Commons:Deletion requests/File:Double ended Weston Road.jpg
To meet Commons requirements, image must be PD in Canada and the U.S. Assuming image was taken in 1948, image has been PD in Canada since January 1, 1999, but image would have had to have been PD in Canada by January 1, 1996 for it to have been PD in the U.S. Even if the image is not 1948, we have no other concrete information as to the date, so the precautionary principle kicks in. Skeezix1000 (talk) 23:56, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Comment WRT precautionary principle, and how we should react to the "Uruguay round" -- I have heard rumors of this, but in none of the discussions I have participated in has anyone pointed to a policy, or to a consensus reaching decision in a major fora.
- If we discount the Uruguay round then there isn't any question this image qualifies for {{PD-Canada}}.
- I wasn't aware of any discussion about the Uruguay round. As I understand it, US images and US documents had to have their copyright renewed, individually, at the 28(?) mark. Individual renewal was sufficiently onerous, time-consuming and expensive, and major studios decided not to bother to renewal on major hollywood films, like "It's a wonderful life".
- Pre-internet the main usage of historical images, kept by professional archivists, was for the internal use within their organization, and by occasional scholars who got special permission to go through the paper copies. It is theoretically possible that Canadian archivists decided to go the trouble of individually renewing the US copyright on images in their archives. Frankly, however, this is so vanishingly unlikely, that I think it is a huge mistake to apply the "precautionary principle". Let's not be more Catholic than the Pope.
- The Toronto Public Library has a collection of 15,000 images from collector James Victor Salmon. Salmon died in 1958. An image from his collection I uploaded was challenged a couple of months ago. Normally images he took would have entered the public domain 50 years after his death, in 2008, even if his heirs wanted to keep all the intellectual property rights. In that discussion, someone said that as per the Uruguay round, the image would have had to be in the public domain in 1996(?) when the Uruguay round kicks in. As per above, the onerous, time-consuming and expensive copyright renewal process would have had to have been performed prior to 1978.
- I corresponded with an archivist at the Toronto Public Library, who confirmed that the Library considered the images to have entered the public domain 50 years after his death.
- On the other hand, he was surprised to hear that US copyright status of the images was in question. It is highly counter-intuitive that a public domain image would still be considered copyright in the states. It was my impression that no one at the Library would ever have any interest in exercising US intellectual property rights on Canadian images in their archive. If that was to be made official it would have to be chief archivist to make it so. I am going to seek an OTRS to that effect from the libraries chief archivist. I am going to seek similar OTRS from the City of Toronto Archives, and other archives, here in Canada.
- While we know most of our historical images come from archives, this image states that it is "copyright Joseph Testagrose". Unlike Salmon Testagrose was not from the GTA -- he seems to have been a prolific American collector of railway images. Did Testagrose take this image while visiting Toronto? Maybe. It also possible that he purchased this image, and its intellectual property rights, from an unknown Canadian photographer -- explaining the copyright notice. It also possible that he purchased this image from an unknown Canadian photographer, without realizing that the original copyright holder would have had to separately sell the IP rights to him before he could watermark them with a copyright claim. Even if he purchased the IP rights, Testagrose would still need to have renewed the copyright at the 28 year mark.
- I wrote to one of the webmasters who explicitly thanked Testagrose on his site. He implied he had been in contact with Testagrose. Perhaps he can shed some light on this. Geo Swan (talk) 16:07, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
- Renewal of copyright is only relevant to domestic U.S. images or images published in the U.S. less than 30 days after publication abroad. It isn't a relevant consideration for copyright status of Canadian images under U.S. law.
Even with American works subject to the renewal consideration, one needs proof of publication during the period that copyright renewal was an issue (before 1964 IIRC). So even if we argued that this Testagrose image should be treated as a U.S. image, we need to either demonstrate that it was published in the U.S. (and not published first in Canada more than 30 days before publication in the U.S.), otherwise the copyright term is the life of the author + 70 years. Like many of these historic shots in archival or personal collections, they were likely not published until they were made available on the internet.
As for the Salmon images, the copyright period for pre-1949 Canadian photographs runs from the date of creation, not the date of the photographer's death. If that particular Salmon image was from 1949 or later, the copyright in Canada would have expired as you said in 2008, but not in the U.S.. In the U.S., copyright of that foreign image would run for 95 years after publication date (or 70 years after the death of the photographer if unpublished) unless the image was PD in Canada prior to January 1, 1996 (the URAA date in Canada). Whether Salmon's heirs renewed copyright is irrelevant for a non-U.S. image.
As for OTRS, if you got confirmation from the TPL and/or COTA that images for which they hold or held the copyright are considered by them to be public domain worldwide once they are public domain in Canada (the worldwide aspect is the key), then I would give you a massive hug!!! Similar cofirmation was obtained from the U.K. copyright office for British images subject to the 50-year crown copyright rule in the U.K. It would be wonderful if we could get something similar for Toronto images. Contact me if you wish to discuss.Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:11, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
- Renewal of copyright is only relevant to domestic U.S. images or images published in the U.S. less than 30 days after publication abroad. It isn't a relevant consideration for copyright status of Canadian images under U.S. law.
Deleted: Unclear copyright status. Unless we have clear, explicit written/textual, tangible evidence indicating that this file is indeed freely licensed under a Commons compatible license, we cannot host it on Commons FASTILY (TALK) 22:17, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
