Commons:Deletion requests/File:John Hay Admiralty Board.jpg
This archive photograph has been uploaded with a claim of own work and a release by the uploader into the public domain. The user account has been globally inactive since 2016, so it is not possible to clarify with the user if they had a genuine claim to the image. The photograph claims to be of an Admiralty meeting by John Hay, who was the last Civil Lord of the Admiralty from 1963 to 1964. That places a definite timestamp on the period of creation. There are four main avenues of copyright that I can see here.
- First, this could be an image made by an employee of the Crown to record the meeting, in which case it is a Crown Copyright photograph taken after 1957 (for post 1957 works, Crown Copyright expires 50 years after publication - if it was never published or first published less than 50 years ago then it is still in copyright).
- The second option: if it has been published relatively recently, we may be able to consider some form of licensing based around the Open Government Licence, however, as a minimum, that would require clarification on which version of OGL applies.
- The third option is that this was a special meeting staged for attendance by the press. As this group presided over the end of the Board of Admiralty (1628-1964) it is quite possible that there was some press interest in the event. If this was taken by a press photographer then normal copyright rules apply of life +70 years; in this case it is still in copyright.
- Fourth option: it could be an anonymous photographic work with protection of 50 years following publication - that would make it PD in the UK in 2015, but copyrighted in the USA as being in copyright on the URAA date.
I have tried a Tineye search but have just found Wikimedia mirror sites. Unless the source and author of the image can be clarified, I think we need to delete it in accordance with Commons:Project scope/Precautionary principle. From Hill To Shore (talk) 16:16, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
- I am the uploader of the photo and it came from the family archive of John Hay. Caruso 308 (talk) 20:22, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
- @Caruso 308: Thank you for commenting. There are two key questions that we use to establish whether copyright still applies to an image. First; who was the person that took the photograph? While the physical image may have been in John Hay's archive, I am assuming that he can't have been the photographer if he was in the photograph. Second; was the photograph ever published before you uploaded it to Commons? From Hill To Shore (talk) 22:36, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
- I am afraid anybody that I knew that could answer those questions is no longer living. Caruso 308 (talk) 21:53, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
- @Caruso 308: Thank you for commenting. There are two key questions that we use to establish whether copyright still applies to an image. First; who was the person that took the photograph? While the physical image may have been in John Hay's archive, I am assuming that he can't have been the photographer if he was in the photograph. Second; was the photograph ever published before you uploaded it to Commons? From Hill To Shore (talk) 22:36, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
Deleted: per nomination. Historical photo, missing essential info: original author, source, date, and permission. --P 1 9 9 ✉ 16:12, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
