Commons:Deletion requests/Nazi SS rank insignia images

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This deletion debate is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive.

Nazi SS rank insignia images

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Delete Copied from http://uniforminsignia.net/index.php?p=show&id=100&sid=383, not NARA. Original uploader had major copyvio problems at en.wiki. Butseriouslyfolks 21:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, those major copyvio problems were among the issues that caused him to be desysopped over at en.wiki. --Butseriouslyfolks 22:51, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I was d.s.ed for sharing my password, actually, not for copyvios. I'll be happy now to explain where these images came from. -OberRanks 11:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed that the images uploaded here have transparant backgrounds, the ones you linked to on uniforminsignia.net do not Movieevery 08:12, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Copyvio, not from NARA. Butseriouslyfolks 21:16, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Copyvio, not a work of the US government. Butseriouslyfolks 21:17, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Flag of Canada
    Keep per the following reasons:
    • The designs of the images are very simple by very nature of rank insignias and are hence ineligible of copyright.
    • Faithful reproductions of two-dimensional original works cannot attract copyright.
      For example the flag of Canada pictured here is in the Public Domain no mater who draws or redraws it. I can "steal" it from any website, or use any scan of it at my leisure legally. en:Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. case is the foundation behind the logic of this approach. So if the source object in question is ineligible of copyright all faithful reproductions of the image are also ineligible.
    • "Stealing images" is not a crime provided the images have a free copyright status. The site you linked for certain does not own the copyright for the images in any case. The copyright in any case would be held by the millitary or government of the country that own the rank insignia.
    • Nazi era material such as rank insignia of NAZI officers may also be free of copyright since any "image shows (or resembles) a symbol that was used by the National Socialist (NSDAP/Nazi) government of Germany or an organization closely associated to it, or another party which has been banned by the en:Federal Constitutional Court of Germany." Who would you go to file a lawsuit?
    -- Cat ちぃ？ 17:18, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
    Also Nazi Germany (1933–1945) "died" at the end of the second world war. If we count the Prague Offensive as the last remains of a legitimate Nazi German government, 11 May 1945 was the day of "death". Ignoring the reasons above, the target objects will be PD-old as of 11 May 2015. -- Cat ちぃ？ 17:48, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete, especially the images from http://www.uniforminsignia.net. Those are not works of a particular government, but copyrighted derivative works of a commerical website. If the digitization of an image contains creative elements, which these do, a claim of copyright could be valid. Anyway, it's morally wrong to simply steal someone else's hard work for use here at Wikipedia, especially since that site is an encyclopedia also, and we are directly competing with them. Find a public domain source, or make your own versions, instead of hijacking someone else's work. Videmus Omnia 18:02, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
“ Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp., 36 F. Supp. 2d 191 (S.D.N.Y. 1999), was a decision by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, which ruled that exact photographic copies of public domain images could not be protected by copyright because the copies lack originality. Even if accurate reproductions require a great deal of skill, experience and effort, the key element for copyrightability under U.S. law is that copyrighted material must show sufficient originality. ”
Morality is not an acceptable rationale. It is morally wrong to have "naked" (not wearing an islamic turban) images of women in Iran. We do not delete images for that reason. Discussions should be based on international law and commons policies and guidelines only.
As I explained earlier, unless the website in question is the legitimate arm of the Nazi Germany government (which I do not believe they are), they cannot claim copyright over these. Even then these images are far too "simple" to be subject to copyright.
Digitization of images do not contain any creative work. Just because say I scanned the Microsoft logo does not mean I can claim ownership over it.
Wikipedia contains plenty of information as an exact copy of Britannica's PD-old version. Also this is Wikimedia Commons, a free image repository, not an encyclopedia.
-- Cat ちぃ？ 19:13, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
We should be very careful not to expand Bridgeman beyond its holding. Bridgeman dealt with "high quality photographs" of the original works of art. Bridgeman never uses the word "faithful". It uses a stronger word -- "slavish". The court emphasized that the creator of the photographs at issue had taken great pains to make them look exactly like the original works of art. The court specified that if the new image had a "distinguishable variation", it was original, suggesting that images that could be distinguished from the original were outside of its holding. ("Only 'a distinguishable variation' -- something beyond technical skill -- will render the reproduction original.") Keep in mind also that Bridgeman is a trial level opinion that has never, to my knowledge, been cited approvingly by any appellate court.
The images we have here are slick, stylized, almost cartoonish graphics drawn on a computer to represent the original patches and badges. Nobody would mistake them for the originals, or for photographs of the originals. They are readily distinguishable. Here's a photo of a guy with an original patch on his uniform collar. Here is another one.
The creative representations of the original military patches at issue here are entitled to copyright protection. They are neither slavish nor faithful copies, but have distinguishable variations that render Bridgeman inapplicable. Accordingly, they should be deleted. --Butseriouslyfolks 22:48, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I copied the text from our template {{PD-art}}. A cartoonish representation of the Canadian flag presented above is ineligible of copyright. Not because the author says so, but because the source Flag is PD. With inverse logic, you are suggesting that we can upload cartoonish version of copyrighted material with a brand new copyright which is not right. In any case the copyright holder is not the site in question and instead the owner of the insignia itself. -- Cat ちぃ？ 00:29, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree with BSF here. These are not scans or photographs of the original insignia, but enhanced derivative works, so Bridgeman does not apply. If the source of the insignia design is in the public domain, then the images can either be replaced with freely-licensed images from another source, or by user-created ones. There's no need to use images that are encumbered by a copyright claim here, especially not when our mission is the creation and distribution of free content. Videmus Omnia 00:39, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The copyright status of the source image is not irrelevant. If the copyright claim is void, that does not hurt our mission at all. If the copyright claim is not void, we can create a cartoonish version of corporate logos. I do not believe the logic works. I do want to point out that you (or anybody else) is not prohibited from creating alternate freely licensed version of the images. Same thing happened with FOTW images. -- Cat ちぃ？ 00:46, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
The copyright status of the source image is not irrelevant, but not for the reason you claim. Images can have multiple levels of copyright. A cartoonish representation of a public domain item is absolutely entitled to copyright. Otherwise, a drawing of an actual tree or landscape or ancient monument could never be protected by copyright, because those items are in the public domain. Now, take the case of an original item that is protected by copyright. If you take the Wikipedia logo, for example, and create a modified, cartoonish version, the resulting work is protected by two copyrights -- Wikipedia's copyright in the underlying work and your copyright in your cartoonish modifications to it (i.e., the derivative work). You can't use your image freely, because of their copyright, but neither can they use it freely, because of yours. The analogy here is COM:FAN, not FOTW.
Where am I going with this, you ask? Well, we can create a cartoonish version of corporate logos, but they would still be protected by the corporation's underlying copyright in the logo, so they would be non-free images even if the cartoonizer licensed them freely. So VO's logic works fine.
As for the issue before us, the original Nazi insignia may be in the public domain, or they may be copyrighted. But regardless, somebody's modified, cartoonish version of these images is protected by the modifier's copyright at the very least. So we have non-free images. --Butseriouslyfolks 02:50, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think as per this (machine translation of the official source) German insignia are PD. So that probably settles the discussion on the copyright of the source images.
When we draw a picture of trees and etc we create a unique work of art. Let's be more specific. Photographs of public domain objects can indeed be copyrighted. Different pictures of the same tree by different people can have different copyright. If you take the photo of a PD-old painting up close, you will not retain a copyright. If you take few steps back and take the photo then you may argue about your own copyright since more objects would enter the frame. The Nazi insignia images are upclose "photos".
Also a tree is a rather complex object with leaves and branches. A rank insignia is too simple to be eligible for copyright.
I may easily agree that this is an unnecessary Grey area which we can easily avoid by creating new versions just like the deal with FOTW images. SVG versions of the insignia can be created. Images can then be deleted as per "being nice" rather than over a legal copyright issue. This would be a win win since I like svg over any other format any day.
-- Cat ちぃ？ 03:44, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep I am the original uploader of most of those images. They came from a CD that was at my office at the National Personnel Records Center. They do appear to have been copied (at least some of them) from the uniforminsignia website but that website does not own the copyright to Nazi SS insignia. Also, I believe these are so simple to create (black b-ground with silver pips) that should be ineligable for copyright. At the very least, someone on this site chould be able to recreate them from scratch. -OberRanks 11:09, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

DeletedThe threshold for originality under US law is very very low and images appear to meet it (there is more than sweat of the brow involved in their creation). Source is unclear enough that we cannot assume that image id PD due to sourceGeni 01:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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