Talk:History of Salt Lake City

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[edit] Image use

Well, I would love to add some more pics to this new page, but I'm not sure where to obtain them, and copyrights and such...I saw a really great pic of the Salt Lake Temple during construction in a book, but it mentioned it was coutesy of the LDS archives...not sure what kind of restrictions there are on 140 year old photos...Any ideas anyone?

Jon, Conqueror of Men 21:54, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I went ahead and uploaded one here I found through the Library of Congress search. The short answer is that anything prior to 1923 is now Public domain. the long answer is found in Wikipedia:Copyright issues, Wikipedia:Copyrights, and Wikipedia:Image copyright tags.

Basically, scans or picture of pictures can be copyright, which is why the picture to the right is not as nice as it could be. It comes from the Denver Public Library which does assert copyrights over the digital images of their (public domain) pictures. That's annoying because other libraries don't. However, in order for something to be copyright, it must have creative expression. I believe the Denver Library's pictures have no creative expression and are archival (they show the entire photo), so I put the image in as public domain. However, if a picture copy is cropped, enhanced, or modified in any other possibly-creative way, then the modifier of the picture typically retains copyright.

So to summarise: if you take a picture or make a scan of an image created before 1923, it's 100% free. If you use scan, copy, or photograph newer copies of images from before 1923, it's probably also public domain. You cannot, however, use images that have been enhanced, even if the original was from before 1923. And if the image is from after 1923, no dice unless the owner specifically committed it to the public domain. There is one important exception though: images produced for the federal government are not copyright. This includes stamps, many military photos, and lots of other things. I have some newer government survey photos of the Salt Lake Tabernacle uploaded on my image page (I still needd to expand that article).

You might have luck finding pictures from books before 1923, but I doubt it. The LDS Archive is also a lot more restrictive than they used to be, so it'd be hard to get access or permission for the original. If the picture doesn't appear to be modified in any way though, you should be able to scan it from the book, but be sure to include the source.

That way, if the image is not fair game for the public domain, it almost certainly will be for fair use. This is legal, but many people on wikipedia don't like fair use. For one thing, the United States is the only country in the world that allows fair use of copyrighted materials.

Whew. Cool Hand Luke (Communicate!) 23:59, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

OK, I think I get it, I was a bit confused at first... I added the above pic to the main page, until something grander can be found...

Thanks! :)

Jon, Conqueror of Men 18:29, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Street system

Hey! Why don't someone write an article about the street system used in SLC and other cities in that part of the country. They have names like 800 West and 3200 South. What's the deal with that?

Well see, I'll take 800 West and 3200 South for example. 800 West would mean 8 blocks west of Main Street. 3200 South would mean 32 blocks south of South Temple. If there was, say, 1215 North and 670 East, then that would be 12.15 blocks north of South Temple and 6.7 blocks east of Main Street.The Runescape Junkie 23:04, 29 May 2006 (UTC)