Commons:Deletion requests/Maps by 52 Pickup

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[edit] Maps by 52 Pickup


See also Commons:Deletion requests/IEGMaps


These are all of the map images uploaded by me while I was active here. They are derivative works, where the original map data ultimately came from http://www.ieg-maps.uni-mainz.de.

There are other maps like this by other uploaders here (see old deletion request above, i think there are even more than listed there, too) and since they were also IEG derivatives, I thought that it was okay to upload the above images - although I believe I was the first person who actually stated the link to IEG, with the necessary attribution as requested on the IEG site [1]:

Es wird darum gebeten, dass auch bei der Erarbeitung neuer Karten (z.B. von Diagrammkarten), die auf Grundlagen-Karten des Servers beruhen, auf die Quelle IEG-MAPS - Kartenserver am Institut für Europäische Geschichte Mainz hingewiesen wird.

And I thought that then everything was kosher, especially since the use is apparently non-commercial - something that I now doubt after having left WP, but that's another story.

I quit WP over a year ago. During that time, the above deletion request was made. Since I was no longer active here, I only saw the deletion notification by chance. I made my comments [2] and then left again, not following the remainder of the debate since I had nothing else to say, and left the decision to delete with the admins. In the end, nothing was deleted.

Today, just out of curiosity, I went back to the IEG site to see if I had missed anything in the terms and conditions. Indeed I had:

Für die Veröffentlichung von Karten (Druck oder elektronisch) ist eine kostenpflichtige Lizenz für die den Karten zugrunde liegenden digitalen Grundgeometrien notwendig.

So for the geodata that governs the borders, a licence fee should be paid if you want to publish the maps (in print or electronically) - and that is even for derivative works. If I had noticed this before I would never have uploaded anything. This was a stupid mistake of mine, for which I can only apologise. I am still no longer active here but I wish to undo the damage that I have done.

Therefore, I insist that all the above listed images uploaded by me be deleted immediately as copyright violations. 52 Pickup (talk) 08:14, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Symbol keep vote.svg Keep Those restrictions are not copyright restrictions. Coordinates cannot be copyrighted. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 17:07, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Ridiculous killer argument - Then NO single map or geodatabase could be copyrighted. The same way I could argue: Books consist of collections of letters and therefore cannot be copyrighted :) Again: maps don't represent just simple collections of coordinates (facts) - instead maps are a always a result of surveying, remote sensing, digitizing, investigating etc etc - thus contain a lot of creative work (even maps with border lines).
Even if we would see them as geodata (pure coordinates) then there are still database copyrights to be applied. Look at the discussions going on at Openstreetmap.org - then you'll get an impression of the difficulties in finding free mapping sources.
Anyway, I don't know whether it makes much sense to open up the discussion again. Unfortunately Users like 52Pickup might have some problems because of the Terms-of-Use-Violations been made while copying these maps. --Alexrk2 (talk) 20:26, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
If a good-faith uploader faces legal problems, a courtesy deletion will not be a big problem, in order to "clean" the user account. (However, images might then be re-uploaded by a sock, if the copyright claim is seen as invalid.) --Túrelio (talk) 20:30, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm not facing any legal problems, but I want to avoid future ones for a mistake on my part, even though I no longer have anything to do with WP or Commons. No loose ends. 52 Pickup (talk) 11:05, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Openstreetmap.org can have its own standards, but we do not need to apply them here. This case is similar to Commons:Deletion requests/Norway maps by user:Jensens. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 22:42, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Maybe, I've no expertise in maps/map data. However, I really don't like the tune of Yann's closing statement. The next logical step then is the (at least apparent) desinterest of the WMF in Dcoetzee's problem. --Túrelio (talk) 06:27, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
So everyone making his own law (standards)? That's dangerours relativism. Commons should have legitimate interests in achieving legal certainty. And the law is for Commons the same as for me or for OSM. Not? We won't copy maps from eg Google Maps either. But the only difference between Google and those cases is: Google has more money for lawyers. The overall consequence of such relativism is that the rights of small content providers would be regularly harmed. The standard you mentioned thus based on the motto "They can't defend themselves so lets ignore their copyrights" - btw at least in Germany there are severall court decisions about that copying or digitizing maps does harm database copyright - because the map itself contains a geodatabase. If it would be allowed to copy any map, no map maker could produce a map anymore - like no author could write a book if books couldn't be copyrighted. However, I fear Túrelio is right: even if Commons would delete files just because of TOU-violations, other "not so good-faithed" users would re-upload them again. I don't like the consequence either: once a file has been uploaded, the uploader has no chance to withdraw them. --Alexrk2 (talk) 08:42, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
PS: the law in Norway might be different than in Germany or US (I don't know). Just because in Norway something might be legal, it does not mean, that it is safe to upload to Commons - instead it just means, it is safe to upload to NO-wikipedia. Commons looks for a more common legal basis to comply with various countries. --Alexrk2 (talk) 08:57, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Pictogram voting comment.svg Comment I'm in negotiations right now with the Institute of European History to donate various parts of their map collection to Wikipedia (see here) and replace these files. Their interests basically are a) referencing the true authors at the file description pages and b) preserve the original quality and accuracy of the data (within the present maps there are some errors due to the process of copying) --Alexrk2 (talk) 20:26, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

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