Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2018/07

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Cinematographic works

According to the Iranian copyright law, photographic and cinematographic works fall into the public domain after 30 years from the date of publication. I want to know the exact meaning of "cinematographic works". Does this term mean any kind of footage, or just movies? I ask this question because the original Persian word "سینمایی" is solely used for artistic/commercial works which are shown in movie theatres.

For example, File:Ramesh sings Sazesh, Rangarang Anniversary Celebration - November 1977.webm is a footage from National Iranian Radio & Television. Is this work in the public domain? The singer is alive. I have no idea about musicians involved. 4nn1l2 (talk) 02:54, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Ukrainian license template

Can someone briefly confirm that the Ukrainian government template is free in these images below.

I ask since since only one uploader seems to be using it. I assume it is a recent template. Thank You and Goodnight from Canada, --Leoboudv (talk) 09:20, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

The websites indeed say CC-BY-SA 4.0 unless stated otherwise.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:02, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

1947 banknotes of Pakistan

Hi, I have a complicated case of copyright. What's the country of first publication for these banknotes Category:George VI on Pakistani banknotes? We know that the notes were printed between 1943 and 1947, and then overprinted "Government of Pakistan" in 1947. This one is specially interesting. It may seem quite rhetorical, as they are in the public domain both in India and Pakistan, but it may change the copyright status in USA.

The categories are also a bit tricky. With the current categories, the obverses and the reverses are in different categories, which is suboptimal. Opinions? Regards, Yann (talk) 16:24, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

File:Lithograph, George Washington at Mount Vernon, Junius Brutus Stearns.jpg

Uploaded this image, original artist died in the nineteenth century, both sources point to Getty Images, metadata claims "The following uses are prohibited in the territories indicated: Retail Print, Poster; Worldwide." Is this copyvio or copyfraud? – Conservatrix (talk) 04:12, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Your image is fine: painted by Stearns; lithographed by Régnier, printed by Lemercier, c.1853, LOC holdings. --Taterian (talk) 05:02, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
see also Commons:How Alamy is stealing your images Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 01:26, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Copyright status of the Olympic Rings

There are a number files in Category:Olympic rings in logos which show the Olympic Rings, so I'm asssuming that the rings themselves aren't protected by copyright. Is that correct? The reason I'm asking is because of en:File:Youth Olympic Games.svg. For the most part, this seems to be {{PD-textlogo}} but en:Template:Non-free Olympics media seems to imply that the rings themselves might not be PD worldwide. Can Commons accept this file under a "PD-textlogo" license? -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:03, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

The rings as such are PD, but there are lots of original logos from the various Olympics that include complex graphics. So this is why have the template. But this file at ENWP shouldn't be a problem. You can upload it as {{PD-textlogo}} but you should add a {{Trademarked}} too just to be on the safe side. De728631 (talk) 15:49, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

The Honourable Rosalie Silberman Abella

Are there any copyright issues for illustrations of living people? Found this today and wondered: Rosalie Abella. Compare with actual photo of person: https://www.scc-csc.ca/judges-juges/bio-eng.aspx?id=rosalie-silberman-abella and probably inspired by photo here: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canadian-supreme-court-judge-awarded-honorary-degree-from-yale-1.2914423 // sikander { talk } 15:05, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

@Sikander: That looks like a copyvio of the inspiration photo https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canadian-supreme-court-judge-awarded-honorary-degree-from-yale-1.2914423 to me; I prefer File:20170125 GlobalJuristAward Abella (cropped).jpg.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 15:59, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Mass delete help

I found 1231 images, all from the same source that are clear copyright violations. Shall I list them all at once for deletion, or 100 at once? I've never listed that many before.--BevinKacon (talk) 19:30, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

@BevinKacon: It may be easiest if you post here the category or search parameters which led you to the 1231 images. If they're blatant enough we can speedily delete them with less trouble. Guanaco (talk) 19:39, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
insource:danrocha. It's my biggest find yet!--BevinKacon (talk) 19:46, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
Effectively, the account doesn't exist any more on Flickr. And at least File:Shelby (8917502965).jpg (Author: Dan Mullan/Pinnacle; Copyright holder: PPAUK) is a clear copyvio. Regards, Yann (talk) 20:10, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

They've been scraped off the web, if you search descriptions, they are copied from porn websites. Others noticed http://youarenotaphotographer.com/forums/topic/flickr-help/ https://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157659599164704/ who will do the honors?--BevinKacon (talk) 20:17, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

 Doing… Yann (talk) 20:21, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • @Yann: What the hell is going on? The images taken from the flickr page were taken and upload by Dan Rocha, aka Lies Thru Lenses. The one complaining is Dan Rocha on flickr. He took all this images, made with one or two cameras. This kind of purges, on speedt deletion is unwanted and too say the least unthought. The images were uploaded by the original author. Other sources are copyright violations, not the flickr source. Tm (talk) 21:07, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Then why have they apparently vanished off the internet? All links dead.

Yann (talk) 21:38, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

More out of place uploads

Tm, if we can get an explanation about why they vanished, then I think it's worth reviewing.--BevinKacon (talk) 21:53, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

I think we should attempt to contact the photographer Dan Rocha to find out why the vanished and also get permission before any further actions. Situation is unclear. @Yann: please hold. We need someone at COM:OTRS to make contact.--BevinKacon (talk) 22:34, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Dan".

"Searcher PRO says: Lies Thru a Lens: Oh, duh. Sorry. Yeah you have them licensed as Creative Commons. That license overrides any download settings, because you're granting the use in the license. Sorry for the confusion, I didn't see your licensing previously.

In fact your chosen license actually gives people the right to use the photo in this way:

"copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format"

Flickr's site rules are more strict that copyright, in that people can only post photos they created themselves. But you are giving people a license to post and use and even sell your images wherever they want, as long as they attribute the image to you.

Colossal growth PRO says: The Searcher:

Yes but they have to credit me as the photographer. I have no issue with people using my work, I encourage it. But I draw the line at stealing and passing it off as their own work.

Thanks for your help, really appreciate it."

  • Is it more proof necessary that the author Dan Rocha was the author of this images, as remember that "Colossal growth" flickr profile also links to https://www.flickr.com/photos/danrocha/, and that https://www.flickr.com/photos/danrocha/ was the source of authorship in the deleted images in Commons? Any more doubts that the images were deleted without a second tought, out of process and only with a counterargument after the fait accompli? The simnple fact is that the links provided to delete the files do not warrant its deletion, but instead confirmed the authorship. Tm (talk) 22:46, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  •  Comment@Yann and BevinKacon: As Yann seems stubborn to admit his mistake, except in two files, i´ve started Commons:Village_pump#Mass_purge_on_files_in_an_out_of_process_speedy_deletion, as it seems that all the proofs of undispituble authorship are not aswered. Yann, will you revert your deletion as the files are made by Dan Rocha, and i´ve shown that the author is the same in flickr, many times, licensed the images with a free license, took images with cameras in diferent times as he changed them (as can be seen by the exif and as i remember his changes of cameras), and the links provided to justify the deletion, show instead that Dan Rocha (the flickr user Dan Rocha and the Dan Rocha in ) was the one complaining about theft, not the other way around, or will you try to claim the this files are all copyright violations (maybe except, that shows cameras he didnt had at the time). Tm (talk) 23:09, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Also why he used several cameras, as i said before he changed from cameras from time to time, always from medium ones to better ones, and also review several cameras like the Sony A7R MkII, Sony A7S MkII, like the Canon 5Dsr, and took several images with said cameras
  • Need more proof, or is it enough to undelete all images and nominate to DR only the images of cameras, as probably they are not made by Dan Rocha? Tm (talk) 00:53, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  •  Keep Seems to be an error in nomination. If there is any doubt, undelete the files and follow the regular deletion request. ℺ Gone Postal (〠 ✉ ✍ ⏿) 02:55, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  •  Comment There is a photographer called Dan Mullan (see Getty, Twitter, own website), but he is probably not the owner of the Flickr account. Also the discussion on [2] and [3] is certainly not a proof of anything. On the opposite, it looks amateurish and/or childish, where the images are from a professional. These are not from a picture party by some amateur with his girlfriend on a Sunday afternoon. Then the Flickr account was closed, and all Internet links have disappeared. There are at least a few proven copyright violations in this stream, which makes this account very suspicious at the very least.
There is also a photographer called Dan Bowen (from Canada, so not the same person, see also Getty and [4]), and from this, he may be the author of some of the pictures. All this makes Tm's claim completely worthless. Anyway, I wrote to Daniel Mullan and his photo agency, Pinnacle Photo Agency Ltd, asking for confirmation. Regards, Yann (talk) 12:12, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
You are completely off the tracks, just in order to keep the files you wrongly uploaded. I have shown above that Dan Mullan and Dan Bowen are different people. There is also a photographer called Daniel Rocha. And here is his Flickr account. All evidences show that one guy collected images from several people, and claimed to be his owns. He was then banned from Flickr, and all his other Internet accounts and websites have disappeared. Tm: You show also stay mellow, and check your words. Regards, Yann (talk) 13:44, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  •  Comment@Yann: Your doing a terrible job trying to defend the imposible. You claim that "There is also a photographer called Dan Bowen (from Canada, so not the same person)". Did you even tried to read the site, before linking it? This Dan Bowen is from Canada, no doubt, and no doubt he is, and i quote http://www.danbowen.com/booking, he is an "Professional Entertaining Magic since 1989", not a photographer as you claim. Tm (talk) 13:43, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

File:Jennifer Warren Gimbel.jpg

This is a photograph of a painting. The photo itself probably is not a COM:DW and therefore not eligible for copyright protection per COM:2D copying, but the copyright status of the painting itself is not clear. The same also applies to File:At 30 by Kent Broadhurst.jpg and File:Traveling Light.jpg. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:14, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

They may be {{PD-US-no notice}} but some evidence of publication (with date) is needed. Ankry (talk) 07:11, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
This is a photograph of a portrait painting of w:Jennifer Warren, born 1941. The file page attributes the painting to Kent Broadhurst. This is probably the actor w:Kent Broadhurst, who is listed as a painter here. For {{PD-US-no notice}} to apply the painting would have to have been published (exhibited) before 1977. Jennifer Warren could well be less than 36 years old in the picture, so this date is possible. But we still need evidence. Verbcatcher (talk) 16:14, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
A discussion w:Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 92#Kent Broadhurst suggests that the uploader of these images may be the painter or somebody close to him. If so the license could be confirmed using COM:OTRS Verbcatcher (talk) 16:28, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks Ankry and Verbcatcher for looking into this. Would tagging these with {{Npd}} be appropriate or would it be better to do a DR for all three? -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:23, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
{{Npd}} is for 'file pages which lack adequate evidence of permission', so it should not be used if there is a realistic chance of retaining the image without permission. If {{PD-US-no notice}} is a real possibility then DR is better. Verbcatcher (talk) 13:40, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Pexels.com

This website used to distribute photographs under a CC-Zero 1.0 licence, see also {{Pexels}}, archived page from 30 Jun 2018 and this upload I made yesterday. As of today, they seem to have shifted to their own Pexels license which amounts to {{Copyrighted free use}} instead. The difference is that under this new licence, authors no longer waive the rights to their work. CC-0 licences that were granted before are of course irrevocable, even if the file pages over there have simply been overwritten with the new licence.

I think we need to adjust the {{Pexels}} template with a past tense form of the summary: "This image is from Pexels, which used to publish images under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication until 4 July 2018. See an archived version of Pexel's licence page for more information." De728631 (talk) 22:00, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I also created {{Pexels-CFU}} in response to the new conditions. De728631 (talk) 22:26, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
To add to the confusion, it seems that Pexels kept the CC-0 licences for images that were imported from Pixabay. Cf.this photo. Therefore I suggest the following:
  • move {{Pexels}} to {{Pexels-Cc-zero}}
  • Change the summary at Pexels-Cc-zero to "This image is from Pexels, which used to publish images under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication until 4 July 2018. Images imported from Pixabay are still available at Pexels under this license. See an archived version of Pexels' licence page for more information."
De728631 (talk) 16:31, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 Support your suggestions. --Achim (talk) 18:16, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Alright. I moved the template and adjusted the English text. Now Template:Pexels-Cc-zero/es needs to get updated accordingly. De728631 (talk) 22:25, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Pexels & File:James Michael Flaherty Building.jpg

The pexels license issue should be addressed if I have to review them. Anyway is anyone willing to review the above file? The person who order the review has some doubts that it is free and I don't know if it is free either. Best, --Leoboudv (talk) 03:47, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

The terms and condition of that site restrict commercial use for materials other than data. Data are distributed under the {{OGL-C}} license. I don't know what defines "materials" vs. "data" for that site, though, so I'll open a DR. clpo13(talk) 15:58, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Homage to the Square below TOO?

Is en:File:Josef Albers's painting 'Homage to the Square', 1965.jpg below TOO? — JJMC89 (T·C) 05:11, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

@JJMC89: I just happened to mention Albers two sections above. It seems we are failing to come to a conclusion, though. — Rhododendrites talk |  13:43, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
abstraction is original. keep the "original research" straw man theories on english. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 19:11, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Bridge below TOO?

Is en:File:'Bridge' by Kenneth Noland, 1964..jpg below TOO? — JJMC89 (T·C) 05:12, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

abstraction is original, that is a straw man argument, which should be left on english. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 19:09, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima

Hi, The original is under a copyright, but we have the negative File:Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima USMC-100224-M-9247F-003.jpg under {{PD-USGov-Military}}. From this, I made File:Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, positive.jpg. Is this OK? I'd like to know if the copyright status is fine before I make more corrections on this. Regards, Yann (talk) 18:52, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

you are reopening a can of worms. the original copyright is a matter of dispute. there is a academic consensus it is PD, but not a commons consensus. see also [6] you should go to DRV. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 19:07, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Ah yes, I forgot this DR. Actually almost everybody there agreed that the image is in the public domain because of lack of renewal. So why was it deleted?
But here, I am working from the negative, with some strange reflects in, which we have since December 2012 under {{PD-USGov-Military}}. So I assumed that, for some weird reasons, it is under a different status that the positive. Regards, Yann (talk) 20:08, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Sorry. Saw this in NFF and posted on Yann's talk before I knew about this thread. I believe the credit to Sgt Ferris is incorrectly interpreted. I'm assuming the original was taken from here, where Sgt Ferris is credited with both "the photo" as well as writing the article for the Corps in 2010. So more like, Sgt Ferris took the photo of the original negative which is identified as being the original negative taken by Rosenthal. So, not that Sgt Ferris was a Marine on Iwo Jima that happened to be standing next to Rosenthal or something and took basically an identical photo. GMGtalk 19:13, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

???

From what I can tell [[:]] should probably be marked as {{PD-ineligible}} as it's quite simple, however the uploader marked it as their "Own work" because the Wikimedia Commons mobile application was used, is it simple enough for this template? Note that this television channel is from a Bangla-speaking area so either India or Bangladesh, I'm not that familiar with the copyright © laws of either country. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 11:32, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

@Donald Trung: Bangladesh I don't know, India is similar to the US: Commons:Threshold of originality#India. However, I personally don't think the logo is PD-ineligible, even in the US. Even simple things can be copyrightable if they're not basic. Look at Miffy (Nijntje wil meer bier. Mama heeft alles opgedronken. Nijntje is verdrietig. De kassière gelooft nijntje niet meer als ze het het rijbewijs van mama laat zien.), although the shapes appear to be simple, Miffy is not PD-ineligible. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 16:04, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz: Alright then, with much pain I shall nominate this file for deletion and ask the author to provide OTRS permission. Nijntje = 🍺🐰 --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 16:53, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 16:56, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

I'd like a second opinion on whether the following are below COM:TOO: [7], [8]. My first impression is that they would be okay, but I wonder if the stylized B that's used as an emblem would be a problem under US and/or Chinese law (since this logo was considered copyrightable in China). See also w:WP:FFU#Byton car company logo and w:WP:FFU#Byton company emblem. clpo13(talk) 15:50, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

I'd say these are too simple in both jurisdictions. Clearly below TOO in the US, and also China should not be a problem when a typeface like "巴" was found not copyrightable. De728631 (talk) 16:01, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, De728631. I've uploaded the files with {{PD-textlogo}}. clpo13(talk) 16:34, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: clpo13(talk) 16:34, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Minimalist art

File:IKB 191.jpg
File:'23', oil on canvas painting by John McCracken, 1964, Smithsonian American Art Museum.jpg
"meh"
Tic-tac-toe for pros
Thanks for experimenting with MS paint. Your test worked

Looking for best practices when it comes to minimalist art. Specifically the kind of image that could be argued to be basic geometric shapes. What is the threshold of originality for such a painting? These two images were sent to FfD on enwiki and made me wonder:

en:File:'Red Canvas' by Richard Tuttle, 1967, Corcoran Gallery of Art.jpg
en:File:Robert Mangold's acrylic and pencil 'X Within X Orange', 1981.jpg (this one in particular)

Looking around, I see we do host the images displayed to the right on Commons with such a PD tag. Thoughts? — Rhododendrites talk |  19:00, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

These are two images of important artworks. The Mangold is typical of his geometric paintings and the Tuttle is historical and innovative. They are both important artworks...Modernist 19:23, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
None of that really has anything to do with the threshold of originality. Whether or not it's a valid NFCC is a discussion squarely for enwiki. The question here is whether they meet the threshold of originality at all (i.e. do they qualify for copyright at all or are they in the public domain?). — Rhododendrites talk |  19:35, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
IMO, at least the second one is simple geometric. Ankry (talk) 05:26, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
I wondered the same about en:Black Fire I. However, if you look closely at the painting, it's not an exact geometrical representation, but varies a bit on the edges. I think that may be enough to make it copyrightable. If you made a purely geometrical version of it, it should be public domain. --ghouston (talk) 06:00, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
It seems tricky when it comes to paintings because the lines will often be just short of perfect and the colors often not perfectly mixed and thus showing inconsistencies throughout. So even the blue painting displayed to the right, if you blow it up, shows a bunch of inconsistencies/spots. Intentional? Does it matter? Then there's the phenomenon of the "white painting" -- several paintings that appear to be white canvases that have become famous works of art. Part of the reason is that they're not the same as if you went into Photoshop, dragged a rectangle marquee, and filled it with white but rather have intentional subtle lines/patterns/shapes. Newman has one of those. So does another famous example relevant here: w:Josef Albers. Some of his paintings just look like shapes/concentric shapes. Typically the colors aren't perfectly flat, but at what point does that matter? How many shapes makes something original? I think we've established that those best known works by Mondrian are protected, even if they're ultimately colored rectangles and lines between them. — Rhododendrites talk |  13:41, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Mondrian died in 1944, so nothing of his is protected in 70 year countries. But besides that, the medium is immaterial to whether the work is sufficiently creative to qualify for copyright. If fuzzy imperfect lines are an artifact of the medium then they're not meaningful for establishing authorship. Digital perfection is not "the standard" it's just "a medium". Certainly in lots of these minimalist works the constituent parts don't qualify for copyright, and "a combination of unprotectable elements is eligible for copyright protection only if those elements are numerous enough and their selection and arrangement original enough that their combination constitutes an original work."[9] Or in other words it has a lot to do with complexity of the work. Personally, I'd would probably say 1: not protected, 2: definitely protected, and 3: grey area where we should probably err on the side of being more conservative. GMGtalk 15:31, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
I guess I'd add that I looked for like three hours into this after posting, and did not find a single instance where minimalism and TOO ever actually went to court together. There's a few isolated and contradictory published opinions here and there, but nothing really definitive I found from any country at all. Incidentally it does seem that certain types of performance post-modern-y type art actually wouldn't be covered by copyright at all, no matter how complex, because it's not fixed. So if you took a picture of it, the picture itself would be the copyrighted work and not derivative of the performance "as a work", so long as the performance isn't "fixed". The example was something like...throwing confetti out of an airplane to symbolize freedom of spirit or something.
Interesting and odd. Like...if you set a baby doll next to a hand grenade to make a statement about war, and you call it art then it's art. The image would be derivative of the 3D work (which would itself be derivative of the design of the doll if not original). But if you blow up a baby doll with a hand grenade and call it art then it's not. The video of the explosion would be treated as an original work. GMGtalk 15:41, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
@GreenMeansGo: But the fragments of the doll, arranged in some way, possibly would be copyrightable. You might also be interested in 4′33″. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 18:32, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
The US and Mexico will protect many of Mondrian's works for some time to come. And most of our users, if not now, in the future, don't live in life+70 countries; more than half the world's population lives in China, India, the US, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Japan, Mexico or Ethiopia, none of which are life+70 countries.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:49, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

If the photo of the art shows minor details & brush strokes, then simply scale it down until they cannot be seen, making a pd tag valid. I would not consider the texture of canvas as can be seen on File:IKB 191.jpg part of the protected work. I don't see any details on the orange cross, or red cross works, so would consider these PD. Nothing on the red octagon can be copyrighted. We should also trace them to produce COM:SVG's and link them together, and have its own category such as Category:Vectorized minimalist art which anyone who enjoys these pieces would find useful.--BevinKacon (talk) 16:38, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

There is also a DR open right now with a bunch of minimalist art: Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Groninger Museum. If things like those we are talking about here were company logos from the US, we wouldn't think twice and put {{PD-textlogo}} on them. But someone calls it "art" and suddenly the rules change? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 18:32, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
I agree with you on those works, but call it art, and the way people think about it, includes judges and juries, changes. I also think there might be a complex abstraction issue; a painting of the Best Western logo is so much more complex in fine detail than the abstract logo that the company wanted to protect. A photo of the Washington Memorial is copyrightable, even if the Memorial isn't (even if it was new) and the photo is so close to so many other photos of the same item.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:09, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
I'm not suggesting "art" be given any additional consideration, my suggestion was merely a compromise that would only apply on a case-by-case basis. I'm for tagging them as PD.--BevinKacon (talk) 19:47, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
It's extreme, but the law provides for independent identical works that have different copyrights. An argument that your explicit derivation by scaling it down doesn't change the fundamental nature of the copyright would at least be heard in court. http://edition.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/23/uk.silence/ talks about someone paying a six-figure out of court settlement for infringing on John Cage's 4'33" (4.5 minutes of silence), and it seems at least part of the case is that One Minute of Silence was attributed to Cage/Batt. A scaled down photograph of a painting being used as an actual copy of the painting is an awful temptation to any judge inclined to rule on the side of the artist.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:03, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Jawad Saleem

(Also apparently Jewad Selim. Courtesy ping for User:Marah Shaa.)

Started looking at this because of File:Jewad Selim - Woman Selling Material.jpg, but it looks like it applies to a few other images in Category:Jawad Saleem. Turkish born Iraqi artist who died in 1961, so to my mind Template:PD-Iraq should apply to works created before 1954, as the Woman Selling Material was. But looking at the template documentation, it seems that it only applies if the individual is an Iraqi citizen, and I'm not seeing a definite date when (or if) they officially became a citizen, or he was born a citizen abroad. He was employed in the Directorate of Antiquities in Baghdad starting in 1940, but that doesn't necessarily tell if he was a citizen in 1940. Not totally sure whether that's problematic for our purposes. GMGtalk 12:15, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Category:Clothing in the collections of the Missouri History Museum

Hi, All these images use {{PD-Art|PD-1923}} which is wrong twice: the pictures are recent, and the objects are not 2D art. We don't need a copyright for the objects, as these are just clothing, and not covered by copyright. These are interesting and good pictures, but we need to get the licensing right. What is a bit worrying is that some of the images have "Photograph and scan © 2005, Missouri Historical Society." in their metadata, which is quite contradictory with the statement at source "COPYRIGHT UNDETERMINED". If the museum took the picture, they know very well its copyright. Regards, Yann (talk) 13:00, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

See also Commons:Deletion requests/File:Bodice Designed by House of Worth and Worn by Julia Dent Grant.jpg. Yann (talk) 15:32, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

UC San Diego images

I have a question about the copyright status of the images linked here. The file description says that they can only be used under fair use and then mentions a CC-BY 4.0 license. Do people think that this can be used on Commons or not. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 13:02, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Well, if you legitimately license something under CC 4.0, part of the package is you can't add any additional restrictions, and the license is irrevocable. Since it's the same institution that took the photo as posted the notices, I don't see any reason to think it's not legitimate, although neither appear to be a boiler plate applied to everything on the website (which is what I expected to find re the fair use clause). Unless I'm mistaken, they can "say" whatever they want but CC 4.0 wins, because saying these additional things is violating their own license. If I'm mistaken someone kindly let me know. GMGtalk 17:15, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Modern Tarots: recreated or refreshed?

Since June 18 when I posted a deletion request, there is a debate on the request page to find out if doing this kind of thing legitimizes a copyright claim or is a copyfraud. As the debate is a bit heated, I think it would be a good idea if an administrator or an experienced user could intervene. Thank you! Thomas Linard (talk) 15:39, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Old pictures of William Cormick

Hi there. Are these old pictures uploadable? [10]-[11] If yes, which license tag do I need to use? Thanks, - LouisAragon (talk) 17:18, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

It depends on the dates of their first publication and the dates of death of their authors. Ruslik (talk) 17:39, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Issues with Template:PD-MH

Recently, I noticed that Commons has a template allowing anything published in the Marshall Islands to be included on Wikipedia, since they have no domestic copyright law.

Upon seeing this, I planned on going to a local library, getting copies of books and newspapers printed in the Marshall Islands, and then scanning and uploading them to Commons or Wikisource.

However, upon further investigation, I realised that the interpretatioin of Commons is not, to my understanding, correct.

The reason I say this is that the United States (and indeed, Berne Convention countries in general) extend protection based on citizenship and place of usual residence.

So if a dual Marshallese-United States citizen (for example) publishes something in the Marshall Islands, it can't be hosted on servers in the United States, despite its place of publication.

Fortunately, there do not seem to be many Marshallese files uploaded to Commons yet, so even if many have to be removed, the loss will not be great.

Normally I would just be bold and make a change to the template, but given the wide-reaching implications, I thought that it would be worth discussing here. Orthogonal1 (talk) 03:01, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

That sounds a lot like the wording at {{Copyright notes}}, specifically point one. There’s not a lot online about this, but I think your interpretation is correct. clpo13(talk) 04:26, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

File:Hindenburg disaster.jpg - No known copyright restrictions?

Are there really "no known copyright restrictions" for this iconic photo of the 1937 Lakehurst disaster? There could be if it was released without a copyright notice or if the copyright wasn't renewed, but did somebody who knows where to look actually check? --Rosenzweig τ 23:57, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes but also maybe no. Under "The Commons," cultural institutions that have reasonably concluded that a photograph is free of copyright restrictions are invited to share such photograph under their new usage guideline called "no known copyright restrictions."
This photo was shared by Nationaal Archief, a Dutch organisation. The photographer, Sam Shere, died in 1982 so we can be sure they didn't look at 70 PMA. Shere worked for International News Photo. In the Netherlands, if a company is deemed the author, copyright expires 70 years after 1 January of the year following that in which the work was first lawfully communicated to the public. So it is public domain in The Netherlands and other countries that have a similar law. I don't know if they also checked the US status. For the US, this will be pretty much the same discussion as Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 02:56, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
@Rosenzweig: in response to "but did somebody who knows where to look actually check?", that's what I created COM:RENEWAL for. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 03:04, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
did you check? do you have any evidence to doubt the archives? i see it is a 100 greatest photo [12]. no hits in 1965 for renewal, here [13], [14] Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 15:31, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
The US Library of Congress writes that "In an attempt to determine if International News Photos registered any copyrights and if those copyrights were renewed, Specialists in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress searched the Copyright Office files. It was found that only a few images were registered for copyright and those copyrights were not renewed." So if there are no renewals in the Copyright Catalogue, this is {{PD-US-not-renewed}}. De728631 (talk) 15:57, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Should {{PD-Afghanistan}} be updated regarding US copyright?

This discussion seems to indicate that the US and Afghanistan now have copyright relations. If such copyright relations exist, then it would seem useful to update the {{PD-Afghanistan}} template (which as of now only talks about whether a work is copyrighted in Afghanistan) to mention the URAA date for works of Afghan origin and also to mention that works of Afghan origin are likely copyrighted in the US if they were under copyright in Afghanistan on the URAA date. (In the U.S. Copyright Office Circular 38A, there is mention of Afghanistan on page 4. For the WTO (World Trade Organization), the given date is July 29, 2016. For the Berne Convention, the given date is June 2, 2018.)

Possible wording (assuming that June 2, 2018 is the URAA date for Afghanistan):

Important note: Works of foreign (non-U.S.) origin must be out of copyright or freely licensed in both their home country and the United States in order to be accepted on Commons. Works of Afghan origin that were under copyright in Afghanistan on June 2, 2018 may be copyrighted in the U.S. under the URAA.[15] Works of Afghan origin that were no longer under copyright in Afghanistan on June 2, 2018 are not copyrighted in the U.S. due to a previous lack of copyright relations between the US and Afghanistan.

Thoughts? --Gazebo (talk) 06:24, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Many tags do not mention the URAA status, though some do (or at least say that you also need a U.S. tag as well). Don't think it's necessary, but doesn't hurt either. The WTO adherence would also trigger the URAA, so it sounds like July 29, 2016 is the date. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:21, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
{{URAA-date}} needs to be updated and {{PD-1996}} needs to be fixed. By the way, we also have local copy of the U.S. Copyright Office circulars, including 38a. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 15:05, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. I went ahead and added a note to the English version of the template with the assumption that the URAA date is July 29, 2016. I also adjusted {{URAA-date}}, thought it might be useful for someone to look at the template and see if the edit is all right. From what it appears, the contents of U.S. Copyright Office Circular 38a have changed over time, and the local copy was uploaded in March of this year. It might be useful for someone to upload the most recent version. (The license tag for the local copy is {{PD-USGov}}, and it would seem that this would apply to most of the content in the circular. I am not sure as to whether there might be copyright issues with content such as embedded fonts in the PDF.) --Gazebo (talk) 04:17, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Circ. 38A was last updated in June 2018, so I'll upload a new copy. The project pages regarding PDFs (COM:SCOPE#PDF and DjVu formats, COM:FT#Textual formats) don't say anything about embedded fonts, so I don't know what the advice is on that front. clpo13(talk) 16:13, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
@Clpo13: Ignore it, probably.. Color profiles can be copyrighted too, but do you really want to delete pictures over that.. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 16:33, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Official Dinner 1.jpg

Is the PD-Eritrea placed in this file correct. I am sure the photo is not published in a book, but are all photographs not published in a book but taken in Eritrea automatically not protected by a copyright? Pinging Varavour.

Also, the wording of the license is confusing. May I suggest the following version instead:

This work is in the public domain because its not eligible for a copyright or the copyright has expired in Eritrea.

 This is because:

  • Its author has died, and 50 years have passed since publication, by the virtue of Articles 1653 and 1670 of the Eritrean Civil code. In the case of anonymous works, the publisher becomes the copyright holder per Article 1667.
  • Eritrean photographs are only protected if they are part of a collection or book, or bear the name and address of the author or their agent. In all other cases, photographs are not protected by copyright (Article 1662).

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Coffeeandcrumbs (talk • contribs) 03:20, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

    • The country of origin is the place of first publication, not where the photo was taken. Unfortunately, Internet publication is complicated, even as to whether something on the Internet is published at all. But if something is uploaded to Twitter as first publication, I would take that as first publication in the US. I'd also see an argument for concurrent publication in all the places where Twitter has servers in.--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:39, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Photos of copyrighted artwork?

I think the photographer who took File:Portrait de Mademoiselle A.C by Ezekiel Baroukh.jpg and File:Mohamed - Antoine Malliakaris dit Mayo.jpg can probably only release them under a free license if the oroginal work is no longer protected by copyright? The first painting appears to be from 1939, and the second one from 1934. I don't this would typically be old enough for PD in the US. Maybe it might be in the countries of origin? -- Marchjuly (talk) 03:00, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

It's possible if these are works of life+50 nations and the artist died before 1946. As works of then life+70 nations, it would be impossible for them to be PD in the home country on the URAA date.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:14, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Corporate sublicense survives corporation?

I'm 90% sure that I know the answer to this question, but I've learned that in copyright matters, that 10% uncertainty seems to manifest more often than expected. Assume an organization does not own the copyright but has, explicitly, an exclusive right to sublicense a work, and does so to us under a (perpetual and irrevocable) CC license. The organization subsequently dissolves and all its rights are purchased by a second organization. The surviving organization does not recognize the sublicense and wishes for us to delete the work. Thoughts? Storkk (talk) 20:43, 11 July 2018 (UTC) Relevant links: 1 (note attachment), 2, 3.

Unless the original publisher had no right to license them under such a CC license, the license cannot be revoked. If a company later purchased all rights to the images and no longer recognises this fact, that's not our problem.--BevinKacon (talk) 22:19, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
That is obviously my understanding as well, as evidenced by my responses and actions; but I'm not looking for a rubber stamp. I'm not, however, sure there isn't a subtlety regarding whether an entity granted even an exclusive, worldwide, etc. "right to sublicense" can legally license a work under a CC license to everyone (i.e. in our words "release it under a license"). Storkk (talk) 22:38, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
It depends on the contract. If it said that the organization could issue any sub-licence to anybody under any conditions, then a CC license would be valid. However the contract could contain some restrictions. Ruslik (talk) 00:59, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

PD image question

I do a fair amount of work in connection with copyright issues, but the more I do the more I realize how much there is to know, especially when it comes to international issues.

The background is that a reader has contacted OTRS to inquire about using images. We have some canned advice but they have some specific questions about public domain that I don't feel comfortable answering without a little help.

Several images are relevant but I think I can illustrate the issue with: File:Northeaster by Winslow Homer 1895.jpg

That image has a PD template, but that template includes the bright red warning "You must also include a United States public domain tag to indicate why this work is in the public domain in the United States."

Part of our standard advice to reuses of images this that they should look at the file page which contains licensing information. Part of my response is that some things on that page are relevant for reusers while other comments are instructions to editors.

That statement already troubles me, because unless I'm wrong on that, it is slightly odd that we would have those two categories of information without identifying the distinction. For example, this page clearly states that someone is expected to include a United States public domain tag. It's my opinion that this is an instruction to editors not to reusers but how would they know that?

For my second issue, I'll start with the caveat that I'm not involved in the featured pictures process. I'm also not involved in the featured article process but I looked at enough so that I have a sense of what's involved and my sense is that featured articles need to have all the t's crossed and i's dotted. I see that this image was nominated and accepted as a featured picture:

w:Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Northeaster by Winslow Homer 1895.jpg

Am I wrong in thinking that one of the steps in the featured picture process would have been to cure this caution by adding the appropriate United States public domain tag?

I'm tempted to tell the person writing to us that they can ignore this caution as it isn't directed to them but I don't feel like our process is adequate. I don't think readers and reuses of images should have to figure out which warnings they can ignore.--Sphilbrick (talk) 20:57, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree the wording of the message needs to be made clearer since it's definitely meant for whoever adds the tag (uploaders and other editors), though its presence should be a warning to re-users that they should carefully check the file's copyright status in their jurisdiction before using it. The text for PD-old templates is contained at Template:PD-old-warning-text and {{PD-1923}} has a similar warning about non-US copyright. clpo13(talk) 21:23, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
That's a Wikipedia featured picture, so expecting to worry about all the Commons niceties is unreasonable. It is frustrating that it had no valid license at all; as an American artist, when Winslow Homer died is completely irrelevant. PD-old-100 must not be used alone on a US work.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:33, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
In fact, it should not be used alone on anything.. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 21:48, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Agreed, though it might be useful to include both PD-old and PD-1923 for US works because some countries don't apply the w:rule of the shorter term and that could cause problems for re-users in certain cases. For instance, w:Robert Frost's poem "Design" was published in 1922 so it's public domain in the US, but since Frost died in 1963, his works aren't public domain in countries like Mexico, which has a copyright term of life+100 years and doesn't apply the rule of the shorter term. It's an uncommon situation, but I think we should make our re-users aware of that by using both US and PD-old tags when we can. It certainly can't hurt and {{PD-old-auto-1923}}, for instance, will update appropriately as time progresses. clpo13(talk) 22:14, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I usually do that (and have been asked "why are you doing that?", and told them what you just said). I was going to say you could add {{PD-old-auto-1923|deathyear=1963}} which will generate PD-1923 and PD-old-50, but per your last edit GMTA. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 22:29, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
@Sphilbrick: Is COM:WORSTCASE part of your canned advice? I assume not, but it sounds like it might be exactly what they are looking for. In addition, I asked something somewhat like this a while ago: Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2018/04#Publish date issues. Long story short: if a work from 1850 (or the Winslow Homer work you linked) was first published (legitimately) in 1964 through 28 February 1989 with notice or 1 March 1989 through 2002 (notice or not) it is still in copyright in the US. (I think.. I assume I did my homework back when I wrote that)
I agree the warnings are stupid. Especially because they don't go away on properly licensed files. File:Marguerite Delorme La Poupée 1898.png for example shows two warnings: the PD-old-70 tag warns that a US license must also be included, the PD-1923 tag warns that an additional copyright tag is needed for works that don't originate from the US. Sorry, but that's just dumb. I'm aware it's possible to combine the tags, but for many files this has not yet been done. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 21:48, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
only the copyfraud heirs of an artist would game the publication rules to claim a well known artist canvas was not publicly displayed and published in their lifetime. it is so low risk as to be beneath consideration. the fact that commons persists in issuing "precautionary warnings" for very low risks, tends to undermine the credibility of commons. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 03:08, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
Hi, I fixed File:Marguerite Delorme La Poupée 1898.png with the right template and license. Regards, Yann (talk) 00:13, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz: No, that isn't part of our canned response, but I thank-you for sharing it.--Sphilbrick (talk) 20:03, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Template:PD-BMLille

We seem to have a new PD template Template:PD-BMLille written by User:Dldwg. Can someone verify if it is valid and possibly write English version? --Jarekt (talk) 12:18, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

@Jarekt: This template doesn't seem very useful. It says that since 2016 the BM Lille allows the reuse of its files to anyone, given that 1) copyrighted material are only for private use, 2) material in the public domain can be used by anyone for any purpose, even commercial. In fact, this is not a copyright tag, it should simply state something like: "This files comes from the BM Lille collection". --Ruthven (msg) 17:00, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
@Ruthven and Dldwg: We already have Template:SourceBMLille. The template is badly written: it lists library-imposed restrictions, which are different for copyrighted and public domain works and than it claims that the image is in public domain, without specifying why. The file is used only in File:BM Lille carton 30, 1.png which also claims that the image is copyrighted and released under CC-zero license, but it is not clear who is the copyright holder that released it. Also if the image is still copyrighted than library restrictions listed in the template make the file incompatible with the Commons requirements. We could change the template to restrictions template and lists only restrictions imposed on Public Domain images. Than we would have to make sure those files have valid Public Domain license listing the reason why the original is in PD. --Jarekt (talk) 18:31, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
@Jarekt: For what I see, Template:PD-BMLille is then redundant because it can be replaced with Template:SourceBMLille. In fact, BM Lille doesn't claim copyright on public domain works; that's all it says. --Ruthven (msg) 19:03, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
I think you are right: only files which are in PD can use this template and such files do not need it. Shall we nominate for deletion than? --Jarekt (talk) 19:28, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
@Jarekt and Ruthven: , Template:SourceBMLille is based on Template:Gallica and is only intended for use in the "source" line.
You forgot to translate the 4th paragraph which states that some files are still copyrighted and you must search if they're still copyright holder. However, files from the BML on Wikimedia are PD but you have to make sure of it, for exemple File:BM Lille carton 30, 1.png is PD as all its authors have died for more than 70 years.
I was waiting for more answers on this thread before using template:PD-BMLille, however regarding your comments, I agree with deleting Template:PD-BMLille and using pd-old instead, my apologies.
Template:SourceBMLille however looks fine to me, can we leave it ?
Dldwg (talk) 09:31, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
@Dldwg: {{SourceBMLille}} is fine and we can continue using it. The one in discussion here is Template:PD-BMLille, because it states the obvious (PD documents are PD, copyrighted documents are not allowed to be freely published). @Jarekt: Please go ahead with the deletion request. --Ruthven (msg) 09:34, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
@Ruthven: , then I agree with deleting Template:PD-BMLille and using PD-old instead. No file from the BML on wikimedia is copyrighted we make sure of it, plus most of those are from the XVIII or XIXe centuries.
Deleting Template-PD-BMLille is fine to me. Dldwg (talk) 09:39, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Designs and design rights

Further to Commons:Deletion requests/File:Amit offir logo final 2.png, I want to have some opinions about how we referring to design low in general and to the new Israeli Design Law. I also can see that there is Australian design law. The most important issue for me to understand what is the connection between the design low and copyright low. should we refer the design law as Non-copyright restrictions like trademark law? Some advice would be appreciated.
See also Designs and design rights, Israeli Design Law. -- Geagea (talk) 09:37, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Copy right procedure

Hello everyone, allow me to firstly disclose that i work for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and i am currently in charge of helping the foundation embrace Wikipedia and other areas of Wikipedia. My first job is to update any photos about the foundation such as a new photo of the CEO. The current photo on the foundations page is an old photo and we want to upload a new more recent one. I was looking through the policy and protocols on how to and made sure to follow the correct steps but i have a few questions. Clearly any photo on the foundations website falls under copy right law which means Wikimedia commons will not allow it. So i did some searching on the FAQ sections and the various Village Pumps sites within wikimedia commons and found an email template that i can give permission for these photos to be used. My question is, which approach would be best? emailing the admins of the wikimedia commons with the permission that allows the usage of the photos or can i, a RWJF, allow the free use of the imagines i upload? I am a little confused because within the Wikimedia commons there is a photo of our logo that was taken from Twitter, So i just want to make sure i am following the proper steps that ensures we are using this platform correctly. Any information would be greatly appreciated thank you DaP87 (talk) 14:20, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

@DaP87: usually Wikimedia Commons requires people to verify their affiliation through the OTRS team to prevent impersonation, did you personally design the logo's and upload the photographs you want to upload? If not then you also need proof of permission or prove that the authors gave the rights to the company, but this also requires OTRS permission. Disclaimer: I'm not an expert and (contrary to what some might claim) am not a paid editor and don't really know how this process usually works, but I've seen organizations donate their images before and this almost always requires OTRS permission , although I'm sure that someone more experienced will give you a better answer soon. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 15:40, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Picture on flickr from a research institution?

Hello, I was wondering if [this picture|https://www.flickr.com/photos/63556962@N07/14599824037] had any copyright attached to it, or if there was any way to use it on wikipedia? From what I looked at IIAS Leiden is a research platform and would likely give their permission (if there was a clear copyright problem), but before that I would like some input if there is fair use allowed for this,or more specific information on uploading this to commons etc. BreadBuddy (talk) 20:49, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

@BreadBuddy: In order to upload this to Commons, we would need permission from them in advance. If IIAS Leiden is the copyright holder, they can grant permission by simply changing the license on Flickr to one of the accepted options. You may wish to contact them and request this change.
Regarding fair use, we can't accept fair use on Commons. English Wikipedia and some other projects do accept fair use images, but they have stringent policies restricting their use. You would need to upload the image there, subject to their non-free content criteria. Guanaco (talk) 20:59, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Ahh ok, thank you very much! BreadBuddy (talk) 22:56, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Sorority Windows

Hi, I'm Nepaxt. I edit on Simple English Wikipedia and on English Wikipedia. I have a question. Why was Alpha Kappa Alpha's window deleted (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:AKAwindowhighresol.jpg) and Delta Sigma Theta's window (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Sigma_Theta#/media/File:DSTStainedGlassWindows.jpg) still used? Thanks. Nepaxt (talk) 02:36, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

@Nepaxt: It won't be used for very long. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 03:20, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
@Nepaxt: File:AKAwindowhighresol.jpg was deleted because it is derivative of the work of Lois Mailou Jones (1905–1998), which will be copyrighted until after 1998+95=2093. File:DSTStainedGlassWindows.jpg is one of six files uploaded by @Immigratty to support en:Delta Sigma Theta, without reference to the source of the underlying work. It has been tagged as a copyright violation by @Alexis Jazz.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 03:28, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. Nepaxt (talk) 03:37, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
@Nepaxt: You're welcome.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 03:48, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: the photo itself was also COM:NETCOPYVIO because it appeared in an article months before it was uploaded here. And the copyright for any work from Lois (with valid notice/registration/published after February 1989) expires after 1998+70=2068, no? - Alexis Jazz ping plz 03:40, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz: Ok, 2068. Still a long way off.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 03:47, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

License and resolution

A low-resolusion version of an image has been published under a free license. Does it mean that a higher-resolusion version of the same image is automatically freely-licensed too? 4nn1l2 (talk) 09:38, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

That would depend on the licence, the author's practice and the copyright laws of the country of origin. Under CC it is possible to grant individual licenses for high-res and low-res copies of the same work. "However, if the low-resolution and high-resolution copies are the same work under applicable copyright law, permission under a CC license is not limited to a particular copy." [16]. Of course there are other free licenses too that may have different conditions. De728631 (talk) 10:16, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
This issue had been extensively discussed 5 years ago in a case where a low-resolution copy had been released under a CC-license, but a high-resolution version under an unfree license.[17] If I remember correctly, our conclusion was to respect the will/intend of the author, though depending on how a jurisdiction defines a "work" (wrt to copyright) a distinction per resolution might not be possible. --Túrelio (talk) 10:32, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
except for the National Portrait Gallery, London, where PD-art was developed. [18] i would not waste time uploading high resolution, since there are so many willing institutions to help, but Dcoetzee would differ. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 00:55, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
Your memory is correct: that conclusion is codified in Commons:Licensing: Sometimes, authors wish to release a lower quality or lower resolution version of an image or video under a free license, while applying stricter terms to higher quality versions. It is unclear whether such a distinction is legally enforceable, but Commons's policy is to respect the copyright holder's intentions by hosting only the lower quality version. --bjh21 (talk) 09:08, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

File:Alexandra Balkovskaya (2017-05-22).JPG

Could some review and pass or fail this Duma image please? I don't know if it is free. Thank You, --Leoboudv (talk) 01:07, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Copyright claimed on apparently PD images

The Science Museum is claiming copyright on this, this, and this image. All three were taken by Edgar Tarry Adams (1852-1926). Surely this means that they are in the public domain as the UK uses death + 70 years for copyright expiry. Can they be snagged and uploaded to Commons? Mjroots (talk) 13:48, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

That is why we apply the {{PD-art}} concept. Museums like to claim copyright for works where the original copyright has long expired. But such uploads are ok in the realm of Wikimedia. De728631 (talk) 16:04, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
yeah, do not know why you are so credulous. happens all the time with institutions who have drunk the "fees pay for digitization" kool-aid. not nearly as bad a imperial war museum. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 00:51, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
@Mjroots, De728631, and Slowking4: if they do have the rights to the photo (say, the heirs donated the rights to the museum) the museum could possibly enforce that in Mexico (100 years PMA) and if the photo has never been published they could have a publication right. Also, you need a valid US license tag. {{PD-1996}} won't apply here. If the photos were not published, US copyright expires 120 years after creation. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 09:53, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
That the musuem has put the image on their website means that it has been published. AIUI, copyright in the UK expires on the 1st of January of the year that exceeds 70 years after the death of the creator. In this case, creator died in 1926, therefore the images entered the public domain on 1 January 1997. Mjroots (talk) 10:49, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
I agree with everyone else, this is just a standard case of meritless copyright statement to be ignored. I see they also have a 1855 photo where they don't claim copyright but merely state "Science Museum Group Collection", so it could be that curators are open to corrections, or it could be that they just adopted some arbitrary date (say 1865) and marked everything after it as copyrighted. --Nemo 11:35, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
@Mjroots: sadly, no: "If copyright in an unpublished work has expired, the first publisher of that work gets copyright protection". The fact that the museum put the image on their website also may not mean it has been published, in general something does not count as "published" if the publisher didn't have the rights. (not sure how this works for UK publication right though) If they do have the rights and it was unpublished, it will be protected for 25 years from the moment they published it on their site. Anyway, I don't think there is a valid US license tag for these, so you shouldn't upload them. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 11:39, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
Once expired, copyright cannot be resurrected. The images are PD, and have been uploaded. Mjroots (talk) 11:52, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
wow, advising people not to upload? stop the paranoia - it is actively harming the project. low risk items are not the threat; amateur theorizing without a standard of practice is a threat; it is why commons has such a low reputation. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 12:34, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
@Mjroots and Slowking4: copyright is (confusingly) not global. You could possibly assume the copyright in the UK has expired, but AFAIK this does not automatically invalidate US copyright. Mjroots tagged them (File:Guston Windmill 1913.jpg, File:Littleport Windmill and Station 1902.jpg, File:Gibbet Mill 1898.jpg) as PD-1923, but I wonder where they might have been published before 1923. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 13:05, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
If there is a more appropriate licence then it can be changed. Technically, making a positive image from a negative, is "publishing". Mjroots (talk) 13:18, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
requiring proof of publication for every work of art is an impossibly high standard. this is an out of consensus view. do not advise not to upload on this basis. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 13:15, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
@Mjroots: that's exactly the problem, there isn't one. {{PD-US-unpublished}} only applies 120 years after creation and {{PD-1996}} doesn't apply. And how is having your film developed "publishing"? Anyone can nominate these for deletion now, and if that happens they will be deleted.
@Slowking4: for works of art I personally agree (plenty of people here who don't..), but these are photographs. And they don't strike me as the kind that would have have been published in a newspaper. Or possibly anywhere. Perhaps if the photographer was known to exhibit his photos. (was he?) - Alexis Jazz ping plz 13:58, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
photographs are artwork, and no they will not be deleted. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 14:06, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
Copyright has expired (long ago) in Mexico. The 100 pma was not retroactive, by all appearances. Copyright has also expired in the UK; the only thing they could be claiming copyright for is the digital reproduction, which is what we have PD-Art for. The U.S. status has varying possibilities, true. It does sound like he was an amateur photographer, but I can't find any publication info. If they were published during his lifetime, they are fine in the U.S. If his collections were sold after he died, it would get more interesting -- they may have been restored by the URAA. Seems rather unlikely the family gave rights to anyone, given the different places they show up now. Normally we do assume publication around the time they were created unless there is some reason to think otherwise. The fact he was an amateur photographer may indeed create something of that reason, but there is no explicit documentation of what happened to the collection that I can find with some quick searches. There is not much mention of his photography in older sources though, so unsure he was active in exhibiting them (though he did exhibit paintings, so it's definitely possible, and he was noted for other amateur pursuits like astronomy). COM:PRP is for significant doubts, not theoretical doubts. I did find mention that his son managed his collection of maritime instruments, which he leant to museums and donated them (probably in his will) when he died in 1973. It's possible the photos were unpublished until then, but seems likely they would have been published soon after that. There was mention of financial difficulties of his son in the 1950s; he might also have sold things then. There are mentions of the photograph collection in books from the early 1980s, at least, so they were well known by then. They would have been long PD in the UK (copyright expired 50 years after creation), and got a single possible year of protection in 1996, which of course coincided with the URAA leading to the U.S. uncertainty. If they were given to the museum in the 1970s, it was a government department at the time (it was not made a public corporation until 1983). If that is the case, and they were then published by the museum, they would likely qualify as PD-UKGov (given the law at the time). The distinction would not have mattered at the time -- they were PD regardless -- but it would matter in 1996, as if they were PD-UKGov then PD-1996 actually does apply. I don't think there is any chance the 25-year publication right would still exist, as they were likely published within the 70pma term which would eliminate that possibility. It sure seems like they would be PD virtually everywhere in the world, with the U.S. a theoretical possibility that they are not, but I'm not sure these rise to a significant doubt. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:46, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
@Clindberg: thanks for diving into this. Now I understand the 1995 reference: w:Copyright law of the United Kingdom#Historical background
"In the 1911 Act the term of author's copyright was extended to the lifetime of the author and 50 years thereafter; this remained the case under the 1956 Act and the 1988 Act. The 1911 Act in effect extended the meaning of "author" so that this period of copyright applied to all types of works, not merely printed works. Under the 1995 Regulations (set out below), the period of author's copyright was further extended, to the lifetime of the author and 70 years thereafter. Those regulations were retrospective: they extended the copyright period for all works which were then still in copyright, and (controversially) revived the lapsed copyright of all authors who had died in the previous 70 years, i.e. since 1925."
So it was PD after 1926+51=1977 and copyrighted again in 1996, which expired in 1997. Or was it?
"In 1995 the period of copyright was extended to the life of the author plus 70 years (as described above) for works which were, at that time, still within copyright anywhere within the European Economic Area. One effect of this was to impose a copyright extension of twenty years on all works that were made or published after 1911 by any person who had died after 1945, as the previous copyright period (of lifetime plus 50 years) had not yet expired in the UK for someone who had died in 1945 or later."
But Edgar snuffed it in 1926. So does it apply?
If it does, this seems to possibly come down to even more itty-bitty details. (you are either going to love this or hate this) The 1995 extension took effect on January 1, 1996. In the UK. URAA copyright restoration went into effect on January 1, 1996. In the US. Which is an important detail. I started digging in File:U.S. Copyright Office circular 38a.pdf and found:
"The term “restored work” means an original work of authorship that- (..) (B) is not in the public domain in its source country through expiration of term of protection;"
It doesn't seem to get more specific than this. Which raises the question: if the UK were to wave their magic wand (you'd think they have more important things on their minds..) and extend copyright retroactively to 100pma, will this, today, trigger URAA copyright restoration in the US for all works from UK authors who died after 1917?
If the answer to that question is "yes", I'm terrified. If the answer is "no", I think the 1995 (1996) retroactive extension went into effect just a few hours too late to trigger URAA restoration in the US for these works due to time zone differences. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 14:55, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
The old UK term for photographs (created before June 1957) was 50 years from creation, period. Publication and year of death did not matter. That did not change before 1996, so these photographs were long, long PD probably at any time his heirs were dealing with it. A photo from 1898 became PD in 1949. That would have been the term in the 1970s when his son died and the likely time of the photos being given out (if that had not been done long before), etc. -- there would have been an ownership of the physical copies but there was no more copyright. On January 1, 1996, the retroactive term was then made 70pma. That expired again in the UK on January 1, 1997. So really, those photos have had at most 1 year of UK copyright protection since the 1960s probably. It just so happened that was also the URAA date -- if the date was one year before or after, there would have been no restoration. On the other hand, before 1989, any work even *published by* the government became Crown Copyright -- so if the photos were donated to the museum, which at the time was a straightforward government department, and it was published by them, it is easily arguable that it became Crown Copyright -- and Crown Copyright still has that 50 years from creation term, even now. If that is the case, then there was no U.S. restoration either, since they were also PD in 1996. In 1983 or 1984, the museum became some sort of public corporation able to hold normal copyright, so Crown Copyright would not be happen to museum-owned works after that, but that was not the case in the 1970s -- and once that happened, I don't think it changed.
As for your other question, no, the URAA does not care about any subsequent law changes in other countries. It cares about what the actual status was in the source country on that date. Subsequent law changes do not matter, either way. However, I don't think the time zone differences really matter -- the UK would have restored the works before January 1 occurred in the U.S. if they do, but I'm thinking the URAA date is relative to the country it applies to, i.e. ignore any time zone complications. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:29, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Restored Daguerreotypes

Hi, I came across this article: Recovery of Degraded-Beyond-Recognition 19th Century Daguerreotypes with Rapid High Dynamic Range Elemental X-ray Fluorescence Imaging of Mercury L Emission, and I wonder if the images would be under a copyright? It seems to me that these are accurate reproductions of old images, but... Any idea? Regards, Yann (talk) 12:32, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

@Yann: I don't think we need to worry about the ones created before 2018-120=1898.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 14:02, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
Yes, obviously no issue for the original daguerreotypes. But due to the fact that these daguerreotypes can't be seen without a complex process, some might argue that this process create a new copyright. Regards, Yann (talk) 15:08, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
@Yann: Is this process more or less complex than medical imaging?   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 15:10, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
Yes, it seems way more complex than medical imaging. But if we follow usual copyright rules, the copyright doesn't depend on the complexity of the process, only on its creativity. There isn't really artistic creativity involved, but would PD-Art apply if the original images aren't visible without this process? Regards, Yann (talk) 15:18, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
@Yann: I don't think it matters in this case due to "The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material", so cc-by-4.0 should be sufficient for our purposes.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 15:25, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
Ah right, I didn't even think about that. So I uploaded 2 files, but it would be nice to know more about the copyright status of the restored works, even if it has no practical effect here. The reproductions are also quite small, and I can't find the original works in the National Gallery of Canada website. Regards, Yann (talk) 21:34, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
Copyright-wise, it's far less complex than medical imaging since there is less human input to what comes out. Humans are creating the process, but it is an algorithm, and the output is 100% dependent on the input so there is no additional creativity added. Unless possibly in a sweat-of-the-brow country, I don't think it amounts to any additional copyright at all. It's possible a couple of countries could deem it a "simple photo", but really, the photo was taken long ago. For medical imaging, you are at least creating an image that did not previously exist. This seems like measuring stuff that is not in the visible realm, and converting it to be visible, but they are not contributing anything to the result which was not present in the original. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:39, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Art Quilt Image

I copied File:Art Quilt 06.jpg over from ENwiki, where the photo has been since December of 2006 with the photographer's CC-BY SA 2.5 license. However, a little Googling for more info found a Pinterest item for a different photo of this quilt described as "Carved In Stone by Marie O'Kelley. 1st Place - Art Abstract, 2008 Road to California quilt show. Reverse applique was used to replicate ancient petroglyphs. Piecing and hand quilting stitches help to recreate the texture of stone." The Road to California URL linked from Pinterest is no longer active, but I believe this original art work is in copyright and not eligible for Commons without OTRS, despite being in Wikipedia for 12 years. Thoughts? - PKM (talk) 02:27, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

The creator of the quilt needs to be identified in the file page along with evidence of her or his permission. However the upload comment of the Wikipedia image was Steven M O'Kelley Digital camera image {{cc-by-sa-2.5|S M O'Kelley 2006}}, which indicates that the photographer has the same surname as the quilter and so could be a family member. If so, the uploader may well have the permission of the quilter and be in a position to provide evidence of this. Verbcatcher (talk) 03:32, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
The uploader hasn’t posted since 2011, but I left a Talk Page message just in case. - PKM (talk) 00:49, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
As mentioned above, the artist is Marie (my wife) but I failed to figure out how to alter the attributions, etc. The link in the Quilting article has been removed and the file can be deleted. Thank you and apologies for the confusion. SMO — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.231.217.3 (talk) 17:49, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

File:MC-21 on the assembly line at Irkut.jpg

Is this image a mil.ru image? All I know is that this image was uploaded by a banned user. I cannot translate the Cyrillic text but I don't think it is mil.ru. Any ideas? Best, --Leoboudv (talk) 05:55, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank You, --Leoboudv (talk) 06:01, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm not a native Japanese speaker, but I'm on not seeing anything here about the images hosted by the website being released under a {{PD-Author}} license. That general disclaimer page is a bit rambling, but it doesn't appear that all of the content on the website has been generated by the website's creator and that some of it might come from others. The very last paragraph (marked by a star) states

必要上、他サイト、印刷物等から引用させて頂いている画像、文章等には、出典元を明記しております。それにつきましては、当該サイト管理者、出版物著者、編者の皆様に著作権が有ります。諸事情により、画像への直接リンクはお断り致します。ご利用される場合は、ダウンロードしてお使い下さい

which seems to indicate that some of the content (inlcuding images) is taken from other places and the copyright of this content still resides with the original copyright holders. It does say that this type of content will be clearly indicated as such, but not sure how dilligent the website owner was in doing that.
As for that particular photo, there's no information about who took it and when, and there's no copyright notice found on its source page. There is a link provided at the bottom of this page, but that link is dead. The most recent archived version of it that I could find is from February 2005. I can't find this particular photo of the bridge, but it might be the one posted here which is no longer visible. Just for reference, the photo of the ferry shown used here on the same as this Commons file, can be found here on the same aforementioned February 2005 archived website. I don't think there's a clear declaration of not only this file or any of the files found on the source website being released as PD. Maybe this could be verified by OTRS, but not sure. Going to ping the uploader Kugel~commonswiki to see what he/she has to say. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:36, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Please know that I may make some confusing mistakes as I'm not a native English speaker. The reason I think this photo is licenced under PD is refered to the 2nd paragraph (the following quote) of the main page:

特に断りを入れてある写真を除き、著作権等は一切放棄します。個人利用、商用、軍用、医療用、食用、飲用、奥様の昼間のお楽しみ用問わず自由にご利用頂けます。また、承諾確認のメールは必要ありません。当然ながら加工も自由です。

(translated) I resign my copyrights of all images on the website, expect for some images not permitted. Please feel free to use for privates, commerce, military affairs, medicine, foods and drinks etc.. Also, you don't have to send to my e-mail to permit the images on the website. Needless to say, to let the images retouch is OK.

Because this photo is not stated to prohibit it from importing to others website, I uploaded this. Thank You, --Kugel (talk) 10:30, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
I think your translation of that particular paragraph is fine. The problem is, however, that there's no indication as to whether this particular photo was taken by the person who created the source website or whether they took the photo from some other website. Lots of websites host photos taken by others and some of these websites might even try to claim copyright over such photos even though they are not the original copyright holders. So, unless it can be confirmed that website owner is also the original copyright holder of the photo and this is not a case of COM:LL, I'm not sure whether Commons can keep it per COM:PCP. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:24, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
@Leoboudv: I think File:MC-21 on the assembly line at Irkut.jpg is ok. This image is at the declared URL: http://мультимедиа.минобороны.рф/multimedia/photo/gallery.htm?id=27422@cmsPhotoGallery. Go there, click on 'Русский' at the top right corner and select 'English' from the drop-down menu. This takes you to http://eng.mil.ru/en/index.htm. At the bottom of that page is says '© All content on this site is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0', which is the licence that has been declared. Verbcatcher (talk) 21:59, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Q on appropriate de minimus photo

The game Fortnite had a real-life ARG that placed a mock-up of an in-game item in the real world. There's a Flickr photoset that the user put to a usable CC license for Commons, but obviously we have to consider the copyright around the object itself. One image [19] gives a good shot of the prop far enough way that one could consider this de minimus in the context of showing this image in the real-world in a free content manner, but I'd like to check that before uploading. (For comparison, an article with photos up close to show the level of detail on the work, to demonstrate this is de minimus. [20]). --Masem (talk) 19:25, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Might still get deleted, de minimis applies to incidental exposure. Upload and tag it with the template. As it's such a small part of the image, I wouldn't request deletion.--BevinKacon (talk) 18:01, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
It is intentionally included, and not incidental and therefore I would not be hesitant to nominate it for deletion myself. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 18:21, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Strict de minimis is often used when the object is out of focus, or just very briefly visible (say in a film), and things like that where it's quite inconsequential to the final product. In one case, there was a quilt visible (and in focus) in the background of a film for about 30 seconds, and the de minimis defense failed there. If it's intentionally included in the photo and a fairly important part of it, I don't think you can claim de minimis, even on that photo.
There is a second part to our de minimis policy, which is where a work is incidental to a larger subject -- if you are taking a photo of a larger subject, and the work is unavoidably there, it can still be OK (i.e. the photo is not a derivative work) even though the copyrighted work is in focus and somewhat prominent. Examples of that would be something like photographing the entire Louvre square, where the pyramid is visible in the middle, or (for a U.S. case) taking a picture of an entire bottle which happens to have a copyrightable label. Focusing on the label (or Louvre pyramid) makes the photo derivative. That type of approach has more of a chance with a situation like this, but.. sure seems like that element may still be the focus of the scene. So I would have hesitations on uploading, although as above I probably would not try to get it deleted either. The usual question is, if you put that photo on a postcard, would there be a valid copyright infringement case. There might be. Anything other than commercial would certainly be fair use, but if profit was involved, that photo could get dicier. That type of thing is definitely in a subjective area where it is hard to really say. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:08, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Completely fair enough opinions. It's just inside the range that I don't think it would be worth the hassle to upload it. --Masem (talk) 03:38, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Griezmann dive.webp

File:Griezmann dive.webp was recently uploaded by @Derfugu and was added to w:Antoine Griezmann. It is a screenshot of BBC coverage of the FIFA World Cup. I assume such things are copyrighted and cannot be claimed as 'own work', but just wanted clarification. Thanks, Nzd (talk) 11:28, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

@Nzd: I have marked it as a copyvio because it is © BBC. Thank you for your vigilance.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 11:37, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Tag? (Pic from Hermitage Museum)

Hi there. Which license tag do I need to use in order to upload this pic from the Hermitage museum?[21] They allow to upload it, but I'm not entirely sure which tag I need to use.[22] Could someone help me out? Thanks much, - LouisAragon (talk) 00:43, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

@LouisAragon: Sorry, you may not upload anything from that site to here without approval from them and OTRS.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 00:47, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
@Jeff G.: Damn I see. That's an unfortunate one. - LouisAragon (talk) 00:49, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Paradoxical licenses ("multiple licenses")

“© Donald Trung - All Rights Reserved”, VIOLATORS WILL BE SUED. This is a joke of course, I agreed to release this image with a compatible license and obviously can’t sue anyone who is conforming with them, however the message still exists and this could be scary 😓 for anyone reading 📖 this interested in using this image.

Recently (and less recently) @Alexis Jazz: has enacted several mass-deletion requests including Commons:Deletion requests/Files found with insource:"48973657@N00" based on the fact that a couple of images (so not all of those nominated for deletion) contain copyright © notices which are incompatible with Wikimedia Commons, other users such as Geo Swan, Fæ, and myself have pointed out that multiple licenses are permissible but as I realised that there are files 📁 with “© All Rights Reserved” notices all over the internet and have a version here released with compatible licenses I want to ask the community who mostly deals with these copyright © issues (which is why I post this here) to set precedent as to how we should handle these files with paradoxical licenses. On one hand I can fully understand that if someone uploads a file to the internet on a website where there is an option to share it with a creative commons license but is unaware what this entails that they start writing “© All Rights Reserved” all over the place, but on the other hand they legally (contractually) agreed to release their files under a license compatible with Wikimedia Commons so what rights would they actually have in court? As this is an issue that will be popping up at Wikimedia Commons forever unless we set clear rules for it I hope that we could all resolve it.

(1) Can we expect of every editor from Wikimedia Commons to check every upload from a certain user from another website to make sure that not one of them has one of these notices? This might seem draconian as a user would only be interested in uploading a subset of those images, but copyright © laws often are draconian.

(2) Is an OTRS ticket 🎟 needed for these instances? This is despite the images already being available on a (seemingly) free license.

(3) Does the most permissible license uphold? (as current Wikimedia Commons policies basically state “in doubt, delete” answering this would remove the doubt 🤷‍♀️ and allow for the images to be deleted/kept with certainty.

There were also similar requests made by Alexis Jazz but I don’t have the time to look for them all to invite all parties from there to this conversation. @Alexis Jazz indien je geïnteresseerd bent om dit dispuut op één plaats te houden kan jij ze allemaal oproepen via de ping-functie?

I am not a legal expert and I’m pretty sure that at least 95% of us aren’t either so any people specialised in international and internet copyright © or just some random bloke/sheila with an example of some real world legal precedent would be most welcome. Also if a Request for Comment is a better venue then feel free to start one like Commons:Request for comment/Paradoxial licenses or something, I just want to have clear precedent for accepting or declining deletions based on these legal paradoxes. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 10:56, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Long question, short answer: One cannot in good faith rely on a license if the licensor at the time of issuing the license also makes statements that indicate that the licensor has not understood the meaning of that license. —LX (talk, contribs) 11:06, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
@LX: That I fully understand, but as most of these came from Flickr where the default license is "Copyright ©: All rights reserved" it takes for the person to be willing to change the license to check the "CC" license. Also even if the licensor doesn't want their images to be commercially re-used what legal rights do they have if they were to pursue them? A contract is a contract, every time you click "publish" on a page on any Wikimedia project you agree to the terms of use and simply not having read them doesn't exempt you from them (legally). --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 11:12, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
As I understand it, Flickr users can change their default license for new uploads, or apply it retroactively to their existing uploads. Not everyone will understand the implications of this. A specific written statement in the uploader's own words is more likely to reflect their actual intentions. Licenses are not contracts, but both require informed and true consent. —LX (talk, contribs) 11:19, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) @LX: but should these licenses then apply to all their uploads or just the ones with these statements? As the majority of the photographs in the aforementioned deletion requests don't contain this statement. There are many Flickr users who change licenses willy nilly and we respect those, but why make an exception for "the unknowing" even if they do so systematically for years. And could this lack of "informed consent" also apply to Wikimedia projects? As someone could upload an image here and then request deletion years later claiming ignorance of what the license entails. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 11:29, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
As I said: if the licensor makes contradictory statements at the time of issuing the license, licensees cannot in good faith rely on that license. What you describe in your latest comment is a different scenario. —LX (talk, contribs) 11:35, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
we routinely rely on good faith license mistakes by confused flickr uploaders. i.e. [23] the selective doubt tends to undermine the credibility of commons. might want to develop a consensus about a standard of practice about risk management, rather than periodic deletion sprees depending on the whims of the nominator. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 20:28, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
That's not an example of relying on a mistake. Or relevant in any way here, for that matter. —LX (talk, contribs) 21:40, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
yes - it is. it is keeping an "all rights reserved" flickr image, because "US Government" therefore PD. if you want to delete flickr files with the wrong license start with the DRV on that one. or we can conclude it is who uploaded the flickr image, not what the license is. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 02:54, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
Again: totally different situation. —LX (talk, contribs) 07:40, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
 Comment In general, "© All Rights Reserved" is, since 2000, legally meaningless worldwide. All rights are reserved by default even without a copyright notice. Now, it's just a formal-sounding way of saying "Please respect my copyright." If it's followed by an explicit, free license, there's no contradiction. There's been some confusion about this, because Flickr uses the phrase to mean "No Creative Commons license". Guanaco (talk) 11:26, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
Correct, "All Rights Reserved" was the equivalent to the copyright notice for the Buenos Aires Convention. Authors generally had both that phrase and the copyright notice to protect under that convention and the Universal Copyright Convention. It simply means the author declares that copyright exists (which is of course today automatic). It is in no way contradictory to a Creative Commons license, where the copyright also exists, but is simply licensed. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:02, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
@Donald Trung:
"but on the other hand they legally (contractually) agreed to release their files under a license compatible with Wikimedia Commons so what rights would they actually have in court?"
Typically, all of them. They didn't enter into any contract. On Commons (and cross-wiki uploads as well), "Own work, CC BY-SA" is selected by default. But at least you are generally given some information about what you're doing. (but nobody reads that) On Flickr, the default setting is "all rights reserved". Changing that, however, is a matter of two clicks and you are not actively given any information about what you're doing. Pretty much any written statement trumps this.
I see people on YouTube all the time uploading content they don't own as "Creative Commons". Sometimes accompanied by some "Original author has the copyright, no infringement intended" notice in the description. They appear to think the standard YouTube license is only for their own content and "Creative Commons" means "fair use". Not kidding, I think they really believe that.
"based on the fact that a couple of images (so not all of those nominated for deletion) contain copyright © notices"
I don't call more than 63% (the actual number is higher but can't be determined easily) of images "a couple". These 63%+ of notices were there when the images were uploaded to Commons.
"I am not a legal expert and I’m pretty sure that at least 95% of us aren’t either "
Where the lawyers at?
"And could this lack of "informed consent" also apply to Wikimedia projects? As someone could upload an image here and then request deletion years later claiming ignorance of what the license entails."
It happens, not years later but a month later in this case: "Wow, I feel robbed."
You want to know the legal side? IANAL, but if push comes to shove it will generally boil down to this. Users are poorly (if at all) informed about the consequences when they release their own work as Creative Commons on Wikimedia Commons or Flickr. This means that if, for example, a user uploads a bunch of drawings, abandons their account and 5 years later they discover their drawings being used in a textbook that is sold for money, they can go to court. Exactly what happens from there will depend on circumstances. In general, assuming the author will continue to push to try and claw back their rights, I expect this outcome: Wikimedia Commons will be told to remove the license. (Commons may possibly be allowed to continue to host them as fair use, but Commons is not interested in that, so it will be taken down) The book publisher will be told to either get a license from the author or stop printing those drawings. However, the book publisher most likely won't be fined for copyright infringement because they acted in good faith.
This issue needs to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Seeminglee is seeminglee (..), after all these years, still completely confused about what Creative Commons licenses and their variations entail. Personally I would at least not endorse any new uploads from him.
Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Media from Hollywood To You is more confusing. It's unclear if this was a short-lived Creative Commons experiment or a mistake.
SAM Nasim is looking absolutely terrible and I'm baffled a photo of his was kept.
Recently there was also a case of some Flickr user that made stock-like generic photos and sued anyone who didn't attribute exactly as required by the license. Can't find him now. Main picture in that discussion was of some gloves or mittens that were stuck on the handlebar of some moped with duct tape.
@Guanaco: "All Rights Reserved" is legally meaningless, but it also isn't. It is legally meaningless when referring to the Buenos Aires Convention. But copyright holders use it to prevent ambiguity and clearly spell out the warning that their content cannot be copied freely. When this text is used in the description, it will almost certainly trump any Creative Commons license that can be selected with two clicks and no warning about consequences. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 04:02, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
I completely disagree with the notion that an "all rights reserved" notation will trump a CC license legally. Just... no. Similarly, the copyright notice doesn't have that effect either. It's an indication that the user cares about copyright, and would prevent any claim of innocent infringement, but the owner can care about copyright and also license it under specific terms. The "freely" in the article you cite has no relation to the concept of a "free license" -- there, it means more that it's a notice that re-users are not free to do whatever they want without paying attention to the license. A statement of "all rights reserved" is not a specific phrase at all that would modify an explicit license. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:47, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
Per Carl. I am unsure why this needs extended discussion as the Commons norm is well established and explicitly stated in COM:L and explained further at Commons:Multi-licensing. --Fæ (talk) 08:04, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
Well, "CC licenses are not revocable. Once a work is published under a CC license, licensees may continue using the work according to the license terms for the duration of copyright protection. Notwithstanding, CC licenses do not prohibit licensors from ceasing distribution of their works at any time. (1)" - Commons:License revocation, so all CC licenses are irrevocable? Even if the content creator States otherwise? --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 12:20, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
Yes. The IP holder may cease distribution, but copies published elsewhere and the ability to reuse them persists. --Fæ (talk) 13:32, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
Easily change your license on Flickr in two taps or clicks, having any clue of what this means is not required nor encouraged
@Clindberg, Fæ, and Donald Trung: it depends on the exact case. For example, on Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Files from SAM Nasim Flickr stream there is (besides "all rights reserved") also the explicit instruction "photographs must not be used without explicit permission". A mere copyright notice (yes, I wrote that) is indeed not incompatible with Creative Commons, but I've never nominated anything for deletion just because of a copyright notice. (unless the notice made it questionable the uploader is also the copyright holder)
I find "all rights reserved" to be a lot more tricky. Flickr (and, I think in the past, Creative Commons as well) says "Some rights reserved". And it's odd anyway. If you release something with a CC license, you are specifically not reserving all rights.
None of this would be a problem if sites like Commons and Flickr would shovel something into your face that says "YOU ARE ABOUT TO IRREVOCABLY RELEASE SOME OF YOUR COPYRIGHTS TO THIS IMAGE, IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT? (checkbox) Yes, I understand I will allow people to (terms) (upload button)". The sad truth is: this is not reality. People select wrong licences all the time. PD-mark gets used a lot where people intended to use CC0. Others think CC BY doesn't allow commercial use. Or (if they do look at the license list on Flickr) think they should select "Attribution", just to get attributed. They may not select "Attribution-ShareAlike" because they don't want their pictures to be shared at all! They could even think that selecting "None (All rights reserved)" will mean their picture won't be publicly visible! Really, most people are not license-savvy. And on Commons, most people use the UploadWizard and use it just like any wizard: next, next, next, next. So that's the issue. Statements like "all rights reserved" or "Please contact me for commercial usage" would be legally meaningless for content that was unambiguously released with a Creative Commons license. But most content is not released as such. And when users were never properly informed about what they were doing in the first place, the Creative Commons license could be nullified in court. If any "all rights reserved" notice would also say "don't forget to attribute me when you share this!" or something along those lines, I wouldn't have a problem with it. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 16:40, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
You may want to take that up with Flickr. Similarly we have found that if drivers follow their GPS maps without being responsible for their own actions, they can drive into roadworks or off half finished new roads; automated mapping and car safety has a lot to improve. In terms of helping photographers who get confused, we tend to be generous with courtesy deletions of new-ish uploads whenever reasonable to do so, even though the release was irrevocable. --Fæ (talk) 16:54, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Is this CC-BY or CC-BY-NC?

How can I tell the license on the images here? They're open access but the problem is I can't tell if they're using CC-BY, CC-BY-NC, or CC-BY-NC-ND. Should I just email the author, see if he knows? Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 22:47, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Open access does not necessarily mean free license. Open access just means you don't have to pay for the articles. I see no evidence that the journal, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, is under a free license. Their website also does not show any indication of a free license. --Majora (talk) 22:53, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
There may be free licences depending on the individual article. It is written on their Rights and Permissions page that "Articles published under our Oxford Open - Open Access model are clearly labeled, and made freely available online immediately upon publication, without subscription barriers to access. In addition, the majority of articles that are made available under Oxford Open, will also allow readers to reuse, republish, and distribute the article in a variety of ways, depending upon the license used." But at https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1096-3642.2009.00572.x (PDF) there does not seem to be any free licence. The DOI page even has a link to RightsLink where you need to buy a permission for reuse. De728631 (talk) 06:30, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
Really? When I open it there’s a “free” sticker in a green oval right after the title. So is it not actually open access at all? Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 18:21, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
It has that "free" sticker because it is free to read not because it is a free license. Most journals are not free to read and require subscriptions. "Open access" allows anyone to read it but maintains copyright over the work unless explicitly mentioned otherwise. So that journal is "open access" because it is free to read. It is just not under a "free license". Two different definitions of the word "free". --Majora (talk) 18:26, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Collections of the Missouri History Museum

Hi, I did post earlier but didn't receive any answer. The initial license (PD-1923) can't be used for the pictures, which are recent, and have a copyright by default. It seems that the museum is willing to release them under a free license, or in the public domain, but it is not clear which license should apply here on Commons. Now there are several open DRs, and one already closed, as deleted. I have suggested making a specific template. Regards, Yann (talk) 10:01, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Fiji government works public domain?

I can't seem to find a solid answer on whether Fiji government works are public domain? Thanks. Bri (talk) 18:32, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

@Bri: Looks like no. Works created by the government or under the direction of the government are protected until 50 years after creation. I'll look to add this to COM:CRT. GMGtalk 18:54, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
Please note also the following exception found in your link: "Usually Bills, Acts, subsidiary legislation, parliamentary debates, reports of the Royal Commission, Commissions of Inquiry, Ministerial or Statutory Inquiries and the judgments of courts and tribunals are specifically excluded as copyright works under copyright legislation. ". De728631 (talk) 19:15, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
Very good. Added that bit too. Thanks. GMGtalk 19:27, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks all. Sounds like a video the gov't uploaded to YouTube would definitely be non-acceptable on Commons. Bri (talk) 21:18, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Collection: National Portrait Gallery, Canberra

I have a question regarding an old picture that I've just uploaded to Commons from The National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. I'm quite sure that reproductions of 19th century pictures are no longer under any copyright anywhere, but the EXIF of Thomas Woolner, c. 1865.jpg states otherwise. Which information is correct? —capmo (talk) 18:05, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

see also Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 19:45, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

File:Yamaha logo.svg

This is licensed as{{PD-textlogo}} and that was most likely the case for the original wordmark version uploaded in 2008; however, I’m not so sure the same is clearly the case for the versions uploaded in 2017 and 2018 due to the additional element added to the logo per COM:TOO#Japan. Even if they are still PD though, these latest versions might have been better uploaded as separate files per COM:OVERWRITE. — Marchjuly (talk) 15:44, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

@Marchjuly: In effect it seems a little complex to me. Consider opening a DR for more comments; remember to specify that the first version is fine and shouldn't be deleted. --Ruthven (msg) 16:05, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for taking a look Ruthven. I’ve started a DR. — Marchjuly (talk) 16:29, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Book The Covenant by Zofia Kossak-Szczucka

I would like to ask you of opinion whether this book is suitable for Commons. But first, few notes:

  • the author, Zofia Kossak-Szczucka, died in 1968, so her works are copyrighted in EU till the end of 2038,
  • URAA applies to her works published outside US.

And:

  • the above mentioned book was initially published as English translation by Wingate and Roy (the UK/US publishers) in 1951 (the 1911 date in IA is definitely incorrect); I assume these to be simultaneous UK/US publications,
  • there is no copyright notice in the Wingate's edition; unsure about Roy's,
  • even if there was a copyright notice, I found no evidence that copyright for this book was renewed (there are two renewals for her earlier books),
  • the original (Polish) edition was published a year later, in 1952 by Pax in Poland and is copyrighted in US basing on URAA,
  • in 1951-52 the author was a UK resident; but I doubt this is relevant.

I do not think that copyright of the later publication may change copyright status of the earlier one. So I think, {{PD-US-no notice}} is suitable for this book. But I may be missing something, so I am asking for your opinions. Ankry (talk) 15:43, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Based on the stated facts {{PD-US-no notice}} sounds reasonable. So is it the derivative translation to English (which was published first) PD, but the original still copyrighted or does the PD status of the translation extend to polish version? --Jarekt (talk) 17:13, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
I think, copyright status of the original work in US is irrelevant, as it was published in Poland and its Polish copyright still exists. But question whether URAA applies to it may be interesting in 2039-2046. Ankry (talk) 19:07, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
Don't think it connected to URAA. The original work free only in US but not elsewhere. So the derivative work unfree as well. -- Geagea (talk) 19:24, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
@Geagea: I think you missed the point: this is the derivative that was published in US (before the original). This was translation of (unpublished then) Polish work to English by H. C. Stevens. Ankry (talk) 05:54, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
I see your point now. So the first question is does simultaneous publications can be considered as first published in US. Also does the translation by H. C. Stevens is free. If the copyright was not renewed it's seems to be free. I agree with you that copyright of the later publication can't change the copyright status of the earlier pulication. -- Geagea (talk) 09:04, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
If a work was published within 30 days of first publication in the US, it was simultaneously published in the US under US law.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:56, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
Wait, the Polish version from which the English translation was taken was published *later* ? That's kind of an interesting twist. For the U.S., that probably means the English is the original version and the Polish the "derivative", since U.S. federal protection started at publication. If that is the case, if published in the U.S. first or published simultaneously, the English translation is now fully public domain in the U.S. with no renewal (or no notice, whatever), and no URAA. But for countries where copyright starts at creation, it could get more confusing. EU countries would likely protect it as an work by an EU author without regard for the country of origin. Unsure about other countries though -- the Polish version would still be under copyright of course but unsure how they would treat the English version, whether that would be considered PD due to country of origin, or if it would be considered derivative of a still-copyrighted work and only the additional expression would be PD. Well, for any 50pma countries the Polish language protection would expire at the end of the year regardless. Rather interesting case. Unsure if the U.S. would be the country of origin or not -- if so, it may well qualify for Commons. Assuming simultaneous publication, the URAA would only come into play for the additional expression in the Polish version not seen in the English. But the nominal U.S. term is 95 years from publication, which in this case would be longer than the UK 70 years from 1968, so it's possible the UK is the country of origin. Henry Charles Stevens (who had a pseudonym of Stephen Garry) lived from 1896 to either 1972 or 1973, it appears, which would still be shorter than the nominal U.S. term. I really don't know if the Berne "country with the shortest term" part of the simultaneous publication rule takes into account lack of formalities. I cannot find a U.S. registration for the work, which would give a specific publication date. If published in the U.S. more than 30 days before the UK, I think it's OK for Commons; if published simultaneously there may be too much gray area due to country of origin, and if published in the UK more than 30 days before the US, both versions are still under U.S. copyright for some time. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:43, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

https://gizchina.com.pl/

File:Redmi-5-plus-4.jpg and File:IMG 20180324 091833 HHT-e1521899165225.jpg are surced from that webpage. I can't see any sign of free licence which is claimed on Commons. Could someone recheck it? ~Cybularny Speak? 18:54, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Dual licensing for narendramodiofficial Flickr stream

Hi, Files from the Narendra Modi official Flickr stream (Prime Minister of India) can now be accepted under {{GODL-India}}. So I am undeleting all files previously deleted. Gazoth said that there may be some incompatibility between CC-BY-SA 2.0 from Flickr and GODL-India. So do we keep the CC-BY-SA 2.0 license? Disclaimer: I think that these files should not have been deleted, at least when they are obviously from Indian government employees (professional cameras with detailed descriptions in EXIF data). Regards, Yann (talk) 09:16, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

"Gazoth said that there may be some incompatibility between CC-BY-SA 2.0 from Flickr and GODL-India."
Link please. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 11:43, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
See [24]. Regards, Yann (talk) 12:34, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
I agree with the undeletion in general. Individual DRs can take care of all photos were someone believes that the license is invalid. Concerning the license issue, it seems we should add both licenses to the files. {{GODL-India}} is implicit, and {{Cc-by-sa-2.0}} is explicit by uploading to Flickr. Sebari – aka Srittau (talk) 15:26, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
The original deletion rationale was that uploading images owned by the government of India to Flickr under the prime minister's account is not sufficient permission for licensing under CC-BY-SA 2.0. The undeletion is happening due to {{GODL-India}} and not because of a consensus against that rationale. This leaves only one reason to keep the license, that is if CC-BY-SA 2.0 is compatible with GODL-India in a way that allows implicit re-licensing. However, there is no reason to believe this is possible and I think that some sections of GODL-India such as 7(c) and 8 makes it incompatible with CC-BY-SA 2.0. —Gazoth (talk) 16:44, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
GODL-India is a Copyfree license like CC BY; so compatible with most licenses (unlike CC BY-SA which is a Copyleft license). 7(c) and 8 are not adding any additional restrictions in my opinion. Whether the Flickr account holder has the right to license the works owned by Government of India is a valid point to discuss. And attribution should be to Government of India or of its departments. Jee 09:47, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
This is the Prime Minister's Flickr stream. So the Flickr account holder has obviously the right to license files made by the Government of India. To me, it doesn't matter if the GODL and CC-BY-SA are compatible or not. It is good that another free license is offered where GODL could not be used. Regards, Yann (talk) 11:08, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
Agree if that account is operated by Prime Minister's Office. But not if it is his personal account. Jee 12:18, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
Considering that the account contains images from when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat, it is unlikely that it is (solely?) operated by Prime Minister's Office. —Gazoth (talk) 15:24, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
All copyfree licenses are not compatible with copyleft licenses. For example, 4-clause BSD license is copyfree, but its fourth clause contains a restriction that is not present in most copyleft licenses. Re-licensing content under 4-clause BSD license using a copyleft license such as GPL would effectively free you from the fourth clause. So, 4-clause BSD license is considered to be incompatible with GPL. Similarly, section 7(c) that allows GoI to revoke GODL-India license and section 8 that enforces arbitration are additional restrictions that are not present in CC-BY-SA 2.0 which is an irrevocable license. Section 7(c) also came up in a previous discussion, as a potentially problematic clause, but concerns were overridden as we have DR process to deal with license revocation. —Gazoth (talk) 15:24, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Gazoth after reading their comments. A personal Flickr stream operator is not eligible to license GOI works. So CC BY-SA 2.0 licence should be removed. Jee 01:45, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
Well, for images before May 2014, I agree that GODL-India doesn't apply, so licensing is uncertain. But after that date? It seems likely that the official Flickr stream of the Prime Minister is operated by government employees. Regards, Yann (talk) 17:40, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
I don't think that the Flickr account is operated by Prime Minister's Office, at least not exclusively. There are some images that are posted on the Flickr stream after May 2014 such as this and this, which were taken at political rallies organized by his political party, BJP. These images were posted to his personal website or were tweeted by fellow members of his political party, but are not present in any government websites. They don't have any meaningful EXIF information, unlike other government images from his Flickr account. Lastly, the Flickr account is linked from his personal website https://www.narendramodi.in (see footer), but is not linked from the official website of the office that he holds, http://pmindia.gov.in. It is likely that the Flickr account is operated by his personal staff as a social media presence and not government employees. —Gazoth (talk) 19:33, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
OK, that's convincing. Yann (talk) 10:47, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
So I removed the Flickr license from all files I undeleted. This still has to be done for other files. Attribution also needs to be fixed: replacing "Narendra Modi" by "Prime Minister's Office, Government of India". This should be done with a bot. Regards, Yann (talk) 16:14, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
I managed to do that with VFC. Yann (talk) 13:28, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Some potential issues:

Newspaper clippings

Hi all, I just wanted to make sure that a recent upload of newspaper clippings was OK for Commons, e.g. File:Football Association (Sportsman) 1872-02-03.png, File:Meeting of the Football Association (Sporting Life) 1870-02-26.png and others uploaded by @Grover cleveland. I note that these files currently include {{PD-1923}} but nothing for the source country (UK), so if the files are permitted some advice on additional tagging would be useful. Also, would it make a difference if they were self-scans verses exports from online archives? Thanks, Nzd (talk) 11:42, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Hey Nzd. For anonymous works published before 1989, copyright would expire 70 years after publication, or 1942 and 1940 for these two articles respectively (see Commons:Anonymous works#United Kingdom). You are correct that they would need an additional tag for the source country, in this case Template:PD-UK-unknown.
Whether they are scans from an archive or self-made scans wouldn't matter for our purposes, so long as they "slavishly" reproduce the original work. In other words, there's no "creativity" in scans like the ones you link to, but if I arranged a print-out of the newspaper article with some old sports memorabilia and took a picture of it, then I would be adding creativity and would create additional copyright restrictions for my picture I took.
I believe that covers it fairly well. Anyone feel free to correct or add if I've missed something. GMGtalk 12:29, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
The copyright expires long ago, but I don't think {{PD-UK-unknown}} is the right license. This template is for photographs and artistic works, not literary works. So I added {{Anonymous-EU}}. Regards, Yann (talk) 13:45, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
Ah. Thanks. I was close, but not quite. GMGtalk 17:17, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks both, that's very useful. Nzd (talk) 10:56, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
@Yann: PD-UK-unknown applies to all sorts of works, be they literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works. Their law is explicit that way; the template appears to be using "artistic work" in the more general sense and not as actually defined in UK law. It should probably be changed. PD-UK-unknown is the specific version of PD-anon-70-EU for the UK basically, because their law does actually use "unknown" rather than strictly "anonymous" so is slightly different. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:53, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

License in getty images

Is that all images of getty images are copyrighted? --B dash (talk) 13:38, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Getty has some works where the copyright has expired (they do not tell you that though). But most of them are copyrighted, yes. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:57, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
@B dash: In addition there are cases like Commons:Deletion requests/Getty Images photos from the TechCrunch Flickr account (deleted though it shouldn't have been) and Commons:Deletion requests/Files found with insource:"Andrew H. Walker" (will be deleted though it shouldn't be). We also have some "simple photographs" from Italy that Getty is selling, some are rather questionable regarding simplicity. Note that not all stock photo sites are created equal. I even put one on COM:CLONE. - Alexis Jazz ping plz 15:02, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
See examples of Getty safe uploads at Commons:Database reports/Getty Images/Whitelist.--BevinKacon (talk) 17:40, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Satyagraha picture

The old picture with bad quality

Hello everybody!

I have a case here to explain. I want to use a picture which explains some things about Gandhi's core concept Satyagraha for Wikipedia. At least I want to use it on the german page w:de:Satyagraha. In my honest opinion this topic is barely known so everything additional about it would be good. Just look around what happens in the world today ;-)

Here in Wikimedia Commons a picture for my case already exists (File:Mg-satyagraha.jpg, thumbnail righthand). But, to be honest, the quality is very bad so the text can't be read good. It seems to be a plate or something which is located in a room at the Sabarmati Ashram in India (File:Mahatmas Visitor Room.JPG). To try a solution, I drew a SVG picture as a replication on the german Wikipedia, but there will be a non 100% clear copyright situation for my SVG picture. So I am going to delete it soon.

Sooo... I found a photography (photo) of this "Satyagraha graphic training aid" on a blog (page with the picture) After a search I contacted the photographer of it. I mailed her, if this photo can be used on Wikipedia. She wrote back that she would be okay with that. :-) Okay. So today I replied in another e-mail to her, that either we...

  • could use the OTRS system to mail an offical permission to Commons here OR
  • that she can publish it on flickr under a free license (maybe CC-BY or so) OR
  • that she can put a small text on her blog to declare this photo or other content to be copyright free under a Creative Commons license.

Now I hope very much that the photographer writes back.

So here are my questions for you:

  1. What do you think? Would it be okay this way?
  2. Also my worries are about freedom of panorama. It seems that the Sabarmati Ashram (this is where the picture is taken) is now a museum(?) in India. I absolutely don't know if it is okay this way. The pages on Wikipedia and Commons seem to me to be different in the case of India (Wikipedia page and Commons page on freedom of panorama).
  3. It seems to be unclear to me who drew it. Maybe Vinobaji in the caption seems to be Vinoba Bhave. Is there a problem? Other pictures in the Category:Sabarmati Ashram also include works and drawings of others.
  4. Her photo seems to be a newer version (look at the text font and the decoration of the smallest circle in the middle).

Sorry for writing so much but I want to make it as good as possible.

I am looking forward to your answers! :-)

Greetings from Bavaria/Germany, Quark48 (talk) 19:29, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Wait a few days, I will take a new picture. ;o) Yann (talk) 20:30, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
File:Mg-satyagraha.jpg itself may be a problem as there is no freedom of panorama for 2D works in India. Ruslik (talk) 06:19, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
Ah yes, it was made by Vinoba, not Gandhi. :( Yann (talk) 06:31, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

So is it right that the photo from the blog should not be uploaded here because of problems with freedom of panorama in India?

I am familiar with Wikipedia but not so much with Wikimedia Commons. Would you like to explain these things to me, please:

  1. why it is bad that Vinoba has made it? Vinoba died in 1982, so his works won't be in the public domain before 2043. Yann (talk) 20:05, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
    Mahatma Gandhi died more than 60 years ago, so his works are in the public domain in India.
  2. would it be okay if Yann (assumed that his statement he would take a new picture on a tour is true ;-) takes a photo of it and uploads it? I assume that he doesn't live in India. Would - in this case - the legal stuff also apply to it?
    Yes, I live in India, and I am at just a few kilometers from Sabarmati Ashram now. But wherever I live, the copyright issue is the same. It depends on Indian copyright law. Yann (talk) 20:05, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

So maybe I and others can learn something new! It seems to be complicated here. :-) Greetings, Quark48 (talk) 18:43, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Ah, thank you! It is like in the german Wikipedia when the copyright expires after some decades. That's cool when you are now not so far from the Sabarmati Ashram! Carry out the message of the father of India. It is needed. After all I must write the photographer of the blog that her picture is not necessary anymore.

Maybe I draw a free picture of the core philosophy if I have time for it. Only the words of the Gandhi-writings will be needed. And to prevent such problems I will put it into CC-0/public domain. As it belongs to the same topic: Would there be a new problem in this case? :-) Greetings from Germany, Quark48 (talk) 10:30, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Second or third opinion please

Public domain
This file is in the public domain because This file is in the public domain, because This file is in the public domain, because This file is in the public domain, because This file is in the public domain, because This file is in the public domain, because This file is in the public domain, because This file is in the public domain, because This file is in the public domain, because This file is in the public domain, because This file is in the public domain, because This file is in the public domain, because This file is in the public domain, because This file is in the public domain, because This file is in the public domain, because This file is in the public domain, because This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1923 and 1963 and although there may or may not have been a copyright notice, the copyright was not renewed. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY

This template must not be used to dedicate an uploader's own work to the public domain; CC0 should be used instead.

This work must carry justifications for free usability in both the United States and its country of origin.

Besides this not being a very helpful use of the template, and some version of it appears on most of User:CerroFerro's at least recent uploads...There also seems to be DRs like this sitting around, where Do wiki editors have investigate every posting to determine if the film copyright has been renewed? doesn't make me super confident that this user doesn't understand the answer to that question is yes. But I'm not really good at the mid-20th century "was renewed/wasn't renewed" criteria. Would appreciate a second or third opinion. Thanks. GMGtalk 19:17, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Here's mine. For the renewal stuff, try COM:RENEWAL. (a page that CerroFerro undoubtedly hasn't read) - Alexis Jazz ping plz 19:50, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for looking into it. I'm not super comfortable with the But if you have looked well, this is good enough to upload the work to Commons bit. So I tend to simply stay away from mid-20th century non-government works all together. GMGtalk 20:01, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
the poetry of "a rose is a rose is a rose" is not much worse than "If restored and re-released in 2017, very likely that copyright has been renewed" (you could argue release is evidence of lapse, like w:This Is the Army) we should have a standard of practice of linking to the LOC catalog of renewals. i.e. [25] ; [26] (do not see any renewal there.) and reject arguments that do not refer to it. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 21:25, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Did I do something wrong?

Commons:Deletion requests/File:小和田恒氏ご一家.jpg Unambiguous copyvio, but the deletion request has been live for almost a month with neither administrative action nor third-party input. Is it not showing up for editors other than me or something? Hijiri88 (talk) 14:57, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Hijiri88, I don't think you did anything wrong here (I agree this should be deleted as copyvio; obviously scanned/screenshot, consistent with other uploads from this user). If you look at Commons:Deletion_requests/2018/07/02, majority of the requests has yet to receive any input. This is probably of a Commons problem. Alex Shih (talk) 15:31, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
no - the backlog back to April is not your fault. there are a lot of contentious mass deletions in there, so it could be a while. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge 16:38, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

File:斐讯广告.jpg

I'm going to discuss this image. It is a image of a utility pole along a road. There're two advertisements on the pole. The left one is an copyrighted advertisement of w:Shanghai International Film Festival; the right one is an advertisement of Phicomm (a company), possible ineligible for copyright. It is currently used in three articles in Chinese Wikipedia, one in Shanghai International Film Festival, one in Phicomm, and one in the article of the road.

Does each of the usages meet Commons:De minimis?--GZWDer (talk) 07:01, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi,
OK for me. As you said, the advertisement for Phicomm is ineligible for copyright, and the design of the other one is de minimis. Regards, Yann (talk) 07:33, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Hayu YouTube Reality TV content

Can https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUOs9J7W5nqfpz2KSzxH2sQ/videos Hayu really release all that content under Creative Commons Attribution licence?

hayu is the place to watch your favourite reality shows whenever and wherever you want. With loads of shows the same day as the U.S. and over 3,000+ episodes of binge-worthy Box Sets from the start, hayu is the undoubted home of reality TV.

We have 6 files from there Special:Search/hayu youtube.

If there is no problem, I will start uploading screenshots.--BevinKacon (talk) 19:35, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

If you click on 'Show more', this clip is marked 'Licence – Creative Commons Attribution licence (reuse allowed)', which is acceptable here and allows for screenshots. However we also need to use 'due diligence' to check that the license is probably valid. This YouTube account appears to be controlled by w:en:Hayu (subscription service) which appears to be a properly-established media company that presumably holds licences to distribute the content. It is possible that Hayu have inadvertently assigned a license on content that they do not own. However, not all the clips on their YouTube channel are released under this license (example), so perhaps their clips from reality TV shows are not free and only promotional clips or trailers have free licenses. I think we should trust these licenses. If you want to upload stills (or the clips themselves) then please check that the YouTube page has an acceptable license and tag the Commons page with {{LicenseReview}} to request that the license is reviewed (in case it is changed on YouTube). Verbcatcher (talk) 22:57, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Images of balloons

In the same line of thought as the discussion that took place here, and somewhere here on commons as well, (it was deleted separately on both projects), wouldn't something like File:Charlie Brown parade balloon.jpg also be problematic? Am I missing something? GMGtalk 20:08, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Umm...ping Guanaco for clarification since they nominated it on en.wiki. Just trying to make sense of it in a way that's consistent. GMGtalk 20:27, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
@GreenMeansGo: Looks like a copyvio to me. I nominated it for deletion. Guanaco (talk) 21:07, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

mbl.is

Anybody have any idea why Google Images is marking images from here as being labeled for reuse with modification? en:Morgunblaðið appears to just be a normal newspaper, with no indication that it should be specially licensed. I'm assuming this is Googles mess up? GMGtalk 18:11, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

I can't see any indication of a free license. Their home page has a copyright link at the bottom which leads here. This has clauses including:
  • Fréttaefni, s.s. texti, myndir og grafík, og annað efni á mbl.is og öðrum vefsvæðum á vegum Árvakurs nýtur verndar samkvæmt höfundalögum nr. 73/1972, með áorðnum breytingum. / Einstaklingum er heimilt að prenta út efni til einkanota sem birt er á vefsvæðunum. Heimildin nær ekki til lögaðila og atvinnureksturs þeirra.
Which Google Translate gives as:
  • News material, such as text, images and graphics, and other content on the web and other websites on behalf of Árvakur is protected by copyright law no. 73/1972, as amended. / Individuals may print personal content published on the websites. The authorization does not extend to legal persons and their business.
This is not an acceptable licence for Commons. Verbcatcher (talk) 23:17, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
That's what I figured. Anybody got a contact with Google to fix this? GMGtalk 01:12, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
I don't seem to have this problem. When I do a search for "Tíma­móta­sam­starfi" without any filters, I get this mbl image as the first result, but when I enable reuse with modification, there are no results at all. De728631 (talk) 01:20, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
Here is the original search I was doing. It seems to be pulling a few things wrongly. I just didn't know if there was something special about Iceland where apparently run-of-the-mill commercial sites should have their content licensed this way. GMGtalk 10:58, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

File:Hector Suárez Gomís.jpg & File:Roberto Palazuelos entrevista.jpg

Dear Vpc Volunteers,

Are these youtube images free? There is no clear license given. Best, --Leoboudv (talk) 21:43, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

File:Hector Suárez Gomís.jpg is a still from the YouTube channel of w:en:Hoy (TV series), a Mexican television talk show. I can see no indication of a free license. Their homepage has a non-free copyright declaration.
File:Roberto Palazuelos entrevista.jpg is a still from the La Saga YouTube channel. I can see no indication of a free license. Their YouTube user page has a link to this homepage, where there is a non-free copyright declaration. Verbcatcher (talk) 22:13, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
@Leoboudv and Verbcatcher: FYI, sock - Alexis Jazz ping plz 00:12, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Miguel Ruiz photo

The file File:Miguel Ruiz.jpg is tagged CC BY-SA 4.0, but no such license statement can be found on the source (archived), which only says Photo credit should always be given to the photographer. Is {{Attribution}} a better fit, or does this even qualify as a suitable license statement per COM:L? clpo13(talk) 23:39, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

This is not a free licence at all. There is no statement that the photos may be used outside any press publications or can be altered. De728631 (talk) 01:25, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
Thanks De728631, nominated for deletion at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Miguel Ruiz.jpg. clpo13(talk) 18:38, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Letters

I would like to upload some letters of a soldier (died 1945) - for demonstration of old german handwriting. The letters are from 1941 to 1945. What copyright tag should I use? --Thirunavukkarasye-Raveendran (talk) 21:25, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

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