Commons:Deletion requests/Henri Matisse not public domain in 2025

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Henri Matisse not public domain in 2025

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The files are by Henri Matisse. He died in 1954 so in most European countries these works are in the public domain now. Files also have to be in the public domain in the US. That's the case for all paintings made before 1930, but not for the most recent ones. See also Commons:Hirtle chart -Multichill (talk) 23:03, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like we should attach every "undelete in" category from 2028 to 2049 to this DR, except 2045 and 2046. - Jmabel ! talk 04:57, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We should ignore URAA at least for works by European artists in collections outside US. Examples here, here, here, here, here, here... --Sailko (talk) 07:12, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
These works were created by in France, by a French man. There is no copyright for works of people who died more than 70 years ago (clearly in public domain). I am not so familiar with copyright laws outside Europe, but donnot worry : nobody will ever claim copyright for these works ! --Zen 38 (talk) 08:32, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If someone was willing to sue over these works in 2024, they'll sue in 2025, provided the law is on their side, and it is in the US.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:56, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Sailko: DR is not the venue to contest current Wikimedia Commons policies. Files should be PD in both: the country of origin and the US. Ankry (talk) 20:30, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • United States law is quite clear in that the copyright expires 95 years after a work was first published, not 70 years after the death of the author. Per COM:L#Interaction of US and non-US copyright law, it is necessary to wait until the copyright has expired in both the source country and the United States. Unless someone can verify that these were published more than 95 years ago, we will have to  Delete them as they are not free in the United States. --Stefan2 (talk) 11:27, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep. Public domain. Thierry Caro (talk) 17:18, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment "Public domain" is meaningful only with respect to a particular country. Commons policy is to consider (1) the status in the country of origin of the work and (2) the status in the United States, which as I understand it is where, for legal purposes, Commons is based. If a wiki based somewhere else (e.g. any EU country) wants to host copies of these images, please, download and upload copies promptly. I know the German-language Wikipedia regularly hosts images that are in the public domain in the EU but not in the U.S.; I assume some other Wikipedias in European languages have similar policies. - Jmabel ! talk 18:37, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Delete While PD in EU, copyrighted in US. Per Wikimedia Commons policy they should be PD in both: the country of originn and the US in order to host them here. Ankry (talk) 20:30, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Delete Commons images need to be free in the US. I'm not saying I like this, but it's currently the only way. As for the URAA argument, that's only relevant for works that were out of copyright and had it restored in 1994. As far as I can tell, that would be: works made between 1931 and 1948 that did not have their copyright renewed. (Because pre-1976, the term was 28 years, with another 28 years if renewed. In 1976 it was extended retroactively to 75 years, which covers all these works.) Is there any evidence that Matisse's works from 1931–1948 had/did not have their copyright renewed in the US? GanzKnusper (talk) 21:37, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Not quite; renewals still had to be done after 28 years until 1992, so all works up to 1963 had to be renewed. A very quick search revealed no renewals for Matisse, at least in the years I looked at, but whether they had their renewals done or not, they'd still be under copyright in the US now.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:56, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is at least one renewal for a color reproduction of a Matisse painting: [1] (original registration: [2]). There may be more. --Rosenzweig τ 00:07, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's one in U.S. Copyright Renewals: Artwork 1960–1964, but given the works it was linked with, I didn't think it would be a valid renewal of the underlying painting. U.S. Copyright Renewals: Artwork 1951–1959 has one for Kürbis for 1929, and again I don't know how it would be a valid renewal on the underlying painting.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:15, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Per [3], the Kürbis (pumpkin) is a 1929 print of this 1916 painting. --Rosenzweig τ 01:45, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the info. And am I correct in thinking that since these works were made up to 1953, if their copyright wasn't renewed, then they were public domain in the US for most/all of the 1980s? Would be interesting to know if anyone was aware of it at the time. GanzKnusper (talk) 09:56, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My guess is that the majority of these paintings were not copyrighted in the US until the URAA. The notice and registration requirements were cumbersome. Publishers of books and sheet music mostly complied with them, everybody else not so much, especially anybody outside the US and UK. --Rosenzweig τ 17:53, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment Why are you coming down hard now on Matisse, when Klee, Kandinsky, Kirchner, Kars, Beckmann, Dufy, Ensor, Delaunay, Derain, Picabia, Pollock, Valadon... in fact, every artist who died between 1930 and 1954 got a pass? It looks like gesture politics to me. --Edelseider (talk) 09:07, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what the gesture would be. I only got here because Matisse is my favourite artist, and I was looking at his commons category. Maybe nobody ever got around to checking the licenses on the files of Klee et al. Some of them are a bit shaky: without much searching I found File:Vassily Kandinsky, 1939 - Composition 10.jpg, which was uploaded in 2015 uses a URAA exception that explicitly says it shouldn't be used for images uploaded after Feb 2012.
Personally I hope that some European Wikipedia comes up with a way of hosting these locally. The Germans were discussing it last summer (for Frida Kahlo), not sure what they decided. GanzKnusper (talk) 09:52, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There was some kind of activity around Beckmann in 2021, but it was dropped rather quickly. Edelseider (talk) 11:10, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Which feels like a political answer. Make any attempt to enforce the rules a difficult, hostile process, and then when someone makes an attempt anyway, claim it's special treatment and the rule is not being enforced equally.
As for your claim that every artist got a pass, it doesn't seem well researched. Category:Paintings by Jackson Pollock is empty. Not only that, Jackson Pollock is irrelevant to the discussion; he's an American author, so the question "are his works free in a life+70 EU nation?" is and always has been irrelevant on Commons. The question is "are his works in the public domain in at least the United States and in the source country of the work" (COM:L) and those two are one and the same.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:42, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your response Prosfilaes. I'm probably one of the more active art uploaders here, but I'm also a user who upholds the precautionary principle. I hate to see these paintings go, but I don't see another option. Nothing political about that. I also nominated other files and he will probably go through the years to sort them out unless someone else beats me to it. Multichill (talk) 18:26, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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