Commons talk:WikiProject Public Domain/Usage guidelines for public domain works

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Show respect for the creator

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Given who some of the creators of PD works are this one could be somewhat problematical.Geni (talk) 15:58, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

hehehe. We try our best :-) Wittylama (talk) 03:59, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In about 4.5 years time eva braun's works will enter the public domain.Geni (talk) 11:20, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The work of Eva Braun or any other person in history who acted questionably does not validate not respecting their work. Disagreeing sure, writing or making material based on that work to shows that the original work is questionable is fine. But users should not 'burn the books' simply because they don't like them. --Martsniez (talk) 12:49, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Europeana guidelines include "Show respect for the creator".Geni (talk) 13:18, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

contradiction with established policy

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The part of the guidelines, that "if the creator, or provider on behalf of the creator, has asked that a public domain work should not be changed or that it should be used in certain contexts only, then please respect their wishes" would not permit the placement of such works anywhere in any WMF project. It's a direct violation of CC=PD, and CC-ATT, both of which explicitly permit reuse in any manner (as long as attribution is included if CCS-ATT).

I agree, and have removed that from the text that I wrote here. Wittylama (talk) 03:59, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, the part " If the work includes culturally sensitive elements you should not change or use these in ways that might be derogatory to other cultures or communities." is a violation of our basic principle of not being censored.

I've tried to clarify how respecting cultural sensitivities is not necessarily the same as censorship but the two concepts sometimes butt up against each other, to be sure. The important point is not to curtail the public domain but to be aware of the consequences of our actions. IAR comes in to play here too. Wittylama (talk) 03:59, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To the extent it's suggested not required it remains a violation in spirit. We have no business suggesting restrictions beyond the actual requirements of the licensing. It's the first step to requiring it, and might even be interpreted as a requirement. DGG (talk) 21:37, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Voluntary guidelines are not requirements, just like all the rest of our Category:Commons guidelines. Furthermore, it's a wiki, so if there's really something that's being misconstrued then we can change it. Even though much of what is written here is what we already practice (e.g. giving credit to GLAMs who donate content to Commons) it's good IMO to have it written down. Wittylama (talk) 03:59, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Defending the public domain

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One of the things I find most appealing about Commons is our strong defense of the public domain. Any official statement supporting even "non-binding" restrictions on the reuse of works released to the public domain contributes to the erosion of the fundamental idea of a public domain.

I believe Commons as a community has an obligation to clarify, not obscure, the consequences of choosing to release works into the public domain. - PKM (talk) 23:05, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would disagree that giving guidelines on what constitutes, all other things being equal, polite behaviour constitutes an erosion of PD rights. We are certainly still defending the Public Domain and indeed several of these guidelines describe ways to strengthen it (e.g. "share" and "preserve"). Wittylama (talk) 03:59, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Wittylama here. These guidelines show polite behaviour. They do not restrict users, it asks users to reflect on the work. In that sense it educates what the public domain is and why it is important.
Europeana actually takes a less neutral stance on the Public Domain than Wikimedia does in their policy document "Europeana Public Domain Charter", by stating that:
* The Public Domain is the material from which society derives knowledge and fashions new cultural works.
* Having a healthy and thriving Public Domain is essential to the social and economic well-being of society.
* Digitisation of Public Domain content does not create new rights over it: works that are in the Public Domain in analogue form continue to be in the Public Domain once they have been digitised.
--Martsniez (talk) 13:03, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with user:Martsniez and others we want to on one hand minimize legal restrictions and on the other hand educate people about rules of responsible and sustainable behavior which would allow more images to be released. --Jarekt (talk) 13:31, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
+1 Multichill (talk) 16:40, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
+1 Kaldari (talk) 20:29, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
On the contrary, I agree with PKM. This page is an abomination and should go away. When forced to choose between freedom and respect, it should be our mission to promote freedom. As an example, Botticelli's Birth of Venus is a PD painting. Any potential (neo-pagan) worshipers of Venus might find great respect for this work, and would perhaps take offense at Terry Gilliam's most disrespectful animation of it (Youtube video). Who's side are we on? I'm on Terry Gilliam's side. --LA2 (talk) 02:19, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I completely agree LA2 that the right for Terry Gilliam to make his satire - indeed the right to satirise or make social commentary - is something that needs to be upheld. I would certainly not want to see anyone trying to use these guidelines arguing against that. But the point of all good satire (especially another monty python work - the "Life of Brian") is that it is aware of its potential to offend and is making a deliberate point about it. If someone is trying to be funny without being aware of the fact that they're potentially being offensive - then that's just crass. But if they are making a point (humorous, political, whatever) in full awareness of the significance of their actions - then that's satire. It mightn't be successful satire (that's in the eye of the beholder) but at least they are aware of what they're doing which is all this guideline asks. Does that respond adequately to your concern? Wittylama (talk) 13:43, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
@LA2: What good is blindly promoting freedom if it makes everyone lock up their works? The best way to promote freedom is to promote respect. The two ideas are not mutually exclusive, in fact they are complimentary. If cultural institutions know that we value their works and want to act as responsible custodians, they will open their archives to us, and we'll end up having way more free works than we would by just militantly arguing for "liberation" and "freedom". Kaldari (talk) 20:29, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, I disagree. What others do is their business. Let them try to lock it up, if it is their private property. If a public institution such as the National Gallery of London or Nationalmuseum of Stockholm does this, we should encourage taxpayers to demand that government changes the policy for that institution. This is our mission, as promoters of free knowledge. There are other institutions that work with us, such as the British Museum in London and Nordiska museet in Stockholm. The Royal Library in Stockholm used to claim copyright to scans of old books, but after a few years they changed their policy to complete openness. Many of their scans are now (but were not before) copied to Commons and used in Wikisource. --LA2 (talk) 21:14, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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The guidelines seem reasonable, but, as I wrote on the Commons mailing list 3 days ago, and as noted on the section below, such a move could be dangerous.

Let's start to remember what the WMF mission is: "The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."

One of the part of the mission is to disseminate effectively the public domain. But to adopt such guidelines, especially when associated with the expression "public domain" could be a move towards stronger contractual relations in the future, based on those guidelines.

Yes, this is not binding. But that will create with Europeana (14M pieces of artwork) and Wikimedia Commons (10M works) two big media repositories (a little less than 25 millions works) having asking kindly to use public domain d'une certaine façon (a certain way).

The problem is the legislation isn't only the written law: when a tribunal or a court judges a case, it compares frequently the behavior of the parties with the usual practices of the sector.

And this is exactly what we're defining here, usual practices in the GLAM sector.

That's why my opinion is to adopt such guidelines could be and against the WMF mission. --Dereckson (talk) 19:14, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think there is a bigger legal risk that you are overlooking. Currently, the legal concept of public domain is already being eroded in many jurisdictions (for example recopyrighting public domain works), and one of the main justifications for this is that creators and their heirs need to be able to keep the public from misusing their works in inappropriate ways. This is already happening regardless of any stance on our part. If legislators can point to guidelines like this one, and say with a straight face that some people are interested in using the public domain for something other than crass commercial exploitation or internet jokes, it will actually help to protect the public domain in the long run. I appreciate your argument about courts judging actions based on "usual practices", but ultimately legislation trumps jurisprudence. I think we have a lot more to worry about from legislators than judges, and I think we need to have a defensive strategy to compliment our offensive strategy. Kaldari (talk) 20:46, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion: keep it academic

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If it's public domain, it's public domain. This is profoundly important.

Therefore, anything we say is only guidelines.

The "cultural respect" and "respect for creator" stuff is way too fuzzy, pretty much entirely aspirational (it's clear the Europeana guidelines were written by someone who doesn't actually like the public domain that much, despite the flowery words quoted above) and there's little evidence it's accepted practice. However, documenting correct provenance is highly accepted as proper and standard practice.

This means we should encourage reusers to note credit and provenance. Creator, retoucher, hosting institution. Because these things are what people want to know, and we are an educational project.

We really can't oblige people to do this - and we need to make that clear. However, documenting the sort of thing that is standard metadata to supply with an image is absolutely on-mission.

Thoughts? - David Gerard (talk) 18:50, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Proper academic citation is something you do out of respect for your readers, not out of respect for the creators. Not all audiences are interested in this. For example, the watchers of Terry Gilliam's Venus satire (see above) are not. When people reuse public domain works, we should not interefere with their choice of citation styles. But we should try to make our descriptions as accurate as possible, to provide a free choice for the reuser. --LA2 (talk) 21:36, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's my point really: full provenance is something to be done for the reader's benefit. I mean, the creators should be credited because that informs the reader, but the creator either dedicated it to the public domain or it's old enough they really have no legitimate say any more.
I consider that providing workable suggestions for citation would be entirely on-mission. I tire of seeing images credited to "Wikipedia". I mean, at least they're trying ... I suppose this would cross over in considerations with Commons:REUSE, though that's strictly about legal license requirements - David Gerard (talk) 21:41, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. For some books I have scanned, I see people attributing Project Runeberg as the source, which is wrong. They should cite the book's title and author, of course, regardless of which physical or digital library they found it in. However, we are straying off topic. The page we discuss here is not about documenting the provenance in Commons, but a guideline for how works from Commons can be reused in other places. What burden should we place on our audience, the reusers? My suggestion is: as little as possible. For public domain works, none at all. Therefore, this page should be deleted. --LA2 (talk) 22:46, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure yet, but I find your opinion on this page increasingly compelling. At the very least, the present Europeana-derived text is a disastrously awful idea and comprehensively bad thing even to have hanging around.
We would need a good name for a page on suggestions of how to cite things. Call it "suggestions", not "guidelines" - any averagely querulous Wikimedian will have long experience in wielding things tagged "guideline" as bludgeons. "Suggestions on workable ways for reusers to cite works" is long-winded.
I suppose I'm looking for ways to throw GLAMs a bone - David Gerard (talk) 12:40, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"manual of style for documenting chains of custody".Geni (talk) 00:19, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

as someone who was involved in drafting the Europeana Public Domain Guidelines i am a bit puzzled by the way this is discussed here. In the europeana context there is no doubt that if it is in the public domain it is in the public domain. The Europeana guidelines are there to make Cultural Heritage institutions more comfortable when they are making available PD works without restrictions (europeana requires that such works are labeled with the CC Public Domain Mark from which the Europeana Guidelines are linked). This menas that in the case of Europeana the PD status with all its consequences is clearly communicated. Users are requested to follow the guidelines, but they are not necessarily expected to do so. --Paulkeller (talk) 11:30, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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