Commons talk:Licensing

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This page is for discussing improvements to Commons:Licensing. For discussions of specific copyright questions, please go to Commons:Village pump/Copyright. Discussions that do not relate to changes to the page Commons:Licensing may be moved, with participants notified with the template {{subst:moved to VPC|LIC}}.

This talk page is automatically archived by MiszaBot. Any sections older than 14 days are automatically archived to an archive (Commons talk:Licensing/Archive 34 in May 2011). Sections without timestamps are not archived.

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(the dates are very approximate because some debates dragged on for months, while others became inactive very shortly)

• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive Ancient (Up to October 2004)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive 1 (Oct. 2004 – March 2006)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive 2 (March 2006 – June 2006 )
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive 3 (May 2006 – June 2006)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive 4 (July 2006 – August 2006)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive 5 (September 2006 – March 2007 )
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_6 (March 2007 – May 2007)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_7 (May 2007 – July 2007)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_8 (July 2007 – October 2007)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_9 (October 2007 – February 2008)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_10 (February 2008 – March 2008)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_11 (March 2008 – May 2008)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_12 (May 2008 – July 2008)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_13 (July 2008 – August 2008)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_14 (August 2008 – September 2008)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_15 (October 2008 – November 2008)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_16 (November 2008 – January 2009)

• ...

• Some principally important discussions are archived in separate pages. There is no point in arguing on the archived pages, because few people will read it. If you wish to dispute an archived page, you should begin a new discussion on this page and provide a link to the archive in question.

(these headers are preserved in case someone has linked to them)

Against DRM 1.0

archived as Commons_talk:Licensing/ADRM

Review of license templates

archived as Commons_talk:Licensing/Review of license templates

U.S. patents

archived as Commons_talk:Licensing/U.S. patents

Ecoport copyleft

archived as Commons_talk:Licensing/Ecoport copyleft

Museums Bilder

archived as Commons_talk:Licensing/Museums Bilder (in German)

Explaining why Derivative Work and Commercial Use must be allowed

archived as Commons_talk:Licensing/Explaining why Derivative Work and Commercial Use must be allowed

Which countries' copyright laws determine copyright status?

archived as Commons_talk:Licensing/Which copyright law applies?

Still active discussions

Template protection after review

There are many country specific copyright templates on commons that need review and should be protected thereafter. Many images on commons use these templates and changing something in the template like accidentally adding a hot cat category would affect all of these and would require mass purging for all images. We should have a review department reviewing each available template and after discussion protecting it. We should discuss the layout of PD templates: Should they include why they are PD in the USA or should this be handled in another template like {{PD-Egypt}} and {{PD-Egypt-1996}}. With the URAA laws the copyright laws of a country doesn't mean that much without an explanation on why they are PD in USA. Something like {{PD-China}} doesn't work for commons because it doesn't specify why it's PD USA. And should there be templates for country specific templates for each case like found in Category:Egypt-related tags? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Diaa abdelmoneim (talk • contribs) 14:06, 2009 April 23 (UTC)

"No Known Restrictions" Question

Merged to Commons:Help_desk#License_Question, now archived here

Question

Moved to Commons:Village pump/Copyright#Question, now archived here

Folklore art does not have copyright?

Moved to Commons:Village pump/Copyright#Folklore art does not have copyright? now archived here

German PD help

Moved to Commons:Village pump/Copyright#German PD help

Exception missing. False sentence.

There's an exception note at the bottom of http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:L#Interaction_of_United_States_copyright_law_and_non-US_copyright_law. There should be an exception note at the bottom of http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:L#Derivative_works as well; see {{Useful-object-US}} and its talk page. Draft:

Exception: Useful articles - objects with an intrinsic utilitarian function, even if commercial designs, are not subject to copyright protection in the US. Consequently, images thereof are not W:Derivative works under US law. For details and applicability of this exception, see the Supreme Court’s decision in W:Mazer v. Stein, and {{Useful-object-US}}.

--Elvey (talk) 23:00, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

There are lots of things which are not in the public domain for some reason. Why should specific kinds of things be listed there? It just causes confusion. --Stefan4 (talk) 23:42, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

False sentence

The second sentence in this paragraph is false and wordy:

For example, if a person in the UK uploads a picture that has been saved off a French website to the Commons server, the upload must be covered by UK, French and US copyright law. For a photograph to be acceptable for upload to Commons, it must be public domain in France, the UK and the US, or there must be an acceptable copyright license for the photograph that covers the UK, US and France.

I propose to change the second sentence to the following, which I think is true:

That is, for this uploaded file to be acceptable for Commons, it must be seen as free by France, the UK and the US.

I believe this doesn't change the intended meaning of the sentence, only the actual meaning thereof. --Elvey (talk) 23:00, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the current wording is wrong. A file might be in the public domain in France and the UK but copyrighted and freely licensed in the US and thus not covered by the above, as the current wording seems to require the same copyright and licensing status in all countries. However, your proposed wording looks very confusing and probably won't help any newcomers who are trying to read the page. --Stefan4 (talk) 23:42, 21 May 2013 (UTC)