File talk:Seal of the United States Senate.svg

This has many rather amusing errors in it. It is a very poor vectorization—there is no attention made to actual accuracy in regards to the seal itself. --98.217.18.109 14:40, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Could you be more specific? There are a few things which could be better, but I don't see any outright errors in terms of elements. Seals usually can have a fair amount of artistic license (although I'm not sure the Senate seal ever had an official blazon to work off of). Carl Lindberg 20:23, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Copyright

Just a couple of notes on the copyright since there was some back-and-forth editing... the copyright of the original design technically would have been owned by Louis Dreka and implicitly assigned to the US government... in 1886. The copyright was probably lost almost immediately as it would have been published without a copyright notice, but in any event, the copyright of the original is long gone. The U.S. government does not own it; it is public domain.

However, this file is not the original work. It is a vectorization, with some small differences in design. The vectorization itself, regardless of any changes in design, are an *additional* copyright over the original -- it would be a derivative work if the copyright on the original still existed. That copyright is owned by the uploader, and must be documented and respected. The government did not make this vectorization, although if it did, that would be public domain anyways. Several of the elements are taken from other SVGs and their copyright is owned by their respective authors, but the selection and arrangement copyright (at the very least), plus any other elements, would still be owned by the uploader. The license on this is probably forced to be CC-BY-SA since it is making use of those other SVG elements which require such license in derivative works.

18 U.S.C. § 713 (c) is a restriction separate from copyright, and yes applies in full to this work. Title 17 is copyright law; Title 18 is more for trademark-like restrictions. Since official seals cannot be trademarked, per trademark law, there are often specific other laws to give some protection to their use. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:33, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

This is incorrect. The vectorization is simply a reproduction of an original work in a different format. Per US copyright law, the originality remains with the original government author. A federal court has already decided this in Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.

Danhomer (talk) 00:29, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

First, the original author was not a government employee, though that is irrelevant by now. (If it was, no copyright of the original ever existed so there was nothing to own.) Second, no, it is not a simple slavish reproduction which is what Bridgeman was getting at. There can be additional creativity involved in representing the same basic design in a vector format. There probably are examples where a vectorization is slavish, but if there is expression which is not present in the original, it can be copyrighted as a derivative work. For other examples, making an engraving of a painting has a separate copyright, as the creative choices which go into the engraving process are separate from the original work. In another example, see this case, where the mezzotint process was considered copyrightable in and of itself (i.e. it inherently created additional copyrightable expression), even though the underlying paintings were public domain. It's always a question if the subsequent author added copyrightable expression which is not present in the original. If someone painstakingly recreated the exact lines of the original in vector format, especially if traced, it may not be copyrightable. On the other hand, it's quite possible for someone editing the SVG text might have a literary / computer program copyright over that. The U.S. flag has been done in a number of different approaches in SVG, and while the visual result is not copyrightable, the actual SVG text could be. In the Bridgeman case, they ruled that straight-on photographs of paintings do *not* have enough additional creativity to support a copyright. The expression in a photograph is generally in the angle the photographer chose, the framing of the subject, the lighting, and elements like that, but most of those are chosen for the photographer when making straight-on photos of a painting, so they would not count as authorship for that type of photo. But other processes of reproduction might be. In this particular case, it's far from slavish -- virtually none of the specific lines are actually copied, but are most all somewhat different (it's really a separate drawing of the same basic design), and makes use of copyrighted clip art where the lines were chosen by someone else. Two different people can make drawings of laurel leaves; they each have their own copyright to their respective drawings. The laurel leaves here are different than the ones on the government original, the scroll is very different, etc. But you have to look at the very small details; only if even those are identical to the source version would it be considered a slavish reproduction. The threshold of originality has a lot of subtleties, and can be different between countries, so even if PD in the US it could be copyrightable elsewhere and we should preserve the license in case it ever is a question. Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:02, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Taking out acorns on seal

I took out the acorns on the oak leaves at the left side of the seal, as I cannot find any evidence of its presence in raster images of the official senate seal, nor any textual evidence supporting its presence in the seal. The primary raster image, which is taken from a stain glass window with the seal at the U.S. Capitol, that corresponds to this vectorized version does not have the acorns present; besides this, the vector version appears to effectively be identical to the raster version. Beyond this, the page on the U.S. Senate website regarding the seal and history (sadly, they don't provide an image of their own of the seal) mentions nothing about acorns being apart of the seal, and describes the seal as follows:

"The seal of the Senate, based on the Great Seal of the United States, includes a scroll inscribed with E Pluribus Unum floating across a shield with thirteen stars on top and thirteen vertical stripes on the bottom. Olive and oak branches symbolizing peace and strength grace the sides of the shield, and a red liberty cap and crossed fasces represent freedom and authority. Blue beams of light emanate from the shield. Surrounding the seal is the legend, 'United States Senate.'"

One other referenced document titled History of the Senate Seals (1966, Senate Document No. 127, 89th Congress, 2nd session) seems to have more information on the official seal of the senate, and may contain insight into whether the acorns belong or not, though I cannot find any digital copy of this document anywhere online, and until someone can provide a quotation (or better a copy) of the description of the seal in this document, with the evidence we have, it seems most appropriate to take the acorns out. Pinging Ipankonin (creator, though isn't active) and FOX 52 (who worked on the seal), for input if they have any. Thanks. WClarke 22:54, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

That sounds fine to me - FOX 52 (talk) 23:04, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, seems like a reasonable removal (though if they are oak branches, such details can be considered an artist's choice). But, the 1966 document does not mention them. The Senate apparently solicited designs and prices, and chose one, and does not mention a full description of the design. The Senate report in 1886 simply said: From designs and estimates of cost submitted by eminent artists and engravers in the principal cities of the Country, the committee selected that of Louis Dreka, of Philadelphia, as the lowest in cost and the highest in artistic excellence. The device presents the cap of Liberty, the shield, with the Stars and Stripes, and the national motto, surrounded by the legend 'United States Senate'. It is engraved on steel, and was furnished with counter and press complete for $35. The bulk of the 1966 document was on the two earlier seals, with just a couple pages about the 1886 (and current) seal. The graphic printed in that book is at File:US-Senate-1886Seal-Scan.png ... there are some indeterminate lines on the right side, but they seem to be more leaves (and a curl of the scroll) and not acorns, so don't think acorns are present on the actual seal. There is another depiction of the seal at File:US Navy 050517-N-2383B-203 Members of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) question senior Navy and Marine Corps leadership during hearings on the recommended restructuring of the nations defense installat.jpg and that does not have acorns. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:03, 6 June 2017 (UTC)