Commons:Determining if U.S. coins are free to use
This page is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Commons contributors.It is not a Commons policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it. Please update the page as needed, or discuss it on the talk page.
Most coins and medals produced by the United States Mint are in the public domain because they were created by employees of the federal government as part of their official duties.[1] However, some coins and medals are either:[2]
- based on intellectual property owned by third parties and licensed to the government or originally created by third parties, or
- based on intellectual property originally created by third parties and transferred to the government.
In either of these cases, the coin or medal is protected by copyright and is not eligible to be hosted on Wikimedia Commons.
This page will detail some general rules to help determine if the design of a U.S. coin or medal is in the public domain or not. For a list of the copyright statuses of various U.S. coins and medals, please see User:Mysterymanblue/Copyright statuses of U.S. coins and medals.
Layers of copyright
[edit]
There are three people whose work goes into a photograph of a coin or medal: the designer, the sculptor, and the photographer. In order for a photograph of a coin or medal to be freely usable, each of these three people's contributions must be in the public domain or freely licensed.
- The design of a coin or medal is a two-dimensional line drawing. It does not contain any depth information. Coin and medal designs may be produced by mint employees, third-party contractors, or private citizens.[3]
- The sculpture of a coin or medal is its three-dimensional figure. The sculpture is a derivative work of the design, and the two are theoretically separately copyrightable. In practice, the mint almost always uses their own employees to sculpt their coins and medals, so the sculpture of a U.S. coin or medal is almost always protected to the extent that the underlying line drawing is protected.
- A photograph of a coin or medal is two-dimensional image of the sculpture. It is the position of the Wikimedia Foundation that a photograph of a coin involves sufficient originality to be a separately copyrightable derivative work of the coin's sculpture.[4] U.S. Mint employee-created and freely licensed third-party photographs of U.S. coins and medals whose designs and sculptures are freely usable are also freely usable. Some U.S. Mint photographs of U.S. coins and medals have been created by a contractor called Burwell and Burwell; the U.S. Mint explicitly reserves all rights in these photographs, and they may not be hosted on Commons. Information on who took U.S. Mint photographs is often carried in the metadata of the image file.[5]
Note that this article chiefly deals with copyright in the design of U.S. coins and medals. Users should take care that photographs of coins and medals are freely usable before uploading them to Wikimedia Commons.
Coins and medals published before March 1, 1989, are freely usable
[edit]All U.S. works published without a copyright notice prior to January 1, 1978, are in the public domain. Additionally, all U.S. works published without a copyright notice before March 1, 1989, and without registration within five years are also in the public domain.[6] U.S. coins and medals have never carried a copyright notice, and the U.S. Mint has not registered copyright for any coins or medals published between January 1, 1978, and March 1, 1989, so all coins and medals published before March 1, 1989, are in the public domain.
It might seem strange to use the term "publish" in the context of coins and medals. "Publication" here would include activities like distributing coins for circulation or offering coins or medals to the public for sale. It would not include simply designing or minting coins or medals.
Coins and medals designed by mint employees are freely usable
[edit]Coins and medals designed by mint employees (as part of their official duties) are in the public domain. To determine if a coin or medal was designed by a mint employee, go to its webpage at usmint.gov. Under "Artist Information", look at the name of the designer. If it says "Medallic Artist", "Sculptor-Engraver", or "Chief Engraver" next to the designer's name, the designer is an employee of the mint. Sometimes, the information provided on the mint's website is not sufficient, and you may need to perform a web search to get all the information you need.
For example, looking at the Apollo 11 50th Anniversary commemorative coins program, the individual coin pages list Phebe Hemphill (Medallic Artist) as the designer of the reverse. Since Phebe Hemphill is a medallic artist employed by the mint, the reverse design of the coin is in the public domain.
Coins and medals listed by the mint as non-free are not freely usable
[edit]The mint maintains a non-exhaustive list of non-free coins and medals here. As of January 2022, the only coin or medal design that the mint mentions on this list is the obverse of the Sacagawea $1 coins. However, the absence of a coin or medal from this list does not necessarily mean that it is freely usable.
Coins and medals designed by Artistic Infusion Program contractors are not freely usable
[edit]The Artistic Infusion Program is run by the mint to invite professional artists to design U.S. coins and medals.[7] These artists are contractors[8] and the rights to their designs are transferred to the mint,[9] so the coins and medals they design are not in the public domain.[10]
To determine if a coin or medal was designed by an AIP artist, go to the its page at usmint.gov. Under "Artist Information", look at the name of the designer to see if it lists them as an AIP artist. Sometimes, the information provided on the mint's website is not sufficient, and you may need to perform a web search to get all the information you need.
For example, the 2021 Christa McAuliffe Silver Dollar's obverse was designed by Laurie Musser (Artistic Infusion Program), and its reverse was designed by Emily Damstra (Artistic Infusion Program). Because both sides of the coin were designed by AIP artists, both are non-free.
Please note that some AIP artists previously served as employees of the U.S. Mint. This group includes Don Everhart and Donna Weaver, though it is possible there are others.[11][12] U.S. coins and medals designed by these individuals while they were employed at the mint are in the public domain. In some cases, coins and medals created by these designers while they were on staff at the mint have been mislabeled by the mint as having been created by AIP artists. Therefore, you will sometimes have to verify not just who designed a coin or medal, but also when they designed it.
Coins and medals designed as part of a competition are not freely usable
[edit]Coins and medals designed as part of a competition are not in the public domain because the designers are typically not federal government employees, and—even if they were—participating in a competition is typically not an official duty of federal employees. Additionally, competitions' terms and conditions invariably include language assigning the rights to the design to the mint.[13][14][15][16] The exception to this rule is when a mint employee wins a coin or medal design competition: the mint appears to have its employees submit designs to these competitions as part of their employment.[17]
For example, the Apollo 11 50th Anniversary commemorative coins webpage notes that the mint held a competition for the obverse design of the coins and lists Gary Cooper, a private citizen, as the designer. The obverse design of the coin is therefore non-free.
Coins and medals with registered copyrights are not freely usable
[edit]While copyright registration is not required in the United States, it is an affirmative sign of copyright protection. The United States Mint has registered copyrights for a few of its coins and medals. Follow the instructions at Commons:Checking if copyright was renewed to search for registered coin and medal designs; as of July 30, 2021, all of these coins and medals are listed at User:Mysterymanblue/Copyright statuses of U.S. coins and medals.
See also
[edit]- Commons:Deletion requests/Apollo 11 Commemorative Coin Contest images
- Commons:Deletion requests/US Mint Registered Copyrights
- Template:PD-USGov-money
References
[edit]- ↑ 17 U.S. Code § 105(a) and 17 U.S. Code § 101
- ↑ Mint Terms of Use 1.A Intellectual Property Rights
- ↑ Meredith, Stephanie (2020-05-06) How Coins Are Made: The Design and Selection Process[1]
- ↑ Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag#Photograph of an old coin found on the Internet
- ↑ Commons:Deletion requests/File:2019 Apollo 11 50th Anniversary 5oz Dollar Reverse.jpg and Commons:Deletion requests/Burwell and Burwell photographs of U.S. coins
- ↑ See Commons:Hirtle chart
- ↑ United States Mint: Artists
- ↑ United States Mint: Call For Artists Terms and Conditions C.2: "The Contractor shall create and submit one or more original designs..."
- ↑ United States Mint: Call For Artists Terms and Conditions C.3: "All design submissions to the United States Mint shall be assigned to the United States Mint and will become its sole and exclusive property."
- ↑ 17 U.S. Code § 105(a) provides that "the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise".
- ↑ https://www.usmint.gov/learn/artists/aip-don-everhart
- ↑ https://www.usmint.gov/learn/artists/aip-donna-weaver
- ↑ 2020 Basketball Hall of Fame Commemorative Coin Design Competition: Official Rules: "Designs must be assigned to the United States Mint and will become its sole and exclusive property."
- ↑ 2019 Apollo 11 50th Anniversary Commemorative Coin Design Competition: Official Rules: "Designs must be assigned to the United States Mint and will become its sole and exclusive property."
- ↑ WWI Centennial 2018 Commemorative Coin Design Competition: Official Rules: "Designs must be assigned to the United States Mint and will become its sole and exclusive property."
- ↑ Breast Cancer Awareness Commemorative Coin Design Competition: Official Rules: "Designs must be assigned to the United States Mint and will become its sole and exclusive property."
- ↑ [2]: "Eleven artists were invited to compete with the Mint's staff in design of the congressional coins...."
