Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Situla from Vače

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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.

Files in Category:Situla from Vače

[edit]

Per COM:FOP#Slovenia: copyrighted models (the same rationale as [1]).

Eleassar (t/p) 11:09, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is no copyright in faithful reproductions of public domain art (the original which can only be seen in museum is almost 2600 years old). --Miha (talk) 11:36, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Models are copyrightable per the US law. As already stated in the referenced DR, per [2], if a reproduction is too similar to the original or too different from it, it is copyrighted. The source also says: "Alterations of the scale of the original work may qualify a reproduction for copyright," which is the case here. The copyright status of the above images therefore remains at best unclear, which means deletion per COM:PRP. --Eleassar (t/p) 12:07, 2 September 2013 (UTC) P.S.: I plan to upload a photograph of the original that I've recently taken in the following week. It's not the best photo, but will do until someone else takes a better one.[reply]
Do you have museum's permission to take photos? Žiga (talk) 14:32, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It is simple: for a copyright an object requires originality - replicas are not original. If you find one author who claims otherwise, that can not be a reason to delete photos. See also: Commons:Copyright_rules_by_subject_matter#Replicas_of_PD_artworks. --Miha (talk) 16:51, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Saying that the judgement of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals is "one author who claims otherwise" makes you look not serious. The court has clearly stated that a replica can be a work of art in itself, based on the idea that exact replication must be achieved through the copier's skills and artistic judgement. --Eleassar (t/p) 20:13, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We are being more papal than the pope again, aren't we? COM:CB clearly states exactly what I said: "Exact replicas of public domain works cannot attract any new copyright as exact replicas do not have the required originality. Hence, photographs of such items can be treated just like photographs of the artwork itself." Moreover, to give you a practical example, lots of fountains all over Europe are already replaced by their replicas and noone seems to put them under any kind protection other than cultural heritage lists. --Miha (talk) 20:45, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Per COM:L, works must be free both in the source country and in the United States. You have not provided any counter-evidence to the above-mentioned judgement that shows replicas may be copyrighted in the United States. COM:CB is neither a reliable source nor a policy and should be revised in regard to this matter. --Eleassar (t/p) 21:28, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry to go a bit off topic, but I think it is necessry. Wikimedia Commons is a comunity, with its own rules setled down. There is no place to play solo. The above article is not a law, not even a judgement, it is just an opinion driven by this or other interests. However, it seems that in Commons community there are other opinions prevailing, otherwise there wouldn't be any tolerance for other replicas. How can you tell a difference between a faithful replica and original? It is practically impossible (to prove the authenticity of artworks costly methods such as radiocarbon dating[3] are often used) and "authors" won't even have an intent to become the copyrght holders (for obvious reasons - it is similar as with grafitti). In this particular case the "author" is known, but he is not the one who designed it, but "merely" the one who had technical skills and equipment to make such an accurate replica. Tehnical achievements are usually covered by patents and/or material rights, but not copyright. These two categories should be distinguished, otherwise we would run into serious problems. Imagine that every item produced by a 3D printer would be copyrighted by its printer (or the designers of thereof), and not the person who modelled it using CAD software. BTW, you didnt answer my question about fountains. The Roba fountain is one such example, the Michelangelo's statue of David (although not a fountain) yet another. --Miha (talk) 06:50, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You still haven't provided any counter-evidence to the above-mentioned judgement, which is not an opinion but a judgement of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals (Alva Studios, Inc. v. Winninger). As in that case, also here, it is a more or less exact replica, the only difference being the size of the object. If replicas of fountains are not free or their copyright status is unclear, they should be deleted too. There are a number of replicas of Michelangelo's David, so you should be more precise. Although you can also take it to another DR, because this one is a discussion about replicas of the Vače situla. --Eleassar (t/p) 07:18, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, let's just rip off Commons entirely and start anew. I think we should first put the guidelines on COM:CB in discussion, before taking any further steps (escpecially deletion of these or similar pictures). There is important destinction between taking photographs and making replicas, that the judge overlooked when he stated that the skill should be protected no less than the ability to take photos. One should ask himself, how do replicas differ from photographs. Replicas are meant to be indistinguishable from its originals, whereas photographs clearly are a separate work of art. The photographer has to choose perspective, set the atmosphere, alter the context, etc. Precisely becuase the end result depicts much less details of the original (i.e. carries less information about it) than a replica, they can be reffered as a separate work of art. Replica can replace an object in the picture because of exactly the same reasons. --Miha (talk) 09:08, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
More of original research. Precisely because the replica was indistinguishable from the original, save size, it was regarded as copyrightable by the court. Of course, photographs and replicas are not directly comparable in regard to the originality, but they are still both regarded as copyrightable, because of the judgement and skill invested in their production. --Eleassar (t/p) 09:25, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Eleassar, you mislead. The wording "free both in the source country and in the United States" doesn't mean that you can only publish a work here if it would've been free if it was created in the United States. US laws don't protect foreign artists more than they are protected by their own countries' laws. For example, US copyright law doesn't have an equivalent of the Yugoslav provision that a photograph or a work of applied art published before 1 January 1970 is not eligible for copyright. Does that mean we must delete all pre-1970 photographs from DLib that are younger than 70 years? I don't think so. Likewise, US courts' decisions about American creative works don't apply to Slovene creative works, so it's you who must prove that the replica is copyrighted under Slovene law, not vice versa. To remind you, Slovene law doesn't say anything about copyrightability of exact replicas. Nor do I know of any Slovene legal precedent implying otherwise. Do you? — Yerpo Eh? 09:39, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If this was true, the URAA provisions would be irrelevant for us. For example, some works that have become public domain in the source country are still protected in the United States and thus not eligible for Commons. See Commons:URAA-restored copyrights. --Eleassar (t/p) 09:42, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
They are irrelevant for this case. URAA applies to works that were still copyrighted in the source countries, but would've been PD under the US law on 1 January 1996. — Yerpo Eh? 09:47, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Per Wikipedia:Public domain#International aspects: "The threshold of originality varies between countries. Like the duration of copyright, eligibility to copyright in the first place is governed by national laws. The Berne Convention, §5(2) explicitly states that The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights [i.e., copyrights] shall not be subject to any formality; such enjoyment and such exercise shall be independent of the existence of [copyright] protection in the country of origin of the work. In other words: a work that is not copyrightable in one country (even if that country is its country of origin) can still be copyrighted in other countries, if the work is copyrightable there. An example of this is Image:Christoph Meili 1997.jpg: this image is not copyrightable in its country of origin (Switzerland) by a decision of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court. However, in all likelihood it fulfills the criteria in other countries: it would pass the threshold of originality in the U.S.; and it would probably also be eligible for copyright in the EU." --Eleassar (t/p) 09:57, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You probably wanted to say "Even though the replica was indistinguishable" instead of "Precisely because", right? Anyhow, the replica might as well pass the threshold of originality, because it looks complex enough, but here another originality is in question - how much origniality is in replica when compared to the original. --Miha (talk) 09:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, I wanted to say "precisely because", and I have clearly stated my point of view, based on a reliable reference and a court case. --Eleassar (t/p) 09:55, 5 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Applicable to a country outside of the country of origin or not (the Berne convention does indeed say it is, I must admit), the court case you quoted is not comparable. The replica in question was so distinct because it managed to preserve the artistic merit of the fantastically complex original on a significantly smaller scale (as explained in the book you linked to). The decision also mentions creative alterations made by the artist. None of this is relevant to the subject of this deletion request. — Yerpo Eh? 13:12, 5 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So the frieses of the Vače Situla are not complex? "Great skill and originality is called for when one seeks to produce a scale reduction of a great work with exactitude." Here, the object is shown at least in some of the photos in a significantly different scale too (like five times larger), perhaps not on all of them though, if this is the criterion. --Eleassar (t/p) 17:38, 5 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
An iron-age sculpture obviously can't compare in complexity with what is regarded a modern-age masterpiece. And again, it's not just mimicking such complexity on a smaller scale - as the verdict says, "We find that this difference when coupled with the skilled scaled sculpture is itself creative" (referring to the difference in bases). — Yerpo Eh? 18:43, 5 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Of course a modern masterpiece can be more complex, however where is the threshold of complexity? Don't you think that a true artistic skill was required to make such faithful reproductions? As to the difference, as far as I understand the text, the difference is only an additional reason to regard the work as copyrightable, whereas the main reason is the exactitude of the replica on a smaller scale ("Plaintiff has sustained this burden. Its copyrighted work embodies and resulted from its skill and originality in producing an accurate scale reproduction of the original."). This interpretation is also confirmed by the above-cited reference as well as this court case. --Eleassar (t/p) 19:05, 5 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
 I withdraw my nomination. Per [4] (pg. 847) and [5] (pg. 42). --Eleassar (t/p) 19:49, 5 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for providing us with these two links. In a nutshell: "If the Court is to be consistent, then it seems likely that the standard for originality in derivative works would focus on what original contribution of sufficient creativity was made by the preparer of the derivative work. The fact that producing a slavish replica can involve significant cost and effort is no different from the situation where compiling data also involves significant cost and effort" --Miha (talk) 19:56, 5 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Kept: withdrawn FASTILY 06:34, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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