Commons:Deletion requests/Template:PD-UN

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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.

Template:PD-UN

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The Administrative Instruction ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.2 that is used to support this licence does not in fact meet the non-revocable requirement of COM:L nor is the instruction enforceable against the UN. More importantly it also appears to have either been superseded, revoked or just ignored by the UN and it's agencies, here are just some of the copyright notices from some of their websites :

  • The UN's main website has this copyright notice;
  • The WHO website's copyright notice;
  • The UNICEF website also has one;
  • The UN's News and Multimedia website also makes it clear what the UN's position on copyright is when it says "Prior written permission is required to reproduce UN photos in print or electronic format"

For the avoidance of doubt included with this DR are all files that are licensed with {{PD-UN}}. LGA talkedits 04:40, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment From the last sentence, I take it this DR is intended to include the 1,300+ files in Category:PD-UN? I haven't closely followed a DR with this many affected files before, but looking over Commons:Deletion_requests/Mass_deletion_request it appears this DR is incomplete as the affected files have not been tagged nor the relevant uploaders notified. —RP88 06:03, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion on how to tag all the affected images moved to Commons talk:Deletion requests/Template:PD-UN. LGA talkedits 07:44, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Delete and  Keep. I agree that we should delete this template after listing out all of the files that are linked to it. I do not agree that we should include all of the linked files in this DR. We simply cannot deal with a mass DR of this size and complexity. It will be far easier to take them a piece at a time -- perhaps agency by agency or source site by source site. I suspect that there are indeed UN works on Commons that are appropriately licensed and we need to keep those. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 10:39, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If you feel that is the best way to approach it. LGA talkedits 11:40, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep OK, I've spent a week or so investigating this issue, and this template is somewhat questionable with regards to which UN works are irrevocably PD. However, I don't think deletion of this template is the right answer. Instead, I think it should be revised. After it is revised those works that fail to meet the template's new criteria can be nominated for deletion on a case-by-case basis. The results of my research are as follows: prior to 17 September 1987 it was the position of the UN to not seek copyright protection nor to place copyright notices on their works (see UN ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.2), although they did make some exceptions. Under the proceeding policy those works granted an exception (and thus copyrighted) were explicitly listed in the annex of UN ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.1. As such UN works not in the annex published in the US before 1978 are PD per the criteria at {{PD-US-no notice}}. Works not in the annex published by the UN in the US before 17 September 1987 would be PD per the criteria at {{PD-US-1978-89}} so long as copyright was not subsequently registered with the U.S. Copyright Office within 5 years. It took awhile, but I've reviewed every copyright registration made by the UN from 1978 to 1993 and they never took advantage of the five year grace period to retroactively extend copyright protection to a work published in the US before 17 September 1987. Thus all works published by the UN in the US before 17 September 1987 not listed in the annex of ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.1 are PD.

    As an example, let's look at File:Flag_of_the_United_Nations.svg. The document "The United Nations flag code and regulations, as amended November 11, 1952" was published by the UN in the US in 1962. As can be seen from an online PDF of this document it contains the UN symbol and flag and, as expected, as a document not listed in the Annex it does not have a copyright notice. As such the flag and symbol of the UN are PD.

    As another example, let's look at Commons:Deletion requests/Files_in_Category:UNICEF logos. The current UNICEF logo appears on the cover of a UNICEF Annual Report in 1986 (prior reports have an older logo). As expected, as a document not listed in the Annex the report does not have a copyright notice (in fact the first year in which a UNICEF Annual Report has a copyright notice is 2000). So the UNICEF logo is PD. In the interests of full disclosure, the prior argument did not persuade the closing admin at Commons:Undeletion_requests/Archive/2014-05 (see "Unicef symbols" entry). —RP88 16:37, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, I can't access those links right now, I'm just getting a UN blue screen. My concern is that the UN cannot actually make or pass copyright laws, and in many jurisdictions copyright automatically applies regardless of what an organisation's internal policy may be. So, past policies not to pursue copyright infringement, or treat ones own works as copyrighted, does not necessarily abrogate ones legal ability to pursue copyright later on. Since there is no binding 'international copyright law', only treaties and convention, which jurisdictions copyright laws apply to this organisation? trackratte (talk) 19:47, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The links work for me, but you could try indirectly accessing them via UN document redirector (use the English buttons) at the following links: ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.2 and ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.1. But yes, you are correct regarding the fact that the UN cannot actually make or pass copyright laws, which why I was careful to restrict the PD claim to works published in the US, i.e. "works published by the UN in the US before 17 September 1987 not listed in the annex of ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.1 are PD." I'm in the process of reviewing the ~230,000 UN documents known to OCLC to see where they are published, but I've got a lot more to go. So far, the vast, vast majority of official U.N. documents published before 17 September 1987 list New York as the location of publication. However, I don't think we can safely claim that the source for all U.N. documents is New York, as I've found a small handful that were published in other locations, such as Geneva or London. —RP88 20:09, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My point in opening this DR is that the document that is the rational for the template does not meet the requirements of COM:L and as such can't be the reason we host here. Following on from Jim's advice (and why I why I struck the bit about all files) is that there may well be other licencing templates that apply to content currently using this one, for example, some of the older files might well be {{PD-US-no notice}}. There is also the issue with the status of the UN in international law and how that might or might not change things which I suspect no-one on commons can get to grips with, I could make a reasoned argument as to why the UN should be treated as it's own sovereign body existing above national boundaries, and just a conniving one saying that they are subject to the laws of the US as they have their HQ in the US. As with the UNICEF logo question the best thing for us may be very simply to ask them to clarify to OTRS either on a case by case basis or in a blanket fashion what they have released and on what terms as I see no reason not to take their word for it. LGA talkedits 21:53, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
With regards to your first point, the fact that the current text of this template is wrong doesn't seem like a reason to delete it, it seems like a reason to fix it. Because we're talking past each other a bit I think we could benefit from a concrete proposal to discuss; so I've suggested a fix for this template on the template's talk page (at Template talk:PD-UN#Proposed change). Let me know what you think on that talk page. With regards to your second point, I think it's a little weird to think the UN is sovereign (the individual members of the UN are sovereign, the org is not). It would also be silly to suggest that just because the UN HQ is in NY that all UN works have the U.S. as their origin, for the same reason that Coke's advertisements published in France have France as the origin despite Coke's HQ being in the U.S (ignoring certain complexities of the Berne convention such as simultaneous publication, etc.). With regards to your final point, I don't think we need to ask UNICEF for permission, for much the same reason as we didn't ask permission to host the General Electric logo. —RP88 23:48, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I will comment over at Template talk:PD-UN#Proposed change on your proposed change, but my view remains the document and this template can not be used to support the hosting of anything as it does not meet COM:L with regard to being enforceable and non-revocable. With regard to the UN's status I am saying is that a well reasoned argument can be made either way so at best it is not clear; and I feel asking an organisation what it's view on copyright especially when that organisation is of the stature of either the UN or UNICEF what it considers to be covered by copyright is exactly what we should do. LGA talkedits 00:30, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Since the United Nations decided to not follow United States copyright formalities for certain works prior to 1989 these works fell into the public domain in the U.S. Under U.S. law this is irrevocable. —RP88 00:46, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Not necessarily the case you are forgetting what impact Uruguay Round Agreements Act had on forgoing United States copyright formalities. LGA talkedits 05:10, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think I satisfied you in this regard in our subsequent discussion at Template talk:PD-UN#Proposed change. —RP88 03:01, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is confusing. I'm first checking Swedish law. Article 60 of the Swedish copyright law tells that the Swedish copyright law applies in its entirety to Swedish works, and Article 60 also defines what a Swedish work is. Article 62 of the Swedish copyright law tells that the government may declare that the law in full or in part shall apply to foreign works if there is an agreement or treaty with a foreign country or organisation which says that the law should apply to such works. The international copyright decree describes how such agreements and treaties work. Article 1 of the international copyright decree tells that works created by EEA citizens shall be treated as works by Swedish citizens (i.e. the works get the same term as Swedish works and no rule of the shorter term applies). Article 2 tells that works protected under the Berne Convention shall be protected in Sweden, but that the rule of the shorter term shall be used. The decree also mentions several other treaties, such as WIPO and the Universal Copyright Convention. Notably, Article 10 mentions works by the United Nations and some other organisations. Article 10 tells that the Swedish copyright law applies in its entirety (except for droit de suite and 25-year copyright restoration if a previously unpublished work becomes published). Article 10 seems to have two effects:
  1. It seems to remove the need for the Berne Convention, UCC, WIPO or some other treaty to define a source country which is a party to that treaty, and
  2. It seems to remove the rule of the shorter term.
That is, works by the United Nations seem to get the full Swedish copyright term, and are (apart from droit de suite and the extra 25-year copyright term) to be treated in the same way as Swedish works.
The question then comes whether s:Administrative Instruction ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.2 can be seen as a permission to use certain copyrighted works by the United Nations. However, I am a bit dubious here. The document says that you can use works by the United Nations which are not copyrighted. It also says that the United Nations will not actively seek copyright protection in certain works, but says nothing about what will happen if a copyright law unilaterally grants copyright protection for a work for which the United Nations hasn't actively sought copyright protection. I'm therefore wondering if the document simply is a declaration that the United Nations won't attempt to follow United States copyright formalities for certain works. --Stefan4 (talk) 00:34, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this is why I explicitly limited it to U.S. works, i.e. "works published by the UN in the US before 17 September 1987 not listed in the annex of ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.1 are PD." Once the United Nations decided to not follow United States copyright formalities for certain works these works fell into the public domain in the U.S. Only a change to U.S. law could remove these works from the public domain in the U.S. —RP88 00:46, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, I don't think the current text of this template is correct. I've proposed a change to this template at Template_talk:PD-UN#Proposed_change that I think is a much better statement of the copyright situation regarding works of the UN (the U.N. gained the right to copyright works in the U.S. due to the addition of Protocol 2 to Universal Copyright Convention at 1971 Convention in Paris). —RP88 01:07, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]


 Keep. These bogus copyright notices simply don't matter. Copyfraud and copyright nonsense like this is rampant. It's common to find government websites, e.g. in Florida, that claim work of that state - which the Florida constitution has placed in the public domain - by placing copyright notices on them. Same thing with the US Federal Government. Some webmaster's decision to do what is so common on so many websites - put a copyright notice on it ( and the fact that they are so common despite the fact that they have close to no effect in law because copyright notice formalities are no longer required under US law anyway) is totally unconvincing.

It's about as convincing as if I uploaded a photo of Michaelangelo's sculpture of David of the and labeled it (the sculpture) as my own work, (c) 2014 Elvey. The copyright notice doesn't make it copyrighted; it's PD. Period.
These are about as shitty as it gets when it comes to evidence that Administrative Instruction ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.2 was superseded or revoked.
  • The UN's main website has this copyright notice;
  • The WHO website's copyright notice;
  • The UNICEF website also has one;
  • The UN's News and Multimedia website also makes it clear what the UN's position on copyright is when it says "Prior written permission is required to reproduce UN photos in print or electronic format"
It was just ignored or unknown.

When a legislative body passes a law (e.g. one that makes something PD), the actions of the corresponding executive agency can't change that. That's just how the law works, in any jurisdiction. I use the example of Florida, because this happens there too, even though it's not merely the law that makes the state's work PD. It's the fucking Constitution. --Elvey (talk) 05:28, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any reason to assume that the UN and it's agencies are engaged in Copyfraud; such "an extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof" LGA talkedits 05:41, 6 June 2014 (UTC).[reply]
The fact that those notices are problematic doesn't change the fact that the language of this template is way too broad. While LGA and I currently disagree about how to fix this problem, I don't think his concerns can be discounted altogether. —RP88 06:14, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Interestingly, although this is largely off-topic for our purposes, the U.N. themselves agree that the copyright statements on United Nations websites and social media pages are in bad shape, often inconsistent with actual U.N. policy and otherwise unclear. See Audit of Internet publishing and use of social media at the United Nations Secretariat. Not that this scathing audit from the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services has actually resulted in anything other than a recommendation to create a panel to draw up a report to recommend how to proceed ;-) . —RP88 03:01, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Stefan, unfortunately {{PD-US-no notice}} and {{PD-US-1978-89}} are not suitable replacements any of the existing files tagged with {{PD-UN}} as any signatory of UCC Paris have a treaty obligation to extend local Copyright protection to works of the UN (as you discovered for Sweden (a UCC Paris signatory)) , even if they've fallen into the public domain in the US. This is discussed a bit at Template talk:PD-UN#Proposed change). So while works of the U.N. published in the U.S. before 17 September 1987 are in the public domain, this does not extend to most countries, even if they implement the rule of the shorter term (as claimed by the current {{PD-US-no notice}} and {{PD-US-1978-89}} tags). From what I've been able to determine, works of the U.N. that are PD in the U.S. due to failure to comply with copyright formalities are probably only also PD in Albania, Antigua/Barbuda, Argentina, Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, Macau, Singapore and Taiwan. —RP88 03:01, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The template is based on a document which says that the United Nations isn't planning to follow United States copyright formalities. The template is therefore a duplicate of {{PD-US-no notice}} and {{PD-US-1978-89}}. Per COM:L, files on Commons need to be in the public domain in both the United States and the source country, and works whose source country is the United States and which satisfy {{PD-US-no notice}} and {{PD-US-1978-89}} are in the public domain in the United States and the source country. The fact that the works are copyrighted in almost any other country per the Universal Copyright Convention is irrelevant. It only means that wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy forbids us to host the material as the material can't be used by everyone, everywhere in the world, but Commons doesn't care about the licensing policy and hosts lots of unfree images. For example, Commons accepts photos of recent Spanish buildings, despite wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy forbidding such use because the copyright law of the Ivory Coast disallows people to use such material until the architect has been dead for at least 80 years.
If this template is used for some files which are not from the United States, or which do not meet {{PD-US-no notice}} or {{PD-US-1978-89}}, then the template {{PD-UN}} should be removed from those files, as those files do not satisfy the terms required by the template. --Stefan4 (talk) 20:31, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Stefan, I think we are arguing slightly cross-purpose. To be clear, I think U.N. works whose source country is the United States which were published without complying with U.S. copyright formalities are public domain in the U.S. and can be hosted on Commons, and it sounds to me like we both are in agreement about this. I'm just saying that I don't think it would be appropriate to actually tag these U.N. files with either {{PD-US-no notice}} or {{PD-US-1978-89}} as both of those tags contain language that suggests that these works are also PD in countries that follow the rule of the shorter term, but this is almost certainly not the case as most of these countries have a UCC Paris treaty obligation to extend local copyright protection to works of the UN. So I think that U.N. files that meet the qualifications for {{PD-US-no notice}} or {{PD-US-1978-89}} should be tagged with a license tag that makes it clear that these files are likely only PD in the US. —RP88 21:13, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
As I wrote on the template talk page, I think that what we need instead is a special U.N. restriction tag which mentions the Universal Copyright Convention. The U.N. works which satisfy this tag would have to be migrated to {{PD-US-no notice}} or {{PD-US-1978-89}}, but there may be lots of other U.N. works which need completely different PD tags, so a generic restriction tag combined with ordinary country copyright tags seems to be the best option to me. --Stefan4 (talk) 22:14, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Elvey, it is all well and good to say that we see violations of law all the time, from Florida, the White House, and elsewhere and that we discount them because the policy of the Florida and US governments are very clear and have very limited exceptions. It is another thing entirely when the UN says that some works may be copyrighted and others not, but has plain and clear copyright notices on its main web site, among many other places.I think we must assume that the UN knows what it is doing -- that its main web site is not acting contrary to policy. Please remember that the requirement here is proof beyond a significant doubt -- certainly many of us have doubts well beyond significant that we should ignore the plain and clear copyright notices.
There is a second issue -- that is that the cited document says that the UN will not seek copyright for some of its works. Strictly speaking, that is not possible. All works are copyrighted from the moment of creation. In order to implement the UN's policy in a way that meets our needs, the UN must say, on each work to which it applies, that it releases the work under CC-0 (or a similar license) and that such release is irrevocable. As I read the document, the UN could change its mind with respect to any work at any time. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 19:49, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No the requirement is not "proof beyond a significant doubt". That phrase misrepresents policy, and COM:PRP.
In the case where the policy of the Florida and US governments are very clear and to the best of our knowledge works are free because of those policies, we should and do ignore plain and clear copyright notices to the contrary. That is in accord with PRP.
The claim that the situation with the UN is entirely different from that with Florida, the White House, etc, is accompanied by no evidence to back up the claim. We don't assume that Florida, the White House, etc knows what it is doing, so why should we assume that the UN knows what it is doing? They're all governments; that's one way (of many) in which they're the same, rather than entirely different. Also, you misquote: It speaks of seeking copyright protection, not seeking copyright. The difference is key; unless you can prove them equivalent, your argument fall apart, Jim. CC-licensed works are copyrighted. But their copyright holders do not have the monopoly that comes from seeking copyright protection. And your claim that " All works are copyrighted from the moment of creation. " is patent nonsense. (bad) Counterexample. (better) Counterexample 1 (better) Counterexample 2 Administrators, especially, should not be making unverifiable claims or misquoting or misrepresenting policy. Please be a little less quick to rush to judgement. --Elvey (talk) 07:56, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
We are getting of topic, but Jim is correct and I think you need to review what the law actually say in relation to US federal government works, 17 U.S.C. § 105 says that "Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government" it does not say that there is no copyright only that "protection under this title is not available" and the US government can and does seek protection for its works in other countries - see here . LGA talkedits 08:30, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Better counterexamples provided.
Well, "the US government can and does seek protection for its works in other countries" - yes, under the laws of those other countries! --Elvey (talk) 08:54, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You are splitting hairs and missing the main point. I said, "all works have a copyright". In copyright law, if it does not have a copyright, then it is not a "work". The point is that any copyrightable work, which is what we are discussing here, has a copyright from the moment of creation. The fact that it is possible to create many things that do not have a copyright is completely irrelevant because we are not discussing such things -- we do not need to since they are PD.
You are wrong to say that the UN is a government. While it is an organization whose members are governments, it has no governmental powers itself. Since it has demonstrated a confused copyright policy -- the cited policy says one thing, but its various web sites say another, there is certainly significant doubt as to what the copyright status of any individual UN work is. It is not useful to have a template which says that all UN works are free when major potential sources of UN works have clear and explicit copyright notices. To the extent that there are any works that are actually free, we should be citing the source license and not a policy that does not have general application. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 10:16, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct, the fact that prior to 17 September 1987 the U.N. had an official policy of deliberately not complying with U.S. copyright formalities for all but a select few enumerated works is really only helpful for PD status in U.S., as failure to comply with these formalities is not helpful in other counties (or even the U.S. for any post 1989 work). —RP88 03:01, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

 Delete As per Jim and LGA. There seems to be more applicable licences where most of these works would be covered under, and no blanket PD form applies regarding all UN works. trackratte (talk) 21:10, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

From comment here, I agree with deprecate then delete as per RP88's comment below. trackratte (talk) 22:50, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment As I mention above, I don't think deleting this template is a good solution. Suddenly dropping 1300 files into the "no license" bucket is not an appropriate fix for this issue, as it would suddenly impose on quite a few uploaders the burden of immediately correcting the license on their file, or face deletion. This seems unduly harsh, particularly since the uploaders who relied on this license template when tagging their files have not been notified of the problem. How about a staged "first deprecate" then "delete" step? —RP88 03:01, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Kept: While I agree that this template should be deleted, this is not the right way to deal with it. The template is widely used and we cannot deal with a DR of 1300 files at ones. We should have a look at them on individual basis since some of them may very well be okay under a different license. Someone could start a special page to coordinate this or people could just check the images one by one. Natuur12 (talk) 11:05, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear I followed RP88's suggestion. Natuur12 (talk) 22:01, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Follow-up

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I'm confused; are RP88 and Natuur12 secondary accounts? Surely not... I ask because it looks like RP88 followed RP88's suggestion (see my italics above) for 'a staged "first deprecate" then "delete"', not Natuur12: diff. Has RP88 / Natuur12 given proper notice, that is have all who relied on this license template when tagging their files been notified of the problem/deprecation? I see no evidence of that. Setting a deadline whether 1 January 2015 or any other date, is inappropriate until proper notice has been given (i.e. via user talk pages).--Elvey (talk) 07:48, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Elvey, I am not a sockpuppet of Natuur12. If you are going to make such an accusation I'd appreciate it if you would do it via COM:AN/U rather than an off-the cuff remark here. If you review the edits in the history of PD-UN you'll see that Natuur12 implemented his decision by direct template inclusion of the proposal sub-page on 18 June 2014‎. Unfortunately, that broke the localization support for {{PD-UN}}, my edits on 19 June 2014‎ were to address that. Notifying the affected parties is the responsibility of the nominator, and I complained about the relevant uploaders not being notified. LGA moved my objections to the the talk page. I am not an administrator, but presumably any admin could have, in theory, closed the DR as incomplete for lack of notification if they agreed with my complaint; I guess none did. —RP88 (talk) 13:48, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for clarifying. I misinterpreted this diff; didn't see the include it replaced. Sorry. I din't make a sockpuppet accusation; secondary account != sockpuppet.
Yes, the nominator should have notified regarding the deletion request, and AFAIK hasn't done so. But separately, the person setting the 1 January 2015 deadline needs to do so as well. If it's not done within a day, I will revert the deprecation; I'm not prepared to do the notification myself.--Elvey (talk) 23:16, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, Jim, if you deny that Florida or the Executive Branch have plain and clear AND WRONG copyright notices on some of its major web sites, your head needs to be pulled out of the sand. You claim to have had one point and that I was splitting hairs. I claim you shifted the goalposts. I didn't miss your point. I pointed out that your point was false. Your new claim, that any copyrightable work has a copyright from the moment of creation, I did not dispute. You claim I'm splitting hairs, and yet about a sentence later, you claim, "You are wrong to say that the UN is a government..." How ironic! Major potential sources of Florida works have clear and explicit and bogus copyright notices. Major potential sources of US Federal works have clear and explicit and copyright notices. What part of that do you not understand? Get your head out of ... the sand! We don't throw up our hands in response and say this is too confusing for us; we're not 1000% sure, so we can't use any of those potential sources. We've been demonstrably smarter than that. I believe we are smart, educated and informed enough to do the same with the UN works too. --Elvey (talk) 07:49, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't for a minute deny that, for example, the White House puts a notice on its images that purports to limit their use. I don't know about Florida, but it wouldn't surprise me a bit. What I know, however, is that the US and Florida law is very clear, so we can easily ignore the bogus notices. The UN rules, on the other hand, are not at all clear, at least to me. Admitting that is not "throw[ing] up our hands in response and say[ing] this is too confusing for us" -- it is simply a statement that the UN policies are not at all clear and that therefore PRP applies.
As for the UN being a government, it clearly is not. It has no territory over which it has jurisdiction in a governmental sense, not even its headquarters in New York. It is an association of governments, not much different from many other organizations in which governments have joined for various reasons. Therefore it does not have copyright laws of its own, but rather policies as to what it does with copyright. It is not a member of the Berne Convention, so there is no obligation for governments to abide by its policies. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 13:11, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I never said the UN was (or was not) a government. I said you were splitting hairs. WP:NOTHERE? I believe you are throwing up your hands in response and saying that this is too confusing for you, you're not 1000% sure. It's not too confusing for me. The relevant Florida law is not very clear to some, and therefore, technically, PRP applies. (This is yet another example of why, as I've long said, PRP is a broken and stupid rule.) Many FL works have been deleted despite {{PD-FLGov}}; many have yet to be undeleted. The law relevant to PD-FLGov is clear to me, however. The law and regulation relevant to PD-UNGov is clear to me, too. It's not too confusing for me. It's apparently too confusing for some of us.  :-( Its clear enough to me that this IS "permission in writing from the publisher", as described here, for the works to be considered PD. --Elvey (talk) 23:16, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Has anyone tried to Contact the Secretary of the Publication Board? Or contact the DPI? (No, I don't claim it's necessary; the situation is already clear to me; just asking.) --Elvey (talk) 23:16, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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