Commons talk:Licensing/Archive 35

File:VripTechVHWInAction.jpg

I had added a speedy tag to File:VripTechVHWInAction.jpg (edit · last · history · watch · unwatch · global usage · logs · purge · w · search · links · DR · del · undel · Delinker log) as being a copy of the image from http://vriptech.com/home.htm ... however, it was removed with a reason on the talk page that the listed source doesn't mention any copyright - as well as the image having the meta data still attached.

I had been under the impression that the use of the tag {{Copyrighted free use}} needed to be explicitly stated from the source. Am I mistaken? I don't want to proceed with the deletion request if I'm working from a mistaken assumption, so wanted to get it clarified. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 23:47, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

As far as I can see, you're correct. A deletion request is exactly the way to attempt to resolve these sorts of questions. =) Powers (talk) 01:42, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

The fact that there is no copyright notice does not prove an image is freely licenced. We require specific evidence of the copyright status and that website does not show any such evidence. You could contact the website and ask them for their permission. Ww2censor (talk) 17:37, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Quite true, although both of the user's uploads come from that site, and on File:Vbat l.jpg, there is a note it came from the company's owner or something like that. I think there is enough doubt to convert the speedies to a DR... though, the contributor does not seem to be active so there may be no answer. It may end up with the same result, but it will be documented a lot better. Or maybe someone could get the original contributor to follow the COM:OTRS instructions. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:42, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

The user responded at en:Talk:Vaporizer (cannabis)#File:VripTechVHWInAction.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion stating that they received permission via email. I've replied to their post that they should review Commons:OTRS to see how to have the authorization reviewed and validated. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 02:18, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

PD-Libya

On 13 May 2011, Kimdime asked the following question, which went unanswered: "Should I use this template [[[:Template:PD-Libya|{{PD-Libya}}]]] for pictures published in the 30's in Libya (at that time en:Italian Libya)?"

I think I may have an answer to question, but would like to hear others' views on the matter. Article 51 of the Copyright Protection Law of Libya (Libyan Law No. (9) for 1968) states: "Without prejudice to the provisions of the previous article, the provisions of this law shall apply to the works of art which exist at the time of its application. However, with respect to calculating the period of protection of existing works of art, the calculations must include the period which elapsed from the date of the event which shall be considered as the starting point and until the date of implementing the law." In my view, this means that the law applies to works created before the law came into force (30 March 1968), but that one has to add to the period of copyright the period between the "date of the event considered as the starting point" and 30 March 1968. Put another way, the starting date is no longer the actual date but is deemed to be 30 March 1968. Does that make sense?

The effect of this reading of Article 51 would be as follows. The copyright in a photograph published in the author's lifetime expires either 50 years from the date of first publication of the work, or 25 years after the death of the author if this is longer: see "Commons:Licensing#Libya" (which I just created). Let's say the photograph in question was first published on 1 January 1930, and that this period is longer than 25 years after the author's death. The period between 1 January 1930 and 30 March 1968 is 37 years and 3 months (if I counted right!). Thus, the copyright in the photograph does not expire 50 years from 1 January 1930 (that is, 31 December 1980), but 87 years and 3 months (50 years + 37 years 3 months) later (that is, 30 March 2018). Or, more simply, Article 51 deems the date of first publication to be 30 March 1968, and 50 years after that is 30 March 2018.

If my understanding of Article 51 is correct, {{PD-Libya}} and "Commons:Licensing#Libya" need to be updated, and some files may have to be nominated for deletion. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:34, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense, Jacklee, that way the older the work, the longer the protection, it can't be. There must be something wrong with that.

Incidentally, I'm also interested in how copyrights are managed regarding former European colonial possessions. I would suppose that a photo taken by an Italian subject in Italian Libya will answer to Italian law and not Lybian. Portuguese works of art in now Spanish controlled Olivenza are still Portuguese in authorship. I wonder if the same could not be said about Guiné, Angola, Mozambique, Macao and the other former Portuguese possessions, which were effectively Portuguese for centuries (Guiné, for instance, was Portuguese for more than 500 years, more than the age of many European countries).-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 22:49, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Country of origin frequently doesn't matter in international copyright law. w:Country of origin states that it differs between nations, and points to the US copyright law that gives protection to works by nationals of treaty parties (or stateless individuals) and works published in treaty parties with in 30 days of first publication; the URAA effectively makes the US the country of origin of any work done entirely by Americans or first published within 30 days in the US for its purposes.

I'm certain that Libyan law considers all works published in Italy-controlled Libya Libyan.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:12, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

TXS for the research, so if I understood well, there is actually no archive images from Libya whith expired copyrights since their date of pulication has to be understood as being the 31 December 1980. Though we need to be careful since I suspect that many (maybe most) pictures taken in Libya where indeed published in Italy (the peninsula!). I have the same interrogations than DarwIn (Hi DarwIn :)) regarding the fact that the copyright laws of former powers should or shouldn't apply in the case of a territory which is now under another sovereignty, the point he made about Olivença is interesting, though I guess there is no global answer for such a thing--Kimdime (talk) 00:36, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

• That reads to my eye as a standard radioactivity clause. It is in effect saying you have to subtract, not add as you would posit, the length of time a work has already existed from the protections afforded under the 1968 law. -Nard (Hablemonos)(Let's talk) 05:40, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I believe that's it, indeed. In the example given by Jacklee, for instance, the starting point would be 1930, and not 1968, therefore it became public domain in 1988. Apparently it doesn't change anything, being before or after 1968. Seems to be an elaborated way of saying that the law is retroactive.-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 06:02, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree that my interpretation of the clause leads to rather odd results and the explanation by Nard and DarwIn makes more sense, but I really wonder how it squares with the wording of Article 51. I suppose we are dealing with what appears to be a slightly dodgy English translation of an original Arabic text, so it depends on what "the calculations must include the period which elapsed from the date of the event which shall be considered as the starting point and until the date of implementing the law" [emphasis added] really means. Do we have consensus that Article 51 does not extend the copyright of works that are still copyrighted as of 30 March 1968? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 08:16, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I guess interpret "include" to mean that that period should be counted as part of the "50 years from publication" or whatever, and not skipped -- probably just making that clear. I.e. "starting points" as defined by this law are allowed to predate the implementation date of the law. The wording is odd to be sure, but the above interpretation seems more reasonable, as your would mean a very non-standard type of condition. If yours was indeed correct, I think the wording would 1) make clear that this period needs to be added, and 2) would be mentioned in the earlier sections of the law dealing with terms, because it would mean a different term for earlier works. As for the second comment, just to be sure -- this sounds like a full retroactive clause, i.e. if there were longer terms in the new law than previously, this law would both extend the copyright of existing works to the new terms, and also re-copyright works which had expired if the new terms would still be valid. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:26, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

• BTW, the Libya copyright law seems to have been updated by law n. 7 of 1984, see here, for instance. I don't know what it changed exactly, however.-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 09:02, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that. There were no Arabic or English texts of Libyan laws on the WIPO website (only the texts of treaties) so all I had to go on was the text of the 1968 law at Wikisource which I assumed was the latest one available. Will have a look at the 1984 law soon. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:40, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

• It's odd wording, but I would agree with Nard and Darwin that it just seems like a retroactive clause, clarifying that calculations should include periods prior to when that law applied. There is nothing to me which says that period needs to be added, nor that it moves the "starting point" of calculations. For something that materially significant to the term, I would hope it would be elsewhere in the law and not buried in a transitional section anyways. As for other matters, only artistic photographs get the full protection -- basic snapshots have a period of only a few years from publication, according to that law. The distinction between the two sounds pretty much the same to the one in {{PD-Italy}} actually, which makes some sense. As for which countries' law is used... in real life, it is usually a matter of what the law is where infringement is claimed. As a guess for "country of origin" for Commons purposes though, for colonies, I would suspect that Libya alone would be the country of origin (Italian colonial law would apply for specific acts done before independence, and possibly may still apply in some cases if newer copyright laws were not fully retroactive). For a situation where part of a country (i.e. not a colony but a full portion of the country, say like French Guyana) breaks off, or a country breaks up into multiple others, then we probably have a situation where works were "simultaneously published" in all successor nations, and the Berne convention does have clauses for that. But I think Libya is not that type of thing. As for the 1984 revision, that is interesting (and there have probably been amendments since then too). This page indicates that the full term is now 50 pma, which makes sense since they are a Berne member and that is the minimum, and it wouldn't surprise me if the term for snapshot photographs increased as well (Berne minimum is 25 years from publication, but the convention also has grandfather clauses which may allow shorter terms). It would be good to find more recent versions of the law. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:47, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

There are some news stating that by 2009/2010 a new copyright law was almost ready for approval, which would favour intellectual property (and probably harden the copyright terms), to attract foreign investment. I don't know if it ever happened, most probably it's still in the draft, with all the recent turmoil.-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 17:34, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Money-BR Template

After much discussion and research, the {{PD-BrazilGov}} template was fixed. However, we are still left with the problematic {{Money-BR}}. There are two main problems with this template:

1. None of the laws cited in the template have anything to do with the copyright status of images of Brazilian money.
2. The rest of the template consists of a bizarre Terms of Use section based on an OTRS ticket.

I can't read Portuguese, so I'm not sure what the OTRS ticket is about, but regardless, none of the images which use this template follow the Terms of Use anyway. Can this template be salvaged, or should it be nominated for deletion? Kaldari (talk) 21:03, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm Portuguese, if it may be of some help. I would also point you to User:Beria, which is Brazilian, and sysop and OTRS reviewer here at Commons.-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 21:16, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

File:قناة العراقية.jpg

Is this {{PD-textlogo}} material? I'm a little too unsure on Arabic script to call it. Pretty sure it hasn't been licensed under the Free Art Licence, though. And finding a file on Google didn't make -iraqieagle- the author. —LX (talk, contribs) 18:40, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm very far from an expert on Arabic, and can barely read it, but this doesn't seem to exceed the threshold of originality indeed. The alif and lam in the beginning are not very elaborate, and the rest looks pretty much like standard typing. If it was this sort of thing it would be different, since I don't believe that the rules about western typefaces would apply to the artistic compositions of Arabic script, many of them of an incredibly elaborated beauty.-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 23:05, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Added {{PD-textlogo}} and removed the bogus claims. —LX (talk, contribs) 13:33, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

File:Novy zakon.jpg

I don't think that you can claim copyright of a photo of a page from a book (in particular, the Bible of Kralice). I assume the image is in fact ineligible for copyright, correct? - Mike Rosoft (talk) 12:08, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

If it was a straight-on reproduction of the single page in question, you'd be correct. As it is, though, it's at least arguable that there was some creativity involved in selecting the camera angle and framing of the image. Powers (talk) 13:31, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Falsificación de autor

El mapa File:MapPatagonia.gif fue subido por Jaimesaid adjudicándoselo como si fuera un trabajo propio, pero ese mapa aparece en el libro Historia de la Patagonia, Tierra de Fuego e Islas Malvinas de Frédéric Lacroix publicado en 1841, y perteneciente a Jenette. Aunque ya no tiene derechos de autor, solicito que sea correctamente adjudicado a sus autores originales. Saludos y gracias.

The map File:MapPatagonia.gif was uploaded by Jaimesaid claim as if it were their own work, but that map in the book Historia de la Patagonia, Tierra de Fuego e Islas Malvinas by Frédéric Lacroix published in 1841 and owned by Jenette. Though no longer copyright, request to be correctly allocated to their original authors. Greetings and thanks.--Nerêo (talk) 12:17, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

 Done. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:33, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

The Map was never thought to be Jaimesaid as author, when first placed into commons it was automatically set that way or by mistake I do not know, maybe it was done since I am the Editor (and owner) of Editorial Patagonia Media, nevertheless, I will not change anything, but it is important to note and to let you know for the records the following: The Map of A.Jenett in the original book of "Frederic Lacroix" or "Federico Lacroix" of 1841 "Historia de la Patagonia, Tierra de Fuego e Islas Malvinas" the original Map is in black and white and has no color or limits to the north of Patagonia. What Editorial Patagonia Media did in year 2007 was to read carefully the boundaries that Lacroix describes in his book about limits of all Patagonia, then those limits of his book were colored and printed and published in the front page of a book named "Patagonia Chilena" by the author Francisco Fantini in Santiago Chile in year 2007, with all the notes about this issue inside the book and in the back of the map, with all the sources and the name of the cartographer that intervened the map which is Mr.Montt, based on the original A. Jenette drawing and incorporating old boats and digitalization to improve the quality of the map. There is a copyright of the book owned by Editorial Patagonia Media, which I Jaime Said, on behalf of Patagonia Media, donated to Wikimedia Commons. Please also see the following link to Francisco Fantini first edition. HERE http://www.accionaudiovisual.uc.cl/prontus_fcom/site/artic/20071219/pags/20071219165347.html. There is a big misunderstanding and accusations that are misplaced here. Also, Since I have seen that you place notes that MAP is the original from Lacroix or from A. Jenett I did correct this, and tried to put notes that it is NOT the original, it is an ADAPTATION from the original, based on Lacroix original information on limits inside his book. You have to see what you want to do or say about this matter. I leave this note in order to clarify a terrible misunderstanding that is been caused with good faith by all of us here.--Jaimesaid (talk) 20:01, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

File:Anjunabeats.gif

I hope that this is the right threat for my question. The File:Anjunabeats.gif shows a logo of a record label. Could such a logo be licend under Public domain? The record label was found in 2000, so this logo could not be created 70 years ago. --Christian1985 (talk) 20:39, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

That logo is almost certainly not copyrightable. Powers (talk) 15:48, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Advice on licensing of suspected derivative work

Hello. This file has been marked as a copyvio for being a derivative work, presumably of the COA of Rayo Vallecano. I challenged and removed the mark on the grounds that the COA of Rayo Vallecano is composed of text, a lightening bolt (simple geometrical shape), and the COA of Vallecas, depicted on the right, which I suppose to be public domain (it's usually OK to take pictures of COAs of municipalities, I believe). I'm not absolutely sure about my action, so I'm seeking some advice from more knowledgeable people.-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 22:09, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Please post further discussion at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Bandera Rayo.jpg. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:18, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Royal de Luxe

Hello,

This concerns a lot of images, and might be controversial. More input needed: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Royal-de-luxe-Élephant-mai-2005-2.jpg. Thanks, Yann (talk) 12:12, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

About Esperanto UEA logo

Following doubts everybody seemed to have on my attempt to SVG an existing logo of UEA (see archive here), I recently received mail from the author of the original artwork, who authorize me to freely distribute his work under my own SVG version of his artwork. Where and how do I put this agreement from author on the page related to my SVG? Thanks for any further answer. — SGC.Alex (talk) 19:14, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Forward it (or have him send it directly, even better) to the permissions mail address; see COM:OTRS for examples and the address. This one is a little different, as he is authorizing a derivative work, so the above statement should be fine. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:52, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Alright. Thanks for the input, I forwarded both his mail to me and explanation to OTRS. In the meantime, I appended the “OTRS pending” template. — SGC.Alex (talk) 17:29, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

License changed

Dear Wikipedians,

Ed Uthman changed the licensing of his work on flickr from "PD" to "CC-BY".

See: http://www.flickr.com/photos/euthman/sets/72057594114099781/comments/

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&ns0=1&ns6=1&ns9=1&ns12=1&ns14=1&ns106=1&redirs=0&advanced=1&search=Ed+Uthman&limit=500&offset=0

Maybe we should change the licence of these pictures in Wikimedia, too. Could that be done by a bot? I uploaded many of them from Flickr and Ed Uthmans old homepage. --Patho (talk) 22:25, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Once rights are released to the public domain, they can't be reclaimed. Hm. We should note the requested credit though, if we don't right now. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:17, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Why not? He didn't claim that his release to the PD was irrevocable. Trycatch (talk) 18:43, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Um... public domain means lack of any rights attached. At that point anyone has as much right to claim them as the author, if it's truly public domain. By definition that is basically irrevocable. Moral rights and that kind of thing dictate we should change the credit line, but more than that... not sure. There are people who claim that works cannot actually be released to the public domain, and going by that theory it would be better to add the CC-BY license, I suppose, but really a PD release is irrevocable. The old license should still be there too, since they were released that way, meaning we have the odd combo of PD-self and CC-BY, if that makes sense. Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:26, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

This is why some countries (e.g. France, I believe) prevent people from giving away their right to be identified as the author of the work (the "moral right"), and so theoretically prevent people releasing their works into the public domain - because it's irrevocable, and copyright owners should be protected.

James F. (talk) 12:49, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Correct, but that right does not give them the right to claw back to a CC-BY license, which is different -- that involves the economic rights too. We should absolutely credit the author as now desired, but CC-BY is a stronger license than moral rights. I shouldn't say anyone has the right to claim they are the author of a PD work -- that's not true, even in the US. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:17, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

In every picture I uploaded from Ed Uthman I credited him. Only the license I filled in was "PD". --Patho (talk) 19:48, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Polish government photos

It is not clear to me if {{PD-Polishsymbol}} applies to photographs by government agencies in Poland. We've received communications via OTRS for File:27WE.jpg with the uploader suggesting this is the case, but if it's being debated whether it applies to postage stamps, maybe it's clear whether or not it applies to photos. – Adrignola talk 02:09, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

PD-Art vs PD-in-1996

The current wording of the "Interaction of United States copyright law and non-US copyright law" section suggests that works tagged with PD-Art are exempt from the requirement to be public domain under US law. (That is, images that entered PD in the country of origin after 1996 would be allowed.) Is this intentional? If not, should "...which are in the public domain are an exception to this rule" be changed to "...which are in the public domain in both the country of origin and the US are an exception to this rule"? Jpatokal (talk) 21:29, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

"Which are in the public domain" has constructive ambiguity. Reading that in the public domain in one arbitrary nation is a weird reading, IMO.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:39, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Look at the text in context. The paragraph starts by stating that "allowed only if the work is either in the public domain ...in both the U.S. and the country of origin of the work", rambles on for a while about more complicated cases, and then announces a big bold "Exception: Faithful reproductions of two-dimensional works of art, such as paintings, which are in the public domain are an exception to this rule." I originally read "this rule" as meaning the first sentence, that is, having to be PD in both the US and the country of origin; however, it apparently refers to... well, actually, I can't really make out exactly what it's referring to, although I (now) understand what it's trying to say. How about we reword the exception instead? Something like this:

Exception: Faithful reproductions of two-dimensional works of art in the public domain, such as a photograph of a painting, are also considered public domain on Commons, even if one of the countries involved may assert a copyright on the reproduction. In July 2008 [...]

How does that sound? Jpatokal (talk) 21:58, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that works. The exception is purely for works which may not be conclusively public domain in a source country outside of the U.S. They still need to be public domain in the United States. The URAA (PD-in-1996) obviously causes a problem here, and we do currently host some such files on Commons. They are in a legal grey area until the U.S. Supreme Court decides Golan v. Holder later this year. If the Golan decision is not favorable, all of those files will be deleted from Commons even if they are PD in the source country. Kaldari (talk) 23:44, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

For PD-Art to apply, the original work must be in the public domain in the source country and the United States (the digital reproduction is also in the public domain in the United States, per Bridgeman v. Corel - the digital reproduction may not be in the public domain in the source country). You can use {{PD-Art-two}} to indicate why the original work is in the public domain in the source country and in the United States separately. For example:

• A photograph of a 1911 English work whose author died in 1925 may be tagged {{PD-Art-two|PD-old-70|PD-1923}}.
• A photograph of a Canadian photograph created prior to 1949 may be tagged {{PD-Art-two|PD-Canada|PD-1996}}.

If the original work is in the public domain only in the source country but not in the United States due to the URAA, it must additionally be tagged {{Not-PD-US-URAA}} (or alternatively, you may choose not to upload such a work in the first place, depending on which side of the URAA issue you fall on). For example:

• An English work whose author died in 1935 may be tagged {{PD-Art|PD-old-70}} {{Not-PD-US-URAA}}

For works whose authors died at least 100 years ago, I stick with just the simple:

• {{PD-Art|PD-old-100}}

Hope this helps. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:54, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Can we clarify the wording on the policy page then? (And the PD-Art page, for that matter.) Jpatokal (talk) 11:04, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Clarified this at Commons:When_to_use_the_PD-Art_tag#Usage_examples. Dcoetzee (talk) 19:26, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

USAF recordings

Hi, I was wondering whether any sound recordings made by Glenn Miller's Army Air Force Band are classed as PD, perhaps under something like {{PD-USGov-Military-Air Force}} or similar? I don't necessarily mean recordings of songs, but there's an amount of spoken word and some of the propaganda broadcasts would be great to have in Commons if possible. Cheers, Mattgirling (talk) 20:01, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, man. This is going to be tangled. From the sounds of it, the performers were USGov, but that doesn't necessarily mean they own any copyright interest in the performances, although any text of the propaganda probably would be, so that spoken word stuff should be fine at least as far as the content goes. The sound recordings apparently were made by a British company (today EMI), so this appears to be a *UK* copyright, on the recordings themselves. These are sound recordings made before 1972, so they are not normally covered by U.S. federal copyright law, but rather only common-law copyright. The URAA did restore some of these foreign recordings to full federal copyright, but by the text of the law, since the copyright on these had expired in the UK previous to that, they were unaffected by the URAA. So, it would seem as though these recordings may still be subject to state common-law copyright, which is pretty ill-defined, but would probably tend to more cover commercial interests and actual monetary damages. There was a fairly relevant case in New York, Capitol Records, Inc. v Naxos of Am., Inc., which was about 1930s UK recordings which were licensed in the U.S. to Capitol (after they became PD in the UK), and a competitor who remastered the original UK recordings then sold them in the US was deemed to be in infringement in the state of New York. The Glenn Miller stuff is a tough situation because of that, and it's theoretically possible those recordings may have similar protection until 2067 I think (or whenever common law rights in sound recordings are slated to fully be replaced by federal law protection). Being common law, there are some common-sense arguments (such as en: abandonment) which become possible to argue... if, for example, maybe if people in the U.S. are making copies and distributing these works right now, without a license, and the UK company is not doing anything about it. Also, the fact of us hosting them probably would not violate common law (we are not making money off of them), but I'm not sure how that related to "free"ness. On the other hand, these recordings are PD in their country of origin, and it may seem a bit extreme to deny their uploading here on the U.S. common law theory. But, if someone does sell this recordings in the U.S., EMI may have grounds to sue under common-law copyright. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:36, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Videos in Category:Videos of Iaido

These videos were taken from those on http://web.archive.org/web/20050127094649/http://iai.whaleeaters.org/.

• First problem, the source's grandfather performed the katas, but the source does not know who is the videographer (it might have been one of the grandfather's disciple or a professional videographer). Japanese law for films gives 70 years after publication or after creation if unpublished (disregarding US law for the moment).

• Second problem, the source states (as indicated here in the Permission field), "You may freely redistribute these movies for the sake of the prosperity of Iai arts." Does this fulfill the requirement for derivatives (modification of content)?

All in all, do these files comply with Commons' requirements? Jappalang (talk) 01:00, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

PD-textlogo

User:Good twins insists that "permission" be given for the licensing of File:Shaw Direct Logo.svg as PD-textlogo, PD-shape and Trademarked. IIRC, (and do correct me if I'm wrong) you don't really need an explicit statement stating these licenses, it can just be inferred in examining the logo. Correct? Connormah (talk | contribs) 13:57, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Correct. Trademark is a non-copyright restriction and is not a reason for deletion. No-permission tags on such files should be removed; if it is thought that PD-textlogo should not apply, then open a regular deletion request, as speedy is obviously inappropriate. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:07, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Asiareports

Could someone review the files this person has uploaded them. I've gone through all but 3 of them and all but 1 of the ones I went through are copyrighted. I dont know which tag to use here.--TParis (talk) 17:27, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

 Done All copyvios deleted. {{Copyvio}} is the correct tag to use. Thank you for bringing these up. If the uploader continues, a block may be necessary. Wknight94 ^talk 18:26, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Proposed new wording for Indonesia

After resounding silence re: [1], I'm going to propose new wording for Indonesia here. Here goes:

Indonesian copyright law is inherited from the Netherlands and retains the same distinction between works with "no copyright" (Tidak ada Hak Cipta) and works that may be used without "infringement of Copyright" (Tidak dianggap sebagai pelanggaran Hak Cipta). According Article 13 of the Indonesian Copyright Act No. 19, 2002, the following works have no copyright:

a. any result of open meetings of state institutions;

b. laws and regulations;

c. state addresses or government official speeches;

d. court decisions and judicial orders; or

e. decisions of arbitration boards or of other similar agencies.

In addition, the duration of copyright is defined as follows:

Article 29: Copyright of books, pamphlets, and all written works; plays and musicals, dance and choreography; all forms of three-dimensional art such as paintings and sculpture; batik; songs and music with or without lyrics; architecture; speeches, lectures, speeches and similar works; display materials; maps and translations interpretations, adaptations and anthologies lasts for the life of the author and for 50 (fifty) years after the author dies.

Article 30 (1): Copyright of software, cinematography, photography, databases and engineering products lasts for 50 years after the initial publication of the work.

Article 30 (3): The Copyright on works ... which are owned or held by a legal body, shall be valid for 50 (fifty) years as of from the first publication.

Both classes of works are in the public domain and may be tagged with {{PD-Indonesia}}. In addition, Article 14 states that the following classes of works may be used without infringement of copyright:

a. publication and/or reproduction of the symbol of the State and the national anthem in accordance with their original nature;

b. publication and/or reproduction of anything which is published by or on behalf of the Government, except if the Copyright is declared to be protected by law or regulation or by a statement on the work itself or at the time the work is published; or

c. repetition, either in whole or in part, of news from a news agency, broadcasting organization, and newspaper or any other resources, provided that the source thereof shall be fully cited.

There are no restrictions on commercial use, and Article 1 (6) defines "reproduction" as "to increase the number of a Work, either as a whole or its substantial parts using either the same or different material, including the changing of the form or mode of a work permanently or temporarily", thus allowing derivative works. These may be uploaded to Commons and tagged with {{PD-IDGov}} template.

Article 15 defines additional classes of works that may be reused with conditions or only for specific purposes (eg. "for the purposes of advocacy", "solely for education and science", "unless such reproduction is of a commercial purpose"). These works do not qualify as free content and may not be used on Commons.

Note: en:Template:PD-Indonesia exists on en-wikipedia, but not Commons; if this looks OK, I'm planning to copy it over. (See also Template:PD-Netherlands and Template:PD-NL-Gov.) Comments? Objections? Jpatokal (talk) 10:53, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I have now updated the wording. Jpatokal (talk) 23:19, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Film Posters from Distributors

Hi,

I'm needing some help with getting these film posters approved which are from the film's distributor's Flickr account.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Clarisworks86

The owners of the Flickr account that have released the images are Titan View, who is also the distributor http://www.titanview.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=18&Itemid=2

Can you advise how I should proceed with this?

I have already contacted the distributor for confirmation. --Túrelio (talk) 06:40, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Titelpage and print information page of a reprint

I plan to upload the editor's forword to a 1907 dictionary published in Germany for which the copyright has expired as the editor died in 1922. I would like to add the titelpage and the page with print and copyright information. The copy I scanned is a 1951 unaltered reprint edition (the terms used are: "Manuldruck" and "Anastatischer Nachdruck"). Would these 2 pages constitute a copyright violation?--RM Vollmer (talk) 10:39, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

File:NTR0001.jpg

The image is tagged as being a government created image and therefore free from copyright, however it seemss a very unlikely image to have been created by a governmental unit - a stylized image of a film star from another country - and no source is given for the supposed government release. Could someone properly tag/delete it? Active Banana (talk) 11:14, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

It is already tagged. Let the usually process takes its course. Yann (talk) 11:45, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

PD-ineligible ?

I transferred File:Image-Ridged Mirror figureB.png from en:wiki, that now appears to have originally come from a book, but it a very simple diagram. It illustrates a physical phenomena and it seems to me that it is so simple that it must be PD-ineligible. --Tony Wills (talk) 20:41, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Just some math, nothing copyrightable here. Yann (talk) 21:44, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm uncertain. There are a number of creative choices, such as the names of the variables, the organization of the diagram, the style used for the marks along the line, that kind of thing. I would call it borderline. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:10, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

The names of the axis (x,y), the angle of incidence (theta) the distances (l, L) are all very standard uses for diagrams of this sort. The choice of reflected wave (K), I'm not sure about, it may be something particular to this phenomena, maybe it is a creative choice :-). Yes the diagram could be drawn in many slightly different ways, different proportions for the spacing, width and height of the bumps on a straight line, width of lines, but the creative input is the same as deciding upon what font to use or what type of triangle or circle that one might use for other simple geometric descriptions (eg the diameter of a circle) - this is a straight line, with bumps. If that is not PD-ineligable what is? :-) --Tony Wills (talk) 22:37, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

The source is the named paper at http://www.ils.uec.ac.jp/~dima/PAPERS/ (it is vector there; this looks to be a screen grab of that). The user alias of the publication's author is "dima", which is the same nickname used by User:Domitori (the uploader) at en-wiki -- that, plus using that same alias on a couple of other uploads, does seem to indicate that the person is in fact the original author. The second paper mentioned has a similar but not identical diagram. While copyright in the papers themselves seems to have been assigned to the journals, you could easily argue that the author has a right to license the standalone graphic (if copyright even exists). As for PD-ineligible, I'm really not familiar with the "standard" way of representing these physics concepts (the basic arrangement of the elements). If it is pretty much standard, or there really are not many other ways to represent the concept, then it is probably an example of the "merger doctrine" (one or limited ways to express an idea) and not eligible for copyright. Minor differences in spacing, variable names, etc. would not matter in my opinion -- the only way this is copyrightable is if the general arrangement can be considered creative. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:45, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the careful research, I certainly hadn't noticed the connection between the uploader and the author Dmitrii Kouznetsov. --Tony Wills (talk) 12:46, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

It would seem to me that any other diagram to describe this simple phenomena would be have to be so similar as to be classified as derivative. --Tony Wills (talk) 22:41, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

---

• 
  PD-ineligible
• 
  PD-ineligible
• 
  PD-ineligible
• 
  PD-ineligible
• 
  PD-ineligible
• 
  PD-ineligible
• 
  PD-ineligible
• 
  PD-ineligible

No comment on which of these might be considered copyrightable, but as I noticed File:Dominant wavelength.png did not have an upload log, I asked at w:en:Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Request details of deleted image. The provenance trail for that image and its derivatives is somewhat confused, but I will try to update the various page descriptions. -84user (talk) 13:39, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

The whole point is that it is PD-ineligible, provenance isn't relevant. The subject is common knowledge, the diagram is a plot/graph of data, the colours are not a matter of artistic choice but computed intermediate shades/tones. I don't see the point of re-hashing that one again. I would like someone with relevant knowledge of "PD-ineligible" to comment on File:Image-Ridged Mirror figureB.png though. --Tony Wills (talk) 11:39, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Rosalyn Yalow

There's a US Dept. of State's publication with an article about the recently deceased scientist Rosalyn Yalow, also sporting a picture of her - Women of Influence, see pg. 28. According to the credits section at the end, the image source is USIA (US Information Agency). Is it reasonable to assume that a USIA employee took it during the course of their duty and upload it as PD-USGov? — Yerpo ^Eh? 19:49, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes I think so. The credits are very careful to note copyright in most of those images, but that would seem to be {{PD-USGov-USIA}}. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:16, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Uploaded as File:Rosalyn Yalow.jpg. It's rather small, but better than nothing, I suppose. — Yerpo ^Eh? 20:35, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Is Google Maps PD-ineligible?

Hello. During this discussion on a DR about an image derived from Google Maps, and the ensuing discussion in the talk page, the question of potential PD-ineligibility of Google Maps was raised up. The questioned map was of this particular area. I supported the deletion of the file based on the copyright notices for both Google and Map Link displayed on Google Maps. However, the PD-ineligibility struck me as evident when I tried to explain to the uploader which parts of it are actually copyrightable. Actually, I couldn't find none. The lines, angles and text that compose the streets seem to be all in public domain, the small symbols apparently are pretty much standard and public domain as well.

Can someone please have a look at this and provide an informed opinion? If this is what it seems, perhaps a new tag should be developed, something such as {{PD-ineligible-map}}? Or is this old news and we already have something for those cases that I'm not aware of?-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 17:49, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Maps have always been pretty heavily protected in copyright law; I really don't think we'd go far arguing a PD-map in court.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:07, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

But why? What part of it can be copyrighted, exactly? It's so public domain that most cities usually have dozens of maps available commercially or handed out at tourism kiosks, and they all look identical, discounting any artistic features, which are virtually absent from Google maps.-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 18:27, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

The selection of which features to include and omit, combined with their appearance. Very specific outlines may also be an issue, though the general borders are all there. For example, it's possible to get a copyright on the order of the songs on an album, even if all the songs and recordings were public domain -- the selection and arrangement of those songs is copyrightable on its own. I don't think you would have to vary things too much to create a non-derivative map, but straight copying is almost always going to be a problem. "Maps" are specifically listed as copyrightable in almost every copyright law, so there is not really much room for interpretation. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:13, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Such was my first interpretation, indeed. Then, on second thought, I began thinking on how stupid it was that a copy of Google Maps with different colours and Aunt Lizzie burgers marked in the corner of the street would not be a copyvio, but copying the original is. It doesn't make much sense, but if that's the law, then that's the law. I guess we can still shamelessly copy from Google Maps and tweak the map a little so that it don't becomes so obvious, then?-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 20:34, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Simply changing colors doesn't do it. That's not even a derivative work, let alone a separate expression of the same idea. Your example above would not be OK, I don't think. I meant redoing the basic information on the map using elements from some other (PD or licensed) source. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:01, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Hmm... The "elements" here are simply lines, I really don't see what is the difference. I may as well claim I've done it from scratch, since it would be impossible to tell, no? -- Darwin ^Ahoy! 21:26, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Of course, no. Different independently produced maps are very different while similar. Take a look at the city in question on Google (MapLink), Bing (AND) and OpenStreetMap -- while the main features are the same, a lot of little details of the maps are different, and it would be possible for an expert to prove the fact of copying. If there is a mistake in one map, and the same mistake exists on another map, it's obvious that one map was copied from other. Sometimes there are even copyright traps -- deliberately added mistakes to catch a copyright infringer. Trycatch (talk) 22:09, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Ok, now I got the idea. Such was, indeed, my first feeling: Someone is collecting that data and organizing it, so that someone deserves credit as an author. Thanks a lot for the explanations. One last question: May I draw a map from scratch based on an unfree map such as Google Maps, and credit my sources for the data? I'm asking this because I see that map data is copyrighted by Map Link in Google Maps. That means it can't even be used as a source?-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 06:01, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

You don't need to re-invent the map from scratch, there is already a project to do that Open Street Map (also mentioned above), you can edit the maps and add street names etc, but probably best to either do areas you are familiar with or look at multiple independant sources rather than depend on one particular source. --Tony Wills (talk) 22:35, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I've noticed it was free indeed. I guess that's all I need to know, in case I ever need to upload a map of my own (which most probably I will).-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 23:09, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Change to non-commercial license in a PD-art work of art

Today I noticed this unexpected change in the licensing of a work of art. If this was something else, I would simply revert to the original license, but since the work is PD-Art anyways, maybe this is allowed? I mean, I doubt that such a license changing would ever be allowed, but appending a non-commercial license for the photo seems to be Ok, actually. We have a load of artworks here whose photos are not free on themselves. I'm also interested in your opinion on if this license changing should be left alone, since the PD-Art was kept, or if it should be reverted anyway.-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 17:20, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

That license is completely inappropriate. If nothing else, the only license in the licensing section is non-commercial, and the whole is terribly confusing and misleading.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:50, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

@Darwin, best would be to talk to the uploader. --Túrelio (talk) 18:00, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

The PD-Art tag was not changed. The author changed from the GFDL/CC-BY-SA (migrated) combo back to GFDL 1.2 only. Did we let authors do that? Thought we did, but maybe there was a time limit. However yes, that license is only valid in jurisdictions which allow a copyright on such a photo; while the U.S. (and Commons) does not, some countries do or at least might. I think the PD-Art aspect to this is a red herring, as it is solely about the GFDL license migration, and if authors could prevent that. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:01, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

There's also the addition of a licensing section with the sole component being a non-free license.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:11, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the change was to GFDL 1.2 + CC-NC, weird. I don't know what it means, really. Apparently at least the CC-NC could be safely ignored, since it's already covered with GFDL 1.2?-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 18:21, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

No, the GFDL is a pain to use in many circumstances, since you have to include the whole license, where you don't with the CC licenses.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:30, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I missed that, but authors can always add other licenses too, so nothing wrong with it, other than it should be along with all the other licenses. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:37, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I would talk to the uploader, but first I wanted to know what I would say. I'm still confused with that indeed. We generally don't care about non free licenses on photos of two-dimensional PD works of art, so he could indeed license that under CC-NC, and place the license there, from what I understand. However, as Carl Lindberg says, this could have an impact on countries that don't follow the premises of PD-Art, so it's not completely harmless. If he is changing the license, that's because he wants that license in place, I assume, possibly because he licensed them incorrectly when uploading (something very common, and even more common now with the restricted set of licenses in UW - I'm finding a lot of photos of cities licensed under Free Art, for instance). The question is if it is important enough to demand him to not change the licenses, or if its harmless enough to let it go (and simply fix the license mess he left behind).-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 18:15, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

The main question is if we allow authors to "un-do" the license migration to CC-BY-SA, and if so, how long do we let them do it. Commons:License_Migration_Task_Force/Migration#The opt-out provision mentions we could put a time limit on that, but not sure we have. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:37, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

The picture was never migrated; when it was created on 2 November 2010, the permission line was {{Self|GFDL|Cc-by-sa-3.0-migrated|author=I, {{User:Henrique Matos/Credit Henrique Matos}} }}. This is a simple license change, no migration involved.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:52, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

That's different then. Yeah, that's an issue. I just noticed File:Casa Arte Nova Aveiro by Henrique Matos 02.jpg, where the same user just removed a cc-by license. Licenses can be added, but not removed -- they are permanent licenses. We should talk to the uploader and explain that, and hopefully they will not change any more, but the original CC licenses can be (and should be) restored. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:07, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

The file description page's explicit statement that "this image is not in the public domain" is grossly misleading. Clearly this work is in the public domain in the United States and some other nations under Bridgeman v. Corel. I'm all for releasing it under an additional free license, but we should not give reusers the impression that they are constrained to follow awkward conditions that they in fact are not. Dcoetzee (talk) 21:08, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the wording is misleading, indeed. Maybe I'll revert his changes and give him a word, based on what has been said here.-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 21:14, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

The most obvious thing is that a PD-Art tag has nothing to do on the description page of that image, because the photo was made by the uploader. Per Commons policy, the image is to be tagged with PD-old, which describes its status in the U.S. and in other countries where this photo is not copyrighted. Besides, the addition of the two licenses makes possible the reuse of this photo also in the countries where it is copyrighed. The description page should be edited by removing the PD-Art tag and by making the situation clear enough for the average visitor, at least provided that the uploader had that same understanding of the situation when he uploaded his image. However, there are reasons to suspect that the uploader may not have understood the situation that way and may have thought that his copyright on the photo extended worldwide. Would he have published it if he had understood that it was into the public domain in the U.S.? Probably yes, but, if not, what then? Would we allow deletion of his file or do we tell him "too bad you made a mistake by uploading your file but we keep it"? That's a first question. The other question is the matter of the license change. The uploader's initial use of the parameter "cc-by-sa-3.0-migated" (instead of "cc-by-sa-3.0") is odd, although he can not have missed the fact that anyway the result was that he was offering that licence. Now, with respect for contrary opinions, I'm in the camp of those who think that currently we (the Commons community) do not have the possibility to stop authors who decide to cease to offer a license (something which, I know that you know, is a totally different matter than the impossibilty of revoking a license), that we should be given that possibility, and that the way of doing that would be through a decision of the Wikimedia Foundation imposing a clear contractual condition for the use of the Commons website. (As far as I can tell, what currently looks like a clause to that effect on the site was added by an individual user and IMO does not bind anyone and is not enforceable against the author's rights unless formally confirmed into a contractual condition by the WMF.) All that to say that I, for one, would rather not start a fight with the uploader about that point. Especially since there might be some ambiguity on the matter of knowing if the uploader has, per policy, any obligation to place any license at all on that type of image. Indeed, weirdly enough, the wording of some policy pages looks like it could be interpreted as allowing a photographer-uploader to not add any free license to such an "own work" photo in order to cover the case of the countries where it is not in the public domain. On the other hand, the general spirit of the project and of the general licensing policy could be interpreted to require a free license (or a declaration of worldwide public domain release), inasmuch as the photo is the work of the uploader and said uploader does claim copyright in those countries, and the policy normally requires that an author-uploader freely licenses his work for worldwide use. That might deserve some clarification too one way or the other, eventually. -- Asclepias (talk) 23:33, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Hm. First, on PD-Art -- despite the wording, the PD-Art tag does give a lot more specific legal information over a bare PD-Old, and also explains why the other tags are there. The user uploaded the original with PD-Art, so they knew exactly what they were doing (which is good -- licensing for non-U.S. countries too). As for being able to change or remove licensing, the real issue here, I will have to disagree. The images may well have been used in a CC-BY-SA derivative work here, and changing the license to GFDL then endangers that derivative work. This is a collaborative project, meant to be able to build upon any works here -- once put on the project, there is no inherent right to release it. The license is not revocable, and the image page is part of the project, and any user here can update the page to make the actual licensing situation clear (including license history). Authors should definitely be allowed to fix mistakes, but something which has sat with a license for over a year, there may well be usages here (and elsewhere) and we at the very least need an accurate license history. Our project is meant for reuse like that, and should not be prejudicial to re-users. Once uploaded here, authors no longer control distribution, it is already distributed. If they have the ability to change a license, they also inherently have the ability to remove it -- do we allow that, thus forcing us to delete images? It is a somewhat thorny question, as sometimes authors do have second thoughts and it would be nice to accommodate those wishes, but obfuscating the actual license history is quite damaging to the people who make use of the stuff here, and seems counter to the spirit of the project as well. If you can think of an in-between solution, great, but I haven't been able to. Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:57, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I just reduced the information template to the relevant license information. Everything else is of no consequence or even misleading. Not even the {{own}} should be allowed in this context, because the template expands to "own work", while we deny that a faithful reproduction of a 2D original is a "work" in the meaning of copyright law.And you can't give a license to a "non work", because there is no individual contribution that could be licensed. --h-stt !? 08:48, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the additional licensing should have been removed (either the old or the new), it provided an useful license for those countries which do not follow the premises of PD-Art, as has been said above.-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 09:57, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

We do not deny that a faithful photographic reproduction of a PD 2D work is copyrighted where it is copyrighted. We even go through some effort to explain that in Commons:Reuse of PD-Art photographs. (Despite the apparently restrictive title of that page, the same principles can probably apply also to self-published photographs of PD 2D works.) Merely forbidding the licensing that can be applicable to those countries would serve no useful purpose, as it would remove the possibility of reusing the works in those countries, and that would be contrary to our objectives. However, I suppose that, considering the position that such copyright is considered unfavourably, we could consider the implementation of a policy that would require that the self-publishers of this type of photographs on Commons must release those photographs to the public domain worldwide (with CC-0 or an equivalent). Of course, the price to pay could be that some photographers might decide not to publish those photographs here. But the community could evaluate if it is worth it. -- Asclepias (talk) 11:50, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense to allow the upload of photos of works of art from wherever which are under "all rights reserved" and tag them with PD-Art, and at the same time forbid a Commons user to upload a photo of his own under the same restrictions.-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 13:03, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

There is a difference between the two situations. Let us start with the fact that Wikimedia has a position of principle on this matter, which is to consider that copyrighting such photos is abusive. So, we may want and try to be as consistent as we can with that position of principle. When we grab a PD-Art photo from someone outside the Wikimedia community, we do not have any choice, we cannot make it free everywhere, despite the Wikimedia position of principle that the copyright on it is bad. We have no reach, moral or practical, on the photographer who is not a member of the Wikimedia community. We cannot do more than enunciate that the photo is free in the U.S. and in countries with a similar rule on that point. In short, we do the best we can for making that photo as freely available as it is possible for us to do. It is not that we would not want to do more to be consistent with the Wikimedia position, it is that we can not. Things are different when we deal with direct contributors, members of the community. The community can, if it wants, make its policies consistent with its stated principles. It can expect its contributors to adhere to those principles, or at least comply with them. It has the tools. So, although your argument is valid, the opposite is also valid, as one could argue that it is not exactly consistent for us to preach that such photos should never be copyrighted, as an important matter of principle, and at the same time allow some of our own contributors on our site to do exactly that in breach of that principle. (I do not want to put words in someone else's mouth, of course, but I am under the impression that that was more or less the notion underlying H-stt's comment above.) -- Asclepias (talk) 14:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

The additional licenses were most definitely valid, and should have been kept. Really, this situation is the author changing a GFDL/CC-BY-SA combo to GFDL1.2/CC-BY-NC-SA, and whether that should be allowed -- the PD-Art is irrelevant. We don't need anything more than PD-Art to keep it by our own policies, but the additional licenses can very definitely still be useful. But, once donated, the licenses are not revocable and that is the appearance of that user's edits. The original licenses should be restored, in my opinion. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:58, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I concur with Carl Lindberg opinion that the best practice probably is revert to the original licensing, and keep that license along with PD-art. Meanwhile, I've notified Henrique Matos about this debate, in case he wants to join (though I believe the theme vastly surpasses the particular actions that gave origin to the thread).-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 19:19, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Cultural public data in France

Some French users are concerned that a 1978 law about use of public data may prohibit us from republishing digitizations produced by French museums/libraries/archives, including an active batch upload. Please see Commons:Village_pump#Cultural_public_data_in_France and respond there. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:55, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Question regarding copyright status of derivative works of Touhou Project material

There is something that I am not sure about, and would like to ask the greater community on their viewpoints. I would like to inquire on how Wikimedia Commons would treat the copyright status of derivative works of images and audio from en:Touhou Project (ja:東方Project) created by ZUN. Now, this is going to get a bit TL;DR, so I've separated my post into sections.

Background information

As basic as it gets, en:Touhou Project is a en:Doujin (think "indie") game series created by a guy called ZUN. ZUN was responsible for creating all the in-game art, composing all the in-game music, and did all the programming for the games. Hence, ZUN is the copyright holder of the games, character designs and music. The game series became very popular, due to its unique art and music. As a result of its popularity, people created piles and piles of unofficial fan-created artworks and doujin comics based on the many game characters from Touhou Project that are all over the internet, and others created piles and piles of self-made remix albums and arrangements of the in-game music originally composed by ZUN.

Copyright status of Touhou Project content derivatives

As a result of this boom in fan-created content, ZUN released a statement regarding the copyright status of derivatives of his work.

• ZUN's terms of use, in it's original form in Japanese, can be found here.
• en:User:Deadkid_dk, who is also active at the Touhou Wiki on Wikia, has made a good faith English translation that can be found here. Since the Touhou Wiki is licensed as CC-BY-SA, I have copypasted the translation here for everyone's convenience (bold added for emphasis):

ZUN's terms of use

Q: I want to make derivative work based on the Touhou series's characters and settings. The copyright of the Touhou series, including its characters, content, quotes, and music belong to my circle. That said, this series is supported by many doujin creators. (Thank you) For the usual activities in doujin (uploading material on a homepage, selling them in a convention or in a shop at your own expense), or doujin material (derivative comics, stories, games, CGs, goods, cosplay), you do not need to notify me or request my permission. The copyright of derivative works belong to the creators of said derivatives. If there is trouble regarding the derivatives of my work, I cannot take responsibility. To avoid trouble, please satisfy the following conditions. Using game data other than screenshots is forbidden. If you need data other than screenshots, please make them yourself. Content that includes inflammatory material towards us or other copyright owners is forbidden. If possible, please attribute us. (recommended) If possible, please include our contact information in the colophon. (recommended) Please do not mistake the names of the games or the characters. Do not reproduce or reprint ending material, including the text. For the commercial production of derivative material, or the mass circulation of derivative material outside of doujin shops, you must seek my permission. To publish on commercial magazines and books, you must notify me. (You do not need to do so for magazines that describe doujin and derivatives.) If you did not satisfy the above conditions but received my permission, please make clear that you have received my permission. Otherwise, decisions like for sale or for free, how many to print, the price to sell them at, adult only or not, original settings or not, is entirely free for you to choose. However, if I see material that I decide to not fulfil the above conditions, I have the right to stop its distribution. Q. I want to use snapshots on my webpage (for a walkthrough, etc.) Of course I don't mind. You don't even have to notify me beforehand. As long as you follow the rules below, I won't mind. Don't post endings. Rescaling is okay, but please preserve the images' aspect ratio. Don't make image content edits that are indistinguishable from the original images. This includes things like changing the spell card names, recoloring the images, or add extra bullets that weren't originally there. However, this is okay if it's done as a joke and it's clearly stated that it's a joke. Things like cropping the images or overlaying them with text are no problem. If you have any doubts, just ask me and I'll respond.

TL;DR, although he is the copyright holder of said material, he gives permission for others to make derivative works, and then claim them as their own work and ownership, provided that they cite ZUN as the original creator of the Touhou franchise.

Why you should care (this is the important bit)

I am particularly interested in making lossless and lossy audio recordings of Touhou Project music arrangements on the piano created by myself, and then uploading the tracks onto Commons to act as an audio example that I can use on the Wikipedia articles for either Touhou Project or en:Team Shanghai Alice (the developer name ZUN works under) to demonstrate a few (not many, of course, since WP is en:WP:NOT a hosting service). In addition, a friend of mine has also expressed interest in drawing his own artworks of Touhou Project characters and uploading them onto Commons, to provide visual depictions of the characters in Wikipedia articles. With this in mind:

1. Would this be acceptable on Wikipedia Commons?
2. How would the license tagging and permission explanation work? Would I simply just be able to tag a "copyleft: original author gives permission for derivative works to be freely created provided non-profit and cited etc etc" template (acknowledging the original of the derivative), then a "self-created CC-BY-SA" template beneath (for licensing the user-made derivative work) and include a link to the Terms of Use page in the "permission" box?
3. Alternatively, would I be able to create a new licensing template specifically for Touhou Project audio/visual derivative works, that specifically details all of the above in a neat template, given the potential that the Japanese Wikipedia can take huge advantage of such a license, if the Commons community finds it permissible for such works to be uploaded?

Does anyone have any ideas, suggestions or comments? Sorry for the walls of text. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 12:59, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Hmm... If the use is limited to non-profit, I don't think it would be ok to upload them on Commons.-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 13:34, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Isn't Commons non-profit anyway? And it isn't the same in regards to the restrictions Creative Commons has in its non-profit licenses (which is why we don't accept non-profit CC licenses); rather, it would be good to make mention that our usage is non-commercial (i.e. we don't intend on making $$$ out of the image), to display good faith and intention; otherwise, we have no obligation to make any mention of non-commercial as per his Terms of Use, it does not prohibit making sales in the first place. He has already stated that the derivative is not licensed to him, but the creator of the derivative - hence the derivative creator can release it under the CC-BY-SA license, since the owner of the artwork is the one that decides on the license, and the owner in this case happens to be the derivative creator. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 13:43, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

The non-commercial nature of the Commons website itself is not the problem. The reason why the Commons website does not offer works that have "non-commercial" restrictions is because one of the basic purposes of the Wikimedia websites is to offer works that can be freely reused by anybody else outside of the Wikimedia websites in any context, including commercial use, without particular restrictions. -- Asclepias (talk) 14:00, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

We can remove the "non-commercial" clause then. The Terms do not specifically require works to be non-commercial; I initially thought it would have been a good idea to include that just in case. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 14:06, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand. I thought you were reproducing in the box the translation of ZUN's terms of use. If so, we cannot ignore the restrictions that are part of them. -- Asclepias (talk) 14:18, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

No, I wasn't rewording the terms; I was thinking of a license template I saw a long time ago and forgot the exact details, but tried to reproduce it from memory. Now I'm quite certain that "non-commercial" shouldn't have been mentioned in that template, though I still can't remember what it exactly said. I remember it was a green-coloured template with a copyleft logo on it. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 14:39, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

The introductory paragraph of ZUN's terms of use look very permissive, but then he goes on and adds restrictions, some of which require, for certains uses, notifying him or getting special permission, and he reserves the right to stop distribution if he evaluates that those conditions are not met. Contrary to what we might think if we read only the introductory paragraph, it would probably not be possible for the author of a derivative work to offer that derivative work under a free license of the type CC-by-sa, because that would be a violation of the restrictions in the license granted to the reuser by ZUN in the first place. -- Asclepias (talk) 14:18, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

The impression that I got (well, things like this are subject to interpretation anyway) was that as long as clauses 1 to 9 were achieved (quote: "please satisfy the following conditions"), it is then the case where, quote, "The copyright of derivative works belong to the creators of said derivatives." In other words, the 1-9 are a preresiquite for the right to copyright. The 1-9 aren't specifically addressed as rules (i.e. restrictions) that must be followed after the transfer/inheritance of licensing, but rather how to decide on whether the terms of copyright are valid for a specific case or not. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 14:35, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

That works only when the reuser copyrights his derivative work with all rights reserved, without himself offering a license, or if he offers his derivative work under a license that specifically preserves and requires the restrictions of the original license on the original work. In other words, the reuser does not own more rights on the original author's work than those that were granted to the reuser by the original author. The reuser cannot give away the part of the original author's rights that the original author never gave to the reuser. A reuser who would offer his derivative work under a free license like CC-by-sa would be trying to grant to the subsequent re-reusers rights that he (the first reuser) does not have, because the original author never granted him those rights, never authorized him to lift the restrictions on the use of the elements of the original work that are integrated into the derivative work. The reuser cannot do that. -- Asclepias (talk) 15:19, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

How do we know his points still applies? What says? All he's said is that the derivative owner holds the copyright, why do we have to assume that his terms of use must be carried on after that? Aren't you simply assuming that it is so? This is subject to interpretation, but there is nothing stated that specifically says that his points must still be valid after copyright to the derivative has been granted. In fact, the terms specifically say "copyright of derivative works belong to the creators of said derivatives", however there is no clause that can be even remotely paraphrased as "there are definite limits regarding your ownership however, and that a re-use of a re-use of this derivative work must still follow the terms that I have listed". He has simply stated that the ownership of the derivative is the authors, not his; there is no further detail to that line. I think the procedure of absent clause until proven otherwise applies here. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 17:34, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

You may say that it is a question of interpretation, but to me it's clear that the spirit of his rules is indeed that the restrictions should be kept, or else ever all he wrote would be utterly irrelevant. A company could simply use someone to release the derivative work into public domain or whatever, and then engage in all the activities he does not want for the derivatives of his work without authorization.-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 17:41, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

"All he's said is that the derivative owner holds the copyright" <--- The document shows that that is certainly not "all he's said". A reuser could not choose and pick the words that suit him and ignore the words that don't. "Why do we have to assume that his terms of use must be carried on after that?" <--- If anybody could ignore all ZUN's conditions simply by whitewashing the work through an intermediary, that would empty ZUN's terms of all meaning. He might as well not have written them and instead released his work for unrestricted free use. Had he wanted to allow unrestricted free use, he would have said so, not written conditions. One cannot remove 95% of the terms of use and treat that like an unrestricted free use release. -- Asclepias (talk) 21:02, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Points 3 and 8 of the conditions are problematic. -- Asclepias (talk) 13:42, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Re. 3: I think this applies to works that are blatant personal attacks. (e.g. using an image for flaming/trolling/griefing on an internet forum) I don't see how this might be an issue. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 13:45, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Re. point 8, ZUN has said that he does not specifically prohibit people from making monetary profit from derivative works. In fact, unofficial Touhou manga (comics) are sold all over the internet, in comic stores all over Japan, and during big events such as en:Comiket. Even his ToU says "Otherwise, decisions like for sale or for free, how many to print, the price to sell them at, adult only or not, original settings or not, is entirely free for you to choose." and "...selling them in a convention or in a shop at your own expense". Point 8 in his ToU refers to commercial production, i.e. if you intend on selling works and making money, but you are not a personal seller, rather a commercial company (with a mass-publishing studio/factory/etc; think long supply chains of The New York Times being printed); personal sellers sell Touhou doujins all the time. The point also refers to mass circulation... outside of doujin shops, i.e. making mass-numbers of printed copies of art, and not selling the art but giving them away in large numbers, akin to handing out promotional pamphlets. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 13:48, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with your interpretation of point 8, but that's still not free enough for us. Our licenses allow someone to make "mass-numbers of printed copies of art"; if this content creator doesn't allow that, then it's not free enough for our purposes. (Also, I note that point 1 would exclude your idea to create piano arrangements, as it specifies screenshots only.) Powers (talk) 14:46, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Point one refers to game data, not self-made works. That is, if I were to extract the data files from my game installation and remove the original ZUN art, and upload it, it would be a copyvio. This is where clause 2 comes into play: "If you need data other than screenshots, please make them yourself." In our case, we made the work by ourselves, and it wasn't extracted from the game installation. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 14:50, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

To clarify:

• when I'm referring to derivative artworks, I'm referring to something similar to this: a SFW artwork image of Reimu from Touhou from pixiv
• when I'm referring to derivative music, I'm referring to something similar to this: Scarlet Heaven of Delays by かめりあ, an electronic/dubstep arrangement of UN Owen was Her? by ZUN, from youtube
• when I'm referring to game data, this includes art originally by ZUN, music originally by ZUN, screenshots of the games originally by ZUN, etc. An example of a screenshot of a Touhou game can be found on English Wikipedia

Arranged music is also a derivative Touhou work - in most cases, people would make techno, trance, scranz, dubstep, classical pianoforte, metal rock, orchestral, jazz, etc re-arrangements of original ZUN music, and then sell the album at Comiket. Since the derivative is not game data, it is permissible under ZUN's terms. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 14:57, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm thinking that, if a template should be created, that it would contain the text (subject to change):

This visual or audio work is a derivative work of a visual or audio work of the Touhou Project franchise originally created by ZUN. According to ZUN's Terms of Use¹ (or add a collapsable here), "copyright of derivative works belong to the creators of said derivatives", provided that the following criteria are met: (add a collapsable here) Hence, the original creator is free to select a license of their choice.

Below this first box, we would have the uploader add a second {{PD-self}}, {{CC-BY-SA-self}} or whatever license tag. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 14:48, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

The first section sounds permissive, but that only gives away the derivative works control for the "usual activities in doujin", not all situations. The rest of it seem to be the conditions outside of such "normal" use, and part 8 explicitly says "for the commercial production of derivative material, or the mass circulation of derivative material outside of doujin shops, you must seek my permission." While perfectly reasonable for him, that does make it non-free in my opinion -- permission is clearly required for much commercial use. The terms seem geared towards allowing a community surrounding the game to flourish, but not allow people to make money off of it in unexpected ways -- very sensible and quite permissive even, but not "free". To me, your proposed works sound like they is fine within the definition of the ZUN license, but the works would still not be "free" (unless you got specific permission from ZUN on your particular works), and would have to be used under a "fair use" rationale, or at least non-free, on Wikipedias. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:07, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

"uploading material on a (web)page" (paraphrased a synonym) is classfied as "For the usual activities in doujin" according to ZUN's given definition. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 15:15, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Correct. You are not violating their terms by uploading them here; the problem is that the upload does not conform to Commons:Licensing, as the works would not be "free". There are conditions on much commercial use (which is quite understandable), meaning that other people cannot make use of the work as they choose, but must still get permission from ZUN. For similar reasons, we do not allow "Wikimedia-only" licenses, which would be perfectly legal at that point to upload, but would prevent others from using them, which is not "free". Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:22, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I have addressed your concern in a post made simultaneously to this post in reply to User:Asclepias above as well; CTRL+F for the timestamp following my signature. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 17:34, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

For the usual activities in doujin (uploading material on a homepage, selling them in a convention or in a shop at your own expense), or doujin material (derivative comics, stories, games, CGs, goods, cosplay), you do not need to notify me or request my permission. The bolded part, and number 8 in the conditions, seem to make clear that permission for unfettered commercial use is not given, but rather only in a certain area. Would it be possible, by that license, for a band to incorporate the melody of one of their songs and make a hit song out of it (having nothing to do with the game otherwise, just using the composition)? Doesn't sound like it. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:23, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

It's been done before. And not just once or twice, but on a regular basis. Songs have been made out of Touhou music, and have had record sales at Comiket/Reitaisai. (Just not WP:N enough to warrant album articles on WP.) Plenty of the rock, pop and RNB genre songs with male and female vocals have lyrics that have nothing to do with the game, and just use the BGM tune. (What is your definition of "hit song" anyway? Does it have to make the California Top 40? I doubt a doujin music producer has the resources to go for that.) I'd post a link to a page for ummm... piracy downloads with plenty of such albums to prove my point, but my post would most likely be oversighted by a sysop due to linking to illegal content (piracy is illegal in most countries anyway). Although it would be pure, unjustifiable speculation to say that "ZUN doesn't care about what becomes of his stuff", you can similarly argue the other way around. Plus, even so, uploading an image of a character artwork is doujin, as is a piano arrangement of BGM. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 18:36, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

What about using the artwork on the cover of a mass-market paperback? What about using background images on a mass-produced commercial DVD? The things our licenses have to allow reusers to do go far beyond "usual activities in doujin" and extend to "commercial production of derivative material, or the mass circulation of derivative material outside of doujin shops" -- which he explicitly states requires his permission. Our licenses have to allow that commercial production and mass circulation; a requirement that his permission be sought before doing so is not acceptable. Powers (talk) 22:38, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Never mind then, it seems that they aren't suitable for use on Commons. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 01:06, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Maybe you could contact the artist, and seek permission to publish at least some of the derivatives under a free license? That would seem the proper path, and possibly a successful one as well.-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 01:26, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Is a published data protocol of a Nuclear Power Station PD-ineligible?

This website contains - among other things - data protocols of Fukushima I nuclear power station, like this one and this one. These are machine-generated lists and graphs, some with manual annotations.

My question regards only the machine generated things, which are no creative work by humans. I would like to upload an excerpt like this as an example, or maybe some excerpts as documentation of fukushima accidents.

Can these images be considered as PD-ineligible? --PM3 (talk) 14:48, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes. There is no originality or creativity in those examples, and they are therefore not protected by copyright. —LX (talk, contribs) 15:07, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice! --PM3 (talk) 15:50, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Photo of club magazines

I've got a question about this file: File:De Snorkul Clubblad GSBV Moestasj.JPG, a photo of some club magazines. Since the magazines and any logos, photos etc. itself are copyrighted, is it allowed to take a photo of a magazine and upload it to Commons? I can't really imagine it is, since there is no such a photo for, for example, the Donald Duck magazine. -- ZanderZ (talk) 18:21, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

In short, photos of modern magazines are almost always not okay, but there are exceptions, and this one looks like a borderline case to me. Usually photos of publications currently under copyrights cannot be free licensed, as Commons:Derivative works. However this doesn't apply to simple text and simple geometric designs. For the magazine seen on top of this stack, the only one where the complete cover is seen, I think the only potential problem might be the magazine logo; I've added {{Trademark}} to the image. Since only small portions of the other magazines can be seen, I think this might pass as Commons:De minimis. However there is one visible photo on one of the magazines at the left where a substantial portion of the photo is visible; a version with this photo either blurred or cropped out might make this less subject to challenge as a potential copyright problem. Infrogmation (talk) 19:44, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for your answer. I was asking because it would be nice to add some magazines similar to this to an article, but I will refrain from doing so. ZanderZ (talk) 22:42, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Copyright of paintings and is this a common problem?

I was wondering about the copyright of modern paintings, my assumption which I later verified is that the copyright would usually belong to the artist and ownership of the painting should not be confused with owning the copyright. I confirmed this from Commons:Image casebook#2D art (paintings etc.). And there's no freedom of panorama for faithfully reproducing 2D artwork in the US.

Anyway while searching for this I was looking at the page of en:David Lenz. I came across File:Sam and the Perfect World (640).JPG which I belatedly realised may have been uploaded by the artist themselves. This would be great (well we probably need further verification) except that as I earlier found out, the competition rules requires the winning artist to assign the copyright of the painting to them [2]. The artist retains the right to use the painting for non commercial portfolio purposes only. From a quick glance, the Sminthsonian rules appear to restrict the use of content they own the copyright to [3]. As I understand it, this is possible since even though works of the US federal government are normally in the public domain, the federal government can retain copyright if it is assigned to them by a third party.

The same page also has File:Rare Halo Display- Portrait of Eunice Kennedy Shriver.jpg. This is a potrait commissioned by the Smithsonian NPG for inclusion in their permanent collecton as part of the prize for winning the competition above. There must be some terms for this which may include assignment of copyright but I can't find them, it may be necessary to email the Smithsonian Institute if it matters. The person who uploaded this said "I took this photograph standing in the museum, photography is permitted and the painting is owned by the US government" which of course is missing the key point, the painting may be owned by the US federal government but who owns the copyright? Even if it is the Smithsonian as per above it's not clear this helps. And the photo is dual licensed as CC and GFDL. As I understand it this is likely invalid. If the painting is in the public domain, no copyright can be claimed on the photo in the US as it's simply a faithful reproduction.

Anyway my key reason for writing here is not so much the copyright status around these particular paintings. But since I came across two problems in one wikipedia article (admitedly one apparently from the artist themselves), is this a common problem? While the problem of people not understanding they can't just claim copyright because they took a screenshot or own the book (or found an image on the web is common, I think the more informed do understand this. Yet I can't help thinking that even many of those more informed of copyright who do understand about screenshots or books still don't understand it also generally applies to things like paintings.

Nil Einne (talk) 21:00, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Your reasoning is entirely correct - sometimes artists transfer copyright to another party, and sometimes they do not. Ownership of the physical artifact is completely unrelated to who is the copyright holder of the work. Only works produced by the a US federal government employee in the course of their duties is in the public domain. The government can obviously own works whose copyright belongs to other people. In fact, as noted on Commons:Currency, the US federal government can own copyright in a work, if copyright was transferred to them by a third party who was the original author. And yes, many people seem to incorrectly assume all paintings are PD, probably in large part due to the fact that many paintings are PD. If you find such an erroneous justification, either replace it with a legitimate one (where applicable) or nominate the file for deletion. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:57, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

www.Photobucket.com

Has anyone checked out this licence? www.Photobucket.com. It passes the gobbledegook test but is it free enough?--ClemRutter (talk) 11:25, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I take it you mean the Photobucket.com Terms of Use Agreement. The relevant provision seems to be clause 6.1:

... By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content on or through the Photobucket Services, you hereby grant to Photobucket and other users a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, worldwide, limited license to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce and translate such Content, including without limitation distributing part or all of the Site in any media formats through any media channels, except Content marked "private" will not be distributed outside the Photobucket Services. Photobucket and/or other Users may copy, print or display publicly available Content outside of the Photobucket Services, including without limitation, via the Site or third party websites or applications (for example, services allowing Users to order prints of Content or t-shirts and similar items containing Content). After you remove your Content from the Photobucket Website we will cease distribution as soon as practicable, and at such time when distribution ceases, the license to such Content will terminate. If after we have distributed your Content outside the Photobucket Website you change the Content’s privacy setting to "private," we will cease any further distribution of such "private" Content outside the Photobucket Website as soon as practicable. ... [Emphasis added.]

The effect of the clause, particularly the italicized portions, is that a person who uploads content on to Photobucket is only granting a revocable licence for the content to be reused. Once the uploader marks the content as private or removes it from the website, Photobucket will stop distributing the content. The consequence is that "the license to such Content will terminate". Thus, the licence is not free enough for the Commons, which requires uploaders to provide an irrevocable licence in respect of their uploaded content. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:10, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

On top of the discussed problem, photobucket should be considered as a forbidden source for Commons, because you can never be sure that the uploader is the author, as they obviously don't really check this. I have found quite a number of my images copied to photobucket and being distributed under violation of the license. On the bright side, when you send them a DMCA take-down notice, they usually act fast. --Túrelio (talk) 18:55, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, thgat was the reply I expected! Thanks for the explanation.--ClemRutter (talk) 19:34, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Re your last point, note that many of our sources, and we ourselves, don't confirm that the uploader is the author. See Commons:License laundering. This is unfortunate but unavoidable. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:00, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

It is listed on Commons:Bad sources#Photobucket. —LX (talk, contribs) 12:34, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

New license template

A query at Commons:Help_desk#How to add the IETF's IPR rules to Wikimedia, has a proposed license template for their material. I think they may need a little help to get a compatible license. --Tony Wills (talk) 22:45, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

File:081108-F-9999S-101.jpg

Could some admin handle this DR please:

• Commons:Deletion requests/File:081108-F-9999S-101.jpg

Someone who claims that he is the copyright owner requests that the image is deleted, as it is a private work and not a USAF photo. Thank you. SV1XV (talk) 02:57, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Rosemåling

A museum has given me access to photograph a very good example of Norwegian decorative painting called "Rosemåling" on a trunk. It has a date on it of 1847 and it was brought to the United States from Norway about 1860. What is the best license to use? Jonathunder (talk) 15:18, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Anyone have advice? Jonathunder (talk) 02:31, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

The painting is dated 1847, which means the painter certainly died more than 70 years ago, so the painting itself is in the public domain. Assuming the painting is on a flat surface, faithful photographic reproductions of it do not attract any copyright protection in the United States. If that is indeed the case, the tag to use for this situation is {{PD-Art}}. —LX (talk, contribs) 09:30, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. The painting surface is not everywhere flat. Does that change things? I, the photographer, would be willing to release my work into the PD in this case. Jonathunder (talk) 22:31, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

For a painting on a flat surface, photographic reproductions would naturally be made "head on." If the painting is on a curved surface, a photographer might have a less obvious choice of angles, producing different results. The creative input of choosing an angle may then give the photographer the copyright to the resulting photo. If you think that you've contributed something original to the photo, you may choose to publish the photo under a license of your liking or release it into the public domain, as you suggested, using {{PD-self}}. If you think that your photo is simply a faithful reproduction, just use {{PD-old}}. ({{PD-Art}} is intended for faithful reproductions created by someone other than the uploader. I misread your original message and didn't realize you were the photographer when I wrote my previous reply.) —LX (talk, contribs) 23:15, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your time. That's what I needed. Jonathunder (talk) 20:15, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Political party logos

I've noticed that a number of Spanish political parties make their party logos/anthems freely available on their websites - even including a manual of style. Would this qualify as being in the public domain? http://www.psdeg-psoe.com/psdeg-2/identidade-corporativa/ —Preceding unsigned comment was added by 79.76.173.107 (talk) 10:43, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

No. -- Asclepias (talk) 16:10, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

But if some logos are old enough, those might no longer be copyrighted. - Jmabel ! talk 16:32, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

File:Vacca headshot.jpg

Hello, this is an image from some US Government body. (New York City Council, it seems,) Initially I marked it as USGov, but upon noticing that USGov only applies to federal institutions I removed it from the file and marked with no license. The initial license was bogus. As I'm not used to the paraphernalia of US licenses, and it is possible that the file gets deleted in 7 days if nobody notices it, can somebody more used to US licenses review this and provide an opinion? -- Darwin ^Ahoy! 20:04, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

This looks like the common situation: the uploader claims to be the author of a photo already published on the internet. Unless he provides a confirmation by OTRS, the file is deleted as a probable copyvio. -- Asclepias (talk) 22:27, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I know, but given the immense variation among US licenses it could be that one of them could apply to the NYC Council, but from you answer I deduce that it's just business as usual. :) Thanks, -- Darwin ^Ahoy! 16:48, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Correct, it has to be made by an employee of the federal government in the course of their duties for PD-USGov to apply. Anything else we need other licenses. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:56, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

File:McDonald's Golden Arches.svg

I was wondering where it was determined that File:McDonald's Golden Arches.svg was eligible for {{PD-textlogo}}. Since it's a combination of a letter "M" and the arches from the original restaurant design, it's not merely text or "simple" geometric shapes, in my view.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:21, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree, but the volunteers here have a bad habit of stretching the threshold of originality in order to host more files. Simple shapes and text should be just that. – Adrignola talk 15:44, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

It's an M. If you take a look at the US copyright office's cases, they've been pretty hostile to any thing that smacks of fancy lettering; this is a lot simpler than the w at the top of File:Best Western logo.svg, and we have File:Best Western Logo.pdf where the copyright office explicitly refuses to register that logo for copyright.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:08, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

That letter was very instructive on where the line is drawn for PD-textlogo, thanks. I still suspect the arches may fall on the other side of the line, but I'm not as sure as I was. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:19, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

It's not anywhere near the line, in my opinion -- it's about as slam-dunk a decision as we get. There are further examples at Threshold of originality, one in particular is File:Graceland S logo.jpg, with the decision on that here -- they reiterate that any aesthetic effect, or symbolism, does not have any affect on the copyrightability -- they judge by the two-dimensional design itself. This is an "M", a trivial variation on a public domain element. There is not even arrangement possibilities here (which can be its own copyright), as there is only one element. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:52, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

It's an M. Other aesthetic or symbolic considerations are irrelevant, per U.S. Copyright Office guidelines and numerous rulings. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:12, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

It's indeed quite clearly a rather simple variation of the letter M. It's also easily expressed mathematically as two pairs of parabolas. Hardly any originality in that. —LX (talk, contribs) 18:49, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry interruption, but I´ve got a doubt. I took a photo of an old, very famous building in Uruguay (with FoP) but in the main floor now there is a McDonald. Can I upload it anyway or is not possible? Thanks. --Andrea (talk) 22:22, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest that this discussion should not have taken place here. Sarek, the right way to get an answer to your question is to tag the file {{Delete}} with an explicit question in the nomination -- and saying where you come down, which might be a keep. That would have given us an official position on the file and the {{Kept}} tag would have been on its talk page as a link to the discussion. This discussion, on the other hand, will disappear into the archive of this page and will be effectively lost the next time the subject comes up.

And it will come up again, because, like most of those above, agree that we can keep it.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 23:08, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Agree with that, but often people who are uncertain about the status of an image don't want to be bold and nom for deletion. Instead, let's deal with the problem by adding a section link to this discussion to the talk page after it stabilises. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:27, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, except that Sarek is not a newbie. A link is a nice idea, but unless I'm mistaken the link would not be changed after the bot archives it, so someone would have to do it after the page is archived. After we're done, I'm inclined to copy the whole thing to a new DR, and then close the DR immediately. What do you think?      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 11:13, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

The trick is to use a permalink including a section anchor. Those never become stale. But they do have to wait for the discussion to finish. You can also move to a DR if you want. Dcoetzee (talk) 15:45, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd appreciate it if you'd do the permalink when appropriate and point it out to me -- a teaching moment to be added to User:Jameslwoodward/Commons notes for administrators. Thanks,      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 16:02, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, with the various clarifications here and on my en.talkpage, I think I see why I was incorrect. Thanks for your help! Feel free to archive this immediately for ease of permalinking, if nobody else has anything to add. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:26, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Commons:Currency#Iraq

...is not a working link. What's the status of most of the stuff under Category:Money of Iraq? I see lots of incorrect claims of uploaders being copyright holders. —LX (talk, contribs) 18:46, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I've just updated the Iraq's copyright information, I'm not sure if WIPO listed all Iraq's copyright law documents or not. apparently the Iraq's law does not mention any freedom for banknotes or coins and in general for works created by the government of Iraq. according to the copyright notice on website of Central Bank of Iraq, I believe they hold the copyright of all of their works.   ■ MMXX  ^talk  11:59, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! 64 files nominated for deletion. —LX (talk, contribs) 16:01, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

The deletion discussion has now concluded. There were no counter-arguments put forth during the past two weeks, and the files have been deleted. Based on this, I have added a section on Iraq on Commons:Currency, so the heading is now a working link. —LX (talk, contribs) 23:48, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Watermark copyright and free licence, or not?

• File:Macband-cruquius.jpg
• File:Macband-fiets.jpg
• File:Macband-haarlem.jpg
• File:Macband-logo.jpg
• File:Macband-opgesteld.jpg

These files show watermark of copyright, but upload mention free licence. Uploader has only uploaded these pictures. Are these really free licence images? --Havang(nl) (talk) 10:59, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

There are two problems here that apply to all five:

• If the uploader were the same person as the watermark name, then no problem (but see below). Since they are not the same, we will require OTRS permission from the web site named in the watermark. We will require that even if the uploader uploads new versions without the watermark, since we are on notice that someone else claims copyright.
• A CC license of any sort is perfectly compatible with a copyright watermark -- we don't like the watermark because it's ugly, but it does not affect our license. However, these images are uploaded as PD, which is incompatible with any copyright notice -- once you put something into the public domain, you cannot claim copyright.

Separately, File:Macband-logo.jpg is derivative of the artist's copyright in the logo, so it is three times bad.

Therefore these need two DRs -- one for the four of the band and the other for the logo. I'll let you do the honors -- you might just copy this whole discussion to the DR pages.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 11:13, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

     Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 11:13, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Java platform

Hello guys. File:Java platform.svg is a derivative work of File:JavaPlatform.png, which was uploaded on en.wiki under fair use because Sun Microsystems holds the copyright of the diagram. I think that the derivative work is a copyviol, which means that it should be deleted from Commons.
However user Jcb says the diagram is not eligible for copyright at all because it just contains plain information which doesn't meet the threshold of originality. Which is not possible indeed, as the image on en.wiki is just identical to this one, and is under copyright indeed. You can find our discussion here. So who's wrong? --151.75.42.55 23:56, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

The argument could be made that the image on en.wiki has an invalid copyright for the same reasons given for the image here on Commons, so I would try to find other arguments besides that. — Huntster (t @ c) 02:33, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

It was said that the way of presentation does not meet the threshold of originality. In this case, I think that originality is given by the overall set of

• the exact layout and colors used in the picture
• the metaphore of the bricks which make up the wall of the Java platform

etc., which - as a whole - are a result of the creativity of the authors of the source file. If this is not enough, then I can't really figure out what else could ever give originality to a given diagram. --151.75.16.149 04:53, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

There you go, that's a more appropriate argument. I would strongly suggest you open a deletion request for that file, as you argue it well. — Huntster (t @ c) 08:54, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Please leave your comments at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Java platform.svg. Dcoetzee (talk) 19:57, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Library of Congress photo Q

Take a look if you would at this LOC photo card [4]. A 1943 photo by Jack Delano from the files of U.S. Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information. Is it sufficient to claim PD-US-Gov free license, or not? NVO (talk) 08:51, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

• Ah, never mind, Category:Jack Delano and en:Jack Delano suggest that it's ok. NVO (talk) 09:05, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

File:Actor portraying Alexander Graham Bell in an AT&T promotional film (1926).jpg

"File:Actor portraying Alexander Graham Bell in an AT&T promotional film (1926).jpg" was originally thought to be a photograph of Bell testing out the first telephonic device in 1876, but it has been pointed out that it is a photograph associated with a 1926 promotional film by AT&T. Is it in the public domain? {{PD-US}} does not apply. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:31, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Jack, why not hang a {{Delete}} on it with the same question? It will get a lot wider audience there and our colleagues often come up with otherwise obscure information about such things.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 12:12, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

OK. Wasn't sure if I should be so trigger happy. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 12:41, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'm getting a lot of flack on the question at the moment, see this, but I believe that a DR is the best way to proceed for any significant uncertainty about an image. It gets wide publicity, has a built-in mechanism for following the precedent in the future, and the nom may say something like, "I really don't know about this image -- what does the community think?" which should soften any sting to the uploader. "Should", of course is sometimes not the case, see above.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 14:59, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Moving copyright discussions away from this page

Please see Commons:Village_pump/Proposals#Move_copyright_discussions_away_from_Commons_talk:Licensing. Rd232 (talk) 12:02, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Post card license question

I'm pretty sure this is the right place to inquire about this. If not, please excuse my ignorance and point me to the the proper venue. Anyway - I have a question about this image "[[5]]". The image page lists "Polish libraries" or, if you translate from German, "Polish public libraries" as the author. The license claims that the copyright for the image has expired because the copyright applies to "term of life of the author plus 70 years.

Ok, now obviously the author the postcard is not "Polish libraries" but a specific person. I'm guessing "Polish libraries" is just where the uploader found the image, or what wherever they found the image got the image. Even if there's a weird logical inconsistency here. If "Polish libraries" are the author, then obviously they haven't been dead for 70 years.

The publication date for the postcard is given 1939, which may or may not be true. 1939+70 would make 2009, so the claimed license presumes (based on nothing) that whoever the author was they died in 1939, 1940 or 1941. Of course, without actually knowing who the author was, there's no way of knowing if that is in fact true.

It seems to me that the claimed license is inaccurate here.Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:15, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

It is difficult to tell because the uploader did not provide a source. His saying that the postcard is the source is not useful. His use of the PD-Art tag hints that he did not make the file himself directly from the postcard. He left the default text of the tag. He did not mention a specific reason why he determined the image was in the public domain. I suppose there might be some vague possibility that "Public Libraries" could have been some sort of entity who officially authored or published the postcard. This was a one-time uploader. Someone asked him the question about the source on his talk page in 2009 but he never replied. If you believe the public domain status tag is not valid, you can initiate a deletion request. -- Asclepias (talk) 17:18, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

There's another version of the file [6] which gives as source this website [7] - it can be seen that the image was obtained from it. That website is titled "Atypical maps of Poland", and the url of the website has it titled "Weird maps of Poland" (perhaps "Queer maps of Poland" would be a better translation). The website itself speculates that the image itself was some-kind of a pamphlet issued by a fringe political group, rather than an "official" postcard. I'm starting to suspect that the uploader simply made up the source and the license. Ok, how do I initiate a deletion request?Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:17, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

How to initiate a DR: Short answer. -- Longer answer. :) -- Asclepias (talk) 01:59, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the better course of action is to locate a better scan and identify the publisher. Their name is written in lower left, but not legible in this file (some letters are clear, others ??). Anyway, it won't be a great loss - the Poles, indeed, fancied many "weird maps" so there should be enough "replacements". NVO (talk) 06:01, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Discussion ongoing at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Postkarte der polnischen Volksbüchereien Juni 1939.jpg. The written name in the bottom right is the publisher. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:58, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

FOP for Monaco?

In relation to File:S6307828.JPG and a few other (equally descriptively named) images of modern sculpture by same uploader: Is there FOP in Monaco? I couldn't find anything about it on COM:FOP. Thanks. -- Deadstar (msg) 13:14, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I didn't find FOP, but my French is not good, so perhaps you will also want to take a look at the WIPO copy of the Monaco Copyright Law. Finding that something is not in the law is much harder than finding it if it is, particularly if you don't read the language well.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 17:11, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Jim. I could not find it using google translate as my French doesn't stretch that far either. Is there anyone with legal interpretation skills and French who can have a look? I'm leaving the images for the moment. -- Deadstar (msg) 19:25, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Amphitrite ornata.gif

I have uploaded a file, File:Amphitrite ornata.gif, that states it has a "Clipart ETC Licence", shown here. Is that permissible? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:03, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

No. It states "No commercial use may be made of the clipart on this site without written permission of FCIT". This is not compatible with Commons, as it needs to be freely available for commercial use. -- Deadstar (msg) 07:38, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:20, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Just a note, the illustration there is from a 1915 publication (it would be best to mention that in the source as well). The ETC reasoning on why they think they own a derivative copyright in the scan (and therefore can license it) is highly dubious in the wake of Feist vs Rural (they are basically claiming sweat of the brow) and the Bridgeman decision, though I've always avoided uploading images from that site, just to respect their wishes on the matter. Carl Lindberg (talk) 12:53, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

WoRMS

I have uploaded several images from the World Register of Marine Species based on the information at the bottom of this and similar pages that states that "This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License". I gave links to these pages when uploading the files. Deletion is now being proposed for these files. Please explain. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:48, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

You've not linked the images, so how the hell should we know why they're being proposed for deletion?--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:44, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

File:Chaetopterus-variopedatus.jpg - See foot of page http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=129914

File:Bougainvillia-ramosa.jpg - See foot of page http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=117331

File:Nemopsis-bachei.jpg - See foot of page http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=117348

File:Alcyonium glomeratum.jpg - See foot of page http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=132159

Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:48, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

The images are licensed separately from the text, and are under a non-commercial license (I think all are). —innotata 19:07, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Your reply is very much more helpful than that of Prosfilaes.

I am today contacting WoRMS to ask them to give permission for use of these files. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:22, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Yep, it looks like every photograph on those linked pages have an explicit CC-BY-NC-SA license, when looking at the image pages. We would need permission from the individual authors though; WoRMS itself cannot give the permission, since the copyright is still owned by the photographers from the looks of it. It does seem the site does give contact details. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:31, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I have contacted WoRMS but I see the files have already been deleted from Commons. Is not that a bit premature considering the statement "Unless the permission information is given, the image may be deleted after seven days." was posted on my Talk page on 26 June? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:45, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

The user who notified you was only being cautious, in case you had actually obtained the license. But now, it is clear that you don't have it, so for now the files can't be kept. Asking for a license, with no certainty of getting it, is not the same as having obtained it. -- Asclepias (talk) 06:28, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

The notice is used in cases where there is no permission, to give you seven days to get it. Once it became clear that the licenses on the images were NC, their status here changed from "no-permission" to "copyright violation" and for those our policy is delete-on-sight. If you do get the photographer(s) to send permissions using the procedure at Commons:OTRS, the image(s) will be rapidly undeleted without your further intervention. Be sure to have the photographer(s) use the Commons file names in their e-mail(s).      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 11:43, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

One of the photographers, Hans De Blauwe, has given permission for the File:Bougainvillia-ramosa.jpg to be used. I have sent a copy of his email to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org . Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:45, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

question

Let's say somebody made a painting of a this image of a camouflaged fish I took. May I upload the painting to wikipedia (of course giving the artist name) or I should have the artist permission and go through normal OTRS process to do this? Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 05:45, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Assuming the facts as you state them (that the painting is clearly a derivative work of your photograph) then it would need a license both from the painter and from you. Although creators of derivative works must get permission from people whose works they use, their work also has its own copyright.

Note that a derivative work must be derived from the original. If the artist had never seen your photograph, then the painting would be an independent creation and not a DW, even if it resembled your photograph.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 10:53, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

The author asked my permission to make the painting and emailed me the image of it, so of course it is a painting of my image. Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 13:13, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Many of our users do not have good English and others do not really understand copyright, so I try to be careful -- perhaps a little too much so for you. Sorry about that.

Yes, then it is as I said -- licenses from both the painter and you.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 14:07, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Long story short: you need to place two license tags on the image, labelled as "license for the painting" and "license for the original photograph". For the latter, you may directly insert whatever free license you have selected. For the former, the painter will have to submit permission through OTRS like normal. Dcoetzee (talk) 03:34, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Free Art License?

I think we should remove the Free Art License from the list of permitted licenses shown. It requires, among other things:

"If the work can no longer be accessed apart from the larger work in which it is incorporated, then incorporation shall only be allowed under the condition that the larger work is subject either to the Free Art License or a compatible license."

This means that if a Commons image is used in a book (among other places), then the whole book must carry the Free Art License or a similar license. That is contrary to our policy of free use -- we certainly expect that Commons images can be used in copyrighted works, provided that they are used in accordance with the terms of the license, usually requiring attribution. I note that at least two of the off-Wiki users of my images would not have used them under a Free Art License.

This requirement is in contrast to Creative Commons licenses, which require only that the license be named and the the BY and SA terms be complied with, if they are part of the license. A CC license on an image has no affect on the license on the whole work in which the image is incorporated.

Allowing the FAL on Commons means that professional photographers can use Commons as a gallery of their work, while forbidding any use in a copyrighted work. We are not here to provide gallery space for images that are for sale.

Full disclosure: This subject arose from the discussion at Commons:Deletion requests/Filles in Category:Miniatur Wunderland where more than 2,000 images are involved.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 11:18, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

If I well understood what you said above, Free Art License makes the images unsuitable for use in Wikipedia articles, since to my knowledge Wikipedia is not licensed under FAL (or is it?).

I shall note as well that FAL is being heavily misused in the new Upload Wizard, with almost none legitimate uses appearing in the images uploaded with that tool and carrying the FAL license. In the last few days I've done little more than clean the huge queue of copyvios, wrong licenses, fair-use rationales and whatever from the FAL material uploaded with UW. I was even contacted by email by the copyright heir of a known painter who was uploading his paintings under FAL thinking it was only for non commercial use. Legitimate uses of that license approach zero, that I can guarantee. It is being useful as a copyvio trap, however.-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 12:26, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

What I find a little bit strange about this license is that "our" FAL template doesn't provide any information what the re-user has to do (attribution, etc.) for proper re-use, see for example: File:Wintersweiler - Evangelische Kirche5.jpg, very contrary to our CC templates. --Túrelio (talk) 12:33, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't the same problem exist for all strong copyleft licenses? But anyhow, even if a FAL-licensed image from the Commons were included in print media, it could still be accessed at the Commons (unless it was deleted), so it could still be accessed "apart from the larger work in which it is incorporated". Otherwise, I must agree with Darinius above: FAL in the license dropdown is a great copyvio trap. Lupo 13:42, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

I think that section is just about derivative works, i.e. just like the the SA provision of the Creative Commons licenses, but does not affect inclusion into a collective work like a book (that would be stretching their rights anyways). In a collective work, the original should always be able to stand on its own anyways (i.e. should be accessible as an individual work apart from the larger one). It is somewhat oddly worded, but the source language is French and they are looking at things from a French copyright law point of view, and maybe the translation is a little different due to that. But it seems to basically be a pure copyleft license, intending to apply the GPL concepts to artistic works, and therefore yes derivative works also need to be licensed using the same license (the usual copyleft situation, and just like the share-alike CC licenses). It's recommended by GNU as well for artistic works, so it would seem to be a solidly "free" license according to the usual definitions. Being part of the dropdown may make sense as well, as I think it is more widely used in the French community, but it is one of the major "free" licenses out there. Any license tag can be abused. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:04, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

It may be that the Free Artistic License can be explained better, but I just tried the Wizard and the problem is clearly with the Wizard and not with the FAL. FAL is the only option under "Miscellaneous reasons" if you say "this file is not my own work". This is just asking for trouble. Anyone know how to edit the Wizard? Rd232 (talk) 14:33, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh, yuck. That doesn't sound good. And yes, our tag should probably explain the license better. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:39, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

It should be moved to a more clear position in relation to what it is, and replaced by an "I don't know" option (or something to the effect). That way the trap would be more effective, and people would not be misusing that license so much. But the trap must be there, otherwise they will upload all that stuff under the CC licenses, and then it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. They still do it, but the trap takes care of a significant part of the bad files.-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 14:44, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Lupo. I don't really think clause 4 ("If the work can no longer be accessed apart from the larger work in which it is incorporated, then incorporation shall only be allowed under the condition that the larger work is subject either to the Free Art License or a compatible license.") is incompatible with Commons policy. The clause is only triggered if the work in question cannot be accessed except from a "larger work in which it is incorporated". That will not happen so long as a version of the work remains in the Commons. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:15, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

As User:Rd232 explained here just above, the problem with FAL is with the Upload Wizard. I have to upload lots of images with the license {{PD-author|name of the author}} . My only option under "Miscellaneous reasons" is Free Art License. I have to add the proper license under "more options" and remove each time the FAL in the description of the uploaded image. If someone else has the same problem as I do, and doesn't remove the FAL afterwards, then the Free Art License has been used improperly and gives the problems as stated in this discussion. JoJan (talk) 08:15, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

But, Jacklee, what happens if I use an FAL image in a book and then Commons, for whatever reason, ceases to have it? It seems to me that the whole concept of copyleft is incompatible with using such material in a book or other printed work, unless, of course, the publisher is willing to make the whole work copyleft.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 20:34, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like why GNU GPL and Design Science License require distribution of the source code. --AVRS (talk) 09:30, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Again, a book is not a derivative of the images contained inside. Copyleft only "infects" derivative works, not collective works -- copyright law explicitly gives rights to authors over derivative works, but makes just as clear that the copyright in collective works is independent of the contained works. It's possible to make a contract that could restrict a party as regards collective works I guess, but that is out of character for GPL type things, and indeed the FAL FAQ answer referenced at the Commons:Village pump/Copyright#Licence_Art_Libre_.2F_Free_Art_License discussion gives examples which do indicate they are only talking about derivative works explicitly (they give examples of collective works which do not need to be licensed FAL, one of which being a FAL song used in a non-FAL movie). Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:49, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

See Commons:Village_pump/Copyright#Upload_Wizard_-_Free_Art_License. Rd232 (talk) 00:59, 13 July 2011 (UTC)