Commons:Deletion requests/File:碎-order.gif

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This deletion discussion is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive. You can read the deletion policy or ask a question at the Village pump. If the circumstances surrounding this file have changed in a notable manner, you may re-nominate this file or ask for it to be undeleted.

File:碎-order.gif

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It says that this file was took from http://www.chunom.org/pages/788E , but that site do not specifies the if the character image has a license compatible with wikimedia commons. FanNihongo (talk) 07:16, 20 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I uploaded that file a while back, when I was in my early teens. Back then I did a fair amount of stupid stuff arising from my lack of knowledge of the proper Wikimedia procedures. If this file cannot be hosted here, it should of course be deleted. With that said, isn't there a consensus that files only consisting of text glyphs are not copyrightable? —VulpesVulpes42 (talk) 09:10, 20 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I do not know anything about that consensus or if that changes anything. So I opened this discussion so that the community can discuss whether it should be kept or not.
Note: I am currently an active contributor of the Stroke Order Project and I have plans to remake these files, but this is a long term project, if these files are not deleted I will simply have to just upload them as a new version. FanNihongo (talk) 02:57, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Weak keep My interpretation of US copyright law is that mere fonts, facts, and common knowledge are not copyrightable. Based on my (albeit somewhat limited) extent on the knowledge of the Chinese language, stroke orders are considered facts and common knowledge, like spelling in English. However, the country of origin of the file appears to be Vietnam. I am not completely familiar with the threshold of originality in Vietnam, and the threshold may be significantly lower that it is in the United States --ShyAlpaca482 (talk) 00:31, 17 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion about this at the Village pump is now archived. FanNihongo (talk) 05:33, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  •  DeleteI just discovered that the discussions at the Village pump can be revived so I did it. Here is the link there are my reasons why this and the rest of the files should be deleted. FanNihongo (talk) 06:37, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep The stroke orders of characters is something people learn early on in school, there is nothing original about these images. Stroke orders of Latin characters, even non-English ones, are not deleted, so the same applies here. There is no difference. This is PD-inegible, see Commons:TOO.--Snaevar (talk) 16:34, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
 Support I am agree with this, these characters are ancient, and therefore in public domain, I think. FanNihongo (talk) 05:53, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Delete This work should be protected under common law sweat of the brow. These are not Latin characters. Characters are utilitarian, but some hand drawn Chinese characters get copyright protection as calligraphy. Courts have ruled calligraphy can be copyrighted; it does not prevent me from making my own calligraphy of the same characters; it just prevents me from using the original calligraphy. Stroke order may be well known and obvious, but the author made a movie of the strokes; he made choices about timing and filling the strokes. There was effort in producing the movie. TOO is high in the US, but it is not high in the UK and other places. Glrx (talk) 22:02, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Glrx: As far as I can tell, the country of origin of the file is Vietnam (unless there is some blatant evidence that I am missing to prove otherwise, which is completely possible). The threshold of originality in the United States is high and the TOO in the United Kingdom is low, but it might not necessarily as low in Vietnam as it is in the UK. Unfortunately, COM:CRT/Vietnam does not provide much guidance on the topic of threshold of originality there. --ShyAlpaca482 (talk) 16:01, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@ShyAlpaca482: . Put it this way. A site in Vietnam has made a copyright claim about this GIF file because it has specified licensing terms. We have no argument that the claim is invalid. The file should go.
There is an argument that the GIF could be copyrighted in the US as exceeding US TOO. It is not a 2-D (x,y) image but rather a 3-D (x,y,t) sequence of images. There are creative choices in the timing and speed of the strokes even if the stroke order is set by custom. Consider the GIF as a video. If somebody in the US took a video of a person drawing Chinese characters, I believe that video would have a copyright. I could not use that video without permission. I could make my own video of someone drawing the same characters (I could even hire the same person to draw the same characters on the same size piece of paper). The first person's copyright does not prevent me from distributing my video, but it does prevent me from distributing his video.
In the US, the Statue of Liberty is old enough to be be public domain. Anybody can take a picture of it. But that does not mean that any picture of the Statue of Liberty is therefore public domain. I cannot use somebody's recent picture of the Statue of Liberty without their permission.
Although courts have addressed TOO for images, I doubt they have addressed TOO for GIFs. Glrx (talk) 18:27, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Glrx: I concur with the judgement that a video should have copyright. There is originality and creative decision in camera placement, lighting, etc. (you might even make an argument that the choice of writing utensil can be original). However, a black-and-white GIF has none of that. Consider this: a 3D work can still fall below the threshold of originality. While I am unfamiliar with the threshold of originality in Vietnam, I believe that in the US, a court would consider a generic white 3D model of a sphere to have insufficient originality for copyright protection. I understand that a picture of something in the public domain is not necessarily in the public domain. If it is sufficiently original, it is considered a derivative work and can have its own copyright, but that is not my argument here (I mainly believe that the image is insufficiently original and falls below TOO). As an example, we have brand logos hosted here on Commons under the justification that they are not sufficiently original (example, example). --ShyAlpaca482 (talk) 17:24, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@ShyAlpaca482: Under your logic, a color video may have a copyright, but a black and white video may not? The GIF-maker made decisions about placement and speed of drawing the character. What court in the US, Vietnam, or elsewhere has declared that those decisions are not subject to copyright? I understand that you believe anyone could make a similar video of drawing the character and get substantially the same video. That does not mean such videos cannot be copyrighted. Just because my picture of the Statue of Liberty looks very similar to hundreds of others' pictures does not mean all the pictures are below TOO and in the public domain. Maybe a court will (or has) decided that a sequence of dozens of images is below TOO, but until one can be cited, I do not think the original author's claim should be challenged.
I dislike Commons using this video on another ground. As I understand it, the Vietnamese website is there to teach literacy and how to write characters. The website is building a library of GIF stroke order videos. Now some Commons users want to come along, appropriate those animated GIFs, and essentially drive the website out of business using the website's own content. Under your viewpoint, any simple stroke-order animated GIF the website publishes is public domain and can be moved to Commons. To me, it's OK to compete with the website's efforts, but it is not OK to take their stuff. Moving such videos to Commons may be trying to achieve the greater good, but that does not mean it is legal. The goal of copyright is to encourage efforts such as the Vietnamese website; if the website's work can be copied, then the effort is discouraged.
Glrx (talk) 18:18, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Glrx: Allow me to clarify my viewpoint. I meant that color vs. black-and-white is merely one of many things we look at to determine sufficient originality. Just because a video does not have color does not mean it is ineligible for copyright. There are plenty of copyrighted black-and-white movies out there, and rightfully so, they are original works of their authors (even if adapted from public domain material, e.g. early Cinderella movies). Other aspects which a court might consider if a black-and-white video should be eligible for copyright might include lighting decisions, camera placement, etc. However, the GIF is not a video that recorded by a camera, so lighting, camera placement, choice of writing utensil, etc. do not apply. I understand that that alone does not prove that there should be no copyright on the video — many copyrighted works are born digital (such as a work of digital art made in software like Microsoft Paint). But the work in question contains solely work already in the public domain (stroke order), with almost no creative decisions of the author. I do not believe that adding other colors to the GIF would put it above the threshold of originality, as that is not sufficient creativity. I am basing part of my argument on these images that were ultimately decided to be OK for Commons and below the threshold of originality, despite being quite complex at first glance. --ShyAlpaca482 (talk) 15:05, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You also mentioned that "it's OK to compete with the website's efforts, but it is not OK to take their stuff." While some may believe taking a website's images to compete with them may be morally incorrect, copyright law unfortunately does not concern itself with morals and ethics and does not differentiate between taking someone else's work to build on top of it or taking someone else's work to compete with them. Nowhere in the copyright laws of most countries of the world will a clause saying something along the lines of "if you don't attempt to use a work to compete with an individual or organization, it's OK to infringe someone else's copyrights" (with the exception of fair use/fair dealing I suppose, but fair use does not apply on Commons and I am not arguing that this picture is fair use). Other laws like laws disallowing slander and libel might apply if the information is false, but I see no problem with that in the case of this image (since the information is not false and does not damage the original website's reputation). Copyright law merely looks at whether an object is copyrightable (threshold of originality), and I believe that is the main argument here.
Intellectual property law does not concern itself with whether the protections it provides would be a benefit or detriment to society as a whole. For example, I am personally against the idea of copyrights being 95 years long for corporations in the United States and I think it stifles the creativity of many up-and-coming authors, and I'm sure there are many others who share this viewpoint. However, the law stipulates that that is the case, so unfortunately I cannot post any copyrighted music on Commons or anywhere else on the Internet, no matter if it would be the right or wrong thing to do. Conversely, a copyright expires eventually (usually 70 years after an author's death, but it is different for every country) no matter what. The heirs of William Shakespeare (who died in 1616), no matter how much they want to, cannot restrict the ways his plays are performed or demand royalties for any performances. Again, it's not a matter of what is morally right or wrong or what the authors want. The law stipulates what is allowed or disallowed. --ShyAlpaca482 (talk) 15:05, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It also seems that sweat of the brow does not apply here. Vietnam does not appear to have a "sweat of the brow" doctrine, unlike the UK and other common law countries. --ShyAlpaca482 (talk) 17:27, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
 Disagree This topic is more complex than I thought, to me those arguments are still open, until they can be discussed with calm, patience, and from a trusty source. Note: I will only comment on this file and on this other file, in order to have one place to discuss that never closed discussion at the Village pump, because if this file is kept I will accept that. Else I can use this discussion to appeal and delete the other files(只, 仍, 世, 固, 尼, 𠓨, 碎). FanNihongo (talk) 07:18, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@FanNihongo: proposed deletion and also voted above. Glrx (talk) 19:11, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted: PD in the US but unclear in VietNam therefore PRP applies. .     Jim . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 15:31, 5 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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