Commons talk:Licensing/Archive 36

hello i have licensing for this photo O0240032011309555061.jpg

i have cretive commons licensing but i cant put this on imagen description i dont know how do it someone can help me?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lightgus36 (talk • contribs) 17:42, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I assume this is about File:O0240032011309555061.jpg, but what you are asking is unclear. From the odd wording above, I'm guessing that you speak some other language better than you speak English. Could you try writing your question in your native language and see if someone can make sense of what you are asking? - Jmabel ! talk 01:05, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I couldn't find where the license is on the source you provided, but anyway you are trying to add a "no-derivatives" license, which is not compatible with the Wikimedia policy. -- Asclepias (talk) 20:26, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Pictures of Tamara Bunke

There are new pictures in the article of Tamara Bunke. They improve the article considerably. But what about possible copyright problems? I remember, that I've searched myself such pictures at The German Federal Archives and found the pages for two photos, which were not visible and replaced by black places with an explanation, that there were either uncleared copyrights or other problems. After futher searching there, I've read Prensa Latina claimed to have all rights at her picture and that publications would need their approval. I think, that I've also read, Tamara Bunke's mother had given all rights to Prensa Latina too. Could they have really the copyrights? - Unsigned

I'm guessing the links in the above are meant to be Tamara Bunke, German Federal Archives and Prensa Latina. - Jmabel ! talk 15:45, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, these are the correct links. 78.43.96.123 15:58, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Meanwhile there is only one page for Tamara Bunke without a blacked place but a similar explanation. [See here.] 78.43.96.123 16:37, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Is this license permitted on Commons?

I just came across this image and was wondering if this kind of license is permitted on Commons. In particular, it's written "Attribution of this image to the author is required in a prominent location near to the image", which seems to mean we cannot use this image on Wikipedia since we never put the author's name near the images. What do you think? Laurent (talk) 04:28, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

It looks fine to me. It is clear from comments on his/her talk page that s/he encourages use of images on Wikipedias, e.g., "we donate images primarily because of their use in the encyclopaedia". Please see User_talk:Diliff#misrepresenting_CC-BY. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 05:14, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

It seems his intentions indeed are to share his images, but isn't his license a bit too restrictive for Wikipedia? In particular, aren't we violating his license is we use his work without crediting him right next to the picture? Laurent (talk) 05:41, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me that he is only trying to summarize the (perfectly fine) licenses it is there under. However, yes, there are a couple of errors in the summary. First, a URI (not URL) to the license is required (there is a technical difference), and it is only required if actually distributing the works (not just on usages). Second, you have the right idea on the point you touch on -- Creative Commons licenses explicitly allow the credit to be placed in any "reasonable manner"; authors cannot specify the placement. Their FAQ recently clarified that. So yes, that part of the summary should be changed to be more accurate. If you take the "summary" to be part of the actual license text, there could be a problem, but calling it a "summary" basically indicates that that part is not binding legal conditions. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:45, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh, come on, not that URI/URL-thing again: An URI can be either an URL or an URN, tertium non datur. This also means that there is no URI that is neither URN nor URL. All three terms are well defined in according RFCs, look it up in the corresponding articles. This is set theory, 1st lesson. The goal of this part of the license is to point out a ressource where the user can find both the license deed and the full legal code, e.g. what these cc-by-blahblah-abbreviations contain and the implications for the user. Since today there is no URN-Scheme like 'urn:licenses:cc:...' and hence no service which can direct the user to the information mentioned above, this leads to the conclusion that it has to be an URL. In future there might be some URN-based service, but not now. If you don't agree, simply show me an URN for CC-by-sa 3.0 unported which leads me to the legal code. --Gnu1742 (talk) 09:27, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I have consistently taken a stand against such licenses. They preclude (or at least attempt to preclude -- CLindberg argues that they cannot accomplish what they attempt) use of the image on web sites and in print media that collect all credits in one place which is common practice. Such a restriction, if effective, would mean that the image could not be used in many places. In this case, I also wonder how they justify WP breaking their rule while demanding more from other potential users.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 11:21, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree with James. We should agree on a Commons policy not to allow such restrictions. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 12:15, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

You might think it's straightforward to create policies like that, but you don't seem to appreciate that it is the license terms that should determine the restrictions. If you create extra restrictions over the top of the license, then you make it extremely messy in terms of using CC-BY-SA licensed images. Currently, if you want to use an image, you only need to look at what it is licensed as. If it is CC-BY-SA, you can use it. If you implement the policy you're talking about, suddenly you have to look through every image in the collection to determine if any stipulations (which are compatible with the CC-BY-SA license) might be incompatible with said policy. The far smarter way to deal with images (especially now that the license which Commons uses has already been decided on) is to let the license determine what can and can't be done. Diliff (talk) 14:48, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Correct, but some people (not you) have had licenses that really, really appear as though they are actually modifying the Creative Commons terms to something more restrictive -- that is certainly a legal right of the authors, but it creates all sorts of issues for use here, as you say. In your case, I thought it was pretty clear that you were attempting to summarize the legal code and not augment it. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Legal interpretations may differ from those technical definitions. If someone updates an RFC, that does not really change the terms of the license. A string like "license:cc-by-sa-3.0" could well be enough; not sure the URI scheme needs to be generally defined. Even a Creative Commons page gives a generic label as an acceptable way to do it in video (where technical URIs make less sense), which implies a more generic interpretation of "URI" than the technical definitions would seem to require. Now, this particular requirement only kicks in on either distribution or public performance (defined in the license) -- not sure that use on a web page qualifies for that (though obviously in a web context, links to the license really should always be used). Given though that the license itself says "URI", it may be best to have summaries use the same term and not try to interpret it much further than that by saying "URL", unless as part of an example -- that was my only point. That one is kinda minor though, and not worth losing any sleep over, as the general public may understand "URL" better. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

For the record, in light of the clarification in the FAQ on the CC Wiki page, I'm more than happy to amend my attribution requirements to include "where possible". My intention was never to add additional restrictions, it was only to clarify my terms. You may not appreciate the fact that I receive a huge number of requests (both on my Commons and En Wiki talk page, and through private message) to use my image, and most of them seek clarification/confirmation that how they intend to use the image does not breach the CC terms. I do my best to clarify it on the image page so that I don't have to answer every question individually. I personally don't think the license templates are sufficiently dumbed down and summarised for general purpose reusers, but that's another topic completely. Diliff (talk) 15:08, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Yup, that is what it appeared like to me (you have some amazing photos here; I'm sure they are in demand). Agreed that the simple summary doesn't always answer enough questions, and summarizing like you do is perfectly fine -- just a matter of accuracy ;-) Some authors have gotten very sensitive over specifying placement, believing that the CC license gives them that right, when it does not. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

My view is that quite apart from what particular licences may or may not permit, it is surely open to the Commons community to determine by consensus that its content must satisfy certain conditions. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:58, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Sure. I would just disagree that we should have a policy against summarizing the licenses (as long as labeled that way). In particular users with really high-quality content, like User:Diliff, they are just trying to reduce the amount of communication they get -- I see no reason to prevent them from trying to do that. Perhaps we could improve our own license tags to give better direction, and make it more standardized that way, and maybe link to the creative commons FAQ, but I still don't see why we should stop users from clarifying things themselves. Mistakes can always be corrected. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:13, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not at all sure that this is just a summary:

"Attribution of this image to the author (DAVID ILIFF) is required in a prominent location near to the image."

As I said above, this appears to preclude any use of the image in print or on the web in situations where all of the attributions are collected in one place. I don't think the CC-BY terms are actually that restrictive. As I also pointed out above, WP does not give credit in the manner specified.

I would be happy to have a user include a summary with language like

"This is just a summary. If there is a difference between this summary and the CC-BY-SA-XX license terms, the license terms shall control",

but I don't like the license as it appears on the cited page.

It seems to me that once you allow the user to prohibit collected attributions, you have opened the door for the user to add other requirements -- "Attribution in 24 point type" or "A live link to my web page" -- which would preclude many possible uses. I think it is perfectly consistent with our goals to prohibit users from adding extra requirements on top of CC-BY-SA and that we should do so in this case.

David's offer to add "where possible" is a big step in the right direction, but perhaps David might go a little further and say

"I would appreciate it if attribution could be in a prominent location near the image, but other methods permitted by the license are acceptable if necessary."

     Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 17:14, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, the big heading "Summary:" and the line "Please review the full license requirements carefully before using this image" indicate to me he is trying to summarize the existing license, and not trying to extend them. Agreed the summary should be reworded a bit though, as that part is contradictory with CC-BY (and may even be non-free, as you say), and as it stands an inaccurate summary. Changing it to "Attribution of this image to the author (DAVID ILIFF) is required, preferably in a prominent location near to the image" would be fine by me. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:00, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I think Clindberg's words are consistent with the CC FAQ.[1] --Walter Siegmund (talk) 18:08, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Clindberg's suggested text would also be fine with me, although I might change "near to the image" to "near the image".      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 23:10, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Public Domain Calculator

Great new resource for finding out the public domain status of European works: http://outofcopyright.eu/ Kaldari (talk) 23:28, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I added the publisher of it and a note on the target group of people - there are many legal terms (explained by (i).. but... ) and "photo" is summarized under "artistic works". Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 00:26, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

It says that recordings from over 50 years ago from the United Kingdom are public domain, which some people here have said isn't so (see Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_33#UK_sounds_etc). —innotata 15:25, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

They are public domain (or can be). However, if they are songs they may still be subject to the songwriter's copyright (70 pma), depending on a country's copyright law. Also, they could possibly still be copyrighted in the U.S. (this is worse than even just the URAA stuff... old recordings have common-law copyright). But yes in general, the EU protects sounds recordings for 50 years. Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:49, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Notices for "PD in the U.S." in country-specific laws sections?

The country-specific section here is a marvelous resource for determining whether a work is in the public domain in its country of origin. But due to the URAA and other treaty details, it can be difficult to determine whether a work first published in a given country is considered PD in the US or not. (This is a requirement for hosting an image on Commons.) I propose putting a brief line at the bottom of each country's entry, describing which PD works in that country are also PD in the US.

For instance, a 70 p.m.a. country such as Belgium would simply say "Generally, if Belgian law considers a work first published in Belgium to be in the public domain, then the United States also considers that work to be in the public domain." But for Belize it would say "In general, a Belizean work in the public domain in Belize will also be in the public domain in the U.S. if it was either first published before 1923, or if it was in the public domain in Belize in 1996." For Ethiopia, it would simply say "The United States does not recognize Ethiopian copyright."

I think such a line would help people know whether a work can be uploaded to Commons or not. There are recurrent confusions about, say, a Belizean work first published in Belize in 1925, whose author died in 1950. (Such a work is PD in Belize, but not in the U.S., and can't be uploaded to Commons.) What do others think of this? Quadell (talk) 12:30, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

For foreign works, the U.S. follows its own term, regardless of the situation in another country. A work published in 1930 in Belgium can still be copyrighted in the U.S. even if the copyright has expired in Belgium. In general, foreign works published before 1923 are PD in the US. For anything published after that, they would have had to be PD in their source country on the URAA date (January 1, 1996 for most countries) -- if it was still under copyright, the US copyright got restored and still exists, regardless if it has since expired in that source country or not (we use the {{Not-PD-US-URAA}} tag for those while some of the legal uncertainties of the URAA work themselves out). That can be tricky, as some countries have altered their law since then, but that has no further effect in the U.S., so you need to know the history of the changes in copyright law. You can look at en:Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights for more in-depth stuff; the entries for *some* countries there document the 1996 situation, though that is not complete. The description you give for Belize is really the one that applies to most countries (including Belgium). Carl Lindberg (talk) 12:51, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

The URAA grants U.S. copyright on foreign works (if published after 1932, and not PD in their country of origin in 1996, and not previously registered with the U.S. Copyright Office before 1978), I know this... but the U.S only grants these works copyright up to 70 years p.m.a. And Belgian law honors copyright for 70 years p.m.a. anyway. So the URAA doesn't grant U.S. copyright for any longer period than Belgian law gives them. Am I missing something? Quadell (talk) 16:59, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

For the vast majority of those works we have to deal with in practice, the URAA grants U.S. copyright for 95 years following publication. The licensing page does explain the URAA copyright restoration and links to the detailed page on en.wikipedia. Would it really be useful to duplicate that information in the sections of the already lenghty licensing page? Also, en.wikipedia may apply the URAA but Commons has a moderate approach until the matter is resolved in the courts, so it would not exactly help people know whether a work can be uploaded. -- Asclepias (talk) 18:48, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

The U.S. gives 70 pma only for works first published in 1978 or later (which are virtually never eligible on Commons, so its almost irrelevant here). Otherwise, it is 95 years from publication (for restored works). So, if there is a Belgian work published in 1925 from an author who died in 1930, it was still copyrighted in Belgium in 1996, so even though it expired in Belgium in 2001, its U.S. copyright got restored and will remain copyrighted in the U.S. until 2021. A work from the same author published in 1921 on the other hand is PD in both countries (it got "restored" to a term of 75 years after publication, which has still expired). Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:44, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Wow. That's even more complicated (and absurd) than I thought. Thanks for your expertise, guys! Also, it appears Commons policy on URAA-disqualified works is less set-in-stone than I'd thought. I withdraw my original suggestion. All the best, Quadell (talk) 11:03, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Not sure I'd call it absurd; just the result of the U.S. using terms based on publication date, and other countries using the death of the author. There are going to be mismatches both ways, simple as that. The hard part is determining the 1996 status, really. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:48, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Carl is right. What we need to document here is the copyright law in effect in each country on January 1, 1996 (if it is different than the current copyright law). Numerous countries have changed their copyright laws since 1996, most notably Canada. We need to add that information into the country specific sections. Kaldari (talk) 22:13, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, but if the URAA is struck down later this year then the current presentation is actually what we want. So let's make sure any changes we make are easily reversible. Dcoetzee (talk) 22:08, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

A. H. Searle

Are there any information about the author "A. H. Searle" available? Category:A. H. Searle, 20 images by A. H. Searle To be sure that images by this author are licensed correctly? Othewise it will be necessary to upload it to English wikipedia in the same way as for example en:File:Chytra_kirki_shell_3.png. --Snek01 (talk) 21:27, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

He's listed as an author on work done in 1860[2] (though I'm not sure they didn't get the date completely wrong); I find sources I'm more comfortable with for 1880[3] and 1910. One source names an A. H. Searle as dead in WWI[4], but I think that's a different AH Searle. [5] says he's from London. He may have been part of Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, which would put him back to 1875, but it's possible that's family or unrelated. (Obviously not him; [6] clearly says "that well-known team of A. H. Searle, lithographer, and Mintern Brothers, printers".)

If you feel that 1860 is a good date, calling him 20 at the time and saying he lived to 100 would give you a safe death date of 1940, which is PD in the UK. 1880 would only give you 1960, which a bit too late.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:24, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

This advertisement from a 1905 book (which contains some of his drawings) identifies him as Arthur H. Searle, and an address of 22 St. George's Ave, Tufnell Park, London. I think that address is in Islington. There are definitely works of his at least as far back as 1880. Unfortunately that is a pretty common name. This shows there was an Arthur Herbert Searle born in Islington in September 1854, but who knows if that's the same person. The register image had a different "Arthur Searle" being born in a nearby town the same month, and there are multiple hits on that name. There was an Arthur Searle who died in Islington in December 1928 at age 69[7], but given the age that is not the same person as the birth record, but one of them could be our person (or neither). Other possible records, just in the London area: Here is an Arthur Searle dying at age 75 in March 1928 in Stepney, Here is an Arthur Searle dying in Hanover Square at age 62 in December 1915, and here is an Arthur H. Searle dying at age 54 in Pancras in March 1914. No telling if any of these are the same person though. I didn't see any other possible death records, at least in London, through 1965. Looking across the UK, I find only one possible post 1940 death record here, an Arthur Searle dying at age 89 in Newmarket in March 1950. That would put him at roughly 20 years old, already doing illustrations in 1880 though. There are lots of other pre-1940 possibilities in the death records though. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:44, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Aha. I had seen an Arthur Hodson Searle associated with translating works of w:Emanuel Swedenborg, and related works, but was not able to make a connection. However, that is the same person. From here, a metallurgical journal from 1938 which either contains or is discussing a just-published translation of Swedenborg's Opera philosophica et mineralis, which Searle had done in the early 1900s but never published at the time. It has this note:

[...] and a biographical note on the translator, Arthur Hodson Searle, who was born in 1839 and died in 1914. At the age of about four he suffered an illness which deprived him completely of his hearing, and consequently for a time of speech. He was taught the finger alphabet and lip-reading, and thus learned to converse, although in a somewhat muffled voice. In spite of these physical disabilities he became an excellent Hebrew and Latin scholar. He was not a metallurgist, being in fact occupied as an artist in reproducing for the engraver plates of conchological specimens. All in all, his preparation of this translation is a remarkable achievement, [...]

So, Arthur Hodson Searle, 1839-1914. Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:17, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Great research, Carl! (I had seen that Swedenborg Searle, too, but also failed to make the connection.) Birth and death years confirmed by the NaturalHistory Museum, London: [8]. I've created Creator:A. H. Searle. Lupo 08:21, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Video of Wikipedia Takes Montreal on Commons

Hi there, the newspaper The Gazette accept to put this video under free licence and upload it on Commons. The journalist Roberto Rocha wrote me an email : "I got permission to share the slideshow as a CC item. The bosses will make an exception, since we used so many CC photos from the members. I can send you the .mov file. I would need to change the credits at the end from a © to a CC, no?"

Now here's couple questions :

• what would be THE good way to write the attribution at the end of the movie? © Roberto Rocha / The Gazette / CC BY-SA 3.0 Anoyone can tell me what is the best way to write it?
• Do I have to go through OTRS process even if the movie show CC BY-SA 3.0 licence?
• Is it easy to transfer MOV to OGG? Witch software is best?

Thank you for your answers. Benoit Rochon (talk) 21:22, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

File:Ruby Bridges and Obama.jpg

Hi, I have noticed this file is currently on Commons under a PD-USGOV license. However, it features the copyrighted painting The Problem We All Live With in the right side of the image, visible at an angle. Is this allowed at Commons? Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:31, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Although, as you say, it is visible, and certainly the subject of the discussion between Bridges and Obama (she is the subject of the painting), I would say that it is de minimis because only a portion is visible, also because of the angle, the reflection of the lampshade, and the White House watermark.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 11:51, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. It was part of a DYK nomination, so I wanted to be sure. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:12, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Panama

Was trying to figure out the correct licensing of this photo - does anyone have a handle on the copyright laws of Panama? Kelly (talk) 22:27, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Panama is 50 pma, at least since 1994, but not sure before that. The Canal Zone was really subject to U.S. law though (there was an order which applied U.S. copyright law to it). That has an explicit copyright notice on it, meaning it may well have been first published in the U.S. anyways. The photographer apparently did make the photographs for this book, so presumably he was aligned somewhat with U.S. publishers, though I can't see the contents (oh, it is online, here). I'd probably just use {{PD-US}}. There is a version already on en-wiki at en:File:PanamaCanal1913a.jpg. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:13, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks - yeah, I was wanting to move the en image over to Commons. I will use PD-US...hopefully someone with the ability can take a look at Panama law and add an entry on this page. Kelly (talk) 23:29, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Still relicensing files

Since August 1, 2009, one is not allowed anymore to relicense GFDL files as GFDL + CC-BY-SA, is that right? Why some bots are still in action? --LoStrangolatore (talk) 10:23, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

That image was uploaded prior to August 1, 2009 on another Wikimedia site. So it can still be relicensed. – Adrignola talk 17:39, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Press photos explicitely for free use, but no CC or Free Art License mentioned

This page offers press photos in high resolution for gratis use ("Pressefotos in hoher Auflösung zum Download und zur kostenlosen Verwendung"). A Creative Commons or Free Art License is not explicitely mentioned. How may/can I upload these in WM Commons? --Antiachtundsechziger (talk) 10:28, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Commons requires that images be licensed for all use, not just press, so this license is not enough. You could ask the photographer to give us a license, using the procedure at Commons:OTRS.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 12:35, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Using a non-free font in bitmap format?

This is a question that concerns the Commons:Stroke Order Project. Currently, there are no good open source Chinese font available. The ones currently used on the project have some errors (some strokes are not quite right) and some Chinese characters are missing. So I was thinking: would it be ok to use one of the Chinese fonts shipped with Windows (such as KaiTi)? Since we convert the fonts to bitmap format, we are not technically redistributing the font, is that right? Also I read here and here that fonts, once in bitmap format, cannot be protected by copyright. So if I understand correclty, this would allow us to use KaiTi for the project. What do you think? Laurent (talk) 13:26, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Bitmaps like that can't be protected by U.S. law, right. If the font was made by a foreign firm... not entirely sure in that case, since Commons does pay attention to laws in the country of origin. Sounds like the font you mention is by a Chinese firm. Given the goals of the project "to create a complete set of high quality and free illustrations to clearly show the stroke orders of Han characters"... not sure I'd want to use a commercial font for that. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:19, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Free license, but not CC or Free Art License

I'd like to upload a logo distributed under a free license (chosen by the author to be the same as the free Debian logo), but Special:UploadWizard only gives the choice between various CC licenses and Free Art License. What should I do? Vincent Lefèvre (talk) 14:57, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Don't use Special:UploadWizard. Use Commons:Upload or Special:Upload or Special:Upload (basic). Add a valid free license and a link to a source where the author's declaration can be verified. -- Asclepias (talk) 15:32, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Can I do this with photos from this page, too? It offers press "photos in high resolution for gratis use" ("Pressefotos in hoher Auflösung zum Download und zur kostenlosen Verwendung"). A Creative Commons or Free Art License is not explicitely mentioned. The persons on the photos are also the website's responsable editors. --Antiachtundsechziger (talk) 16:18, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

As per "bei Verwendung mithin bitte Hinweis „Foto: B.C. Richter“, im Web mit Link" {{Attribution}} might be more appropriate, but that does not necessarily equal a CC-BY license. --Túrelio (talk) 16:20, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

I would like to use the other one (foto 1) for a WP article about this person. WP articles should be equal to press articles ..? --Antiachtundsechziger (talk) 16:24, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

No, they are not. Beside, we do not accept "for Wikipedia only" uploads. Warum fragst du die Website-Inhaberin nicht, ob sie es unter CC-BY freigibt? --Túrelio (talk) 16:32, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

National Optical Astronomy Observatory

Can I upload astronomical images from the National Optical Astronomy Observatory ? A Copyright tag is not available. The Copyright information is found here, but I cannot understood that juristic text well. Antonsusi (talk) 20:39, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

No, because they require special permission for commercial use. Files restricted to {{Noncommercial}} use are not free and therefore not allowed on Commons. —LX (talk, contribs) 22:16, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Isn't that an official US-organisation ? Antonsusi (talk) 22:43, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

No, it is not part of the U.S. federal government, and as such, is not subject to {{PD-USGov}}. Their blurb says "NOAO is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy under a Cooperative Agreement with the National Science Foundation." That Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. claims copyright. It would seem as though they have an NSF grant, but unless that cooperative agreement specifies something special about the copyright status of works produced by the NOAO, the organization doing the work still owns normal copyright. Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:10, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

That's nice for them, but sad for us :-( Antonsusi (talk) 00:54, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

NARA Copyrights on old WW2 German photos

Wouldn't the photos under http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:National_Archives_and_Records_Administration/Categorize/US_National_Archives_series:_Album_Prints_Documenting_Nazi_Party_Celebrations,_%22Reichs-Parteitag_Ernte-Dankfest%22,_compiled_1935_-_1935 be considered "Seized Alien Property" such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hitler_1928.jpg and not to be copied to the Commons? It's highly unlikely that the work is a US Government work as the tag would suggest. It was likely taken by a German photographer, stored somewhere and "liberated" by the US after they won the war.

Should the images not be tagged with an Attribution tag instead, as were the photos of Bin Laden seized by the US after the raid on his compound in Pakistan? http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Osama_bin_Laden_making_a_video_at_his_compound_in_Pakistan-2.jpg Oaktree b (talk) 02:22, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

They may be PD in the U.S. because of the alien property thing, but yes, those types of things should not be using the PD-USGov tag. It is possible that {{Anonymous-EU}} applies to some of them though. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:10, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Laos

Can we also create a license tag for images published in Laos? Laos has no copyright law, they have drafted legislation to comply with WIPO I believe, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bounnhang_Vorachit.gif, but as of today (2011), they still have not passed the law yet. Therefore, no copyright. Similar to Afghanistan with no copyright law, that country/situation has a tag at Commons. Oaktree b (talk) 02:49, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

We have {{PD-Laos}}. I think the en-wiki tag is out of date. Their law did go into effect I think, in 2008. According to the U.S. Copyright Office, they also joined the Universal Copyright Convention in 1955, so they must have had some sort of law. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:07, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Pictures of old paintings

I was going to upload some images of some old murals and paintings (ranging from 6th to 10th century), taken from some books and museum websites, but then hesitated because I don't know what exactly is the copyright status. In British Museum, for example, it claims that even if a picture is no longer in copyright, the copyright of the photograph of the picture belongs to them and so cannot be used unless permission is sought first. Some of the pictures I was going to upload were of ancient murals destroyed during the second world war, so they no longer exist except for the photographs, so is the copyright for the relatively new photographs (pre-WWII) or the ancient murals? What happens if the pictures have been enhanced (for example, if the original image of the mural is in black and white but then digitally coloured later)? Axb3 (talk) 11:34, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Some basic information on this should be available at Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag, I believe. --Mormegil (talk) 11:47, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Unless it was a completely automatic process (unlikely), colorization of that nature is likely to have its own copyright, so I would be careful of those. If the colors of the original were known, that may mean the colorization is not purely creative, but that would still be a gray area at best. For your other question, see the link mentioned by Mormegil above. While not proven in court there, I think there are arguments that in the UK photographs of that nature may have their own copyright, whereas in the United States they do not. Commons chooses to use the U.S. interpretation in this particular case, but if you are a UK resident or citizen, you may want to avoid uploading images of that nature from UK organizations, as otherwise you could be liable (the risk is yours). Carl Lindberg (talk) 12:47, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

The colours were based on other known murals, and fragments of the same mural that still survive, so I guess it is not possible to use them? Is the black and white original OK? For photos from old books, what happens when they claim copyright of the photograph processing? Here is one here of an ancient mural published in 1913 where the owner claims copyright of the processing of the books. (Sorry, just saw that I should have asked this question in the copyright page) Axb3 (talk) 13:05, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

The original B&W photos of the murals should be fine. In the case of photo processing, you would have to do some very creative processing to get a new copyright. The example that you link to above should be fine for commons. Simple color balance, level adjustment, exposure correction, etc. would not create a new copyright, even in the UK. Kaldari (talk) 20:53, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Work done for hire during free time

When i was studying in the United States some time ago i came across an interesting legal rule there, and i'm unsure if it's still the case, so please let me know if it isn't, i'll apologise and go away. Let's say i study in the University for the Computer Science degree, i write a piece of software, and the university is able to claim copyright on that. The reason it was argued, was that i could be using University facilities and faculty to help me. In fact i remember reading reports about people who were employed writing software or books and then their employer would sue them for the copyright and win, the fact that those were created during the time off work and were sometimes even in the different field than the person's job (a book about photography written by a computer programmer or somesuch) made no difference. So the question is, is this still the case, and if so what is Commons's position on that if any? Beta M (talk) 03:48, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

COM:VPC may be the better place (see the box on top of this page). Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 04:09, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia

Shouldn't this page have a prominent link to Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia, since it is likely that someone would look up "licensing" when seeking that? That page links moderately prominently to this one. - Jmabel ! talk 15:43, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

French photograph taken in 1913

Hello,

I want to upload this photograph (and use it for de:Graveson). It was taken in 1913 when Frédéric Mistral met the French president at the station of en:Graveson. This is sure - Mistral died in 1914. According to Licensing#France this, this time (98 years) would be sufficient to upload the file. The UploadWizard only offers two possibilities: Either the author died at least 70 years ago or he has died more than 100 years ago. Neither of this is sure (70 years are likely). What should I do? --SuperZebra (talk) 18:58, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Sadly, if we don't know who the author was, we have to assume he died less than 70 years ago (that is, in 1941 or later). Far from a long-shot, it's entirely possible that a photographer active in the 1910s lived at least thirty years beyond that date. Powers (talk) 02:22, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

The author is given as "Agence Rol", a company. Unlikely than an individual author could ever be known -- it would have to be anonymous I'd think. The question then is when it was published -- the term is 70 years from publication, if published within the first 70 years after creation, so it is still under copyright in France if it was first published between 1941 and 1983, and public domain otherwise. Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:26, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

grammar - yourself

Each bolded yourself is wrong. They should all be changed to you. Only you can do something to yourself. Others cannot take a photo of yourself; they can take a photo of you.

I would change pictures to photos since photo is used in the rest of the section.

Own photos of: ***Better: Your own photos of:

• Yourself (as long as you don't use this as your private webspace), but not pictures others took of yourself (these require the consent from whoever took the picture)

=== Questionable, may or may not be OK <<<This is the header

• Pictures of yourself taken by a third party

=== not OK <<<This is the header

• Reproductions of objects that are copyrighted by someone other than yourself ...
• Sounds of things that are copyrighted by someone other than yourself ... --AnWulf (talk) 04:20, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Done. :) Banaticus (talk) 06:41, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Mickey Mouse

Any chance I could get a few more people to take a look at Commons:Deletion_requests/File:"Appreciate_America._Come_On_Gang._All_Out_for_Uncle_Sam"_(Mickey_Mouse)"_-_NARA_-_513869_-_cropped_and_tidied.png? It's a fairly complicated issue, so please try to read through some of the discussion before commenting. Thanks! Kaldari (talk) 04:54, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Attribution, does it have to be as visible?

If I wanted to use an image licensed under a Creative Commons license which requires attribution, and put that image on a t-shirt design, does a link to the image filename have to go on the t-shirt under the image, or can I put it on the inside of the collar or somewhere else where it's not immediately visible? Putting http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fleur-de-lis-blue.svg under a blue fleur de lis image would sort of spoil the effect. Yes, I know that I could just modify Fleurdelis.jpg, but the question is about other images which require attriution. :) Banaticus (talk) 07:32, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I think only the URI to the CC-BY-SA license is required by the license; you just need to give the author's name or pseudonym (I suppose "Wikimedia Commons / User:Palladinus" or "Palladinus at Wikimedia Commons" or something like that in this case, since a name is not supplied). The author can specify an additional URI but that does not seem to be absolutely required (but can be a good idea if possible, and would eliminate the need to mention Wikimedia Commons elsewhere). Creative Commons has this FAQ entry where it notes it can be done in any reasonable manner. That entry has links to more attribution guides, but none of them seem to address a t-shirt situation. They do say the information needs to be visible, but it doesn't need to be right next to the image. You may be able to ask on their forums for better guidance for that situation in particular. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:55, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Carl, I think the duty to communicate the license conditions only applies it the work itself is distributed, which is not the case in a print on a t-shirt, IMO. --Túrelio (talk) 15:06, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

If you are printing copies of T-shirts, that is distribution of copies I'm pretty sure (or probably derivative works, rather). I think those attributions requirements hold when distributing derivative works as well (separate section of the CC license but I think the wording is mostly the same). The idea, of course, is that someone who sees the work knows they are allowed to use it themselves under the same terms. The CC licenses really do seem to be geared towards web and print redistribution though, which creates some issues (though nothing as severe as the GFDL). I had thought in the past that maybe just specifying a license name like "CC-BY-SA-2.5" may be enough to satisfy the license, but their guidance pages now generally try to have the URL (not an issue when publishing online, but it becomes more out of place with different types of publishing needs... they have "appropriate to the medium" with the section of attributing the author, but not the license URI part. But really, the best would be to ask in their forums -- that may raise awareness of the issues if there really is an unintended consequence, and they could potentially improve later versions of the license (which derivative works of existing images could then use). Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:19, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Not from a strictly legal standpoint, but more from a fair interpretation of copyright, I would say, yes, at least the name of the original author should be visible to anybody who can see your t-shirt. Sure, on most wikipedias the author name is not directly visible under the image, but it requires only 1 click to see the image page with the name of the author. But putting it "inside of the collar or somewhere else where it's not immediately visible" is the real-world equivalent to No attribution. --Túrelio (talk) 15:04, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Not for nothing, but I don't think a fleur-de-lis is copyrightable anyway. See COM:TOO#United States. Powers (talk) 20:29, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

License question

Hello, I got the right from Belgian football club Club Brugge K.V. (in person of Wim De Meyer) to use the pictures from the club website's history section on Wikipedia. What license do I need to assign to those pictures after uploading them? Le Fou (talk) 00:52, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

The license is up to the club; we can't choose that for them. See COM:OTRS for where to send permission, if they really do want to give it. Please note that permission must be for everyone, not just Wikipedia-only. If they don't want to (many don't), then the logos would have to be uploaded under a fair use rationale to any local projects directly. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:08, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

upoważnienie na licencję

--Jeanine64 (talk) 13:56, 4 December 2011 (UTC)Witam, jestem nowicjuszką. Chciałabym umieścić zdjęcie do hasła:Leszek Matela. Mam upoważnienie autora(L.Mateli) na publikację.Czy muszę się wykazać jakimś dokumentem/zezwoleniem, czy po prostu mogę przesłać zdjęcie do galerii?

Photos from Café magazine

I would like to get broader input on this deletion discussion, as it is somewhat complicated and affects a large number of images. Thanks! Kaldari (talk) 23:48, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

1915 Russian painting and Template:PD-RusEmpire

I need some help. Could other people have a look Commons:Deletion requests/File:1915 Dance by Rodchenko.jpg ? Teofilo (talk) 13:38, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Copyright laws of Cameroon

Does anyone know the copyright laws of Cameroon? Commons:Deletion requests/File:WLA haa Female Figure Bamileke people.jpg. Kaldari (talk) 19:51, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

According to section 37 found on page 12 of Law No. 2000/011 of December 19, 2000 on Copyright and Neighbouring Rights linked from this WIPO page http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/details.jsp?id=836 Cameroon copyright last for 50 years pma or 50-years for anonymous and pseudonymous works. You should probably read it carefully because I only did a quick cursory review. Ww2censor (talk) 20:20, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

National Library of Ireland licensing

The National Library of Ireland on Flickr Commons, from which several images (File:Haughey.JPG, File:Lenihansr.JPG) have found their way into Commons, has made somewhat conflicting statements about the copyright of their material:

• "The Library's images within The Commons have no known copyright restrictions" and
• "Images in our Commons photostream are available for research for a non-commercial purpose or private study."
  

Can anybody make sense of that? Are they free enough? --Túrelio (talk) 09:39, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Some images are obviously in the public domain due to their age but others appear to be restricted by the NLI's non-commercial purpose or private study notation. The two statements are contradictory and because we usually err on the side of caution the non-commercial restriction would trumps the no known copyright restriction statement until someone get verification from the library. Ww2censor (talk) 20:56, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. --Túrelio (talk) 20:36, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Punjab Prisons

Can someone please confirm whether File:Monogram of Punjab Prisons (Pakistan).png is correctly attributed. It seems unusual that an organisation's monogram could be thus published by its actual author, under such a license, and that a single user would have the authority to do so. I tried to visit the organisation's website to find out more for myself but came up against a malware warning. ClaretAsh (talk) 14:45, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Advertising brochure

Can I upload pictures from an undated German advertising brochure, most likely from the late sixties? Thanks for your help. --Pjt56 (talk) 19:35, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

No. Their copyright would expire at the very earliest 70 years from publication (if no individual authors were named, or identifiable through monograms or something like that, and if there is an author it would be 70 years from when they died). So, unless the brochure is just reproducing a much earlier work, it is many many years away from being public domain. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:27, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Dutch FOP: Compilations

See Commons:Categories for discussion/2011/12/Category:Alexander Kropholler. Regardless of the nominator's identity, - it seems that they have a valid point. What's your opinion? NVO (talk) 18:33, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Screenshots of malware / virus software?

What license should be used to upload screenshots of malware and viruses? As far as I can determine, since the source is of criminal origin, copyright rules apparently don't apply because the source is not legally recognized as a protected form of speech.

I would assume Public domain, or the usual CC 3.0 Share-alike can be used without issue for these screenshots. DMahalko (talk) 18:49, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

That's the graffiti argument. I don't think it's one of the strongest arguments we have legal-wise, or one that has the most consensus. Personally, I think that legally the screenshots probably would be copyrighted by the author, but it would be virtually impossible to use the screenshots and not be protected by fair use. I realize that doesn't help us here.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:17, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Just FYI: in short we will have a discussion about whether our policy towards software screenshots might be somewhat "relaxed" as the highest EU court has recently decided that copyrightability of GUIs requires originality[9]. --Túrelio (talk) 09:34, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

{{PD-NKR-exempt}}

The self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic remains unrecognised by any UN-member state, including Armenia. Its any law has no legal effect. How Copyright extends to the works by its law on Wikipedia. Where should the Copyright Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan apply for protest? --Melikov Memmed (talk) 09:56, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

While looking at the other former USSR templates, there is http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-PMR-exempt, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-AB-exempt for disputed areas. The images of South Ossetian symbols are covered under the Georgian copyright template. I also did not find one for Kosovo either. I think we should figure out exactly what we should do with copyright laws of these states (regardless of status). Generally Wikimedia respects the copyrights of states, even if the United States does not recognize it (such as Iran and North Korea). User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 10:09, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

But there's a difference. Nobody's arguing that Iranian law doesn't protect certain copyrights in Iran. There's a long string of places that call themselves nations ranging from en:Principality of Hutt River to stuff like en:Nagorno-Karabakh Republic to, well, en:Republic of China. The line between self-proclaimed state and a real state is a hard one. There are a lot of little chunks of land whose state of rebellion hasn't been crushed; recognizing them all as legitimate states is an extraordinary step.

I don't know what it means to say its law has no legal effect; as a practical matter, the law of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic does seem to be the controlling law of the area it claims to control.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:33, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I think what I am getting at is for these is how we would treat these areas in the term of copyright laws from states, especially breakaway areas. We recognize Kosovo law at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing#Kosovo and this was passed before Kosovo declared independence in 2008. We also recognize Taiwanese law here in the terms of licensing. But now that I think about it, we spoke about this issue 2 years ago regarding stamps from Abkzahia. Now; everything PD-GE-exempt covers is also what PD-AB-exempt covers, so there is not going to be a loss of media. This is the same situation as the PD-NKR template; it covers the same things as PD-AZ-exempt. It is just a matter of if we want to use these templates for breakaway states or use their former (or current, depends on your POV) country. Kosovo has no template, S. Ossetia doesn't have a template (uses PD-GE) and Taiwan uses their own template so there isn't a set policy to follow. As for what the Copyright Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan can do, absolutely nothing in the terms of Wikimedia. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 06:19, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The territory of Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. If Wikimedia respects the copyrights of states it should respect international law. The sovereign status of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is not recognized by any state, it is non-member of any international organization. In addition the template is not useful, PD-AZ-exempt or PD-AM-exempt cover the same things as it. --Melikov Memmed (talk) 07:39, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I would not use PD-AM regardless of what decision was made about this template. However, there is going to have to be more research done to figure out what was done in the past. The only laws that the Commons follow is those of the state of origin and also the United States when hosting images. But, as I said before, many things that the United States said in the terms of copyright we have ignored due to decisions by the Foundation. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 07:46, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The Commons follow the laws on copyrights, but in this case both the law of the state of origin and the law of the United States on copyrights are ignored. In fact in this case the Commons ignore both the local laws and international laws. Mainly, PD-AZ-exempt covers everything as this template and so there is not going to be a loss of media. If there is no need for this “illegal template” on Commons why it not should be deleted?--Melikov Memmed (talk) 08:31, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

We have breakaway/micronations who copyright things differently and we don't delete them for being "illegal" in the eyes of the current landholder; same goes for their templates. If we do that, Chinese users could call anything done by Taiwan post-1949 as illegal. While S. Ossetia uses the model that you like to see, it is mostly due to the defect of that area by not adopting a copyright law. That isn't a can of worms I want to see opened. Anyways, as I said before, this deserves a wider discussion and more eyes on it than 3 people. But generally, it has been decided before that copyright statements from breakaway territories is something we have accepted and will continue to do so. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 09:49, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

In the particular case of works coming from that (mostly unrecognized but apparently de facto) government, this license could be considered a form of PD-author -- i.e. the author themselves do not consider such works to be copyrighted. Seems like it would be more accurate than using PD-AZ-exempt (which is basically the same wording) in regard to works associated with that government. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:46, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Copyright check

Can someone just give me a bit of guidance on something: would self-taken photos of custom-made dildos be copyright violations? It's definitely not simple, but I don't know whether it might be ineligible for copyright anyway. -mattbuck (Talk) 13:23, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

What about custom-made chairs, vehicles, lamps, knives, plates, wallpapers, carpets, lemon squeezers, ...? -- smial (talk) 14:08, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

For general information Commons:CB#Utility objects, though it doesn't really touch the custom-made issue. --Túrelio (talk) 14:11, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I would say the U.S. would consider those utilitarian, and not subject to copyright ;-) They have a functional purpose which guides the design, custom-made or not, so I'd guess it would be industrial design not subject to U.S. copyright. You'd have to identify separable artwork for there to be an issue. The photos themselves are copyrightable of course. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:17, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Thought that was probably the case, thanks. -mattbuck (Talk) 17:06, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

URAA affirmed by US Supreme Court - deletion request opened

In a 6-2 decision, SCOTUS affirmed the decision of the district court. The principle findings were: "1. Section 514 [of the URAA] does not exceed Congress’ authority under the Copyright Clause. [...] 2. The First Amendment does not inhibit the restoration authorized by §514." Supporters were Ginsburg, Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Sotomeyer. Breyer and Alito dissented. Kagan recused. See SCOTUS Blog.

Regrettably, this means we can no longer defend our long-held position that the URAA is probably unconstitutional, and that our publication of files bearing the {{Not-PD-US-URAA}} in contravention of that law is justified. As such, I have opened Commons:Deletion requests/All files copyrighted in the US under the URAA and invite your opinions there. Over 3000 files are affected, and this policy will also be modified depending on consensus there. Please post your opinions regarding deletion there. Please don't post here to avoid dividing discussion, as I'm posting this notice in multiple locations. Dcoetzee (talk) 18:14, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

specifiing copyright requriments

Can anyone help, what does it mean, and how to carry this out, if the author of the image didn't specify any ways to do it on the info page of the image? "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor" Are there any general hints or directions for such cases? Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Strawberry773 (talk • contribs) 15:56, 19 January 2012‎ (UTC)

Unless the author has specified a different name to which he wants the image to be credited, then in general it can be assumed that the name or pseudonym under which the author of the image identified himself as author is the name under which he wants to be credited in the reuses of the image. For a more specific answer, it would be necessary to know what image you have in mind. -- Asclepias (talk) 17:01, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Looking for a more specific template

Can anyone suggest a better permissions template for File:Rooster medallion from Grover Cleveland's 1892 presidential campaign.jpg? It's definitely PD — it's an image of a copyrightable subject, but the subject was published in the USA in 1892, so obviously PD. Moreover, it was uploaded to Flickr with an explicit renunciation of all copyright. I couldn't find a template that could specify PD on both the image and the subject, so I had to use {{PD-because}}. Nyttend (talk) 14:04, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes we just add two templates, labeling which each applies to (seen sometimes on images of statues). The medallion is {{PD-1923}}, and the photograph is {{Flickr-no known copyright restrictions}} (probably reason #3 on there). Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:15, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Not about your question, but the object is a seal, not a medallion. -- Asclepias (talk) 14:49, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Template for "Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)"?

I have just uploaded the file File:Steinway & Sons concert grand piano - model D-274 - manufactured at Steinway's factory in Hamburg, Germany.tif and I would like to license it under "Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)" (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Therefore, I have written {{cc-by-nc-nd-3.0}}, but it doesn't seem to work. What is the template for "Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)"? --Fanoftheworld (talk) 18:36, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Non Commercial and No Derivative licenses are not allowed on Commons. Regards, Yann (talk) 18:40, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay. Then please delete the image File:Steinway & Sons concert grand piano - model D-274 - manufactured at Steinway's factory in Hamburg, Germany.tif. Thank you. --Fanoftheworld (talk) 18:45, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I need help. Please see:

See also: Commons:Help desk#Template for "Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)"?.

--Fanoftheworld (talk) 11:49, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Was answered there, done here. --Saibo (Δ) 01:38, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

PD-textlogo vs. PD-shape vs. PD-ineligible vs. PD-font

Hello,

I think that these templates all serve the same purpose with very little different wordings. This is just completely confusing for non-experts, and non-English speaking people. I would suggest to merge these into one template covering all cases.

90% of images using these are logos, so I don't see the point to having different templates. See for example File:Opera O.png, using {{PD-font}} (why not {{PD-textlogo}}?), and File:Stadefrançais.jpg, using {{PD-shape}}. Regards, Yann (talk) 15:06, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

The differences may be subtle in some cases, and there are edge cases with overlap, but there are clear distinctions among the four. PD-textlogo is for logos that consist primarily of text; PD-shape is for images comprising only simple shapes (with no provision for text); PD-ineligible is for other types of images that are not eligible for copyright; PD-font is specifically for typefaces presented as a sample. Each of these may have different rules in different countries. Powers (talk) 21:30, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

US copyrights and the 31 December 2047 limit

According to http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm , the 31 December 2047 limit applies only to works first published in the United States during specific years, under some conditions. Do you understand why it says that it does not apply to works first published outside the United States? In other words, why doesn't USC Title 17, Chapter 3, §303 apply to works first published outside the United States? Teofilo (talk) 10:50, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

A mistake on the chart, I think. Peter Hirtle just fixed that section of the chart, and I think forgot that part. I don't see any reason why foreign works would not get the same treatment. That would be for works created before 1978, but first published between 1978 and 2002 -- the terms in that case are the later of 70pma and December 31, 2047. (Basically, it used to be that unpublished works had an unlimited copyright in the U.S., although they could not use the federal copyright law for protection until they were published. That was abolished in 1978, but such works were given at least a 25 year period of federal protection, through Dec 31 2002, and if published in that period, a further 25 years, through 2027. The second 25-year term, if applicable, was extended by the 1998 law which extended everything else by 20 years, so that is now 2047. If something remained unpublished until 2003, then its U.S. terms are a straight 70pma, like U.S. works. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:32, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

OK. Thank you. Teofilo (talk) 09:48, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Meaning of the British 2039 limit

Commons:Licensing#Publication_right reads: If the copyright of an unpublished work has expired (virtually impossible before 2039). Imagine a British citizen finds a manuscript written by his grandfather who died more than 70 years ago. As we are in 2012, the work is still copyrighted as an unpublished work until 2039. If the British citizen starts publishing the work, then the work is no longer "unpublished", so the rule for published works should apply. What is this rule ? What is the rule for British works whose author died more than 70 years ago and whose publication is started before 2039? Teofilo (talk) 09:57, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

It's very similar to the US (where do you think the US got the tradition? :-) ). The UK had an unlimited copyright term for unpublished works, which was abolished by their 1988 law (which went into effect in 1989), which gave all works unpublished to that point a 50-year term of protection, to last through 2039. The EU changes could lengthen such terms to 70pma, but they did not shorten them. Photographs taken before June 1, 1957 do not fall under this rule I believe, since they had a term based on year of creation instead of publication (which changed in their 1956 law, which went into effect on that date in 1957). So, such photographs merely have a regular 70pma term, since those got restored by the EU directive laws. There is a version of a UK copyright chart here which goes through that stuff. Carl Lindberg (talk) 12:17, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. For a manuscript with a known author, I should have read the line that starts with If the work was not published before 30 August 1989 and the author died before 1969 at Commons:Licensing#Ordinary_copyright. It seems that Britain had some sort of 70pma for some time before the EU directive of 1993 (which asked member states to put it into effect on 1 July 1995). I am not sure if the British law of 1988 had anything to do with the EU. Teofilo (talk) 14:47, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

No, the 1988 law was just an updating of their copyright law -- it changed several aspects, but left the basic terms at 50 pma, so nothing to do with the EU. Their law which extended to 70pma, to extend and restore the rights per the EU directive, went into effect on January 1, 1996. The 1969 date is just 2039 minus 70, i.e., just another way of wording "later of 70pma and December 31, 2039" for works unpublished on 30 August 1989. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:08, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Should it say "before 2040" rather than "before 2039"? I'm not up on the details, but I've seen other sources that say unpublished works in the UK cannot expire before January 1, 2040, but maybe they're wrong. Kaldari (talk) 00:31, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes... such copyright goes through the end of 2039, so January 1, 2040 would be the day they become PD. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:01, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Copyright terms for works by British corporations

Our section on UK copyright assumes that all works are either anonymous or created by a known natural person. Obviously this leaves out a huge percentage of UK works. What are the copyright terms for works created by UK corporations (where the author, the corporation, will never have a date of death)? As a bonus question, what have these copyright terms been historically? Kaldari (talk) 00:15, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Typical European treatment, I believe, is that if the individual author is known (even if the copyright is owned by the corporation), it's still 70pma. I.e. the individual person is still used to determine the length of the corporation's copyright. If not known, then it's anonymous. There is a part of the EU directive which says that for works which have a "legal person" (i.e. corporation) as an author, the person making the work must be named on the initial copies made available to the public to get the 70pma terms, otherwise it's 70 years from publication (in other words, they don't get to name an author within 70 years to extend it like regular anonymous works). I'm not sure the UK actually has that last bit in their law though. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:06, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. Any idea how long that's been the case? Kaldari (talk) 03:21, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

And does this mean that every corporation in the EU has a designated "author", which is whoever is the youngest person at the company? ;) Kaldari (talk) 03:38, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

This does not make sense. If I produce a work while working for a corporation, my employer is the copyright owner, not me, i.e. the corporation can decide to do whatever it pleases with the work, even after I leave my job. Otherwise, if I am the copyright owner, I am free to do whatever I want with my work. Yann (talk) 07:24, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't really understand how the EU system is supposed to work from a practical perspective. It seems like it would be total chaos. Kaldari (talk) 07:50, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

The company is the copyright owner, yes. The life of the natural person though defines the term the company gets on their copyright. From the EU directive:

3. In the case of anonymous or pseudonymous works, the term of protection shall run for 70 years after the work is lawfully made available to the public. However, when the pseudonym adopted by the author leaves no doubt as to his identity, or if the author discloses his identity during the period referred to in the first sentence, the term of protection applicable shall be that laid down in paragraph 1 [70 pma].

4. Where a Member State provides for particular provisions on copyright in respect of collective works or for a legal person to be designated as the rightholder, the term of protection shall be calculated according to the provisions of paragraph 3, except if the natural persons who have created the work are identified as such in the versions of the work which are made available to the public.

I read that last part being that if the company names the natural persons, then they get a 70pma copyright term on their work. Note that I'm pretty sure that many/most European countries do not allow legal persons to technically be the first copyright owner, so the term is 70pma always (unless it qualifies as anonymous under paragraph 3, but I guess they have 70 years to name themselves). In those cases, I think companies get an exclusive transfer of rights so it is effectively the same thing, but I think it's always a natural person who is the author. I actually have not seen that paragraph 4 actually implemented in many laws, but it's there in at least a couple countries. Carl Lindberg (talk) 07:50, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) In the "typical European treatment", the duration of copyright is always bound to a natural person, period. Even if that copyright is owned by a corporatio or other legal entity. After all, some (group of) natural person(s) created the work. BTW, in the typical European treatment, the initial copyright owner is always the creator: the (group of) natural person(s) who created the work. If the creator is employed and creates the work as part of his employment duties, that initial copyright is then typically contractually transferred to the employer. (Usually such a clause is part of the employment contract; no need to transfer the copyright for each and every little document separately.) So, if you create a "work" as part of your work for that corporation, the corporation owns the copyright (your initial copyright gets assigned to them right away), but the duration of that copyright doesn't change. It's still based on your life time. (Should add that the transfer normally does not cover the moral rights, since these are in many jurisdictions not transferable. Only the economic rights are transferred.) Lupo 07:59, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

The UK does have "work for hire", where the corporation is in fact the first copyright owner. But yes, the natural person (if named) is still used to determine the term. Some info at w:Work for hire#Copyright_duration. Carl Lindberg (talk) 08:02, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

So European companies have to keep track of which employee(s) wrote or created every work they publish and then track those employees until they die to know how long they can enforce their copyrights?? Wouldn't this also create a strong incentive to only hire young people and fire old content creators? I honestly can't imagine how such a system would work in practice. Kaldari (talk) 20:15, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Same as with any other work done privately -- it may be difficult to track down when they died, but it's not impossible. They are human authors, in the end. If they are not named, then the companies only get the 70 years from making available to the public. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:48, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I think it goes back to one of the classic arguments against copyright extension; long term copyright motivates no one. Nobody is buying or selling 70-year bonds. They're paying money now (and basing their employment strategies on long-term copyright comes down to that in some way) for returns from copyright in at least 70 years; even if that wasn't a fool's bargain, what executive will cut profitability today for returns to the company after they're dead?--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:46, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Here's a response I got from Christina Angelopoulos at Europeana:

The European Term Directive in Article 1(4) does provide for cases where a legal person holds authorship of a work. In such cases the term of protection is 70 years from the making available of the work to the public. However the Directive does not apply directly and requires implementation in the national laws of the Member States. Although most Member States do not admit authorship for of a legal person, some in fact do: if you examine the [copyright] calculators carefully you will see that e.g. for the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Slovenia or Italy we do in fact offer the option of a legal person as author. In cases where a legal person cannot be recognised as author of a work, examining why will require looking into the copyright law of each individual Member State. There is no harmonisation of the notion of authorship in the EU.

Hope that's useful. Kaldari (talk) 20:15, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Right, I quoted Article 1(4) above, and it does say that 70pma still applies if the "natural persons who have created the work are identified as such in the versions of the work which are made available to the public". The UK does in fact allow a legal person to be the initial copyright owner (article 11), but as mentioned, I don't remember that EU directive clause being in their law. The basic durations are defined in article 12, which basically seems to treat corporate works as anonymous or unknown author works (i.e. {{PD-UK-unknown}}), unless of course the human author is named, in which case it is copyright like normal. I guess they distinguish "first copyright owner" and "author" in that case. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:48, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

strange PD-license from Bibliothèque nationale de France

When checking recent uploads I found File:Winter, lanceur de poids 1930.JPG which is said to be from 1930, sourced to the "Bibliothèque nationale de France", credited to "Agence de presse Meurisse" and claimed to be PD, though without convincing evidence. I then came to File:Lucien Michard.jpg, uploaded already 3 weeks ago by an established Commons user and carrying a PD-old-template (IMO questionable for a shot from 1930) as well as the templates {{PD-BNF}} and

Bibliothèque nationale de France

. When I followed the direct-to-source link, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b90474192/, again I didn't see any evidence for PD. Am I missing something here? (I hope so)
The question goes beyond these 2 images (see Category:Images from Bibliothèque nationale de France). Even if these images are considered PD in France, are they also PD in the U.S. and elsewhere? The BND-PD template says "The BNF has determined that this file is in the public domain in France. It may still be copyrighted in other countries." This seems hardly enough to host it on Commons. --Túrelio (talk) 13:52, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps {{Anonymous-EU}} is the more intended license rather than PD-old. That was a photograph from a press agency, with no individual author noted. If that license holds, then yes, it is probably PD in the US as well, as it would have been PD in France in 1996 as well (with their 50 year term for anonymous works at the time, plus possibly an 8-year extension for WWII). Some things could depend on when the work was published (or made available to the public). Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:33, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Also see Commons:Deletion requests/File:Pilsudski1921-2.jpeg and Commons:Deletion requests/File:DiscursoDePilsudski1932.jpeg for the Bibliothèque nationale de France's unsourced/unproven PD claims. And see Commons:Deletion requests/File:Slavko Osterc.jpg for the trustworthiness of state agencies. ;-) --Saibo (Δ) 16:12, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

So one mistake made by a state agency invalidates any and all other PD determinations by any other state agencies? By the same token, I assume you think that one mistake by anyone on Commons also automatically invalidates any other PD determination anyone makes here, or will ever make? ;-) Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:31, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Exactly, you know, there are no differences in country, people or time. State agencies are standardized. </irony> :-) It was meant as a hint, as a pointer/reminder that not everything is correct what "they" write. --Saibo (Δ) 23:15, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Correct, anyone can make mistakes (in that case, apparently a programmatic error which associated the wrong image with the metadata/copyright determination). However, that has no real relevance here. The BNF presumably has the original copies and whatever source documentation still exists, which we don't, and still made the determination. If you know who the author was (and that info became public before 2001), that would change things, but otherwise really the Anonymous-EU tag seems the most likely one and a reasonable assumption to make (including for the two other nominations you link to). There's really no way to "prove" an unknown author, but not having one in the source documentation is a pretty strong reason to make that assumption. There is also an easy way to disprove it -- name the author. So, unless evidence of an author comes to light, I think Anonymous-EU is fine. There could be issues with images published between about 1938 and 1948 with the U.S. URAA though. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:56, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi sorry for the late ping on this discussion. There was a short talk on french village pump. It seems that disregard PD tags in the gallica database of the BNF are not accurates, we already noticed multiple mistakes. It means we have to be carefull some might be rightly tagged as PD others might not. Concerning the Agence Meurisse, it seems most photos were published without credit to the author and were credited to Agence Meurisse (and the authors name was never revealed), therefore I think it should be {{Anonymous-EU}} if published more than 70 years ago. PierreSelim (talk) 11:12, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Romania - extension of copyright

The last phrase about Romania in this page is: "But all these shorter terms were overridden by the 1996 law, and are of historical interest only (for instance, to determine whether or not a work was still copyrighted on the URAA date)." I think this refers to the possible extension of copyright by the 1996 law, which was repair in 2004. This was a highly disputed subject, but no court decisions were made until recently. However, there are now several court decisions in favor of the hypothesis that the protection was not reinstated for public domain word:

• Bucharest Court of Appeal, Section IX Civil and Intelectual Property, Decision 248 A from 30 November 2006 (I could not find a link for it)
• Decision 233A (22.12.2009) from the same court: [10]

While this has no influence on Commons, as the pictures also need to be PD in the USA, I think it is important to present this correctly and therefore remove the said phrase.--Strainu (talk) 17:05, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. The text of the 1996 law does seem to indicate that copyright was retroactively restored when Romania went from 50pma to 70pma in 1996 per section 149(3). However... the current version of the law has added a crucial word "not" to that section (you say the change was made in 2004?), which would then mean that existing terms were extended but older copyrights were not restored. Is that the case? The judge in your link does quote the current version. This is somewhat odd, as EU membership (I think Romania joined in 2006) should have required them to retroactively restore works, and the current law (in section 151) claims it has implemented Council Directive 93/98/CEE, the en:Copyright Duration Directive, which required that works be restored if they were protected in an EU member country in 1995 (this was the rule which made most works re-copyrighted). However, I don't see that language in their law either -- the 1996 law would seem to have done that well enough, but if that was a mistake which was changed, it gets cloudier. So... are you saying the 1996 law was a mistake, since corrected, and now Romanian judges consider that copyrights were not restored, but rather only existing copyrights were extended? This may well have some influence on Commons, actually. The distinction is irrelevant to the URAA, since Romania had a 50 pma term on January 1, 1996, and thus works from authors who died before 1946 were not restored and remain PD in the US regardless. The question is if some of the works of those earlier authors were restored in Romania -- if not, they could be PD in both Romania and the U.S. In other words, whatever is PD in Romania is almost certainly also PD in the U.S. right now. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:04, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Carl. Yes, the new law was written in 2004 and "repaired" the 1996 law. I don't think that "EU membership (I think Romania joined in 2006) should have required them to retroactively restore works" as you say. Not-retroactivity (or whatever it's called) is generaly an important part of European law (see en:Retroactive_legislation). Anyhow, both versions of the law were passed before Romania's EU accession in 2007.

I have also heard rumors (but just rumors!) that the Parliament actually wanted to restore copyright, but after the law was passed, some people claimed it was illegal to have retroactive laws, so they just said they made a "mistake". What I know for a fact is, as you said, that there are now court decision saying that the intention of the Parliament was not to extend copyright protection. You can read more about this in this questionnaire, which was written by the guy who adapted the CC licenses to Romania in preparation for the Europeana Public Domain Calculator.

I'm glad to know that this will actually have an effect on Commons. So, what else do we need to start acting upon this information? :)--Strainu (talk) 07:03, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

If this finding is reliable, then {{PD-Romania}} might be adapted. --Túrelio (talk) 08:56, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

This is an interesting case. By the links you gave, the 1996 law which appeared to retroactively restore copyrights was in fact a mistake, and the 2004 version added the critical "not" which reversed the meaning, which made plain that works were not restored. The questionnaire you link does state there was a school of thought that even though it was a mistake it still had legal effect, but the court case you link seems to settle that question in favor of the original intent (well, at least the official original intent, if your rumors are true). So it would appear that the actual law in Romania is that works in the public domain on January 1, 1996, are *still* public domain there. The previous terms were often 50pma, but I think the terms depended on who inherited the copyright (some may have been 15pma). That'll be fun to document.

For the record... I think Romania is in breach of the EU copyright directive. You are correct that Europe does not like retroactive law, but the copyright directive is pretty clear that at the very least, countries must retroactively restore rights to the 70pma term. See w:Copyright_Duration_Directive#Copyright_restoration. The actual phrase was The terms of protection provided for in this Directive shall apply to all works and subject matter which are protected in at least one Member State, on the date referred to in Article 13 (1) [July 1, 1995], pursuant to national provisions on copyright or related rights or which meet the criteria for protection under Directive 92/100/EEC. While Romania was under no obligation to restore copyrights in 1996 (a further argument in favor of non-retroactivity), the 2004 Romanian law claims to have implemented that 1993 EU duration directive, but that clause is nowhere to be found. The directive has been superseded by a 2006 version, which has much the same language (Article 10), though technically Romania has not implemented that yet. The restorations cannot make actions which were legal when the works were public domain into something criminal (that is really more of what en:retroactive legislation is really about), but they can affect future uses. Still, even if Romania eventually does restore works that way, the legal situation does not change unless they actually pass such a law, so the old terms would seem to be currently valid in many cases. Using another country as an example, Italy's original extension to 70pma was non-retroactive, and I think it was not until 2002 or so that they corrected that mistake. And given that we are only about four years away from the point where the restorations would have little actual effect (by 2016, most anything that would be restored would have become PD again), they may not bother ever implementing it. Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:54, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

That is one very interesting analysis Carl :) It gets more interesting when you think there is no definition for "artistic pictures" (for which the term is 5/10 years)

If nobody opposes in the next few days, I will remove the final phrase from the Romania section. It will still be a problem to determine if an old picture is PD or not, but that should be handled on a case by case basis.--Strainu (talk) 11:14, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Problem or not?

The image File:Steinway & Sons concert grand piano, model D-274, manufactured at Steinway's factory in Hamburg, Germany.png has been removed from a Wikipedia article with the reason "No copyrighted images allowed, no images with requirement for copyright notice"[11] As I understand there should be no problem if an image has a requirement for attribution like "Photo: © Copyright Steinway & Sons", because the license template says "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work)." Furthermore, the image File:Steinway & Sons concert grand piano, model D-274, manufactured at Steinway's factory in Hamburg, Germany.png is copyrighted, but can be used under the license "CC BY SA 3.0", which as I understand is allowed on Wikipedia. I hope that someone can tell me what the problem is if there is any problem with the image I have uploaded. --Fanoftheworld (talk) 02:54, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

While en-wiki is its own site and can make its own rules... that sounds like a misguided editor. I'm not aware of any policy which states anything like that. The copyright on a CC-BY work is still absolutely valid, and the credit line can just as absolutely be a full copyright notice. On the other hand, the credit does not necessarily need to be on the article page itself -- that cannot be required; having it on the image page is enough by most wiki projects' standards. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:03, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Request for a GFDL 1.2 or CC-BY-NC 3.0 license tag template

Hi,

I have enganged with Fir0002 in a task regarding adding a CC-BY-NC 3.0 license tag to all his existing GFDL 1.2 only licensed images using my bot. The file pages currently transcludes user-specific templates in his own user space which combines camera info with an embedded gfdl 1.2 license tag, and we have previously agreed to seperate the two, as having a license tag embedded in a transcluded user-space template is against our policy in this area. However, since a CC-BY-NC license is not allowed as a stand-alone license due to its non-commercial clause (but acceptable in conjunction with the GFDL 1.2) I have to use a dual license tag template, which combines the two in normal template name space. We have for example {{GFDL or cc-by-nc-3.0}}, which is really a tripple GFDL 1.2 or later + CC-BY-SA 3.0 + CC-BY-NC 3.0 (so the template name is kinda misleading). However, I request a {{GFDL 1.2 or cc-by-nc 3.0}} template, which does not seem to exist. Would someone help me create that template? Thanks. --Slaunger (talk) 20:48, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

@the photographer: Just don't license files against our aims - then all is fine. --Saibo (Δ) 03:50, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Use {{GFDL or cc-by-nc-3.0|migration=opt-out}}. If you really need GFDL-1.2 then create a new template using {{GFDL or cc-by-nc-3.0}} as modification base. BTW it's up to the photographer to choose the license he/she want to use/likes best and that's fine as long its sufficiently free to use here at Commons.--Denniss (talk) 06:24, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is really GFDL 1.2, which is requested. I have tried to make the new template following your instruction. License tags is not really my domain, so I hope I have done it correctly? --Slaunger (talk) 20:42, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

You know that the photographer is trying to be as unfree as possible (to be just able to upload his works here). --Saibo (Δ) 16:33, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Nevertheless, GFDL-licensed images can be perfectly used, at least in online projects. And as his images seem to be high-qual, this results still in a net benefit for us. --Túrelio (talk) 16:48, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Adding a CC-BY-NC license to GFDL 1.2 only is a clear improvement. For non-commercial uses of the photograph, reuse will now be much easier. The photographer could have kept the status quo and as long as GFDL 1.2 is an allowed stand-alone license (although immensely unpractical). --Slaunger (talk) 20:22, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is better than "only GFDL 1.2" - sure. Still, the sense is clear and I highly discourage that. --Saibo (Δ) 21:52, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Without this, we wouldn't have File:TheoVanGogh.jpg, for example. --Túrelio (talk) 08:10, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Without what? The file you linked to is GFDL 1.2+ (and CC-by-sa-3.0 due to relicensing). Or do you mean the very low resolution? Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 00:39, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Photos and URAA

In many countries artistic works and photographic images are treated differently. E.g. in Finland works of art are under copyright until 70 years pma, while photos that do not reach the quite high threshold of a "photographic work" are under copyright 50 years from creation. I understand that the legislation in USA does not make such a distinction.

Does this mean that "new" photos (post 1965), the copyright of which start to expire 2017 in Finland, remain under copyright in USA (and thus are not permitted here) to the extent they are regarded as works in USA?

If so, the threshold of a photographic work in USA is important also for foreign works. That means there are Finnish photos (created and published 1966-1977) of three categories: those that are regarded as works in Finland (publication+95 years and 70 years pma), those regarded as works only in USA (publication+95 only) and those not regarded as works at all (creation+50 years).

As I understand, this means some more trouble in categorization. There should probably be some guidance on the issue and perhaps new templates. The {{PD-ineligible}} is not directly suitable, as the work is not yet free, but that will be the reason of freeness after 2017, in the example case.

--LPfi (talk) 18:21, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

The URAA used the law in the country of origin... if that country deemed a work public domain by virtue of expiration on the URAA date (Jan 1, 1996 usually) then its U.S. copyright did not get restored. I can't think of a reason why the shorter term for "simple" photographs would not apply in that situation. However, if restored, then yes the photo would get the full U.S. term in the United States (95 years from publication). There are almost no photos in the U.S. which are not considered copyrightable (they would have to amount to a copy, like a straight-on photo of a painting). That would not affect its expiration in the country of origin of course. From the sounds of it, restored photographs would be those which are "works" where the author died before 1926, or simple photographs created before 1966, as only those would have been PD on Jan 1, 1996. Of course, anything published before 1923 is still PD in the U.S., restored or not. Anything else which got restored is copyrighted for 95 years from publication. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:48, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I was thinking of those images that had not expired at the URAA date, i.e. in Finland from 1966 or later (1965+25=1990, 1966+50=2016). But if (virtually) all photos are under copyright in USA, then this does not introduce new problem with categorization. Seems like lots of thirteen-on-the-dozen photos will get some 40-70 years extra of protection :-( LPfi (talk) 19:14, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Serbia

Serbia is missing from this list. I will try to find something about it, help needed. --WhiteWriter ^speaks 19:44, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The usual way: http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/ → http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/profile.jsp?code=RS → http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/details.jsp?id=6838 (Law on Copyright and Related Rights (2009)) → html version. In COM:L that page should be linked: Law on Copyright and Related Rights (2009). Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 21:49, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Stal 6

The photos on this site: [12], can be loaded with this license: [13]? Tanks --OppidumNissenae (talk) 18:21, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Gang of Seven pic

There's a Gang of Seven pic on the U.S. Speaker of the House's website here. Can this be uploaded under PD-USGov? Not sure, since it's a picture of a picture. —Eustress ^talk 03:43, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

No. It seems very unlikely that a Republican PR photo would be the work of an employee of the U.S. government created as part of that person's official duties. —LX (talk, contribs) 04:05, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Arab League

Hi, I visited this page to find more about the licensing in Arab nations and I was disappointed that both links under the section Arab League to external sites were useless. Did somebody change these or were they always bad? Does anyone have good information? Thank you, Crtew (talk) 19:18, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Those links were added way back in 2006. I'm sure they were correct at the time, but I guess the organisations stopped paying their domain name bills and had their domains taken over by the sort of crooks who usually take over expired domain names. Here is a snapshot of arabpip.org from 2010 and here is a snapshot of the IP law page at arablaw.org. I don't speak Arabic, so I don't know how useful those snapshots are. —LX (talk, contribs) 20:40, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Template:GobiernoEspaña (Spanish speakers needed)

Is Template:GobiernoEspaña compatible with COM:L and is the source website correctly cited? I will convert it to autotranslated then... Thanks! --Saibo (Δ) 17:53, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Translation: "This work has been created by the Presidency of Spain. This body allows, according to La Moncloa, to use it for any purpose because 'the contents, organization and selection of links at the pages of la-moncloa.es have been selected and/or coordinated by the Estate Secretary of Communication of the Ministry of Presidency. This information may be used in part or as a whole, without needing to cite sources'. Thus, this work is in the public domain". Cambalachero (talk) 19:54, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

There is an English version as well. However, several of the photos on the site are credited to EFE, who state that "The redistribution and rebroadcasting of all or part of the content of EFE services is strictly prohibited without the prior expressed consent of EFE, S.A." —LX (talk, contribs) 22:01, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Lithuania

I can't give a definitive answer, but I know that Lithuania is more complex, as it does not consider itself an ex-Soviet republic, rather a nation occupied by a foreign military for 50 years.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:31, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I think you're right; the former Soviet Union section mentions the "12 legal successors" to the USSR, which pointedly excludes Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:57, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Class 487 DMBSO at LT Museum Depot.jpg

Could someone more familiar with the law regarding museums weigh in here? I don't think the IP is correct, the idea that the landowner has copyright over images I take seems ludicrous, and it was my understanding that unless they specifically make you sign a contract regarding copyright, photos of a museum (or shed), even which prohibits photography, are fine. -mattbuck (Talk) 19:39, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

ATLAS experiment pictures

I would like to display a few pictures from the CERN ATLAS experiment website. The image use policy is here. Is this within the license policy of Wikimedia Commons? Thanks for your help!--LaoChen (talk)06:15, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

No, the CERN does not allow commercial use. You may ask them however to release a few photos under a free license. Yann (talk) 06:32, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

In the ATLAS experiment term of use webpage, it is stated that if the ATLAS material is to be used for commercial purposes, it must not explicitly or implicitly convey CERN or ATLAS' endorsement. Based on this statement, it seems to me that the ATLAS collaboration does allow commercial use as long as there is no explicitly or implicitly conveyed CERN or ATLAS's endorsement. Please check the webpage, thanks!--LaoChen (talk) 15:24, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

It is written: ATLAS images are under CERN copyright, which says The image may not be sold, distributed or otherwise made available for use by third parties. Yann (talk) 15:57, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Let me try to contact CERN to clarify if they allow commercial use or not. In case if they allow commercial use, what kind of license can be used for the ATLAS images?--LaoChen (talk)19:21, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

It is their decision, but {{Cc-by-sa-3.0}} (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0) could be a good suggestion. Yann (talk) 19:35, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

LaoChen, if you are e-mailing CERN, you might want to take up with them the issue of whether other images on their website (apart from ATLAS images) can be licensed. We used to have {{PD-CERN-CMS}}, then at some stage the copyright notice on CERN's website changed. I contacted CERN a long time ago to find out when the copyright notice was altered and whether they would agree to license their images under a free licence, but they said they'd look into it and then never got back to me. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:06, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

{{PD-AR-Photo}} appears to be incomplete

According to article 34 of the Argentine Intellectual Property Law (current text here in Spanish), "Debe inscribirse sobre la obra fotográfica o cinematográfica la fecha, el lugar de publicación, el nombre o la marca del autor o editor. El incumplimiento de este requisito no dará lugar a la acción penal prevista en esta ley para el caso de reproducción de dichas obras.", which means that the 20-year period stated in the template is only valid when the date, publication place and author or publisher name appears on the picture. Otherwise, the picture is copyrighted only for 25 years since the picture creation as indicated in the article 7 of the Berne Convention. Best regards, Alpertron (talk) 01:46, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

LA Sheriff's Dept

Is the licensing here correct? File:John Mark Karr mug shot.jpg. -mattbuck (Talk) 09:59, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

We do have {{PD-CAGov}}, so perhaps it is. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:16, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

That's for works created by employees of the state of California. The L.A. Sheriff's department is a branch of the Los Angeles County government. County employees are not state employees. —LX (talk, contribs) 15:54, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I believe the court ruling was "public officials and agencies" and works of theirs subject to the California public records act. Wouldn't the county government come under that as well? Similar to {{PD-FLGov}}? The older tag was based on something from the state government website, but now seems to be more based on that court ruling. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:06, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Afghanistan

The entry should be updated per developments at Template:PD-Afghanistan. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 18:46, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Trinidad & Tobago

This is a Commonwealth nation - does anyone know if the typical rules apply? Also curious about FoP there, questions came up regarding this image at Wikipedia. Thanks! Kelly (talk) 18:34, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Their current law is here, and yes, per article 17, photos are OK if the underlying work is permanently situated in a public place or in premises open to the public. So yes, looks like they kept the usual UK wording. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:52, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Do you think it's worthwhile making templates/entries here and on the FoP page? Kelly (talk) 19:12, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I added the entry at COM:FOP#Trinidad & Tobago. I'm pretty ambivalent about the specific templates personally. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:16, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

FWIW we have {{PD-Trinidad and Tobago}}. -- Liliana-60 (talk) 22:59, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Category:Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial

Just looking for a second opinion before I make a mass deletion nomination, but reading over the article about this sculpture, it seems to me the copyright does not belong to the federal government, but to a private foundation. With no freedom of panorama for 3D artworks in the US, this doesn't seem to be something we could host on Commons. Kelly (talk) 04:04, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

On the description pages of those files, the PD-US-gov copyright tags are about the photographs that are works of employees of the US federal government, but they are not about the sculpture. Whoever holds the copyright on the sculpture (artists, foundation, federal government, ...), it is not free unless that copyright holder released it. -- Asclepias (talk) 12:41, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

A deletion request has already been initiated by User:Russavia, see Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial. By the way, discussions such as this one seem more suitable for COM:VPC. --Stefan4 (talk) 13:41, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

PD-Status of countries without a copyright law

This discussion is a fork of Commons:Village pump#PD-Afghanistan where there was no conclusive agreement on how to handle PD-Status of countries without a copyright law.

---

Berne Convention signatories

“

This work is in the public domain in the United States and most other countries because its "country of origin" has no domestic copyright law and does not participate in international copyright agreements (Circ. 38a). Pursuant to the Berne Convention and Title 17, Section 104 of the US Code, the following must be true to establish that the "country of origin" of this work is <country without copyright>: The work was first published in <country without copyright>. The authors of the work are citizens of <country without copyright> and are not also citizens or permanent residents of any country that participates in the Berne Convention. Within thirty days of its first publication in <country without copyright>, the work was never published in any country that participates in the Berne Convention.

”

Per [14] works created in Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, or San Marino by locals that meet the above conditions are considered in the public domain. As it is common practice we treat the copyright law of non-Berne signatory countries as if they are binding in the US which negates the effect for Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, San Marino ([15]) leaving only Eritrea. After research I was not able to determine if Eritrea has a copyright law but they seem to have an office for it: [16] and wiki.answers claims they do though I would not count that as a reliable source.

I'd like to request assistance in updating the entry for the following countries and the creation of the license template based on above arguments

• Commons:Licensing#San Marino/Template:PD-San Marino (as I recently found about their copyright law not mentioned in the policy here).
• Commons:Licensing#Eritrea/Template:PD-Eritrea (not sure if they have a copyright law)

-- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 11:29, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Note that you got some things wrong when you edited COM:L. If the author is a resident or citizen of some other country, the work would be copyrighted in all countries which have copyright relations with that other country, which would usually make the work copyrighted in most countries in the world. If the work is published in any other country within 30 days, it would be copyrighted in all countries which have copyright relations with any of those countries, which would also make it copyrighted in most countries in the world. The way the page reads now, it is suggested that works might only be copyrighted in Afghanistan and one or two other countries, which would only be the case if the citizenship or country of concurrent publication would be Iran or some other non-treaty country. --Stefan4 (talk) 14:35, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to correct it. I copied the information from the template. Prior it read that Afghanistan had no copyright whatsoever. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 14:15, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Eritrea appears to have life+0 years. It specifies that "only the author shall have during his life the right to produce his work." (Civil code Article 1653), but makes no mention of a copyright duration anywhere, from what I can see. -- Liliana-60 (talk) 15:04, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
Addendum: in the case of anonymous works, Eritrean law considers the publisher to be the copyright holder per Article 1667 (this must be unique in the whole world), also in the case of posthumous publication, 50 years from publication applies per Article 1672. -- Liliana-60 (talk) 15:12, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I added some info for Eritrea, but we should probably add that anonymous stuff too. There is a provision where the heirs can enforce protection up to 50 years from publication, so it appears it's the later of that date and the author's life which is the limit. Another article explicitly gives the right of first publication to the heirs, and there does not seem to be a limit on that. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:56, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Could you also create the template? I think this discussion will close the chapter on countries without copyright. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 14:15, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I created both templates. Feel free to reformat as needed. -- Liliana-60 (talk) 23:28, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Commons:Licensing#Ethiopia

I'd like to request a review of this entry as I was going to request this later once above issues were resolved but a recent nomination of an Ethiopian artwork has lead me to put this here earlier than I was planning. While I worry that we will be discussing too many complicated issues at once I hope this will not impact the quality of our decision. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 23:10, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Could you link me (and presumably other interested individuals) to the DR? -- Liliana-60 (talk) 23:15, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I assume that To Aru Shiroi Neko means Commons:Deletion requests/File:Ethiopia African potrayal of Jesus.JPG since it's the only Ethiopian deletion request I'm aware of. --Stefan4 (talk) 23:22, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Western Sahara

While we're at it, anyone know how to deal with Western Sahara? Do they have a copyright law? -- Liliana-60 (talk) 23:53, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Presumably, Moroccan law applies locally in the parts of the country controlled by Morocco. If other countries recognise Moroccan citizenship of people living in Western Sahara, the works would be recognised internationally as Moroccan works. --Stefan4 (talk) 00:16, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Postcard copyright section

Would like to see guidelines on uploading vintage postcard images. The topic should have surely come up. Is there a page comparable to Commons:Stamps/Public domain (under Category:Commons licensing help) to look at? Because I do not see it. Even if it is available, I would like to see easily spotted headings pointing to this link.

On Wikipedia:Public domain resources page is the statement "Any postcard first published in the U.S. before 1978 without an explicit copyright notice is PD. Lots of photos, aerial views, and maps of many U.S. locations." but it is appended to an external link to a historic photo archive.

Would like to know the guideline for other countries overall. Also, postcards don't bear dates, so what is the protocol or sufficient grounds for indicating it is vintage enough to be PD (pre-1978 or whatever)? Is this an area where an ordinary user can seek help from appraisers who can date them? --Kiyoweap (talk) 14:30, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Postcards follow the same copyright rules as other works. Since they often are photos, it typically means that you should follow the rules for photos from the relevant country. If a copyright notice doesn't mention the year of first publication, the copyright notice might be invalid (as {{PD-US-defective notice}}). --Stefan4 (talk) 15:47, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Are these pics. really CC BY-SA 3.0

Hi,

I'd really appreciate help with this. I want to use the following pics in a book (in other words, I need them to be licensed as free to use for commercial purposes). File:NSC_Olimpiyskyi2.jpg - the user who uploaded it is Ed1984
File:Donbass_Arena_9.jpg - the user who uploaded it is Elparadiso19

They are licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NSC_Olimpiyskyi2.jpg was sourced from http://football.ua/gallery/729/46585.html

Thanks. I would be grateful for a quick reply as I have to make a fast decision on this. Best regards, Damien Moran (dbamoran@yahoo.com)

Don't expect any guarantee. The first one has the highest risk in my view, as it is credited on the source site to Getty Images (an agency well known to sue anybody who uses their images without paying for). As you can see from the orange box on the image page, this image has a permission from football.ua stored in our OTRS system. Personally, I have my doubts about the ability of football.ua to relicense Getty material. Anyway, you may ask the volunteers at Commons:OTRS/Noticeboard for more information. The second image is likely o.k., as the uploader has more images from the same stadium. --Túrelio (talk) 21:14, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

The template:Football.ua, which includes the license and the OTRS number, specifies that the owner of the site football.ua offers his own photographs under the CC license but that "this permission does not apply to images gathered from news agencies or image services like Getty Images''. Uploads by User:Ed1984 may need to be reviewed. By the way, the wording of that exclusion specified by the sysop in the template seems to leave an ambiguity as to the status of the photographs on that site that are copyrighted by other persons (example). Unless there's something in the ticket that says that the copyright owners of such photographs have agreed to the CC license, they should probably also be assumed to be excluded from the permission. -- Asclepias (talk) 21:26, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Based on your statement about the permission for football.ua, I have filed the first image for deletion. --Túrelio (talk) 22:18, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

As for File:Donbass Arena 9.jpg, it was uploaded by a user who has had files deleted as copyright violations. It was uploaded to http://www.panoramio.com/photo/26266183 a week before it was uploaded here. It is possible that it was uploaded by the same person, but there is no similarities between the user names, and the free licenses selected are different. —LX (talk, contribs) 05:53, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

But the Panoramio pic is also licensed with CC-BY-SA 3.0--Sanandros (talk) 06:56, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

The Panoramio photo is only CC-BY and there is no marking for share alike. But I changed the information on the second image to match the license. I agree these uploaders should be looked at. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 07:08, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

See also:

• File:Donbass Arena 10.jpg - http://www.panoramio.com/photo/26266201
• File:Donbass Arena 12.jpg - http://www.panoramio.com/photo/26266191
• Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by User:Elparadiso19

-- Asclepias (talk) 18:04, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I have corrected the source, author name and license entries for Donbass Arena 10 and Donbass Arena 12. Luckily they are CC-BY licensed at source. --Túrelio (talk) 20:25, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Are Stars and Stripes images PD-USGov-Mil or copyrighted?

I understand Stars and Stripes is published by the United States of Department of Defense, and I'm wondering if content published by the paper falls under {{PD-USGov-Military}}. Now, the bottom of the website, http://stripes.com, says "© 2012 Stars and Stripes. All Rights Reserved." but these people are employees of the United States federal government, right? --Ytoyoda (talk) 17:37, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

http://www.stripes.com/customer-service/disclaimer says that the paper is just passed out through the military and not all content is by Government sources or even official information. My suggestion is to look at each photo individually and see if they are government works or not (for example http://www.stripes.com/news/cause-of-f-22-raptor-incidents-still-a-mystery-panel-finds-1.173120 is a USAF photo). User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 17:43, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

This is correct. Stars & Stripes is a combination product put out my military and civilian reporters and includes a lot of wire service content. You have to look for the credit on each photo. Kelly (talk) 17:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm looking specifically at the photo gallery at http://www.stripes.com/sports/u-s-starts-to-toughen-up-for-world-cup-with-1-0-win-at-kaiserslautern-1.46031, which credits the photographs to "Michael Abrams/S&S". Based on the above, I'm guessing this should be treated as any other newspaper photo, and not as a military photo? --Ytoyoda (talk) 17:58, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Works by S&S staff is copyrighted, see http://www.stripes.com/customer-service/web-notice User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 19:06, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks - that answers my question. Ytoyoda (talk) 19:57, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Moving part of this page elsewhere

Got your attention? Please see Commons:Village_pump#Commons:Verifying_permissions. Rd232 (talk) 17:23, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Tag for Utility items

Is there a tag I can use to clarify that an object (in the U.S.) is not copyrighted because it is a utility item (per US Code 17 § 102)? None of the existing PD tags seem appropriate. I know that this is usually obvious, but in cases like designer handbags, some people think that they are copyrighted. Kaldari (talk) 05:32, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Such a tag would technically apply to so many photos, I'm not sure it's worth it. But no, I don't know of one. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:46, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

upload generated license plates?

Hello, I'm asking myself wether I can upload images of license plates which I generated on this homepage. Actually, I think it should be no problem, because there are already similar pictures here and further they are no real photos. But I'm not sure about this. --TheFlyingDutchman (talk) 17:20, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't see why not, but would such pictures be useful for any project? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:47, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

I think so. There are already some generated pictures in articles about license plates, e.g. here and here.--TheFlyingDutchman (talk) 08:15, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Swiss 3.0 Creative Commons

Swiss 3.0 Creative Commons licenses are now available. We do not have a template, yet. --Martina talk 22:05, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I created Template:Cc-by-sa-3.0-ch, but in addition to English in de and de-ch only so far. This is probably better be done in TranslateWiki. --Leyo 16:13, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I tried to create a template for the version by-3.0.-CH, but it din't work (the first sentence was lacking). Translatewiki? --Martina talk 14:33, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Translatewiki = translatewiki:. --Stefan4 (talk) 14:57, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

 Question Is it just a matter of creating translations (translatewiki:MediaWiki:Wm-license-cc-by-sa-3.0-ch-text/sv) or is something else needed for them to be used? Other translations, such as translatewiki:MediaWiki:Wm-license-cc-by-sa-3.0-gt-text/sv, have three extra buttons to the right of "Discussion". I know that it may take a day or two until Wikimedia gets new translations from Translatewiki. --Stefan4 (talk) 17:37, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I think we have all translations needed in older versions (Template:Cc-by-sa-2.5-ch & Template:Cc-by-2.5-ch). I just don't understand the handling of these templates to manage that myself. --Martina talk 17:59, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

The translations are on Translatewiki. Thanks for mentioning the other licence templates, by the way: it helped me finding out that someone has mixed up Switzerland with Chile in the Swedish translation on Translatewiki.[17] --Stefan4 (talk) 18:07, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Crown copyright

If a work was published in the UK under Crown copyright in 1961, and thus expired after 50 years (2011), may it be uploaded to Commons? Jc3s5h (talk) 18:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, use {{PD-UKGov}}. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:12, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Problematic FoP-US-no notice template

A well-meaning editor created a template, {{FoP-US-no notice}}, specifically to cover the case of U.S. public art installed between 1923 and 1978 without a copyright notice. There are, however, 3 problems with this template:

• It is named and categorized as a Freedom of Panorama template, but the situation covered by the template has nothing to do with Freedom of Panorama.
• The template states that the photograph itself is also ineligible for copyright protection, which is incorrect. All photos of 3D objects (whether the objects are PD or not) are eligible for copyright protection.
• The situation this template is designed to cover is already adequately addressed by the {{PD-US-no notice}} template (in combination with a free license tag for the photo).

I have two possible proposals for fixing this:

1. Someone create a wrapper template for {{PD-US-no notice}} that is similar to {{Licensed PD-Art}}. The wrapper would contain a statement explaining the situation with U.S. public sculptures installed between 1923 and 1978 without a copyright notice and then accept a 2nd license tag as a parameter for the photograph licensing. We would then migrate {{FoP-US-no notice}} uses to this template.
2. Alternatively, redirect {{FoP-US-no notice}} to {{PD-US-no notice}}.

Thoughts? Kaldari (talk) 05:33, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

A wrapper template may be better, explaining that artworks installed before 1978 normally are considered as published. There are other reasons for them to be in the public domain, such as published before 1923 or no renewal, and it would be good to let a wrapper template pick the correct one, e.g. as {{FoP-US-artwork|PD-1923}}. --Stefan4 (talk) 10:51, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi. What should I be using until then? I'm working on a major public art push now that I have free time again, or should I just sit on things for now? Thanks for the help. Sarah (talk) 13:36, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I usually just put in two licenses, labeling one "Photo" and one "Sculpture" or something like that. This image was pointed out as an example of something like that. Someone did just make a {{PD-art-1923-3d}} tag for the case where the art was published prior to 1923. A generic wrapper may be a good idea, taking one license for the object and one for the photo, but it would need to take arbitrary wikitext for either argument because there are so many possibilities. Anyways, just use {{PD-1923}}, {{PD-US-no notice}}, or {{PD-US-not renewed}}, and label that as being the license for the artwork, with something else for the photo. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:18, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Since no one has volunteered to create the wrapper template yet, and unfortunately I don't have time to myself, I'm going to go ahead and redirect {{FoP-US-no notice}} to {{PD-US-no notice}} for now. Kaldari (talk) 21:00, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Licensing problems with ubiquitously used image

• File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R99859, Berlin, brennender Reichstag (Reichstagsbrand).jpg
• File:Reichstagsbrand.jpg
• File:Reichstagsbrand.gif

The later two versions are under a license that is invalid on Commons. There can be no doubt, that the NARA claims do not cover Germany, the place of origin of this picture, so Commons can't keep those photos based on "seized enemy property". The first one is more complicated: The German Bundesarchiv licensed it but gives credits to ADN, the former state news and photo agency of the GDR (East Germany). This is of course faulty, as ADN did not exist in 1938 and there is not the slightest hint how they could have acquired the rights for a picture that was taken in 1938. How do we deal with that? --h-stt !? 10:28, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Ähem, hat sich denn an deinem letzten Statement in Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Reichstagsbrand.gif etwas geändert? --Túrelio (talk) 10:41, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Lustig, an die LD zum .gif erinnerte ich mich nicht mehr, nur noch an die zum .jpg, das gelöscht (und seitdem zweimal außerhalb des Verfahrens wieder hergestellt) wurde. --h-stt !? 11:16, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

The claim is that it was published anonymously in 1933, which means that it has been PD in Germany/Europe since 2004. The NARA reasoning would stand to explain the U.S. side of things. Getty does have a couple of versions of it here and here, not really any further help on authorship. Perhaps it was a stock news image at the time, which ADN no doubt acquired at some point (perhaps it inherited some material from the former government's media archives?). But unless there was a human author named, I don't see how the licenses are invalid. Carl Lindberg (talk) 11:12, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Under German law, a photographer does not have to be named along the work to have a valid claim. Just any kind and place of mentioning is enough. We can't know and certainly not prove, that the photographer did not sign or archive or otherwise claim a single print sometimes or someplace. I'm totally unhappy with each and any "anon works" licenses with regard to Germany. rgds --h-stt !? 11:16, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

No, but we can disprove it, by finding an author's name somewhere. You're basically saying we can never use the Anonymous-EU tag, since it's always going to be impossible to prove that an author's name was never mentioned, even if we know the original publication was anonymous. Given the number of places this photo exists, you'd think the photographer's name would be somewhere if it was known. Anonymous seems a reasonable assumption, given the number of high-profile institutions which have copies with none of them having a known author, though of course it's always possible that a name would be found somewhere, at which point we would re-evaluate. Of course it's equally possible the photo was simultaneously published in a number of other countries, which means that some other country (with a shorter term) may be the "country of origin". Carl Lindberg (talk) 11:39, 18 May 2012 (UTC)