Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2018/11

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Sound files from 1962

I'd like to use one or more of the five Commons sound files of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique in an English Wikipedia article that is up for Featured Article. This is one of them: File:Hector Berlioz - Symphonie fantastique, op. 14 - 5. Songe d'une nuit du Sabbat (Igor Markevitch, Orchestre Lamoureux, 1962).flac. The others have the same copyright tag. Can I safely use these files in Wikipedia? Grateful for advice. Tim riley (talk) 10:22, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

What do you mean "Use them"? Do you mean that you want to link to them or that you want to transcribe them or use their derivative for the article? ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 11:03, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
@Tim riley: I would say that you can: 1) Link to them via [[File:Hector Berlio - Symphonie fantastique, op. 14 - 5. Songe d'une nuit du Sabbat (Igor Markevitch, Orchestre Lamoureux, 1962).flac]] text inside the article. 2) You can use them via <ref> tag if you are trying to use the recording as the reference; although Wikipedia often frowns upon primary references, but legally there is no problem, it's just their policy over there. 3) If you are trying to use your hearing to 'decompile' the notes that they are playing... you would be able to do that because it is a derivative of public domain. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 11:09, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
Thank you very much. I was a bit flummoxed by the 50 year+ and 70 year+ directives, as the files fall between the two. Tim riley (talk) 11:18, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
See Template talk:PD-EU-audio ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 11:21, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Is Donald Trump speaking at CPAC a work by US government or otherwise public domain?

File:Voices of cpac 2017 A pan of the Crowd as President Trump speaks.webm

I want to make it absolutely clear. This video is still able to be reproduced in because showing a reaction of the crowd sufficiently transforms the speech thus making it fair use. We do not allow fair use on Commons, but that is besides the point. I see three options of how it can be public domain or allowable: 1) It can be considered de minimis. I think that it is not deminimis here, without Donald Trump speaking there would be no video. 2) It is a work of the agent of the federal government. This is quite strong. Although not every president would be invited, we know that he was invited to speak as the US president. 3) It is not a scripted speech. Therefore the person who has recorded it in the tangible medium would have the copyright, in this case the person holding the camera, and thus it would be under the free licence in this case. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 11:44, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

  • #3 is what I would go with - an extemporaneous speech itself is not copyrightable - only a recording or transcript of it is. Very little of the video is of the video board and most of it is panning the crowd. So I'd say this is fine. (Others will probably disagree.) --B (talk) 11:56, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Wiki Commons for Heimskringla - Removing Copyright restrictions for Werenskiold ?

The illustrations by Erik Werenskiold (1855 - 1938) came into the Public Domain on Jan. 1, 2009. Did Jorunn upload the images and make it possible to remove the copyright restriction so that they can be seen now or does someone have to photograph and upload them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Megingjord (talk • contribs) 17:45, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Did an undeletion request for File:Askeladden.jpg since that is the only deleted thing I could find by Werenskiold. Abzeronow (talk) 20:11, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
there is a book here https://archive.org/details/snorresturlasn00snor/page/n5 , which you could upload using IAuploader [1] (requires OAuth [2]) and then use crop tool on the images. however, the book scans are not as high resolution as you can get with a flatbed scanner. there is also a more recent edition, you could search in your local library http://www.worldcat.org/title/sagas-of-the-viking-kings-of-norway-heimskringla/oclc/466929830?referer=di&ht=edition -- Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 01:57, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Old trademark

Moved from Commons talk:Help desk#Old trademark

How can I load an old and no more existing trademark? --Moxmarco (talk) 11:21, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Moxmarco it depends, could be not old enough to be in public domain. What's the logo? -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton m 11:47, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
It's the old Reinach's logo, used in 1920s --Moxmarco (talk) 14:12, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
@Moxmarco: Where can we find it?   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 14:23, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
It's a personal scan from an old document --Moxmarco (talk) 15:44, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
@Moxmarco: Can you upload it to an alternative outlet that doesn't care as much about copyright so we can see it? What is the old document? Where did you get it?   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 20:09, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Removal of possibly incorrectly upload images

In December 2014 and February 2015 I uploaded File:Telford College of Arts and Technology logo.png and File:Scatcollege.jpg respectively marking them as being in the public domain. However this was before I realised they had to be free in their home country as well as the United States in order to be hosted on Commons. I have already uploaded both images to the English Wikipedia as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Telford_College_of_Arts_and_Technology_logo_(1990s-2017).png and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shrewsbury_College_logo_(2004-2017).jpg marking them as being public domain in the US only and being probably trademarked so no move is necessary. If the original images were uploaded to Commons incorrectly I would like the assistance of whoever is qualified to remove them. Tk420 (talk) 12:49, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

You can use {{Speedydelete}} template. Ruslik (talk) 20:11, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Gettyimages and files from 1933

These two files taken in London 1933. Beside the issue of date and place of publication can I assume that the authors are unknown?

  • This file: Photo by Daily Herald Archive/SSPL/Getty Images
  • This file: Photo by KEYSTONE-FRANCE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

-- Geagea (talk) 20:31, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Certainly not for the first one, seeing that the name of the author is given in the page you linked. -- Asclepias (talk) 21:55, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
Edward Malindine died in 1970, so at least that one is not out of copyright. Jcb (talk) 22:02, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
@Geagea: You might find https://forum.otzar.org/viewtopic.php?t=6656&start=42 interesting.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 00:09, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
Well, I have been asked to check the copyright status from http://forum.otzar.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=6656&start=40. Anyway there are more photos from Gettyimages about Jewish protest in London 1933 like this or this. -- Geagea (talk) 12:08, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Can File:Constructing the Helsinki Olympic Stadium.ogv already be public domain?

I am not sure if File:Constructing the Helsinki Olympic Stadium.ogv can fall under {{PD-Finland}} or other public domain reasoning. Can somebody with better knowledge of Finish law than me please check it. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 08:29, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Are you sure that the author is not known? Ruslik (talk) 13:20, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Image from a free journal

I ran into a strange situation when trying to upload an image from the CC licenced journal PeerJ. A drawing in this[3] article (figure 6) is credited the following way: "The reconstruction in Fig. 6 is by Velizar Simeonovski (authors own the copyright)". So I'm unsure what this means; can we or can we not upload the image here? FunkMonk (talk) 02:33, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

My understanding is that the authors of the article are saying that they are not the creators of this image but that they have somehow acquired the copyright on it and therefore they offer it under the CC license like the rest of the article. If you want to be sure if that's the situation, you could contact Velizar Simeonovski. -- Asclepias (talk) 05:15, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
That's a good idea, I'll try. FunkMonk (talk) 10:56, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Editing Previously Published Article

Hi, all--

I am new to the Wikipedia (editing) world, and I am wanting to begin making edits to an existing article. I do have verifiable sources for the citations, they are not, however, online.

Also, the page that I am needing to make edits to falls under a larger umbrella, which currently does not have an article page to itself on Wikipedia. So how do I go about including the larger source (hyperlinks for said source, information about that source, etc.)? I currently am unable to publish an article until I have made 10 edits to an existing article.

I have several questions similar to those above. Please let me know if anyone is willing to work with me on getting these answered.

Thanks in advance,

Sydney T — Preceding unsigned comment added by SydneyThomason (talk • contribs) 18:28, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

  • @SydneyThomason: Signing your posts on talk pages is required and it is a Commons guideline to sign your posts on deletion requests, undeletion requests, and noticeboards. To do so, simply add four tildes (~~~~) at the end of your comments. Your user name or IP address (if you are not logged in) and a timestamp will then automatically be added when you save your comment. Signing your comments helps people to find out who said something and provides them with a link to your user/talk page (for further discussion). Thank you.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 10:46, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
  • @SydneyThomason: if you need assistance editing Wikipedia, please ask at w:WP:HELPDESK. This page is actually for Wikimedia Commons, a collection of images and other files used not only by Wikipedia, but by various other projects as well. --B (talk) 19:18, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
Hi, and welcome. en:WP:REFB should get you started with references, and you can develop the larger umbrella article at en:User:SydneyThomason/sandbox.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 10:46, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Structured data - copyright and licensing statements designs

Keegan (WMF) posted a pointer to Commons:Structured_data/Get_involved/Feedback_requests/Statements_2 at the general village pump. I thought it advisable to mention it here as well, as it's about "modeling copyright and licensing in structured data" which probably will be used in the future. So people who specifically watch COM:VPC and are interested in these matters probably should have a close look, I think. Gestumblindi (talk) 20:42, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Best license for an 1877 photo taken in the Netherlands by unknown photographer?

Looking at File:Jacobus Gerhardus van Niftrik 1833 - 1910.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs), I'm wondering if we should do better than PD-old-assumed for this 141 year old simple portrait photo. The 'assumed' template casts doubt on its public domain status for reusers, when in reality there is no doubt that the photographer will remain unknown. Considering how IP law is applied in the Netherlands, would swapping to {{PD-EU-no author disclosure}} be a more useful and precise statement? --Fæ (talk) 12:56, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

No. Telling the truth to potential reusers is better than telling them a false information. -- Asclepias (talk) 15:04, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
{{PD-anon-70-EU}} or {{PD-EU-no author disclosure}} are supposed to be used when the author is unknown. {{PD-old-assumed}} can be used when the author's name is known, but their death date is unknown. I'm not sure what to do if the full original source isn't available and there's no way to tell if the author was named somewhere. --ghouston (talk) 02:01, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
Simple: PD-old-assumed. We don't know if the author is anonymous. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 02:08, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
Also, {{PD-anon-70-EU}} and {{PD-EU-no author disclosure}} apply from date of publication, so can't be used unless there's a known publication date which is more than 70 years ago. --ghouston (talk) 02:21, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it! - Alexis Jazz ping plz 02:08, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
The photographer's name is on the back of the photo. There's no way you can know whether or not that's true. There is not "no doubt".--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:48, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz: you added a date of 1877. What is that date taken from, is it a date of publication?
By the way Prosfilaes, do you honestly believe that an archive would not add the name of the photographer to their catalogue if it were simply "on the back of the photo"? --Fæ (talk) 08:54, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
https://beeldbank.amsterdam.nl/beeldbank/weergave/record/?id=OSIM00006002648 "Datering 1877". And for all we know the photo may have been published in a book with photo credit. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 09:00, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
So, we have an archive record giving a date, probably a date of creation (which may be fine under Netherlands law from 1877, rather than trying to force 2018 copyright law on this photograph). Further, we have no known photographer. As this is the official city archive, it is reasonable to conclude that no simple research would ever lead to a name of a photographer. The facts make {{PD-EU-no author disclosure}} entirely justifiable and a better license than the dubious "assumed" template. --Fæ (talk) 09:15, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, yeah, Fæ is on a crusade against {{PD-old-assumed}}. Create a proposal to ban it, quit this. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 10:04, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
I'm borderline on it. I think we can assume there is no photographer name mentioned on the copy the archive has. But what is the publication info on that copy? Was it actually published at the time, or was it a private photo given to the archive decades later? That can also depend on per-country law, whether the giving of copies from the photographer was considered publication, or if the commissioner owned the copyright (thus no publication). Which could also affect the determination of publication with permission -- if the former, giving a copy to an archive may leave it technically unpublished. Not knowing the publication history makes it a bit safer to continue with PD-old-assumed. But if we know more when it was published, and it seems to have been the initial publication, then I would use the anonymous tags. Note that only the UK uses "unknown"; most of the EU is explicitly "anonymous", meaning it was published without a named author. The knowledge of the publication history -- not just the creation history -- thus becomes more important. I could definitely see using PD-UK-unknown if this was a British work, but not sure about other EU countries. The Dutch law does look closer to the UK law though -- which the author has not been indicated, or has not been indicated in such a way that his identity is beyond doubt. It does require publication by consent of the copyright owner though, while publication on behalf of the pictured person is not a copyright infringement as long as the author is mentioned (if present on the photograph). So the reproduction by the archive would be legal if donated by the pictured person, though would not necessarily constitute publication which would affect the term. On the other hand, it would show that the person is unnamed. And I am not sure that the Netherlands had an expiration on unpublished anonymous work before the EU directives (though I think was generally 50 years not 70 before then) -- if the photo was only acquired in say 1975, that may constitute the first making available to the public, and copyright may last 50 years from then, and not shortened by the EU directive (of limiting to 70 years from creation). Given everything, I would probably just leave it PD-old-assumed. I'm not sure it's worth arguing over which tag is preferable, though I would mark the author as unknown. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:34, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
Without knowing the publication history, isn't it also impossible to know which US copyright status to apply? It will probably be in the public domain though, either because it was published before 1923 or it was left unpublished too long. Perhaps it still hasn't been published by a rightful copyright holder. Whatever the case, the chance that somebody turns up and is able to prove they are the copyright holder to successfully sue you is negligible. It would require a) knowledge and evidence of who the original photographer was b) an unbroken chain of copyright transfers, with evidence, since that time c) that given all this information, the photo hasn't fallen into the public domain in the country where they are suing c) that this copyright holder is willing and able to launch lawsuits, possibly in foreign countries. --ghouston (talk) 23:56, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
Yes, but the publication would have needed to be exquisitely timed to still be under copyright. As in, first published after 1978 and before 2003, or maybe first published after 1926 (with the URAA coming into play). If not legally published by 2003, with an unknown/anonymous author, it would expire 120 years from creation, which had already passed so it would have become PD in 2003. The odds are pretty darn high that it was either published before 1923, or if not legally published by then, most likely not legally published since. That's in the realm of theoretical doubt (and not significant doubt) for me. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:54, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
But using {{PD-1923}}, as the file has now, is incorrect when there's no evidence for any publication before 1923. That leaves {{PD-old-assumed}} as the only applicable template, both for the EU and the USA. Actually, {{PD-old-assumed}} doesn't seem to apply to the USA, so it's a mystery what template to use for that uncertainty, given that {{PD-old-assumed}} says a US template must be added. --ghouston (talk) 21:25, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
We do often presume publication at some point for works that old. The definition of "publication" was also fuzzier in different ways back then -- that is before the 1909 Act, even. Could just use {{PD-US}} since it's probably either PD-1923 or PD-US-unpublished. There are theoretical doubts, but you'd have to prove when it was published to make use of the loopholes. PD-1923 is the more likely of the two. I just don't think it's worth worrying about too much unless some more concrete publication information is found. PD-old-assumed sort of applies to the U.S for anything unpublished as of 2003 even when an author name is known but death date is not (17 USC 302(e), different than actual expiration but there is some basis). Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:21, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Gershon Sirota

Gershon Sirota was a Jewish cantor, who recorded in the early 20th century some famous cantillations. I have a disagreement with user:Alexis Jazz on the following points: Alexis Jazz considers that (1) Sirota is the author of the works he recorded and (2) his "copyright" should be computed as 70 years pma. He has modified accordingly all the audio files in Category:Gershon Sirota (e.g. [4]). I consider that since he "never composed" [5], he should not be described as the author but merely as a performer of these cantillations ; and that he was entitled therefore only to a performer's neighbouring right of 50 years from the publication of the phonograms, per the Rome convention [6]. See the discussions here and here. Third opinions would be appreciated. — Racconish 💬 21:02, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Not saying I disagree, but I'm no expert in related rights. In this case, the cantillations are extremely old. I don't know exactly how these are passed down, but it's probably not even possible to say who created them. I suspect there is more creativity involved in the performance of them when comparing to most sheet music and lyrics, but I'm not sure that changes anything. This case may also highlight a shortcoming in the {{Information}} template. Perhaps we need a new template based on it, similar to {{Artwork}}, for music. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 21:13, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
Sirota was nicknamed the "Jewish Caruso". IMO simply recalling he merely sung these cantillations and adding {{PD-EU-audio}} was sufficient. Nobody would hesitate to consider Caruso as a performer and not an author. — Racconish 💬 21:21, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
In the mean time, I have replaced {{PD-old-auto-1923}} with {{PD-traditional}}. — Racconish 💬 10:42, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Family archive

Trying to give the right license to File:The_Original_Arkansas_Hillbillies_in_matched_costumes.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs). The original seems to be uploaded by the family member. Original license was given as CC Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 Int. As I'm new to Wikimedia Commons, I'd be grateful if pro-users will point me if I'm on the right track or not. —Lz (talk) 03:23, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

No year listed

Moved from Commons:Help desk#No year listed

If no year is listed on a notice that says "COPYRIGHT", and it was made in what is believed to be 1965, does it count as Template:PD-US-defective notice? (I found this weird show called The Mighty Mr. Titan which has no Wikipedia article, but is mentioned on Colonel Bleep's page. Unfortunately, I'm not finding that the show even has episode titles, and are kind of hard to find or confirm that all the episodes I found are even all that existed. Maybe this would also be a good case for LostMediaWiki to solve.) All known episodes were uploaded to YouTube, and it was also not registered on copyright.org for its proper renewal, which would be required if this notice was defective.

I'm hoping the notice is considered defective so that yet another cartoon's entire episode list can be uploaded. PseudoSkull (talk) 05:01, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Sinbad Jr. and his Magic Belt

Moved from Commons:Help desk#Sinbad Jr. and his Magic Belt

How come this series appears to be in the public domain? I see a copyright notice after 1963 on the show's intros, and it's an American show, but I am not seeing anything in the official US copyright database, and a guy who made a disc set on Amazon claims that the show is in the public domain. Could this be some rare exception that's not listed in the Hirtle chart? Or am I missing something big? (It's almost too good to be true, though) PseudoSkull (talk) 08:16, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

When were they published the first time? Ruslik (talk) 13:24, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
@Ruslik0: According to Wikipedia, 1965. PseudoSkull (talk) 15:09, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
If they were published with a notice then they will remain copyrighted until 2061. Ruslik (talk) 16:11, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

w:Sinbad Jr. and his Magic Belt. Let's assume there is indeed no registration (I don't feel like looking for it). It could be a case of a {{PD-US-defective notice}}. How do we figure that out? Not easily, at least not for me because the quality of every single YouTube video is insufficient to actually read the notice and check it's validity. I understand you have a video with a readable notice. Can you take a screenshot? Perhaps it could be read in some remastered video, but legally, that would be irrelevant.

The fact I can't read the notice on any of the YouTube videos may hold the answer though. Here is a screen capture of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP4cf4Zn00E. Can't read a thing, but okay, YouTube compression and all that. NTSC gives us 483 visible lines. The horizontal resolution is theoretically unlimited (because analog). In the best case scenario, the notice would have looked like this (assuming 1280 pixels horizontal resolution): https://imgur.com/a/Xw1AipB.

That's not great, but not illegible. However, it assumes that at the time of broadcast you had a progressive television set (which was a bit of a problem as those didn't exist yet), a ridiculous horizontal resolution, perfect reception, an LCD screen which wouldn't be invented until the 70s (or a fictional CRT without color bleed), perfect black.. Okay maybe this just isn't going to happen.

More realistically it would have looked like this: https://imgur.com/a/reXOBde. Which, to be honest, is still assuming a pretty good television set and reception. Also, the notice was on screen for approximately 4 seconds. This in a time when nobody would have been able to rewind the video (Betamax and VHS became available in the mid-70s), could anyone really have deciphered this? On some television sets, the notice might have even vanished due to overscan. And if I remember correctly, the image gets more blurry towards the edges. Which doesn't help the case for a legible notice..

If that eBay guy gets dragged to court, I'm willing to place a little bet he won't lose if he gets a good lawyer. He won't win either, MGM will simply drop the case when the lawyer confronts them with this out of fear the copyright notice will be legally ruled defective. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 05:00, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz: This isn't just happening on your end. All the episodes I have viewed have illegible copyright notices due to the quality of the recordings. The only thing I could make out was that the year didn't look to be "1961" or "62", for instance. But that's a case of exclusion, not inclusion of a specific year. Wikipedia says 1965, but for all we know it could be a different year. We know that's probably not the case, but just based on the assumption that it could be different because we can't make it out can we release it here? Also, it's debatable as to whether the words would have been legible on the actual TV broadcast from 1965, you know, for the people that were actually there to see the real thing happen. So if I can't find a legible copyright notice in any known recordings, and there is no registration in the copyright database, can this be considered public domain? PseudoSkull (talk) 05:12, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
@PseudoSkull: assuming Wikipedia is correct, the year on the notice doesn't matter (unless it's 1967 or higher). Whether it was legible on the actual TV broadcast from 1965, using a realistic (average) television set and reception is all that really matters. If it wasn't legible at the time, it was invalid. Can you take a screenshot of the most legible notice you have? (color doesn't matter) I had to guess the font, which may actually make a big difference. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 05:38, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
Broadcasting a TV program isn't publishing it. The first season of Star Trek was originally broadcast without a copyright notice, but a court ruled that someone selling copies violated their copyright on it in Paramount Pictures v. Rubinowitz. The arguments were about copies sent to broadcasters, so I doubt any scenario, at least in that era, would worry about whether the broadcast had a readable copyright notice, as opposed to any actual copy.--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:14, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
It isn't? Today I learned.. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 10:27, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
Wait does that also mean anything that was only broadcasted and never officially distributed in other ways is legally unpublished? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 10:30, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
It easily could, if broadcast by the copyright owner. If in syndication, it's possible that physical copies were distributed to others though, which would have required a notice then. For example, movies were considered published when copies were distributed to theaters or given to a distribution company or something like that; the actual showing of a movie was a display but not publication. Thus, a showing made by the copyright-owning company (say, to gather consumer reaction, or a special premiere) would not be publication. Similarly, a broadcast made by the copyright owner would not start the 95-year clock, necessarily, though would still be subject to 120 years from creation. The publication date of TV shows can definitely be problematic in that way. On the other hand, if they put an explicit copyright notice on it, that would probably start the 95-year clock then, as would registration with the Copyright Office. A registration could be years later though, with a later publication date, and that would be valid as the start of the 95-year term, even if there was no notice on the original broadcast. The notice would have only needed to be visible on copies sent for distribution (which would constitute publication); I don't think visibility on a TV screen would matter. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:56, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia says the tv program is still copyrighted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sinbad_jr.jpg Abote2 (talk) 11:03, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Yeah... Wikipedia tends to be wrong about that sort of thing. They hedge their bets with images quite a lot, without even knowing that an entire cartoon series with over a hundred episodes is public domain! For instance, they assumed that The Adventures of Paddy the Pelican was copyrighted still, and it clearly to me is not (watch). The video I was referring to, from watchcartoononline, is just as illegible. EDIT: I won't upload until there is a good consensus as to whether or not that copyright notice is defective, since there seems to be some disagreement. But really, it should be defective. I can't read the thing. At all. The actual television screen at the time much less would not have been able to make it out. They should have made a clearer notice. Also, the copyright being defective would mean that it would be in the public domain, since there is no subsequent registration in the database and we know who produced it. It's not anonymous, which would be the 120 yr. thing. Unrelated: there was also a comic book series it looks like. PseudoSkull (talk) 05:18, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz: @Clindberg: According to this, "The 81 five-minute episodes were packaged into half-hour shows and syndicated to local stations in that form." PseudoSkull (talk) 05:31, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
And the copies that were given to the syndicators had no copyright notice? How do we know that? Again, a work lost its copyright if it was *published* without a copyright notice. A TV broadcast does not actually count as a publication; it is handled differently in the law. It is similar in the EU, which defines "publication" and "making available to the public" differently. So a defect in a notice in a broadcast may not actually mean anything. TV shows could be broadcast, but then only be officially published years later. The fact that an .mpg or .webm transfer is hard to read would likely not invalidate anything, either. If it was readable on a 1965 TV, it would be fine, and if the physical copies given to the syndicates had a copyright notice on them, that was probably all that mattered anyways. The Paddy the Pelican ones had clear copyright notices at the end. They may not have been renewed, so are fine for that reason. But that only helps for works published before 1964, which this one couldn't have been. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:59, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
@Clindberg: I'm gonna be really unhappy if I have to spend 300 dollars to convince some individual to lend me film reels for this show. Are you seriously telling me that would be necessary? The packages themselves might actually be lost at this point. I can try to get actual packages. But I can't guarantee anything. And if no one can find the packages, then no one can prove whether or not they came with a copyright notice. Who holds the copyright for it, exactly, anyway? I don't even know. The defective copyright notice on the theme song isn't legible enough for me to read that, so I don't know who I should get in contact with to ask. Also, knowing how much things have changed between 1965 and 2018, I'm willing to bet that the copyright holder company is not even in business anymore, and probably hasn't been for a very long time. Sigh... I'll try to contact a bunch of people who sold compilations on eBay, and see if they have any official packages, and if they do, ask them to send me a bunch of pictures of the packages, so we can confirm that they came with a copyright notice, or no copyright notice. PseudoSkull (talk) 17:19, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
If you are claiming public domain status for post-1964 works based on an invalid copyright notice, you are treading in rather dangerous territory. That is not an area which Commons normally allows unless very clear (COM:PRP). And right now it sounds like you are basing things on broadcasts, which are not publication and does not cause a lost copyright. Companies can disband, but rights typically are bought up or inherited by someone -- if not, they are "orphan works", which while aggravating we also generally don't allow on Commons. You may well be right that nobody really cares about this stuff anymore and thus would not sue, but that is different than "public domain". Congress (and governments everywhere really) have not given very much protection for that stuff -- if you get away with it, great, if not, you can be screwed. Looking up "Sinbad Jr" on copyright.gov, there is a "recorded document" on several records from 2006, which documents the end of a licensing agreement between MGM and Sony Pictures. So it sounds like one of those companies could own the rights (if they exist). Hard to say without seeing the document, and sometimes they just claim to own copyright when they do not in those submissions -- but that is also they you need to start a copyright infringement lawsuit if they so choose. But we normally like to see evidence of no notice on the actual distributed copies. Courts would often let someone get away with distributing a relative few copies as well. The music could have been copyrighted separately, which could also prevent distribution of episodes even if the video portions were in fact public domain. And if "Sinbad Jr" counts as a character, and the earlier episodes are not PD, then they can be derivative of the character as well. Copyright is incredibly frustrating, yes, but we can't ignore it. Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:14, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Public domain Gumby episodes

See this; some early episodes are rumored to be public domain. Here goes a copyright search. I search copyright.gov for the rumored episodes. Then I search for episodes that would probably be copyrighted, such as ones not rumored to be PD from before 1963, and ones after 1963 that would clearly be copyrighted if they had a notice. All the searches brought up NOTHING in the copyright database.

Why is it so difficult nowadays to confirm the copyright status of specific works? If only a few episodes are in the public domain, how am I supposed to confirm this? An encode of one rumored episode, Too Loo, has two copyright dates, one for 1956 and one for 2005... Yet no results in the database for any specific episode.

This is very frustrating!!! We live in a society where information is supposed to be findable and verifiable in mere seconds. And here I am shrugging my shoulders because someone didn't spend the time to properly document all this. (Better yet, why not just release the copyright for the whole show to make this easier on all of us! Forever!) PseudoSkull (talk) 06:00, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

When it comes to a characters, it can get worse -- even if individual episodes were not renewed, they could be derivative of a character copyright embodied in earlier (still copyrighted) episodes and therefore not OK. If the initial Gumby episodes were not renewed, those should be OK. But otherwise, I would not touch them -- it is only expression added in the not-renewed episodes which is public domain, any expression derivative of earlier copyrighted episodes is not OK. You could perhaps copy say the frames with the episode title, and things like that, but not the entire film. For copyright searches, you needed to look at the printed copyright registration and renewal volumes, published each year by the Copyright Office. Some of those are now online. copyright.gov has records from 1978 and onwards -- which should contain renewals for everything since 1951. Sometimes you had to search by the copyright owner, though. I do see a renewal made (RE0000209195) for episodes 1-73, referencing PA0000215238, published in 1956 (and renewed in 1984). If those are the original episodes, not sure how they fell into the public domain, unless there were missing copyright notices somewhere (but missing on the TV broadcast would not mean loss of copyright). Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:38, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Proper attribution for employer photo

File:Steven Little.jpg is marked for deletion; however, the file in question is from the Swanson School of Engineering, and I am the School's Communications Director. I am not sure exactly how to mark it for use since I am also the person responsible for images at the Swanson School.

Paulkovach (talk) 14:40, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Photographs in Category:Light Festival, Jerusalem really FoP-Israel?

Do you think that the photographs in Category:Light Festival, Jerusalem are really FoP-Israel? If so I'll be happy to upload some more, otherwise we should think about what to do with the existing photographs. The template quotes the statute like this: "[…] where the aforesaid work is permanently situated in a public place" (my emphasis). COM:FOP#Israel doesn't specify "permanently" any further. In 2018 the festival has lasted for 9 days.[7] I think duration for earlier years isn't much different. How to handle this? Thanks in advance, (pings appreciated) --Marsupium (talk) 19:16, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

You may be right. Ruslik (talk) 20:42, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
Marsupium this aways is trick
For me here: File:Light festival in Jerusalem - פסטיבל האור בירושלים (3639767174).jpg there no infringements, the intervention is so minimal that this not configure a "copyrightble" work.
Here: File:Light festival in Jerusalem - פסטיבל האור בירושלים (3638953385).jpg just lamps...
File:Light festival in Jerusalem - פסטיבל האור בירושלים (3638888871).jpg just a text...
File:Light festival in Jerusalem - פסטיבל האור בירושלים (3638910323).jpg just a different illumination, nothing also that could infringe some copyright.
Maybe here we could say that is grey File:Light festival in Jerusalem - פסטיבל האור בירושלים (3639730034).jpg, but, ...
I not seem a clear problem here, I opened some sub categories and also nothing that could be a problem.
-- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton m 23:26, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
Ruslik and Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton, thanks for your replies! Rodrigo, I thing you're right that a lot of the photographs don't depict anything copyrightable. Then nevertheless the template might be a misfit as it implies that the material is copyrightable, but still acceptable because FoP applies. --Marsupium (talk) 23:46, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Death on march 4, 1948

Hello, I uploaded today File:Kath Illustratie 1894 Haar lievelingsplekje, naar Frans Gräffel.jpg Gräffel turned out to be Franz Grässel, wich died march 4, 1948, just 70 years and a few month ago. Is this already allowed, or has it to wait to 1-1-2019. --Havang(nl) (talk) 11:54, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

@Havang(nl): Sorry, it has to wait.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 13:58, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
OKE, no problem. --Havang(nl) (talk) 14:33, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
Being published in 1894, the image is in the public domain in the USA. Is it in the Netherlands? I guess it should depend on what law was applied in the Netherlands in 1894 (?) and how those 70? years should be assessed according to that law. Said that, "in practice", everyone here follows the 70+1 and the "January 1-Public-Domain-Day-tradition". Strakhov (talk) 14:51, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
nl:Auteurswet (Nederlandse wet) says that up to 1995 it was + 50 years. Then it became +70. --Havang(nl) (talk) 17:02, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
Well, the change in 1995 extended the copyright.
To give you an example, in Spain the p.m.a. term was longer before (80 years in 1879 vs 70 years in 1995) and... the 1995 law refers to the 1879 one with regard to authors who died before than 1987 ("Los derechos de explotación de las obras creadas por autores fallecidos antes del 7 de diciembre de 1987 tendrán la duración prevista en la Ley de 10 de enero de 1879 sobre Propiedad Intelectual"). And that law didn't mention anything about "January 1". So... I guess 80 years should be applied, not 81.
In the Netherlands case... if law became more strict... it's probably 71. I can't read Dutch language, but I guess the key is in 1995's "transitional provisions"?. Anyway, as said, everyone here waits to January so... Strakhov (talk) 22:38, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
I'm gonna split a thread. Strakhov (talk) 23:09, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi all. I've opened a discussion on the copyright status of works of state run corporations in Taiwan. Feedback is welcomed. Szqecs (talk) 09:01, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

HMDB.org

There are 37 Commons images that appear to be sourced from HMDB, whose copyright notice requires attribution and non-commercial use. The few I looked at claim either PD or CC-BY-SA-4 licenses. There are another 52 images that mention hmdb.org, but may have been uploaded by the original author or authorized in some other way (see the search terms). Can images be copied from HMDB? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 10:16, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

This restore request for one of the HMDB images that had been deleted may be relevant (though the opposition to restoration is for a different reason). Apparently, HMDB's copyright notice previously limited commercial use to not "more than 25% of the content of any particular country, state, province, county, parish, shire, prefecture, region, department or city". This may have been previously relied upon to justify uploading of single images, though this is clearly flawed since there is no way for Commons to track if/when HMDB changes their copyright (as it did) or modify its content (i.e. by deleting images), resulting, e.g., in an image that was previously one of ten (10%) becoming one of three (33%). —[AlanM1(talk)]— 21:50, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
I think each one of those images will have to be inspected individually. Old protographs published before 1923, would be in Public Domain, and placing them on HMDB.org will not change that. Historical markers, like this one, should be treated like sculptures and unless we know that photographer released it under license compatible with Commons, they should be deleted. --Jarekt (talk) 03:48, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 Video -> Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 cropped screenshots -- is that valid?

In Commons:Deletion requests/Files on User:Faebot/SandboxT it is claimed that the screenshots (which are also cropped and colour adjusted with Photoshop) are invalid since the EXIF contains the tag "Terms of Use URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" but the source video on Youtube is CC BY 3.0. The CC Compatible licences page claims "Your contributions to adaptations of BY-SA 3.0 materials may only be licensed under: BY-SA 3.0, or a later version of the BY-SA license ... etc, etc". Is it legal for the screenshots to be offered with CC BY 4.0 licence? They are, in an informal sense, an adaptation of the source video (screen grab a frame, crop to headshot, colour adjust). But legally I suspect this does not actually create a new work-of-copyright , as it is no more than your PVR/TV can do themselves. I'm pretty sure if the images were actually transformed to a derivative work (e.g. in some arty collage) then 4.0 would be valid. But in this case do the screenshots need to stay at 3.0? A further issue is that these are not actually SA licences so there is no requirement on the adaptation (if they are adaptations) to offer the image with any CC licence at all, or any specific one. -- Colin (talk) 09:36, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Some further research. 4.0 upgrade guidelines suggest that the creator's permission is required to upgrade from 3.0 to 4.0 if it is the same work-of-copyright. And the CC FAQ strongly indicates these JPGs (screen grabbed frames, cropped, colour altered) would not be considered a new work-of-copyright in any/most jurisdictions. Therefore they are not adaptations. So that's pushing towards the view that the licence must stay at 3.0. I don't know if Wikipedia has considered upgrading from 3.0 to 4.0. -- Colin (talk) 13:08, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

  • It depends on the jurisdiction where the person took screenshots and adjusted the colours. In some jurisdictions any change is copyrightable regardless how small it is, in others originality is important. Even in the case if this licence upgrade is improper the image can be distributed under 3.0 licence. Therefore there is no reason to delete in any case. I tend to apply precautionary principle and apply the highest version number of the CC licence when there is conflict. I doubt that any court would read the licence in such a way as to perceive copyright violation when a person has distributed CC-BY 3.0 work under CC-BY 4.0, but they might the other way around. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ • ✍ ⏿) 16:08, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
    • I dispute "In some jurisdictions any change is copyrightable regardless how small it is". If that was true, the MediaWiki thumbnailer would be generating works of copyright, and you'd break the -ND clause of a CC BY-SA-ND photo simply by offering a thumbnail on Google image results. In the UK, the "threshold of originality" is low, one of the lowest, but isn't as low as a cropped screen grab. -- Colin (talk) 16:45, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
      • @Colin: Jan also played around with the colors (yes, also on the YT screen grabs). On one of his uploads I suspect he also sharpened the image. He may have made other changes. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 19:27, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
  • The DR has been closed. Jcb closed my ANU thread with the following statements:
"You will stay away from these files until there is a consensus."
"Alexis Jazz will not continue to edit the EXIF before such a consensus is reached. Reverting their overwrite will be allowed for the files where they completely removed the EXIF."
Given the first statement, I don't think I should even revert any of those myself. I won't take the risk. FYI, before the above restriction was issued I had overwritten File:Nina Bouraoui (2016).jpg with a (time consuming) fresh screen grab. It's not my intention to do that for all the files myself as it is rather time consuming. And as I'm not allowed to touch the Arkesteijn files anymore without consensus, I will refrain from overwriting any. So just FYI.
As far as I'm concerned, this is how it should be as I don't want to risk getting dragged to ANU again:
  • You guys (pinging the first responders to the DR and this thread: @Fæ, Colin, Donald Trung, Jeff G., Davey2010, and Gone Postal: ) come up with some consensus regarding the EXIF. Please formulate something clearly, I can't work with vague requests.
  • An administrator confirms said consensus.
  • I carry it out, first uploading a few for you to judge.
  • If it is unanimously agreed the uploads are good, I do the rest. If it's not unanimously agreed they are good, an administrator needs to confirm consensus before I continue.
Sorry for the trouble but I'm not taking chances with this again. Any questions? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 02:11, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: see my last five sample uploads:
- Alexis Jazz ping plz 03:00, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: I don't know how to provide one with Commonist and don't know of any other other way to overwrite this many files that isn't excruciatingly painful. But if you can do better, by all means, be my guest! I'll be more than happy to take my hands off of this if someone else can do it better. Frankly, I'll be relieved. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 03:26, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
I've only got experience with the upload wizard and with a plugin for Adobe Lightroom that is now my main method. Since everyone else and their dog seems to manage to batch upload with meaningful edit summaries, I'm going to take a wild guess that it isn't too hard. Perhaps Commonist needs fixed. You could always ask at the VP. Wrt the five files, it does appear that Alexis is now able to competently adjust individual EXIF fields. They just need now some patience while we establish if a change is needed and if so, what. -- Colin (talk) 08:42, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz: Please try other tools from Commons:Upload tools.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 10:30, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Colin, if you don't know what you're talking about, don't pretend you do. Jeff G., I had tried several. UploadWizard can't overwrite, GLAMwiki Toolset requires additional rights, bigChunkedUpload doesn't seem to support batch overwrites, VicuñaUploader didn't work for this purpose.. Can't remember about the rest. Some tool can possibly do it, but beggars can't be choosers. Luckily, it appears Fæ is offering to help out. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 14:00, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
I know it can be done because I have seen it done when looking at numerous file histories. What tool and how they configured it I don't know. I know the Lightroom plug-in prompts for an overwrite comment. So certainly the API permits it. The standard "Upload a new version of this file" link does it. Fae can do it, clearly, so I'm puzzled why you would write all this moaning insulting rubbish rather than just go ask someone. It absolutely isn't acceptable to overwrite files without a comment. -- Colin (talk) 14:54, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Presuming that deleting the copyright claim of v4 in EXIF tags URL and Web Statement would be the minimum and sufficient, leaving everything else intact, there is an example at File:Janine Abbring (2017).jpg. If that test case has no objections, I can do the rest now the DR is closed. --Fæ (talk) 12:24, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

The issue is more than just the EXIF. Earlier this year, Alexis Jazz changed the licence of the Janie Abbring (and others) Commons file descriptions from CC BY 4.0 to CC BY 3.0. If Jan was actually entitled to release his screen grabs with a CC4 licence, then that edit must be reverted, and the EXIF should remain as-is. I would like to hear from one of our more expert users wrt the law, to be sure. I think it all hinges on whether Jan has created an "adaptation", and I now suspect even the colour adjustments he made probably don't involve enough creative input to count.
If there is no response in several days, then I am currently of the opinion that Jan made a mistake and should have retained the CC 3.0 of the YouTube video. Deleting tags isn't "minimum". We wouldn't delete a licence template because of a single-digit typo, so don't really see why the URL in the EXIF tags can't simply be changed from 4.0 to 3.0 -- it is just as easy with EXIFTOOL and all the files have the same version of CC because that's what YouTube uses.
As an example of how useful EXIF licence information can be Google are now using some fields for Google Images. They have a long way to go to get the credit and licence info right, but ultimately the relevant EXIF tags should result in Google and other engines returning images that are correctly credited and with their licence details or PD status clearly indicated. -- Colin (talk) 13:42, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Jan failed to request a license review. I changed the license from cc-by-4.0 to YouTube CC-BY (which gives 3.0) and requested the review. At the time, I wasn't even aware of Jan's tampering. When I first noticed the colors on his images were different (which was probably after that edit anyway), I assumed he used some program (possibly preinstalled) on his device to calibrate his display or to adjust the colors when playing video, something that wasn't meant to end up in the screen grabs. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 14:00, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Fæ, works for me. More efficient if you do it. Make sure you deal correctly with the files from which I had removed the EXIF. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 14:00, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Deletion requested for PD template

FYI: Commons:Deletion requests/Template:PD-Austria-1932. Tokfo (talk) 10:20, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Have started to go through Category for {{PD-Austria-1932}} and have added {{PD-anon-70-EU}} for works between 1898 and 1932 where author is listed as unknown. Works between 1848 and 1898 can honestly use the {{PD-old-assumed}} license if no death date for author or unknown author. Abzeronow (talk) 16:23, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
Will update list more as I go through category. May need to be deleted (if template is deleted)
A
Have finished reviewing the A's. Noticing that for the most part, the most problematic files are mostly from only a few photographers so if the template is deleted, a few mass DRs will clear out most of them. Abzeronow (talk) 21:32, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
Now for the B's.
B

Abzeronow (talk) 16:10, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

@Abzeronow: While I appreciate the work you are doing here please stop listing all the files. It is starting to get unmanageable and you are only in the B's. --Majora (talk) 02:05, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
No problem, won't add any more to list here. I'll just silently keep reviewing and multilicensing ones with "unknown" with PD-anon-70-EU if they don't already have that. Also been adding Creator Templates to author field where applicable. Abzeronow (talk) 02:38, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. If you want to keep a list in your own user space, say at User:Abzeronow/list that would be fine as well. And again, thank you for the work you are doing. --Majora (talk) 02:48, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Is this collection PD-USGov?

I'm taking a look at batch uploading this collection of photos from the Bikini Atoll proving grounds (project). I think these are public domain ({{PD-USGov-DOE}}). They were taken by personnel from a lab at the University of Washington, but the collection page says "the laboratory came under the administration of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission." Does this seem like the right license? BMacZero (talk) 04:25, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Not sure. Were the lab's employees federal employees? There are a number of laboratories affiliated with the DOE that operate under contract, and are not PD-USGov (as mentioned on the template's talk page). Unsure what the status of this one was. The collection seems to be owned by the university, so the material may have been owned by them. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:46, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Photo published by New Jersey government

I would like to upload the photo of a former New Jersey commissioner, found on the archived version of New Jersey's website, here. Google says it may be copyright protected, but I can't find exact copyright information. Can anyone help me find out if this image is protected or not? Thanks! Knope7 (talk) 05:36, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, Knope7 but states are allowed to copyright their publications and it appears that New Jersey does just that. The image is unlikely to be acceptable here. There are actually very few states that put their images under a Commons acceptable license. The templates for those states can be found here: Category:PD-USGov license tags (non-federal) or for more comprehensive state based copyright laws I like to use Harvard's reference guide. --Majora (talk) 05:52, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Sports team uniforms

Hello,

This image, File:CFL Jersey BCL2009.png, showing the uniforms for a Canadian Football Leage team, is acceptable for Commons, so is there a reason why this one from English Wikipedia, en:File:CFL BCL Jersey.png, the current uniforms for the same team, is not? Does that depend on the wish of the author? Thanks, --Cortomaltais (talk) 21:06, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Template:STFBr

While it is not the most used template, it is still under consideration for deletion and could affect a few dozen files. Other insights as to its suitability on Commons are welcome. --Majora (talk) 02:13, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Hjælp til at undgå sletning af billedfiler. har angivet Template:PD-arvinger, men alligevel nu igen sletningstrussel i artikel Elisa Maria Boglino-

Ầ — Preceding unsigned comment added by HNBS (talk • contribs) 19:38, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

This section is more than a month old, but not autoarchived yet, probably due to a lack of a correctly signed reply. It seems to be about images of someone named Elisa Maria Boglino and some {{PD-heirs}} issue ("arvinger" is Danish for "heirs"). Gestumblindi (talk) 12:17, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
The Danish user HNBS wants to upload pictures of works made by the forefather Elisa Maria Boglino (1905-2002). The works are not yet in the public domain but as a heir HNBS has the right to them. What would be the proper way to upload such pictures? Which license should be used and what should be written in the description? HNBS has already been accused of copyright violation multiple times despite it not being the case. HNBS has also written to the Commons about the case multiple times but the backlog of the OTRS team makes the waiting time for answers rather long. --Dannebrog Spy (talk) 22:19, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
Generally, one of the license tags for transferred copyright should be fine for such cases, depending on the heir's license of choice, such as {{Cc-by-sa-4.0-heirs}} or {{PD-heirs}}. Preferrably backed by an OTRS confirmation, though the latter is not always seen as necessary if the uploads can't possibly be taken from somewhere else (e.g. high-quality scans of originals). It's true that the OTRS backlog is quite huge, unfortunately - the team consists of volunteers and they don't really have enough manpower, it seems. As far as I know, they're always looking for more volunteers... (but I understand why they don't get that many. It's certainly time-consuming and often thankless work; I wouldn't see myself finding the time for that...) Gestumblindi (talk) 22:49, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Stamps of Liechtenstein

This question is prompted by the open deletion request Commons:Deletion requests/File:LIE 1985 MiNr0892 mt B002.jpg. Katharinaiv argues there that stamps should be considered public domain in Liechtenstein because Liechtenstein's law exempts "means of payment" (Zahlungsmittel in German) from copyright protection. However, it's not clear at all that stamps are considered "means of payment" in Liechtenstein. Very often, Liechtenstein emulates Swiss law, and Swiss law commentary explicitly states that stamps are not "means of payment" and do not fall under any other exemption clause, therefore enjoying copyright protection. So, for Switzerland it's clear enough: Stamps are protected by copyright unless one of the general reasons for PD applies (creator died more than 70 years ago or very simple design...). But for Liechtenstein? For now, I have updated Commons:Stamps/Public domain to reflect the fact that we don't actually know the copyright status of stamps in Liechtenstein, see here - it's certainly not sufficient to simply refer to the law exempting "means of payment". There are already quite a few stamps of Liechtenstein here on Commons using {{PD-Liechtenstein}} - I wouldn't delete them now, rather grandfather them, but not upload more until this has been clarified. My personal opinion is that it's more likely that the stamps will be protected (as it's the case in Switzerland). Anyone here familiar with the law and law commentaries of Liechtenstein? ;-) I'm taking the liberty of pinging some users I think might have an idea, although probably none of them is a Liechtenstein law expert: @Gnom, Pajz, and Lupo: ... Gestumblindi (talk) 20:22, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Gestumblindi, a brief search suggests that there is no treatise/commentary on Liechtenstein copyright law (rather unsurprising for a country the size of a small town). For that reason, I would also look to Swiss law for guidance. Art. 5 Liechtenstein Copyright Act corresponds - word-for-word - to Art. 5 Swiss Copyright Act (URG). The draft bill by the government of Liechtenstein that led to the 1999 Copyright Act specifically notes that the draft "is based upon the Swiss Federal Act on Copyright and Related Rights of 9 October 1992" (BuA No. 1998/48, p. 13). Turning to Switzerland, the near-consensus view of Swiss commentators is that Art. 5 lit. b URG ["Zahlungsmittel" = means of payment] does not extend to stamps (Cherpillod in Müller/Oertli, Urheberrechtsgesetz, 2nd ed. 2012, Art. 5 para. 3; Barrelet/Egloff, Das neue Urheberrecht, 3rd ed. 2008, Art. 5 para. 5; von Büren/Meer in von Büren/David, SIWR II/1, 3rd ed. 2014, para. 379; Hilty, Urheberrecht, 2011, para. 130; Dessemontet, Le droit d'auteur, 1999, para. 413; Gilliéron in Werra/Gilliéron, Propriété intellectuelle, 2013, Art. 5 LDA para. 9; von Büren, Urheberrecht und verwandte Schutzrechte, ZSR 1993, 193-222, 200; disagreeing: Rehbinder/Viganò, URG, 3rd ed. 2008, Art. 5 para. 3 [included by analogy]). With that in mind, I do not think that it would be reconcilable with Commons:Project scope/Precautionary principle to treat stamps from Liechtenstein as being in the public domain in their country of origin. (Aside from that, just on the basis of a literal reading, considering stamps a "means of payment" also appears like quite a stretch. By the same logic, a concert ticket should also be a "means of payment" ... I don't think you would find many people on the street that would agree with such a characterisation.) — Pajz (talk) 09:09, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
@Pajz: Thanks for your thorough reply! I'm going to update Commons:Stamps/Public domain accordingly soon; not quite sure how to deal with the rather numerous Liechtenstein stamps uploads now... as it seems that most of these uploads are quite recent, I'm no longer convinced that we should grandfather them just because of a probably rather slight chance that they might be actually PD; wouldn't see to be in line with COM:PRP... Gestumblindi (talk) 02:16, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
@Pajz: What do you think of the updated text? I took the liberty of using your references. @Katharinaiv: Please stop uploading stamps from Liechtenstein. These are most likely protected by copyright. It seems to me that a larger deletion request can't be avoided. Gestumblindi (talk) 21:56, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Works whose authors okay usage but are reluctant to license them

If an author is reluctant to license a work but is okay to let anyone use it, what can an author do to have the work used without willing to have a work licensed? For instance, I want to use a photo of a person, which was created by someone else. The author okays it but is too reluctant to license it. I want to upload it, but others say that the statement is insufficient to allow permission for usage. --George Ho (talk) 19:55, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

They would have to license it. If this is a "reluctance to do paperwork" rather than "reluctance to give permission", then all we can do is to make it as easy as possible. All they need to do is to choose a licence (CC-by-sa as a first suggestion, or even CC0), then send an email to WP:OTRS. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:59, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
I tried, but some authors are still reluctant to spend time on either licensing or copyright matters. --George Ho (talk) 21:21, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
We need works that are appropriately licensed. A free license is a big step, and should only be taken by people who understand what the license they're using means. If they're unwilling to spend enough time to understand the license they're being asked to put the work under, and refuse to so license the work because of that (a reasonable decision), there's nothing more we can do; we can't and shouldn't try to imply they're okay with releasing the work under a certain license when they aren't.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:28, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

File:José Celestino Mutis.jpg

Could someone competent review the licence, please? According to the source the painting is dated to 1930 and the death date of the author is unknown, so it seems that the painting is NOT in PD at least in the USA. Also it may be still copyrigted in countries where PMA+70 applies. --jdx Re: 20:02, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

✓ Done added {{LicenseReview}} to be reviewed.--BevinKacon (talk) 20:13, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Post mortem autoris protection in Spain: 80+1 or maybe 80?

Artículo 6. La propiedad intelectual corresponde a los autores durante su vida, y se trasmite a sus herederos testamentarios o legatarios por el término de ochenta años. También es trasmisible por actos entre vivos, y corresponderá a los adquirentes durante la vida del autor y ochenta años después del fallecimiento de éste si no deja herederos forzosos. Mas si los hubiere, el derecho de los adquirentes terminará veinticinco años después de la muerte del autor, y pasará la propiedad a los referidos herederos forzosos por tiempo de cincuenta y cinco años.

Artículo 30. Cómputo de plazo de protección. Los plazos de protección establecidos en esta Ley se computarán desde el día 1 de enero del año siguiente al de la muerte o declaración de fallecimiento del autor o al de la divulgación lícita de la obra, según proceda.

Disposición transitoria cuarta. Autores fallecidos antes del 7 de diciembre de 1987. Los derechos de explotación de las obras creadas por autores fallecidos antes del 7 de diciembre de 1987 tendrán la duración prevista en la Ley de 10 de enero de 1879 sobre Propiedad Intelectual.

As the term of 80 years is not explicitly "established" in the 1996 law (but that law refers to the previous one)... shouldn't be OK in Spain uploading works of deceased author 80 years after their deaths, instead of following the typical "January 1 of the following year"? Strakhov (talk) 23:09, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
The Netherlands in 1995 was just enacting the EU copyright directive, which across Europe is 70 years then to the end of the calendar year (i.e. all expirations are on January 1). If there were longer terms before 1995, those can still apply, but don't think the Netherlands had any (they were 50pma before, but it all got retroactively restored). For Spain, they were 80pma, then they went down to 60pma in 1987 (but left the longer terms for any author who had already died), then of course went to 70pma per the EU directive (which again kept those longer existing terms). Their 1987 law had the January 1 provision, but you're right, not sure the older law does (that type of clause became more common in the second half of the 20th century) so those 80pma terms may expire on the anniversary itself. But the EU is now a minimum 70pma to the end of the year; older laws are mostly obsolete except in rare cases like Spain's. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:58, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the input. At last something good coming from Spain wrt copyright! Strakhov (talk) 14:26, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
I'll start an undeletion request on December 5 for files authored by w:Gonzalo Bilbao. Might as well try to lighten some work for the massive undeletion of stuff in the category for Undelete in 2019 that will happen around January 1. Abzeronow (talk) 00:47, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Jay Jay Marcus Keize13

Dear all,
it seems to me that User:Jay Jay Marcus Keize13 is editing pictures of others and claiming them to be made by him without proper attribution. How to proceed in this case?
Example: File:Chaguanas Pagebanner.jpg is a clipping of File:TnT Chaguanas 6.jpg
Example: File:Martinique Pagebanner.jpg is a clipping of File:Anse Cafard Slave Memorial.JPG
I have no idea what to do in this case. Add the attribution? In most cases it might be hard to trace. Please advise.
Thanks and kind regards, Grueslayer (talk) 20:17, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Filed DRs on both the unattributed clippings since those are technically violations of the permission. Also had to file a DR on File:Anse Cafard Slave Memorial.JPG since no FOP in France (Martinique is a overseas region of France). Abzeronow (talk) 21:56, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
The user has a continuous copyvio history since January 2018. I suspect most, if not all of his other pictures violate copyrights as well. I thought File:Belaga District, Malaysia Pagebanner.jpg should be easy to find - voilà, File:Sarawak Bakun Dam.jpg. Looks to me like this user has never travelled, yet uploaded pictures from all over the world. Kind regards, Grueslayer (talk) 13:14, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

File:Malin1.JPG

This is not "Own work". This is clipped from a montage made by an astrophysicist: http://www.rhysy.net/galaxy-sizes.html

The image's real author says that he took the illustration from an unidentified public domain source, possibly by NASA. It would be nice if we could locate that source using Google Images or some such. I'm not clear on the copyright status of the montage version 108.49.52.46 10:08, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

I tagged it as a copyvio.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 13:06, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

I did an extensive search on the NASA website and was unable to find any public domain illustration of Malin-1. I encourage others to contact the astrophysicist who made this picture and see where he got it. Galaxies are cool! 108.49.52.46 13:43, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

File:Rudi supek.jpg

If anyone is comfortable reviewing this image, please go ahead. I don't know if the given source is the copyright owner or the Croatian state. Best, --Leoboudv (talk) 10:22, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

It looks like a private photo. I do not think that the Croatian state has anything to do with it. The license probably refers to this scan of the paper photo that is in the archive. Ruslik (talk) 18:03, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Toronto Star License

I would like to use images from the Toronto Public Library Archive. Many of them have a Toronto Star License. The license reads:

"Images from the Toronto Star Photographic Archive on display in the Digital Archive may be downloaded and reproduced in print or electronic format for personal, educational, and research use."

Is it appropriate to translate this into a CC license, even though the CC license isn't specified on the source website?

Seazzy (talk) 22:57, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

No, not only it's not a CC license, but it's not even a free license, because the permission is for limited uses. -- Asclepias (talk) 00:58, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Is something automatically PD after 70 years?

I want to upload a picture from this publication of the Zoological Magazine from 1937, but since it's been published online, has been republished and given a new copyright by this site and this site? Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 01:04, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

No. See Commons:Copyright rules by territory and Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:15, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
No as in it's not been republished and is in PD or no as in it's not in PD? It was published in Japan but it Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 01:50, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
Doesn't appear to be PD. Hikoshichiro Matsumoto died in 1975. Becomes public domain in 2026 (Japan is Life + 50) Abzeronow (talk) 02:07, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
In Japan it does. In contrast, the US copyright will expire in 2033 per URAA. George Ho (talk) 02:12, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Copyvio uploaded as version

Someone uploaded a copyvio (Honda catalog photo) over THIS existing file. I restored the original just now, but could we please delete the copyvio image? It would be the image uploaded by Eyeidea on 23 April 2018. The user has not made any other edits, so I don't know if anything else needs to be done. Thanks, mr.choppers (talk)-en- 04:49, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

✓ Done Yann (talk) 06:24, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

File:Hofele-Design logo 2018.svg

This is licensed as {{PD-textlogo}}, but I'm wondering if it really is. It might be in the US per COM:TOO#United States, but the country of origin seems to be Germany and COM:TOO#Germany contains a link to w:de:Wikipedia:Urheberrechtsfragen/angewandte_Kunst#English_summary which discusses a 2013 German court ruling which changed in the way "applied art" was protected under German copyright law. It seems that a company logo like this would be considered "applied art" per German law, right? So, maybe it would be affected by that ruling. -- Marchjuly (talk) 11:16, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Someone please check and advice regarding File:Ek Baat 1942.webm and File:অভিমান (বাংলা ছবি).webm Copyright issues, both files uploaded from Youtube but Youtube user was not marked CC-BY. Regards, ZI Jony (Talk) 10:33, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

If its copyvio sysops are full free to speedy delete those files. Regards, ZI Jony (Talk) 10:46, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Historical movies. Proper author/source and country of origin should be provided and license tags corrected. EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:04, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Jcb can you help me to learn more about this types of files.Regards, ZI Jony (Talk) 20:22, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
If you don't provide evidence to the contrary, any DW of a non-CC Youtube video is eligible for speedy deletion. Jcb (talk) 20:26, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Noble prize medals

I've read the notice at Category:Nobel_Prize_medals and acted on this file File:Nishchal-Dwivedi.jpg by uploading a cropped version. Have I done right? Ugog Nizdast (talk) 15:19, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Obviously yes as the medal is not visible. Ruslik (talk) 20:30, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

File:THAMES RADIO (2016).jpg

This seems unlikely to be "own work", but it might be {{PD-logo}}. Seems like it would certainly be PD in the United States, but the UK has a much lower threshold of originality; so, not sure if it's PD in the country of origin. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:44, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

It may be too simple even for UK. Ruslik (talk) 20:28, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Youtube, Wikibooks, licensing videos here

Could someone please look at the audio and video files within Category:Jaggi_Vasudev? They are all also found on Youtube on something known as The Vrinda Project. None of the videos I've checked has a licence specified. However, they are also part of a Wikibook and the lack of corroborating licences is very likely an oversight on the part of the uploader. Thanks.—Cpt.a.haddock (talk) (please ping when replying) 13:41, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Family archive

Trying to give the right license to File:The_Original_Arkansas_Hillbillies_in_matched_costumes.jpg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs). The original seems to be uploaded by the family member. Original license was given as CC Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 Int. As I'm new to Wikimedia Commons, I'd be grateful if pro-users will point me if I'm on the right track or not. —Lz (talk) 04:30, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Only the copyright holder can license the image. Does this family member own the copyright? Ruslik (talk) 19:34, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
I understand that. But I don't think this image was copyrighted in the first place. Lz (talk) 13:27, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
See also Commons:Deletion requests/File:The Original Arkansas Hillbillies in matched costumes.jpg.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 15:31, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, Jeff G.! Lz (talk) 23:02, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Applied for Wikimedia Foundation grant - seeking comment and support

I am posting to this noticeboard because I have a proposal related to copyright, libraries, and annual Wikimedia outreach at libraries for Public Domain Day.

See

Since March 2018 I have been Wikimedian in Residence (meta:Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network) at the University of Virginia. Among other things I organize collaborations with the library. Some notes on my projects are at meta:University of Virginia.

In the above proposal I am assisting some librarians, researchers, and our copyright lawyer in requesting US$15,000 from the Wikimedia Foundation in the November 2018 call for projects as described at meta:Grants:Project. With this money the library would, in summer 2019, develop a tool kit and event package for more libraries to celebrate Public Domain Day and to incorporate Wikimedia engagement into their program. We will be hosting a Public Domain Day event of our own with Wikimedia engagement in January 2019 to get experience before starting the grant funded project.

If anyone can sign to support then I appreciate that. If anyone has comments of any kind please post to the talk page. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:32, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Coats of arms pretending to originate from 15th century

Yesterday I nominated three images claimed as {{own}} for deletion in response to a string of clueless uploads by one user, perhaps overreacting. If these coats of arms are really old—not stolen modern works pretending to be ancient—then they should lie in public domain as old two-dimensional works, right? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 06:17, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Per Commons:Coats of arms, each representation of an arms would have its own independent copyright, like any other drawing. If the images were copied from elsewhere but appear to be modern drawings, they are likely a problem. The age of a coat of arms design actually should not matter -- each drawing is a different expression of that idea, so they are not derivative works (unless of course they copied graphic expression from another drawing). If they are copied from an 1870 book or something, the drawing should be fine in that case. Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:44, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Category:Files from InfoGibraltar Flickr stream

… and other files where InfoGibraltar is stated to be the author. How are we to be sure the Flickr user InfoGibraltar may license works of various photographers (as per EXIF they are Juan Carlos Teuma, John Bugeja, Marcos Moreno and so on)? --Лушников Владимир Александрович (talk) 20:59, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Per Commons:Coats of arms, each representation of an arms would have its own independent copyright, like any other drawing. If the images were copied from elsewhere but appear to be modern drawings, they are likely a problem. The age of a coat of arms design actually should not matter -- each drawing is a different expression of that idea, so they are not derivative works (unless of course they copied graphic expression from another drawing). Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:44, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
??? Clindberg, what drawings and COAs are you talking about? Why don't you just open the category? --Лушников Владимир Александрович (talk) 05:46, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
Whoops, that reply went to the wrong section, sorry. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:01, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Copyleft

http://bitacora.ivic.gob.ve/ is published under license "Copyleft 2018". As here's no Copyleft template in Commons, which template should I use instead? Maybe images from the site are unacceptable? Taivo (talk) 12:00, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

@Taivo: I made {{Copyleft}}, copied from {{Attribution}}. Like {{Attribution}} is a less formal form of CC BY, {{Copyleft}} is a less formal form of CC BY-SA. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 14:16, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

{{Polish KPRM files}}

Is this a valid template for Commons? The Polish Prime Minister is releasing the photographs with a public domain mark tag, but Commons doesn't accept that copyright tag since the uploader isn't actually releasing the copyright.

(Courtesy ping to User:Halibutt who created the template). Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 19:11, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Is Flickr's The Commons an invalid license tag?

{{Flickr-no known copyright restrictions}}

I always thought this was a valid tag, but Jcb now clearly disagrees for this file (he really does). Which confuses me. Is it a valid license tag or not? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 15:19, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

By itself, this tag is meaningless. The actual declaration of "no known copyright restriction" is found on the pages of each contributing source. They are different. They vary greatly in significance. The declaration by the Library of Congress is very reliable, i.e. they state that they diligently checked the copyright situation. The declaration by the Internet Archive basically amounts to saying that they don't check anything. -- Asclepias (talk) 15:43, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
@Asclepias: This is not the Internet Archive (where declarations of PD can be meaningless); this is Flickr's The Commons, where institutions vet their submissions and declare them PD (the Library of Congress was the first such institution). The declarations are generally reliable, though usually just for the country of the institution, and they may not look at derivative rights issues. If an institution has a work which was first published in another country with longer terms, that can be deletion reasons. But in general yes, we accept it, though it has been argued against before (and I'm sure will continue). Technically, only two of the four reasons are an actual license tag (the institution owned the copyright); the latter two are the institution declaring the work expired, and usually there is a better / additional tag which can be applied if known. I have seen User:Jcb argue against the "anonymous" tags in general quite often, but that appears to be the reason the institution decided it was PD, and there is no reason to second-guess them. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:39, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
It is a valid template to apply. @Jcb: should undelete and raise a deletion request rather than speedy deletion if they disagree with the source, in this case that means demonstrating that the Stockholm Transport Museum have made a mistake. Speedy deleting the image as 'no source' is misleading. --Fæ (talk) 15:58, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

{{Flickr-no known copyright restrictions}} is a valid "tag" for institutions which have a trackreckord for ensuring that there is no known copyright restictions. It should be replaced with a better PD-tag (such as PD-old-70 etc.) to be more spcific how they are PD, but the institution's claim is reputable enough for us. {{Flickr-public domain mark}} on the other hand can be applied by anyone and need to be replaced with a better tag (such as PD-old-70 etc.) and never be trusted on the mere usage of it. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 13:26, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

the fact that Jcb is openly flouting the clear consensus is nothing new. he is always right, the institutions are wrong, and in his summary "process", he is unaccountable to anyone. expecting an undeletion from him is not supported by the history. maybe we need to review all of his speedy deletions, since he cannot seem to abide by the community consensus. and time to upload the 250 photos from the Stockholm Transport Museum. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 02:56, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
Not all institutions are very good at knowing what is PD and what isn't (and in particular what is PD where the photo was created) - for example see Commons:Deletion requests/File:Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-8 (by San Diego A&S museum).jpg where a batch of photos uploaded from the San Diego Air & Space Museum, which were claimed as free from any known copyright restrictions were deleted. We can't just blindly accept the claim of PD, but need to apply some judgement, particularly where the institution is not in the same country where the original photo was created.Nigel Ish (talk) 17:52, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
you need to provide some evidence that the Stockholm Transport Museum has difficulty curating copyright. failing that i will upload their items. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 02:32, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
For the photo in question, it probably counts as a "non-artistic" photo and therefore meets PD-Sweden-photo (and tagging it as such may have avoided the problems). It may be sensible for uploaders to apply an actual copyright tag to say what the copyright status is. A photo may be out of copyright in the jurisdiction of the institution, but still in copyright where it was created, or still be in copyright in the US. In either case this would make it unsuitable for hosting here. For this photo, technically we still have to show that it is also PD in the US for the photo to be usable on Commons.Nigel Ish (talk) 13:28, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
that is not the consensus, (see also Commons:Deletion requests/Template:Flickr-no known copyright restrictions) but if you want to change the consensus, by all means make a proposal. until then, i will upload using these images from reliable sources. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 02:44, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
@Nigel Ish: "(and tagging it as such may have avoided the problems)" Two out of three files were. It didn't matter. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 18:25, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
As with anything, of course mistakes can be made -- but we need a stronger reason than "we don't trust them" to delete such Flickr Commons works. If a photo appears to come from an unassociated source, especially if it's a different source country than the institution, where it's clear it should still be under copyright, those are of course good reasons to delete. But if it's plausibly OK (and the institution often has specific agreements with donors that we don't have access to), I would keep them. If there are other tags which apparently apply, then add them (PD-Sweden-photo would definitely be one in this case). Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:19, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
  • flickrphoto:6789110449 was uploaded by a Swedish museum, so probably they only checked what Swedish law says, but is Sweden the country of first publication? The photo was taken in the Netherlands which could mean that it was first published there, but the fact that it ended up at a Swedish museum could mean that it was taken by a Swedish photographer and then possibly first published in Sweden. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:41, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Biodiversity Heritage Library logotype

The BHL logo is uploded to enwiki, but not to Commons. According to the logo webpage on BHL, they consider it fair use "provided the logo is being used truthfully to refer to BHL. It may not be used in a way that might mislead others as to BHL’s affiliation with, sponsorship of or endorsement of your work and/or company or its products or services". Thus, can it be uploaded to Commons? Episcophagus (talk) 14:59, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

@Episcophagus: Yes, it may be uploaded here as {{PD-textlogo}}.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 16:02, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: Like this?. Episcophagus (talk) 16:17, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
@Episcophagus: Please add and fill out {{Information}}.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 16:38, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: Sorry, beyond my competence. Incomprehensible to me, if I had known all this I would never have asked! Please help, instead of being arrogant! Episcophagus (talk) 20:03, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
@Episcophagus: Please calm down and see what I did in this edit.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 20:22, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

File:Deji Olatunji during a video.png

This is screenshot sourced to this YouTube video. The person shown is apparently a pretty popular YouTube blogger named en:Draft:Deji Olatunji. Olatunji has his own official YouTube channel, so it's not clear whether the two channels are connected and whether the uploader of the source video is also the original copyright holder of the video. The source video also appears to have been uploaded under the standard YouTube license which seems to place some restrictions on commercial use. Can Commons keep this as licensed or does it need some kind of OTRS verification? -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:47, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

The source video says "Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)". Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed) is CC BY 3.0. See COM:WHERE for the Youtube license. T Cells (talk · contribs · email) 08:00, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the response T Cells. The file is licensed as {{Cc-by-sa-4.0}}, so perhaps all that's needed is a simple tweak. However, it's still not clear if the source provided is the actual source of the video. The comments on the source YouTube channel seem to suggest that the video was edited in some way which would mean it's a COM:DW, wouldn't it? Is that an issue for a file such as this? -- Marchjuly (talk) 12:25, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
Marchjuly, that a work is edited before upload does not make it a derivative work unless it has been substantially copied from a prior work. T Cells (talk · contribs · email) 12:57, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
It's just a copyvio. To be deleted. There is no indication that the person who posted the copied extract is authorized to relicense this copy of the video. If someone wants to request OTRS permission to license this image, the permission would have to be requested directly either from the blogger Deji Olatunji, or more probably from his father, who is apparently the person operating the video camera at that moment. -- Asclepias (talk) 15:19, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

unusually distorted images of likely copyrighted works

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is a major event in New York City, involving lots of grand floats, balloons, etc. The day before, you can see the balloons as they're slowly inflated throughout the afternoon/evening. I took some pictures of this today, and wonder if I should upload them. Now, if we were talking about a typical picture of a copyrighted balloon (say, a representation of Spider-Man), it would clearly not be something that could be uploaded. What about when they're deflated, getting partial views of distorted versions of those same works? At some point, if you grind a copyrighted sculpture into sand, that sand probably does not carry the same copyright. Similarly, if you zoom into a copyrighted work so far as to just be, say, a flat red color in the case of Spider-Man, that doesn't seem like a copyright problem either. Right?

So look at these pictures, as examples: [8] [9]. Note that I did not take these pictures -- just examples I found via Google search. In the first case, it's difficult to even tell what we're looking at (Charlie Brown in the background, Ronald McDonald in the foreground). In the second, it's a little more apparent (Olaf from Frozen). What if it were taken from behind, so that it's just the flat white rear of Olaf's head?

Opinions, guidelines appreciated. Thanks. — Rhododendrites talk |  01:25, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

  • It depends on the level of distortion and who is responsible for the distortion. If the vertical bars of Nelson Mandela's sculpture in Howick is distorted, you may not take its photo and upload here under a free license as the entire work remain copyrighted. If the distortion is caused by you, in addition to violating the creator's moral right, you will also violate copyright by uploading its photos here. In the case of ballons, if the balloon was deflated (probably by its owner) in a manner that does not preserve the integrity of the balloon, you may not violate its copyright by taking the photo. This is very tricky, really. T Cells (talk · contribs · email) 09:34, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
  • @T Cells: I'm not sure what you're saying. Every year before the big parade there is another event in which the public is invited to watch the parade balloons be inflated. I attended. Deflation was not caused by me. if the balloon was deflated [...] in a manner that does not preserve the integrity of the balloon, you may not violate its copyright by taking the photo - what do you mean by integrity, and why would not preserving its integrity mean copyright is still in effect (I presume what you mean is uploading the photo to Commons, as of course we can take the photo).. ? — Rhododendrites talk |  15:02, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
Rhododendrites, I am sorry if my comment above is a bit confusing. I did not implied that the balloon was deflated by you. If the distortion is caused by you, in addition to violating the creator's moral right, you will also violate copyright by uploading its photos here was referring to Nelson Mandela's sculpture and not the deflated balloon. By "integrity", I meant the notion of the right to integrity that since “the work of art is an expression of the artist’s personality...[d]istortion, dismemberment or misrepresentation of the work mistreats an expression of the artist’s personality, affects his artistic identity, personality and honor, and thus impairs a legally protected personality interest.” The expression of the balloon, in this case the inflated balloon is copyrightable and photos of it may not be uploaded to Commons but a deflated balloon may not be copyrightable. I personally would not consider a deflated balloon a “tangible medium of expression,”. However, you may not upload photos of deflated balloon to Commons if it contains copyrightable elements. T Cells (talk · contribs · email) 16:35, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
  • All this discussion seems like a suspicious attempt to deflect blame for deflating the balloons. Leaving that conspiracy aside - I agree with T Cells - the issue is copyrightable elements. Here is a presentation of The Simpsons characters as a palette. Even though the characters could be recognizable from just the colors, I would say that publishing the palette is not a copyright violation of the art of the characters. As more elements come into view eventually there is a line of copyrightability somewhere between a blob of colors and the fully formed inflated 3D likeness. I cannot say what that line is, but a blob of color with no other elements seems fine, and maybe a few additional elements is okay too. Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:17, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Neuron illustrations from NIH publications

Judging from http://www.bu.edu/alzresearch/files/pdf/ADEARUnravelingtheMystery12-033.pdf this may be contract work by "Christy Krames, MA, CMI", and not created by NIH employees? Just because it was used in an NIH publication does not mean it was created by a Federal Government officer or employee, does it? Has anyone contacted Christy Krames https://www.kramestudios.com/ about authorship and licensing? --129.217.30.159 14:20, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, as you say, when NIH has contractors do art then their output is not automatically a public domain work of a United States Federal Government employee. Also as you say, if the publication of their output is not marked with their work being public domain, then we presume the creator is the copyright holder unless we have other guidance.
Yes, the usual way for us to track this would be to contact the artist and ask them of the licensing of this work, and yes, anyone could do that through the contact on their website. Someone should do this! The usual next step would be to ask if they would release their work through the Commons:OTRS process, and without that process, works such as these would be deleted from Commons for lack of evidence that it has compatible copyright for Commons.
Could you write this person and ask them for a Wikimedia compatible copyright license? Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:25, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

File:2018 inauguration of Valentin Konovalov (01).jpg, File:2018 inauguration of Valentin Konovalov (06).jpg & File:2018 inauguration of Valentin Konovalov (03).jpg

Are theses images free? This is not from kremlin.ru I don't know where the license is kept for them. Best, --Leoboudv (talk) 20:33, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, the website says that all materials are at CC-BY-SA 4.0.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:46, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Advice on Image

I know this is not a commons image (YET!), but could I have a view of the correctness of the license used - en:File:Soviet Major General Aleksandr Dmitrievich Berezin.jpg. There are quite a few similar files, I'll move them here if it looks fine. Ronhjones  (Talk) 19:49, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

The current Russian law says ({{PD-Russia}}) that anonymous photos are copyrighted 70 years after publication or creation if unpublished. So, if the photo had not been published before it was uploaded to enwiki then it is in public domain. Ruslik (talk) 20:49, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
@Ronhjones: Alex Spade, please reply, does {{PD-Russia}} really say so? AFAIK, if the photo had NOT been published, it is NOT PD and won't be PD until 70 years after the first legal publication are passed. --Лушников Владимир Александрович (talk) 21:31, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
It was the FIVE years I was not certain about. I've never seen such a short copyright length before. If it's OK then there are a whole lot more, which would be better moved here (en:Special:ListFiles/Wreck_Smurfy) and potentially useful for ru-wiki, if it's a fake claim, then some tagging needs to be done on en-wiki. The template used on en-wiki is a plain "PD-because" and the user adds his rationale. Ronhjones  (Talk) 23:48, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
The law at the time was five years. But that was retroactively changed to be much longer in the 1990s, and then retroactively changed again to 70 years in 2008 or so. I think it was 50 years in 1996 for URAA purposes. If published in 1941, it's both PD-Russia and PD-1996 it would seem. Seems like a military portrait photo; don't have a problem assuming those were published at the time. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:06, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
Photos like this could be stored in archives and then first published years after the WWII, so the uploader is to provide the evidence of publication. --Лушников Владимир Александрович (talk) 06:04, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
"Anonymous photos are copyrighted 70 years after publication..." - YES. "Anonymous photos are copyrighted 70 years... after creation if unpublished" - NO. Unpublished anonymous works are copyrighted indefinitely (while they are both unpublished and anonymous) or (from other POV) such works has unknown status and this is the main problem for Commons - we must know that smth is PD clearly, we can not presume) - this is known infamous mistake (described in several sources) in Russian copyright law (both 1993 and 2006) - the Russian State Duma had forgotten to add necessary statement to law, compared with German and French laws (the nearest relatives to Russian law) or US law. Alex Spade (talk) 10:23, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
My interpretation of the Article 1281, paragraph 3 together with the article 1282, paragraph 1 is that for unpublished anonymous works the copyright effectively terminates 70 years after their creation. Ruslik (talk) 20:48, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
Our interpretation is unimportant. There is indeterminateness in the law (compared with DE/FR/US) described in some sources. If the Russian legislators have wanted to say about date of creation - they have said it clearly (see cases when author was legal person, not natural person). We can not (re)solve this indeterminateness, only Russian legislators and/or courts can; Russian Wikimedia chart has planned to pay attention of State Duma to this problem. Alex Spade (talk) 21:33, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
I am not sure why you think that our interpretation is unimportant? The law can not be absolutely certain and by uploading any file to this cite you always need to interpret the law first. Ruslik (talk) 20:07, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
Note that United States law states that unpublished anonymous works are copyrighted for 120 years from creation, and unlike the case with published works, this is the case even if a foreign work was in the public domain in the source country in 1996.
Art. 1281, sec. 2 suggests that the 70 years from publication term only applies if the work has been "made publicly" which is not the case with an unpublished work. This would imply that the term in sec. 1 (70 years pma) applies, or alternatively the term in sec. 3 if first published after the death of the anonymous author.
I presume that in the normal case, the heirs of the anonymous author need to prove that they are the copyright holders and that this normally involves revealing who the author is. Therefore, I don't think that using a 70 years pma term for an anonymous work would pose any big problems for courts (they'd still be able to find out if it's PD or not), although potential users of the work (such as Commons) won't have a clue on whether it's PD or not. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:07, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
Our interpretation is unimportant, because we can not interpret law ourselves, we can rely on clear evidence/indication only or reliable sources (in such indeterminacies). And reliable sources describe this diverse case as "copyrighted indefinitely" (indefinitely is not equal to eternally) or "unknown copyright status" - both situations are unacceptable to Commons. For example, there was case when newspaper had found collection of unpublished 1920s photoworks in newspaper archive in 2000s, which was clearly made by newspaper photographers (photoworks had been marked as just Фотоотдел without specific author attribution) and in pretrial proceedings newspaper had successfully defended copyrights for these photoworks (when someone had tried to published them without newspaper permission). Yup, pretrial proceedings are not trial proceedings, but POV "This is PD" is not mentioned or described in reliable sources. en:Orphan works are very-very complex problem. Alex Spade (talk) 00:34, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
If you have information about anonymous works which is not on Commons, then please consider updating the relevant pages. I note that Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Russia#Durations currently doesn't mention unpublished anonymous works at all. If there are reliable sources which say that the rules are unclear, then that information needs to be added to the page.
Another thing which is unclear: does the four-year wartime extension only apply to works by known authors or does it apply to all works? For example, let's say that a work was made by an anonymous soldier in the Soviet army. --Stefan2 (talk) 12:31, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
It was mostly resolved in judicial practice: if someone wants to use rehabilitation or/and wartime extension, he must afford straightforward proofs of repression/rehabilitation or/and GPW-work/service and thus he is not able to hide real author name. Alex Spade (talk) 17:17, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
"Our interpretation is unimportant, because we can not interpret law ourselves, we can rely on clear evidence/indication only or reliable sources" is your personal opinion. So, please, use pronoun "I" instead of "we". Ruslik (talk) 20:40, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
Nope. This is not opinion. This is Commons rules - Precautionary principle and Evidence. Freedom must be proved. Not vice versa. Alex Spade (talk) 17:17, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks to everybody for their comprehensive input. I think I need to talk to the uploader on en-wiki and see if they can provide evidence of publication. If they can then the images may be OK and movable here, if not as "unpublished works" we cannot have a US license (which is required for en-wiki), and they can be deleted. Ronhjones  (Talk)

Image of a Virginia Historical Marker

Moved from Commons:OTRS/Noticeboard: AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 23:54, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

I wish to post an image of a Virginia Historical Marker as I read this {{PD-VAGov-DHR}} I understand that I can. However when I try to post it I am told that it is copyright protected. They have a directory of such https://vcris.dhr.virginia.gov/HistoricMarkers/ but I can not find an example on their site. There is one on waymarker produced by tallusswm can I use that? If not then what use is the Template:PD-VAGov-DHR , i am not being snarky or rude, I just don't know when, where and how to use the template. Alvanhholmes (talk) 01:58, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

@Alvanhholmes: I was looking through your contribution history at Special:Contributions/Alvanhholmes and I do not see when you tried to use this template.
There is lots of confusion about copyright in individual US states because they each have different policies and many of the policies are not clear. :It seems that you want to post a sign of a historic site. You are assuming that the historic sites in that database are from the en:Virginia Landmarks Register, and that the text of those signs is in the public domain. If it is in the public domain then anyone should be able to upload them to Commons. Is that correct?
I am trying to understand what your question is. Generally, in most of the United States and around the world, these signs on historic sites are copyrighted text and we cannot host them. Part of the problem here is that we do not have documentation on what the Virginia Landmarks Register publishes - maybe they are copyright holders of these signs but maybe not. Is this what you are exploring? Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:06, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
FMI, on the DHR website with marker text, it says "Copyright © 2018. All Rights Reserved." [10] but maybe they released text with an OTRS. database here https://vcris.dhr.virginia.gov/HistoricMarkers/ Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 16:17, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Embedding CC works inside other non-CC works

I have asked this question before, but I CANNOT for the life of me locate the thread again. My question is, if someone creates an image with a Creative Commons Share Alike license, can that image be embedded inside a non-CC work (commercial book, magazine, brochure, etc.) without a problem? Or does the larger work need to also use a similar CC license as the image? Is the distinction between larger and smaller work important? Thank you! datumizer ☎ 20:14, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't know if this is the previous question you were looking for. It's somewhat related, but not the same. -- Asclepias (talk) 20:28, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
That thread seems to be about combining multiple single images into a new single image. Not (for instance) a coffee table book with multiple unaltered pages/images. Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia doesn't cover this use case to my satisfaction either. datumizer ☎ 20:35, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
The best source of information about CC licences is Creative Commons itself. For example, FAQ. The share-alike aspect only affects derivative works, not works that merely include the CC work. To use a CC BY-SA photo in a book, one still needs to abide by the licence terms (say where you got it, give the creator name, work title, specific CC licence and version used, URLs if possible). But the enclosing book can be (c) all rights reserved if required. What matters isn't size, but how the work is being used. Also if the licence has a -NC restriction then it cannot be used for commercial work, so couldn't for example, appear in a book that was sold, or for publicity / advertising (though you won't find works with that restriction on Commons). One could create a coffee table book totally full of CC BY-SA images, and sell the book and assert full copyright on your collection, though you'd need extensive footnotes or appendix to include all the attribution terms required. There would be nothing stopping someone copying a photograph from your book and using it per the licence terms, but nobody else would be able to publish an identical book. -- Colin (talk) 20:53, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
Out of curiosity, which parts of the FAQ cover this? I did look at the FAQ briefly before posting here, and must have missed them. datumizer ☎ 21:02, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) @Datumizer: according to the full text of CC BY-SA 4.0 (other versions of the same license may differ greatly), specifically §3(b), the ShareAlike requirement only extends to adaptations of the original work, defined in §1(a) as material subject to Copyright and Similar Rights that is derived from or based upon the Licensed Material and in which the Licensed Material is translated, altered, arranged, transformed, or otherwise modified in a manner requiring permission under the Copyright and Similar Rights held by the Licensor. In other words, if you make significant enough changes to the image for it to be considered a new work with new copyright, you must distribute that adaptation under the same license. Otherwise, you only need to fulfill the attribution requirements in §3(a). Whether this clause covers minor changes like scaling an image or making it grayscale (as would befit a non-color textbook, for example) is a question for a copyright lawyer, though I think such changes are considered below the threshold of originality in most of the world (also see [11], [12], [13], and [14] from the Creative Commons FAQ). clpo13(talk) 21:06, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
Awesome, thanks! Someone might want to update Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia with this information. datumizer ☎ 22:32, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Acceptable to use PD-old on an 1870 German photograph from an unknown photographer?

I'd like a second opinion on this. File:Bäckerhaus Augsburg um 1870.jpg

I thought PD-old-70 was only used for unknown authors when it would have been mathematically impossible for an adult to have lived to 1948. I know others might use the British Library standard of 1874 for this, but I thought it would have been generally safer to use "PD-old-assumed". Abzeronow (talk) 17:17, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

For significant doubt to exist, there should be some case history for German copyright law for unknown photographers of 1870 works, having copyright challenges. This appears well into the overly hypothetical, resulting in unnecessary warnings for reusers.
  • Sample of c.1870 photographs marked PD-old-70 with unknown photographers
  • France
    France
  • Poland
    Poland
  • Portugal
    Portugal
  • Germany
    Germany
  • Spain
    Spain
  • Belgium
    Belgium
Above are a few other examples to help illustrate common template usage. --Fæ (talk) 20:32, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
Spain according to its 1879 copyright law is Life + 80. (That applies to authors who died before 1987). I might correct to PD-old-80 if that's the right thing to do. Abzeronow (talk) 21:57, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
We've never required case history before. Can you provide any case history for, say, Latvian copyright law for unknown painters of 1984 works? It's strictly against the rules to upload a file because we don't think a copyright holder will file suit. The assumption has to be that there's no copyright holder.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:38, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Abzeronow: we should use PD-old-assumed. It's honest. Don't misinform our re-users. The examples:
Belgium copyright law says "The term of protection for photographs that are original in that they constitute the author’s own intellectual creation, shall be determined in accordance with the foregoing paragraphs." I'm not sure if this means Belgium has some exception for "simple photographs" or what that might include. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 03:46, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
For images from Photoglob Zûrich such as "File:Lighthouse, Bremerhafen, Hanover (i.e. Hannover), Germany-LCCN2002713715.jpg", the specific status template is "LOC-pchrom". But you would have to reformat the description page, because the uploader did not use it when uploading this file. Or you could also leave it as it is and add "PD-anon-70-EU", which is equivalent to the part of "LOC-pchrom" that relates to images of Europe in this collection. I'm not sure if you can really describe it as "an American work" because it's not obvious if the Detroit pub. co. distributed it in the U.S. inside a 30-day period from its original creation and publication by Photoglob Zûrich in Europe.
Images from BNF should be tagged with normal templates such as PD-old-70 or other, as the case requires. The template "PD-BNF" should not be used except as a last resort when one can't figure out why the image is tagged PD on their websites. In the case of File:Auguste Couder BNF Gallica.jpg, the reason would be that it is a photograph about 150 years old, whose author they don't know. The license review you requested on the description page would not really be useful, because the BNF was never the copyright owner, and their tag adds nothing more to the observation of the facts. The PD-old-70 tag seemed reasonable. Or you could change to PD-old-assumed if you believe you really must. -- Asclepias (talk) 18:13, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
I requested the license review as a record that this image is indeed found at that source and to confirm the source says it's public domain. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 18:41, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
A general thanks for the feedback so far. I know one of my faults is that I can be rather overly pedantic about some things. Abzeronow (talk) 17:52, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Template:PD-Ukraine

Greetings to all!

The decision of the Court of Appeal[1] (2008), in which the panel of judges took part, is as follows:

«In 2004, the National Bank of Ukraine introduced a banknote denomination of 50 hryvnias, a portrait of the first president of Ukraine with the inscription "History of Ukraine" was presented on the front of the banknote, and the image of the house with the signature "House of the Ukrainian Central Rada" was given on the back of the banknote, that is, it reflects some historical events in Ukraine.

At the time of death, OSOBA2 acted the law of the UkrSSR, which had a term of protection of property rights 15 years after the death of the author.

Since 1974 and until 1994 there was the force of art.493 of the Civil Code of the Ukrainian SSR, which established that the copyright was valid for the life of the author and 25 years after his death, counted from January 1, the year following the death of the author.

In accordance with the requirements of Article 499 of the same Central Committee of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, a work of architecture - a house on the street. Volodymyrska № 57 in Kiev became the property of the state.

Thus, at the time of Ukraine's accession to the Berne Convention on Protection. the literary works of the work of the architect OSOBA_2 became a public property.

Taking into account the above, the court of first instance reasonably proceeded from the fact that on January 1, 1987, the term of protection of property rights to a work of OSOBA_2 by the copyright was exhausted on January 1, 1987 and

The court was fully and comprehensively aware of the circumstances of the case, came to the right conclusion about the refusal of the plaintiff in the lawsuit.

The court's decision is legal, justified, there are no grounds for its cancellation.»

It is about the architect Aleshin, who died in 1961.

Please support the draft template change at the time of death. After all, Ukraine joined the Berne Convention in 1995 (came into force in 1996).

This means that 1994-25 = 1969

Laws are not retroactive. This is the case in the Berne Convention. What became the public domain at the time of death, which according to the legislation is a public domain.

@Antanana: , @Ilya: , @Yakudza: , @Madvin: , @Perohanych: --Arxivist (talk) 12:44, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

References

  1. ↑ link
I am not sure what ownership of the building has to do with the copyright? In addition the law that you mentioned is not retroactive - it merely reinstated the lapsed copyright without affecting the past. Ruslik (talk) 20:06, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
I'm not clear about what the Ukrainian law says, but many laws have put public domain materials back under copyright; the UK's copyright expansion from life+50 to life+70 did, as in (almost?) all of the EU states that had to lengthen their copyright terms to life+70. The US's URAA put many works back under copyright, by demand of their fellow Berne Convention signers, as a result of signing the Berne Convention. So certainly laws do return works that have left copyright to a copyrighted status.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:29, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Images from flickr with Public Domain Mark by the author

The FlickreviewR bot marks images from flickr using the "Creative Commons Public Domain Mark" as insufficiently licensed, as it lacks the reason why an image is in the public domain, and makes some suggestions for applicable templates. So far, so good. But there are photographers marking their own work with this PD mark as well, and there is no suggestion for such cases by the bot. Case in question: File:Fabaceae Trifoleae Trifolium repens purpurascens quadrifolium (3649836494).jpg was transferred from flickr (see also this discussion in German-language Wikipedia). It's from the flickr account of Emma Forsberg from Anchorage, USA, who self-identifies as "bead embroidery artist and amateur bird/plant photographer". So I assume that this image of a plant, of sufficient resolution and with camera EXIF data, is really her own work, and it's therefore a case of {{PD-author}} (using the PD Mark, she released it into the public domain, which is possible in the USA). Just because I didn't come across such cases until now: Do you agree that this is the correct approach? I somehow miss the "green" license review template for external sites, as this is basically what I have done (I checked at the source, author apparently released own work as PD, so it's fine), but as the PD mark isn't accepted as a "license" (so there's no license to "confirm"), I think there's no other way? Gestumblindi (talk) 22:03, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

After giving the issue some more thought, I think that Pajz in the German discussion has a point: As the PD Mark isn't really a license but a statement of an assumed situation, it's a bit of an assumption that a photographer meant to release their own work as PD if marked as such - but still a logical assumption, I'd say? If we don't assume a mistake on the author's part (Pajz suggests this possibility), the intention must be a PD release - of course mistakes are always possible, but then we would have to question all author-released images on flickr. And I don't doubt that Emma Forsberg is the author of this photograph, given her profile and similar photographs there. Gestumblindi (talk) 23:00, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
To my mind, it's the same as the author saying "I put these works in the public domain", a form which we have accepted before. So to me, it's the same as PD-author. If the PD-Mark was a mistake, so could be a license of CC-0, and we would accept that. However, that has had some arguments here before. Most people like the certainty of a CC-0 license, which is the license tag more appropriate for your own works, and which Flickr supports. If we can get the user to change to CC-0, that would be best. PD-Mark on your own works is a more vague version of the same thing -- which to my mind should also be OK, as it's more a result of the unfortunate naming that Creative Commons came up with, but it may have differing legal status in different countries (as can CC-0, but that is worded to minimize those problems). Putting PD-Mark on your own works (where they could not logically be PD for any other reason) probably does have some sort of licensing effect, but that will definitely vary by country. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:14, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
PDM is not the same as CC0/PD-author. This was discussed and put into to place years ago now. See COM:PDM. The reason they are not the same is that the PDM has no legal code behind it unlike CC0 which does and PD-author has very specific phrasing attached to it. Specifically, I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law. The actual legal wording is important as in some countries it is legally impossible to put something in the public domain. That is why when Creative Commons created the PDM they explicitly stated that it is a tool to mark work that is already in the public domain not something that should be used to release your own work into the public domain. I understand why people select the PDM when they mean CC0/PD-author. As Carl stated, Creative Commons did a horrible job naming the thing and didn't really advertise what the PDM is supposed to be for well enough. But, just like we need an actual explicit release on OTRS forms that hit specific phrases, we can't just assume that PDM = CC0 or PD-author. Because it doesn't. --Majora (talk) 03:49, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
CC0 is not the same as PD-author either. CC0 does have a rather explicit legal code, which is nice and as certain as you can be. PD-author does not, but refers to some general statement where the author placed their works in the public domain. We added that specific phrasing to the tag, but it has been applied to many situations with much more general statements on source websites, effectively similar to putting PD-Mark on your own works. It is indeed not CC's intention for PD-mark to be used on your own works, but to claim it has no effect is also not true. It is not as certain as we would like, but the intention seems clear enough to me. I definitely agree we can't assume it equals CC0, but PD-author is another matter entirely. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:06, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
You're right CC0 is not the same as PD-author either. I lumped those together in the above because people also do that when talking about the PDM. However, the PDM is also simply not the same as PD-author. The creators of the PDM have explicitly stated that the PDM means nothing in terms of the author's intentions. They go even further and state It should only be used to label a work that is already free of known copyright restrictions around the world, typically very old works. The statement we have on {{PD-author}} (and all related PD templates) is there because it explicitly states the author's intentions. If the flickr user was to put that statement on the file description or even in their main profile description that would be different. I have accepted images that said that before. This exception is even mentioned on COM:PDM. In this case they have not done that. They have included a mark that literally means nothing and has nothing behind it as described by the people that created the thing. This is long standing Commons practice that has affected thousands of files. Changing this now would require a RfC or a statement from Creative Commons changing their interpretation of the mark that they created and defined. --Majora (talk) 06:21, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
Well, but wouldn't you agree: There's no other possible intention than putting one's own work into the public domain if an individual attaches the PD mark to their own work. And as the author in this specific case is from the USA, this is a country that doesn't need a "fallback license". Shouldn't we have a way of accepting such works without having to bother the authors further? Gestumblindi (talk) 11:51, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
If the author can't do the work to make sure they are selecting a license that actually means something then honestly, perhaps they should be "bothered" so that they actually know what they are doing in the future. Again, using the PDM to mark your own work as in the public domain was never the intention of the literal creators of the mark. Even their own blog post says as much. This is all detailed in the collapsed sections of {{Flickr-public domain mark}}. It is one of the more detailed templates that we have because it is so confusing. Trust me, I get it. Losing images because of a stupid mistake is frustrating. But if the actual creators of the mark are telling us that this is not what this is intended for I really don't see how we can use a different interpretation. --Majora (talk) 14:35, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
I'm aware of what Creative Commons' intent was, but that does not really matter -- what matters more is the intent of the author. To me, it is just as clear as saying "I put these in the public domain", which we have accepted as a comment on websites and other places. That has meaning, as does putting PD-mark on your own work (there is no possible way it could be PD without a PD-author type statement). I think that is my frustration -- the belief that it is "meaningless" when it is not. The statement "I place these in the public domain" absolutely was relevant for Carol Highsmith's LOC donations -- a court ruled that was indeed public domain so anyone could sell them. The options are confusingly named, and Flickr probably shouldn't even offer the PD-mark to be honest -- if someone wants to put their stuff in the public domain, that is the tag they will probably find first. "Creative Commons Zero" gives no hint as to what its meaning really is. I'm aware of the disputes; the fact that Flickr authors have a more-clear solution within grasp is probably what makes people here hesitate -- it's quite possible to get the Flickr user to change it. But if they are unresponsive, it should not be a fatal mistake. They are quite allowed to say "these are public domain" and have us evaluate on that basis. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:27, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
@Gestumblindi: didn't come across it before? I did. Here are some more: California Fish and Wildlife (sample) but also Files uploaded by Secretname101 (sample). The main issue for me is what people think "public domain" means. I suspect many people believe anything that's posted publicly on Facebook is public domain. But then, most people don't understand Creative Commons licenses either and that never stopped us. If there were a proposal to accept Flickr PD-mark as PD-author when the uploader would clearly also be the copyright holder (possibly without the fallback and only for countries that don't require the fallback), I would support such a proposal. And reading this thread, I think Carl Lindberg may support it as well. So right there you already have three likely support votes (including the proposer). There will also be opposition though. Notify me please if you do start a thread on COM:VPP. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 12:25, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
File a UDR for those California Fish and Wildlife pictures please, Alexis Jazz so there is something official. That appears to be a proper use of the PDM as it is public domain for a different reason. {{PD-CAGov}}. That flickr account is using the PDM as it was originally intended. --Majora (talk) 14:35, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
Gestumblindi this has been discussed repeatedly. The solution is to contact the Flickr user (Emma Forsberg) and inform them about what correct licence to pick. We have enough arguments deciding the copyright status of images made by long dead people, we certainly don't need to be arguing among ourselves about the copyright status of images taken by someone who is merely a Flickr-message away.
Btw, now Flickr has new owners, perhaps we should contact them to ask them to do something about the PD-mark UI. It really does need to remind people that it is only for works already believed to be PD. -- Colin (talk) 14:48, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for all your replies, Carl Lindberg, Majora, Alexis Jazz, and Colin! I think I see the issues with PD-mark more clearly now. I think we can agree that authors most likely don't intentionally pick a mark for their own works that "means nothing" and so it's quite likely that Emma Forsberg, if contacted, agrees to CC-zero or something similar for that image. As the uploader is concerned that there might be legal trouble for him in case the author didn't really intend to release that image as PD after all, I offered him in the discussion at German Wikipedia to speedy delete the image for now if that's his wish (equal to CSD G7 as "uploader's request", I'd say) so he could negotiate with the photographer with his mind at ease. I also feel somewhat responsible for the issue, as I originally told him there that uploading the image should be fine (as I just perceived it as a PD release by the photographer). Regarding the idea of Alexis Jazz - a proposal to accept Flickr PD-mark as PD-author when the uploader would clearly also be the copyright holder (possibly without the fallback and only for countries that don't require the fallback) - well, I'm mulling it over... Gestumblindi (talk) 20:32, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

I've deleted it now per uploader's wish. Gestumblindi (talk) 12:05, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
The uploader contacted the photographer and she's now using an acceptable license on flickr (CC-BY 2.0), so the photograph is back :-) Gestumblindi (talk) 21:16, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

So this particular image is resolved, but is there a resolution for PD Mark images in general? Setting questions of authorship aside for the moment (because obviously, with Flickr, it's possible that anything uploaded is a copyright violation, so just dealing with the case that the person has uploaded a bunch of images from different occasions with the same camera and we have no doubt that they are the author) ... if I say, "I took this photo and it is public domain", how is that not a valid disclaiming of copyright? --B (talk) 22:29, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

A famous jockstrap

I know dolls are copyrighted, but is a famous movie prop jockstrap like this one worn by Russell Crowe? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:12, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Commons needs more good jockstrap photographs, so it would be a pity to miss out on this celebrity one. Items of clothing that are either very basic or mass produced without artwork prints on them, are not copyrightable. This is separate from issues of trademarks. So (picking safe-for-work examples) File:Carlo Masi 2007.jpg shows a Colt branded jockstrap and is not a copyright issue and File:Wade Boggs' Strap (Florida Training).jpg is a close up of a celebrity jockstrap where the branding is again not an issue for a mass produced item.
If Russell Crowe's jockstrap was a uniquely created prop, we can consider that this is not a mass produced item, however especially considering how plain it appears to be, this seems a work of sewing craft, but not a work of art, or fashion design, that has defendable intellectual property.
Upload and if someone wants a longer analysis, we can raise a deletion request. --Fæ (talk) 13:00, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, Fæ! :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 19:13, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
@Anna Frodesiak: the jockstrap itself is utilitarian (can't be protected by copyright). But any photo (or drawing) taken/made of it will need to be released with a free license to be uploaded here. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 20:10, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
Thank you, Alexis Jazz. The plan is to get someone who owns one to release it. Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 20:16, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
@Anna Frodesiak: I didn't find the jockstrap, but here are some photos of the video store: Category:Blockbuster video store in Anchorage. Was the jockstrap not there yet on 30 April? Or if it was, perhaps that photographer also has a photo of it, but just didn't upload it. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 05:56, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
@Anna Frodesiak: I got word back from the photographer. The day the photos in Category:Blockbuster video store in Anchorage were taken (30 April 2018) was the day before the jockstrap went on display. The display case was being installed when they got there. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 12:58, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

While facts themselves are not copyrightable, at what point would a machine learning model that learned to ask and answer questions using wikipedia content be subject to the copyleft clause for wikipedia content? In terms of generative writing style, a model would be a statistical summary of the writing styles on wikipedia i.e. a derived work of the copyrightable presentation of the non-copyrightable facts. On the other hand, a reformulation of words based on reading other works is precisely what humans can and would do if they "ingested" wikipedia, and I don't believe there would be any issue with a human using wikipedia as a source of verifiable content and writing or synthesizing new text (for example question and answer texts) in their own words.

Related, is knowledge derived by analyzing meta data about wikipedia such as the link structure between articles considered derived content and therefore copyleft territory?

NOTE: this exists under https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)/Archive_60#Copyright_of_Automatically_Derived_Knowledge but never received a reply, so trying a different forum.

--Notabotyet (talk) 15:44, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

@Notabotyet: It would all be considered derived content and therefore copyleft territory, including page histories and all namespaces.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 16:35, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
Are you asking if we can upload to Commons a recording of a bot (like Alexa) summarizing a Wikipedia article? The problem with that theory is that if someone creates a derivative work of a CC-BY-SA work, they are required to publish their work under the CC-BY-SA but if they fail to do so, the remedy is a lawsuit - not that the work automatically becomes CC-BY-SA. So if Alexa reads you the Wikipedia article on, say, football and you are a substantial contributor to it, you could sue Amazon, but you can't wave a magic wand and declare their reading to be CC-BY-SA. --B (talk) 21:17, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Copyright protects expression (the words chosen), not a writing style. If the result ended up copying big chunks of text from Wikipedia, it could be derivative, but if it formulated its own ruling, I don't think it would be. And since it is not a human directly generating the expression, not sure the result would be copyrightable at all. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:57, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
If we're talking about a recording, I don't what the law says about digital speech samples to produce synthesized speech. If Alexa really is summarizing the Wikipedia article, plot summaries can get complex, but at this length, are probably safe, and unlike fiction, summaries of Wikipedia articles start to get into fact-expression divide. So I don't think the CC-BY-SA would apply to Alexa summaries; they'd almost certainly be PD-machine. However, can we tell the difference between a computer summary and a human-written one; if I were Amazon, to patch problematic summaries, especially on heated subjects, I would have a human write them and have Alexa use that, rather then keep tweaking Alexa and hope eventually she can produce a good non-controversial summary of w:abortion or w:Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Do we know they're 100% computer generated?--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:16, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
  • @Notabotyet: This is a description of en:DBpedia. DBpedia is Wikipedia converted to structured data through reading infoboxes and also various individuals' experimental procedures for text mining. Lately also DBpedia ingests Wikidata, making it seem bigger than Wikidata, but make no mistake that DBpedia is Wikidata + structured data of lower quality than what Wikidata accepts + structured data out of scope of Wikidata. DBpedia has an odd license that probably does not apply. Most reusers either disregard the license or treat it as CC0. Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:54, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
  • @Jeff G.: As @Clindberg: points out, if the machine just copied wikipedia, that's clearly derivative, but if it created its own style, it would not be- except for the fact that it used all the styles represented in wikipedia to create its own style. By definition it would seem that the machine's output is a derivative work except it's hard to apply that standard to a human. If any human reads any wikipedia article, now they've ingested in some form the style of wikipedia and hereafter everything they write must be CC-BY-SA. --Notabotyet (talk) 01:05, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
  • @Prosfilaes: Gets right to the unique heart of the matter in that what is on wikipedia is verifiable facts, which are not copyrightable. So, there's no issue with a human scraping facts from wikipedia and there shouldn't be for a machine, Alexa or otherwise either, unless what the machine is creating is rampant, verbatim copying of chunks of text, or possibly whether the "style" issue comes into play. --Notabotyet (talk) 01:05, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

File:Starbucks store.jpg

Can this be kept as licensed? The Starbuck's logo is likely protected by copyright, so it seems that needs to be take into account even if the photo itself is released under a free license. FWIW, I don't think COM:DM can be argued here since the logo is obviously the focus of the photo; same goes for trying to argue that this is "incidental" since this is not an exterior shot of a Starbucks store where the sign just happens to be part of the building's structure, but rather a close up photo focusing on the logo itself.-- Marchjuly (talk) 14:19, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

@Marchjuly: "photographing ... of an artistic work, except an architectural work, which is openly located in a public place shall not be deemed an infringement of copyright in the artistic work" per section 37 of the Copyright Act, BE 2537 (1994) (translation), so I tagged it {{FoP-Thailand}}.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 15:16, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: The photograph appears to be in India, not Thailand, where 2D works are not protected by FoP. Commons:Copyright_rules_by_territory/India#Freedom_of_panorama. --Animalparty (talk) 17:23, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
I appreciate the replies, but I not sure it would be covered by FoP since it's not really more signage than a work of art or part of the building; I could be wrong though which is why I'm asking about it here. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:04, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, that is not de minimis nor incidental -- that is primarily a photograph of the logo. It may be OK under FoP of some countries, but don't think it is for India. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:18, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
@Animalparty: Sorry, you're right.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 10:41, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Works by a studio or company

I feel like I've asked this before, but still don't know the answer.. And Fæ asked for this to be taken to VPC.

File:Theo van Gogh 1878.jpg

Is the work of a photo studio. Fæ replaced {{PD-old-assumed}} (which was correct) with {{PD-old-70}}, which is wrong. There is no death date. And also no certainty the photographer has been dead for 70 years (some calculations on my essay). If I remember correctly, {{PD-anon-70-EU}} may be used for this. But that's confusing. So we either need to clarify that template, or have another template for this situation. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 18:38, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

PD-EU-no author disclosure is close, but does not clearly convey "The copyright in a work of which the author has not been indicated or has not been indicated in such a way that his identity is beyond doubt shall, or a public institution, association, foundation or company is deemed the author, expires 70 years after 1 January of the year following that in which the work was first lawfully communicated to the public." per Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Netherlands. In the past, as in this case, I have applied PD-old-70 or equivalent, depending on dates, and I believe this is the current norm for how templates are used. PD-old-assumed is misleading and harmfully discourages reuse, when there is no assumption being made about dates (or death dates) for this to be fully legally reused as public domain. --Fæ (talk) 19:22, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
Hmm...1878...{{PD-old-assumed}} sounds right for an unknown photographer. We should be as transparent with reusers as possible. Abzeronow (talk) 20:37, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
There are no assumptions to be made for this to be PD. The quote above is from the copyright act. Using PD old assumed actually makes it less transparent. --Fæ (talk) 22:38, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
PD-old-assumed is clearly wrong for this case since we're not actually making an assumption about when the author died. Quite the contrary, we don't care when the author died because the work was anonymous. Something like {{PD-anon-70-EU}} or {{PD-anon-1923}} seems like it would be more correct for this case than {{PD-old-70}} because PD-old-70 may be wrong for some countries - if there is a country that doesn't make an exception for anonymous works, then the work might still be copyrighted there. --B (talk) 22:46, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
I see, there probably should be a Netherlands tag for this kind of thing. I guess as Carl Lindberg says below, PD-anon-70-EU would be fine too. Abzeronow (talk) 09:15, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
PD-old-70 is wrong if you don't know the death date of the author. You're not going to encourage reuse by making Common's license tagging less correct.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:59, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
Agreed with Prosfilaes and B. If we don't know the death date, and it's still within the realm of possibility the author died less than 70 years ago, PD-old-70 is not a valid tag. I think PD-old-assumed is fine, but it sounds like it is also PD-anon-70-EU, which would be the primary tag (we could add both I guess). Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:25, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
Carl this makes no sense to me. The facts and copyright law make this PD. Why add any warnings about assumptions when none exists? --Fæ (talk) 10:39, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
PD-US and PD-anon-70-EU (which should be clarified if that's the correct tag) would cover the US and EU, but no other countries. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 18:43, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
@Clindberg: {{PD-anon-70-EU}} and {{PD-EU-no author disclosure}} require that the work was "made available to the public" (PD-anon-70-EU) or "published" (PD-EU-no author disclosure). This work is quite possibly unpublished. It's a photo from a personal family photo album. File:Theo van Gogh at circa 15 years of age cropped.jpg (also Theo) is a photo that was likely taken as a birthday present for his father[15] and clearly shouldn't be {{PD-old-100-1923}}. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 18:50, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
@Fæ: -- PD-old-70 implies we know the death date and it was more than 70 years ago. Simply guessing does not mean it is true. If you don't know a death date, then you are assuming, so we should label it an assumption.
@Alexis Jazz: Both of those EU templates date from "making available to the public" (which includes public display), not strictly "publication". Secondly, both of them expire 70 years after creation if not made available to the public in that time. If exquisitely timed, they could therefore get 140 years of protection -- which would be up in a month for an 1878 work. And the odds of that timing are laughably low. It's PD in the EU if there was no author named, which is the usual case when there is a corporate credit. It has a corporate name on it, so it was not a strictly private family photo -- it was done by a studio. So now you get into whether the transaction between the copyright owner and the family constituted publication (or "making available to the public") or not, using 1878 laws. PD-anon-70-EU is the primary tag to add to me, but we could add others that apply. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:02, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
@Clindberg: there may be a bit of cognitive dissonance going on. With regard to studio works, death dates are irrelevant. Consequently PD-old-assumed is misleading as it claims there is a low risk of copyright infringement based on possible death dates, which is a completely the wrong way to address the copyright law we quote in our own guidelines. In this case the work is legally public domain, adding templates which claim that the work might not be public domain is actively harming the value of our collections.
I agree that the current wording of PD-old-70 is bad, it should be extended to allow for works like this (credited to "De Lavieter & Co") which became public domain 70 years after original publication or creation depending on where the work was created. For very old studio works (say before 1910), there are very few cases where adding a "PD-old-70-corporate-works" type template would ever be wrong where no individual photographer has a stated copyright. There is an obvious choice of two directions to take, either we extend PD-old-70 for scenarios where an individual death date is irrelevant, so any work of that type is PD 70 years after creation and the template is worded to make that explicitly clear, or we create another (almost identical) template which is has the extra wording. Either way, PD-old-assumed is simply wrong and should be removed from these cases due to the potential harm it causes for valid PD reuse. --Fæ (talk) 13:21, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
@Fæ: I'm not sure where the dissonance is. For EU law, there are two major terms -- if the human author is known, the term lasts their lifetime plus 70 more years. That is the PD-old-70 tag and variants. If the author is anonymous or pseudonymous, the term lasts 70 years from making available to the public (or 70 years from creation if not made available in that time). Those are the PD-anon-70-EU tag and the other (there are slight distinctions in the EU directive article 1(3) and 1(4) ). For a studio work or corporate work, yes death date can matter -- if the human author was named, the term is 70pma regardless of the owner and regardless if it was a corporate work or not. PD-old should absolutely not be extended for situations where the author is not known, unless it's basically impossible that they were alive less than 70 years ago. There is nothing wrong with its wording.
If there is a known human author and you don't know when they died, the PD-anon-70 type templates are no longer usable -- the author is not anonymous. At that point, PD-old-70 is the only option for the EU. A photo from 1900 could easily still be in copyright in those cases, studio or not. If we have no hard evidence of death date, but we still think it's virtually certain the author died more than 70 years ago, we have PD-old-assumed -- that indicates the lack of evidence. It fills a role. Since we have that tag, we should not use PD-old-70 itself unless we have a known, hard death date. For the one photo here, known human author born in 1842 where death date is unknown, it would in fact be under copyright if he lived to 106 years old -- highly unlikely, not likely enough to delete, but still possible and thus we are still making an assumption. Thus the PD-old-assumed tag is most appropriate. We don't absolutely know that PD-old-70 is true, and we should communicate that.
In general, I have no problem putting multiple tags on a work if they all apply. We only require tags for the country of origin and the U.S., but more tags could possibly help users in other countries, or if the legal situation of one tag changes (say a retroactive law change, or a court ruling we rely on being overturned, or an invalid tag originally made based on mistaken beliefs, etc.). For the De Lavieter & Co one, yes it's anonymous and PD-anon-70-EU is the tag for the country of origin. I don't think I would put PD-old-assumed on it myself, but it would still fall under that category and I would not remove it either if it someone added it explicitly on top of the anon one. Maybe there is a country which has no anonymous term in their law, or maybe the human author was shown to be named at some point (thus invalidating the PD-anon-70-EU tag) and their death date was unknown, meaning that would then be the operative tag. Granted in the latter case, the tag could always be switched at the time of author identification, but in general if a work still matches the criteria of a tag, I don't see much harm in adding it. Changing that one from PD-old-assumed to PD-anon-70-EU is fine (and more accurate), but changing it to PD-old-70 is not. If you simply dislike the PD-old-assumed tag and would prefer to use PD-old-70 for those situations as well, you are certainly entitled to that opinion (that is the practice we followed for many years), but we just disagree on that point. If general consensus is to have and use the -assumed tag, then it should be used for those situations, so don't remove the tag if it is the applicable reason. If you disagree with the tag, then argue against the tag well enough to change general consensus in a public forum (here or a DR or something). But I don't see at all where it is against our policies -- it indicates works below the COM:PRP line of there being a significant doubt of it still being in copyright. That is completely different than a work we know is still under copyright, but just with a low chance of being sued for infringement. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:58, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
@Clindberg: if the studio makes a photo and gives it to the customer (and nobody else), that is "making available to the public"? Do I understand that right? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 21:15, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
I don't know. From one perspective they are selling a copy, which is usually publication, but it's also to a restricted set of people so not the general public. But maybe the studio displayed it in their store, which would be public display and thus "making available", or kept the rights to sell it to others. It could be publication under older U.S. law., as well, depending on which court's definition you want to use. Sometimes commissioned works are owned by the commissioning party in older law, which would then not be publication. But even if it was not "making available", it became PD in 1949 if not made available by then (and was probably PD earlier by laws in place at the time). Something that old is PD by now if it's anonymous. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:56, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
@Clindberg: I've uploaded the back for both photos: Theo van Gogh in 1873 back, File:Theo van Gogh May 1878 back.jpg. The first one is by Balduin Schwarz (name of the studio and name of the photographer, Brussels), the second possibly by Cor(?) van.. something in The Netherlands. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 22:45, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
The second one is "De Lavieter & Co.", which was the one I saw before. The writing seems like "Van Gogh" so probably a relative and almost certainly not related to the photographer. That one is anonymous. The other one is not, though, unless Balduin Schwarz had employees there. Per here, Schwartz was born in 1842, and moved to Brussels in 1870 and was there until at least 1883. He would have needed to live to well over 100 to still be under copyright. Probably on the border of PD-old, but perhaps PD-old-assumed is still a bit better. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:10, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
@Clindberg: I think you're right! But assuming these were never (legitimately) published (which is, imho, likely), which template should be used? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 15:13, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
With a known author, publication date does not matter for the EU, so it is PD-old-assumed. For the De Lavieter one, it is anonymous, so PD-anon-70-EU is the appropriate tag, published or not (if never made available to the public, then that tag is 70 years from creation, which has also passed). I would probably just use PD-1923 under the assumption it was published via U.S. law at the time, though you could use the more vague PD-US. Getting into the definitions of publication of U.S. law in the 1870s really isn't worth the time, I don't think. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:38, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

File:DVFS small logo.jpg

This probably should be {{PD-text logo}}, right? It's possible the uploader is connect to the en:Delaware Valley Friends School, but the logo itself seems to be below COM:TOO#United States so OTRS verification seems unnecessary. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:03, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

It's below the U.S. threshold yes but a valid license tag can always help remove uncertainty in other countries. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:04, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
@Clindberg: Do you mean for images such as File:IREX Logo Color-H.png the presence of a CC license would be helpful? It had a CC BY-SA 4.0 license with OTRS ticket, but I removed them and added PD-textlogo recently. 4nn1l2 (talk) 08:03, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
@4nn1l2: Absolutely yes keep it, *especially* if there is OTRS. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:34, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
@Clindberg: Thanks! Another question: Should I add the {{CC BY-SA 4.0}} license tag beside the {{PD-textlogo}} tag, or replace it completely? Please take a look at its history page. Here is the background information: I uploaded it myself following a photo-submission ticket at OTRS (Ticket:2017082410018177). There is a valid permission statement for this logo (CC BY-SA 4.0). About one year later, I thought the logo might be in the public domain in the U.S. (not copyrighted) and hence a CC license would be meaningless (because CC works only if the work is copyrighted). 4nn1l2 (talk) 18:59, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
Both is fine. The CC license is worldwide, though it may be moot in the U.S. and some other countries. The logo is probably copyrightable in the UK for example, so users there would likely want to use it under the CC license. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:09, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Flickr CC license, but clear statement to the contrary

I noticed File:Werribee Gorge State Park (24183086928).jpg, among a large number of other images from this same Flickr account. Though the images are tagged with CC-BY, the description has a very clear and very contradictory statement of copyright: "You are welcome to use this photo . please ask before you use. No part of this picture may be reproduced or transmitted in any from or by any means without prior permission. ... All rights reserved © by Travellers travel photobook". In a case like this, do we accept the CC license as valid? --B (talk) 19:32, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

On flickr, you have to make a deliberate effort to select the "CC-BY" option. Maybe the Flickr owner does not understand the implications of CC-BY, but that is his problem, not ours. Ronhjones  (Talk) 19:51, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
@B: changing the license on Flickr for all your photos is easy, but descriptions need to be updated one by one. So if the photographer decided some time after uploading to release their photos, they could have updated the license but leave the description like it is. Sometimes they explain this on their about page. Flickrmailed em.. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 18:32, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
@B and Ronhjones: got an answer: "Restrictions for commercial use. Thanks"
So now what? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 02:45, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
Technically he has already released the images under "CC-BY", and that is irrevocable. The Flickr review bot has already approved the image. He can change the Flickr license if he wants, it makes no difference now. I don't see any reason not to keep the image. Ronhjones  (Talk) 18:30, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
@Ronhjones: @Alexis Jazz: I 100% agree that Creative Commons licenses are irrevocable. But I created a Flickr account just now to see the interface for myself - here is the interface - https://www.flickr.com/photos/157937919@N04/45179290915 - and the interface is noticeably lacking an anything resembling a legal code. When we post to Commons, there is a legal blurb right over the "Publish changes" button that explains the what the license means and posts a link to the legal code. But at flickr, it's kinda unclear if you don't already know what these things are and if someone at the same time they uploaded the image made a statement making it clear that they did not intend to publish it under this license, I'm not sure how solid of a foundation we would be under. --B (talk) 17:31, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
They obviously wanted to release the image under some CC license, otherwise (if I remember correctly) the default is "All Rights Reserved". Our whole basis for accepting a Flickr image mainly resolves around the Flicreview bot, which will only check the license showing, and cannot evaluate any extra text. If we start deciding that every flickr page needs reading first by a human, then there are a huge amount of flickr images that were bot passed and the text not read. If the Flickr owner did not check what the license means then we should point him/her to en:Ignorantia juris non excusat Ronhjones  (Talk) 18:12, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
With respect to the difficulty of bot-based evaluation, we have that problem for other things too - for example when people upload AP photos or photos they found somewhere on the internet and purport to license them. I think there are two completely separate cases that need to be considered separately: if someone decides after the fact that they didn't really mean it or they don't like it because Wikipedia is doing something they don't approve of or they realize how valuable their image is and don't want people using it for free, then our answer is "tough cookies". But if someone, at the time that it was uploaded here, very clearly and unambiguously stated that they did not intend to issue a license, as evidenced by the fact that our image description page spells out some things very contradictory to what the license says, then I think that should be treated differently. Whatever the flickr uploader thought they were doing, they obviously didn't intend to grant this license. --B (talk) 19:34, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
Agreed. Licensing terms are not laws, so Ignorantia juris non excusat is not really relevant. What is, however, established legal principle (and common decency and common sense) is that you cannot in good faith rely on an agreement if it is clear to you from the start that the other party has misunderstood the terms of the agreement, which it should be if they're making statements directly contradicting the supposed agreement. —LX (talk, contribs) 19:58, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
Well maybe someone should ask the flickr user? As an aside, here's something similar I found a while back Commons:Deletion requests/File:Ivan doan pilgrims 2016.jpg Ronhjones  (Talk) 01:13, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
Alexis Jazz did ask. You responded to the comment containing the quote from the Flickr user. Like six posts up. —LX (talk, contribs) 09:37, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
I meant ask them why the "CC-BY" is showing when they said "non-commercial" - do they realise what CC-BY stands for? Ronhjones  (Talk) 00:03, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
The answer was clear enough, I told them to use some NC variant in the future. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 19:05, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
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