User talk:Clindberg/archives 8

Adminship

I see you have been getting pings about this for years now (long before I was active on Commons instead of enwiki) but...really... you are rather the 'go to guy' on many aspects of copyright. Not that being an admin would obligate you to do any kind of 'maintenance' stuff, but you really do merit the bit, to the point (IMO) that it's rather silly that you don't have it. I would be happy to nominate you, if you would accept it, and there is no doubt at all in my mind that you would be a unanimous pass. I can understand if you don't think you 'need' the bit, but you are obviously trustworthy, and you have a much higher level of clue about copyright than the large majority of editors. You'lll find that the bit is useful even without getting into any kind of drama (for instance, I delete a lot of obvious duplicate files as speedies) and.... you just should have it. Really. Revent (talk) 02:36, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

me to :) Revent, User:Leyo, User:Trycatch, User:Killiondude, User:Jameslwoodward, User:Kanonkas, User:Finnrind i tried to enter a request here --ThurnerRupert (talk) 09:16, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

I quite understand (and agree with) the sentiment but I feel that if Carl became an admin the changed perception of his position might reduce his influence and authority. Thincat (talk) 09:45, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

@Thincat: Much delayed response (Carl, you need to set up archiving on your talk). You are rather correct, though that is an unfortunate aspect of the social environment on wikis. It was never supposed to work that way... adminship not being a big deal, just that you're trusted to not break shit with the buttons, and all that. Carl is obviously trustworthy, the rest of it is just silly social foo... but I can understand it, while finding it regrettable. Revent (talk) 08:52, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

@ThurnerRupert: You failed to successfully transclude that on to the actual request page. It would, of course, be dependent on his actually accepting the nomination, however. Revent (talk) 09:15, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

User talk:Mabelina

Hi Carl - I really am most grateful for your spending time explaining this matter and I am learning a lot - I hope you are too? Scrope vs. Grosvenor is the classic case always recited by Heralds to this day - largely because the Grosvenors lost but became the richest aristocratic landowners in Britain whilst the Scrope family (which was rich back then) won and now doesn't even have an hereditary peerage to their name... Nonetheless, with regards to this vexed matter of copyright, your example of en:Edge (magazine) doesn't prove anything about the law of arms. How to explain this? because I totally understand what you are saying but we are talking at cross-purposes.

In a nutshell, there are many make-believe armorial images floating around globally, some of which look the same and are legally valid under different jurisdictions. In such cases, so far as the arms have been used correctly I cannot see how your image rights issue comes into play; I say this because any heraldic artist to be named would be well aware that their artwork was a reproduction of someone else's coat of arms. If there were no grant of arms for the image they created, then naturally it could be deemed as original artwork, but where there is a legally granted and proveable coat of arms how would you suggest this said artist could win such a case? The "E" in Edge is well understood, but when Letters Patent come into play (& I know this is a far-fetched and remote possibility) what type of court would disregard them (in any jurisdiction)? The type of arms I am talking about are ones which have the full weight of the Law behind them, not just some made up pretty picture - which of course would get crucified if the rightful bearer of such arms took objection to such display. M Mabelina (talk) 21:37, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
PS. how can this undeletion discussion now be closed when you haven't answered the central legal point?

The undeletion discussion is not closed -- the marker when closing the section below shows up while editing unfortunately. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:54, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

The right to bear arms and copyright are completely different topics. I don't think either one affects the rights of the other -- but they can both exist. For example, if a photographer takes a photo of a celebrity, they would own the copyright of the photograph (the celebrity does not own any of it). However, the celebrity does own their own publicity rights, so if someone wanted to use that photograph in say an advertising context, they would have to obtain permission from both the copyright holder, and the celebrity because of the publicity rights, since both sets of rights applied to the intended use. In other words, both sets of rights are separate, and can overlap. Similarly, I'm guessing copyright is just a separate right from bearer's rights, and they can also overlap. If someone has arms granted, and gets a drawing from the College of Arms, I assume they can use that drawing -- that is probably an implicit license. If an arms owner commissions someone to create a representation of their arms, there would be a license to use that drawing (and the copyright might also be transferred, depending on the agreement). But if someone unrelated makes their own drawing of the arms, I don't think the bearer has any right to use that specific drawing without getting a license from the copyright owner. Copyright is copyright, whether it is a regular drawing or a drawing of an arms. On the other hand, the person making that drawing would have no rights to really use their own drawing in the UK, because bearer's rights would come into play. Commons is primarily concerned about copyright, so if it's a copyrighted drawing, it needs to be licensed. It's not the overall design of the arms which is copyrighted; it is the exact drawing (the precise lines chosen by the artist, etc.) If two different people make a drawing of a lion holding a spear, there are two independent copyrights despite the similar design. Copyright does not care if those drawings were a part of a coat of arms or not -- they are artistic works. You are correct that the Edge case doesn't imply anything about the laws surrounding arms -- but it does say something about how minimal someone's graphic contribution needs to be to create a copyright. Most arms drawings would therefore also have a copyright, separate from the rights of the arms design itself. Users cannot simply take any illustration (arms or otherwise) off the internet even if it does make a better illustration than the one we have. Even if such a use would qualify for fair use (or fair dealing in the UK), Commons cannot host them even if it would be technically legal, as we do not allow fair use works (mandate from the Wikimedia Foundation).

Obviously, Commons does not want to perpetuate any of the make-believe arms floating around... if an arms drawing is fake it could be deleted as having no educational value, or at least clearly labeled as a drawing of a made-up arms design (having a library of "free" arms images helps in creating free versions of real arms, so there could still be educational value). Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:53, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Carl - hopefully the following provides further clarity to Wiki licensors:
Technically all true coats of arms are protected as artistic works because they are hand-drawn and painted on vellum by the heralds at the College of Arms, but more importantly they are protected by Royal Prerogative because each is granted by the Sovereign. There are medieval laws about the misuse of coats of arms, which are enforced by something called the Court of Chivalry. Despite sounding a bit medieval itself, it still exists and does occasionally issue decisions over the use of arms. If a coat of arms you are interested in is one granted by the College of Arms, then no-one other than the grantee (or rightful descendants) may use it, except in very special circumstances (think of the 'By royal appointment' use of Royal cyphers by firms who have been issued Letters Patent authorising such use). As I'm sure you are aware there is nothing to stop anyone creating their own version of a coat of arms so long as it does not copy an existing grant of arms, and in such cases, although the Royal Prerogative would not apply, copyright would protect the artistic work. And in certain cases they may be registered as trade marks (qv. www.copyrightaid.co.uk). M Mabelina (talk) 20:10, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
PS. thus, coats of arms (under the jurisdiction of the College of Arms) are very appropriate to be used by way of representation of any rightful bearer of such armorial bearings, this being their purpose, and such use can only be illegal if depicted in association with anyone not entitled to said arms. Should Wiki be in any further doubt, I would advise contacting the College of Arms on this. Many thanks.

I would be very surprised if bearer's rights negated copyright law. You are saying anything legal under bearers' rights automatically means there is no copyright infringement -- I have my doubts about that. Like you say, armorial rights are similar in intent to trademark (other than how they are transferred), but trademark rights have no impact whatsoever on if a given use is a copyright infringement or not. It can be very easy to violate one, but not the other. If someone makes a new artistic work which is too close to an existing trademark, they would be violating trademark law if they "use" it (while having full ownership of the copyright). However, if the trademark owner tried to use that exact drawing without permission from the artist, they would be violating copyright law. You are saying, with armorial bearings, that second part would not happen -- what evidence is there that copyright is different in this particular circumstance? The rights, most likely, are purely overlapping which means that depictions must be treated as normal works per copyright law. Even if not technically infringement because such use might be considered "fair dealing", that would not matter on Commons -- we are not allowed to upload works where fair use or fair dealing is the only defense to infringement. They must be fully unencumbered by copyright or liberally licensed. Furthermore, the Court of Chivalry has no jurisdiction outside of the UK (and perhaps some countries which still have the Queen as their sovereign). Commons is a global project, and as such must also be aware of use in many countries of the world. In most of them, a drawing like this is a simple artistic work subject to copyright, and copying it to Commons requires the permission of the copyright owner. It might also be subject to trademark rights, but as those are Commons:Non-copyright restrictions, we just make sure that our use does not violate trademark. Typically, "use" in that context doesn't mean simply displaying it (like "use" of copyright), but rather using its symbolic meaning. In general, we would consider bearer's rights to also be non-copyright restrictions, which we would also like to respect, but do no think those affect the copyright in any way, so we would consider every individual drawing can have its own copyright. If we want to upload a depiction, either the copyright needs to be expired, or it needs to be drawn by someone who licenses the copyright freely. That can be either yourself, or asking someone else. Commons:Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop used to be more active, but there are still artists there who may take requests to make graphic versions. It's best to start with the blazon and not an existing copyrighted work as an example, of course. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:45, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi Carl - thanks for your further reply and I much appreciate your attention to detail and willingness to learn about legal rights in what admittedly is a quite esoteric area of the Law! Yes, I am saying that coats of arms (under the jurisdiction of the College of Arms) correctly displayed in association with a rightful bearer are not subject to copyright law which would be trumped by English Law (to which foreign courts would submit, in the unlikely event that such a case were ever to be presented and assuming of course that the defence team had sufficient wit to invoke its applicable legal standing!). For further reading, see Wiki's article on the Earl Marshal's Court wherein you will note that the court last formally sat in 1954 and that more recently Aberystwyth Town Council declared its intention to launch proceedings against ‘Aberystwyth Confessions’, who had no right to bear their arms (having "assumed" Aberystwyth TC's coat of arms without authority), which case was swiftly settled (by ‘Aberystwyth Confessions’ taking down the COA) before reaching court because the law is entirely clear in this matter. Please let me know if I can help further, or as previously suggested, contact the College of Arms for verification. Many thanks M Mabelina (talk) 14:23, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that is the same thing as "not subject to copyright law". That is "subject to both copyright and bearer's rights". Any use would have to conform to both laws -- I didn't say copyright intrudes on bearer's rights at all either; just that both apply. Basically, for Commons, if the copyright exists then it must be licensed to be uploaded here. It doesn't matter that a particular use might not be infringement; our site policy is that the copyright must be free to use in a great many circumstances. You may be right that a use in your described situation may well be "fair use" in the US (or "fair dealing" in the UK), but say I wanted to copy a lion portion from the drawing and use it in my own non-COA drawing? That would be copyright infringement without a license, and therefore the source file is not "free" since all uses of that nature must be allowed as well. Bearer's rights (and/or trademark) might also apply to a particular use, which must also be respected in any jurisdiction where those rights apply, but that does not change the copyright -- Commons policy is that the copyright must be licensed to host here. We will delete files where the copyright has not expired and is not licensed, regardless of any other rights which might come into play in some situations. Files can be uploaded to English Wikipedia directly under a "fair use" rationale, though they have restrictions on those, as they want to minimize such files. Commons on the other hand is not allowed to host files at all which depend on a "fair use" rationale for not being infringement. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:44, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

I am advising Wiki, or at least I hope I am, that the use of a relevant coat of arms is protected under English Law and therefore against infringement under copyright law elsewhere. What you are saying about the Lion for example is tangential at best because of course that has nothing to do with a properly displayed Coat of Arms and I never said it was. Many thanks M Mabelina (talk) 14:51, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
PS. by giving this advice, I am attempting to give Wiki full-scale knowledge of the laws of arms, but perhaps it would be better and more legal (so-to-speak) if you could put your legal team on to me directly and I shall pay for a judgement by the College or a QC, so as to allay any fears you may have. Let me know. M Mabelina (talk) 14:57, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Well... from everything I have seen, I think the "therefore against infringement under copyright law elsewhere" is completely incorrect. UK law only applies within the UK -- same as any other national law. For example, it would have no effect whatsoever on uses inside the US -- US courts will only apply US law. Copyright cases might look to foreign law for aspects of copyright ownership, but as to if a use is infringement, it would only use US law (per en:Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc.. And if it was a US user who made the drawing, then even that would just use US law. The court case you cite does not appear to bring up copyright at all -- that was a simple question under bearer's rights in the UK, which additionally would apply of course. If someone takes a "free" file and uses it to violate the laws of arms, that is their own problem. The copyright license would not help them. Same with the 2012 situation -- copyright didn't matter at all; if it was a bearer's right violation that was still a problem and still illegal (even if a copyright was not violated), so there was no need to consider copyright law. Anyways, I don't work for the Wikimedia Foundation; I'm just a user who has a decent idea as to what Commons policy is. According to meta:Wikilegal, there is a legalwikimedia.org email address which you could try. I'm not sure what authority the College of Arms has when it comes to copyright law. But the lion example is not at all tangential -- that is actually the core of what Commons is. It is a library of free images which can be used in a large number of ways. Files which are not "free" are not allowed since it would unduly restrict those wide-ranging possibilities of uses. Even if your particular desired use is not infringement under copyright law, the file is still not "free" and is therefore against the site policy -- it has to be legal (per copyright law at least) to copy the lion in the manner I described (and even use the result in a commercial context). Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:32, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

OK Carl - it is good to be in touch with one who has a decent idea as to what Commons policy is, which is why I have been taking the time to explain the law of arms to you. Of course laws are not supranational, but where there is a legal right under a valid (and in this case multi-laterally respected) law, national courts would give way to the relevant jurisdiction (qv: Lex loci contractus). Please advise further. Many thanks M Mabelina (talk) 15:40, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, learning about the laws of arms is definitely interesting. However... in cases like these, other laws generally do not "give way"; they simply overlap and both can apply to a given use. I'm not sure there is any precedent when it comes to the laws of arms specifically, but there is lots of precedent for trademark rights which are pretty analogous. In those, the existence of a trademark does not affect the copyright in any way, and vice versa. A particular use can be a copyright violation, a trademark violation, or both -- and there are plenty of cases where people have been convicted of both. I would imagine the same would happen with the laws of arms. For countries which have no laws of arms, then those rights simply don't exist -- such as in the US. It could be considered a trademark violation, but that would have to be argued under US precedent. I suppose it's possible that a common-law trademark could exist if the design was well enough known, with the ownership being determined by UK laws of arms, but 1) I don't think anyone at Commons has brought such a case up, and 2) it would not matter in respect to the scope of copyright, other than perhaps the interpretation of "fair use". Commons' fixation on copyright can border on the absurd sometimes, and can be divorced from reality somewhat because we ignore fair use, but that is what we focus on. If the copyright exists at all, that copyright must be licensed in order to upload it here, even if the intended use would be legally OK without it. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:54, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks again Carl for getting to the crux of the matter, namely this is not so much to do with law but Wiki Commons policy. Would you be so kind as to send me Wiki Commons policy details in this regard for perusal, preferably by email (because online this subject matter is seemingly not described sufficiently - as far as I can see)? Let's liaise privately further as to how to do so, if agreeable. Many thanks indeed. Best M Mabelina (talk) 01:29, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

The primary one is Commons:Licensing -- Wikimedia Commons only accepts free content, that is, images and other media files that are not subject to copyright restrictions which would prevent them being used by anyone, anytime, for any purpose. The Foundation uses http://freedomdefined.org/Definition as the definition of a "free" work; you can also see en:Free content. Because of the pervasiveness of copyright laws, it can now be hard to find artistic material which can be legally used to build other works, so the definition requires wide-ranging freedoms be given by copyright holders in order to allow that. "Fair use" can mean that a particular use might not be infringement without a license, but since Commons is just making it available for many uses, it's harder for us to claim that. For example, many people will link directly to our images from their blog sites, etc. Secondly, fair use can vary wildly in different countries (some are limited to the specific use cases listed in their national copyright law), and Commons has more of a global audience. Accordingly, there is wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy, which mandates that Commons does not hold any fair use works (and therefore, Commons:Fair use is the policy). Individual projects like English Wikipedia can allow some fair use material (if they make an exemption policy), though since they are trying to be the "free encyclopedia", they also limit such use, so they may still disallow something even if it might be legal in the US (or another country); their policy is at w:Wikipedia:Non-free content. Images which qualify for that policy may be uploaded directly to the English Wikipedia, but will be deleted from Commons. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:35, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Not to interject randomly, but I was actually reading this because I was posting below, and because I'm generally interested in what Carl has to say (don't feel too special, lol). I think, though, that in regard to a coat of arms, what largely matters in respect to Commons is the 'manner of use'... when displaying a coat of arms, we are not claiming any kind of right of entitlement to the arms, we are merely displaying what the coat of arms 'looks like' in an educational context.... it would be directly equivalent to a publication such as Burke's Peerage displaying what a COA 'looks like', with an independent depiction that does not violate the copyright of any prior art. Revent (talk) 08:45, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Light Show

I'm intentionally not pinging him, this is just an FYI... I appreciate you engaging with him at VPC. Light Show is someone who was previously indefinitely blocked here, and is still under an uploading ban at enwiki. He's a good faith contributor, I think, but has a major issue with grasping the idea of the PRP... he was, well back, the source of many probable copyvios, due to a tendency to argue about things such as 'it was an invalid copyright notice' (because of lacking something like a date, on the particular 'defective' copy we have at hand) or 'generic' arguments about 'such things were never copyrighted'. I unblocked him here a short while back, after his explicit agreement that he would upload no new images without prior approval of their copyright status by other editors.... it was largely in the hope that letting him edit outside of his talk page would result in clearing up some of the still outstanding issues with old uploads, since he was never 'actively' disruptive. He is explicitly required, by the terms of his unblock, to seek prior 'explicit' approval that his proposed uploads meet the terms of the PRP before he actually uploads them, through a discussion either on a community venue such as the VPC, or though a discussion on his talk subpage that he has advertised on a community venue.

I'll openly admit, the type or arguments he's made since, and his related behavior on enwiki (where he apparently was attempting to use the fact I unblocked him here, with conditions, as an excuse to violate his uploading ban there) has made me somewhat regret in engaging in the experiment in 'rehabilitating' him here. He seems to still totally not grasp the PRP... I have lectured him, to some degree of detail, that a copyright registration was never 'required' to establish protection, for instance, as he seemed to believe strongly that a lack of a registration invalidated any copyright notice on the published copies. If he uploads a new image without approval, I'll happily reblock him, at this point, and be shut with it... he has annoyed me, quite, but not actually violated the condition that he proposed and I agreed to (as a reason to believe it would avoid the prior issues), so I am still stuck keeping an eye on him.... at the same time, I hope we can get something useful out of the experiment. I would appreciate anyone with a 'known clue' who was willing to engage with him. He needs, by the condition of his unblock, a fairly explicit statement of agreement that something should be okay before uploading it... he's rather not allowed to assume any kind of 'tacit' agreement.

Thanks, for any help you can give with this. I know it's rather a pain, and a bit above and beyond. Any effort you were willing to give toward specifically looking at things he submits, and giving a 'definite' opinion, would be greatly appreciated. As the person who conditionally unblocked him, I really don't want to be the only person 'ruling' on his uploads. Revent (talk) 08:25, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Commons:Village pump/Copyright#Images from Facebook albums

Hi Carl. I can tell by your activity that you are already involved in so many discussions that you may be wanting another one less than lego pieces all over your carpet. But if in those discussions you've talked about Facebook albums at least once, than you may be the right person to help me sort out this question: Commons:Village pump/Copyright#Images from Facebook albums. Thank you in advance! //  Gikü  said  done  Wednesday, 18 November 2015 21:56 (UTC)

Follow up on flickr topic

Hey, thanks for answering my flickr question on November. Sorry that I haven't followed it up due to RL issues. I should have mentioned that the person I asked in question has made the license to CC BY-NC 2.0. I'm just not sure on what I should do next after that. Help is appreciated since it's my first time doing this. Ominae (talk) 13:27, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Commons will only accept CC-BY or CC-BY-SA, so there is nothing to do. Non-Commercial restrictions (while quite understandable) make a file non-free. See Commons:Licensing. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:50, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

File:US-DeptOfTheTreasury-Seal-AltColors.svg

Hi Carl-

I am a graphic designer for the U.S. Department of the Treasury and we are currently trying to ensure correct usage and versions of the Department of the Treasury seal. We have come across the aforementioned in the subject line above, and would like to have it removed for Wikimedia Commons. This version was never approved by the agency and we would like to have it not available for reference.

Thank you,

Timothy Garner Visual Information Specialist Printing and Graphics Division U.S. Department of the Treasury

Thanks for the info. The designs/colors in question were in fact used (on the department's own website, such as the 1999 Treasury home page, and in other government publications, like this 2007 report from another government organization), whether that was "approved" by today's graphic standards group or not. Wikimedia Commons generally does not remove works unless there is no educational use at all, and historical usage would be plenty for educational use. We should update the descriptions though (and possibly the filename) to make clear they are no longer used today, if they even ever were official. That, and see if usages on Wikipedias should be changed. Thanks, Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:41, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!!

		Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2016 !
		Remember: Look sweet... Eat everything... Seek the warmest spots to nap and purr... Try to wait until after to demolish the paper and ornaments... -- Ellin Beltz (talk) 20:35, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

	Fireworks from the Philippines to celebrate 2016
	Happy New Year Clindberg! I hope you still do your great work in 2016! ★ Poké95 05:22, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

File:CUA Cardinal 2008.png

Whats your take on copyrightability of a mild derivation from a widely used very similar in each instance logo. Can you please comment on the issue in this discussion Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2016 January 4? Thanks Rybkovich (talk) 19:58, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry for confusion I first posted this on your en.wiki talk

I wanted to ask you a follow up question. You said that:

Even if there are similar logos, it can still be copyrightable. It would not prevent someone else from designing a similar logo, but one which reproduced the exact lines seen in this one could still be a problem.... The other chance is if this exact logo was in use before 1989 or especially 1978; I would suspect that there were many publications of it without a copyright notice, and if so its copyright may have been lost then. I could not find any in a quick search, but the team name has been in use since the 1920s.

Does it mean that: If I did find a pre 1978 poster without a copyright and that had the logo in it - it could be argued that the logo itself would lose the copyright not just the image of the poster? Would it make a difference if there was also another poster with the logo in it but this poster had a copyright? Thanks allot this is all very interesting. Rybkovich (talk) 19:50, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

There is probably no bright line rule, but in general, all copies of a work needed a copyright notice before 1978. If you put out copies for several years with a copyright notice, but then you started putting out copies without one, then copyright was lost at that point. Courts would generally allow a "relative few" copies exist without notice to not lose the copyright, so there is a bit of a judgement call -- if you are creating a million items with the logo on it, and 1% of them did not have notice (still 1,000 instances), that would probably not lose copyright. If something counts as a derivative work (i.e. the original work was altered in some way), then lack of notice may not affect the original (just the additional expression in the new work). But if a logo is copied wholesale onto a poster, that is probably an individual part of a composite work, and not a derivative. A copyright notice on the poster would cover all the elements, but if no copyright notice on the poster, that should count as publication of a copy of the logo without notice -- if that is still within a "relative few", then the copyright may not have been lost, but otherwise I'd think so. I would imagine companies were most concerned about the trademark on a logo rather than the copyright so I'd guess that in most cases they would not have cared about the notice. But it's still good to find actual instances of it happening. If it was published prior to 1964, then there would also have to be a copyright renewal for it. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:55, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

File:Venera 9 - Venera 10 - venera9-10.jpg Public Domain status

Can you please comment to the Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2016 January 8, File:Venera9.png discussion. This discussion is regarding whether or not this file qualifies for non-free content. Per WP:NFCC#1 - A non-free file cannot be used if there is a public domain equivalent. In this case the possible equivalent is File:Venera 9 - Venera 10 - venera9-10.jpg The file is from the NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. Can you comment on whether or not the information provided by the curator of the archive is sufficient for determining that the file can be considered as in the public domain under en.wiki standards.

Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2016 January 8

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Venera_9_-_Venera_10_-_venera9-10.jpg venera 9 and 10 discussion

NSSDC policy

Thanks again Rybkovich (talk) 18:16, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks, and thanks again. I was away for a bit, for medical foo, and unable to keep watch. Glad that you were giving your usual erudite comments. :) Revent (talk) 01:17, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Requesting your opinion

Hi Carl, I hope you are well. If you have a minute or two, I was hoping you could offer your expertise on whether FOP applies to Prada Marfa at Commons:Deletion_requests/Files_in_Category:Prada_Marfa. Thanks for your time, Storkk (talk) 10:53, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

RFC on Meta

See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Fair_Use_on_Commons

Revent created this RFC to get a change or clarification on the position of posting non-free text on project discussion pages. Users may expect this can be done as "fair use" but it is possible this is invalid as Commons has no fair use exemption (and this appears to apply to both hosted media files and the meta-content that forms our discussions and forums and licencing pages). Additionally, people may quote emails for which they have permission but not a free licence. Looking at some of our forum discussions, it seems you are a "serial offender" :-) as you frequently post text from legal works to help with the discussions. You may also have an opinion as to how much text could be quoted before it becomes a copyright concern at all, and how much text could be quoted before it is no longer fair use. For example, I note this page contains several paragraphs quoted from "Nimmer on Copyright" (not by you) that might be considered excessive. Anyway, your wisdom on copyright matters and opinion on the request would be helpful. -- Colin (talk) 08:22, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Two files

w:File:Plainsman.jpg (a poster for a film from 1936) is marked as unfree while File:Plainsman.jpg (a screenshot from the same film) is marked as PD-US-no notice. There seems to be some fine print on the poster which might include a copyright notice, and I suspect that a film company would be more interested in protecting a film than a poster for the film, so I suspect that at least one of the pictures has wrong copyright information. It may be useful to search for the film in renewal records, but do you think that there is any reason to search for the poster or do we just assume that it is PD-US-not renewed? Films and film posters needed separate notices and renewals, didn't they? --Stefan2 (talk) 22:20, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

The poster is a completely separate work so it would need its own notice/renewal, yes. Agreed we can't see the small print enough on the poster to see if it's PD-no_notice. I see a copy of the film on dailymotion.com and it definitely had a valid copyright notice (for 1936) right after the title in the opening credits. I don't see that screenshot though at the beginning nor the end -- it's possible it was from a trailer. Yeah, looks like it's at the end of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwFIFrcWhaA . I don't think that trailer had a notice, from the looks of it. So that tag looks to be correct actually. But the poster... would help if we at least did a search for 1963 / 1964 to see if there is a listing. Looking at an image here there is a copyright notice on that poster... might even be for 1937; can't quite read the date. But the poster is claimed by Paramount Pictures. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:48, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't see any renewals for Paramount in the artwork sections for 1964 or 1965. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:55, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

I added a link to the trailer from the screenshot image and will retag the poster, then. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:00, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Template:PD-textlogo and Common law

Hi Clindberg. I've been reading the thread COM:VP/C#Template:PD-textlogo and Common law with interest. I am wondering if you have any opinions on COM:VP/C#File:BBC Three logo.svg and File:BBC Earth logo.png and COM:VP/C#WHTX (AM) logos and Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2016/03#File:NBC 2014 Ident.svg.

There are lots of non-free logos uploaded to Wikipedia, some of which might be more suitable for Commons, but probably should be deleted if they are not since their usage does not really comply with en:WP:NFCC. I'm trying to help go through and sort some of them out, and often look to Commons for examples of what is PD OK. Thanks in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:34, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

COM:BN#Commons:Administrators/Requests/Clindberg

You might wish to comment on this. --Stefan2 (talk) 16:08, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Copyright search and non-renewals

Hello Clindberg. As I'm still required to seek pre-approval for PD images, what is the best way to get that for U.S. images, online or in my possession, where there is a copyright notice pre 1963, and a thorough search finds no renewal? I'm familiar with all search options. It seems that User talk:Revent is away from his talk page, so I'm hoping you can fill in. Thanks for any feedback. --Light show (talk) 22:18, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Regarding the Korean copyright discussion from May

So I reread Commons:Village_pump/Copyright/Archive/2016/05#A_guide_to_Korean_copyright several times, but I think your understanding of the issue is still better then mine. Could you change the User:Piotrus/KoreaCopyright accordingly? I used the 1957 date, but it seems you figured out why the 1963 is better. Also the provision for photographs is still not fully clear to me. Bottom line, when I am explaining this to my students, can I tell them that except for photos of copyrighted art, photos by Korean people from or before 31 December 1976 are PD (and anything that was taken later, is probably not PD)? So basically pma (which is from then on +70) has little practical relevance for Korean photos? And for art or photos of it and such, the pma of 1962 or before is ok, otherwise it is not? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 11:45, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Chełm Nowe Miasto

thank you for your interest, these files I posted for public discussion held two years ago, but have been thoughtlessly and arrogantly deleted from wikimedia (after I asked the Polish administrators for help in choosing the right "license"), so today they are no longer as useful :( - I've seen your changes, but I still have doubts as to the proper "license" for many reasons (first, work made between 1925 and 1926, which is in the public domain since 1926, because it was for this purpose made and purchased, there may not be post factum and still the subject of private law, because it is elementary collision of laws; second, these works can not relate to copyright system, which in Poland then even did not exist, nor does it force before 14 June 1926, because the law can not be retroactive as you know; third, we have the alleged authorship dealing here, forced post factum only by the copyright system; fourth, even today many architects (like me and my masters) signs drawings compiled by their office only because of professional responsibility, and never because of authorship enforced by the copyright system, which they do not recognize, but copyright system forced by wikimedia against their will, because their will it does not account and forcibly assigns them authorship, etc.) and for these reasons, I also have serious doubts about the role of wikipedia and wikimedia in blocking national culture and historical knowledge, because for such a role of wikimedia boils mindless deleting files, anyway, thank you for helping to restore these files and the necessary adjustments "license" (google translation), --wkaczura (talk) 11:31, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Copyright can absolutely be retroactive, and for EU countries, is supposed to be. Even works which had long, long been part of the public domain were changed to be copyrighted if the EU directive was complied with -- which Poland did. Per their copyright law, article 124(3): Provisions of this Act shall apply to the works: (3) whose copyright has expired under the provisions hitherto in force and which under this Act shall continue to enjoy protection, except for the period between the expiry of protection under the previous Act and the date of this Act coming into force. That means the new copyright terms (life of the author plus 70 more years) apply to existing works, even if they had previously been public domain, from the effective date of that law going forward. The part about "law can not be retroactive" means that you can't change someone for infringement for acts which occurred while the works were considered public domain, but countries can make future uses of a work protected again. That is what the EU required and what Poland did, though they of course mention that acts done in the period between the expiry of protection under the previous Act and the date of this Act coming into force are of course still fine, but going forward they are not. Article 127 says that existing uses are still allowed (i.e. the newly-restored copyright owner cannot stop them) but payments will start to be required. Even if that type of work had been public domain since 1926, if they were made by someone who was or would be a Polish citizen (or even just a citizen of an EU country), then that new law and new copyright terms would apply to them within Poland, and Poland would be considered the "country of origin". Yes, copyright sucks, and retroactive copyright sucks even more, but that is the law. Following those laws is one of the founding principles of all Wikimedia projects and is not something that Commons can ignore, even if some want to. Any arguments need to be made within the wording of those new laws, or court case decisions, etc. It's possible we made a mistake in assuming the named author actually made the drawings, and should have instead treated it as an anonymous work (article 36 in that law). That does involve the date of publication, which can be tricky, but perhaps that should have been done. I'm not sure we have an appropriate licensing template for that -- it does go further than the normal {{PD-anon-70-EU}} tag.

In the case of PD-Polish, many photographs can be considered below the threshold of originality for the new terms, in which case a country can decide how those are treated -- and it would seem that Poland treats those as it did under previous law, according to the tag. But that does not apply to other types of work, such as drawings, which definitely get the new copyright. Thus, I changed the tags to be the ones that apply given the full terms, because the PD-Polish tag only applies to the photographic portion, and not the drawing, which also needs to be accounted for. It is certainly nobody's desire to block culture or historical knowledge, but Commons is specifically only allowed to host works where either 1) the copyright has expired (and has not been restored), or 2) the copyright has been licensed freely. Some projects will allow "fair use" or "fair dealing" or similar situations, for situations where copyright law does allow for limited use of works without permission -- but Wikimedia Commons is not allowed to do so (per Wikimedia Foundation resolution). Some projects will allow under-copyright works in some situations (for example -- http://pl.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Dozwolony_użytek) but Commons cannot. Onerous copyright laws are a reason that Wikipedia / Commons exists -- we want to create a body of work which can be re-used by others without worrying much about copyright law; however that does not give us the right to use works made by others without permission -- we need to follow the law. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:02, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

:D thanks again, I think I understand well what you're saying, because some time I already devoted to this system to understand - by force you can force all breaking the fundamental rules & principles, and then call it "law", can even be considered that the "law" running back, but then it is not law only lawlessness and can force all to became authors against their will, when they do not wish to, etc., so it is not a law, only a grave violation of the law (I mean especially the european legal system, but this also applies probably to the universal law systems) - so I posted this a few notes in the margin, because you sacrificed your time to constructively help in this matter, but more scares me the role of Wikipedia and Wikimedia, as mitigation instruments of knowledge for creating confusion under the veil of untoward, wrongheaded manifestos and slogans of promoting universal knowledge, (google translation) --wkaczura (talk) 14:56, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes, most of "real life" issues are covered under things like "fair use", "fair dealing", or other specific usages which are allowed by copyright law without permission of the author. Usage in educational contexts would quite often not actually be illegal. Unfortunately, those type of usages are not "free", in that there can be other usages which could be infringing (usually involving making money off them). Since Commons is a repository of media to be used in any and all circumstances, we can't accept works which are not free per the http://freedomdefined.org definition. Yes, this goes beyond strictly legal per copyright law, but "acceptable" uses vary greatly between countries and for a work to be free it needs to be usable in a great many circumstances. This "free" movement goes well beyond Wikipedia / Wikimedia -- it is a reaction to the extremely onerous new copyright laws which have become standard the last 30-40 years, and tries to actually use copyright to ensure that there is a body of works which can be used without worrying about copyright infringement -- but since it uses copyright law as its basis, we need to fully respect the copyright of others. So yes, we go beyond a strictly legal/illegal standard by choice. It may be that typical copyrights are ignored in an industry, but we are conservative about those -- even if 99% of copyright owners ignore their copyrights as a practical matter, the 1% who don't can cause large problems. If there are court rulings which clarify the law, those can always help us. But as sucky as it is, we do need the follow the law as best we understand it. Wikipedia is the "free encyclopedia" -- and sometimes the "free" part does make the "encyclopedia" part harder to do. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:19, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

yes, thanks for attention, I see you understand probably what I mean - at the beginning I also fell into the trap of the "free" encyclopedia, but since this system alarmed me, I limited my edits, and since I already understood this system, I practically not have a look here (very rarely), because the basic problem I have here with publishing my own knowledge and work to convey my experience to the next generation - why should I be a hypocrite and choose a license ? although it is not possible (either logically or legally), because the license is a contract, and you can not conclude a contract with the public in the public domain, because the contract requires two specific parties to the contract that are clearly identified in the contract; why wikipedia and wikimedia steals my work from the public domain and reserves themselves on the license CC-BY-SA? this already in general I do not understand any way; on the other hand, the mere assumption that someone may have copyright is based on a false assumption, because based on the appropriation property of common knowledge, used to "create" a work, and this is already evident plunder of public property, aside from the paradox that can not sell the rights to the public domain and still hold them, using against the public domain, because it has no any logic does not make, as much, as you can not have the butter and at the same time cream from which the butter has been done - because it's a universal truth, that we do not need to explain by any provisions of the "law" - if the purpose or effect of Wikipedia is a false picture of the truth, we should beware of and avoid it - take more attention for these problems, (google translation) --wkaczura (talk) 21:42, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Actually no, a license is not a contract -- they are quite different. See The GPL Is a License, not a Contract or License v. Contract --- Jacobsen v. Katzer (this was in response to a lower court ruling that the Artistic License was in fact a contract and not a license, but that was overturned in a higher court ruling, see w:Jacobsen v. Katzer). As for being an "author against your will"... well yes, that is what modern copyright law does. Under the Berne Convention, all original works (over a very low threshold) are automatically copyrighted, and copyrighted for a very very long time. The knowledge itself is not copyrighted, but the specific word choice you use when writing a description is, or if you make a drawing, that specific drawing is copyrighted, etc. Someone else can describe the same idea using different words, and that is not copyright infringement -- only if someone copies your exact words and uses them. The law then says that copyright is the default, assumed status, and you need explicit permission if you want to copy someone else's work. The free licenses are therefore a mechanism, within the framework of copyright law, to let others use such works widely. You can use the {{CC0}} (Creative Commons Zero) license to give up as many of those rights as possible, or others which require attribution, etc. We simply can't ignore the realities of copyright law, unfortunately. For a long time, there were many countries (among them the United States, USSR, and Warsaw Pact countries) which did not participate in Berne, but rather something else called the Universal Copyright Convention which allowed significant differences, such as requiring works to have a copyright notice or copyright was lost, or registration, things like that. However, as countries (now virtually all of them) have joined Berne, those different treatments are now gone, and everything is automatically copyrighted like it or not. In many cases, people don't care, but occasionally some do and they have the right to enforce it. If we want the free encyclopedia to be able to be copied far and wide under virtually all circumstances, we have to make sure that all its content is not unduly restricted by copyright -- that means either copyright expired, or explicitly licensed. Thus, those are the only types of media that Commons accepts. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:13, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

:) great, you throw me the challenges and a lot to analyze, hard work - but I will try to answer when I 'm done with it, (google translation) --wkaczura (talk) 16:16, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Malaysian copyright

You always seem to have good answers to copyright questions when I see your replies, so hence I would like your opinion on this one. My concern stems from a question about their stamps. I did some research and wrote up an initial summary at Commons:Stamps/Public domain#Malaysia. I also found a working link for the copyright act which is dead on the general copyright page section but I'll fix that. I'd like your opinion on my concern with the fact that since 1992 the post office is now a corporation, so is there any real difference from the government work 50 year rule and the corporate rules, or post-1992 is the copyright period determined by the life of the author. However, I have not seen any records of the authors or engravers, like we do with France where the stamps usually have the name of the engraver and designer on the stamp. This WIPO page may be of help and this does not mention corporate works. Thanks Ww2censor (talk) 09:01, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

• While I'm on the subject of stamps, no one ever responded to my question on Libyan stamps now archived at: Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2016/07#Stamps of Libya. If you have input on that I'd also appreciate it. Ww2censor (talk) 09:12, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I see you have been active since I posted these questions but I'd really like to read your reply. Ww2censor (talk) 13:50, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

File:Manuel A Roxas.jpg

Hi Clindberg. Thanks for your help with Commons:Deletion requests/File:Manuel Acuña Roxas.jpg. I am wondering if you wouldn't mind also taking peak at File:Manuel A Roxas.jpg when you get a spare moment or two. The file is listed as PD and it is sourced to tumblr.malacanang.gov.ph, but it's not clear if that particular website is the creator of the photo. At first glance, it looks like they have just uploaded various old photos/videos to their website and I'm not sure how Tumblr's licensing works. When I searched "Manual Roxas", I found 8 pages of old photos of Roxas that look like they come from a variety of sources, including some newspapers and magazines. The website is also showing versions of the colorized/non-colorized photos that were deleted in the above-mentioned DR (scroll through page 1 and page 5 to find them). It looks like this photo can be found on page 7 and it seems official, but I'm not sure. It seems the Tumblr page is part of malacanang.gov.ph which says "All content is in the public domain unless otherwise stated", but it's not clear if that includes the Tumblr images or even can include the Tumblr images. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:40, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

About Mahabharata Book in Hindi

Then what about this sir. User INeverCry Delete the File. Why--Baddu676 (talk) 05:39, 5 September 2016 (UTC) Commons:Deletion requests/File:Child Bhima magic.jpg

SVG and "own work"

Hi Clindberg. Thank you for the information you provided at COM:VP/C#File:Saipa FC logo.png. I am wondering if you wouldn't mind commenting at User talk:GTVM92#Meaning of "own work" when you have a spare moment or two. Perhaps you can clarify the times when an svg file is OK to claim as "own work"? Thanks in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:53, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Hello

I posted the last question about the files from Algeria, COM:VP/C. I upload the files, can you see if i did in the right way? here and here and here, Thank you and have a nice day.--Jobas (talk) 06:16, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

I think they are fine. Thanks for your contributions. Wikicology (talk) 19:39, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Odd question

What do you think is the status of an old -- 18th century, say -- anonymous work in the EU that was in private hands from inception and never seen by the public? The US rule is 120 years from creation, but is there anything in the EU rules that makes something PD by age? .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 12:21, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

tps - (general case in the EU) a publication right has to be claimed within 70 years of creation or death of the author, whichever is longer. As a corollary, exploitation/publication rights only exist on first publication if they are claimed and for archaic material it would be almost impossible for a modern publisher to defend a claim of publication rights without first being able to present continuous provenance. It would only need an alternate copy to surface in a separate archive to debunk a claim (a pragmatic concern for WW1 photographs). --Fæ (talk) 12:47, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand -- who would own the copyright? Let's say it is painting, so it is unlikely that there would be another, duplicate, work. And can you give me a cite for your statement -- I don't doubt you, but if it comes up in the future I'd rather cite the law than "Fæ says". .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 13:28, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

The claimant is the publisher, presuming there is no estate with a default prior claim. Even for a painting, if there is no continuous provenance, then a claim of publication rights would be debunked if someone had published a photograph in a catalogue years before. To have publication rights there can be no evidence of prior publication. Feel free to use "Fæ says" if that pleases you, however you could use the sources quoted at Publication right if you prefer to be civil. --Fæ (talk) 13:59, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

If someone obtained such a work, they probably obtained the copyright as well, so they would be the copyright owner -- but that would not affect the term. Current EU law for anonymous works says it is 70 years from publication, or 70 years from creation if not published in that period. So, per today's law, such a work would no longer have copyright. However... when first published, there would be a 25-year publication right owned by the publisher that is otherwise equivalent to the copyright. For some EU countries, if they previously had an infinite copyright on unpublished works, the previous terms might still be in effect. The UK did away with the infinite copyright (which only applied to certain types of works, notably not pre-1957 photos) in their 1988 law, which was effective in 1989, but gave such works 50 years of protection from that date -- so in the UK some really old works may be protected until 2040. Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:56, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Hey

How are you? is it possible to upload file from here and here. Thank you and have a nice day.--Jobas (talk) 10:35, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

No. You can't upload anything you find on the Internet, unless they have been explicitly licensed freely. And if it's not clear, they haven't been licensed. Those, not at all. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:20, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Reply timeframe

A number of images I've requested a review of have received no comments from anyone even after nearly a week. There are only a handful of new image questions daily, yet the VPC gets about 300 page views. Would it be a major violation to upload something with no comments before they disappear off the page or the source photo gets sold or removed? Thanks for any feedback. --Light show (talk) 18:53, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

@Light show: I've been busy, but I'll try to look, and hopefully Carl will have a chance as well. You can also archive the ebay pages at archive.org... I think I mentioned that to you once. It would be a good idea anyhow. Revent^talk 00:11, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Friendliness

You said something (back in August) about trying to write more friendly deletion templates. User:Steven Walling is probably still the #1 expert on that subject. He could probably point you towards useful resources. You (and he, for that matter) might also be interested in phab:T148439 about the welcome template. (Please {{Ping}} me in replies; I otherwise don't visit Commons very often in my work account.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:04, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): Ugh, sorry I missed responding to this at the time. The welcome template is probably fine, although it is largely general information that apply to all Wikimedia projects. There is one link to the licensing page, which can be a bit dense. The deletion templates though can be a bit harsh. "This file is a copyright violation because it is copyrighted and not published under a free license". That statement is not strictly true -- there are many, many situations where an upload is not a copyright violation, although at the same time it is not "free". That statement completely ignores fair use and other legitimate uses; it directly emphasizes the term "copyright violation" which makes it sound as though the uploader actually broke the law when it is likely they did not -- it is simply non-free, so the desire to only host files which are "free" is the problem (a self-imposed restriction), not an actual breakage of the law. Commons users often use the term "copyright violation" to simply mean non-free but that distinction is going to be lost on many first-time users who upload material which is absolutely educational, but can run afoul of the technicalities of copyright when applying "free" criteria and pointedly ignoring fair use / fair dealing / other normal exceptions to copyright law that educators may be used to using. The English Wikipedia warning templates bend over backward to assume good faith for initial editors; by contrast ours are overly accusatory from the start. Commons is the place where the difference between an encyclopedia and a "free encyclopedia" most often comes to a head -- they understand the need to write their own text on a wikipedia article, but often don't understand that the same concept also extends to making your own illustrations. We may need a better introductory page which better explains "free" (Commons:Licensing is a bit dense), but even more so that Commons is not allowed to host fair-use works, which makes illustrating articles (and uploading here) much harder than in "normal" usage, as our requirements far exceed those of real-life situations. I imagine that clash will turn off a lot of first-time contributors. And getting some of that understanding into the upload tools (worded respectfully) is probably key to avoiding the first-time-user problem uploads that many of those tools have brought on. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:34, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Have you previously tried changing the deletion templates? I hope and would expect that Commons would not object to factual corrections such as changing "is a copyright violation" to "is not free, and maybe a copyright violation", since there are many contributors here who understand that distinction. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:05, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Ulorin and Bloom

This file has sourcing problem and I tagged the file. The uploader could address the problem within 7 days. However, I was reverted two times by him and my edit was called "bogus and disruptive nomination" although I had told the user that he could "simply find the proper source and remove the tag." Please address the case. Thanks. --Mhhossein ^talk 10:13, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

What sourcing problem? There is a valid source given, Flickr, and the license was verified by Flickreviewr. The tag you applied was incorrect. If the Flickr author is not the actual photographer, then we'd have a problem. But it's a pretty hi-res file, again, so that is likely. We don't delete just because the Flickr source page disappears (unless that happens before the license there is verified, but it was). Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:39, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

But it's not normal to have a file without a source! Flickr is not a robust reliable source, some of it's files were proven to be copy vio. So, the link could have been disappeared for many reasons and the bot could have made a mistake.--Mhhossein ^talk 05:28, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Flickr is one of our most common sources, and yes that is most definitely a valid source (many many many files are licensed there). If you can show Commons:License laundering, then that would be different. But a source of Flickr does not mean "delete". It's usually pretty obvious if the Flickr page is the actual author or not -- unfortunately, it has been taken down in this case. But a full-size photo with EXIF was uploaded, and those are less commonly available just over the Internet from professional photographers. The license given was definitely there on Flickr when uploaded, though. Anything else is possible, but you have to show actual evidence that shows the Flickr was not the author. The fact that other Flickr uploaders ignore copyright has no bearing on this file -- find evidence associated with this file. If you can find the photographer's name elsewhere, and the Flickr user is a real name (and a different person), that sort of thing. But you need some actual reason to doubt that file in particular (not just Flickr percentages or the fact the author's account is now gone). Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:09, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

.... and I was wrong about the account, it's still there (just this particular photo is gone). And yes, it looks like a professional photographer, who has many photographs of the same ilk, and generally does put a free license on them. This is virtually certain to be OK. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:13, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

I never said that Flickr means delete. I just said that merely being from Flickr does not mean keep! I think you tacitly confirmed that in your prev comment. It appears that you move on a common sense basis which includes checking res, EXIF, date, quality, professionality and etc. --Mhhossein ^talk 13:21, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

By the way, it was clear that "bogus and disruptive nomination" is far from a good faith approach. --Mhhossein ^talk 13:24, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Correct, simply being on Flickr doesn't mean keep. It is however a source, so putting the no-source tag on it was incorrect, and a speedy delete was not remotely warranted -- that is bordering on vandalism, actually. If you find specific evidence that the Flickr page is not the original source (or at least that the account owner is not the author), then there are grounds for deletion -- but it's best as a regular DR, not adding a speedy tag, unless it's obvious that the Flickr user simply copies images off the internet and puts them on their page (i.e. lots of images from different authors, and the uploaded image seems similar). Such Flickr users can be added to Commons:Questionable Flickr images. So yes, there is common sense involved -- if the Flickr user is the author, then the license and source is absolutely valid, and if not (and the Flickr page is the only source) you can nominate for deletion. But adding speedy tags is rarely the right approach -- and in this case, you tagged a file no-source which 1) had a source, and 2) by all common sense reasoning, the Flickr uploader is in fact the author. So it should never have been nominated for deletion, let alone speedy. You need to look further into it yourself, and then provide the specific reason you think the given license is invalid when you make the deletion review. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:37, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. The reason I tagged was that the pic actually were left with a dead link source and I thought that the review bot could have naturally made a mistake and there was no way to address that. Probably, I would not do that if I had paid attention to the size. Although I think, AGF, what I did was the best thing I could do at the time because 1) there was no de facto source (it was dead), so 2) no author or license was reachable for the work. Consider that the uploader had 7 days to fix the problem. I don't agree with "adding speedy tags is rarely the right approach" per huge number of files uploaded daily, although one should be careful before adding them. Anyway thanks for the points. --Mhhossein ^talk 01:30, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

A dead source is still a source. Pages go away, that is natural on the Internet, but that does not suddenly mean the Commons requirements change, or that the source becomes invalid. And the author page was still available. Things like archive.org can often be used for dead links anyways. We want to know the source, even if dead now. If a Flickr license has not been verified (Commons:License review) then a dead source might be a problem, but this one was verified. Bots do not make mistakes -- always trust those. Speedy deletion tags are only for *obvious* copyvios -- see Commons:Criteria for speedy deletion. Ones where you are not 100% sure, start a regular deletion request. It needs to be an obvious problem, not just possibly a problem, for a speedy tag. A deletion review gets more eyes and more opinions; a speedy tag will only be noticed if one particular person (the uploader) gets online, or if an overworked admin bulk-cleaning a category happens to notice the tag should not have been applied. DRs are also typically open for at least seven days, and in the end there is a record of why we deleted the file as well, unlike with speedy. There are enough obvious copyvios that you should drop to a regular DR if you are not sure. In this case, you shouldn't have been sure even given your assumptions. There are lots of obvious copyvios out there, and it's definitely good to clean them up, but I may stick with regular DRs for a while until you have a better understanding of policy and normal practice. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:39, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

That always trustable bot is "currently disabled due to malfunctioning." Thanks for the rest of explanation. --Mhhossein ^talk 06:46, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Generally, a bot will stop working altogether, not verify a file it should not have or partial failures like that (i.e. it will err on the side of not verifying files it should, known as "failing safe"). The Flickr bots will not verify or upload a file unless it has a free license -- that is tested thoroughly. Like any bit of software, external changes can require code updates to continue to work. In this case the original programmer was no longer active, so someone else took the code and started a new version which does the same function. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:11, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

No known CR restrictions

The source for this file is flickr. There it's mentioned that "No known copyright restrictions". How do we treat such a file? Thanks. --Mhhossein ^talk 15:26, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

As public domain, which is what "no known copyright restrictions" means. It has the appropriate license tag -- in this case, it would be either #3 or #4 on the list, meaning it was a photo by the institution that they gave up copyright on. This is generally the license tag for anything uploaded by participating institutions in the Flickr Commons project (unrelated to us) where libraries and other institutions vet some of their holdings for public domain works and put them online. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:14, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Threshold of originality

I am wondering for logo ? --Mile (talk) 16:38, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

AN/U comment on LS discussion

Thanks for your fast reply! I really don't understand what happened, somehow the c-not-renewed tag slipped my mind. Thanks again for being so responsive! --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 05:08, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Category:George Charles Beresford and the URAA

Hi, Carl. Do you have a moment to look at this? I'm thoroughly confused. --Rrburke (talk) 14:28, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Indian Navy permission

Hi Carl, The permission for the Indian Navy files comes from the webmaster, and I am not sure it is legally valid. More answers are ‘this is what I was told’, and ‘go to see the permission on the website’.

Do you think it would cover us in case of a complain, even if it is not valid? Because if yes, let it be. If not, we'd better fix it.

If it is valid, we could try to get a similar permission from the Army webmaster. I don't we would get anything better without some official contact in India. If it is not valid, it is not even worth trying to get it. Regards, Yann (talk) 22:33, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

FYI: Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Photos from indiannavy.nic.in. Yann (talk) 18:43, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Activist Gloria Steinem Tells Women's March Protesters 'Put Our Bodies Where Our Beliefs Are'.webm

Hi Carl, I would like very much to have your opinion about this, specially the point made by Revent about fair use. Thanks in advance, Yann (talk) 12:05, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Joint copyright ownership

Hi Carl, these are the discussions about the joint copyright ownership, I mentioned in VPP. I deliberately decided not to mention the links there as some people already commented that it is not fair to make a public discussion affecting their privacy. Hope now it is settled per these discussions. Jee 02:52, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

NARA copyright license options

Hi Carl. I am currently working on a new bot to upload NARA images to Wikimedia Commons, and I am trying to improve on some of the practices from the first round of uploads several years ago. One of the criticisms I have heard several times was about using a general {{PD-USGov}} template for all uploads. We attempted to only upload records marked as public domain in NARA's catalog, so it was not a copyright issue per se, but some Commons editors weren't thrilled with the template because (1) there is a preference for using agency-specific templates, and (2) some archival records may be official records of the government, but not works of the government (e.g., petitions sent to Congress), so they are technically in the public domain due to age or other reasons, which doesn't line up with the text of PD-USGov. The main problem I have with these in doing automated uploads is that it would be a very big task to map all the thousands of creators in the NARA catalog with agency-specific Commons PD-USGov templates, and while NARA catalog records will have an "unrestricted" use rights statement for PD records, there is no way to programmatically determine whether that is specifically because it is a government work, or because it is a government record that has fallen into the public domain for another reason.

I think these issues are really all cosmetic, because the important thing is that they official US federal records that have been determined to be in the public domain by an archivist, but I am trying to think through the best option going forward. The best thing I can think of, other than the status quo, would be to have a copyright license for works determined to be in the public domain by the US National Archives. It could even have a parameter for the agency, so the text could say something like: "This media comes from the official records of the United States War Department, and has been determined by an archivist of the National Archives and Records Administration to be in the public domain as a work of the US federal government, and/or due to age, donor agreement, or another factor". Do you think there is a way to do that which would be clear and acceptable to Wikimedia Commons? Or do you have an other ideas for how to handle the licenses for bulk NARA uploads? I really appreciate your help! Dominic (talk) 16:12, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

By the way, some work has been done for automatic diffusion, see User:Fæ/code/PD-USGov. This may, or may not be helpful, as some uploads from NARA could be diffused just by setting up a REGEX filter on this task, rather than designing new templates. --Fæ (talk) 16:16, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks @Fæ: , I wasn't aware of that work. That approach would help mitigate the first issue above, though not really the second problem (images mixed in that are archival records that come from an agency but aren't produced by them as the template states). It would certainly be an improvement over the status quo, though, (and I could maybe even add some of your code to mine for the pre-upload processing). Dominic (talk) 16:29, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, this is a hard problem. All the PD-USGov variants are really just cosmetic -- those are more just a categorization thing, since legally all the PD-USGov* tags are all the same thing. Frankly, the default of PD-USGov makes sense, though if you can map creators to a more specific tag, that could help. But I don't think it's a big concern about using PD-USGov versus e.g. PD-USGov-Military-Navy. License-wise, it's just as accurate. If it's relatively easy to do, go ahead, but if that type of thing puts a big barrier onto getting them uploaded in the first place, that's not a good thing.

The larger concern is material from non-government sources which is legally a different status. They may be OK for the U.S., and thus OK to upload, but having a different license tag can mean a very different situation in other countries -- it may have expired via lack of U.S. formalities, but other countries which do not use the rule of the shorter term for U.S. works, it may still be under copyright -- which re-users would need to know. And of course if NARA has any foreign material, we would need to evaluate on country of origin. Unfortunately, I don't see any way around that other than work-by-work analysis. Because the "creator" will still just be the government department which collected the material, you usually can't use that to determine anything. I can't think of a good way other than by noticing them on an individual basis, and then changing to {{PD-US}} or a more specific template. The PD-USGov tag would be correct on 99%+ of those uploads (and defaulting to PD-US would be far worse), so your current approach may still be best even though occasionally inaccurate. Most of the time, the license would just need to be fixed -- it should be relatively rare for deletions to happen. You could put them in a NARA-upload-license-not-checked category, and have a more manual process where people can check the license and remove the category if OK or fix the license if not. That type of thing can be helpful with mass uploads since it can get them categorized better too. But it could also be a maintenance category which just gets ignored too. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:01, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

I guess you're right. I have no problem with admitting that there will always be a small amount of error in the data, and it's a good thing when the Commons community looks at NARA uploads and decides some need further discussion. I would guess maybe 100 have been deleted out of the first 100,000, which I think is not a bad error rate. I am also concerned, aside from potential deletions, with the community's goodwill, and not giving the appearance that we are being sloppy or lazy with a decision to apply a {{PD-USGov}} broadly, which will then look silly for some individual or sets of files in isolation. I worry that the community to double-check them all might invite that kind of perception, implying that we don't really know what we're uploading. I think one think we definitely need is an FAQ, maybe linked in {{NARA-cooperation}} that addresses some of the concerns. I'd definitely like to be proactive about these issues as much as I can. Dominic (talk) 16:04, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Your Rainbow Panorama

I wonder if I could invite you to give your opinion on this FoP case. It affects quite a number of photos (including my own) of this popular tourist attraction. Thanks. -- Colin (talk) 18:38, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your input there. I didn't know whether FoP was excluded from the inside or not. I guess if he'd painted a detailed scene on the walls then that would count as a 2D artwork and be copyright that wasn't exempted by FoP. -- Colin (talk) 17:11, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Right, separate works inside would be different, unless the interior was considered a "public place" and they could still qualify for FoP. But the architectural FoP would not apply there. I just assume that since some laws make it explicit that only the exterior surface applies with FoP, that would mean the "default" is the interior would apply to, which is why countries need to specify if that right should not apply to insides. But I think in plenty of places, the interior would not qualify as a "public place" so other works on the inside would still be an issue. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:50, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	The Dutch Barn Chronicles Award (Two Stars of the Royal House) for you; Job Well Done to you and yours in 2016. We have a great head start on 2017 because of you and your work. Many thanks! Publican Farmer (talk) 22:31, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

File:Averof WWII.jpg (present on Wikipedia, since 2007)

Hi, Carl.

As I have already spent a full-time week of my life (or more) attempting to first keep, and then undelete this B&W photograph (you probably have done the same in reviewing the matter), I'd like to ask how and when this determination will be made.

Ellin Beltz, the original DR administrator, has returned to restate her original case for deletion. Overriding her opinion has always been the matter at hand.

Currently, excepting Ellin, there appears to be agreement for keeping the Black & White version of this photograph. Without Ellin re-voting her own DR decision, I count the current tally at 5x SUPPORT, 1x OPPOSE, 1x NEUTRAL.

Who is now in charge of the UNDEL decision? Is it the first UNDEL administrator who appeared in the UNDEL discussion? How do we bring this administrator back to the table to make a final ruling? Thanks very much for your advice. I grow weary of this issue.

-BillBbaldwin7 (talk) 00:59, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

An admin will come along, and decide on the best argument, and restore or not. Honestly though, I can't blame someone for opposing. It's a hard thing when so little is known about the photograph and where it came from. If it turned up in an IWM collection, or other government type of source, even that would help. Facts are the best thing for cases like this, honestly. Without that, there are always other possibilities. Were there still Greek sailors manning ships in the area? If one of them took it, the situation could be different. Same if it was taken from the ship of another navy, etc. There is uncertainty, and many of those other possibilities could mean the photo is still under copyright. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:49, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Carl, why are you again returning to the question of other non-UK photographers or unauthorized photographers, after we've put this point to bed? All Greek sailors on this Bombay Naval Station were under UK Royal Navy command, as much so as any Royal Navy personnel or any other legitimate servants of the Crowd on that base. If any Greek sailor took this photo it is not "different", as it is not within his right to do so. Especially, as this is an image of a camouflaged ship that would have no possible clearance for publication. His Majesty was first claimant to all images made on a UK Naval Station in wartime. That's all ships of all navies. Of course, allies like the US Navy and the Greek Navy were allowed the use of permitted and distributed photographs, within the rules of military security which they all adhered to. Any unauthorized photography has no claim to copyright. As first claimant, His Majesty challenges any such assumption.

If we found this picture as an unidentified item within the wartime files of the IWMuseum or other UK or Commonwealth archive, you said -- "even that would help". No, it would more than just help, it would be a slam-dunk, as its age and presence would prove the UK source. We don't have a UK government archive to support the claim of Crown-Copyright, but we do have all the circumstantial evidence needed to argue that this can only be considered Crown Copyright from the moment of creation, regardless of the photographer, authorized or not. His Majesty is first claimant to all documentation, in any visual form, on a UK naval base in wartime. The right to photograph anything (much less a photo-restricted subject) is not given unless His Majesty retains the copyright. Any attempt at unauthorized photography is criminal and HM's first-claimant right to copyright, based on the subject matter and location, would still be retained.

Now, the DR administrator, who made the deletion, has returned to argue her case. She has already made the deletion. That was the opening fact here. This UNDEL request is supposed to focus on whether circumstantial evidence can attach expired copyright in the case of this photo. Her continuing to ask for a source, when she knows there is no source, is just stonewalling the thrust of what is being considered. If this debate was in the matter of a Crown defense for UK-copyright claims, the government would be challenging the rights of any photographer, based on the date, location, and subject matter of the image. That is what we are discussing here, not the lack of an archival source. Whether there is presently some unknown copyright claimant for this photo (or one will yet come forward in future) the response to such a holder or claimant's position is the same -- Sorry, HM has always owned the copyright in this image, by statutory claim to exclusivity in both location and subject matter, and has already released it into UK-PD. The Crown only approved wartime copyright-exemptions for certain publication by contract (LIFE Magazine, etc.). Being a restricted subject (camoflague warship) that possibility cannot apply to this photo. So the only source is -- UK Government Photo, Crown Copyright-Expired. Bbaldwin7 (talk) 01:35, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Carl: I intend to enter my last "talk" segment seen here to the UNDEL page. I am not going to allow the DR administrator to switch focus from the main point of the UNDEL request Please feel free to challenge me on grounds of "uncertainty", but I feel this clarification is necessary in what has become a lengthy and muddled debate. Bbaldwin7 (talk) 02:05, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

The authorship issue is the main question -- it has not been "put to bed", but rather a decently strong case has been made. It is not a slam dunk. It could have been taken from a cargo ship that it was escorting -- those were typically civilian ships. It could have been taken by another country's ship -- there were a number of Allied navies with ships in the region. And if a Greek sailor took the photo on his own, not sure that would be "under the direction or control" of the UK government. The fact that it may have been illegal at the time is not relevant to copyright today, especially if never caught. Ownership of a property does not give anyone the right to claim copyright of photos taken on (or of) that property -- copyright is owned by the photographer, period. You may feel differently, but I am not nearly so sure on that, and others may not be either. It's not a clear-cut issue unfortunately -- a better source would tell us more. There is definitely doubt; the main question is if there is a significant doubt. What may be just enough over the line to me may be just short to some others. You have laid out your (fairly strong) case; the only thing that can help further is uncovering more facts, not arguing the same points more. If the case is deemed good enough, then fine, but I don't think it's a slam dunk, so be prepared -- it could go either way.

The admin who originally deleted it is of course free to voice their opinion there. It should be a different admin who closes the undeletion request though. Each side is free to air their arguments, or to say they are unconvinced by the argument of the other side. The final admin will pick the best argument, and generally not count votes. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:20, 23 December 2017 (UTC)