Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2016/12

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Promo single from France

The promo single of David Bowie's "Station to Station" was published to radio stations in France. What is the copyright status of the vinyl label in France? --George Ho (talk) 05:25, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Uploading image of 1992 university student newspaper article, not available on internet

Hello, I'd like to use scanned images for a 1992 student newspaper article. It is from Univ Wisconsin Whitewater newspaper, "The Royal Purple." Neither the university not the student paper have this media available on the internet. Is it considered copyrighted? Is there a work around? Such as creating a text transcription? Uploading the scanned images on another photo db site and linking to it? Best to get permission from the current student staff to use here? BTW, I live more than 100 miles from UWW, my alma mater and don't know any current students FWIW. I did just email for permission. Any assistance is appreciated. Eschermerhorn (talk) 21:13, 2 December 2016 (UTC)eschermerhorn

It is copyrighted -- everything these days is automatically copyrighted for many decades (in the U.S., it would be copyrighted for 95 years from publication -- unless a named author, in which case it would be their entire lifetime plus 70 more years). So... for Commons, we would need a license from the copyright owner. There are no workarounds here. If something qualifies under en-wiki's fair use guidelines, it could be uploaded there as fair use. If you think you are within your rights to publish the material on a website elsewhere, you may be able to link to it as an external link from an article, though other editors would need to agree it was relevant. If uploading to a website elsewhere is a copyright violation, it is a bad idea to link to it. Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:31, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Logo of Gee Records

Is the logo of Gee Records copyrightable? --George Ho (talk) 07:49, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

New law in Argentina. all goverment work on free?

Hi! Last month a new Law for access to public information for the national goverment of Argentina was approved in Congress. The 1st article proclaim "the information should be accessible on open electronic formats, which facilitate it proccessing by automatic methods, allowing to be reused or redistribution by third parties.", 2nd article "(...)its includes the possibility to search, access, request, receive, copy, analyze, reprocess, reuse and freely redistribute information (...)" complete law text in spanish. And there is a list of organism and agencies obligated to it. Basically everything complies with free work. So should be okey to have a PD-ARGov, like the PD-USGov? --Mauricio V. Genta (talk) 04:26, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

On the face of it, that looks like something more of a freedom of information law than anything specifically relating to copyright. Freedom of information laws typically apply to all public records (regardless of author), whereas for something like PD-USGov we would need a law which specifically mentions copyright (or author's rights) and disclaims that right for works authored by the government. Does that law mention copyright anywhere? Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:51, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
Not, it doesn't mention it, but during the discussion of it, they considered photos, maps (CAD), etc made by the goverment to fall into this free usage. In the Buenos Aires City, the new freedom of information law (i contributed in it) includes explicitly "photos" for this intention. On the exceptions it says "d) Información que comprometa los derechos o intereses legítimos de un tercero obtenida en carácter confidencial", whichs means "Information that compromises the legitimate rights or interests of a third party obtained on a confidential basis". Here, i can legally use everything that come into a public bidding, that means, maps, photos, diagrams, etc. (which is my intention whit this query). Cheers! --Mauricio V. Genta (talk) 00:33, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
These are fairly standard parts of freedom of information laws (all the types of records), though the usage part does go a ways beyond, and is quite cool. But unless it explicitly disclaims all of the rights represented by copyright (adaptations etc.), I'm guessing folks here will not consider it equivalent to a free license. There is definitely some copyright overlap in all of this (as with most freedom of information laws) but if it truly completely pre-empted copyright, you'd think that would be mentioned somewhere. The main question is there any usage of these works which could still be a copyright violation? It is possible that courts could rule it effectively bars copyright (similar to the rulings in Florida), but... we may prefer to actually have such a ruling before assuming it. Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:21, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
Looks promising about the re-use part. Is there a link with the considerations, or the debate you mentioned? --Hannolans (talk) 22:41, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
Regrettably no, the debate was made mainly in committee sessions and the Congress only make shorthand (taquigráficas) of the sessions in the chamber of deputies and senator. Anyways, i'll try to get the opinion of legislator and copyright lawyers if i can. (http://www1.hcdn.gov.ar/sesionesxml/item.asp?per=134&r=6&n=15 shorthand of that session). Basically, the idea is to do whatever with want with that information and exceptions are about personal information and goverment secrets. --Mauricio V. Genta (talk) 03:06, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

File:Todd anthony tyler 2017.jpg

Hello, I am in the middle of trying to get an image cleared for use in Wikipedia. I have had the file File:Todd anthony tyler 2017.jpg 

deleted because I was missing a assignment of copyright permissions letter. I now have the required permissions and I want to know how to submit an OTRS requesting reinstatement - sorry if this sounds silly but I cannot find the area that tells me how to do this.Neil Kindness (talk) 00:18, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
Commons:OTRS has instructions including the email address permissions-commons@wikimedia.org Dankarl (talk) 02:47, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Image of the alphabet

Hello. I have a question about uploading images to Commons. So, I have found a page from copyrighted book (was published in 1990). This page contains a list of Tibetan and Arabic letters, used for Balti language. Can I cut out this list und upload it to Commons under the following license? {{PD-script}} And can I upload other similar lists of letters under the license, which was mentioned above?

The page from the book, which contains a list of letters, is in this file (page 2, figure 2). Other page from the copyrighted book, which contains a list of Bengali letters for the Kokborok language (page 5, figure 1). — صلاح الأوكراني (talk) 14:05, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

The alphabet as well as standard typefaces are not copyrighted. So, I guess that you can. Ruslik (talk) 16:29, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

PD-Turkey

IMHO we should add Turkish copyright law states that laws, rules, regulations, notifications, circular letters and juridical decisions which are officially promulgated or announced are not protected by copyright. to the PD-Turkey template. I don't think we need a separate template for PD-TR-GOV. Thoughts? --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 01:04, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

What is the practice with other countries? Ruslik (talk) 16:32, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
Many are split up into two tags, but there are some that are combined. In general I thought the direction was to make more specific tags (e.g. prefer PD-US-no_notice instead of a more catch-call PD-US) so that users in other countries have a more specific idea as to why a work is PD and can make better determinations. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:13, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

File:Vodafone Logo klein.svg

This file is licensed as {{PD-textlogo}}. If that licensing is correct, then I am wondering whether en:File:Vodafone logo.png can be converted from non-free to PD using the same license. Vodafone's headquarters is in London, and the TOO for the UK tends to be lower than other countries, If the logo is not accpetable for Commons, then it might be OK as en:Template:PD-USonly and treated as public domain locally on English Wikipedia. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:08, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

This logo is just a comma, upside down. So, I think it may be not-copyrighted even in UK. Ruslik (talk) 16:33, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

File:Pugh2015.jpg

I think that this might be some kind of official photo based upon this press release and this news article. The article is dated after the file was uploaded, but the picture is described as a copyrighted campaign photo which means that it might not be the "own work" of the uploader. Not sure if this is a copyvio, but it seems like OTRS verification should be required. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:31, 7 December 2016 (UTC); [Post edited by Marchjuly to add a missing "this" to the first sentence. -- 00:07, 9 December 2016 (UTC)]

I actually agree. Ruslik (talk) 13:43, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for taking a look Ruslik. I have gone ahead and tagged the file with Template:No permission. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:07, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Contradiction between license and explicit licensing text

Hi all, I'd like to know what should be done with the videos from a YouTube channel with the CC YouTube license which, at the same time, includes the following text in the video descripcion: Queda prohibida toda reproducción en cualquier medio sin permiso expreso de www.segoviaaldia.es. Se permite el enlace directo del vídeo con el código de YouTube, en webs, redes sociales y blogs. Queda terminantemente prohibida la descarga del vídeo para cualquier uso. Se detectan las IPS de descarga para actuar en consecuencia.

That is:

Reproduction in any medium without the express permission of www.segoviaaldia.es is prohibited. Direct linking of the YouTube video by means of its code is allowed on websites, social networks and blogs. It is strictly forbidden to download the video for any use. Download IP addresses are detected to act accordingly.

Any idea? Thanks --Discasto talk 21:42, 7 December 2016 (UTC) PS: the channel is this one

I think it is better to avoid uploading these videos to Commons. Ruslik (talk) 13:46, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Do pre 1977 movie trailers fall under Public domain?

Hello to everyone. In these days I've noticed a copyright matter that may be interesting to discuss.

We have a category called Category:Film trailers which contains three main sub-categories: Category:Film trailer screenshots‎, Category:Film trailer videos‎, Category:Film trailers in the public domain‎. The latter two are a bit ambiguous, since most of the clips contained in "film trailer videos" are marked as in the public domain as well. Anyhow, the issue seems to be more than an archival matter.

Some frames uploaded in "film trailers screeshots" have been uploaded according to this (outdated? correct?) interpretation of the 1909 Copyright Act. The link is currently broken so I used an archive.org version. Quoting the aforementioned link, "the major argument [against the free interpretation] has been that the scenes from the film itself were protected by the copyright on the complete film. [...] Courts generally tend to back the copyright holder, since the Constitution has granted copyright holders rights to their works in order that they may prosper."

In fact, those scenes were actually covered by copyright when published as part of the movie. Futhermore, if the trailer only contains scenes from the movie, the trailer itself may be always considered a derivate work by a court. Thirdly, are we always sure that there is no copyright note at the end (or the beginning) of the trailer?

That website is pretty clear about the whole problem: "Recently, the Martin Luther King estate lost their lawsuit over the "I Have a Dream" speech when a Georgia court held that the dissemination of his speech to all the newspapers and the news cameras without a copyright notice on the written speeches which he had given to the news media before he made the speech, constituted publication without notice and therefore his speech was in the public domain. This is currently being adjudicated in another court of law which may rule in the opposite direction." [the text is in bold in the original text]. Anyway, this is only a single case.

During the years, many screenshots were deleted by different sysops (eg: 1, 2, 3, 4...), but many others are still there.

So, what should we consider as the most cautious interpretation here on Commons? My opinion is that the copyright status of those screenshots is sometime hard to be identified, it's in general still unclear and may change from a court statement to another (as seems to have happened in the past). Thus, uploading them in( Commons with a public domain tag (free commercial use, etc.) may be hazardous. --Lucas (msg) 04:40, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

@Lucas: If you have to ask on VPC, the situation is obviously not blatant enough to tag them for speedy deletion, so I have undone the 28 that were not yet deleted. If you believe they need deletion, please use a regular DR. Storkk (talk) 08:30, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
@Storkk: Yes, of course, thanks and please forgive my slowness. I have been sysop on it.wiki since the age of dinosaurs and used to revert any kind of action, it's not always easy to change this "mindset". :-)) Clearly, I noticed the issue after those requests (better said: because of them and because some of the older ones were accepted with no doubts). Due to the fact that I manage copyright matters every day, some doubts about the management of this particular field here on Commons have arisen in me. After this message, I planned to suspend the remaining deletion requests during this morning, so thank you very much for your faster and prompt action. :-) Any opinion about the general issue? --Lucas (msg) 08:46, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
No worries. I am not an expert, but my understanding is that film trailers are not necessarily derivative of the film itself, and (because?) they were often/always published before the film meaning they required a copyright notice in the US pre-1977. I have no opinion on creativeclearance.com's expertise, but do note that spreading FUD (if that is what it is, I haven't read the whole link) would appear to be in their financial interest. Storkk (talk) 10:37, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
Trailers of non-US films may not belong in Commons due to URAA. To determine public domain status, a trailer of a non-US film must be free in both the home country and the US. Trailers of non-US films published before 1923 may be free to use in the US, but determine their statuses in home countries. I'm saying this in general. Specific cases may vary. --George Ho (talk) 11:05, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
@Storkk: (thanks ;) Well, in this case the article is actually the opposite of FUD, the general tone is sort of a "we think [and want to think for economical reasons] that trailers usually falls under PD, but onestly this is far from being certain". :-)
@George Ho: I do agree with everything you say. But I am talking about pre-1977/post-1922 US trailers as well. To me the points are: 1. many scenses in the trailers were actually covered by copyright when published as part of the movie, so, can we publish them under PD? I don't think so, since there is no conclusive case law about this. 2. If the trailer only contains scenes from the movie (no new scenes), the trailer itself may be considered a derivate work by a court even without a copyright note. 3. Are we always sure that there is no copyright note at the end (or the beginning) of the trailer? Nope...
Many sysops deleted various screenshots of pre-1977 US trailers in the past, maybe it's the time to esablish a common guideline on this.
As you correcly say, "specific cases may vary", but I would say more: each case vary, and apparently there is no univocal case law. That's why I think that, generally speaking, keeping screenshots (and even full trailers) of pre-1977/post-1922 on Commons is hazardous. After all there are pending lawsuits about this very issue. --Lucas (msg) 13:01, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
Which pending lawsuits? Anyways... if there is material in trailers not present in the film, that is probably OK. http://chart.copyrightdata.com/ch10.html states basically that. For the rest, it can come down to lots of small details -- when (and if) was the trailer actually published, vs. when was the film itself published, etc. If the trailer was published first, that may have injected that material in the public domain, and the movie would not have been able to reclaim it. But the definition of publication could be very strange -- usually it was when films were sent to distributors and outside the control of the original proprietors. There was a such a thing as "limited publication" though which did not result in lost copyrights, which was publication to a limited set of people for a limited purpose with no right of further distribution. Often, trailers were distributed similarly to the films and would probably have the same publication situation, but not necessarily -- if a trailer was only exhibited in showings controlled by the proprietors, that would not be general publication. And if the trailer contains songs, or is itself derivative of a previous work like a novel, it could still be a problem even if it was publication without notice (as the derivative rights would still hold). Another case which dives into these areas (though with non-trailer publicity materia) was Warner Bros. vs Avela, which decided that the pre-film publicity material was generally published, and lost its copyright. However, using that material in conjunction with other elements could create a derivative work of the still-copyrighted character copyright which was created by the film itself (the publicity material was not enough to establish a character copyright), so many of the uses in that case were found infringing. But that does suggest that a trailer, if deemed published before the film without notice, might be OK. The MLK case you refer to above was indeed overturned, as broadcast is not publication, and the distribution of copies to the news agencies was deemed to be "limited publication" and therefore did not require a notice. The copyright in trailers can then get into complicated situations -- when was the trailer actually published vs. when was the film actually published (and the film may have been registered before publication, which would mean any trailer would then be deemed coming after the film). And on the other hand, copyright notices were required on all copies -- even if earlier copies had a notice, if notices cease on later copies, copyright was still lost. In the case of trailers though, a later-published trailer is more likely to be derivative of the character copyrights from a still-copyrighted movie, and thus not free to distribute. Still frames from trailers can also be a bit different, as there is little to no chance of being derivative of a song or literary work. So, stills from trailers which are not also scenes from the movie are on the safest ground. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:28, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Carl, you have precisely and punctually described the whole context. It's exactly what I wanted to write (your command of English saved me from having to write such an excellent description). This will be very helpful for those who want to deepen the matter like we did. My point is: considering this context, it seems a bit risky to keep frames and full trailers only because they are from "pre-1977 era". Looking at the aforementioned categories, many of those files seem to be uploded just because of this (pretty weak) chronological reason. Some of them were deleted, some of them are there. Should we check them all after the uploading? I'd rather think it may be easier and more effective to define a policy about trailer uploading. How would you (we all) write a template or tag to help users and sysop? Thanks. --Lucas (msg) 15:01, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
A tag would be difficult -- U.S. law is pretty clear, that if something was published without a copyright notice, it fell into the public domain. It should not matter if a movie was published later, which contained some of the (now public domain) scenes as the trailer. The primary difficulty is establishing "publication" for the trailer per U.S. law, so (outside of derivative work situations) it comes down to a community decision on the likelihood of that situation. Many of them probably did enter the public domain. Obviously, the uploaded works are not there solely based on date -- they are there because they are from before 1978 and also do not have a notice. The publication is being presumed at the moment. So, the question is more that does any doubt rise to the level of "significant doubt" per COM:PRP, or were enough of them in fact "published" such that it is more of a theoretical doubt, which we would not delete over -- instead, needing particular evidence for a specific trailer (such as a movie registration which predated a specific trailer, or evidence that the trailer was not published, etc.). For stills, I definitely think we would at least need to show they were also part of the movie -- trailer-only stills should usually be OK. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:36, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
FWIW, the following were tagged by Lucas as copyvios at the same time and I was not fast enough to undo them before they were deleted. They should probably live and die with the others depending on the outcome of this discussion: File:VicKayKissHuckstersTrailer1947.JPG, File:Hucksters1947TrailerChoice2.JPG, File:Hucksters1947TrailerChoice1.JPG, File:BonnieClyde67TrailerSitBumper.JPG, File:BonnieClyde67TrailerWBCredit.JPG, File:BonnieClyde67TrailerWilder.JPG, File:BonnieClyde67Trailer05.jpg, File:AdolpheMenjouHuckstersTrailer1947.JPG, File:ClarkAvaCuddleHuckstersTrailer.JPG, File:AvaGardnerAsJeanHuckstersTrailer1947.JPG, File:4inClubCarHuckstersTrailer1947.JPG, File:DeborahKerrHuckstersTrailer1947.JPG, File:GardnerGableHuckstersTrailer1947.JPG, File:EdwardArnoldHuckstersTrailer1947.JPG, File:HareAndVicHuckstersTrailer1947.JPG, File:GreenstreetAsEvansHuckstersTrailer1947.JPG. Ping deleting admin. Storkk (talk) 15:15, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
I generally agree with you, I just think I am only a little bit more "cautious" (not for me, but for the uploaders). :-) I mean: I am actually not sure that all the uploaded stills are there because of the lack of copyright notice, considering that this point is often not mentioned at all in the file's description (just by looking at those categories). Many of those stills seem to be there only because they were "published" with the trailer before 1977. But, as you know, this is not enough to makes them fall in the public domain. So my general question is simple: do we all think it's ok to keep stills/screeshots when they are not explicitly described by the uploader as "from a trailer without copyright note"? Second question (a bit more subtle): can we confirm that those specific stills are not covered by the movie's copyright? I think we all (including myself) should brainstorm about this point before uploading, keeping (or deleting) this kind of files. --Lucas (msg) 02:21, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Russia and unknown author

Aloha! Is there a specific provision in the Russian law regarding unknown authors? --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 00:20, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

As I remember this is 70 years after creation. Ruslik (talk) 16:30, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
@Ruslik0: Any source we can use? --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 19:13, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

contradiction

File:SKF SM 2015 Friåkning Illya Solomin Föreningen Solna Konståkning Foto Adrian Pehrson, Studio Emma Svensson 002.jpg: Web site says CC-BY 3.0, EXIF says ARR. Washing? --Achim (talk) 19:13, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

  • If the uploader is the copyright holder, just ignore the Exif (editing a web page when submiting contents is easier than modify the Exif). --Amitie 10g (talk) 20:04, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
    • Are you just speaking in generalities, or do you have some reason to suspect in this specific case that the uploader is the copyright holder? I concede I may have missed it. Storkk (talk) 20:13, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
Took a peek at the website of Emma Svensson, pretty big photographer. Is there a Swedish speaking OTRS member willing to contact the photographer? --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 20:26, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
In general, a copyright notice (or All Rights Reserved clause, which is basically the same thing as a copyright notice for Buenos Aires Convention countries) is not a contradiction with a CC license. If the CC license obviously came from the author, that should be find regardless of what's in the EXIF. In this case though, you do wonder if the website source was authorized to make that license in the first place, since they are not the author. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:30, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Do the Evolution promo CD by Pearl Jam

I found the image of a CD itself. The third image is a stand-alone CD without a case. Is uploading it okay? --George Ho (talk) 20:15, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

I think so. It is {{Pd-text}}. Ruslik (talk) 20:25, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

FOP violations at Disneyland Paris

I have just opened up 11 deletion requests (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11) regarding FOP violations of images from Disneyland Paris. There are still 23 more sub-categories of Category:Disneyland Park (Paris) that need to be checked and have deletion requests opened, and that's before even checking the other park. However, I thought it was best not to inundate the deletion request page and limit it to these 11 at the moment.

Some of the images that I have nominated for deletion are images of lanterns. I was wondering if this was a correct interpretation of FOP, since I would regard lanterns, such as this one, to be a work of art and part of a structure. Elisfkc (talk) 20:58, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

@Elisfkc: To be honest, I'm dubious that France's limited version of FOP applies at all to such things at Disneyland. I doubt that the interior of the park (which is private property where you have to pay for admission) would be considered a public space. Reventtalk 16:38, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
@Revent: True, but it seems that for the purpose of theme parks, we have an unwritten/unspoken policy of ignoring the private property issue or COM:PRP with argument 2 and/or 3. Otherwise, every image taken in a theme park from an unofficial source would need to be deleted. Elisfkc (talk) 18:55, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
In the absence of FOP in France, there are 3 things to consider, which could allow an image to be on Commons: 1. to have a copyright, the item needs to have some originality (a lantern is an age-old item which does have a copyright, unless it has a very fancy design). 2. if the image is not focused on any particular item, but is a general view, then each copyrighted item is de minimis, and the image is OK ; 3. if the copyrighted item is unavoidable then it is accepted as an exception (cf. judgements about the Terreaux square in Lyon, and the Montparnasse tower in Paris): a common example is the Louvre pyramid in the middle of the Napoleon square. Also vehicules do not have a copyright. Art works on vehicules might not be OK, depending on the angle of view, etc. I believe there are some similar exceptions in many countries. Yann (talk) 22:18, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Derivative of my work in local paper

Have a look at the photo in this article (the artists impression near the bottom): http://www.southportvisiter.co.uk/news/southport-west-lancs/plans-build-modern-home-top-12291347

This image is adapted from one of my own photos which I uploaded to Commons about 18 months ago (File:Water tower on Tower Hill, Ormskirk.JPG). I assume it would therefore be ok to upload here under the same license? PC78 (talk) 13:41, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

They appear to be in breach of your license, yes... but that does not mean their derivative work is automatically CC-By-Sa. I think your options are to contact them, either requesting them to adhere to the license by releasing the derivative work under CC-By-SA, or serving them a takedown request. Storkk (talk) 13:49, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
Terms of the license are: "If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original." Does that not mean that the license automatically applies, regardless of whether or not they declare it? PC78 (talk) 14:05, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
I am not a lawyer, and this is just my amateur opinion... it's similar to if VMWare were to allegedly violate the GPL, that doesn't make VMWare now GPL. Storkk (talk) 14:44, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
No, don't think it does. They are (possibly) committing a copyright violation by not following the license; declaring that license for their additional work is just one possible remedy. They could take it down, or negotiate a different license, or believe their use is within fair dealing and just leave it. Nothing makes it automatic -- I don't believe a derivative work actually has the CC-BY-SA license until the copyright owner of the derivative work actually issues it. Until then, the "must" in the license is only enforced by someone else's ability to sue. Looking at the article, it's likely that the prospective builder (or their architect) was the one who created the derivative work; since that might be considered a private use that could be fair dealing or otherwise OK. The newspaper may have obtained the image from the housing application instead of creating it themselves; that may also lie within their fair dealing rights (and they would have had no idea about the base photo's origin). I'd guess it would be more the architect who would be at fault, and not the newspaper. You could ask for credit (they should at least do that), but it may be difficult getting a completely satisfactory response (i.e. a CC-BY-SA license), and it's not a clear-cut copyright violation either. They have only used the top 1/4 of your photo, and replaced most of the middle of that with their house rendering. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:12, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
I'll note that taking it down merely stops future infringement; it doesn't cure the previous infringement. It can cut down on intentionality, but I'm guessing a court would be harsher on newspaper, since they are an ephemeral medium and they've already got the use out of the image. Still, IANAL.
Who did the image? If it's newspaper, you're more likely to get CC-BY-SA; if it was given to them by someone else, they'll apologize, but it would be much, much harder to get permission from whoever does own the copyright. I'm not sure of the legal status of derivative works, but that's going to be a legal minehole that I wouldn't touch.
I'd say it's a clear copyright violation, particularly given that there is the whole photo used at the bottom of the article. I think that most of the rules of fair use mitigate against it being fair use.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:02, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
If the image was done by the newspaper, I'd definitely agree -- but the article was about a housing application to the local council trying to preserve the tower, so it seems most likely to me that the image was provided by the prospective home owner to the town council, and (as the article discusses the plans submitted to the West Lancashire Borough Council) the newspaper probably obtained the image from the town council. If that is the case, an architect probably just used the image from here for the projected drawing for the client, who then used it as part of the proposal to the town. I did miss the full photo further down the article, somehow, so the "1/4" argument is incorrect. As you say, the end result is probably a technical copyright violation, but the odds of obtaining a CC-BY-SA license are remote and it is likely a legal minefield, with different aspects of UK fair dealing involved at each step. That would not absolve them of the moral rights though (sections 77 and 78 of UK law), so I'm sure you could at least get your credit added. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:49, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

File:Bristol alumni.jpg

Do montages like File:Bristol alumni.jpg need to have information provided for each photo being used? While I believe the uploader probably created the montage, it does not seem like they can claim each and every photo used in it to be their "own work". Moreover, while its possible that COM:DW applies since their is some creativity involved with putting which photo where, I don't think that necessarily means the rights of the photographers who took each of the individual photos are no longer relevant. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:44, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, such montages need information for each file used. They are derived from these files, after all. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:42, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
OK Jo-Jo Eumerus. What do you think should be done in this particular case then? -- Marchjuly (talk) 10:41, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
There are three basic options. Either you try to track down each of the images used, and add the licenses (if they exist) or start a DR (if they aren't compatible with COM:L). Other option would be to mark the image as lacking sources for the included images. Or start a DR for lacking sources for the included images. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:43, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Jo-Jo Eumerus. I was only able to find a few of the photos being on Commons, so I think I take this to DR to get more feedback. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:55, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

National Photographic Record and Survey (UK)

I have just been listening to Professor Elizabeth Edwards talking about early photographic surveys in Britain, and was prompted to examine the V&A archives of The National Photographic Record and Survey (NPRS) (search). There are just over 4,000 photographs with decent catalogue details, based on the V&A internal search engine, and I would like to do a batch upload of the lot.

My presumption of public domain status would be based on the fact that only official members of the NPRS were taking the photographs as part of the registered charity's official survey of British monuments (and cultural life). The purpose of the charity, founded by a British Member of Parliament, is described by the V&A as "project to create a national memory bank of Britain’s ancient and local customs, ceremonies and buildings". The photographs all date before or up to 1910. Interestingly this means they can be considered published as part of a National archive before the change of UK copyright law in 1911. It is therefore a reasonable assertion that photographers that were members of the charity, took part in the photographic survey with the intention of releasing their photographs for the public benefit, and that the photographs became the property of the charity to fulfil its aims.

The photographs were held by the British Museum (later to become the British Library), but they were not the copyright holders as far as I can determine. As part of the British Library's digitization, the photographs are now digitally hosted by the V&A museum online, however again this does not mean that the V&A have any claim of copyright.

My conclusion is that though the V&A have included "Image in copyright" against each image as a default on their web pages, without any explanation of why or who, it is reasonable to apply {{PD-old-70}} to the photographs as they were all published at least 106 years ago (the date of deposit in an open public archive), and where photographers are named, they can be assessed as having released their rights for the public benefit at the time when the photographs were deposited by them with the NPRS.

Any thoughts or strong counter-views about the batch upload? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 14:37, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

But if they were named photographers... then the copyright would have been restored to the full 70pma (even if the charity owned that copyright), correct? The photos originally expired in the 1950s it sounds like (50 years after creation), but the retroactive EU copyrights would have restored them if still within 70pma, I would have thought. I don't think publication matters one way or another for named photographers (at least for UK copyright). Of course, if the photographers died before 1946 (or 1947 soon) they would be OK, and I'm sure many of them are, if not all. But to use PD-old, we'd have to check on how long each photographer lived I think. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:39, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
I'm asserting that it is reasonable to presume members transferred copyright. Dates of death will be impossible to determine. --Fæ (talk) 16:04, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
I agree on that presumption -- but transfer of copyright does not change the term, though. The term is still 70pma regardless of who owns that copyright, per the EU directive. Dates of death will need to be determined, I think. We could certainly find information on many of them. w:John Benjamin Stone was the author of several it looks like, and he died in 1914. I see a reference here that a London architect named George Scamell lived from 1840 to 1927... not sure that is the same person, but could well be, and if so those are OK (though they did get restored and were under copyright briefly in 1996 and 1997, expiring again in 1998). Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:28, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
My understanding of UK law is that the 70 year term for an institution would be from the date of publication, as an institution has no date of death. In this respect transfer is more meaningful than other parts of Europe, such as France or Germany, where rights of authors cannot be transferred. --Fæ (talk) 17:02, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
As far as I know, UK copyright law defines the author in article 9 as the person who creates the work. The definition of the first owner of copyright is separate. Article 11 says: (1) The author of a work is the first owner of any copyright in it, subject to the following provisions. (2)Where a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, or a film, is made by an employee in the course of his employment, his employer is the first owner of any copyright in the work subject to any agreement to the contrary. The duration of copyright, in article 12, says: Copyright expires at the end of the period of 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the author dies, subject as follows. So, the duration of copyright is defined in terms of the author, the actual person, regardless of who the first copyright owner is (or subsequent copyright owners). The institution is not the author -- they are the first copyright owner, at most. The EU directive did have a clause (not implemented in UK law) which did say that in this situation (where an institution is the first copyright owner) the 70pma term should only be given if the author was identified on the first publication (otherwise the institution only gets 70 pd even if the author is later identified). However, the authors were identified here, so even if the EU directive had been implemented correctly, I think the terms would still be 70pma. Under UK law, the 70 years from publication term is only "if the work is of unknown authorship". These are not unknown authorships at all -- we have the names. So we'd have to find death dates, I think. I'd guess that most are OK, but we'd still need to find the dates. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:33, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
That's a pity, as that's too much work for me compared to other results I can get in the volunteer time I have available. I'll move on. Thanks for the viewpoints, I would have read the law differently in the regard of 'first owner', more as 'the owner' and presumed the author had meaningfully waived all future rights. --Fæ (talk) 17:42, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
If the copyright owner waived all rights, that would be different -- that would be PD-author. If that is the case, then the life dates of the authors would not matter, but it may come down to if there was any kind of statement to that effect... may be some differing opinions if not. Otherwise, PD-old-70 should be a safe determinant, and most of them are I'm sure. Is there a list of the photographers? I see the site does have life dates from some, and the ones I see so far are OK. I could see if I could figure out some of them. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:33, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
For one example, the photos marked by "Mr. H. J. Malby" are actually by Henry Thomas Malby, who lived from December 1845 to March 1928, so those would be fine. There are 40+ of those. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:45, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps you would like to start a list with death dates in a working area, such as a thread on my talk page? I can do a mapping and upload run based on author searches on the V&A database, when there are a good number. --Fæ (talk) 18:54, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Sure, that'd work. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:27, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Category:Inflatable snowmen

Hi all. Aren't inflatable snowmen subject to copyright? I'd like to upload this picture and don't know whether it could be done or not. Thanks --Discasto talk 22:46, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

An inflatable snowman is likely going to be copyrightable as an artistic work. In addition, given that an inflatable character is usually displayed temporarily or as part of a temporary display, it is not likely that FOP will apply. At the same time, a photo where a copyrighted inflatable snowman is visible but also incidental to the scene as a whole may be permissible for Commons even though a close-up photo focusing on a snowman would be problematic. --Gazebo (talk) 13:42, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
Unfortunatelly I tend to agree with you. In the picture I mentioned, the inflatable snowman is not key at all (I'm not interested in the inflatable snowman, but in the restaurant façade) but I cannot claim it's incidental :-( --Discasto talk 20:46, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Sport clubs of Mexico as "recognized organizations" (again)

Considering that, at previous discussion (in spanish), there is no concensus about the sport clubs as "recognized organizations", I start this discussion again.

The Artículo 14. paragraph VII. f the Ley Deferal de Derecho de Autor says: 

Artículo 14.- No son objeto de la protección como derecho de autor a que se refiere esta Ley:

VII. Las reproducciones o imitaciones, sin autorización, de escudos, banderas o emblemas de
cualquier país, estado, municipio o división política equivalente, ni las denominaciones, siglas,
símbolos o emblemas de organizaciones internacionales gubernamentales, no gubernamentales,
o de cualquier otra organización reconocida oficialmente, así como la designación verbal de los
mismos;

Notice that the "recognized organizations" term is mentioned there, but it does not enumerate what are considered "recognized organizations" (that is not the scope of that specific law, but others). As I know, the following are considered as "recognized organizations":

  • Gubernamental organizations (federal, municipal, etc)
  • NGOs (national or internationals)
  • Educational centers (scools, universities, etc)
  • Sport clubs (as public organizations)

As I'm tried to find concensus, I have search for information about the status of the sport clubs of Mexico but unsuccessful. So, if there is any user from Mexico, please take the time to reseach this, it will be very helpful. --Amitie 10g (talk) 14:07, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

From the discussion you linked, it appears to me that Sport clubs aren't a "recognized organization". It was written: Las empresas y compañías no son, para efectos del artículo 14 fracción VII, "organizaciones reconocidas oficialmente" ya que no poseen tal "reconocimiento". A football club is "an empresa", i.e. a company or a firm. --Ruthven (msg) 21:42, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
I don't speak Spanish and I am not a lawyer, especially not a Mexican one. So take everything I say on this matter with not only a grain of salt, but with a salt shaker of it. But in my layman's reading of the words of the law, the part about "international government, non-government, and other officially recognized organizations" refers to international heavy-hitting organizations, not regional sports clubs. Maybe the national football league, maybe the Olympic Committee. But as long as we do not get confirmation from someone knowledgeable which organizations are meant by that sentence, we can not assume anything and have to err on the side of the PRP. Sebari – aka Srittau (talk) 22:00, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Srittau: "recognised associations" linked with Governmental organizations and ONGs are organizations working in a way or the other for/with the government or linked to it. I found in the Net, as an example, a veterans association. So, in the categories you linked, the files from a football club were kept for TOO. If there are some other file from a FC that have been kept just for PD-MX, maybe we have to do a cleanup. --Ruthven (msg) 08:51, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
Bottom line: Sport club logos are NOT covered by PD-MEX. They can be PD due to age or TOO, tho. Si? --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 00:43, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
This should be confirmed by a Mexican user; this is the purpose of this thread. --Amitie 10g (talk) 12:22, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
Actually @Salvador alc: confirmed that in the conversation you linked. Right? --Ruthven (msg) 15:41, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
Nope, he didn't confirmed it for Sport clubs. And also, we should distinguish between Public (created by organizations or the Government) and Private Clubs (created by private entities with juridic personality). --Amitie 10g (talk) 23:26, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Football clubs can be an "Empresa", they can be an "Asociación Civil", or a "Sociedad Anónima", or even a "Cooperativa". So it depends on the status they have (denominación jurídica), but they are generally a private company. Las empresas y compañías no son, para efectos del artículo 14 fracción VII, "organizaciones reconocidas oficialmente" ya que no poseen tal "reconocimiento": they do not fall under art. 14 as it will apply only to those companies that are related to the government somehow, e.g. the football club of the employees of a ministry; while professional football clubs are generally managed privately to make economical profit (con fines de lucro). --Ruthven (msg) 00:08, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
Don't forget to mention the Public School/University sport clubs like Club Universidad Nacional, that depends on the UNAB. Then, the Logo may be considered as PD in Mexico. --Amitie 10g (talk) 19:56, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
Exactly! So, falling under artículo 14 depends on the status of the football club. As a general rule, professional club logos shouldn't be considered PD, because these clubs usually work as a private company, but there can be some exceptions. --Ruthven (msg) 06:32, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Monroe and Miller, 1956

Can someone please review this photo of them? It shows the front and back. A search under the name of the photographer also came up blank for any year after 1978. Thanks. --Light show (talk) 19:15, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

@Light show: Not that it being on Getty means much (Bettmann is unlikely to have owned the copyright) but this is a cropped version of the image here. The caption gives the place, and the exact date is noted. Reventtalk 00:38, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
{futher) There is a better (unwatermarked) copy at https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/15517/97833783.d2f/0_12e872_e7b5f2fc_XXXL.jpg that could be cropped down if only 'yours' turns out to be okay. Reventtalk 00:44, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for reviewing. I assume the one I found is not the original, so can't be usable. --Light show (talk) 00:45, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
@Light show: If the wider version was published with notice, then the cropped version is also copyrighted. If the wider version was published without notice, that publication also placed the narrower crop in the public domain, unless it could be claimed that there was some degree of copyrightable expression in the cropping itself (dubious here). If the wider version was unpublished (and, really, our only indication of publication is that Bettmann somehow acquired a copy, and we don't know if it had a notice) and the cropped version was, then the status of the cropped version is independent. Reventtalk 12:46, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Copyright status for the "Great seal of Native American tribe Najaro"

Hi! I did a search the exactly copyright {{PD-US-no notice}} or {{PD-US-not renewed}} for the "Great seal of Native American tribe Navaro".-

First, it's Navajo or sometimes Navaho, not Navaro. The design of the seal is probably not copyrighted, but a particular rendition of the seal may be.--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:06, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
 Thank you. for your advice.- Best regards.--Pierre André (talk) 12:47, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
Pierre André, to be 100% sure, it would be best if you get a confirmation from "TGT Stickers" who made this. Regards, Yann (talk) 15:48, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
Yann The new site "TGT Stickers" .com is currently under construction. So I submitted the image via Facebook which is waiting for probation.. Best regards.--Pierre André (talk) 16:29, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Mercury flights with astronaut signatures

Hi, I came across this image in the NASA website. How can I check if it's free? Mercury flights with signatures Thanks Golan's mom (talk) 08:52, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

@אמא של גולן: The NASA page it's on (https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mercury/missions/spacecraft.html) attributes the image to NASA.
I actually happen to know 'for a fact' that the image is fine, because I recognize the drawing of the Mercury spacecraft (the only copyrightable bit). It's File:Mercury_capsule_with_escape_system_-_artist_concept_-_original.jpg (which I happen to have uploaded, lol). Reventtalk 13:06, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
@Revent: Thanks! so the fact that there are signatures does not effect the copyrights? Golan's mom (talk) 13:08, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
@אמא של גולן: The appearance of a person's signature can be copyrighted, but NASA is claiming 'credit' for the image as a whole (and the astronauts worked for NASA). It's similar to File:Mercury Astronauten.jpg... 'public relations' (including signing such items) was part of their official duties. Reventtalk 13:21, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
In the U.S., signatures are not copyrightable (unless someone puts in pictorial elements) -- see Commons:When to use the PD-signature tag. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:19, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
 Thank you. for your advice Golan's mom (talk) 15:35, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Copyright status of photos of car bonnet badges taken in the UK

Can anyone help with this please. I have nominated this image as a VI candidate. Two reviewers (Godot13 and Martinvl) have raised the question of copyright status. I have no expertise in this area, so am unsure whether the image contravenes the rules in this respect. I assumed it was OK because I photographed it at a public display of the car in the UK, but I am not so sure now. What I do know though is that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of similar images in the Category:Logos of automobiles tree. Any advice about whether this particular image is allowable, or not, would be very much appreciated. Thanks -- DeFacto (talk). 19:48, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't think I would like to repeat what others have said here. See COM:L. All the best. Wikicology (talk) 21:48, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the link, and yes, I should have mentioned here that I have taken the image to Commons:Deletion requests/File:Aston Martin DB10 Badge.jpg. DeFacto (talk). 07:03, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Files from the FAK website

There is a whole bunch of images that have been uploaded from af.wikipedia that originate from here The website says Kopiereg 2014 | Alle Regte Voorbehou which means copy right 2014; all rights reserved.

Jcwf (talk) 16:14, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Sometimes the copyright notice on websites does not determine the copyright status of every content in that website. Looking at the images, I am pretty sure that majority of them are in Public domain. Wikicology (talk) 19:11, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Category:Bowers Museum

Quite a number of the images in this category appear to be works of art found at en:Bowers Museum. Some look like paintings and others sculptures/carvings, and many appear to be quite old enough to be in the public domain. The museum itself is listed as the author/source of many of these photos, but there is no url provide for verification purposes. Many of them are uploaded as {{Cc-by-sa-4.0}} by someone who might be doing so on behalf of the museum based upon this Wikipedia Teahouse post, but I'm not sure if that technically makes this "own work". Is the licensing of these files OK for Commons? Does it need to be tweaked if the uploader is not the person who took the photos? -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:01, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Indeed a general permission is needed. I wrote a message to User talk:Susan M Anderson. Regards, Yann (talk) 14:47, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
Thank you Yann and Bluerasberry for all your help in sorting this out. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:24, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Does de minmis apply here?

I'm not sure if here we can apply De minimis. --Mhhossein talk 11:52, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Jo-Jo Eumerus: So, the file can't be left at this state and at the same time is not so problematic to be deleted? --Mhhossein talk 15:04, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
It's very borderline. I'd probably prefer to go on the safe side. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 15:37, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
Jo-Jo Eumerus: Deletion per PRP?
It has already been cropped; what's left is fine. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:48, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
Yes I see, however I think it needs to stay behind the "borderline", where it's located now. I think, by safer side, Jo-Jo Eumerus means "Pixelating or otherwise obfuscating the newspaper text." --Mhhossein talk 05:00, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
It's no longer on the borderline. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:29, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
Carl Lindberg: Jo-Jo Eumerus's comment was made two days after the file was cropped. --Mhhossein talk 11:10, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
In that case, I completely disagree with "borderline" then. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:07, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
The visible writing on the newspaper is not copyrightable. Even the subtitle to the photo on the newspaper, at eleven words, isn't really copyrightable, and it's also marginally visible. The text is irrelevant here.
When we're talking de minimis, we're always going to be talking about some place near the line, but I think the original was okay. (Fair use and de minimis are hard to work worth sometimes for Commons, since a court case will never really have to cut the distinction.) The current version, even with cropping to focus on the newspaper (which, Commons:De minimis says we don't have to worry about), would be hard to worry about as a copyright infringement. The original copyrighted elements are gone or obscured by the microphone.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:33, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
Prosfilaes: Thanks for the comment. Naturally, there might be different views in such cases. However, I would agree with you regarding the focused photo on the paper, if the microphone had stroke through the eyes. --Mhhossein talk 17:32, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
That's completely out of proportion with any of the cases cited on Commons:De minimis, none of which have such significant obliteration of a major part of the copyrighted image.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:45, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
Personally, I don't think that "a major part of the copyrighted image" is obliterated in this case. --Mhhossein talk 18:15, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
It's not the focus of the photo (a different meaning than "in focus"); the newspaper photo is incidental to me. I don't think it would have mattered what content was present on the newspaper -- the photo does not seem to be trading on that expression at all; it's just there. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:51, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Carl Lindberg: So, please see this to see what the policy page means by incidental. --Mhhossein talk 11:13, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
It means "incidental" as the law means it -- not strictly the same thing as de minimis but it many places it also avoids derivative work issues. Generally, that means of secondary importance -- it is not the reason the photograph was being taken. As another example, a photograph of a motorcycle was ruled as not derivative of the graphic design on that motorcycle -- the photographer was hired to take pictures of the motorcycle, regardless of whatever designs happened to be there or not. That was termed "incidental". The Ets Hokin ruling on the bottle was similar -- a photo of the whole bottle would not be derivative of the label. A French court case ruled a photo of a street with a copyrighted building in the middle was not derivative of the building -- the photo was of a wider subject, and the building was unavoidably there (even if a fairly prominent part of the photo). See Commons:De_minimis#France_-_Freedom_of_Panorama_.22de_minimis.22_exception (even if that calls it de minimis, it was labeled "theory of the accessory" I think by the French court, so our "de minimis" policy encompasses more than strictly legal de minimis but also "incidental" type laws as well). The term more speaks to if the expression in the underlying work is essential to the photograph, or at least intentionally included by the the photographer to enhance the photo. In this case, the photographer would have had no control over what was on the newspaper which the person is holding, and it is not reasonable for the newspaper photographer to claim derivative rights over every photo in which the newspaper happens to appear -- just ones which are making particular use of the expression in that newspaper. It's never cut and dried, to be sure, but the policy is to follow copyright law -- so please find court cases where such things were ruled derivative works. Given the sheer number of photographs which have been taken over the decades, if there are no such court cases, it's likely that such photos are OK. We don't try to extend our guess of copyright protection to areas which courts have never gone -- please find laws, or court decisions, or legal papers on such subjects. That is what the policy is based on -- they use particularly safe examples, but that does not mean those are the only OK ones. In my opinion, the crop is fine. The original was closer to the borderline, but even that is arguably OK, though more of an argument of intentionally including the newspaper. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:50, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
As far as I know, we never care if the author/photographer meant to show the questioned object or not. A copyrighted object just falling in the photo and covering a sensible area of the photo is a violation. We have to see if the copy right of the object is violated by the photo or not. The copy right of the depicted object will not be violated if the depicted object "takes up a small, insignificant part of the image, is entirely out of focus compared with the main subject, or is largely hidden in the background." Based on this policy based argument, which one is true for this newspaper? Does it takes up a small and insignificant part of the image? Is it entirely out of focus compared with the main subject? or is it largely hidden in the background? --Mhhossein talk 13:14, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
See Commons:De_minimis. That is not the standard we've used in the past, including on File:17723 EscherMuseum.jpg, nor the standard the French court used on something like File:Louvre at night centered.jpg. The sentence where you copied those words from is followed by "In other words, a court would not be quick to uphold a claim of copyright infringement just because a photographer happened to include accidentally and incidentally a copyright-protected poster." And at this point, we're talking about a picture where the front page of the newspaper and the image on that front page is basically gone.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:33, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

File:Screenshoot KInfoCenter.png

This is a generic screenshot of free software. Since I can't see how the uploader Dendy 10 (talk · contribs) added something original of his own creation, I think this should rather have KDE's {{GPL}} licence instead of Creative Commons. De728631 (talk) 01:33, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

I think that you are right. Ruslik (talk) 08:58, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
✓ Done Changed the license. --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 15:48, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

File:David_Earl,_portrait_by_Onur_Pinar,_September_2016.jpg

This file (uploaded by me) has been licensed after extensive correspondence, yet this morning I received a message on my talk page that it might be deleted because its copyright status is unclear. I don't understand this – can anyone help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Akasapriya (talk • contribs) 15:12, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

The file looks to have the appropriate license now. It looks like Ruthven added the license from the OTRS email. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 16:07, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
Yes I did. --Ruthven (msg) 16:33, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: ★ Poké95 04:04, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

File:Livermore_Centennial_Light_Bulb.jpg - was the image originally on Commons or Flickr?

File:Livermore_Centennial_Light_Bulb.jpg was originally uploaded to Commons by LPS.1 on November 23, 2013, according to its file page. The image was licensed as {{self|cc-zero}}; in other words, it was released into the public domain via CC0. On December 4, 2013, Umberto NURS uploaded a retouched version of the image with no different license specified. So far, so good. At the same time, it appears that the retouched version of the image is available on Flickr, having been uploaded by mayameschkuleit and with an "All rights reserved" license. mayameschkuleit's profile says that they joined Flickr in September 2016, though there is no indication as to when the image was actually uploaded to Flickr. From what one understands, if the original image was released into the public domain via CC0 when it was uploaded to Commons, then it is perfectly permissible for third parties to upload the image to external sites or to create derivative works of the image, among other things. The question is, was the image originally uploaded to Commons and then uploaded to Flickr (likely by a third party), in which case there should not be a problem, or was the image originally uploaded to a separate site, such as Flickr, and then uploaded to Commons? --Gazebo (talk) 13:35, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't know where the image was uploaded firstly. --Umberto NURS (msg) 14:32, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
You should ask User:Umberto NURS. Ruslik (talk) 19:45, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
The Flickr version you find is obviously from at least September 2016, years after the upload here. (Server date of the "original" on Flickr is September 12, 2016.) The retouched version obviously could not have come from Flickr first. What is the concern? Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:46, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
Basically, the retouched version was present both on Commons and on Flickr, and it was not clear as to whether the retouched image had been uploaded to Flickr and then copied to Commons by a different party, or whether the image had been uploaded to Commons and then reuploaded to Flickr by someone else. The image's Flickr page indicated that the photo had been taken on November 17, 2013 (possibly based on the EXIF data in the photo) but did not indicate precisely when the image had been uploaded to Flickr. Examining the server date (would that be the Last-Modified response header for the image itself?) did not occur to to me. (Assuming that the information about the Flickr user having joined Flickr in September 2016 is accurate, then the retouched image would have to have been uploaded to Flickr sometime after being uploaded to Commons on December 4, 2013.) --Gazebo (talk) 07:54, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
Yes, given that the account was not created until 2016, it could not have existed there first. (And yes, I checked the Last-Modified date in the HTTP header.) In general, for altered versions on Commons, it's virtually certain that someone took the original from here, modified it, and uploaded a new version -- if copying from another site, they would be highly unlikely to know of the existing version and upload under a different filename. Also, of course, the modifications in this case are highly unlikely to be copyrightable anyways, so it wouldn't have mattered even if it was on Flickr first. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:42, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
I apologize, I misunderstood the initial question: I've personally retouched the image uploaded here on Commons using MS Office Picture Manager. I hope I have answered clearly, this time. --Umberto NURS (msg) 23:54, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

1970s-1990s logo of Quincy Jones Productions

Is the 70s-90s logo of Quincy Jones Productions copyrightable? --George Ho (talk) 04:57, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Since it is an American company, may be not. Ruslik (talk) 09:03, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
You can use {{PD-Textlogo}} and {{Trademark}}. --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 15:47, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
Uploaded File:Logo of Quincy Jones Productions.png. --George Ho (talk) 06:34, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

File:Publication logo.jpg

The logo is created using just a few angled lines, rectangles and two colors (blue and white). The whole creation seems to be above Com:TOO. Thoughts? Thanks! --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 06:23, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

To me it seems like an imitation of a building. Probably creative enough to be copyrightable. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:06, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Banners during protests

I want to upload this photo. However, even the event occurred in the US, I must be cautious and ask whether uploading it is okay. --George Ho (talk) 06:28, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Seems OK. The exif data shows the same name for photographer and Flickr-user. The photograph is licensed {{Cc-by-sa-2.0}} Go ahead! --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 07:26, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Uploads by a particular user are all copyvios

Please see Special:Contributions/A.cherevets, the claimed licensing of all these images is false. Is Speedy deletion tagging used on Commons or is there a different procedure for reporting copyvios? Dodger67 (talk) 08:28, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

✓ Done Deleted and warned. Yann (talk) 09:01, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Football badges

Basically everything in this category (and the ones on top of it) is copyrighted material under the "simple shapes" licence template. Could we make a speedy deletion? --Fernando (talk) 18:22, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Some, like File:River Plate 1930 (2).png, are unambigiously PD-shape and very unlikely to be deleted. Even the more complex ones like File:RIVERNORMAL.png are probably still well below the threshold of originality for Argentina; this source says that "aesthetic features, originality, and novelty are necessary", and none of the River Plate images have much in the way of aesthetic features of originality. Of all the images in Category:Association football logos of Buenos Aires autonomous city and its subcategories, only one - File:Logo100AñosChicago.png - is very likely to be eligible for deletion.
In any case, speedy deletion is for unambiguous deletion - obvious copyright violations, advertising, etc - and not appropriate for subjects like this where there is a judgement call that may be necessary. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:47, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

All rights reserved on Flickr

I'm definitely missing something, or these images are all "All rights reserved". Author - Christopher Michel, Uploader - Matanya. Who, with more brains, will look at that? --Jos1950 (talk) 23:16, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

They have a License Review tag, so I suppose they had a free license in the past. Regards, Yann (talk) 23:22, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
Indeed. Here is an archived version of one of these Flickr pages from March 2016 which still has a CC-by-2.0 tag. So because CC licences are irrevocable the change to "all rights reserved" is actually irrelevant. De728631 (talk) 01:04, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks all. --Jos1950 (talk) 02:23, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Will tag all files in the category with {{Change-of-license}}. ★ Poké95 02:37, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Category:Roger Pic

Why exactly are the photographs of this French photographer, who died in 2001, uploaded as "public domain"? Is there some public domain dedication somewhere I didn't find? --Rosenzweig τ 00:49, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Please read the related links at {{PD-GallicaScan}}. --Amitie 10g (talk) 15:16, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
That is only about scans of public domain materials. These are photographs, and as the photographer died in 2001, his photographs are not in the PD for another 55 years - unless they were explicitly put in the PD by someone having the necessary rights to do that. I can't find any notice about something like this happening for the Roger Pic photos however; on the contrary, the BNF says here "Toute utilisation ou reproduction des photographies de Roger Pic est soumise à l’autorisation du département des Arts du spectacle de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, détentrice des droits." - which I think means that every use of those photos has to be approved by a BNF department. @Yann and Pmx: you uploaded some of the files, can you help? --Rosenzweig τ 15:28, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
Best I can find is Commons:Bistro/archives/janvier_2012#Statut des photographies de l.27Agence Meurisse, which mentions a document where the BnF claimed they had acquired the rights to Roger Pic's photos, and apparently they listed them as public domain on the item pages at the time -- seemingly meaning they owned the rights and placed them in the public domain. But now their pages have changed, saying they are restricted, and (per above) naming the original source as the holder of the rights. So... if the BnF had been mistaken about the transfer of rights and later corrected the pages, we may have a problem. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:58, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
Oh, wait... the above still says the BnF is the holder of the rights. So if they explicitly marked them public domain for a few years... they may not have been able to take that back. Unsure. I see archives of your link back to May 2014, but the photos were uploaded in 2011 mostly I think. For example, here is an archived link of the source of File:Brassens TNP 1966 f11.jpg, which does say "domaine public" (when clicking on "Informations détaillées" at the top right). The same source link today says something completely different under "droits". Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:16, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
Yes, the BNF originally said that these were in the public domain, as the photographer released all rights. Now if the BNF claims something different, I don't know how we manage that. I think the BNF now tries to claim some rights over these, but it can't revoque the public domain. Regards, Yann (talk) 17:22, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
So I guess if we want to keep the Pic images uploaded so far, we should make clear that the BNF declared them to be in the PD at some time, even if it claims different things now. How is this usually done? Just an explanatory text or some boilerplate template? --Rosenzweig τ 18:20, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
maybe a custom license as with the LOC template:PD-Bain, with a screenshot of the "Droits: domaine public" quick before they turn on robots? Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 18:36, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
That would mean a specific template. Is this what is needed? For now, I have added {{NoUploads}} to the Pic category. --Rosenzweig τ 18:09, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Logo of Philles Records

I want to upload this side label. Is the logo copyrightable or ineligible? --George Ho (talk) 18:57, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

The text PR Phillips records on the left hand side? IMHO just fonts, nothing copyrightable. --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 06:25, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
Please, go ahead to upload it. As Hedwig rightfully said, no copyright issue here. Wikicology (talk) 17:11, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Amusement park rafts

Vehicles, as utilitarian objects, are not generally copyrightable. What about rafts such as File:Bateau maison - 20150802 11h22 (10667).jpg, where the actual vehicle is likely not visible in the picture, and what we are seeing is essentially a shell, somewhat like a parade float? Is the salient point the fact that it moves like a boat, or am I missing something? Storkk (talk) 12:38, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi, There is no fancy design here. Everything on this boat is useful, i.e. no decoration. And the house behind is just a hut. Regards, Yann (talk) 14:33, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
I find that quite difficult to believe. It is explicitly made to evoke a certain feeling. That's a textbook definition of "art". Storkk (talk) 14:58, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
What's "difficult to believe"? What's "made to evoke a certain feeling"? Yann (talk) 15:12, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
Difficult to believe is your assertion that "there is no fancy design here". Storkk (talk) 15:31, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
What's there: a small boat which can navigate with 2 floors. The down floor has windows with shutters, and the rooftop has railings so that people don't fall over. All this is made with simple brown-painted wood. I don't see anything fancy or not useful here. I would even say it is quite difficult to be simpler without safety issues. Regards, Yann (talk) 16:34, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
Every car is made explicitly to evoke a certain feeling, like pretty much every other major utilitarian object. If you're looking at a Volkswagen Beetle or an iPhone 6, you're looking at something that had design to evoke the feelings the sellers wanted. I can't speak to French law, but it's a boat, not architecture, and thus not covered under US copyright law.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:15, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
I too think the boat is preliminary utilitarian. --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 21:17, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
My opinion was predicated on an apparently incorrect belief that these boats were more like parade floats, with a (possibly interchangeable) shell on top of a functional "skeleton" raft. I don't know where I got that idea from, they appear to be bone fide boats. If that had been correct, would the shell still be considered utilitarian? Storkk (talk) 23:22, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Deletion of a version

Hi,

Where can I ask for the deletion of a copyrighted version?

For example, in File:Moho-Chemlakh.jpg#filehistory the 2nd version contents https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gqkKnEwtrBY/SydULM142SI/AAAAAAAAHko/NdVQX2UI5OA/s400/24122004_095714_trust1-metz.jpg which can can be found around the web like in 2007 on http://lineuptrust.blogspot.fr/2007/01/mohamed-moho-chemleck-batterie.html

The second half, the 1st and 3rd versions' image seems never published online. So, only the 2nd version is a copyvio.

Again, where can I ask for a file history entry hiding?

Sincerely, --Lacrymocéphale (talk) 19:21, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

✓ Done To avoid the Streisand effect, we don't have a dedicated forum to request it. Here is usually fine unless privacy is a major concern, in which case you can use an admin's talk page or email them. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:37, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
No page dedicated to history purge but standard copyright pump and admin board; OK. Thank you @Pi.1415926535 for the answer and the hiding. --Lacrymocéphale (talk) 23:07, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Paintings by Onofrio Bramante

The author died in 2000, but perhaps these images fall under {{PD-Italy}} as "simple photographs"? --jdx Re: 03:36, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Absolutely not, they are reproductions of 2D copyrighted art. Without the permission from the heirs, they should be considered as published without authorisation. --Ruthven (msg) 08:21, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
See Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Onofrio Bramante. Yann (talk) 10:39, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

File:Calico Ghost Town.- Bell Lane Marker.jpg

Hi, What's the copyright status of the text? Regards, Yann (talk) 12:07, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Don't know, but they can be contacted at parks@parks.sbcounty.gov. --Rrburke (talk) 15:35, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
It's probably {{PD-CAGov}}. If not, then it would be copyrighted. The joint authorship possibility gives me pause. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 15:50, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

File:Turbo Basic ver. 1.1 screenshot.png

It was nominated for deletion and kept. But I'm not sure if it was the right decision. Sure, the text based interface looks very simple, but still it is copyrighted software. Also, shouldn't at least the frame of Windows' console be removed? On enwiki similar screenshot is under fair use: en:File:Turbobasic11 00.png. --jdx Re: 12:16, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

That deletion discussion was a while ago, prior to the Foundation's opinion on COM:TOO in the Bernie Sanders DMCA case. In that opinion, they set the threshold of originality extremely low, so low that three words of different colors were considered potentially copyrighted (although they said that was conservative). I believe all the creative elements combined in this make it above the threshold. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 16:01, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

File:Thích Quảng Đức self-immolation.jpg

I thought I would discuss this here since it may be controversial. I just uploaded this famous photo, because it was published in 1963. Copyright had to be renewed in the 28th year, but no record of the renewal exists. The Associated Press still charges for copies of the image though. Any thoughts? Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 22:58, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Hrm, AP might just be charging for high-resolution copies, but the copyright catalog has Muddy boots and red socks : a reporter’s life (1993) by Malcolm W. Browne. So there's a chance that the image was republished in this book with a new copyright. De728631 (talk) 23:15, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
I don't believe copyright can be renewed indirectly like that, but even if it were possible, it would have to have been renewed in the 28th year, 1991. That book was copyrighted in 1993. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 23:20, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
Does copyright have to be renewed on a specific year? Any renewals done prior to 1978 would not be available online. Regardless, I think the best course of action here would be to contact The Associated Press and ask for their stance. --Hammersoft (talk) 04:44, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
@Hammersoft: I've seen in a few sources that it can't be renewed early, but it's not a problem to look into the law itself and find a quote. I'll do that in a few minutes. I also don't think the Associated Press, as a big corporation, would make any statement that would potentially reduce any of their legal rights, even if it were true. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 05:03, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
@Hammersoft: I pulled up the Copyright Act of 1909, which applies to this photo. On page 10 of that pdf, around line 20, it says renewal applications can only be made "within one year prior to the expiration of the original term of copyright". The same language also exists at Commons:Licensing#Material_in_the_public_domain. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 05:14, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
Upon reading the 2009 update to the Vietnamese copyright law, I've learned that the copyright term in Vietnam for photos was increased from 50 years to 75 years after publication, making this copyrighted in Vietnam. I've updated the relevant templates and the Commons copyright rules page. However, I believe this is still allowed per Commons:Licensing#Interaction_of_US_and_non-US_copyright_law, because the image was first published in the United States for the Associated Press, and the policy states "The 'country of origin' of a work is generally the country where the work was first published." Thoughts on this? Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 05:45, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
I performed further research, and have found that it is in the public domain in Vietnam. The country of origin talk in Commons:Licensing was added because the Berne Convention requires countries to release works into the public domain once they are in the public domain of the country of origin. Article 5 of the Berne Convention says the country of origin is:

(a) in the case of works first published in a country of the Union, that country; in the case of works published simultaneously in several countries of the Union which grant different terms of protection, the country whose legislation grants the shortest term of protection;
(b) in the case of works published simultaneously in a country outside the Union and in a country of the Union, the latter country;
(c) in the case of unpublished works or of works first published in a country outside the Union, without simultaneous publication in a country of the Union, the country of the Union of which the author is a national

Since the United States adopted the Convention and entered the Union in 1989, and Vietnam in 2004, and Malcolm Browne is a US citizen, no matter how this is interpreted, the country of origin would have to be the United States, which means it has to be PD in all countries that follow the Berne Convention. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 06:46, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
Nothing more to say after reviewing this myself, I would have to agree with Ramaksoud2000 that the work is PD. Wikicology (talk) 10:39, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
I added geolocation, and requested deletion of the fair use image on enwiki. Regards, Yann (talk) 12:08, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
A few comments. @Hammersoft: -- yes, renewals were only allowed in the 28th year of copyright. For something originally published 1963, the renewal needed to come some time in 1991. (At one time, copyright expired on the 28th anniversary of publication, even if the middle of the year, and in that situation renewals needed to be from the 27th anniversary of publication to the 28th. Later the term was extended to the end of the calendar year, but per the old section 304, renewals had to be within one year of the expiration of the first copyright term.) So, any valid renewals of this should be online at www.copyright.gov. @Ramaksoud2000: -- as for "indirect" renewals by renewing a book the photo was in -- yes I think that is quite possible, provided the renewing owner also had a renewal interest in the photo. So, if this appeared in a book or periodical renewed by the AP or photographer in 1991, that could very well apply. A copyright notice on a collective work applies to all contained works; I'm not sure why a renewal of a collective work wouldn't do the same. I'm not sure I've seen an explicit ruling to that effect, but it would make sense. As for PD status in Vietnam -- not necessarily. The Berne Convention does *not* require a work to become PD once it is PD in the country of origin -- it simply gives countries the option to put such a clause in their law. EU countries do have such a clause, but the U.S. does not, for example. See w:Rule of the shorter term. Secondly, it's not clear that the Berne Convention would recognize expiration due to copyright formalities (which they do not allow) as part of their calculation of "shorter term" -- not sure that has actually come up in a court case yet. However, that is probably not relevant to Commons status, which would rest on the renewal. Renewal searches for photographs can be very difficult given that they could appear in a separately renewed work, or if titles of the renewed work has little bearing on the actual content (that does happen), etc. But if we can't find a potential renewal from 1991, it may be PD. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:56, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
@Clindberg: Thanks for chiming in. The reason why I said that indirect renewals probably weren't possible is because that book was originally published and registered in 1993, and the Copyright Act specifically references a required "application for renewal and extension". The U. S. Copyright Office also requires use of a specific renewal form. Thus, I didn't think that an original registration would count. And it's true what you said about the rule of the shorter term. I overstated the reach of public domain status. I was trying to express my understanding that the intent of the country of origin PD requirement on Commons was to facilitate the work being in the public domain in as many countries as possible, since a number of countries follow the rule of the shorter term. Interesting topics. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 06:30, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
Yes, a book first published in 1993 would have no effect. If it was in a book also published in 1963 though, and that book was renewed (in 1991), and the book renewal entity was also entitled to renew the photo, that probably would cover it. Some years, the AP published a yearly anthology of some of their stuff, and those were sometimes renewed. But even for a book published in 1964, they would not be able to file a renewal until after the photo would have expired, so I don't think even those would have an effect (let alone something published decades later). Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:33, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Files from Narendra Modi's Flickr feed

There are currently 1458 files on Commons sourced from Narendra Modi's Flickr feed. The Commons files list Mr. Modi as their author, which is not possible as he appears in all of them. Presumably these photos were taken by official photographers, and are likely Government of India works. Any uneasiness about the copyright status of the images, despite what their Flickr licenses say? And to whom should they be credited? --Rrburke (talk) 12:43, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Works of the India's government are not generally free. So, the images are copyright violations unless the correct permission is provided. Ruslik (talk) 19:08, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
Permission is provided on Flickr. So unless we have some proof that these files are not made by Modi's staff, I don't see any issue. Regards, Yann (talk) 19:20, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
The government is likely the copyright holder, regardless of who the actual photographer was, so they would have the right to license them. If the government released them under a CC license, there should be no issue. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:03, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
Ruslik, most publicity photographs by the Press Information Bureau, Government of India are now free. Whether Narendra Modi owns the copyright is a different issue. Jee 07:41, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Files from the National Museum of Natural History's collection

Is this image (from here) and others like it from the National Museum of Natural History's collection free? The rights holder of the image is given as "National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution"; under "Rights" it reads "Unless otherwise noted, this image or its contents may be protected by international copyright laws," and it's not "otherwise noted". Would uploading this image be a copyvio, or is the image in the public domain as a work of the US government? --Rrburke (talk) 12:57, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

The copyright probably belongs to Smithsonian Institution as it looks like a photo of an exhibit from the museum made by staff. So, it is not free. Ruslik (talk) 19:05, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
Original works of the Smithsonian are not PD-USGov? --Rrburke (talk) 00:23, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
If they are made by a federal employee of the Smithsonian (most are) as opposed to one paid by their trust fund, it should be {{PD-USGov-SI}}. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:00, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
So if the rights holder is given as the NMNH, is it safe to assume that the photograph was taken by an employee, or is that not conclusive? I'm also concerned by the fact that under "Rights" it reads "Unless otherwise noted, this image or its contents may be protected by international copyright laws," and it's not "otherwise noted". --Rrburke (talk) 12:35, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

William Stout / Seattle City Archives

File:Science Fiction X-Po program, Seattle 1979 (31626922645).jpg

Just wondering on this one whether it can possibly be OK. The Seattle City Municipal Archives are usually quite careful to put stuff under CC licenses only if they have the correct rights, but they don't tend to explain themselves. For this one, they put it on their Flickr stream with such a license. (For things they put on their Flickr stream that have copyright issues, they will normally tag as "All rights reserved".) But on the image itself I see "©Wm Stout", presumably William Stout. Should I trust the Seattle City Municipal Archives to know what we are doing, or should we delete this under the precautionary principle? - Jmabel ! talk 18:58, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

@Jmabel: Could be a mistake by the archive. My guess is that http://www.williamstout.com/ is the guy. Do you want to initiate contact or do you want me to? --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 20:57, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
Hedwig, feel free to pursue it. By the way, when you contact him, if he doesn't want this free-licensed, please let him know he should tell the Seattle Municipal Archives! - Jmabel ! talk 00:35, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
✓ Done Waiting for reply. --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 08:25, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
Deleted, the author didn't release the work. I told him where to contact the archive. Dang. :-( --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 19:10, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
Too bad, but I can't say surprising, that's why I brought the matter here. First time in a while I've seen the Seattle Municipal Archives get one wrong like this. I wonder if they have someone new doing their Flickr postings. - Jmabel ! talk 19:14, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Copyright on historical markers created by the state of Georgia

Several of my photos of historical markers made by the state of Georgia (US) have been deleted, claiming a copyright violation. One of them is File:Gully Hole Creek, St. Simons, Georgia, USA.JPG.

These signs are made by the Historical Preservation Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The state of Georgia has a law named the Georgia Open Records Act, in which its records are free to the public and can be redistributed without restriction (analogous to works of the US Federal government).

I believe that this means that the historical markers made by the state of Georgia have no copyright restrictions and can be freely distributed, so the files should be restored. Bubba73 (talk) 01:33, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, open records laws do not automatically release copyright. Georgia has no law or court opinion that explicitly releases copyright for Georgia state works. Since all works are automatically copyrighted, a specific release like for the federal government is needed. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 02:04, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

The Georgia Historical Society took over the state of Georgia's historical markers a few years ago (http://georgiahistory.com/education-outreach/historical-markers/ ). I wrote to them and they said that it is fine for me to publish and upload my own photographs of the historical markers. (And by "me" I assume thet they mean anyone.) Bubba73 (talk) 20:27, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

That's great! In that case, please follow the instructions at Commons:OTRS. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 22:12, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

OTRS pending, Ticket#: 2016122010035775. Bubba73 (talk) 23:37, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Logo of Tamla Records

I want to upload this side label. However, the image has the grid world map. Is it copyrightable? --George Ho (talk) 07:51, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

No, that's just a common graphical icon.--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:24, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

I mistook "Tamla" as "Tamia". --George Ho (talk) 12:13, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

NTSB photos

Hi! Could someone with more copyright-related knowledge ensure the images on lessonslearned.faa.gov are free to use per {{PD-USGov-NTSB}}? It would be great to get some pictures from here to be used in the article about Air Canada Flight 797. There is no separate information about these particular photos being made by NTSB, but I guess it's safe to presume so, as they are on a NTSB website telling about the findings of NTSB, especially as one non-NTSB photo has been separately marked and says "used with permission". Anyway, I'd like a second opinion just to be sure. --Lentokonefani (talk) 15:07, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Corrction - the site is of course by FAA, not by NTSB, but one would still assume the photos are either by NTSB or FAA, which would be OK as well ({{PD-USGov-FAA}}). --Lentokonefani (talk) 15:53, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
@Lentokonefani: From glancing at a few pages, they seem to have been quite careful to attribute the images that are not NTSB works. This page, for example, clearly marks the source and copyright status of a number of images... I would feel safe in assuming anything not specifically marked is a US Govt work. Reventtalk 16:07, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. I guess I'll upload some and mark them as PD-USGov-NTSB. --Lentokonefani (talk) 16:10, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Israeli law question

Does anyone know about a work for hire / copyright transfer provision in Israel? --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 03:24, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Employers own copyrigt for work done by employees in the course of their duties, unless otherwise agreed. For commissioned works, the author holds copyright, unless otherwise agreed. See Chapter 5 at [1]. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 04:39, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks a bunch! I expanded the section on Com:CRT#Israel a little. --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 05:19, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Washington, D.C.

Per http://dc.gov/page/terms-and-conditions-use, "except for third party content that is copyright protected or for content otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Visitors to this site agree to grant a non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free license to the rest of the world for their submissions to DC.gov under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License." Would this mean media and material produced by the Government of the District of Columbia (including photographs, such as this official portrait of the Mayor) are licensed under CC-BY-3.0? MB298 (talk) 05:28, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

If it appears on the website, and there is no notice otherwise, presumably yes. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 07:34, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:2016 Newport Beach Boat Parade 9 by D Ramey Logan.jpg

I would appreciate some knowledgeable views here on whether there are copyright issues with the above FP nomination. Please discuss here (or a DR if you feel necessary) rather than the FP nomination. Thanks. -- Colin (talk) 08:09, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Ralitza Touparova uploads licensing

Hi,

About File:Nick D'Monicus.1.jpg and other Ralitza Touparova uploads, I have a serious doubt about the PD-BG-exempt license.

The photo in not a normative and individual acts of government bodies and official translations thereof, nor just ideas and concepts, nor folklore. "news, facts, information and data"? Everything is data so I do not understand this part.

The Facebook page doesn't give a license. All this looks like a copyvio to me.

Can someone take a look?

Best regards, --Lacrymocéphale (talk) 15:40, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

These seem to be copyvios without any doubts. Ruslik (talk) 20:37, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
@Ruslik0: Thank you. ✓ Done, marked as possible copyvio. --Lacrymocéphale (talk) 21:23, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

UPI photo of Sharon Tate

I came across a UPI press photo of her that I captured and saved many years ago. It has all the UPI description info. on the bottom and has their "please credit" stamp on the back. I found the same image without all the UPI info here. No notices are on the press photo or the Alamy site. Usable? --Light show (talk) 05:18, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Creative Commons Public Domain Mark on Flickr

Why isn't that license accepted? I have no idea what this deletion template asks[2] (image on Flickr[3]), and it frankly seems ridiculous that the permission given on Flickr is somehow invalid. What other reason can be given than that the author released it under that license? Why can't this be built into the Flickr upload bots so it doesn't have to be done manually? FunkMonk (talk) 09:37, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

I think it's a mistake of BU Rob13, true Public Domain Mark is not enough (since it's unclear) but {{PD-author}} is a perfectly valid licence. Cdlt, VIGNERON (talk) 12:16, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
BU Rob13 has given a more detailed rationale on his talk page. I find it a bit baffling that we should be this skeptical, but if it's policy, I guess we have to follow it... FunkMonk (talk) 13:37, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
See {{Flickr-public domain mark}}. (t) Josve05a (c) 14:43, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
Ooups, I didn't the discussion on BU Rob13 talk page. I'm confused, I agree with {{Flickr-public domain mark}} but there was already an apparently valid licence ({{PD-author}}). Cdlt, VIGNERON (talk) 15:18, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
We've discussed this mark at least 6 times here. All times have gotten different results, and I am confused. Some say that PD-mark does not equal PD-author and that it can not be ued since it is not a relase (I am one of these people), and a few others claim that it is equal to PD-author since it should be clear that the author wanted to release it to PD, even though they technically haven't. I have stopped caring at this point due to backlash, but..meh...I bet @Natuur12, Yann, Jarekt, Revent, and Jameslwoodward: have comments about this. (t) Josve05a (c) 15:44, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
The PD Mark is not acceptable on Commons because it is not a license and is not irrevocable. It is intended to simply summarize the user's opinion that the subject is PD. The user may change his mind at any time. If the user is the creator of the subject and actually wants to irrevocably put his work into PD, he should use CC-0, which is a license and is irrevocable. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 15:53, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
VIGNERON, you will see that I have deleted the file because the PDM is not acceptable on Commons. Your removing the {{Flickr-public domain mark}} tag was incorrect. The {{PD-author}} was also incorrect since when a creator applies the PD Mark to his own work it has no legal effect, and, in particular, can be changed at any time. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 16:01, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
@Jim: it has a legal effect. If I say you can use my photograph it also has a legal effect. If I state that I won't enforce my copyright it has a legal effect. Same goes for the PD-mark. Sure it isn't perfect and cc-zero is totally better but that doesn't mean we can't hoste such files. Natuur12 (talk) 16:27, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
@Jim: it absolutely has a legal effect, and we have accepted statements like that before. Your claim above is tantamount to saying that PD-author is an invalid license, since that is a catchall tag for when the author has made some statement to the effect they place the works in the public domain before their normal expiration. In the U.S., that would probably amount to en:abandonment (legal). While there may be some gray area there (if a judge would rule it abandonment if the author changed their mind), that is an issue with all such situations. We have never really deleted over that type of uncertainty -- it is more a theoretical doubt than actual doubt. If the user mentions they may change their mind, that would be different. The CC0 wording is set out to be maximally effective in as many countries as possible, but while other PD statements may not be as good, we still accept them. To me, CC0 is poorly named (especially when a PD mark tag is also available on Flickr), and can cause confusion. CC0 is definitely a better statement, but if someone obviously the author puts the PD-Mark tag on a file, that is equivalent to PD-author to me, and OK. CC0 is not necessarily a license -- it just has a license fallback if used in a country where it is not possible to place something in the public domain. There is a U.S. court rulings though which said that it is possible (a Learned Hand ruling so a circuit case) -- but that would at least require an author to "commit an overt act to make public that intention". To me, the PD-Mark tag on their own work basically does that, at least for the U.S. We do not simply accept the PD-Mark tag for any Flickr file though since it could be put on another author's file for mistaken reasons. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:35, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Please read Commons:Requests for comment/Flickr and PD images. Reventtalk 16:03, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

PD Mark does not equal PD-author, ok (sort of).
PD Mark is not acceptable on Commons, ok (sort of).
But here, wasn't the photo really on PD-author, by choice of the author/University and not by deduction of PD Mark (at least, in the history of the file, I can see that {{PD-author}} was placed before the {{Flickr-public domain mark}} template...). This University is on Twitter (and elsewhere), can someone speaking portuguese ask them to clearly put on a free licence to solve the question?
Cdlt, VIGNERON (talk) 16:14, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
@VIGNERON: The image is marked with the "PD Mark" on Flickr, and obviously was at the time of upload, as Flickr2Commons marked it with that tag when uploading it. People simply 'claiming' that images with the PD Mark on Flickr were either PD-author or CC-0, when the author did not specifically agree to either of those statements, was a major part of the drama around this last time.
To be specifically clear, the original version of the file page included {{Remove this line and insert a public domain copyright tag instead}}, which is a redirect to {{Flickr-public domain mark}}. Reventtalk 05:23, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
{{Flickr-public domain mark}} is equivalent to template:PD: uploader claims that file is in PD but we do not know why. It could be {{PD-author}} if uploader usually releases their own photographs. It could be {{PD-USGov}} if the uploader is some US government agency or it can be {{PD-old-100}}, if the uploader is a museum. We just do not know. As I wrote in {{Flickr-public domain mark}} when I wrote it, it was meant to be replaced with more specific PD template. --Jarekt (talk) 17:05, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
So even though the University authored the image, and even though the university states it is PD, we can't use it. Seems a tad paranoid and counter-productive. We can be pretty sure they would not want us to delete the file, when they themselves believe it to be PD. So what could the possible legal consequences be, if any? This would be why the issue is brought up again and again, the policy does not seem logical. Maybe it should be taken on a case by case basis instead of a blanket rejection. FunkMonk (talk) 17:56, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
To me, we should allow it if it's pretty obvious the Flickr account is the copyright owner. CC0 is definitely better, but I think it's the equivalent of PD-author, which is good enough to be beyond COM:PRP for me. Custom licenses or PD statements may have theoretical issues in some countries (it may not be legally possible to waive rights, or a country may allow such a statement to be revoked, etc.) but I think that is splitting hairs to disallow such works where the intention is fairly clear. Such things should probably go through a license review so someone else confirms that the Flickr account seems to be the author, but at that point I think it's OK. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:39, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

My interpretation, based on what I've been told in the past and what I've read on wiki, is that PD-mark is the equivalent of asserting "This file is in the public domain." It doesn't say why. It doesn't say you're releasing it into the public domain, which is a legally meaningless statement anyway in many countries. It doesn't offer it under a free license. It just states it as fact. It can be incorrect, and so we need to find evidence or a rationale that it's actually in the public domain, just like with any other potential PD upload. On the other hand, if they release under CC0, that's like saying "I am the copyright holder, and I release this into the public domain (or the closest equivalent allowable by law)." That's a very different and more complete statement to make. It's an actual release. Per the precautionary principle, we shouldn't accept the first statement just because "The copyright owner will not mind" (which is an actual example listed of something unacceptable under the precautionary principle). We need to receive a valid release. The RfC Revent linked above shows that there's community consensus to this effect. ~ Rob13Talk 23:34, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

As an aside, straight from the CC0 FAQ: "PDM is not legally operative in any respect – it is intended to function as a label, marking a work that is already free of known copyright restrictions." So even the Creative Commons doesn't think it has a legal effect. ~ Rob13Talk 23:45, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

I want to make something clear here, since it rather clarifies why the PD-Mark is problematic. The Flickr source is here, the Flickr account of "ULBRA Canoas", which is the "Universidade Luterana do Brasil". The title of the image on Flickr includes the text "Foto Flavio Lopes (Ufrgs)".... UFRGS is the "Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul". The Flickr uploader 'says' the image is from elsewhere, and does not 'say' they are licensing it... they merely say (with the PD Mark) that they 'believe' the image is PD. We have no indication as to why they believe the image is PD, and so we cannot simply claim that 'they' have placed it in the public domain.

What's more, the image is from Brazil, where the 'spanish' legal tradition is used.... the caveats that tend to exist in 'spanish' legal systems are exactly why the CC-0 license, and other CC licenses, have to be so explicit about fallback clauses.... in such countries, a simple statement that an author is 'placing a work in the public domain', or 'giving up all rights to their work' are not legally enforceable, since a person cannot simply give up property rights that are inheritable. Reventtalk 05:41, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, if the Flickr user is not the author, then the PD-Mark is just a statement -- we can't accept that on its own, as they would not own the rights in the first place. But if it is the owner, then they are obviously aware of their own copyright, so to document it being public domain is basically disclaiming that right for their own works. Your point on Spanish legal systems is very valid, though. Basically though, when a user wants to place their own works into the public domain, and they look at Flickr's options, they are going to find the "PD-Mark" tag first. "Creative Commons Zero" is meaningless at first blush -- so many just use the PD-Mark tag. The intention is generally pretty clear, and probably does have the effect of actually doing what it says (in countries where that is possible and don't require a license fallback, which is likely true of the U.S.). I don't think we should have a blanket ban on those situations, where the intention seems clear, and the owner has a right to do so. If someone says "I place these files in the public domain" on a website, we will typically accept that and use PD-author. I don't see using PD-Mark on a Flickr user's own files as that much different. However, this instance sounds like it does not fall under that scenario. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:53, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
Based on my experience in OTRS, you might be surprised how many copyright holders have no idea what their rights are. I've definitely had a fair share of copyright holders claim their image is in the public domain because they didn't register their copyright, etc, where that's obviously untrue. I disagree that we should assume casual photographers understand anything about copyright. That's an exception in my experience. ~ Rob13Talk 20:36, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
Then why would we assume CC0 means anything either? They can claim they didn't read it and were unaware, etc. If they went to the trouble to mark their own works as PD, that has some meaning, and some legal effect. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:03, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
So you're arguing the Creative Commons doesn't know the legal effect of their own licenses (or non-license, in this case). I struggle to buy that. CC0 has a summary page that tells you exactly what it does, and it tells you you're releasing your file into the public domain (and explains what that means) in plain English. If someone tried to revoke it, we point to that and tell them they should probably read a legal document before they agree to it next time. Meanwhile, an FAQ related to PD mark on its website explicitly states it "is not legally operative in any respect", and the summary page for it states "The Public Domain Mark is not a legal instrument" as a disclaimer. How do we credibly point to that and tell anyone they agreed to irrevocably give up their rights? It explicitly states they do not. ~ Rob13Talk 03:24, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
So you are arguing that a Flickr user which uses PD-Mark has gone to the Creative Commons FAQ pages, read and understood the intended usages, and intentionally chosen the PD-Mark license to be ambiguous, therefore we should ignore it. PD-Mark is *intended* to mark works which are public domain, generally by expiration, and is intended to be used on works which you do not own. If used in that manner, correct, there is no legal effect. If used on your own works which are obviously have not expired, the "PD" cannot be true unless you have abandoned those rights. While far less explicit than a CC0 license, such a statement very well can have a legal effect, regardless of what CC0 says. If someone on a website says "I place these into the public domain", does that have no effect? Can that be taken back? A Flickr user using the PD-Mark on their own files is not following CC's intended usage, to be sure, but what else would the author's intention be by doing that, if not placing them into the public domain? The effect is definitely more gray than CC0, depending on the law in various countries, but if we accept "I place this file into the public domain" (i.e. PD-author) as a valid license, I really don't know why we would reject the ones from Flickr -- that amounts to the same exact thing to me. Yes, it's frustrating that a less-gray option is right there within reach of the Flickr user, and by all means attempt to educate them and get them to change the license, but to block such images from use here seems overly paranoid. Carl Lindberg (talk) 08:26, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
A agree with Carl here. creativecommons:publicdomain/mark/1.0/ ("This work has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.") is indeed a good and enough statement if comes from the author/copyright holder. And FAQ says "PDM, on the other hand, can be used by anyone, and is intended for use with works that are already free of known copyright restrictions throughout the world." So PDM when comes from the author/copyright holder means s/he already released it as PD. Jee 16:38, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
They haven't agreed to the fallback license on {{PD-author}} though. There should be a template that retains "In some countries this may not be legally possible" and leaves it at that. --ghouston (talk) 02:47, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
True, but that's the case of basically all PD-author works. PD-author may need that disclaimer. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:54, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
At least some PD-author files will have been applied by an uploader to their own work, where it makes sense to say they've accepted a license (even if it's a weak one that doesn't claim to be irrevokable.) I think if the PD-Mark-by-author files are accepted, then they should have their own template that explains the basis for declaring them to be public domain. --ghouston (talk) 04:30, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
I can support such a new template which may be useful for future housekeeping too. Jee 14:33, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
I'm going to restate this, in a way that hopefully people can agree on. When an author places the PD-mark on their own work, they are not 'licensing' it (it's not a license), and they are not clearly and explicitly agreeing to the CC-0 or PD-author terms or the fallback clause. They are not applying a specific, binding, legal text to the work. What they are doing, effectively, is making a 'statement of intent', and such a statement 'can' have a legal effect, in that a strong argument could be made in some courts of law that a re-user who relied in good faith on the author's own statement that the work 'is in the public domain' was not guilty of willful infringement.
In other jurisdictions, however, such a 'statement of intent' would, if recognized by a court, have an effect (the abandonment of inheritable rights) that is itself prohibited by law.
There are two issues here. One is that there has been a history of Commons editors 'themselves' choosing to apply PD-author or CC-0 to works on which the author has merely placed the PD-mark. This is obviously wrong.... the author did not specifically agree to those terms. It's license laundering, effectively, though not intended as such.
The other is if we believe that such a 'statement of intent' meets the conditions required by our licensing policy, that "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." I do not believe that it does, and I believe that was the consensus at the RFC. If we are going to begin accepting the PD-mark we need a new RFC first, and we need to ask Legal for comment. Reventtalk 09:48, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Uploads of Paul Lavern

I was wondering if someone wouldn't mind taking a look at Special:Contributions/Paul Lavern. All of the files were uploaded as "own work". Some like File:Andrew Vajna and Milos Twilight.jpg, File:Steven Bauer and Milos Twilight.jpg, File:Chilitos Valenzuela Kenny O'Brien and Milos Twilight.jpg and even File:Milos Twilight-Roger Federer 2005.jpg might be "own work", but others such as File:Steven Bauer in Gothic Assassins.jpg, File:Kadalhiax Dax played by Olya Casey.jpg, File:Amra Silajdzic in Gothic Assassins.jpg, and File:Gothic Assassins Shooting in Paris.jpg look like they might be stills from a movie shoot. It's quite possible that the uploader is a professional photographer working as part of the film, but then there is a photo like File:Milos Twilight Sony Music.jpg (dated October 1994) which does not seem to fit in with the timeline of the other photos uploaded and File:Andrew Vajna and Milos Twilight.jpg which does not seem to fit in with the quality of the other photos. -- Marchjuly (talk) 11:51, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

The one with Roger Federer is available on the web -- e.g. http://www.setcelebs.com/images/roger-hair-02.jpg . The one with Andrew Vajna also exists, https://www.flickr.com/photos/91223983@N08/8278898652 , though in lower resolution. The Steven Bauer one appears in different form here, indicating it was part of a press kit from the movie. I see a couple of the others here, which also look like press kit material. But Google Images does not do well with the rest. There was a recent DR -- Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by TwilightFilms -- which seems related, though it looks like many of the images were restored by OTRS, so there may be some official blessing somewhere. This is a different uploader account though. We need OTRS for at least a couple of them, if not all. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:30, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for taking a look Clindberg. I see that some of the files were tagged with {{No permission since}}. Would it be excessive to tag the rest as well? -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:05, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
I might go DR, giving the uploader a chance to respond, and inform them of OTRS. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:40, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
Hi again Clindberg and Yann. Would either of you mind taking a look at User talk:Paul Lavern? The uploader has posted messages stating the above-mentioned files (which were tagged by Yann as {{No permission since}}) have been released under a CC-by-SA 4.0 license. Urls showing this has been provided, but these are different from the urls Clindberg posted above. The CC license claims for some of the photos might also be incorrect since Milos Twilight, who is pictured in some of these photos and might be affiliated with Unique Films (the company website linked to by the uploader), is unlikely to have been the photographer who took the photos. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:25, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Marine Protected Areas Map

Hi, I want to add this map to the Marine protected area article. I see at the MPAtlas website that the maps are provided for non-commercial use. What license should I use? Thanks Golan's mom (talk) 21:03, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

@אמא של גולן: None. Do not upload this. Wikimedia Commons requires that all media uploaded here are free for commecial use also. Non-commercial licenses are incompatible with Wikimedia Commons. Ankry (talk) 17:10, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
I just sent an email and asked for permission to upload the map. Don't get your hopes up, but it is worth a try. xmas --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 23:08, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

File:Monroe 1953 publicity.jpg

Does anyone here know how to determine whether the above is free? It's being proposed as the lead article for en:Marilyn Monroe, a featured article. The issue apparently hinges on whether publicity shots were copyrighted. SarahSV (talk) 18:54, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Apparently this has already been determined: This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1923 and 1963 and although there may or may not have been a copyright notice, the copyright was not renewed. Ruslik (talk) 20:54, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
In general, how do you determine that the copyright has not been renewed? Bubba73 (talk) 00:06, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

See Commons:Deletion requests/File:Monroe 1953 publicity.jpg. The previous VPC discussion is at Commons:Village_pump/Copyright/Archive/2016/07#Review_request_for_Marilyn_Monroe_publicity_photo. I agree that it was uploaded without a clear decision about it's copyright status. SlimVirgin I'm very dubious that this image has a clear enough status for use in an FA. There is also, quite recently, a COM:AN/U discussion about re-blocking the uploader.

@Bubba73: It requires a tedious,search of the "Catalog of Copyright Entries", and unless the original registration can actually be located first such a search only gives 'negative' (i.e., I didn't find one) evidence. Reventtalk 09:46, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
Probably better writing that into a help page somewhere. The explanation is never particularly clear. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:53, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
@Jo-Jo Eumerus: See http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/renewals.html. It's not easily explained, tbh. Also, for images the results can easily not be definitive, since they could be copyrighted by 'inclusion' in another work, and often the registered 'titles' are less than useful for identifying the specific image. Reventtalk 21:14, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
@Ruslik0 and Revent: thanks for the information. It sounds as though we can't rely on this being free. SarahSV (talk) 18:17, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

File:Avatars-000157767926-n36jgp-t500x500.jpg

I have some questions about this file.

  1. Should it be re-named per COM:MOVE#cite_note-2?
  2. Is it simple enough to be licensed as {{PD-textlogo}} even given the fact the the country of origin of en:NoCopyrightSounds is listed as the UK?
  3. Should the file be tagged with {{No permission since}} if #2 is not an option?

Thanks in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:56, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

  • Yes, it should be renamed - current name is meaningless.
  • Since it is a British company the logo may not be simple enough to qualify as {{PD-textlogo}}.
Ruslik (talk) 20:12, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Ruslik0. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:28, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

File:Lawrence T. Picachy (1916-1992).jpg

Uploaded as "own work" under {{PD-self}}, but this kind of looks like a scan from some other source more than it looks like a photo, doesn't it? -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:00, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, you are probably right. Ruslik (talk) 20:08, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for taking a look Ruslik0. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:27, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Images published in science journals

Specifically the ones in http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0718-71062016000200002. They are both under free licenses, but it seems like the authors already published them before in other journals (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00445-011-0489-5 in the latter case); what would the license for such images actually be? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:43, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

If the authors of the freely licensed paper retained copyright to the figures when they were previously published, they can license them as they please. Otherwise there should have been an acknowledgement. I did not see one in a quick scan. The simplest thing is to email the corresponding author and ask. Dankarl (talk) 18:16, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
Probably needs OTRS Dankarl (talk) 18:17, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

File:Ramzi Maqdisi Or Hajar.jpg

Hi, I wanted to know if once a file was deleted there's any way to resubmit the picture with the right license {{cc0}}. If so, please let me know what will be the best way to do it. Thank very much in advance--Parauleira (talk) 11:17, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

As you've already been told, if you think the deletion was incorrect, you may request undeletion. Do not recreate the file yourself yet again out of process unless you want to get yourself blocked. —LX (talk, contribs) 11:32, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
LX thank you, I've already done, before asking here. But, the way some patroller are communicating wth contributors is really upset and very threatening, so I had a lot of questions to ask in every movement I've made after my contributions. Parauleira (talk) 19:39, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
Yes, I see that you did request undeletion. As already explained there before you asked your question here, an appropriate permission from Mikel Marin submitted via e-mail is required for the file to be restored. That's still the case. As for threats, I see no signs that you have been threatened. You've been warned that breaking the rules of this site may get you blocked and asked to "please don't". That's not a threat, but an attempt to help you help yourself. —LX (talk, contribs) 11:41, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

File:John C. Moran in 2009.jpg

This file as well as File:John C. Moran.jpg, File:John Charles Moran III.jpg and File:John Charles Moran in the 1960s.jpg were uploaded as "own work". Two of these have already been tagged with {{No permission since}} since they appear to scans. The 2009 photo also seems possible to have come from someone other than the uploader, but I can't find it anywhere online. "John C. Moran" might be "own work" and it also can't be found anywhere online, but there's no EXIF data and subject pictured the photo is said to have died on April 1, 2016 which is before date given for the photo. Should the remaining two also be tagged with "No permission since" as a precaution or would this be a bit of overkill? -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:44, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Not at all. IMO own work claims spanning +30 years are nearly always phoney. My guess would be that someone shot the pictures and glued them into the family album. Later (2016) someone scanned the photos. That's not own work. --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 02:18, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for taking a look Hedwig in Washington. I've gone ahead a tagged the remaining two photos with {{Npd}}. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:13, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Blacklist of Panoramio accounts?

Do we have anything similar to Commons:Questionable Flickr images for Panoramio accounts? I ask because of this recent deletion request. --AFBorchert (talk) 08:56, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Not that I know of (and I'd like to think I'd know). Given that Panoramio is closed for new uploads, active and deliberate license laundering should be less of a problem than it is with Flickr. It also seemed like Panoramio never attracted as many copyright violations as Flickr, or maybe Google just took copyright more seriously than Yahoo seems to do. Still, it might be worthwhile to keep a blacklist. Given that the vast majority of Panoramio uploads are done by Panoramio upload bot, the top priority should be making sure it doesn't grab files from bad accounts, but I'm not sure how it chooses what to transfer. Shizhao? —LX (talk, contribs) 15:39, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
My bot no blacklist of accounts. Really have this need? --shizhao (talk) 15:52, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Logo of North Beach Records

I wonder whether the logo from a record label is copyrightable. --George Ho (talk) 14:18, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

It seems fairly simple, but it's not an exact science, and the US authorities appear somewhat inconsistent in their rulings. See, for example, the Car Credit City examples at Commons:Threshold of originality#United States that straddle the line. It's also worth comparing with the Prince logo, which was accepted for registration. Without USCO review or a court case on this specific logo, nobody will be able to give a definitive answer. It's close enough to the threshold that I'd recommend erring on the side of caution. Given the age of the logo, I'd explore other possibilities, like {{PD-US-not renewed}}. —LX (talk, contribs) 15:31, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
The label was released in 1966. Might "no notice" do the trick? --George Ho (talk) 21:03, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Exif versus license

Hi,

What happens when a user genuinely upload an image of his and place it under CC BY-SA 4.0 but his file EXIF states "Copyright status: Copyrighted"? Isn't it a contradiction? What to do with it?

Best regards, --Lacrymocéphale (talk) 01:14, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Between File:JC 7.5x10 lighter.jpg and File:Jonathan Cohler.jpg, the Exif has been edited to change the copyright holder.
Normally, the subject is not the copyright holder, the photographer is.
Is it legit to hack Exif like that?
--Lacrymocéphale (talk) 01:31, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
Regarding only the first question: no, it is not a contradiction. Copyright is binary: either there is a copyright or there is not (public domain). Files with "free" licenses are still under copyright; the license has merely waived some of the rights afforded by copyright protection (e.g., right to restrict derivatives, commercial usage, publication, etc.) but has retained others (e.g., CC-by-SA requires attribution and free licensing of derivatives.) Эlcobbola talk 01:43, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
@Elcobbola: Thank you for your reply. I must stop confusing "copyrighted" and something like "all right reserved". --Lacrymocéphale (talk) 01:51, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
And regarding the second question (delayed because I was researching diffs): EXIF data should not be altered if the goal is to obscure authorship, although it's not something we're likely to catch or notice if done out of sight. This chain of events is indeed worrisome, although the uploader likely genuinely believes himself to be the copyright holder (i.e., not done in bad faith):
In any case, as the image previously appeared elsewhere (e.g., here, where it still has the original EXIF), and the uploader is also the subject (i.e., not the author), we have sufficient support for deletion outside of the altered EXIF. Эlcobbola talk 02:01, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
@Elcobbola: Thank you for the analyse. This user seems to try using en:Jonathan Cohler to promote himself so I wasn't very gentle. You're right to give him good faith, many image subjects think they're the copyright holder, some confusing it with the "right to control use of their image". As I have proven earlier, I'm myself sometime lost in the variety of situations and licenses, and the vocabulary (in a foreign language from my French point of view). Can I let you handle it from here?
Best regards, --Lacrymocéphale (talk) 02:20, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
@Elcobbola: You do not even let me the time to ask for it :) Thanks for the deletions. --Lacrymocéphale (talk) 02:21, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
a lot of deletionists here take a doctrinaire view that "exif does not lie" however, it is common for photographers to not change exif on device even on works for hire. we do not know what agreements have been made between photographer and subject. what level of proof of copyright do we require? not a pdf of a signed agreement? it would be perverse to delete a file for exif only to restore it after an OTRS, claiming copyright. or photographer to upload to flickr with CC and conflicting exif. especially since exif can be edited, it is merely obscure, not locked. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 14:11, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Images from Peabody Awards

Hi, What do you think about images from Peabody Awards imported from Flickr by Kaiketsu? Most of them are from ©Sarah E. Freeman/Grady College (see EXIF), and many are tagged with no permission. See also Commons:Deletion requests/File:A Conversation with HBO's Sheila Nevins (27509827371).jpg. I doubt being affiliated is enough to grant a license for these. Thanks, Yann (talk) 15:25, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Category:George Charles Beresford and the URAA

A user has expressed a concern that File:Lord Alfred Douglas by George Charles Beresford (1903).jpg is not PD in the US because its copyright was restored by the URAA. Creator George Charles Beresford died in 1938, so presumably his works did not enter the public domain in the UK until 2009; i.e. they were not in the public domain in their home country as of January 1, 1996. What's the US copyright status of works in Category:George Charles Beresford? --Rrburke (talk) 16:13, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

URAA doesn't apply to works published before 1923. I don't know what the publication date would be for that photo though, even if it was taken in 1903, and the source link doesn't work. --ghouston (talk) 02:17, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
Service: [4], photograph is dated 1903. 1933 is the date the author gave this photograph to the NPG. --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 04:27, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
@Rrburke: We have been advised by Legal that it is probably not appropriate to delete material based merely on the assertion that the URAA 'might' apply, since the required analysis to determine if it does depends on specific details of the particular work's history. It's only if we are able to determine that the URAA definitely 'did' restore the copyright in a specific work that we should delete it.
A 'generic' analysis of this author's works, however, would be that when he died (in 1938) the UK had a 50 year pma term. His works entered the PD in the UK in 1989.
In 1993, the en:Copyright Duration Directive extended copyright terms in the EU to 70 years pma, and retroactively applied to works which had previously entered the PD. The expiration date for his works was then 2009 in most EU states, while the work was still PD in the UK (the ECJ ruled in the Puccini case that EU member states cannot apply the rule of the shorter to other member statues, as "a breach of the principle of non-discrimination enshrined in Article 12 of the Treaty instituting the European Community").
On 1 Jan 1996, the "The Duration of Copyright and Rights in Performances Regulations 1995" came into effect in the UK. This included a provision that restored copyrights in works that were, on 1 July 1995, still under copyright anywhere in the European Economic Area, if the 1988 Act had offered a shorter term of protection that the new regulations. This would have applied to Beresford's works, and thus they were restored to copyright in the UK, with an expiration date of 2009.
On the URAA restoration date for the UK, of 1 Jan 1996, the works of George Charles Beresford were NOT in the the public domain in the source nation, and so (by my analysis) the URAA did not restore their US copyright. (For the excessively picky, the works re-entered UK copyright earlier the exact same day as the URAA restoration would have taken effect, but 1 Jan 1996 started 'earlier' in the UK than in the US.)
Thus, only the non-URAA rules for the US copyright in his works need to be considered. Reventtalk 10:31, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
I realized, rereading this, that something might not be quite clear. Normally, that a work was not in the PD in it's source country on the restoration date is a 'requirement' for the URAA to apply. Here, however, the works had previously entered the PD in it's source nation due to the expiration of it's term of protection, and were retroactively restored. The exact requirement in the URAA, to be a 'restored work', is "not in the public domain in its source country through expiration of term of protection". It is my position that this introduces sufficient uncertainty, in the case of works which had 'previously' entered the PD for that reason, that we cannot unambiguously determine that the URAA applies. The works were not in their original term of protection on the URAA date, but in a 'new' term granted by later law. Thus, we just look at the non-URAA rules. Reventtalk 11:32, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
Hi, @Revent: I note that many of Beresford's portraits at the NPG have not been uploaded to Commons. Is there a reason for hesitancy about these images in light of User:Dcoetzee/NPG legal threat? --Rrburke (talk) 15:46, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
@Rrburke: There might be hesitancy by some people, but I would personally consider it to be safe. I can't give you legal advice, of course, but I think the last source cited at en:National Portrait Gallery and Wikimedia Foundation copyright dispute makes the legal situation pretty clear. Reventtalk 16:08, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
That feels like quite a tortured reading. The URAA excludes works from restoration if they are "in the public domain in its source country through expiration of term of protection"; if it's not "in the public domain in its source country", it's not "in the public domain in its source country through expiration of term of protection".--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:54, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
@Prosfilaes: I'm not saying we can be 'certain' (or even beyond major doubt) that the URAA does not apply, but that is not the standard that Legal suggested we apply to URAA cases. This isn't even an attempt at analyzing any specific work, and there are multiple reasons that the URAA might not apply in particular cases.
The point is that, in the case of his works, any argument that the URAA does apply is dependent upon accepting both the that URAA could restore copyright to works that themselves had expired and been restored in the source nation (arguable, and a point that AFAIK has never been tested in court), and accepting that a restoration 'earlier in the same day' would qualify such a work for eligibility under the URAA. This argument is too thin, IMO, for us to say that any of his works 'clearly' have a restored copyright (the standard that Legal recommended we apply to URAA deletions) without some indication that such an argument has held up in court. Even to establish that the URAA 'might' apply requires an argument that becomes convoluted long before the URAA enters the picture. There are too many points where the argument might fail, and a failure at any point would make his works ineligible for restoration. Reventtalk 02:52, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
I think we can be reasonably certain that the URAA does apply. I don't think your argument that works that were under copyright in the source nation were "in the public domain in its source country through expiration of term of protection" is remotely credible; it simply is not how the law is worded.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:57, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
@Prosfilaes: You're correct about the 'plain language', but it relies, in this case, on a source nation copyright that was restored 'earlier that same day'... there is ample room here for lawyers to argue the issue, and room for a judge to look at the legislative history and say that the end result here was not contemplated or intended by Congress (I have not tried to investigate that, but I doubt they considered something like this), and invalidate such a restoration.
The weakest point here, really, is the 'on the same day' thing. All it would take is for a judge to rule that the law took effect at midnight UTC... it could even get into (ridiculous) arguments about how UK 'civil time' is GMT, not UTC, and drifts around UTC.
I'm not saying the 'chain of reasoning' I laid out is wrong, and his works might indeed have restored copyrights (though it would still require looking at each one individually), but I think this one of those cases where we need a 'third answer' of flagging files as having a URAA 'status' that we could not clearly determine, as opposed to either 'ignoring it' or saying (effectively) 'we think this is a copyvio, but are keeping it anyhow'.
It's also worth remembering that most of his works would not be restored anyhow, as pre-1923. Reventtalk 17:47, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
I think I'm going to stick to uploading his pre-1923 portraits. --Rrburke (talk) 18:33, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

@Revent: @Prosfilaes: My head is spinning slightly, but isn't it the case that, for Beresford's post-1922 works (e.g. File:Wyndham Lewis photo by George Charles Beresford 1929.jpg), their UK copyright was restored on January 1, 1996 at 00:00 GMT by The Duration of Copyright and Rights in Performances Regulations 1995, and then their US copyright was restored (presumably) at 00:00 EST the same day by the URAA, because they were "solely published abroad, without compliance with US formalities or republication in the US, and not in the public domain in [their] home country as of URAA date"? If that's the case, don't they remain copyrighted in the US until 2034?

Another wrinkle: were his portraits "published"? Certainly some were published in various newspapers, but some were donated by Beresford to the National Portrait Gallery in 1933, others acquired by the NPG from Beresford's secretary in 1943, and still others were purchased by the NPG from private sources even later. Are these to be considered unpublished until their date of acquisition? --Rrburke (talk) 14:25, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I seriously doubt the time zone thing would be seriously considered by a court -- the URAA date is likely determined in reference to the source country anyways, not any U.S. time zone. The law just mentions a date, not date and time, and is also defined in terms of that country's adherence to Berne, which would become active based on the source country's time zone anyways. It's also a moot point in this case because the UK reached Jan 1, 1996 (and thus restored the works to no longer be public domain) before the U.S. did, even if time zones did matter. Secondly, the URAA "restored works" is partly defined as not in the public domain in its source country through expiration of term of protection, so if they are not in the public domain in the UK on January 1, 1996, then they are eligible for restoration to me, regardless of how they they got that status -- restored or never expired. It is worded in the present tense. The clause "through expiration of term of protection" is to make URAA-eligible works which are public domain due to lack of protection at all (threshold of originality issues, etc.) -- that clause just restricts the set of public domain works, and does not affect the set of any not-in-public-domain works, which remain URAA-eligible. While a lawyer may try to make that argument as well, I really don't see how the plain language of the law would allow for such an interpretation.
tl;dr -- I think 1923 and later works from this author were URAA-restored. I don't think we should give others hope that they might be OK by labeling them "undetermined" by the URAA -- either mark them {{Not-PD-US-URAA}} or delete them. I do not think those get into the "uncertain" URAA territory that legal was talking about.
As for "publication" ... that is an extremely tortured question, unfortunately (especially from the U.S. side). The portraits may well have been published the year they were made (did they not give the subject copies, without notice?). It looks like the author donated a gelatin print, not a negative, so copies were likely made at the time of creation. Copies donated by third parties may indicate they had already been published. So... while a valid question, we usually assume publication around the time of creation unless there is reason to assume otherwise, and at the very least it probably does get into that "uncertain URAA" territory -- since if they were published without notice anytime before 1989, they would have become PD in the US such that they required the URAA to restore them. The original UK term would have expired in 1954, so it's highly likely that happened at some point. An author giving their unpublished archives away is often a case where we could assume that works were not published until then, but that's easier to do with negatives rather than prints. So... I'd lean towards PD-1923 for the U.S. status on the 1903 photo, barring other evidence. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:52, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
@Rrburke: I laid out the chain of argument for how his works could possibly have been restored, in the UK and then the US, and it comes down to the 'same day'. AFAIK, there has been no actual legal case where such same-day restoration has been considered, so it comes down to a consensus here regarding how likely a court would be to accept the argument. Personally, I think there is enough uncertainty to allow us to keep such works, and just note the situation, but obviously opinions differ. Really, it's an obscure enough point that it's unlikely to ever actually be adjudicated.
It should be clear, though, that arguing this from the perspective of 'works by this author' is really not how it works. URAA restorations were for individual works, and depend on the exact details of the specific work's history (publication, really, which Carl accurately described as a 'tortured question'). Looking at the chain of argument I laid out above just determines if it 'was' or 'was not' possible for any works by this author to be restored, not if specific ones were. To err on the side of 'safety' would be to not upload any of his post-1923 works, but if they were uploaded to Commons, and taken to DR, I suspect that they would likely be kept (and, given the history of such things on Commons, probably with less analysis that this has been given here). Reventtalk 21:57, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

The Nations at War

The book The Nations at War contains hundreds of pictures from World War One; war actions, weapons, cityscapes, politicians, officers. The book is by Willis J. Abbot and was published by Syndicate Publishing Company, presumably in 1915. A lot of pictures has no source, others have a notice reflecting Underwood & Underwood, International News Service and similar companies as the copyright holder. I think uploading scans from this book might be a nice addition to Commons, but I am not into extensive studies into the copyright of each photo. Could anything general be said about using PD-Old or similar licenses for these pictures? I notice that there is a special PD-Old for U&U. Regards, GAD (talk) 07:38, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

No problem, the book is old enough, published before 1923). Service: I created a new category, the creator template, and uploaded the 1917 edition of the book.
Thanks for the quick answer and the service. Could you please check the three pix I've uploaded at Category:Pictures from The Nations at War and see if there is anything more to be added? Regards, --GAD (talk) 09:30, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
@GAD: If you extracted them from the 1917 edition, why do you write 1915(?) ? I'd add the page number and/or image no. --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 10:08, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
BTW, @GAD: from this webpage it may be more convenient if you choose to download the high resolution jpeg files (SINGLE PAGE ORIGINAL JP2 TAR or SINGLE PAGE PROCESSED JP2 ZIP) that come as individual pages which are easier to crop, rotate as necessary, and then upload. Ww2censor (talk) 11:40, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
It seems this book came in several editions. My copy does not have a year of publishing (although some pages seem to be missing), but the introduction chapter is dated April 1915. In the 1917 edition at archive.org the introduction is dated October 1916. A quick look indicates that the selection of pictures are quite different. Obviously the latter one has a much bigger amount of war events to pick from. Thus, I think I'll stick to my plan and scan from my book. Perhaps a couple per day, which could make this a yearlong project. (And I'll add page numbers.) Thanks for helping. --GAD (talk) 12:07, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
Anytime, GAD. Thanks Ww2censor, I totally forgot to mention the single page links. --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 00:12, 29 December 2016 (UTC) --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 00:12, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
@GAD: When scanning them, if you could please upload them as TIFF or PNG (instead of JPEG) it would make them more useful (as it would avoid the lossy jpeg compression, and allow for work such as rotation, color correction, and noise removal to be done losslessly). Reventtalk 22:31, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
Sure. Will do. --GAD (talk) 07:58, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Wikilivres

See Commons:Wikilivres I have added this page and included links from Commons:Copyright rules and Commons:Licensing. I figured I would give the community a heads-up here as well. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:04, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Copyright exceptions in absence of FOP

Hi, On a long discussion on the French VP, several users have expressed concerns that, in the abscense of FOP, criteria for judging if a picture can be included are much too strict. I would like to remain that, notably in France, there are a certain level of acceptance for de minimis and threshold of originality, both in law and in practice (see the judgements concerning the Terreaux Plaza in Lyon and the Montparnasse Tower in Paris).

  • Copyrighted items are acceptable if the picture is a general view;
  • Copyrighted items are acceptable if they are unavoidable (typically the Louvre Pyramid in the Napoleon Plaza);
  • Originality is required to get a copyright (simple and ordinary buildings usually do not);
  • Functional vehicles are not covered by copyright.

I believe that there are similar exceptions in most countries.

This concerns in particular the following cases:

Pinging people would have nominated or deleted such files, or criticized the closure, or involved in the discussion: @Jameslwoodward, Jebulon, Elisfkc, TwoWings, and DocMuséo: @Ruthven and Elcobbola: . Comments welcome. Regards, Yann (talk) 18:05, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

@Yann: I nominated the images based on the criteria mentioned in Commons:Freedom of panorama#France. I do not know the law itself, and am probably the least helpful person to be in this discussion, seeing as how I do not speak French and have no law experience. Elisfkc (talk) 23:39, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Licensing form, which way has the primacy?

Hello!

While being in contact with a fellow Commoner (Apalsola) on my talk page over licensing questions, a question arose for which I'd like to have a broader input. I was busy in doing some harmonisation of the layout of the licensing of my files, including some where I wrote down in plain text in the peremission field that the photograph stood under the CC-By-SA 3.0. Unfortunately, I failed to notice for long that I mistakenly copied the template, not for the CC-BY-SA, but for the CC-BY. I used the CC without "share alike" only in very few instances consciously (but also due to lack of experience, some of my very first uploads here are the sole examples, where I indeed observed the old license choice during the harmonisation).

So, what has the primacy for defining the license?

Would it be a plain text explanation ( here even using the common abbreviation for the license) or the machine-readable template? I am not aware of any policy regulating this; the explanation text in the upload form, which calls for a "license tag" in the "permission field" when the dropdown choice is not taken doesn't clarify the matter. Here are some relevant diffs: diff of licensing harmonisation, first file version clearly showing the "By-SA" tag. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 22:18, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Your question is worded in a complicated way. I think you are asking about your original upload [5], dated 2009-10-29. It mentions both CC-BY-SA 3.0 and CC-BY-3.0 in the Permissions field, and the template is {{self|cc-by-3.0}}, and you want to know if you've irrevokably licensed it under cc-by-3.0 or if you can fix the inconsistency by changing it on 2016-12-28 to CC-BY-SA, even though it was published for 7 years with the original template? I'd say the CC-BY 3.0 license should be considered valid. --ghouston (talk) 00:06, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
I'm puzzled about why you are adding a cc-by-nc license too. Does that actually grant anything that isn't already granted under cc-by-sa? If not, it seems pointless. --ghouston (talk) 00:29, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
Heck, I didn't even notice that there was word about the CC-BY in the permission text, that would be another c&P error :-/ (and sorry for the complicated wording... But notwithstanding the concise example, I'd still ask to clarify wether a plain text license naming or a template will have the primacy to state the license when both of them are contradicting the other).
The By-NC does away with the share alike requirement. I'm using it due to some experience by a Commoner (Ralf Roletschek) from which I've taken several tricks, who advised that educational institutions are more likely to use a By-NC licensed media than a By-SA one. He stated that he got numbers of mailings for permissions of reuse which declined when he started to put a NC license on his works (of course, not the numers of usages, but only the numbers of mailings). That is not really logical, I agree, but as long as it works, it's OK, isn't it? Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 14:16, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
wow, the wrong-headed desire to control down stream re-use with hybrid licenses never ends. something in the German water? you might want to write a custom permissions template such as User:Fir0002/17 or User:EvaK/License - that way you can change terms at one go. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 14:40, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
As far as I know, there is not something like "German water". While it is true that around 80% of drinking water is supplied from underground aquifers, the remainder being scavenged from streams and rivers, you've got so much different soils over the 950+x kilometers from Flensburg to Garmisch-Partenkirchen that makes the theory of tampered drinking water uttermost unlikely. I guess that you would need conspirators with the pertinacy of templars, freemasons or illuminates and the grimness of djihadistic militants to put up such a scheme concerning free cultural licenses.
And yes, I was already thinking about some individual licensing template, but did not proceed forth currently, maybe someday. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 15:06, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
yes, and outing some members of the "Articles for Deletion" party. our swamps remain undrained, and dream of another visit. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 03:21, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
As I already have stated on Grand-Duc's talk page, I think this is quite simple: Grand-Duc has licensed the file under the CC-BY-3.0. If that was a mistake, it should have been fixed immediately, not after seven years.
About the primacy of license tag and permission field: The license tag includes the full name of the license and also links to the full license text. It also explicitly states that the file is licensed under the license. "CC-BY-SA-3.0" is just a shorthand for the license name without links or explicit statement. Furthermore, the licensing policy allows multi-licensing, so even if "CC-BY-SA-3.0" was a valid license statement it would only add a new license in addition to the one stated in the license tag, but it would not restrict the other license anyhow nor make it invalid. ––Apalsola t • c 16:39, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Uploading images where I own copyright but am not the author.

My father died in 2014 and left many photographs which he took. I have inherited the copyright. There are some images I would like to upload to Commons, but the upload wizard clearly says "We can't accept works created or inspired by others". Is there any way I can get round this problem? Bruern Crossing (talk) 23:42, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

You should be able to upload them if you are the copyright holder and the photos aren't published elsewhere, without needing OTRS verification. I think it can be done somehow using the upload wizard e.g., File:Parker Mfg. Co. - shears being manufactured.JPG which seems to use a custom license option. Otherwise, either upload it with any license and edit the file to fix it, or use one of the alternative upload methods. --ghouston (talk) 02:06, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
You don't even need a custom license marker. Templates like {{PD-self}} use the term "copyright holder" instead of author. You can just upload it as if it is your own work, but note in the description and source what it is. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 02:10, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
@Bruern Crossing, Ghouston, and Ramaksoud2000: We have heirs licenses here: Category:License tags for transferred copyright Hope it helps! --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 03:42, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
you can also upload to flickr with the right CC license. and then transfer over. an email confirmation via com:OTRS would be helpful. Slowking4 § Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 03:26, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
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