Commons talk:Copyright rules by territory/France

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Commons:Copyright_rules_by_territory/France#Threshold_of_originality

It seems there is a clear misunderstanding, the sentence "(...) saying that a quite artistic picture of two fish on a yellow plate about a traditional Marseille meal could not be protected by French law" is not good. As per the source given [1], the trial that took place was about an idea. Explanation: a photographer is paid by a municipality to take a photo of fishes, this is a photo of two fishes in a yellow plate, but the municipality in a publication use a different photo taken by another photographer but showing the same idea "two fishes in a yellow plate". This is a completely different and new photo but the former photographer complained that "his idea" was stolen. He won a first time and subsequently lose. In no way a french court said that one of those photos was not under copyright protection. It have only been said that the second photo is not a derivative work of the first photo. I'm waiting a bit to see if somewant want to say something but I'm going to change the text of our page. Christian Ferrer ^(talk) 13:56, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I found the last appeal by the complainant photographer rejected by the court of cassation [2]. The first judges in the former trial qualified the photo as "work of the mind" therefore protectable, and the second photo have been qualified as derivative work. This decision have been cancelled in appeal and this cancellation confirmed in cassation. Note that the photos are two different photos and IMO the first judges wrongly protected an idea/concept: "2 fishes specially arranged in a plate with a special color, ect...". Let me explain, it is like if the first judges said this photo is a derivative work of this photo, simply because "this is fish and pieces of lemons in a blue and white oval dish". In appeal the other judges cancelled, IMO hopfully, the decision saying the former photo was a work of the mind, because the complainant did not explain why a "photo of two fish in a Provencal plate would come from a creative activity revealing his personality ". Christian Ferrer ^(talk) 23:50, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Anyway this is clearly a very specific and particular case and I don't think it should be used to describe the threshold of originality of France. Furthermore it is to be put in perspective with the request of the complainant who wanted a photo different from his own to be considered as a derivative work. And finally the judges made justice and found a way to say "no", and I think that by sayingthe former photo is not a "work of the mind" they simply cancell the first decision. Christian Ferrer ^(talk) 00:06, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Une exception de la règle du terme le plus court pour les œuvres américaines en France ?

Au cours de mes recherches pour mon article sur le blog WMF à l'occasion de la journée du domaine public le 1 janvier, j'ai découvert qu'à cause d'un accord conclu en 1892 entre l'Allemagne et les États-Unis (de:), la loi allemande n'applique pas la règle du terme le plus court à (certaines) œuvres américaines.

Le résultat de cette loi ancienne est que le film Disney Steamboat Willie de 1928, même s’il est récemment entré dans le domaine public dans les États-Unis, reste protégé en Allemagne. (de:)

La même situation pourrait exister en France a cause d'un accord similaire ? Veuillez répondre ici. Merci beaucoup et joyeuses Pâques, --Gnom (talk) 09:49, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Start date of 70-year term

The "Historical terms" section previously indicated that "On July 1, 1995, the copyright term for most works was increased to life + 70 years." I've updated it to better reflect the full story, which is that the copyright term was passed on March 27, 1997 but applied retroactively to July 1, 1995. This is an important distinction for URAA restoration, which occurred between those two dates, and the page should be updated to more explicitly specify which term applies.

Discussion at Commons:Deletion requests/File:À propos de Nice (1930) par Jean Vigo.webm indicated that it's the earlier, shorter 50-year term (plus extensions) that we should use. I'd recommend adding something to the effect of "Because the URAA uses the law actually was in effect on Jan 1, 1996, the earlier law should be applied when determining copyright status under the URAA." Maybe we should include a footnote about works whose copyright would've expired on January 1, 1996, as Carl Lindberg mentioned in his comment, but I'm not familiar enough with the relevant laws to put that language together accurately. hinnk (talk) 04:06, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

In short, the old duration was 58 years (50 + 8 years for war extension). So documents which were in the public domain with that duration are not affected by URAA: either if the author died before 1937, or if they were published anonymously before that date. Could a native English speaker please write a synthesis? Yann (talk) 07:49, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

COM:ITALY includes a statement like that. If we add a detailed breakdown like you're suggesting, I think it makes the most sense to put it in the "General" section the way that page does. Repurposing the text there, we could do:

Note that before 1996/7 the duration was 50 years after the author's death, with wartime extensions of eight years for any work published before 1948^[?]. Therefore the calculation of the duration of copyright before the URAA date must consider these protected for 58 years after the author's death, meaning that works by authors who died in 1937 or before were in the public domain at the URAA date.

Not sure about that 1948 date though, I took it from fr:Prorogations de guerre. hinnk (talk) 08:45, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

The 8 years extension concerns works published before January 1st, 1948. For us, this would only concerns works of authors who died before 1937, but which were published posthumously before 1948. Yann (talk) 09:26, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

It's what we apply already. It's documented for example in Template:URAA artist and Template:France wartime extensions URAA. But yes a note can be added here also if useful. -- Asclepias (talk) 13:11, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

I certainly would find it useful that anything codified on a template is also documented at COM:Copyright rules by territory. I usually use the table at en:WP:Non-US copyrights to check URAA-date copyright terms, but that loses much nuance, and I also think it is suboptimal that a central and multilingual project relies on a project page at a single Wikipedia. Felix QW (talk) 19:00, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

I think Asclepias was mostly confirming that application of the 58-year term is correct and already in practice, which I definitely appreciate since this is out of my depth and I don't want to be introducing errors.

I've gone ahead and added the note. It's reworded slightly from the proposed version above (I think the COM:ITALY text was loosely translated from Italian), but I think it still covers the main points. hinnk (talk) 10:08, 13 September 2024 (UTC)