Commons:Deletion requests/File:Damascus Eyalet, Ottoman Empire (1609).png

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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:Damascus Eyalet, Ottoman Empire (1609).png

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This is almost certainly under copyright. The uploader (User:Underlying lk) described it as "own work" but also points to the source here. The uploader may have made some changes (including cropping out the "copyright Infobase Publishing" notice) but this is clearly a derived work. Or if the uploader is claiming that he is Infobase Publishing or the cartographer of the original map (wouldn't matter probably as it's apparently work done for hire) it would be strange for him to have released this recent (2008) work and I'd like to see an OTRS ticket for that. Uploader has apparently uploaded lots of other stuff and someone might want to check that out also. Herostratus (talk) 13:27, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Herostratus: this is a simple map of Europe and part of the Middle East, and the only original authorship by the creator is the addition of simple lines to show the border of the Ottoman Empire. If that falls under copyright protection, I don't see how it is possible to create a free map of any historical state without resorting to original research. This is true of any other historical map such as those in Category:Territorial evolution for example, even where no source is credited directly.--Underlying lk (talk) 20:13, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's a lot more than a simple map of Europe and the Middle East, and it shows a lot more than the border of the empire; it shows the internal borders of each province, and somewhere down the line a fair amount of historical research had to be conducted to get those right. Your argument appears to come down to "If we don't consider this file to be free, then it would be impossible to have free maps of historical states, and we need those, so therefore it must be free" which comes down to "We need it, so it's free", and I don't find that convincing.
It may be that the original research ultimately devolves to work that has aged out of copyright, was donated to the public domain, was a US Government work, or whatever. Dunno about that, but in that case your best bet is to find and use those sources, and anyway one thing I do know is that the original has a big honken notice "Copyright Infobase Publishing" and we generally respect that I think. If your contention is that the copyright notice is false (if it is I guess Infobase Publishing might be breaking the law), the burden is on you to demonstrate that I would think. Herostratus (talk) 20:41, 14 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Herostratus: When I described it as simple I meant geometrically simple, as opposed to more elaborate maps, not that it can be effortlessly created. The amount of effort required is not a factor for copyright consideration, at least not in the US. Originality is, and the source map simply has no original content other than those black lines depicting the borders. In your opinion, are the black lines on this file more copyright-protected than, say, the lines on this file? Both required extensive amounts of research to be created, and other than the nature of the lines (one being a chart and the other a map) I cannot think of any differences between the two.--Underlying lk (talk) 01:39, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I guess not. I suppose that file is also under copyright -- it's not even compiled by you from text data, but is a straight-out screenshot of a chart that Pautz made. You uploaded it as uncopyrightable since it's just simple geometry. It's not simple geometry and you seriously need to stop uploading files like that and making claims like that. That is intended for things like circles. It's true that it's made up of fairly simple geometric shapes, but so what? So are most of Paul Klee's paintings, are you going to claim that they are uncopyrightable too? The point is that the way the shapes are arranged is intellectual work, and that applies to Pautz as well as Klee. So anyway, this argument is not helpful to you.
BTW you commonly hear that Commons is broken, but is it also now abandoned? Does no one populate these discussions anymore? What we have here is a nominator and an uploader not agreeing, and if there are no other participants or even an admin to close, it's not clear how these things can be decided, which I guess devolves to "anything may be uploaded since there's no longer any mechanism to gainsay this", and if that's true then on that basis maybe the image is allowable. Herostratus (talk) 03:26, 16 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It just takes some time before the discussion is closed. This is an issue, and if you wish to contribute the best thing you can do is to add your opinion to other deletion discussions.
About this file, if you think even charts fall under copyright then of course you would think this one needs to be deleted (even though neither are works of art, like a Paul Klee painting would be). Someone more knowledgeable of copyright laws than either of us will have to give its opinion on which interpretation is the right one. By the way, the cinema attendance chart wasn't compiled from raw figures because none were published. As you rightly said, necessity doesn't create a right, but in these cases the lack of originality does.--Underlying lk (talk) 04:52, 16 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted: Derivatives of non-free content are forbidden on Commons FASTILY 07:47, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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