File talk:Duval et Doutremont en Normandie--Lepoittevin-IMG 2419.JPG

{{PD-Art}}

This image is clearly {{PD-Art}}, and I don't see how Rama can try and enforce any other license despite COM:PDART. Furthermore, I don't appreciate being rollbacked like a vulgar vandal, when I was only acting within policy; this is a clear misuse of the tool. –Tryphon^☂ 11:00, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

This image was taken in France. France recognises copyright on photographs of paintings. Hence I am allowed to claim copyright.

My photographs, including of paintings and such, are under Free licences. My copyright claim does in no way hinder use and re-use of the work. On the other hand, my claiming copyright will force non-Commons users who claim copyright and do not release their images under Free licences to abide by a Free licence. In this perspective, my Free licences are freeer than Public Domain.

It is plain, from the statement of position of the WMF, that the policy aims at providing Free content (I quote and add empahsis: "If museums and galleries not only claim copyright on reproductions, but also control the access to the ability to reproduce pictures"). I believe that my personal position is perfectly in line with that of the WMF, since my images are under Free licences.

As for other things, changing a user's licences without autorisation constitutes a breach and violation of copyright, with all that entails. Rama (talk) 11:21, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

PS: as an aside, I think that User:Tryphon has choosen an especially poor sample of my recent uploads to make his WP:POINT, since this particular file is not a reproduction of the painting. It is a detail, which cancels out the "faithful" in "faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain work". The actualy painting is File:Duval et Doutremont en Normandie--Lepoittevin-IMG 2418.JPG. Rama (talk) 11:25, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Another quote from COM:PDART (emphasis not mine): Nevertheless, under Commons rules the {{PD-Art}} tag can be used for "faithful reproduction" photographs of 2D public domain works of art even where copyright might be asserted under local law in the source country. So although you're entitled to claim copyright on this work in France, you're not on Commons.
I sympathize with your view regarding free licenses (I personally favor cc-by-sa rather than cc-by, or the GPL rather than LGPL or BSD-like license). But I wouldn't say that cc-by-sa is more free than PD; it still imposes more restrictions on reuse, even if you (as I do) consider those restrictions beneficial overall. However, in this case it's not your choice to make, we have a policy that says we ignore those copyright claims (usually imposed by museums or galleries, but I don't see why we should treat anyone differently), and by contributing to Commons, you must abide this policy.
As for the argument that this image would not be "faithful" because it's a detail, I don't think it holds. If the painting is PD, any part of it is PD too, so a reproduction of any part of the painting, with no original input from the photographer (cropping does not create a new copyright), falls under {{PD-Art}}.
Changing the license chosen by the author is normally bad, and yet it's what we did with the NPG, and I regularly change license tags on logo to {{PD-textlogo}} when they're clearly ineligible. –Tryphon^☂ 11:54, 30 August 2010 (UTC)