Commons:Deletion requests/File:Fiji Students Association of Wellington 1960.jpg
This file was initially tagged by Joofjoof as Copyvio (Copyvio) and the most recent rationale was: Photo is credited to Crown Studios of Wellington, whose proprietors died after 1972 [1]. The source link also does not permit commercial usage. |source=
Converted to regular DR to allow for discussion, as per protest by uploader. -- Túrelio (talk) 10:31, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
- Delete - Employees of photo studios do not own copyrights. The latest owner of Crown Studios died in 2001. Joofjoof (talk) 10:43, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
- Keep - as mentioned, they fall under "PD-New Zealand" Licence as they qualify on all the relevant ground such as
- photo taken or work published prior to 1 January 1972 (50 years ago) [ Image was taken sometime in the year 1960]
- Released before 1 January 1972 (50 years ago) [It was released in 1960]
Also the images's copyright status on natlib is listed as Unknown which is a clear indication that its not copyrighted or it would have been listed as such. If you search Crown Studios Wellington, we have a few hundred images of them on commons, majority were uploaded by admins over the span of 15 years, including Materialscientist who is also an admin, i just took cue from him on what is allowed here or else i rarely bother with old images...--Stemoc 10:44, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
- Photos taken prior to 1918 (for example, File:Henry Butland 1893.jpg) were under a different ownership. Joofjoof (talk) 10:58, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
- nope, a majority of photos on commons from Crown Studios Wellington were taken between 1950-1965.. Stemoc 11:22, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
- Photos taken prior to 1918 (for example, File:Henry Butland 1893.jpg) were under a different ownership. Joofjoof (talk) 10:58, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
Kept, per discussion. Taivo (talk) 07:38, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
I had nominated this for deletion a few days ago due to potential copyright issues, but it was erroneously closed by an administrator as keep. So I'm re-nominating it for deletion. What this comes down to is that the source website says the copyright status is unknown. Although the photograph was taken by an employee of the New Zealand based photography studio Crown Studios. According to this document in Australia "a work created in the context of employment is owned by the employer." In fact most, if not all, modern western countries follow the same standard. So I assume it also apply to New Zealand they have extremely similar laws due being members of the Berne Convention. The only instance where the copyright is not owned by the employer is when it's explicitly stated by an agreement, which there isn't evidence of in this case. There is also zero evidence that there is an exception for employees of photography studios. Therefore, the employer of Crown Studios and copyright holder would be Frank Thompson, and he died in 2001. So this image is copyrighted until at least 2071. Thanks. Adamant1 (talk) 01:47, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
- Keep I agree with the previous assessment, and our long standing policy on images from that studio. --RAN (talk) 02:36, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
-2022-07-10T02:36:00.000Z-Adamant1-2022-07-10T01:47:00.000Z){kind=link}
- @Richard Arthur Norton: Can you link to where the long standing policy on images from this studio is? Because I've done a lot of research about it and I couldn't find one. Hell, even if you look through the deletion request archive for "Crown Studios" mine are the only ones that exist. I'm not sure how there can be a long standing policy about something that hasn't been discussed and has no images related to it nominated for deletion before. Another thing is that the whole "a work created in the context of employment is owned by the employer" is directly from a Commons legal packet. I doubt there would be a long standing policy that directly goes against Commons' own legal documents. Otherwise, we have to believe Commons' own documents can't be trusted or followed, which just seems weird. That said, I'd be happy to withdraw this if you can show me where the longstanding policy about it is. --Adamant1 (talk) 02:59, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
-2022-07-10T02:36:00.000Z){kind=link}
- Keep In NZ, copyright is usually owned by the employer default ([2]), but this arrangement doesn't seem to affect the duration of the copyright, so I assume copyright duration follows the existing rules. Since we can't identify the author, I think it's reasonable to follow the "unknown author" duration of Publish+50 years ({{PD-New Zealand}}#A) which would result in this file being PD. -M.nelson (talk) 22:17, 13 July 2022 (UTC) Oops, mistakenly voted delete initially -M.nelson (talk) 17:27, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
- @M.nelson: I'm not trying to beat a dead horse here or anything, but if the employer is the first owner of any copyright in the work then wouldn't the copyright term be their life plus 70+ years since they own the copyright? Otherwise it seems like you'd have to treat the copyright like it would expire 50 years after date of publication even in cases where the owner/copyright holder is still alive, which just seems weird. Like say the owner/copyright holder owns the copyright when they are 20 but lives to be 90. Do they just magically lose ownership of the copyright when they turn 70 or something? Personally I'd need some evidence to believe the law worked that way. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:13, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
- @Adamant1: As far as I know (from a lot of Googling), only the ownership of the copyright is transferred to the employer, without affecting duration. All commentary around copyright duration seems to refer strictly about the author of the work, not the owner of the copyright.
It seems like if the author becomes unknown, they do indeed magically lose copyright. I'm sure most works have a known author when they're created, so ought to be copyrighted for that creator's lifetime and then 50 years more, but if someone later investigates and "it is not possible for a person who wishes to ascertain the author’s identity by reasonable inquiry"[1], the work does indeed magically fall into the public doman. Though odd, through a lot of Googling I haven't encountered anything that suggests that that isn't how the law works. -M.nelson (talk) 22:33, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
- @Adamant1: As far as I know (from a lot of Googling), only the ownership of the copyright is transferred to the employer, without affecting duration. All commentary around copyright duration seems to refer strictly about the author of the work, not the owner of the copyright.
- @M.nelson: I'm not trying to beat a dead horse here or anything, but if the employer is the first owner of any copyright in the work then wouldn't the copyright term be their life plus 70+ years since they own the copyright? Otherwise it seems like you'd have to treat the copyright like it would expire 50 years after date of publication even in cases where the owner/copyright holder is still alive, which just seems weird. Like say the owner/copyright holder owns the copyright when they are 20 but lives to be 90. Do they just magically lose ownership of the copyright when they turn 70 or something? Personally I'd need some evidence to believe the law worked that way. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:13, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
- Hhhhmmm OK. That's kind of odd, but thanks for looking into it at least if nothing else. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:41, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
Kept: per discussion. --IronGargoyle (talk) 14:55, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
