Commons:Deletion requests/2009/07/01

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository

[edit] July 1

[edit] File:Khadijaqalanjo.jpg

At the 1970/1980s, according to COM:L#Somalia the copyright office was recording, so this image was in copyright once and is not covered by the selected license Template:PD-Somalia. Martin H. (talk) 12:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Of course the image was once in copyright, just like many images prior to the 1920s were as well once copyright-protected in the United States, for example, before falling into the public domain. The image, however, is no longer in copyright because there is no longer any copyright protection following the outbreak of the Somali civil war in 1991 & the destruction of the copyright office (similar to the copyright situation in Afghanistan, another war-torn country). The COM:L#Somalia you cite also makes this clear. Middayexpress (talk) 16:12, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Maybe the whole thing is missleading. The linked "Copyright office" http://www.wipo.int/members/en/contact.jsp?country_id=160 is for patents and trademarks, other intelectual property rights, creative works, are not mentioned. Any other copyright law pre 1990 is not mentioned, the authors copyright is not null and void or affected by the war in any way if their is no obligation to register and renew copyright. The difference to Afghanistan is, that they never had a copyright law - thats not profen for Somalia. --Martin H. (talk) 17:40, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the patents and trademarks section you mention on the World Intellectual Property Organization website is only cited in the bottom half of the country's profile page. The top half clearly cites the "Ministry of Culture and Higher Education, Copyright Office"; in other words, the national copyright office. WIPO states it no uncertain terms that the "last information communicated" was in November 1986 i.e. that was when the copyright office was still extant. Somalia has had no copyright relations with other countries since then, the United States included. If you prefer, here, in addition to one link in English, are two other links in two other languages from the same organization that explain the copyright situation in Somalia, and all of these links strictly deal with the copyright office (1, 2, 3). Finally, contrary to what you claim, war-torn Afghanistan just like war-torn Somalia once did indeed also used to have copyright law. But that too has fallen by the wayside in the wake of the conflicts there. Middayexpress (talk) 06:44, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

The former Copyright Office of Somalia did cover creative works, the most famous example being the Somali government's refusal to allow the publishing of R.C Abraham's Somali-English dictionary in the 60s.[1]. Somalia is neither a member of TRIP or the Berne Convention and the Office of Copyright is defunct and it's laws no longer cover Somali intellectual property originating in Somalia. A good example would be the old government text books digitized by Indiana University long after the collapse of the central government[2] --Scoobycentric (talk) 18:17, 1 July 2009 (UTC)