Commons:Deletion requests/File:Glendale Comfort Woman Plaque.jpg
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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.
No FOP for outdoor plaques shot obliquely in the US. — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 05:27, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
- Keep. Plaques with plain text are not works of art, as they demonstrate no "originality" which sets off a work of art. Plaques are not specifically mentioned in Commons:Copyright_rules_by_territory/United_States#Freedom_of_panorama, so it is a stretch to claim that plaques are not allowed. The plaque in question contains only plain text in English, without any artwork whatsoever. Binksternet (talk) 18:48, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
- @Binksternet: Isn't that text long enough to be copyrighted? — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 19:47, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
- Completely different legal matter, unrelated to freedom of panorama. With no author listed and no copyright notice on the plaque, it wouldn't matter. Binksternet (talk) 20:18, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
- @Binksternet: It is public artwork installed in the US after March 1, 1989 that is not a building. More specifically, the plaque pictured is copyrighted 2013-07-30 by the City of Glendale, California. See Commons:Public art and copyrights in the US. — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 21:01, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
- Again, a plain text plaque is not art. Do you have proof that the City of Glendale holds the copyright to the text in the plaque? If so, that copyright would certainly have been mentioned in the court case Michiko Gingery v. City of Glendale, which determined that a Japanese-American citizen's complaint against the statue had no merit. The court case agrees that the plaque text is from the City of Glendale, based on similar text from a similar Seoul statue, but we can all see it was published without a copyright notice on the plaque, having no author and only a date. Australian women's rights professor Vera Mackie wrote about this monument in Glendale, saying that "the Glendale statue has brought controversy, with Japanese denialists putting pressure on the local government for the removal of the statue." Binksternet (talk) 21:25, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
- @Binksternet: Copyright notice is not necessary any more in the US since March 1, 1989. See also COM:PACUSA#March 1, 1989 to the present and COM:VPC#Plaques. Pinging @Clindberg for comment. — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 21:38, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
- You are still assuming the same protection for a plain text plaque that is provided for a work of art. The work of art is protected, but incidental materials are not, such as the plinth or platform or base, or the descriptive display or didactic plaque describing the art. Binksternet (talk) 23:02, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
- None of it is copyrightable really... except the text. And that is protected as a literary work, just as much as an artistic work. Short phrases (short of a sentence) are often not copyrightable, and sometimes you can argue that extremely perfunctory descriptions which are mostly just factual don't exceed the threshold of originality, but it doesn't take much. The photo reproduces that text. Obviously, we are showing it in its public context, so the fair use scope would be rather wide -- probably only very commercial uses would be an issue, if even then. We do struggle with photos like this, but have often decided to delete them. You can make the argument that it is just depicting the words that happen to be there, and thus possibly incidental. On the other hand, it is focusing on the copyrighted text in particular, which would run counter to "incidental" arguments. If someone was selling it -- and the quality of the text could be deemed to enhance the final product -- it would probably be ruled derivative. For U.S. plaques before 1978, the text needed a copyright notice, but since then it's been fuzzier as the permanent public display itself does not constitute publication. I don't always like deleting these, as I don't recall finding an explicit court case on the subject we can point to, but there are historical societies etc. which do claim rights over their historical marker text. I could definitely see, for example, a photo book of all their plaques being ruled derivative. When used as part of documenting just that one subject, it's most likely fair use. It's a difficult area to be sure -- it is OK just because of the way it's used in the Wikipedia article (i.e. fair use) or is the photo inherently "free" no matter what we use make of it? The text is copyrightable certainly, so the question is if there some aspect of a photographic reproduction like this which could protect it from being treated just a copy of the text. Or if the nature of the text (educational and trying to reach as big an audience as possible) would enter the equation. I'm not sure I've run across a lawsuit which would really give us any clarity, and you will find examples of deletions for this type of thing (and probably some keeps as well). This type of thing can be important to show how the public is being educated at the site, but runs squarely into "free" issues which are not clear to say the least. Part of why making a "free encyclopedia" is harder than just an encyclopedia :-) Carl Lindberg (talk) 10:08, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
Delete per nom. Text can constitute public artwork. This image is public artwork installed in the US after March 1, 1989 which is not a building. See Commons:Public art and copyrights in the US. For a very pertinent example... text which in no language at all being copyright, please see File:Kryptos sculptor.jpg wherein the artist granted permission for a low-resolution image of the work. Ellin Beltz (talk) 18:09, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
- None of it is copyrightable really... except the text. And that is protected as a literary work, just as much as an artistic work. Short phrases (short of a sentence) are often not copyrightable, and sometimes you can argue that extremely perfunctory descriptions which are mostly just factual don't exceed the threshold of originality, but it doesn't take much. The photo reproduces that text. Obviously, we are showing it in its public context, so the fair use scope would be rather wide -- probably only very commercial uses would be an issue, if even then. We do struggle with photos like this, but have often decided to delete them. You can make the argument that it is just depicting the words that happen to be there, and thus possibly incidental. On the other hand, it is focusing on the copyrighted text in particular, which would run counter to "incidental" arguments. If someone was selling it -- and the quality of the text could be deemed to enhance the final product -- it would probably be ruled derivative. For U.S. plaques before 1978, the text needed a copyright notice, but since then it's been fuzzier as the permanent public display itself does not constitute publication. I don't always like deleting these, as I don't recall finding an explicit court case on the subject we can point to, but there are historical societies etc. which do claim rights over their historical marker text. I could definitely see, for example, a photo book of all their plaques being ruled derivative. When used as part of documenting just that one subject, it's most likely fair use. It's a difficult area to be sure -- it is OK just because of the way it's used in the Wikipedia article (i.e. fair use) or is the photo inherently "free" no matter what we use make of it? The text is copyrightable certainly, so the question is if there some aspect of a photographic reproduction like this which could protect it from being treated just a copy of the text. Or if the nature of the text (educational and trying to reach as big an audience as possible) would enter the equation. I'm not sure I've run across a lawsuit which would really give us any clarity, and you will find examples of deletions for this type of thing (and probably some keeps as well). This type of thing can be important to show how the public is being educated at the site, but runs squarely into "free" issues which are not clear to say the least. Part of why making a "free encyclopedia" is harder than just an encyclopedia :-) Carl Lindberg (talk) 10:08, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
- You are still assuming the same protection for a plain text plaque that is provided for a work of art. The work of art is protected, but incidental materials are not, such as the plinth or platform or base, or the descriptive display or didactic plaque describing the art. Binksternet (talk) 23:02, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
- @Binksternet: Copyright notice is not necessary any more in the US since March 1, 1989. See also COM:PACUSA#March 1, 1989 to the present and COM:VPC#Plaques. Pinging @Clindberg for comment. — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 21:38, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
- Again, a plain text plaque is not art. Do you have proof that the City of Glendale holds the copyright to the text in the plaque? If so, that copyright would certainly have been mentioned in the court case Michiko Gingery v. City of Glendale, which determined that a Japanese-American citizen's complaint against the statue had no merit. The court case agrees that the plaque text is from the City of Glendale, based on similar text from a similar Seoul statue, but we can all see it was published without a copyright notice on the plaque, having no author and only a date. Australian women's rights professor Vera Mackie wrote about this monument in Glendale, saying that "the Glendale statue has brought controversy, with Japanese denialists putting pressure on the local government for the removal of the statue." Binksternet (talk) 21:25, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
- @Binksternet: It is public artwork installed in the US after March 1, 1989 that is not a building. More specifically, the plaque pictured is copyrighted 2013-07-30 by the City of Glendale, California. See Commons:Public art and copyrights in the US. — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 21:01, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
- Completely different legal matter, unrelated to freedom of panorama. With no author listed and no copyright notice on the plaque, it wouldn't matter. Binksternet (talk) 20:18, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
- The above mentioned image (File:Kryptos sculptor.jpg) is about a work of art. Plain text is not art. It is like a logo that consists of letters or simple shapes. If a plaque has some "artistry" in its manufacture, OK, we can talk about a DR, but industrial or artisan's work is not so.
Keep --E4024 (talk) 20:41, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
- So poets should not get a copyright, because it's just text? No, textual stuff can certainly have its own copyright, separate from any sculptural or pictorial aspect. Short phrases (like you normally find in logos) don't qualify, so it's not normally a concern there, but more substantial text can easily be copyrightable. The sculpture you mention above probably has both aspects -- one side just looks like alphabet letters in order repeated, which would not be copyrightable, but the other could have a selection and arrangement copyright even though it's not really words (which can get literary copyrights). The physical shape is pretty simple but the particular curve may give it a copyright. The licenses like PD-text are about the shape of the letters themselves not having a pictorial copyright, when the amount of text itself is not copyrightable, but more substantial text is a completely different matter. As a matter of fact, the author of your example seems to have a copyright registration on the text of that sculpture, but not the visual aspects of the sculpture itself (he has two "text" work regsitrations, not "visual arts", on "Kryptos" [TX0006612228] and "Kryptos text" [TXu001663615]). Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:37, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
Deleted: per nomination. --Jcb (talk) 23:50, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
