Commons:Office actions/DMCA notices/2021

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2021

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Nicholas Alahverdian

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In compliance with the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and at the instruction of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, one or more files have been deleted from Commons. Please note that this is an official action of the WMF office which should not be undone. If you have valid grounds for a counter-claim under the DMCA, please contact me. The takedown can be read here.

Affected file(s):

Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 19:08, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Tagged File:Nicholas Alahverdian and Andre Dubus III (cropped).jpg and File:Vice President Mike Pence and Nicholas Alahverdian (cropped).jpg for speedy deletion as crops of the above two images Reverted; per comment at en:Talk:Nicholas Alahverdian#Notes from WMF Legal. Vahurzpu (talk) 20:50, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Vahurzpu: Why exactly did you revert it? I'm leaning heavivly to delete these at the moment. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 22:24, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Josve05a: Sorry, should have been more clear there. The proximate cause was this diff from User:ProcrastinatingReader, who pointed out in their edit summary that they specifically did not send a takedown for the images in the article, even though those are pretty clearly the easiest ones to find. I therefore reverted the tagging of the other image, as it was on pretty much the same grounds. The cropped versions might still be worthy of deletion (I wouldn't object), but it's not really unambiguous copyright infringement. Vahurzpu (talk) 23:26, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the reason why the WMF did not delete the other two images is due to the fact that they don't "need to", since they were not notified of them in the letter. But due to Commons policy on permission and sourcing, the images need to be deleted, since the image they were cropped from has been deleted for copyright reasons. We might not legally need to, but we need to due to policy at least. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 23:34, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Legal was quite clear in the linked diff, in my opinion, that they only deleted the two linked and not any linked from the article. So unless they want to take an office action to delete the remaining, the community should do nothing. As a community we debated the copyright status multiple times already. The images were uploaded before the domain cited in the DMCA even existed, and metadata was provided. Perhaps the pics were uploaded by Nicholas and now he doesn’t want them uploaded, but that’s irrelevant because the usage license is given indefinitely and irrevocably. There is minimal legitimacy to the copyright claim imo, the DMCA appears like a nonsense to me. It’s understandable why office deleted it, presumably because they don’t want to open themselves up to legal liability. If they delete the others I won’t complain, but I do object to any community processes deleting them, as the community has discussed and found them to be compliant. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:39, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@JSutherland (WMF): I've tried to find if anyone is named John Baumann in, or near, Cambridge, MA (which is noted in the email as the address) but I couldn't find anyone using different online lookup tools. What are the requirements of calling oneself "Esq."? Do one need to have taken the bar and be a licensed attorney/lawyer? According to Martindale.com there are 7 attorneys with this name, but none are working out of MA and according to Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers no-one who has taken the MA bar is named this. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 22:53, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Josve05a: There's information on how to file a counternotice towards the bottom of the Foundation's DMCA policy. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 23:01, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I will check on some things... --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 23:21, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You’ll probably find the guy doesn’t exist. Just read en:w:Nicholas Alahverdian for all you need to know. A dubious death surrounded with sock puppetry and lots of dubious legal requests. The DMCA is most likely illegitimate. I wouldn’t expect a counter claim, since it opens the filer up to legal liability themselves, and given the foundation is unwilling to do so itself I’m surprised that JSutherland would suggest that option to community members. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:43, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@JSutherland (WMF): This is concerning to me, as well. I believe this takedown notice to be flawed to the point of complete invalidity. I'd like to offer the following points in support of that belief:
  • Firstly, the uploader (User:Pro lights) clearly has asserted ownership of copyright - as "we" - though who "we" is, is unclear. Are they speaking as a representative of the Trust here (it would seem so)? If they're both a representative of the Trust and they uploaded the images, then they correctly released copyright to WMF irrevocably upon uploading.
  • Along the same lines, I also note that the DMCA takedown notice appears self-contradictory. They first seem to assert that this content was not uploaded by any one associated with them, then they appear to imply that it was one of their employees/contractors/freelancers/etc. but that the employee/contractor/whatever did so without authorization:
  • "...andcopyright holder of content in question on your website which was notuploaded by any of our employees, agents, affiliates, or otherwise anyindividual or group associated with the Trust." (my emphasis) and...
  • "The original works were created by employees and/or volunteers of TheNicholas Alahverdian Trust while they were employed by the Trust andwere fully aware that any works created would be the intellectualproperty of The Nicholas Alahverdian Trust."
  • The use of "Esq." by someone not licensed to practice law would seem that it may be illegal under Massachusetts law.per this government publication, (TL;DR, those with a suspended license to practice are not allowed to use Esq. as it gives the impression is that they are licensed to practice).
  • Indeed, I also verified that I could not find a "John Baumann", nor any lawyer with a remotely similar first name that is licensed to practice law in Massachusetts, nor in Rhode Island, nor a number of other states I looked at for that matter. Yet, the use of "Esq.", and in addition the comments "...my clients...", "...please email legal@...", "...I am hired and retained by The NA Trust to act on its behalf...", etc. written here all add up to someone clearly presenting themselves as legal counsel. It is definitely illegal to present oneself as an attorney, or to represent someone else, when not licensed in that state where they are purporting to represent their client. If this "Mr. Baumann" is falsely claiming to be a licensed attorney (as would seem to me based on the evidence above), then that would seem to violate the "good faith" portion of the (c)(1)(C).
  • I would also submit that if the uploader was working on behalf of the Trust (likely in a marketing capacity), then they may again actually meet the definition of someone legally authorized to release copyright.
  • If memory serves, the images on Commons were of higher quality than those on the Alahverdian Wordpress site, so it doesn't seem possible they were copied from there.
I would respectfully request that WMF legal investigate these points very carefully, if they haven't already. I do think it may behoove us to research further and verify that this is truly a legitimate and good-faith request, as I feel we should be cautious about giving credence to potentially frivolous requests. Thank you very much for your time, and your tireless efforts on behalf of the projects. Waggie (talk) 03:30, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This does seem (mildly) interesting as a case of potential abuse. Examining the second file, this was uploaded by Bubbasax (talk · contribs · logs · block log) who went on to create Commons:Deletion requests/File:Vice President Mike Pence and Nicholas Alahverdian.jpg, requesting deletion 2 years after their original upload. Deletion requests were raised 4 times:

  1. July 2019, by uploader,
  2. September 2019, by uploader,
  3. September 2019, by uploader changing the rationale to "stolen from Facebook",
  4. December 2020, by EnPassant (talk · contribs) and the DR was manipulated by two accounts later locked by office action who argued for deletion. One of the later locked accounts wrote several hundred words in "legalese" using phrases like "hereafter referred to" and "the work product of workers, contractors, freelancers, or volunteers of The NA Trust". It seems highly likely that the same person that operated this account is also the author of the DMCA notice, as "work product", "responsibilities", "this correspondence" are used in identical ways in both places.

The conclusion of all four attempts to delete was keep.

The EXIF data for the image is entirely convincing as original and despite the false claim in one of the DRs was not "stolen from Facebook", as there is no Facebook ID in the EXIF, something that happens to all Facebook hosted images. The photo is a grainy low resolution crop of the two named people, taken on an iPhone 4 on 14 June 2013. It's unclear why anyone would care about the copyright of this shot, it's certainly not of print quality.

Given the history of changing allegations (i.e. lying) and the history of locked accounts, this take down notice deserves significant scrutiny. The account Bubbasax should also be considered for a office lock, being a single purpose account that claimed to be operated by the copyright holder of this photograph, though it has not been used since 2019.

Special consideration should be given to the potential for use of take down notices by misrepresentation where sock-puppetry may have failed. There should be no assumptions here of validity when the facts can be checked with a couple of phone calls. This is probably worth the effort considering the history of disruption at Category:Sockpuppets of Thoughtful and Considerate, including the obviously relevant NATLegalOffice (talk · contribs · logs · block log).

Worth noting www.nicholasalahverdian.com/security which specifically warns that the Trust (presumably a registered entity under US law, but the website has no evidence of registration) has been recently the target of phishing and that any emails from the Trust need to be checked and/or the Trust should be contacted directly to validate correspondence.

Addendum Further reading just emphasises the need to validate everything. Nicholas Alahverdian has some interesting sources, which would lead us to question whether the "Nicholas Alahverdian Trust" legally exists, and whether the people claiming to represent the estate have a verifiable legal status. --Fæ (talk) 13:50, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the images, there's a dual consideration here. Appearances on en-wiki are that this article was created and repeatedly recreated by a sock farm, even attempting to bypass salted names. At the time I nommed the image for deletion, I was mainly concerned with what looked to be an attempt at massive puffery/vanity of some nobody from Rhode Island. As we've all learned, he's turned out to be be notable after all, but maybe not for the reasons he or his likely paid sock farm intended. In any case, I wouldn't oppose reinstating the deleted images if the DMCA turns out to be fraudulent. How do we verify if the Trust legally exists? EnPassant (talk) 00:37, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

According to this (unreliable) comment the trust has ceased to exist. I can't figure out what, but there's something fishy here. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:06, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not 100% these are the right places to look, but neither [1] nor [2] turn up any permutation of the trust's name I tried. Vahurzpu (talk) 19:37, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Vahurzpu, Pigsonthewing, EnPassant, Fæ, and JSutherland (WMF): : issue (1) according to the state of Ohio business database, the "PRESIDENT AND TRUSTEES OF THE ALAHVERDIAN FOUNDATION" is a non-profit organization numbered 2414140. It is registered in 2015, ceased to exist in July 2020 for a failure to file statement of continued existence. Issue (2): in this current DMCA, Bauman/Baumann misspells his own name, compare the top and the bottom. This is garbage. Starship.paint (talk) 01:13, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There is sufficient here for WMF Legal to spend a few minutes of their time doing basic due diligence. If WMF Legal get some basic records then the DMCA notice can be safely binned and the actions here reversed if fraudulent, or the evidence published, or a further statement about the legal analysis, if demonstrated to be legitimate.
If these checks are not done, and the files stay deleted based on "good faith", in the face of the history of trolling, sockpuppetry, a phishing warning from the quoted source website, and demonstrably false claims in the DMCA request itself, then it makes sense that the community will discuss our next steps and how public they should be, rather than seeing Wikimedia Commons policies being apparently manipulated and those policies bypassed so easily by writing a fake email to WMF Legal. If this does set a precedent, then WMF Legal might expect to see many 'unverifiable' DMCA requests by sockpuppeteers and long term harassers. --Fæ (talk) 11:39, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is all great information. We've had the case on our radar for a while, since we communicate with English ArbCom with some regularity (and they have perhaps unsurprisingly been concerned about the case for a while now). We're going to keep looking into it to see how we can support. In the meantime, the option to counter notice is available should anyone feel they have enough evidence to do so (see the DMCA policy). Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 23:12, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@JSutherland (WMF): I assume the WMF are aware of this news article in the Providence Journal (since widely reported elsewhere) published the day before the original post here? I for one find it somewhat strange the the Nicholas Alahverdian website doesn't even appear to use (at least not on pages that can be navigated to) any of the photos they are the claimed copyright holders of. Consider the fake photo of Nicholas Alahverdian previously uploaded here (see Commons:Deletion requests/File:Nicholas Alahverdian Photo.jpg) and the repeated attempts to delete genuine photos of Nicholas Alahverdian. Those actions appear somewhat sinister when looked at in terms on the story about Nicholas Alahverdian faking his death. FDW777 (talk) 16:46, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@FDW777: Yes, we have seen that article. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 00:43, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I'm not paid to do the job of a legal expert.
Suggesting that unpaid volunteers raise counter-notices to address what appear to be blatant holes in the logic of accepting a DMCA notice with false information in it, does not seem to be sufficient to address concerns with the quality of the WMF's action. The WMF does not need a counter notice to check its own work. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 17:34, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I've been looking at this thread and there's some good info here. I want to address this comment in particular though because it may be misleading for others in the future. The DMCA is designed around the idea that hosting providers don't have information about individual copyrighted works. The owner (who the law presumes does have good information) writes with adequate detail to identify the work and confirm that it's being used in a way that's a copyright violation. The hosting provider becomes liable for copyright infringement if they don't comply with the demand, but if the copyright owner got it wrong, the counter-notice procedure is exactly the system that's supposed to correct for those mistakes. Users should counter-notice a DMCA if they possess information that the Foundation made a mistake. The Foundation also does considerably more than the legal minimum: we always make an effort to investigate DMCAs. We did so here and are continuing to do so. If sufficient evidence comes to light that this was a fraud, we will update the DMCA at that time. But both now and in the future, a counter-notice is the right procedure for volunteers to undo a DMCA if you have information that it was improperly granted. -Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 23:26, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Well, considering what contrary information a group of volunteers has come up with in their spare time, here and on the English Wikipedia, I don't think the Foundation's investigation was very thorough. Liz (talk) 18:31, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's quite iffy Jrogers (WMF). Doesn't filing a counter-notice open that party up to legal liability? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 03:14, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Question BTW, from your investigations did you find out what jurisdiction "The Nicholas Alahverdian Trust" (or something similarly named) is registered in? Does it even exist currently? I'm struggling to find evidence such an entity exists in any of the states Alahverdian was active in. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 03:26, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm thinking that there's about 25 hours to take a deep dive, assess the sources, investigate legal registrations, liaise with WMF legal for the records they have to hand, and summarizing in a counter DMCA notice that is well written and has persuasive evidence. Let's say that the FTE rate of $30 per hour would be sufficient, so a WMF grant of $750 should cover the volunteer costs of doing as WMF Legal are recommending, while being 100% legally independent of the WMF.
Anyone with some appropriate skills and awareness of the US public record bureaucracy interested in potentially bidding for this work, if the Commons community puts in a funding proposal?
Thanks --Fæ (talk) 18:25, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the notice needs to be very high quality or persuasive. The host is pretty much obligated to action a counter notice within two weeks, I think. The only issue is that you have to make an affirmation under penalty of perjury. No volunteer should be expected to do so to fill a hole in the foundation's deficiencies. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 03:17, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Content restored

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Hello everyone. On request of Wikimedia Foundation counsel, we have restored the images previously deleted following a takedown request. For clarity, this affects the following files:

Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 20:18, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I just want to note that The Daily Mail attributes a cropped version of File:Vice President Mike Pence and Nicholas Alahverdian.jpg to "Courtesy Brian Coogan". --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 20:50, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Josve05a: - the Daily Mail one "Courtesy Brian Coogan" is obviously a photo of a tablet-displayed photo though. I can even see the cracks on the tablet screen. We can't assume that is the original. Starship.paint (talk) 11:50, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No, that’s was my assessment as well - hence why I didn’t nominate it for deletion. However, it is always good too note things like this. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 12:11, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you JSutherland (WMF)! Are you at liberty to provide details if these were undeleted following a counternotice sent by a community member (or perhaps issued by the Office of General Counsel themselves), or if the original takedown request was deemed improperly sent and not meet the requirements needed per the statue to constitute a proper takedown request? --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 20:58, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Josve05a, it's a holiday for most of the Legal team today, but I'll ask them tomorrow. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 22:48, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@JSutherland (WMF): any update on this? I'm curious in the answer as well. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:00, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Pinging JSutherland (WMF) again regarding this. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 22:04, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies Josve05a and ProcrastinatingReader - it was more or less the latter, after we gained new information relating to the original notice. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 00:08, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Bogotá panorama

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In compliance with the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and at the instruction of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, one or more files have been deleted from Commons. Please note that this is an official action of the WMF office which should not be undone. If you have valid grounds for a counter-claim under the DMCA, please contact me. The takedown can be read here.

Affected file(s):

Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 19:32, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Maggie Hallahan photos

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In compliance with the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and at the instruction of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, one or more files have been deleted from Commons. Please note that this is an official action of the WMF office which should not be undone. If you have valid grounds for a counter-claim under the DMCA, please contact me. The takedown can be read here.

Affected file(s):

Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 21:31, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm curious; why weren't they deleted on first request?--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:21, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Prosfilaes, I'm an attorney for the Foundation, and I handled this request. As you may know, DMCA takedowns legally require a certain format (you can see the components here). The first few requests mentioned did not follow this format or contained significant missing information (including links to the allegedly infringing works). Once we received a full list of links, we confirmed that the images were never PD licensed nor government works, and then recommended office action. Hope that makes sense! -- ADavenport (WMF) (talk) 22:41, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. So it's not a warning sign that someone should consider filing a counter-claim, it's just procedural.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:12, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Two comments:
  • 1. Their DMCA notice seems to have missed at least two files among those that were nominated for deletion on Commons by the author, see Commons:Deletion requests/File talk:6G9V2054 (26483457062).jpg and Commons:Deletion requests/File talk:MG 7202 (12835797893).jpg. It would probably be smart of someone with access to the delete function to speed up the closure of the DRs and delete those files instead of waiting for their next DMCA notice. They also missed File:In Senegal, a couple demonstrates how to correctly tuck in the seams of an ITN in order to protect children from mosquito bites. (12836231343).jpg, which does not have a DR, but has the copyright mention in the exif and should be deleted also in good logic.
  • 2. More generally, the basic problem with the photos by Maggie Hallahan and others was, and still is, the flickr account named "U.S. President's malaria initiative" (113320883@N05), which is flickrlaudering photos. Most photos there seem to be under copyright from the photographers, even with clear notices in the exif and/or description, but the filckr account tags them as U.S. government works, so people who mass upload from flickr to Commons upload them mistakenly as PD and the Commons license review bot is misled by the flickr tag. Is that flickr account blacklisted already? There are still many files on Commons that were copied from there as PD although they are not if you check. This probably needs a clean up.
-- Asclepias (talk) 03:31, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Steve DeAngelo

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In compliance with the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and at the instruction of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, one or more files have been deleted from Commons. Please note that this is an official action of the WMF office which should not be undone. If you have valid grounds for a counter-claim under the DMCA, please contact me. The takedown can be read here.

Affected file(s):

Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 23:27, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

User:Betterness11 was the uploader, only other upload (File:Portrait of Steve DeAngelo.jpg) has been DR'd. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 01:18, 20 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

After Koshu Kajikazawa

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In compliance with the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and at the instruction of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, one or more files have been deleted from Commons. Please note that this is an official action of the WMF office which should not be undone. If you have valid grounds for a counter-claim under the DMCA, please contact me. The takedown can be read here.

Affected file(s):

Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 20:09, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Also note, the 10 April email that the lawyer refers to in the DMCA notice referred to a different file that was already deleted by the community. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 20:11, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
User:Necrocancer was the uploader; 49 uploads remain, listed at Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Necrocancer.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 00:14, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

England rugby

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In compliance with the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and at the instruction of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, one or more files have been deleted from Commons. Please note that this is an official action of the WMF office which should not be undone. If you have valid grounds for a counter-claim under the DMCA, please contact me. The takedown can be read here.

Affected file(s):

Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 23:32, 21 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that the takedown discusses two images though we've only taken down this one. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 23:33, 21 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Why did WMF legal accept the DMCA notice from ALAMY, when it could have been immediately binned as unreliable, or at least sent back to their solicitor with an "are you kidding" comment, on examining the first listed image of File:Emmeline Pankhurst and other suffragette leaders 1908.jpg? A notice that opens with blatant copyfraud is hardly a credible legal instrument. --Fæ (talk) 07:50, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@JSutherland (WMF): Isn't "Dan" required to submit his full name?   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 14:47, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Whoever Dan is, they have failed to name the photographer for the two cases (the "copyright holder"), and they've managed to be unclear about who the "copyright agent" is as the DMCA letter is from "Alamy Limited" but the agent looks like it is PA Images, which is a separate legal entity; based on the statements from PA Media Group at https://pamediagroup.com/our-brands. Consequently the letter is neither from the copyright holder, nor their contracted agent. A letter from contracted out operations is not what the DMCA regulations specify. Again this appears to be grounds to ignore the letter, or reply with "please raise a valid DMCA request if you want us to take you seriously".
This letter is Alamy going on a fishing expedition, probably using an unpaid intern or similar ("Dan") to mass mail them out. This sets a bad precident considering that Alamy make no effort at all as far as we can see to avoid obvious copyfraud, including hosting content that has been shown to be taken from Wikimedia Commons. --Fæ (talk) 17:18, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The file would have been deleted at DR anyway, obvious copyvio.--BevinKacon (talk) 23:11, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

photographer [7] is Andrew Matthews ? you could tweet at him here https://twitter.com/andymatthews_pa --198.24.31.111 20:48, 26 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Cheryl Strayed

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In compliance with the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and at the instruction of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, one or more files have been deleted from Commons. Please note that this is an official action of the WMF office which should not be undone. If you have valid grounds for a counter-claim under the DMCA, please contact me. The takedown can be read here.

Affected file(s):

Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 20:45, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The uploader's other files are under discussion at Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Moxie68.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 23:14, 23 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
How much sense does it make to take down the file but make the takedown request containing the same image publicly available? -- Discostu (talk) 08:49, 25 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Perfect sense. It's not free, and it doesn't belong on Commons. But I assume that the WMF has to do some more complex analysis if a fair use photo on Wikipedia is DMCA'ed. In this case, there's a strong fair use case for recording exactly what was DCMAed, especially in a format where it's permanently contextualized.--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:21, 25 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Queen Elizabeth II Bridge

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In compliance with the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and at the instruction of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, one or more files have been deleted from Commons. Please note that this is an official action of the WMF office which should not be undone. If you have valid grounds for a counter-claim under the DMCA, please contact me. The takedown can be read here.

Affected file(s):

Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 22:13, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I deleted File:The Actual London Bridge.jpg, also uploaded by this user, as it was previously published at britannica.com attributed to "© Anna Regeniter/Dreamstime.com". —RP88 (talk) 22:20, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No one did an actual deletion here. - Jmabel ! talk 00:23, 31 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel: I think it was -- the existing file by that name was uploaded in 2022, well after this discussion, just happening to use the old name. The log shows the deleted file; I am presuming it is not the same as the current one. Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:45, 31 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Braniff International posters

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In compliance with the provisions of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and at the instruction of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, one or more files have been deleted from Commons. Please note that this is an official action of the WMF office which should not be undone. If you have valid grounds for a counter-claim under the DMCA, please contact me. The takedown can be read here.

Affected file(s):

Thank you! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 01:02, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To add a bit more manual explanation here, given this is a relatively strange request: These were already removed from the museum's Flickr from which they were sourced. It looks like the originals were donated as a part of a person's "collection" and were marked as "no known copyright restrictions", so they weren't poorly sourced at the time, they just now have known copyright restrictions. Hopefully that helps to explain things in this case. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 01:05, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@JSutherland (WMF): So were the posters initially published only in Peru and not the United States? Or did they carry a copyright notice in the United States? (All of them are old enough for {{PD-US-no notice}}.) -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:24, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
From the takedown Braniff is claiming that these advertising posters were created in Peru between 1948 and 1965 and have "undergone copyright restoration in the United States", ie. that the URAA restored their US copyrights. I can't find any evidence that these posters complied with US copyright formalities in the copyright registration and renewal records. Per en:WP:URAA the date of restoration for Peru is 1 January 1996. At the time of restoration Peru was pma+50 and pd+25 for organizations. Since a work published before 1971 with a pd+25 term would be PD at the date of restoration, presumably they are asserting that these posters were not "work-for-hire". —RP88 (talk) 02:35, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Restoration would not matter if the posters were published in the US no later than 30 days after their first publication in Peru. I have no definitive evidence on whether these posters were intended for consumption in the US or Peru, but the fact that the few words that appear on the posters are in English seems suspicious. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 02:49, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Agree that the "restoration" claim looks like it should break under reasonable analysis. It's not convincing that "jessica.martin" has done this research into the copyright basis, especially considering that "Braniff International" have cut & paste the same notice that they did for eBay without taking sufficient care they were writing to the Wikimedia Foundation. If someone wants to put in the investigation time, this one has a good prospect of being reversed based on facts without needing a "legal" challenge. --Fæ (talk) 10:30, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Could someone explain in plain English the takedown text of "Work(s) Infringed: BI Braniff International Trademark; these items are counterfeit and not authorized Braniff Airways products". The posters are not counterfeit (are they?), nor is the publication of them "counterfeit". Nor would the WMF be obliged to worry about trademark issues in a DMCA notice, it's a tangent, right? --Fæ (talk) 10:19, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Related information:

  • The museum mentioned is San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives.
  • The flickrstream source is https://www.flickr.com/people/49487266@N07, with these photos now apparently restricted as "private" rather than removed from Flickr.
  • Uploads to Wikimedia Commons was in 2015.
  • The Internet Archive versions created from the Flickr pages appear to have been suppressed, though they still appear in the IA 'saved' timeline, e.g. http://web.archive.org/web/2016*/http://flickr.com/photos/49487266@N07/12528502974
  • Google cache versions of the Commons pages are available and are not a copyright issue if anyone wants to examine them, as the images are not included.

For any researcher, there are versions of these around the net, for example https://www.flickr.com/photos/132032479@N02/16796675927 looks like the same Rio poster, where we can see there is no copyright mark and just examining the "trademark" for Braniff, by its own it appears to be uncopyrightable text. --Fæ (talk) 10:45, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all, thank you for your responses. I wanted to relay a little bit more about the Legal team's thought process behind this takedown. I recognise that this was not the prettiest DMCA and that there are indeed extraneous details included regarding trademarks that were irrelevant. The trademark statements do not affect our analysis of the copyright question one way or the other. The takedown request nonetheless substantially complied with the required formalities for us to consider the copyright claim here.

We did look into the potential PD status of the works; however, because 1) we cannot definitively state that these were published without notice (notice could be elsewhere on the physical copy or cut out in the digitisation process), 2) the photographs had been hidden by their initial source, who is in possession of those original copies, and 3) there is evidence that Braniff Airways did indeed register the copyright for many of its promotional works created during this time period in the United States, we felt we that taking this down was appropriate. It’s helpful to remember that a DMCA takedown request is technically a legal document, and so the person attesting that they own the copyright is usually considered affirmative evidence for copyright ownership unless we can find reliable evidence otherwise.

That being said, I also recognise that there are arguments to explore about the underlying copyright status of the works that have been raised here, and should you wish to do so in a formal manner, information on the counternotice process is available here. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 23:05, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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