Commons talk:Stamps/Archive 1

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Ukraine

Intels about this country's stamps are discussed [on this user's page. Sebjarod 17:42, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Discussion of copyright laws of various countries governing use of stamp images

Posting by Jack Child 17:46, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

1. We would like to raise the issue of copyright of postage stamps of various countries in the Commons and in the main Wikipedia page in the English language. This is important since to talk about a postage stamp without illustrating it is akin to talking about a piece of art without a visual image of it. The contribution we as philatelists can make to Wikipedia would be greatly enhanced if we can use stamp images more widely, always staying within copyright law and restrictions.

2. It appears that Wikipedia's approach to stamp copyright is different for the main Wikipedia page (in English) and for the Commons, because the Common is considered a multinational project, and thus the copyright laws of individual nations govern.

However, the main Wikipedia page in English lives on servers in the United Sates, and thus US Copyright law applies. The pertinent US Public Laws are 85-921 (72 STAT. 1771) and 90-353 (82 STAT. 240), and these permit the reproduction of US and foreign postage stamps for philatelic, numismatic, educational, historical or newsworthy purposes. There is one exception: US postage stamps since the creation of the US Postal Service in 1978 are copyrighted. This permits the USPS to control the images it uses on things such as the mugs, key chains, Christmas decorations, etc, that is sells in Post Offices. Individuals can request USPS for permission to use postage stamp images since 1978, but there is a fee which starts at $25-50.

3. Wikipedia's approach to using postage stamps on the main page, in English, is contained in this Wikipedia statement on public domain: "It is believed that the use of postage stamps on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law."

Would anyone want to confirm this interpretation, or comment on it?

4. Wikipedia's approach is consistent with the approach taken by philatelic journals (see The American Philatelist, Linns' etc), as well as other journals, magazines and newspapers which use postage stamps as illustrations, as long as the publication is in the United States and is governed by the copyright laws cited above.

5. So what can we do to reproduce postage stamps on the Commons? Here are some ideas for your consideration (your opinions and comments on this talk page would be valued):

a. To see what different country copyright laws permit, go to http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stamps/Public_domain Here you will find specific copyright restrictions and permissions for 8 countries, including the U.S. and the United Kingdom. This is thus not of much help for anything other than these 8 countries.

b. To expand the list we could go to the philatelic bureaus of other countries and ask them what the copyright permissions and restrictions are (I am doing this for Latin American countries, which are my philatelic speciality). As we obtain this information we should post it on the Wikipedia page in b above. A pretty complete list of these philatelic bureaus has been prepared by Linns stamp journal, and can be found at: http://www.linns.com/reference/postadmin/admins.asp?uID={C7FA1533-B065-40F6-B63C-241969354B6D}

c. Another approach would be to go to the Scott Catalog people (I have written them a letter) and ask if they would permit reproduction of images from their CD-RoM version of their catalog. This CD-RoM now is published in color, with image resolution which can give fairly decent reproduction for web page use. The Scott catalogs (CD and paper versions) are published in the US (Ohio), so US copyright law would apply. The Scott copyright notice seems to suggest that reproduction of these images is permitted, but it would not be wise to try this without specific permission from Scott.

I apologize for the length of this posting, but it seemed worthwhile to lay out the various parts of this rather complex copyright issue, suggest some possible solutions, and ask for your wisdom and comments as fellow philatelists interested tin greater use of images on our Wikipedia pages. Jack Child 17:46, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for posting this! Re point 2, that doesn't apply to, for instance, the German Wikipedia on DVD that you can buy. While it might be legit to sell such a DVD in the US, I'm sure the Germans are more interested in being able to sell it in Europe. :-) The text you mention in point 3 was written by me, basically an adaptation of en:'s generic fair-use verbiage to the stamp case. I think we just need to research the situation for each country - there is probably much more that is freely usable than we realize. For instance, the Germans researched their laws and decided that German stamps were effectively in the public domain. Scott gets to rely on fair use, so don't know how useful their response is, but it would be interesting to hear Michel's rationale for using other country's images, seeing as how they're published in Germany. Stan Shebs 14:16, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Rsponse with thanks for the posting, Stan: Using Google and my University's Law School library I have begun to research copyright law for Latin American nations (my primary area of philatelic interest). What I have found so far is not particularly helpful. For those countries with available copyright laws I have found no specific reference to postage stamps, or for government publications generally. The copyright laws deal mainly with the rights of individual authors or media creators. Using the Linns' list I mentioned in 5b above I have also written the philatelic bureaus of nineteen Latin American nations asking them for any copyright restrictions and permissions. As I get any results I will post them here as well as in the Stamps/Public domain country-by-country listing.Jack Child 19:23, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

About point 5a : I and some others have put what we know for sure (?) thank to other contributors here on Commons. You're welcome to add other countries and sources. :)

About fair use, fr.wikipedia ban fair use two months ago, like some others wikipedias. Images of stamps that are not into the public domain are tolerated for philatelic purpose only (the stamp illustrating the article about it). Fair use vs free license (GFDL, public domain) is one of the major troll on fr.wikipedia. Sebjarod 17:15, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Regarding El Salvador, on 3 Jan 2007 I wrote their Philatelic Bureau (along with 18 other ones in Latin America) requesting information on permission to use images of their postage stamps and their governing Copyright Law. The head of their philatelic office responded by email 11 Jan 2007 as follows:

"Silvia Orantes" <silvia.orantes@gobernacion.gob.sv> 01/11/2007 10:06 AM CST To <jchild@american.edu> Subject Respuesta de Correos de El Salvador Estimado Dr. Child, En base a su nota recibida con fecha 03 de enero 2007, donde hace referencia a la interrogante de si los sellos postales de El Salvador están en el dominio público y si se pueden reproducir las imágenes de estos sellos sin permiso especial, me permito informarle que usted puede hacer uso de las imágenes de los sellos postales siempre y cuando sean para ser utilizados para medios informativos educacionales, filatélicos y culturales. Está prohibida y castigada la utilización de imágenes de sellos postales de El Salvador cuando son para fines comerciales, falsificaciones y/o reproducciones. Espero con esto responder a su consulta. Me encuentro a sus apreciables órdenes, Le saluda atentamente, Silvia María Orantes, Jefe de Filatelia, Correos de El Salvador. Tel.: (503) 2233-7625 / 2233-7629 Jack Child 17:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Translation: Subject: Answer from the Postal Office of El Salvador. 11 January 2007. Dear Dr. Child, in response to your note of 3 January 2007, in which you ask if the postage stamps of El Salvador are in the public domain, and if images of these stamps can be reproduced, I am pleased to inform you that you may make use of such images as long as they are to utilized for educational, philatelic and cultural informational media purposes. Use of postage stamp images for commercial, falsification or reproduction purposes is prohibited and will be prosecuted. I hope this answers your consultation. I remain at your orders, with a cordial greeting, Silvia María Orantes, Chief of Philately, Postal Office of El Salvador.Jack Child 22:26, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Paraguay, I received the following response from their Philatelic Bureau, 15 January 2007.

"Filatelia" <filatelia@correoparaguayo.gov.py> Señor Dr. JACK CHILD, Profesor de Castellano. Estimado Dr., los sellos postales de nuestro país estan en el dominio público y se pueden reproducir las imagenes de estos sellos sin un permiso especial. Esperamos contar con algunos de esos materiales, para nuestra biblioteca. Atentamente, Señora Graciela Mármol, Jefa Asesoria Filatelica Jack Child 01:00, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Translation: Response from Paraguayan Postal Office, 15 January 2007. Dear Dr., the postage stamps of our country are in the public domain and images of these stamps may be reproduced without special permission. We hope to be able to count on some of these materials for our library. Sincerely, Mrs. Graciela Mármol, Head of Philatelic Advisory Office.Jack Child 22:26, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Jack maybe you can translate your posted replies for those of us who do not know Spanish.

Last year I asked the Irish philatelic bureau about the Irish stamp copyright, and even though I received an acknowledgement of my request, I never received any answer from them. My feelings on stamp copyright, from that small personal experience, is that the philatelic bureaux are somewhat intent in avoiding giving an answer to us on the situation of whether we can use their images on a fair use, or other Wikipedia acceptable licensed use basis. I would love to think that other bureaux are more responsive to information requests but I suppose only persistent request, maybe by hard copy letters, will get a response. To be honest I feel pessimistic, but am optimistic. Ww2censor 02:18, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Heh - it's also possible that they don't actually know, or that it would take research that no one there has the expertise to do. One thing I've noticed is that former British territories often take over large amounts of legal code unchanged (a practical way to save on the costs of setting up your own country :-) ), so there's a good chance that they picked up the 50-year term of Crown copyright. People who know would tend to be legal specialists rather than philatelists. Stan Shebs 14:51, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Check it out - there's this online encyclopedia that has a short article on en:Irish copyright law and links to various statutes... :-) Stan Shebs 14:56, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

And as I surmised, the act of 2000 says "Government copyright in a work shall expire 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was made." [1]. Stan Shebs 15:04, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion on translations into English, which are posted above with the Spanish responses from the postal offices from El Salvador and Paraguay.Jack Child 22:26, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Spain: Spain's copyright law is: Royal Legislative Decree 1/1996, as amended on January 7, 2000

Translation of email from Spain's Philatelic Bureau, 18 Jan 07: In order to receive authorization to reproduce our postage stamps, you should send a written request to the Director of Philately, José Luis Fernandez Reyero. In the request you should include details of the use to be made of the images, type of publication, etc. The more information, the better. Under no circumstances will a true size reproduction be authorized. The reproduction should be at least 25% larger or smaller than the original size. Please send your request to: José Luis Fernandez Reyero, Director de Filatelia, Sociedad Estatal de Correos y Telégrafos, S.A, Vía Dublin, 7, 28070 Madrid, Spain. Jack Child 23:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Does that mean they claim copyright all the way back to Isabella stamps of 1850, or does the law provide an expiry date? Stan Shebs 15:02, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I have written them asking for a clarification of this point: is there a date prior to which all stamps are in the public domain. The copyright Law does not specifically address the issue of postage stamps.Jack Child 15:41, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Regarding point 5c above (Scott Catalog images)

I have heard back from the Scott people. They are willing to consider requests for specific images, but warn that they usually require a hefty charge to reproduce and use an image. So I guess that's a dead end.Jack Child 15:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Scott does not have copyrights in these images, so they are in no position to grant or refuse permission to use them. The copyrights remain with the relevant countries or stamp issuing authorities. It is noteworthy that Scott does not give credit or refer to permissions for its use of these images. I suspect that if they were ever questioned they would rely on fair use. Eclecticology 02:55, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

And given that stamp sales by modern postal administrations are partly dependent on the images appearing in Scott, there's basically zero chance that any of them would ever raise an objection. Stan Shebs 13:39, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Discussion about anti-counterfeiting laws

In addition to the above discussion about copyright, it appears that there may also be concern regarding various nation's anti-counterfeiting laws.

For example, a US Secret Service page states that US postage may be reproduced if it is black-and-white, or an image of a canceled stamp. A color image of a non-canceled stamp must be extra-large or extra-small (I'm not sure what that means with respect to a digital copy. Maybe this just means the DPI must be below some threshold value.)

I also found a similar rule for Canada, which states that reproductions must be extra-large or extra-small, or must be defaced (via a line drawn through the image.)

I don't know what the rules are for other countries, but I would expect something similar. I bring it up here because (as a part of other browsing), I discovered stamp images that are in color and are not canceled or defaced. Here's one example.

Is this something that has been discussed previously? Is there a Wikimedia policy? If not, should there be? Should these images have, perhaps, a black line drawn through the denomination? Or perhaps they should be required to be low-resolution (like Wikipedia requires for some fair-use images.) Shamino (talk) 01:25, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Discussion on the Universal Postal Union, WADP, WNS

I contacted the WNS (WADP Numbering System) people asking if we could download and use the stamp images on Wikipedia. They replied (email from Jean-François Thivet, Assistant, WNS, 6 Feb 2007) that the images could indeed be used on Wikipedia.

To some extent the WNS number duplicates other numbering schemes, such as those used by Scott or Stanley Gibbons, but no monetary value is assigned to the stamps. The WNS number comprises the ISO 3166 Alpha-2 country code (2 letters), a serial number (3 figures) and the year of issue (2 figures), i.e. a total of 8 characters including a dot.

Their site carries information on stamps from about 160 individual countries or postal entities, and over 25,000 individual stamps. Some of the country entries are blank, and many do not go back to 2002. But the ones that are most useful provide updates to standard catalogs, along with the images.

Their web site notes that: The stamp designs are the property of their respective issuing postal authority. The issuing postal authorities have allowed the reproduction of the stamps displayed on this website.

The images on the WNS web site are thus NOT public domain. But the email mentioned above does in fact permit their fair use. Jack Child 19:42, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Technically, "permission for fair use" is meaningless, because the whole concept of fair use is that it's legally OK with or without permission of the copyright holder - if the copyright holder withdraws the "permission" later, the fair-use status doesn't change. All it means is that a use has the blessing of the copyright holder, at the moment anyway. Stan Shebs 23:58, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

What exact licensing should I indicate when uploading files from the WNS web site? --Michael Romanov 18:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The images are not licensed under any of our allowed free licenses, nor are they in the public domain, so we can't upload any of them here, unless the postal authority is one who we already know does free license or PD. Stan Shebs 15:21, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Wrong page-title?

I've just translated the page to German. The page was intended as a list of public-domain stamps but for some countries there is given "only on request" including the postal address or a limitation on non-commercial use, for some the templates are listed, for others external legal texts. Is this list intended only for stamps, for which the copyright status is different from the general copyright status in that country, or for a general overview on the stamp-related copyright rules? For me, the latter would be sensible, especially the PD templates for each case should be listed in the country section. But in any case: What sense does a sub-page "/Public domain" make if there is no head page Commons:Stamps? Shouldn't this be moved there? --Liondancer 03:14, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

This page is just for listing which stamps of which countries are PD. While in theory there could be stamps under GFDL or CC or other free license, I don't think there are any real-life examples. Feel free to rename it however you like, don't think it matters much. Stan Shebs 03:27, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Ireland

For the current Irish postal administration, An Post I found this statement on their web site An Post "Terms and Conditions": "Material on this site is the copyrighted property of An Post.. All rights are reserved. The information and images presented here may not under any circumstances be reproduced or used without written permission. Users may view and download material from this site only for personal, non-commercial home use. To reproduce, republish, upload, post, transmit, distribute or publicly display material from this website you will need written approval and consent from An Post."

Now does that mean only those images from the web site as opposed to other stamp images? Maybe or maybe not. So, even though all the stamp catalogues use their stamp images, I presume without payment, it seems that the current stamps cannot be used unless we get permission and my request for information has yielded no response. Regarding the older stamps I feel completely confident that under the Irish statute (that Stan provided) everything older than 50 years is in the public domain. Ww2censor 15:20, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

It's even worse than that, because even if you got "permission" from An Post, it's still not a free license. You would need an unambiguous "An Post licenses its stamp images under cc-by-sa-2.5" or some such, and it's a rare corporation that will just give away copyright material without statutory, uh, "encouragement". :-) Stan Shebs 16:33, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

For now all it seems that Irish stamp more than 50 years old are PD and for everything newer we need to make a fair-use rationale for each and every use until we get some clarification from An Post. Ww2censor 19:14, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Nicaragua

I had some discussion about stamps of Nicaragua and he gave me this link with his remarks following: "The United States and International Copyright article indicates that, as of 1947, the United States and Nicaragua adhered to the Buenos Aires convention of 1910. I have no reason to believe this changed between 1947 and 1978, and so rely upon this source for the PD-stamp designation."

This is interesting. I wonder if it affects other countries mentioned too and what do we think about this document. Ww2censor 19:14, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Ww2censor, I'm looking at the text of the convention (as reprinted in WM Malloy (ed), Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements 1910-1923, vol 3 (1923) 2925ff) -- which seems to be in force to this day -- and the commentary by Stephen Ladas (The International Protection of Literary and Artistic Property (Macmillan 1938) vol 1, 659ff) but don't see why it would be relevant to this question. The argument would definitely require some elaboration. Best, — Pajz (talk) 10:43, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Belarus

I think there is some misunderstanding concerning the copyright status of Belarussian stamps. Presently Stamps/Public domain page states: "All stamps issued 1992 and after are copyrighted. See external site.". At the same time, there is a template in Wikimedia stating that Belarussian stamps are in PD. After studying the Belarussian (1) Copyright Law and (2) Postage Law, I conclude that stamps as official (state) signs are indeed in PD, as BTW is the case with most other CIS states. Therefore, I am going to change the wording of the page accordingly. Leonid Dzhepko 11:48, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the reason for this wrong statement (external site) made at an unofficial site created by some amateur stamp collectors is that they, being English speakers not well versed either in Belarussian or Russian, mistakenly extended the copyright notice of the Belorussian governmental website covering only the content of the site to cover all Belorussian stamps. It is in contradiction to Belorussian law and is clearly not the case here. --Leonid Dzhepko (talk) 07:30, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I have fixed the statement; I was told the stamps were public domain this evening. I also added the law a user told me about, so this should be correct now, according to law. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 07:39, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

New Zealand

Can someone look at my paragraph about New Zealand Crown Copyright, please ? See if I don't make any mistake.

The hidden sentences about stamps issued after the creation of New Zealand Post needs sources that I couldn't find today. Sebjarod 14:51, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

There is certainly a confusion here. If we read the New Zealand Copyright Act 1994 No 143 (as at 19 April 2011), Public Act, specifically Crown copyright Sections 26 and 27, there is no reservation for withdrawing the copyright in the case of Crown works made 50 years ago. The law states:

26 Crown copyright

(3) Crown copyright shall expire,—
(b) in the case of any other work, at the end of the period of 100 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work is made.

Moreover, the whole New Zealand Copyright Act 1994 does not mention any dates indicated now in Stamps/Public domain#New Zealand including 31 December 1944, 1 January 1945 or 31 March 1987. See also w:Crown copyright#New Zealand. Can anybody find any evidence for a 50-year copyright term for NZ stamps and similar artistic works? The only thing that might be relevant here is Copyright Act 1994, Schedule 1: Transitional provisions and savings. It sounds like this Schedule 1 does provide certain provisions and exceptions that are qualified under the previous NZ Copyright Acts. Then, a careful consideration and revision by a person competent in laws (and especially in NZ laws) would be required. Otherwise, Stamps/Public domain#New Zealand and Template:PD-NZ-50-years should be corrected and rewritten. --Michael Romanov (talk) 15:51, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Page 4 of this pdf document refers to the 1945 date you are looking for. Hope that helps. Ww2censor (talk) 18:28, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Japan

After reading en:Japanese copyright law#Length of protection, the protection is 50 years long after the death of the last of the creator, 50 years after publication if the author is unknown and was working for a corporation. Are all Japanese stamps considered with unknown authors ? Will some Commons uploader consider to search the creator's names ? Sebjarod 16:36, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

They don't seem to advertise the designer or anything like that. France and maybe some other European countries are the only ones I know of that attribute their stamps to specific individuals. Stan Shebs 18:16, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Iraq

What do we know about copyright for Iraq because of this upload of the first aerogram en:Image:Iraq_1933.jpg now marked for deletion? Being 1933 it is likely PD by now. Cheers Ww2censor 16:40, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I understand that the image has been marked for deletion because the copyright status was not provided. Since Stan Shebs added {{PD-because|it is a work of the Iraqi government that is more than 50 years old}} for a similar Image:Stamp Iraq 1932 3f ovpt.jpg, I am going to use the same licensing for the aerogram. Moreover, I have uploaded the image at WikiCommons as Image:Iraq 1933.jpg. --Michael Romanov 18:13, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Template:PD-Iraq sez 50 years (unsurprising due to decades of British rule), I'll add to this page. I moved a lot of my scans to commons before the various specialized templates existed, should go through and use more of them. Stan Shebs 22:36, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Thanks Stan Ww2censor 04:08, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Italy

Who knows anything about the status of Italian stamps? I noticed that the Gronchi Rosa might be questioned as there seems to be a push to remove improperly licensed images that includes several stamps. I wonder if the tag Template:PD-ItalyGov covers stamps more than 20 years old because stamps are, in most circumstances, specifically work done under contact for the postal authority so they are government work and not work of the individual in their own right like paintings or photographs might be. Cheers Ww2censor 16:26, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Could someone please help with a section about the copyright status of Italian stamps? It seems many of the older ones are {{Anonymous-EU}}, but for others the artists may be known. Sv1xv (talk) 20:39, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Changed date for PDness of US stamps

Research documented on my talk page en:User talk:Stan Shebs shows that the US stamps stopped being PD at the beginning of 1978, not at its end, because the Copyright Act of 1976 went into effect on 1 January 1978. (It would be convenient if someone were to summarize the research results here, hint hint. :-) ) Stan Shebs (talk) 06:15, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Belgium

The information about Belgium is obtained from the department Philately of De Post by telephone on 21 October 2008. No written information about this is available according to the person I talked to. --Wouter (talk) 13:39, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Turkey

The information about Turkey is copied from discussion at Commons talk:Licensing. Leonid Dzhepko --Л.П. Джепко (talk) 08:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

United Arab Emirates

«:::::Hi Dzhepko, I am sorry for the delay, but life sucks :P . Any way :) , the 2002 law states that such works are protected for 50 years starting from Jan 1st of the publication year. Yet the 1992 law gave a 25 years protection ( starting from the publication date). This means that all stamps printed before 77 are in PD. Any thing after that should wait 50 years. --Tarawneh (talk) 14:37, 4 November 2008 (UTC)»

The above information about copyright status of stamps of UAE is copied from the discussion in the talk page (UAE PD template) of User:Leonid Dzhepko. Leonid Dzhepko --Л.П. Джепко (talk) 08:01, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Argentina

According to the commons licence page there is no mention of stamps, but on this en-wiki image a claim is made that the copyright of stamps over 20 years old has expired according to this link to Law 11.723, Article 34 that is provided. Can any of our Spanish speakers check this out and translate it for us to see if the claim holds up? Thanks Ww2censor (talk) 20:06, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

The 20 year thing is correct but only for photographs. This looks like a drawing. I nominated it for deletion. Philafrenzy (talk) 01:30, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Israel

I would be astonished if Kippi70's reasoning on Israeli stamps was valid. For one thing, it could be applied to absolutely any work published in Israel, including book covers, album covers, etc - those items are just as much "situated in a public place" as stamps. Stan Shebs (talk) 18:07, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Kippi70 also made a change to the Israel entry on the stamp templates page that had been there for quite some time. Even before Kippi70's edits, I noticed that ChristianBier deleted several Israel stamps that were used in two en articles. The artciles I noticed were Israel human rights ve-ahavta stamp.jpg in en:Postage stamps and postal history of Israel‎ and Israel Holocaust Remembrance Day 2008.jpg in en:Joint issue but his deletion log shows 46 deleted Israel stamps. His reasoning is that Israel stamps are not listed as PD on the Commons:Stamps/Public domain‎ page but the Commons:Stamps/Public domain templates‎, prior to Kippe70's edits used to say: "{{tl|PD-because|copy or scan of a banknote or stamp in Israel are in free use with no limitation. See: [[:Category talk:Stamps of Israel]]}} (any year can be uploaded)". IIRC some, maybe one or two, of those deleted stamps were actually pre-1948, so would not even fall within an Israel copyright scenario. None of these stamps seems to have been nominated for deletion. I think it would have been appropriate to discuss a deletion of such a number of images as opposed to just deleting them immediately, especially as some had been here for quite some time. Who is correct Stan and how do you suggest we get a definitive ruling on Israel stamps?

At this stage I am not going to ask ChristianBier directly about this until I have better information because I was treated very disrespectfully by him in my last attempted discussion despite several polite requests for justification of his actions in regard to other deletions I questioned. Ww2censor (talk) 04:49, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

According to Category talk:Stamps of Israel Israel stamps would appear to be PD. Ww2censor (talk) 05:23, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Ww2censor, i'm glad you joined tihs discussion and thanks for your summary of the issue. I have a few remarks to make:

1. I uploaded most of the stamps that were deleted, i uploaded them based on the reasoning that was there before and based on the statement on the Hebrew Wiki which CLEARLY says that scans/images of Israeli stamps are PD.

2. Regarding stamps of British Mandate in PAlestine, they are all PD as here the Crown Copyright applies and this one is valid fifty years after publication. If any stamps prior to 1948 were deleted, it is clearly wrong.

3. Regarding the deletion of stamps by User:ChristianBier. Normally, as far as my experience here goes, items suspect of Copyvio should be marked for deletion and discussed, based on such discussion items are deleted or kept. In this issue neither the legal status is definitely clarified nor the guidelines in here are, so how come were all these items were deleted even without discussion? (all the scans were actually used at least in the Hebew Wiki!) In addition, i wrote to User:ChristianBier immediately afterwards regarding this issue and received no reaction whatsoever (eventhough he was active here since then). I feel the same as you regarding his behaviour in this matter.

4. I am still trying to get a clear answer on the status of Israeli stamps both on the Hebrew Wiki as well as at the Ministry of Communication in Israel (which is in charge of this domain).

5. I the worst case, if the matter cannot be clarified here i was told by an admin in the Hebrew Wiki that i uploading the stamps on the Hebrew Wiki is no problem, so i'll choose this option as the worst case scenario and for that purpose all the deleted files need to be temporary restored (as i have deleted some of the scans i made after uploading) Regards --kippi70 (talk) 09:16, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

It's typically difficult to get a clear statement from a government agency, the issues are sufficiently arcane that they would want a lawyer to answer, and they're not going to pay one just to respond to us impertinents. :-) A couple alternatives are to find out the status of government-produced works in general (what is the copyright on an MoC white paper or proposal?), or to personally contact one of the artists/designers, find out if they signed over their copyrights or what form of release they did. One could try posing as a clothing store and ask "is it OK to put the stamp design on million t-shirts and sell them?" If they have any grounds for objection, or want a piece of the profits, not PD. Stan Shebs (talk) 14:23, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Norway

It looks like stamps of this country are generally copyrighted, except for those that can be tagged with {{PD-Old}}. However, someone decided to tag with that licensing template a Norway stamp issued in 1992. Is that correct? Thank you. --Michael Romanov (talk) 18:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

•  Support this question. Nickpo (talk) 20:23, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
• I object to this. As stated in the description by Sebjarod (if it is true, of course), this stamp design first appeared in 1871, so the design is in PD now by all means. And any reproduction of it, even it is made in 1992 and even if colours have changed (have they?), is not copyrightable. --Leonid Dzhepko (talk) 06:02, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

US stamp copyright

I added a new section on the public domain status of US stamps after 1977. I don't know how one can misread the statement from the USPS Fair Use Page: "Generally, no prior permission is required for: Educational Use, Noncommercial, educational uses limited to teaching, scholarship, and research..." If I am wrong, please point this out. Also, see #3 here Jonverve (talk) 16:24, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I've explained why this isn't correct at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Verville-usairmail.JPG. Fair use isn't permitted on Commons. All content has to be freely licensed, permitting commercial re-use. Adambro (talk) 17:46, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I apologize...I now understand. Thank you for being nice about it :) Jonverve (talk) 18:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I have also tagged a four other post-1977 US stamps as copyright violations: File:Alice Paul stamp.jpg‎, File:Postzegel matzeliger.jpg‎, File:Stamp of USA. Samuel P.Langley.jpg‎ and File:UsHorseBreeds.jpg‎. Unfortunately it seems that some editors can't even read the template they are using which quite clearly states the date after which the stamps are copyright. Ww2censor (talk) 00:06, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Polish stamps are copyrighted

I removed Poland from this list and consequently Category:Stamps of Poland, except those with expired copyright. A.J. (talk) 14:35, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

• Stop! Please, give some time for transfer some of that images to WP:FUC. Mark them with deletion template. And please temporary revert deleted images Polska-stampday-1963.jpg and Polska-10yearsofPRP-library-1954.jpg. We need them! Nickpo (talk) 15:07, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
• The Polish stamps are in PD. Be so kind as to restore all remote files. Сдобников Андрей (talk) 15:53, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
• What happened to category:Stamps of Danzig and category:Stamps of General Government? They were published by German government and are in PD. Also why now did something changed in Polish law? --Jarekt (talk) 02:07, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
  • All (almost?) restored. odder 09:55, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
• I'd like to see some actual evidence, as in legal citations, for either the copyright or non-copyright claim. If some stamps have "expired copyright", then there must be a specific cutoff date - please record that on the page at least, don't just remove all the information about Polish stamps. Stan Shebs (talk) 02:09, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Good luck reasoning with Commons' admins on their total/partial failures :p Sebjarod (talk) 04:47, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

• The mass-deletion has been decided on the Polish Wikipedia mailing list on this thread, so I was only the executor of the decision. I am aware that some stamps may have been unnecessarily deleted and I am ready to restore them by hand (just point me to the proper category or a list of files). Except the stamps mentioned by Jarekt, it seems that all the stamps are copyrighted by their designers who made it on order of the Poczta Polska; the situation has been already discussed on the said list. The uploader of most stamps has linked to the following site: 1—unfortunately, works by government organisations of Poland do not fall into the public domain and remain covered by (their) copyright. odder 09:05, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
• If Poczta Polska owns the copyright to stamps only since 1990, means it is necessary to return all stamps till this year. First of all the stamps published till 1939 as they already are in PD-old. Сдобников Андрей (talk) 09:18, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I have already restored all stamps published before 1939. However, I am not sure if the stamps from between 1945-1990 are not copyrighted; their designers are most probably still alive and they own the copyright for the design. Do stamps fall under {{PD-Polish}}? There were some stamps created for the Armia Krajowa during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 (their designer died in 1993)—are they copyrighted? There are still about 30 stamps with such an unclear situation (of over 900 I've deleted today). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Odder (talk • contribs) 10:53, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Because of the use of CommonsDelinker (what a wonderful tool... that I don't understand it can play on users' pages though), some pictures may have been erased from articles on different Wikipedias. Is it a possibility to revert that without doing it by hand (bot's contributions until date, article list of editions, reverts)? Sebjarod (talk) 12:58, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

• Is there in Poland a law on post service? What there is defined a stamp? Сдобников Андрей (talk) 16:50, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Some explainations:

• Bot deletion was not the best move... I did not approve it.
• "goverment signs" or "government material" from Polish copyright law is very vague term and not as broad as in USA. It does not cover "everything that comes from government or from government institutions". Even polish banknotes are uncertain: National Bank of Poland says they are copyrighted, some lawyers say otherwise. http://prawo.vagla.pl/node/8236, http://prawo.vagla.pl/node/8236, http://prawo.vagla.pl/node/7392.
• PD-Polish is only for photos.
• Polish law on post service says nothing about copyright protection.

A.J. (talk) 13:21, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

• The state signs on post payment are stamps and other signs put on items of post and confirming fee of a post service. The copyright does not extend on the state signs. Сдобников Андрей (talk) 16:58, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Dear Ejdzej, could you please provide explanations that I could understand as a lawyer. The explanations above are not good: in particular, opinion of a bank cannot be authoritative against opinion of lawyers: law is what lawyers say, and not a banking institution, especially which has an interest in the matter, so the way you put it shows to me that Polish banknotes are clearly in public domain. Unfortunately I do not know Polish well enough to check the laws myself. The previous reasoning was rather clear to me: (1) according to Polish Copyright Law, governmental (official) signs are not copyrightable; (2) according to Postal Law, stamps (inter alia) are governmental (official) signs; (3) therefore they are not copyrightable. I have tried to read the first of your references in Polish, and it looks like it starts along the same lines confirming this reasoning, but I cannot make a qualified judgment based on my knowledge of Ukrainian and Russian. So could you please check and answer along the same lines in English, or at least please translate the original discussion in pl.wikipedia into English, so that I could see whether the line of reasoning was correct from legal standpoint, since as far as I can see none of the participants there is a lawyer. Best regards, --Leonid Dzhepko (talk) 15:01, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I can see the mistake in reasoning: some Polish WP users wrongfully state that postage stamps are official materials, while stamps are official signs (signage), which means absolutely different things.

By the way, I think that by bot-deleting all Polish stamps from the Commons, without giving first a good reasoning in English, the WP procedures have been violated, so all images should be restored immediately, unless an understandable explanation is given here in English, and not in Polish. --Leonid Dzhepko (talk) 15:27, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Now my questions regarding A.J.'s explanations:

• Bot deletion was not the best move... I did not approve it.

So you agree, that it was not a good move, so please you or other Commons admin please revert the move and restore the images.

• "government signs" or "government material" from Polish copyright law is very vague term and not as broad as in USA. It does not cover "everything that comes from government or from government institutions". Even polish banknotes are uncertain: National Bank of Poland says they are copyrighted, some lawyers say otherwise. http://prawo.vagla.pl/node/8236, http://prawo.vagla.pl/node/8236, http://prawo.vagla.pl/node/7392.

"government material" has nothing to do either with stamps or banknotes; they are "government signs" or better put in English "official signage". And the National Bank of Poland actually argues only that the essays (drawings) of future banknotes made by an artist are copyrighted, and they are right in that: only official signage (i. e. banknotes (and stamps) issued officially by Polish state) are uncopyrightable and are not protected by Polish copyright law, as clearly stated in Article 4.

• PD-Polish is only for photos.

Yes, you are right here, but we are speaking about the Polish symbol template, which specifically covers stamps and banknotes as official signage.

• Polish law on post service says nothing about copyright protection.

And Polish law on post service should not be expected to say anything about copyright protection, which is dealt with by the Polish copyright law. And Article 4 of the Polish copyright law states, inter alia, that official signage do not enjoy any copyright protection in Poland. All we should look for in the Polish postal law, is how postage stamps are expressly defined there. So please kindly cite here the exact wording of the definition of postage stamps (or any thing which proves that postage has been paid) from the law with English translation: is there any mention of official signage (or governmental signs, or the like)? Or please provide here a reference to the English text of that law. Hopefully, I have made clear the point as a lawyer. Regards, --Leonid Dzhepko (talk) 16:58, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I have read again through this discussion, and maybe my remarks should be addressed to User Odder, rather then Ejdzej. Dear Odder, again you got it all wrong: Polish stamps are not in PD because they are official works of a governmental organization, they are in PD, because Polish copyright law expressly denies them copyright protection in Article 4 as official signage, as official signs of payment of postal tariffs. Stamp designers own copyright rights to sketches, essays or drawings of stamp designs. Or to put shorter, you cannot cut out from the image of a stamp issued officially by Polish state the picture and publish it; however, the image of the whole stamp with perforation is not copyrightable. --Leonid Dzhepko (talk) 17:19, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Dear Leonid!

You keep saying that legal meanings of "urzędowy" - "official", "znak" - "sign" have the same legal meaning as in common English or even Polish language. The situation is more complicated, there are controversies among Polish lawyers, and very little court practice. About National Bank controversy: please read this page, where NBP points at Copyright Act as the base of restriction on money images.

So when you demand legal analysis in English that postal stamps are copyrighted or not copyrighted I can only tell: there is no such one; I can only show you some "maybe yes, maybe no", as those on vagla.pl site. This uncertainity among Polish lawyers and National Bank controwersy are enough for deletion in my opinion (I still support it: I only shun about doing it with bot).

I personally agree with your opinion: samps, banknotes, Public Information Service (BIP) materials etc. should be free, according to copyright law. But against institutions like NBP or Poczta Polska we need really, really strong legal support. We don't have it yet, so we cannot put users of Commons in legal danger.

A.J. (talk) 11:25, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Dear Ejdzej, I cannot understand what keeps you from just opening the Polish law on Postal Service, look for section with definitions, find the definition dealing with stamps, copy and paste it here and provide translation into English, or if there is none there, state so here? As a lawyer, I assure you that NBP can only point at Copyright Act only to protect sketches of banknotes i. e. drawings made by the artist who designed the banknote, and nothing more. Any attempts to extend the Copyright Law to cover the actual banknotes, which are in your pockets, are wrong. Why all this talk about controversies? Why all this talk about court practice, when Poland is not a common law country and there is no case law there? We are not talking about the United States courts here. One Polish court is not bound by decisions made by another Polish court on another case. --Leonid Dzhepko (talk) 22:09, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Problem is that Polish copyright law do not mention stamps or banknotes, it only mention that "normative acts and drafts thereof as well as official documents, materials, signs and symbols are not subject to copyrights" (see [2]). Older copyright laws:

and copyright law of July 10, 1952 also mentions only "official documents" so the argument similar to the one used by {{PD-Polish}} also do not work. Supposedly term "official documents" is well and narrowly defined, but "official materials, signs and symbols" are not well defined and could include stamps and banknotes. Polish Post Office Law [3], [4] or [5] do not mention copyrights either (as far as I can tell). Legal opinions on the subject vary: many people claim that stamps and banknotes should be considered as "official documents, materials, logos and symbols". However according to government website [6] Polish National Bank hold copyrights to banknotes. My guess is that A.J. and User:Odder decided to be on the conservative side and assume that unless someone finds a law saying that banknotes and stamps are not copyrighted or that they are "official documents, materials, signs and symbols" we have to assume that they are. --Jarekt (talk) 03:56, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I understand that Polish Copyright Law clearly states that official signs and symbols are not subject to copyright protection, without going into great detail describing what official signs or what official symbols are. The legislators who adopted this Law were not fools, as some people try to pretend them to be, no, they were not fools and they knew quite well that the notions of official signs and symbols were expressly defined in the corresponding other legislation. For example, the basic law for everything pertaining to mail and postal service is the Law on Postal Service or on Posts or on Communications (I can only guess how exactly the corresponding law is called in Polish). Now all we need is to see whether postage stamps are considered to be official signs or not, and here the Polish Law on Posts should come in handy (at least this is the case in most CIS states). I think that it should contain a clear definition what postage stamps and other "signs" of payment of postal rates are. If the Law defines them as "official signs" serving to demonstrate that a postal tariff for mailing a letter has been paid, then that is all we need to prove. Do you have an access to such Polish legislation on Posts or Postal Service? I am asking you to check it for yourself, because I have not been able to identify any such law in English. Maybe you do not understand why the word "sign" is consistently used in such contexts? It is just to indicate something that serves as an indication, a sign (a small thing) that certifies that another big thing (so big that it cannot be placed here) is true. Let me explain this using postage stamps as an example: After you have pre-paid a sum of money to postal administration for them to send your letter where you want it, you cannot glue the money you paid onto the envelope of your letter, instead you stick a small piece of paper (a stamp) to your letter. So this postage stamp serves as a sign that you have pre-paid the postal tariff, and the post office will deliver it to the addressee. BTW, same thing is true of other type of official signs, such as banknotes. I guess you can now better understand what do they signify, and why they are called official signs. Similarly, official symbols like a national flag and a national emblem, are usually defined in the Constitution, or in specific laws on National Flag or on National Emblem. Sorry for lengthy explanations, hopefully they will make the subject clearer. Unfortunately, legal practice shows that different jurisdictions take different approaches to the legal status of postage stamps. In some countries they are not deemed to be official signs, as they are issued by private companies (which therefore hold copyright on them), and not by governmental companies; in some countries stamps have the legal status of official documents; yet in some countries they are considered to be official signs, but the legislators have not stripped them of copyright protection, as they evidently did in Poland, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Russia, Belarus, etc. What makes things even worse is that some states eventually change the legal status of their stamps. Take, for example, the USA: before 1978 the US stamps were in PD, because were issued by a governmental body and were official work. After 1978 they are copyrighted, because since then are being issued by a private company. Maybe modern Poland has to adapt its legislation to follow the EU laws; but the stamps issued by the Polish People's Republic definitely should be in PD. Regards, --Leonid Dzhepko (talk) 08:28, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Legal dispute

Could you translate into English Articles 31.3 and 31.7 from "Prawo pocztowe", USTAWA z dnia 12 czerwca 2003 r.:

• "3. Znakami służącymi do potwierdzenia opłacenia usług pocztowych świadczonych przez Pocztę Polską są:

1) znaki opłaty pocztowej emitowane przez Pocztę Polską jako samodzielne znaki opatrzone napisem zawierającym użyte w dowolnym przypadku wyrazy: „Polska”, „Rzeczpospolita Polska” lub „Poczta”, zwane dalej „znaczkami pocztowymi”;

2) znaki opłaty pocztowej, inne niż znaczki pocztowe, określone przez Pocztę Polską;

3) oznaczenia określone przez Pocztę Polską."

• "7. Znaczkom pocztowym przysługuje ochrona przewidziana w przepisach Kodeksu karnego dla urzędowych znaków wartościowych, zaś innym znakom i oznaczeniom służącym do potwierdzania opłacenia usługi pocztowej, ochrona przewidziana w przepisach Kodeksu karnego dla dokumentów."

Maybe these provisions will help to clear the situation. --Leonid Dzhepko (talk) 08:50, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Or please finish my translation of Art. 31.3:

• "3. Signs serving to confirm that postal services performed by Polish Post (Pocztę Polską) are:

1) signs of postal payment issued by Polish Post as samodzielne znaki opatrzone napisem zawierającym użyte w dowolnym przypadku wyrazy: „Polska” (Poland), „Rzeczpospolita Polska” (Polish Republic) and „Poczta” (Post), hereinafter referred to as „postage stamps”;

2) signs of postal payment, other than postage stamps, określone przez Pocztę Polską;

3) oznaczenia określone przez Pocztę Polską." --Leonid Dzhepko (talk) 09:01, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

The above comes from Art. 31 of postal law, which begins with:

• pl: Art. 31. 1. Operatorzy mogą stosować własne znaki służące do potwierdzenia opłacenia usługi pocztowej
• en: Operators may use their own signs for confirming payment of postal service

Point 3 of Art. 31, quoted by Leonid defines "signs used for confirming payment for postal services of Poczta Polska as:

1) signs of postal patyment emited by Poczta Polska in separate form with phrase "Polska" "Rzeczpospolita Polska" or "Poczta", called "postal signs stamps" ("znaczek pocztowy")

2) postal payment signs different from postal signs, defined by Poczta Polska

3) markings defined by Poczta Polska

7. Postal signs are protected by criminal law as official payment signs, other postal payment signs are markings are protected as documents".

Arguments for copyright protection concluded from above:

• postal signs are defined as own signs of operator
• Poczta Polska is also operator, defined as public operator (Art. 3 p. 12)
• operator is defined as przedsiębiorca (enterpreneur) Art. 3 p 11

Therefore "postal sign" is own sign of enterprise "Poczta Polska" (not "official" or "government" one). Art. 7 states only that it enjoys additional protection by means of criminal law. A.J. (talk) 09:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your cooperation.

• First, your translation looks a bit inaccurate to me. Why do you translate "znaczek pocztowy" as "postal signs"? According to Polish wikipedia it means "postage stamps" (pl:Znaczek pocztowy), at least all interwikis point to postage stamps. And in clause 1) there are much more words in Polish than in your English translation. Have you omitted something?
  • "Postal stamp" is more correct: there are also other "signs" apart from stamps defined in this act.
• Second, it follows from your translation of clause 7) that the Polish state still treats postage stamps as "official signs". You are right though in stating that the uncopyrightable status of Polish stamps is disputable, because the Postage Act does not provide a clear cut definition. Still more avenues remain. Maybe the older laws on postal service provided better definitions, or other postal legislation clearly defines postage stamps as official signs of payment. --Leonid Dzhepko (talk) 17:18, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I ephisised the fact, that stamps in 7) are treated as "official signs or payment" in terms of criminal prosecution. This does not make them automatically equal to other "official signs" when comes to copyright law (but it's a good point). Anyway, banknotes which are clearly "official" are still covered by controversial National Bank statement. A.J. (talk) 11:52, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Possible resolution

What if we define {{PolishMoney}} and {{PolishStamp}} with excerpt from law, controversy explaination and big "Use at your own risk" note? That's too close to "fair use" in my opinion... It also should be discussed at higher level. A.J. (talk) 11:52, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I think we can try to write it up and than check with the rest of the community if it is acceptable. --Jarekt (talk) 12:09, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Has anybody actually sent a request for clarification to appropriate ministries? And to avoid the vague "free for use" or "not free for use", point out that the first Polish stamp, from 1860, must surely be in the public domain, and that the first stamps of independent Poland, from 1918, are old enough to be in the public domain unless there is a specific law extending their copyright - so the answer must quote a law saying stamps are never PD, or a law stating a date or formula before which stamps are PD. The other question to ask is which stamps can be printed on t-shirts that one is selling. Stan Shebs (talk) 13:49, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Hey, maybe it's not so complicated as we got http://www.poczta-polska.pl plus something more Government-owned corporation. Yeah, for English speakers it means it's covered by government like health-care, military, some banks, some institutions etc. So could we just stamp them as photos from ex. Sejm ? 213.192.96.156 18:11, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Sejm photos are not free now, see {{SejmCopyright}}. A.J. (talk) 21:16, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Vatican & Guernsey

Conservatively, I assume that en:crown copyright applies to Guernsey for 50 years and that {{PD-old}} applies to the Vatican. I asked the question on the main licencing talk page but I can't find anything. Ww2censor (talk) 15:33, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

The reply to the Vatican copyright is that according to this, Italian law applies with a 70-year copyright term. So can we write that up? Ww2censor (talk) 14:57, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Recent Japanese stamps

User:Carpkazu has been uploading recent Japanese stamps under {{Copyrighted free use}} for some time, and nobody seems to have said anything. Is that possible for new stamps, or are we still limited by a 50-year rule? Stan Shebs (talk) 14:53, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Not according to the Japan template {{PD-Japan}}, so anything less than 50 year-old stamps should be deleted as copyright violations. Ww2censor (talk) 14:12, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I nominated all the less under 50 year old stamps for deletion at Commons:Deletion requests/Images of Carpkazu. Some of you may want to comment. Ww2censor (talk) 15:25, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Situation for Hungarian Stamps

Hello, can anyone with knowledge of hungarian language clarify the situation for hungarian stamps? --Neozoon (talk) 21:28, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I started a discussion over to Commons talk:Licensing#Hungarian stamps copyright a few days ago. Ww2censor (talk) 18:47, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

This is now archived at: Commons talk:Licensing/Archive 23#Hungarian stamps copyright which concludes that a copyright period of 70 years after the author's death applies, though where the author is unknown, a straight 70 years applies. Does anyone have a specialised Hungarian stamp catalog that records the stamps' designers? Ww2censor (talk) 15:22, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Vietnam

We only have 1 stamp of Vietnam in Commons. What is the copyright situation for stamps? I have a little collection of vietnam stamps. I need to know to review the flickr upload of [[:File:Van_troi_execution_NLF_Stamp_10.15.1965.jpg|this] one vietnam stamp. --Neozoon (talk) 01:24, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

This was discussed on the main licencing page but without any clear view. Reading the main Vietnam law, Law on Intellectual Property No. 50/2005/QH11 of November 29, 2005, at World Intellectual Property Organization indicates a copyright period of 50 years, which seems to cover all artistic works. There does not appear to be any "Official works" distinction. Ww2censor (talk) 15:17, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Copyright status of South West African Stamps

Does anyone know the Copyright Status of South West African Stamps issued in 70s and early 80s. "In 1971, acting on a request for advisory opinion from the United Nations Security Council, the ICJ ruled that the continued presence of South Africa in Namibia was illegal and that South Africa was under an obligation to withdraw from Namibia immediately. It also ruled that all member states of the United Nations were under an obligation to recognize the invalidity of any act performed by South Africa on behalf of Namibia". Would the stamps issued by the illegal South African regime in SW Africa be copyrighted to South Africa or to Namibia or be free of copyright? The territory became the independent Republic of Namibia on 21 March 1990. Best wishes, (Msrasnw (talk) 20:21, 12 April 2010 (UTC))

The following response, slightly edited, was already offered to this question by this editor in relation to the deletion nomination of this stamp en:File:ZwillingeStampSWA1985.jpg on the English Wikipedia.

I understand that South West Africa was covered by the Berne Convetion and Namibia copyright applies for a least 50 years per COM:L#Namibia. Unless specific laws to the contrary were enacted, which I see no evidence of, copyright is generally inherited by the subsequent state which is what I interpret from this. I doubt that illegal regime could apply but Msrasnw would have to prove that because the burden of proof still lies with the uploader and initially Msrasnw uploaded the image as a non-free stamp so we have to presume, as evidenced by the question, that he has no proof it in the public domain which is why he originally applied a non-free rationale in an attempt to justify it use. Ww2censor (talk) 03:30, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Another point I notice is that "obligation to recognize the invalidity" is a request with no legal force; what matters is what laws were passed in the various countries. From our history articles, it looks like South Africa's departure was relatively orderly - building keys handed over to the agreed-upon successor, etc. It's not clear if anybody would have bothered to transfer government-held copyrights of already-issued stamps; it could have been a situation similar to the en:Namibian dollar, where they started doing their own minting, but left rands in the system. But certainly there is nothing to suggest that government copyrights were actually invalidated in any way. Stan Shebs (talk) 13:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)