Template talk:PolandGov

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Contents 1 Non-free? 2 Post-TfD cleanup 3 Not on Commons 4 Expand the template?

[edit] Non-free?

These images are non-free, so we should argue a fair-use case for each that we use. — Matt Crypto 12:45, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, the license of that site is a tad tricky, since at times it claims copyright over pictures that are not eligible for copyright whatsoever, even under the Polish law (most of WWII pics, for instance). But the site is quite useful as a repository and it's always easier to use this tag than to look for the author of the picture and check the copyright on a case by case basis.

Anyway, the way I see it, in 99% of cases this licence is closer to free use ({{CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat}}, for instance) than to {{fair use}}. Especially that it would be hard to use any of the pics uploaded so far against "the aims of the Polish foreign policy" - as one of the basic aims is the promotion of Polish history. Halibutt 02:45, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Sure. I guess I worry about the "aims of Polish foreign policy" part to some extent. Sometimes, to satisfy the demands of NPOV, Wikipedia might be describing points of view that are contrary to the aims of Polish foreign policy. Also, under these terms, the images can't be used for commercial purposes or by government organisations. We wouldn't have permission to, for example, sell a WikiReader in Cryptography which contained any of these images. — Matt Crypto 09:22, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

The "foreign policy" bit alarmed me as well. Some of my Canadian WWII photographs under {{CanadaCopyright}} were deleted recently, and all it asks is due diligence and non-commerciality! Albrecht 16:32, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

And non-commercial is going to cause problems, like during FAC nominations. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 17:01, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about the aims of foreign policy thingie, as I doubt they publish any pics that would be against such policy on their page. That would be a tad strange, like some American tourist office promoting the US with a picture of a lynched person. The non-commercial use might indeed be a problem though, especially in the case of modern pics. Halibutt 16:14, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

On the other hand I can hardly imagine any commercial use of Polish WWII pictures. Of course, I would buy myself a T-shirt with a Polish WWII bomber, but I guess I'm perverted to some extent :) Halibutt 17:47, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Post-TfD cleanup

A discussion on Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 March 9 led to the conclusion that this template should be deleted. Since it's still in active use, I won't delete it quite yet: it still serves a useful purpose while the images that are currently tagged with it are being re-examined, tagged differently, deleted, etc. Once it's no longer in use, it can be deleted without further discussion. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 16:51, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

7 for delete, 4 to keep - I'd say this is not even 2/3 in favour of deletion and that it should be more widely discussed. Anyway, I think we should await the outcome of talks between Halibutt and Polish Ministry, and don't act rashly - who knows, maybe they'll modify their policy?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 19:38, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Any progress in talks with Warsaw?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 03:38, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Any progress? - otherwise delete!! --Historiograf 19:31, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Any progress? - otherwise keep. Eh. Copyright paranoia is really a terrible affliction. Seriously, we can use some news, and if they are no good then we need to retag the pictures, probably changing the template into a fair use template. Certainly deleting the useful pictures Polish government certainly doesn't mind us using is only the last option.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 04:58, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

At last, the guy (Dominik Smyrgała from the Dep. of Promotion of the Ministry) got back from the Easter leave and checked the decision. I called him today and he said it would be no problem for us to use the pics as long as we credit their site and the ADM (Archiwum Dokumentacji Mechanicznej, that is the Archive of Mechanical Documentation), from whom they purchased a license to use their archives. He promised to send me a full decision tomorrow by email, I'll post it here and sent it to whomever it may concern. //Halibutt 13:58, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it's a good time to do at least stubs on Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Poland) and this Archive of Mechanical Documentation. No good deed should go unpunished :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 16:18, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

The guy was yet again out of Poland for quite some time, but he promised me to send me the decision by email at last on Monday... Gosh, it takes ages to make them reply... //Halibutt 06:17, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I had a time to call them back and investigate the matter. It turned out that the guy I was talking with is no longer part of the Ministry as he works in the... Chancellery of the President. Anyway, the new guy told me again that there is absolutely no problem whatsoever with the usage of those pics in wikipedia under the present rationale:

1. it is in vital interest of the ministry to spread the knowledge of Polish war effort worldwide, thus the aims of the Polish foreign policy argument is not a problem for us
2. Wikipedia is non-profit and whether our mirrors use the pictures for any other purpose is none of our business. The Ministry grants us (and everyone else) with the same rights and whether someone else violates the license or not is his own crime and his own responsibility. Wiki is no more responsible for such violations than the ww2.pl itself.
3. Just in case, to make the matter 100% clear, I asked for some document and the guy suggested I sent a fax to his boss, Anna Wielowieyska and that they will send me a written permission at request.

So, I believe it's now ok to remove the tag-tag from this template. //Halibutt 11:57, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Not on Commons

Please note that since its non-commercial it is not used on Commons.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  00:37, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Expand the template?

Currently the template sais it's applicable to pictures from ww2.pl, part of poland.gov . Recently I found another site - solidarity.gov - that seems to have the same license ([1])/ I have uploaded several images from that site using PolandGov template, and this raises an issue: should we expand the scope of PolandGov to include that site, or should we create a separate template for those pics? I think expanding the current template is the best choice. Comments? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 16:27, 20 April 2006 (UTC)