File talk:Czeslawa-Kwoka.jpg

 

Discussion of deletion request: copyright violation

An image of the version of the larger exhibit of photographs containing this photograph in the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Exhibition Block no. 6 was previously uploaded to Wikipedia Commons and deleted for "copyright violation." --NYScholar (talk) 07:32, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

The blog identified as the source of this image (TACSE) states that it took the image from an earlier version of the same article in Wikipedia now featuring this edited version; Wikipedia cannot be a source of Media in Wikipedia Commons and the larger photograph this is taken from was already deleted for "copyright violation." --NYScholar (talk) 07:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

• Disagree with Speedy Delete. A prisoner identification photo by the SS in Nazi-occupied Poland of 1943 makes the original work PD under Polish law. JGHowes ^talk - 15:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

• Disagree with Speedy Delete. The original Auschwitz prisoner identification photo made by the SS in Nazi-occupied Poland is Public Domain under Polish copyright law. The spirit of Berne Convention for the protection of literary and artistic works, specifically: the European Community (EC): Copyright (Harmonization Duration of Protection), Council Directive, 29/10/1993, No. 93/98 [1] states clearly what the copyright protection implies and why it is not applicable here:
  

Paragraph 17:
photographic work within the meaning of the Berne Convention is to be considered original if it is the author's own intellectual creation reflecting his personality, no other criteria such as merit or purpose being taken into account

The image belongs in Commons more than in any regional projects, that's why I'd like to thank User:Nard the Bard for uploading it. Please consult Wikipedia policies for additional information. Contrary to objections of some of the users, not a single copyright breach has occured here. The image, made by an unknown prisoner (wild guess: Wilhelm Brasse from Poland) is in public domain according to Polish copyright law regardless of where it was obtained from. Schutzstaffel was the slave-labour employer of the author (for further guidance see: Forced labor in Germany during World War II) who is unidentified. The photographer was recompensed for his physical labour by being kept alive, forgive the sarcasm. Technically speaking, image is owned by the SS. It was made not by a German photographer, but by a foreign prisoner, and it does not fall under Berne Convention as an intellectual creation. --Poeticbent talk 15:45, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment: Poeticbent: Yesterday I watched the portion of the film (in Polish, so don't have the English subtitles) in which Brasse holds up what really appears to be his actual [changed from "original" due to q. above] 3-pose photograph of Kwoka (version without the captions) and discusses it at some length; right now I can't remember, but he may also hold up separate poses photographs of her as well (I think he does). Since you speak Polish, you might want to watch the film clips of Portrecista (via YouTube), which cannot be included in the EL sections of the Wikipedia articles (they've already been deleted, but check editing history) and see what he says about them in Polish. I have changed the Kwoka et al. articles on the basis of his long discussion of the photos of her that he remembers having taken them to saying that he took them, not just that he is is credited with them. Given source attribution to him already cited in several sources cited in these articles on Kwoka, him, and The Portraitist in Wikipedia, it seems fairly cretain that he is the original photographer.

I don't know what the fact that the photographer is still living has on the uploading of these photographs to Wikipedia and/or Wikipedia Commons or how that might affect that image page descriptions; I am just communicating this information for administrators knowledgable about complex copyright issues and Wikipedia and Wikipedia Commons media policy. I think that the cropped version of the 3-pose photograph image is preferable to the one w/ the captions (at this time); it's the one currently showing up in the article in Wikipedia. --NYScholar (talk) 00:36, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I saw the documentary on You Tube and listened to it in Polish (my native tongue). Brasse describes in detail how he begged the camp auxiliaries not to torture the Jewish prisoners to death, but do it quicker, with a club perhaps. He was blaming himself for such eagerness over many decades after the war. He also shows the photograph of Kwoka explaining how he couldn’t forget that angelic face so out of place in that hell. Not a word about any dumb copyright, but a compassionate account of unspeakable human tragedy. Is that what you would have expected him to say? I would hate to disappoint you. --Poeticbent talk 21:06, 9 September 2008 (UTC)