Commons:Deletion requests/File:Barakamon logo.gif
Japanese calligraphy surpasses COM:TOO#Japan Thibaut120094 (talk) 09:44, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
- To establish originality, according the Japan law, there is a need to establish "thoughts or sentiments are expressed in a creative way".
- So the question to answer is: "what thoughts or sentiments are expressed in a creative way in the choices made by the author during a calligraphy session?".
- If a reasonable answer to this question could be offered, we should delete this file, if not, we should keep it --Dereckson (talk) 10:01, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
- P.S. If we've a contributor versed in Japan legal precedents search, we could ask them to try to find if there are cases about copyright and calligraphy.
- That is not a picture anyway. Japanese calligraphy of whom? I don't think a digital 2D ばらかもん logo surpasses the threshold of originality. The shape is just stylized, exactly as the Japanese laws allow.--Sakretsu (talk) 10:19, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
- Probably by the author of the manga, the painting was obviously scanned/digitized and yes "thoughts or sentiments are expressed in a creative way" in Japanese calligraphy since this is an art.
- In any case, this image does not only consists of "simple geometric shapes or text". --Thibaut120094 (talk) 11:42, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
- That is not a picture anyway. Japanese calligraphy of whom? I don't think a digital 2D ばらかもん logo surpasses the threshold of originality. The shape is just stylized, exactly as the Japanese laws allow.--Sakretsu (talk) 10:19, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
I looked into this archive of copyright-related court precedents and will quote here. Translation mine.
| “ | Letters themselves should be available as common property for all to use, considering its utility in information transfer. [...] However, such calligraphic works that are created by artists and admired as artworks would be those where the creator has a wide variety of elements including form, movement and speed of the brush, thickness of the ink, and ink-spread to choose and adopt; and it is natural that creative expressions that would be considered "calligraphy" should be treated as copyrighted works as products of the creator's intellectual and cultural mental activity, regardless of whether the creator is a professional calligrapher or not. | ” |
The Barakamon logo in question here is depicted in a unique style -- certainly not like any of the traditional calligraphy styles -- with lively lines in the individual letter forms and rhythm in the overall letter balance. (Notice how ば and も are larger while ら, か and ん are smaller to reflect the rhythm of the title. This size difference ventures out from standard orthography.) Going back to the case precedent, this case happens to be a case where the calligraphy in question was used as a store logo. The court decision continues with how we should think about the utilitarian aspect of calligraphy as a logo and how copyright protection might or might not reach too far when it comes to the best interest of the public. The court rules that utilizing a work of art would not strip creativity from the work, and hence will not affect the outcome whether it's being used as a logo or admired as pure art, and finally rules that
| “ | for those works that possess sufficient artistic creativity to satisfy the aesthetic sense of an average citizen should be given copyright protection as works of art. | ” |
I agree that the conclusion comes down to be subjective, as is any case on TOO. If you ask me, an average citizen, it looks like calligraphy like I mentioned earlier, so I lean towards delete. However my opinion does not rule out a different average citizen thinking otherwise.
Note 1: There's another incident deliberated in Tokyo District and Tokyo High Court, but since the part about "what makes calligraphy copyrightable" looks pretty much the same so I will merely link and not translate.)
Note 2: Please do not blanket-apply the same argument to all the media in Category:Japanese calligraphy logos. For instance, both File:IDEMITSU KOSAN logo.png and File:Yamaichi Securities logo.svg look like they're written in standard styles to me, and lacks the unique calligraphic expressions like the Barakamon logo. [Edit: I realized that there's a high chance that Yamaichi Securities logo was designed old enough to be copyright-expired, but my point was to argue that TOO of calligraphy could easily sit on the fence and should be looked at on a case-by-case basis.]
--朝彦 | asahiko (talk) 14:00, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
- Thank you for the detailed explanation. I agree now that the file should be deleted--Sakretsu (talk) 14:40, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
Deleted: as above. --Yasu (talk) 15:12, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
