Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Sturm Cigarette Company

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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:Sturm Cigarette Company

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These four files were uploaded using a rather special license tag for German works that does NOT apply to the images, because they were NOT "published by a legal entity under public law". As the images are German and from 1932/33, there's a good chance that the authors (who are not named) lived beyond 1948, which would mean the images are still protected in Germany. (Authors in Germany are always persons BTW, so this cigarette company is NOT the author of these images). Also, they are still protected in the US because of the URAA. This means the files should be deleted per the precautionary principle.

Rosenzweig τ 16:14, 19 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Rosenzweig. I'm sorry, I seem to have misunderstood. It seemed to me that a registered company was a "legal entity under public law", but it seems that this is a translation of "Juristische Personen des öffentlichen Rechts" which might be more comprehensibly translated as something like "a public sector body", which a cigarette company, even one owned by the paramilitary arm of the Nazi party, is presumably not.
This bit on Übergangsrecht seems (in the interpretation by User:Historiograf) to explicitly say that we'd have to identify the author(s) in order to use it before the beginning of the 22nd century, just in case an ad was authored by someone who is still living today. Archives have not identified the author(s), and it seems unlikely that anyone would claim authorship after the Night of the Long Knives. This situation seems absurd, but that's irrelevant.
There are several places on the wikis which seem to contradict this, and may need clarification:
  • Commons:Copyright tags#Germany, which currently says "{{PD-Germany-§134-KUG}} – for works published more than 70 years ago that do not mention the author" (which certainly seems to apply, as there is no mention of the nature of the legal entity unless one clicks through).
Note: In Germany and possibly other countries, certain anonymous works published before July 1, 1995 are copyrighted until 70 years after the death of the author. See Übergangsrecht. Please use this template only if the author never claimed authorship or his/her authorship never became public in any other way. If the work is anonymous or pseudonymous (e.g., published only under a corporate or organization's name), use this template for images published more than 70 years ago. For a work made available to the public in the United Kingdom, please use Template:PD-UK-unknown instead.
However, this seems to say that it would be OK to use this template for this work.
Presumably a company holds rights, if not authorship, in its own ads; what happened when this one went bankrupt? Did the state take over the rights? Does this matter?
Separately, I posted a query about a template at Template_talk:PD-Germany-§134-KUG, and would be grateful for expert attention.
On the actual use of the images, I think a fair-use rationale would be possible, at least for the third image on your list, File:SA Sturm Cigarette Company ad.jpg. I realise this is not strictly relevant to Commons, but do you have views on this? HLHJ (talk) 23:33, 19 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hello HLHJ,
I've tried to address some of your points about conflicting information. The sad truth is that Commons has become so big and complex that there simply aren't enough people to maintain all those help pages and templates, so some of them may be outdated. Hard to understand exceptions in laws, like those addressed by the § 134 tags, complicate things further.
If companies commission anything that is copyrightable, they may acquire usage rights for it by contract and usually do so. The actual Urheberrecht remains with the creator however. When a company goes bankrupt, usage rights might be sold like any other asset, perhaps to someone taking over what is left of the company. It doesn't really matter in this case though, because when the copyright ends 70 years after the creator's death, those usage rights do too. Or earlier, depending on what was in the contract.
Fair use in the English wikipedia seems possible to me. I'm not too familiar with the details though, you'll have to inquire there. Regards --Rosenzweig τ 11:30, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously we just need simpler copyright law that never changes. Thank you very much for your patient explanations. I've edited Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Germany to reflect the exception for non-photographic art, I hope this is correct. If so, I should probably put it in the PD-EU templates. I will look into transferring images from Commons to fair use, presumably there is some semi-automated method. HLHJ (talk) 23:48, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted: per discussion. --JuTa 07:43, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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