:MGA73 regarding the CSD policy in jawiki. Namely, for files moved to Commons, the CSD policy on jawiki requires the file's author, original upload log, and license information to be stated correctly in the first revision of the file description page (i.e. merely stating it in the latest revision is insufficient). MGA73 suggests that we (or I) should propose to change this policy on jawiki, so I would like to confirm beforehand on whether this is the case. Specifically, the question to Commons is, if the uploader does not include relevant information on the file description page's first revision, and adds it back afterwards, does it cause a copyright violation in that Commons needs to do a revision deletion to remove the versions without those information? ネイ (talk) 15:07, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, Commons does not delete the erroneous early versions of description pages. On Commons that would be a practically impossible task with millions of files. That does not mean that the policy of ja.wp is not good. The policy of ja.wp does not need to be same as Commons. -- Asclepias (talk) 15:24, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
In w:ja:Wikipedia‐ノート:即時削除の方針/過去ログ16#ファイル1-5 ウィキメディア・コモンズへコピーされたファイルの削除条件について (in Japanese; discussion in 2014) it was pointed out that not stating the source in the first revision might violate GFDL, likely referring to GFDL section 4-I. I agree that it is not practical to do the deletion on Commons; but it makes a difference between (1) Commons agrees that this is a GFDL violation but it does not do such revision deletions; (2) Commons thinks it is not a GFDL violation. ネイ (talk) 16:15, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
I think it's a violation, but it appears many Admins here let that slide.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 17:06, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Notwithstanding whether this was a breach of the GFDL or not (and I can't see that as a useful interpretation), we surely wouldn't extend that to material that isn't dependent on the GFDL anyway? We require content to be freely licensed (for which we also include PD), not to be GFDL. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:52, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
The "problem" is that almost all files on ja.wiki is licensed with GFDL (dual license) and there are about 14k files that are moved to Commons and not yet deleted on ja.wiki. So the question is if we should delete those 14k files on Commons and make a new transfer or if it is enough to add the original upload log like on File:JimiHendrix T.JPG. --MGA73 (talk) 18:07, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
Multiple licensing with an invalid licence is no reason to delete. It might be reason to make that licence invalid, but not others. Only if there's no licence left should we be looking at deletion. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:35, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
I don't think there is any suggestion in this thread to permanently delete files. From what I understand, but please correct me if I'm mistaken, a temporary deletion to allow a reupload which includes the undeletion of previously deleted versions of the description pages results actually in keeping more information transparent and public, not less. -- Asclepias (talk) 00:33, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
@Asclepias: yes thats one solution. Like I did with File:Nagasaki Denkikidou 1.jpg. But prior to FileImporter we moved thousands of files to Commons and there are many cases where the transfer was not done perfect. Usualy we just fixed the original upload log etc. I agree it would look prettier if we deleted all files that was not moved to Commons with FileImporter and made a new transfer. But it will take a lot of time and it would create duplicates of all the files. The question is do we need to do that? Or do we want to do that? --MGA73 (talk) 20:20, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
The original upload, where the licence etc. were not correctly stated might have been a copyvio, but including that version in the history of the file is just adding information. As soon as the correct info is in the current version, anybody can see that info and there is no copyvio anymore. What am I missing? –LPfi (talk) 21:48, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
@LPfi: I have always thought the same as you do. Japanese Wikipedia have a deletion policy that states that the correct information have to be in the first revision of the file description page on Commons before the file can be deleted on Japanese Wikipedia. I suggested to change that policy but ネイ would like to be absolutely sure that there is no problems on Commons if first revision is wrong as long as the latest revision is correct. If it was 10 files I would just delete them and transfer them again with FileImporter but it is 14k files so I would rather change the Japanese policy unless of course they have a good point- --MGA73 (talk) 22:43, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
(Reduce indent level) I think the conclusion here is (1) Commons does not delete the erroneous early versions; (2) No consensus on whether there is still a violation after adding the correct info to the latest version (Jeff G. thinks so, LPfi does not). ネイ (talk) 05:48, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

How to deal with "personal work" images that really look like copyright violations?

Hello. The contributor of this image claims that it's a personal work under CC, but it's really similar to the top of this page: https://www.mckinsey.com/fr/overview. If you inspect the page, you can see the Arc-de-Triomphe image is a modified version of this GettyImages picture, which isn’t under CC. I highly doubt the whole montage is an original creation that could be under CC. What should I do here? Thanks. -- Okhjon (talk) 21:44, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Ask them? Maybe they actually are the creator of the McKinsey photo, which btw has different shadows than the GettyImages picture has. Guido den Broeder (talk) 00:33, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
Well, the metadata on the mckinsey-site says it's a gettyimage, and it is also nowhere stated on the mckinsey-site that anything is put under another license than ordinary copyright, so I'd say nominate for deletion. It is up to the uploader to prove that the image is under free license or in PD, or that the uploader has all the rights to put an image under a free license - not the other way around. //Vätte (talk) 01:00, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
When it all comes down to it, this all probably makes no difference. While the original Arc-de-Triomphe is probably public domain, since this is France, the night lighting is most likely much more recent and still covered by copyright. As such, day time photographs of the Arc-de-Triomphe without the lighting is fine, but night time photographs with the lighting would be a copyright violation. TommyG (talk) 06:54, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
The lighting in this case seems to be free of rights, according to the Paris City Hall and the Center for National Monuments.[7] Guido den Broeder (talk) 16:22, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
There's no way that the lighting on the Arc-de-Triomphe is creative enough to be protected by copyright. Kaldari (talk) 20:27, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

One of my techniques is to look for publication on other websites before the file was uploaded to Commons or to a Wikipedia. This image is in a copy of the page on McKinsey's website that was archived on 8 June 2020,[8] well before the date on our file. Because of this we should require licence validation through the OTRS system. I suggest you nominate this for deletion. Verbcatcher (talk) 16:49, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

1937 Bassano Ltd photographs

The National Portrait Gallery has six photographs of George Sidney Herbert that were taken in 1937 by Bassano Ltd. Previous discussions (1; 2) suggest that these should be treated as works by an unknown author, in which case UK copyright expired in 2007 (1937 + 70). Could someone please give a sense of how the claim to US copyright should be analyzed (if indeed this remains a relevant consideration)? Thanks, --Usernameunique (talk) 04:11, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

The UK analysis looks correct unless the NPG (or someone else with the right) published them before 2007, in which case they’d get 70 years from publication (which comes to the same thing if they were published shortly after creation). I don’t think they’re free in the USA, though. If they were never (or only recently) published before the NPG put them online, they get 120 years from creation, expiring at the end of 2057; if published before 1978, the URAA extension still gives them 95 years from publication, becoming free no earlier than 2033.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 07:47, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
There has never been any evidence (i.e. one case study) that any photographs in the NPG collections are either eligible for publication rights, or that as the current 'publisher' that the NPG has ever asserted any claim for publication rights for any image in its archives. Consequently, 'publication rights' as an issue can be considered so hypothetical as to be very much below the 'significant doubt' bar explained in precautionary principle. --Fæ (talk) 17:11, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
To be clear, I wasn’t raising the possibility of post-1950 publication as a PRP issue WRT the UK copyright; in a DR there would need to be evidence adduced for it to be worth considering.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 19:15, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

I need to know if there is indeed a problem with my way of checking for the copyright of image

I often check the copyright information of images uploaded by users from Taiwan, but I also often see that the EXIF shows "FBMD" and means that uploaders grabbed from Facebook, so I frequently do request OTRS permissions from uploaders. Without any indication the uploader is the authors/photographers, even though the uploader claims that the image comes from his/her Facebook. If the uploader is indeed the author and declares that uploader owns the copyright to the image on his/her Facebook, we also need to consider the possibility of image being remove by Facebook or the author. An OTRS verification from the author would allow us to keep such image on Wikipedia Commons.

However, in this case it is easy to cause some dispute among users about when uploaders ought to be requested. For example, Reke hates my way of checking for the copyright of image and then he spread rumors that I have Asperger's disease on sites other than Wikipedia Commons. Not only that, he also intervened in my way of working on Wikipedia Commons, where he forced me to change my behavior. The problem is that those images I checked previously that were not uploaded by Reke. I volunteer countless hours throughout the year to the editing work of Wikipedia Commons meaning it's almost become a full time job. However, he requested me in an unreasonable way which meant that he heartlessness forced me go away from here. It's almost become a threat to users who are significant contributors to comply the Commons license policy. If there is a problem with the way I checked, then why is there no objection from community — This is obviously a personal resentment against me!

Therefore, I asked for assistance from an OTRS volunteer. I need to know if there is indeed a problem with my way of checking. This is the only way to prove who is right between Reke and me. Otherwise there is no problem in that.--Kai3952 (talk) 12:21, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Copyright violati9n

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:National_Information_Network_of_Iran_-_NIN_-_2_-_%D8%B4%D8%A8%DA%A9%D9%87_%D9%85%D9%84%DB%8C_%D8%A7%D8%B7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%A7%D8%AA_%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86_02.jpg 

From

https://www.bbc.com/persian/science/2013/04/130426_l45_bt_iranian_national_internet — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baratiiman (talk • contribs) 15:20, 15 December 2020‎ (UTC)

@Baratiiman: Thanks, I tagged it as such.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 15:28, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

IA Books with erronous licences (Part 2)

These were located back in May-July and DR's filed, but have remained unresolved:- Category:Books in the Library of Congress/unchecked Category:Historical textbooks or works in the US National Library of Education/bad license

Some of these may be un-renewed, but it needs a dedicate effort to identify those, and move them out of these reviewing categories.

(Aside: Anything that's dated 1925 can probably be salvaged in January?)

ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:08, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

As a start, most pre-1925 files (e.g. these and these) can be swapped from {{PD-US-Gov}} to {{PD-US-expired}} using Visual File Change. However, further scrutiny may reveal some were not published in the U.S. --Animalparty (talk) 22:08, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
As can Category:Historical textbooks or works in the US National Library of Education/bad license/1920-4. It just needs someone to do it :) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 23:08, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
And Category:Historical textbooks or works in the US National Library of Education/bad license/1800 ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 23:10, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

I didn't feel happy making a mass change like this without consultation. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 23:10, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for noting this. I'll pitch in. Jlevi (talk) 01:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

File:Singapore Skyline 2018.jpg

File:Singapore Skyline 2018.jpg is sourced from this Reddit photo. I cannot find immediate statement that the Reddit user (xPhantomhive) used CC license for their post, but according to their policy on user content, users own all the rights on the content they post on the site, with a Facebook-like exception (Reddit's licensing allows the site to utilize their user's content for the improvement and user-experience purposes, very much similar to Facebook's). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 02:23, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

You can nominate it for deletion. Ruslik0 (talk) 05:38, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
@JWilz12345: Thanks, I tagged it as such.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 07:20, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
Thank you @Jeff G.: . A nice photo though, what a pity, but copyright must be respected per Precautionary principle. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 07:23, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
@JWilz12345: You're welcome.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 07:59, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
It's a pity indeed. I don't think we should let the file stay deleted, so I PM'd the said Reddit user and asked them to consider releasing their photo under CC-BY-SA-4.0. Let's see how this one works. pandakekok9 10:15, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
Thank you Pandakekok9 🙂 JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 11:16, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Signatures from Bangladesh

So I stumbled upon this signature from Bangladesh, and AFAIK, signatures can be copyrighted in common law countries, which includes Bangladesh. Does anyone know whether signatures like the linked file above are below the threshold of originality (if it even exists) of Bangladesh's copyright law? Thanks, pandakekok9 10:07, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

I have a question regarding the upload of a company logo.

I work for Flowcube Communications - an agency in Switzerland which is responsable for the corporate communications of the F.G. Pfister Holding. I wanted to add the new logo of the F.G. Pfister Holding to the Wikipedia article about the company. The automatic upload through the article page failed, because the system realized it's not a picture I took myself. Under which license can I upload the company logo so that there won't be any problems later on.

Thank you very much for your help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lukas Keller (talk • contribs) 15:41, 16 December 2020‎ (UTC)

@Lukas Keller: Hi, and welcome. I am sorry to inform you that you have triggered Special:AbuseFilter/153 by trying to cross-wiki upload a smaller (<50,000 bytes or <2,000,000 pixels) jpg logo as a new user while leaving the summary intact. The logo you tried to upload is smaller, and you indicated it's your own work. Usually when someone uploads a smaller logo, it's a copyright violation taken from the web. Please upload the full-size original of it, including EXIF metadata, but it may be judged too complex to be under TOO in the country of origin, so you may need to post COM:L compliant permission for such works on your website or social media presence or send permission via OTRS. Also, any raster image will look jaggy when scaled up, so you may want to upload an svg version, too. If you can't get a compliant license, the logo may still be uploaded to English Wikipedia in compliance with en:WP:F because we don't allow Fair Use here. If you change the summary or use our Upload Wizard instead, you should be able to avoid that filter.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 17:27, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

File:Pomp and circumstances No. 1.ogg

Not convinced this is PD. 1931+ 70 (Current length of sound copyright in the UK) is 2001. This is post URAA, and Elgar was British.

I am not raising a DR, because the situation outlined on the page concerned is broadly correct.

The UK has however left the EU, meaning a tag for the UK status is perhaps needed. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 21:26, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

All audio recordings are copyright in the US until December 31, 2021. Recordings first published between 1923-1946 have a 100 year term, so this will be PD in the US in 2032.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:23, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
The UK has not changed their copyright law, so no new tags needed. We will see if that changes -- probably not, to make any sort of trade deals with the EU easier. It had probably expired in the UK in 1982, and stayed that way. As for the U.S., it's typically tortured. The URAA seemed to try and claim them, but being a pre-1972 recording not sure that federal law applies, so we probably have to wait for that to clear. Although if the URAA did put them under federal protection, it had expired in the UK most likely. So no URAA, but the convoluted U.S. sound recording situation -- w:Capitol Records, Inc. v. Naxos of America, Inc.. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:31, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

nordvpn

Nordvpn logo is fair use

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Internet_censorship_circumvention_tools_-_VPN_images_-.jpg Baratiiman (talk) 14:56, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

@Baratiiman: I was unable to find any specific guidance on the COM:TOO of Panama, but in the United States it's likely that this logo would not clear the threshold and is therefore not eligible for copyright protection. I do, however, have concerns about the TunnelBear logo, so I started a deletion discussion notified the uploader. – BMacZero (🗩) 22:02, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
Also note that fair use media are not accepted on Commons. pandakekok9 07:56, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia main page screenshot - contains other images

Hello!

I am talking about this file: file:Croatian Wikipedia 2017.png. Basically the image contains all the Wikimedia-licences (e. g. for the logos etc.) because it is a screenshot of the main page of the Croatian Wikipedia in the year 2017. But I just noticed that the screenshot contains also other images that were on the main page during that time.

My question is, how to deal with the other images? Are those a problem?

Best regards, Koreanovsky (talk) 17:09, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Do you guys atleast know someone who might know the answer? --Koreanovsky (talk) 18:30, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
@Koreanovsky: The only problems I could see are the possibility of fair use media (is that Telegram image fair use?) being included in the screenshot and of course the crediting of the other images. If you know where these images are, please note them as such in the screenshot's source field. pandakekok9 07:59, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Sierra Leonean FOP status revisited

Hello. I'm also going to mention @Clindberg and Aymatth2: about this. I just accessed the WIPO link of Copyright Act, 2011 (Act No. 8 of 2011), and briefly browsed it, in hope that it has Commons-acceptable FOP provision. Right now, Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Sierra Leone has no section on FOP. The exceptions to copyright seem to be at "PART IV — PERMITTED USE OF COPYRIGHT, TRANSFER OF COPYRIGHT AND EPHEMERAL RECORDING". Can anyone look at some provision that is comparable to FOP? By the way, "PART II — COPYRIGHT" 4 (1) includes literary works (a) and artistic works (b) as objects of copyright, and at (2) "a work is not eligible for copyright unless — (a) it is original in character" (some sort of definition of threshold of originality). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 13:26, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

I have added a section at COM:FOP Sierra Leone saying "not ok". If there were an exception it would be in Part IV, but I cannot see anything there that would allow FOP.
4.2a is a sort of threshold of originality definition, but figuring out what "original in character" means can only be done by the courts on a case-by-case basis. Generally a photo is original unless it is of some very simple arrangement of symbols and/or text. Aymatth2 (talk) 19:51, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, nothing on FoP there. They had a 1965 law, so not sure if they used to have it, but not now apparently. Every law has an "originality" requirement; it's more how they define that term. Usually we need specific examples like court cases to have any further guidance on that aspect. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:37, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Dutch illustrator published in Holland early 1900s

I am interested in uploading some of The Dutch illustrator Johanna Berhardina Midderigh-Bokhorst's illustrations to the Commons from the Centraal Museum Utrecht website. Can anyone tell me if any of these images are out of copyright and eligible for the Commons? Thanks. Best, WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 01:49, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

@WomenArtistUpdates: since the artist apparently died in 1972, her work will be copyrighted in the Netherlands until 2043. Any items published before 1925 are considered public-domain in the USA and therefore could be uploaded to enWP (if that’s any use to you), but not here.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 02:10, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
Thank you @Odysseus1479: ! That is exactly what I needed to know. I will upload the pre-1925 illustrations to enWP Best, WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 16:16, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Hello! I'm new; please be gentle. I've just updated a page for an app, and have included their logo, which is pretty standard practice on other app pages I've seen. While I included info to the effect that, 1. I have permission from the app's owner, and 2. Wikipedia in general seems to support the idea that displaying a logo that can be seen everywhere publicly is fair use and not in any breach of copyright, ...I have received a warning that the info I provided is insufficient and the image may be deleted in a week.

Image is here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:StaffPad_Logo.png

What more can I do here? I thought the description I provided was fairly comprehensive and in fact I based it on what I've seen in use elsewhere on Wikipedia. Wizard wasn't really any help. I'd love advice from someone in the know - thank you!

Hello @TaniaWalker: . Unfortunately, logos if complex (see Commons:Threshold of originality) are copyrighted in most cases. For fair use, according to Commons:Fair use Commons will certainly not accept media licensed as fair use only. Per Commons:Licensing#Acceptable licenses files must be freely reusable, including commercial reuses by anyone. Use for "Wikipedia only" is still insufficient. All you need to do is to contact the copyright-holder of the logo to have the logo licensed under commercial-friendly free license (via COM:OTRS email correspondence). The question is, is the copyright holder willing to release their logo under free licensing? JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 07:04, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for the fast reply, @JWilz12345: ! I'm in touch with the copyright holder, who is happy to have the logo used in places like Wikipedia, but concerned enough about misuse that they have registered it as a trademark. So, follow up question: it safe to assume that, if uploaded under the CC Attribution Share Alike license (as per the Photoshop logo here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adobe_Photoshop_CC_icon.svg ) the trademark aspect would protect the StaffPad logo in the same way it's likely to protect Photoshop's logo as per the trademark warning on their logo's page? TaniaWalker (talk) 07:24, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
@TaniaWalker: yes, trademarks are a separate area of intellectual property, and licensing the copyrights does not waive or limit the trademark protection in any way. (Lay opinion only—IANAL.) We include a notice with trademarked logos, as you’ve seen, and likewise with state insignia, personality rights and other non-copyright restrictions that may apply to the content.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 08:48, 19 December 2020 (UTC) P.S. I should point out that this site, Wikimedia Commons, is not Wikipedia: the English WP does allow use of non-free logos to identify the topic of articles, but they have to be uploaded directly there, not here.—08:59, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
@Odysseus1479: Thank you! Your PS was the EXACT info I've been looking for - I knew I'd previously seen logos handled this way and was so bewildered when I couldn't find any provision for it on Commons. Who knew I was in entirely the wrong place? You've set me straight; I really appreciate it. TaniaWalker (talk) 10:09, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Copyright holder: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Meh! Looks like this one file has strange and conflicting copyright status info... (good & bot verified license on Flickr yet this different, Wikimedia Commons incompatible license in the metadata) Would somebody mind contacting the author for a clarification? The file is in use. --Palosirkka (talk) 22:09, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

@Palosirkka: I asked via FlickrMail.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 22:26, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
Thank you Jeff G. ツ! --Palosirkka (talk) 06:15, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
@Palosirkka: You're welcome!   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 14:54, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
@Palosirkka: The photographer replied "Oh, I didn't realize there was a discrepancy there. The correct license should be CC-BY-SA (without the non commercial clause). Not sure how I would go about changing it in the meta data." So we can keep it.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 03:25, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
Great news @Jeff G.: ! I'll see what I can do about the metadata. --Palosirkka (talk) 06:05, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Does creative commons license apply to all the images in that publication?

Even though a source may be an open access book with a creative commons license does that cover the usage of all the images in that publication? --Iztwoz (talk) 10:16, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Not necessary. You should look at image captions. Ruslik0 (talk) 20:23, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

1924 Olympics ID

I stumbled upon these files. Does anyone know which country of origin these cards are (I'm not sure whether it's France or Czechslovakia), and what is the copyright status of these IDs? Thanks, pandakekok9 02:43, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

It's tough to determine if it is French or Czechoslovakia without further information; on one hand, it could be the French authorities printing out standardized cards at the Olympics, on the other it could be the local Czechoslovakian committee. Either way, it would probably be in the public domain according to Template:PD-France or Template:PD-Czechoslovakia-anon, although I'm not certain it would qualify as published or if it is anonymous. Zoozaz1 (talk) 02:03, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Alma Thomas paintings

I'm not finding anything in si.edu/termsofuse for the en:Smithsonian American Art Museum which indicates that File:SAAM-1975.92.2 1.jpg, File:SAAM-1978.40.1 1.jpg, File:SAAM-1970.324 1.jpg and File:SAAM-1980.36.8 1.jpg by en:Alma Thomas have been released under a {{Cc-by-sa-4.0}} license. There's no indication given on the source pages for paintings that they've been released as such, and the paintings themselves don't seem to be old enough to be within the public domain. Are these files OK as licensed. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:55, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

They seem to be copyvios. Ruslik0 (talk) 20:30, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
The main chance would be published without a copyright notice. There is a signature on those paintings, but I don't see a copyright symbol or similar. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:54, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
There is no credible evidence the images are CC licensed, and initial publication (with or without copyright notice) needs evidence: neither creation, display, nor storage in a museum necessarily constitutes publication. --Animalparty (talk) 21:35, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
Display before 1978 usually did. Gifting to the Smithsonian probably did as well. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:36, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
@Clindberg: Would a copyright notice typically be added to the painting itself, the frame/border, the back of the painting? If such a notice was generally added to the frame/border or back of the painting, then it might not visible or have been cropped out in the photo shown on the museum's website. The museum's terms of use seem to imply that paintings released under a CC license would be marked as such on somewhere on the website, but I'm not seeing that for these works. I also checked some other works by other artists from different eras on the museum's website and I'm not see any license information at all, even for works created before January 1, 1925; so, I'm wondering what the museum means when it discusses CC licenses on its "Terms of use" page. Most of the images of the paintings on the website seem to fall under COM:2D copying; so, I don't think the museum can claim a new copyright for the website image. Even still, there's the copyright status of the actual work that needs to be considered and I'm not sure how we go about verifying that. FWIW, the uploader seems to uploaded these and some other files from the same website all in the same day (March 3, 2019) and hasn't uploaded anything else since; moreover, all of their edits on English Wikipedia were also made around the same time, and they've not edited since. So, I'm not sure whether anything would be gained from asking them to clarify why they licensed the files as such. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:03, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
Copyright notices were supposed to be visible. Frame would count (if there were any), back probably would not. I don't see anything to support the CC license -- it's either PD-Art of an already PD painting, or deletion. The source site does allow a fairly high-resolution download, which is a little odd for a work they do not own the copyright to (and would explain the easy availability to upload), but don't see anything explicitly which states the copyright status. At least one was a gift of the artist to the Smithsonian, though another was a gift of a third party. Some of them may have been published over the years -- there is a collection of material at e.g. here, where there is an advertisement containing one of the paintings. There are many other related papers there, some of which are catalogs and may also have been printed without notice or renewal. The collection notes (which I think are different than the paintings themselves) state: Literary rights as possessed by the donor have been dedicated to public use for research, study, and scholarship. The collection is subject to all copyright laws. I don't see anywhere any notice that these works are copyright the estate, or anything like that. I'm not sure if the lack of notice on the paintings is enough evidence -- if not, I can see deletion. Seems likely they are PD, but not sure the source website itself is enough evidence. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:21, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
I appreciate that response Clindberg and understand what you're saying. Doesn't it seem, even if only a little bit, that adding a copyright notice to a painting would be something that an artist would be loathed to do? It seems so contrary to how most artists seem to view their own creative work. Have you seen any examples where this was actually done? Just curious.
As for these particular files, perhaps the best thing to do would be to start a DR about them. It seems that they could be {{PD-US-no notice}}, but I don't see how we can keep them as currently licensed because a "CC" license would seem to imply that they are actually still protected by copyright and I'm not seeing anything stating that the museum is claiming copyright ownership over them. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:21, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
I think that was among the complaints about the notice requirements at the time, but it was the law. The artist had no problem signing and dating the works at the lower right hand corner, in these cases. They only needed to add a copyright symbol to make it valid. If the Smithsonian had any kind of public domain indication, I would have no problem accepting it. The gray area would come in during any donation -- if that was publication, was there copyright notices at the time, and did the Smithsonian not bother to further publish them until after 1989. For ones which were published earlier, say in some of those catalogs without notice, it would be a stronger case for keeping. I don't see any renewals under her name; the only registration I see was made by a museum in 1986, claiming Iris, tulips, jonquils & crocuses was only published then, and was claiming copyright ownership despite the painting being a gift of a third party (although the photo of the painting at the museum website is claimed copyright of the estate). Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:44, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Do libraries hold copyright on public domain photos?

I came across a photo[9] in the Image Collections of Indiana University Library. This image was taken by an unknown author in Liberia before 1960, satisfying the conditions of Template:PD-Liberia. Is this image eligible for Commons? Joofjoof (talk) 02:15, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Usually libraries don't hold copyright for such old images. You will also have to consider copyright in the United States (which is where our servers are located). When was this image first published in the U.S.? ({{PD-US-unpublished}} can't apply here, because anonymous works are only PD in the U.S. if created before 1900) pandakekok9 02:26, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
pandakekok9, thanks for answering. I am not sure when it was published in the U.S.. However, since the photo was taken between 1948 and 1960, it seems unlikely to satisfy the U.S. rule. Joofjoof (talk) 20:43, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Vietnamese FOP - for noncommercial only?

Heads up. ICYMI, there's an ongoing discussion at Commons:Deletion requests/Template:FoP-Vietnam#Template:FoP-Vietnam 2, in light of a revelation by Buiquangtu, that the listed exceptions at Article 25 (including the FOP clause at /h) of the Vietnamese copyright law are in reality for noncommercial purposes only which might conflict with COM:L. This is based on an opinion of a Vietnamese lawyer at Thái An Law Firm. Please direct your inputs and opinions at the aforementioned DR forum and instead of here. Thank you! JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 16:08, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Maximum limit for UK copyright protections on joint works

As part of COM:IA books, we are uploading a lot of documents that are out of copyright by age, or have been claimed to be public domain at the Internet Archive, which is not completely reliable. It is possible to limit the uploads by publication date, which is not a good way of handling copyright based on death dates of authors or artists.

Unfortunately the guidelines at Commons:Copyright rules by territory/United Kingdom#Known author do not explore pre-1911 copyright law. I recall that in the 19th century copyright was much more limited and before a certain date, had a copyright life calculated on the publication year, not the authors.

An example from the recent uploads is The Economist, 19 December 1885, i.e. published 135 years ago, which has many authors of the text, and the template currently added gives the expectation that volunteers will work out who they all are, work out all their death dates, and draw a conclusion as to a maximum death date to add 70 years to. However (a) that's never going to happen for the thousands of documents being uploaded (b) it's probably unnecessary as there must be a date before which a calculation of copyright length can be made that has no need to include any assessment of death dates. Can someone point to where a suitable "old publications" workflow explains the calculation, or put me right as to how to apply a basic rule of thumb when planning mass uploads for non-US publications?

We do have {{PD-old-assumed}}, but as the writers names are published in the document, they are literally not 'unknown' and given infinite volunteer effort could be individually analysed. --Fæ (talk) 17:26, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

@Fæ: In respect of the 1911 Act, looking at section 24, in particular 24(1) and 24(3) taken together, it would seem that the 1911 Act did not extend copyright unless the work was still in copyright in July 1911. To be out of copyright by that date would require (a) the work was published before 1869, and (b) that the author had died before 1904. But since all works whose authors died before Dec 31 1949 are now out of copyright anyway (apart from certain works published posthumously since 1969), that fact about the 1911 Act is now no longer relevant. Since 1954 it has not been able to put any more works out of copyright than would be out of copyright anyway under the life + 50 then life + 70 rules. Jheald (talk) 21:33, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
For works from 19th century you can use {{PD-old-70}} template as probability of error is very low. Ruslik0 (talk) 20:25, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
The 1911 copyright act does not seem to have been retrospective, it applies to works published from 1 July 1912.
Consequently the 1842 act applies to our 19th century works of interest, i.e. the longest of lifetime + 7 years, or 42 years from first publication. This would give us a firm "everything is public domain" of 1869 (July?) as you say, but what would be the source for setting 1904 (1911 -7) as the latest death date, which would make the 1911 act retrospective by redefining the rights for works published before July 1912? Logically, for pre-July 1912 published works, "life + 7" applies unless this is specifically countered in the 1911 act, or there's some case law that establishes otherwise. --Fæ (talk) 10:24, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
@Fæ: From s.24 as linked above "and such substituted right shall subsist for the term for which it would have subsisted if this Act had been in force at the date when the work was made and the work had been one entitled to copyright thereunder". So: if the work was still in copyright in 1911, it got life + 50. If someone died after 1904, the work would still be in copyright in 1911, so the copyright was extended to life + 50. Though as Clinberg notes, this became even more irrelevant after the EU established life+70, including for works which had fallen out of copyright. Jheald (talk) 00:27, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the details. It would be useful if more sub-pages of COM:CRT had detailed 'old works' sections for the assessment of expired copyright. It's surprisingly hard to work out, considering this is just UK, while I'm looking at many countries within COM:IA books and remain unsure where to draw the copyright free line for non-manual mass uploads. --Fæ (talk) 14:29, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
For the UK, the EU extensions retroactively restored everything that would be under copyright by the new rules, so the older terms are usually irrelevant (outside of government works). {{PD-old-assumed}} is the tag to use for your situation; that is when we assume that 70pma has passed outside of concrete knowledge of the author's death date. They are not "unknown", correct, but that would be 70 years from publication, rather than 70pma. We can't assume that, but once over 120 years, it should be fine unless an actual death date is found. Works like newspapers are generally not "joint works", rather they are a collective work of many different individual articles written by identified people (joint works is where the boundaries of authorship can't really be defined, i.e. it's a single work). As such, each article could expire at different times, based on their author's lifetime. Most all of them would be fine; if someone finds a very late death date for one author, only that author's contributions would have to be blurred or whatever. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:45, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

As a consequence of the calculations used here, we have started Category:Old books from American Libraries as part of the COM:IA books project, the intention being to run this wide net as 'conservatively' as possible in order to create no additional copyright assessment work for volunteers. --Fæ (talk) 12:55, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

@Fæ: My rule at least for the UK and EU was 1850, as someone reaching age 100 in 1950 was rare. This of course is a rolling year, in 2021 it would be 1851. Works from European libraries for pre 1800 would reliably be works out of copyright (barring archives claiming copyrights, by virtue of digitization, publication, sweat of the brow etc...  :) However I've noted some IA works uses 1000, 1800, 1900 etc. as a placeholder when the actual date isn't known, and these might need further investigation. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 13:15, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
Per discussion above, any UK publication can be safely presumed to be public domain if there's a less than 1870 publication date. Agree with the presumption problem for "1800", but it's unlikely that these would be after 1850 anyway. With regard to all EU countries, I have no idea what the best calculator would be for them. --Fæ (talk) 15:01, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
EU is 70 p.m.a so the 1850/70 guideline probably is also applicable. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 16:12, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
As I note on ongoing reviews:-
  1. I've taken {{Checkauthors}} of the Economist scans. {{Listauthors}} now exists as an alternative.
  2. I've asked another contributor to look into creating a 'low-priority' version of {{Lifetime needed}}, which can still be used for asking for author info, but doesn't make any claims about copyrights (which could be used on the pre 1870/50 items if they are joint works like journals.)
  3. Will continue reviewing {{Lifetime needed}} and {{Checkauthors}} based on revised advice.
  4. Manged to knock down the list of mis-identified PD-USGov items a bit. (See https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?psid=18064299), 61 items, of which only about 5 or 6 look to be actually wrong. :) . Let's keep going with the uploads, and keep the processes for reviewing under development. :)

ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 16:12, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

The odds of someone publishing at birth is even more rare than them reaching age 100 in 1950. As of 2010:
"In a recent exchange with Tim Padfield, the UK’s expert on copyright in unpublished materials, he mentioned that the earliest known published work still protected by copyright in the UK is a poem called The sea girt home, published in Edinburgh in 1859 by Jessie Saxby (1842-1940). Next year it will be an article “The Shoehorn,” also published in Edinburgh, by Dame Sarah Muir (1846-1941), in 1865."[10]
I don't know how exhaustive those searches were, but I think they indicate that even being maximally paranoid, 151 years would work, so now, 1870, not 1850. I'm happy with 120 years, but in any case, 170 years is far beyond reasonable for us; with the numbers and ways of copyvios that come in, it's like having a bank vault door next to a glass window.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:22, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
See also User:Alexis Jazz/Assuming worst case copyright.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 05:25, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Cropped a logo from a VOA source

I cropped this logo from this Voice of America picture. But I'm not sure if that's alright. Can I use this file now or should it be deleted? Can anyone take a look?--Balyozxane (talk) 01:10, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

It's not alright under {{VOA}}, although the image is possibly old enough to be in the public domain per {{PD-old-1923}}, and if so, the text may not not rise above the threshold of originality to qualify for copyright under Turkish law. VOA employees did not create the image (and may not have taken the accompanying photograph, which appears to lack explicit attribution). Images don't lose their copyrights just because a US government employee or website posts them. --Animalparty (talk) 07:01, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
1992, not 1922. --E4024 (talk) 16:33, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

How do I figure out whether a photo has had its copyright renewed?

I'm interested in several images from 1925–1964, and I'd like to be able to upload and tag them with {{PD-US-not renewed}} if possible. I doubt that the copyright was renewed as they're just historical photos of a college, but how do I actually figure that out? (I'm sure this has been asked before, and I did try searching for documentation, but if it exists it's not easily findable.) {{u|Sdkb}} talk 09:36, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

We search for copyright renewals using this resource. You're right though that it is not easily findable in the documentation, if it's even there at all. I guess including that external guide on the PD tag wouldn't hurt. pandakekok9 02:05, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
@Pandakekok9: Okay, thanks, so just wanting to confirm I've done this right: I'm looking to see if it's possible to bring back File:Soldiers Drilling at Pomona College (1943).jpg, which was uploaded by someone who got it off-wiki here but deleted because it lacked a proper license. The Flickr post says it was taken by someone named Will Connell, so I just went to here, clicked on "Part 4: Works of Art. Etc.", searched for "Connell", and got no results. Does that mean it's safe to restore? What about if I'm looking to license a photo without an attributed author, or one that only has e.g. "circa 1950s"? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 05:44, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb: Was it published with notice?   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 06:02, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: I'm not sure if the original publication included any copyright notice or not, but {{PD-US-not renewed}} seems to say that that doesn't matter. Is that correct? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 06:05, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb: Yes, it's safe to restore by asking Fitindia or via COM:UDR. If you are in California, you may want to see en:Will Connell#Legacy.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 06:15, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb: For copyright renewals, you should look 28 years after it was copyrighted, so 1971. There doesn't seem to be any, so this should be safe to restore. pandakekok9 06:18, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
@Pandakekok9: Thanks! For future reference, what should I do for photos where the photographer is unknown or the date is identified only as "circa"? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 06:54, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
I question basically all of this. Most photos that got renewed do so when they were published in a periodical or book that was renewed. Many photos went unpublished for a long time. If you have the first publication of a photograph, it's possible to figure out whether it was renewed or not. If you don't, I don't believe it's generally possible to do so.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:07, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

File:The voyage of the Why not?' in the Antarctic; the journal of the second French South polar expedition, 1908-1910 (IA voyageofwhynotin00char).pdf

A head-scratch...

The original French edition was published in Paris, and per the original author is thought to be out of copyright. This is the English translation, but I've not found any information on the credited translator/editor. It seems to be a Dual New York/London publication. Is it a US publication or a UK one for Commons though?ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 13:32, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Misread something. OKay so the original is from Paris. Where was the Translation done? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 14:20, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
If it was simultaneously published in the U.S. and the U.K., the country of origin would be the one with the shorter terms. It's more than 95 years from publication, so the UK would only be the country of origin if their terms were shorter than that, I think. Cambridge University Press republished in in 2015[11], stating Cambridge University Press wishes to make clear that the book, unless originally published by Cambridge, is not being republished by, in association or collaboration with, or with the endorsement of approval of, the original publisher or its successors in title. By that, they pretty clearly think that it's PD in the UK anyways. Agreed though, cannot find much on Philip Walsh. He seemed to write in the magazine of the Society of Authors, at least to 1919, but not sure what else -- so he was probably British. Carl Lindberg (talk) 11:31, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Aesuithiel

Aesuithiel hat eine Reihe sehr interessanter Bilder hochgeladen, aber ich fürchte, für jedes einzelne ist eine OTRS-Freigabe notwendig (und eine umfangreiche Korrektur der Kategorien, da geht einiges Durcheinander)?

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Aesuithiel

--C.Suthorn (talk) 15:47, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Extracting images from VOA videos

I know that videos explicitly created by VOA are public domain but what I am not sure about is if we are allowed to extract images from those videos and use them on Wikimedia projects. Can we clarify this please?--Balyozxane (talk) 19:20, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Generally, unless otherwise noted, the entire contents of a video are under the same license (or public domain). Exceptions would be inclusions of non-original media covered by different copyright or licenses: if a VOA employee films an interview with an actor, that footage is public domain, but if the video includes scenes from a new movie, or a full-screen image of a work of art, or footage from another source, those clips are not necessarily public domain, and any screen grabs could not be hosted on Commons unless the underlying work is free to reuse. So, the content of the extracted image would determine its suitability. More information is at Commons:De minimis and Commons:Derivative works. --Animalparty (talk) 19:33, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
@Animalparty: You've been super helpful. And the video I was talking about is an interview only. Thank you very much. --Balyozxane (talk) 19:45, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
@Animalparty: If you don't mind a final question, VOA kurdish sometimes claims that some images are public domain, e.g. this image. Is it fine if I upload images like this?--Balyozxane (talk) 20:01, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
@Balyozxane: That image is probably okay to use: VOA sometimes hosts photographs taken by other news agencies (AP, Reuters, etc.), but if so generally credits the agency in caption or watermark (and those are generally not public domain). Since this image is explicitly labelled as public domain, and posted on a source operated by the U.S. Federal Government, and I've found no claims to the contrary, {{PD-USGov-VOA}} seems like the best rationale. If further investigation reveals a different author or conflicting license, then the image can simply be nominated for deletion. --Animalparty (talk) 02:01, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. I'll reverse image search first and upload based on the results. --Balyozxane (talk) 02:28, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Copyright of a building if created by two architects

If a building is created by two architects, but the architects died in different years (e.g. A died in 1990 while B died in 2010), which year should we start counting the copyright for 50/70 years? --A1Cafel (talk) 02:26, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

@A1Cafel: The later one.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 02:28, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: In other words, if A died but B is still living, we still not counting the 50/70 p.m.a. of the building? --A1Cafel (talk) 02:30, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
@A1Cafel: Right, we have to wait for the last architect (or author) of a joint work to die before the pma time of that person's copyright starts running.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 02:35, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Did both authors worked for hire? If not, the copyright expires 50/70 years (depending on jurisdiction) after the death of the last surviving author as Jeff correctly pointed out. Regards. T CellsTalk 19:33, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Copyright status of photos published in National Geographic in the 1930s

Hello, I would like to inquire about the copyright status of the autochromes of Wilhelm Tobien, German photographer active in the 1920s and the 1930s, published in National Geographic Magazines of the same period. According to Commons:Copyright rules by territory/United States, they would be PD if the copyright was not renewed. I could not find Tobien name on the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database, but that seems to be only for books. Any idea? Pinging Clindberg, if he is so kind to help with this.-- Darwin Ahoy! 23:26, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Sorry to answer my own question, but searching a bit more, I could find this list which seems to make clear that those photos are still under copyright: "issues actively renewed from February 1925 (v. 47 no. 2), © January 13, 1925; see 1952; contributions actively renewed from February 1928; see 1955 January-June". I'll nominate for deletion the ones that were already uploaded to Commons.-- Darwin Ahoy! 23:42, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
@DarwIn: A renewal means a total copyright term of 95 years after the first publication date, so the issues from 1925 will become PD in 3 days (1 Jan. 2021). De728631 (talk) 23:51, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
@De728631: Thanks! Unfortunately, the first Tobien autochromes I found in NG are from 1928, and the ones I am particularly interested in, are even worse, from 1934. Still 9 years to go... :\ -- Darwin Ahoy! 00:01, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
De728631 (talk) 00:04, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Is this file free?

I'm talking about this file User_talk:Stumpewilli#File_source_is_not_properly_indicated:_File:Zeichnung102400Zsep86.gg.png (and the two others like it on that page.) I tried to find the answer myself but the website requires JavaScript so I can't figure out how it works and the uploader would rather speak German. :) Happy new year to all! --Palosirkka (talk) 16:45, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

@Palosirkka: Per [12], "Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person using the web application hosted on map.army". However, there is no word about derivatives and commercial reuse that we would need for Commons. They also use Google Maps which rules out third-party derivatives by default. I have left the uploader a note in German. De728631 (talk) 00:04, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
Thank you De728631. --Palosirkka (talk) 15:23, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Input requested

Your input regarding Creative Commons licensing of previously published works would be welcome at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Bonner zoologische Beiträge - Herausgeber- Zoologisches Forschungsinstitut und Museum Alexander Koenig, Bonn (1976) (20204767260).jpg. De728631 (talk) 19:05, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

File:Stained glass of the middle ages in England & France (IA stainedglassofmi00arno).pdf

The text is Okay, The issue is an American artists work, published in the UK prior to 1923. How should this be handled? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 18:12, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

In which country was it first published? Ruslik0 (talk) 05:25, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
UK I think. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 15:23, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Italian FOP revisited — December 2020

This thread is commenced in light of an input at a DR I started — Commons:Deletion requests/File:2013-06-15 Roma Stazione FS Tiburtina.jpg. An input which if accepted may lead to a major change or big difference to COM:FOP Italy, currently indicated as  Not OK in its entirety.

According to Blackcat, photographer of the image of Category:Roma Tiburtina train station that I nominated for DR (for ref., current 2011 building by architect Paolo Desideri), Italian copyright is somehow different to some extent than that of other countries, in the way it works. Some main points he mentioned:

  • Italian jurisprudence tends to favor ownership over intellectual property (or the copyright of, let's say an architect).
  • There hasn't been relevant court cases to test the validity of {{NoFoP-Italy}} in practice.
  • While Italians respect intellectual copyright, "the law and the customs are not lenient to those (let's say architects or their heirs) who neglect to claim one's own intellectual rights."
  • Also according to Blackcat, "in Italy not claiming an exclusive right for ages leads to the loss of it, or better to the unclaimability of it (sometimes by law, like in the case of usucaption, other times by custom). Same for a particular interpretation of the law: if never enforced in a court, it may lead to its de facto inapplicability."

Should these inputs be rather true (and backed by existing jurisprudence that favors owners over the architects or other creators of FoP-reliant Italian objects), a big change may come for Italy's FoP situation.

I started this discussion because I felt that, perhaps, Italians like Blackcat know Italian copyright law better. And if there's indeed a "de facto FoP" (similar to COM:FOP Argentina, where there is no FOP provision in their copyright law, but there is FOP for buildings thanks to an opinion from a lawyer) backed by jurisprudence, I find counterintuitive to let much (or at very least, several) deleted files at Category:Italian FOP cases/deleted be remained deleted for a very long time or for perpetuity.

Paging @Liuxinyu970226: (to help ping Italian wiki admins). Also paging @Aymatth2 and Clindberg: for this discussion. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 16:44, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Actually it's not "revisited": normally here on Commons we have always adopted the most conservative interpretation of the Italian no-FOP, and honestly I cannot blame anyone for that vision, mind you, but actually it's a vision that misses a broader viewpoint about the protection of the intellectual property in our country. It's not that the Italian law has changed: it's just that there are no documented cases of such aspect of the law being enforced in court. To give you an examples, the vast majority of Italian architects don't care about no-Fop, on the simple ground that's not with a photograph of a building designed by them that they lose money [of course there's no analogy with the cases of illegal copy of books and records, that cause their authors loss of money and are the subject of countless lawsuits]. -- SERGIO (aka the Blackcat) 16:53, 26 December 2020 (UTC)
@Blackcat: perhaps then. But there also exist some "de facto interpretation", like Argentina's case. {{FoP-Argentina}} states that there is no FOP provision there, yet there is de facto FOP on buildings thanks to an Argentine lawyer. I hoped that if an Italian lawyer would also have this similar interpretation (whether before or even today), perhaps that would be a big help for Italy's FOP status, at least for Italian buildings only. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 17:05, 26 December 2020 (UTC)
My correction: it's an Argentine law professor. But in any case, a formal opinion from an Italian law professor or even a lawyer will help, at least pulling Italy out of "red countries" and either bringing it on "yellow" or "light green countries" on the FOP map. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 17:09, 26 December 2020 (UTC)
As a practical matter, are there currently picture postcards of modern Italian buildings for sale in Italy that do or don't qualify as "official"?   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 17:14, 26 December 2020 (UTC)
Ha, @Jeff G.: , it's like attempting to demostrate the existence of the Russell's teapot. -- SERGIO (aka the Blackcat) 17:35, 26 December 2020 (UTC)
@SERGIO: (ec) I believe there probably have been unofficial ones sold in touristy areas. Asking the people who sell them pointed questions like "Is this official?" and if not "Are you afraid of getting sued by the architect?" could help clear up the de facto situations, but maybe not until the pandemic is over.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 17:45, 26 December 2020 (UTC)
Even if the architects do not care and the publishers of picture postcards of modern Italian buildings are getting away with it, pictures on Wikimedia must comply with the law. There is nothing like FOP in Chapter V. The closest is 70.1-bis, which allows publication via the internet free of charge of low resolution images, for educational or scientific use, but only if such use is not for profit. The non-profit stipulation means the images cannot be used on Commmons. Aymatth2 (talk) 17:39, 26 December 2020 (UTC)
@Aymatth2: Mind you, indeed in the deletion request I didn't write keep but only commented, I'm open to the possibility the photo would be deleted, which most probably will happen. Yet, if the photograph is nuked, it's not me the loser, it's the global knowledge. For a pictured building with no originality at all (the only aspect that the Italian law considers in order to grant protection, otherwise every mass-housing architecture would fall into no-FOP...). I only proposed to see the Italian situation under another point of view. -- SERGIO (aka the Blackcat) 17:56, 26 December 2020 (UTC)
The usual situation is that architecture is a protected type of work. Laws also protect derivative works. In general, it is assumed that photographs (at least primarily of the subject) are derivative works, and therefore under the control of the author of the underlying work, unless there is specific language which limits that. It is indeed highly frustrating to take the law so literally, as there are hardly any cases involving such works, and it is indeed a shame that it harms illustrating articles that much. Coming from a U.S. perspective, it's doubly frustrating since such photos are fine here. That all said, such works being derivative would seem to logically follow, and while there haven't been many such cases, there have been some, and they all seem to follow that logic -- we have no counterexamples. There was a German case, of a photo of a building taken in Austria, which was fine per Austria's FoP but not per Germany's (since it was taken from a private apartment across the street), and it was ruled infringement. So it can happen. There was a 1970s case in France I believe, of a skyscraper at the end of a street -- that was ruled to not be infringing, but only because the photo was of a wider screen (encompassing the buildings on the sides of the street). The ruling implied that a photo primarily of the building would be derivative. Given that ruling though, we do tend to allow photos which encompass buildings but are of a wider subject. Neither of those is Italy, but all are in the EU, and the EU directive again allowed countries to make FoP exceptions, which Italy did not do. The U.S. has had multiple cases of photos of sculpture being ruled derivative (and also multiple cases of photos of a "wider scene" not being derivative, though they were of objects, not buildings). There does not appear to be anything in Italy's law, or court cases, or even opinions by major legal figures, to give us anything to stand on to treat them differently.
I'm sure most architects don't care, but copyright is one of those areas where you are often allowed to sue selectively -- i.e. allowing infringements by some has no bearing if you decide to sue others. Trademark can be different -- you can lose that if you don't defend it, but I don't think copyright works that way (maybe it does in Italy, not sure).
Part of the issue is our insistence on allowing commercial use -- that is our choice. If we allowed non-commercial FoP, we'd probably be OK in almost all countries. But, that is part of the definition of "free". It's always great if we can find reasons to keep such works, and I don't like extrapolating imagined copyright protection beyond the bounds of what courts have actually ruled, but this type of photo has been ruled infringement -- so it's within the bounds of proven protection, if just barely. Highly frustrating, but it's hard to justify allowing them given the current rules. If it was something that the community decided to potentially ignore foreign law (such as {{PD-Art}} does) and allow them, then fine (I would not argue against that). PD-Art has not actually been shown to be a legal problem anywhere though -- it has been theorized to possibly be a problem in the UK, but no actual court case, I don't think. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:44, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

FOP status in Oceanian countries

Links to their CRT pages are embedded in their subheadings. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.)

Ping @Aymatth2: for this thread. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 03:44, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

@Clindberg: for this discussion. 16:42, 29 December 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by JWilz12345 (talk • contribs)
Pinging @Clindberg properly for JWilz12345,   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 17:25, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Micronesia

Relevant law is 2003 FSMC (Code of the Federated States of Micronesia), Title 35. Copyright, Patents & Trademarks, Chapter I: Copyrights. "Limitations" on copyright start from § 107. to § 109., and are more fair use-like and for libraries and archives, though § 109. states "Other limitations on exclusive rights of specific works or exemptions of certain performances and displays may be prescribed by the Attorney General in rules and regulations consistent with sections 107 and 108 of this chapter." JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 18:53, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Looks to closely follow older U.S. copyright law -- they include U.S. fair use. They also include notice requirements it looks like, and no mention that architecture is protected (beyond actual drawings). Might be similar to the 1978-1989 U.S. situation. Likely building-only FoP, effectively, unless there are newer laws. On the other hand, they joined Berne in July 2003, which may have been after that law -- that should have eliminated notice requirements, at least those that lose copyright. But if they don't have a law which explicitly gave protection to architecture... may not be protected in that way. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:05, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
@Clindberg: this reminds me of our situation on 51–72 buildings. BTW, IPOPHL gave no response on FB about my query on the 1951–72 Philippine buildings' copyright status. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 08:04, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
Yep, they might be in that same situation. The U.S. did not protect architecture until 1990 actually, so the existing law continued for a bit. On the other hand, U.S. law was explicit that the Berne Convention was not self-executing; i.e. the text of the treaty did not change the law, and they did make most of the requisite changes. This Micronesian law is often word-for-word the same as the pre-1989 U.S. law, though very much stripped down. The text of this law was effective from December 2002; they joined Berne July 2003, and apparently no law changes since (wipo.int has a second version from 2014; but I'm not sure there are any differences at all). Works published before December 2002 continued to have their old terms, whatever those were. Certainly, buildings from before July 2003 would be OK. Since then, would seem like they are in that same situation the Philippines were. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:16, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Palau

Copyright law is Republic of Palau Copyright Act of 2003. Exceptions seem to be from Sections 7 to 13 under "PART II - Copyright", though on the first glance I see no Commons-compatible FOP exception/s. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 18:53, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Agreed, don't see anything there. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:07, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Tonga

The relevant copyright law is the Copyright Act (2002). The relevant part is "7. General exceptions" under "PART II COPYRIGHT IN LITERARY, DRAMATIC, MUSICAL AND ARTISTIC WORKS". It does have broad FOP-like provisions from (7) to (10), even including paintings, though I hope someone will recheck those. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 18:53, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

A very active towiki user, also its sysop is @Tauʻolunga: , wondering if they can give us an opinion or not. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 01:43, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
Looks to be pretty much like UK FoP. Architecture, sculpture, and works of artistic craftsmanship, worded about the same way. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:10, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
Template:Added but needs a little polish. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 07:16, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Vanuatu

Their copyright law is Copyright and Related Rights Act No. 42 of 2000. I found two curious sections under "PART 3: ACTS NOT CONSTITUTING INFRINGEMENT OF COPYRIGHT IN WORKS " — "PRIVATE REPRODUCTION FOR PERSONAL PURPOSES" and "DISPLAY OF WORKS". I'm not sure of there is Commons-acceptable FOP in the country. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 18:53, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Don't see anything there. The exceptions clauses are pretty typical. A number of laws allow the display of works -- i.e. if you buy a copy of a work, you are allowed to display it (just not reproduce it), unless it would be the first display (that right is limited to the author). That's not a FoP provision, really. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:21, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Ineligible for copyright

Hi, sometimes I find files here which are licensed with Creative Commons, but which I think are ineligible for copyright (e.g. File:7 Metre insigna.png). What should I do in such cases? --ZabeMath (talk) 16:09, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

@ZabeMath: I’m not familiar enough with the rules about logos to say whether that example is permissible, but if you think it’s not, you can nominate it for deletion and at least one admin, possibly more community members will weigh in on whether they agree it was a bad license. Toolbar on the left side of the entry has a “Nominate for deletion” option; then just write a brief explanation of your concern. Innisfree987 (talk) 19:25, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
I think it's probably best to leave those alone. The linked file certainly does not qualify for US copyright but perhaps there is a jurisdiction where it would... (I'm not a lawyer and don't even play one on the internet.) --Palosirkka (talk) 16:50, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
If the work was created by the uploader, it's best to leave such licenses, though possibly you could add tags like PD-shape. Thresholds of originality are different around the world, while the permissions on the license would cover it no matter what. Licenses added by the uploaders, when works were clearly copied from elsewhere and not authored by the uploader, should be removed (with a possible threshold of originality being the only way we can keep them). Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:25, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

File:Coca-Cola Local Brand Cambodia.jpg

Given there are lots of similar files in Category:Coca-Cola logos, this file is probably just licensed incorrectly and can be converted to {{PD-logo}}, right? I don't think this should be licensed under {{Cc-by-sa-4.0}} though since that would seem to imply that the logo is protected and was released by Coca-Cola for use on Commons.

Similar thing with File:Hawei Local Brand Cambodia.jpg in that this might be "PD-logo" per COM:TOO United States, but I'm not sure about COM:TOO China since China's TOO seems to be quite low. For reference, English Wikipedia does have a local version as en:File:Huawei Standard logo.svg that it treats as PD, but that's tagged to not be moved to Commons. Regardless, I don't think the "cc-by-sa-4.0" license is appropriate in this case as well. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:34, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

@Marchjuly: I believe you are correct on all counts, and the Huawei logo exceeds China's TOO. Even files are CC-BY-4.0 (I doubt these are), they should also be marked as {{PD-logo}} if it applies. Notifying the uploader Norasky53. – BMacZero (🗩) 19:00, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Updated copyright laws

@Aymatth2 and Clindberg: regarding this. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 11:04, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Yemen (2012)

I accessed the WIPO database for Yemen, and found out that their current copyright law is the Law No. 15 of 2012 on the Protection of Copyright and Related Rights, which repealed the Intellectual Property Law (Presidential Decree No. 19 of 1994 on Intellectual Property), the law indicated at Yemen's CRT page. I can't say if this will change some things at COM:CRT/Yemen. Reading its "exceptions" (Chapter VII, Exceptions & Restrictions of Financial Rights — articles 40-48), it appears there is still no FoP provision. BTW, under Chapter II (Art. 3), protected works include:

  • 7. Works of lines or colors drawing, digging, graving, adornment, stone sculptures, metal or wood epigraphy, carpets, and any other works.
  • 8. Works of maps and Rocco schemes.
  • 9. Solid works concerning geography, topography, science or architecture.

_ JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 12:51, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Saudi Arabia (2018)

Kiribati (2018)

In the midst of the news that this south Pacific insular nation just welcomed the New Year 2021 (as of this writing), I did some browsing at COM:CRT/Kiribati, and thought the law that's being applied there is already outdated, the British-era 1917 Copyright Ordinance (Cap 16), revised and consolidated in 1998. So I did some search on WIPO Lex, and found out that they updated their copyright law in 2018. It is now the Copyright Act 2018. I immediately glanced at the limitations/exceptions, hoping that they retained the British-style FOP provision. To my disappointment, they removed anything that is FOP in their exceptions (14. to 25.) and introduced fair use-type provisions like private study, educational purposes, reporting of current events, and the like. IMO, it seemed that FOP was "detrimental to their culture". The "objects" (objective) of the law as outlined at 4. are: "govern copyright, the right to control the use and distribution of artistic and literary works in Kiribati; to promote the creation of literary and artistic work and to further productive activities in the field of communicating to the public authors' works; and protect the moral and economic interests of authors relating to their works, by recognizing exclusive authors' rights and providing for just and reasonable conditions of lawful use of authors' works and regulated access to them."

Sadly, Kiribati may fall to "red countries". JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 11:04, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Moin. Ich würde mal gerne wissen, ob dieses Bild als buchstabenbasiertes Logo betrachtet werden kann, damit man es frei auf Wikipedia hochladen darf. Ich weiß, dass irgendwo eine ähnliche Schriftart zum Herunterladen verfügbar ist, bin mir aber nicht sicher, ob sie für dieses Logo verwendet wurde oder nicht. Cheers. --Virum Mundi (talk) 11:15, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Sorry but you can't post the image to wiki media commons as it clearly states that you're not allowed to distribute or modify their material anyway here. --Red-back spider (talk) 08:09, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
IMHO the thing here is not whether this institute allows to distribute or modify their material, but whether this particular logo meets COM:TOO or not. Strakhov (talk) 05:52, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for chipping in, unfortunately I wasn't notified I had new messages although I have this page bookmarked. Well, as an outside source according to an expert lawyer in "Medien-Recht", this logo wouldn't be under legal protection since it contains letters aligned as words embellished with very simple squares. She knows the design because it's very popular in Alsterdorf, used by all the institutions of the local foundation. As an WP guideline she thinks it's consistent with "Nur sehr einfache Firmenlogos dürften daher auch weiterhin urheberrechtlich nicht geschützt sein. Dies betrifft insbesondere Logos, die eine typografische Gestaltung in Form eines Schriftzugs aufweisen, die nur durch wenige einfache Gestaltungsmittel ergänzt wird."
So, in case I am not told otherwise in the next couple of days (ich warte immer noch auf sachkundige deutsche Mitwirkenden), I will upload the image y que sea lo que dios quiera. --Virum Mundi (talk) 15:28, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
Looks like {{PD-textlogo}} to me. De728631 (talk) 15:32, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes, there are some more complex images in the examples which still fall under this definition, so I guess I would just upload it. Thanks. --Virum Mundi (talk) 20:12, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Conflicting licenses

So the PBS subsidiary ITVS has a YouTube series called Indie Lens Stories (counterpart to their Independent Lens film and television programming.) The YouTube posts are all CC-licensed. However the fine print all ends up looking like this (from this example):

This Series was produced by World of Wonder Productions which is solely responsible for its content. © 2017 World of Wonder Productions. All Rights Reserved.
License: Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)

What do we think? It’s PBS, not some random person uploading videos they don’t have rights to—I have to think distribution details like this are all spelled out in their production deals. But “All rights reserved” gives me pause. Thoughts? Innisfree987 (talk) 18:51, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

I do not see any contradiction. The video is licensed as CC-BY by copyright holders (World of Wonder Productions). Ruslik0 (talk) 20:57, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
Ah ok I see what you’re saying. Thanks, I appreciate your looking it over. Innisfree987 (talk) 01:33, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
I think the wording is conflicting but it is also not uncommon thing to do. :) I believe Ruslik0 got it right. Happy new year btw! --Palosirkka (talk) 16:34, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
@Palosirkka: thanks and happy new year to you too! Innisfree987 (talk) 17:40, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
@Innisfree987 and Palosirkka: I personally would not upload such videos without permission. It just seems like one of those too-good-to-be-true scenarios by people who click the wrong YouTube license, much akin to Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Videos by Bandai Namco (see also a similar problem with (Commons:Deletion requests/Template:Attribution-Ubisoft 3). -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK) 17:27, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
Oh I’m glad I saw this. I myself only just learned this week that a ping only works if you send it and sign the message in the same edit–passing that helpful tidbit forward. Meanwhile I see what you’re saying, Brainulator9—I was only interested in one screenshot but it’s true that actually it would make a huge amount of source material available... I have found an email that may be out of date but I can give it a shot. I’m just wondering, if they do answer, what happens next. Straightforward if it’s wrong, but if they say it’s right, how best to record that? I assume OTRS for this file but as you point out, it’s relevant to a large number of potential files... Innisfree987 (talk) 01:51, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Template:GODL-India

Please see COM:Help Desk#How is my photo shown as non-copyright ? and this related DR. It seems that the Government Open Data Licence of India is only valid for data published at a central platform https://data.gov.in/ but not for any and all content on the government websites. If true, this may impact thousands of photos that were bot-uploaded to Commons. De728631 (talk) 19:41, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

 Comment @De728631: this template was also being used as basis for keeping several images of Indian plaques and texts (which are not covered by COM:FOP India), like Commons:Deletion requests/File:Descriptive board, temples of Baijnath, Uttarakhand, India.jpg (I browsed several of them a while ago, in an attempt to categorized uncategorized Indian FOP case pages). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 14:16, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
The GODL-India license seems to be only used on data.gov.in, and I don't think we have identified an image with the license -- mainly for data sets. There is a long discussion at Commons:Deletion requests/Media in Category:Unreviewed photos of GODL-India and I think on the template's talk page as well. There was a time when many files were tagged with it, thinking it applied to many government works, but searches have found no evidence of that. In many cases, the tags were switched from other, valid tags, thinking GODL was better, but those should be switched back (so a review is needed, and not mass deletion). Some images were likely uploaded erroneously with the GODL tag initially, and should be deleted. The image in question looks like one of the ones which should be deleted. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:39, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

FOP in more "grey countries" revisited

Hello. Paging Aymatth2 and Clindberg for this discussion (though everyone can also put their inputs too).

I digged through links to the copyright law WIPO documents indicated at the bottom of CRT pages of the countries that are still grey-colored on our FOP map.

JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 03:19, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Central African Republic

(COM:CRT/Central African Republic), the copyright law (WIPO document link) is only available in French on WIPO database. I noticed two "limitation chapters" — "Capitre II Limitation permanente" and "Capitre III Limitations exceptionelles." Pinging @PierreSelim: (whom I noticed at French FOP cases).

    • @Aymatth2: Their article 15 looks to be about identical to the 1977 Bangui Agreement -- cinematography, broadcast, and television can use works of art and architecture, provided they are permanently placed in a public place, or are incidental to the main subject. Crucially for us, that omits photographs completely. But videos would appear to be OK. Carl Lindberg (talk) 07:04, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
      • Thanks Clindberg. I missed the "or" in "public place, or are incidental". I have corrected it. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:01, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
        • @Aymatth2: still this isn't free enough for most cases (marking the country as light green might mislead them and make them think that photos are OK). So I think the country's color on map (I requested Bes-ART to make such coloring updates) won't change for the meantime, unless they will amend their copyright laws to fit the needs of digital age and new media, where commercial reuses is increasing nowadays (in my opinion). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 13:09, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
          • I agree. Photographs are not o.k., which is the main concern. An excerpt from a film would be o.k., but only if the film was free, so this is a narrow exception. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:17, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Djibouti

(COM:CRT/Djibouti), while currently marked as "not OK", I closely examined the text "The reproduction of works of art or of architecture through cinematography or television and the communication of such works to the public if such works are permanently located in a place where they can be viewed by the public or are included in the film or program by way of background or as incidental to the essential matters represented." Perhaps the "three conditions" are separate after all? The three conditions (separated by "or") are: (1) "if such works are permanently located in a place where they can be viewed by the public or (2) are included in the film or program by way of background or (3) as incidental to the essential matters represented."

I interpret that as:
  • May reproduce through film or television and communicate to the public (through film or television)
    • If permanently in public place, or
    • Inclusion is incidental
So an outdoors work could be the subject of a TV or film documentary, or any work could be background to a TV show or film. That would not allow excerpts of clips from the TV show or film for commercial purposes, and would not allow photographs or sketches of the work. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:45, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
This also looks like the same wording as the 1977 Bangui Agreement. Videos yes, but photographs no. Carl Lindberg (talk) 07:06, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Eritrea

(COM:CRT/Eritrea): Provisional Commercial Code of Eritrea and Provisional Civil Code of Eritrea of 1993 (Extracts relating to Intellectual Property rights). Art. 1648 includes the following "Works of the mind": (c) the works of the figurative arts such as drawings, paintings, engravings and sculptures, as well as photographic and cinematographic works; and... (e) any other work created by the intelligence of their author and presenting an original character. I cannot find anything FOP-like starting from Art. 1652 ("Right of Publication").

  • I also see nothing in the law related to freedom of panorama, but works will usually be ok because of the lack of copyright treaties. I have added a section for COM:FOP Eritrea. Aymatth2 (talk) 15:23, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
Correction. Per Commons:Copyright rules works must be free in the country of origin as well as the USA, so there is no FOP. Prosfilaes (talk · contribs) caught that. Aymatth2 (talk) 12:28, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Eswatini/Swaziland

(COM:ESWATINI), it seems to be the British-era Copyright Act, 1912 (Commonwealth Copyright). Under section "Infringement of copyright." — "4. (1) Copyright in a work shall be deemed to be infringed by any person who, without the consent of the owner of the copyright, does anything the sole right to do which is by this Act conferred on the owner of the copyright: Provided that the following acts shall not constitute an infringement of copyright: (c) the making or publishing of paintings, drawings, engravings, or photographs of a work of sculpture or artistic craftsmanship, if permanently situate in a public place or building, or the making or publishing of paintings, drawings, engravings, or photographs (which are not in the nature of architectural drawings or plans) of any architectural work of art;..."

South Sudan

(COM:CRT/South Sudan), unfortunately there seems to be no FOP too. Its copyright law seems to be identical to Sudan's, specifically: 14. "(4) It shall be allowed to reproduce, translate or adapt a published work for personal and private use but this shall not apply to computer programs, data banks and scores of a musical work." It also bears fair use-like provisions for broadcasting organizations/outlets (14. (1)) and books/textbooks etc. (at 14. (3)). Perhaps COM:FOP Sudan should also be expanded to include explanation on why there is no FOP there.

  • I have added an explanation to COM:FOP Sudan saying why FOP is not allowed. I also added a section COM:FOP South Sudan. Although South Sudan has inherited the laws of Sudan, FoP is o.k. for now, since South Sudan is not party to any copyright treaties. Aymatth2 (talk) 17:31, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Wait, for Eritrea and South Sudan, why would they not being party to any copyright treaties matter? We don't permit works to be uploaded if they're in copyright in their home countries. There's no exceptions referring to copyright treaties in that rule.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:57, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
    • That's what I'd thought. See also COM:FOP Ethiopia and COM:FOP Iran (both not party to the Berne and not having copyright relations with the United States). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 00:17, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
      • My mistake - I have fixed it. South Sudan works are public domain in most countries including the United States, but have to also be free in the country of origin. Aymatth2 (talk) 12:36, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Gabon

@Aymatth2: I may need a clarification on Gabon's FOP (COM:FOP Gabon). Per the wording on their exception is it really OK or not? JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 13:55, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

I am not sure. It looks like photos are ok but maybe not video. The relevant article says:
  • "Works of art, including architectural works, permanently located in a public place, may be reproduced and made available to the public by means of cinematography, photography or television. The same shall apply where the inclusion of such a work in a film or a broadcast is of an accessory or incidental nature only in relation to the main subject."[1/1987 Article 37]
    • One reading is that photos are ok but film and TV are only allowed for incidental or accessory inclusion.
    • Another reading is that photos, film and TV are ok, and film and TV (but not photos) are also allowed for incidental or accessory inclusion. That seems a bit odd, since it would imply that photos can make the work the main subject but not incidental.
The second sentence seems unnecessary. Maybe the intent was to say "The same shall only apply where the inclusion of such a work in a film, photograph or a broadcast is of an accessory or incidental nature only in relation to the main subject." But that is not what it says.
Does anyone else have an opinion?Aymatth2 (talk) 14:29, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Paging @Clindberg, A1Cafel, and Jeff G.: JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 14:40, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

@Aymatth2: It's ambiguous, is there any case law or other analysis?   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 15:51, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
The second sentence does seem unnecessary, unless it's referring to non-permanent works which are incidentally included. "The same shall apply" sounds like it's an additional limitation being granted, not limiting the scope of the previous sentence. Unless "The same" should be translated more "The previous sentence", in which case Aymatth2's interpretation would be right.
Gabon is a party to the Bangui Agreement (joined in 1982); that treaty actually had a fully-formed copyright law (and trademark law, etc.) used if a country did not have a law of their own. For example, I think that was the Ivory Coast's law for a while, until they drafted their own. In Article 14 of the 1977 version, it says The reproduction, for the purposes of cinematography, broadcasting or television, and the public communication of works of art and of architecture permanently located in a public place or whose inclusion in a film or program is purely secondary and incidental to the main subject shall be lawful. Gabon's law has very similar wording, and that seems more explicit that the "incidental" part was for non-permanent works, so maybe Gabon was just trying to reword that into their new law. That would make the most sense with "The same shall apply"; in that case the "such a work" later in the sentence is referring only to the type of work, not its permanently-placed status. The Bangui Agreement was revised in 1999, with their stock law going from 50pma to 70pma, and also changing that freedom of panorama clause to have a non-commercial limitation if the work was the main subject. But Gabon had their own law by then, and does not seem to have changed theirs (they are still 50pma for example). I think it's most likely Gabon was just trying to reword the existing Bangui Agreement, meaning the "incidental" part is for non-permanent works. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:11, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps. That was also my reading, after re-reading the clause again. Perhaps the more-restrictive FOP-like provision was for the television and filmography. What do you think @Aymatth2: ? JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 01:13, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
Lindberg's explanation based on history makes sense. "Such a work" is not necessarily permanently in a public place. Film or TV, but not photos, can also include works in private places or temporary exhibitions etc. I will update COM:FOP Gabon. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:05, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
@Aymatth2: for color on the map, would light green be appropriate? JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 15:51, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
I think light green would work. The term "public place" tends to be poorly defined, so dark green may be misleading. Aymatth2 (talk) 17:29, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Somalia

BTW, I find Somalia's FOP status in doubt. COM:Somalia claims there was a 1977 copyright law, which I read (the link provided below that page) yesterday (Sunday, Philippine time). That is claimed to be largely unenforced. Nevertheless I read that there is a "fair dealing provision". The press law provided is more on rules for the media outlets (when I translated first provisions via Google machine). For Somalia, it's safe to say it will remain "grey" for sometime. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 15:51, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

  • As far as I can tell, the 1977 Somalia law does not mention freedom of panorama. On the other hand, it seems that works have to be registered to be protected. and there is nowhere to register works. Given the instability of the country, it is probably fair to assume that the situation will remain unclear for some time. Aymatth2 (talk) 17:29, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
  • The Somalian Wikipedia (so.wikipedia) has two non-Abuse Filter administrators @Maax and Ismail4all: , I wonder if both can tell us the recent status quo of Somalian copyright laws. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 01:13, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Equatorial Guinea

@JWilz12345 and Aymatth2: Looks like the Eq. Guinea also doesn't have explanations regarding FOP, any ideas? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 01:22, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

  • I do not see anything close to FoP in the 1879 law. Article 7 says nobody may reproduce other people's works without the permission of their owner. Article 10 says the prior consent of the author is required to copy works of art in public galleries while the author is alive, in the same or other dimensions. The default assumption is Not OK. The law covers scientific, literary or artistic works, maps, plans or scientific designs and music. Architecture is not explicitly mentioned, so copying may be allowed. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:00, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Comoros

Likely Comoros. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 01:40, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

@Clindberg: Any ideas about FOP in Comoros? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 01:59, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
The law on wipo.int is the French law from 1957 -- no FoP there, if that even is the law in effect (Comoros became independent in the 1970s, so have not passed their own). Comoros apparently joined the Bangui Agreement in 2013 (mentioned in the Gabon section above); that has a non-commercial FoP clause (and is video only anyways). Most likely that is their law at this point, but not sure. No real hope for FoP, I don't think. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:29, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Pre-1957 UK wireless broadcasts

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, Schedule 1, Paragraph 9, states:

No copyright subsists in— (a) a wireless broadcast made before 1st June 1957, or (b) a broadcast by cable made before 1st January 1985;

(See also w:Copyright law of the United Kingdom#Broadcast copyright.) This reasoning is invoked at File:Hughie Green 1955.jpg, and perhaps other files. Yet I see no mention of this provision in COM:United Kingdom, or in any related licensing tag. Should it be added? Wikiacc (talk) 04:29, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

What is the definition of "broadcast", in this context? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:03, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
I would imagine the legal meaning is slippery. Original work created for the broadcast may be copyright expired, but pre-recorded work replayed during a broadcast would not invalidate any pre-existing copyright claims. So a live news broadcast or a made-for-broadcast quiz may be public domain under this legislation, but a segment before it which simply replayed a separately recorded music performance would not. I agree, this would be super to add to COM:CRT. --Fæ (talk) 23:10, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
"Broadcast" is defined by section 6, which I'm not going to try to summarize. Note that as Fæ mentions, broadcasts will often be subject to other kinds of copyright, for instance in any sound recordings, films, or scripts that form part of the broadcast. I think this means that only unscripted live broadcasts are likely to be out of copyright. Even then, the lack of any requirement for originality in sound recordings may mean that the person who recorded the broadcast may own a copyright in it. --bjh21 (talk) 14:37, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps we can find a small handful of files that are free, by these` criteria, to test the water? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:35, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Estonia is a country where FOP is not OK but still have {{FoP-Estonia}}?

@JWilz12345, Pikne, Aymatth2, and A1Cafel: I wonder, which position is true in this topic? Or am I misreading that template? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 00:22, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

  • Estonia has partial freedom of panorama. A reproduction of a protected work is not allowed if the work is the main subject and the reproduction is to be used for commercial purposes. Otherwise it is allowed. The wording of the template should reflect the law's text. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:32, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
Aymatth2, my idea, when I created this template, was to use it in particular with works that are considered free since work doesn't incorporate another work as the main subject. Current wording that merely cites the law's text may as well be understood as it is placed next to particular work to question its freedom. If the original wording wasn't clear enough, then perhaps you can suggest a more clear wording that'd capture the original intent? Pikne 10:01, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
  • I changed the template to give the legal wording, which I think is clear enough. Not sure about renaming the template. I don't object but don't see the benefit. There is partial FoP. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:03, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
@Aymatth2: and @Pikne: . I don't consider it as FOP, but rather the Estonian de minimis. "If the work is not the main subject" sounds like de minimis to me. Also, take note of our FOP maps: File:Freedom of Panorama world map.svg and File:Freedom of Panorama in Europe.svg (from Wikimedia perspective) — Estonia is red. Unless there's major amendment in the copyright law, Estonia will remain as having no FOP (Commons-applicable FOP) for the time being. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 13:20, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
Yes, but the template and its wording didn't suggest otherwise, did they? The purpose of this template is/was to indicate why particular work, like this one, is considered free per FOP paragraph in Estonian law, leaving aside other aspects of FOP that are irrelevant to works permitted on Commons. Now this clarifying part is gone from template and there's little point to have such template. Also, the template already did follow the language of the law's text and it had a link to help page where the exact paragraph is cited.
The language of "not the main subject" is similar to de minimis, but I think it's better to follow and highlight the law's wording since not everything that corresponds to "not the main subject" necessarily also corresponds to de minimis. Pikne 14:00, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
None of the buildings is the main subject
"De minimis" means the protected work is a small, insignificant, trivial part of the picture. Estonia says the protected work cannot be the main subject, but presumably it could be quite prominent: much more than de minimis.
Certainly Estonia does not allow full freedom of panorama, so should not be green on the map. To keep it simple, we can leave it red. I would not object to renaming the template {{NoFoP-Estonia}}, or {{PartialFoP-Estonia}}, or just leaving it the same.
As for the wording, perhaps we could add a sort of title: "Main subject is not a protected work", followed by the text of the law. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:06, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
But why not say explicitly why the template is placed next to particular image and which part of the law's text is relevant? More or less the way it originally was. The entire paragraph seems kind of distracting to me, and I think a link to a page citing the entire paragraph is enough. Instead of "is" in "is not a protected work" I'd also feel more comfortable with "is considered" or something like that, as it usually isn't a matter of certainty, the same way as de minimis and threshold of originigality usually aren't when applied to particular work. Pikne 16:03, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
We generally keep photos where the copyrighted work is not the main subject (even if fairly prominent) -- I don't really know of any rulings anywhere to indicate otherwise. However, it's good that it is explicit in the law. That is, strictly speaking, different than legal de minimis, but we have included those "not the main subject" situations in our Commons:De minimis policy page before. Seems to be gone now, but explained more in the France link. That is different in that the copyrighted work can be quite prominent, as long as the focus is a wider subject. There would be a similar situation that crops of such photos could be a problem. It does look like Estonia's law is fine for most realistic purposes, except of course for commercial ones, which means it would normally be a "not OK" country on Commons. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:13, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
To be frank, I have no issues on the content of the template. It's fine to leave the content as it is. But I prefer renaming the template (perhaps {{NoFoP-Estonia}}) as it can mislead new uploaders / users / contributors. But whatever the final decision or consensus on the name of the template, I'll respect that. BTW, not related to the template but related to Estonian FoP, what's the update on Estonian FoP? Just saw an online article about it ([13]), dated 2018. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 08:00, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
Nothing has changed regarding Estonian FoP over the past decades, and it's not expected to change in near future either. Pikne 09:11, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure why in the first place one would think based on title "FoP-Estonia" that there's (full) FoP in Estonia. It seems neutral enough to me as it doesn't say anything about specific FoP sitution in Estonia. If template title is really an issue, then out of suggestions above I'd prefer "PartialFoP-Estonia". "NoFoP-Estonia" would indicate that there's a problem, while the template is used in particular for files that are considered to be free.
More importantly, if no one has a particular problem with template's original text which in my opinion more clearly said why the template exists (see above), then I suppose we can restore the text. Pikne 09:11, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Logistics of using two images which I believe have lapsed into the public domain

Hi there. I was directed here from Wikipedia's Teahouse with a question about image copyright. The issue I'm facing is that the Wisconsin Historical Society has on their website two images taken during or very close to the US Civil War, which I was hoping to use in the article Wikipedia:50th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment. With a gap of around 155 years, they've clearly lapsed into the public domain, but the society claims to have usage rights over them in what seems like a form of license laundering. The images in question are here and here. I contacted the society to see what they had to say on the matter, and they explicitly stated: "You are not able to use [these images] without permission and payment." They seem to have scanned them from their own collection, so this is ostensibly the only place the image exists anywhere online.

I've familiarized myself with Commons:2D copying and other relevant pages, and this seems like a very clear-cut case of a Hearn v. Meyer-type situation, but I still want to hear from the folks here about how I can/should proceed. TheTechnician27 (talk) 18:10, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

In the US, the copyright term always depends on the date of first publication. If those images were kept in private possession for decades and only recently transferred to the Historical Society, it may well be true that the Society now owns the copyright for them. Unpublished works where the author is not known are copyrighted for 120 years from the date of creation or 95 years from the date of publication whichever expires first. In the case of Charles H. Cox, we are talking about a carte-de-visite photo though which was originally intended to be spread and published. It is thefore reasonable to assume that this portrait was published already right after its creation, so it is now public PD (pre-1295 publication). The other image, however, looks like a sort of family portrait that might first have been published by the Historical Society. De728631 (talk) 19:54, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
Alright. So regarding the image of Charles H. Cox, since it's reasonable to assume it's public domain, how would I go about uploading it to Commons? Even if it's in the public domain, would it be appropriate to credit the WHS as where the image was found just out of courtesy? The last thing I want to do by uploading material that's not my own personal work is to step on anybody's toes, so I want to go about this as scrupulously as possible.
It's a bit of a shame that, if what you say is true, the US copyright system would allow the second image – a 155-year-old photograph taken by a long-deceased photographer – to still be copyrighted just because it may not have been published until recently, but I guess it is what it is. TheTechnician27 (talk) 20:37, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
If it’s truly 155 years old it must be PD: publication can’t revive an expired US copyright, only extend an extant one, and 120 years from creation is a firm limit. Regarding the previous question, I would still credit the source for its curatorial & digitization work; even if not copyrightable it’s an important part of the provenance.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 22:45, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
Unfortunately, no. 120 years from creation isn't a firm limit; The Cornell Chart shows a lot of cases where works could still be in copyright for more than 120 years from creation, and before 2003, unpublished works had an unlimited copyright duration, though common law makes it more complex. Works published before 2003 by long dead authors, with estates that controlled the copyright, don't leave copyright until 2048.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:26, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
@Prosfilaes: , even anonymous works? (I should have specified. Certainly a work by a known author created while xe was youngish gets more than 120 years if xe survives to old age; a child’s creation could conceivably get something like 175 years of protection if published late in life or posthumously.)—Odysseus1479 (talk) 03:59, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
See also User:Alexis Jazz/Assuming worst case copyright.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 04:02, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
An anonymous work with a known copyright holder, e.g. a work for hire held in IBM's archives for a century, could potentially be in copyright to the end of 2047 if it were first published with permission of copyright holder 1978-2002. Very old anonymous works are much less likely to be in copyright, because it's unlikely to have permission of copyright holder to first publish and have a long-dead anonymous author, but it is possible.--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:38, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
If it was first published with permission of the copyright holder after 2002, it would be out of copyright in the US. I'm not sure I agree with the Society now owning copyright on them; since at least 1978, transfer of item would not transfer copyright without extra documentation, and if they published without permission of the copyright holder, it wouldn't count. [14] basically disclaims all responsibility; they want to have their cake and to eat it too.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:26, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
De728631 So at the time of emailing the society, I actually sent a copy of the email regarding both photos to their reference archivist, who just recently got back to me. They state: "NOTICE: Any copies or scans of original documents that we provide are for personal reference use only. Permission of the copyright holder may be required for use, publication (including posting materials on publicly accessible websites), or reproduction. Researchers acknowledge that they are solely responsible for determining the copyright status of the materials they use and for obtaining any necessary permissions from the copyright owner. In most cases the libraries do not hold or manage intellectual property rights related to the materials, and access to materials does not constitute a grant of permissions." Does this give you any useful information in determining how to go forward from here? TheTechnician27 (talk) 19:50, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Unfortunately this is not helpful. For our uploads at Commons we need permissions that the works may be used by anyone for any purpose, so "personal reference" is insufficient. I'm also not impressed by said society. They could at least have told you who does own the intellectual property rights for the two images. De728631 (talk) 21:41, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
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