Commons talk:Freedom of panorama

Shortcut: CT:FOP

About Commons:Freedom of panorama

Hello Wikipedians,

How does Freedom of panorama work in practice?

Why is this image nominated for deletion because of "Freedom of panorama" but images that follow the same logic are actively used everywhere on Wikipedia, e.g. – here, here, here and here? And many other examples.

Why do some images "violate" FoP, while others images of the same type do not?
The force of ikigai (talk) 01:20, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) @The force of ikigai: the BITE building is obviously a fairly recent creation, so its design is presumably the intellectual property of a living architect (or perhaps the heirs of one recently deceased). OTOH the design of the Gediminas Tower was created centuries before copyright law even existed. I don’t know about the other buildings, but offhand they look old enough for their copyrights to have expired, if they had any to start with. Since the purpose of FoP is to exempt certain publicly visible works from some of their usual copyright protections, it’s quite irrelevant to works that are already in the public domain.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 02:01, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I had a look at the laws quoted by Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Lithuania.

You are free to take pictures of buildings and statues (that are in public view). You can also spread those images.

The force of ikigai (talk) 02:09, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@The force of ikigai: I think you’re neglecting ¶2, which says ¶1.1 (in bold below) does not apply to commercial use of images with the work in question as their principal subject. We require the media we host to be free for all purposes, including commercial uses.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 02:24, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@Odysseus1479 one of the images cited by The force of Ikigai is of Lithuanian Drama Theater. The case of the theater is complicated, as its component buildings are a mixture of old (early 20th century) and new buildings (from 1981 and from 2010s). See also Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Lithuanian National Drama Theatre JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 02:37, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, @JWilz12345, from the enWP article I gather that even the mediaeval tower underwent restoration about a century ago. But I assume the supervising architect’s contributions in that case were not of a creative nature, rather adhering as much as possible to the original builders’ concept. No matter how straight-forward a copyright law may seem, its application to specific cases is very often a different story.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 02:57, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

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So I had a look at the laws and WP Commons:

1. Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Lithuania

2. The law mentioned in the Commons article, i.e. Law No. VIII-1185 of 1999, as amended up to Law No. XII-1183 of 2014, Article 28

– see VIII-1185 of 1999 at https://e-seimas.lrs.lt/portal/legalAct/lt/TAD/TAIS.81676/oNckmeLCYP

– The law mentions an amendment XI-1833 which can be found at: https://e-seimas.lrs.lt/portal/legalAct/lt/TAD/TAIS.415881

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The amendment (XI-1833) says:

• Pakeisti 28 straipsnio 1 dalį ir ją išdėstyti taip:
• „1. Be kūrinio autoriaus ar kito šio kūrinio autorių teisių subjekto leidimo ir be autorinio atlyginimo, tačiau nurodžius, jei tai įmanoma, naudojamą šaltinį ir autoriaus vardą, leidžiama:
• 1) atgaminti ir viešai paskelbti architektūros kūrinius ir skulptūras, sukurtus nuolat stovėti viešosiose vietose, išskyrus atvejus, kai jie eksponuojami parodose ir muziejuose;
• 2) pastato ar kito statinio projektą, brėžinį, eskizą ar modelį panaudoti to pastato ar statinio rekonstrukcijai.“

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The bold part clearly says that buildings that are in public can be publicised.

So where and how did Commons came up with the idea that buildings are not allowed to be reproduced in public?

The force of ikigai (talk) 01:55, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@The force of ikigai you missed an important part of the Lithuanian FoP that clearly makes images of copyrighted works of architecture and monuments of that country not suitable for Wikimedia Commons. Based on the copyright law (in Lithuanian text):

28 straipsnis. Architektūros ir skulptūros kūrinių autorių teisių apribojimas
1. Be kūrinio autoriaus ar kito šio kūrinio autorių teisių subjekto leidimo ir be autorinio atlyginimo, tačiau nurodžius, jei tai įmanoma, naudojamą šaltinį ir autoriaus vardą, leidžiama:
1) atgaminti ir viešai paskelbti architektūros kūrinius ir skulptūras, sukurtus nuolat stovėti viešosiose vietose, išskyrus atvejus, kai jie eksponuojami parodose ir muziejuose;
2) pastato ar kito statinio projektą, brėžinį, eskizą ar modelį panaudoti to pastato ar statinio rekonstrukcijai.
2. Šio straipsnio 1 dalies 1 punkto nuostatos netaikomos, kai architektūros kūrinys ar skulptūra yra pagrindinis vaizdavimo objektas reprodukcijoje ir kai tai daroma siekiant tiesioginės ar netiesioginės komercinės naudos.
3. Šio straipsnio 1 dalies 1 punkto nuostatos nesuteikia teisės atgaminti architektūros kūrinius pastatų ar kitų statinių pavidalu ir daryti skulptūrų kopijas.

An image of a Lithuanian building or public monument whose architects, sculptors, or muralists are either still alive or have died for less than 70 years ago cannot be freely reproduced by the general public, if the intent of the image or video is to be sold or used in commercial items or media (postcards, travel websites and others). This makes Lithuanian law not suited for Wikimedia Commons in the context of the free use and exploitations of copyrighted Lithuanian works in public spaces without the artists' permissions. So deletions of Lithuanian monuments are valid and reasonable, unless that country removes the "2." provision that is not suited to Internet age, where any commercial distributions are unavoidable. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 02:20, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

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Thank you for you reply @JWilz12345. Indeed, the point you highlighted, point "2" states that point "1" does not apply if the images are used for commercial purposes. While upload to WP:Commons would not constitute commercial use, WP:Commons allows download and commercial usage. So indeed, point "2" is probably a dealbreaker. My bad. I'll try to get the point "2" changed. Thank you for your patience with me and an amazingly clear response. The force of ikigai (talk) 02:37, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@The force of ikigai you're welcome. In fact, I was also in disbelief (during my first times here in Commons, from 2016 up to 2020) that our country also does not provide FoP. Unlike Lithuania which has explicit FoP (though non-commercial), the Philippines law (Republic Act 8293) lacks any provision resembling FoP. It is normal that either first time users or non-regular users may not fully understand the legal issues concerning distributions of images that may show recent public monuments or architecture.

A few countries successfully implemented FoP though, notably Belgium for both buildings and monuments in July 2016 and Russia for buildings and land arts (landscaping; but not sculptural monuments) in October 2014. Not sure if Lithuania would follow the progressive path Belgium took 7 years ago, or would chose to stay the non-commercial restriction even if it means lesser exposure of Lithuanian culture in arts and architecture over the Internet. And just a trivia, according to my compilation at meta:User:JWilz12345/FOP/Global statuses, much of our world is a no-FoP world. Including seven countries with partial de jure FoP for architecture only and not sculptural monuments, only 86 have full FoP (about 44% of all countries. This means the matter is very complex as majority of countries do not provide FoP/commercial FoP, not just limited to Lithuania or the Philippines. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 02:46, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Marshall Islands

At the moment COM:FOP Marshall Islands is quite confusing: it says probably not OK if reproducted as audiovisual works, but then cites the only IP law in the country and concludes that FOP is not prohibited, so {{PD-Marshall Islands}} should be used. The presence of a citation needed tag makes me assume the first part was from Wikipedia, but I can't find the source, and the entire section was added at the same time. Should this be changed to simply say probably OK, as the only IP law doesn't mention any FOP restrictions, and only audio and audio-visual works are protected by their IP law (so architecture, statues, etc. do not seem to be)? ‑‑Yodin^T 10:24, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Unarchiving, as it still seems to be a problem. ‑‑Yodin^T 12:15, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@Yodin ping @Liuxinyu970226: over Marshall Islands concern (they created that section). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 14:24, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Ideas wanted to tackle Freedom of Panorama issue

Hello all! The Structured Content team is focusing this year on trying to reduce the burden on administrators and moderators arising from the deletion backlog. We found out in an analysis we conducted in July-August 2023 that Freedom of Panorama is one of the major causes of deletions, and that it is a major cause of concern when it comes to determine if a media needs to be deleted or not.

Our team would like to help out in dealing with potential medias that violate FoP, by brainstorming potential solutions with those who are involved and know more about this issue. We are open to all kind of contributions and suggestions, so please reply in this thread with your ideas or share them in this Etherpad, and we will evaluate the feasibility of ideas that you might want to share with us. Thanks in advance! Sannita (WMF) (talk) 16:56, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Not necessarily a helpful idea or anything, but I think it's important to acknowledge that a huge portion of deletion requests that are categorized under "freedom of panorama" are probably better categorized under "copyright." Freedom of panorama rights, where they exist, almost always apply to photos of copyrighted works situated permanently and publicly. But when I see a photograph of a copyrighted work photographed somewhere with no Freedom of Panorama, I'll usually tag the deletion request with "no FoP" or "no Freedom of Panorama," regardless of whether or not the work is there permanently/publicly, even though the enacting of Freedom of Panorama in that situation wouldn't really solve the copyright violation if the work is only being exhibited there temporarily. I don't know if I'm even sounding understandable here because it's such a tiny distinction, but given the raw number of deletion requests (over a million, if I'm reading your analysis correctly), that kind of distinction could make a real difference in the application of any changes.

At the same time, this could certainly be a conversation for broader, longer term policy goals as suggested in the linked brainstorming document - instead of just calling for Freedom of Panorama laws in more countries, some people might argue that it would be better to call for even freer Freedom of Panorama laws that apply to more than just photos of permanently sited publicly accessible works. I don't necessarily agree with that, because I think artists for example should be able to exhibit their copyrighted work without it being inherently open to monetization by anyone who can photograph it, but it's an interesting line of thought. 19h00s (talk) 20:35, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

@19h00s you may also want to look into meta:Freedom of Panorama (a page that I started and can be enhanced by all users), which stemmed from my hopes that more countries should have sufficient FoP that does not restrict commercial and new/digital media (Internet) uses. It seemed that my suspicion may have been right after all: that a substantial (not necessarily majority) percentage of all deletion requests concerns works of art and buildings from 100+ countries that do not provide free culture FoP (our country included as of now). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 00:49, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

@Sannita (WMF) you can also try to look into the aforementioned page I started. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 01:00, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

@Sannita (WMF) I'll state my POV here on one suggestion on Etherpad.

One of the suggestions I read was allowing Wikimedia Commons to finally host unfree buildings, like w:en:Burj Khalifa, w:en:Louvre Pyramid, w:en:Malacañang Palace, and other copyrighted buildings from almost 110 no-FoP countries, by applying U.S. FoP (on the reason that Wikimedia's servers are physically located in the U.S., therefore U.S. laws are applicable), which seems a similar approach to enwiki's practice of only following U.S. law. A possible remedy on restrictive local copyright laws is by adding a warning tag to all images of these architectural works.

This may seem to be an optimal solution, but not a very good one. This will put Wikimedia Commons in the line of fire from several anti-FoP groups like ADAGP, which some peeps may recall as a major critic of Wikipedia/Wikimedia community during the discourse on EU-FoP in 2015. ADAGP's fiery anti-Wikipedia presentation mentions architecture and gives some examples of French buildings (like Stade de France and the European Parliament in Strasbourg). There is an implicit indication that Wikipedians should require architectural authorizations to use such buildings on all Wikimedia sites. (Note that ADAGP seems to equally treat Wikimedians and Wikipedians as a same, single community.) Restriction tags are not sufficient, as ADAGP can still claim that those images are under commercial Creative Commons licenses, which they claimed as "unacceptable". Netizens and re-users may completely ignore the content of those restriction tags, whether unintentionally or willingly, and use those images commercially.

While we can safely say that ADAGP's anti-FoP remarks may only affect French buildings, ADAGP may have the ability to influence like-minded individuals, politicians, or groups in some no-FoP countries and may even call for boycott of or sanctioning Wikimedia sites on a global (or at least, European) level for disrespecting architectural copyrights (which may potentially affect English Wikipedia too). This is a potential clash between "choice of law" doctrine (to only comply with U.S. law) and the principle of "country of origin" by the Berne Convention (more followed by the European world).

The best solution still is the one Belgian Wikimedians took, by lobbying and advocating FoP, which they finally succeeded in 2016 (any long-term Wikimedians should be aware of the success story of Belgian Wikimedians). This success story is supposed to be emulated by all remaining chapters and user groups of Wikimedia, from no-FoP countries like South Korea, Romania, Indonesia, and many others.

An alternate solution is following the success story of Russian Wikimedians in 2014, to call for commercial FoP for architecture and landscape art only. While this may still be limited for some users like me (because it excludes public art like sculptural monuments), it does give ample breathing space for Wikimedians to finally share architectural heritage and freely conduct urban photography (excluding murals and sculptural monuments) on Wikimedia Commons. An architectural FoP may be the best option, IMO, in countries which I suspect the private protection of public/national monuments (by sculptors or their heirs) is very intense, perhaps like Guatemala, Romania, or possibly Iceland. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 18:11, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

• There is no real distinction between Wikimedia Commons and the English Wikipedia. Both are operated by the same entity, hosted in the same place, accessible from the same places. They are, for all intents and purposes, one and the same.
  • The WMF is entirely fine with following US law on this issue, as evidenced by the fact that images of French buildings (and buildings in other "no-FoP" countries) are freely hostable on the English Wikipedia.
  • If organizations like ADAGP have problems with photos being on Commons, they have problems with then being on the English Wikipedia. To suggest that Commons is different is a bit absurd (even putting aside the effect of kneecapping Commons).
• Keeping free files from being hosted on Commons is an encumbrance for users of different Wikipedias, who, if they want to use these photos (which are totally free in the US and many other countries), must fragment these files. Why must the German Wikipedia (which itself is hardline on copyright issues in DACH countries) keep its own copies of photos of French buildings, even if the same photos exist on the English Wikipedia? This is the problem Commons was created to solve.
• The fact that someone complains about something on Wikimedia Commons is not a good reason to take it offline. The fact that the NPG complained about photos of old artwork being put on Commons, for example, is no reason to take that artwork offline.
• The Berne Convention's "country of origin" provisions have nothing at all to do with the freedom of panorama. (Also, the country of origin is the country of first publication, not the country of creation.)
• The responses original 2012 proposal in question... doesn't really make a ton of sense with respect to FoP, since the US has a pretty restrictive FoP to begin with (architecture only).
  • Also, in any case, lex loci protectionis applies in *any* case. There are tons of things on Commons which are not PD *somewhere*. The instances menitoned by the objectors you mention were not problematic because they were pictures of buildings in the country in question (which is actually usually allowed for non-commercial purposes, anyway), but because they were accessible from the country in question. But we're not going to restrict ourselves to this stifling "rule of the longest term."
• Users in countries where the files may not be free should check their countries' law, as always, just as they must with files that are free in the US, but not in the user's country (under current policy, there are tons of these on the site — depending on where the user is in the world, and how that country's laws intersect with US and source-country laws). We can even include a warning template.
• I agree that users around the world should continue to campaign for better copyright laws. But doing so is not mutually exclusive with making Commons policy less self-defeating. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 06:07, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

• It would be great if it would be allowed to upload photos of non-free architectural objects here (with a warning about the lack of FOP in the source country). The servers of Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia are located in the US, so the US FOP (for architecture) would be applicable to all non-free architectural objects in other countries). Unfree architecture is a very big problem here. I filtering a huge number of high-quality photos when uploading via Flickr due to FOP problems (99% - architecture-related files), and other users spend a huge amount of time searching for no-FOP-architecture files and deleting them also. Юрий Д.К 03:52, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  @Юрий Д.К. read my reservation above. Take note, by orienting Commons towards U.S. law (by virtue of choice of law due to location of servers), the community may face again the anger of ADAGP (of France) and other groups from no-FoP countries. The tags are essentially useless, because re-users will certainly ignore such and use those files commercially, which can lead to ADAGP and other groups to condemn Wikimedia Foundation again like they did in 2015, this time for only respecting U.S. law and not laws of other lands. Note that ADAGP also criticized Facebook and some other social media platforms due to the same issue. I still support maintaining status quo, and Wikimedia affiliates / chapters should follow / be inspired from Belgian and Russian moves. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 04:33, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  Note that the suggestion is very similar to a proposal suggested in a 2012 RfC regarding modern monuments issue in the aftermath of 2012 DMCA Oldenburg take down notice. The oppositions by Rillke, Pan BMP, and Gestumblindi are convincing enough for me to oppose shifting Commons to respect U.S. law only for architectural FoP cases. Perhaps the backlog faced by admins and nominators is eliminated or alleviated, but expect complaints from French, Greek, and Moroccan architects (the French architects or ADAGP may even send take down notices if they found Commons hosting French buildings). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 04:39, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

@Sannita (WMF) How about to restrict the amount of uploads from whoever has more than x uploads deleted in a timespan of x days for the amount of x days? x stands for a number still in need to be discussed. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 12:42, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

As I said in the EtherPad:

The most problematic type of freedom of panorama deletions come from photos of cityscapes and buildings (*not* sculptures — different considerations apply) in countries where the laws on distributing photographs of buildings are strict (usually because they contain some sort of proviso about commercial use).

Wikimedia Commons is based in the United States, and so has to follow US copyright law. The application of foreign copyright law on Commons is voluntary (based on the community's decision). By contrast, the English Wikipedia is perfectly happy to host files that are in the public domain in the US but not in the work's country of origin. Whether or not it is a good idea to have this sort of extra restriction on ourselves on Commons is a different discussion. But we can say at the very least that it is not sacrosanct. It certainly is not a legal restriction. We can set our own community standards for how much we require (by our own will) that non-US copyright laws be applied to restrict Commons uploads.

When it comes to reproducing non-architectural works of authorship, I would posit that there's probably a higher level of understanding on the part of the photographer or copier that what is being reproduced is a "creative work" in the more traditional sense. Copying a painting, sculpture or photo, for instance, the copier generally thinks of the work as a paradigmatic creative work. Buildings are more part of the landscape of the world around us. It is no coincidence that architecture itself was not copyrightable in the United States until relatively recently.

Taking pictures of the cities around us is a pretty normal — even encouraged! — part of contributing to Commons. If we require every user who goes to a country without FOP for architecture to research the architects and construction dates of every building, this naturally creates significant difficulties — much more than would be created by requiring this for photographs of copyrighted sculptures (which are much easier to avoid than works of architecture).

This is not about the copyright terms for buildings. Buildings' copyright terms in the US and elsewhere are generally pretty similar now (life+70 is common). This is instead about whether or not an exception applies relating to reproduction. We can compare the PD-Art rule. Notwithstanding the fact that in some countries (as awful as this may be), reproductions of two-dimensional objects may have their own copyrights, the US does not have this rule, and we have a copyright template that can be applied (rather than having to go delete the files on the basis that they're copyrighted in the country of origin). Why not just have a template indicating that there may be restrictions on using the photo of a building in the place where the building was taken, but that there aren't any in the US? This would save a lot of deletion requests and would not be legally problematic (on the basis that the WMF can serve any US-eligible file, as it does on enwiki).

Even countries that lack freedom of panorama for commercial purposes tend to allow it for *non*-commercial purposes. Displaying the file on Commons, even to users in these countries, is not a violation in itself. Nor would uploading and using the image for non-commercial purposes on those countries. While this is a restriction which makes the files non-free in those countries, this is better dealt with using a warning tag rather than applying overly strict rules and hurting the ability of Commons to collect these images which are free in Commons' home jurisdiction (and which users in those countries can almost always publish and use for non-commercial purposes anyway).

On the other hand... While various non-US countries provide exceptions in their copyright law allowing for the free (or mostly free) reproduction of images of three-dimensional artwork which is itself under copyright, there is no such provision in US law (except for buildings). Commons normally requires all items submitted to be in the public domain (or freely licensed) in the US and in the country of origin of the work. Adherence to the copyright laws of non-US countries is, from the perspective of Commons, voluntary. But since Wikimedia Commons is hosted in the United States, it is necessary to follow US copyright laws.

From a copyright-theoretical standpoint, there's no reason to think that the freedom of panorama which may exist in some foreign country is applicable in the United States. The current practice of the WMF seems to be to tolerate all images taken with FOP justifications under the law of the place where the image was taken. This does not lead to make takedown requests in practice. In the one instance where I know it to have happened (Legal:DMCA/Oldenburg), I don't believe that the takedown request was challenged. I'm not sure that the WMF really "endorsed" lex loci protectionis by doing this (since I understand that DMCA takedown requests unchallenged by the original uploader need to be allowed to stand by default).

In any case, of course, the WMF's opinion doesn't really matter; only a court's would. But considering that US courts seem to apply lex loci protectionis in other copyright-protection contexts, there is no reason which seems justifiable to me to believe that it would not be applied with relation to the lack of freedom of panorama in the US. Put another way: the US statutory copyright in a work of authorship (such as a sculpture) exists (since 1978) from the moment it is put in a fixed form. But whether or not a photograph is an infringing one does not depend on where the photograph was made; it depends on the content of the photograph. A drawing that is derivative of a copyrighted sculpture (which happens to sit in Germany) would be infringing under US law whether drawn from life in Germany or drawn from memory in the US.

It can be reasonably said that most people do not really seem to care to send takedown requests related to their copyrighted sculptures. But since when is that good enough for Wikimedia Commons? It seems hard to square the existence of non-architectural FOP files with US law. The main issue is that there are so many that it would be difficult to review all of them. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 06:09, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

@D. Benjamin Miller regarding warning tags, please keep in mind that what I am referring to are re-users. Especially here in the Philippines, there is a tendency for the so-called restriction tags to be ignored by the general public, because anything legalese is a jargon here. Therefore, re-users here as well as in France and other no-FoP countries can actually exploit the images that comply with U.S. FoP for commercial purposes, because those are under commercial CC licenses in the first place. This will trigger some lawsuits against those re-users, and it is certain that the re-users will pinpoint the source as Wikimedia Commons, reigniting the criticisms of ADAGP against Wikimedia.

Again, letting Commons follow the enwiki practice of allowing the likes of Burj Khalifa, Louvre Pyramid, Malacañan Palace and other copyrighted buildings of no-FoP countries sets a precedent for Commons to veer away copyright laws outside U.S., on the basis that Commons' servers are in the U.S. and that only U.S. law is to be respected. From the beginning, the project has been a multilingual project and it was a longstanding community decision to apply FoP rules of non-U.S. countries as a compromise. It is not a good justification for Commons to only respect the law of the U.S. on the grounds of the country of Wikimedia servers as well as to immediately solve the issue of numerous FoP-related deletions (I treat it as a band-aid solution).

Other Wikimedia chapters and user groups may soon lose interest in campaigning for FoP introductions in their regions/countries, because Commons may be viewed as only serving the interests of U.S. users (just by following U.S. FoP law). There are efforts being made by several Wikimedians here in the Philippines as well as in South Africa to introduce sufficient FoP (the type of FoP that is not the same as U.S. architectural FoP). I am also aware of possible FoP-related discourse among Wikimedians based in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands.

The worse case is that your suggestion will lead to requests by ADAGP and other anti-FoP groups to call for sanctions against Wikimedia for only respecting U.S. law and not law of France etc.. Here in the Philippines, all websites are expected to follow Philippine laws and regulations (like anti-cybercrime law and regulations in prohibiting unlicensed selling of text-blasting machines), even if violations of such rules are tolerated in the websites' server countries (like U.S. or Singapore). We may have solved the FoP-related deletions problem and rejoiced by restoring thousands of Burj Khalifa and European Parliament building images, but expect complaints from anti-FoP politicians and groups from France, Greece, and some other countries.

I still stand at maintaining the status quo just like what the 2012 RfC turned out. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 06:32, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, for France, I don't expect much issues for re-users, except for a few famous buildings (the Louvre pyramid, etc.) where the copyright holders pursue an aggressive takedown policy, but there will be complains from anti-FoP lobby groups. Yann (talk) 08:53, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Re-users have to check the terms that apply to their use in the appropriate country, as always. This goes beyond copyright. To be clear, the vast majority of countries do allow for non-commercial FoP. Even the ADAGP's argument was that "who knows, one day Wikimedia might turn commercial." Yes, commercial users (such as those who might incorporate the image into advertisements) need to be careful in countries like France. But compare this with Template:Personality rights. We have hundreds of thousands of photos of identifiable people on Commons. In many places, you can't use these photos in advertisements. But we will not and should not remove all the photos we have of notable people.

I'm not in any way against including a warning tag. We should include one for when the photo is of a building in a non-FoP country, sure.

Also, FoP for buildings is not a principle specific to the US. It exists in many countries around the world. So the benefit is not reserved exclusively for US users.

Finally, as I said, Wikimedia already hosts photos of all these buildings. Go to en:Louvre Pyramid or en:Burj Khalifa and you'll see those photos. There is no difference between the WMF hosting these photos on enwiki and on Commons. Any opposition that ADAGP would have to hosting the photos on Commons would apply equally to hosting them on enwiki (and the many other Wikipedias that support local file uploads).

The "worst case" argument essentially leads to the conclusion that we should follow the most restrictive laws in the world. The WMF already hosts many things that are prohibited in some country or another (whether by copyright law or some other law). So some governments don't like the site, and some people may complain... but that'll always be the case. FoP images being hosted here, on what is (in fact) a non-commercial site, is probably one of the less controversial things we could do.

Even the usual Commons rules on having a work be in the public domain in both its home country and the US are less strict than this. For example, imagine a photo first published in 1927 in the Netherlands created by a Dutch photographer who died in 1975. The image is in the public domain in the US, but not in the Netherlands. Anyone who uses that image in the Netherlands in any way (except within the exceptions to copyright) is infringing copyright. By contrast, a user in France who downloads a picture of the Louvre Pyramid and uses it for non-commercial purposes isn't infringing any copyright by doing so. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 16:09, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

@D. Benjamin Miller we also consider the end-users, not only uploaders. You will create new troubles by forcing all Wikimedia projects to only respect and follow U.S. laws just for "country of Wikimedia servers" reasoning. Theoretically, ADAGP and the like-minded groups and politicians (from France for example) may file complaints against Wikimedia – either European or international level – for making Wikimedia Commons being too centered on U.S. copyright law and ignoring copyright laws of other countries. Perhaps they may request Commons be censored in France, Greece, etc., for only hosting architecture that, although free in the U.S., are not free in those countries.

For German Wikipedia which chose to follow German FoP, this is because majority of the readers are living in German-speaking countries which have sufficient FoP (Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Austria), so there are virtually little issues in locally hosting copyrighted public art. Note that German Wikipedia's servers are in U.S. too, yet they do not follow U.S. copyright law. Wikimedia Commons aims to be an international/global project that seeks to comply both U.S. copyright law and the copyright law of the country where the depicted object is found (the latter is only considered for contemporary public art); it does not only serve the interests of U.S. uploaders and readers.

The status quo situation is the most stable option, which hasn't been challenged for about 12 years (from 2012), until contested by users like you now. Urge / encourage all remaining Wikimedia chapters or user groups to introduce FoP (at least architectural FoP) if we desire to reduce deletion request backlogs. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 00:02, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

1. English Wikipedia is accessible in every country around the world (well, except those that block the open internet generally). People read the English Wikipedia in every country in the world. The ADAGP has never demanded that English Wikipedia be blocked for hosting FoP buildings. I'm pretty sure there has never been a takedown request from anyone ever for a FoP building. The supposed censors do not exist.
2. The allowance for non-commercial FoP for buildings means that the situation for a photo of a French building is exactly parallel to pictures of Italian cultural objects, photos of which can only be used for non-commercial purposes in Italy (without payment). See Template:Italy-MiBAC-disclaimer. And yet File:Michelangelo's David - right view 2.jpg is on Commons — as it should be.
3. The German Wikipedia is hosted in the US, and thus must follow US copyright law. (The fact that they arguably ignore US copyright law for FoP of sculptures is actually a real potential issue, but that's a different matter.) You cannot post things on the German Wikipedia on the basis that they're in the public domain in Germany and not the US. Things have to be in the public domain in the US and DACH countries. They choose to follow DACH laws on top of American ones, which they must follow.
4. If some Wikipedias want to (like the German Wikipedia) make a rule saying that certain images cannot be used on that Wikipedia, that is up to them.
5. Yes, Wikimedia Commons is an international project. The majority of people in the world live in a country with full FoP for buildings. This is a far cry for "only serv[ing] the interests of U.S. uploaders and readers." Additionally, people in many other countries (such as France) can make non-commercial use of such images.
6. I encourage everyone to endorse FoP exceptions around the world, but let's not pretend that we can just snap our fingers and change the laws of various countries.
7. The notion that "people will just ignore the warnings" is a good reason to prohibit all these images on Commons is a bit absurd, considering that the internet, including English Wikipedia, which is more well-read than Commons and hosted in the exact same fashion, has a plethora of photos of recently-built buildings. The only difference here is whether these images are kept on enwiki or on Commons; there is literally zero legal distinction between these two statuses. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 01:31, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

   @D. Benjamin Miller by allowing copyrighted buildings of no-FoP countries here, this will discourage more FoP movements. You will make the Russian government realize that Commons accepts non-commercial content anyway and they will reverse the 2014 amendments that Russian Wikimedians fought for. The Wikimedian groups who are trying their best to promote/introduce FoP in their respective countries (e.g. Georgia, Ghana) may lose interest in pursuring such advocacies, if your purely-American suggestion is pushed through.

   I will still stick to the status quo, not favoring a U.S.-centric approach on FoP as a convenient way to reduce backlogs. FoP introduction should be encouraged, not made optional by allowance of copyrighted architecture on Commons using U.S. FoP. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 04:02, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

   My eventual point regarding the possible reduction of motivation by Wikimedia user groups or chapters in pursuing FoP advocacies (should your U.S.-ification of FoP rules here) is: what is the sense of pursuing FoP advocacy (in a no-FoP country) if eventually Commons will shift to only following U.S. FoP rules anyway, considering that comments in Etherpad indicate a call for Commons to no longer follow FoP rules of all other countries (and to only follow U.S. FoP and law)? Here are some proofs of my claim:

   • The ruckus on images of building themselves that were unquestioned for almost 12 years.
   • A suggestion that all recent monuments of yes-FoP countries should undergo review to ensure that those are PD in U.S., whether by age or by lack of notice/renewal if pre-1978 (U.S. has no FoP for sculptural monuments / murals). To quote that paragraph in the Etherpad (with emphasis added): "It can be reasonably said that most people do not really seem to care to send takedown requests related to their copyrighted sculptures. But since when is that good enough for Wikimedia Commons? It seems hard to square the existence of non-architectural FOP files with US law. The main issue is that there are so many that it would be difficult to review all of them."

   All of these factors are reasonable enough to cause the loss of motivations for various Wikimedia user groups and affiliates to continue their FoP fights. There is no more reason to continue such if U.S. FoP rules will prevail here on Wikimedia Commons. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 04:22, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

   Sorry, but Wikimedia Commons is hosted in the United States. We have to follow US law. If US law means we cannot host something, then we can't host it. So US law is, in fact, the most important law, since it is not subject to a community decision. It's not because I'm just personally biased towards the US. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 04:47, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

   @D. Benjamin Miller lastly, the motivation of South African Wikimedians to introduce FoP (I assume you are very well aware of their moves) is to finally permit copyrighted South African sculptures here on Wikimedia Commons. You may have noticed many of the images they blacked-out aren't buildings, but are statues from apartheid era and statues of Nelson Mandela and other South African figures. By calling for U.S. FoP rules to be eventually applied here, all of their efforts will go down the drain in an instant. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 04:27, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

   It's not because I want that. It's because all Wikimedia projects are hosted in the United States, and we must follow U.S. law. It's not optional. We're talking about a potential mass copyright infringement in the territory where the site is actually hosted. It's a huge mess. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 04:43, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

   @D. Benjamin Miller no, just because Wikimedia sites are hosted in U.S. servers mean all must follow U.S. law and ignore all other laws. You will only generate some undesirable consequences, including the following three: all FoP movements will go down the drain (I bet South African Wikimedians will be disappointed if U.S. rules on sculptures will be made mandatory and ignore the soon-to-be implemented South African FoP), anti-FoP authorities (politicians and groups) in France may consider sanctioning of Wikimedia sites for disrespecting French law, uploaders in yes-FoP countries will be disappointed if they know non-free post-1989 monuments they uploaded will be subjected to review (certainly leads to deletion). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 04:54, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

   Most post-1928 monuments, because URAA restoration applies to foreign works.

   Anyway, if you do not understand that Wikimedia servers (based in the US) must be operated in accordance with US law, you clearly do not understand how this works. Compare https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/Use_of_Foreign_Works_Restored_under_the_URAA_on_Commons (for example).

   There is zero question that we must follow US law. The only question is what our duty under US law is. I think that it's extremely unlikely that the existence of FoP in a foreign country could lead to an exception to the rights of the copyright holder to enforce a copyright in the United States. And we have been forced to remove such works due to DMCA takedowns.

   While this may be disappointing for South African Wikimedians (who could legally host such files in their own home country or in various other countries), the law is the law. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 05:18, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

   @D. Benjamin Miller here in the Philippines, websites are expected to follow Philippine laws, not only the law of the country where the websites are hosted. The U.S. principle on server location may not sit well among some groups here.

   And also, a fourth undesirable consequence of your suggestion: major blow to Wiki Loves Monuments contests in yes-FoP countries. If you say only pre-1929 monuments are 100% fine here, then that limits the scope of WLM in propagating images of sculptural heritage in those countries. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 05:28, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

   Whatever might be expected in the Philippines (where Wikimedia isn't hosted), Wikimedia is located in the US, and US restrictions always apply. Any other laws we choose to follow apply on top of, not instead of, US law. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 05:44, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Another thing that would decrease the deletion backlog would be if we were allowed to upload "fair use" files. But I strongly believe we should adhere to the laws of the respective countries in order to be recognized and also valued as a "collaborative" provider of information.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 19:04, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Well, fair use is a different matter. Fair use is (as the name would indicate), a use-based justification for using non-free content. A photo may be fairly used in some contexts but not in others. But the concept of per se fair use, independent of actual use, is not a thing. Legally, they're pretty different. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 19:08, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

@D. Benjamin Miller for example sometimes content can be freely used to provide information but not for other means. Wikipedia does provide information. So why do we have to delete files that can be freely used to provide information? Paradise Chronicle (talk) 19:41, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

"Provide information" is too broad. Fair use is about each specific use. Any copyrighted work can be used fairly or unfairly. But redistributing works en masse just because some uses of them would, in context, be fair is not a fair use. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 20:00, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

With fair use I thought of files that are legally permitted to be uploaded by the copyright law of the respective country to provide information, are also to be allowed to be uploaded by commons. Those files could be marked with a notice that they should not to be used commercially or used to make derivatives of them. Similar like the no facebook notice that have many files on commons. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 20:18, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

No, absolutely not. Fair use depends on specific factors related to the particular use.

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. § 106 and 17 U.S.C. § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:

• the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
• the nature of the copyrighted work;
• the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
• the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Giving away an entire work, even if you say it is only to be used for "nonprofit educational purposes," and collecting it in a central repository (like Commons) independent of context, would be almost certainly unjustifiable as fair use. In particular, an indiscriminate collection of copyrighted content would be highly unlikely to be found a fair use of that content considering points 3 and 4.

As for the "no Facebook" template found on Commons, those are now all deleted from Commons, and were based on a complete misreading of the CC licenses, which held that it was impossible to post CC material on Facebook legally (which is not true; see also Legal's explanation of how to attribute on social media). See Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2020/09#Is_Template:Nofacebook_valid?, Commons:Deletion requests/NoFacebook templates, Commons:Deletion requests/Template:Nofacebook, Commons:Deletion requests/Template:No Facebook. Anyway, that's got nothing to do with what's going on here. Anyway, files that cannot be used commercially or in derivative works are not allowed on Commons under any circumstances. But we must distinguish between files that can't be used anywhere (that is, files which are not licensed, and not in the public domain anywhere) and files that just can't be used in some countries (they're free due to being in the public domain in some countries, but not free in others because the term has not expired). D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 21:14, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Maybe it's easier to understand if we remove the fair use term from the suggestion? No, absolutely not doesn't really fit into what the initiator of the discussion mentioned, which was: We are open to all kind of contributions and suggestions." Wikimedia is well known for its services to information and knowledge and I believe the longer Wikimedia projects exist the more prominent that role becomes. I imagine the use of files of countries that allow the distribution of content for the means of information and education. In some countries museums are allowed to promote their exhibitions with modern art, journalists are allowed to use modern works as well. In my opinion Wikimedia editors can also be viewed as (or course sometimes also still learning) journalists, some also pretty good ones. How about a tag to files that would allow them to be used only for the purpose of information and education? Paradise Chronicle (talk) 07:59, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

• As far as I understand, the main problem against compliance only with the US FOP law, with allowing modern buildings from noFOP-countries to be uploaded to Commons, is that reusers will use photos of unfree buildings for commercial purposes despite warnings that these buildings are copyrighted in the country of origin. To protect re-users from possible lawsuits, we continue to delete useful photos of modern unfree buildings. But why we should protect these unscrupulous people who ignoring warning tags and using these images for profit? Why we should protect these unscrupulous people for own detriment? Nothing personal, but I support following only US copyright law here. This would enrich Wikimedia Commons with valuable images and put an end to the constant debates about FOP here. Problem with France may be solved by restriction of uploading some or all French unfree buildings if French side will be so litigiousness. Regarding the fact that if only US FOP is followed here, the efforts of the FOP lobbyists will "go down the drain", I want to say the following. FOP lobbying only led to the establishment of partial FOP in Russia in 2014 and in Belgium (full) in 2016. Over the past 20 years, only 5 countries have introduced FOP (full/partial) and none in the last 7 years. It the other hand, FOP has been abolished in 9 countries over the past 20 years and in 5 over the past 6 years. FOP in Australia is now under pressure. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the near future more and more countries will remove/restrict FOP and almost no one will introduce it, despite lobbyists attemps in favor of FOP. Юрий Д.К 05:57, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

  @Юрий Д.К. how about the possible disappointment that South African Wikimedians will face if Commons shifts to only following U.S. law, that in spite of their efforts, the soon-to-be introduced South African FoP may become invalid here? They aimed for FoP so that all South African monuments documenting their history, like Nelson Mandela statues, will be finally allowed here. Also, the expected frustration of uploaders from Britain, Germany, Netherlands, mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, and other (around 80+) countries with full FoP for outdoor monuments, once images of many post-1928 sculptures in their countries will be removed from Commons if the community decides to adopt U.S. FoP only. This also leads to a major blow for Wiki Loves Monuments in documenting non-architecture monumental heritage. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 06:08, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

  may become invalid here

  The legal problem (which you seem happy to gloss over) is that it appears to legally have never been valid here (since "here" means on a server in the United States). US law cannot be overridden by a Commons community decision. They would need to host their images on a server in some other jurisdiction (or lobby for a change in the US, which I highly doubt will happen). We can't ignore the law of the jurisdiction where the WMF and all the servers are located just because we would rather it were different. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 06:25, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

  Unless, Wiki Loves Monuments is entirely abolished (yes, abolished) and replaced with "Wiki Loves Architecture", so that there may be no more possible deletion requests (like what several here like you desire), and that only experienced users who know how to determine the age/year of the monument and sculptor/muralist can upload images of monuments. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 06:16, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

  It is unclear for me what happens with monuments/sculptures if Commons will follow only US FOP law. English WP (which follow only one) freely uses modern monuments (see en:Atomium for example). Most likely all modern monuments from FOP-countries will be left on Commons under {{Not-free-US-FOP}}. Even if all modern monuments from FOP-countries will be deleted I still support following only US FOP law here. As I said above I filter huge number of non-FOP files while uploading from Flickr (more than 90% - unfree buildings/scenes with unfree buildings). The lack of FOP for many buildings is a much bigger headache for me than even if Commons will forbid (low probability) all modern monuments and sculptures. Юрий Д.К 23:11, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

  All of them would have to be deleted from all Wikimedia projects, except if justified by a fair use exemption. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 23:34, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

  @D. Benjamin Miller for sure a lot of Wikimedians from yes-FoP countries with emerging Wiki-movements, like 8 of the emerging ESEAP (East, Southeast Asia, and Pacific) countries (Brunei, mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Timor-Leste), will certainly protest your (and WMF's) insistence of U.S. law only policy to all Wikimedia projects (with Wikimedia server reasoning), as it means almost all post-1928 monuments of those countries will be deleted en masse from the media repository (including Singapore's famous Merlion statue). Brazilian Wikimedians will be hit too, as the famous Christ the Redeemer statue is post-1928. This may discourage the Wikimedia movements of those countries and may even force some Wikimedians to stop contributing in all Wikimedia projects. French Wikipedia may be put under sanction by French authorities if they would follow your (and WMF's) stand that U.S. law should only be applied to them. While they do allow local hosting of French architecture, they do permit architects or their heirs/reps to send cease-and-desist letters to take down images if they oppose the use of CC-BY-SA/CC-BY/PD licenses over the local images of their works. Kindly read again COM:FOP France, which contains a passage about the French Wikipedia's exemption-doctrine (fair use) policy on French architecture. Your insistence on using U.S. lex loci protectionis (the server rule) will adversely affect many Wikimedians and several projects, for the sake of legal convenience (U.S. server rule again), reduction of deletion backlogs, and desire to allow copyrighted architecture of no-FoP countries even if there's a potential for ADAGP and like-minded groups to call for Europe-wide (or perhaps global) sanction against WMF. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 01:34, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

  You are not dealing with the central points I have made here.

  US law applies to Wikimedia servers because that is the law. I'm not suggesting that we should choose to have it apply. And this is not about me and my choices. It applies whether you like it or not. Maybe that sucks for non-US contributors, but there's no way around it, except to start a website in another country. What the requirements of US law are is not up to us. And a US-based site must follow US law.

  French Wikipedia can choose to make whatever rules it wants, as long as these rules are applied on top of the legal requirement of following US law. German Wikipedia prohibits the use of many files on Commons (that is, those which are not PD in the DACH countries) on top of the requirement that all content must follow US law. French Wikipedia could make such a rule if they wanted to. They can make new restrictions on top of US legal restrictions. They cannot add new exceptions on top of US legal exceptions.

  Your claims that there will be a French, Europe-wide or global (!) sanction against the WMF if we allow architecture photos to be posted on here is ludicrous. All of these photos are already hosted by the WMF. They are just on enwiki. There is zero legal distinction between hosting these images on enwiki and on Commons. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 02:08, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

  It is like this. WMF sites are hosted in the US, and the WMF can legally host anything that's free in the US (or justified by fair use in context, like on Wikipedia).

  Even if it would be legal to host some content, a site can choose to not host it (even though it would be legal). For example, you could run a site and make a rule that you will not host any pictures of blue cars, even if they are legally hostable. Or can say you won't host anything that isn't in the public domain in Germany as well as in your country where you're hosting the site.

  What you can't do, however, is say that because whatever you want to host is hostable in some other country, that you can host it in a country where it is not hostable. There are many photos, for example, that are in the public domain Germany (because the author has been dead over 70 years) but which are not in the public domain in the US (because they were published after 1928). For example, a photograph published in 1949 by a photographer who died in 1953 is in the public domain in Germany, but not the US. It is not legal to host this in the US. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 02:17, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

  Correction to what I said just now: it's actually 13 ESEAP countries (containing full FoP to at least monuments and not just buildings) that may become affected by insistence on following U.S. law only. The 5 others are all Pacific Islanders: Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 01:49, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

  @Юрий Д.К. just a correction, not five but six countries that introduced FoP since the birth of Wikimedia Commons in 2004. The latest was Timor-Leste (see COM:East Timor#Background information). With the passage of their first-ever copyright law in 2022 (becoming effective in May 2023), they introduced FoP which is based on Portuguese model. Perhaps in part due to some historical animosity towards Indonesia, they did not inherit the no-FoP model found in the current (2014) copyright law of their much larger neighbor. Perhaps it was my mistake to exclude Timor-Leste from the metawiki page I started (meta:Freedom of Panorama#Successful FoP introductions). FoP introductions in six countries, whether with involvement from Wikimedia chapters/user groups or not, is already a notable feat. This should be emulated by more chapters/user groups, something that South African Wikimedians are doing now and that Filipino, Ghanaian, South Korean, Georgian, and Zambian Wikimedians are taking steps of. ESEAP peeps (East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific Wikimedia region) are also taking steps for a collective effort through a proposed conference. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 02:33, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Hello all! Thanks for your interventions so far, it was a particularly interesting read. I just wanted to point out a couple of things:

• we do not want to go down the road of applying one jurisdiction's law and disapply all the others, since this would open the door to countless litigations and this would increase the burden on moderators, while our objective is to decrease it;
• we are therefore looking more for technical solutions to the FoP issues, namely how we can use the system we have to flag potentially problematic media for moderators to evaluate.

Just to make an example, one user suggested in the Etherpad to levy the media's structured data to establish if the subject of the photo is potentially in violation of FoP. What do you think of this? Is it feasible in your opinion? Are there other ways that we haven't evaluated? Sannita (WMF) (talk) 14:18, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

@Sannita (WMF): , as one of the administrators that handle FoP deletion requests, the most obvious technical remedy in reducing our burden is to give more support to Wikimedia chapters trying to expand or clarify FOP laws. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Copyright/Archive/2024/01#Swedish_FoP showed an example where User:Eric_Luth_(WMSE) was trying to square what Swedish lawmakers want with Wikimedia Commons standards on what we consider acceptable FoP. Obviously, more legal support for these Wikimedians would be beneficial. As part as some other technical improvements, I never use SDC statements for any FOP DRs and I probably never will, but certainly more documentation of the lifetimes of architects and sculptors and when monuments were published would be tremendously helpful in determining when a work can be undeleted. Readily available documentation of permissions by Italian municipalities in photographing monuments, buildings etc would also be tremendously helpful. @Ruthven: @Friniate: Abzeronow (talk) 19:10, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

This discussion was an interesting read, I have read most of it. Thanks for pointing me to it, @Abzeronow.

I think that two things are discussed at the same time:

• What content is legal to host?
• What content goes against Wikimedia Commons policies or CC licenses?

I initiated the discussion based on the realization that the new Swedish Freedom of Panorama (FoP) proposal would make it perfectly legal to sharing Swedish FoP images on Wikimedia Commons, albeit with certain reuse restrictions. My concern was whether this proposal contradicts licenses like CC BY-SA, CC BY, or CC0 as there are some limitations on commercial use (use for making financial gain), even though the provision is not non-commercial (rather it delineates a long list of commercial uses that are legal). I believe a more thorough legal analysis is crucial because if Wikimedia Commons demands a fully commercial FoP provision, it raises doubts about the compatibility of FoP provisions from any EU country, governed by the 3-step test of the InfoSoc Directive, with Wikimedia Commons policies.

Getting a clearer view on this would also make advocacy ahead easier. Is there some room for maneuver? Then advocacy ahead can focus on that, on increasing the commercial space. Is there no room for maneuver? Then we need to have a completely different approach (and even more crucially a good legal analysis that answers how a fully commercial FoP complies with the 2nd step of the 3-step test, since this is one of the main concerns from the lawmaker). Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 15:37, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

@Abzeronow Thanks for pinging me. I've seen this discussion, honestly, but it seems to me very difficult to create a tool helping in that matter. FoP (and case law in general) are quite complex. You have countries with a de facto FoP, like Argentina (or even Italy, where no court cases are known). You have de minimis to be evaluated case by case. Finally, the copyright of the original work might be expired. It's too much for a simple explanatory text for the random uploader, imho, and too complicated to have automated tools dealing with it. I've no much to add, I am sorry.

On the other hand, for the Italian municipalities, the solution exists: the permission must be "generic" and not mentioning a WLM only permission, the template in the File page must link directly to the exact permission from the municipality (and not to the database, where searching is painful), and it has to be verified by a license reviewed (e.g. via {{Licensereview}}). Best Ruthven (msg) 19:24, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

@Sannita (WMF)@Abzeronow@Eric Luth (WMSE) one thought of mine regarding architectural FoP vis-à-vis Wikimedia movement: why can't we turn several (if not all) of the architects into our allies? In fact, the Archdaily's article on FoP seems to have implicit endorsement of FoP legal rights. The extract of the article that strikes me with some optimism is (with emphasis added by me):

"We live in a world where the difference between a building and a work of art is becoming increasingly blurred. We live in a world where it is increasingly unclear what constitutes “publishing” an image, thanks to websites that rely on user-generated content like Facebook, Flickr and Instagram. We live in a world where the division between public and private space is increasingly difficult to determine, as private spaces are monetized and treated like public spaces. We live in a world where images are published and shared across borders, regardless of the obtuseness of local copyright laws in those respective countries. But most importantly for architects, we live in a world where images of our built environment - shared freely between people via the internet - are increasingly important in constructing a discourse around that built environment. We live in a world that requires freedom of panorama in order for architects to make the world a better place. And architects should be pretty upset about how many restrictions have been placed, and continue to be placed, on that freedom."

Another sign of this is a generally-positive response of architects in a survey conducted by Wikimedia Italy in 2017; per that survey, 68.6% of Italian architects favor a liberal FoP in Italy (which currently does not have FoP), with 20% of them requiring a mandatory attribution condition. We should have no problem on attribution; it is mandatory in the FoP rules of China, of Germany, of Brazil, and of Czech Republic.

I floated this idea after reading @Jmabel: 's comments at Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Interior of the Reichstag dome, regarding the possibility of contacting Foster + Partners for indoor and terrace views of Reichstag dome.

Eric, could there be a way for Wikimedia Sweden to suggest Icelandic Wikimedians to convince the Icelandic government to liberalize Icelandic FoP at least for architecture, to have their copyright law patterned after their brethen Nordic countries, like Norway? JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 02:16, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, at least 99% of architects do not make money from the display of their works (postcards, etc.). They are paid to build something, and they would certainly support a FoP law where people can freely share images of their works. Yann (talk) 10:17, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I think it makes a lot of sense to work with architects for this. I also think in a sense that it is easier to achieve a FoP exception without any restrictions for architecture than for all public art. As you see in the rest of the Nordic countries, buildings are separate provisions from all other kinds of public art, and no one finds the need for an unrestricted FoP for buildings strange.

In my view, however, an attribution requirement on buildings is a bit problematic. It is often difficult to know who the architect is behind a building (there might be a sign on public art, but there are seldom signs on houses saying who drew them), and at least in EU Copyright law, where there is an attribution requirement, the lengths you have to go to try to find the author is long. Attribution requirements on buildings can thus be a big struggle for users. As FoP in the [https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32001L0029 InfoSoc directive] has no attribution requirement, I think Wikimedia should work (in EU countries) to get rid of attribution requirement, or at least not propose new provisions with attribution requirement. But this is of course only my view. (And of course, there are worse potential restriction).

@JWilz12345, I would love to support Icelandic Wikimedians on this but unfortunately there are very few active Wikimedians on Iceland. Perhaps there might be some room for reform if/when they are implementing the EU CDSM Directive, I'll look into this. Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 11:13, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@Eric Luth (WMSE) attribution is fine for me, for as long as if the architect can be immediately known. We accept FoP of countries where attribution has been made a requirement, like the ones I mentioned above (Chinese, Czech, German, and Brazilian FoP). The first FoP legal right, COM:FOP Germany, actually prohibits lack of attribution if the work author is known.

Btw, don't expect the truth in the claims of countries that their new copyright rules are complying with EU Directive. Ukrainian politicians did claimed their new copyright law complies the Directive, but their FoP was made non-commercial (restricted to images that do not have "independent economic value"). Icelandic authorities can claim that. There is nothing in the EU Directive that compels EU states (and non-EU countries of Europe wishing to follow its model) to not restrict FoP to non-commercial uses. One time EU politicians like Julia Reda from Germany wanted to make liberal EU mandatory but other EU politicians like Jean Marie Cavada opposed to that and instead proposed a mandatory NC FoP, leading to the 2015 EU Parliament discourse. Cavada, like ADAGP, critically mentioned Wikimedia as among those that they claim to "exploit" on anything permanently seen in public squares and streets. Facebook (Meta), Flickr, and Instagram were also other special mentions. Status quo prevailed, in which FoP is not mandatory thoroughout EU, and so leaves open rooms for many countries to stifle public space enjoyment (France, Luxembourg, as well as non-EU ones like Monaco and Andorra). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 13:59, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I think perhaps you confuse the different directives? The directive that enables countries to implement FoP is the InfoSoc directive, not the 2019 CDSM Directive. The CDSM Directive doesn't mention FoP at all (unfortunately). The FoP provision in the InfoSoc Directive doesn't require non-commercial FoP but the InfoSoc Directive requires that all exceptions comply with the 3-step test. But this conversation is perhaps another one than the original questions from @Sannita (WMF). My main wish would be a thorough legal analysis of the effect of the 3-step test on commercial FoP.

The main issue with attribution requirement by law in the EU is that the attribution requirements under EU Copyright Law (InfoSoc Directive) are very far-reaching when they are applied. And there is no attribution requirement for FoP in the InfoSoc Directive. Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 15:18, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@Eric Luth (WMSE) I may have confused hehe 😅 my apologies. Anyway, I agree that buildings, despite becoming abstract and artistic in their outer appearance, are important components of cityscapes and should be freely used by anyone. Privacy issues and house rules by managements are separate matters, and we commonly encourage uploaders to be respectful of owners' private properties (of course, privacy issues are COM:Non-copyright restrictions). I think only France and, to some extent, Greece are the only countries that seem vocal against full FoP even for buildings. French laws even restrict building owners from fully exploiting the houses or buildings they own. Courts have ruled that the owners can only regulate photography of their buildings on privacy and security grounds, but not selling their images of the buildings they own without architects' permissions. That may seem absurd but, the French law is the law and we cannot do anything about that. Curiously, Dubai FoP is only restricted to free use in broadcasts, not photos; therefore we cannot host Burj Khalifa images. Commons admins have been removing thousands of Burj Khalifa images from the site since 2010, and it has been destructive to the project, but no choice as UAE law is too backwards (not fitting to new media/digital media age). Greek FoP is for traditional media too (mass media). Same is also for several African countries (only audio-visual, films, and broadcasts allowed) like Tanzania, Ghana, and recently, Nigeria (which restricted FoP to such obsolete media, a blow for Wikimedia, even if non-retroative, it discourages future uploads). Lebanese FoP is also mass media only. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 02:33, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

@Eric Luth (WMSE) regarding FoP and Berne Convention matter, a few legal commentators seem to suggest photography of buildings is against the current provisions of the Berne Convention. In Copyright in the 101st Congress: Commentary on the Visual Artists Rights Act and the Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act of 1990 by Jane Ginsberg (I found the title of this paper through a citation at w:de:Panoramafeiheit#USA), the author suggests that U.S. Congress giving the general public the right to photograph and exploit buildings already harms the architects' legitimate rights to control what the public does to their works, denying the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright and other American architects the right to enforce the integrity of their U.S. buildings which may be violated by the public. The Berne Convention itself does not allow public use of public landmarks as it does not have such clause. Copyright laws operate in "what is prohibited or not written in the law is forbidden" principle, not "what is not written in the law is allowed." This is evident at page 496 of the research paper; apparently, there were meetings between WIPO and UNESCO regarding an international FoP exception for architectural works (very analogous to the FoP rules of the EU Copyright Directive of 2001). A finalized proposal (cited as "Principle WA. 7, 22 COPYRIGHT 401, 411 (Dec. 1986).") read: "The reproduction of the external image of a work of architecture by means of photography, cinematography, painting, sculpture, drawing or similar methods should not require the authorization of the author if it is done for private purposes or, even if it is done for commercial purposes, where the work of architecture stands in a public street, road, square or other place normally accessible to the public. But for some reason, this did not made it through the Berne text. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 01:32, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

@Abzeronow, Jmabel, JWilz12345, and Ruthven: This discussion is an interesting read, and we will report to the other teams at the Foundation about the necessity of speaking out more in favour of FoP, and to empower chapters/user groups in lobbying for these changes.

Anyway, I've got some more questions about how you moderate this kind of content, namely:

• What data do admins/users use to determine if something is a FoP violation?
• What information do moderators need from the users to determine if a file has FOP issues?
• Have moderators noticed any patterns when dealing with the problem? (e.g. large sets of uploads by one or more users, etc.)

Thank you in advance for the patience, the help and the insights you're giving us about this. This is rather illuminating. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 15:09, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@Sannita (WMF): In my experience, there are a few users (not necessarily admins; in fact some are anonymous IPs) who tend to do the most tagging of copyright violations based on lack of FoP. They don't necessarily focus on recent uploads; instead they go through the content of a country (or a city), often nominating the bulk of a category at once. Basically, if something is correctly categorized (even just down to what country), any at all obvious violations of this sort tend to be spotted pretty quickly. The single most useful thing uploaders can do in this respect is to provide at least one category that effectively indicates what country the photo comes from.

The problems mostly come on relative edge cases, and I don't think the uploaders can do a lot about it, other than categorize well. For example, if a building in Bucharest dates from 1928, and we happen to discover that its architect lived into the 1970s, we need to delete photos of it as FoP violations. We can't necessarily expect most uploaders to have a clue when the architect died. Similarly: we had a big thing recently about what parts of German railway stations allow FoP and what don't.

NOTE that this does not necessarily mean that we don't want such uploads: they will become OK 70 years after the architect's death, and if we can quickly spot them, so they aren't hanging out too long looking like they are OK right now, it is probably good to have them—deleted—with the intent of undeleting in the future. We've even had people upload images knowing this is an issue, and immediately nominate their own images for deletion with a particular undelete date.

Most cases can be worked out by the chart on this project page, or by the links from that chart, or Commons:Freedom of panorama/AllRules (which sadly looks like it has a citation mess at the moment). Those that can't are usually hashed out either in a DR or on Commons:Village pump/Copyright. We tag in-progress and resolved DRs with per-country categories like the ones under Category:United States FOP cases, so Commons' precedents can be relatively easily found.

Yes, we often get a lot of these from one user, and we usually work that through pretty easily by letting them know about it on their user talk page. Occasionally someone would rather rail against the first-born of Egypt than deal with reality, but that's relatively scarce. - Jmabel ! talk 20:03, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@Sannita (WMF) I somehow agree to @Jmabel: 's insight. Admittedly I am among those active in nominating what I suspect are no FoP-infringing files. From my experience, I tend to be more active in monitoring countries which I think have no active Wikimedia movements or the immediate introduction of liberal FoP is unlikely. Ukraine falls on the latter case: I am aware of lobbying efforts made by Wikimedians beginning in 2014, but despite all lobbying, the legislature instead introduced a non-commercial FoP in December 2022, which made me feel that the Ukrainian authorities are not willing to share their buildings and monuments under commercial licenses on the Internet. Having ignored the Ukrainian Wikimedians' call for liberal FoP, the Ukrainian authorities are backwards, IMO. In any case, I decided to nominate tons of Ukrainian monuments in the last half of 2023, 9 out of 10 images were actually Wiki Loves Monuments submissions. Using Ukrainian Wikipedia's monuments list articles and several online sources gathered by Google, I was able to determine the dates and the authors of the monuments. I tend to nominate those that are froma 1950s up to present time. The translation is made possible thanks to Google Translate mobile app (yes, I use phone in contributing here but in desktop mode). I tend to visit related categories (like monuments of another Ukrainian city), and make some research on Ukrainian Wikipedia as well as other websites for the dates and authors of the monuments. At one point, a Ukrainian user complained about my nominations, which I sternly responded. I may have put the brakes on making further Ukrainian FoP-related nominations, but I still suspect more infringements to Ukrainian FoP (perhaps many through WLM-Ukraine submissions). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 23:07, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@Sannita (WMF) The users that nominate such files for deletion generally do it massively, without checking de minimis or having a very rigid idea of law enforcing. This is probably because they want all the upload "validated" by some admin, not trusting their judgement.

What would be useful to admins and other users are the previous case law about FoP in each country. E.g. in Italy I have no knowledge about trials for reproducing a recent architecture with a photograph, thus I tent to consider some sort of de facto FoP for the country. On the other hand, in France there are well known cases (.e.g the one about the lights illuminating the Eiffel tower). Commons' users have no reason to overturn previous case law on this point; thus having this knowledge would give us guidance.

There are other elements to consider as well, like other legislation on the matter. Again, Italy has limited the protection for modification to recent buildings only to a handful of "Buildings with important artistic character" (Codice dei beni culturali e del paesaggio, art. 11 co. 1.e), disregarding all the rest. This suggests that the ToO is very high for this country or that the institutions are not willing to apply a strict FoP like in other countries. Some lawyer advice on these matter would help to decide on DRs and stabilize guidelines. Ruthven (msg) 09:28, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

@Abzeronow, Jmabel, JWilz12345, Ruthven, 19h00s, D. Benjamin Miller, Eric Luth (WMSE), and Юрий Д.К.: and all the other users who intervened and that I didn't mention in my ping: thank you very much for your interventions, ideas and opinions. I will be sure to report all of this to people who work with Freedom of Panorama at Wikimedia Foundation, and hopefully this will reflect in our next Annual Plan. This discussion can be considered closed for the moment, but I'm available for discussion in case there are new things to evaluate. Until next time, thanks again! Sannita (WMF) (talk) 11:27, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

 Info a similar discussion on the main village pump has been archived as of this writing. For the reference and convenience, here is the link: Commons:Village pump/Archive/2024/04#Proposal affecting FoP Chile. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 08:26, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Sticky table header

It appears that we should have the ability to make the table header row fixed as one scrolls, per phab:T283505. Any idea why that's not happening or how to make it happen? Sdkb ^talk 23:01, 6 October 2024 (UTC)