User talk:Scurry1515

Welcome to Wikimedia Commons, Scurry1515!

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-- Wikimedia Commons Welcome (talk) 21:48, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

National Register of Historic Places photos

You have recently uploaded numerous photos from the National Register of Historic Places in Utah. Unfortunately, there are several problems with them.

• You appear to have given them all the same reference number. If you click on that number it will bring to the property's page on the National Register of Historic Places website. You have given them the reference number for the George Albert Bradshaw House.
• You have given them two licenses. One says they are in the public domain because they are the "work of a National Park Service employee, created as part of that person's official duties." However, the pictures all say the negatives are with the Utah State Historical Society and not the federal agency. The other license you gave them says you are the copyright holder and you have released them under a Creative Commons license and we know that not to be true.
• Finally, as you can see on this page that almost none of the photographs in the National Register of Historic Places collection are in the public domain, except those taken by a federal employee. The vast majority are taken by the people who organized the property's NRHP nomination and they are not government employees. It is my understanding that some states have released their photos to the public domain, but I do not know if Utah is one of them.

With all this in mind, it appears the photos you uploaded are most likely in violation of their copyright. You might see if Utah considers the photos in their collection in the public domain. If not, they need to be removed from the Commons. At any rate, you need to rectify the two license problem that you created and the reference numbers.

Respectfully, Farragutful (talk) 12:49, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

@Farrafutful: I am working on behalf of the Utah Division of State History and the Utah State Historic Preservation Officer. The photos are those used in the nomination (survey work done by my office in the 80s) and are now part of the NPS public record. I will address the reference number issue after the holidays, but they are not in violation of copyright law. Thank you for your concern.

Here's an example of what Farragutful is talking about: The second page of File:Bear River Science Building.pdf says the photo was taken by Roger Roper in May 1983, but you haven't given him credit. Who's Roger Roper? If he was a federal employee who took the photo as part of his job, then by law it's in the public domain. If he was working for the state, or some private organization, then the copyright status is less clear. Entering photos in the NPS public record does not change their copyright status. Maybe this particular one can be justified using the conditions of {{PD-US-1978-89}}, but that sort of research would need to be done for all of those photos you have uploaded. At any rate, it's completely inappropriate for you to assert that you personally hold the copyright, which is what you seem to have done accidentally. These photos are a great resource, but they don't belong here unless these concerns are addressed. Ntsimp (talk) 15:29, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I see that the current Deputy SHPO is named Roger Roper, and it seems pretty likely that the state holds the copyright. Has the state officially decided to release these photos into the public domain? If so, you can find help at Commons:OTRS. Ntsimp (talk) 16:05, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ntsimp: YES FINALLY. Roger Roper is my employer at the Utah SHPO. I did not imply that I personally hold the copyright. Rather, our office took ALL the pictures, and they were used as part of National Register nominations. I am uploading them under direction of the SHPO to provide resources to the residents of our state. I used the copyright information that the SHPO instructed me to use as they now belong to the NPS.

They don't belong to the NPS. The state granted them a non-exclusive license. But if the state now wants to completely relinquish all copyright in the photos, Wikimedia Commons needs to be able to verify that fact. The process for verifying it is found at Commons:OTRS. Ntsimp (talk) 16:41, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

You will also need to remove all of the wrong licenses you have attached to those photos. Right now they say they are public domain because of being taken by a federal employee, and they also say that you personally hold the copyright and have released them under a Creative Commons license. Both of those are false. Ntsimp (talk) 16:45, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ntsimp: Thank you for your participation. I am presently on vacation in Hawaii, and let's just say this issue holds less interest for me this week. Farragutful (talk) 19:48, 9 January 2020 (UTC)