Commons talk:Licensing/Archive 34

Mozambique

Would others please comment at this postage stamps discussion? 70 years for stamps, and 70 years pma for other works, applies to apply per this WIPO page. Assuming I am reading this law properly many of the stamps at Category:Stamps of Mozambique must be deleted. Ww2censor (talk) 17:13, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Internet Archive

I had a question about the usability of images of a film in the Internet Archives, Lying Lips, as the film description page[1] contains no specific description of the reason it is considered public domain. I commenced a discussion on this at Wikipedia[2] but I realized that I should here too, as this is where I'd be uploading the images, and also I thought people experienced with the archive may be residing here. Sorry for the duplication. ScottyBerg (talk) 14:40, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

It's PD because its copyright wasn't renewed, {{PD-US-no renewal}}.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:04, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Do you think it's possible that it's PD because there was never any copyright? That possibility was raised by someone at the Wikipedia copyright page, as an examination of the film itself shows no visible copyright notice. ScottyBerg (talk) 16:25, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Possibly. In that case, it still wouldn't have been renewed.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:27, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Revocability of Flickr licences

This old chestnut has arise again, at Commons:Deletion requests/File:X14.jpg and User_talk:John_Schanlaub#A_discussion_of_the_images_you_uploaded

If anyone has a good form of words to explain the issues to an unhappy photographer, it might be helpful. Thanks Andy Dingley (talk) 16:39, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I think you've done a remarkably good job explaining the situation to the uploader in question. I don't think I could have expressed the point more clearly or politely. Gold stars all round from me. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:46, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Feel free to borrow my words, in case there is any plan for templates or similar. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:08, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

The event that seems to have precipitated the photographer`s emotional reaction seems to have been a thank you I left on a flickr image I uploaded here.

I mention this as Andy asks if there is anything we can do to prevent photographers feeling violated months or years after we started to uploade their images from flickr.

The photographer freely chose to upload 34 of their images here. Other wikimedia commons contributors had found, and uploaded, approximately 100 of his flickr images here, prior to the thank you I left. But I seem to have been the first person to have told him I uploaded an image of his.

After reading my thank you the photographer seems to have looked for other images that bore their flickr-id, found one hundred, and to have felt violated.

For the last 17 months I have tried to leave a thank you and acknowledgement every time I upload a flickr image. I know the liscense doesn`t require a thank you or acknowledgment. But it only takes 30 seconds or so. It shows appreciation. It also helps prevent trying to upload images that have already been uploaded.

I think this photographer wouldn`t have been so angry if the first time someone uploaded one of their image, they had left a thank you, and acknowledgment. They may not have decided to change their liscenses. And if they did decide to change the liscense we would only be talking about a couple of images -- not over one hundred.

I am pretty sure it would be technically possible for the {{Flickrreview}} robot to leave a thank you on every image it reviews. Would this be a good idea? Would this violate flickr`s policies on robots? Would flickr`s managers make an exception?

Is there some other way we could automate telling every flickr contributor when we use their image(s)?

User:John_Schanlaub has stated they are going to do what they can to warn flickr contributors of (1) the dangers of CC liscenses; (2) the dangers of wikimedia contributors who try to profit from innocent photographers` hard work. I think I am going to change my thank you note so it explicitly thanks the he flickr uploader for using a liscense that allows re-use. Geo Swan (talk) 01:47, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that placing a thank-you comment on Flickr photo pages is a good practice that should be encouraged. Making such comments also alerts other Commons users to the fact that the image has already been uploaded to the Commons. I use the following comment:

Thanks for licensing this image under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA-2.0) licence, which has enabled it to be transferred to the <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IMAGENAME.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a> and potentially used in <a href="http://tools.wikimedia.de/~daniel/WikiSense/CheckUsage.php?i=IMAGENAME.jpg&w=_100000>one or more Wikipedia articles</a>.

Cheers,

<a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:USERNAME">USERNAME</a>

At the end of the day, I think the photographer's unhappiness stems from a misunderstanding of what CC-BY and CC-BY-SA licences entitle others to do. It's unfortunate, but he could have read information on the effects of these licences on the Flickr website before applying them to his photographs. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:25, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I am glad to learn other people thank flickr photographers. It is unfortunate that we uploaded over 100 of his images before I thanked him. Can I ask what you think of the idea of changing the {{Flickrreview}} robot so it informs flickr photographers when their images were re-used? Geo Swan (talk) 12:06, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 12:23, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Careful, though - a number of Flick users aren't that keen on "spam" messages in their comments sections, and might not appreciate a bot tagging each and every image that is uploaded to Commons. The personal touch may be the better one. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:20, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Not sure about copyright issue

Hi there! I recently created an SVG version of this logo, but I’m not sure if creating it from scratch with five simple squares is sufficient enough according to copyright issues for the SVG to be kept in Commons. Could you clarify the legal status of this image, please? If needed, I’ll remove it. Thanks a lot! — SGC.Alex (talk) 19:22, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

If the original is copyrightable, recreating it (from scratch or otherwise) is not a sufficient defense against infringement. However, I think a strong argument could be made that the original is not, in fact, copyrightable -- in which case {{PD-ineligible}} would be the appropriate licensing tag. Powers (talk) 19:53, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I found the author’s name, Guillem Sevilla, on this page. Do you still think it’s not copyrightable and the only step I need to do is append the PD-ineligible template? — SGC.Alex (talk) 09:13, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm honestly not sure. In my opinion, I would call it PD-ineligible, but I'm not prepared to say that's definitive. Powers (talk) 14:22, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

In the meantime, I found his website and contacted him to know his view on our potential use of his work. — SGC.Alex (talk) 09:29, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Commons_talk:Currency#Latvia_Banknotes_and_coins

I would like someone to take a look at my comments here about Latvia Banknotes and coins. I am not fluent enough in copyright rules to understand what I have read but since there is a large list of images that may be deleted (if this isn't resolved soon), I really think this needs immediate attention by someone who knows copyright rules better then myself.--ARTEST4ECHO ^talk 22:05, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

FYI, this is a copyright issue on that page.--ARTEST4ECHO ^talk 12:19, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Military Payment Certificate

I was wondering dose {{PD-USGov-money}} appy to Military Payment Certificate like File:10 Dollars Series 692 MPC.jpg. I would think it would since a "Military Payment Certificate" is defined at " form of currency", but I'm not sure.--ARTEST4ECHO ^talk 14:41, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

It's definitely PD-USGov; PD-USGov-money is as good as anything.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:40, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Well the question become, dose the 3/4 & 1-1/2 U.S. Secret Service money illustration rules apply? Dose the image size need to be changed?--ARTEST4ECHO ^talk 22:10, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

The Secret Service rules apply only to printed money, not digital versions. Dcoetzee (talk) 21:06, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Image Deletion Warnings

I keep getting the following "A file that you have uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, "File:Rmhanson.jpg", is missing information about where it comes from or who created it, which is needed to verify its copyright status. Please edit the file description and add the missing information, or the file may be deleted." and for "File:Hitonhanson.jpg" and "File:50-cal-gun.jpg".

I DON'T GET IT!! I have all the information there and don't understand what's missing. On doing research, it all seem to be a bit confusing. The 1st image has the web address where it came from (a military source), as well as does the 2nd and 3rd images (all from military sources).

WHAT AM I DOING WRONG!! Can somebody PLEASE help me out (in layman's terms) on this?

Thanks Vietnambuff (talk) 17:30, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

You have to fill out the Author field, using information from the source. Dcoetzee (talk) 21:06, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

But I thought I did that correctly. What have I done wrong? Thanks, Vietnambuff (talk) 21:41, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Evidence of lack of copyright notice?

From Commons:Deletion requests/File:Henry Moore sculpture, Harvard University.jpg: Is the lack of a mention of copyright notice on public sculptures in the Smithsonian Art Database considered conclusive proof that no notice was made on the sculpture? To put another way, if the SI database doesn't mention notice, does that mean that the notice doesn't exist?--GrapedApe (talk) 21:22, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

If they appear to have documented all the inscriptions, then yes, we generally consider that as OK, as they appear to be careful to document copyright notices when they are there as well. For something published after 1978, we also need to check if the author subsequently registered a copyright, but I don't see it for that one (not sure if that was before or after -- maybe it was published before, but not sure). If evidence of a notice surfaces, we can re-nominate. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:09, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

USS Pocahontas

I have uploaded a photo of File:USS Pocahontas (1852).jpg from the Library of Congress, here. The photo is part of the Civil War Treasures from the New-York Historical Society, whose "rights" page states that Anyone wishing to use any of these images for commercial use, publication, or any purpose other than fair use as defined by law, must request and receive prior written permission from the New-York Historical Society's Department of Rights and Reproductions.[3] However, as I understand our policies, the image is in the public domain because it was apparently taken by Henry P. Moore, who died in 1911, so it can be uploaded here, is that correct? Gatoclass (talk) 13:40, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Most certainly, it is in the public domain. You could have also used the license template {{PD-1923}}, as it was published well before that date. — Huntster (t @ c) 14:09, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'm not certain it was ever published, though it probably was, given that Moore was a commercial photographer. Gatoclass (talk) 15:31, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Copyvio: Moscow architecture

There is no FOP in Russia. The photo File:MosMetro_VDNKh_2011.jpg violates the rights of four architects (I. G. Taranov, N. A. Bykova, Yu. A. Cherepanov and I. G. Goharai-Kharmandaryan). No approval from those architects is shown on the file's page. The station was opened in 1958. This is why I have raised a deletion request [4] using the "Nominate For Deletion" link on that page. Then A.Savin reverted my nomination without pithy arguments and also made me a warning [5] claiming I haven't made a new deletion request (which is not true). Where did Commons abolished Article 1276 of of Civil Code of the Russian Federation? See the template for further explanations: {{FoP-Russia}}.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 18:44, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Dates of death: Taranov 1979, Bykova 1997.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 18:47, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

File:MoscowTVtower-2009-view08.jpg violates the rights of Leonid Batalov, the architect who built this Ostankino television center in 1963—1967, died in 1989.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 18:54, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

File:Nagatinon metrosilta.jpg violates the rights of architect K. N. Yakovlev, the bridge built in 1969.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 18:58, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

File:MOW Planernaya Bus terminal.jpg violates the rights of unknown architects, the building appeared in 2011.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 19:04, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

File:KolomenskayaMoscow.jpg violates the rights of architects L. Shagurina and V. Cheremin, the station opened in 1969.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 19:07, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

File:Volga-terminal-yar.jpg violates the rights of architect T. P. Sadovskii (alive).--PereslavlFoto (talk) 19:10, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

File:Metro SPB Line4 Ligovka.jpg violates the rights of architects Yu. V. Yeyechko and N. V. Romashkin-Timanov, station opened in 1991.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 19:21, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

File:Metro SPB Line4 Ladozhskaya.jpg violates the rights of architect V. N. Yesinovsky, station opened in 1985.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 19:21, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

File:Metro SPB Line4 Bolshevikov.jpg violates the rights of architects Yu. V. Yeyechko and R. Sh. Rozental, station opened in 1985.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 19:21, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

File:Metro SPB Line1 Lenina.jpg violates the rights of architect A. K. Andreyev, dead 2001, station opened in 1958.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 19:21, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

The question here is not whether there is FOP in Russia but whether the designs are copyrightable. My thoughts:

• Commons:Deletion requests/File:MosMetro VDNKh 2011.jpg: Although this interior design is pretty simple (an arch with a number of arch-shaped doorways), I'm not convinced that User:A.Savin's analysis of this case is accurate and we should take a second look. File:Metro SPB Line1 Lenina.jpg is similar.
• Commons:Deletion requests/File:MoscowTVtower-2009-view08.jpg: There's no issue here (rectangular building with rectangular hole - the design is simple and not copyright eligible).

None of the other images have been nominated for deletion. If you have concerns, you should nominate them using the normal process. Each case of architectural FOP generally requires independent consideration. Nobody is going to block you for voicing reasonable concerns, despite your history. Just looking at them, I think many of them are simple rectangular buildings and basic causeways with no copyrightable elements. Dcoetzee (talk) 21:05, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

No matter what form they have, they are protected by the Civil Code, as an architect's work.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 21:52, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

This is incorrect. Copyright law does not, in any nation, protect every architectural design, no matter how ordinary or straightforward. The threshold of copyrightability may vary from place to place. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:07, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

In this case the law makes no exception: "Works of science, literature and art are recognized as objects of authors' rights regardless of merit and purpose" ... "works of architecture, urban planning, garden landscaping art..." ("Объектами авторских прав являются произведения науки, литературы и искусства независимо от достоинств и назначения" ... "произведения архитектуры, градостроительства и садово-паркового искусства" - article 1256 p. 1). It leaves no opportunity to question "rectangular holes". Questioning definition of a hole in a wall as "art" here is usually fruitless. I recall that one of the pictures deleted in Le Corbusier mass nom (or maybe another one) was merely a plain unfinished concrete column. Nothing else - just a closeup of a column and a blurred landscape behind it. NVO (talk) 06:10, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Your misprint, article 1259.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 07:36, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Precisely so, good catch! NVO (talk) 09:17, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Am I the only one who thinks that this is a shoot-in-the foot affair? First, PereslavlFoto, you disclose your real-world IP, then you target a sysop's uploads, then you file this DR while your own upload gallery is topped with deletion firewood? NVO (talk) 06:34, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

You mean pancake cafe? I am searching for its architect now, sent a request to the city administration.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 08:13, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Извиняюсь за нежданный каламбур - нет, речь о другом. Следите за развитием вот этой истории. А, впрочем, всё это уже было... NVO (talk) 09:15, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Прошу прощения, я перестал понимать вашу идею. Если там обсуждают промышленную модель-копию, так она не охраняется, это просто фабричная вещь. А вот если это мАстерская штучная модель, тогда она охраняется как декоративно-прикладное искусство. Судя по разговору, там штучная модель авторского изготовления, то есть произведение искусства. Однако напрашивается другой каламбур: we have to consider and polish law :-). Слабое место вашей реплики в том, что детали могут быть фабричные, и даже из разных стран, но охраняются не детали, а творчество. Если я купил пять моделей, разобрал и сделал из них свою оригинальную модель, она охраняется как результат моего творческого вклада.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 09:41, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Если бы всё было так просто ;) "простые фабричные вещи" тоже удаляют. Надо категорию для таких историй создать. Дабы ещё дальше усложнить ситуацию, удалениями такого рода занимаются только два админа, имеющих полярные ТЗ на предмет, и один из них уже безапеляционно высказался в обсуждении. NVO (talk) 15:11, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Фабричная вещь лишена творческого вклада и не является произведением.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 15:15, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Согласен! Осталось только убедить в этом админов, имеющих противоположное мнение. NVO (talk) 15:56, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

А сейчас-то мне что делать? DR сразу откатывает автор фотографии.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 12:45, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Derivative works and requirement for word "SPECIMEN"

Please, see this discussion. Dinamik (talk) 15:37, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Derivative works are a facet of copyright law only, which are orthogonal to any Commons:Non-copyright restrictions such as the currency stuff. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:32, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Useful object?

File:2000.Тарелка.jpg

This counterintuitive legal construct pops up here and there, - could someone formulate the bright line between "useful" and "not so useful" ?

Take a look if you would at the image. Yes, it's a dish, and useful as such. And it's also a work of applied art, with author's name and date. Is this "keep, useful object" or "kill, work of art"? NVO (talk) 03:00, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

As with the threshold of originality and many other concepts of copyright law, there is no bright line. Useful objects are exempt from copyright in that variations of the width of the rim or the curve and depth of the bowl are more the result of utility than the expression of original creativity. In my view, the decoration on this plate is above the threshold of originality and cannot be attributed to the plate's utilitarian aspects. Commons:Derivative works#Isn't every product copyrighted by someone? What about cars? Or kitchen chairs? My computer case? contains further reading. —LX (talk, contribs) 09:09, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree. The artwork on the dish is clearly identifiable as an element of art separable from the utilitarian function of the dish. Powers (talk) 12:37, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

What about this plate, is there an author? Yes. Then it's an artictic work, quite simple case.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 12:46, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Using U.S. logic, the plate is utilitarian, with a separable bit of artwork on it ("separable" meaning it can hold a copyright; it is conceptually separable from the utilitarian function of the plate). The Ets Hokin v Skyy Spirits court case though did say that a photo of a vodka bottle was not a derivative work of a copyrightable label, since the photo was of the entire bottle and not of the label itself. In this case, you could argue the focus of the photo is the artwork on the plate, particularly given the angle (minimizing the view of the plate itself, while giving the best view of the artwork). This is an area where you could see differences between countries though. No idea what Russian law would say. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:49, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

There are several things to note about the Ets-Hokin v. Skyy Spirits case.

1. It was decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. It was not a Supreme Court case.
2. The version of the bottle described in the case appears to be this one. The label would uncontroversially be tagged as {{PD-textlogo}} if uploaded to Commons.
3. Ets-Hokin alleged that Skyy violated a licensing agreement for use of product photos created by Ets-Hokin and that Skyy infringed on Ets-Hokin's copyright by commissioning product photos mimicking those made by Ets-Hokin.
4. In the original decision by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, the bottle was ruled to be a copyrightable work. It also held that Ets-Hokin's photographs did not add sufficient originality to merit copyright in the photographs themselves.
5. The Court of Appeals overturned this, ruling that the bottle was not copyrightable but that the photographs were (as are virtually all photographs of three-dimensional objects).
6. The Court of Appeals held that the bottle, "although attractive, has no special design or other features that could exist independently as a work of art. It is essentially a functional bottle without a distinctive shape." It also noted that the purely textual label was not copyrightable.
7. The Court of Appeals held that deciding whether the label was copyrightable was actually not important to the case, because the product photos were based on "the bottle as a whole–a useful article not subject to copyright protection–and not shots merely, or even mainly, of its label".

The Court did not state that photographs of bottles with copyrightable labels could not be derivative works of those labels. It stated that the particular photographs in question would not have been derivative works of the Skyy label even if that label had been copyrightable. We cannot draw any conclusions about when a photograph of a bottle should be regarded as a photograph "mainly" of its label. The Court's reasoning suggests that if a print that is indeed copyrightable covers the main part of a utilitarian object, photographs of the object may well be derivative works. —LX (talk, contribs) 16:20, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

The relevant point here is #7 above -- photographs not of, or at least mainly of, the label would not be derivative works of the label -- if it is just contained in a utilitarian object, and photos are taken of the entire object. Basically, those go way beyond the bounds that a label artist should be able to control, once they are legally used on product packaging. I think I missed an "although" in my original comment, as I meant to indicate that this particular photo of the plate was mainly of the design and so I don't think the case's distinction would help here, or at the very least puts it in a very gray area. On the other hand, the ruling was not a de minimis kind of thing; it was ruled under an entirely different basis -- the label did not qualify as a "preexisting work" under the definition of the copyright law in that type of photo. Many shots of the plate in general may be OK, I think -- but this photographic angle does seem designed to emphasize the design itself and therefore could be an issue. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:15, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Collection of the International Psychoanalytic University, Berlin

Hello, What do you think of the legal status of these books: Collection of the International Psychoanalytic University, Berlin? It is said to be "open-sourced material", but all books are quite recent. Thanks for your comments, Yann (talk) 14:35, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

FAA aeronautical charts

Hello,

at http://aeronav.faa.gov/index.asp?xml=aeronav/applications the en:Federal Aviation Administration provides tons of high-quality en:Aeronautical charts for the US. Is it correct that those are all {{PD-USGov-FAA}}? At least some of them could be of great value for us. To get an example you could go to the VFR Terminal Area charts, download one of the (rather big) zip-archives and open the TIF-file that has a "TAC" in its name. There are also other types of Maps such as en:Airport diagrams and en:Enroute charts, some of them just scanned, others as georeferenced Geo-Tiff or vector-graphics (PDF). Greetings, --El Grafo (talk) 07:53, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, all FAA charts for places in the USA (and probably those elsewhere) are PD.     Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 12:42, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. --El Grafo (talk) 18:26, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

{{PD-Ireland}}

I have just deprecated this template. It needs someone competent in copyrights to find and replace all uses of it. -- Prince Kassad (talk) 16:18, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

What's the problem with it? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:55, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Ireland does not have any provisions beyond 70 years pma (covered by {{PD-old-70}}/{{Anonymous-EU}} already), so there's no need to have a template specifically for Ireland (similarly to how we don't have {{PD-Slovenia}} or {{PD-Lithuania}} either). -- Prince Kassad (talk) 19:12, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking it should be redirected to PD-old-70, since everything it was supposed to cover was 70 pma/70 years after publication if anonymous. —innotata 22:44, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Stamps of Nepal

Hi all, does anyone know if Nepal's postage stamps (1970's and younger) are under copyright? Thanks, - Till (talk) 20:26, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

According to the Nepal The Copyright Act, 2059 (2002) Nepalese copyright last for 50-years pma, unless we define stamps as being objects of "applied arts" in whcih case the term is 25-years from the creation of the work, per Chapter-3 Term of protection of Copyright found on this WIPO webpage. While the Government claims copyright of it own work there is nothing that shows the term varies from the defined periods. This 50-year period is very similar to many other countries' copyright terms as seen at Commons:Stamps/Public domain templates and Commons:Stamps/Public domain. So right now, 1961 is the cut off point. I'll see if we can add a suitable template and details to the appropriate pages. Ww2censor (talk) 03:41, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the quick and detailed answer. - Till (talk) 04:33, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Applied art?

Per the previous post about Nepalese stamps, do we consider postage stamps to be applied art or not? Ww2censor (talk) 15:52, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Probably depends on the design itself. Stamps can reproduce straight-up artistic works like paintings or photos. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Do Commons allow me to violate the law?

I am a citizen of Russia. Russian Civil Code articles deny me from publishing architectural photos under any free license without permission from the architect. Another user tells me: where the threshold of originality is not met, Commons have the official practice to ignore any further law or civil code. Does this mean that I, being a citizen of Russian Federation and acting in my homeland, gain a right to ignore the Civil Code of the country? How can this be? Thanks.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 17:00, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

This is one of the quirks of the Commons. My understanding is that, strictly speaking, because the Commons servers are located in Florida, USA, we take the position that only US laws govern the hosting of files in the Commons – the laws of other countries are not applied. It is for individual users to decide whether the laws of the countries they are living in permit them to upload particular files to the Commons or download files for use. However, one important exception to this position is that we require public-domain files to be in the public domain both in their source countries and in the US. Again, I understand that this is not because it is a legal requirement in the US but because we want to ensure that such files are free to use anywhere in the world from a copyright point of view. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:17, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Then why does Commons takes into account FOP in other countries?--PereslavlFoto (talk) 13:12, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Same reason as I stated above, as I understand it: to ensure that images are as free as possible from a copyright perspective. Here at the Commons, we seem to be concerned primarily with copyright, and to a lesser extent privacy law. We do not, though, concern ourselves with other potentially applicable non-copyright restrictions that might apply in various countries such as laws prohibiting the display of Nazi material, censorship laws, laws prohibiting the use of images of people taken in a public place without their permission, and so on. I readily agree that this seems rather arbitrary, but I believe that's the position taken here. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:01, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I think I misunderstood your point. You are asserting that Russian law imposes a copyright-related restriction on the reproduction of architectural works by way of photographs. If you think this is a problem, you should raise it at "Commons talk:Freedom of panorama" or here, providing links to the relevant laws and/or interpretations of such laws. (Do raise the issue in one place, not multiple places.) — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Please see Commons:Deletion_requests/File:MosMetro_VDNKh_2011.jpg. Thanks.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 19:14, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

You have the right and obligation to think for yourself. Sometimes Commons won't agree on an interpretation of the law with you, and in reality Commons is formally bound by different laws then you, no matter what rules it decides to make. If Commons chooses an interpretation you disagree with, at a certain point the only solution is to let it go.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:42, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

What "another user tells" you is not set in stone. Most of these deletions are done by two sysops, it's either User:Jcb or User:Jameslwoodward. They usually have opposite views on this subject. One case doesn't mean much; nominate more and more and files will end up with "the right" admin. Or get the button yourself. NVO (talk) 19:34, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

JCB, in particular, appears to have an... unorthodox... view on the threshold of originality for buildings. I think it would probably be a good idea to have more input about this issue, and about many of the keeps that are in this category (buildings in non-FOP countries that are kept because they supposedly aren't original enough for copyright). Buddy431 (talk) 20:37, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

File:President Barack Obama's long form birth certificate.jpg

The President released a copy of his birth certificate today. (For background, see en:Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories.) The image is claimed to be public domain as it was published without a copyright notice prior to 1977. I don't think that's correct, though. It was created without a copyright notice in 1961, but it wasn't published until 2011. Is there some better public domain rule that applies here (eg, ineligible for copyright as there is no original authorship)? --UserB (talk) 19:35, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

• I can't see anything copyrightable here. Blank forms are generally not protected by copyright, see [6], [7], etc., signatures are not protected per Commons:When to use the PD-signature tag#US law, background pattern is too trivial to be copyrightable. It's {{PD-ineligible}} IMO. Trycatch (talk) 19:51, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Trycatch, this is a filled out form, looks like a case of {{PD-ineligible}} Hekerui (talk) 20:08, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. It contains a fair amount of text, but it's facts, no "creative spark". Dcoetzee (talk) 22:24, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

United States Navy Band recordings

Hi folks, I hope this is the right place to ask this question. I noticed that someone uploaded File:Majulah Singapura instrumental.ogg, a recording of the national anthem of Singapore made by the United States Navy Band. The recording's tagged as {{PD-USGov}}; however, the Navy Band's own website states (e.g. at [8]) that "[t]he music files on this website are intended for official use by Department of Defense and U.S. government offices only. Exceptions to this policy will be considered on a case-by-case basis".

I'm just curious. Is the Navy Band able to put such restrictions (if they are indeed supposed to be restrictions — strictly speaking, they only talk about what the files are "intended" for) on these recordings? -- Schnee (talk) 18:27, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this really means much: these being published, I don't think there are any copyright restrictions except with copyrighted compositions (which might be part of the reason for the statement, and I'd guess Singapore's is copyright), or any non-copyright restrictions (and see en:Wikipedia_talk:Featured_sound_candidates/Archive_5#Govt_PD_avoidance and other discussions on enwiki). —innotata 19:00, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Great, thanks for the clarification and the link! -- Schnee (talk) 19:50, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the national anthem of Singapore will not enter into the public domain until 2058, 70 years after en:Zubir Said's death. That affects File:Majulah Singapura instrumental.ogg and File:Singapore National Anthem at the National Museum, Singapore - 20100720.jpg, not to mention wikisource:Onward Singapore. Maybe there's something I'm missing. Powers (talk) 12:46, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

National anthems are kinda weird. They are more a national symbol and probably not subject to normal copyright (i.e. there is no way the composer gets royalties every time it's performed). In particular, U.S. law does not allow copyright on laws, i.e. {{PD-EdictGov}}, and it sounds like this is the case -- the law apparently even contains the official score. So there is no copyright in the U.S. (I reverted your change in en-wiki since they follow U.S. law). In any event, it sounds like it was commissioned by the government, and almost certainly it would be considered a governmental copyright within Singapore, if it exists there, given their old copyright law (and actually that was made while still a UK territory, so would have been Crown Copyright at the time). It might, though not in the U.S. I don't think. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:13, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

With the Navy Band Recordings, they are public domain (confirmed by the US Navy, sent to OTRS at https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom&TicketID=3915168&ArticleID=4462617&QueueID=53&Session=10a5ea4dee1d50380242772b4a25a34a47). So the recordings themselves are Public domain, but as for the anthems themselves, it is a case by case basis. For Singapore, the song was created in the 1950's, but the author did not die until the 1980's (so the 70 year term is not even up). Also for sound recordings, it is 70 years. I honestly think it would have to be deleted. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 15:06, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

The sound recording is PD-USGov, and not a work of a Singaporean at all. That part is fine. The copyright in the anthem would not have been owned by the individual at all, but rather by the Singaporean government, as it would have been Crown Copyright at the time, and probably a governmental copyright now, if it still exists. That copyright may still exist in Singapore though. I think it was 50 years from publication at the time it was published but may have been extended to 70 (in 2005) before that expired. On the other hand, the song is effectively PD in the country where the recording was made, making this a bit more twisted. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:57, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

As I mentioned at "Commons:Deletion requests/File:Majulah Singapura instrumental.ogg", I think that the musical work underlying the recording is still under copyright. I suspect that since the piece was commissioned by the City Council of Singapore in 1958, the copyright is owned by the Government of Singapore (presumably the successor of the City Council). The copyright in such a work will enter the public domain 70 years after the end of the calendar year in which the work was first published by or under the direction or control of the Government: see "Commons:Licensing#Government works". Thus, the work probably enters the public domain in 2028. I should point out that Powers justifiably noted that "[a] commissioned work of art is not the same as a work for hire. We would need more evidence that the copyright was assigned to the City than merely the fact that it was commissioned." — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 20:12, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Need to be careful with non-retroactive extensions of copyright terms; in this case I think you're right but if the song had been done four years earlier it would not have been. And Crown Copyright was pretty aggressive when it comes to commissioned works, and current Singapore law looks similar. So yes, I think it was a government copyright. Carl Lindberg 04:01, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Question about a licencing.

I found a multiple licensing at File:2010-05-breda-fahrradschilder-by-RalfR-10.jpg. It seems to refer to a licence for non-commercial use. In the edit mode, the texte of the licencing does not show. Can someone check this file licencing? --Havang(nl) (talk) 18:33, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

It's licensed GFDL-1.2, see User:Ralf Roletschek/Lizenz. The user also added a CC non-commercial license, but we use it under the terms of the GFDL. That is a highly discouraged practice, given the impractabilities of that license, but you can use it commercially under the terms of the GFDL. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:50, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Does it mean, the non-commercial restricftion is not valid? And shoulnd't then the non-coomercial restriction be removed? But I can't remove it, seems to be in some template. --Havang(nl) (talk) 20:05, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

No, the author has added additional licenses which may be of use outside of Commons. They can add as many licenses as they want; as long as one is "free" then we can host the work under those terms. Carl Lindberg 20:22, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

X-ray photograph of a budgerigar

May I upload a radiograph of a budgerigar? The x-ray photograph ist certainly not made by me, but by my veterinarian. I think there is no creation height in this graph.-- Hägarien (talk) 09:26, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Depends on where the radiograph was taken, I think. If it was taken in Austria or Germany then images such as X-ray photographs are not copyrightable. But if it was taken in a common law jurisdiction such as the UK, then it might be. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:20, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

It ist a german one. What kind of license does it need?-- Hägarien (talk) 13:29, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm. We don't have a specific copyright tag for this, I believe. I tried proposing an update to "Commons:Licensing#Germany" that would mention the distinction between creative (Lichtbildwerke) and non-creative works (Lichtbilder) in Germany (see "Commons:Licensing/sandbox") but there was no consensus for its adoption at the time. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:46, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Absent a specific German tag, I'd use {{PD-ineligible}}, with a full explanation in the "Permission" field of the Information template. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:14, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Meanwhile I asked in the german wikipedia - they recommended me to get the license from the vet. Thanks -- Hägarien (talk) 05:58, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, X-rays are protected in Germany as Lichtbild and thereby are protected for 50 years. See de:Bildrechte#Röntgenaufnahmen (in German). --Túrelio (talk) 15:35, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Should we create a new licence tag? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:00, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Abbottabad photos

The Twitter user who first mentioned helicopters over Abbottabad has since posted a few cellphone photos of the area, including the third one in this tweet of the actual compound. In this tweet, he mentions that "The images I uploaded (from my cellphone) can be used freely". Is that enough for a {{CopyrightedFreeUse}} tag, or would a more explicit statement be required? Wondering what people think. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:20, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

A more explicit statement would be required. In particular, modifications and commercial uses must be explicitly permitted, and the permission must be perpetual. —LX (talk, contribs) 09:28, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Screenshot from movie trailer

I've read a number of the discussions about using screenshots from movie trailers;

• Commons talk:Licensing/Archive 13#Filmtrailers
• Commons:Village pump/Archive/2009/02#Movie trailers from http:.2F.2Farchive.org.2Fdetails.2Fsabucat_trailers
• Commons talk:Licensing/Archive 25#Kim Novak-Pal Joey2.JPG

I've also read these related offsite links;

• Creative Clearance - Clearance Guidelines for Producers
• SabuCat Productions - Copyright Info (archived)
• Cornell Copyright Information Center - Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States

These say that using a screenshot from a movie trailer is OK under certain conditions.

Before 1923

Films and trailers published in USA before 1923 are in the public domain because the terms have expired.

Between 1923 and 1977

Trailers are in the public domain if they meet both these conditions;

1. First published in the United States
2. Do not have a copyright notice anywhere during the trailer (view entire trailer to be certain)

Some examples would be File:Howard Hawks'Rio Bravo trailer (26).jpg and File:Audrey Hepburn War&Peace.jpg.

I have a few questions

1. Is this still the current situation?
2. Should files like this have "trailer" appended to the end of the filename?
3. Should these files be high resolution and high quality?
4. Is the proper license {{PD-US-no notice}}
5. Should these files always be added to Category:Film trailer screenshots?

Thanks for any help - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 14:17, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Your appraisal is correct as far as I can tell. Some trailers with a copyright notice are still PD due to lack of registration or renewal, but this is more difficult to establish. To answer your questions, the file should be as high quality and high resolution as possible, including the word "trailer" in the filename is a good idea, {{PD-US-no notice}} is the right tag, and that category looks appropriate. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:23, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

 Thank you. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 17:54, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

{{PD-old-auto}} and {{PD-old-50}}

{{PD-old-auto}} looks like it rather needs to be changed. It uses months to calculate the applicable copyright term, which I don't think any countries use: certainly, most calculate from the end of the year of death. It also only supports values above 70 pma.

Also, why does {{PD-old-50}} say we should have country-specific tags for countries with shorter copyright terms? We don't do anything like this for countries with 70 pma+ terms, and I'd think it's undesirable for straight cases of 100, 70, 50 etc years pma. —innotata 00:53, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I fixed {{PD-old-auto}}. It now only uses the year to calculate which PD template to use. Kaldari (talk) 23:26, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Should it also include shorter terms than 70 p.m.a., though? —innotata 23:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Given that most of the world is on shorter terms than 70 p.m.a., why shouldn't it? A billion Indians should be able to know that a work is free in their nation.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:02, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I've added support for PD-old-50 to PD-old-auto. Enjoy! Kaldari (talk) 03:18, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Derivative work of language teaching materials

Hello there Commons people! I have done a lot of work on the English Wikipedia but I'm generally quite clueless when it comes to images and their copyright problems. As such I have a question: I would like to use this image of a one-one-one language course taught using the Silent Way, in the article en:Silent Way. I know that I need to get permission to use this image under an acceptable license from the copyright owner. I haven't done this yet, but let us suppose that I have, and that there are no problems with uploading the image itself to Commons. The problem is that the charts in the background of this image are copyrighted (I think by The Cuisenaire Company, but I am checking this). Does the appearance of copyrighted charts in the background of this particular image mean that I wouldn't be able to use it without the permission of the Cuisenaire Company as well? This is beyond my expertise, and I would appreciate any help you can give. All the best. Mr. Stradivarius (talk) 16:59, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks like one of them is this chart. Both charts seem to consist of rather simple text. If uploaded on their own, something like that would probably be uncontroversially tagged with {{PD-text}}. Even if it were eligible for copyright protection, it takes up only a small part of the photo, it is not a primary subject of the photo, and it's inclusion seems to be incidental, which makes it de minimis. —LX (talk, contribs) 18:05, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's the image. Thank you very much for the reply! I shall ask permission for the de minimis image and see if I have any luck. There's one more thing, too - I'm intrigued now that you say the chart could be uncontroversially added to Commons. If it is possible then I want to upload these images [9][10][11] to Commons and add them to the Silent Way article. After some more searching it appears (from some of the image files themselves) that the copyright belongs to Caleb Gattegno, the inventor of the Silent Way, who according to his English Wikipedia article passed away in 1988. The images are all colour-coded using the same system, one colour for one English sound, and I would think that anyone claiming copyright on the images would point to that innovation as being central to the work and taking the mixture of colour and text (or colour and rectangles in the third image) over the threshold of originality. Do you still think uploading these images would be ok? I don't want to cause unnecessary work for people by starting deletion discussions, etc. All the best. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 14:09, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I have just received a reply stating that "all the published works of the late Dr Caleb Gattegno including the Silent Way are now owned either by Educational Solutions Inc (now in Toronto) or by the owner of that company, Eaton Donald." So the claim to copyright is definitely present. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 15:09, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

You've certainly done the right thing by asking before uploading when in doubt – I wish more people would do that! Regarding copyright as a result of coloring, here is what the United States Copyright Office writes in its Compendium II: Copyright Office Practices: "In determining the registrability of a print, the copyright claim cannot be based solely upon mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring." This case involves other jurisdictions, but I personally find it unlikely that simple coloring of letters would give rise to copyright elsewhere. Furthermore, copyright protects originality in expression, whereas in this case, the coloring is not done for creative effect, but to encode a factual property. Copyright does not protect facts.

I think you would be unlikely to incur problems from Commons itself by uploading either the photograph (provided that you obtain the photographer's permission) or the charts that you and I linked to. As you've noted, Educational Solutions Inc. appears to assert copyright, and there is of course nothing to guarantee that they would not make your life difficult to protect their business model, regardless of the merits of their claims. —LX (talk, contribs) 16:59, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the quick and informative reply! I'm glad I asked. I shall upload them when I next have the chance. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 22:07, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

If there were more extensive text (say a paragraph) spelled out it might rise to to the level of copyrightability, but there just isn't enough text there as it stands. Dcoetzee (talk) 01:53, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Logos of political parties in Singapore

Are "File:SPP logo variation.png" and "File:WP logo variation.png" simple enough for {{PD-textlogo}}? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:50, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

The second one I would not call PD-ineligible; the first one is borderline. Powers 17:18, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

My feeling is that neither are PD-ineligible and should be transferred back to the English Wikipedia and used under a fair-use justification. Let's see if there are other views. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:55, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Given that Jacklee is from Singapore, I'd go with his opinion. Neither is really {{PD-textlogo}} in any case, but I think they are both on the bad side of a close call on PD-ineligible.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 16:04, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree, send both back to en.wikipedia. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 16:07, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Is there a tool I can use to transfer images from the Commons back to the English Wikipedia, like a reverse-CommonsHelper? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:03, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I drew each of the diagrams myself, and I took pains to ensure they are not 100% carbon copies of the originals. Perhaps it is only courteous to at least drop me a line to advise tweaking the images further first before taking the above actions?--Huaiwei (talk) 08:34, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I thought the problematic images could simply be moved back to the English Wikipedia and used under a fair-use justification. What I did not realize was that they are being used in templates, and fair-use images are not permitted in templates. But I do not think that tweaking the images a bit will help. They will have to be redrawn more substantially so they are dissimilar from the original logos, otherwise they are still derivative works of the latter. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:06, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

See, here's the problem with logos. If you redraw the logo so that it is different enough to be a separate work, then it's no longer an accurate representation of the logo -- which means it's out of scope for Commons. Powers (talk) 12:37, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't take such a hard line. I don't see why a novel symbol of some sort should be regarded as out of scope. Let's say I create a new symbol promoting animal welfare that is not actually the logo of any organization. Why should that symbol automatically be nixed if it is useful for use in templates (such as WikiProject banners) and such? In the present case, Huaiwei has redrawn the two logos in question so they are no longer derivative works of the original logos, but in such a way that they may still be used at small sizes in templates. I think that is within scope. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:53, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

PD-Yemen

I wonder if this template still actual? It was created in 2007, but in 2008 Yemen became a member of Berne Union, so duration of copyright in Yemen can't be less than 50 pma. I can't find in the web a new Yemeni IP law or something, though. Trycatch (talk) 00:11, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

According to this, as of early 2010, they have drafted new laws but not yet passed them. So they are not compliant with Berne really, unless the situation has changed since. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:50, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, it's what was needed. Trycatch (talk) 20:19, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Is it OK to add this to Commons? Pöide St. Mary's church photo

Would it be OK to transfer this photo from the German wiki to Commons? My understanding is yes. If I am wrong then where? My German is too poor to understand all details. --Neolexx (talk) 17:29, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, its ok, use CommonsHelper. I will transfer the image for you to File:Dorfkirche Peude, 2005.jpg. --Martin H. (talk) 18:36, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the link and for your assistance. --Neolexx (talk) 19:30, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Maps uploaded by User:SeikoEn

This user seems to have a long history of uploading images that subsequently are deleted for their dodgy copyright status.

Now this user has made a bunch of maps of the history of the Ukraine. These maps are useful, as we do not seem to have any alternative maps showing the same level of detail for this particular topic. But there are, again, copyright issues.

• To begin with, the uploader has inserted frames with text in the images, and that text seems to have been pulled off copyrighted sources.

These insets could just be cropped off, allowing us to keep the map without the text, but the user is very protective about his files, and calls such an approach "vandalism".

• The source for the blank backround map of Europe used is not indicated. It is not any of the free blank maps available on commons. If it turns out that a copyrighted background has been used for these maps, they are not freely redistributable and will need to be deleted altogether.

I will be grateful if other people look into this and comment.

The maps in question are the following:

• 
• File:Kievan Rus' Kyivan Rus' early formation 862 912.jpg
• File:Kievan Rus' historical map 980 1054.jpg
• 
• 
• 
• 
• File:Ukrainian Cossack state Zaporizhian Host 1649 1653.jpg
• 
• 
• File:Ukrainian National Republic map 1917 1920.jpg

--Dbachmann 09:22, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

• Hmm. Text was collected from various sources both free (e.g. File:East Slavic tribes peoples 8th 9th century.jpg -- Wikipedia) and non-free (e.g. File:Ukrainian National Republic map 1917 1920.jpg -- Encyclopedia of Ukraine) without any attribution. What about the source of the blank map, I suspect it's File:Template europe map.png, again used without attribution. In the end there are problem with these maps, but it seems at first sight that these problems are solvable, and giving heavy usage of maps it's better to solve problems instead of deletion. Trycatch 14:10, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Nice detective work. I agree it'd be a shame to lose these if the problems are solvable with attribution. Have you talked to the uploader to see if he or she would be willing to add the necessary attribution? If not, the uploader needs to be reminded of our requirements here, but then you can go ahead and add the attribution yourself. As for the text, if it comes from a non-free source, by all means enforce its removal via a deletion request if necessary. Otherwise, if you think non-captioned versions would be useful, feel free to create a derivative work and upload it under a new filename. Powers 14:16, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

• • The source map you found was generated via the Generic Mapping Tools project; this could very well have been done the same way without being a direct derivative of that file. Carl Lindberg 19:43, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

• • Incidentally, all these maps are low resolution JPEGs, with some of the text barely readable. They're not suitable for print versions of articles. I hope the author will in the future consider submitting higher-resolution works. Dcoetzee (talk) 19:25, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

{{PD-Macedonia}}

While we're at it, this template says:

Works of folk literature and folk art shall be used freely. The source and origin of the work must be stated. Distortion and indecent use of the work is not permissible.

This looks like a non-derivative restriction to me, as such it wouldn't be permitted on Wikimedia Commons, would it? The other text there just states 70 years pma, and is redundant to PD-old-70 (see also the PD-Ireland case). -- Prince Kassad (talk) 13:23, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Those are more along the lines of moral rights, or particularly in the case of folklore, sort of cultural rights which some countries are trying to introduce. These are not related to the economic right of copyright, which is what we are mainly interested in. These are conditions that apply no matter what; it's not really possible to be "more free" by finding alternative works. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:23, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Brazilian coats of arms

Hi! Time to stir up another hornets' nest, I'm afraid.

I've noticed {{PD-BrazilGov}} often gets slapped on all kinds of renditions of all kinds of national and local coats of arms from Brazil. It is used on close to 5,000 files. I have some serious doubts about the template's validity.

{{PD-BrazilGov}} states that "According to the Brazilian Law on Industrial Property (Law 9.279 from May 14th, 1996; See translation), Chapter IV, Article 191, Brazilian official symbols are Public Domain because they can be copied and reproduced without any permission from the Brazilian government or anyone else unless they are being copied or reproduced with foul intentions."

In fact, Article 191 makes no mention of public domain. Instead, Article 191 specifies the penalty for use of coats of arms as part of a trademark or similar:

191. Reproducing or imitating, in whole or in part and in a way that may induce to error or confusion, coats of arms, escutcheons, or national, foreign or international official badges, without the necessary authorization, in a mark, title of establishment, trade name, insignia or advertising sign, or using such reproductions or imitations for economic purposes.

Penalty-imprisonment, from 1 (one) to 3 (three) months, or a fine.

Sole Paragraph. Anyone who sells or displays or offers for sale products bearing such marks shall incur the same penalty.

See section 123 for definition of "mark." Section 124 states that coats of arms may not be registered as trademarks.

In fact, the Brazilian Law on Industrial Property (Law 9.279 from May 14th, 1996) is not at all concerned with copyright. It mentions copyright only once – stating that works protected by copyright cannot be registered as trademarks without the consent of the copyright holder. The law that actually governs copyright in Brazil is Law No. 9610 of February 19, 1998, on Copyright and Neighboring Rights.

The actual Brazilian copyright law makes no exception for pictorial government works, official symbols, or renditions of coats of arms that I can find. Section 8 lists exceptions from copyright protection, including the usual things like ideas, facts and common knowledge. It lists "the texts of treaties or conventions, laws, decrees, regulations, judicial decisions and other official enactments." This probably includes official blazons (textual descriptions) of coats of arms, but not the official renditions themselves.

Thus, it seems that {{PD-BrazilGov}} is completely unfounded, and that only self-created coats of arms based solely on the blazon are okay. In other words, the usual situation in most countries, as described by {{Coat of arms}}.

The only thing I can see saving the template is Section 6 of the copyright law:

Works that are merely subsidized by the Union, the States, the Federal District or the municipalities shall not be in their domain.

It's not at all clear to me what that means, though. What does "merely subsidized" mean? What does "shall not be in their (whose?) domain" mean?

{{Money-BR}} might have similar issues, also making some non sequitur references to the Industrial Property Law. Let's focus on {{PD-BrazilGov}} first, though. —LX (talk, contribs) 14:04, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I believe the sentence on subsidies means that works created in the private sector which are subsidized by the government still retain private copyrights, i.e. the government doesn't get the copyrights for the works it subsidizes. I also don't see any justification for the wording in {{PD-BrazilGov}}. If nothing can be found soon, I would recommend nominating the template for deletion. Kaldari (talk) 17:42, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

That seems like a reasonable interpretation. Apparently, it was nominated for deletion once before: Commons:Deletion requests/Template:PD-BrazilGov. The discussion is quite bizarre, starting out by noting that the problem is that the template refers to a trademark statute and ending up keeping the template with a change in wording – still referring to the same irrelevant law. The assumption seems to be that because people believe that coats of arms are in the public domain, they must be, and if we can't find a law that says so, we'll just have to find something vaguely related that lets us jump to some convenient but non sequitur conclusions. Oh, and non-Brazilians shouldn't bother to comment, because Brazilian law is unlike any other law and only Brazilians can understand it. Or something like that. —LX (talk, contribs) 23:18, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I really don't understand why so many people who don't know much of anything about copyright law feel the need to weigh in with their opinions on such matters during deletion debates. Kaldari (talk) 04:55, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Kudos to LX for spotting the problem. I think {{PD-BrazilGov}} can be "saved" by section 8(IV) of the Law No. 9610 of February 19, 1998, on Copyright and Neighboring Rights of Brazil: "The following shall be excluded from copyright protection within the meaning of this Law: ... the texts of treaties or conventions, laws, decrees, regulations, judicial decisions and other official enactments". However, whether the licence tag is applicable to coats of arms depends on whether they appear in "the texts of ... laws, decrees, regulations, ... and other official enactments". I don't know of any convenient way of establishing this. In any case, the onus is on uploaders to demonstrate either that a coat of arms in question is old and thus in the public domain, or that it appears in an official enactment. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 05:50, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

As you can see above, I did consider that Section. I'm afraid it specifically states "texts" for a reason. (I've also checked the Portuguese original, and it doesn't take a native speaker to see that it's equally clear there.) Illustrations, maps and other pictorial attachments to laws and other official enactments are by definition not text. So again, this only applies to blazons. —LX (talk, contribs) 06:03, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and renominated the template for deletion here. Kaldari (talk) 06:11, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I saw the reference to section 6 but missed the one to section 8. I would actually disagree with your interpretation of texts. In ordinary usage it means writing rather than pictures, but I think that the reference to "texts of ... laws", etc., must be understood to mean the whole of the laws in question and not just the part composed of words. It seems rather odd to me to interpret the section in the latter manner, since any diagrams or pictures appearing in the laws would also form part of the laws. Still, I don't know enough about Brazilian law to know whether this is the right interpretation, and in line with our precautionary principle I suppose that we should take the narrower view until better information emerges. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:15, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I've never seen a flag, seal, or coat of arms actually reproduced within a law. They are normally just described and then executed by a government department or employee afterwards. Perhaps you could argue that the execution of the graphic is an "official enactment", but that's stretching the meaning in my opinion. Kaldari (talk) 06:20, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Again, I don't know about Brazilian law or other jurisdictions, but in Singapore the national coat of arms appears in a schedule to the relevant Act of Parliament, and subsidiary legislation instituting orders and decorations usually contains images of the medals, ribbons, etc. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:38, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I guess it just depends on the jurisdiction. Kaldari (talk) 22:40, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Macedonian coats of arms

What's their copyright status? Most of uploaded ones are claimed to be uploaders' works, but I'm interested in the legal status of originals. Like, I made one CoA basing on the official design and I'm wondering may I at all call it "own work" and if the original design is PD. Masur (talk) 17:44, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

According to Article 5 of the Law on Alterations and Additions to the Law on Copyright and Related Rights of Macedonia, official texts from the legislative, executive or judicial spheres of the Government and official published translations of such texts are in the public domain. If you can show that the coat of arms in question is prescribed by some official legislative or executive document, then it can be regarded as being in the public domain. Alternatively, a coat of arms may be in the public domain because of its age: see "Commons:Licensing#Macedonia, Republic of". I believe the position is also taken that if a coat of arms is independently drawn based on its blazon and is not exactly the same as a copyrighted version of the coat of arms, then the independently drawn version should not be regarded as a derivative work of the copyrighted version: see "Commons:Coats of Arms". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:08, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

And what about flags? Like I made svg version of this one: File:Flag of Skopje.png but I really don't know whether original is PD and why. And again - all Macedonian flags/CoA are uploaded as own works. Can they? Masur (talk) 19:40, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I'd say the same rules apply to flags. As to whether it is correct to state that images of Macedonian coats of arms and flags are "own works", I think it is not wrong to state this if the coats of arms and flags have been personally created by the uploader based on their blazons (and not on other non-free images). The blazon should be stated on the file description page. However, if the images have simply been copied from elsewhere on the Internet or scanned from books, then they are unauthorized derivative works and not "own works", and should be nominated for deletion. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:52, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Passport Covers

Is there any general rule regarding passport covers? I've seen many of them with very questionable licences (to me anyway). I know some governments state they are PD, and I see those are usually tagged with a correct template; some are only text, and therefore I can see those are OK, BUT it's the ones with a clear shield/complex logo that say "PD-self"! or "PD-because|These images may be freely reproduced" or "PD-ineligible" which worry me. I initially found some tagged as PD on en-Wiki, and I have tagged them as speedy-no-permission, but looking at en:List of passports, the en-wiki images seem to be the tip of a rather large iceberg...  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 19:34, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

This needs to be determined on a country-by-country basis. It depends on whether, under a particular country's law, the depiction of a coat of arms is in the public domain. It may be because the coat of arms is very old, or because government works are in the public domain. But this is certainly not the case for every country or every coat of arms. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:42, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Uploading works of New Zealand artists

As I understand it, paintings of Artists who died before 1961 are public domain in NZ ({{PD-NZ}}), and if they were first published before 1923 are public domain in the US. So if I find paintings that meet these two criteria I can upload them to Commons? (If so, I also need to know what "published before 1923" means for paintings, is that the year painted, or first publicly displayed, or ???)

Initially I am considering early works by w:C. F. Goldie (died 1947), only one work on Commons that I could find File:TeAhoGoldie1905.jpg, and only one on en-wiki w:File:Ena Te Papatahi.JPG. Any help would be appreciated. :-) --Tony Wills (talk) 11:14, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes that's right. Publication of paintings is complicated - I can't remember if it's the year of first exhibition or the year that copies are first distributed, e.g. in catalogs - but most paintings only come with a single date in their record, so I go by that. Dcoetzee (talk) 17:45, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Indonesia: "No copyright" vs "Does not infringe copyright"

At Commons talk:Currency#Indonesia, it was noticed that Indonesian copyright law seems to draw a distinction between works for which "there shall be no copyright" (Article 13) and works for which "there shall be no infringement of copyright" (Article 14), with the implication that the government retains the copyright for all Article 14 works but allows unrestricted reproduction, distribution, modification etc. Two questions:

1. Are Article 14 works free enough for Commons? (Seems so to me.)
2. Should works currently listed as Template:PD-IDGov (which quotes Article 14) be moved to a new template, and Template:PD-IDGov reserved for Article 13 works? Jpatokal (talk) 22:34, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Could this just be an issue of a poor English translation? A Bahasa Indonesia speaker should verify whether the original provisions are indeed differently drafted. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 08:43, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

The translation seems to be the official one, the original is here. My Indonesian is pretty terrible, but the translation looks accurate to me: 13 says Tidak ada Hak Cipta atas... ("There is no copyright in...") and 14 says Tidak dianggap sebagai pelanggaran Hak Cipta ("[It is] not considered a violation of copyright to..."). Jpatokal (talk) 11:08, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

The Indonesian law states in Article 13 'Tidak ada' [There is no] 'Hak Cipta' [Copyright] 'atas:' [in] and then lists the items which are thereby public domain - laws, government speeches

Article 14 uses the phrase 'Tidak dianggap' [Not considered] 'sebagai' [as] 'pelanggaran' [violation/breach] 'Hak Cipta' [copyright].

It's notable that clause 2 says 'except if the Copyright is declared to be protected by law or regulation or by a statement on the work itself or at the time the work is published;' Which suggests that government stuff is copyrighted somehow it's impossible to infringe it (unless it's specifically stated otherwise).

So this is not technically speaking public domain, it's actually a form of BSD licence. BSD licensed content is not public domain, it is copyrighted, but you can do what you like with it. The Indonesian government licence is much freer than Creative Commons, which is no problem on Wikimedia Commons so certainly it's fine.

PD-IDGov needs to be moved to something like IDGov, and a new PD-IDGov citing Article 13 should be created, given that there are very few items that are genuinely PD-IDGov, it makes more sense to move the current template. 86.162.117.177 11:27, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I created a PD-Indonesia template (on Wikipedia) and changed the wording of PD-IDGov. PD-IDGov needs to be moved to IDGov. There is no need for PD-IDGov, because PD-Indonesia covers it.

Ok, for the 14a, there would be no infringement for the publication of the state arms and anthem "in accordance with their original nature." The second part just states "publication and/or reproduction of anything which is published by or on behalf of the Government, except if the Copyright is declared to be protected by law or regulation or by a statement on the work itself or at the time the work is published; or" but does not state anything about modification and commercial use (something we need to know). I do not believe that just with it is in the law will not be enough for us to host on the Commons (and might have to delete things). User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 18:34, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Reproduction is defined in Article 1.6 as follows (emphasis mine):

Reproduction means to increase the number of a Work, either as a whole or its substantial parts using either the same or different material, including the changing of the form or mode of a work permanently or temporarily.

In other words, the right of reproduction clearly includes the right of modification.

In addition, 14a restricts modification; 14b (which includes banknotes) does not. By implication, modification is permitted. Likewise, several provisions in Article 15 explicitly restrict use "for a commercial purpose", but Article 14 does not; by implication, commercial use is permitted. This is a basic principle of law: "Courts are not to act upon the principle that every procedure is to be taken as prohibited unless it is expressly provided for by the Code, but on the converse principle that every procedure is to be understood as permissible till it is shown to be prohibited by the law. As a matter of general principle prohibition cannot be presumed." Jpatokal (talk) 01:18, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Plus, there is a complete difference between what has no actual copyright protection and what the government will or won't sue over. I think with Article 14, it states what the government would not consider infringement (like a fair use) since Article 15 uses the same statement and generally state uses that are considered fair use/fair dealing (translation for the blind, educational purposes). I still think we need someone from Indonesia to help figure this out. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 18:38, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Article 15 applies to all copyrighted works and is far more limited in scope, with lots of unfree caveats like "provided that it does not prejudice the normal interest of the Author". Article 14 has precisely none of these restrictions. Jpatokal (talk) 01:18, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

You're wasting your time considering Indonesian copyright law (few people there care) - the wording is there in the 2002 Act, it was there in the 1982 Act [13], and it's there in the 1912 Act enacted by the Dutch government as well. [14] It's a Dutch provision, untouched by the Indonesian government; here is Article 15b of the Dutch Act of 1912 (still in force):

'Communication to the public or reproduction of a literary, scientific or artistic work communicated to the public by or on behalf of the public authorities shall not be deemed an infringement of the copyright in such a work, unless the copyright has been explicitly reserved, either in a general manner by law, decree or ordinance, or in a specific case by a notice on the work itself or at the communication to the public'

If you are concerned about PD-ID-Gov you would be better looking at Template:PD-NL-Gov, which is the same thing under the same wording, but you're more likely to find Dutch people who care.

It has been discussed before: [15]. Looking on Dutch Wikipedia, the phrase 'not copyrighted' is used repeatedly in respect of 15b.

As for the mechanisms of 15b, you are unlikely to find a better discussion than this document: [16] it says 'A public authority can only exercise its copyrights and database rights if it expressly reserves its rights', and later adds that a 'Public Domain' declaration is effectively the inverse of 15b - in the latter case no rights are retained unless explicitly declared, whereas in the former, you explicitly declare that you retain no rights.

European PD tool

This came through on a mailing list its a tool that claculates whether a work is PD in many European Countries, its known as the Public Domain Calculator looks like a useful tool. Gnangarra 06:26, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I am the developer of this tool. If you are interested in making a calculator available for jurisdictions outside of our scope (European Union) contact me on my user page. A new calculator is relatively simple to build and add. I will require some authoritative source in your jurisdictions to verify a new calculator before I can add it to our site. All resources for the project are open source b.t.w. You can also contact me for any other questions regarding this project. --Martsniez (talk) 09:47, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Very old masonic emblems

Please see this discussion: Commons_talk:PD_files#Very_old_masonic_emblems. SV1XV (talk) 10:03, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Multi-licensing

On the Project page it seems to say that the current policy allowing non-free licenses (if multi) exists because Multi-Licensing with restrictive licenses may be desirable for compatibility with the licensing scheme of other projects; also, multi-licensing allows people who create derivative work to release that work under a restrictive license only, if they wish—that is, it gives creators of derivative works more freedom with regards to which license they may use for their work.

I have a hard time following the logic of this paragraph. Someone uploads media and slaps an explicitly non-free license (or two or three) on it and then, in order to get it on the Commons, adds a license deemed free by the Commons but elects to remind the reader of all the restrictive elements of both the free license and the non-free license(s). Somehow a user is supposed to know that although it explicitly says on the page in boldface "No Derivatives", derivatives are actually OK because another part of the same page mentions another license? It's fine to put up a big STOP sign where no stop in fact exists so long as readers who are already fully informed about all the fine print can technically go? Why? I don't see the reasoning for allowing any non-free licenses, particularly in light of the way they are routinely abused by uploaders in terms of accurately communicating licensing terms. How can adding a non-free license improve compatibility? Also, how can adding a non-free license give creators of derivative works more freedom than a CC0 license? For this to make any sense at all one has to assume that one is adding a non-free license to a license that is already sharealike/copyleft restricted. This assumption should be made explicit.--Brian Dell (talk) 00:03, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Copyright owners can license their works as they wish -- that is their right. Provided they have a Commons-compatible license, they can add any others they choose. That is quite simply their right and nothing we can (or should) do about it. They should make clear that users can choose to use the work under any of the available licenses though. The {{Self}} template is useful to make that clear; it combines multiple license templates with the note that you can choose any one of them. Agreed that trying to obscure the free license is against the spirit, if not the letter, of Commons. Combining with CC0 is definitely silly though -- is there one of those? That's not really a creative commons license in the normal sense of course; that is giving up basically all rights. However, additional licenses beyond CC-BY or CC-BY-SA can definitely be applicable. CC-BY-NC makes no sense if CC- BY is the license, but it could make perfect sense in combination with CC-BY-SA, for example, and adding non-creative commons licenses can increase compatibility with works using those other licenses. Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:26, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Fact is, people who upload to the Commons have to give up at least some of their rights, such that appealing to uploaders' rights in general amounts to begging the question: just what these rights should be for a Commons contributor is the very question at issue. The fewer rights that are given up, the more disputable it is that it's a true Commons contribution, up to a cut-off point that has to be collectively determined and enforced. re "They should make clear that users can choose..." it's the fact that hardly ever happens when a non-free license is used that is the problem. The standard uploading tools don't support the addition of non-free licenses, and so they exist because the uploader has done some extra fiddling and this fiddling invariably serves to obscure instead of remind re-users what their rights and options are (a typical multi-license with a non-free is yesterday's POTD, which has an explicit "NonCommercial-NonDerivative" clause and no suggestion that a freer license could be selected). re "Combining with CC0 is definitely silly," indeed that's why this paragraph on the Project page should be reworded because the "rationale" that is given for multi-licensing with a non-free doesn't make any sense except for when the multi-licensing involves share-alike/copyleft restricted licenses on the "free" (if even then, it isn't really clear at all on the Project page how multi-licensing with a non-free can help). It only "solves" a problem that wouldn't have existed had the licensing on the "free" not been so restrictive in the first place.--Brian Dell (talk) 17:30, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

There is a set of requirements to be a "free" license. If someone wants to make up their own, that is OK. It is discouraged, obviously, because it probably will be brought up for discussion taking people's time, and there are lots of aspects of copyright law that someone making their own license is likely to forget but have been thought through in the more standard licenses, meaning it's likely that custom licenses don't end up being actually "free". But, we can't completely forbid it. I don't think the possibility of someone combining a PD license like CC0 with ones with restrictions is common enough to bother clarifying that point. Though I guess that is a sort of danger of replacing "PD-self" with "CC0" in the options, as most people associate "creative commons" as "free with some restrictions" and not a complete public domain dedication. In the end, the copyright owners have absolute rights over their work, and it is up to them what they want to do. So long as they meet the basic requirements on Commons:Licensing, the rest is up to them. But, other editors are free to edit image pages to make them better conform with policy or be more clear, so long as we don't actually change any license terms. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:46, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

re "If someone wants to make up their own...", generally people are not making up their own from scratch but are taking a CC-BY-SA license, fudging it, and then calling the fudge CC-BY-SA-compliant. According to Creative Commons that is NOT OK because the legalcode of CC-BY-SA says its terms cannot be modified or added to outside its legal code. There's no such thing as CC-BY-SA-compliant. It either is CC-BY-SA or it isn't (it's a different license). If it's a different license, it may be equivalent enough to be called equivalently "free", but it should not be called a CC-BY-SA license. How can editing one of these sorts of problematic uploads "change any license terms" unless there are terms on the page that are additional to or modify what is linked to on Creative Commons' definition pages? In any case, why is it unacceptable for the community to get specific about meets the "requirements", by say, insisting that CC-BY-SA constitutes a bright line and that its terms cannot be manipulated with customization? You call for a "general" or fuzzy line instead of specific bright one. Blurring the line just makes enforcement of community policy more difficult without doing anything for uploaders in terms of giving them more legal rights.--Brian Dell (talk) 19:15, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Allowing multilicensing is an important way to deal with incompatibility. For example, the BSD software license may seem less restrictive than CC-BY-SA, but it's still incompatible with it, having specific requirements that CC-BY-SA does not - adding the CC-BY-SA license allows it to be used both in free content projects like Wikipedia and in open source software projects. Dcoetzee (talk) 04:28, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps I haven't been clear. re "...adding the CC-BY-SA allows..." I'm not objecting to adding a CC-BY-SA. I'm objecting to adding a CC-BY-NC-ND or other license that the community agrees is non-free. What does adding a non-free license "allow"? Functionally and legally, it seems to me that adding a non-free license adds nothing, particularly if the included free license is truly and indisputably free. It's therefore pure signage: uploaders preserve rights (at the expenses of users) but only by creating the false impression amongst users that they've preserved those rights. It's signage serving private interests erected on "Common"ly held property. No?--Brian Dell (talk) 17:49, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

It makes sense to supplement CC-BY-SA with CC-BY-NC, a simple attribution license for non-commercial uses, without further restrictions. SV1XV (talk) 18:35, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough, the SA is dropped and replaced with NC in the alternative license, giving the option of escaping SA (a copyleft restriction) to those who aren't restricted by NC anyway. But why is the policy not changed to allow the addition of what's been deemed a "non-free" license, like CC-BY-NC, ONLY when that addition would also remove a restriction on another license that's been deemed "free", like CC-BY-SA? The given rationale for multi-licensing logically supports THIS kind of multi-licensing, but does not support ALL multi-licensing involving non-free licenses. For good policy, either we need another rationale for giving the green light to including a non-free licenses in general (like CC-BY-NC-ND) in a multi-license OR we limit the policy to what the rationale justifies, which is cases like this ONLY.--Brian Dell (talk) 19:32, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

CC-BY-SA plus CC-BY-NC means that noncommercial users can make a derivative work but not be bound by a license. The authors are giving up additional rights beyond CC-BY-SA in that case. Multi-licensing with other free licenses is also quite common, as many of those licenses are not directly compatible and can cause issues in derivative works. The more licenses you add, the more situations you are allowing it to be used in, in general. There are a few nonsensical combinations but not many. I'm not sure that most of those situations are intentionally trying to obscure the free license, but if you think they are, bring it up with the user (please assume good faith), or feel free to edit the pages to make that more obvious. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:46, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

To return to why I started this topic, the project page should be amended to read more like you have provided here, since it is more logical than the current "explanation." Re "feel free to edit the pages," even hinting that one is going to do this inevitably gets people's backs up (e.g. "Just who are you to question of one our best uploaders? I'd rather have his contributions than your crappy work. You are strongly advised to back off."), and given that the community here is dominated by uploaders instead of users, as individual uploaders we have a self-interest in rallying to the defence of any uploader whose "rights" are being challenged. Your calm and civil response is atypical; one generally needs a large posse and a lot of riot gear before daring to step on what uploaders consider to be their "turf." I've seen others indicate that they thought I had a point but they stayed on the sidelines because they didn't want to be attacked.--Brian Dell (talk) 18:46, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Technically, there could be such thing as "creative commons compatible" licenses -- they are defined and referenced in the CC legal code -- but they have to be actually listed at CC's site and none are listed yet. Yes, editing people's licenses can be an aggressive thing to do, particularly without prior discussion -- which is why I primarily recommended posting a note on their talk page, explaining the confusion you felt reading the license, and seeing if they can fix it themselves. That would also usually mean they will correct things on future uploads as well. Adding the {{Self}} template is probably not all that aggressive, though of course the users can edit the pages right back. Keep in mind though that the copyright owner can specify a few things within the bounds of a CC license, and they can also request anything else, provided it is not a requirement. It is common for people to ask for a notification of third-party as a courtesy, although that is not a requirement, and so not at odds with the license (making notification a requirement is a problem though). A "posse" should hopefully not be necessary if you are polite, and are open to the possibility that you yourself could be wrong (i.e. misunderstood something). If there is a disagreement over the nature of some custom text (i.e. does it go beyond the allowed bounds the CC license or not) then bring up the question in a community forum somewhere so others can add their opinions. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:59, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Speaking as someone on the sidelines, I strongly disagree with your proposal.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:58, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Why? Do you have a supporting argument for your opinion? Just what is the proposal in your view? I didn't think there was a specific proposal out there but here's one: in the sentence on the Project page that says "...multi-licensing allows people who create derivative work...", insert "without a derivative works restriction potentially" after "multi-licensing."--Brian Dell (talk) 11:12, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I choose not to get into it with you; I was merely pointing out that you can't claim the people on the sidelines as your supporters.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:53, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe I ever claimed that everyone on the sidelines shares my concerns. I said I've seen evidence of SOME, and I said that not in order to make some claim about popularity but to support my observation that Carl's proposed remedy of having volunteers take up problem licenses with the license creators under status quo policy is like sending out a repo man without a writ. The reality of pushback means a bot should do the job, uploaders should be forced to use standard license templates, and/or the policy should be very specific about where the line is so there isn't an argument every time about whether it has been crossed. I'll readily grant that most Commons Talk page readers and even more Talk page participants do not share my concerns because the great majority of them are primarily uploaders to the Commons as opposed to downloaders.--Brian Dell (talk) 19:44, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I also disagree with the proposal. I think it reflects an assumption of bad faith to suppose that multilicensing is being done solely to sow confusion. If confusion is happening, we can do something with the formatting/style to make it less confusing. In reality, a multilicensed work is even more free than a non-multilicensed work, and I'd frankly love to see all CC-BY-SA works on Commons under CC-BY-SA/CC-BY-NC. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:39, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

It's not, in fact, true that multilicensed works are generally more free (than the freest license among them would be alone). They can be more free in certain circumstances as has been explained here (and not explained on the Project page) but these circumstances are rare; - I've been around here a while and I've never seen such a case in practice! Whenever I've seen a non-free license without the SA/copyleft restriction that the free license has, the non-free license slaps on a ND restriction thereby voiding any gain (share-alike restricts how you can license your modifications to a work, but replacing a SA with a ND doesn't allow you to modify in the first place!) Anyway, with respect to clearing up confusion, how about this proposal: when one or more licenses are non-free, users must be advised that they can choose their license. I've seen cases where users contacted uploaders to ask questions about this and were incorrectly advised that they could not choose their license.--Brian Dell (talk) 10:29, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be a good idea to have a bot run around to all images which have two or more licenses, and add a wrapper indicating that a downstream user can choose the license they want. While such a wrapper is occasionally seen now, it sows some confusion when it isn't seen. Especially when uploading a new crop or a slightly altered version, I've been confused as to whether I must use all the licenses of the parent image, or if I could choose the license I preferred. — Huntster (t @ c) 12:50, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

No, in most cases multilicensing works is "more free". You are automatically giving up all necessary rights with the free license, and any additional licenses are giving permission for use in other circumstances. Multilicensing is usually used with both a Creative Commons license and one or more non-Creative Commons licenses (particularly the GFDL), meaning the work can be used in situations which are already making use of those other licenses, in addition to what the Creative Commons license allows. Sometimes people will multi-license with different versions (i.e. both 2.5 and 3.0) of the CC licenses... there can actually be good reasons for that, and is quite valid. Or, something like the Free Art License in combination with a NC type of CC license -- that user may not like the particulars of the CC legal code and wishes to avoid the usual versions. This usually comes into play with derivative works... you cannot use both GFDL and CC-BY-SA works in another work which is derivative of both of them, even those both originals are "free", since the licenses both require their own license to be used for the result and they are not compatible. Same goes with the FAL most likely. Giving people multiple options means greater freedom to create such derivative works. Agreed that multi-licensing different types of Creative Commons licenses generally does not make sense outside of the CC-BY-SA/CC-BY-NC combination, but I haven't really seen that happen in practice that much. The bot idea may have merit, though since we have made it particularly hard to have a NC license (the tags with that name usually redirect to copyvio) it may be hard for a bot to pick up these particular situations since they are often either subst'ed text or a user-custom template. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:59, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

If we could just stay on topic here, at issue are multi-licenses that include non-free licenses, not multi-licenses in general (note the rest of the sentence when I claimed that it's not true "that multilicensed works are generally more free..."). Under current policy, a CC-BY-NC-ND/Free Art multilicense is fine and when I've seen these on the Commons they've furthermore never been accompanied with any indication that downloaders can choose their license. How does adding the CC-BY-NC-ND give downloaders any more rights that the Free Art license alone? Whatever these rights are, I suggest that a downloader would have to be extremely familiar with the details of licensing to make use of them, such that for the vast majority of potential downloaders, the license just creates the impression that it is NC and ND restricted.--Brian Dell (talk) 19:59, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Users already have the rights conferred by the FAL in that case; adding the CC license may be helpful in certain circumstances. It certainly can't hurt a thing, which is the main point. Copyright owners have every right to license their own works in whatever manner they like, so if that's what they want to do, then fine -- they must have their reasons, and we don't have to know why. Perhaps a re-user is non commercial and not making a derivative work, and is more comfortable with the CC license family and does not want to risk using the FAL. While similar, they are differently legally, and who knows what details may be a problem. The FAL requires to specify where to access the originals, for example, while the CC family does not -- who knows, maybe that is an issue for some odd reason. You are correct that CC licenses with an ND provision do remove most of the situations where it is useful to add them, but who knows. In the end though, authors can license works as they wish, and there is absolutely no reason (nor right) for us to interfere with that. Provided that at least one of the options is "free", then we can host it. The only possible issue is not making clear they are two separate options, or if maybe if there is a nonsensical combination (CC0 with another, or CC-BY with CC-BY-NC or CC-BY-SA or something). Though sometimes even at first blush it seems nonsensical, it may not be -- files which were dual licensed CC-BY-2.5 and GFDL got CC-BY-SA-3.0 added during the re-licensing stuff, which due to the version numbers is not completely redundant to CC-BY-2.5. Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:24, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

It is simple: free images for free new knowledge. No pictures for commercial parasites! --89.246.63.155 22:35, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I've just found an example of cc-zero files multilicensed under other licenses: Template:TUBS/licensesection and other files by the user. They are tagged with cc-zero and PD-self, but also the GFDL, the FAL, and every CC unported free license. I've been removing the licenses other than cc-zero and PD-self, since they have no meaning of any sort, but the author reverted these changes, saying that it's "the authors choice not yours". Does it make any sense to have these, and is there a good reason to remove them? —innotata 18:41, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

It's actually more complicated than that. Some of the images tagged with this template cannot be released in the public domain, as they are derivatives of GFDL/cc-by-sa-licensed images (for example, File:Bavaria OAL.svg is based on File:Bavaria location map.svg; as it stands, File:Bavaria OAL.svg is a copyright violation). So User:TUBS should actually make sure she/he's not infringing on the copyright of others. But as for the images that are entirely her/his own work, I agree that only cc-zero should be retained. –Tryphon^☂ 19:03, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Is there enough reason to remove, though? Surely most or all of the other licenses aren't even valid, since copyright and all rights are released under cc-zero —innotata 15:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

There is an important reason to keep the other licences: in some countries (at least Finland, but probably all of EU) the PD-self and cc-zero may be legally invalid. Therefore it is important that there is some other licence that we can use without legal risk (and of course possibility to choose among other licences is good).

The problem is that you cannot give up your moral rights other than for specific limited use. The "waiving all of his or her rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law" is not waiving any moral rights as neither the law nor the licence specifies such specific limited conditions.

You can of course, in most cases, comply with the law by attributing the author etc., but I am not sure there are no problems. At least derivative works or copies having lost the original attributions may be problematic.

--LPfi (talk) 08:33, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

As “my case” was brought up, here's what I had to say about this issue. I probably won't participate in other discussions. Only one comment: I'm afraid that applying German and Finnish legal standards raise the very same issues how to deal with cc-zero, cause it's both civil law, where you simply can't waive rights that are are granted by the law. So the link is just to inform you that I'm somehow aware of the issue. --TUBS 07:41, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Moral rights are not affected by free licenses either, so they aren't taken into consideration on Commons, like non-copyright restrictions. Have you noticed that cc-zero says that permission is granted to use without conditions (specifically, as much as possible), if rights cannot be released? So no free licenses grant rights not granted in cc-zero. —innotata 13:19, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

CC0 is not legally invalid in any nation, as far as I know. It only releases works into the public domain where it is legal to do so, whereas in other regions it releases all the rights that the author is legally entitled to. They worked pretty hard to make sure it wouldn't be found invalid. Dcoetzee (talk) 01:16, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Multi-licensing --Alchemist-hp (talk) 14:16, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

What about it? My questions aren't answered by what's currently up, and Brian was questioning that. —innotata 14:36, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

It seems nonsensical, but... it's also harmless. It may be the author is just trying to make sure, under any possible case where a particular license turns out to be invalid, that others can still be used. Removing the redundant licenses should really be OK, but particularly if the author insists, I'd just leave it be. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:20, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Viborg FF flag - 20110507.jpg

Do you think "File:Viborg FF flag - 20110507.jpg" is simple enough for {{PD-textlogo}}? I note that "en:File:Viborg FF.png" is being used at the English Wikipedia under a fair-use justification. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:18, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Euro coins

It may have been mentioned before, but I'd like to bring up this regarding Euro coin copyright. I'd just like to make sure there is a consensus on whether the reproduction rights are sufficiently free before all the Euro common side images are deleted from the commons; if the rights are sufficient maybe we could restore or create a Euro coin template. Fishing Chimp (talk) 19:40, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Hm, we have {{Money-EU}} but that looks like it is for banknotes specifically; this is a similar thing for coins. I thought we allow images of the common side of the euro coins because of this, although of course the photograph itself must be licensed as well. Which images are nominated for deletion? I see a few where the images were taken from other websites (i.e. the copyright of the photograph is an issue) but at first blush I don't see any which are purely based on the common side copyright. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:04, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Quick shot: Maybe Commons:Deletion requests/Template:Euro coin common face 2 is of some help? Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 01:51, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Ugh, missed that one. Yeah I would disagree with that deletion... I can understand the distinction made (the condition does seem to be part of the copyright license), but on the other hand, it is basically equal to moral rights, and the following condition is part of CC-BY[-SA]-3.0: You must not distort, mutilate, modify or take other derogatory action in relation to the Work which would be prejudicial to the Original Author's honor or reputation. That seems to be a restriction along those lines, and presumably the community thinks CC-BY-SA-3.0 is free enough, so... Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:10, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

As I commented in that deletion, the distortion clause is not an issue for the reason you state. It's the "faithful likeness" clause that is of concern. Dcoetzee (talk) 01:14, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

That is still moral rights to me; using an "unfaithful" likeness and claiming it to be a faithful one is a misrepresentation, and quite possibly prejudicial. The condition is there to protect the reputation of the euro, same as the other part. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:54, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

But then anyone could claim a faithful likeness restriction on their work and prevent editing. It prevents doing the entirely unexpected and unfaithful edits that use but aren't misrepresenting the original. It prevents adding blood to the face for a political message, for example.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:25, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Moral/portrait rights could come in those cases too. Would that be a modification which could be prejudicial to the subject's reputation? If it's made obvious it was a modification, that would seem to be better, but there are types of modifications which moral rights preclude. They may not allow reuse of the design itself, but photos seem fine -- similar to how copyrighted statues cannot be reproduced but photos of them are fine in some situations. Derivative works of the photograph should be fine provided the coin design is not misrepresented, to me. It seems an awful narrow issue to disallow photos of euro coins, when the statement seems directly in line with moral rights in Europe. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:12, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Kidnapped Estonians

The kidnappers of the seven Estonian cyclists ([17]) released a video on YouTube where the cyclists ask various countries for help in obtaining their release. YouTube of course took the video offline, but there are images circulating at various news sources with one image in particular taken from the video when it was still available. The image can be seen, among other places, here and here. Considering that the people who uploaded the video aren't claiming any copyright ownership of the video itself (they haven't identified themselves yet), can we treat the video and its derived images as being in the public domain?—Biosketch (talk) 12:26, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

No, the copyright holders must not claim copyright or identify themself to have copyright. We can only consider the video or parts of it public domain if the copyright holders explicitely released it into the public domain. See Commons:Project scope#Must be freely licensed or public domain and Commons:Project scope/Precautionary principle and Commons:What Commons is not#Commons is not concerned about whether copyright holders care. --Martin H. (talk) 12:46, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I'll use the external images template, then.—Biosketch (talk) 12:55, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Freedom of panorama for 2D works in Ireland

The local copy of File:OCDuallaSign 031c.jpg, a picture of a map board in a public location in Ireland, has been deleted for being a copyright violation. This has sparked a discussion on the uploader's talk page about whether it is a copyright violation or not - see w:en:User talk:Sarah777#Speedy deletion nomination of File:IMG-Dubhaille.jpg.

Freedom of panorama#Ireland doesn't mention this sort of picture, but does say that in the absence of any specific case law it's reasonable to assume that the law is the same as in the United Kingdom. My reading Freedom of panorama#United Kingdom is that this is a "graphic work" and thus not legal under freedom of panorama provisions.

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this question, so please move this discussion if I've guessed wrongly. Thryduulf (talk) 18:44, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

It's so long ago I don't recall uploading this specific file. However I have uploaded many photos of road signs, murals, tourist signs, pub/shop fronts covered in adds and signs of all sorts. In Ireland I assumed all these are free to view. Not aware of any copyright law that might prohibit them. Where do we draw the line? I have even used pictures of signs as references. What is a "graphic work"? A mural? See the Achill article for example (the hand-ball alley mural). Sarah777 (talk) 23:37, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

They may be free to view, but the right to make copies and distribute derivative works is controlled by the original author, and is a fundamental concept to copyright. For Ireland in particular, these rights are specified in Article 37 of their copyright law. The photographs could generally be considered an "adaptation" of the original work, or perhaps even a straight-up "copy" or reproduction, and is generally subject to the original author's copyright. Subsequent sections of their act define these terms more precisely, and give some exceptions. The "freedom of panorama" we are referring to here is a type of exception, present in some countries but not all, allowing photographs of works on public display. For Ireland, the most relevant part is section 93, which limits it to photos of buildings, sculptures, models for buildings, and works of artistic craftsmanship (where permanently situated in a public place). Photos of paintings and similar two-dimensional Irish (and UK) works are thus usually not allowed here (even if certain uses of the photo are OK under fair dealing or other exceptions). The hand-ball alley mural you point out even has an explicit copyright notice on the top left corner of the mural. Purely text-based signs and things like that may not be an artistic work in the first place, and if they are incidental to the main subject of the photo, then even artistic works are OK as background items. Maps are explicitly listed under "artistic works" (section 2) however, so we generally interpret photos of maps like this to be a reproduction of a copyrighted artistic work. If you know of any Irish court cases, or other laws, which can provide examples or counterexamples to any of this, that is always welcome, but this type of photo would seem to be a derivative work giving the wording of Irish law. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:54, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Some old photos - PD do you think?

I want to upload some photos of Hotwells railway station in Bristol - I found digital copies at [18] and [19] - both are ARR on flickr, but according to a book copy I have they come from "Mike Tozer", which is a collection rather than an author. The photos are dated c1910 and c1913 respectively. The first one looks like it's a postcard or something, I've seen quite a lot of this sort of thing around Bristol. Can I assume these are PD-old? -mattbuck (Talk) 12:40, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Don't you follow the "150 years rule"?--Trixt (talk) 20:20, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

The Flickr images have a camera EXIF -- possibly they were photographed from a public display, or the book you have?. At any rate, while we don't have a hard-and-fast 150 year rule or anything like that, we generally require at least some reasonable evidence that the author has been dead for 70 years, and we generally would not assume that for something only 100 years old. If there was no individual author listed on the original postcard or publication, then {{PD-UK-unknown}} could apply, but we need some indication of that. For U.S. use (such as en-wiki) you could use their PD-US-1923-abroad tag. Does the book give any background information on the collection?

No, no additional information, and a google search doesn't bring anything useful up either. The postcardy one seems to be part of a series - they have numbers on by the captions, but googling that hasn't been any help either. -mattbuck (Talk) 20:13, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Afghanistan

COM:L#Afghanistan has a link to http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/ipworldwide/pdf/af.pdf which is a 404.

It's not clear what the current URL should be

• http://www.wipo.int/ldcs/en/country/pdf/af.pdf seems to contradict what COM:L#Afghanistan says which is "It appears that Afghanistan has no copyright laws at all."
• http://www.wipo.int/directory/en/details.jsp?country_code=AF is list of links related to Afghanistan

I don't have time at the moment to figure out if just the URL needs to be fixed or if the section about Afghanistan is wrong. Here's the search link for WIPO. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:57, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

You can always look at the Internet Archive for the 404 link... see here. Afghanistan has a trademark law dating from 1960ish (and thus some relevance to WIPO), but no copyright. Even the link you gave says that... there is only year info associated with trademark; everything else is blank. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:02, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Afghanistan and copyright issues may just muddy the issue for you. Ww2censor (talk) 05:20, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Not really... they have signed some cultural works stuff, and trademarks of course. WIPO is about many forms of intellectual property, copyright only being one of them. Particularly since the Taliban were thrown out, they say copyright legislation is on the way, but it hasn't happened yet. Obviously things could change at any time, but I don't see any copyright law anywhere. Carl Lindberg (talk) 08:31, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

• I have participated in dozens of discussions over the intellectual property rights associated with images from Afghanistan. And, for years, in dozens of those discussions, I have suggested that the WMF engage a lawyer who is a specialist in IP law to offer us an expert opinion on all the tricky bits of IP law in Afghanistan. I was told, about a year ago, that the WMF employs a lawyer who is a specialist in IP law. His name was offered. The funny thing is that, several years earlier, when someone else told me the WMF employed him, I was told he was not a specialist in IP law. OK, I guess over the course of those years he could have become a specialist in IP law. More recently I read something that mentioned that the WMF had a new lawyer. Afghan images keep coming up, over and over again -- so I repeat my suggestion that the WMF get expert legal opinion(s) on the tricky bits of how IP law works in countries like Afghanistan that have no IP law. Geo Swan (talk) 09:29, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

• As to whether any of us have read predictions Afghanistan will pass legislation on intellectual property "soon"... I suspect these many of these suggestions we read are based on not much more than wishful thinking. I think it would be a big mistake -- disrespectful to the Afghan body politic -- to act on a suggestion I have seen many times here. Some contributors suggest that since IP law in Afghanistan is inevitable, we treat Afghanistan as if it already had IP law.

  The central premise for a State providing protection for intellectual property -- copyright, patents, trademarks -- is that these protections benefit the public, because they allow inventors, authors, composers, artists, to make a profit from their creativity, and then go on to create more inventions, books, music, images, and new inventions, books, music and images benefit the public, because they contribute to "progress". The Taliban would never pass intellectual property laws because they did not believe in "progress".

  The idea that "progress" is a good thing is so ingrained in our culture that it is hard to imagine anyone disagrees. But even here in the West one can find some of the very most religious conservatives who don't believe in progress. From my reading it wasn't only the Taliban who didn't believe in progress. From my reading many of the militia leaders who fought the Soviets, and then fought the Taliban, also don't believe in progress. From my reading most rural Afghans are illiterate, or if they can read, their education was very narrow, and only involved reading conservative religious texts.

  Afghan legislators who do believe in progress may never succeed in getting IP laws passed. We shouldn't act as if this was inevitable. Geo Swan (talk) 09:30, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

  I believe that it's just a matter of time that the state of Afghanistan will have regulations on copyright protection. You need to understand that the whole nation is being rebuilt from scratch and on Western designs so obviously they will have this essential law especially since the media is so rapidly growing in this nation. After reading this report dated from May 18 of this year, "The country's proposed media law, aimed at regulating licensing of media outlets and defining duties and conditions related to media, is expected to be ready by next two weeks, a senior information and culture ministry official said on Wednesday.", it suggests that this may include some form of copyright protection.--Officer (talk) 12:49, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

  When and if it actually happens, we'll adjust and deal with it. There is no use speculating on what form it will or will not take, or when. Until they actually pass a law, there is none, and people will conduct themselves accordingly. The flip side for them is that they don't have to respect foreign copyrights; they may wish to keep that state of affairs for a while, who knows. And, reading that link, I don't see any indication there is a copyright aspect to that upcoming law -- it sounds more along the lines of a freedom-of-information law, i.e. which information government is obligated to disclose, which is not the same as copyright. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:07, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

  I understand that, I just wanted to offer my view that the Afghan Government is getting nearer. I believe that the new media law may cover copyright issues because major Afghan media outlets feel that their works need protection. For example, w:Pajhwok Afghan News doesn't have free access because their works will be re-distributed by international news agencies for free.--Officer (talk) 18:56, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

• Thank you everyone for digging into this. I see that the WIPO link was ipdated. I'm fine with leaving it as "It appears that Afghanistan has no copyright laws at all." If and when Afghanistan adopts copyrights we'll look at the wording to see if it's retroactive to some date and decide how to deal with the PD-Afghanistan images. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:29, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Afghanistan 2

There is no more reason to say "as of 2009" on Afghanistan then any other country, all of which could change their copyright laws in the near future. As for unpublished images, they have no source nation until they are published; a picture taken in Afghanistan loaded unto Flikr would have a source nation most likely of the US, because that is where it was published, not Afghanistan. All works must be legally published for us to use them, even if this is the location of the first publication.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:49, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

What's the source for the part you wrote about unpublished images? What's the source for "All works must be legally published for us to use them?" Marc Kupper (talk) 03:36, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

US law [20] clearly protects all unpublished works. The Berne Convention makes it by nationality of author except in cases of movies or architecture. By our very nature, loading works to Commons is publishing them, and we can't accept them except legally.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:09, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Restauración

El mapa File:MapPatagonia.gif ha sido alterado por el editor que lo subió. Agregó su ciudad, Frutillar, ubicada entre Valdivia y Chiloé del lado izquierdo del mapa. Esa ciudad no existía en 1841 y es una falsificación del original. Solicito que alguien élimine esa adición y suba de nuevo el mapa correctamente adjudicado a su autor original y sin agregados. Saludos y gracias.

The map File:MapPatagonia.gif has been altered by the editor who uploaded. He added his city, Frutillar, located between Valdivia and Chiloe left side of the map. That city did not exist in 1841 and is a counterfeit of the original. Ask someone to remove the addition and back up the map properly awarded to the original author and without aggregates. Greetings and thanks.--Nerêo (talk) 16:07, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I had a look at the online version of the book [21] (which has a lot of valuable images in PD, by the way) but was unable to see the map. Do you know any reliable source where it can be seen?-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 18:36, 25 May 2011 (UTC)