Template talk:PD-ineligible

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Template:PD-ineligible is permanently protected from editing, as it is a heavily used or visible template.

Substantial changes should be proposed here, and made by administrators if the proposal is uncontroversial, or has been discussed and is supported by consensus. Use {{editprotected}} to attract the attention of an administrator in such cases.
This template does not have a documentation subpage. If the template page contains categories, interwiki links or usage notes, move these to Template:PD-ineligible/doc. If the template does not require documentation, add |doc=no to this template ({{permprot}}).

This template needs to be used with care--more care, I think, than is currently being used. If you create images or sound files yourself, do not use this tag, use PD-self. NTK 18:59, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The purpose of this template is to designate those images that are not sufficiently original etc. to be protected by copyright. If someone creates an image that meets these criteria, they cannot release it into the public domain, because the image has never been under copyright: only original creations are. I've tagged a few images with this template, including: text presented as an image (e.g. simple chemical structural formulas for which the current Mediawiki software doesn't have specialized markup), certain examples of musical notation where the sole purpose of the image is to illustrate that notation (e.g. images of key signatures in music, since there is no creativity involved: there's only one commonly used way to write the key signature for, say, E sharp major), certain signs (e.g. traffic signs; but not trademarks/logos). I fully agree that this template should be used at most sparingly. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 02:53, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The problem I see is that the judgment of "originality" is a subjective one that is ultimately decided by courts, which in a given case may swing one way or the other. Even a visibily trivial and unoriginal image might, by some court, be judged to be an original and creative arrangement of binary bits--courts and lawyers do not always think way laymen, artists, and other professionals do even when common sense seems to be involved. PD-self is safer, because you are relinquishing any possible copyright claim you might hold on the file whether it is truly "original" enough to be copyrighted or not. NTK 19:17, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, I was thinking of things like the scales and such here. There is obviously only one way to write a key signature, right? Just like there's only one alphabet. But people copyright fonts all the time, or try to, and make businesses out of licensing them. So someone might argue that their particular key-signature image is in some sense original. It probably isn't original enough, and we could probably upload it under PD-ineligible, but better yet, if you are the one making it, better to say explicitly that you have no such claim. NTK 19:20, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Typefaces cannot be copyrighted in the US: Copyright#Typefaces, Typeface#Legal aspects. I always use this tag for images that are just text with no special colors or designs. If there's a trademark, you can also use {{Trademark}}. nadav 08:41, 17 May 2007 (UTC)