Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Marr archeological dig of Ani.jpg

This deletion debate is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive.

Image:Marr archeological dig of Ani.jpg

Was tagged {{copyvio}} by the IP 84.66.77.55.[1] The reason given was:

image has been taken without permission from http://www.virtualani.org/marr/1905excavation.htm. While images scanned dirctly from the original 1934 book would be PD (if the scanner were to release them as PD), scans that have been made from the book for a third-party website and which have been further altered - in this case cropped, sharpened and sepia-toned - to be suitable for the style of that website are not PD.

• Keep I don't think that is a valid argument. The book mentioned is Nikolai Marr's "Ani, knizhnaya istoriya goroda i raskopki" ("Ani, a history of the city and the excavations"), Leningrad, 1934. The photo dates to 1905. Marr died in 1934. Lupo 13:23, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep I concordant with Lupo's opinion. The Image's copyright has expired, that's why i took it from russian wikipedia. Kind regards --Rastrelli F.B. 15:15, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep A derivative image taken from a PD image, if it has no creative contents (cropping and adjusting sharpness are not creative acts: if they were, a photographer hand-printing a picture by someone else could claim a copyright on it, which is patently absurd)) is PD in its turns. Scans and photocopies are per se ineligible for copyright. Photographs normally are, also in certain cases where a PD object is depicted, however, photographs taken at an automated photo vendor at the train station are not (although personality rights apply if they depict a person, but this another set of problems). The point is: copyright only covers creative acts. The faithful (that is to say: non-creative) reproduction of a PD work is not a creative act, and the more faithful to the original it is (by sharpening & re) the less it is. --User:G.dallorto 04:45, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• DeleteThe image's copyright has NOT expired. The image was created by me, in 2003, so it is in copyright. It is my property. It is not a copy of the original image - it has neither the same size, colour, or resolution as the original image (which was out of copyright) and it has been selectively cropped and has been tinted to match the house style of the website. Cropping and tinting are clearly creative acts, acts which remove the newly created work from the PD status of the original work. In addition, the act of creating a digital version of the out-of-copyright original image gives the copyright of that particular digital image to its creator. The webpage from which the image was stolen clearly states that all images within it are under copyright. If someone wants to make their own scan from the original image in Marr's book and place that into the public domain, then they are welcome to do it. However, I require this image to be removed from Wikimedia and Wikipedia.
  • Scanning an image does not create a new copyright, and neither does cropping it or scaling it down. The copyright status of those is the exact same as the original image. A simple color change is also not a copyrightable change in the U.S., but I'm not sure about the UK. Carl Lindberg 07:04, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I am not going to waste time arguing with people who think they can re-write or ignore laws to suit them. The thief didn't even bother to change the original file name. Meanwhile, the photo is now gone from the pages on the English and Russian wikipedias, and it will be erased again if it re-appears. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing#Material_in_the_public_domain: "When a photograph demonstrates originality (typically, through the choice of framing, lighting, point of view and so on), it qualifies for copyright even if the photographed subject is itself uncopyrighted. ... Even some photographs reproducing 2D works of art may nevertheless qualify for copyright. If the photographer used framing, lighting, and so on to highlight certain aspects of a two-dimensional original, up to the point that his or her personality is revealed by the work, the photograph may by that very fact pass the required threshold of originality".

• Keep What is the main value of the image under consideration? This image is valuable and interesting only because it is a copy of a page from Marr's book. If somebody claims that his scanned version is not a copy, and he added some original content, this means that this already is not a copy of that page. Hence, he cannot write on his webpage that this image is a copy. This is an original work (derivative). But this is not. This is just a copy. If it is not, then the plaintiff had to write on his web site: original artwork, derivative of the picture from Marr's book. Hence, either this is a valuable copy and no copyright appears, or this is an original work which should be described everywhere as an original artwork (not a copy!) And could you please don't use such words as "thief". In any case, independently of the future decision, the user who downloaded image from your site is conscientious. He did not hide anything, and your claim is very unusual. --Agor153 23:06, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

On the web page http://www.virtualani.org/marr/1905excavation.htm it was clearly stated that "The photographs and drawings have been scanned from a copy of Marr's original book." Hence, this is described (by the plaintiff) as a fair copy. The image cannot be at the same time, a fair copy (for readers) and an original artwork - for deletion request.--Agor153 23:15, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The reason that it was required to state that the images were derived from the original book, rather than the French reprint, is because the illustrations in the French reprint, even though they are nearly identical to those in the original, are protected by copyright and so they could not have been used without breaking copyright law. For the same reason wikimedia cannot use images from the webpage without breaking copyright law. If Wikimedia wishes to use an image from Marr's book, then it has to be taken directly from the original book and not from either the webpage or the French reprint. "Thief" is the correct word to use, because, even if you continue to reject my above argument, the use of the image in Wikipedia still amounts to plagiarism (which is an act of academic fraud): it breaks Wikipedia rules, quote "Even when material is not covered by copyright, it is still important to state its origin, including its authors or creators".--Meowy

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Kept. With tag changed to PD-scan per Commons:When to use the PD-scan tag. MichaelMaggs 22:00, 13 May 2008 (UTC)