Commons:Deletion requests/Canadian National Vimy Memorial

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This deletion debate is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive.

Canadian National Vimy Memorial

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I think the above files may be candidates for deletion. Generally speaking, there is no Freedom of Panorama in France. If the English Wikipedia is correct, the memorial was built by Walter Seymour Allward. He apparently died in 1955. France's normal duration of copyright is 70 years after the author's death. This means the copyright would not expire on the memorial until 2026. Because of this, I don't think the above files can be freely licensed. There may be something I missed. If there is, I apologize in advance.--Rockfang (talk) 05:33, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - I just added the third image. I hope this is okay. Noone has commented here yet.--Rockfang (talk) 05:44, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - The argument for keeping these seems to me to have been very well made out here.  Roger Davies talk 14:05, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment - This discussion seems to me, to put bit mildly, a bit academic. While (and I'm not saying this is the case) there may be some potential for a possible infringement of copyright, who will bring such a claim? It certainly won't be the French government, this is a civil matter. It certainly won't be the owners of the monument as they expressly have no standing in French law. The only possible litigant is the successor in title, in other words, the artist's estate. Is this a realistic possibility? I don't know but I doubt it very much. Have there been any cases at all about infringement of copyright of monuments to the fallen, commissioned by national governmental organisations? I haven't heard of one and I imagine that, if one had been brought, the press outcry would have been enormous. Who, in their mind, would support a case - relying entirely on what would be inevitably and widely perceived as a loophole in French law - that prevented people publishing photographs of monuments on sacred ground, and erected for the sole purposes of honouring the hallowed fallen and easing the national grief? Bearing all this in mind, where would the French courts stand? And what would they decide, given the likely implications on the thousands of commemorative monuments to the two world wars in France? I know a former president of the French Court of Cassation - a former soldier, as it happens - well enough to guess his reaction. He wouldn't entertain it for a minute.  Roger Davies talk 08:10, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - As mentioned by Roger, the argument as to why French FoP does not apply in this case is layed out in the Category talk. In brief, the work is a collective work of the Canadian government, not a work by Walter Seymour Allward alone. The Canadian government has always considered it to be in the public domain and has never sought to enforce any kind of control, except on images it takes itself. --Labattblueboy (talk) 15:12, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - As typed by Leoboudv Skeezix1000 on that page "...the land was never deemed to be Canadian territory, and French laws still apply to the site as far as I know." Which means any comment regarding Canadian law is pretty much irrelevant. It isn't like some embassies where the building is on the "visiting" country's soil. Leoboudv Skeezix1000 appears to have misquoted the link he provided for more info. He typed: "...when several creators make inseparable contributions to a work..." but the actual document says "When several authors make inseparable contributions to a work..." I added the emphasis. There is a difference between an author and a creator. Though there may have been several physical creators, there was only one author. Allward was the designer and therefore the author. Also, French copyright deals with "...death of the author..." not death of the creator.--Rockfang (talk) 20:18, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is a bit of a stretch. For one, the donation of the site from France to Canada is part of an international treaty [1], which saw France donate land, for free use and made free of all duties and imposts, for the purpose of a monument. A similar approach was taken for every other first world war memorial and Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery, none of which have every been subjected to an FoP case, at least to my knowledge. I don't think the intent would have been to donate the land for a Canadian monument and enforce FoP, against the Canadian government's wishes.--Labattblueboy (talk) 23:47, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep The monument was commissioned by the Canadian government and paid for by the Canadian government. It was completed in 1936. The copyright would have expired in 2006 as a previous editor noted here. This is very clear. On another issue of legality, France permanently granted/donated 117 hectares of land to Canada in perpetuity in 1922 exclusively for the construction of this monument as this Canadian government site notes. This Canadian newspaper article states almost the same thing--only it was built in gratitude for Canada's sacrifices in World War I. So, Canadian FOP legally applies to the Vimy monument in this case. Why? Because it is a small piece of Canada in France. Paris had no objections relinquishing their ownership over this land before the monument was built so why would they object today in 2010? This monument was to honour Canada's war dead in France and even the bureaucrats in France recognised this long ago. I think we should leave these images alone unless someone wants to ask the government of France to take back ownership of the lands where the Vimy monument is located. --Leoboudv (talk) 23:56, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - @Labattblueboy: In that link you provided you seemed to have missed that part that says "...necessary ground of which the title will remain in the French Government." That along with the following quote in the treaty: "The French Government grants, freely and for all time, to the Government of Canada the free us of a parcel of 100 hectares..." (my bolding, and assuming "us" is a typo for "use") makes me think that Canadian government was granted/donated the use of the land, but the French Government still owns the land. Because they own the land, we follow French copyright.
    @Leoboudv: I think who commissioned the artwork, who paid the artist, and who maintains it means nothing in this case. The things do matter when talking about a "collective work". I don't think this is a collective work with regards to French copyright law. The wording in this document is:

    When several authors make inseparable contributions to a work, and a separate principal initiates and directs the process and takes responsibility for publishing the overall product, the principal takes all the ownership rights in the work.

    Like I said above, there weren't several authors, there was only one. So I don't think that loophole doesn't apply. Keeping this in mind, since it doesn't apply (in my opinion), we go back to the fact that France doesn't recognize "work for hire" and the rights belonged to Allward.
    @All: I notified Leoboudv of this discussion and I'm about to notify skeezix1000. I could be wrong, but I don't think this will qualify as canvassing because I think they'll probably disagree with me on this subject anyways. :) Rockfang (talk) 01:17, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, as I agree with the arguments made above and on the category talk page. I also think skeezix1000 should be invited to comment, and was about to notify them of this discussion (I would be interested to hear what the situation is with the CWGC architects and memorials). I also noted that Labattblueboy said "A similar approach was taken for every other first world war memorial and Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery, none of which have ever been subjected to an FoP case, at least to my knowledge" (I too haven't seen WWI memorials in France or Belgium challenged for FoP, but a search reveals plenty of such challenges for memorials in the USA). I took photographs of a WWI memorial in France that I visited in 2007 and I have been uncertain for the past year or so of the status of those photographs - for what it is worth, I think that French law does apply regardless of the land being given in perpetuity. I recently summed up my FoP concerns and responses for all the pictures I took in France (see here), and on the talk page of that page I summarised some of the details of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission architects (who were employed on a salary by the IWGC as it was then known) and I said there that I think a single debate for all those memorials and cemeteries would be useful (though the Vimy Memorial is different to the other CWGC memorials), followed by the drawing up of a template or set of templates summing up the situation, and then placing that template on all such images and image categories. I would prefer this approach to a piecemeal approach for each memorial and cemetery. Carcharoth (Commons) (talk) 02:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Withdraw - Apparently, I've wasted everyone's time with this request. That wasn't my intention. I apologize. Feel free to close this as withdrawn if desired.--Rockfang (talk) 10:01, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep Thanks for the note on my talk page, Rockfang - much appreciated. My comments may be academic, given Rockfang's withdrawal of the nomination. And I have already explained my views on the category talk page. I would note that there was an attempt above to distinguish between "creator" and "author", yet the document cited refers to them interchangeably (even referring once to "creator or author"), and it's a distinction without a difference as I could have just as easily used the word "author" on the category talk page. And Rockfang has offered no support for his assertion that Allward is the sole author under French law and that the engineers, architects and other members of the team are not considered authors. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 12:47, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Kept, as nomination was withdrawn and as images seem to be covered by Canadian FOP. --Túrelio (talk) 08:52, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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