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I'm going to upload pictures of the inside and outside of Universal Studios Hollywood. Are these photos safe to upload into Commons?
I was planning to upload some images of attraction rides at Universal Studios Hollywood. However, I took some pictures of the interior of the attraction rides like the Studio Tour and the Mario Kart ride. However, some rides do not allow people to take pictures like the Fast & Furious 3D ride inside the tram vehicle. Hundreds of photos are used inside the Google Photos app I have taken, but I was concerned about the following if it was safe to upload:
Copyright. The same rules apply here as to any other photos. If what you are photographing is copyrightable and not very, very old (and none of what you are describing is old), then it is copyrighted, and your photos are derivative works, and should not be uploaded without permission from the copyright-holder of the underlying work (which you almost certainly cannot get). Certainly the advertisements are all copyrighted.
Expectation of privacy: it is possible that image taken in the interior of a ride shows a person who has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Do not upload those.
If any of those interior shots does not feature other people's copyrightable materials, and does not violate anyone's property, then as far as Commons is concerned you are on your own as to whether you want to violate any contract you may have with Universal limiting whether you should have been taking these photos. However, if Universal were to sue you for violation of a contract, or terms of use, or whatever, you are on your own. Personally, I'd advise against violating a contract like that, but it's not a copyright issue, and Commons didn't sign the contract, so the issue is yours, not ours. - Jmabel ! talk21:56, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
@Jmabel: I know about the issues. However, I don't know if it was safe to upload these photos of the Mario Kart: Koopa's Challenge. I can blur people's faces using GIMP or Photoshop, and the content involving Mario inside a 3D screen and the ending scenes are the more interesting parts. I also took an image of the start screen. Is it safe to upload to Commons?
I asked a staff member at Super Nintendo World to take pictures of the ride, and the staff member said, "Yes, you could post the picture to [Commons Wikimedia]." The picture taken inside the Bowser Jr. challenge does not involve both copyrighted objects like the Mario franchise-related characters in both color and shadowed parts.
I took pictures of Mario-related objects while waiting for the line at Mario Kart: Koopa's Challenge. I don't know if I can upload this. Evan0512 (talk) 22:11, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
@Evan0512: My suggestion to you would be to try a find a lawyer experienced in this type of thing and bascially ask them the same thing you've asked above because any problems that might arise from you uploading your photos to Commons are going to be yours alone to resolve. I suspect that most staff members at places like Universal Studios aren't really experts in copyright law or personality rights. If anything, they might've received some very basic information about the park's policy of photographs and were simply just repeating what they were told. Moreover, I strongly doubt that COM:L was part of that training. Commons is, as posted above by Jmabel, mainly just concerned with the copyright status of the content it hosts, and not so much with other types of restrictions. Commons is also not really too concerned with how the content it hosts is being used as long as it falls within COM:SCOPE. Assuming you want to upload these photos so that you can add them to some English Wikipedia of other language Wikipedia article, you need to understand that an image being from Commons doesn't automatically mean it will end up being used as you hope. Each of the local Wikipedias have their own policies regarding image use that are separate from Commons. These policies often are similar to Commons when it comes to copyright, but they also deal with contextual matters and encyclopedic relevance. Like textual content, there are often disagreements related to the contextual use of images in articles and in some cases a consensus in favor of using an image will need to be establish regardless of its copyright status. If it turns out that you need to blur or otherwise modify your photos in order to upload them to Commons, the local Wikipedias might feel they add little encyclopedic value and are just not worth using. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:29, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
Cadw images
I have a bit of a complicated and long question about copyright, specifically UK Crown copyright and the Open Government Licence. I've opened a discussion about this on Wikipedia, but it's quite a niche issue so I'm casting a wide net for answers. The issue is relates to the two images linked, which are castle plans created by Cadw, a Welsh government agency responsible for heritage.
I downloaded the plans from the Cadw website, here and here respectively. Although the images are somewhat 'hidden' within the website, the Cadw copyright statement states that 'most of the material featured on this site is subject to Crown copyright protection. You may use and re-use the information featured in this website (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence.' With some exceptions the Open Government Licence allows free use of images, including for commercial purposes, and is accepted by Wikimedia Commons. I therefore believed the images were covered under that licence.
The statement also notes that 'the permission to reproduce Crown copyright material does not extend to any material on this site which is identified as being the copyright of a third party.' This implies that material which is not Crown copyright will be noted as such, and these images do not have such a notice. Additionally, I own the printed guidebooks they appear in and in those the images are attributed to 'Cadw' in the case of Criccieth and 'Cadw (Crown Copyright)' for Dolwyddelan. I've therefore no reason to think they are under third-party copyright.
However, because I still wasn't quite sure I decided to email Cadw, and received this very helpful reply:
The ground plans on the [Cadw] website have been placed there for illustrative purposes to inform applicants looking to hire a site for an event and/or filming, which is why they have no download option. [...]
High resolution ground plans of our sites are available for non-commercial use via the Cymru Wales Digital Asset Library. You can find them in English using the tag ‘ground plan’ or in Welsh using the tag ‘cynllun llawr’. The asset library sets out their copyright status, and section 4 of the terms and conditions sets out how they should be credited and what can be done with them. They are available on a rights-managed basis and can be downloaded from the site at no charge for educational purposes. Downloading is free, as is registration with the asset library.
Cadw has been granted a delegation of authority by the Keeper of Public Records (who manages Crown copyright licensing) to licence Crown assets separately from open licensing; so we have opted, along with other departments in Welsh Government who currently licence assets through the Asset Library, to retain a light rights-managed approach to licensing the image assets we maintain. As a general rule, we permit the ground plans to be used for historical guides or books, class, lecture or course materials, and archaeological, historical or architectural reports, papers, periodicals or articles, as these highlight the sites within their historical context and tangentially encourage readers to visit them; but they cannot be used for purely commercial purposes.
Unfortunately the email doesn't fully address which licence the plan images on the Cadw website itself fall under, so I'm still none the wiser. It also doesn't mention the People's Collection Wales, where Cadw have also uploaded many of their site plans and which has a less restrictive (but still non-commercial) license. Although it would be very helpful to be able to use the plans in the articles about the castles they're not absolutely essential, and I'm not trying to find a way around the copyright. Rather, I just want some help understanding it! Thanks, A.D.Hope (talk) 12:06, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
They are still U.S. gov't works, and thus PD. Anything more specific is nice, but not necessary. At worst you can use {{PD-USGov}}, but if you can be more specific that is good. - Jmabel ! talk18:03, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
Public domain text embedded in a potentially copyrighted image.
After I uploaded File:PiriReisMap Akcura 1935.pdf I realized that I was not 100% certain that final page was public domain. The text's primary author died in 1935. Hasan Fehmi Turgal, who he credits to some degree with transcribing text from the original map, died in 1939. These two guys so far as the orginal document explains are the authors of any text that you will find. When I uploaded their transcribed map (final page, still in Turkish, but using the modern alphabet), I assumed and still believe that they are the ones responsible for the map. However, Akçura does explicitly credit himself or Hasan Fehmi with outlining the map and embedding the text. His exact words from are "make a transcription of the marginal notes". So I replaced the final page with a scan of the actual map (definitely in the public domain) overlaid with the Roman numerals cited in the text. I have an idea, but I'm not sure whether it makes sense:
If I cannot prove (100%) who outlined the transcribed map, could I do a higher resolution scan, erase everything that is not text, and lay that over an actual public domain image (either the map itself or an outline derived from it)? Does that clear away any public domain or not ambiguity? Or would that be a derivative work of the transcribed map by the ambiguous author? Rjjiii (talk) 09:01, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
How do you know that the map itself is out of copyright in the US? From what I can see, Turkish copyright lasts until 70 years after the death of the author. So if the author of the map was still alive in 1926, then US copyright would have been restored by the URAA and would last until 95 years after publication, so until 2030 inclusive. Felix QW (talk) 06:58, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
License of Austrian stamps
Hi, this image of an Austrian stamp is licensed by the {{PD-AustrianGov}} template. Is this template applicable to all stamps of Austria? In other words, can I upload images of any Austrian stamp to Commons, even recently issued ones? (I remember a discussion where it was said that the objects shown were artwork under copyright.) Eweht (talk) 10:18, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
The text there was just a poor translation from the German language Wikipedia page cited. I tried to improve it a little bit, but our text could probably do with a more thorough rewrite. Felix QW (talk) 06:50, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
Sentinel Hub images
I'm afraid that I'm an idiot and uploaded (using Sentinel Hub free registration) an estimated lower hundreds of possibly unfree Sentinel-2 images because I only read Collection Specific Terms and Conditions, where is commercial use of Sentinel data explicitly allowed, but not pricing. In pricing is only non-commercial use for free registration, respectively "CC-BY-NC + Data license". What does it mean? Is CC-BY-NC or free data license valid for Sentinel? There is no copyright problem with Copernicus Open Access Hub (Sentinel OK, other non-commercial), but unlike Sentinel Hub it is not so user friendly. Guess I'll have to learn how to use it and upload it all again :/--Hubert Kororo (talk) 21:22, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
Proper license for works created in one country but published in another
I was looking at some stamps recently and they were published in Afghanistan, but designed by a company based in London. So I'm wondering if they would be licensed in the United Kingdom, Afghanistan, or both. Adamant1 (talk) 16:51, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
@Jmabel: That make sense. What about in the case of something like where a work was created in a former colony? Say the Belgian Congo. Would the copyright be for Belgium or the Democratic Republic of the Congo in that case? --Adamant1 (talk) 21:13, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
If it was published in the former colony, then the now-independent former colony would presumably be considered a successor state and its laws would apply. That is certainly how we handle the Philippines after independence from the U.S. - Jmabel ! talk23:09, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
@Jmabel: What would your opinion about a DR like this one be then? I assume if what your saying is true then the image would have been deleted because the laws of Japan apply to works published in the Ryukyu Islands regardless of if it was under the control of the United States when the stamp was released there. --Adamant1 (talk) 16:20, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
A particularly tricky one, because at that time U.S. stamps would have been PD at creation. I have no idea whether the Japanese administration restored copyright to PD-USGov works in the Ryukus. - Jmabel ! talk18:06, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
Are US postage stamps free from copyright? And then specifically, "forever"stamps"? I see that the Category:Stamps of the United States by year ends at 2014. Is there a reason for this. I want to upload the Edmonia Lewis stamp to the commons if possible. Otherwise fair use? Thanks for any assistance or enlightenment. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 20:11, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
@WomenArtistUpdates: Pre-1978 U.S. postage stamps were (and are) free from copyright. Starting that year, they are copyrighted, and of course any fair use would have to be outside of Commons, and not our issue. - Jmabel ! talk21:34, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
It's clearly from the same original recording, but I don't see how you can with certainty claim that it was screenshoted from that specifc youtube-video. It's not given that the copyright of this work hasn't in fact expired (see: Duration of Copyright) but it's also not shown in the file description or license why they can claim the copyright has expired. The current cc-by-sa license is though clearly incorrect. TommyG (talk) 07:12, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
Hello folks, I'm taking this to Village Pump because I don't know of any other place to take it. I discovered User:Remko1982's contributions (User contributions for Remko1982 - Wikimedia Commons) all seem to be personal photos, which are banned under image hosting policy. I need to individually copy every file name for mass deletion, which seems tedious given the sheer number of affected files. Is there any way to just get a repository of all the file names or even better, to just delete all files uploaded by this user (they are all of the same genre)? Bremps...02:23, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
If you go to Preferences and Gadgets, you can enable the "VisualFileChange: Perform batch task" gadget, which will give you an interface to a mass deletion (adds a "perform batch task" element to the sidebar, one option of which you can use to browse through the user's uploads, and check the ones you want to include in the DR). The user's first upload looks to be his own photo, and the rest similar ones that indeed look more like advertising or web hosting. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:44, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
I was surprised to see several pictures of Barbie dolls in Category:Barbie dolls. Looks like they're from <1978, flagged for not having a copyright notice. Has anyone looked into this before? Just out of curiosity I dug up a photo of a box from 1971 (after seeing File:Vintage Malibu Barbie.jpg). There's clearly a copyright notice on the bottom of the box (see here and here, for example). This might be the worst moment, or the best moment, to bring this up, but there it is. :) — Rhododendritestalk | 12:18, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
Date of creation vs. date of publication for non-US image?
A book published in 1987 in New Zealand is the first known "publication" of a certain photograph of a New Zealander who died in 1910 (photographer unknown). The photograph no doubt qualifies for {{PD-New Zealand}}, but what exactly is the US copyright status of the image? The book's author merely states the photograph was sourced from NZ's National Library. Muzilon (talk) 23:40, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
According to the Hirtle chart, if the author of the photo (not the subject) has a known death date it's only protected 70 years after the death of author; if not, it gets a full 95 years from publication. - Jmabel ! talk01:19, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
Looking at the Hirtle chart, this situation seems a bit ambiguous (to me anyway). The Hirtle chart says for a non-US work published 1 January 1978 – 28 February 1989 with copyright notice, "Use the US publication chart to determine duration". The corresponding US chart for works published 1978 – 28 February 1989 says "Known author with a known date of death: 70 years after the death of author. Other works: 95 years from publication OR 120 years from creation, whichever expires first." OK, the publisher may be able to claim a 95 year copyright for the author's text - but can they really claim copyright over an old photograph taken 120+ years ago that the book happens to include? Muzilon (talk) 07:06, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
The main question is whether this 1987 publication was really the first. In most cases, it is not. How the picture was transferred from the photographer to the publisher? Yann (talk) 08:15, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
As mentioned, the author says in his acknowledgements that he sourced the photograph (which was obviously taken c. 1900) from New Zealand's national library. However, I wouldn't know whether the photo was published elsewhere prior to 1987. Muzilon (talk) 08:37, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
OK, and how the New Zealand's national library got it? You could contact them. Unless they got it directly from the photographer's heirs, it was most probably already published at that time. If the date of creation is more than 120 years old, {{PD-old-assumed-expired}} applies. Also New Zealand has a shorter copyright duration than Europe, so it is also probably {{PD-1996}}. Yann (talk) 12:19, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
If it was truly first published in 1987 then (since it was created before 1978) it's in a special category which won't expire for quite a while yet. However, that is far from definitive. How did the National Library get a copy of it, if it wasn't published? Was it available for anyone to look at in the archives? If the 1987 publication was not done with the permission of the copyright owner, then it wouldn't count as publication. Most likely, if it was unpublished then it remained unpublished through 2003, meaning it would be 70pma if an author was known, or 120 years from creation if not (or it was a work for hire). If published long ago, then most likely PD via one mechanism or another. Do we know when the photo was actually taken? And what other provenance information is there? There are lots of ways it could have been technically published. And some ways it could still be technically unpublished. These aren't easy questions to answer with almost no information. It would not qualify for URAA restoration, if it ever did become PD before 1989. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:13, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
You're being very secretive about the photo, the subject, the book, and everything. It might help if you disclosed the information. -- Asclepias (talk) 15:57, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
(1) I have added the photo to w:Henry Scotland under "Fair Use"; (2) the book in question is Dick Scott's Seven Lives on Salt River (1987); (3) oddly, the specific photo of Mr Scotland as published by Scott does not appear to be listed in the NZ National Library's online catalogue, although the photo was supposedly sourced from that library; (4) the National Library does have a different photo of Scotland available online, but with a non-commercial license. How the library can assert copyright over a digitized photo taken 120+ years ago is another matter. (I'm guessing NZ copyright law may recognise w:sweat of the brow, perhaps). Muzilon (talk) 23:22, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
The one at the library source is from a "General Assembly Library: Parliamentary portraits" collection. That would have to be Crown Copyright (don't think that status was formalized until the 1911 UK laws, but it would qualify thereafter, and regardless the copyright term was the same). They call the copyright status "unknown" so they just default to a non-commercial license I guess. The one you posted looks very, very similar in type. Don't think it was the same day, as in the online photo he's wearing a vest/waistcoast and in yours he is not, but maybe possible. More likely a similar type of portrait in a different year, though he looks a very similar age so 1890s seems like a decent guess for yours as well. I would be fine with {{PD-New Zealand}} and/or {{PD-old-assumed}} for either -- it's a photo which expired in New Zealand long, long ago and there would be no URAA restoration. I can't imagine an official portrait being unpublished. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:32, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
When I contacted the NZ National Library about their online image of Henry Scotland, they asserted the right to impose a "non-commercial, no derivatives" license on it, and therefore refused permission for it to be hosted on Commons. (This sounds somewhat similar to the NPG vs Wikimedia case, where the NPG asserted w:sweat of the brow for digitizing old portraits, despite the originals theoretically being public domain.) I haven't pointed out to them that Commons has sourced other old images of NZ politicians from the National Library. Muzilon (talk) 23:12, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
Yes, NZ would have inherited the definition of "original" from the UK, and not have to take any of the EU directives which (in the past) could modify it in the UK. Even there though, the act of digitization creating a new copyright is far from a proven thing, but they are protecting a revenue stream. Nobody here would delete on that basis, I don't think -- we reject that argument even if valid in New Zealand, per Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag. So they would be fine per our policy. But any risk would be taken by an uploader, so a New Zealand resident may have some risks that others don't, remote as they may be. And you may not want to antagonize anyone there, even if they are in the wrong, if you are working with them at all. So, entirely up to you. If you want to upload your own digitization of the other one from the book, I think it'd be fine. New Zealand photographs once were based on date of creation, with publication not mattering at all, and it became PD long before that situation changed. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:52, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
"If it was truly first published in 1987 then (since it was created before 1978) it's in a special category which won't expire for quite a while yet."
*Sigh*, well, I'll just leave the book's image as Fair Use on Wikipedia then. That should sidestep any disputes about whether it was technically "unpublished" or not. Muzilon (talk) 00:23, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
The odds of 1987 truly being the first publication (by the U.S. definition) is bordering on zero. I would simply use {{PD-1996}} for the US side of things, if you must. It's about as theoretical a doubt as you can get. Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:20, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
You're quoting a part of a comment that was made before you shared the information. Now that we know what this is about, it may not apply. It seems reasonable to say that Dick Scott is not the copyright owner of the photo and that he did not obtain a publication authorization from a hypothetical owner of a hypothetical U.S. copyright who is apparently unknown to him. It seems unlikely that this photo was first published outside New Zealand and it seems unlikely that it was published by the owner of the copyright in a manner and in a year that would make it copyrighted in the U.S. It looks like a photo taken circa 1890 and the likely situation is that it was probably published in New Zealand during the term of Henry Scotland. You did a research and found no useful information. It's hard to imagine what more can be reasonably required. I think it could be uploaded to Commons, under a filename different from the Wikipedia version, and you can mark the Wikipedia version with the "keep local" template there, in case it gets deleted from Commons. -- Asclepias (talk) 02:02, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
AntiCompositeBot, but providing proof
Hello! I have uploaded many pictures from Estonian volleyball team players that AntiCompositeBot has marked as To be deleted in 7 days (this will be tomorrow). But the owner of the pictures has sent a letter of confirmation to permissions-et@wikimedia.org. Can this deletion be put on held or was it not enough or what can I do? Angmar Brekker (talk) 07:42, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
Where does the claim of CC-0 on that come from? Kartaview says (section: what is the license of the data) "Images you are uploading are available under the Creative Commons Attributions-ShareAlike 4.0". Is this your own work that you are deliberately licensing differently on Commons? If so, it would be good to mention that in the permission portion of {{Information}} and/or clarify that the Kartaview account is you (see the way I handle this at File:2022 Fremont Solstice Parade - 004 (52159149779).jpg, for example.
I'd say the sign is de minimis; I don't understand what you mean about the "landscape" being PD. You can't copyright the land, and the photo is apparently your own. Jmabel ! talk15:27, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
You are correct that I release it under CC0, and I have edited the template as you suggested to that effect. I am not concerned about the COM:DM status, but rather whether a diagram of the sign ought be made based on this image. By 'landscape' I mean the hills and stream on the sign, not the real-life road. Arlo James Barnes15:38, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
I'd presume that to be copyrighted unless we had specific evidence to the contrary, but someone else may know something I don't. - Jmabel ! talk18:38, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
Summary: In 2006 I created a set of base Cycling Jersey SVG icons, such as File:Jersey yellow.svg (), File:Jersey red number.svg () and File:Jersey polkadot.svg (), all under CC-BY-SA 2.5+GFDL.
Many people have made variants based on those icons (A non-exhaustive list of over 185 items is at User:IIVQ/Cycling Jerseys) almost all share the exact shape I created, and thus are a derivative work. Most do not cite my work, and some are even freed as Public domain or CC0.
I will contact the uploaders of all icons with the question to: (where applicable)
Refer to the work of the original creator, by including a little line such as "Based upon File:Jersey yellow.svg by User:IIVQ" (or another image or user, if the image is derived from a derivative).
Change the license to the current version of the CC-BY-SA
I have two questions about the latter:
What is the correct way to do that? With the inclusion of {{Template:Change-of-license}} and {{Self |1= cc-by-sa-4.0|author= <AUTHOR> |attribution= Shape based upon [[:File:Jersey yellow.svg]] by [[User:IIVQ]]}}?
If the authors don't respond within a reasonable time period (say, a month), is it ok for me to change the image license and attribution?
Special case: User:Maillotero~commonswiki (or is it User:Maillotero? I see multiple users with ~commonswiki in their name, what does that mean?) uploaded a lot of PNG icons (there's different problems with that, but that's not a copyright issue) in 2008. Maillotero doesn't seem active on Wikimedia Commons. They were blocked indefinetely on the Spanish wikipedia (es:Usuario:Maillotero), so very unlikely to respond. Can I go ahead and change the licence of those pages as well?
Thanks for your advise.
P.S. I do not in any way wish to go through the formal copyright claim process and try and remove the items - it is a minor issue and the items are used in way too many pages internationally, also many users did a great job in creating new icons. IIVQ (talk) 18:33, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
I don't think {{Change-of-license}} is exactly what you want, but I'm not sure what is.
"~commonuser" arises when there were identically-named accounts on Commons and on another WMF wiki at the time that we unified logins, and either they were really two different people or the person in question chose not to unify their logins.
Sorry I don't have broader help on you main question, or I would have answered the first time you asked. - Jmabel ! talk21:41, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
Thx for your remarks. The explanation for {{Change-of-license}} indeed points to the "licence review" process, but the actual template's text doesn't point to license review, and I think it's clear to show users that the license of this file has changes.
I really hope someone can answer whether it's ok for me to change the license to CC-BY-SA for people who don't do it themselves. IIVQ (talk) 07:57, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
I am sorry I cannot answer your question directly, just thinking out loud. The uploader clearly intends to release their contribution to the public domain; however, they are not able to release the image to the public domain because it is a derivative work on which you (also) hold copyright. So I do not see how relicensing it to the appropriate CC-BY-SA license could in any way go against the wishes of the uploader, since they clearly do not intend to claim copyright on their own contribution anyway (and don't even mind not being attributed).
So for instance anyone (even IIVQ himself) could reupload their work under the correct license (since the contribution of the adapter is PD) and then we could delete their upload as a copyvio, which would lead to exactly the same final outcome. Felix QW (talk) 13:15, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, that would work too. Except that the original works are used in literally 10000's of pages an many languages (and unfortunately, hardcoded, not by inclusion of templates).
And just changing the license on the image pages (with a link to this discussion in the change description) would have the same effect + added benefit of more history + less work for all parties
Exactly. My argument was that since it has exactly the same effects + the benefits described, it should be okay too. Felix QW (talk) 11:14, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
I sent messages to the few biggest uploaders and those that participated in the discussion, and one (User:GAN) within minutes replied and sorted the license information of the image they uploaded!
Thx everyone so far for advice and help! IIVQ (talk) 19:17, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
PD-US-1978-89 for murals?
I would like some other opinions on the licensing of File:Trains mural.jpg. Since the uploader doesn't seem to be the person who took the photo, and the photographer is a Richard Guy Wilson as shown it the source url provided for the file, then that would make Wilson the copyright holder of the photo. According to the source url, the photo is released under an acceptable license for Commons. However, there's no automatic FOP for murals in the US per COM:FOP United States and this mural appears to have been created in 1989 per en:Trains (mural). That would seem to make the photo a COM:DW in which the copyright status of the mural itself needs to be assessed. The creators of the mural were Jeff and Gregory Ackers, and Gregory restored the mural in 1998. Gregory Ackers is also listed as the artist for File:Union Station Mural.jpg and File:Union Station Mural by Gregory Ackers Columbus, Ohio 1987.jpg, which also appear to be derivative works. Could {{PD-US-1978-89}} be applied for murals shown in these files? Would the restoration of Trains in 1998 possibly effect it's copyright status if the mural was not copyright protected were originally unveiled? This appears to be a local newspaper article about the selection of Gregory Ackers as the artist for Train (it's cited as a reference in the English Wikipedia article about the mural). If its date is correct, then mural would seem to haven't been created prior to March 1, 1989, which means it would still be protected by copyright even without a notice and even without registration, right? -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:15, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
I'm not answering the question, but the 2012 newspaper article, about another project, does not seem to specify a precise date for the Trains mural. It vaguely speaks of a year after 1987, which could imply 1988. But if it was in 1989, painting an outdoor mural may be more likely after 28 February, although I don't really know what the weather is like in Ohio in winter. The reference links in the Wikipedia article are not very practical. -- Asclepias (talk) 01:33, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
1978 is the cutoff year for public art without a copyright notice; that was when the definition of "publication" changed from mere public display to actual distribution of copies. So public art installed 1978 or later is generally not OK, regardless of notice or registration status. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠20:52, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
Comment The publisher of File:Trains mural.jpg is the University of Virginia, so I don't see any reason to doubt the free license at the source. I don't know about the copyright of the painting, but again, I suppose that the University of Virginia knows what it does when publishing pictures on the Internet with a free license. Yann (talk) 14:32, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
I suppose that the University of Virginia knows what it does when publishing pictures on the Internet with a free license. I wouldn't presume that for a moment. Plenty of people don't understand the issues around derivative works, and who knows just who posted this (could even be a student intern). I've even seen Seattle Municipal Archives get this wrong (and fix it once I pointed it out), and they are generally very competent in copyright matters. - Jmabel ! talk17:41, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Leider gibt es wegen mangelnder Kenntnisse mehrfach Lizenzverletzungen auf Seiten mit Werken der Künstlerin Elfriede Wendtlandt, die erst 1960 gestorben ist, nicht 1916 o.ä. (DAS habe ich schon 1x berichtigt.) Sie ist die Großtante meiner Frau.
Bitte berichtigen Sie also freundlicherweise die Fehler! Erst 2030 werden Werke von Elfriede Wendtlandt gemeinfrei. Vorher dürfen sie in Deutschland nicht von irgendwem ohne Lizenz genutzt werden! Kleeblatt1 (talk) 23:34, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
Könnten Sie uns bitte kurz darauf hinweisen, wo Sie das schonmal berichtigt haben, oder woraus das Todesdatum hervorgeht? Dann kann ich gerne den förmlichen Löschantrag für die Bilder stellen. Felix QW (talk) 08:40, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Hello! As I am from Zakarpattia Oblast of Ukraine, I've read news about the restorating of a XVII century portrait and I would like to download new version of it to the Commons. As it is XVII century work, it should be in public domain. Nevertheless, I decided to ask for advice in Ukrainian Wiki copyright Village pump. However, I was advised to ask about it here.
Well, the restoration work was made by AI. Thus, as I was answered, whether I have right to publish it here or not depends on the copyright policy of AI which was used to restorate the portrait. On the other hand, as I said, it should be in public domain. So, this is the biggest dilemma of my question.
Can you give me advice or explain Commons policy in such situations?
Okay, thank you. If I got it, I may download this to the Commons saying this image is in public domain and was restored by AI at the same time. Can I just say AI because there is no information about what AI system did it exactly? Markverona (talk) 09:53, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
I am wondering if there is a permission level which would allow me to upload a cover scan from the program of the 1957 USAC Trenton 500 stock car race. The program appears to have been published by the track, the Trenton International Speedway, which is no longer in existence (it was closed circa 1980). The program has no publication or copyright information in it, and contains non-credited images of racing drivers. RegalZ8790 (talk) 01:06, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
At some point in July 2023 Moj News (http://mojnews.com) updated the footer of the website and ceased publishing content under CC-BY-4.0. The {{Moj}} template needs to be updated, but I don't know how to do this. Recent uploads may also need to be checked. Streamline8988 (talk) 22:50, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
Copyright right status of an image with a scratched out copyright symbol
I have a copy of this postcard that I want to upload. If you look at the image to the right of "PAT" and kind of down the embankment there's a copyright symbol that's either scratched out or an imprint from the postcard paper that the photograph was printed over. I can't really tell. It at least doesn't seem to be a part of the normal text of the title. So I'm wondering if it would be OK to upload the image as "PD-US-No notice" or not. I've uploaded some postcards from this photographer already and none of them have been copyrighted. Although there are a few out there that are. So I don't know if it was intentional or a printing error. It looks like a printing error, but I wanted to know what other people thought before I uploaded it. Adamant1 (talk) 05:48, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
For works published in 1935, the copyright notice had to include the copyright symbol, the name of the copyright proprietor, and the year of publication. The notice also had to be obvious enough to give a reasonable person notice that the work was copyrighted. Because of the missing information and the barely visible copyright symbol, there was no effective copyright notice and the work entered the public domain upon publication. Either error would be sufficient to cause PD status. So PD-US-No notice is the right tag. Streamline8988 (talk) 06:16, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
Cool. Thanks for the information. I'm sure if that was the exact year of publication but it was definitely around then and it sounds like I will be good anyway. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:47, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
The year was not required for this type of work (originally, just needed for printed literary, musical, or dramatic works). You could also use initials, monogram, mark, and/or symbol of the proprietor, though the actual name should appear somewhere else on or near the item. The notice did need to be legible of course. The question here is was it once legible but faded (which would be OK), or was it an accident of the printing process and not really intended as a notice. Of course, anything with notice in this era also needed to be renewed. If you know the name of the copyright owner, you could do a search in the renewal volumes for 1962 and 1963 (for a 1935 work), probably both in photographs and commercial prints sections. Odds are rather high for this type of work it was not renewed, but you should do some sort of search to claim PD-US-not_renewed. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:24, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
It looks like there's also faded out numbers and letters next to the copyright symbol that don't correspond to the postcard. So odds good are its probably an error. I was mainly wondering if someone could claim copyright on it regardless, but it seems as though they can't. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:00, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
@Artanisen: absolutely. This is a claim made under the UK "sweat of the brow" doctrine (basically, that the claim that the non-creative work involved in creating a copy of a PD work can create something that is copyrighted), which Commons has decided to reject/ignore. Be aware that if you are in the UK, you are running a (probably very small) risk of being accused of infringement under that doctrine. - Jmabel ! talk15:40, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
File:Barbara Parker.jpg is a photograph of a political candidate that appears to have been uploaded by a COI user (probably a staffer, see edit summary). It is marked as "own work" under a CC-SA 4.0 license, but considering it is the same photo used on the candidate's website, it's quite possible the uploader isn't the original photographer or can't actually license it this way. Furthermore, this picture is unlike other photos we have of the individual, which are taken in a public setting, and so raises issues of consent. How to trigger a verification process, short of requesting deletion? — 2406:3003:2077:1E60:ACCA:9BE:7071:C8C201:48, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
Hi IP 2406:3003:2077:1E60:ACCA:9BE:7071:C8C2. You could post pretty much the same thing you posted above on the uploader's user talk page and try to explain why COM:CONSENT is needed in the particular case. You could also provide links to COM:Own work and COM:VRT to give them more information. On the other hand, you could also tag the file with {{No permission since}} which essentially does the same thing, but gives the uploader seven days to try and sort things out. Some sort of formal verification of copyright holder consent is likely going to be needed given the fact the photo was published online prior to it being uploaded to Commons. Even if you try the first approach, the second may eventually become necessary if the uploader fails to respond within a reasonable amount of time. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:48, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
If the photo is on the candidate's website, then there is no doubt that the candidate consented to have her photo taken. And it's not a "conflict of interest" on Commons to upload a photo that is within scope, regardless of your connection to the subject of the photo. But if this same account is editing about the candidate elsewhere, then COI issues arise, and of course the copyright issue is a legitimate question on Commons. - Jmabel ! talk03:00, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
Template:PD-Coa-Germany
I have a request regarding license templates for German public organizations. There is already the "PD-Coa-Germany". It refers to the "Corporation of public law" (German: "Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts") - For example: "Deutschlandradio", "Medizinischer Dienst der Krankenversicherung" or "Industrie- und Handelskammer".
But there is another very similar form of public organization in Germany: The "Institution of public law" (German: "Anstalt des öffentlichen Rechts") - For example: "Versorgungsanstalt des Bundes und der Länder", "Technisches Hilfswerk" or "Deutsche Nationalbibliothek".
The only differences are, that the Corporation of public law has members and the Institution of public law has users. Legally, both are basically very similar because both serve a public purpose.
I could therefore imagine that it would make sense if there were also a related template for the Institution of public law (German: Anstalt des öffentlichen Rechts) What do you think? Bildersindtoll (talk) 15:19, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
I don't think that makes any sense.
{{PD-Coa-Germany}} is just for coats of arms (German: Wappen) of states, cities, districts and similar, not for everything created by a Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts.
There is § 5 UrhG for amtliche Werke (official works), but only Gesetze, Verordnungen, amtliche Erlasse und Bekanntmachungen sowie Entscheidungen und amtlich verfaßte Leitsätze zu Entscheidungen (statutes, ordinances, official decrees and judgments) as mentioned in § 5 (1) are free enough for Wikimedia Commons, there is {{PD-GermanGov}} for that. Other official works as mentioned in § 5 (2) are not free enough for Commons because you are not allowed to change them. I suppose anything put out by the Anstalten would be either other official works or no official works at all. Some of the biggest Anstalten are the public broadcasters btw (like ZDF, WDR, NDR and so on). --Rosenzweigτ20:31, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
Copyrights of older photographs in the UK
Hey, I wanted to find out about copyright issues of older photographs in the UK. I've read this link about the 70 years thumb rule, but Commons only specifies this rule for the USA. What's the deal here? Tnx. Virum Mundi (talk) 19:17, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
Thank you both. So is it safe to say that a photograph taken towards the end of the 19th century by a person who died in 1900, and which appears digitalised on the Royal Collection Trust's website, is ok to upload under {{Template:PD-old-70-expired}}, or should I look into other details? Also, what about the following cases:
A digitalised illustration drawn by an (anonymous as far as I can tell) artist in 1847.
An arial photo taken by a RAF pilot (unknown as far as I can tell) in 1930.
@Virum Mundi: Ay. I think the RCT may be one of the sites that attempt to claim a copyright falsely, so {{PD-Scan|PD-old-70-expired}}</code> or <code>{{PD-Scan|PD-UK-anon}} (as appropriate) may be slightly more appropriate. But only use PD-scan if they do claim a copyright on them. Adam Cuerden (talk) 17:07, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
Unoriginal files marked as copyrighted?
I've noticed that many files on Commons are marked as copyrighted, typically under a CC or GNU license, despite containing little to no originality by the creator. Here are two examples:
Many files in Category:Musical_symbols are marked as copyrighted, like this one (). They are very simple and common symbols, or combinations thereof. Also compare with the metadata for this file.
Are the copyright notices for these legitimate, or are they actually in the public domain? If the painting photograph is copyrighted, would it still have been so without the frame or distortion, and would a derivative with those things removed be subject to the copyright?
— WeatherWonders (talk) 19:40, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
Photographs of 3D objects, like that frame, are not pure copies. To the extent it's reproducing the painting, it's not copyrightable in the US and under PD-Art.
SVG files are XML files, and can contain arbitrary text. This one contains only curve data, and was possibly automatically generated (says "Generator: Gravit.io" at the top of the SVG file), but SVG files are considerably more complicated to judge for copyright than PNG files.
Ultimately, ineligible copyright can be a complex rule, and can vary around the world, which doesn't matter for Commons under PD-Art, but may matter for reusers. So such licenses should be moved to {{Licensed-PD-Art}} instead of deleted altogether, and I'd say it's not something that a lot of people want to put time in, considering the possibility of making things worse and removing a valid license.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:42, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
The case in Germany is a bit tricky. For image like these, it might also that the work gains a protection of around 50 years. Pure technical reproductions like scans of book pages usually don't create new copyright, but photographs taken with a camera may gain a protection, depending on the creative influence --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 17:35, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
Tracings (or other representations) of structural artworks
Hey all,
I'm currently drafting a page regarding the "Arkville Maze", which is a rather unique modern stone maze built around 50 years ago (not technically a labyrinth, but in that design).
However, the maze is privately owned and most photos of it are either satellite / helicopter photography or photos taken by trespassers and people with (rather rare) permissions to tour the maze.
To my understanding screenshots from things like google satellite are not permitted, but would a tracing (by myself) of arial photography showing the maze be allowed? As in, I have traced over the maze and added small indications to the end points within it. I'd really like some type of visual representation in order to demonstrate the rough scale & design of the structure, and it would be a shame for an article on essentially an artwork to not have a photo, but I'm not sure if this is permissible either here or onto English Wikipedia directly.
Thank you! Let me know if I can clarify in any places.
For the record, this was originally asked at the Help desk. My take was "seems to me it's going to be a derivative work no matter what you do. Probably acceptable within the English-language Wikipedia as fair use if uploaded there for use in a specific article, but probably not acceptable for Commons. But it is a weird case..." and I suggested that the user take it here in case someone sees a way around this. - Jmabel ! talk20:45, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
As a reference, it may be interesting to check what are Google Maps and OSM doing with this mace, but I can't locate it in the maps.--Pere prlpz (talk) 09:27, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
Picture of me and my name uploaded without my permission
Someone made a picture of me wearing a T-shirt with a message and with a text with my full name under the picture; and uploaded it to this Wikimedia Commons platform without my permission. I would like to remove that picture and all the text. I have had several problems during many years in interviews due to that picture and now I want you to help me remove it.
The Wkimedia COmmons policy on photographing identifiable people is at COM:PEOPLE. It is probably best if you look at that page and clarify why the image should be remnoved. The coutnry where the photo was taken is important as that law applies as well as US law. Martinvl (talk) 20:47, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
My country is Spain. In the picture I cannot be identified as the picture shows only the T-shirt but my name is under it and when you look for my name on Google search this page shows up. I would like to eliminate the picture or at least to delete my name from it as it is causing me professional issues. 212.104.185.12821:48, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
I want to create a translation table for Commons. This table contains all official place names in a video game with all official translations.
Can a collection of all these names create a copyright violation, or is this okay, as these single names are too short ("uncreative") to be protected and the collection of these names is not creative enough?
There are 1700 unique places with names like Lurelin Village Well, Ancient Underground Fortress, Eldin Great Skeleton, Necluda Sky Archipelago and more.
Hi! I'm pretty unfamiliar with contributing to Commons so please tell me if I make any mistakes here.
Recently I uploaded File:Perplexity AI logo.svg to Commons, intending to use it for a Wikipedia article draft I'm working on (w:Draft:Perplexity AI). I vectorised it from a screenshot of the logo on perplexity.ai. (Though, it seems that since then they have changed the logo, so I might soon upload their new logo if I get all this copyright stuff sorted out.)
I honestly have no clue about copyright law, but I (maybe foolishly) thought this file would be treated similar to File:ChatGPT logo.svg, which seems to be an acceptable upload despite its trademark status, due to its simple geometric nature. I didn't really know what to put on the "release rights" step of the Upload Wizard, so I clicked "I found it on the Internet — I'm not sure".
A few days ago User:Jonteemil has reminded me that I still don't have copyright information for the file and it may soon be deleted. So what I want to ask is how can I get the proper copyright info that I should put on the file, if it belongs on Commons at all? Should I upload it as a non-free image to Wikipedia instead?
I would suggest the following: At source, enter the URL, from where you got the raster graphics file and then add "Vectorized file: {{own}}". At the segment author you can enter: "Logo by: Perplexity AI", "Vectorized by: your name". After this, you can object to the speedy deletion on the page :). I would say the logo is below COM:TOO. The license and trademark templates are added, so they are properly filled in, and this makes the deletion questionable. Greetings! --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 10:06, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
Thanks to both of you who have replied. I have adjusted some things based on PantheraLeo1359531's suggestions. @Yann Just to confirm, I suppose that means that everything is fine copyright-wise now? I will go ahead and categorise it. Alisperic (talk) 05:30, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
@Haoreima: Assuming we believe the owner of the Flickr account is legitimately the photographer, then the license seems fine.
Always a bit tricky to decide whether to crop out watermarks on images like this. Technically under that license it should be possible; however, some people believe that it interferes with proper attribution. - Jmabel ! talk21:08, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
Lack of freedom of opinion and undermining the status of photography.
Unfortunately, after the actions of some, I get the impression that copyright does not matter. If the user NearEMPTiness(talk·contributions·Move log·block log·uploads·Abuse filter log) block user massively copies photos from websites and online auctions and it bothers no one, then why do we reported? I reported a dozen photos of the user and then as a last resort I received a block for 2 hours. This is how copyright is enforced. In addition, one of the users @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): stated that my rationales are fake [1], despite the fact that I clearly indicated that the only proof of publication is posting on the website or listing on an auction site. Also in many cases it adds fake dates of creation of the photo. In a few cases, I removed the fake one before reporting it, like there [2] so that no one would be fooled that the photo was actually taken. My objections to the added dates are valid. [3] Here he stated that it is a postcard, even though there is no mention on the website that it is actually a postcard. So how do we know when it was published? Since it cannot be reported, how to enforce the legality of photos with an unknown date of creation and no information about the previous publication of the photo. Otherwise, we will grant involuntary immunity to users such as @NearEMPTiness: copying photos from online auctions, even if they are someone's private collection. Since we don't require a publication date, why do we still use templates relating to the publication period? Are we seriously going to accept all old pictures of a steam locomotive? Many locomotives had been in service for a long time. Not every photo of a locomotive built 100 years ago has to be the same old. 5.173.103.10518:57, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
Commons:Project scope/Precautionary principle: The precautionary principle is that where there is significant doubt about the freedom of a particular file, it should be deleted. You only present fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) rather than concrete information that can be used to determine an image's status. All your anonymous entries are geared toward a single uploader, using cut and paste FUD, which gives the appearance of giving a punitive audit. You are also hiding behind multiple anonymous IP addresses, further reinforcing that this is targeted harassment. Three of your first set of nominations were found to be from an archive under a CC license, showing that you actually haven't done any research, again showing this is harassment. --RAN (talk) 19:03, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
The lack of a given date of taking and publication of the photo is not a serious doubt? I understand that all photos from the online auction can be freely copied and posted here, even if they come from private collections? Commons:Project scope/Precautionary principle - Some examples sound similar to the arguments of users who claim in discussions under each photo that they were definitely published. Only no one has ever been able to provide evidence. This is not harassment. Only this one user massively adds photos from internet portals and each time he adds a template referring to a publication over 70 years ago. In many cases I have verified that the given dates of taking photos are false. 5.173.103.10519:20, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
Almost every image on Commons, taken prior to gps and date stamping exif data, is dated using contextual clues in the image. We generally rely on Occam's Razor, we accept the simplest explanation and we don't delete on hypothetical speculation. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt could be used to denigrate any image. For instance: Who took the picture? It must be the named photographer, right? What if the photographer was in the bathroom, and an assistant pressed the shutter release. What if the photographer's spouse pressed the shutter release while the photographer adjusted a light. What if a monkey entered the photo studio while the photographer, their spouse, and the photographer's assistant, were inattentive and the monkey pressed the shutter release. What if the camera was on a random timer, and no one was responsible for pressing the shutter release. --RAN (talk) 19:24, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
You're trying to make it absurd. Understand, if someone sells a photo on an online portal without a date, how can you tell when the photo was taken or published? Following your childish logic - heaven can wait, let's add all the old photos from online auctions and services and consider that they were published over 70 years ago and are in the public domain. Thanks to this, we will make a hell out of this place and start anarchy, without any rules. 5.173.103.10519:56, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
We usually assume that old pictures were published at the time they were taken, unless evidence to the opposite. Copyright law about publication was quite different at that time, and transfer of a picture from a professional photographer to a client usually means publication. Yann (talk) 19:54, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
Don't try to lecture me. Your insistence for unreasonable criteria against long established practice is not helpful. Stop it. Yann (talk) 20:44, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
This is somewhat related to the project described at outreachdashboard.wmflabs and at fr.wikipedia (just for more general context, you don't have to read it, it's about the Wikipedia aspect).
The photos were taken with a "photobooth"-type system, where an organization installs a camera box, background etc. at an event and people take their self-portraits by getting in front of the backround and activating the camera and the flash by pressing a button.
There could be various possible interpretations of the situation. 1) From past discussions, I think that in this sort of situation, Commons attributes the copyright to each subject who takes their own portrait (they choose their pose, they press the button). 2) Or the copyright could be to the organization (who installed and chose how they placed the elements). 3) Or there is no copyright to anyone (no original creativity). 4) Ot the copyright is shared by the subject and the organization (both contributed).
The subjects of the photos are writers in Canada. The organization who managed the project is named Rhizome.
The photos were uploaded to Commons by a user working for Rhizome and who is one of the contacts with Wikimedia.
That user uploaded the photos under the license CC BY-SA 4.0 with the source "own work" and the "self" template and her username in the author field. The "own work" and "self" and that username in the author field can be ignored and replaced with the correct information. As the user specified in this discussion on her talk page, she was inexperienced with Commons, the photos are not her individual works and what she meant is that she was uploading them for Rhizome, which is the source.
Rhizome had the good idea of getting a written form signed by the subjects when the photos were taken. With that form, the subjects consented to a free license, which is a good thing, but the wording of the form could be interpreted in different ways, as detailed below.
A copy of the unsigned form (not the five hundred signed copies!) was sent to VRT.
The form has some blah blah that I do not copy here. The more relevant paragraph of the form reads as follows (the original in French, and my approximative personal translation to English):
"Je consens à la publication de ma photographie sous licence libre, à sa republication, à sa distribution, à la publication de travaux dérivés et à son utilisation commerciale. Je comprends également que la licence est perpétuelle (sans date d'expiration) et non révocable."
Translation: "I consent to the publication of my photograph under free license, to its republication, to its distribution, to the publication of derivative works and to its commercial use. I understand that the license is perpetual (no expiration date) and non revocable."
As we can see, it explains the notion of a free license, which is good, but it does not specify a precise license and it might leave open the question of who holds the copyright and issues the license. I certainly hope that we can arrive at an interpretation that is satisfactory for keeping the files with what is already there. Obviously, it would not be possible to contact again the hundreds of subjects. I think there are two main possible interpretations:
A) The copyright of a self-portrait is owned by the subject. By signing the form, the subject agreed to offer a free license and delegated to Rhizome the choice of the precise license.
Or B) The form signed by the subject could be interpreted either as an acknowledgement that the copyright is held by Rhizome, or as a cession of the copyright to Rhizome. And Rhizome offers the license.
That makes sense. So, given the situation as it is, do you think that Commons can keep the photos with the rationale described in "A" above, i.e. the copyright of a self-portrait is owned by the subject, and the written form is to be read as meaning that the subject agrees to offer a free license and delegates to Rhizome the choice of the precise license? Or with the rationale described in "B", i.e. the written form is to be read as meaning that the subject transfers the copyright to Rhizome? Does Commons need to obtain copies of all the hundreds of signed forms? (I suppose it may be possible to obtain them from Rhizome.) -- Asclepias (talk) 20:17, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
I think that if we decide that the general situation is acceptable, then we can trust Rhizome that they obtained the relevant releases from individuals.
It's really too bad Rhizome wasn't specific about the intended free license including derivative works and commercial use. I'm kind of on the fence about whether the permission they got is specific enough or not. - Jmabel ! talk00:23, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
I just thought of a solution. If the CC BY-SA 4.0 license cannot be justified by the notion that the authors authorized Rhizome to choose that license in their name, then, on the description pages, we could replace the CC BY-SA 4.0 tag with a custom free license which uses literally the exact wording of the paragraph quoted in italics above. After all, it is a free license. We can take it as it is. It never needed to be transformed into a CC BY-SA 4.0. The user at Rhizome worked much in function of Wikipedia and she may have been under the wrong impression that she had to upload the files to Commons with CC BY-SA 4.0 because it is the licence of Wikipedia, and she may not have realized that it was not necessary for Commons. For Commons, using exactly the paragraph of the form signed by the authors of the photos as being actually the custom free license issued directly by the authors seems a good solution that can make everything fine. -- Asclepias (talk) 02:44, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
I agree that it looks like a custom free license. CC licenses have many specific conditions to which the author did not agree when they signed that form. Ruslik (talk) 20:01, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
Proposed conclusion:
Considering the comments above, I would like to conclude this section with a clear idea of what to do. Can there be consensus that the files can be hosted on Commons without problem, with the following precisions made to their description pages: the author field will have the name of the person who took the self-portrait, the source field can have Productions Rhizome, and the license, granted by the authors by the text quoted above, can be expressed on Commons either with the template Copyrighted free use or with a specific template to be created. (Supplemental question: which of those two types of templates would be better?) There are 583 files. Any objections, suggestions, comments? -- Asclepias (talk) 12:11, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
If there are no objections, I will go ahead and make the simple changes. I think I will use the existing template Copyrighted free use. A specific template could always be added later if useful. Copying the names of the authors from each filename and pasting them to the author field can be more complex, maybe a bot could help with that part? -- Asclepias (talk) 21:31, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
Sorry to come late with an objection, but we have some conflict now with a claim that we received at the support team per Ticket:2023081410007374. I was the agent who processed that ticket. Within the correspomdence therein, I expressed doubts that those photos are really selfies. And I still have those doubts. All those photos are made with the same professional camera (Canon EOS 6D), and it is very unlikely that the persons photographed have made the settings for focus, exposure, framing, etc. These settings have been made by someone who operated the camera, and the photographed persons have only assumed the position and pressed the shutter button. Hence the creative work is with the camera operator, and they own the copyright. – After I had written that to the client, we received a permission mail at VRT claiming that their director was in deed that camera operator, and that he granted permission per cc-by-sa-4.0. – Sorry for this confusion that comes from the fact that there were two different lines of communication. At VRT, we did not know about the discussion here. --Mussklprozz (talk) 20:39, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
@Yann If the map was produced by France, the applicable French law would certainly apply. I can't see how Algeria would have anything to do with it, if it didn't even existed at the time of production. DarwinAhoy!10:40, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
@Yann If it's from 1885 with minor improvements, PD-old-100 would apply, no? But only comparing both versions (1885 and 1955) to be sure. DarwinAhoy!10:45, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
The important is not where it was produced, but where it was published. Usually we assume that a document pertaining to somewhere is first published in that place, unless evidence to the opposite. But if it was first published in France, and if it is sufficiently different from the 1885 version, then it still under a copyright for us, and until 2026. Yann (talk) 13:26, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
@Yann From what I can read in Carte d'état-major, it was produced by France for publication and sale, with all certainty produced and published in Paris, France. But even if it was first published in Algeria, I don't see how there could exist any connection with the modern state of Algeria, which didn't even existed at the time the map was published, and AFAIK didn't inherited the jurisdiccion of the former colonial laws. this is part of a map from 1885 from the same producer. It looks very different from the 1955 map (lettering, drawing, sinalectic, etc), so I would assume that that Sidi Aich map is indeed a copyright violation both in France and the US. DarwinAhoy!21:30, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
@Yann In the case of the former Portuguese empire, Portugal courts kept the jurisdiction over any situation occurred before independence of the new states. I've not checked the case of France, but it seems to me very probable that any case that happened before independence would be dealt with on French courts, not Algerian, as well. DarwinAhoy!01:31, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
I've ran into similar issues with stamps myself a couple of times and at least how I look at it is if the artist was a French citizen, the stamps was published by the French postal service, and the successor country didn't exist at the time then there's reason it wouldn't have been copyrighted in France. There's no way that a country like Algeria could litigate such a claim even if they wanted to anyway. --Adamant1 (talk) 04:11, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
IMO it is more complicated than that. File:Stamp of Algeria - 1955 - Colnect 192594 - Patio of Bardo Museum.jpeg was only released in Algeria, so Algeria should count as place of first publication. So Algerian law is OK in this case. The other stamp I mentioned above is a derivative work of a French stamp, so French law should be used. It doesn't matter who designed the stamp, and where it was printed if it is in the public domain where it was first published. Yann (talk) 11:56, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
Sure, "sometimes" it's more complicated then that. I don't think it is in this specific case though. But we will have to agree to disagree. Except I will say it's not about the "place" of first publication, but the "country." To quote Commons:Copyright rules by territory#Berne Convention "the term shall not exceed the term fixed in the country of origin of the work." At least IMO it's spurious to say the modern country of Algeria is the "country of origin" of the stamps or that they were created "in" Alegeria when didn't exist at the time. We will have to agree to disagree though. I don't think how to handle licenses of works created under former colonies is something that can or should be decided on by a few people in a random discussion anyway. There should really be an RfC about it involving participation by the wider community and people who actually know the legal area at some point. Since licensing in such cases seems to be inconsistent at best. This clearly isn't it though. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:40, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
I agree. It seems to me quite absurd that new countries would somehow inherit jurisdiction over situations that had absolutely nothing to do with them and their laws. And, indeed, all court cases about situations that happened before independence (I recall one of a bank worker who was not paid, for instance) are sent to Portuguese courts, as they own jurisdiction over these cases. In the case of Portugal maybe it's an easier situation, as in the 1930s or so the state declared ever former colony to be an effective province of Portugal (very much like French Guyana is now), and in the specific case of copyright, the law was the same. One would need to look at how French colonial court cases are dealt with. DarwinAhoy!01:38, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
It is not absurd. That's how it works by decisions of the legislation and the courts. For example, that's the case for the countries which were part of the Soviet Union. Yann (talk) 08:25, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
I don't think it's absurd at all. Each territory has its own legal history, even when it was a colony. For colonies, the parent country's law often did apply, or applied in part (and court appeals probably followed that path), but it's still legal history -- there is such thing as continuity of laws, or legal continuity.[5] Even with revolutions, or conquering countries, or whatever -- there can be some large legal changes, but usually the majority of other laws remain in place until actively changed. That can often include copyright law. The UK explicitly applied its copyright laws to their colonies, but sometimes taking effect at a later date than in the UK itself, or with small tweaks, and that sort of thing. India joined the Berne Convention in 1928, long before it became fully independent. And there are always degrees of independence; each situation could be a bit different. If something was published in say Czechoslovakia, which is now two countries, what is the country of origin today? You can't say that all authors from that era lost their copyright. Such works would probably be considered "simultaneously published" in both successor countries, and you would apply copyright in each country (and others) per whatever laws are today. After independence, the parent country would no longer be the highest court you could appeal to, but usually the courts in the newly independent country would rule based on the laws previously in place (until changed). Algeria existed as a separate legal territory before independence -- it was not part of France proper.
The Berne Convention rules on "country of origin" get a bit odd in the "simultaneous publication" situation, and I'm not aware of any court cases which really depended on questions surrounding it, so not sure we have much guidance. On its face though, it could be reasonable to accept any modern Berne country where the original work was actually distributed (within 30 days) within its territory at the time. A work first published in India in 1925 would continue to be an Indian work today, I'd think. That could lead to bizarre situations as countries join or leave the Convention -- can the U.S. be considered the "country of origin" for any of its works published before 1989? If so, then a country can inherit "country of origin" status when it joins, which may change the legal situation in other countries too. The "country of origin" for simultaneously published works is the country among those with the shortest duration (probably based on their current terms, not earlier non-Berne-conformant shorter terms, though that is also a gray area). That normally only really affects countries which use the rule of the shorter term when determining protection for a foreign work (nationals are generally protected by their own law in their own country regardless of where published), so this rarely if ever comes up in court, but per Commons' rules it could have larger impacts here. The URAA uses the term "source country" which is similar but does not have the 30-day window, and uses a more common sense "greatest contacts with the work" tiebreaker for works simultaneously published on the same day.
I tend to agree that the stamp primarily distributed in Algeria would have Algeria as the country of origin. One primarily used in France proper may continue to be only France -- but if also used in their colonies, it may get more difficult, since it could be simultaneously published in both. It would certainly still be under copyright protection in France, and Europe for that matter, due to nationality of author but non-Europe shorter-term countries get more interesting. Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Algeria is actually pretty lacking on historical information, which is important since their laws have generally been non-retroactive. en:Wikipedia:Non-US_copyrights#endnote_tab_algeria gives a fuller account, which is that Algeria's 1973 law was 25pma, and anonymous works were 25 years from publication. They changed that in 1997, non-retroactively increasing to 50pma and 50 years from publication for anonymous works, then joined the Berne Convention in 1998 (so the URAA date for them is in 1998). But that means that any anonymous works published before 1972 would continue to be public domain inside Algeria. If Algeria is considered the URAA "source country", then there would be no URAA restoration for those. For the map... you could argue that something produced by the French army was intended for use across the French Union, so you could at least argue simultaneous publication status. The URAA is a closer question... seems more likely to me France would be the source country given the authorship, but given it's a map of Algeria it may not be entirely clear. Additionally, the "French Union" at the time meant they did consider all colonies part of France proper, so anything published in France might well be considered simultaneously published in all such territories on the same day by that de jure definition (though it did not match reality, especially in Algeria, and that outlook did change completely in 1956 when colonies were allowed autonomy again). You also get into questions of whether the 1955 updates qualified for copyright, but without the 1885 version to compare against we may not be able to rely on that. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:26, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
there is such thing as continuity of laws, or legal continuity. Sure, I was actually going to mention that. But there isn't continuity of laws in all (if not most) cases and we shouldn't assume there is by default just because it's convenient. In this case I haven't seen any evidence there was legal continuity, and I doubt there is any since like you say the guideline for Algeria is lacking historical information. Although there could have been. We really don't know, but that's kind of the point, that it should be taken on a case by case basis depending on the countries, historical context, and what exactly is being discussed.
There are instances, like the United States occupation of the Philippines or Japanese occupation of Malaysia, where the stamps are licensed in the occupier countries regardless of them being published in the Philippines or Malaysia. So it really should be judged on a case by case basis depending on the evidence. I don't really see what the difference between those instances and a stamp published in a former colony is though. It's at least inconsistent if nothing else. Like I said already, there should really be an RfC about it or at least people should put effort into finding out what exactly the legal situation is for each country that use to be a former colony. Otherwise I don't see why we wouldn't just assume the copyright didn't transfer over and is still be held by the actual country of origin at the time. Since that's the country's legal system the work was created under. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:02, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
There is continuity of law in virtually all cases. Otherwise, it would be complete anarchy. You may be able to find some cases, but they are exceedingly rare. In Algeria's case, they likely moved to replace almost the entire legal code as quickly as possible, as I'm sure it was viewed negatively by most by that point. But it goes through a process of repeal and replacement nonetheless. If you searched, you should find the evidence that you haven't seen (such as here -- they worked to replace the entire civil code within 2-3 years of independence). Of course they had legal continuity. Are you suggesting that murder is not punishable until new laws are passed? It's possible the copyright law was completely repealed until 1973, or de facto ignored. I'm not sure I see an explicit repeal provision in that 1973 law, but they have had de jure copyright at least since then, which applied to existing works. The way that law was worded, any earlier copyright did not have any further relevance, as far as I can tell -- they preserved nothing (which is fine, of course). If you have any particular references to show, please do.
As for your other examples, those would be examples of simultaneous publication. If they were printed and distributed in the occupier country, then yes they were published there. If they were also distributed in the occupied country at the same time (within 30 days) -- a pretty easy assumption -- then they were also published there. Whichever country has the shorter term would be the country of origin. The copyright owner doesn't change (in this case still the French government), as there is never a "transfer" when countries change, but the question is its treatment in other countries. We use "country of origin" because expiry there means it will expire in shorter-term countries (not nearly all of them). The definition can lead to some odd results, but authors can always publish in other countries and there may be unanticipated consequences of doing so (not in France, but elsewhere). If a French author simultaneously published in the US in the 1950s, that meant they lost any URAA rights they had in 1996. In Algeria's case, per French Algeria, France considered Algeria as part of France (much like French Guiana now) from 1848 to 1962. So I guess in that case, French laws were considered to apply directly. In that case, anything published in France was also technically simultaneously published in Algeria too, until the countries split apart. Algeria could not qualify as the Berne country of origin until 1998 (they were UCC members from 1973, not Berne), but it can now. For URAA restoration, a work would have to have some specific contacts with Algeria for it to be the "source country", though. A 1955 map of Algeria might qualify there, as it may be a reasonable assumption that copies were distributed inside Algeria for use there. Obviously nothing is certain, as the "country of origin" definition hasn't really been tested in courts for a number of these oddball edge cases, as it rarely comes into practical play (and even courts can disagree). The facts of each case, as you say, could change the treatment, and it may come down to some community consensus for a particular situation. Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:38, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
There is continuity of law in virtually all cases. Otherwise, it would be complete anarchy. If you say so. Wouldn't it depend on the circumstances and laws though? Even if I grant you that's the case just because there's continuity of "law" doesn't mean there's "continuity" of every law, or more specifically copyright law. Regardless, it's totally ridiculous hyperbole to suggest there would be anarchy if there wasn't continuity of copyright laws. In most cases transferring it over is more of a legal formality then anything. It's not like there's a run on of court houses by artists the second former colonies become independent countries lol. But hey, who needs evidence that copyright laws were transferred over when we can just act like they must of have been because there would be chaos in the streets otherwise.
If you searched, you should find the evidence that you haven't seen. I actually did search for some evidence, I just didn't find any. That doesn't mean I didn't look though. Maybe assume some good faith instead of treating me like I just pulled what I said out of thin air for no reason. What I said about how it should be based on the the country, historical context, and what exactly is being discussed stands regardless of the circumstances in Alegria anyway.
As for your other examples, those would be examples of simultaneous publication. No they aren't. At least with the Philippines stamps published there during US Administration weren't also published in America at the time, or really ever. They were just published in the Philippines. Of course there are some exceptions from the beginning where stamps of the United States were overprinted with "Philippines", but stamps like the one on this cover were solely published in the Philippines yet are still licensed as PD-USGov. Like I've said twice now, the whole thing is inconsistent at best. If not totally subjective. And I still don't generally see what the difference is between a stamp published in the Philippines under US occupation and one published in a former colony. --Adamant1 (talk) 05:18, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
True about copyright law specifically. But if you inherit a legal system, and copyright comes along with it, then what would make that special? It's entirely true that copyright law could be completely ignored in practice, or could be completely repealed. Certainly before the 20th century, the situation was different. If there was really no copyright tradition in a territory, I guess it could happen -- some Pacific islands probably come under that. Algeria may be a special case, if there were no laws specifically in place for it, but rather just the French legal code in general. If there was a specific legal code for that colony though, it would normally continue. Former British colonies almost always continued the copyright law, for example. It is true that new countries' membership in copyright treaties is ambiguous until explicitly addressed (joining Berne can be detrimental to developing countries).
If something was only published in the Philippines, then yes, that is the country of origin. PD-USGov however is more of a PD-author situation, where the country of origin does not really matter. The same license applies anywhere. Given that Philippine copyright law at the time was almost entirely based on US law though, and had the same non-copyright stipulation for their government works, it would pretty much be the same situation. Not sure we have a specific tag for the colonial-era government there. Their current law has much the same, but with a weird Marcos-era addition which muddies things, so our tag {{PD-PhilippinesGov}} is more for the current situation, with PD-USGov being an easy stand-in for the colonial era. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:50, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
@Clindberg One thing is continuity of law, another is continuity of jurisdiction. In the case I know best, the former Portuguese Empire, there was continuity of law in all cases I know, but the jurisdiction of court cases which took place before independence has been retained by Portugal, even when Portugal generally failed to secure these rights. From this 2018 Portuguese court sentence: "The succession of States does not affect rights that have been acquired under the originally applicable legal system, that is, the established law of the originating or predecessor State. It does not have the capacity to extinguish the rights established within the legal sphere of citizens or the respective obligations assumed by the State." (...) "Therefore, in view of the specific factual circumstances established in the case [case took place in Portuguese Moçambique], it is considered unnecessary to frame the dispute in light of the rules of international law arising from the succession of States or the creation of a new sovereign state." "But even if it were not so, considering the principle that the rights of citizens cannot be harmed, affected, compressed, or taken away by the phenomenon of State succession, and considering that the citizen in question, now the Respondent, is a national and resident of the originating State, having acquired the claimed subjective right under the legal system of the originating State and that after the phenomenon of State succession, they ceased to reside in the territory of the successor State or the newly created State, returning to reside in the territory of the originating State, without having the citizenship of the successor State and without ever having lost the citizenship of the originating State, it must be affirmed that the responsibility lies with the originating State for safeguarding and protecting the right established in the legal sphere of one of its national citizens."
As for Algeria, in this 2003 case the Appeal Court of Toulouse decides over the local law which was in place in Blida, Algeria, back in 1954, and not the current Algerian law or the French law of the time. Note that the decision, respecting Algeria before Independence, was taken by a French court - that is, France continues recognizing its juridiscion over what took place in colonial Algeria.
From what I could understand, and the sources I've found, I don't think that nor the question of the succession of States (and the question of continuity of law) nor the current law of Algeria has anything to do with this case, and to find out what law would apply to the copyright of anything published in French Argelia it would be necessary to find out which law was in place there at the time of the publication, if any at all. DarwinAhoy!17:13, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
@DarwIn: As Carl mentioned above, these documents should be considered as simultaneous published in France and Algeria, and that trumps every other consideration. As per the Berne Convention, the country of origin is the country with the shorter term, so Algerian law should be used to determine the duration of copyright. Yann (talk) 18:16, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
@Yann On the contrary, cases like this provide evidence that the current laws of Algeria do not apply on these situations, and evidence that the current law of Algeria do apply to events that took place before the country came into existence in 1962 has not been provided until now. DarwinAhoy!19:29, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
@DarwIn: Sure, the copyright ownership doesn't change. The author will get whatever rights a country's laws give him in that country. The protection could differ in particular ways, depending on the facts and the country involved. A country will give copyright protection to its own nationals regardless of the country of publication, and often gives protection to works first published in that country regardless of the nationality of the author. Those can be expanded -- France may well continue to protect Algerian works for the full French term, or give them all the rights as nationals, even if the term is shorter in Algeria. Or Portugal, for its former colonies. The EU in general will protect works from other EU nationals, regardless of where published, and will only use the rule of the shorter term for non-EU countries. For Commons though, the question is not those, but rather how an unrelated country, say Honduras or Albania, would protect this work -- for them it is irrelevant what rights the author have or had in another country. Both of those use the rule of the shorter term, i.e. the term in the country of origin (i.e. first publication) if less than their own term. So, this is strictly the definition of "country of origin" in the Berne Convention. For works which are published in multiple (Berne) countries within 30 days, they are considered "simultaneously published", in which case the "country of origin" is the country among those with the shortest term. When it comes to countries subsequently splitting apart, or becoming independent, it's not always clear how the wording of the Berne Convention should be interpreted, but "simultaneous publication" in all successor nations is a reasonable way to interpret it. From that perspective, what would Albania say is the country of origin, i.e. how long are they obligated to protect the work per the treaty? That is the place the Commons rules place ourselves in, not what the legal rights are in the parent country of a former colony. The wording of that treaty could end up with some weird results, but it's still the result. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:20, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
@Clindberg According to what you wrote, and looking at the Algerian copyright laws, the applicable law would be not the current one, but the first Algerian copyright law, published in 1973, the (Ordonnance no 73-14 du 3 avril 1973 relative au droit d'auteur). This law rules anything published until 1997 and which would have entered the public domain until 2003. From what I can understand, it limits the copyright protection to works published by the citizens of the Republic of Algeria, and those who are morally relevant (?) to the state. This apparently excludes anything published by anyone or anything who had not acquired Algerian citizenship after independence, which would be the case of the French Etat-Major. In any case, the duration of that protection, even if it existed, would be 25 years, expiring in 1980. I would expect French courts to protect anything published by French citizens in Algeria before independence, and still don't find the most obvious thing that this would not matter, but I understand the rationale you explained above, about that copyright status as seen from an unrelated country, as the US. In that case, if the map was published simultaneously in France and Algeria, I understand it is in the public domain since 1966, as no protection was ever bestowed upon him. Do you find this interpretation correct? DarwinAhoy!23:24, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
@DarwIn: Pretty much. I would agree the map is still under copyright in France, and therefore probably all of the EU, though it would likely expire in 2026. The EU would protect anything done by their nationals regardless of where published. I assume it was unambiguously under French copyright when originally published, but as of 1962 it could have been considered simultaneously published when Algeria split off (though could not be the country of origin until 1998 when they joined Berne). Whether or not Algeria protected it initially (or had a valid copyright law), they joined the UCC in 1973 and would have had international copyright relations from then, so likely would protect it either way. I would also agree that it would have expired in Algeria under that old law in 1981 or thereabouts, and has not been restored there despite the terms since becoming longer to conform with Berne. You are supposed to retroactively restore at least foreign works to Berne minimums when you join Berne, but most countries get away without doing that (the U.S. did not, thus the URAA). I don't use the U.S. as the example country here, because they don't use the rule of the shorter term thus "country of origin" is not relevant. It's just how Common rules are structured. The URAA tiebreaker on "simultaneously published" is quite different than Berne and can be more common sense, though it's still a close call here and I would not want to delete purely on URAA grounds (if Algeria, it was PD on the URAA date). Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:43, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
Thanks Carl for your detailed explanation. I think I am going to withdraw my deletion nominations, as I didn't think about simultaneous publication of France and Algeria. Yann (talk) 15:07, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
On the copyright notice of a Jack the Giantkiller ad?
British Police documents are not Crown Copyright and are not subject to automatic release as either {{PD-UKGov}} or {{OGL2}}. You need to check the copyright terms set by the individual police force. For example, police forces in England are subject to English law and the Scottish police are subject to Scottish law. From Hill To Shore (talk) 18:06, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
No Twitter/YouTube/Facebook Template
User:Wpcpey had created a number of licensing templates imposing limit on reusing these files from social media sites.
Please do also note that the user placed such template (which explicitly says the files are released under CC-BY-SA) to files that they uploaded as public domain. LuciferianThomas06:25, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
I see some of the users also can use these templates, but why they can, but I can't? It is not fair to me.--Wpcpey (talk) 13:32, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
Classic case of whataboutism. Others doing so doesn't mean it's right, it's just that others have yet to notice. As long as the CC requirements (attribution and share-alike) are reasonably fulfilled, the media content can be reproduced. WMF's CC BY-SA legal note page explicitly says No, it does not violate the CC license [to upload third-party material to social media]. Also, you added a template claiming CC BY-SA on various files that you released under other licenses or even the public domain, which is also conflicting and not something anyone should do. LuciferianThomas16:45, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
Under Creative Commons 3.0 (which is mentioned in the template), it is an unenforceable stipulation so it should be treated as a strongly-worded request. Abzeronow (talk) 16:04, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
For ages we have taken for granted that there is FOP in Spain, based in the article 35.2 of the Spanish copyright law. However, this article has been limited by article 40bis, which states that 35.2 (as all other articles of that chapter) only applies if it is not "unreasonably prejudicing the legitimate interests of the author or adversely affecting the normal exploitation of the works to which they refer". Effectively, there are a number of sentences from Spanish courts against commercial use of works of art situated in public spaces, including Monumento a Los Raqueros and the Toro de Osborne. In both cases, the copyrighted element was extracted from its surroundings and commercialized, so it is very clear that FOP in Spain do not cover this kind of commercial use, and who attempts to do that may effectively be sued with success. This is the case as well with Portugal and Brazil, for instance: FOP is strictly limited to the cases where there is any panorama or scenery surrounding the copyrighted work.
However, this source which deals with it in "page 74 and following, in page 75 goes further and states: "After the introduction into our legal system of Article 40 bis of the LPI, the doctrine that has dealt with this issue has unanimously ruled against allowing, under the protection of Article 35.2 of the LPI, the use of works located in public places when there are profit-making purposes." (my emphasis) This source states a similar conclusion: "Authorization or permission required not for transforming or photographing the work, but for exploiting the results of the transformation."(my emphasis, pag. 44), that is, it's OK to represent the work, it's not ok to commercialize that representation or derivate work, even if it is situated in a public space.
At the very least, COM:FOP Spain should be clarified to state that it does not cover any file where the copyrighted work has been isolated from it's surrounding panorama. At worst, it should be entirely revoked. DarwinAhoy!14:10, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
Comment Note that similar language appears in the FoP provision in several other countries, such as Mexico: "siempre que no se afecte la explotación normal de la obra" = "provided that the normal exploitation of the work is not adversely affected thereby". In COM:FOP Portugal, it is claimed that such a provision is required to comply with the Berne three-step test. So I think you're basically claiming that no country can have commercial FoP and remain Berne-compliant. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠17:34, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
@King of Hearts: as DarwIn states, the central issue isn't legislation (which seems to be very similar to a lot of other FoP adhering states), but the consolidated jurisprudence from Spanish courts. They seem to have a very strict interpretation of what constitutes "unreasonably prejudicing the legitimate interests of the author" where any penny you extract from the work you created is a penny denied to the original author (i.e. no commercial use is allowed under FoP). Jurisprudence is an important part of a country's legal system and if that's the case then clearly FoP is effectively revoked. I don't know enough about Spanish jurisprudence to unambiguously affirm that this is the case (and I sincerely hope it's not). Rkieferbaum (talk) 18:31, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
@King of Hearts You seem to ignore that the origin of every FOP provision - at least the ones I have seen, which are many - is that it is not fair that people can't freely register a panorama in a public place due to copyrighted artworks being in the way, most notably architecture works, but also everything else - here for more info on that. These provisions allow you to register a panorama, not to isolate the copyrighted artwork itself and sell copies of it, as it would quite obviously interfere with the legitimate interests of the author. Therefore, as a general case, you can not isolate the artwork from its surrounding panorama and use it in the terms of a free license without risking being successfully sued by the author. Portugal, Brazil, Spain, and eventually many other countries have clear jurisprudence covering that. In the case of Spain, however, what the sources say is that it apply to any commercial use of the representation or derivative work, not only to the isolated version of it. If you know otherwise, please present reliable sources stating that. DarwinAhoy!20:30, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
@DarwIn: I am trying to understand what you are arguing. Let's consider these three cases:
A. Photographing a sculpture in isolation, such that the sculpture is the sole subject of the photo, and commercializing the photo.
B. Photographing a garden which contains a sculpture, featuring the sculpture as an important (but not the only) element in the photo, and commercializing the photo.
C. Incidentally including a sculpture as a tiny, unimportant part of a photo of a garden (COM:DM), and commercializing the photo.
As I understand it, you are saying that in the UK (which has no such provisions in the law), A, B, and C are acceptable; in Portugal and Brazil, B and C are acceptable; in Spain, only C is acceptable. Is this an accurate summary of your position? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠21:37, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
@King of Hearts No, that is not "my position" at all, that is what is stated in the mentioned sources, and a number of others referred in COM:FOP Spain, which you for some bizarre reason keep ignoring and attributing to me instead. Please stop misrepresenting what the sources say as if it was some sort of personal interpretation of myself. I don't know what you are trying to do with that, but anyone can check and verify by themselves what is there. DarwinAhoy!21:45, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
Long-standing Commons practice is that A, B, and C are all OK in the UK, Portugal, Brazil, and Spain. So what you are proposing is definitely a major change to Commons policy. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠21:48, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
I'm simply considering the practical implications of adopting your position. We would need to file mass DRs of public art across dozens of countries if what you're saying is true. Let's wait for others to opine before taking such a drastic step. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠21:53, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
@King of Hearts Again, this is not "my position". Please stop repeating that, it is intellectually dishonest. I've dedicated a considerable part of my free time today to research this topic and collect academic sources and jurisprudence about it in order to present a well sourced vision of the case, please have some respect and properly attribute the claims we are discussing here. As for mass-DRs, we are discussing Spain and Spain alone, do not bring other countries with different laws and different jurisprudence into this. DarwinAhoy!22:01, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
And you should not hold so much confidence in your own research that you feel inclined to unilaterally override the collective wisdom of the Commons community accumulated over the last 10+ years. I've reverted your change to COM:FOP Spain; if your analysis is solid, then people will agree with you, and with sufficient consensus we can go ahead and make the change. Let's not put the cart before the horse here. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠22:18, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
@King of Hearts I'm not "overriding" anything, I've been quoting ipsis verbis from the court decisions and jurisprudence. I really fail to understand your point here, and why you recklessly removed a lot of fundamented information from COM:FOP Spain, in clear disrespect for this project policies, above them the precautionary principle. Please understand that it is not because you do not agree with court decisions and written jurisprudence that your dreams will become true, you are only subjecting whoever reuses that content from Commons to being successfully sued, as happened before in the cases described there. DarwinAhoy!22:27, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
I am simply enforcing Commons norms around consensus. No matter how many times you repeat it, with the exception of WMF intervention (e.g. COM:DMCA), there is no such thing as "the law" here, only individuals' interpretation of the law, and consensus always overrides the individual unless the individual successfully argues for the consensus to be overturned. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠22:36, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
One common misconception I see around COM:PCP is that it somehow implies that we should expedite the deletion of files whose freeness is unclear. If that were the case, then we would not have a DR process at all; we would just speedy-delete everything that could not be proven to be free. Instead, we have three tracks: 1) if a file is proven to be a copyvio, then it should be speedily deleted; 2) if a file is proven to be free, then it should be summarily kept; 3) if there is significant doubt about whether a file is free, then it should be sent to DR. Either the doubts are resolved, or the file is deleted at the end if there is insufficient evidence of either (this is where PCP kicks in). By analogy, there is no rush to make changes here. There has not been any major incident caused by the existing COM:FOP Spain interpretation in the last 10+ years, so it doesn't hurt to wait a few more days to gather everyone's input to refine our understanding of Spanish law. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠22:53, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
@King of Hearts I must say it's kind of appalling seeing you state that because you have no personal knowledge of problems related to reuse of Commons photos in this situation, we can get away with ignoring the Spanish court sentences about it, and the extensive and very consistent written jurisprudence, juridical analysis and academic works on the subject by specialists, including some entirely dedicated to this specific point.
So, will we be able to get away with hosting these copyvios here? I'm kind of sceptic your approach will work, but I'm curious, let's see if the community approves. In any case, if we counter Spanish jurisprudence and tell people Spain has FOP, it's the reuser who suffers, not us 🤷🏽♂️. DarwinAhoy!23:12, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
OK, we can focus on Spain here. But I think it is helpful to have some understanding of what "normal exploitation" means in general. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠22:36, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
@King of Hearts: it is extremely helpful, no doubt, and I'd love to do that anywhere else. But unless one of us is a judge in Spain, and alas I'm not, our conclusion would amount to nothing in here. All that matters in this topic is whether DarwIn's well-founded perception that Spain's courts consistently rule against any kind of commercial use under FoP is true. All the rest is just chit-chat. Rkieferbaum (talk) 00:36, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
Comment We have hosted this kind of images for years. Copyright rules here have been under careful scrutiny by many people, so unless there is a recent change in law, I doubt a completely different interpretation of the law is valid. In short, I am with King of Hearts here. Yann (talk) 08:50, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
I see the issue more about the usage of the photo (it's legit to shoot a panorama in Spain, regardless the artworks in the way) than (direct) a copyright issue. For instance, you cannot cut the Toro de Osborne from the background and sell is as keychain for instance.
Reading the RIPAC 10/2018, it appears that the concern is about the reuse of an original 3D artwork in a 3D environment (videogames, VR, etc.) or of material reproductions of the original artwork. There is the concept of "uso inocuo" that is central in this matter: if a reproduction of the artwork is sold in direct competition with the author (it's the "perjuicio injustificado a los intereses legítimos" o "detrimento de la explotación normal de las obras"). Other usages, like a commercial usage of a reproduction in a book or in a web service (e.g. Google Maps), is part of the FoP.
The conclusions clearly state that
the artworks fall under FoP if they are not in a private land;
it is possible to create derivative works of protected works via painting, drawing, photography and videos only;
the commercial usage is not allowed if it reasonably directly affects the author's rights (as said above).
Yes, we already have this kind of restrictions for other countries. It is not allowed to recreate the depicted artwork, but the pictures are still OK. For 3D art and architecture, there is no issue. For 2D art, the situation is less clear, as where is the limit between a depiction of the artwork and the reproduction of the artwork? Yann (talk) 09:41, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
@Yann In RIPAC 10/2018 it is explicitly stated that under the existing Spanish jurisprudence, these pictures are not OK, if the use is commercial: "Con respecto al uso comercial de las manifestaciones secundarias, es preciso avanzar que, de forma reiterada, los tribunales nacionales han excluido este uso de las excepciones a los derechos de explotación previstas en la LPI / Regarding the commercial use of secondary manifestations, it is necessary to point out that national courts have repeatedly excluded this use from the exceptions to the exploitation rights provided for in the Intellectual Property Law." (p. 29). This is stated as well in a number of other sources, which also explicitly mention photography. DarwinAhoy!10:14, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
@Ruthven I have seen discussions around 1), though it was not my focus on the search I was doing. If I well recall, Germany has a similar disposition? If this is the case, it would exclude a vast number of architecture works from FoP, since what seems to mater is the location of the artwork in a public space and not that it can be seen from a public space.
As for 3), the current jurisprudence and Spanish juridical interpretations, and apparently all related court sentences since 1998 (when Article 40bis was introduced in the law) state that no commercial usage is allowed under the Spanish law, so I'm kind of wary to accept that Spain really has a FOP disposition, at least in practice. In any case, I believe that we should explicitly forbid all cases where the copyrighted work has been detached from the surrounding panorama, as these ones, from what we know, would most probably not survive if challenged on court. DarwinAhoy!09:54, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
@Yann The matter here is that no research has been done on the FOP situation of Spain before, or it was very superficial - it is not that a "different interpretation" was used for years. The Spanish court cases and juridical information on the mater is quite assertive that no commercial use is allowed under Article 35.2, and in fact I couldn't find any interpretation supporting a different point of view. Obviously, I will not foam from the mouth and melt like the Wicked Witch of the West if the jurisprudence of the Spanish courts and jurists continue to be ignored in Commons, but it comes to me as quite reckless, nevertheless. DarwinAhoy!09:32, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
Simple and clear: if the aforementioned interpretation of the law was the correct, then Spanish courts would have requested "something" to us after almost 20 years of FoP-Spain pictures being hosted on Commons. TaronjaSatsuma (talk) 10:48, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
@B25es Thanks a lot for the heads up. Looks like muddy stuff, no? But at a minimum, I believe there is a consensus that:
Current state of FOP in Spain is unclear, as are the limits of that FOP, though there is not an obvious court case involving copyrighted works inserted in the surrounding panorama; we can allow them, here, with warnings about the uncertainty and the limits we know (some mentioned above by @Ruthven, and others that are known like the limitation to exterior places;
Images which consist only in depictions of a copyrighted work (and no panorama), even if placed in public spaces, should not be allowed in Commons, per the existing court jurisprudence.
I agree that stuff is muddy. Every time I realize that I live in a continent full of lawyers, I get scared.
It's been always clear that being in the street is not enough to be subject for Freedom of Panorama. The example is that you cannot take a copyrighted item, take it outdoors for a while, and take pictures to upload. That's never been in consideration by those who upload Spanish stuff to Commons. And I think that covers #2.
There are several court rulings as of what is protected. Sagrada Família and Toro de Osborne and the Cantabro Desconocido won. Others lost. Problem: opinions are like bellies, every judge and law expert has one. FOP is like most rules on most books: subject to interpretation.
Risk does allways exist. I know a fellow -I'm having coffee with his parents in 36 minutes- who after two years walking an exit corridor was said to leave by another exit: a 1944 artillery shell had been found near the first one. Yes. Risks do exist. I have to live with them, being druken drivers or opinion changing Law People.
I will take my wife and my car and go and take photos of stuff. As for Toros de Osborne, Sagrades Famílies and Cantabrian Esculptors ... ¡Qué les den! (For many years I called the Atomium "Monumento a la Visita de la Enriqueta". Reason: if you don't want your monument shown, who cares how it's named). Right now we've tens of thousands of stuff to photograph. I'm enterely sure that given time and lawyers, this picture will be subject to many rights and licenses and stuff. I could be sentenced to life in prison or worse. But I won't care because I have a life to live.
I understand your worries and if a note on FoP banner helps to ease them, so be it. But I'm pretty sure that more and more "interpretaciones de la Ley" will follow. B25es (talk) 08:40, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
@B25es Thank you very much. Could you please review what is written at COM:FOP Spain, and complete and/or adapt according to what you think would be reasonable to protect reusers, and exclude obvious cases from upload? And also eventually more people from wiki.es, who are familiar to the subject? DarwinAhoy!23:30, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
Hello @Ruthven. If you think it'd be useful, but I don't think it is at this stage. I think it'd be best to summarise these into a table in an A-B form, e.g. "Does FoP-ES allow taking pictures inside churches?" -> No (brief explanation, court case(s) references). Not to mention that I suspect the text I wrote is not easy to read. In any case, I'm not sure about #2. I do not think depictions of works where Article 35.2 LPI apply should be deleted considering that the law certainly allows you to take them. I couldn't find any court case about that issue in particular, but the two IP books I quoted suggest that it is okay. —MarcoAurelio10:38, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
Just want to make sure I'm not missing the mark here, but as this appears to be a physical scale model, is there some way this wouldn't fall under COM:TOY? A photo of the craft wouldn't have derivation issues, because obviously the craft itself is meant for purely utilitarian purposes. But I don't know a model you can hold in your hand is meaningfully different than a model airplane. GMGtalk11:05, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
Hmm. Is this only for display, or has it any useful purpose for testing, etc.? A prototype wouldn't get a copyright, while a model would. Yann (talk) 11:18, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
COM:TOY is a bit of a shorthand. The operative issue is whether it has an inherent utilitarian value. The record seems to be pretty clear that "to be looked at," "to be displayed," or "to be enjoyed" isn't a utilitarian function, because the courts haven't been able to square how that's different than a photograph or a painting. Not trying to disparage your contribution at all. I'm honestly not sure if I understand something like whether there is a copyright difference between a model and an engineering model. GMGtalk11:34, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
Please, rev del these three files.
I cropped my recent uploads to avoid potential FoP claims. Please, rev del these three files.
@Yann, Thank you for your prompt action. I appreciate your comment that maybe the crops were not needed. Latvia has no freedom of panorama (FoP) and there has been 100's or perhaps thousands of FoP deletion requests (DR's) on Commons in the last few years. -- Ooligan (talk) 19:07, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
Sure, we can't have artworks from Latvia under a copyright on Commons, but there is no issue for these files. Yann (talk) 19:47, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
I had overwritten (within a few hours) a file that I had recently uploaded in order to avoid a potential artwork copyright related DR. This file here: File:Deputy Secretary Sherman Meets with Ambassador Hartley.jpg. This file was reverted by a User who cited COM:OVERWRITE. I had followed the official guidelines, specifically this:
"Blurring, cropping or otherwise obscuring unfree elements and any other unacceptable parts (like sensitive personal information) that would otherwise result in deletion or a deletion request, provided that the file is still useful and in scope after the offending element has been obscured." I reverted back to my first cropped version and would like all the previous versions rev del or at least the two uncropped file versions. Thanks, --
Does anyone have a specific source or quotation that would support the following claim made in the current revision of the template {{PD-US-defective notice}}?
It is a printed literary, musical, or dramatic work that does not include the year.
Where does US law say it has to be printed? Circular 3 seems to make no distinction whatsoever between printed and unprinted (audiovisual) works with regards to year inclusion. I think the text should be modified as follows:
It does not include the year.
Because I'm seeing no evidence it specifically has to be printed. If I'm right, then American cartoons such as Clutch Cargo and Mighty Mr. Titan can be considered to be in the public domain due to the exclusion of a year in their notices. PseudoSkull (talk) 21:24, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
The only things I'm finding is the text in the Copyright Act of 1909 Sec. 17, which states, "and if the work be a printed literary, musical, or dramatic work, the notice shall include also the year in which the copyright was secured by publication." And somewhere else legal, that says "the year may be omitted from the copyright notice where a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work, with or without text, is reproduced on greeting cards, postcards, stationery, jewelry, dolls, toys or any useful objects." But nothing in these laws specifically mentions motion pictures (but if we go by the text of the 1909 law, it seems to not necessarily include motion pictures from needing a year). Is there any legal evidence that the year being omitted from a motion picture's copyright notice would count it as public domain? What in my research am I missing? @Clindberg: any ideas? PseudoSkull (talk) 23:02, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
(We should probably also include a reference in the template itself for this specific statement, so we know for future reference.) PseudoSkull (talk) 23:03, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
The quote was lifted directly from the law, yes. Hard to have a better source. The particular types of works involved are inherently printed, which I guess they were being careful about -- you can't put a copyright notice in the middle of a musical composition being played, but you can on a printed version, which I'm guessing is the distinction they were making. As the decades went by, keeping references to that distinction probably became unnecessary. The original 1909 law did not include motion pictures -- they were just becoming a thing. Explicit protection for those was added shortly later in 1912, though court rulings typically had a very expansive reading of the law, such that new types of works are generally protected. When motion pictures were added, the year was not required in the notice, but it was heavily recommended. The original Compendium had more detail -- see s:Compendium_of_US_Copyright_Office_Practices_(1973)/Chapter_4#4.2.1. Motion pictures became "class L" when they were added. Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:16, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
Seeking copyright information on J.M Brewer's 1934 map of Philadelphia
I would like to know if this map is in the public domain, but I am not experienced enough to figure out how to search through the 1962 copyright records to check if the map's copyright was renewed. Unbandito (talk) 22:58, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
There is a Commons template, Template:Attribution-Copernicus, that refers to "data from a satellite". Most images using the template are satellite images, but my concern is that data does not have the same copyright protection as expressions of data (that is, charts like the one at right).
Before we go headlong into using (any and all?) Copernicus images, does anyone have authoritative proof we're safe to use them on Wikimedia projects? Are there limitations on the type of image (satellite images versus charted data) we can use? —RCraig09 (talk)15:50, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
21 apr 2023: The 2022 European State of the Climate Report.jpg
I agree, Copernicus has some excellent graphics. Same questions apply to other charts, uploaded earlier by OptimusPrimeBot:
The Mediterranean file shows more than raw satellite data such as city names and country borders. The temperature anomalies require comparison against a standard value. The 3 small charts at the bottom are charted data. Uwappa (talk) 18:54, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
In general, w:Warming stripes from their inventor (Ed Hawkins) are offered with CC licenses, and even from Copernicus are simple displays of data, so I'm not worried about them. However, the Mediterranean temperatures graphic may be more problematic. RCraig09 (talk) 04:16, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
We need more than one admin's statement that something "seems OK" and links to a file that has a Wikimedia licensing template. The issue is the scope of Copernicus' legal notice, and whether Wikimedia's licensing template is compatible with what liberty Copernicus in fact grants. RCraig09 (talk) 05:11, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
I prefer the Copernicus version as it shows the long term trend, using red-white-blue colour coding for years Uwappa (talk) 18:25, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
"One of the benefits of the Copernicus programme is that the data and information produced in the framework of Copernicus are made available free-of-charge [3] to all its users and the public, thus allowing downstream services to be developed."
A Wikipedia article's sentence is not authoritative, and the sentence merely says the Copernicus "data and information" is "available free of charge". It doesn't say anything about Creative Commons licensing. The link is to a 65-page document whose page L122/48, paragraph 36, doesn't say anything further. Please focus on the issue of licensing. RCraig09 (talk) 13:58, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
Good, this sounds like we are on the right track. As I understand it, a Creative Commons license is the most used license. Other "granted permissions" are possible. The license used at File:Record_Temperatures_in_the_Mediterranean_Sea_in_July.jpg#Licensing is such an other "granted permission". That license also links to
Wikimedia's goal is to provide a source of freely usable content, which has been decided to be covered by Creative Commons licenses—which limitations are very simple. However, Copernicus imposes many conditions, even beyond those that are acknowledged in the "Attribution-Copernicus" template. The first issue is whether the template at Template:Attribution-Copernicus validly fulfills all the limitations at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32013R1159#d1e413-1-1 and/or https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32013R1159#d1e460-1-1 and maybe others, or whether the template (which does not even recite all conditions) therefore wrongly expands the scope of what Copernicus actually grants. A secondary issue is whether the mere presence of a template validates, on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation, a permission to use Copernicus' intellectual property. RCraig09 (talk) 06:15, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
I agree with the goal of freely usable content. When uploading an image, a Creative Commons license is one of the options, see choices of 3rd upload step, Release rights:
This file is my own work.
The copyright holder published this work with the right Creative Commons license
The copyright holder published their photo or video on Flickr with the right license
The copyright has definitely expired in the USA
This work was made by the United States government
Another reason not mentioned above. The license is described by the following wikitext (must contain a valid copyright tag): ...
The template clearly states "Relevant excerpts" and links to the full texts.
Please explain, what is your problem with the template? Which limitations does it fail to fulfill?
What failed limitation do you see regarding article 7?
How can the template fail article 8? How could an unchanged image, with logo's indicating its source, fail art 8?
Which improvements would you suggest to solve the template problems that you see?
Please check your last sentence "A secondary issue... intellectual property". Does it miss a 2nd verb? As far as I can see the template fulfills a Wikimedia requirement, not a Copernicus one.
Suggestions:
Please realize: Copernicus data are public goods, to be shared with the public. Please read "Open data policy" at https://copernicus.odoo.com/faq-s
Free use isn't just a goal; it's a requirement, and a hefty one. I'll simplify my sentence that you said had no verb: "A secondary issue is whether the mere presence of a template validates, on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation, a permission to use Copernicus' intellectual property." The fact that Template:Attribution-Copernicus can be used during the upload process, doesn't confer validity to it; I'm talking about the validity/adequacy of the template itself. As mentioned muuuuch earlier, there is a distinction among: (a) satellite images, (b) data, and (c) expressions of the data in Copernicus-created charts. It's the last item that copyright protects (copyright doesn't protect ideas, but it does protect original expressions of ideas). Wikimedia's Copernicus Category seems to be filled with satellite images, the Copernicus links seem to refer to data, and Wikimedia's template refers to "data from a satellite"—but it's the creative expression of the data (in those compelling charts that we love) that is my concern. I don't see a history or Talk Page discussion underlying the template's creation or justifying its validity beyond mere data or satellite images. (In a limited number of attempts, I've found that most outside agencies simply ignore inquiries from Wikipedia editors.) I was hoping someone in this forum could shed light on the history or justification re the created charts we'd like to add. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:10, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
I understand your concern. And I do appreciate your efforts to get to the bottom of this.
Yes, there are many satellite images in Wikimedia's Copernicus category, but also a few charts, see charts mentioned above at 18:54, 11 August 2023.
The template's "This image contains data from a satellite" could also cover sea surface temperatures.
I agree with your earlier "focus on the issue of licensing" so let us do so, focus on articles.
Art 7 does not contain a limitation to satellite images. The original text mentions 'GMES dedicated data' and 'GMES service information'.
"(b) ‘GMES service information’ means information and its metadata produced by GMES services;
(c) ‘GMES dedicated data’ means data collected through the GMES dedicated infrastructure and their metadata;"
Again, nothing that would limit usage to satellite data.
It looks like Copernicus is eager to share information. Sharing information with public seems part of their DNA, a raison d'être. They make it easy to share charts with download functions and logo's on the charts. It's all ready to roll. My expectation is that they will be happy to answer your questions and see their charts shared with public on Wikipedia. So I'd say: Go for it! Uwappa (talk) 18:54, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
The presence of a few charts using a Wikimedia template, or included in a Wikimedia category that's invoked by the template, do not validate the template or its application to original creative content (like the awesome charts). We can't rely on a perception that they're "eager to share information" (note you said "information" and not creative expressions of that information). And it's faulty reasoning to say Copernicus does not contain a limitation to satellite images; what's relevant is whether it does contain a provision authorizing use of original, creative content. I'm busy, but plan to try to figure out how to contact Copernicus on this issue. You may want to do the same, but even an oral or email OK from a person in Copernicus wouldn't carry the weight of a specific concrete specification on their website, so that may be a futile exercise. 20:38, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
@RCraig09: Did you see that there is a CC-BY-SA-3.0 license at the bottom of [6]? That's where most images in the category you mention come from. Yann (talk) 20:59, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
Unfortunately, the statement begins with "The text of this website...". And it's not clear whether "this website" is limited to emergency.copernicus.eu or to all of copernicus.eu. RCraig09 (talk) 21:06, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
Indeed. So I went to the links provided in the template. The second link leads to an outdated page. The relevant page is [7]. Under Title VII, chapter III, I found: Copernicus users may, on a free and worldwide basis, reproduce, distribute, communicate to the public, adapt, and modify all Copernicus data and Copernicus information and combine them with other data and information. One can reasonably understand this as including images, since there is no conflicting restrictions. Yann (talk) 13:58, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, User:Yann. That passage is on this page at Title VII, Chapter III, Article 53, para. (a). Unfortunately, it recites data and information (like copyright's ideas and not expressions of ideas). It may not be apparent from the above long discussion, but the narrow issue isn't about "images" broadly considered, but graphics/charts constituting original, creative works of authorship. RCraig09 (talk) 05:03, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
@RCraig09: Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the intent here, but images created by the Copernicus program should be fine; images are construed as both data and information and don't need to be spelled out. Images created by others using raw Copernicus data would be fine if the creator licenses as such. — Huntster (t@c)06:08, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
@Huntster: I've been seeking without success to find concrete Copernicus permission to use "images" (or "graphics" or "all graphics"). I also haven't found any support on Copernicus for your claim that "images are construed as both data and information". The proper inquiry is the converse: whether Copernicus' references to "data" and "information" cover all "images" (or more pertinently, all graphics). Copyright law (at least in the U.S.) emphatically distinguishes between ideas (here, abstractions such as "data" and "information") versus expressions of ideas (here, charts requiring original creativity). The first is not protectable under copyright, while the latter is protectable. It's a fine point, but a critical one for graphics (not mere pictures) that require original creativity. RCraig09 (talk) 14:29, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
@RCraig09: Data is a much broader concept, and it is not the same as ideas. Ideas are intangible, data can be tangible. So why do you think that images are not construed as both data and information? This can be a reasonable interpretation. Yann (talk) 18:19, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
@Yann: Like others here, you have the analysis backward. The proper inquiry is: whether Copernicus' references to "data" and "information" cover all "images". In general, they do not. This is especially the case for original creative charts (=graphical images).
(Separately, and less to the point, "data" is indeed abstract, represented by abstract alphanumeric characters; it's true that some charts of the data are so mundane that there's only one way to represent the data so those charts won't be protectable under copyright, while other charts involve original creativity and could be subject to copyright protection. It's the second type of chart I'm concerned with here.) RCraig09 (talk) 18:34, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
whether Copernicus' references to "data" and "information" cover all "images". In general, they do not. Do you have a reference for that? Yann (talk) 20:24, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
For valid use of works, a reference would be needed that "data" and "information" do cover "images". Free use is not presumed, absent explicit licensing. The burden is on the user. Again: "data" and "information" are abstract, and "images" are concrete expressions thereof. RCraig09 (talk) 21:58, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
Are charts "information produced by the GMES services"? See definitions in
These Articles do not illuminate or clarify or explain, for our purposes; they merely repeat the terms discussed above. I don't see anything that broadens the common definition of the words "information" or "data" or "metadata" to explicitly or clearly cover charts or other works resulting from original creativity. RCraig09 (talk) 19:25, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
When I click on a download, I see the following text:
The imagery, data and information produced by the Copernicus programme of the European Union is made available on a full, free and open basis to businesses, scientists and citizens.
This Image of the Day may be reused freely and without prior authorisation by the media provided the following attribution is included:
Credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-X imagery [X must be changed to indicate which Sentinel satellite acquired the image – refer to image caption]
By downloading this image, you agree to use the above credit for any and all publications
Thanks, User:Clindberg. The key word is image, which in context refers to satellite images, not clearly or explicitly to charts requiring original creativity. Please provide a specific link if you think there is anything more illuminating. RCraig09 (talk) 04:28, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
Answer: They're all copyright violations.
Despite the fact that we've had COM:CHARACTER for over a decade and at least a hundred deletion discussions on the topic, Commons is still littered with copyrighted character images, including our current Media of the Day. To help make enforcement of character copyrights easier, I've created Commons:Character copyrights. Please help to fill in more details! Thanks! Nosferattus (talk) 21:28, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
Strongly agreed. This is an issue I've brought up a few times, and the Pantry Panic situation has concerned me for quite a long time, but I just never got around to bringing it up in a deletion discussion. Thanks for bringing attention to this! PseudoSkull (talk) 23:04, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping @Jeff G.: The examples I decided to keep were of a person wearing a superman costume, possibly a screenshot from a 1951 film, and published as advertisement in 1951 without copyright notice. If I made a wrong decision, please nominate again.
As the venerable Mike Godwin once succinctly put it, images of cosplay are "a complex and difficult issue".[8] Other cases, not so much. Nosferattus (talk) 05:49, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
@Cunard: Normally a newspaper just prints a single copyright notice covering the whole edition. Presumably it would cover the photo in question. - Jmabel ! talk04:00, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
Question about image on a NASA site credited to multiple entities including but not limited to NASA
OK, I know there is {{PD-USGov-NASA}}, but I am cautious as to whether it would apply to this situation:
Image 12 is an animated sequence of eclipse images. This composite work is credited to NSF/NASA/SAIC/NCAR/UCAR/Wendy Carlos/Kitt Peak National Solar Observatory/High Altitude Observatory/National Astronomical Observatory of Japan/National Geographic/Williams College/Meisei University.
For the animation, you will need to consider the copyright situation of all contributors. If one contributor retains copyright, then the whole of the composite work is copyrighted. You have made a guess as to the identity of Wendy Carlos but are you sure that is the right person? Also, at least two of the authors are outside of the US (those two Japanese institutions) so we can't assume that rules for US Federal organisations apply here. Unless you find a specific note clarifying the copyright situation for that animation, we have to assume that at least one of the authors has retained copyright. From Hill To Shore (talk) 08:57, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
I think that NASA credit lines should be interpreted as written in Category:Chandra_images. In other words if there is no additional comma separated credit statements then only the first entity in the credit line (i.e. NASA or NSF) matters. Other entities and names of PIs are given for intellectual credit only. Ruslik (talk) 20:13, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
Permission
Through message, upon asking by me, an artist told me that I could reuse all his art works (that he uploaded in social media, specifically in Instagram and Twitter) without asking him, even in YouTube but I should mention his name wherever I reused it. But he didn't mention any licensing statement in any of his public uploads! Can I upload those arts? If so, what are the cautions and precautions that I should take up before and after uploading those pictures? Haoreima (talk) 20:04, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
These permissions were given only to you, but not to any other person. So, with such restricted permissions his works cannot be uploaded here. Ruslik (talk) 20:19, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
Hi Haoreima. To expand upon what Ruslik0 posted above, what Commons is going to need is for the artist to give his COM:CONSENT. There are two copyright issues involved here: the copyright of the art work itself, and the copyright of the photos of the art work. Assuming that the artist also took the photos, then that makes things a bit easier since they can give their CONSENT for both at once; if, however, someone other than the artist took the photos, then that person's CONSENT might also be needed. When a copyright holder gives their CONSENT, they're bascially agreeing (in advance) to allow anyone anywhere in the world to download their work from Commons and then reuse it pretty much any way they please. Depending upon the type of license a copyright holder chooses, there may be some minor restrictions (e.g. attribution required) placed on reuse, but any license that tries to place restrictions things like commercial reuse or derivative reuse will not be accepted by Commons. The copyright holder still retains their copyright ownership over the original work (i.e. they're not transferring their copyright to Commons or any other third-party), but they are agreeing to make a visual representation of it available for others to more easily reuse without needed to seek permission each and every time. Moreover, once the copyright holder has given their CONSENT, they can't change their mind at a later date and won't really be able to stop others from reusing the photo as long as they comply with the chosen copyright license. Finally, it's the copyright holder's responsibility to enforce the terms of the license they have chosen and go after any parties that violate those terms. The Wikimedia Foundation will not step in to enforce the terms of the license or to otherwise mediate any copyright disputes between the artist and other parties. So, why it's great that the artist seems willing to allow to use photos of his work, it's important that you try and explain to him what doing so means and that Commons be provided with some way of verifying the artist has given his CONSENT. You might also ask the artist to take a look at this site since it explains in much more detail about Creative Commons licenses, which are often used when uploading files to Commons. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:12, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping. I'd say no since according to Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Netherlands there are to two criteria the building has to satisfy in-order to qualify as a public place "whether an entrance fee was charged, and whether access may be denied on private law grounds." While churches might satisfy the first one since they don't charge an attendance fee clergy can (and do) deny access to whomever they want to for whatever reason they feel like. So churches aren't public buildings regardless of if they charge a fee or not. Otherwise you might as well say places like private residences are public buildings just because people don't charge their friends to come over for a visit. That obviously not how the law works though. There's no reason churches should get a special pass either. It's clear they are private buildings because they can deny access to whomever they want to based on private law grounds regardless of if they charge an entrance fee or not. --Adamant1 (talk) 17:45, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
@Adamant1: just wondering whether that is true that churches in the Netherlands can arbitrarily deny someone admittance. I'm sure they can have rules for entry, especially ones about dress or behavior (but so can a stadium, or even a government building), but can they really arbitrarily tell an individual they may not enter? Would it then be legal for a church in the Netherlands to exclude a racial group? Or am I misunderstanding what you are saying? - Jmabel ! talk20:50, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
I do not think this is correct. Excluding a racial group would most certainly be illegal. (I live in the Netherlands). Ymblanter (talk) 21:01, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
That's essentially what I was going to say. A museum can't legally deny someone entry based on their race but are still considered private buildings because there's other criteria like hours of operation, dress codes, Etc. Etc. I assume the same applies to churches since they have services at specific times and can deny someone entry if they aren't dressed for the occasion or whatever. I'm not really sure how that would apply to government buildings or stadiums but Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Netherlands doesn't say either one are public places to begin with anyway. So... --Adamant1 (talk) 21:10, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Anything can be closed at certain times. That really doesn't seem to me like a decisive argument. What's the status of train stations or pedestrian underpasses? Would they have to be open 24 hours a day to be "public"? Even a public street might be closed to set up for a street fair, or to shoot a film.
I know that in the U.S. for purposes of FoP (which is only for buildings in the U.S., not for art) a space like Westlake Center (both indoors and out) is considered "public", even though they have the legal right to exclude someone for what they consider "inappropriate" behavior, and even though the indoor part closes at night. - Jmabel ! talk21:39, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
That's true. I don't think its the main or only factor by any means. Certainly the general ability to deny a member of the public from entering the building is more compelling. Opening hours a part of that though. But I definitely wouldn't write or modify a guideline based purely on it. The United States is more liberal for most things so I wouldn't neccesarily think they are comparable. Maybe a place like Germany or another European country since they all have extremely similar laws. Although Germany seems to be a little more strict with FOP then others. So perhaps not them. Im interested to know exactly you think the criteria is though. The fact that museum aren't covered at least narrows it down to not being purely based on if members of the public attend the place and only so many things it could be based on outside of that. --Adamant1 (talk) 22:18, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
museum[s] aren't covered: I think that's pretty universal on places with laws allowing FoP, but you are right that it does make it hard to say where the line is drawn about interior spaces. Or even what defines a "museum" in this respect: presumably in both Germany & the Netherlands, FoP would apply in a free outdoor sculpture park even though it's a type of museum. I doubt that would be less so if they closed a gate at night. FoP in both of those countries certainly applies to cemeteries, which really aren't that different than churches in terms of being able to enter, they just happen not to be indoors. I bet a lot of this is unclear and poorly tested in terms of case law. - Jmabel ! talk23:41, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
I don't necessarily disagree with any of that. I think with the free outdoor sculpture park it would depend if it was fenced off and their was an entrance gate with attendants or not. In that case I assume it would be private regardless of it was outdoors. I think German FOP takes a similar stance with private parks, where they aren't considered public places even though they are outdoors and allow public access because the owner can deny access if they want to. If it's not fenced off and/or attended to maybe though. Cemeteries are kind of a weird example. I image there it's more to do with respect for the dead and their family members then anything else. It's possible you could make the same argument for churches, but I wouldn't hinge anything on it. Tangentially related but part of what instigated the discussion was this DR. In that case the building is an old monastery that was converted into a museum. Surely it's at least a bit of a stretch to say museums in old church buildings qualify for FOP even though they don't otherwise. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:24, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for pinging me. For churches in the Netherlands I think we should differentiate between protestant and catholic churches (and perhaps other denominations, but I do not know them well).
Protestant churches have very limited opening hours, just when there are services, usually once or twice on Sundays, and incidental for other occasions (like weddings, funerals, Open Monument Day). But during services it is not respecfult to act like a tourist (which I guess is implicit to FOP: that you can wander around, look in detail to the works of art and make pictures). If you want to visit the church on other times, usually you can make an appointment with the sacristan of the church. There also may be concerts, but then there is a fee involved. Visitor attractions like the churches in Naarden and Gouda have longer opening hours, but then you have to pay an entrance fee.
In general catholic churhes have longer opening hours, usually daily several hours.
About access: I think owners have the right to deny access to their building. Usually the municipality (civil government) owns the chuch tower (dates from the Napoleonic time, see for instance Planviewer.nl) and the church community owns the rest of the building, which are private parties in the Netherlands. And in principle private parties have the right to deny access to their building. Perhaps they rarely exercise that right, but they do have it.
So I doubt whether churches in the Netherlands can be considered public places for FOP, perhaps catholic churches, but protestant churches certainly not. --JopkeB (talk) 03:42, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
This is complicated and has no legal precedent as far as I can tell. The issue is that while churches are publicly accessible, they are also places of worship where rights to privacy and right to exercise religion are very important. It's therefore debatable whether the inside of a church can be seen as a public place with all that implies for FOP. My position is that if you don't photograph during services, do not photograph worshippers (e.g. people burning a candle or praying in a corner) etc then I would consider your photo as legitimate under FOP. If you then can get in without asking permission or paying a fee (church-museum) then it's a public location.
It is not relevant for FOP whether the owner can deny you access. The legal standard is whether the public in principle has access, like with the grounds of a castle that has a sign "Open between sunrise and sundown". True, the owner can still kick you out, but this is "public" for purpose of copyright law. If it has a fence, you have to ring and discuss before you're let in, then it's not public. Arnoud Engelfriet (talk) 08:56, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
Thank you so much User:Arnoud Engelfriet. I think we can keep these images based on your view (who else could give a better view, if there is no legal precedent?). I do not want to bother you any further, but I noted some time ago photos of one of the Goudse Glazen, File:SintJanskerkGouda-Glas1c-Erasmus.jpg, designed by Marc Mulders, somewhere before 2016. You can only visit the Church where it is located by paying an entrance fee, so possibly that photo's will have to be deleted (I hope not; perhaps somebody can reach out to the artist). Anyway, many thanks! Ellywa (talk) 10:08, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
So: photos of church interiors in the Netherlands are legitimate under FOP if:
the photo was not taken during services and does not show worshippers (for privacy reasons) AND
you can get in without asking permission or paying a fee (then it is a public space). My addition: on a regular basis, not only on Open Monument Day(?)
@JopkeB: , I did include this insight on your second link already, in the English and Dutch versions. However not including Monument Day and privacy to keep it consize. I think it is transcluded on your first link. Ellywa (talk) 18:11, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
Not to question Arnoud Engelfriet's knowledge here, but their opinion doesn't at all sound like how the law works. For instance Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Netherlands pretty clearly says "Parliament and the literature explicitly mention that schools...are not public places" and you don't usually have to pay an entrance fee to go on school grounds. I don't think anyone needs to get permission to do so in most cases either. Let alone are a lot of schools fenced off. There's also issues with the whole thing about making it contingent on if the image shows a person doing worship or not. Although I'd be interested to know why exactly Arnoud Engelfriet thinks schools are not considered public places even though they seem to meet his criteria for a place to qualify as one. Also, I reverted Ellywa's edit at least to the English guideline. I don't think a single comment is enough to justify changing the guideline at this point. Especially since it's questionable and the conversation clearly isn't finished yet. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:50, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
Admittedly it's been a while since I've been to a school but at least in the United States people can usually walk onto school grounds and play on the equipment or use the sports pitches if they want to. Plus with most colleges and universities anyone can wonder the around campuses pretty unabated. Including going into buildings or whatever. I'm sure it's harder to do for most schools under the college level now with school shootings being common and whatnot, but most small schools aren't really attended by anyone after hours or on weekends anyway. Really, they barely are during school hours. Colleges and universities definitely don't check people at the entrance to the campus. Maybe it's different in other countries though. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:04, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
If you may enter a church as a tourist only on one or two days a year, on Open Monument Day and/or Open Church Day, it cannot be considered as a public place and so there cannot be FOP. That is why I brought this element in the discussion. JopkeB (talk) 03:19, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
"whether an entrance fee was charged" -> In the Netherlands there is a national park where an entrance fee is asked, otherwise you can't enter the area. Still the area is still considered a public space.
"whether access may be denied on private law grounds" -> This is so far I can see not connected with FOP. A castle garden, owned by a private organisation/family, generally open for the public, is considered to be public space. Even while private law applies. Commonly at the entrance a sign shows what the "house rules" are.
What is more relevant is if the location is considered to be destined for a closed group of people or to be open for the public. A school is destined for a closed group of people (the students who registered + parents). Churches are commonly open for everyone who wish to attend a service, but some churches may be not. Some churches are always open during the day. Most churches are closed because of the risk of vandalism and thieves (and lack of staff), but during some hours they can be visited freely.
What Arnoud Engelfriet is saying is the key here for churches: "If you then can get in without asking permission or paying a fee (church-museum) then it's a public location. It is not relevant for FOP whether the owner can deny you access. The legal standard is whether the public in principle has access, like with the grounds of a castle that has a sign "Open between sunrise and sundown". True, the owner can still kick you out, but this is "public" for purpose of copyright law. If it has a fence, you have to ring and discuss before you're let in, then it's not public." Romaine (talk) 19:39, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
I guess that sorta makes sense. I don't see how basing it on if they charge a fee or not would be a workable policy regardless though since most of the time that type of information isn't readily available and varies depending on the particular circumstance. Also in a lot of cases, for instance museums, some parts of the building are free and some aren't. Although I still don't think it matters, but there's no way to base a policy on if a places charges or not anyway even if it does. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:29, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
Many, if not all, churches in the Netherlands have a website on which the opening hours are mentioned, as well as whether there is a fee involved outside service hours. So this information is available, at least for the majority of the churches. The same for parts of museums that are free. JopkeB (talk) 03:41, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
Most people on here including me don't speak Dutch. Nor is it necessarily easy to find or navigate non-English websites in a lot of cases to begin with. So I don't know how that would be workable for deciding DRs. Except for people who don't speak the language would having to just take the word of people who do, which clearly isn't a functional way to do things. The outcomes of DRs shouldn't hinge on specialists or people from a single country who are going to bias toward keeping photographs taken there. Really, someone should be able to tell if an image is a copyright violation or not simply by looking at it. That's usually how FoP is. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:47, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
Then I don't know. I only see that a lot of cases concerning FOP in the Netherlands go to Category:Dutch FOP cases and I know for sure that the administrators who manage it (as far as I know they all speak Dutch) are not biased and will stick to the copyright law of the Netherlands. What I have experienced is that they think keeping the law is more important than keeping files. And I think one have to be at least a little bit of a specialist in Dutch copyright law to be able to judge those FOP cases, know more about it than is in COM:FOP Netherlands, be able to read Auteurswet and perhaps even to search for case law. So I am afraid that you have to rely on them. And you can always ask on Commons:De Kroeg whether someone will look up a website of a specific church for the opening hours and/or fees. JopkeB (talk) 16:00, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
I actually have doubts about the fee bit. Imagine a church dies not charge a fee, and then decides to start charging it. I hope it does not mean that the photographs taken during the "non-charged" period suddenly become unfree. And I do not think the information on when the fee was charged is readily available. Ymblanter (talk) 19:18, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
@Ymblanter: By far churches in the Netherlands are open to the public and visit is free, during service or at other moments, so according to Arnoud Engelfriet artwork on permanent display in these churches would fall into FOP and can be photographed (as they are positioned; so not in detail). A limited number of churches has been transformed into a museum, you have to pay an entrance fee (except perhaps on some special dates) and these churches are not used for worship any more. They show artwork (like World Press Photo today in "Nieuwe Kerk" Amsterdam). I have never seen a church which is operated as a place of worship suddenly asking for an entrance fee. But if this would happen, photo's taken before this date would still fall under the Dutch FOP imho. Ellywa (talk) 21:20, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
I don't disagree about administrators. They are usually pretty reasonable when closing DRs. It's more to do with voters being biased towards keeping images related to their countries for mainly nationalistic reasons, not anything having to do with the guidelines or copyright laws. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:16, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
Decisions about FOP are not a matter of majority vote, they are taken by an administrator who enforces copyright law, no matter what others may say. JopkeB (talk) 03:50, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
OK, JopkeB. I never said it was a majority "vote" and people being bias in DRs is still an issue regardless of if administrators will ultimately ignore what they say or not. Even though "voting" exists for a reason, which kind of means it's a factor in the final decision at least to some degree. Although sure it's minor in most cases, but that doesn't mean it's a completely non-existing one. The guidelines should be written in a way users can understand, work with, and that don't lead to unnecessary conflicts regardless though. None of which is satisfied by making it so only a small group of people can nominate images from a specific country for deletion or figure out if said images are COPYVIO. This is a global project and most don't speak Dutch. --Adamant1 (talk) 04:31, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
I understand your frustration. But the law is what it is, sometimes it is complicated and only applicable with more information in the local language. When people have a suspicion of copyright violation of the Netherlands, but have not enough information, they can always nominate a file or group of files for deletion or ask on Commons:De Kroeg and then (in this case) Dutch speakers can investigate the case. JopkeB (talk) 04:05, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
That doesn't seem like a good standard to me at all. If anything it just goes against the DR guidelines that "the burden of showing that the file can be validly hosted here lies with the uploader and anyone arguing that it should be kept." I don't see how would be met if the person who is nominating the image for deletion has to investigate if the church charges a fee or not before nominating the image for deletion. Let alone should they have to ask about it on the Dutch language forum beforehand. Both just puts an undue burden on the nominator that goes against the guidelines. --Adamant1 (talk) 05:12, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
So what is your solution? I sometimes ask advice to collegue admin @Rosenzweig: when in doubt about German FOP cases. Or seek a Chinese admin for nomination in their language if insuffient motivation is given to decide. I do not see what is wrong with that. Often, if information is lacking, images have to be deleted, regrettably, per COM:PRP. Based on above interpretation of the law of the Netherlands by mr. Engelfriet, expert on the field of copyright on internet, images of art in ordinary churches can be kept. Images made in churches converted into museums, which will be obvious from their websites, even for non native speakers, will have to be deleted. It is very easy to understand and find out imho for any admin or interested person. Ellywa (talk) 06:13, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with people "sometimes" asking for advice. I do that myself. The issue is that making it a requirement that people speak Dutch to research if the image COPYVIO means anyone who doesn't speak the language would have to ask for advice or not nominate the image for deletion. I'm sure you get the difference and why the later is an issue. In the meantime Arnoud Engelfriet has made it clear that this is complicated has no legal precedent as far as they can tell. So it's really all speculation regardless of if they are an expert in the internet copyright field or not.
That said, we have actual examples from parliamentary debates of places that are not considered public places despite them being free to enter. Schools, entrance halls of businesses, and museums even though plenty of them are free. So if the place charges a fee or not clearly isn't the deciding factor here. What is? We can really just skip arguing over the details and look to what is considered a public place to figure out if churches are. Public roads, squares, and railway stations are public places. Now ask yourself, does a church have more in common with a public road or a museum? Obviously a museum. So it's pretty likely they aren't covered by FoP. The specific reasons for that don't really matter because guidelines are based on extrapolating the laws from existing examples to begin with and in this case those examples clearly point to churches not qualifying for freedom of panorama. --Adamant1 (talk) 08:47, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
Again, what is your proposal? The free museums in Amsterdam from the list are totally different situations. These are not real musea with modern art on permanent display, like an altarpiece in a curch. As you undoubtely know, permanency is a requirement for FOP in the Netherlands. Please stick to the original discussion. The point is, normal churches have FOP in the Netherlands, according to the interpretation of Engelfriet. So you can make and upload photo's of anything on permanent display in these churches, as they are shown (including surroundings). The same you can do with a mural in a railway or bus station building. But you cannot do the same in any free museum, this is totally different. Please, again ... what is your proposal? Ellywa (talk) 09:44, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
Either maintain the status quo or make it clear that churches probably aren't covered by FoP. I'm not the one who wants to change the guideline though. So it's not on me to propose anything. It's on the people (or person) who want to change it to come up with a valid reason to do so. Which I haven't seen anyone here do. So what's your proposal since your the who's so admit about changing the guideline? Also, where does the guideline say anything about the permanency of art on display at museums having anything to do with if they are public places or not? Those two things have nothing to do with each other. Even if they did I've provided multiple examples of places that have nothing to do with artwork but still aren't public even they are free. So having to pay or not to get in doesn't matter regardless.
Also, nowhere did Engelfriet say "normal churches have FOP in the Netherlands" and there were multiple caveats on their speculation even if they did. Best case scenario here churches that don't charge an entrance fee are covered by FoP and we can upload images in those instances only if the images don't show worshipers. I still don't think the fee thing is supported by the evidence though. More so since you seem to be ignoring it and deflecting by making this about how long the artwork is on display, like that has anything to do with it. --Adamant1 (talk) 10:10, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
In the Netherlands (and I hope in other countries as well) explanations of laws are also part of the law. For the Auteurswet the responsible minister has given more information about what a public place is in (translations by Google Translate; it is about Article 18, Artikel 18 in Dutch):
A place that is freely accessible to the public by virtue of destination or fixed use.
This may include whether entrance fees must be paid for access, and whether access can be refused to persons on private law grounds.
Opera houses, regardless of who manages them, may be refused entry to persons on private law grounds or may be subject to payment of an entrance fee. Access to schools can also be denied on private law grounds to persons other than pupils and parents.
A museum is not freely accessible, even if no admission fee is charged. However, the public gallery in the parliament building, even if a check will take place for security reasons, must be regarded as part of a place freely accessible to the public.
I don't think I used the word "made up" anywhere. What I did say is that Arnoud Engelfriet's comment was speculation and it clearly is because there's zero evidence that anything they or anyone else has said applies to churches. You can cite the minister all you want, but I wasn't debating criteria. What I am debating is that those criteria applies in this case. So what's your evidence that it does? And maybe answer the question without miss-construing what I said this time. Like what you quoted says it depends on whether access can be refused to persons on private law grounds. Cool. Putting aside that I was the who cited that quote in the first place, what evidence do you have that churches can't deny access to members of the public based on private law grounds if they want to? Surely if Dutch churches can deny the police access while a service is going then they can also deny it to members of the public. That's a pretty text book definition of a private place. --Adamant1 (talk) 07:02, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
I am sorry that I used the word "make up".
You had questions about the legitimacy of excluding to FOP, for instance:
Schools (18:50, 10 August 2023)
Whether places can be considered not a public place though they do not charge a fee (08:47, 13 August 2023)
Having to pay a fee ("I still don't think the fee thing is supported by the evidence though." 10:10, 13 August 2023)
I have tried to answer these quesions here.
I do not think Arnoud Engelfriet's comment was speculation, as he wrote: "My position is", so it is his opinion. An opinion of an expert, which Ellywa and I value highly in this matter. And yes, there is no legal evidence specifically for interiors of churches. But we can apply the criteria we do have for judging this case. And that is what most of the participants of this discussion did. JopkeB (talk) 09:56, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
I have tried to answer these questions here. No you haven't. I never asked why museums, opera houses, or schools are considered private places. I said they are and asked what the difference between them and churches is, or more to the point, what makes churches different from those places where they would be public places but schools, museums, and business halls wouldn't be. In fact I never even brought up opera houses, you did. You also didn't answer my question about what evidence there is that churches can't deny access based on private law grounds. It seems that them being able to deny access to cops during services is an example of exactly that. So again for like the fifth time, what makes churches unique compared to the other places I mentioned that don't charge fees but are still private places and what evidence is there that they can't deny access based on private law grounds? And don't respond by telling me Arnoud Engelfriet is an expert or bring up opera houses. Just answer the questions. It's not that difficult. --Adamant1 (talk) 10:22, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
Criteria, application and conclusion
The question is: Are interiors of church buildings in the Netherlands to be considered public places for FOP? There is no legal precedent (Arnoud Engelfriet, 08:56, 10 August 2023). So we have to apply the legal criteria ourselves. These criteria and my application of them are:
Are church buildings in the Netherlands freely accessible to the public by virtue of destination or fixed use?
Usually churches are built for, paid and maintained by the members of a denomination, not for the general public. But also usually those denominations are welcoming all people into their church buildings, not only their members.
Perhaps we should introduce here opening hours to decide how public a building is: is a church building only open during services, concerts and perhaps once a year on Open Monument Day (then I think it is not a public place)? Or is it open more often, also on week days (then I think it might be considered a public place)? Websites of churches usually show their opening hours.
Must an entrance fee be paid?
Not to attend a service, though it is common to donate some money, but there is no set amount.
Some church buildings charge an entrance fee to visit the church as a tourist and then we can define it as a museum (= no public place for FOP).
So we have to distinguish between church buildings. And we can do that using the websites of the churches.
Can access be refused to persons on private law ground? If yes then a building is not a public place.
Yes, as Adamant1 wrote on 17:45, 9 August 2023, they "can (and do) deny access to whomever they want to for whatever reason they feel like." Indeed, legally they are private buildings (except for church towers), and so access can be denied, except for racial and other discriminatory reasons.
My overall conclusion: Interiors of church buildings in the Netherlands are only a public location for FOP if people can get in as a tourist without asking permission (that is: during regular opening hours on at least several week days, for every week in the year) or paying a fee, and do not take photos during services or of worshippers (for privacy reasons).
I'd say no, they aren't public places for two reasons. 1. Similar places don't charge a fee but are still considered private places 2. They can clearly deny entry based on private law grounds. As the example I've provided where they can deny entry to cops during services shows. Also, private law pertains to organizations, which churches clearly are. No offense to Arnoud Engelfriet since they are clearly an expert, but their opinion was vague at beast and mostly just repeated things that were already said in previous comments. None of the examples I brought up were ever adequately disputed either. So there's no reason what-so-ever to conclude that churches are public places. But there's multiple reasons to conclude they aren't. --Adamant1 (talk) 10:32, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
@Adamant1: 1. There are not similar places with the same conditions, so this comparison is false. Other religious buildings aren't open to the general public and do not have opening hours in what the public can freely visit the building. 2. You say "clearly" and then connect it with FOP, however that connection is absolutely not clear. The example of the police is not related to copyright, but is the result of Article 6 of the Constitution that says that everyone has the right to freely practice his religion or belief.1 The police may not enter (unless red-handed crime) because it must respect the religious freedom, and not because it is a public/private location.
"Also, private law pertains to organizations, which churches clearly are." -> A library is a public place and is also an organisation, as almost everything in the Netherlands is organised in organisations. Who owns the grounds of the library or the church, nor what kind of organisation who maintains the building is relevant for copyright law. What is relevant is if the location is freely accessible for the general public, which for most churches is the case (with their opening hours).
"Arnoud Engelfriet since they are clearly an expert, but their opinion was vague at beast and mostly just repeated things that were already said in previous comments." -> Interesting that you frame the description of the law by this legal expert as "opinion". What I have read above was not vague at at all, but a clear description of what the situation is in the Netherlands. If you consider something vague, please describe this so we can have a look at this and clarify. That other users have said the same as this legal expert (as you clearly say), is because they describe the actual copyright situation. Let me try to look up your reasons/examples.
"Also, nowhere did Engelfriet say "normal churches have FOP in the Netherlands" and there were multiple caveats on their speculation even if they did." -> No, this is not speculation, but he is taking into account that the situation differs for a limited amount of churches. As said, there are churches with daily/weekly/monthly opening hours, there are also (a limited amount of) churches that are only open for their members without opening hours to the general public. The "normal" refers to that it applies to most churches.
"Public roads, squares, and railway stations are public places. Now ask yourself, does a church have more in common with a public road or a museum?" -> Obviously with railway stations and libraries. People can freely visit (most) churches during the opening hours, exactly the same as with railway stations. (After the last train arrived, a railway station closes to open early in the morning.)
In railway stations, public libraries and churches open to the public, people can't be refused access during opening hours. (Except for the situation when someone violates the "huisregels" (rules for entering the area or building), which are often described at the entrance.)
There are not similar places with the same conditions, so this comparison is false.Romaine What places exactly and are they are public or not? My guess is you won't have an answer. Same if I asked what makes churches different or unique from the other places I've already mentioned that are private. I think the comparison to schools is probably the best one. Both have buildings with multiple rooms where a group of people from the public sit down together and are lectured on a subject. In both cases the lecture is being led by a teacher who can deny people entry if they want. Services are for people who signed up for them, or in the case of churches people who believe in the religion and are members of the church (but also sometimes sign up). Members attend services, lectures, classes Etc. Etc. at specific times of the day and week. Neither one is something that is always opening and happening. Both have dress and conduct codes for enter the buildings Etc. Etc. Just because the people are being taught religion doesn't make churches unique or special. Like if the church were a Jewish Synagogue or Kingdom Hall it's kind of baked into the thing that it won't be regularly trafficked by the general public. Just like most members of the public aren't going to attend a third grade class. Otherwise, you tell me what the unique difference between a class room/school building and your average Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall is.
As to your last part, I assume libraries are public places (if they even are) because they are government funded. The last time I checked churches aren't and there's a separation between church and state. So I don't see how your comparison is relevant. At least IMO railway stations are public places because they are usually wide open buildings that receive constant, unimpeded foot and vehicle traffic from members of the public. Which is nothing like churches. If your going to compare something as an example it should at least be semi-close and have things in common to what your comparing it to. The fact is that those no example of anything close to churches in form or function that are public places. Otherwise be my guest and provide one. Re "he is taking into account that the situation differs for a limited amount of churches." OK you tell me, where exactly is it the "situation" that churches who don't charge a fee are covered by FoP or that FoP depends on if the picture involves people doing religious worship? The last time I checked neither one of those are the state of affairs and it's just speculation that they are. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:22, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
I think the conclusion by JopkeB is sound based on the discussion generated so far. Churches can be as a public place as a railway station or a library as Romaine says above. The criteria and application of those seem like a good test if a particular church can be considered a public place according to FOP of the Netherlands. Obviously, FOP in the Netherlands has some complex nuances to navigate, and I'm grateful for the insights that have been shared. Abzeronow (talk) 15:39, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
Usually churches are built for, paid and maintained by the members of a denomination, not for the general public.
Libraries only let you borrow books if you're a member, but you can still enter the building and look around even if you're not. Likewise you can enter a church and attend a service or light a candle in the chapel even if you're not a member. So for point one, are churches "freely accessible to the public by virtue of (...) fixed use", the answer is yes.
The inclusion of the opening hours criteria strikes me as arbitrary and should be removed. (Are we going to remove photographs of churches that are only open one day a week, or that only mention the sunday service on their website? What if the website hasn't been updated in a while? What if there is conflicting information between websites, the Google profile and social media profiles? etc.) It has no basis in law and for Commons it is wildly unpractical.
For point 3, Engelfriet and Romaine have stated that the ability to be denied entrance to a building is not relevant to FOP if someone were to for instance violate the house rules. This makes sense to me; if someone is removed from a town or city hall for being disruptive, this does not suddenly mean that's not a public building anymore. I would like some more clarification on this point, though (specifically from Romaine or Engelfriet or someone else who's knowledgeable on this subject), and how this squares with the current definition of FOP-NL. ReneeWrites (talk) 00:55, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
I don't think it matters so much if someone is removed for breaking the house rules, but it does if there are rules that someone can be bared from entering the building if they aren't following in the first place. For instance dress codes, membership requirements, behaviors that have to be followed like showering before going to a church service or not attending services while being inebriated Etc. Etc. I think that's one of the main differences between churches and public places like train depots. No one is going to be denied access to a train depot if they smell bad, don't have the right clothes on, or are high on pot. You can be denied access to a church building for any of those things though. And the access can be denied based on private law grounds. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:18, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
Re "Usually churches are built for, paid and maintained by the members of a denomination, not for the general public." The Netherlands is one of the many European countries with an established church. I believe (though I'm not certain) that Dutch Reformed churches in the Netherlands are typically paid for by the government. Am I wrong about this? - Jmabel ! talk15:35, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I am afraid you are wrong. The national government (ministry of Culture) only partly pays for restoration of church buildings that are cultural heritage monuments (the rest should be paid by the members of that church, who usually try to fundraise, by the municipality and perhaps by the province). That is it as far as I know. Like in France state and church are strictly seperated (during the French occupation, around 1800, the French changed a lot of our legal structures). JopkeB (talk) 16:29, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
Church and state are not as strictly separated as in France (or US). With the restoration of church buildings the government pays a part or whole, but (after the French left) the government also has paid for dozens of churches and we have had a ministry for religious practises. Romaine (talk) 12:39, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
I follow what ReneeWrites says in the message from 15 August 2023 00:55. @ReneeWrites: what exactly would you like to have some clarification for?
Freedom of Panorama applies to all works that are on permanent public display and photographed in the "openbare ruimte" (public space). This "openbare ruimte" refers to all the space where people can freely move without limitations (except house rules and legal limitations). Just as a library and railway station, you can freely enter a church. If you enter the city hall with the upper half of your body naked, you likely will be likely asked to leave the premisses, as you will when entering a library and church. The main purpose of house rules in city halls, libraries, churches, railway stations, etc is that the people visit do not disturb the function of the building and thus creating inconvenience to others. In a library you commonly are not allowed to shout. If I remember well, a few years ago in a tv show who followed the local police/boas, a man was asked to leave the railway station who created inconvenience to travellers because he smelt really really bad. Also, if you are homeless and sit on some carton on the floor, you can be removed from the railway station. If you decide to lay down on a bench in the station, you can be asked to leave. In a church they serve you wine, in the railway stations I have travelled you are not allowed to have alcohol with you. You can be denied access to libraries, railway stations, churches and city halls for any of these things, based on the house rules (and nowhere based on private law grounds). Romaine (talk) 13:16, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
I do have an answer. Churches are religious places where members of the community gather for their ecclesiastical customs, and specifically here in this discussion it matters that they have opening hours where anyone is free to enter the building. If you want to make a comparison with other similar places, they need to be religious and have opening hours. Do you know any of such religious places? My guess is you won't have an answer. I haven't read it in your messages here. So no, your comparisons of "similar places" are false.
"Same if I asked what makes churches different or unique from the other places I've already mentioned that are private." -> Be specific, which places you mentioned that are private you refer to? As already written above, a school is not a public place where anyone can enter the building. Only people who are registered as students (and their parents) are allowed to enter. If you decide now that you want to follow a class in geography, you are not allowed to enter. In a church anyone can enter without registration. If you decide you want to visit a church mass, you are free to do so. Even if you are atheist, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or whatever religion/believe you have.
"Both have buildings with multiple rooms where a group of people from the public sit down together and are lectured on a subject." -> In the Netherlands, libraries are buildings with multiple rooms where often the public can sit down at scheduled times to get lectured on a subject (organised by the library).
"In both cases the lecture is being led by a teacher who can deny people entry if they want." -> In schools the teacher cannot deny entry for a student (unless breaking the rules). So what you say is nonsense.
"Services are for people who signed up for them, or in the case of churches people who believe in the religion and are members of the church (but also sometimes sign up)." -> In the Netherlands, church services are not only for people who signed up for them, also not only for members (in most churches) and you don't even have to believe in that religion to visit a mass. My mother says she is not religious, is not Christian or Catholic, but likes to visit church masses because she likes the atmosphere. She does not ask permission to be there, she (and anyone else) can just enter the church and sit down. So, in schools you must sign up to enter, in churches in the Netherlands you must not. So what you say is nonsense.
"Members attend services, lectures, classes" -> False again, a church mass is not for members (but for everyone), and a school class is not for members but for registered students only.
"at specific times of the day and week" -> The railway station, the library and churches here nearby are open at specific times of the day and week.
"Both have dress and conduct codes for enter the buildings" -> Every place has dress codes and other rules.
"Just because the people are being taught religion doesn't make churches unique or special." -> It's not the religion that makes a church "special", but that they are generally open for the public during opening hours makes them a public place. Comparison with schools is false as that is never generally open for the public.
"Just like most members of the public aren't going to attend a third grade class." -> Nobody of the public is allowed to attend a third grade class, unless being registered as student. Did I already mention that everyone can attend a church mass.
"Otherwise, you tell me what the unique difference between a class room/school building and your average Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall is." -> As student you are required to attend the classes, whatever believe/religion you have. On the website of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Netherlands I read that I have to file request before I can visit. If I can't freely visit a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall, it is not a public place and not subject of the discussion on this page. In the Netherlands, 99.99...% of the churches are not an Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall. I do not know your local situation, but if this is your perspective from what you look at this subject, I can see why it is not matching with the actual situation in the Netherlands.
"As to your last part, I assume libraries are public places (if they even are) because they are government funded." -> For 80-90% public libraries are funded by the government, but their way of financing does not make them public. What makes them public is that anyone can visit at any time during opening hours. The government also fund some private libraries. In those libraries you cannot freely enter. Government funding does not make something public, and the absence of government funding does not make it a private location. What matters if a location is public or private, is the question if you can freely enter or that you have to ring and discuss before you are allowed to enter.
"The last time I checked churches aren't and there's a separation between church and state." -> The last time I checked the Netherlands was not France, nor the United States. There is some degree of separation of religion and government, but there is no separation of religion and politics. If the government wants to pay for the restoration of a church, it can. In fact, the government frequently pays for the maintenance works on churches. Also the Dutch government has a history of building and funding churches, even after the separation between church and state was established.
"At least IMO railway stations are public places because they are usually wide open buildings that receive constant, unimpeded foot and vehicle traffic from members of the public." -> Major churches in the cities are commonly wide open buildings that receive constant, unimpeded foot and vehicle traffic from members of the public. Churches are more freely accessible than most railway stations: while you can freely visit the church (commonly except for the area around the altar), in the largest part of railway stations (after the ticketing area) you only have access if you have paid. Railway stations are considered public places, even while visiting is more restricted than in churches.
"If your going to compare something as an example it should at least be semi-close and have things in common to what your comparing it to." -> I did, you did not. You come up with that a school has multiple rooms, that there is a teacher, etc. What matters in this discussion is who can visit and under which conditions. In the Netherlands, what we call "openbare ruimte" (public space), the government and society refers to all the space (privately and publicly owned) that is opened up for the public (read: anyone can visit). Railway stations, libraries, churches, etc. all can be freely visited by any member of the public.
"The fact is that those no example of anything close to churches in form or function that are public places." -> That is not a fact, but your opinion, an opinion not based on the local situation here in the Netherlands.
"OK you tell me, where exactly is it the "situation" that churches who don't charge a fee are covered by FoP or that FoP depends on if the picture involves people doing religious worship?" -> I did not say that pictures cannot contain people during their religious worship, but I can shine a light on this. Overall there is so far I know no legal limitation in photographing people during their religious worship. In this matter two factors are relevant. First, like any location, a church can have set in their house rules that it is forbidden to take photos of photographing people during their religious practise. Second, in the Netherlands we have strong privacy laws, which limit the photographing of people in such a way that they become identifiable. An exception exists however for media (including Wikipedia). Still, out of courtesy and respect for the location (and to preserve the freedom of religion), photographing praying people is avoided. Romaine (talk) 12:39, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
so far I know no legal limitation in photographing people during their religious worship. I don't have the time or urge to respond to your way over long screed, but that was my point. On the one hand we are suppose to take what Arnoud Engelfriet said as gospel and base the guideline on their opinion because they are an expert. But on the other they are clearly wrong that "if you don't photograph during services, do not photograph worshippers" or it won't qualify for FoP. You can't have it both ways where we should go with their opinion "because expert" but then ignore the fact that what they said is clearly wrong in the process.
That is not a fact, but your opinion, an opinion not based on the local situation here in the Netherlands. That you say it's "my opinion" that there aren't other examples of anything close to churches in form or function that are public places in the Netherlands, cool. Provide an example then. All you and the other people who have taken issue with what I've said has done is play devils advocate. Be my guest and actually back up you said with some evidence then. What similar places to churches are public? Ten bucks says you don't have an answer. The rest what you said is just Gish Galloping and shadow boxing about things no disagrees with. So I'm not going to waste my responding it. "What matters if a location is public or private." No really? Golly gosh, thanks for telling me and here I thought we were discussing something totally different "eye roll." Just change the guideline dude. There clearly isn't going to be an actual conversation about this. Maybe next time just say you don't care about other people's opinions instead wasting everyone's time acting like you do. I definitely have more import things do then read or respond to a many essay full of mindless, irrelevant talking points that have nothing to do with anything and no one disagrees with. --Adamant1 (talk) 04:16, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
The size of my reply is 100% correlated to the amount of nonsense I read. You try to influence this discussion with false and incomplete statements, you shouldn't then be surprised that I reply in detail.
" I don't have the time or urge to respond to your way over long screed, but that was my point." -> So you have time to produce nonsense, but when someone is saying something about it and bringing arguments against it, you don't have the time?
"base the guideline on their opinion because they are an expert" -> Or we base it on people who have sufficient knowledge on the subject, or we base it on fantasy. I believe this discussion has as goal to get arguments and insights on the table, so we get the situation clear. For that purpose it matters certainly that someone is knowledgeable in this field.
"but then ignore the fact that what they said is clearly wrong in the process" -> I explained the situation about photographing worshippers. Or you haven't read it or you ignore it. If it is unclear I am happy to explain it further if needed.
Your focus on "similar places" is weird to me. You want to compare churches with other places, but I said there aren't any. Still you insist on coming with more comparisons.
"Be my guest and actually back up you said with some evidence then." -> I have, but you refuse to read it.
""What matters if a location is public or private." No really? Golly gosh, thanks for telling me and here I thought we were discussing something totally different "eye roll." Just change the guideline dude." -> You're welcome, apparently this isn't clear to you. Can anyone as easily visit a church as the city hall, as the public library, as the railway station? Yes!
"Maybe next time just say you don't care about other people's opinions instead wasting everyone's time acting like you do." -> I don't care about anyone's opinion, because I think in a discussion it aren't the opinions that matter, but the arguments that matter.
It is also important that in a discussion we talk about the subject, and do not start attacking each other. You are clearly attacking me, and at the same time you refuse to respond to refutations of the statements you made. In my opinion that is a clear sign that such user has lost the discussion, and refuses to accept it. Romaine (talk) 09:07, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
I have, but you refuse to read it. It's not that I didn't read it. It was just to rambling and incoherent to parse through. I'm sure you get the difference. Maybe next time if you want people to understand what your saying don't write a 100 line, 50 essay in reply to a simple, 2 sentence question. It's a pretty common tactic for people who don't have an actual argument to just try and overwhelm the conversation by writing walls of rambling, multiple point paragraphs that no one can make sense of or reasonably respond to. Regardless of if that's what you were doing or not, it's not my problem that you can't write a half coherent and concise response to my message. Sorry. Anyway, I'd appreciate it if we left the conversation there since continuing the back and forth clearly isn't going to be productive. --Adamant1 (talk) 05:22, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
"It was just to rambling and incoherent to parse through." -> No, it was written very clear and to the point. Point by point I explained based on arguments why the things you wrote are untrue. If it is unclear to you, you can ask questions about it. If you think something is not true, then you can provide arguments why it is not true.
"pretty common tactic" -> The only tactic applied in discussion is that one user, you, refuses to reply to given arguments. Law is a complex matter with all kinds of nuances. I tried to answer your reply carefully and precise, as you made various mistakes. The only way for you to be productive again, is when you actually reply to the provided arguments. Romaine (talk) 03:35, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
I don't think it's at all been settled (see my comment above) but it's clear that this conversation isn't going anywhere because thee side who wants churches in the Netherlands to be covered by FoP could care less about having an actual discussion about it. The guideline is obviously going to be changed regardless, but I don't think anyone is going to object after the way I've been treated for disagreeing and your wall of text. So at least IMO there's zero point in continuing this. I certainly have better things to do then deal with it anymore then I already have. Even if I didn't though there's really nothing to say in response to comments like the one you wrote this. At least not outside of what I already did, which isn't going to change anyone's opinion who thinks churches should qualify for FoP. Clearly nothing will. So I'm not personally going to waste anymore of my time or energy trying to having a genuine discussion about it. -Adamant1 (talk) 04:26, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
In a discussion arguments matter and only arguments should be used to discuss a topic. The arguments you provided have been refuted. Your continuation with personal attacks and the refusal to read the arguments provided by others is problematic. Romaine (talk) 09:12, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
No one refuted my arguments and I didn't personally attack anyone. Whatever you say though. Maybe your multiple screeds that are impossible to parse through refuted something. Unfortunately I have no way of known because they are to convoluted and long winded to read through and say that as someone who tends to long messages. Regardless, I have nothing else to say about this, which is I said I was done with the discussion. So why not just leave it that and drop the stick? --Adamant1 (talk) 05:15, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
All the arguments you provided I listed, and I explained why those are wrong in a very clear and precise, but nuanced language. Next you refused to reply to them with the given reason that the text is too long and other arguments referring to me as a person instead of the subject.
Again, I am happy to continue further discussion with arguments about the topic, but I provided an answer with arguments to all the points you brought up. So far I can see all arguments you provided have been disproven and refuted, and I see no new arguments coming in your latest messages. So if you want to drop the stick, go ahead, I am not going away. Romaine (talk) 03:35, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
Even while the input from Arnoud Engelfriet is very clear in this matter, I decided to call the government and the law office to get their input in this matter. I described to them that we have Freedom of Panorama in the Netherlands, which applies to the public space. The question I asked is them what we should see as this public space, and more precisely where the divide is between public and private, and how we should see this with churches. As reply I got from them that the general rule is that if places can be freely entered by anyone from the public, this is considered to be a public place, otherwise it is a private place. Specifically churches, if a church has opening hours and anyone can freely access and walk inside, it is a public place, if a church is only open with services then it is not. They said it does not matter if the place is owned by the government or a private organisation, openbare ruimte applies to what is accessible to the public. Romaine (talk) 04:02, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
Fort Gorge G. Meade Public Affairs Office/Baltimore Sun Media Group
This photo was posted by the Flickr account of the Fort Gorge G. Meade Public Affairs Office. Fort Meade is a U.S. Army installation and the presumption is therefore that this image should be in the public domain per {{PD-USArmy}}. It's also licensed under CC 2.0. Meanwhile, there is a photo credit in the caption reading "Photo by: Daniel Kucin Jr. For The Baltimore Sun Media Group." I'm not sure what to make of this. Do we think this is indeed free? Denniscabrams (talk) 22:58, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
It means they posted a (presumably copyrighted) photo from a newspaper. No, we can't accept it on Commons. There is no particular reason to think it was taken by an employee of the U.S. government in the performance of their duties, and a great deal of reason to think it was not. - Jmabel ! talk00:46, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
There is certainly a "particular reason" to think it was taken by an employee of the U.S. government in that it was posted by a U.S. government account. I can't think of another instance of a U.S. government account engaging in Flickrwashing. Denniscabrams (talk) 03:24, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
@Denniscabrams: actually happens pretty often; we've had to delete things that were on the White House account when it turned out they were taken by a non-government photographer. Again: they are crediting the Baltimore Sun. Why would you think the photo was taken by an employee of the U.S. government in the performance of their duties? In fact, I wouldn't even trust the CC license unless I saw it posted on a site that had a known relationship to the photographer. - Jmabel ! talk05:48, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
(After edit conflict) @Denniscabrams: People make mistakes all the time and we have seen many cases of US government entities releasing images under an incorrect licence (just search back through the archives of this page for questions about US government licences). There is no need to assume intentional "Flickrwashing" here when it could be just a simple click of the wrong setting at upload. However, both the Flickr caption and the more detailed EXIF data make clear that the photo was taken by a freelance photographer working for a newspaper. For your scenario to work, the camera's settings/EXIF data must be wrong, the Flickr caption must be wrong and the image must be incorrectly licensed as creative commons instead of public domain. If all of the data entered into Flickr is wrong for this file, we can't rely on what that page is telling us. If the EXIF data is correct, then we are left with the question of what right does the account holder have to release the image under creative commons when they are not the author? In either scenario, upload to Commons would be inappropriate while we can't clarify the apparent error(s) on the page. From Hill To Shore (talk) 05:59, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
This appears to be a 1980(?) facsimile of a 19th century translation of a work by another author. What's the actual date of the trnslation, and does the work contain 'new material' for the 1980 edition which would not be in the public domain? Thanks. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 08:04, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
This seems to be a 1981 reprint of a work by Jules Verne, was the original previously published and is there sufficient "new material" to constitute a new copyright for 1981? All I am seeing is some data concerning literary society membership and the cover image.
ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 08:09, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
No problem here. Any of Jules Verne's unpublished work got out of copyright 25 years after publication. Yann (talk) 09:34, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
1953 document by private entity (American Railroad Engineering Association), No apparent notice found, and I ran a check for renewals with nothing showing up under that entity.
PDF upload of source document is wrongly tagged as pre 1928, (it isn't).
BTW I am likely to making a lot of these 'license determinations' in the future, can we set up a proper process for this?, so I can use that in preference to DR for things like this that aren't clear CV, and to avoid request bombing this noticeboard/talk page?
FWIW, as far as I can see the source in this case did not state a rationale as to why this was PD, just asserted that it is. We always want to give a more specific PD tag for those cases. If you believe you have a solid basis for PD on a bot-uploaded file without a clear rationale, just add the correct tag, much as you would if you'd been the uploader. - Jmabel ! talk22:32, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
An organisation has offered to give me a photo to upload onto Commons. Photo was taken in 1983 in Australia. Photographer is unknown. Main subject person in the photo has passed away. Photo is of a person in a public protest event. Photo is in a private collection but has been published in a book edited by the organisation with permission of the owner of the photo. As we are unable to get free licence permission from the photographer, because they are unknown is it possible to use a free licence from the current owner of the photo? Can the owner of a photo release it? LPascal (talk) 11:27, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
@LPascal: No. Owning a copy of a photo is completely irrelevant to intellectual property rights. It sounds like it's an orphaned work, and in general Commons can't accept those.
If you want this for an article in the English-language Wikipedia (en-wiki), and they do not already have a picture of this person (or if the particular photo is notable for what it shows), it sounds like this could fit in their rules for non-free use, but to do that you upload within en-wiki; Commons is not involved. See en:Wikipedia:Non-free content. - Jmabel ! talk17:54, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
I'm wondering: is there some basis on which we can accept the photo on page 43 of the PDF (numbered 34 in the document itself) at https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0055571? Author unknown, believed to be taken in 1901, early publication history unclear. It's reproduced here in a 1998 doctoral dissertation, and attributed there as "courtesy of Tongass Historical Society, THS 71.7.14.10". If that acquisition number works in the usual way, that means 1971 acquisition by the museum, but I imagine that last is neither here nor there. Rudolph Walton has a Commons category and a Wikidata item that I recently created because I encountered two of his works in a museum, but we don't have a photo of him. & yes, I know what a mess old, possibly late-published, U.S. works can be. - Jmabel ! talk00:05, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
I can't tell whether the lack of response here after 36 hours or so is, "No, can't be done" or "No one is reading this question." - Jmabel ! talk17:35, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
Probably the later. Seems OK to me since it was created in 1901 and we do generally presume publication for pre-1928 works unless we have evidence that it was unpublished. Pre-1978, a museum acquisition would have meant publication, and if it wasn't registered for a copyright in 1971, then it would have had any copyright expired by formalities. @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): Abzeronow (talk) 17:40, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
Is there any case law on the Pre-1978, a museum acquisition would have meant publication topic? That could help solve some problems. --Rosenzweigτ17:43, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
I know there is US case law for publication occurring when a photograph leaves the custody of the original photographer as I have seen RAN cite that, and I remember reading that a work being purchased could count as publication although I don't exactly remember where I read that. Abzeronow (talk) 17:49, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
I am not aware of any copyright jurisdiction allowing a copyright beyond 120 years from creation. Images found in archives are tricky, sometimes they have already circulated in the wild before entering the archive, and others are presented to the archive by the creator as negatives, and may never have been viewed or never had printed copies distributed. We have that conundrum with the Bain Collection at the LOC, however the LOC has released them at Flickr Commons under "no known restrictions". --RAN (talk) 18:49, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
RAN: You should read COM:USA, the table on the right. "Year of first publication: From March 2, 1989 to 2002 and pre-1978 creation" results in "Copyright duration: If author is unknown or corporate authorship, the earlier of 95 years after first publication or 120 years after creation, but not earlier than Dec 31, 2047". That could very well result in a copyright term substantially longer than 120 years if calculated from creation. --Rosenzweigτ18:58, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
It looks like the 120 year rule was changed in 2003. So it had to remain unpublished prior to 2003. We acknowledge it in {{PD-US-unpublished}}. The Copyright Term Extension Act was in 1998, I have read more to see how 2003 became the year of change. --RAN (talk) 19:06, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
Unless we can find out more about the photographer, we'll probably have to assume copyright protection until Dec 31, 2047. --Rosenzweigτ18:52, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
Minecraft screenshots discussion
Hello all, I want to start a discussion about potentially allowing screenshots from the game Minecraft. According to Minecraft's commercial use guidelines, Mojang allows the commercial use of "screenshots from your gameplay or your own original art". This means that if somebody takes a screenshot of the game, or makes fan art of the game, they can use it for commercial purposes. So I'm here to ask, should we allow Minecraft screenshots to be hosted on Commons? Feel free to discuss. I think if we do end up allowing it, there should be a license tag for it. Di (they-them) (talk) 06:59, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
How exactly would we know if the screenshots are the uploaders own gameplay or your own original artwork to begin with? Or are we just suppose to take their word for it? Regardless, assuming the images were created by the uploader it sounds like they are the only ones who have permission to re-use said images. Hence why their guideline says "Your cover art should not use official Minecraft artwork (e.g. the art on our product packaging), but may instead use screenshots from your gameplay or your own original art." Nothing about that makes it sound like anyone can re-use other people's screenshots or artwork for whatever purpose they want to. Only the creator of said images and art can. --Adamant1 (talk) 07:16, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
I think that since they allow people to use screenshots commercially, that by default includes the right to let others use it. I'm pretty sure the use of the words "screenshots from your gameplay" is just advice to not violate the copyright of others, IE "don't just use screenshots you find online". The words "your cover" are used because the page is primarily dealing with the scenario of independent book publication, with the implication that the writer and cover designer are the same person in this common scenario. I don't think they would object to, say, designing a book cover for a friend's book using your screenshot. Di (they-them) (talk) 07:26, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
What exactly makes you think that by default it includes the right to others use the images and wouldn't it be "just using screenshots you find online" if people download images of Minecraft from Commons anyway? Maybe your right that they probably wouldn't object to, say, someone designing a book cover for a friend's book using their screenshot. But that's not really what images uploaded to Commons are used for. Nor are people who download images from the site usually friends of the uploader, obviously. --Adamant1 (talk) 08:37, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
When I said "don't just use screenshots you find online" I was obviously referring to violating the copyright of others. Using stuff online with a free license is clearly not the same. And the use of a friend was just an example to say that using something somebody allowed you to use isn't a violation, you obviously don't have to be actual friends with somebody to let them use your screenshots. Di (they-them) (talk) 20:34, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
Allowing "commercial use" isn't enough IMHO, does that guideline also allow derivative works? If not, then that guideline looks like CC BY-ND like and we unfortunatelly can't allow. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 02:37, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
We can't, the secion "All uses" says "All permissions and consents are given by us at our discretion and may be revoked at any time if we think that it is appropriate to do so, or we don’t like what you are doing". Commons demands an irrevocable licence. Matr1x-101 {user - talk? - useless contributions}15:06, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
Hi, FYI, I closed this as "accepted". No real opposition, and stalled for nearly 2 months. Can anyone help create a template for these? Thanks, Yann (talk) 10:32, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
You were the proposer of that proposal, should you have closed it? Nonetheless, you may understand the intricacies of your proposal better than I do, but I don't think your addition of Commons:Licensing#Old_orphan_works accurately reflects the consensus of that discussion. As I understood it the consensus was that, absent evidence to the contrary, that for old orphan works it is reasonable to assume publication contemporaneous with creation despite lack of evidence of publication. So for example, the consensus of that discussion seems to be that it is reasonable for an orphan work created in France in 1900 to be tagged {{PD-old-assumed}}{{PD-US-expired}} (or, more compactly, {{PD-old-assumed-expired}}) by assuming publication contemporaneous with creation. Similarly, a work created in France in 1920 which is determined to be anonymous after a diligent search could be tagged {{PD-France}}{{PD-US-expired}}. However, as an orphan work is not the same as an anonymous or pseudonymous work, an orphaned work created in 1925 in France, where the author is known or otherwise since disclosed, but the date of death is unknown, could not be uploaded until 2046 as assuming publication contemporaneous with creation doesn't help meet the criteria for {{PD-France}} with a known author. —RP88 (talk) 11:30, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
I requested input several times here and on admin board, but got very little answer. I also requested someone else to close, without any answer. There is not much opposition. Now we need a template, and I am open about the wording. Yann (talk) 19:31, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
Is it possible that no one closed your proposal when you requested a close was because no one felt the discussion was ripe for closure other than you? Why is a new templated needed? If we adopt a policy that, absent evidence to the contrary, for old orphan works it is reasonable to assume publication contemporaneous with creation despite lack of evidence of publication, we can use the existing templates, no need to introduce a new one. —RP88 (talk) 03:56, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
@RP88: He actually did the close after I asked him about it on his talk page. So at least I thought it should have been closed. I don't see anything wrong with him doing it either considering how long it was there for and the fact that he's requests for closer were essentially ignored. There was zero reason to keep it open regardless though. It's not like the outcome was going to change or anything if it sat there for a few more months. --Adamant1 (talk) 15:13, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
Orphan work is a legal term in several jurisdictions (at least in the European Union) and comes with a set of legal obligations Wikimedia Commons cannot satisfy. I asked twice for a definition of the term orphan work as far as that proposal is concerned, but did not get a pertinent answer, at least not by the proposer Yann (LPfi answered with a legal definition which should be that of the EU directive, haven't checked closely). So closing such a poorly defined proposal as accepted when (if I counted correctly) only two users besides the proposer agreed and others voiced different opinions ("handle on a case to case basis") is not ok IMO. --Rosenzweigτ17:36, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
I wasn't even given a proper definition what "orphan works" were supposed to be in the context of the proposal, despite asking twice. Not giving any answer, as the proposer, to that fundamental question, then saying the discussion was "stalled" and accusing others of bad faith is a quite odd modus operandi to say the least. --Rosenzweigτ19:42, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
I still think we should have a workable definition of "orphan works" because what I said is still true "we should clearly define what would qualify as an orphan work because as it is we have uploads that tell us that they're anonymous or unknown when sometimes the bare amount of research or actually looking at the photograph sometimes gives us a named author." Abzeronow (talk) 17:47, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
Wikipedia says “An orphan work is a copyright-protected work for which rightsholders are positively indeterminate or uncontactable.” So orphan works, by that definition (which is apparently the one you want to go with), are not free in the sense of Commons:Licensing (“not subject to copyright restrictions which would prevent them being used by anyone, anytime, for any purpose”). Accepting them therefore is contrary to one of the basic principles of Wikimedia Commons. I don't see any consensus for that, let alone consent by the WMF which would probably be needed for such a move. --Rosenzweigτ19:36, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
It seems you didn't read my proposal. Most of the works are not free at the time of creation, but they come in the public domain some time later depending on the applied jurisdiction. I don't propose that all orphan works are accepted. Only that some old ones are accepted under a very precise restriction. Yann (talk) 19:45, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
I read it, but it's confusingly worded and not precisely defined. But even if you exclude many of these orphan works in your proposal, all of them, including whatever sub-set you apparently want to accept, are still protected by copyright per the en.wp definition you gave. So accepting them is still contrary to one of the basic principles of Wikimedia Commons. --Rosenzweigτ19:52, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
Yes, it is precisely defined. Only 2 short sentences. Again, it seems you don't understand my proposal. The orphan works I propose to accept are most likely in the public domain, but we don't have proof of that. That's mostly the difference with current rules: loosening a bit the proof requirements. Yann (talk) 20:50, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
Actually, we sometimes already accept these works, but under convoluted arguments and after much debates. So I propose to formalize and simplify the rules. Some orphan works are accepted if an admin uploads them, while a newbie's upload of the same will be contested. So I propose to have precise and formal rules, so that contestation is not on a whim but on facts. Yann (talk) 21:10, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
The "only 2 short sentences" are probably the reason why it is not precisely defined. I'm getting the impression that what you mean by "orphan works" is not the kind of works as mentioned in that definition you linked. Is there some kind of a language problem here? So what do you actually mean by that term? Just linking some Wikipedia definition obviously won't do it, you'll have to describe them in your own words, give some examples. And also explain how the kind of works you mean with that proposal differ from those we already accept with {{PD-old-assumed}}. Is your proposal just another version of PD-old-assumed, except it's anything either older than 95 years (unless we know an author and the year they died) or meeting the requirements of {{PD-1996}}? Is this only for works for which we don't know the author, or is it also for works where we do know an author, but not when (s)he/they died? Is it only for photographs or also for drawings/paintings/sculptures, books? Will there be some research required to establish this "orphan work" (or whatever it actually is) status, or do you propose that we just accept anything without further questions? There are so many undefined variables and open questions here. This is anything but precise. --Rosenzweigτ21:34, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for your clear questions. "Orphan works" mean works "whose authors or other right holders are not known or cannot be located." For example, most graffiti are orphan works. I don't propose we accept recent orphan works, only those sufficiently old than they are most probably in the public domain. I mean to include all kinds of works. I gave as an example a picture of my grands-parents' wedding (1920). Currently we sometimes accept this kind of pictures as anonymous work, but 1. there is always a debate about the photographer's anonymity; 2. we currently require a proof of publication. So I propose that, since it is an orphan work (the last person who might have known the photographer's name died about 40 years ago), 1. we don't require a research about the photographer; 2. we don't require a proof of publication. I am quite open about other criteria. Is that clearer? I am quite open about other criteria. Yann (talk) 15:22, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
I see many problems here. They might not be very obvious in your example (1920 family photos), but the proposal is not restricted to family photos, indeed you say that you mean to include all kinds of works. In order:
whose authors or other right holders are not known: Not known to whom, and not known according to whom? For the family photos in your example the person who has the prints and perhaps his immediate family are the obvious people who don't know this and say that they don't know. But what about, say, random photos or illustrations grabbed from somewhere on the Internet and dated to 1927? Do you want to accept that the authors of these are "unknown" if not mentioned by the web site the files were taken from, and don't require any research about the author (as you wrote above)? Even when, as Abzeronow writes above, "sometimes the bare amount of research or actually looking at the photograph sometimes gives us a named author"?
whose authors or other right holders cannot be located: What do you mean by "cannot be located"? That the heirs ("other rights holders") of some authors are not immediately known? Or that somebody (who?) was not able to find their contact address? Etc. Again, probably not a big problem with your example of 1920 family photos, but much more tricky with, say, random files from the Internet.
they are most probably in the public domain: We're talking about 95 year old works here. If they are truly anonymous in a legal sense, those would indeed be in the PD in a 70 years pma country. But can we really make that determination in the case of my example files taken from somewhere on the Internet? (For German paintings, drawings, illustrations etc. before mid-1995 we definitely cannot because the old law still valid for those cases excluded them from the "anonymous works" category.) Considering the 70 years post mortem auctoris for 95 year old works, any author would have needed to die within 25 years after creation for the work to be in the public domain (vs. death within 50 years after creation for {{PD-old-assumed}}). I think it is somewhat reasonable to assume that a large majority of authors will have died within 50 years of creating a specific work. I do not think it is reasonable to assume that a large majority of authors will have died within 25 years of creating a specific work. So I do not share your assessment that the works we are talking about are most probably in the public domain.
What about audio recordings (of music)? The 95 year US terms and {{PD-1996}} on which the proposal are apparently modeled do not apply to them, indeed they have very different and often longer US terms. You say that you mean to include all kinds of works, and this is one of the other kinds of works.
These are only some of the questions that need to be addressed and answered before the proposal can perhaps be included in Commons:Licensing. As of now, it is much too vague and undefined. --Rosenzweigτ16:27, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
@Jmabel This came up in the discussion about {{PD-old-assumed}}, we decided to count an average of 50 years for the dead of an author without more information about it after the publication date + 70 pma. It's an average. We're happy than you're here with us, but I guess that some of the people born the same year as you have checked out already. That's the idea behind "average" =) Ruthven(msg)08:19, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
And we use a duration of 120 years, as it is mentioned in US law. See COM:Hirtle: "Unpublished anonymous and pseudonymous works, and works made for hire" and "Unpublished works when the death date of the author is not known" are in the public domain 120 years after creation. Yann (talk) 09:39, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
In the absence of being able to determine author, you have to draw the line somewhere, and I think 120 years is a reasonable place to draw it. I don't think that reducing that to 95 is reasonable. - Jmabel ! talk16:10, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
Not in all cases, but it is reasonable for orphan works. Deleting them because of COM:PRP goes much beyond reasonable, that's my point. There is a reason for copyright: protecting copyright holders. When these copyright holders can't be determined, joined or traced, there is no rational reason not to host these works on Commons. I see oppositions here as a matter of principle, but they are not based on practical justifications. Yann (talk) 19:58, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
@Yann: perhaps I am misunderstanding you, but why exactly should this be different for orphan works? A photo taken in most European locations in 1920 is quite likely still in copyright unless we specifically know the death date of the photographer, and that is before 1953. Why is there a big difference between "we don't know who took the photo" and "we know who took the photo but don't know when they died"? - Jmabel ! talk22:35, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
No, most of these are not under a copyright. In the example I gave, my grands-parents' wedding picture taken in 1920 is certainly in the public domain in France, but I can't upload it here because 1. I don't have any proof that it was published; 2. therefore I don't have a proof that the photographer is unknown. BTW, does a wedding announcement count as publication? Yann (talk) 17:52, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
@Yann: A wedding announcement is almost certainly "publication" (though IANAL). But why are you sure it is PD in France? Wouldn't that require that the photographer died no later than 1952? If you don't know who took it, that seems like an unreasonable presumption. - Jmabel ! talk21:09, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
For a picture taken in 1920 in France, the copyright duration was 58 years (50 + 8 years for war extension). So if the photographer died before 1965, it is in the public domain in France and in USA. My grand-father, born in 1890 and was 30 at his wedding, died in 1959. Yann (talk) 11:59, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
But it's certainly possible that the photographer was a few years younger or lived to be a few years longer. Going by the above, I'm only a year younger than your grandfather was when he died, and I hope to be around for a while (no disrespect meant to the memory of your grandfather; my mother died at 47). - Jmabel ! talk16:41, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
Sure, everything is possible, but it is unlikely. You have to take into account the life expectancy. Yann (talk) 19:31, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
Oppose. Leaning to oppose allowing hosting of such works on Commons, at least Philippine orphan works. In the case of the Philippines, our copyright law (GDrive copy by IPOPHL, consolidated version as of 2015) does not provide a provision for orphan works. And even if taking pending House and Senate bills into account, there is still uncertainty on the legality of allowing Philippine orphan works on Commons without undergoing formal permission or authorization clearance. Section 44 of the House Bill 2672 will add Section 179A to our copyright law, allowing use of orphan works as long as the use is subject to the implementing rules and regulations to be released sometime after the amendments are passed. Meanwhile, Section 78 of the Senate Bill 2326 will alter Section 179 of the copyright law by adding subsection 179.2 for use of orphan works. In this Senate bill the provision is more detailed: the user (after he/she exhausted all efforts to trace the copyright holder of the work divulged in public) can exploit the orphan work after getting the approval of the Director of the IPOPHL's Bureau of Copyright and Related Rights and also after depositing a sum of compensation money to the bureau. The amendment provision for orphan works also states that the copyright holder can no longer file his opposition, if he becomes aware that the orphan work is being exploited a year after the authorization granted by the bureau to the user. But here, if the copyright holder became aware less than a year after the authorization, he is still eligible for filing of opposition to call for user to cease from exploiting the formerly-orphan work. Should this provision becomes part of our copyright law, then orphan works from the Philippines are still not legally permissible to be hosted here because permitted uses are not compatible with COM:Licensing requirements. JWilz12345(Talk|Contrib's.)02:39, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
You can always take extreme cases, but these go much beyond COM:PRP. That's my point. As I said, we sometimes already accept such works. I propose to formalize the present situation with simpler rules. Yann (talk) 19:31, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
I don't see random photos or illustrations taken from the Internet or audio files as "extreme cases". These types of files are uploaded here constantly. I fail to see why they "go much beyond COM:PRP" or why the fact that we may accept such files in some cases (depending on circumstances, on a case by case basis) should lead to us accepting anything without further questions as long as it is 95 years old. We already have such a category for works which are at least 120 years old, with good arguments for that threshold. I could maybe agree on some kind of policy for photographs which are clearly family photos / private photos, but as you explicitly stated, the proposal is not restricted to that. --Rosenzweigτ07:39, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
I think we need to address a problem that did not yet get the attention it deserves. When closing the proposal Allow old orphan works, Yann added the following to Commons:Licensing:
or, the works were created before the pma duration in the country of origin, which would satisfy {{PD-1996}} if published at the time of creation (e.g. works created before 1946 for 50 years pma countries, if the URAA date is 1996).
As noted by RP88 above, this does not reflect the discussion about the proposal, indeed it does not even represent the actual proposal.
What this addition to Commons:Licensing essentially says is that every work that is a) an "orphan work" and b) meets the requirements of {{PD-US-expired}} or {{PD-1996}} will be accepted. In effect, it works like {{PD-old-assumed}} (with its 120 years threshold), except that there would now be a new 95 year threshold, or even lower (with the PD-1996 cases).
The original proposal however essentially said to assume publication of works upon creation for "orphan works" (as long as they would then meet the requirements of either PD-US-expired or PD-1996).
Yann's initial addition to Commons:Licensing did not only completely omit the point about assumption of publication, but also included no definition whatsoever what an "orphan work" actually is, as promptly noted on Commons talk:Licensing#Old orphan works by Jmabel. Because of this, I removed the orphan work clause as inserted by Yann, but Yann simply reverted my change and added a link to en:Orphan work, apparently thinking that is all the definition that is needed. He also created a new {{Orphan work}} template and has since added that to a few files.
The discussion in the original proposal mainly focused on the "assuming publication with creation" issue, with Abzeronow agreeing, but also noting that "we should clearly define what would qualify as an orphan work". I myself asked (twice) the question what is an "orphan work" as far as this proposal is concerned, but did not get any answer from the proposer Yann. Carl Lindberg spoke out in favor of assuming publication unless there is some specific indication the work may not have been published right away, but also said that shouldn't trump anonymous considerations, or PD-old-assumed. Gestumblindi preferred to judge such matters on a case-to-case basis. Adamant1, Ankry, LPfi, and User:Ooligan also participated, and finally, there was some off-topic discussion about "bystander selfies".
So whatever the outcome of the proposal discussion was, it definitely does not support Yann's addition to Commons:Licensing, let alone having the consensus that is (IMO) needed to add such a new policy to a fundamental page like Commons:Licensing. Therefore we should remove this newly added section. --Rosenzweigτ18:48, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
Remove the recently added section about "orphan works" from Commons:Licensing
As I wrote above, Yann's addition to Commons:Licensing does not even reflect his original proposal, let alone the outcome of the discussion. There is further discussion here at COM:VPC (above) showing further problems with Yann's addition.
So my suggestion would be to remove this addition because it has many problems and there is no consensus behind it. Pending further discussion, I will also add a vote about this here if necessary. If we want to have any addition somewhat similar to the proposal, it should only be added after a clear definition is found, consensus is achieved and a vote about it was held. --Rosenzweigτ18:46, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
Wasn't there already a consensus to make the changes in the original proposal? Sure, it didn't necessarily revolve around the specific wording but so what? Proposals aren't meant to be lay out the specific, 1/1 exact wording of how the guideline will be written to reflect the consensus anyway. Not to say I think the wording in Commons:Licensing is perfect. That's a different issue then if there was originally a consensus to add a new policy to the guideline or not. And whatever the issues being raised here are it's pretty clear from the original proposal that there was a consensus to allow for old orphaned works. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:55, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
Done File deleted, user warned. Yann (talk) 09:00, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
), File:Jersey red number.svg (
) and File:Jersey polkadot.svg (
), all under CC-BY-SA 2.5+GFDL.
Many people have made variants based on those icons (A non-exhaustive list of over 185 items is at User:IIVQ/Cycling Jerseys) almost all share the exact shape I created, and thus are a derivative work. Most do not cite my work, and some are even freed as Public domain or CC0.
Comment The publisher of File:Trains mural.jpg is the University of Virginia, so I don't see any reason to doubt the free license at the source. I don't know about the copyright of the painting, but again, I suppose that the University of Virginia knows what it does when publishing pictures on the Internet with a free license. Yann (talk) 14:32, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Markverona (talk) 05:09, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
). They are very simple and common symbols, or combinations thereof. Also compare with the metadata for this file.
You are invited to join the discussion at Commons:Deletion requests/Murals by Gregory Ackers. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:06, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
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![[3]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Freshly_painted_Decauville_locomotive_on_an_old_postcard.jpg){kind=link}
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Oppose. Leaning to oppose allowing hosting of such works on Commons, at least Philippine orphan works. In the case of the Philippines, our copyright law (GDrive copy by IPOPHL, consolidated version as of 2015) does not provide a provision for orphan works. And even if taking pending House and Senate bills into account, there is still uncertainty on the legality of allowing Philippine orphan works on Commons without undergoing formal permission or authorization clearance. Section 44 of the House Bill 2672 will add Section 179A to our copyright law, allowing use of orphan works as long as the use is subject to the implementing rules and regulations to be released sometime after the amendments are passed. Meanwhile, Section 78 of the Senate Bill 2326 will alter Section 179 of the copyright law by adding subsection 179.2 for use of orphan works. In this Senate bill the provision is more detailed: the user (after he/she exhausted all efforts to trace the copyright holder of the work divulged in public) can exploit the orphan work after getting the approval of the Director of the IPOPHL's Bureau of Copyright and Related Rights and also after depositing a sum of compensation money to the bureau. The amendment provision for orphan works also states that the copyright holder can no longer file his opposition, if he becomes aware that the orphan work is being exploited a year after the authorization granted by the bureau to the user. But here, if the copyright holder became aware less than a year after the authorization, he is still eligible for filing of opposition to call for user to cease from exploiting the formerly-orphan work. Should this provision becomes part of our copyright law, then orphan works from the Philippines are still not legally permissible to be hosted here because permitted uses are not compatible with COM:Licensing requirements. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 02:39, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
Question No further responses here? --Rosenzweig τ 10:34, 9 September 2023 (UTC)