This Wikimedia Commons page is used for general discussions relating to copyright and license issues, and for discussions relating to specific files' copyright issues. Discussions relating to specific copyright policies should take place on the talk page of the policy, but may be advertised here. Recent sections with no replies for 7 days and sections tagged with {{section resolved|1=~~~~}} may be archived; for old discussions, see the archives.
One of Wikimedia Commons' basic principles is: "Only free content is allowed." Please do not ask why unfree material is not allowed at Wikimedia Commons or suggest that allowing it would be a good thing.
Any answers you receive here are not legal advice and the responder cannot be held liable for them. If you have legal questions, we can try to help but our answers cannot replace those of a qualified professional (i.e. a lawyer).
Your question will be answered here; please check back regularly. Please do not leave your email address or other contact information, as this page is widely visible across the Internet and you are liable to receive spam.
Please do not make deletion requests here – instead, use the relevant process for it.
For a while now, photos by French photo studio Studio Harcourt have been frequently nominated for deletion (by User:Günther Frager, among others). I've noticed in recent discussions that there seems to be quite some confusion about their copyright status and wanted to discuss that here.
One fact that does not seem to be controversial is that several years ago, a French court decided that photos by Studio Harcourt are produced under such tight regulations that they are to be considered collective works as far as French copyright is concerned. Which means that they enter the public domain in France 70 years after first publication. In the US, the URAA restored the copyright for those photos which were still in copyright in France on January 1, 1996. Since France still had a shorter copyright term on that date (50 years + 8 years and 120 days of wartime extensions), Harcourt photos up to 1936 should be in the public domain in the US (as of 2024), while later Harcourt photos are still protected in the US.
In 1991, the French state (minister Jack Lang) bought 5 million Harcourt photos/negatives from 1934 to 1991, see here (article from Le Figaro). One claim that I have seen repeatedly, usually made by User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), is that the French state released all of those photos under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. RAN added that claim to the Category:Photographs by Studio Harcourt hereand again here and has repeated it in various deletion request discussions. The article from Le Figaro (which RAN also linked to) does not support that claim of a release under a CC BY 3.0 license (which could have happened no earlier than 2007 since the CC 3.0 licenses were introduced in that year). When I asked RAN (at Commons:Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard/archive/2023#User:Studio Harcourt) about evidence for his claims, he replied The statement is based on the license they were uploaded with. Which, from the context, apparently refers to several files uploaded by User:Studio Harcourt in 2010 (see Special:ListFiles/Studio Harcourt).
But User:Studio Harcourt is not the French state (but the studio itself), and the photos that were uploaded in 2010 were from the years 1998 to 2008, so not part of the 5 million photos bought by the French state in 1991. I fail to see how several photos uploaded by this user in 2010 with said license can lead to the conclusion that the French state released all of the 5 million photos it bought in 1991 under a CC BY 3.0 license. As I see it, there is still ZERO evidence for this claim, and it is just an unsubstantiated claim.
Another claim which popped up recently is that the Harcourt photos from 1934 to 1991 bought by the French state are not under copyright. This was claimed by User:Tisourcier and User:Ruthven, and User:Asclepias also seems to have adopted it. Apparently it goes back to a VRT ticket by User:Studio Harcourt. As [1] shows, there are two of those. The older Harcourt ticket (2010061710041251), according to User:Ciell, only covers files uploaded by User:Studio Harcourt (“I think it's safe to say that the images uploaded under the specific account are okay, and the release does not cover any future uploads beyond the ones made by User:Studio Harcourt.”), while the newer ticket (2020112910005534), according to User:Ganímedes, "only covers a specific file".
In that ticket ( which is apparently from 2020), a woman named Agnes BROUARD, working for Studio Harcourt Paris and Chargée de la valorisation des collections, writes (confirmed by User:Ruthven on their own user talk page here): « Il me faut vous indiquer que nos archives de 1934 à 1991 sont désormais propriété du Ministère de la Culture, conservées par une entité appelée Médiathèque de l'architecture et du patrimoine et diffusées par l'agence photographique RMN-Grand Palais. Ce fonds photographique n'est pas soumis à un droit patrimonial donc quiconque possède un portrait de l'époque 1934-1991 peut l'utiliser librement et vous pouvez réutiliser un portrait trouvé sur internet. » Which says that the Harcourt archives from 1934 to 1991 are now property of the French Ministry of Culture (as discussed above), and more importantly, that for that archive there is no "patrimonial right" (that is, the economic/proprietary part of copyright as opposed to the moral right to be named as author) and "that anyone who has a portrait from the period 1934-1991 can use it freely and you can reuse a portrait found on the internet" (translation by User:Tisourcier on my user talk page). So basically she is declaring that there are no restrictions at all on Harcourt photos from 1934 to 1991 (except that you have to adhere to the moral rights part of copyright, which means among other things you have to name the author when reproducing the photo).
That sounds great. But is it actually a declaration we can use and rely upon? It is not in any way a formal declaration of the way we usually require for VRT permissions. It is more like just another claim, made by a Harcourt employee in 2020, almost 30 years after the 1934 to 1991 archive had been sold to the French state. Why should what a Harcourt employee claims be considered binding for photos that are actually the property of someone else, namely, the French state? The French state which does claim a copyright over Harcourt photos, compare [2] (there are many more examples)? That copyright claim may not be correct for any Harcourt photos before 1954 because of the collective work status, but taken at face value it is in direct contradiction of the claim made by Madame Brouard. So the "not under copyright" conclusion, based on what Madame Brouard wrote, is speculative and shaky at best. I don't think we can rely upon that for literally millions of images.
So my conclusion from all this is:
There is ZERO evidence for the "CC BY 3.0" claim.
The "not under copyright" claim is speculative and shaky at best.
We should not rely on either of them and instead only rely on the French collective works status plus PD-1996 (for the US) part, which would mean that as of right now, only pre-1937 Harcourt photos are ok for Wikimedia Commons (and, starting in 2033, photos from 1937, in 2034 from 1938 and so on).
We really ought to sort this out. Yann und Ruthven have started closing deleted requests as keep based on these dubious claims (I've explained why I think they're dubious). If we're keeping files, potentially very many of them (5 million photos ...), we ought to be sure about the reasons. At present, we are not.
Thoughts? --Rosenzweigτ09:36, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Just to put in context: The quote comment is the answer to this question, nothing else. I didn't evaluate the CR status because I'm not French speaker and it was not requested anyway. --Ganímedes (talk) 10:54, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I had the perplexity when the DRs I opened were closed. Some were closed with the argument the French government released with CC-BY and others with they are in the public domain, even by the same closing admin. It is still not clear to me who is the copyright holder: Harcourt or the French government (i.e. was the rights transferred when buying the collection). If the latter is the copyright holder the ticket from Harcourt claiming they are in the public domain is void, and the claim that they have CC-BY is dubious as we don't have a VRT ticket from the French government. If Harcourt is still the copyright holder, it would be important to get the context of the email. Once thing is saying you can use the photo freely in your blog without problems (more on the fair use side), and another is you can compile a bunch of photos, create a book a sell it without paying them a dime. I'm not expert in French law, but is it possible to put a work on the public domain? (that is not the same as licensing under CC0). Günther Frager (talk) 14:41, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To answer the French law-related question... if I recall correctly:
It shouldn't directly affect the legality of hosting the file, since Commons is based in the US, where public domain dedications are clearly possible.
As I recall, under French law, rights are separated into economic and moral rights, as is the case in many continental European countries. The moral rights are often inalienable (can't be given up), but the economic rights can be given up. (You'll note that CC0 contains a waiver of moral rights insofar as much as that's possible; that would depend on the country.)
It's often said that, because moral rights cannot be given up, that public domain dedications are impossible in France (or other European countries). But this is highly misleading. "Copyright" is, of course, a term of art in America, as is "public domain," and these concepts exist in slightly different forms in other systems.
Under French law, moral rights are not only inalienable, they're also perpetual. Anyone who says that the inalienable nature of moral rights under French law means that PD dedications are impossible would have to say that no work is in the public domain in France. But this isn't true; when we talk about the French public domain, we're talking about the expiry of economic rights.
An email which says that a work is in the public domain really must be interpreted either as a permanent waiver of the economic rights or, if not that, then an explicit and perpetual license to all the economic rights to the work — since this is what it means for a work to be in the public domain in France. While the CC0 terms are more detailed and clear, this doesn't mean that such a dedication or license isn't valid in France — except for the general limitation on waiving moral rights.
Also, French law provides for oral and even implied contracts to be considered binding. There's no reason to think that an explicit and clear "public domain dedication" would not be considered as binding. I honestly think that the whole notion that public domain dedications are impossible in many countries is based on confusion between economic and moral rights. Otherwise, you would have to accept that these countries only allow for copyright licenses to be made in a very specific form, above and beyond the formal requirements for other binding contracts or licenses, and that, failing that, the interpretation would be that there is no license at all — and I don't see any reason to believe that — or you'd have to believe that CC0 and other tools have no validity, even with fallback provisions.
Now, CC0 is a bit better, both because it is more explicit and because it contains fallback affirmations relating to non-exercise of waived rights (though these may mean nothing with respect to unwaivable moral rights). But that doesn't mean "this work is dedicated to the public domain; I give up my copyright" can't be interpreted as a valid license or dedication.
Thanks for the ping. I hadn't seen the second ticket from 2020, and that actually looks like a very interesting one. It is a forwarded email (and I prefer direct emails when working with permissions) but my reading from the exchange there (again, with my limited french knowledge) is that it support the statement as shared on @Ruthven's talkpage that you mention. The ticket #2020112910005534 was send to support the release of a single image as @Ganímedes mentions, yes, but with this more general statement in the mail it could in theory support the release for all images 1934-1991. Ciell (talk) 15:08, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also: the issue of the French claim by photo.rmn.fr was mentioned, and links to a court case ruling from 2014. (and this absolutely goes beyond what I can read in French, sorry!) Ciell (talk) 15:19, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Here is what the Court of Appeals decided, with respect to the ownership of the works:
"[...] Most importantly, the Court held that the photographs bearing the Harcourt logo which had been made by the photographer must be considered collective works, for which the copyrights [droits de l'auteur], including moral rights, are owned by the studio.
"Concretely, the photographer is deprived of all rights to the works, and he is not entitled to anything except for the simple proportional remuneration which the studio agreed to give him upon the sale of his works. More importantly, the decision denied the photographer the moral right to attribution of which no author may in principle be deprived."
So the conclusion here was that photographs taken by an individual photographer working for a studio and, at least in this case, marketed as the studio's work, are collective works, to which all the rights only ever belonged to the studio, not the individual photographer. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 15:59, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That was the court case which I mention in my very first bullet point above (“One fact that does not seem to be controversial is that several years ago, a French court decided that photos by Studio Harcourt are produced under such tight regulations that they are to be considered collective works as far as French copyright is concerned.”) Note that the case made that decision only for Studio Harcourt photos and not for any studio photo, which is sometimes also claimed (by User:Tisourcier for example in Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Tisourcier). --Rosenzweigτ16:09, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Rosenzweig I am not sure you are linking to the official French government inventory with the link above: here is the same image but in their "Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie"/Open heritage Platform (nonetheless, also with a "C" in front of the mention of the Ministère de la Culture). Any reason why you link, to what looks to me, a third party/private vendor? Ciell (talk) 16:26, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Ciell: rmn.fr is the en:Réunion des Musées Nationaux, the (public) agency mentioned by Agnes Brouard as the distributor of the photos (« diffusées par l'agence photographique RMN-Grand Palais »), also at the gouv.fr website you linked to (diffusion GrandPalaisRmn Photo). I'm not sure why the photos are presented on two web sites. --Rosenzweigτ16:45, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But maybe you should try and reach out to the French government with your questions, if you doubt the analysis of the previous copyright owner, @Rosenzweig? I have to say it seems almost unfair to expect others to do so, when you think a statement from the original photograph studio is insufficient?
I am not one who wants us to host illegal content, but on the other side we should not want to take things down without having had a conversation with the current rights holder... (or the custodian, whatever you want to call them). Ciell (talk) 17:05, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll pass on that, if anyone wants to do this, it should be a native speaker, possibly also resident of the country. Though RAN had announced he'd get in touch if I remember this correctly. Maybe he did get a meaningful answer? --Rosenzweigτ18:20, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Rosenzweig: @Ciell: I confirm what D. Benjamin Miller said about the French court case of PIERRE-ANTHONY X VS. HARCOURT linked above. The judges (the judgement has been confirmed by the court of appeals) mention interesting facts, namely:
At Harcourt, the photographers yield their copyright to the studio in exchange of 10% on the sales, in which the photo is sold as a collective work.
The photos published by Harcourt must be considered as collective works.
The moral rights of the original author do not hold anymore, as the moral rights are now owned by a group of authors.
This last statement may be a surprise, given all the discussions about CC0 in France, but it is justified by the French law 113-2 alinéa 3 of the Code de la Propriété Intellectuelle. A collective work can be initiated by a company (here it's Harcout), and the consequent publication under a collective name makes the work of the single photographer indistinguishable from the work of the group. --Ruthven(msg)15:23, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, why not let several French contributors involved by PD-France and Studio Harcourt case, precising the legal aspects and confirm the data about it ? The "collective work" judgement is one the main points, but the PD official statement by the author Studio Harcourt at the root as the author of these photographs (VTR), is clearly relevant to determine that those published between 1954 and 1992 are also PD-France too. Edit : copyright mentions of RMN website are not 100% reliable (copyvios). Tisourcier (talk) 11:39, 18 July 2024 (UTC)Tisourcier (talk) 11:32, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, more than unreliable, RMN copyright claims are copyfraud or completely absurd. RMN has never been the copyright holder of the documents they host, they are only the caretaker. Sometimes, they claim a copyright because they digitize the work, but it is not even always the case. They even claim a copyright on works digitized by other people or institutions. I once wrote to them about that, but never got an answer. Copyfraud is not punished by French law, so plenty people and organizations claim a copyright which has no value (i.e. copyright claims on old books recently reprinted, etc.). Yann (talk) 12:55, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not just RMN, it's also the Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie of the French Ministère de la Culture, see the the link provided by Ciell above. And yes, we have seen some French institutions making dubious copyright claims, namely the Bibliothèque nationale. That does not mean that everything they claim is automatically false and can be disregarded. Both the RMN and the French ministry making these copyright claims is just another small sign, another piece of evidence regarding the question we have, contributing to the doubt about the “not under copyright” claim. --Rosenzweigτ17:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The statement by Harcourt is just that: a statement. A claim. An opinion. While Studio Harcourt can be considered the author of these collective works, they sold the bulk of their earlier production (5 million images from 1934 to 1991) to the French state. Presumably they sold them including the rights (copyrights, usage rights) to them, or else it wouldn't make much sense that the French state is distributing these images by the RMN agency. So the statement comes from an institution which authored these collective works, but (as we must assume) no longer holds the rights to them. The statement we're talking about claims that millions of images from the years up to and including 1991 are not under copyright, or « pas soumis à un droit patrimonial ». The only way 1991 portrait photographs can be in the public domain (or equivalent) in France is if the rights holder explicitly released them into the PD, put them under a CC0 license or similar. For such a thing, we require either a clear public statement from someone who is clearly the rights holder, or an explicit permission/consent text of the kind available at the COM:VRT page, something along the lines of I hereby affirm that I am/represent ..., the creator/sole owner of the exclusive copyright of the work(s) as shown here, and have legal authority in my capacity to release the copyright of that work. I agree to publish the above-mentioned content under the following free license: ... etc. etc.
Since this is about potentially very many images (5 million photos), we absolutely should have such a clear declaration. Especially for the protection of our re-users. But we have NONE of that here. There is no clear declaration of who the owner of copyright is, nor who released them under what license. There is just a vague statement that there is no copyright and anyone can use the photos freely, by a person of unclear legal status as far as the copyrights to the photos are concerned. That cannot be acceptable. --Rosenzweigτ12:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but it would be much better if you stop making false statements. We have a declaration by a person in charge that these images are in the public domain. Why do you always say the opposite? Yann (talk) 12:58, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Yann: Please refrain from such accusations. Accusing me of "making false statements" is basically calling me a liar, and I don't appreciate being insulted in that way. What we do have (in ticket 2020112910005534, the French text is above) is a claim, a statement by someone apparently working for Studio Harcourt in 2020, with the title or post of Chargée de la valorisation des collections. Valorisation translating to something like exploitation (in an economic sense) or promotion. So if she is “in charge” of anything, it's not copyright questions or legal questions in general, it's the promotion or economic exploitation of the Studio Harcourt collections. Which since the sale in 1991 do not anymore include the older 1934 to 1991 photos we're talking about here. It's in no way clear if she is in any way authorized to make copyright-related statements for Studio Harcourt, and it's not in any way clear if Studio Harcourt even still has any rights to those older photos. Though it must be assumed the French state acquired those rights along with the photos themselves, because why would you buy such a massive amount of photos without the proper rights to utilize them? Her text is also not a “declaration”, at least not one of the kind we require for VRT permissions (as outlined in my previous post in this thread). So whatever her statement is, it's not a sufficient basis to declare these 5 million photos to be in the public domain or “not under copyright” or « pas soumis à un droit patrimonial ». --Rosenzweigτ17:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Rosenzweig: Who would be more knowledgeable about the copyright status of these images than someone working for Studio Harcourt? I am quite fed up with people (not only you) pretending to know more that the very people employed by the institution(s) concerned by the documents. Yann (talk) 12:29, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Yann: That would be someone actually declaring that they are the owner/holder of the copyright and authorized to make such statements, as outlined in more detail somewhere else in this thread. Not just anybody working for a company which may or may not be still holding rights to these photos and vaguely saying that there is no copyright for them and and anybody can use them. You may think that is enough. I don't. --Rosenzweigτ12:56, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"why would you buy such a massive amount of photos without the proper rights to utilize them?" Presumably you'd acquire some sort of rights to reproduce, but not necessarily rights that were tantamount to owning the copyright. Plus, of course, eventually they will come out of copyright.
FWIW, it is pretty common for archives and libraries to acquire large collections without acquiring copyrights. I wouldn't presume anything either way about this case without some sort of evidence. - Jmabel ! talk20:59, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While I agree with Rosenzweig that the situation is unclear, I would urge us not to rush to deleting, especially because it is such a large set - rushing into this will actually do more bad than good. As @Tisourcier mentions: please get French contributors involved to figure this out. Commons is not an island in the big wiki-ocean, and we as admins should not be tasking decisions (like deleting images at this scale) that effect the other projects lightly, but with due consideration. Ciell (talk) 16:55, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Presumably they sold them including the rights (copyrights, usage rights) to them, or else it wouldn't make much sense that the French state is distributing these images by the RMN agency."
OK, if that is what is happened, we would need a confirmation as well. Also a clarification who would actually be the copyright owner and who would be authorized to put the photos in the public domain (or equivalent, or under a free license) and if that happened. All clearly and unmistakably spelled out. We cannot keep so many (and potentially many more) images with just a "maybe, maybe not" assumption. Per the precautionary principle, such an unclear situation would mean the files would need to be deleted and no new uploads accpted. --Rosenzweigτ06:22, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Info The French Ministry of Culture bought in 1989 the negatives and client records from 1934 until 1979. Later in 1991 during the bankruptcy of Studio Harcourt the Association française pour la diffusion du patrimoine photographique (AFDPP) acquired the negatives from 1980 until 1991 [3]. The source gives very precise dates on the acquisitions, so it might even be possible to find public records about them. Günther Frager (talk) 18:36, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Günther Frager, beyond the acquisition: the question on the table now, is about the correct copyright status for all of these these images. Are the images Public Domain, available under CC BY-SA, or does the French state claim full copyright? Ciell (talk) 18:59, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Ciell: yes, the main issue is determine who owns the copyright, but this information is still relevant. If the source is right, on November 14, 1989 Jack Lang and Studio Harcourt signed a document and we might get a copy of it and see whether the patrimonial rights were transferred or not. The other point is that the negatives form 1980-1991 were acquired during a bankruptcy and might have different conditions. I don't know about French intellectual property law, but in some countries intellectual property is treated as a normal asset when a company is liquidated. Günther Frager (talk) 19:22, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One interesting fact in that text (thanks for the link) is that the current Studio Harcourt Paris company may be not identical with the "old" Studio Harcourt, but some succesor company (it's not entirely clear though, they call it le nouveau studio Harcourt-Paris). Which makes me wonder if the current company still holds any (intellectual property) rights to the assets of the "old" company, or not. --Rosenzweigτ06:25, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
About your second bullet point relatively to R.A.N., there is a misunderstanding by R.A.N. I had already replied directly to R.A.N. when he asked questions, there last year and here last month, including a link to the previous reply and a link to a detailed recap there (in French, but anyone can read it with machine translation). Unfortunately, either he doesn't read the replies to his questions or he doesn't care. I reverted his comment on the category page, to which you refer, but he reverted the revert. I'm not entering into an edit war with him. But that comment is still problematic for unsuspecting users and it would be good if someone volunteered to revert it again. -- Asclepias (talk) 15:44, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I see that Tisourcier is busy canvassing on various user talk pages in this matter. One thing he mentions elsewhere is that Studio Harcourt would still be the author as far as the moral right (to be named as author etc.) of French IP law is concerned. I agree, since the photos were declared by the court to be collective works, there is no human author, but this (corporate) collective author.
BUT we're not talking about the moral right here, but about the "patrimonial right" (that is, the economic/proprietary part of French IP law as opposed to the moral right). And that is still very much unclear until we get a clearly spelled out statement (as detailed elsewhere in this thread) by whoever is the actual owner of that right, or was the owner at the point in time when the claimed release into the public domain (or similar) took place. --Rosenzweigτ12:00, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Similarly, for any commercial and/or editorial reuse of images, please make a request to: mediatheque.patrimoine@culture.gouv.fr
Unless otherwise stated, MAP images are disseminated by the Photographic Agency of the Meeting of National Museums and the Grand Palais (Rmn-Gp)." (emphasis added)' -- Ooligan (talk) 18:42, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the link and translation. So they say that all images they show are the property of the state, which is basically what we already mentioned above. The question is if they're correct or if this is some sort of copyfraud as mentioned by Tisourcier and Yann above. --Rosenzweigτ06:53, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The ministry and the RMN claim that there is a copyright on everything they have in their collection, whether it's public domain or not. It doesn't matter how many times the quote by the ministry is repeated nor how it may be decorated with bolding and underlining, that still does not make it better. Take randomly any example on their websites, e.g. this image by Jean Bardin (1732-1809) (on Commons here), this 1903 postcard by Jean Giletta (1856-1933) (on Commons here), as well as the the pre-1954 Harcourt photos and thousands of other public domain images. If we applied the notice, nothing could be on Commmons. It doesn't mean that the notice is false, some items in their collection are copyrigted by someone, but the notice is only correct in the manner that a broken clock may occasionally give the correct time. The notice is useless to determine the copyright status of the items. The actual copyright status of the items must be determined by other means and other sources. In the case of the Harcourt photos, the best source would probably be the contracts of donation. We don't have that. The second best source, which we do have, is the statement by the Studio Harcourt. The owners of Harcourt, who acquired the Studio and the intellectual property of the trademark, are directly concerned, they must have examined the question of the copyrights seriously and, through the years, they naturally must have received many similar queries from the public. It would be irresponsible from them to give the answer that they give if it weren't true. Can they be mistaken? Yes, in theory anybody can be mistaken. Still, it's the best source we have. They can be assumed to have looked into this matter more in depth and to know more about it than we do. -- Asclepias (talk) 20:24, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you that we should not trust when RMN states their own the copyright of a work, but it doesn't mean that almost all works published by RMN have no copyright. The analogy of the broken clock would be correct only if a high percentage of what RMN hosts is the public domain. What I don't agree with you is the other reasoning. Namely that we must trust blindly what an employee of a company that was bankrupt and passed hands a couple of times said in an email that was later forwarded to the VRT. I don't buy that a normal employee consult their legal team before answering a random email that probably is not going to generate a financial benefit. Even on the technical level there is no guarantee on the authenticity of the original email (Note, it is not something I'm doubting). Is the only evidence we have about the copyright status? Probably yes. Is is enough to host 5,000,000 images here? Probably not. If they made such statement in that email, it means that either they waived their rights in the past (presumedly before transferring the negatives) or they still hold the copyright and are fine with other people exploiting their pre-1991 work. In the former they should point us a legal document. In the latter, they should be able to grant an explicit free license as Rosenzweig suggested. Günther Frager (talk) 01:03, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody seemed to have a problem with the collective work status (in France) of the Harcourt photos. So any photos older than 70 years are in the public domain in France, and any Harcourt photos up to 1936 (before 1937) are also PD in the US and therefore ok for Wikimedia Commons.
Nobody came forward to support the released under CC BY 3.0 theory, not even RAN (though all relevant users were pinged and sometimes even separately notified by others). Asclepias specifically disagrees with that theory. So I think we can without any qualms declare this theory to be as dead as the dodo and completely debunked.
For the third point, the theory that Harcourt photos from 1934 to 1991 are in the public domain, we have exactly one piece of evidence: that a Harcourt employee claimed so in an e-mail that the VRT has in its system. Some people want to believe it, but there are no details how and why all those photos would be in the public domain, who put them there and where that would apply (France only or also in the US?). COM:VRT demands a rather detailed and outspoken declaration from anyone wanting to release media under a free license. I don't see why there should be a lesser standard for the Harcourt photos, especially considering how many images we're talking about here. Only a part of the 5 million images will be relevant for Commons, but as Harcourt was considered a celebrity studio, that might still be a few percent. Even 3 % of 5 million are 150.000.
Which means:
Harcourt photos before 1937 are ok for Commons as French collective works with PD-1996 in the US. Later photos are still protected in the US, they will expire there starting in 2033.
Only the files uploaded directly by User:Studio Harcourt in 2010 are licensed under CC BY 3.0, but not all photos which were acquired by the French state (as claimed by RAN).
All other Harcourt files are not covered by these two points and are here because they are claimed to be in the public domain, a claim that is only backed up by very little and vague evidence. My opinion is that for so many files, we should have a PD declaration which is at least as solid and explicit as those usually demanded by the VRT. What we have at present is nothing of the sort. And if we don't have such a proper declaration, the files should all be proposed for deletion and deleted per the precautionary principle. Anybody wanting to keep them is free to facilitate the sending of such a proper declaration (by whoever may actually be authorized to do so) to COM:VRT. --Rosenzweigτ19:12, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wondering whether a simple flag work by artist David Hammons meets the standards for copyrightable material. Hammons created African-American Flag in 1990, it is a direct facsimile of the American flag but with the colors changed - red, white, and blue become red, black, and green, the colors of the Pan-African flag. Obviously the American flag design itself is public domain, but do the remixed colors make it sufficiently original to gain copyright in the US? Thanks for any insights! 19h00s (talk) 01:08, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a proper way to note that an image on Commons contains artwork that is claimed to be copyrighted but is actually public domain? There are severalpicturesof this work on Commons, want to be sure they don't get deleted based on the museums who own the works claiming they're under copyright by the artist. 19h00s (talk) 14:57, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One could certainly augment the uploader's licence tag with a PD tag that expresses specifically that the flag is below the threshold of originality. That should at least make people think twice before speedy-ing it as a derivative of a copyrighted work (and at DR I am pretty sure it would be kept in either case). Felix QW (talk) 17:14, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Can an administrator come figure out what should happen with Commons:Deletion requests/File:Damage from the 1968 Charles City tornado just south of the Cedar River looking north.jpg. The deletion request was opened up on July 10, so it is over a week old. However, the main concern involves the actual PD-NWS and the deletion request nominator has stated up to maybe 150+ images are affected, including potentially an image uploaded by a Commons Administrator. I am posting here since maybe a single image deletion request isn’t the best method for this discussion. Or, maybe it is. I don’t know, but the discussion is very forum-like and needs solving or some level of actual administrator involvement. WeatherWriter (talk) 16:49, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
https://0x0.st/Xp_0.png this image is taken from a book which is copyrighted and claims all tables/images are copyrighted to them unless stated that the copyright belongs to another publisher/person. But I believe (but am not certain) that this image being of chemical structures does not qualify as meeting the threshold of originality and should be fine to use. Traumnovelle (talk) 02:02, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
All (or most of) the files in Category:European Union license seem to be licensed as "European Union Government." Although the category seems to be full of random photographs. Whereas the license is based on the 2011 European Union Commission Decision which reading through it only seems to for the reuse of Commission documents. Per the Commission decision " This Decision applies to public documents produced by the Commission or by public and private entities on its behalf." Perhaps it's different for the European Union, but what most governments means by "documents" is laws, government press releases, and other forms of informational text. Not photographs. So I'm wondering if the license is invalid for most, if not all, of the photographs in Category:European Union license. Adamant1 (talk) 08:32, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For the purposes of this Decision, the following definitions shall apply: (1) ‘document’ means: (a) any content whatever its medium (written on paper or stored in electronic form or as a sound, visual or audiovisual recording); (b) any part of such content; moreover, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legal-notice/en/ talks about textual data and multimedia items which specifically includes photographs. --Geohakkeri (talk) 08:52, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
URAA-restored copyrights of old European postcards
In response to Commons:Deletion requests/File:Roermond 1931.jpg I would like to start a discussion on how to treat the many old European postcards, wich are dated between 1 jan 1929 (US:PD-1923) and 1 januari 1954 (PD 70 years Europe / PD-anon-70-EU)
Background: Most of the old postcards where published by big postcard publishers such as Category:Postcards published by Nels/Thill, wich mostly bought the works of local photografers or send employees to take pictures. If the photografers had some reputation the name is mentioned on the postcard (PD 70 years after death)(otherwise 70 years after publication). The original glass plates or negatives have almost certainly been lost, the same with the compagny records. The publishers at that time wanted recent images and not outdated ones. Glass plates took a lot of space and where reused. Celluliod negatives less so, but stil took space and effort to maintain for no commercial purpose. There was a lot of disruption during the Second World War (occupation, cessation of activity, employees fleeing or taking other occupations, destruction of buildings), so many archives where lost. If the picturearchives of Nels/Thill stil existed they would certainly be treasured and preserved. It is safe to assume that they no longer exist. If no name of the photografer is given it is imposible to research it. If the photografer still lives he could claim out of memory that it is his work, but for descendants this is imposible. Who would remember the many (commercial) pictures his father took? For any legal procedings there has to be some minimal element of proof.
There where also many small local publishers, wich only published local postcards. I always assumed that the publisher also took the pictures, so I treated them as such for licensing purposes. (70 years after death)
How do we apply this knowledge to the postcard URAA-restored copyrights
cases? My suggestion is to apply URAA to postcards where the photografer is known. The risk is small that someone will go to an US court for the license rigths of an European village picture postcard with no commercial value. (or very marginal one) But it still exist. In de anonymous cases the precautionary principle should not apply if there is no risk.
In the very unlikely event the authorship is claimed/or discovered and URAA applies, we delete the file.
there are no US connections. These are local images, taken by a local photografer. The photografer could later move to the US, but then this is no longer an anonymous case. (he/she has to make his name known)
there are considerable costs to starting an US legal proceding with foreign elements, for postcards wich may have historic value, but none or very marginal commercial value.
most old postcards are of low-quality and low resolution in black & white. Technicaly the use is limited. The value for Wikimedia is showing how things where.
for any legal procedings there need to be some element of proof. Otherwise everyone can claim rigths to the image. If there are no records or original material this becomes imposible. There is only one negative. Prints can be duplicated and have no proof value. Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:44, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
PS: I have no expert knowledge how US law is applied in these European cases, so feel free to comment. (I suspect it is not as simple as 70 years becomes 95 years) Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:42, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Generaly the EU. (I dont think the licenses to change in GB with the brexit) But more broadly al countries with 70 year PD license conditions. I forgot there was a subsection for Copyright. I will move it there.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:30, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do not agree that we should host items whose US copyright is known not to be expired and which is not under a free license, regardless of whether the original author is known or not. Photos can well be anonymous to the general public and still have active US copyright, possibly even with a known owner. For instance, the copyright of a work for hire (which would be the case for employees sent somewhere to take a picture), will rest with the publisher even if they don't know themselves which of their employees took the picture at hand. Felix QW (talk) 11:49, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Postcards are by definition published works (there are recent trends to make your own postcard, but we are discussing old postcards). Just as by other publications there are attributed articles/parts where authors keep their rigths independant of the publisher an parts where authors and other creative people are paid once for their work and the copyrigths go to the publisher. So for postcards without photographer attribution the copyrigths are by the publisher.Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:25, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Per Commons:Licensing, Wikimedia Commons only accepts media that are explicitly freely licensed, or that are in the public domain in at least the United States and in the source country of the work. Regardless if the photographer (or author in general) is known or not. Which wouldn't make sense anyway, because the old US copyright terms (which are the type restored by the URAA) are generelly based on the date of first publication, not on the person of the author. Also, Commons:Project scope/Precautionary principle lists several arguments of the type "we can get away with it" and clearly says that they are against Commons' aims. --Rosenzweigτ13:22, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm confused here. The way I see it, anything from 1929 from a country that gives 70-year protection to anonymous or corporate work would still have been in copyright in its native country through 1999, so URAA would have restored its U.S. rights in 1996, making them good through 2024. Similarly, anything from 1950 would have U.S. copyright through 2045. This would seem to preclude uploading to Commons at this time. What am I missing? - Jmabel ! talk18:59, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jmabel: Not all countries already had the 70 year terms on the URAA date (January 1, 1996 for most countries). The Netherlands and Germany already had them, but France still had 50 years + wartime extensions (another 8 years and 120 days). See en:WP:Non-U.S. copyrights for a list. So a 1935 postcard from France might have escaped the URAA. --Rosenzweigτ12:03, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If I read the en:Copyright Act of 1976 correctly, it gives a term of 75 years for anonymous, pseudonymous works, and works made for hire. (pre extention 1998). So if the URAA-restoration restored the 1976 rules it is 75 years after publication for postcards without attribution. The jurisprudence cases dont involve anonymous, pseudonymous works, and works made for hire.
The URAA restoration means it will be treated as a US work with notice and renewal, and it gets any extensions a US work would, thus 95 years after publication.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:50, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not quite: the en:Copyright Term Extension Act does not work retroactively. All files wich where in the PD in 1996 remain in the PD. For postcards wihout attribution it makes no difference as 1996 - 75 = 1921. But for postcards with attribution it could in some cases be PD, as the 1976 rule it is the livetime of the author + 50 years.Smiley.toerist (talk) 21:20, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The US "lifetime + 50 years" (50 years pma) term from 1976 (extended to 70 years in 1998) did and does not apply to works published before 1978. For those, the old rules based solely on the year of first publication still apply. See Commons:Hirtle chart. --Rosenzweigτ00:27, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is a good reason why there is no jurisprudence case which involves anonymous or pseudonymous works. The author(s) needs to make themselves known to make a copyright claim. Even if the authors makes themselves known now, they cannot claim a copyright in the country of origin, so it is very unlikely that they would claim a copyright in another country. IMO this is a good argument to accept old anonymous or pseudonymous works affected by URAA. Yann (talk) 20:11, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Without wide community consensus to do this, we would still need to delete because URAA automatically restored US copyrights of many European works, and these copyrights were still in force in 1996 even if nobody could enforce them. Abzeronow (talk) 20:14, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but this is not something completely new. There was a discussion about URAA 10 years ago with a wide community support, although it was later overturned. Yann (talk) 20:18, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are also many postcards coming from GLAM institutions/projects, with no mention of US-licenses. For example File:Station Roermond; circa 1900.jpg. In this case an US license can be added, but in many other cc-zero is unclear. The institution does its own copyrigth research but does not need to consider US licences. The projects work on the basis of trust.Smiley.toerist (talk) 21:40, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The old U.S. 75 year terms are likely irrelevant -- European postcards needed a copyright notice, and also to have been renewed, for the U.S. copyright to still exist normally. Both would happen almost never, though if by chance they did, the URAA date does not matter -- US copyright would be pre-1929 only, the full 95 years. Otherwise, it would matter what the copyright status was in its country of origin in 1996 for the URAA restoration. That varied in Europe -- while countries were supposed to have implemented the EU copyright extensions by then, not all countries did until after the URAA date. Italy was effectively 56 years (and 20 for simple photos), France 58 or 59, and I think Portugal was 50 years. Most later additions to the EU were also 50 years at the time. Spain was pretty much still 80 I think. en:Wikipedia:Non-US copyrights has some further information on that, but it does not always denote what the terms were on the URAA date. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:34, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is there some script I could use to add an US license to manualy selected postcards older than 1929?
Pretty easy thing to do with VisualFileChange, assuming you can sanely make a search that will turn up a reasonable number of such files. (You can select within the search result.) - Jmabel ! talk20:41, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The uploader of the Andamiro company logo has listed it as public domain due to text only and no creative content, which I think is utter nonsense. Can someone have a look, and update the license on that page if appropriate? Thanks. Mathglot (talk) 20:02, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, uploader here—happened to stumble upon this thread very coincidentally and wanted to try to clarify. This logo seems to be very far below the "threshold of originality" needed for copyright, particularly in the United States. You can browse through more examples at COM:TOO US, many of which are arguably far more complex than this logo and are still considered below the threshold. Because of this, I firmly believe the logo falls into the public domain. Hope that sheds some light here—apologies for any confusion. Bsoyka (talk) 02:41, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Evisu's "seagull" design, which is below the TOO in South Korea@Marchjuly: Yes. An example at COM:TOO South Korea is the logo of Evisu, which features the "seagull" design shown to the right; that design was found to be ineligible for copyright. Additionally, typefaces are not protected by copyright per COM:SIG South Korea. The Andamiro logo is very similar to a combination of these two marks, with only a wordmark and a crescent shape that is even simpler than Evisu's design, leading me to believe it's ineligible for copyright protection in South Korea. Bsoyka (talk) 01:28, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hello! I came across Category:InciWeb photos, which contains images uploaded from InciWeb, a website created by the United States Forest Service (USFS) to share data about ongoing wildfires. At first glance, it might seem any photos from this site fall under {{PD-USGov-USDA-FS}}, but I believe that may not always be the case. InciWeb appears to gather data and images from local, state, and national agencies, meaning not all photos on it are taken by the USFS and its divisions/employees. Additionally, another exciting twist in this is that InciWeb seems to have changed domains once or twice, and pages for old fires/incidents don't seem to last, making source/copyright verification difficult. I feel like there should be a better way to assess and tag these files, perhaps similar to the processes for Flickr and iNaturalist uploads, with templates like {{iNaturalist}} and {{iNaturalistreview}}. I welcome thoughts on the copyright status of InciWeb photos, ideas for better categorization/tagging here, and anything else you all might have. Thanks! Bsoyka (talk) 02:52, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As a note, apparently even the unit designated on InciWeb for each incident doesn't necessarily specify who took the photos. For example, the "Fire Activity on I-84" image here was actually taken by a railroad employee. Bsoyka (talk) 04:34, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is a famous photo snapped by Paul Hoffman, photographer for the Elkhart Truth. It was uploaded from NOAA.gov and claimed to be licensed as {{PD-USGov-NOAA}}. The license had been challenged by a user, but most chose to trust NOAA's declaration. During that time, I inquired with NOAA about the copyright status of this photo. A staff member later replied that he is unsure if it's in the public domain and will remove it from their website when it's migrated to a new platform. He said they had removed a large number of images because the old site manager was rather lax in terms of the uploads. At his suggestion, I later emailed the newsroom and a managing editor of the Elkhart Truth to request for a free license but never received a reply. Recently, it struck me that it might apply to {{PD-US-no notice}} while reading a deletion request, and I found it subsequently in a 1976 newspaper without a copyright notice; see [5] and [6]. So I'd like to hear your opinion on revising the license to {{PD-US-no notice}}. 0x0a (talk) 19:13, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I guess the question is if the Elkhart Truth had a copyright notice for the newspaper as a whole -- it did not have to be adjacent to the photo. That newspaper did not renew any copyrights so issues before 1964 are OK, but 1965 would depend on if they had a copyright notice or not in the issues which printed the photo. It could be on the cover or inside, usually where they have the editor and printing information. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:44, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is this image, a submission from Wiki Loves Africa 2024 (Nigeria), a truly own work of the uploader or not? The speech balloon at the upper-left corner somehow disturbs me but, I would prefer a third-party license reviewer to "triple-check" this file. JWilz12345(Talk|Contrib's.)02:42, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Kakan spelar: Where exactly do you get that "Information and education only"? I don't see that phrase on the linked page, nor on the one linked as a source for the photo.
@Marchjuly Ok, I uploaded a copy locally to enWiki. The file is also used on deWiki, but they're going to have to sort that one out for themselves because I don't speak German. It turns out that permission is kinda-sorta-maybe possible for this file; the user who uploaded it appears to have a relationship with the company. However, the nature of the relationship was never fully disclosed, so as far as we know it could have been an over-enthusiastic intern with no authority to release the company's intellectual property. GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 07:15, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And, while I'm here, what's the Commons etiquette for adjusting the author parameter/licensing of works like this? The original uploader claimed Own Work (very dubious) and I know I need to correct that; what's the best way of making sure I attribute their scan while making authorship of the coin clear? GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 06:51, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good! The own work license is still very valuable, because photographs of coins can exceed the threshold of originality and attract independent copyright. We have {{Licensed-PD}} for this purpose, which I would use as {{Licensed-PD|1={{PD-Seychelles}}{{PD-US-URAA}}|2={{self|cc-by-sa-3.0|GFDL}}}}.
PS. Somehow, the formatting is a bit off on the GFDL template when inserted like that; it works better with {{self|GFDL|migration=relicense}}, but I guess that's not entirely accurate. Felix QW (talk) 07:46, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Felix QW That set up looks great; I'll add it in! Yeah, the entire photographing of a PD 3d work is one of those areas of copyright that gets super complicated, super fast, and I have to confess I'm more than a little scared of it. Even if the author got a bit confused about what counted as own work, I'm still happy they uploaded the picture. And thank you for responding so quickly! And thank you, Seychelles, for only joining the WTO in 2015. GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 08:34, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I watched several die shots now and am wondering now if they are copyrightable under some circumstances. Some may argue, this is only a scan or a identical reproduction just on a very smart scale (faithful reproduction), without own creativity effort. I am curious about this topic. What do you think?
I would say not. These are a simple utilitarian artifact of the design. They are not a creative endeavour.
Very high resolution images (which would have to be of tiny portions) might be regarded as a reproduction of a copyrighted work, at least in portion. But not whole-die shots for anything since the '60s. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:54, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They are also not subject to the normal regime of derivative works and other things like normal copyright. It's a different form of protection entirely. The photo may still be copyrightable on its own, though. Far from guaranteed and could well differ by country, but we might treat it as like photos of coins, where we generally will assume a photographic copyright. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:17, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Deletion of logos and flags of designated terrorist groups
What I'm confused about is why do the logos and flags of designated terrorist organizations get deleted? Because of the terrorist designation they are unable to fight in U.S. courts and many of these countries including Syria and Iraq don't have their copyright recognized in the United States. My main question is wouldn't the copyright of said organization be null and void? RowanJ LP (talk) 04:42, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We don't only demand works to be free in the US, but also in the country of origin. So even if countries such as Iraq and Syria do not have copyright relations with the US, we still ensure that any work from those countries is out of copyright in its hone country. Felix QW (talk) 08:30, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We've taken it upon ourselves to respect the copyright laws of the countries that these flags come from. And sometimes, copyright law can be used to censor groups that governments don't like, but we generally don't pick and chose which copyright laws of Iraq or Syria to uphold, we uphold all that we reasonably can per the COM:PCP principle. Also, in general, we abide by the principle that every person deserves equal protection under the law, and that includes terrorists and their copyrights. Abzeronow (talk) 00:41, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The information boards seem OK to me, as they present only some non-creative text. The mural might be problematic, but I would prefer to hear other opinions --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 08:52, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a possible problem in the description which is a verbatim reproduction of the description on Flickr? Although we commonly understood that the free license on the Flickr upload also extends to the descriptions, this concern may need to be addressed or reassured.
If this is true, then we may have been "license washing" through verbatim copying of such Flickr descriptions in the first place, since the years when I wasn't yet a user here. This may need some discussion as one important claim was made which may impact hundreds of thousands of Flickr imports, such as the image file I cited here (imported by @Hariboneagle927: )
I've found, as far as I can tell, the only known extant photo of a 1951 protest that happened in Barbados. The photo appears in a 1951 issue of the daily paper Barbados Advocate, and is not credited to any particular author/photographer. On the Digital Library of the Caribbean, the rights are listed as "Copyright Advocate Co.. Permission granted to University of Florida to digitize and display this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder."
My chief question is as follows: could this photograph be uploaded on Commons and used in an English-language Wikipedia article? If any clarifications are needed just ping me. Many thanks in advance for knowledgeable Wikipedians' thoughts. SunTunnels (talk) 02:14, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I should clarify that as far as I can tell, because it's a photo with unknown author, the Barbadian copyright would've expired after 2001. It's more the US side of things (URAA??) that I'm concerned about here. SunTunnels (talk) 02:15, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, I believe this would still be copyrighted in the US due to URAA. The URAA restoration date for Barbados is 1 January 1996, so it would still be under copyright on that date. Therefore, the US copyright term is 95 years after publication (Hirtle chart) which would expire on 1 January 2047 (1951 + 95 = 2046; term extends to the end of the year). Anon126 (✉⚒) 04:16, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The seal is public domain obviously, but the photo may have a copyright. Even though it's mostly 2-D, I think our policy is that photos of coins may still have a copyright (and that is similar). Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:17, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Copyright status of literature by Yakub Kolas post-1928
Hi, I am relatively new to most things related to managing content on Wikipedia and its other subsidiaries, so I apologize if any of my questions seem uninformed.
That being said, I felt inclined to resume a personal project involving translations of Belarussian writer Yakub Kolas, only to find that File:Drygva_1934.pdf was recently removed along with a set of books authored by him subject to deletion due to copyright concerns. The deletion request suggests first that these titles were not in the public domain as per Law No. 370-XIII of Belarus of May 16, 1996 (with revisions) on Copyrights and Neighbouring Rights presumably because the author died in 1956 and that the works were not PD in Belarus in 1996, even though the posthumous 50 year extension would indeed transfer the works into PD in 2006.
I've also been struggling to find a source that ties books by Yakub Kolas post-1928 to any sort of US copyright as the deletion request suggests, in part because I have not been able to reliably use the US government's copyright database. Nevertheless, I am surprised that US copyright claims exist for a series of books that have never been translated to English, and whose closest lendable Slavic equivalent written in Polish resides six thousand kilometers across the Atlantic. Never mind that websites such as CoolLib distribute these copies online free-of-charge, I'm more curious about the legal issue surrounding the PD status of works like Drygva (1934).
So I come forward with three questions that at the very least should serve to correct me for skipping any details that the editors deemed sufficient for deleting Drygva (1934), among other titles:
See Commons:URAA-restored copyrights. By rules of the Berne Convention, the US had to restore copyright to non-US works that had lost copyright in the US and were still in copyright in their source nation. It's sort of the point of the Berne Convention that works that have no US connection still have copyright in the US. Since the US doesn't have the w:en:rule of the shorter term (and note that a number of countries are listed on that page as not having the rule), these works get the full 95 years from publication that any US work would get.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:00, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
E.g. Turkey is life+70 and the works of Yakub Kolas will be in copyright there for another couple years. This doesn't matter on Commons, as we only care about the US and source nation, but the end of Belarussian copyright didn't mean end of copyright everywhere, or even everywhere outside the US.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:04, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The US law is called URAA or en:Uruguay Round Agreements Act which automatically restored U.S. copyright on all works that were still in copyright for many countries on January 1, 1996. URAA was the U.S.'s way of complying with the Berne Convention in regards to foreign copyrights (since before 1978, our copyright law required copyright notice and registration). Generally files deleted because of URAA are not restored by UDR until U.S. copyright has expired. Abzeronow (talk) 00:05, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the swift responses. It's unfortunate that these had to be removed, but I'm glad there is a valid reason for it. Cheers! JirroZ (talk) 00:45, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Are the pre-1927 works of the eminent cartoonist David Low (died 19 September 1963) protected by copyright ? His earliest works were published in his homeland New Zealand. Between 1900 and 1919 he worked in Australia, producing many caricatures for The Bulletin. From the information given in an earlier version of the upload wizard, I am unable to upload copies of this early work due to his comparatively recent death, but not according to the later upload wizard or from my reading of the Wikipedia article on Copyright law in the United States. Doug butler (talk) 02:05, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Doug butler. Commmons requires that the content it host be within the public domain in both the US and its country of first publication. If the publication dates you're giving are correct, then these could be {{PD-US-expired}} under US copyright law, but whether they're OK to upload probably depends on whether they were still eligible for copyright protection in their country of first publication per COM:Australia#Non-government works. Since Australian copyright law allows works to retain their copyright status for 70 years en:post mortem auctoris (p.m.a), it would seem that they would still be protected under Australian copyright law until January 1, 2034 (the p.m.a. countdown starts at the begining of the next year following the author's death, i.e. 1963 + 1 + 70). I might be completely wrong here, but it seems that they can't really be uploaded to Commons until that time. Now, having said that, if these are within the public domain under US copyright law, then it might be possible to upload them locally to English Wikipedia under a en:Template:PD-US-expired-abroad license because English Wikipedia is only governed by US copyright law. In a sense, they are treated as "US only public domain" files for use on English Wikipedia, and thus aren't required to meet Wikipedia's non-free content use policy. You can find some examples of files licensed as such at en:Category:Images published abroad that are in the public domain in the United States. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:33, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
.svg/15px-Pictogram_voting_comment_(orange).svg.png)
Comment Just to put in context: The quote comment is the answer to this question, nothing else. I didn't evaluate the CR status because I'm not French speaker and it was not requested anyway. --Ganímedes (talk) 10:54, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
Info The French Ministry of Culture bought in 1989 the negatives and client records from 1934 until 1979. Later in 1991 during the bankruptcy of Studio Harcourt the Association française pour la diffusion du patrimoine photographique (AFDPP) acquired the negatives from 1980 until 1991 [3]. The source gives very precise dates on the acquisitions, so it might even be possible to find public records about them. Günther Frager (talk) 18:36, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
.jpg){kind=link}
![[5]](https://www.weather.gov/images/iwx/events/1965/palmsunday/images/other/elkhart_truth.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.svg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}