Commons:Deletion requests/Template:PD-TXGov
Bogus PD license and rationale. The "Public Information Act" (Texas Code, Chapter 552) on which the template is purportedly premised relates to access to information (i.e., accessibility, as in not withheld as confidential) and has nothing whatsoever to do with copyright status. While this is plain from the language of Chapter 552 itself, Texas Code, Chapter 403 explicitly allows the comptroller of public accounts of the State of Texas "[to] apply for, register, secure, hold, and protect under the laws of the United States or any state or nation: [...] copyright" (§ 403.0301). As a state-level test, consider that the Office of the Texas Governor includes the policy "All photographs and videos are copyrighted and may not be used without permission." As a county-level test, consider that Tarrant County explicitly includes "Copyright 2001-2022 Tarrant County, TX". As a city-level test, the City of Uvalde explicitly includes "© 2022 CITY OF UVALDE, TEXAS". This is the same conflation that led to the erroneous creation of the now deleted PD-MNGov. Эlcobbola talk 19:50, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
Delete per nom. — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 20:10, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
- There is a Harvard site which collects information related to state government copyright; Texas is "yellow" there, which is better than many but no real explicit indications, so we assume copyrighted status. The Texas State Archives and Library Commission website may be different, but nothing we can assume state-wide. Delete. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:42, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
- Delete unless the license can be clearly demonstrated to be valid per some Texas statute or Texas case law. As I posted at COM:VPC#PD-TXGov, the license appears to have been boldly created without any discussion or vetting. I'm not sure how Commons deals with the creation of new copyright licenses, but it seems there should some discussion before a license can start being used. As Clindberg mentioned above and as I mentioned in my VPC post, Texas is listed as a "yellow" state (unclear copyright status) by the Harvard website about US state copyrights. California and Florida are listed as "green" states (employees works are presumed to be PD) by the same site and the long-standing consensus here at Commons seems to be that {{PD-CAGov}} and {{PD-FLGov}} are OK. If Texas can be added to that list, then great; however, I think there needs to be a consensus established that it can. This license appears to have been created primarily to facillitate the uploading of File:Emma Presler's mugshot 082621.png to Commons. The creator of this license template and uploader of the that mugshot photo is the same user and all of their Commons contributions (and all of their English Wikipedia contributions) appear to be focused on this license and that file. The file isn't currently being used in any articles on any language Wikipedia; so, it's not clear why it was uploaded. There are, however, other files using this license listed in Category:PD Texas and all of them appears to be mugshot photos, except one. Since this DR is technically about the license template itself, I'm not sure whether discussing individual files is appropriate. If the consensus, though, is this license isn't OK for Commons (for whatever reason), the files in the PD Texas category will need to be resolved. If they can be relicensed and kept, then great; if not, they they probably need to be deleted. Finally, Commons:Deletion requests/File:Dell Chromebook 3100 2-in-1.jpg may also need to be revisted since the primary justification for keeping the file seems to be that logo shown in the screenshot is "PD-TXGov, and that justification will no longer be valid if this license is deemed to be invalid. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:08, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
- Delete per above, template is based on unsupported assumptions that evidence indicates are wrong. -- Infrogmation of New Orleans (talk) 02:21, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
- Delete per nom, immature assumption by a newbie. --A1Cafel (talk) 10:24, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
- Delete See also {{PD-US-patent}} for another example where "publicly accessible information published by the government" does not necessarily entail public domain in the United States. --ShyAlpaca482 (talk) 14:26, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
- Delete per nom. Nosferattus (talk) 15:48, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
Comment Can someone take a peak at {{PD-TNGov}}? This looks to me like another case of someone misunderstanding the difference between public record and public domain/deciding all states operate like Florida, but I would like someone else to check it out. Elisfkc (talk) 22:54, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
- @Elisfkc: Please see Commons:Deletion requests/Template:PD-TNGov. — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 01:58, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
- Delete improperly equating public access to public domain. WikiVirusC (talk) 01:28, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
Deleted: per nomination, and above comments. --Yann (talk) 10:11, 8 June 2022 (UTC)