Commons talk:Copyright rules by territory/Manchukuo

Expired copyright?

@Aymatth2: , "China has always claimed Northeast China without recognizing Manchukuo." doesn't this technically also extend to modern China as the Republic of China (on Taiwan) doesn't recognise the People's Republic of China and the People's Republic of China doesn't recognise the Republic of China. Of course as the United States of America (where Wikimedia Commons is hosted) doesn't officially recognise the Republic of China could we ignore Chinese (ROC) copyright laws in favour of PRC copyright © laws? I know that no court could enforce the Manchurian Empire's copyright laws while Chinese courts could enforce the Republic of China's (Taiwanese) copyright © laws, but are works copyrighted based on their current territory of original or their historical territory of origin? --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 12:51, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

@Donald Trung: I think what counts is the copyright law of the present de facto government of the country of origin, which determines whether a work can be used freely there, and the position of the United States. With Manchukuo the de facto government is now the PRC, and with Taiwan the de facto government is the ROC. The United States may not officially recognise the de facto government, as with Taiwan, Abkhazia, Transnistria etc. In those cases, I assume that the work is free of copyright in the United States if it is free of copyright according to what the United States considers to be the legitimate government, and according to United States rules for foreign works. So you could get cases where the United States considers that the work is free and the de facto government does not, or vice versa. For upload to Commons they would have to both say a work is free. This is just a personal view. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:25, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

@Aymatth2: , that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for explaining it. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 13:28, 2 April 2019 (UTC)