Commons:Deletion requests/Some illustrations from Rothschild's Extinct Birds

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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.
  • Add {{delete|reason=Fill in reason for deletion here!|subpage=Some illustrations from Rothschild's Extinct Birds|year=2024|month=November|day=24}} to the description page of each file.
  • Notify the uploader(s) with {{subst:idw||Some illustrations from Rothschild's Extinct Birds|plural}} ~~~~
  • Add {{Commons:Deletion requests/Some illustrations from Rothschild's Extinct Birds}} at the end of today's log.

Some illustrations from Rothschild's Extinct Birds

[edit]

Multiple in-copyright illustrators:

George Edward Lodge:

Frederick William Frohawk:

Of the illustrators of this book, Keulemans and Smit have their works out of copyright in the UK, but the three others do not. The djvu file and any files suitable to be used on the English Wikisource should be exported or copied there; other files can be exported or copied to the English Wikipedia and tagged with en:template:PD-US-1923-abroad and transferred back here when they are out of copyright in the UK (in the case of Grönvold's works, on 1 January 2011). --—innotata 19:26, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: File:Extinctbirds1907 P2 Necropsar rodericanus0283.png can have the lower illustrations by Keulemans extracted. —innotata 19:31, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This sucks. When are the images falling out of copyright? FunkMonk (talk) 20:40, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The images are from the book of Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild (8 February 1868 – 27 August 1937). Isn't he the copyright holder of the entire book including these pages containing the paintings? If so (which I think is the case) than they are all in the public domain. Archive.org (the source of these files) also says they are not in copyright and thus in the public domain. Peter Maas (talk) 21:13, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
FunkMonk, if here is decided that Rothschild is not the owner/copyright holder, but the painters itself, than the images of Grönvold become in the public domain in 2011, the images of Frohawk on 10 december 2016, and those of Lodge in 2024. Peter Maas (talk) 21:26, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am quite sure the copyright for the illustrations is held with the artists under UK copyright; I put this request up to confirm this (forgot to mention that) and to see if anybody could help with copying the images if that is confirmed. If the copyright is held with the artists, it expires on 1 January 2011, 2017, and 2025. Meanwhile, they could be held on projects that only follow US copyright law, such as the English Wikipedia and Wikisource, and tagged to be moved at the appropriate date (I came across the problem of Extinct Birds while uploading other files by Grönvald to the English Wikipedia like this). As for the Internet Archive, it sometimes isn't right about copyright, and I think statements that a work is out of copyright usually only refer to the United States. —innotata 23:33, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Did Rothschild commission the illustrations? If he did, the copyrights would belong to him (at least under US law). Kaldari (talk) 02:57, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
UK law is all that is in question here. If the situation is similar I don't think we can really be sure they were commissioned, whatever that would mean. These images are out of copyright in the US, as they were published before 1923. —innotata 15:51, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
UK copyright act 1956 specifically states that works done as a commission have the copyright of the author s:Copyright_Act,_1956_(United_Kingdom)/Part_1#5, that said the book itself indicates that the works come from various sources, and the preface indicates that some of the drawings pre-existed. While it might be okay to house the work, the balance of probability indicates that not all works were commissioned, so without evidence otherwise, it is not safe to assure that any are commissioned works. The djvu work should be moved to enWikisource, the individual derivatives works should be moved to enwikisource where the individual works are not deemed out of copyright.  — billinghurst sDrewth 02:04, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK. I don't think any of the derivatives are suitable for use on Wikisource, so they should be moved to the English Wikipedia. —innotata 16:57, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Innotata, I think you might be right on the copyright status of projects in Internet Archive. It is possible that they indeed look towards US law. But we are not just talking here just of UK copyright law, but now also that of the whole of the EU and maybe even those other countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years. I agree on moving those to the English language Wikipedia. Peter Maas (talk) 09:38, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
All that matters is the copyright of the country a work was published in and that of the US. —innotata 23:26, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The two files that are redlinked above have been deleted and moved to enwiki by User:Kameraad Pjotr. —innotata 21:24, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This deletion request has gone on long enough for Gruonvold's works to become PD in the EU, and they've been removed from this request by User:Kaldari. —innotata 11:07, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That is nothing less than awesome. I've already uploaded more of his work. FunkMonk (talk) 15:18, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Could people please be sure that images that will be deleted are uploaded on Wikipedia before deleting them? Several of George Edward Lodge's paintings have been deleted from here without being moved to Wikipedia first. There are probably more, but so far his painting of Prosobonia leucoptera and Aechmorhynchus cancellata have been deleted. FunkMonk (talk) 22:56, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
These must have either been files uploaded here since I opened this deletion request; files not categorised in the Extinct Birds; or files I mentioned as not concerning this deletion request (and published since 1923?). —innotata 15:46, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, at least the Aechmorhynchus cancellatus file was included among the images in the original deletion request above, and is now a red link. It can not be found in the article[1]. FunkMonk (talk) 16:26, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The file is on Wikipedia, as mentioned above, and I've restored it to the article. Are there any others? —innotata 17:08, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I can't see where you mention it (link to where the file has been moved to, please?), but I know there was a picture of Prosobonia leucoptera by George Lodge in the book, and there was an empty Commons cat[2] for it (until I uploaded another picture of the bird a few days ago), so I'm pretty sure that must mean we used to have the picture by Lodge here, but that it was deleted. It also indicates that other images that were copyvios might have been deleted before this DR was begun. FunkMonk (talk) 19:58, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I couldn't find it because it had not been added to the Wikipedia aricl, so well, just remember to do so after deleting them, otherwise they'll hardly be found again, the PD images still on Wikipedia are not searchable in any meaningful way. FunkMonk (talk) 20:00, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, the third image here[3] is signed "NS", who is that? FunkMonk (talk) 21:00, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I said "The two files that are redlinked above have been deleted and moved to enwiki by User:Kameraad Pjotr" (the other was by Grönvold); I didn't know the one of the sandpiper was used on any Wikipedia pages. The file is under its old Commons name and such files still can be found by searching under "Multimedia" or "Everything" on Wikipedia. I also don't know who "N. S." was; though he was apparently not one of the primary illustrators. —innotata 22:33, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, where are the other illustrations by Grönvold you've uploaded? They aren't categorised under his category. —innotata 22:35, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, you can find them by searching Henrik Gronvold, I uploaded so many images within short time that I saved categorising them for later, otherwise I would had gone crazy, since it was an extremely repetitive task even without adding categories. FunkMonk (talk) 22:43, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) Never mind, I'm finding them, at least some, which don't have his name misspelled beyond the lack of the umulaut. However, some are from books by people who died more recently than him (and may have been published since 1923), so are likely to be copyright still. —innotata 22:49, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm, not unless he formally transferred copyright to them, but this is rarely done, if ever, with illustrations as far as I know. The artist still owns the copyright. In any event, if the books are not found here[4], they're PD now even if he had transferred the copyright back then. FunkMonk (talk) 22:52, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I do not understand this last comment. Usually, if the author commissioned the images, the author holds the copyright (and usually, as with this request, we don't know the situation now); what precisely does the U. S. copyright renewal resource have to do with this? —innotata 22:57, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) I've just noticed that all except those of the eggs are from The Birds of Australia. If it was published in Australia, it is fine in its source country, but if not it is probably copyright; also, the exact dates of the images need to be given, in case some were published between 1923 and 1928, in which case they are not neccessarily PD in the US. I'd say you need to be much more thorough in investigating copyright status, describing, and categorising images. —innotata 22:57, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, again, copyright is with the artist, unless otherwise is proven. And also as mentioned, if you want to know if the copyright was renewed in the US, use the tool I linked to (I just did, and it wasn't listed, so it's PD US too). They're PD Australia in any case. FunkMonk (talk) 22:59, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There's no "otherwise proven": we need to be absolutely certain. Copyright of foreign works in the U. S. is governed by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act. —innotata 23:04, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If we assume you are correct, why would we care about when Grönvold or any of those other artists died? Rothschild died more than 70 years ago, he commissioned the paintings, so according to what you say, he, not they, would own the copyright, and it would all be PD. I do not think that's the case. FunkMonk (talk) 23:07, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As I've pointed out, we need either the artist and author to have died >70 years ago, or to know which one held the copyright. —innotata 23:32, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We only need to know when the writer died if he somehow obtained the copyright of the images (which I for one have never heard of happening in any instance). Otherwise all that matters is when the artist, who is the author, died. Since we do not even know if Rothschild actually held the copyright to the images in "Extinct Birds", then wouldn't your deletion of for example Lodge's images have been premature? Why did you start this deletion request if you knew Rothschild died more than 70 years ago and you believe book authors own the copyright of the illustrations they commission? It doesn't make sense. FunkMonk (talk) 23:52, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is probably the fifth time this has been said here: we don't always know if the copyright belonged to the creator(s) of the illustration or the author of the book or what, so we should wait until it is entirely clear. —innotata 02:33, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So for probably the fourth time, why did you delete Lodge's images when you obviously don't know whether Rothschild owns the copyright or not? Accusing me of being careless for not making sure that I knew whether copyright had been transferred when a picture was commissioned (even though I am very sure that is not how it is done in practice), is just hypocritical (or simply careless) when you go on and delete the Rothschild images without providing the same kind of info you request from me. You can't have it both ways, if the paintings I uploaded are still in copyright because the writer who commissioned them died less than 70 years ago, then your DR of the Extinct Birds images is an error, since Rothschild, the writer who commissioned these images, died more than 70 years ago. Yet in the nomination rationale here you make it clear as day that you were under the same impression as me: that the artists, not Rothschild, owns the copyright to these paintings. So what we need to know is (in general) if copyright is obtained by the person who commissions a painting by default, or (in general) if the copyright stays with the painter by default. All this other stuff about figuring out if copyright was or was not transferred on a specific painting a 100 years ago is futile, such records are impossible for us to find (what we need is some kind of contract between Rothschild and Lodge), and requesting such records is unprecedented on Commons as far as my experience is concerned. FunkMonk (talk) 02:36, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm saying we should make sure it is clear either way, whether it was the artist or a commissioner who held copyright, or whatever else. —innotata 02:16, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, so how exactly are you, or anyone, going to produce such information? And again, if such information is so important for a final judgement to be made here, why did you start this DR (and deleted images in it) without determining whether the artists owned the copyright or not first? And on the Australian images I uploaded, they're PD-Australia, PD-old if the artist owns the copyright, and PD-US because it was either not published in the US or did not have the copyright renewed. FunkMonk (talk) 08:02, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm saying that we don't know, so we make sure it is clear whichever way. How is that hard to understand? For the Australian book, please read Commons:Licensing#Interaction of United States copyright law and non-US copyright law. —innotata 16:35, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It is hard to understand because you're repeatedly dodging my questions. But I'll go along with it, let's see what happens. FunkMonk (talk) 21:33, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I am not dodging your questions: all of them I'm trying to answer I think are answered by what I've said. Is this better: when we don't know who we should take into consideration among the illustrator(s) and author, so we act as though we should take all into consideration. —innotata 23:10, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted Most of the debate above is based on a false premise -- the assumption that if these works were commissioned by Lord Rothschild, then his death would be used to calculate the (C) date. That is not correct.

While it is clear at the 1956 UK Copyright Act, section 4(3), that the copyright in a commissioned work belongs to the one who commissioned it, it does not say that the term is then measured by the life of the one who commissioned it. The term is clearly measured, in any case, by the life of the author. Logic requires this -- otherwise one could extend the term of a copyright by simply arranging to have a younger person own it. Since both Lodge and Frohawk died less than 70 years ago (1954 and 1946, respectively), their work is still in copyright, whether the copyright is owned by their heirs or those of Rothschild.

     Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 20:32, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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