Wikipedia talk:Public domain

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[edit] First publication

One thing I'm unsure about is whether only the first publication is relevant. What about an image first published in Canada, but subsequently also published in the U.S.? Or does "published" (e.g. in Hirtle's chart) mean "also published in the U.S." and "only published abroad"? Lupo 09:55, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

The relevant first publication is the earliest recognized by the US as enjoying copyright protection, whether foreign or domestic. A caveat to this is that if a work was published both abroad and in the US and would have lapsed into the public domain (e.g. for failure to renew) at a point in time when the copyright interest in the foreign publication was unrecognized by the US, then that work entered into the public domain in the US and can not be retrieved. Dragons flight 16:05, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Compliments

This article is terrific. The "in short" summaries are invaluable for getting a cursory understanding. Wow. I'm impressed.

Perhaps this could eventually be used to overhaul the Wikipedia:Public domain information page? My list of countries could be a subpage, as could some of the material there. Do you think that would be appropriate? – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 13:56, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! Yes, moving it over to the Wikipedia namespace is the whole point of it. We could either include your country list, or, as you suggest, have it as a subpage. But I'd like to get it right first. Let it be scrutinized be other people with some experience concerning copyrights; I have advertised it in several places. Note that Wikipedia:Public domain is a lousy redirect; I intend to eventually replace it with this article. Lupo 14:08, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Laws are PD?

User:Dragons flight has written that "The US Copyright Office has interpreted this as applying to all "edicts of government" both domestic and foreign." Can we have a source for that, please? The extlink given doesn't say anything like that of foreign laws (assuming "foreign laws" means "laws of countries other than the U.S."). I find it hard to believe that the U.S. could or would preempt a foreign government's copyright on their foreign law text. Lupo 09:00, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

The Compendium of Copyright Office Practices (Compendium II) section 206.01 states, "Edicts of government, such as judicial opinions, administrative rulings, legislative enactments, public ordinances, and similar official legal documents are not copyrightable for reasons of public policy. This applies to such works whether they are Federal, State, or local as well as to those of foreign governments." and 206.03 clarifies "Works (other than edicts of government) prepared by officers or employees of any government (except the U.S. Government) including State, local, or foreign governments, are subject to registration if they are otherwise copyrightable." [emphasis mine in both cases].
Techically as an administrative ruling of the copyright office that has never been challenged in court (to my knowledge), this could end up being set aside, but I don't see any reason for Wikipedia to worry about the copyrightablity of foreign laws when the US Government considers them uncopyrightable. Dragons flight 09:34, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Great find, even if not of too much importance for Wikipedia since we won't have verbatim copies of laws anyway. Could be interesting for WikiSource, though. It's weird, though. Lupo 09:44, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
It's been brought up at Wikisource before. I agree it is weird though. Dragons flight 10:46, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Some notes...

Although the article hints at this, I'd like to see it stated explicitly - if an author died before January 1, 1935, all of their works are now in the public domain (even if published the day before death) unless they were works-for-hire, which have a 95 year coverage from the date of publication. Also, some works published up even up until the 1960s have entered the public domain because the author(s) or their heirs/assigns failed to renew their copyright protection at the appropriate time. BD2412 T 15:08, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

What about unpublished works eventually published between 1978 and 2002? Copyright renewal is mentioned. Lupo 19:08, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Or works not published in the U.S.? Or published in the U.S. in 1964 to 1977? (95 years since publication, too!) Lupo 19:33, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
The complicated cases are obviously complicated, but I think it would be good to provide a summary at the top for things that are unambiguously public domain or not. Dragons flight 20:38, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
But we do: pre-1923, published anywhere, or ineligible for copyright. My point is that "author dead for at least 70 years" is not true for the U.S.! Consider: U.S. Author died December 31, 1934. His last work published in the U.S. the same day. Copyright renewed first time 28 years later: 1962. The work is copyrighted in the U.S. until 95 years after the first publication, i.e., until the end of 2029! Lupo 07:54, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Template:PD

Under what circumstances should one use {{PD}}? It currently says

"This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. This applies worldwide."

which I believe is problematic because of the combination "copyright expired" and "applies worldwide". As copyright expiry varies from country to country, it'd be rather difficult to make sure that this claim really holds — probably only for really old works. Maybe a useful guideline might be "published works by authors who died at least 100 years ago" (I think Mexico's 100y p.m.a. term is the longest...), but for those we already have {{PD-old}}. Another possible fix might be to simply remove the "copyright expired" statement from {{PD}}, but for the "ineligible" part, one should either use on of the PD-USGov templates or a country-specific template that explains why the particular work was ineligible for copyright protection anyway (such as {{PD-PolishGov}}. Lupo 10:56, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "all the images included therein"

Some of the reasoning does not make sense to me. Perhaps it could be worded or explained in another way. For example:

  • Image:PaulRobesonByYousufKarsh.jpg, from [1]. Image from 1938, published in Karsh, Y.: Faces of Destiny, Ziff-Davies Publishing, New York 1946, and George G. Harrap, London, 1946. Original copyright registered with the U.S. Copyright Office on December 16, 1946 (Registration Number A9354), renewed December 3, 1974 (Registration Number R592433). See [2]. Therefore, copyright on this work (and all the images included therein) expires in the U.S. only on December 31, 2041.

Especially the reasoning "and all the images included therein" gives the impression that a work confers its copyright status on everything it contains. This is not true for material included in a work when that material was previously registered or previously published elsewhere. If this were true, the copyright on an image would be in effect "renewed" every time it is reused in a new work. --Tabor 17:17, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that's correct. I was assuming that this 1946 publication indeed constituted the first publication of these images. I don't know if they had been published earlier (the Robeson image was taken in 1938); unfortunately, the scanned record doesn't show what exactly is covered by the copyright. Post-1978 entries on other works in the on-line database of the Copyright Office usually contain indications such as "Text only" or "40% of the photographs", although they don't tell which 40% are covered, either. Lupo 07:54, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
What other reasoning does not make sense to you? Lupo 07:58, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, I don't have time to do thorough research at the moment, but the references here to the restoration of copyright by the URAA don't mention that it contains a very specific exception for copyrights that were at any time owned or administered by the Alien Property Custodian in which the restored copyright would be owned by a government or government instrumentality. Such copyrights were not restored by the URAA. The reason this seems siginificant to me is that one of the examples outlined on the page is WWII-era German materials--this exception is quite likely to apply to many of them.

Good point about the Alien Property Custodian (an article in desperate need of improvement!). Note, however, that the APC only managed foreign property in the U.S, it had no say whatsoever over German images elsewhere. (At least that's how I understand [3].) Furthermore, the exception of 17 USC §104(a)(1)(B) and §104(a)(2) applies only to works where the restored copyright would be held by the German government or its agencies, not to works where the copyright owner would be some other entity such as a natural person or a company. The U.S. Copyright Office itself writes that "the legislative history of the URAA is silent on the application and scope of this exception" and then goes on to explain in great detail that it is rather difficult to figure out whether a work would be exempt from copyright restoration under the URAA due to this Alien Property Custodian exemption. Finally, there's an overview over the items under control of the APC: that doesn't look like e.g. any battle photographs were included... Do we really want to muddy the waters even more by mentioning an exception we don't know when and how exactly it applies? Lupo 10:29, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't follow the point about "the NARA acknowledges German copyrights". Reading through the linked page, all I see is acknowledgement that copyright may apply to the artworks that are depicted by the photographs. (And many of these artworks are decidedly not German). --Tabor 23:36, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

The point was simply to show that the assumption that there was no copyright on german WWII stuff was wrong. Maybe we can find a better example? Lupo 10:29, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

On an unrelated stylistic note, I think the exclamation points should be eliminated. --Tabor 23:44, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Go ahead, please! Lupo 10:29, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

While one would have to check whether its copyright was renewed to be absolutely sure, it's a fairly safe bet that the Karsh Estate did do so.

The degree of certainty here seems to be at odds with footnote 7 of the Hirsh chart you link above which says: A 1961 Copyright Office study found that fewer than 15% of all registered copyrights were renewed. For books, the figure was even lower: 7%. See Barbara Ringer, "Study No. 31: Renewal of Copyright" (1960), reprinted in Library of Congress Copyright Office. --Tabor 00:01, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, if you examined the copyright renewal records, you can find quite a few renewals by Yousuf Karsh. I bet the percentage for his works is much higher. Just do a search for "Karsh" here: (combined search, then use "more items" to select all of Karsh, Karsh of Ottawa, "Karsh, Estrellita" (his wife), "Karsh, Yousuf", "Karsh, Yousef", and "Karsh, Yousuf 1908-": even since 1978, there are 26 records. Karsh seems to have been someone who kept up on copyright registration... The claim of a "safe bet" was made after having looked at the records and found this, combined with the fact that CameraPress (or their U.S. representative, Retna Ltd.) does claim copyright. Of course, one might try asking Mr. Jerry Fiedler (custodian of the Karsh Estate), there's an e-mail given here. Lupo 10:29, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Finding images tutorial

The section "Do I need to know the copyright and licensing status of the image?" needs to be rewritten; it confuses "published pre-1923" with "created pre-1923" (and the Buffalo Bill example doesn't work for me - no Buffalo Bill image in sight). Also, the "foreign country" advice is patently false: not everything in the PD in some other country is also in the PD in the U.S. Lupo 09:06, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] US Patent docs are not PD

Under "Government Works," I would like to point out another large class of US govt docs (on uspto.gov) that are published by the US govt but are not "works of" the US govt: patents. They are copyrighted works of the inventors, patent agents or patent attorneys who (perhaps jointly) wrote them. If anyone can cite an authoritative source contrary to this view, please do so. Lupinelawyer 07:52, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Hm. Seems there are contradictory informations given by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. CC-Pubguide states that "patents are published into the public domain", and MPEP 37 CFR ref says that parts of a patent application may be covered by copyright all the same, but the copyright holder must agree to allow anyone to make facsimile reproductions of the copyrighted part. I presume the latter implies "for any purpose, except (obviously) reduplicating the patented thing", but the explicit mention of "facsimile reproduction" makes me think indeed that this permission is limited to faithful copies and precludes creating derivative works. I.e., things like cropping a diagram on a patent application to show only a part of it, or re-coloring it, or any other modification, would be a copyright infringement. That's not public domain, is it? Note that copyrighted parts of a patent application must bear an explicit copyright notice. As to the apparent contradiction, it may be just that I don't fully understand the subtleties of legal jargon. For the time being, I have changed the description on patents on our page, but if it is determined that this indeed is not "public domain", it should be explicitly stated, and the tag {{PD-US-patent}} should be corrected (or removed altogether). Lupo 08:40, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Okay, thanks for that. I would not assume that the regs (CFR) and rules (MPEP) have the legal scope they claim. It is axiomatic that regulation of a US agency cannot be read to contradict statutory law (USCode), nor do I believe the agency's interpretation of its own regulations should implicitly override the power of another agency (e.g., the Library of Congress). What stops the United States Copyright Office from issuing a copyright registration on a patent application or even a patent? If I draft a patent application for a client (obviously copyrighted work of non-fiction, authored by me, independent contractor), at what point in the process of submitting it and obtaining an issued patent on the invention does my copyright expire? Note this is different from "client waives its right to enforce" the copyright. Furthermore, if my client's patent lapses, or expires, does my copyright come back? Lupinelawyer 20:15, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Later: I have tweaked the mention of the USPTO issue, but I'm not sure whether this belongs in "un-creative" (a patent is not un-creative) or better under "government" works, as that seems to be where the confusion arises, or somewhere else. Also, I find nothing in the cited reg that requires any copyright notice -- only that the owner must waive the facsimile right if there is such a notice. This leaves open the questions of whether the general copyright law of "no notice necessary" still applies, and if there is any implied waiver, absent a 1.71(e) statement. Maybe we can find some specific "legislative intent" behind these reg sections (1989 and 1993).Lupinelawyer 18:19, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Protected by copyright

The article's intro suggests that works are protected by copyright. If that is so, would it not be extremely anti-social and irresponsible of Wikipedia to promote the usage of public domain works? After all, the public domain works are apparently no longer protected. The definition used by this article suggests works need copyright to protect them.

Of course, you could be a crazy mofo like me who believes that works are burdened by copyright, and that "return" to the public domain is the best thing that could happen to most of them, but I am also the deranged sort who believes that authors aren't the owners of the works they created, but the public, and that the authors are merely owners of copyrights.

Welcome to my world. Try not to cuddle up into a fetal ball and cry "Evil public domain!"--82.92.181.129 16:19, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Huh? Lupo 19:19, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scanning images from a book

Perhaps a silly question, but... say there is a book that contains photos which, according to captions, came from the US Army / USMC / etc.. The photos from these sources are supposed to be in public domain. The book, however, has the standard section "no part of this book can be reproduced... etc.". So, what is the status of these photos ? Is it OK to scan them and use in the wikipedia ? Bukvoed 16:48, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

That's not a silly question at all. If it is clear that the images are actually PD, they cannot be covered by the copyright of the book. In that case, it may be OK to scan the image and use it; however, I would advise giving the precise source ("Image of blah blah, US Army, ..., scanned from book, ISBN blahblah"), and I would advise stongly against scanning all the images from the book: the selection as such may be copyrighted. See Image:Kane Encampment.jpg for an example (in this case of a scan of an old painting). Lupo 19:19, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

We call such false claims according to MAZZONE: Copyfraud. Try a Google search to find aout the excellent article he has published on this topic. --Historiograf 17:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Historiograf is referring to the paper by Mazzone, Jason: Copyfraud, Brooklyn Law School, Legal Studies Paper No. 40, August 21, 2005. (Free download at the URL given; last accessed March 7, 2006. Lupo 09:02, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] UK Crown Copyright

It is an important issue worth discussed in the article. My opinion - speaking for de - is that pictures which crwon copyright has expired can be used here because UK copyright law decides that the owner of the copyright is not the creator but the crown. BTW: really great page I have seen today the first time! Greetings frm Germany --Historiograf 17:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I have meanwhile added a subsection on Crown copyrights explaining that. Lupo 09:02, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Databases

It seems to me that the EU Database Directive is just the European Union's implementation of the WIPO Copyright Treaty, which was implemented in the U.S. as the DMCA. Similar to the already mentioned Eckes v. Card Prices Update it protects the database as such, i.e. the selection of items included in the database and the means of extraction. Because the selection is copyrighted, copying all or a substantial part of the items out of a database and using or redistributing it as a whole would be a violation of the copyright on the database under this treaty. However, note that all this does not change anything on the copyright of the individual items. Their copyright exists independent of that of the database. See e.g. Article 5 of the WCT, or §3.2 of the EU directive, or 17 USC 103(b), which had existed even prior to the DMCA. Lupo 12:29, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Note that U.S. copyright law does not contain special cases for databases; it appears that these are presumed to be covered by "collections" in 103(b). See also this 1997 report from the U.S. Copyright Office. Lupo 12:52, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Artwork

I have recently come across cases where reproductions of paintings were uploaded to both the English Wikipedia and the Commons and claimed to be in the public domain because the works were created before 1923, yet the painters died only relatively recently. However the 1923 rule is for things published before that year, not "created". That got me to investigate the matter of copyrights on artworks a bit closer. Is creation really publication for an artwork? What does constitute publication for an artwork? Some preliminary discussions on this can be found at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fair use#Art, at Michael Snow's talk page, and at my own talk page.

I have now discovered Stephen Fishman's book on the public domain (ISBN 1-4133-0015-4), which has a whole chapter about PD art. I do not know how trustworthy Fishman is; I have found at least one case where he contradicts the U.S. Copyright Office, and he uses mostly old court cases to document his statements (nearly all of those in the art section are from before 1978, and I do not know whether these decisions have been overturned by later cases, or overtaken generally by the new copyright law that came into effect in 1978). In general, the book reads like a "copyright for dummies" guide. I don't mean that in a disparaging way, but I don't like its organization and it's too repetitive for my taste. But it does have some information on artworks.

Note that the question of publication is an entirely U.S. thing. Other countries do not have that "published before 1923" rule; just about anywhere else in the world the only rule for artworks is that the copyright runs until X years p.m.a., where X typically is 70. But since Wikipedia is Florida-based, we do have to take a close look at the U.S. situation.

Now, first off, we have the Berne Convention, §3.3 saying that "the exhibition of a work of art [...] shall not constitute publication", and U.S. law concurs: 17 USC 101 says "A public [...] display of a work does not of itself constitute publication." Furthermore, the U.S. Copyright Office says in its Circular 40 that selling an artwork (including through an auction or gallery, where the work would be exposed to the public) did not constitute publication either. (Emphasis mine.)

According to Fishman, an artwork is published:

  1. when copies are published. Copies include photos, prints, lithographs, castings from statues, and so on.
    That also corresponds to Circular 40. According to Fishman, even publishing a photo of a sculpture constitutes publication of the original 3D artwork. He cites Letter Edged in Black Press, Inc. v. Public Building Commission of Chicago, 320 F.Supp. 1303 (ND Ill. 1970). (See also [4].)
  2. when it is offered for sale to the general public, such as at an auction.
    I strongly recommend against using this rule, as this is where Fishman flatly contradicts Circular 40 of the U.S. Copyright Office.
  3. when it is disseminated to a selected group of people (which may be as small as one person) without restrictions on further distribution to the general public.
    This isn't exactly a useful criterion because it would be exceedingly hard to prove that it applied to a particular work. But note that Circular 40 agrees with that.
  4. exhibited to the general public prior to 1978 without prohibition to make copies (e.g. photographs).
    Fishman admits himself that this is next to useless, writing "it would be necessary to review the copying policies of every museum or gallery where it [the artwork] was shown to determine if copying was allowed in any of them". This criterion may at most be useful for artwork permanently installed in public places (because there, people are allowed to take photographs). But since such publicly installed artworks are typically sculptures, i.e. 3D works, Bridgeman v. Corel doesn't apply and we'd simply have to consider the copyright of the photo instead. But see again the "Letter Edged" case [5]. For paintings, this criterion is not very useful, either.

That leaves us with the first criterion. It looks right, and lines up with the opinion expressed here. This link highlights a very special case, but cites an opinion of someone from the U.S. copyright office saying "It [A painting] was first displayed publicly in an exhibition in 2000 and was printed in the catalog. It was then considered published because of the distribution of the catalog." Note that it's not the display at the exhibition that made the artwork "published" but the publication of a reproduction of the work in the exhibition catalog.

The same link also highlights another aspect of artworks: like other works, they are unpublished unless published (even if exhibited!). As an unpublished work, an artwork is copyrighted until 70 years p.m.a., unless it was eventually published between 1978 and 2002 (inclusive), in which case it is copyrighted until the later of 2047 and 70 years p.m.a. (That's another of these idiosyncratic U.S. copyright rules that you don't find anywhere else on the planet.) If published, the work is subject to all the same rules as other published works (if published (not "created"!!!) before 1923 → PD; also copyright renewals, publication without copyright notice).

Based on all this, I would suggest that the general rule for artwork and paintings in particular should be

  • Wikipedia considers an artwork to be in the public domain if its author died at least 70 years ago.
  • For an artwork of an artist who died more recently to be considered a public domain work the uploader must show that the artwork was a U.S. work, that it was indeed published, and give verifiable details as to when and how this happened. The creation of an artwork or its display to the public are not "publication".

I would advise against using the second part of this rule for non-U.S. artworks, as the TRIPS restored many such copyrights even if they had been lost in the U.S., e.g. due to non-registration, or lack of © notice, and in most other countries, the copyright on an artwork does not depend on publication anyway but just runs to 70 years p.m.a. The first part is also fine for the vast majority of non-U.S. works.

I realise that this rule ignores the "unpublished, then published 1978 - 2002 → copyrighted until at least 2047" special case, but that pathological case appears to be rare.

To show that a U.S. work was indeed published, one could look for printed works that contained reproductions of the work: art prints, art books, a catalog raisonné, exhibition catalogs, and so on. Reasonable effort should be made to find the earliest publication. If any is found from pre-1923, that's good enough and the work is in the public domain, even if the author/creator died less than 70 years ago. Remember, though, that "publication" means "lawful publication", which implies the consent of the author of the original.

I think this rule would also apply on the commons. Note that under this rule, all images in e.g. commons:Category:Georgia O'Keeffe would have to go unless the second part of the rule can be fulfilled. There are similar images on the English Wikipedia, too, see e.g. Stuart Davis. Comments, anyone? Lupo 09:17, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for working to make the most of a complex, nearly unsalvageable situation. I think "70 years after the death of the author" is the best we can do. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 12:10, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
I should have read Circular 40 more attentively. It does already lay out the criterion I finally found in Fishman's book. :-( Lupo 15:01, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Finally, display of a digitized version of an artwork on the web site of the museum holding the artwork most probably also isn't "publication"; it is done under a special exemption from copyright that gives museums and libraries a limited right to make copies. (If I understand this right, this exemption was necessary because coyprights are not tranferred with a physical ("tangible") object. Owning a particular canvas or sculpture doesn't mean that the owner of the artwork also owned the copyright on the work!) See 17 USC 108. Lupo 15:41, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that's the correct reading of 17 USC 108. The section is a bit difficult to wade through, but it deals with copies made for archival purposes or "private study, scholarship, or research". A library or archive can only make one copy at a time (for archival preservation sometimes three), but the circumstances need to indicate that it's being made for one of these purposes. It's supposed to be accompanied by a copyright warning, and very importantly, the copy becomes the property of the user. Even then they can only copy an entire work if copies aren't available at a fair price. Also, the exemption specifically does not apply to a "pictorial, graphic or sculptural work" except for archival purposes only.
What this section does in real life is allow a library in New York to send a graduate student in California a copy of an article from an academic journal in its collection, things like that. I don't think it has any applicability to material on a publicly accessible website. I would guess that a museum displaying a copy of an artwork on its website is as likely to constitute publication as the same museum including a copy in a printed catalog. --Michael Snow 18:03, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
All right then, do museums also (separately) acquire the copyright when they acquire a canvas? If not, do they have to ask the painter (or his estate) when they do provide on-line galleries or print a catalog? Lupo 07:45, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't know what typical industry practices are. It's possible that permission is always requested, or it might be implicit as part of getting your painting exhibited that the gallery or museum can print copies for publicity. Acquiring copyright is not inherently part of acquiring the physical work, but I don't know how common "separate" transactions of that sort are. Keep in mind that copyright is not a single monolithic right, it involves different elements and can potentially be parceled out in many ways.
In a parallel situation, I know that publishing industry contracts often call for the assignment of considerable rights to the publisher, although the author may technically retain copyright. Such things could certainly play out in the world of art as well, but I'm not familiar with the details. --Michael Snow 17:46, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I do not think that separate transactions often happen. For the German law see my printed article in the Kunstchronik 2005 on the Katalogbildfreiheit in the de WP article on this topic (the full text is available in the URECHT mailing list archives, linked in the de WP article) --Historiograf 04:05, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright status of WTO documents?

The WTO secretariat produces a great number of high-quality reports each year, e.g. trade policy reviews of its Member States. Obviously, such texts would be useful for incorporation in economy-related articles, etc. However, the question of copyright protection of course arises:

  • The WTO Documents Online database or the WTO Website makes no mention of copyright at all, as far as I can tell after a quick search.
  • The WTO is an intergovernmental organisation, and the WTO secretariat is headquartered in Switzerland. According to the copyright law of Switzerland, "decisions, protocols and reports of authorities and public administrations" are not protected by copyright. (There does not seem to be much in the way of Swiss case law interpreting this provision.)

Any opinions on whether WTO reports are PD enough for Wikipedia? If none are forthcoming, I might just ask them by e-mail. Sandstein 20:40, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I interprete their copyright notice as allowing non-commercial uses only. Definitely not PD, and not free enough for directly incorporating in Wikipedia. Statistics can be used (bare facts), but make sure the presentation of the statistics is different here, as that presentation (charts etc.) is copyrightable in itself. Lupo 06:42, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for finding the notice. However, I think the situation is a bit more complicated. The notice reads:
This site and its contents are the copyright of the World Trade Organization.
The WTO encourages the broadest possible dissemination of its information, particularly for educational purposes.
Unrestricted official WTO documents and legal texts are free for public use.
Other material such as official publications can be reproduced for non-commercial purposes provided attribution is given to the WTO and the WTO is informed. Commercial use of materials from the website requires written permission from the WTO.
I read this to mean that a) website content and publications are copyrighted, but b) unrestricted official WTO documents (i.e. anything accessible via WTO Documents Online) are in the public domain (or licenced in an equivalent manner). Sandstein 08:10, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Do not confuse "free for public use" with "public domain". They just say you don't have to pay. And what's the difference between an "unrestricted official WTO document" and "other material such as official publications"? Lupo 09:19, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
On WTO Documents Online: check their "About" page; funnily, they say that "this database does not contain WTO publications"! Lupo 09:23, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Finally, let me just point out that the "decisions, protocols and reports of authorities and public administrations" in Swiss copyright law most probably applies to Swiss authorities and public administrations (federal, cantonal, and communal). Trying to apply that to the WTO, an international organization, is a huge stretch. At least a creative interpretation :-) What legal form does the WTO have? Lupo 09:31, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
You're right, the "free for public use" phrase is a bit ambiguous. I should probably enquire what exactly they mean by that.
An official WTO document - I have worked with them professionally - is the bureaucratic output of the WTO, including meeting minutes, draft agreements, reports by the various WTO bodies, judicial documents (dispute settlement panel and appellate body reports), etc. They are a huge lot of Word files classed hierarchically (they all have a code beginning with WT, e.g. WT/L/130) that are available to the public via Documents Online. "Other publications" is all the other, glossy stuff - brochures, books etc. These are not in Documents Online.
The WTO is an intergovernmental organisation, and a subject of international law according to its charter (just like, say, the United Nations). By agreement with Switzerland, it is not extraterritorial, but enjoys privileges and immunities essentially equivalent to those of foreign embassies. Still, it is not generally outside the legal order of Switzerland, and I think I could at least make a reasonable case that it qualifies as a "public authority or administration" under Swiss law - the wording isn't specific to Swiss authorities, you know.
Nonetheless, I'm not at all ready yet to treat offical WTO documents as PD... let's hear some more opinions. Sandstein 20:04, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I know the wording of §5(1) of the Swiss Urheberrechtsgesetz (URG). It says (in German, §5.1c):
Durch das Urheberrecht nicht geschützt sind: ... c. Entscheidungen, Protokolle und Berichte von Behörden und öffentlichen Verwaltungen; ...
Is the WTO a Behörde? Or an öffentliche Verwaltung? I don't think so... (and their protocols are not völkerrechtliche Verträge either). Lupo 07:04, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
To quote from the PD page:
Under U.S. law, laws themselves and legal rulings also form a special class. All current or formerly binding laws, codes, and regulations produced by government at any level and the public record of any court case are in the public domain. [6] This applies even to the laws enacted in states and municipalities that ordinarily claim copyright over their work. The US Copyright Office has interpreted this as applying to all "edicts of government" both domestic and foreign.
This would appear to apply to at least some substantial subset of the work that the WTO does. The fact that the US considers the edicts of foriegn governments to be public domain is one of the more bizarre aspects of US copyright law, but it would seem to be quite useful here. Dragons flight 21:23, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
The WTO is not a government, and neither is it a court. Lupo 07:04, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
My reading of Swiss copyright law rather tends to come the same conclusion that US law appears to have arrived at, since it is not unreasonable to consider the WTO a Behörde oder öffentliche Verwaltung (authority or public administration) given the ratio legis of the provision, which is to allow the citizens maximum access to official documents that might affect them, and the WTO's work certainly affects many people. The WTO is an institution created by and for governments, after all, and acts as the global regulation authority of international trade. (It also has judicial bodies - its Appellate Body is the de facto World Trade Court.) Interestingly, both US law (which is where the Wikimedia servers are) and Swiss law (which is where the works are created) seem to tend towards, or can be interpreted as, allowing PD access to WTO reports. Sandstein 08:30, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Sandstein. To the extent that treaty obligations give WTO the authority to regulate international commerce, they essentially inherit the mantle of a governing authority. And arguably WTO rulings have even more impact on the lives of Americans then the laws of foreign countries, so this argument doesn't seem like much of a stretch to me. Thus, I consider it reasonable to treat WTO regulations, rulings, and closely associated material as PD. I would however caution not to over do it. If the WTO were to issue a report on, for example, the history of grain prices, that would be unlikely to fit an exemption for binding regulations. Dragons flight 09:05, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I still don't think that is correct. See this edit, and in particular the references given there. If works of the UN are subject to copyright, then why should WTO documents not be? Lupo 20:10, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Commons

This page doesn't seem to mention Commons. Since Commons is the best place to upload PD media used in a WP article, shouldn't we be pushing it on this page? TheGrappler 19:26, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

This page is not intended as a "how to" or "where to" guide to uploading images, but an attempt to explain what the "public domain" is and what complications can arise, especially in an international context. The upload form mentions the commons prominently, and so do other of our "upload guide" pages, e.g. Wikipedia:Uploading images. I think, a link to Commons:Licensing suffices here (and is given). Lupo 06:59, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] National Security Archive

If the NSA archives only work created by the U.S. Government, can I take it for granted that, say, photographs in the Archive are in the public domain and can thus be freely uploaded to Commons? Angr (t • c) 08:38, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes. If the NSA only archives works of the U.S. government, these would by by virtue of 17 USC 105 (works of the U.S. government) be in the public domain. Kinda funny question, innit? Lupo 19:51, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Old book images on a website

Hi, could I get some help regarding this website? Specifically, are the images public domain? (And is there copyfraud going on?) For details, please drop by Wikipedia talk:Copyrights/Can I use...#Rare Books from the Missouri Botanical Garden Library. Thanks, Melchoir 14:10, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I have answered over there. Lupo 14:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Public domain

This is incorrect: In the U.S., any work published before January 1, 1923 anywhere in the world[1] is in the public domain. Other countries are not bound to that 1923 date, though. Complications arise when special cases are considered, such as trying to determine whether a work published later might be in the public domain in the U.S., or when dealing with unpublished works. When a work has not been published in the U.S. but in some other country, that other country's copyright laws also must be taken into account. Re-users of Wikipedia content also might find the explanations here useful.

Copyright in artistic works, such as poetry, music, etc. last for 70 years after the death of the author.[7][8]. The date of publication is irrelevant except in the matter of the copyright on an imprint. Robertsteadman 17:43, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

It is correct (with the caveat given in the footnote, but that concerns the "anywhere in the world" part, not the date). Works published before 1923 are PD in the U.S. Period. You should read on for works published later, or for unpublished works. You're in general better off reading the consolidated law instead of individual acts that modify a bit here and there. Why exactly did you think the statement was wrong? Maybe we could improve the phrasing... Lupo 19:48, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] HS Yearbook Photos

Are American high school yearbook photos from the 1950's public domain? Usually yearbooks are not copyrighted. Mg rotc2487 01:12, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Mugshot proposed for deletion

Template:Mugshot has been listed for deletion here. You're invited to comment. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help me verify a copyright template

It exists on the commons as commons:Template:NAUMANN, but the webpage with describes it is in German, which I can't read nearly well enough to understand any of it. Can someone help me verify this tag so we can use it here? --Kevin_b_er 03:46, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

If it was published in 1905, it's in the public domain in America (and probably many other places as well). Looking at the link, I don't know German either, but from Google Translate, I gather that (for example) this page says something to the effect of

From Naumann: A Natural History of the Birds of Central Europe.
The basis of the photo ([something about a library]) is the work of Johann Andreas Naumann, 1796 - 1803. The artist who made the pictures was his son, Johann Friedrich. Digitization: Peter v. Sengbusch.

So it seems very likely that the rationale presented is correct for this book. If you seek further verification, a lot of our users speak German. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:55, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Works published in English 1909-1922 outside the US

Could anyone help me clarify the licencing of Image:Hundingsbane.jpg? It appeared in a book published in English in London in 1912 but the author died less than 70 years ago. I don't know whether US copyright formalities were observed or not. Is it in the public domain? This chart doesn't seem to cover the case where a work is published in English outside the US between 1909 and 1922 and not in compliance with US formalities. Haukur 16:09, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Well. It is current practice here to consider pre-1923 works published anywhere in the world as being in the public domain in the U.S. (i.e., {{PD-US}}), but there was a highly disputed decision of the 9th circuit about a book, which seems to imply that for works first published outside of the U.S., only pre-1909 stuff would be PD in the U.S. See the footnote in the article. It may well be that 1909 would be more correct for non-U.S. works, but unless there's visible backup for such a move from the foundation, I'm not going to push for that; I guess we would have to drop quite a lot of 1909-1922 images. Lupo 07:37, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, it looks like the 9th circuit stirred up some trouble on this - but as far as I can gather their decision applied specifically to works written in languages other than English. Haukur 01:07, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] guideline

Is there a resaon why this page is not marked as a guideline. I noticed that WP:FU is and seeing as this is basically the public domain equivilant it seem that this should be marked as a guideline too. Ydam 01:03, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] United Nations resolutions are in the public domain

As an admin of English Wikisource, I would like to report that a major discovery at s:Wikisource:Possible_copyright_violations#Draft_United_Nations_Guiding_principles_on_Human_Rights_and_Extreme_Poverty has found that paragraph 2 of ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.2 leaves United Nations resolutions in the public domain. Please visit the discussion there and think of revising this project page. This is a very important copyright discovery.--Jusjih 17:02, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Great find! Lupo 09:12, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Your revision to this Guideline is also very great. This type of public domain is due to the UN giving up the claims. Be glad that the major copyright turmoil at English Wikisource since November 2005 has positively ended.--Jusjih 16:43, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Could you put the relevant UN documents on wikisource, please? Especially ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.2 is a bit hard to find, and not accessible directly if one is behind a firewall. As it's PD-UN, there shouldn't be a copyright problem... :-) Lupo 08:08, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I will stick them on there tomorrow (Friday) afternoon (European time). There is also an addition to ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.2 which I shall try to find... Physchim62 (talk) 15:45, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
wikisource:ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.2 is now available. Other relevant documents (ST/AI/189, ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.1, ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.2/Add.2 and ST/AI/2001/5) will be added on Monday. Physchim62 (talk) 15:05, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rule of the shorter term

I have found [9] with a useful table showing whether countries and areas honor the rule of the shorter term. Perhaps we should show more countries and areas? In Asia, I just found and in addition to Japan, Macao also honors the rule of the shorter term while Mainland China does not.--Jusjih 15:56, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Good find, but instead of listing individual countries, I'd just add the OpenFlix link as an external link, and maybe we can at some point start our own, verified list on commons. Lupo 16:03, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I have linked from the section "The rule of the shorter term" in this project page to OpenFlix for now unless there is a better to link. A verifiable list should cite relevant legislation such as Article 51 of Decree-Law n.o 43/99/M of Macao as I have found.--Jusjih 08:28, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Please be aware that American non-acceptance of the rule of the shorter term means that even if a work has enter the public domain in its source country, it might remain legally copyrighted in the USA. This Meta link include a proposed petition to the United States Congressmembers to seek law changes that will benefit Wikimedia Commons and its sister projects. Please join the discussion, or even non-American users will be prevented from legally contributing their public domain sources here if still legally copyrighted in the USA, unless they can claim fair use, which is a limited right.--Jusjih 08:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New source of (some) PD images!

Don't know where else to put this:

http://content.cdlib.org/search?style=oac-img;sort=title;relation=ark:/13030/kt5b69q5bc

Note that not all are PD, however many explicitly state their PDness and are published before 1923/09, etc, etc... 68.39.174.238 06:05, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


Should go at Public_domain_image_resources --BozMo talk 11:09, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright expiry searching?

I've done several laps of every copyright related wiki page I can find and haven't found a right place for this question, and this looks like the closest...

On my office bookshelf, I have 7 engineering and mathematics textbooks dated 1914, 1924, 1930, 1933, 1934 and (2*) 1937 that I inherited from my grandfather. There may be more elsewhere but I haven't looked. I would like to work out whether the content is now PD but simply don't have the time to wade through and work out the process necessary.

I'm just wondering if there is a page, wikiproject or any volunteers who will do the online searching to find out if a book's copyright has expired and it is hence able to be used in wiki.

A page of requests and results would be really useful. If one exists, it would be useful to make links to it more obvious. If it doesn't exist, it might make a very useful wikiproject. --Athol Mullen 06:07, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Could you add which country they were published in and (most importantly) whether they had an identifiable author? If they do and the author hasn't been dead for 70 years they may well still be under copyright. If no author the rule seems to be about 90 years from writing rather than death. But it isn't trivial, and that's only in this country (i.e. UK)... --BozMo talk 07:10, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
For the U.S. rules, please see WP:PD#Copyright notices, where you'll also find a pointer to a document explaining how to search the U.S. copyright registry for renewals. Very useful is also this chart. Also see the extlinks section, in particular this one for looking for renewals up to 1977. (A work copyrighted in year X should have had its copyright renewed in the years X+27 or X+28. There are two lists for each year, one for renewals made January to June, and one for July to December.) If the books were first published outside of the U.S. (you don't indicate the country...), it depends on that country's laws and those of the U.S. See WP:PD#Country-specific rules. HTH, Lupo 07:46, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I read all of that. I said that in my initial explaination. What I was asking is if there is somewhere that I can say "I have this book..." and someone else will do this research. I guess from the responses, the answer is no. I think that one of the books was published in the UK and the others were all published in the USA. --Athol Mullen 22:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I see. Indeed the answer to that question is "no". Anyway, you have the most information about these books, since you have physical copies of them. So you are in the best position to do this research. (BTW, the 1914 book is {{PD-US}} as it was published before 1923.) Lupo 22:55, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
To do any sort of research needs authors, titles, dates and places of publication and the name of the person mentioned on the copyright notice (if different from the author). Physchim62 (talk) 14:08, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Only in Canada? not hardly

"In short: Pre-1949 Karsh images are in the public domain only in Canada."

Not true. Many other countries have had fixed (as opposed to relative to lifespan) copyright terms for photographs in the past. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.197.82.153 (talk • contribs) 19:35, January 29, 2007

Maybe a tad oversimplified. It's certainly true for the U.S. and the EU, and that's more than bad enough to not host his images. But you're right, in some countries these pre-1949 Karsh works might be PD. Australia comes to mind. Lupo 23:10, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
It's true for the Karsh photos, many of which were simultaneously published in the U.S. and in Canada or in the UK and in Canada. It's not true in general. Lupo 11:24, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Two public domain Andy Iona Hawaiian songs

Hello. Here [10] and here [11] are 2 Andy Iona songs that I would like to upload here. They're in the public domain. I would like to include them in a similar manner as the AC/DC music samples in the AC/DC article. Is this allowed? They're in mp3 format. It would be a sample of the music from Andy Iona that you could listen to straight from the article. Is this a feasible idea? And how come these 2 songs are in fact public domain? Why only those 2? Anyways, if someone could help me figure this out I would really appreciate it. Thanks.-BiancaOfHell 20:59, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Artist permission

a group of writers and amateur artists collaborated to produce several wikipedia articles with drawings as illustrations. The writers want to upload the artists' work with the artist chosen license (all are public domain, GFDL or Creative commons) but the options to pick a third party's selection are not selectable (e.g. under public domain it is "my work and I release to the public domain"). Does this mean the artists have to upload their images instead of the writers? Or is there some place I am missing where they can choose valid licenses for a third party's work?Fundulus 18:15, 13 February 2007 (UTC)fundulus

[edit] Photographs of performances

Do I own the copyright of still photographs of performances, e.g., dance, theatrical, and music? My impression is that such photographs are derivative works and only video (or in the case of music, audio) recordings would violate the copyright of the performers. Is this correct? Walter Siegmund (talk) 20:16, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. We've discussed this at least twice before, both times without conclusion. See here and here. The essential question is whether a photo of a performance is in some way a fixation of that performance. The related rights of performers as defined in the Rome Convention include the rights to control the making of such a fixation and the publication or broadcasting of such a fixation, as well as the rights to allow or deny live broadcasts. (See article 7 of the Rome convention.) Why should a photo not be such a fixation? Is a video of a whole concert a fixation? (I'd say yes, surely.) A video of one song? (I'd still say yes.) A 10sec video clip? (Why not?) A video still? (Again, why not?) A photo? (Again, why not?) Lupo 21:22, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for placing those links here, especially the Commons link. It is an interesting discussion. Walter Siegmund (talk) 03:25, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Smithsonian Institution image?

The Smithsonian is administered and funded by the U.S. government, but I am not sure whether, strictly speaking, it is part of the government, and whether its works fall in the public domain. To further confuse matters, the Smithsonian does assert copyright for its works: [12]. A couple of years ago I uploaded Image:StrohViolinFromSI.jpg and obtained permission from the Smithsonian to use the image on Wikipedia. For some reason I tagged it with "fair use" but this isn't applicable (and I thought I would have known better at the time). Now the image is (rightly) tagged for deletion because it doesn't qualify as fair use. Does {{PD-USGov}} apply? Alternatively, wasn't there a tag that said "public domain AND used with permission" or has such a template been deprecated? (One other possible issue is that I can no longer locate this image on the original website, so I can't cite the URL to give the exact source.) It is no big loss if the image is deleted, because someone has added a second image to the article. But I would also suggest that we keep the image if possible. Thanks, -- Gyrofrog (talk) 22:01, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NATO

Are NATO images within the public domain? --Strangerer (Talk | Contribs) 09:49, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

no --84.60.240.164 18:57, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Scanned version copyright..."

As an example, consider the 1911 British Pharmaceutical Codex [13] on www.henriettesherbal.com . If I understand the Wikipedia policy correctly, it says that in the U.S., despite what the source website says, editors are freely allowed to copy the full plaintext of a Codex entry and drop it into a new article (with credit required to the 1911 Codex, for ethical reasons only). It's also clear that copying any element of the framing graphics or HTML code would be copyright infringement. But is that actually what comes out of the legal system? For example, if there is any error or change present in the copied plaintext, even though the site represents itself as a copy of the public domain text, then does putting it into Wikipedia open the way for legal action? I understand, of course, that someone did put in a lot of work to put the book into HTML form, and did the world a favor putting it online - unfortunately the issue here is not whether we should be grateful, but what is legal. Mike Serfas 03:17, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

An error would not be creative, and so would not attract copyright. However, you must be careful about about undisclosed editing, which is deliberate and therefore creates a (copyrighted) derivate work. If you trust the version on this website, then I would go ahead and upload: obviously you should link back to your source out of honesty and politeness (and gratitude, as you say, they did the world a favour) either in a "Sources" or an "External links" section. They may well be grateful for the free publicity! Physchim62 (talk) 23:36, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] film / movies

Do movies become public domain at some point in time? I am particularly interested in The Story of the Kelly Gang, 1906 (Australia) - ie it was relased 101 years ago.Garrie 05:51, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes. In most countries, copyright lasts until 70 years post mortem auctoris. Hence, the movie you refer to entered the public domain in most countries on January 1, 2004. --Rtc 17:52, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reclaim the Rule of the Shorter Term Petition

In response to the American non-acceptance of the rule of the shorter term, the Reclaim the Rule of the Shorter Term Petition has been made from Meta.--Jusjih 22:51, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

That petition fails to notice that the U.S. would also have to unilaterally terminate a number of old bilateral treaties from the 1890s. Several other countries also do not apply the rule of the shorter term with respect to the U.S.
Germany, for instance, doesn't and applies exclusively German law to U.S. works, because of an old bilateral treaty from 1892 under the Chace International Copyright Act of 1891. (See Patry's overview here, also footnotes 154 - 156, noting that these bilateral treaties apparently are still in effect. In Germany, this treaty is known to be still valid; it was applied in this case, which was decided in 2003 and in which U.S. works were held copyrighted in Germany although their copyright had expired (through non-renewal, IIRC) in the U.S.)
Similar treaties were also concluded with "Belgium (1891), Chile (1896), Costa Rica (1899), Denmark (1893), France (1891), Germany (1892), Italy (1892), Mexico (1896), Netherlands (1899), Portugal (1893), Spain (1891), Switzerland (1891), and the United Kingdom (1891)" (quoted from Patry). If these treaties are still in effect in these countries, they might also not apply the rule of the shorter term to U.S. works.
The broad claim in the petition that the EU honored the rule of the shorter term is thus not correct: there are exceptions, in particular regarding the U.S. See also WP:PD#Rule of the shorter term. Lupo 19:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Orphan photographs

Is there a guideline for use of orphan images on Wikipedia? For example, the Early Aviator website has published thousands of aviation images dating from the 19th century up until just after World War I. In many (but far from all) cases, it would seem that the photographer is unknown and unknowable, but it would not be unreasonable to assume that s/he might have lived until the 1970s or 80s. The site owner states "I believe all images linked from this page are in the public domain (unless otherwise indicated", and I've noticed a few of these images starting to make their way into Wikipedia and Commons. Any guidance would be appreciated! BTW - is there a better place to post copyright-related questions like this? --Rlandmann 05:50, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Orphan works are difficult. Basically, an orphan work is a work where one cannot contact the copyright holder even after diligent research. The point is that one must do "diligent research" to attempt to find out and contact the copyright holder. One cannot declare an image an "orphan" just like that. What is "diligent research" is undefined, and moreover, on Wikimedia projects, there would be the problem of showing that the uploader had performed such research before claiming the image was orphaned. (Actually, I consider this the biggest problem for us. We already see so much misuse and clueless uploads...)
Some of these images may have been published, most probably before 1923, and thus would be {{PD-US}} anyway. Part of the research would thus involve digging through newspaper archives, including local newspapers. But some images may come from assorted personal archives and actually never have been published before. Such images would be subject to the rules for unpublished works. Lupo 09:05, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:PD-Old regime Iraq

Template:PD-Old regime Iraq has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 15:11, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Misleading advice on artworks

I'm puzzled by the advice given here for artworks. It seems to bear little resemblance to the legal situation.

First, it states that only U.S. works can be considered public domain based on their publication date -- a rule we don't apply to anything else. I can't see any sense to this. There are no special copyright terms for paintings; the only thing that makes them unusual from a copyright standpoint is that they so often aren't published the same year they're created. If you can prove the publication date, then exactly the same rules apply to them as to any other work.

On the other hand, the guideline suggests that all works of painters who died 70 or more years ago are public domain in the U.S. But as the copyright chart compiled by Peter Hirtle makes clear, the only way that a painting could be public domain in the U.S. under the life+70 rule is if it managed to go unpublished at least until January 1, 2003. That's likely to be true only for a few particularly obscure works. If the painting was in any significant exhibition in the last thirty or forty years, then it almost certainly appeared in a fully illustrated catalogue, and the life+70 rule will not apply. We must have many copyright violations tagged {{PD-art-life-70}} based on this advice, especially among works created after 1922 by artists who died after 1925, which are very unlikely to be public domain. —Celithemis 17:36, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

This section continues to mislead editors into thinking that all works of artists who have been dead 70 years are public domain in the US, which is not true. See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Copyright_of_certain_works_of_modern_art. Unless someone can give a reason that this section's claims are actually valid, I will start by removing the incorrect portions (which is to say, most of it). —Celithemis 01:30, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
The copyright extensions of the Mickey Mouse Copyright Act only apply to certain works properly renewed for copyright. Many of them have not been. I agree, however, the tags need to implement its provisions. -Nard 01:38, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're responding to here--my concerns don't have anything to do with the Copyright Term Extension Act. The main problem is that we are telling people to assume artworks are unpublished until proven otherwise, which is an absurd assumption to make. —Celithemis 01:49, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
No, the provisions you are talking about are in the Mickey Mouse Act. There are a few problematic provisions in that law, including the one you mention. -Nard 02:43, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
You mean that rule where works created before 1977, but published 1978 or after, are in copyright at least until 2047? That's part of the picture, yeah. But when we're talking about works of artists who died at least 70 years ago, most of them will probably have first been published before 1978 anyway. —Celithemis 05:24, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this is misleading and I removed the heavy emphasis on the 70 p.m.a. rule. Haukur 18:30, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Revisions

I'm afraid these changes are incorrect. If a painting created by an artist who died 71 years ago was first published between 1923 and 1977, it is not in the public domain (unless copyright was lost due to lack of registration, nonrenewal, etc., but we'd have to specifically prove that). So unfortunately we do need publication details even for the works of artists who have been dead 70 years. —Celithemis 23:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I realize this means that we're requiring proof of publication for all works, no matter how old, which is probably too strict. (I've heard of the case of a painting made during the American Civil War that was still in copyright in the U.S. -- it had been hidden away in someone's private collection until the late 20th century -- but I doubt that's very common.) I'd be all in favor of assuming that older works are public domain unless there is evidence to the contrary, but we'd need a better rule of thumb than 70 p.m.a. —Celithemis 23:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
There's something to that. I'm usually dealing with non-US artwork in which case the copyright status in the home country comes into play and then the death date of the author is important. Haukur 23:44, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
But even there, the applicable criterion is not going to be 70 years before now but 70 years before 1996, when URAA restored a bunch of non-US copyrights.
Or 50 years before 1996 as the case may be. Haukur 08:23, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure if it would make sense to assume that most non-U.S. works are public domain if the artists died in 1925 or earlier. As I understand it, those works can still be copyrighted in the U.S. if they were published with copyright registration and notice in accordance with U.S. formalities, and I don't have any idea how likely that is to be true for non-US works. —Celithemis 00:13, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
I was under the impression that non-conformance with US formalities was pretty much a given for non-US works published before 1978. Haukur 08:23, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
That's great for us if true, but kind of surprising. US rights are worth money, at least for works in English; would publishers really just throw away the US copyright? —Celithemis 22:38, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
...Although according to the Hirtle chart, US formalities included "the manufacture of the work in the US," which would certainly have made it unlikely that European publishers would bother. —Celithemis 22:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
The manufacturing clause was made less stringent as time went by (specifically in 1954) and so manufacturing in the US was not required for every foreign work published before accession to Berne. Nevertheless I think the basic point is true - US formalities took effort to comply with and it didn't really make sense to jump through the hoops unless you actually did intend to publish the work in the United States. Haukur 00:15, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
According to this law review article: "Though more than fourteen thousand English-language books written abroad were published in foreign countries in the year 1949, only one hundred and thirty-nine were registered in the United States Copyright Office." —Celithemis 01:05, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
That's less than one percent. And I bet the figure for non-English language books is some orders of magnitude less than that. Our PD-templates should probably still address this issue in some way. I think we need more and better PD-templates. A great deal of effort has gone into developing fair use templates but our PD documentation is basically in shambles. Haukur 01:17, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
It adds that the books that do get registered are "with a few exceptions, usually just fiction", so probably very few paintings got copyrighted in the U.S. that way.
The PD templates do seem to be due for an overhaul. I've previously run into problems with the fact that we use the same {{PD-US}} template for both U.S. and non-U.S. works, as mentioned here. —Celithemis 01:51, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Check out commons:Template:PD-1996, which is an attempt to address part of this issue. Also check its deletion request at commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Template:PD-1996. It's not perfect yet, and the name might need changing, but it's a step in the right direction. Also check out commons:Commons talk:Licensing/Archive 6#Images PD outside of the U.S. but not PD in the U.S. (URAA restoration).
U.S. copyright renewals for pre-1978 foreign works are only of interest if the foreign work was out of copyright on the URAA data in its foreign source country, because then it'd be PD in the U.S., too, unless it had been registered and renewed in the U.S. For books at least, there are links at the bottom of WP:PD to renewal databases. Lupo 07:42, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] State Lib NSW Photos

Hi there

User:Kid063 asked me a question about what to tag images available on the State Library of NSW website.

My brief look into it shows that if they had the actual photo and scanned it then it could be uploaded with {{PD-Australia}}. But State Library of NSW is claiming copyright to (at the very least) the scanned image.

This seems to me to be identical to User:Bukvoed's question above, Scanning images from a book - ie the State Library's claim is "copyfraud". The scanned image in question is here (with catalogue information). Looking at the highest resolution scanned image on the site, they haven't done anything artistic, just scanned it at the highest available resolution.

So - given the original image meets {{PD-Australia}} - do the scanned images also meet {{PD-Australia}} or would someone have to rescan them?

Garrie 23:27, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plagiarism in quoted public domain sources

The article states, "Proper attribution to the author or source of a work, even if it is in the public domain, is still required to avoid plagiarism." I would like to clarify this sentence so that it makes clear that when quoting public domain sources, one must not only provide a source, but should also set any quoted text off with quotation marks or block quotation, so that it's absolutely clear what comes from the source, & what does not.

See also Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Quoting public domain sources & plagiarism for context about how this concern came up. Essentially, I'm dealing with an editor who insists that if a quoted text comes from a public domain source, it is not necessary to set it off as a quotation, so long as the source is given. Comment? --Yksin 19:58, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Please comment in the above "See also..." talk page. Don't scatter the discussion across several locations. (SEWilco 19:43, 26 July 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Fonts

I am confused about Wikipedia:Public domain#Fonts. If I use a program such as Inkscape to trace the shape of a series of letters, and those shapes are determined by a copyrighted computer font, who (if anyone) owns the copyright over the resulting trace? Examples are Image:WikipediaSignpostHead.svg, Image:Los Angeles Times.svg, and Image:The New York Times.svg. —Remember the dot (talk) 17:01, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

You will always own the copyright in the .svg file, in the same way that you own the copyright in a document that you prepare using Microsoft Word. The U.S. does not permit copyright in fonts, although some other countries do (e.g. the UK), so you may freely licence your .svg file of a U.S. font without worry. Note that you should licence the .svg file (or release it as PD), as it is can be treated as a computer program as well as a piece of artwork. Physchim62 (talk) 18:08, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Another PD Template added

I have added {{PD-EU-no author disclosure}}, with related category. This would apply to all nations that are signatories of the Berne Convention and the 1993 Copyright Directive arising out of the Berne Convention. The 1993 EU copyright directive explicitly directs that an author (e.g. photographer) must disclose her or his identity in conjunction with publishing an image in order to obtain copyright protection for 70years p.m.a.. Lacking such public disclosure of the identity of the author of a photograph (the photographer or assignee of the photographer's rights) in conjunction with its publication, the author's right to claim copyright lapses 70 years after the first publication of the image. Presently this would be all photos published prior to August, 1937 (70 years ago), but published without an explicit public disclosure of who was the photographer. See Article 1, §§1-4 of the 1993 EU copyright directive.
,,,,,,,,, Perhaps after further discussion here and on any other relevant talk pages, this might ultimately end up being moved to a template title that more explicitly conveys 70 years after date it was first shown to the public rather than 70 years p.m.a. But for now, it's designated as Template:PD-EU-no author disclosure. I recommend that it at least be semi-protected. ... Kenosis 13:35, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

And I recommend that it be deleted. This "X years since publication for anonymous works" is the standard in all "X years p.m.a." countries. Nothing special here. The difficulty lies in proving that indeed the identity of the photographer was not disclosed in the X years since the original publication. Lupo 14:50, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
If one looks at the EU directive, it's every bit as much of a separate category as the "X years p.m.a." standard. And, as I said on another talk page, the burden is not on the uploader to show proof beyond any doubt-- even accused murderers get a more relaxed standard than that in most civilized nations. A reasonable search that gives rise to a good-faith belief that an image had been published without claim of authorship can easily be rebutted by someone showing a claim of publicly disclosed authorship. If someone proves publicly disclosed authorship that occurred prior to the expiration of the 70 years, the standard immediately becomes life of the author plus 70 years. You can't expect people to endlessly speculate about the possibility that there might be authors out there that might have taken, say, an 1857 photo at age 20, lived until 1937 and still conceivably might be under some kind of retroactive copyright protection. And you can't have "70 years p.m.a" with an anonymous photographer-- somebody needs to show a publicly disclosed author to trigger the 70 years-pma clause. The EU convention is quite explicit and direct about this. Again, see Article 1, §§1-4 of the 1993 EU copyright directive. If the author's name isn't publicly disclosed in conjunction with the publication of the photgraph, the photographer or assignees thereof lose the right to claim copyright after 70 years. If no author was publicly disclosed, there's no copyright, period. Users who have a reasonable, good-faith basis to use this template are quite easily rebutted by a showing that it's unreasonable to believe the template with respect to a particular image, or by a simple citation to a publication where there's an actual credit showing the required public claim of authorship.
....... For the present, the category is Category:Public domain images no longer eligible for claim of authorship. No doubt this will get discussed as it goes along, and if necessary, adapted or moved to another title according to what the experience turns out to be with the template and the category. The other discussion about this at the moment is at Wikipedia_talk:Image_copyright_tags/Public_domain#Template_added. ... Kenosis 16:18, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't disapprove of the template in principle but I think it must be carefully applied. None of the images currently using it make any effort to show that they were published more than 70 years ago! Nor do they by and large make a convincing case that the photographer is unknown. Of course perfect certainty is impossible and should not be expected but we'd need at least a statement from some reasonably authoritative source, for example a museum holding the original of the image. Haukur 16:53, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
As an example here's an image I uploaded a couple of days ago: Image:Thorsteinn erlingsson.jpg I'd love to apply this template here (then I could use the image at the Icelandic Wikipedia) but I don't feel I have enough to go on. I can certainly show that the picture was published more than 70 years ago but I don't feel I have a good case that the photographer is unknown, even though I don't personally know who he was and my source doesn't say. Haukur 16:58, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

As with all images at present including ones with an explicit free license, those which use a template of this kind will inevitably be subject to discussion and scrutiny. The Wundt image already states "circa 1880". The other Wundt image, well, Wundt died in 1920. And Nietzsche died in 1900. The Einstein-Planck image already explicitly states that the image was taken in June, 1929. I would add that it circulated immediately thereafter, and has been disseminated via multiple routes without visible claim of authorship by the original photographer. The Einstein-Planck image was the subject of this Drv in which it became apparent that 70yrs-pma requires a public disclosure of an author, and that published photographs with an anonymous photographer are an entirely separate legal category under the 1993 EU Copyright Directive in all countries that follow the EU convention. ... Kenosis 17:04, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

My point was that it's not enough that an image was *taken* more than 70 years ago, it must have been *published* more than 70 years ago so "well, Wundt died in 1920" doesn't prove anything. Haukur 17:17, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, of course. The issue of proof is an ongoing problem with PD images of every kind. And the opposite can happen too, e.g., where a printed copyright claim thought to be a "proof" turns out not to be valid upon further research. Another interesting problem is that no one has authority to give over anything in the public domain to the public under a "free license". So there is quite frequently some potential area of doubt involved with all of these things. I dare say there must be numerous images stated to be "free license" that aren't valid either. Still, a good-faith, reasonable belief based upon a reasonable search is the general standard with regard to placement of all of the presently available templates. As I said, to expect 100% proof is not realistic under most any of these circumstances with the majority of these templates. But, it is feasible for a person who finds an attribution to rebut the statement in the template merely by providing a link or a citation that contains verifiable evidence of an author. While not 100%, such a disclosure by a WP or Wikcommons user, or descendant of the author, etc., would generally settle the issue and thus trigger the 70yrs-p.m.a. clause. ... Kenosis 17:30, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Another example so I can figure out how liberal you want to be about this. Would you say that the information at Image:Fiskvinnslukonur-1910-1920-kirkjusandur.jpg is sufficient to establish that it is a free image? Haukur 17:19, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I should certainly think so. This is a rebuttable presumption that can be refuted by anyone who provides an example where the photographer is publicly disclosed in conjunction with the photo. And, of course, someone else could in turn rebut such an assertion, e.g., with a showing that the disclosure was in excess of 70 years after it was made lawfully available to the public. Lacking evidence to the contrary, the statement of the uploader appears reasonable and should be presumed to be made in good faith. ... Kenosis 17:43, 8 August 2007 (UTC) Another note about Image:Fiskvinnslukonur-1910-1920-kirkjusandur.jpg. I think this is a good example of an image that more accurately fits into Template:PD-EU-no author disclosure than it does the pma+70 years, since no author is visibly connected with the image, and because it's quite conceivable that it has been less than 70 years since the death of the photographer. This one, though, is on the commons, which doesn't have such a template at present. If the template proves itself to be worthwhile and manageable here on WP, a case can be made to include an equivalent template to represent this separate legal category on the Commons too, I would think. ... Kenosis 19:36, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I would say there isn't enough source information to judge anything about that particular image - no source is given (book, magazine, newspaper, url...) so the original anonymous publication cannot be verified. The problem here is that we are trusting uploaders to verify (within reason) that the image was never re-published without credit - which isn't something that the vast majority of uploaders are capable of. I've been involved in an ugly deletion debate with a commons uploader who seems to think that runner an image through a photoshop or inkspace filter removes copyright. I'd rather err on the side of caution and add to the template something like
The source of publication must be given (a web source is unacceptable) and reasoning that the image was never published with accreditation to the original author must be provided. Images that do not provide such information will be deleted 48 hours after they are uploaded without further warning.
Megapixie 22:47, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Sorry, I just saw this, otherwise I would have responded sooner. In direct response to Megapixie's comment just above, the issue of intentional alteration or misrepresentation of sources and attributions of photographs is an issue in nearly every category including GNU and other free-licenses. This issue is dealt with in all copyright legislation worldwide, and generally dealt with quite strictly. Many provisions are provided for people who misrepresent the copyright status of images by making the claimant "mysteriously disappear" when they copy and paste the image, or by claiming to have snapped a photograph that someone else in fact "snapped" it--even up to criminal penalties for such misrepresentations. The responsibility is placed upon the person who altered the "copyright management information" (CMI) or on those who knowingly distribute such materials. (See, e.g., the U.S. rules with respect to as of 2002. See also, Digital Millennium Copyright Act.) And, there are also important provisions that reasonable notice be provided by persons claiming copyright to those who use such things as basic digitial images in good faith (can't cite you "book, chapter and verse" right now, but please see my last paragraph below).

With respect to the recently placed demand for concrete non-web-based proof of publication data, and the demand for the uploader to provide additional reasoning and particular forms of citations added here: I removed the imbedded flag this diff and the two that follow for the following non-exhastive set of reasons.
 :First, the reasoning is already disclosed in the template. Asking for the "reasoning for the reasoning" prior to seeing the image and examining the required disclosure of the source is excessive, and none of the other standard templates presently do so.
 :Second, a demand in advance for concrete proof of absence on an image claimed by the uploader to have been published prior to 1938 without visible claim of authorship is unreasonable. A reasonable search, appropriate source information, whether web-based or otherwise, is typically quite adequate for PD-50, PD-70 and PD-100, and, unless the overall approach is changed wrt all the general templates, it should be adequate for this template as well.
 :Third, the presumed good faith statement by the uploader is typically applied across the board with these templates, at least as of today. If the application of the template is deemed to be unreasonable, there are convenient deletion options already in place such as the CFSDs and IfDs, available to be brought to bear to quickly correct such issues.
 :Fourth, the expectation in the inserted flag (the red triangular "nuvola" sign) demonstrates an absence of good faith, a complete misinterpretation of WP:VER (read it again, please) and I think merely attempts to make quick work of deletions prior to seeing good reason to propose such deletions with respect to particular images. Even the PD-100 template, which could conceivably fail to apply to images as early as the mid-19th Century, doesn't make this kind of negative presumption at the outset. There are other reasons to avoid an imbedded flag on this template too, but I don't have time to go into them. Suffice it to say that there are already processes in place to deal with unreasonable or questionable uses of this template.
....... I think, though, that it might be extremely useful to set up some additional "small text" in the template inviting anyone who has additional source information, whether supportive of or contradictory to the assertion of "no public authorship" for a pre-1938 photo, to make a note providing additional evidence on the image page. ... Kenosis 13:07, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm entirely willing to assume good faith of our users. I am, however, not willing to assume good knowledge of copyright laws. Still, the fact remains that there are already a whole bunch of images for which the new tag would be better than the current tag. Take Image:Hitler-ww1a.jpg as an example. In reality we have no idea if the author of that image died more than 70 years ago. But it's quite possible that we can establish that it is usable as an anonymous work. The uploader, unfortunately, didn't give us the necessary information. If he had at least told us which book he scanned it from we would have a trail to follow. (As is, our trail is asking the user.)
Anyway, let's try to analyze that Hitler image and look at the possible scenarios. The photographer is quite likely unknown to everyone and I'm assuming that this can be established with reasonable certainty with a cite to e.g. the book the image was scanned from. Now, there are several possibilities. If the image was first published between 1916 and 1936 it is now in the public domain. If the image was first published in 1987 or later it is also in the public domain. But if the image was first published between 1936 and 1986 it is still under copyright. All three scenarios are possible but my guess is that the unfavorable one is the most likely. I don't think we can in good conscience use the image without more information. Haukur 13:33, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
IMO, the Hitler images are good examples of images that previously were in the public domain, but which received retroactive copyright protection when the EU formed its uniform copyright laws. Now they are protected. If they were lawfully published more than 70 years ago without public disclosure of the author in connection with that publication within 70 years, they're public domain. If there is a claimed author, they must be used under "fair-use" or "fair-dealing" criteria. If someone has misrepresented the copyright management information prior to uploading an image that is reasonably believed to be in the public domain, and someone else calls it to attention that there is a publicly disclosed author, the image must be removed from the public-domain category and a decision must be made whether it is appropriate to use it under NFCC. See this page, for instance, which discusses what the primary concerns are-- such issues as whole copyrighted books, along with other significant artistic works such as motion pictures, music albums, etc. Still images of historical figures such as Adolf Hitler and others can readily be corrected if there is shown to be an assertion of authorship by someone, thereby engaging the 70yrs-pma clause. But again, the EU is explicit that in order to have 70yrs-pma rights, you need to have a publicly disclosed author (a publicly identified photographer). An invitation to users to provide any additional source information on image pages would, IMO, be useful here, given that, originally at least and in theory at least, WP has been held out to be a collaborative effort (e.g., WP:OWN, WP:CON, etc.). Indeed, if someone claiming to be the author or descendant of the author of an image sees it, they too can so note on the image page. And, in cases where the assertion that an image belongs in this category is seen as "clearly unreasonable", the CFSD can immediately be applied. In cases where it is arguably unreasonable, an IfD ought do it, just as these processes are already used for images placed in various categories. ... Kenosis 14:09, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but I feel you are still dodging the main issue. This is not about having absolute proof or about mistrusting the contributor. It's about the contributor providing enough information to establish that an image is in the public domain. If the contributor says: "The photograph was taken by Sigfús Eymundsson who died in 1911" then that's sufficient information to establish that the image is in the public domain. If the contributor says: "The photograph was first published in 1925 without public disclosure of the author. The museum holding the original photo lists the author as unknown" then that's also sufficient information. But if the uploader just says: "Unknown author, made in 1925" then that's just not enough for us to know. It must at the very least be "Unknown author, published in 1925". Haukur 14:27, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Sure, as with all of these things, the issue should be taken case-by-case. For instance, "author unknown", published in 1925" could turn out to be conservative if it had been previously published in 1908. Or it could turn out to be completely erroneous, in which case, upon a demonstration that it's completely erroneous, it should immediately be removed from this category and placed in another. That's already how these situations generally are dealt with at present, and I see no compelling reason to change it. IF it's completely lacking in source information, and neither the uploader nor someone else provides it, the CFSD and IfD procedures have already proven to be highly effective. But often, it is plain just by looking at the image that the assertion of belonging in this category is quite reasonable without forcing someone to spend a small fortune in time and money to conclusively verfiy the early origins. Indeed it's well acknowledged by libraries and others familiar with the copyright situation that quite often nothing is 100% in copyright law. And if, say, a direct descendant of the author still cares to make such a case, a simple note to this effect with a citation or a link would in general immediately settle the issue, and which point it simply gets re-categorized as NFC or removed outright if there's not an adequate justification for use in WP as NFC. As I said before, at some point the quest for bulletproof safety from the possiblity that someone will come along with respect to a pre-1938 photo and say "hey, that's mine-- it ain't public domain, but you must use it only with credit to the photographer" gets to be quite a stretch. The simplest solution to this situation is to simply note the newly disclosed name of the photographer and put the image in another category. ... Kenosis 14:46, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but what I'm saying is that "anonymous author, published in 1925" is enough to establish public domain status but "anonymous author, made in 1925" is not. This makes both Image:Fiskvinnslukonur-1910-1920-kirkjusandur.jpg and Image:Hitler-ww1a.jpg fail, in my opinion, to establish PD status. This is the main point I'm trying to get you to address. I'm not concerned with our deletion process. I'm not concerned with Hitler images in general. I'm not concerned with the case that a descendant of the photographer unexpectedly surfaces with proof that her ancestor took the photo. I'm not concerned with 100% proof. I'm just concerned with the difference between 'made' and 'published' which is extremely important in copyright law. We already have a huge number of "bah, it's old, I'll just slap pd-old on it" to clean up. This template can help us do that but we must not fudge the details. Haukur 15:05, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
IMO, this change makes more sense, in that it does not prejudge the veracity of the reasoning by the uploader or the person applying the template, nor does it apply any particular CFSD or IfD rationale in advance. Perhaps the same should be applied across the board to all the PD templates such as PD-50, PD-70, PD-100, etc. In any event, I'm going to pass for now on further speculation of what precisely might be deemed by consensus or decree in the future w.r.t. specific forms of evidence that might be required to establish that the template is reasonably applied to all images in this category.
........ I'd still like to consider an additional "small print" note such as some version of the following: "If anyone has information that an author's name was publicly disclosed in connection with this photograph, please make a note on this page and indicate where the author's name was seen to be publicly disclosed in connection with this image." ... Kenosis 15:17, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I rewrote the template for what I think is a slightly more accurate representation of the law and a suggestion, rather than a demand, that citation be provided as a form of proof. What do you think? I think this is a useful template but I also note that none of the images currently using it fulfill its conditions. Haukur 16:02, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I can't predict what the future will hold for this template, but presently, most, if not all, of them contain reasonable evidence that thay likely fulfill the conditions of 1) anonymous or pseudonymous, and 2) no author disclosure such that it can be publicy calculated w.r.t. an author's natural lifetime +70 years. ... Kenosis 10:25, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What if an article is composed ENTIRELY of unedited public domain text?

The USS Barney (TB-25) article is composed entirely of unedited text from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Is this allowed? I would have thought that one would be allowed to take certain portions of public domain text, and edit them for Wikipedia, but this is a flat-out direct copy. --DearPrudence 06:28, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

The source is cited. It can be considered a reprint in that case. It's only plagiarism if it isn't cited. -Nard 01:40, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Thank you! --DearPrudence 02:23, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] URAA

"Because the URAA became effective only on January 1, 1996 (half a year after the EU directive), any copyrights restored in the EU by the directive also became restored in the U.S."

I'm not sure this is correct. Many countries only implemented the EU directive after that date. Haukur 22:06, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yet another PD template added

I've added the following template: Template:PD-Pre1964 to accompany Template:PD-Pre1978. I have not yet placed it in the project pages such as Wikipedia:Image copyright tags because of the need to agree on a standard for uploaders and/or those who follow up to provide a statement that they did a search of the USCO records under the authors name, publisher's name, etc. Discussion is presently at Template_talk:PD-Pre1964, in addition to here. If others would wish to consolidate this discussion elsewhere, please agree on it and note it here so everybody can know where to discuss.

Template:PD-Pre1964 is a fundamental, vitally important category of images in the United States publisehd between 1923 and 1963. Only about 10% of filed copyrights were renewed, and a far lower percentage of the total published material in the US was ever renewed. As such, it represents a valuable public-domain resource pool for WP, and I think it's important to settle on a standard expectation of what the showing should be by the uploader. Since it is virtually impossible to prove a negative, I suggest that at minimum requiring a statement of the uploader that s/he was able to identify the author's name or name of an assignee with a date of copyright, and have done a search of the Copyright Office records in the years that apply, which are the years equivalent to 26, 27 and 28 years after original publication. Images without an explicit copyright notice identifying the copyright claim should, of course, consider using Template:PD-Pre1978 instead, or consider submission of an image under "fair use" and the WP:NFCC. ... Kenosis 22:24, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate the work you're doing and I agree on the need for some standardization—or at least guidelines—on the criteria here. You may have overlooked that Template:PD-US-not renewed already exists so perhaps we can take the effort there. Haukur 22:48, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
I hadn't seen that one. We need, collectively at least, to bring some of the project pages up to date to display these more clearly, e.g., Wikipedia:Image copyright tags and such. Haukurth, thanks for the head-up! We'll figure it out, and if necessary, ask an admin to delete this and defer to the other one. ... Kenosis 22:54, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm an admin but I don't think we need to delete anything. Just redirect one template to the other. I'd say redirect the new template to the old one - unless you strongly prefer your new name. Anyway, yes, we need to make these tags easier to find and less confusing to use. Haukur 23:01, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
OK, cool Haukurth. I need a speedy on Category:US 1923-1963 copyrights not renewed. No need for two categories for sure. Thanks! I suppose we'll talk later, because either way, sooner or later the category is going to need discussion about the appropriate standard(s) of what proofs and/or statements weill be expected for uploaders and those who follow up on the uploaders. ... Kenosis 23:27, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
We typically accept "not renewed" claims for images only if there's a reliable external source that says so. Usually, that source is the LoC. Alternatively, if it is known that the image was originally published in a particular book and if one can show that a diligent search of the renewal records available on-line do not turn up a renewal record for that book, we may also accept the claim. In any case, any "not renewed" claim must be verifiable. Lupo 06:25, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Of course is should be verifiable. Today, they're almost all verifiable online. Soon, old renewals of "art" will be online too. But as a practical matter, virtually no photographs were individually renewed back in that time, because the primary issue was seen as who owned the negative. ... Kenosis 17:37, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

<unindent>Another thing. As to the notion currently prevalent in WP that the failure to be able to access copyright renewals of "art" online, the definition of "art" is critical. Quoting from the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998 (US), in turn citing the WIPO : The “WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty” is the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty concluded at Geneva, Switzerland, on December 20, 1996.22 A “work of visual art” is —
(1) a painting, drawing, print or sculpture, existing in a single copy, in a limited edition of 200 copies or fewer that are signed and consecutively numbered by the author, or, in the case of a sculpture, in multiple cast, carved, or fabricated sculptures of 200 or fewer that are consecutively numbered by the author and bear the signature or other identifying mark of the author; or
(2) a still photographic image produced for exhibition purposes only, existing in a single copy that is signed by the author, or in a limited edition of 200 copies or fewer that are signed and consecutively numbered by the author. ,br>... Kenosis 18:02, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how that is relevant to researching renewals of artwork. The issue is that the Copyright Office's renewal listings are divided into classes, and for some years only certain classes are available online (so far). So what matters is the Copyright Office's classification system. That system has changed over time, but I don't think it has ever been nearly as restrictive as the WIPO definition you quoted.
Here is the current language:

(iii) Class VA: Works of the visual arts. This class includes all published and unpublished pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works. Examples: Two dimensional and three dimensional works of the fine, graphic, and applied arts; photographs; prints and art reproductions; maps, globes, and charts; technical drawings, diagrams, and models; and pictorial or graphic labels and advertisements. — [14]

—Celithemis 23:29, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll need to get back to y'all later or over the weekend-- busy in "real life" right now. There is, unfortunately, a very clumsy situation on the wiki at the moment, just in case anyone hadn't noticed. Massive amounts of rumor and half-baked half-truth about copyright considerations, a lot of unnecessary angry arguments over images that other users have chosen to use on the articles they've worked on, etc., etc. The reference to "art" is there because one of the arguments about US publications 1923-1963 is that "art" is not yet online to be checked for coypright renewals between 1950 and 1977. And, generally speaking, mass disseminated photo images are not properly classified as "art". Sorry I didn't make the connection clear. Remember please, the relevant issue in this case is the timespan 1950-1977, back in time to prior to the WIPO, not forward in time to now. Talk later. ... Kenosis 11:10, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I understand what timespan we're talking about, yes. I'm not familiar with the particular disputes you're referring to, so I may be missing some context. The point is: if you want to argue that a mass-disseminated photograph could not be listed in those renewal records that are not yet online, you will need to show what the Copyright Office classification system was at that time. That information is certainly available, probably even online somewhere. There's no reason to think that it was ever the same as the WIPO definition, so quoting that doesn't help. —Celithemis 22:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Public records

The sentence on public records from U.S. state governments seems misleading. Here is how a law professor specializing in the subject put it in a peer-reviewed article:

"[W]hen the authors in question are legally obligated to perform their creative effort, the Patents and Copyright Clause does not authorize a copyright. This is exactly the situation that exists for the work product of public officials. As long as they are not acting ultra vires, they are performing public duties when collecting and assembling information. Even if some of their selection and arrangement would seem to qualify under the Feist originality test, the creative component of their selection and arrangement does not stem from the economic incentive provided by the copyright law because it is legally mandated and therefore fails to qualify under Feist. Whenever a public duty is the cause of the expression, the incentive justification under the copyrights and patent laws is absent, and any construction of the Copyright Act to protect such official work product would be unconstitutional." Henry H. Perritt, Jr., J.D. (1995) "Sources of Rights to Access Public Information" 4 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 179 (emphasis added.)

Perritt goes on to site several supporting court decisions concerning state (not federal) records. The Feist case cited in the passage quoted is the Supreme Court's decision in Feist v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991.) Since the current version is misleading about this, I am correcting the portion about state government records. ←BenB4 18:46, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

This has not very much to do with "public records". It's more a question about whether states can hold copyright. In general, they can. Perritt's statement is too general, and his example cases all concern laws and statutes. These are indeed parts of the public record that are not copyrightable. But if a state government employee takes a photo, this is typically more than mere "facts". If the photo is the slightest bit creative, it's eligible to copyright, and the state is able to hold copyrights on such things. Perritt basically speaks out against the crazy idea that states could copyright their laws and statutes—which they can't. Furthermore, any third-party works in the public records remain copyrighted. Copyright is not lost when something enters the public record. Lupo 18:58, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
As Perritt details, states have tried to assert copyright over their government work product, but have failed in every instance. As an opinion by a subject-matter expert in a peer-reviewed journal, I am inclined to skepticism toward conflicting opinions if they are not attributable to similarly authoritative sources. Are there any authorities supporting your statement about a state government employee's photograph? In my edit I made it clear that third-party works in government records are copyrighted. ←BenB4 19:04, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I just point you to WP:PD#_note-compendium206_01 (the handbook of the U.S. Copyright Office, confirming both the non-copyrightability of laws and such, but also confirming that other works are copyrightable), or also the CENDI copyright FAQ, 3.1.3. The CENDI is an institution of the U.S. Government, BTW. Lupo 21:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and BTW, Perrit's examples just show that the states have failed to assert copyright on laws and statutes and court rulings. His whole section B.1 is only about laws and statutes and similar things like court rulings and opinions. None of his examples is about other items. Lupo 21:27, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
The Compendium and CENDI sources only say that state government material may be "subject to registation" (and that shows you just how out of date they are.) Several states have registered the copyright of their statutes, and as Perritt shows, those states have lost in court when they have attempted to use their copyright to protect their work product. The reason that Perritt only discusses laws is that no state has ever attempted to use their copyrights to protect any other kind of publication.
In order to be swayed, I will need one of:
  • a peer-reviewed source contradicting Perritt's statement about the ability of states to use copyright to protect their work (apart from the ability to register or otherwise claim copyrights);
  • a reliable source stating that a state has tried to use an assertion of copyright to protect anything other than their laws, regulations, and edicts; or
  • an example of any state successfully using their copyrights in court to protect any government work product.
In the absence of any of these things, which do not exist, the peer-reviewed literature is clear and should not be waived away by uncredentialed editors with no subject matter experience. ←BenB4 21:50, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
And your credentials are...? You don't need to be swayed, you need to sway us :-) And to do so, you'll need to do much better than to present one man's opinion, taken out of context and badly misrepresented. Present sources that clearly say that U.S. states may not hold copyright on works (other than laws, statutes, and the like)! So far, you have not done so.
You might also be interested in this House Hearing from 2003: "In this context, it is important to recognize that states are today major owners of intellectual property and have benefited from federal law and policy to achieve this result. For example, as a result of the laws passed by Congress, states are free to file patents and trademarks and, unlike the federal government, are permitted to assert copyright.(see footnote 50) States are increasingly seeing their intellectual property as strategic assets and utilizing sophisticated licensing management strategies to commercialize their portfolio." Lupo 21:58, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
My qualifications don't matter because I am arguing the peer-reviewed statements of a tenured University of Chicago law professor. They are not "one man's opinion," they represent the agreement of the editorial board of a prestigious law journal. As such, they are certainly more reliable than the unsworn congressional testimony of a Software & Information Industry Association V.P., who is free to say whatever he wants and stands to benefit if states are allowed to protect their electronic publications with copyright. The statements are neither taken out of context or misrepresented; they are plain as day. I don't think you understand the difference between holding a copyright and legally being able to use it to protect the underlying work. You are clearly unable to present any examples to support your case, but you continue to revert. I am sorry that you believe that your uncredentialed opinion is superior to a peer-reviewed publication. Clearly an RFC is called for in this case. ←BenB4 22:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
"Perritt's statement is too general" -- While I respect that Perritt's opinions might run contrary to yours, I think there might be a bit of hubris in trivializing the arguments made by a man with Perritt's Credentials, unless you have a similarly studied background. If you do, I would encourage you to come out and say so directly. Otherwise, being dismissive of the formal opinions a specialist in the area seems unwarranted. --- AdamRoach 02:15, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
You are misreading his text. All his examples in his section B.1 concern cases where a state tried to copyright its laws, statutes, court opinions, or such, and failed. Nobody is disputing that at all. But you cannot extend that to other kinds of works just like that. Present sources that show that U.S. states cannot hold copyright on other kinds of works (and in particular, on photographs made by state employees in the course of their duties). Lupo 07:14, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Totally false. Perritt's exposition draws the distinction between "edicts" such as laws and regulations, and "official work product" which encompasses all state-produced public records. While true that all of his examples concern edicts, that is only because states have not gone to court to try to protect anything else. His conclusion on the constitutionality of using copyright to protect public records very explicitly refers to all "official work product," not just edicts. ←BenB4 17:13, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
So basically we have a seven hour discussion on where you state an opinion of one law professor against all the other arguments user Lupo stated. Other editors, not only Lupo, don't agree with you therefore you start an RFC on this? You got to be kidding here. Garion96 (talk) 22:29, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Firstly, Lupo's the only one who's been disagreeing up until now. The fundamental problem here is the difference between holding a copyright and being able to use it. I'm not arguing with the sources that say states are able to "register" their copyright. Aside from being outdated, that's completely different from being able to use them to protect their publications. Which they never, not once, have been able to do. And the peer-reviewed publication says why. Are we at least in agreement that holding a copyright is not the same thing as being legally allowed to enforce it? ←BenB4 22:37, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Provide a source for your statement "Which they never, not once, have been able to do." with respect to works other than laws, statutes, and the like. Lupo 22:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Perritt presents nine cases where states uniformly tried, and failed, to enforce their copyright. Are you suggesting that he has hidden cases were they succeeded? I suspect that you only ask because you can't find any semblance of a suggestion that they ever did. Are you asking me to believe that if they had it wouldn't be as easy to find as the sources which rightly say states can register copyrights? ←BenB4 23:14, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Answer my request and present sources. Perritt's cases all concern law, statutes, and such. Not a single one is about other works. Lupo 07:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
The cases may largely deal with laws, statutes and judgments (although several key ones have to do with underlying facts, such as Feist); however, the arguments he draws from these cases are far, far broader than such a narrow category. The paragraph Ben quotes above clearly demonstrates Perritt's assertion that these cases can be generalized to all works that would occur in the absence of copyright law. --- AdamRoach 15:20, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
As Perritt says, it all boils down to this: The Copyright Clause says, "[The Congress shall have power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." And there is nothing that promotes either science or art by granting states exclusive rights to the public records they produce anyway. It's as simple as that. ←BenB4 23:20, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Nobody is arguing that laws, statutes, court opinions, etc, were copyrighted. But you extend that narrow class of works to encompass the much broader concept of "any work made by a state employee in his duties", and you haven't presented a single source for this claim. Present sources! Lupo 07:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
The source we have presented is a law professor, who bluntly claims "When the incentive is not needed, as when the authors in question are legally obligated to perform their creative effort, the Patents and Copyright Clause does not authorize a copyright." (I may have been overstating my case above; the argument isn't "all works created by state employees" -- it is "works created by state employees that would not be incented except in the presence of copyright law"). If I may be so bold as to summarize his line of argument, Perritt's claims are that copyright protection is limited in scope by Article 1, section 8 to that required to promote the progress of science and useful arts. Booking photos would clearly be created in the absence of copyright law, which means that extending copyright to such works would clearly overstep the bounds of the authority granted by Article 1. --- AdamRoach 15:15, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Even without that argument I would have thought that booking photos wouldn't meet the threshold of originality set by the Supreme Court in Feist v. Rural. I think even Lupo has said that booking photos don't meet the (very low) threshold of originality in Germany. Haukur 15:30, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
BTW, I have adapted the section on public records to make clear that law, statutes, and such in any case are PD. That section really wasn't written very well. Lupo 11:09, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
So there is still a dispute about whether we are going to accept the peer-reviewed scholarship of a former Dean of the Chicago School of Law, or the armchair opinions of a few Wikipedia editors. Since those editors, who believe that public records from U.S. state work product are somehow protected, have been utterly unable to come up with an example of such protection or any peer-reviewed source in support of their opinions, I am reverting to the version citing Perritt, and will continue to do so until such an example or source is brought forth. ←BenB4 17:18, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I think there's still not enough to go on here. I'd love for you to be right but so far you're only citing one source and there is dispute as to how accurately you are interpreting it. I'm afraid I feel I should revert for now. Haukur 17:39, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I've already given you an example: Utah.gov contains a copyright notice. We need some pretty strong sources, not just one source that's difficult to understand, to say that the State of Utah only thinks they can enforce copyright but they really can't. —Remember the dot (talk) 17:43, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
By the way, there's another, more lawyer-friendly explanation of this concept at wikibooks:US Copyright Law#Government works. —Remember the dot (talk) 17:48, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Remember the Dot that we would need much stronger (and many more) sources to say that the State of Utah (among other states, I assume) are dead-wrong. --Iamunknown 18:00, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Nobody is disputing that states can claim a copyright, or that they used to be able to register one; just that they can't use it to protect the underlying public records. I have emailed Dr. Perritt and a Former Chair for the national American Bar Association Committee on State Government Copyrights asking for their clarification. ←BenB4 18:06, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I suspect that any reply from Perritt will likely include an explanation that the issue is not about state governments claiming coyright of governmental publications. The issue in the quoted passage at the begining of this thread likely has to do with an individual government employees claiming intellectual property rights for work that they have done in the course of their duties or employment by the government, which they cannot unless the work is ultra vires. It's a separate issue from determining whether a given kind of public record or government publication can be said to be under copyright for the purpose of a Wikipedia fair-use/NFCC-or-public-domain analysis. ... Kenosis 01:14, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
I am confused. The revision you posted to WP:PD said, "State and local governments' publications are not subject to copyright restrictions unless they contain works of a third-party." - "publications" seems to me to be a broader class of material than "public records". Am I missing something? --Iamunknown 18:35, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
It seems that you're implying that there could be state publications that aren't public records. Actually, the opposite is true, all publications are public records, and there are some records that aren't published unless they are requested. For that reason, my revision was flawed; I should have said "public records." ←BenB4 18:40, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I am not familiar with a legal definition of what constitutes "public records". Colloquially, however, "records" seems different than the "publications", in that a record may be a publication, but a publication is not necessarily a record. Or, at least, that is how it seems to me. --Iamunknown 21:12, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Iamunkown is more-or-less correct. Public records are any records made available to the public, whether by choice of the governmental entity or by legal requirement. It has nothing to do with copyright. ... Kenosis 21:20, 31 August 2007 (UTC) ... State government publications, on the other hand, are documents intentionally circulated, i.e., published. Determining copyright status of state-government publications can be extremely difficult for publications after March 1, 1989 (because no copyright notice is required to claim copyright in the US after this date). The issue typically is irrelevant for most practical purposes outside of Wikipedia. ... Kenosis 21:29, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I already addressed the "utah.gov" example, but since you've elected to repeat the example without addressing my response, I'll repeat the response: To address the question of whether a state-created web site itself is eligible for copyright protection, you would need to evaluate whether such work would have been performed absent any copyright protection whatsoever. Is this work incented by copyright? (from the article: "Congress lacks the power under the Patents and Copyrights Clause of the United States Constitution to extend copyright protection beyond that which is necessary to provide incentives for creative efforts.") In the case of a government web site, that is a good question, which I am not qualified to answer. However, in the case of the products of legally compelled processing subsequent to an arrest (such as booking photos), the utilitarian nature of the work makes it pretty clear that the incentive to produce the work derives from practical considerations, not the promise of limited monopoly provided by copyright protection. --- AdamRoach 20:54, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Here's what I think. (Message also cross-posted to the Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_images/2007_August_28#Image:Larry_Craig_mugshot.jpg board)
Regardless of the opinion of a peer-reviewed law professor, I have to go along with the 1994 opinion of the State of Minnesota as it relates to the status of booking photos. I cannot at this time second-guess this opinion, even one that is more than 10 years old. Unless I can find something in the Minnesota statute that supersedes this opinion, the photo is not public domain material, although it is now publicly available through news reports about the senator -- thus, the reason why I had edited the source a few days ago to show "Mug shot released by the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Police Department to news organizations." That's the true source, instead of the news organization that released the story.
To continue the points that I've raised here, the photo is still protected under the copyright held by the State of Minnesota, although the booking photo was released publicly to news organizations. With that said, although the photo was publicly available, the state did not explicitly release the photo to the public domain -- at least, to my knowledge. Big difference here. Even CNN, one of the recipients that purportly received the photo in response to a Minnesota Public Data Act request, appeared to recognize this point by leaving intact the attribution "Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Police Department" on the photo. However, one of the editors decided to crop the photo (i.e., creating a derivative work) to remove this important information that shows attribution of the photo, thus raising some of the the confusion we are facing here about its status. Therefore, the booking photo should be treated as a non-replaceable, non-free mugshot that cannot be duplicated since this booking photo is part of an official record of the state, with a rationale that states our purpose for using the photo for this newsworthy article. In the meantime, I'm going to search the Lexis-Nexis database to anything that points to an update to the 1994 opinion by Minnesota, and if I find anything, I'll post it here. →Lwalt ♦ talk 15:26, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Recognizing that there is a great deal of progress still to be made in the WP community gaining a more thorough undestanding of copyright considerations, I suggest tagging this Larry Craig image in the way that Image:Oswaldneworleans.jpg is presently tagged, at least until this can be sorted out. ... Kenosis 15:48, 1 September 2007 (UTC) ... I now see that Lwalt has tagged the Craig image in this fashion. Given the problem with potential retention of copyright by US state, county and local governments without notice of copyright for post-March1-1989 material, this would appear to be the correct approach. Indeed, given that non-federal governments in the US can assert copyright for material created or published after February 1989, fair use non-replaceable would appear to be the correct standard for all such material used on the wiki. ... Kenosis 16:35, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe the Minnesota opinion to which Lwalt refers is this Minnesota Department of Administration Advisory Opinion:94-057:

Opinion:
Based on the correspondence provided in this matter, my opinion on the issue raised by Mr. Boe is as follows:
The position of the Department of Natural Resources that it can limit Mr. Boe's use of public data, is not in compliance with the presumption of the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, that, unless clearly specified by the legislature, the public's right of access to and use of public government data cannot be curtailed by a government entity's claim of intellectual property rights in those data.
Signed: Debra Rae Anderson, Commissioner. Dated: December 28, 1994

Thus, although the state government can hold copyright, additional questions remain as to what extent state governments can legally limit use of the public material(s), a question that will likely vary from state to state, and also need to be in accordance with federal statutory and case law. Again, there's a great deal for the community to learn here, which will, of course, take time and attention. ... Kenosis 16:48, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Protected

I've protected this page for 48 hours. Ben, you don't currently have anywhere close to consensus for this change. I've given you a 48-hour window to try to gain it; if you don't have it then, please do not resume revert-warring. Chick Bowen 00:30, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Update: applicability of PD or non-free image tag for Sen. Craig mugshot

The update to my earlier message is lengthy, so bear with me as I explain what I found and whether my view changed from the earlier reply. I placed the message under a separate heading because of the length of the response and so that the message does not become lost among myriad of responses already provided here.

I did a search to find information in the Minnesota laws about booking photographs on Lexis-Nexis database (I have access to this database only because of my current student status at the moment). I want to preface my input here by saying that I'm 'not an attorney, nor authorized to practice anywhere in the world, let alone in the U.S. This information is included here to support how I view the status of the booking photograph (mugshot) of Sen. Craig.

I found a law review article that was written by Margaret Westin, Assistant County Attorney for Dakota County, Minnesota, that provided some direction to find other information. The article, The Minnesota Government Data Practices Act: A Practitioner's Guide and Observations on Access to Government Information, can be found in the William Mitchell Law Review at 22 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 839 (1996). Here's an excerpt from that article, including footnotes. In particular, see footnote 276, which might answer some of our questions on this board regarding the 1994 opinion in general and points out an important point in this discussion about the booking photograph (mugshot) released by the airport police department in particular:

Other Commissioner's opinions also illustrate interpretations of the MGDPA that extend beyond the plain meaning of the statute. In Opinion 95-004, the Commissioner of Administration was asked to issue an opinion on the proper classification of booking photographs, sometimes known as mugshots.268 The Commissioner of Administration had issued an earlier opinion about mugshots that arose out of a controversy between a newspaper and a county sheriff's office.269 The Commissioner's earlier opinion was that booking photos were not classified under Minnesota Statutes section 13.82 (law enforcement data) and therefore were public data because they were not classified.270 The Dakota County Attorney pointed out that booking photos were gathered at the time an inmate is booked at the jail, and are used for identification purposes, thereby fitting within the definition of corrections and detention data found in Minnesota Statutes section 13.85,271 not law enforcement data, Minnesota Statutes section 13.82.272 The Commissioner of Administration rejected this classification based on the Commissioner's characterization of the intent of the Legislature in authorizing the advisory opinions.273 The Commissioner stated the legislative intent was to "assure consistency of application of Chapter 13 through the employment of the expertise of the Department of Administration to offer consistent interpretation [*884] of the statute."274 The Commissioner concluded that if some governmental entities were to rely on the statutory classification while others relied on the earlier Commissioner's opinion, there would be no consistency in the interpretation of booking photos; therefore mugshots are properly classified as public.275 In this opinion, the Commissioner of Administration appears to be engaged in legislative-type rulemaking by establishing a new law of general applicability, without following the procedures for formal rulemaking.276 The opinion also fails as an interpretive rule because it does not correspond with the plain meaning of the statute and is not a long-standing agency interpretation.

References in excerpt:

268 Op. Comm'r Dep't Admin. 95-004, at 5 (1995).

269 Op. Comm'r Dep't Admin. 94-020 (1994).

270 Id. at 2.

271 Minnesota Statutes § 13.85, subdivision 1 (1994) states as follows:

Definition. As used in this section, "corrections and detention data" means data on individuals created, collected, used or maintained because of their lawful confinement or detainment in state reformatories, prisons and correctional facilities, municipal or county jails, lockups, work houses, work farms and all other correctional and detention facilities.

272 Op. Comm'r Dep't Admin. 95-004, at 2 (1995).

273 Id. at 3.

274 Id.

275 Id.

276 The Minnesota Legislature added a specific classification for booking photos in the Act of June 1, 1995. 1995 Minn. Laws 259. Booking photos are now classified as public data under the statute. Id. at § 23, subd. 17(b). However, a law enforcement agency may withhold booking photographs if the agency determines that access will adversely affect an active investigation. Id.

* * *

Here is where the Minnesota legislature amended the statute to specifically address the issue of booking photographs.

From what I can determine under the provisions of the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, data for both non-criminal and criminal acts is classified as either public, private or confidential. Data termed as "public" can be released to any person for any reason, while "private" data can only be released to the subject or an entity authorized by the subject or by law to receive the data. Data considered "confidential" is not available to both the subject and the public.

In all, I did not find anything that suggest that booking photographs are public domain -- these photos are only available publicly, unless the release of the photo interfere with an active investigation. Also, although the Minnesota statute shows that public data collected by Minnesota "shall be public unless classified by statute, or temporary classification pursuant to 13.06, or federal law," I did not find anything that explicitly specified that data of this type is considered public domain as the meaning of public. I interpreted the meaning of public as publicly available with little or no restrictions. I would think that federal law only supersedes state law in cases of the fair use copyright issues.

Although I relied originally on the 1994 Minnesota opinion mentioned on this board, the mugshot shot released by the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport police still appears to be copyrighted to the State of Minnesota, since this photograph is part of the state's official records (including the investigative records) regarding the senator and the statute does not explicitly define public to mean the same as public domain. Even in its statute, Minnesota mentions that "data on individuals" is defined as "all government data in which any individual is or can be identified as the subject of that data...." (emphasis mine) So, the key words here are that "government data," not "public domain" data, apply to the booking photograph (mugshot). If this photo is considered to be in the public domain, the Minnesota police -- or any police force for that matter -- would have no authority to prevent the release of the photo under any circumstances, unlike what is explicitly stated in the Minnesota statute. Therefore, the use of a public domain (PD) tag for the Sen. Craig mugshot would be inappropriate for licensing, and the "non-free mugshot" tag (with a non-replaceable reference in the fair use rationale) is applicable instead as is the case now.

That's the best that I can come up with at this point. →Lwalt ♦ talk 19:47, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Nice work, Lwalt. In other words, post-March1-1989 state government-produced documents, public records, should be regarded as copyrighted unless the government decides to free-license the particular document (a not-unlikely scenario in the future). The issue of the right to fair use of that document is likely secure in light of laws such as the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act. All U.S. states have similar laws (particularly following the Freedom of Information Act, originally 1964), but which can vary in the amount of permission to use government-produced public records. The right to fair use remains secure under US copyright law "fair use criteria" if it was published, such as was the case with the mugshots made available to the press. ... Kenosis 20:03, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, the only thing that I could say, based on what I found, is that fair use can only apply in this case (remember, I'm viewing this as a layperson, since I'm not a lawyer versed in copyright law issues). Also, I was also in the process of amending the response to include a link to the final provision concerning booking photographs, which can be found under 2006 Minn. Stat. 13.82. This section of the statute includes a definition of "booking photograph" (Minn. Stat. 13.82, subd. 26(a)), the conditions under which this data can be released to the public (Minn. Stat. 13.82, subd. 26(b)) and includes other provisions related to data collection and dissemination related to arrests and investigations, among other things.
Also, here's what 17 U.S.C. § 106 has to say about the exclusive rights in copyrighted works and what 17 U.S.C. § 107 mentions about the limitations on "fair use" of copyrighted works. As for what the the U.S. Code points to about attribution of copyright works (17 U.S.C. § 106A: Rights of certain authors to attribution and integrity), that's why I mentioned in a message that a posted earlier that the mugshot with the embedded attribution to the airport police should be restored and used over the one now used on this wiki. →Lwalt ♦ talk 20:52, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I'm an intellectual property lawyer. States can and do own copyrights in their creative works - for example, where a state commissions the creation of a seal or the design of a website including photographs or other creative elements, copyright in those are owned by the state. They can be registered, and infringers can be sued. You would have to check individual state laws to see what the state permits to enter the public domain. However, as to legislation, court opinions, state collections of statistics, and records composed of the reporting of otherwise publicly available information on a form (such as an arrest record or a state-generated invoice) no copyright would apply. Cheers! bd2412 T 22:33, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, this is good to have you here. Of course states can and do publish creative work that, to varying degrees, may meet a minimum creativity threshold to be considered valid copyright. But (a) it's often quite arguable, as BD2412 must know, and (b) we're not in the business of arguing it case-by-case within WP, particularly without an authoritative body of summary law to draw upon as to what kinds of non-federal-government material are considered to meet the minimum creativity threshold. The problem we're dealing with is the March1,1989-or later US copyright law which doesn't require notice of copyright by a party, including a US state, in order to claim copyright. With respect to products of a state, county or local government that are not creative works, that leaves a big gap, call it a "black hole" in the assessment of what a governmental entity might consider copyrighted and what a governmental entity might not consider copyrighted.

Without a specific statute or applicable case to point to, we have no indication that non-creative publicly available information is in fact considered in the public domain by a particular governmental entity such as the Minneapolis Police Department, unless the state specifies it in a statute or an applicable court orders such a status bestowed upon it. As I said farther above in this talk subsection, as a practical matter, one of the very few places it matters a great deal is in Wikipedia, because the restrictions on "fair-use" are tighter than lawfully required and hotly contested at present. And the Minnesota opinion proffering that public disclosure laws trump copyright law in the particular case found above by Lwalt doesn't clearly settle the issue. Additionally, as just indicated, there's the question whether such things as booking photos and other products of purely ministerial duties meet the creativity threshold necessary for copyright protection. But Wikipedia isn't in the business of testing these things, so to speak. Generalizations, even if accurate, are insufficient for our present needs. We need citations to go on w.r.t. assessments of specific classes of photographs and written material in order to properly categorize the material in the wake of the Wikimedia Board Reseolution of March, 2007. This is what Lwalt, along with several other WP users, was working on. .... Kenosis 22:58, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

While this discussion seems to have gone dormant (or migrated elsewhere, which is how I just discovered this) it may important to clarify that under at least one state's specific laws public data are in the public domain. In Minnesota the government cannot claim copyright for such data absent specific legislation allowing such a claim. The Minnesota Commissioner of Administration (who is charged with authority under the Minnesota Data Practices Act), has stated:

. . . a fundamental principle of the M[innesota] G[overnment] D[ata] P[ractices] A[ct] is that anyone may use public data, for any purpose.

. . . unless clearly specified by the legislature, the public's right of access to and use of public government data cannot be curtailed by a government entity's claim of intellectual property rights in those data.[15]

The case at issue there involved an attempt by a government agency to claim copyright. the Commissioner rejected that claim. Public data therefore are not subject to copyright in Minnesota without specific legislative authority. As mentioned above, that may not be the case everywhere, and a state's laws need to be checked before claiming PD status. Kablammo 13:38, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template:PD-US and its family for works of non-USA-authors

Dear English Wikipedia Community.

I clearly understand, that some works of non-USA-authors can be in PD in USA, but copyrighted outside USA. But I have also great confidence, that we can not use this possibility here, in English Wikipedia, as well it is not used at Wikimedia Commons too.

I clearly understand, that English Wikipedia is not Wikimedia Commons, and both of them can have got difference regulations in the license policy domain. But I also suggest: NOT in this case.

There are main theses:

  1. The servers of English Wikipedia is located in USA, and USA Law defends them. But English Wikipedia is not only servers - it is also its editors and readers. What defends editors or which law do they be subjected? USA Law - they are working on remote USA-server. But What defends non-USA readers or which law do they be subjected? Not USA Law - they read and (very impotance!) USE information from English Wikipedia in their own countries.
    • The Resolution:Licensing policy says analogous thesis in point about EDP: project-specific policy, in accordance with United States law and the law of countries where the project content is predominantly accessed.
  2. Where is the English Wikipedia predominantly accessed? English language is not equal to language of USA.
    • (a) There are 300 mln potential readers in USA and 115 mln potential readers in other three largest English countries (Canada+UK+Australia)? Is the project predominantly accessed from USA? In percent? - Yes. In absolute numbers? - No. There are too many potential readers in other English countries.
    • (b) Don't forget also, that English Wikipedia isn't Wikipedia for English countries only or predominantly (as French, Russian, Deutsch Wikipedia for French, Russian, Deutsch countries). Today English language is the main language for international contacts and cooperation and English Wikipedia is also a hub for Wikipedia project as a whole. If first article about language/country specific subject is appeared in non-English Wikipedia, second article about same subject is appeared in exactly English Wikipedia (not French, Russian or Deutch) with the most propability.
  3. Back to servers. Since 2006 Wikipedia CD Selection and Wikipedia:Version 0.5 English Wikipedia is not only web service. Can works of non-USA-authors (which are in PD in USA, but copyrighted outside) be put on next versions, which probably will be published with greater number of copies? No - see my thesis 2.
  4. Back to Resolution:Licensing policy. Since March 23 2007, all Wikimedia projects have got only two types of license: free (meets the terms of the Definition of Free Cultural Works) and non-free (all others). What is "free only in USA"? There are no such words in definition of FCW and/or GFDL. Wikimedia have got similar license tag, which is suitable for Commons - {{CopyrightedbyWikimedia}}. How it was renamed after March 23? Non-free Wikimedia logo. The sign had been put on it even early.
  5. What is Public Domain? If image is in PD, I can take it and make der.work without SA, I can publicate my new image under CC-BY, GFDL or any another free license (I can publicate it as full copyrighted image and under non-free license, but it's not interesting for Wikipedia). And what? Let I am USA editor. And I don't like put my (!!MY!! - the der.work is also mine) image in PD. Does I need to create {{GFDL}}-only-for-USA, {{CC-BY-SA}}-only-for-USA, {{FAL}}-only-for-USA? There are not such possibilities in these license. Localize versions of Creative Commons licenses take into account other aspects of country specific law.

As result.

  1. The works of non-USA-authors, which are PD in USA but copyrighted outside USA, are Non-free content:
    • the freedom of der.works is missing,
    • the freedom of distribution is missing.
  2. All such works must be marked as Non-free content and used under Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria.
  3. The terms of Template:PD-US and its family must be rewritten.

Alex Spade 17:44, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

No question that this and other templates could be written differently. Under the tems of the Berne Convention and URAA, non-US authors' copyrights are respected in the US. Template:PD-US and its family do not deviate from this one bit. They could, however, be made to be more specific about non-US coyright holders in the future. As it currently stands, the note about other jurisdictions is adequate to acknowledge that other jurisdictions commonly have different rules. The fact of international differences is, of course, particularly true for works authored prior to the 1990s. ... Kenosis 18:05, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
These templates must be written differently for US and non-US author as minimal claim. In isolation from PD-status they must very clearly indicate the difference, the good example is {{PD-US-1923-abroad}} or {{Do not move to Commons}}. See also Template talk:PD-US#This template needs to be split into two. But I suggest, such actions are not enough. Alex Spade 10:32, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Dear Alex, this is not a particularly good idea. At some point, the community here at the English Wikipedia decided that the English Wikipedia would operate exclusively under U.S. law. Lupo 19:10, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I know. But this is/was old decision, before CD-versions and Resolution:Licensing policy from March 23 2007 had appeared on Wikipedia rule stage. I suggest, the current rule is outdated, it is contradicting to Resolution:Licensing policy. Alex Spade 10:32, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't have the details of how this decision was arrived at, but the alternative is impractical: as the English-language edition of the Wikipedia is accessed and written by people from all over the world, we would have to comply to the least common denominator of all the copyright laws in the world. That would mean: no fair use at all (maybe not such a bad thing after all :-) and use the longest copyright span we can find (which is, AFAIK, that of the Mexican law: 100 years p.m.a) Lupo 19:10, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
The Wikimedia Commons project has/had same problem - it's International project on US-servers too. Let's don't mix cases: (а) "this work is free in most of the World, exсept some countries" and (b) "This work is free only in these contries, but still copyrighted in all other World". There is VERY large difference between (a) and (b). Alex Spade 10:32, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
At the utmost, I think you could argue that the English Wikipedia should follow both U.S. and UK law (Australia and Canada have much smaller populations, and somewhat more permissive copyright laws anyway). You'd still lose most of "fair use", and have to account for the 70years p.m.a. of the UK (and of the European Union), and you'd maybe even have to give up using Bridgeman. In view of this, I think going purely by U.S. law is much better. And simpler—I don't even want to start considering the troubles we'd have to make people understand why they couldn't use a pre-1923 work which is PD in the U.S. just because its author happened to die less than 70 years ago. As long as our content is clearly and correctly tagged, re-users of our content in other countries can still evaluate all the images and eliminate those that are not PD in their jurisdiction. Lupo 19:10, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Your point about derivative works of originals that are PD in the U.S. only is a good one (if the derivative is tagged only GFDL, the information about the copyright status of the underlying base work is lost), but I don't think you'd need U.S.-only versions of the GFDL and so on. It would suffice to mention that the base work was PD only in the U.S. The case that someone creates an original derivative from a work that is PD in the U.S. only is probably sufficiently rare that we don't need special tags for that. Note that non-original derivatives (such as cropping, scaling, zooming, digital enhancements, restorations, colorations) do not give rise to a new copyright on the derivative work, and thus the derivative must use the same license or the same PD tag as the underlying base work anyway. See WP:PD#Derived works and restorations of works in the public domain. Lupo 19:10, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] And one more PD template

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Image_copyright_tags/Public_domain#.7B.7BPD-US-1923-abroad.7D.7D. I didn't create the template, by the way. Tyrenius 03:20, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Now I've removed it again. It seems to be redundant and covered by {{PD-art-US}}. See above for explanation. Tyrenius 03:34, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pre-1964 Time magazines out of copyright

Per a discussion thread in Wikipedia talk:Non-free content and a related dispute over the public domain status of a historical Time magazine cover, I searched the U.S. Copyright Office records for copyright renewals by Time Inc. on editions of Time magazine originally published between 1923—when the magazine first appeared—and 1963, the last year for which such renewals were required to maintain copyright. For the searchable U.S. Copyright Office database, my primary string consisted of Keywords: +Time +vol +## (vol. 56, covering July–December 1950, is the first volume for which renewals appear in the searchable database). Where this method revealed gaps in renewals, other strings were used to verify that the gaps were not the result of syntactical recording errors. For 1923 through the first half of 1950 (i.e., for renewals filed between 1950 and 1977), the authoritative UPenn catalog of directly photocopied U.S. Copyright Office copyright renewal records was employed.

This search reveals that Time Inc. did not renew the copyright on editions published between 1923 and 1933. It renewed the copyright on most, but not all of the editions of Time magazine published between 1934 and 1963. The available evidence shows that copyright renewals were not filed for the following editions (dates given are the magazine cover dates, not the original copyright dates, which were often several days before the cover date):

  • Vols. 1–22 inclusive:
March 3, 1923–Dec. 25, 1933
  • Vol. 23, nos. 1-4: Jan. 1, 1934–Jan. 22, 1934
  • Vol. 25, nos. 1–25: Jan. 7, 1935–June 24, 1935
  • Vol. 26, nos. 1–27: July 1, 1935–Dec. 30, 1935
  • Vol. 27, nos. 1–26: Jan. 6, 1936–June 29, 1936
  • Vol. 30, no. 3: July 19, 1937
  • Vol. 31, no. 1: Jan. 3, 1938
  • Vol. 33, no. 1: Jan. 2, 1939
  • Vol. 34, nos. 1–10: July 3, 1939–Sept. 4, 1939
  • Vol. 41, no. 1: Jan. 4, 1943
  • Vol. 45, nos. 2–5: Jan. 8–Jan. 29, 1945
  • Vol. 52, nos. 1–7: July 5–Aug. 16, 1948
  • Vol. 57, no. 1: Jan. 1, 1951
  • Vol. 61, nos. 1–26: Jan. 5, 1953–June 29, 1953
  • Vol. 62, nos. 1–26: July 6, 1953–Dec. 28, 1953
  • Vol. 63, no. 1: Jan. 4, 1954
  • Vol. 65, nos. 18, 23: May 2, 1955; June 6, 1955
  • Vol. 66, no. 26: Dec. 26, 1955
  • Vol. 67, no. 15: April 9, 1956
  • Vol. 70, nos. 15, 26: Oct. 7, 1957; Dec. 23, 1957
  • Vol. 71, no. 1: Jan. 6, 1958
  • Vol. 73, no. 1: Jan. 5, 1959
  • Vol. 76, no. 22: Nov. 28, 1960
  • Vol. 78, nos. 8, 11, 23: Aug. 25, 1961; Sept. 15, 1961; Dec. 8, 1961
  • Vol. 81, no. 1: Jan. 4, 1963

My question here is if there is an effective way of maintaining this data--not as direct evidence itself that a given edition is out of copyright (the relevant records database should always be referenced for that purpose), but as a guide for editors researching the status of specific editions.—DCGeist 22:10, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] PD Image Question

This image was removed from Old Scona Academic High School under the claim that the subject of the image (a former teacher) did not give permission to use their photograph. Since the image was taken (probably by a student) and uploaded under the PD license, is consent required from the image's subject? UnfriendlyFire 00:44, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Possibly. See personality rights. Haukur 07:10, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright

Forgive me if I am posting on the wrong page. I have consulted with a number of knowledgeable professionals ( I I dislike the term "lawyers") and have been told the laws of the base country ( if Wiki's base is in US, then the applicable laws are American) have dominence over other claims.

Please advise, I am willing to support any case that has a legitmate and basis if it is integral to the future of this domain.

I feel that, regardless of the occasional prank and buffoon, this is the single, most effective way of combating ignorance and oppression by democratic governemts, rational thinkers, and other free-minded people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thedoggedtruth (talk • contribs) 04:07, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Magazine advertisements

What is the copyright status of the advertisements published in a magazine? Advertisements published in US magazines prior to 1978 typically do not have a © notice on themselves, but the magazine usually has. This probably does not mean that the magazine publisher owns any rights on the advertisement, which was in many cases published in various magazines at the time. However does this © sign on the magazine imply that all the contents, including the advertisements, is copyrighted to its respective authors, e.g. the advertising company? The same question is probably valid for photographs published in a magazine, with an author's name but no specific © notice other than that of the full magazine. --Rebollo fr 17:41, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Google Earth

Does anyone know where I can find a discussion about the copyright status of Google Earth material? I'm writing an article about a public statue. Another Wikipedian has found it on Google Earth and has managed to zoom in on it, to the point where it is clear enough to use in the article. Question is: what is the copyright status? Note: it's not an image added by a Google Earth user; it's an image obtained by zooming in on the satellite photograph. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:55, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Correction, I have that wrong. It's an image added by a Google Earth user. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:57, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Probably better asked on Wikipedia:Media Copyright Questions. But - their terms and conditions stipulate no commercial use, which prevents us using map images here see here. If the image is a user's photograph, that's a more complicated issue - do you have a link to the image in question ? Easiest is to ask the google earth user to upload it here under the GFDL. Megapixie (talk) 00:50, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Many thanks for the response, MP. Actually I just found the same image on another site, so I've written to that site to ask where they got it from. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 03:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bureau of Labor Statistics is PD

I just wanted to note here that everything the BLS in the Dept. of Labor publishes is in the PD. They merely request to be sourced. [16] I think there should be listed under Public Domain: Public Records. I also think that we should include links to Public Domain databases like Domain Info and other lists. Jadeddissonance (talk) 18:41, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The copyright status of the Edison Records sound recordings

To some, the presumption seems to be that the Edison Records recordings are out of copyright, or that copyright effectively does not apply in the case of the Edison Records recordings. In particular, there is the {{PD-Edison_Records}} template on the Wikimedia Commons site, which mentions the Edison Records assets as being held by the National Park Service. In addition, the Survey of Reissues of U.S. Recordings report (August 2005) from the National Recording Preservation Board mentions the recordings from Thomas A. Edison's companies, and it is said that the U.S. government eventually received the legal title to the recordings.

Near the end of December 2007, the National Park Service (which is in charge of the Edison National Historic Site) was contacted regarding the copyright status of the Edison Records sound recordings. According to the museum curator Jerry Fabris, the simple answer is that the copyright status of the recordings is unclear. In particular, the donation of the copyrights to the American people by Edison is unfortunately "most likely a myth, unsubstantiated by any official documentation", though the belief of such a donation often comes up. In the curator's view, the Edison Records recordings could be "orphaned works" with regard to copyrights. On the audio duplication policy page for the Edison National Historic Site, it is stated that "The National Park Service does not presume that all Edison recordings are in the public domain." In any case, the Edison National Historic Site offers no-cost digital downloads of certain Edison recordings, as well as a list of Web sites for finding historical recordings. - Elegie (talk) 03:15, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

The practical difference is minuscule, though. With a clear statement from a source we can trust (and I presume an NPS museum curator is such a source) that these are "orphan works", we may just as well treat them as PD-US. "Orphan work" means that although there may technically still be copyrights, the rights holders are unknown and could not be located even through diligent research. Given that these recordings are held by a US governmental agency, I would think that our treating them as PD-US, albeit maybe technically not entirely correct, shouldn't cause any problems for anyone. Lupo 12:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
The Commons template is almost certainly wrong, but the confusion arises because these are sound recordings which were fixed before 1972-02-15. As such, they are subject to state copyright, not federal copyright (17 U.S.C. 301(c)). I agree that we are risking very little by hosting them, but their copyright status in general is unclear. Physchim62 (talk) 13:08, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
From what was said in the reply, it was the belief of the curator that the recordings are "orphaned works." At the same time, the curator said that they were not qualified to give legal advice (which makes sense.) - Elegie (talk) 04:20, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
The Library of Congress is probably the better source for this, because they have a lot more experience with copyright issues.--Pharos (talk) 18:30, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Required PD style pointer

Whether there is a required style for reused PD text is being asked at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Style guideline for PD sourced content. -- SEWilco (talk) 20:51, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Public Domain Search

I searched high and low for a public domain search engine, and couldn't find a half-decent one, so I've created one: Appropedia:Appropedia's Public Domain Search.

IMO this would be a very valuable addition to this page, but since it's my work, I'll let someone else add it.

Btw, it's a work in progress, returns mostly public domain content, and all help would be very much appreciated! So far it's just US federal govt content plus Project Gutenberg. --Chriswaterguy talk 07:54, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] US Copyright of unpublished, anonymous works from 1888-1897

Several people have told me that unpublished, anonymous works created prior to 1896 expired after 100 years, under the rules in effect before 1996. I don't have copies of the 1978 and 1989 copyright laws to confirm or deny this. This is relevant to the newly published July 1888 Helen Keller photograph. Can anyone provide citations to prove this one way or the other? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:31, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Here's a cite, but you have to unwind it a little: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap3.html. Section 303(a) is the starting point:
(a) Copyright in a work created before January 1, 1978, but not theretofore in the public domain or copyrighted, subsists from January 1, 1978, and endures for the term provided by section 302. In no case, however, shall the term of copyright in such a work expire before December 31, 2002; and, if the work is published on or before December 31, 2002, the term of copyright shall not expire before December 31, 2047.
In the Helen Keller photo case, the photo was not published prior to 12/31/2002, so the only part we have to worry about is "endures for the term provided by section 302." Here's section 302(c), the pertinent part of section 302, in its present form:
In the case of an anonymous work... the copyright endures for a term of 95 years from the year of its first publication, or a term of 120 years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first.
However, this is what this section looked like after it was amended in 1998, not as it was when it took effect in 1978, and most importantly, not as it was in effect in 1988 (for reasons I'll explain). The 1998 amendment is noted in footnote 4:
In 1998, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act amended section 302 by substituting “70” for “fifty,” “95” for “seventy-five,” and “120” for “one hundred” each place they appeared. Pub. L. No. 105-298, 112 Stat. 2827. This change was effective October 27, 1998. Id.
So from 1978-1997, this clause read (changed text in bold):
In the case of an anonymous work... the copyright endures for a term of seventy-five years from the year of its first publication, or a term of one hundred years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first.
The consequence of this is that any anonymous work that was created 1897 or earlier, and not published 2002 or earlier (to get that section 303 boost to 2047), would have come up for expiration 100 years after creation, i.e. by 1997 at the latest; before the 1998 term extension law was enacted. In the case of the Keller photo, the copyright expired December 31, 1988, 100 years after it was created. The law was amended 10 years later to change the term, but nothing in that law took works out of the public domain and reinstated any copyrights.
The above is discussing anonymous works. This applies just as much to works-made-for-hire and to pseudonymous works, because those are also within the scope of section 302(c). A similar, but not quite the same, analysis applies to works where the author is a known human being, which are covered by 302(a): in 1998, the 302(a) term changed from life+50 to life+70. So basically we look to whether the author died in 1947 or earlier (in which case the life+50 term applies, because the work would expire at the latest in 1997); or in 1948 or later (in which case the copyright would have still been in the life+50 term as of 1998, and thus still in force to obtain the benefit of the 20-year extension).TJRC (talk) 22:26, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Recommended changes to Unpublished Works section

In light of the above discussion, I recommend the following changes or any other wording that would convey the same information:

  • Re-title the section to Unpublished and belatedly published works
  • Add the following at the beginning of the section:
An unpublished work is a work that has never been published. A belatedly published work is a work that was published long after it was created. Unpublished and belatedly published works may have copyrights that expired or will expire earlier or later than they would have if they were published and copyrighted at the time of creation. Registered works may be unpublished but for the purposes of copyright they are generally treated as if they were published at the time of registration.
  • Add the following at the end:
Anonymous and pseudonymous works, and works for which the date of the author's death generally enter the public domain according to this table:
  • Published prior to 2003: See rules outlined elsewhere.
  • Created before 1898: Entered the public domain on or before 1/1/1998.
  • Created in 1898 or later: January 1 of the year following the 120th anniversary of the work's creation.
Works with known authors generally enter the public domain according to this table:
  • Published prior to 2003: See rules outlined elsewhere.
  • If the author or last author of a collaboration died before 1948: Entered the public domain 50 years after the last author's death.
  • If the author or last author of a collaboration died in 1948 or later: January 1 of the year following the 75th anniversary of the last author's death.
Reference: US Copyright law immediately prior to the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998.

Please comment for style and appropriateness and make any corrections. If there is a clear, off-wiki, electronic copy of the copyright act as it existed immediately prior to 1998, that would make a good reference. The only references I've seen were of current versions with footnotes saying what had changed. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 23:32, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RFC mandatory quotation of public domain text

Is it mandatory or acceptable to require that public domain text be in a quotation style? Please participate in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RFC mandatory quotation of public domain text. -- SEWilco (talk) 03:31, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia public domain custom

Can someone confirm to an editor that "the custom is that we attribute public domain text but it then can be edited. We don't freeze text in quotations." at Talk:Bathhouse Row#Restoration of quoting to credit Harrison ? He seems to think I'm using the royal "we". -- SEWilco (talk) 02:00, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

<Without commenting on the particular case above> I've been here since year one. It has been common practice to start an article with PD text but dumping PD text with no or little editing has been frowned upon since PD text is often not written in an encyclopedic/neutral tone, is too dense/detailed, wrong, incomplete or otherwise needs to be edited and improved (See WP:NOT 2.4 #3).

When a good PD source is available for a topic I wish to write about, I'll copyedit/refactor/summarize/wikify that as appropriate and then further improve the text by introducing original prose based on non-PD references (see Yosemite National Park and 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens for examples). Of course, proper use of inline cites is needed throughout. Here is the key: The resulting text should be significantly better/more informative as an encyclopedia article than the original PD text alone.

It would be a great disservice to the project if we had to put all blocks of PD text in quotes since we couldn't improve on that text. Providing a link to the website the PD text is hosted on would almost be better. --mav (talk) 04:19, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Continuing update

The sentence "In the U.S., any work published before January 1, 1923 anywhere in the world[1] is in the public domain." actually should be updated each day. For example, today (March 25th) it should read "In the U.S., any work published before March 25, 1923 anywhere in the world[1] is in the public domain." Tomorrow (March 26), it should read "In the U.S., any work published before March 26, 1923 anywhere in the world[1] is in the public domain." Does someone know of a code to add to the text to automatically update this date? GregManninLB (talk) 15:07, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

No it should not be continually updated. The day will always remain January 1, and the year will remain fixed at 1923 until 2019, when it will switch to 1924. (Barring future changes to the U.S. copyright law, of course.) Lupo 15:25, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Just to explain the January 1 date: in the United States, copyrights always expire on December 31 of the year in which they expire, not on the anniversary date of the event (publication, creation, or author death, depending on certain details) that controls for expiration. See 17 U.S.C. § 305.

[edit] Works ineligible for copyright protection

Re:

In short: U.S. Federal Government works, or no creative content

FWIW, apparently this works differently in Australia - lists of info such as a phone directory would be ineligible (no creative content) in the US, but are covered by copyright in Australia. (From convo with an academic - sorry, have no ref.) --Chriswaterguy talk 10:16, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Olympic rings

Image:Olympic Rings.svg claims the flag to be protected by copyright. How is that possible, given that the creator of the flag died more than 70 years ago? (212.247.11.156 (talk) 17:25, 7 May 2008 (UTC))

Strictly speaking, it's not copyright. Copyright pertains to works of authorship and is in Title 17 of the U.S. Code. The Olympic symbols and slogans are protected by a separate special purpose statute, 36 U.S.C. § 22050(a)(2). It's not copyright, but provides an exclusive right-to-use: "Except as provided in subsection (d) of this section, the corporation [i.e., the United States Olympic Committee] has the exclusive right to use... the symbol of the International Olympic Committee, consisting of 5 interlocking rings..." TJRC (talk) 21:33, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Signatures/autographs

I just wanted to confirm that the community at large considers handwritten signatures, being nothing more than a name in a particular stylized font or calligraphy, ineligible for copyright. Right? Postdlf (talk) 18:38, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ... as such ...

In reference to the Fonts section, is it grammatically correct to use as such so prolifically in the quote and then again in the content? It would appear that the phrase is used in this instance as a redundant term that does not add to the expression or definition. Does anyone have an objection to modification here? - Cheers Mark Vincent Andmark (talk) 02:28, 25 May 2008 (UTC)