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Latest comment: 1 hour ago39 comments11 people in discussion
For a while now, photos by French photo studio Studio Harcourt have been frequently nominated for deletion (by User:Günther Frager, among others). I've noticed in recent discussions that there seems to be quite some confusion about their copyright status and wanted to discuss that here.
One fact that does not seem to be controversial is that several years ago, a French court decided that photos by Studio Harcourt are produced under such tight regulations that they are to be considered collective works as far as French copyright is concerned. Which means that they enter the public domain in France 70 years after first publication. In the US, the URAA restored the copyright for those photos which were still in copyright in France on January 1, 1996. Since France still had a shorter copyright term on that date (50 years + 8 years and 120 days of wartime extensions), Harcourt photos up to 1936 should be in the public domain in the US (as of 2024), while later Harcourt photos are still protected in the US.
In 1991, the French state (minister Jack Lang) bought 5 million Harcourt photos/negatives from 1934 to 1991, see here (article from Le Figaro). One claim that I have seen repeatedly, usually made by User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), is that the French state released all of those photos under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. RAN added that claim to the Category:Photographs by Studio Harcourt hereand again here and has repeated it in various deletion request discussions. The article from Le Figaro (which RAN also linked to) does not support that claim of a release under a CC BY 3.0 license (which could have happened no earlier than 2007 since the CC 3.0 licenses were introduced in that year). When I asked RAN (at Commons:Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard/archive/2023#User:Studio Harcourt) about evidence for his claims, he replied The statement is based on the license they were uploaded with. Which, from the context, apparently refers to several files uploaded by User:Studio Harcourt in 2010 (see Special:ListFiles/Studio Harcourt).
But User:Studio Harcourt is not the French state (but the studio itself), and the photos that were uploaded in 2010 were from the years 1998 to 2008, so not part of the 5 million photos bought by the French state in 1991. I fail to see how several photos uploaded by this user in 2010 with said license can lead to the conclusion that the French state released all of the 5 million photos it bought in 1991 under a CC BY 3.0 license. As I see it, there is still ZERO evidence for this claim, and it is just an unsubstantiated claim.
Another claim which popped up recently is that the Harcourt photos from 1934 to 1991 bought by the French state are not under copyright. This was claimed by User:Tisourcier and User:Ruthven, and User:Asclepias also seems to have adopted it. Apparently it goes back to a VRT ticket by User:Studio Harcourt. As [1] shows, there are two of those. The older Harcourt ticket (2010061710041251), according to User:Ciell, only covers files uploaded by User:Studio Harcourt (“I think it's safe to say that the images uploaded under the specific account are okay, and the release does not cover any future uploads beyond the ones made by User:Studio Harcourt.”), while the newer ticket (2020112910005534), according to User:Ganímedes, "only covers a specific file".
In that ticket ( which is apparently from 2020), a woman named Agnes BROUARD, working for Studio Harcourt Paris and Chargée de la valorisation des collections, writes (confirmed by User:Ruthven on their own user talk page here): « Il me faut vous indiquer que nos archives de 1934 à 1991 sont désormais propriété du Ministère de la Culture, conservées par une entité appelée Médiathèque de l'architecture et du patrimoine et diffusées par l'agence photographique RMN-Grand Palais. Ce fonds photographique n'est pas soumis à un droit patrimonial donc quiconque possède un portrait de l'époque 1934-1991 peut l'utiliser librement et vous pouvez réutiliser un portrait trouvé sur internet. » Which says that the Harcourt archives from 1934 to 1991 are now property of the French Ministry of Culture (as discussed above), and more importantly, that for that archive there is no "patrimonial right" (that is, the economic/proprietary part of copyright as opposed to the moral right to be named as author) and "that anyone who has a portrait from the period 1934-1991 can use it freely and you can reuse a portrait found on the internet" (translation by User:Tisourcier on my user talk page). So basically she is declaring that there are no restrictions at all on Harcourt photos from 1934 to 1991 (except that you have to adhere to the moral rights part of copyright, which means among other things you have to name the author when reproducing the photo).
That sounds great. But is it actually a declaration we can use and rely upon? It is not in any way a formal declaration of the way we usually require for VRT permissions. It is more like just another claim, made by a Harcourt employee in 2020, almost 30 years after the 1934 to 1991 archive had been sold to the French state. Why should what a Harcourt employee claims be considered binding for photos that are actually the property of someone else, namely, the French state? The French state which does claim a copyright over Harcourt photos, compare [2] (there are many more examples)? That copyright claim may not be correct for any Harcourt photos before 1954 because of the collective work status, but taken at face value it is in direct contradiction of the claim made by Madame Brouard. So the "not under copyright" conclusion, based on what Madame Brouard wrote, is speculative and shaky at best. I don't think we can rely upon that for literally millions of images.
So my conclusion from all this is:
There is ZERO evidence for the "CC BY 3.0" claim.
The "not under copyright" claim is speculative and shaky at best.
We should not rely on either of them and instead only rely on the French collective works status plus PD-1996 (for the US) part, which would mean that as of right now, only pre-1937 Harcourt photos are ok for Wikimedia Commons (and, starting in 2033, photos from 1937, in 2034 from 1938 and so on).
We really ought to sort this out. Yann und Ruthven have started closing deleted requests as keep based on these dubious claims (I've explained why I think they're dubious). If we're keeping files, potentially very many of them (5 million photos ...), we ought to be sure about the reasons. At present, we are not.
Thoughts? --Rosenzweigτ09:36, 17 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Comment Just to put in context: The quote comment is the answer to this question, nothing else. I didn't evaluate the CR status because I'm not French speaker and it was not requested anyway. --Ganímedes (talk) 10:54, 17 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I had the perplexity when the DRs I opened were closed. Some were closed with the argument the French government released with CC-BY and others with they are in the public domain, even by the same closing admin. It is still not clear to me who is the copyright holder: Harcourt or the French government (i.e. was the rights transferred when buying the collection). If the latter is the copyright holder the ticket from Harcourt claiming they are in the public domain is void, and the claim that they have CC-BY is dubious as we don't have a VRT ticket from the French government. If Harcourt is still the copyright holder, it would be important to get the context of the email. Once thing is saying you can use the photo freely in your blog without problems (more on the fair use side), and another is you can compile a bunch of photos, create a book a sell it without paying them a dime. I'm not expert in French law, but is it possible to put a work on the public domain? (that is not the same as licensing under CC0). Günther Frager (talk) 14:41, 17 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
To answer the French law-related question... if I recall correctly:
It shouldn't directly affect the legality of hosting the file, since Commons is based in the US, where public domain dedications are clearly possible.
As I recall, under French law, rights are separated into economic and moral rights, as is the case in many continental European countries. The moral rights are often inalienable (can't be given up), but the economic rights can be given up. (You'll note that CC0 contains a waiver of moral rights insofar as much as that's possible; that would depend on the country.)
It's often said that, because moral rights cannot be given up, that public domain dedications are impossible in France (or other European countries). But this is highly misleading. "Copyright" is, of course, a term of art in America, as is "public domain," and these concepts exist in slightly different forms in other systems.
Under French law, moral rights are not only inalienable, they're also perpetual. Anyone who says that the inalienable nature of moral rights under French law means that PD dedications are impossible would have to say that no work is in the public domain in France. But this isn't true; when we talk about the French public domain, we're talking about the expiry of economic rights.
An email which says that a work is in the public domain really must be interpreted either as a permanent waiver of the economic rights or, if not that, then an explicit and perpetual license to all the economic rights to the work — since this is what it means for a work to be in the public domain in France. While the CC0 terms are more detailed and clear, this doesn't mean that such a dedication or license isn't valid in France — except for the general limitation on waiving moral rights.
Also, French law provides for oral and even implied contracts to be considered binding. There's no reason to think that an explicit and clear "public domain dedication" would not be considered as binding. I honestly think that the whole notion that public domain dedications are impossible in many countries is based on confusion between economic and moral rights. Otherwise, you would have to accept that these countries only allow for copyright licenses to be made in a very specific form, above and beyond the formal requirements for other binding contracts or licenses, and that, failing that, the interpretation would be that there is no license at all — and I don't see any reason to believe that — or you'd have to believe that CC0 and other tools have no validity, even with fallback provisions.
Now, CC0 is a bit better, both because it is more explicit and because it contains fallback affirmations relating to non-exercise of waived rights (though these may mean nothing with respect to unwaivable moral rights). But that doesn't mean "this work is dedicated to the public domain; I give up my copyright" can't be interpreted as a valid license or dedication.
Thanks for the ping. I hadn't seen the second ticket from 2020, and that actually looks like a very interesting one. It is a forwarded email (and I prefer direct emails when working with permissions) but my reading from the exchange there (again, with my limited french knowledge) is that it support the statement as shared on @Ruthven's talkpage that you mention. The ticket #2020112910005534 was send to support the release of a single image as @Ganímedes mentions, yes, but with this more general statement in the mail it could in theory support the release for all images 1934-1991. Ciell (talk) 15:08, 17 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Also: the issue of the French claim by photo.rmn.fr was mentioned, and links to a court case ruling from 2014. (and this absolutely goes beyond what I can read in French, sorry!) Ciell (talk) 15:19, 17 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Here is what the Court of Appeals decided, with respect to the ownership of the works:
"[...] Most importantly, the Court held that the photographs bearing the Harcourt logo which had been made by the photographer must be considered collective works, for which the copyrights [droits de l'auteur], including moral rights, are owned by the studio.
"Concretely, the photographer is deprived of all rights to the works, and he is not entitled to anything except for the simple proportional remuneration which the studio agreed to give him upon the sale of his works. More importantly, the decision denied the photographer the moral right to attribution of which no author may in principle be deprived."
So the conclusion here was that photographs taken by an individual photographer working for a studio and, at least in this case, marketed as the studio's work, are collective works, to which all the rights only ever belonged to the studio, not the individual photographer. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 15:59, 17 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
That was the court case which I mention in my very first bullet point above (“One fact that does not seem to be controversial is that several years ago, a French court decided that photos by Studio Harcourt are produced under such tight regulations that they are to be considered collective works as far as French copyright is concerned.”) Note that the case made that decision only for Studio Harcourt photos and not for any studio photo, which is sometimes also claimed (by User:Tisourcier for example in Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Tisourcier). --Rosenzweigτ16:09, 17 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Rosenzweig I am not sure you are linking to the official French government inventory with the link above: here is the same image but in their "Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie"/Open heritage Platform (nonetheless, also with a "C" in front of the mention of the Ministère de la Culture). Any reason why you link, to what looks to me, a third party/private vendor? Ciell (talk) 16:26, 17 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Ciell: rmn.fr is the en:Réunion des Musées Nationaux, the (public) agency mentioned by Agnes Brouard as the distributor of the photos (« diffusées par l'agence photographique RMN-Grand Palais »), also at the gouv.fr website you linked to (diffusion GrandPalaisRmn Photo). I'm not sure why the photos are presented on two web sites. --Rosenzweigτ16:45, 17 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
But maybe you should try and reach out to the French government with your questions, if you doubt the analysis of the previous copyright owner, @Rosenzweig? I have to say it seems almost unfair to expect others to do so, when you think a statement from the original photograph studio is insufficient?
I am not one who wants us to host illegal content, but on the other side we should not want to take things down without having had a conversation with the current rights holder... (or the custodian, whatever you want to call them). Ciell (talk) 17:05, 17 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I'll pass on that, if anyone wants to do this, it should be a native speaker, possibly also resident of the country. Though RAN had announced he'd get in touch if I remember this correctly. Maybe he did get a meaningful answer? --Rosenzweigτ18:20, 17 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Rosenzweig: @Ciell: I confirm what D. Benjamin Miller said about the French court case of PIERRE-ANTHONY X VS. HARCOURT linked above. The judges (the judgement has been confirmed by the court of appeals) mention interesting facts, namely:
At Harcourt, the photographers yield their copyright to the studio in exchange of 10% on the sales, in which the photo is sold as a collective work.
The photos published by Harcourt must be considered as collective works.
The moral rights of the original author do not hold anymore, as the moral rights are now owned by a group of authors.
This last statement may be a surprise, given all the discussions about CC0 in France, but it is justified by the French law 113-2 alinéa 3 of the Code de la Propriété Intellectuelle. A collective work can be initiated by a company (here it's Harcout), and the consequent publication under a collective name makes the work of the single photographer indistinguishable from the work of the group. --Ruthven(msg)15:23, 19 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hello, why not let several French contributors involved by PD-France and Studio Harcourt case, precising the legal aspects and confirm the data about it ? The "collective work" judgement is one the main points, but the PD official statement by the author Studio Harcourt at the root as the author of these photographs (VTR), is clearly relevant to determine that those published between 1954 and 1992 are also PD-France too. Edit : copyright mentions of RMN website are not 100% reliable (copyvios). Tisourcier (talk) 11:39, 18 July 2024 (UTC)Tisourcier (talk) 11:32, 18 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Yes, more than unreliable, RMN copyright claims are copyfraud or completely absurd. RMN has never been the copyright holder of the documents they host, they are only the caretaker. Sometimes, they claim a copyright because they digitize the work, but it is not even always the case. They even claim a copyright on works digitized by other people or institutions. I once wrote to them about that, but never got an answer. Copyfraud is not punished by French law, so plenty people and organizations claim a copyright which has no value (i.e. copyright claims on old books recently reprinted, etc.). Yann (talk) 12:55, 18 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
It's not just RMN, it's also the Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie of the French Ministère de la Culture, see the the link provided by Ciell above. And yes, we have seen some French institutions making dubious copyright claims, namely the Bibliothèque nationale. That does not mean that everything they claim is automatically false and can be disregarded. Both the RMN and the French ministry making these copyright claims is just another small sign, another piece of evidence regarding the question we have, contributing to the doubt about the “not under copyright” claim. --Rosenzweigτ17:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
The statement by Harcourt is just that: a statement. A claim. An opinion. While Studio Harcourt can be considered the author of these collective works, they sold the bulk of their earlier production (5 million images from 1934 to 1991) to the French state. Presumably they sold them including the rights (copyrights, usage rights) to them, or else it wouldn't make much sense that the French state is distributing these images by the RMN agency. So the statement comes from an institution which authored these collective works, but (as we must assume) no longer holds the rights to them. The statement we're talking about claims that millions of images from the years up to and including 1991 are not under copyright, or « pas soumis à un droit patrimonial ». The only way 1991 portrait photographs can be in the public domain (or equivalent) in France is if the rights holder explicitly released them into the PD, put them under a CC0 license or similar. For such a thing, we require either a clear public statement from someone who is clearly the rights holder, or an explicit permission/consent text of the kind available at the COM:VRT page, something along the lines of I hereby affirm that I am/represent ..., the creator/sole owner of the exclusive copyright of the work(s) as shown here, and have legal authority in my capacity to release the copyright of that work. I agree to publish the above-mentioned content under the following free license: ... etc. etc.
Since this is about potentially very many images (5 million photos), we absolutely should have such a clear declaration. Especially for the protection of our re-users. But we have NONE of that here. There is no clear declaration of who the owner of copyright is, nor who released them under what license. There is just a vague statement that there is no copyright and anyone can use the photos freely, by a person of unclear legal status as far as the copyrights to the photos are concerned. That cannot be acceptable. --Rosenzweigτ12:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Sorry, but it would be much better if you stop making false statements. We have a declaration by a person in charge that these images are in the public domain. Why do you always say the opposite? Yann (talk) 12:58, 18 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Yann: Please refrain from such accusations. Accusing me of "making false statements" is basically calling me a liar, and I don't appreciate being insulted in that way. What we do have (in ticket 2020112910005534, the French text is above) is a claim, a statement by someone apparently working for Studio Harcourt in 2020, with the title or post of Chargée de la valorisation des collections. Valorisation translating to something like exploitation (in an economic sense) or promotion. So if she is “in charge” of anything, it's not copyright questions or legal questions in general, it's the promotion or economic exploitation of the Studio Harcourt collections. Which since the sale in 1991 do not anymore include the older 1934 to 1991 photos we're talking about here. It's in no way clear if she is in any way authorized to make copyright-related statements for Studio Harcourt, and it's not in any way clear if Studio Harcourt even still has any rights to those older photos. Though it must be assumed the French state acquired those rights along with the photos themselves, because why would you buy such a massive amount of photos without the proper rights to utilize them? Her text is also not a “declaration”, at least not one of the kind we require for VRT permissions (as outlined in my previous post in this thread). So whatever her statement is, it's not a sufficient basis to declare these 5 million photos to be in the public domain or “not under copyright” or « pas soumis à un droit patrimonial ». --Rosenzweigτ17:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Rosenzweig: Who would be more knowledgeable about the copyright status of these images than someone working for Studio Harcourt? I am quite fed up with people (not only you) pretending to know more that the very people employed by the institution(s) concerned by the documents. Yann (talk) 12:29, 21 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Yann: That would be someone actually declaring that they are the owner/holder of the copyright and authorized to make such statements, as outlined in more detail somewhere else in this thread. Not just anybody working for a company which may or may not be still holding rights to these photos and vaguely saying that there is no copyright for them and and anybody can use them. You may think that is enough. I don't. --Rosenzweigτ12:56, 21 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
"why would you buy such a massive amount of photos without the proper rights to utilize them?" Presumably you'd acquire some sort of rights to reproduce, but not necessarily rights that were tantamount to owning the copyright. Plus, of course, eventually they will come out of copyright.
FWIW, it is pretty common for archives and libraries to acquire large collections without acquiring copyrights. I wouldn't presume anything either way about this case without some sort of evidence. - Jmabel ! talk20:59, 18 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
While I agree with Rosenzweig that the situation is unclear, I would urge us not to rush to deleting, especially because it is such a large set - rushing into this will actually do more bad than good. As @Tisourcier mentions: please get French contributors involved to figure this out. Commons is not an island in the big wiki-ocean, and we as admins should not be tasking decisions (like deleting images at this scale) that effect the other projects lightly, but with due consideration. Ciell (talk) 16:55, 18 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
"Presumably they sold them including the rights (copyrights, usage rights) to them, or else it wouldn't make much sense that the French state is distributing these images by the RMN agency."
OK, if that is what is happened, we would need a confirmation as well. Also a clarification who would actually be the copyright owner and who would be authorized to put the photos in the public domain (or equivalent, or under a free license) and if that happened. All clearly and unmistakably spelled out. We cannot keep so many (and potentially many more) images with just a "maybe, maybe not" assumption. Per the precautionary principle, such an unclear situation would mean the files would need to be deleted and no new uploads accpted. --Rosenzweigτ06:22, 19 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Info The French Ministry of Culture bought in 1989 the negatives and client records from 1934 until 1979. Later in 1991 during the bankruptcy of Studio Harcourt the Association française pour la diffusion du patrimoine photographique (AFDPP) acquired the negatives from 1980 until 1991 [3]. The source gives very precise dates on the acquisitions, so it might even be possible to find public records about them. Günther Frager (talk) 18:36, 18 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hi @Günther Frager, beyond the acquisition: the question on the table now, is about the correct copyright status for all of these these images. Are the images Public Domain, available under CC BY-SA, or does the French state claim full copyright? Ciell (talk) 18:59, 18 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Ciell: yes, the main issue is determine who owns the copyright, but this information is still relevant. If the source is right, on November 14, 1989 Jack Lang and Studio Harcourt signed a document and we might get a copy of it and see whether the patrimonial rights were transferred or not. The other point is that the negatives form 1980-1991 were acquired during a bankruptcy and might have different conditions. I don't know about French intellectual property law, but in some countries intellectual property is treated as a normal asset when a company is liquidated. Günther Frager (talk) 19:22, 18 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
One interesting fact in that text (thanks for the link) is that the current Studio Harcourt Paris company may be not identical with the "old" Studio Harcourt, but some succesor company (it's not entirely clear though, they call it le nouveau studio Harcourt-Paris). Which makes me wonder if the current company still holds any (intellectual property) rights to the assets of the "old" company, or not. --Rosenzweigτ06:25, 19 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
About your second bullet point relatively to R.A.N., there is a misunderstanding by R.A.N. I had already replied directly to R.A.N. when he asked questions, there last year and here last month, including a link to the previous reply and a link to a detailed recap there (in French, but anyone can read it with machine translation). Unfortunately, either he doesn't read the replies to his questions or he doesn't care. I reverted his comment on the category page, to which you refer, but he reverted the revert. I'm not entering into an edit war with him. But that comment is still problematic for unsuspecting users and it would be good if someone volunteered to revert it again. -- Asclepias (talk) 15:44, 25 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I see that Tisourcier is busy canvassing on various user talk pages in this matter. One thing he mentions elsewhere is that Studio Harcourt would still be the author as far as the moral right (to be named as author etc.) of French IP law is concerned. I agree, since the photos were declared by the court to be collective works, there is no human author, but this (corporate) collective author.
BUT we're not talking about the moral right here, but about the "patrimonial right" (that is, the economic/proprietary part of French IP law as opposed to the moral right). And that is still very much unclear until we get a clearly spelled out statement (as detailed elsewhere in this thread) by whoever is the actual owner of that right, or was the owner at the point in time when the claimed release into the public domain (or similar) took place. --Rosenzweigτ12:00, 22 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Similarly, for any commercial and/or editorial reuse of images, please make a request to: mediatheque.patrimoine@culture.gouv.fr
Unless otherwise stated, MAP images are disseminated by the Photographic Agency of the Meeting of National Museums and the Grand Palais (Rmn-Gp)." (emphasis added)' -- Ooligan (talk) 18:42, 22 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the link and translation. So they say that all images they show are the property of the state, which is basically what we already mentioned above. The question is if they're correct or if this is some sort of copyfraud as mentioned by Tisourcier and Yann above. --Rosenzweigτ06:53, 23 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
The ministry and the RMN claim that there is a copyright on everything they have in their collection, whether it's public domain or not. It doesn't matter how many times the quote by the ministry is repeated nor how it may be decorated with bolding and underlining, that still does not make it better. Take randomly any example on their websites, e.g. this image by Jean Bardin (1732-1809) (on Commons here), this 1903 postcard by Jean Giletta (1856-1933) (on Commons here), as well as the the pre-1954 Harcourt photos and thousands of other public domain images. If we applied the notice, nothing could be on Commmons. It doesn't mean that the notice is false, some items in their collection are copyrigted by someone, but the notice is only correct in the manner that a broken clock may occasionally give the correct time. The notice is useless to determine the copyright status of the items. The actual copyright status of the items must be determined by other means and other sources. In the case of the Harcourt photos, the best source would probably be the contracts of donation. We don't have that. The second best source, which we do have, is the statement by the Studio Harcourt. The owners of Harcourt, who acquired the Studio and the intellectual property of the trademark, are directly concerned, they must have examined the question of the copyrights seriously and, through the years, they naturally must have received many similar queries from the public. It would be irresponsible from them to give the answer that they give if it weren't true. Can they be mistaken? Yes, in theory anybody can be mistaken. Still, it's the best source we have. They can be assumed to have looked into this matter more in depth and to know more about it than we do. -- Asclepias (talk) 20:24, 24 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I agree with you that we should not trust when RMN states their own the copyright of a work, but it doesn't mean that almost all works published by RMN have no copyright. The analogy of the broken clock would be correct only if a high percentage of what RMN hosts is the public domain. What I don't agree with you is the other reasoning. Namely that we must trust blindly what an employee of a company that was bankrupt and passed hands a couple of times said in an email that was later forwarded to the VRT. I don't buy that a normal employee consult their legal team before answering a random email that probably is not going to generate a financial benefit. Even on the technical level there is no guarantee on the authenticity of the original email (Note, it is not something I'm doubting). Is the only evidence we have about the copyright status? Probably yes. Is is enough to host 5,000,000 images here? Probably not. If they made such statement in that email, it means that either they waived their rights in the past (presumedly before transferring the negatives) or they still hold the copyright and are fine with other people exploiting their pre-1991 work. In the former they should point us a legal document. In the latter, they should be able to grant an explicit free license as Rosenzweig suggested. Günther Frager (talk) 01:03, 25 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Nobody seemed to have a problem with the collective work status (in France) of the Harcourt photos. So any photos older than 70 years are in the public domain in France, and any Harcourt photos up to 1936 (before 1937) are also PD in the US and therefore ok for Wikimedia Commons.
Nobody came forward to support the released under CC BY 3.0 theory, not even RAN (though all relevant users were pinged and sometimes even separately notified by others). Asclepias specifically disagrees with that theory. So I think we can without any qualms declare this theory to be as dead as the dodo and completely debunked.
For the third point, the theory that Harcourt photos from 1934 to 1991 are in the public domain, we have exactly one piece of evidence: that a Harcourt employee claimed so in an e-mail that the VRT has in its system. Some people want to believe it, but there are no details how and why all those photos would be in the public domain, who put them there and where that would apply (France only or also in the US?). COM:VRT demands a rather detailed and outspoken declaration from anyone wanting to release media under a free license. I don't see why there should be a lesser standard for the Harcourt photos, especially considering how many images we're talking about here. Only a part of the 5 million images will be relevant for Commons, but as Harcourt was considered a celebrity studio, that might still be a few percent. Even 3 % of 5 million are 150.000.
Which means:
Harcourt photos before 1937 are ok for Commons as French collective works with PD-1996 in the US. Later photos are still protected in the US, they will expire there starting in 2033.
Only the files uploaded directly by User:Studio Harcourt in 2010 are licensed under CC BY 3.0, but not all photos which were acquired by the French state (as claimed by RAN).
All other Harcourt files are not covered by these two points and are here because they are claimed to be in the public domain, a claim that is only backed up by very little and vague evidence. My opinion is that for so many files, we should have a PD declaration which is at least as solid and explicit as those usually demanded by the VRT. What we have at present is nothing of the sort. And if we don't have such a proper declaration, the files should all be proposed for deletion and deleted per the precautionary principle. Anybody wanting to keep them is free to facilitate the sending of such a proper declaration (by whoever may actually be authorized to do so) to COM:VRT. --Rosenzweigτ19:12, 28 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Does anyone else have another reply to the Harcourt photos subject? If there are no substantial changes, the next step would be a deletion request (or several, because there are hundreds of files) for any Harcourt photos not uploaded by User:Studio Harcourt or from before 1937. --Rosenzweigτ12:13, 3 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 4 days ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Wondering whether a simple flag work by artist David Hammons meets the standards for copyrightable material. Hammons created African-American Flag in 1990, it is a direct facsimile of the American flag but with the colors changed - red, white, and blue become red, black, and green, the colors of the Pan-African flag. Obviously the American flag design itself is public domain, but do the remixed colors make it sufficiently original to gain copyright in the US? Thanks for any insights! 19h00s (talk) 01:08, 21 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Is there a proper way to note that an image on Commons contains artwork that is claimed to be copyrighted but is actually public domain? There are severalpicturesof this work on Commons, want to be sure they don't get deleted based on the museums who own the works claiming they're under copyright by the artist. 19h00s (talk) 14:57, 24 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
One could certainly augment the uploader's licence tag with a PD tag that expresses specifically that the flag is below the threshold of originality. That should at least make people think twice before speedy-ing it as a derivative of a copyrighted work (and at DR I am pretty sure it would be kept in either case). Felix QW (talk) 17:14, 29 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 day ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Can an administrator come figure out what should happen with Commons:Deletion requests/File:Damage from the 1968 Charles City tornado just south of the Cedar River looking north.jpg. The deletion request was opened up on July 10, so it is over a week old. However, the main concern involves the actual PD-NWS and the deletion request nominator has stated up to maybe 150+ images are affected, including potentially an image uploaded by a Commons Administrator. I am posting here since maybe a single image deletion request isn’t the best method for this discussion. Or, maybe it is. I don’t know, but the discussion is very forum-like and needs solving or some level of actual administrator involvement. WeatherWriter (talk) 16:49, 22 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 day ago22 comments9 people in discussion
Moved from General Village pump:
In response to Commons:Deletion requests/File:Roermond 1931.jpg I would like to start a discussion on how to treat the many old European postcards, wich are dated between 1 jan 1929 (US:PD-1923) and 1 januari 1954 (PD 70 years Europe / PD-anon-70-EU)
Background: Most of the old postcards where published by big postcard publishers such as Category:Postcards published by Nels/Thill, wich mostly bought the works of local photografers or send employees to take pictures. If the photografers had some reputation the name is mentioned on the postcard (PD 70 years after death)(otherwise 70 years after publication). The original glass plates or negatives have almost certainly been lost, the same with the compagny records. The publishers at that time wanted recent images and not outdated ones. Glass plates took a lot of space and where reused. Celluliod negatives less so, but stil took space and effort to maintain for no commercial purpose. There was a lot of disruption during the Second World War (occupation, cessation of activity, employees fleeing or taking other occupations, destruction of buildings), so many archives where lost. If the picturearchives of Nels/Thill stil existed they would certainly be treasured and preserved. It is safe to assume that they no longer exist. If no name of the photografer is given it is imposible to research it. If the photografer still lives he could claim out of memory that it is his work, but for descendants this is imposible. Who would remember the many (commercial) pictures his father took? For any legal procedings there has to be some minimal element of proof.
There where also many small local publishers, wich only published local postcards. I always assumed that the publisher also took the pictures, so I treated them as such for licensing purposes. (70 years after death)
How do we apply this knowledge to the postcard URAA-restored copyrights
cases? My suggestion is to apply URAA to postcards where the photografer is known. The risk is small that someone will go to an US court for the license rigths of an European village picture postcard with no commercial value. (or very marginal one) But it still exist. In de anonymous cases the precautionary principle should not apply if there is no risk.
In the very unlikely event the authorship is claimed/or discovered and URAA applies, we delete the file.
there are no US connections. These are local images, taken by a local photografer. The photografer could later move to the US, but then this is no longer an anonymous case. (he/she has to make his name known)
there are considerable costs to starting an US legal proceding with foreign elements, for postcards wich may have historic value, but none or very marginal commercial value.
most old postcards are of low-quality and low resolution in black & white. Technicaly the use is limited. The value for Wikimedia is showing how things where.
for any legal procedings there need to be some element of proof. Otherwise everyone can claim rigths to the image. If there are no records or original material this becomes imposible. There is only one negative. Prints can be duplicated and have no proof value. Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:44, 25 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
PS: I have no expert knowledge how US law is applied in these European cases, so feel free to comment. (I suspect it is not as simple as 70 years becomes 95 years) Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:42, 25 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Generaly the EU. (I dont think the licenses to change in GB with the brexit) But more broadly al countries with 70 year PD license conditions. I forgot there was a subsection for Copyright. I will move it there.Smiley.toerist (talk) 11:30, 25 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I do not agree that we should host items whose US copyright is known not to be expired and which is not under a free license, regardless of whether the original author is known or not. Photos can well be anonymous to the general public and still have active US copyright, possibly even with a known owner. For instance, the copyright of a work for hire (which would be the case for employees sent somewhere to take a picture), will rest with the publisher even if they don't know themselves which of their employees took the picture at hand. Felix QW (talk) 11:49, 25 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Postcards are by definition published works (there are recent trends to make your own postcard, but we are discussing old postcards). Just as by other publications there are attributed articles/parts where authors keep their rigths independant of the publisher an parts where authors and other creative people are paid once for their work and the copyrigths go to the publisher. So for postcards without photographer attribution the copyrigths are by the publisher.Smiley.toerist (talk) 16:25, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Per Commons:Licensing, 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. Regardless if the photographer (or author in general) is known or not. Which wouldn't make sense anyway, because the old US copyright terms (which are the type restored by the URAA) are generelly based on the date of first publication, not on the person of the author. Also, Commons:Project scope/Precautionary principle lists several arguments of the type "we can get away with it" and clearly says that they are against Commons' aims. --Rosenzweigτ13:22, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I'm confused here. The way I see it, anything from 1929 from a country that gives 70-year protection to anonymous or corporate work would still have been in copyright in its native country through 1999, so URAA would have restored its U.S. rights in 1996, making them good through 2024. Similarly, anything from 1950 would have U.S. copyright through 2045. This would seem to preclude uploading to Commons at this time. What am I missing? - Jmabel ! talk18:59, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Jmabel: Not all countries already had the 70 year terms on the URAA date (January 1, 1996 for most countries). The Netherlands and Germany already had them, but France still had 50 years + wartime extensions (another 8 years and 120 days). See en:WP:Non-U.S. copyrights for a list. So a 1935 postcard from France might have escaped the URAA. --Rosenzweigτ12:03, 27 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
If I read the en:Copyright Act of 1976 correctly, it gives a term of 75 years for anonymous, pseudonymous works, and works made for hire. (pre extention 1998). So if the URAA-restoration restored the 1976 rules it is 75 years after publication for postcards without attribution. The jurisprudence cases dont involve anonymous, pseudonymous works, and works made for hire.
The URAA restoration means it will be treated as a US work with notice and renewal, and it gets any extensions a US work would, thus 95 years after publication.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:50, 27 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Not quite: the en:Copyright Term Extension Act does not work retroactively. All files wich where in the PD in 1996 remain in the PD. For postcards wihout attribution it makes no difference as 1996 - 75 = 1921. But for postcards with attribution it could in some cases be PD, as the 1976 rule it is the livetime of the author + 50 years.Smiley.toerist (talk) 21:20, 27 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
The US "lifetime + 50 years" (50 years pma) term from 1976 (extended to 70 years in 1998) did and does not apply to works published before 1978. For those, the old rules based solely on the year of first publication still apply. See Commons:Hirtle chart. --Rosenzweigτ00:27, 28 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
There is a good reason why there is no jurisprudence case which involves anonymous or pseudonymous works. The author(s) needs to make themselves known to make a copyright claim. Even if the authors makes themselves known now, they cannot claim a copyright in the country of origin, so it is very unlikely that they would claim a copyright in another country. IMO this is a good argument to accept old anonymous or pseudonymous works affected by URAA. Yann (talk) 20:11, 27 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Without wide community consensus to do this, we would still need to delete because URAA automatically restored US copyrights of many European works, and these copyrights were still in force in 1996 even if nobody could enforce them. Abzeronow (talk) 20:14, 27 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Sure, but this is not something completely new. There was a discussion about URAA 10 years ago with a wide community support, although it was later overturned. Yann (talk) 20:18, 27 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
There are also many postcards coming from GLAM institutions/projects, with no mention of US-licenses. For example File:Station Roermond; circa 1900.jpg. In this case an US license can be added, but in many other cc-zero is unclear. The institution does its own copyrigth research but does not need to consider US licences. The projects work on the basis of trust.Smiley.toerist (talk) 21:40, 27 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
The old U.S. 75 year terms are likely irrelevant -- European postcards needed a copyright notice, and also to have been renewed, for the U.S. copyright to still exist normally. Both would happen almost never, though if by chance they did, the URAA date does not matter -- US copyright would be pre-1929 only, the full 95 years. Otherwise, it would matter what the copyright status was in its country of origin in 1996 for the URAA restoration. That varied in Europe -- while countries were supposed to have implemented the EU copyright extensions by then, not all countries did until after the URAA date. Italy was effectively 56 years (and 20 for simple photos), France 58 or 59, and I think Portugal was 50 years. Most later additions to the EU were also 50 years at the time. Spain was pretty much still 80 I think. en:Wikipedia:Non-US copyrights has some further information on that, but it does not always denote what the terms were on the URAA date. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:34, 27 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Is there some script I could use to add an US license to manualy selected postcards older than 1929?
Pretty easy thing to do with VisualFileChange, assuming you can sanely make a search that will turn up a reasonable number of such files. (You can select within the search result.) - Jmabel ! talk20:41, 31 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 4 days ago6 comments5 people in discussion
The uploader of the Andamiro company logo has listed it as public domain due to text only and no creative content, which I think is utter nonsense. Can someone have a look, and update the license on that page if appropriate? Thanks. Mathglot (talk) 20:02, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hi, uploader here—happened to stumble upon this thread very coincidentally and wanted to try to clarify. This logo seems to be very far below the "threshold of originality" needed for copyright, particularly in the United States. You can browse through more examples at COM:TOO US, many of which are arguably far more complex than this logo and are still considered below the threshold. Because of this, I firmly believe the logo falls into the public domain. Hope that sheds some light here—apologies for any confusion. Bsoyka (talk) 02:41, 27 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Evisu's "seagull" design, which is below the TOO in South Korea@Marchjuly: Yes. An example at COM:TOO South Korea is the logo of Evisu, which features the "seagull" design shown to the right; that design was found to be ineligible for copyright. Additionally, typefaces are not protected by copyright per COM:SIG South Korea. The Andamiro logo is very similar to a combination of these two marks, with only a wordmark and a crescent shape that is even simpler than Evisu's design, leading me to believe it's ineligible for copyright protection in South Korea. Bsoyka (talk) 01:28, 30 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 days ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Hello! I came across Category:InciWeb photos, which contains images uploaded from InciWeb, a website created by the United States Forest Service (USFS) to share data about ongoing wildfires. At first glance, it might seem any photos from this site fall under {{PD-USGov-USDA-FS}}, but I believe that may not always be the case. InciWeb appears to gather data and images from local, state, and national agencies, meaning not all photos on it are taken by the USFS and its divisions/employees. Additionally, another exciting twist in this is that InciWeb seems to have changed domains once or twice, and pages for old fires/incidents don't seem to last, making source/copyright verification difficult. I feel like there should be a better way to assess and tag these files, perhaps similar to the processes for Flickr and iNaturalist uploads, with templates like {{iNaturalist}} and {{iNaturalistreview}}. I welcome thoughts on the copyright status of InciWeb photos, ideas for better categorization/tagging here, and anything else you all might have. Thanks! Bsoyka (talk) 02:52, 27 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
As a note, apparently even the unit designated on InciWeb for each incident doesn't necessarily specify who took the photos. For example, the "Fire Activity on I-84" image here was actually taken by a railroad employee. Bsoyka (talk) 04:34, 27 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion
This is a famous photo snapped by Paul Hoffman, photographer for the Elkhart Truth. It was uploaded from NOAA.gov and claimed to be licensed as {{PD-USGov-NOAA}}. The license had been challenged by a user, but most chose to trust NOAA's declaration. During that time, I inquired with NOAA about the copyright status of this photo. A staff member later replied that he is unsure if it's in the public domain and will remove it from their website when it's migrated to a new platform. He said they had removed a large number of images because the old site manager was rather lax in terms of the uploads. At his suggestion, I later emailed the newsroom and a managing editor of the Elkhart Truth to request for a free license but never received a reply. Recently, it struck me that it might apply to {{PD-US-no notice}} while reading a deletion request, and I found it subsequently in a 1976 newspaper without a copyright notice; see [5] and [6]. So I'd like to hear your opinion on revising the license to {{PD-US-no notice}}. 0x0a (talk) 19:13, 27 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I guess the question is if the Elkhart Truth had a copyright notice for the newspaper as a whole -- it did not have to be adjacent to the photo. That newspaper did not renew any copyrights so issues before 1964 are OK, but 1965 would depend on if they had a copyright notice or not in the issues which printed the photo. It could be on the cover or inside, usually where they have the editor and printing information. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:44, 27 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 days ago2 comments1 person in discussion
Is this image, a submission from Wiki Loves Africa 2024 (Nigeria), a truly own work of the uploader or not? The speech balloon at the upper-left corner somehow disturbs me but, I would prefer a third-party license reviewer to "triple-check" this file. JWilz12345(Talk|Contrib's.)02:42, 28 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Kakan spelar: Where exactly do you get that "Information and education only"? I don't see that phrase on the linked page, nor on the one linked as a source for the photo.
@Marchjuly Ok, I uploaded a copy locally to enWiki. The file is also used on deWiki, but they're going to have to sort that one out for themselves because I don't speak German. It turns out that permission is kinda-sorta-maybe possible for this file; the user who uploaded it appears to have a relationship with the company. However, the nature of the relationship was never fully disclosed, so as far as we know it could have been an over-enthusiastic intern with no authority to release the company's intellectual property. GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 07:15, 29 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
And, while I'm here, what's the Commons etiquette for adjusting the author parameter/licensing of works like this? The original uploader claimed Own Work (very dubious) and I know I need to correct that; what's the best way of making sure I attribute their scan while making authorship of the coin clear? GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 06:51, 29 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Sounds good! The own work license is still very valuable, because photographs of coins can exceed the threshold of originality and attract independent copyright. We have {{Licensed-PD}} for this purpose, which I would use as {{Licensed-PD|1={{PD-Seychelles}}{{PD-US-URAA}}|2={{self|cc-by-sa-3.0|GFDL}}}}.
PS. Somehow, the formatting is a bit off on the GFDL template when inserted like that; it works better with {{self|GFDL|migration=relicense}}, but I guess that's not entirely accurate. Felix QW (talk) 07:46, 29 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Felix QW That set up looks great; I'll add it in! Yeah, the entire photographing of a PD 3d work is one of those areas of copyright that gets super complicated, super fast, and I have to confess I'm more than a little scared of it. Even if the author got a bit confused about what counted as own work, I'm still happy they uploaded the picture. And thank you for responding so quickly! And thank you, Seychelles, for only joining the WTO in 2015. GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 08:34, 29 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 2 days ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Example
I watched several die shots now and am wondering now if they are copyrightable under some circumstances. Some may argue, this is only a scan or a identical reproduction just on a very smart scale (faithful reproduction), without own creativity effort. I am curious about this topic. What do you think?
I would say not. These are a simple utilitarian artifact of the design. They are not a creative endeavour.
Very high resolution images (which would have to be of tiny portions) might be regarded as a reproduction of a copyrighted work, at least in portion. But not whole-die shots for anything since the '60s. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:54, 29 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
They are also not subject to the normal regime of derivative works and other things like normal copyright. It's a different form of protection entirely. The photo may still be copyrightable on its own, though. Far from guaranteed and could well differ by country, but we might treat it as like photos of coins, where we generally will assume a photographic copyright. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:17, 1 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Deletion of logos and flags of designated terrorist groups
Latest comment: 2 days ago4 comments4 people in discussion
What I'm confused about is why do the logos and flags of designated terrorist organizations get deleted? Because of the terrorist designation they are unable to fight in U.S. courts and many of these countries including Syria and Iraq don't have their copyright recognized in the United States. My main question is wouldn't the copyright of said organization be null and void? RowanJ LP (talk) 04:42, 30 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
We don't only demand works to be free in the US, but also in the country of origin. So even if countries such as Iraq and Syria do not have copyright relations with the US, we still ensure that any work from those countries is out of copyright in its hone country. Felix QW (talk) 08:30, 30 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
We've taken it upon ourselves to respect the copyright laws of the countries that these flags come from. And sometimes, copyright law can be used to censor groups that governments don't like, but we generally don't pick and chose which copyright laws of Iraq or Syria to uphold, we uphold all that we reasonably can per the COM:PCP principle. Also, in general, we abide by the principle that every person deserves equal protection under the law, and that includes terrorists and their copyrights. Abzeronow (talk) 00:41, 1 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
The information boards seem OK to me, as they present only some non-creative text. The mural might be problematic, but I would prefer to hear other opinions --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 08:52, 30 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Is there a possible problem in the description which is a verbatim reproduction of the description on Flickr? Although we commonly understood that the free license on the Flickr upload also extends to the descriptions, this concern may need to be addressed or reassured.
If this is true, then we may have been "license washing" through verbatim copying of such Flickr descriptions in the first place, since the years when I wasn't yet a user here. This may need some discussion as one important claim was made which may impact hundreds of thousands of Flickr imports, such as the image file I cited here (imported by @Hariboneagle927: )
Latest comment: 3 days ago3 comments2 people in discussion
I've found, as far as I can tell, the only known extant photo of a 1951 protest that happened in Barbados. The photo appears in a 1951 issue of the daily paper Barbados Advocate, and is not credited to any particular author/photographer. On the Digital Library of the Caribbean, the rights are listed as "Copyright Advocate Co.. Permission granted to University of Florida to digitize and display this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder."
My chief question is as follows: could this photograph be uploaded on Commons and used in an English-language Wikipedia article? If any clarifications are needed just ping me. Many thanks in advance for knowledgeable Wikipedians' thoughts. SunTunnels (talk) 02:14, 31 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I should clarify that as far as I can tell, because it's a photo with unknown author, the Barbadian copyright would've expired after 2001. It's more the US side of things (URAA??) that I'm concerned about here. SunTunnels (talk) 02:15, 31 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Indeed, I believe this would still be copyrighted in the US due to URAA. The URAA restoration date for Barbados is 1 January 1996, so it would still be under copyright on that date. Therefore, the US copyright term is 95 years after publication (Hirtle chart) which would expire on 1 January 2047 (1951 + 95 = 2046; term extends to the end of the year). Anon126 (✉⚒) 04:16, 31 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
The seal is public domain obviously, but the photo may have a copyright. Even though it's mostly 2-D, I think our policy is that photos of coins may still have a copyright (and that is similar). Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:17, 1 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Copyright status of literature by Yakub Kolas post-1928
Latest comment: 2 days ago5 comments3 people in discussion
Hi, I am relatively new to most things related to managing content on Wikipedia and its other subsidiaries, so I apologize if any of my questions seem uninformed.
That being said, I felt inclined to resume a personal project involving translations of Belarussian writer Yakub Kolas, only to find that File:Drygva_1934.pdf was recently removed along with a set of books authored by him subject to deletion due to copyright concerns. The deletion request suggests first that these titles were not in the public domain as per Law No. 370-XIII of Belarus of May 16, 1996 (with revisions) on Copyrights and Neighbouring Rights presumably because the author died in 1956 and that the works were not PD in Belarus in 1996, even though the posthumous 50 year extension would indeed transfer the works into PD in 2006.
I've also been struggling to find a source that ties books by Yakub Kolas post-1928 to any sort of US copyright as the deletion request suggests, in part because I have not been able to reliably use the US government's copyright database. Nevertheless, I am surprised that US copyright claims exist for a series of books that have never been translated to English, and whose closest lendable Slavic equivalent written in Polish resides six thousand kilometers across the Atlantic. Never mind that websites such as CoolLib distribute these copies online free-of-charge, I'm more curious about the legal issue surrounding the PD status of works like Drygva (1934).
So I come forward with three questions that at the very least should serve to correct me for skipping any details that the editors deemed sufficient for deleting Drygva (1934), among other titles:
See Commons:URAA-restored copyrights. By rules of the Berne Convention, the US had to restore copyright to non-US works that had lost copyright in the US and were still in copyright in their source nation. It's sort of the point of the Berne Convention that works that have no US connection still have copyright in the US. Since the US doesn't have the w:en:rule of the shorter term (and note that a number of countries are listed on that page as not having the rule), these works get the full 95 years from publication that any US work would get.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:00, 1 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
E.g. Turkey is life+70 and the works of Yakub Kolas will be in copyright there for another couple years. This doesn't matter on Commons, as we only care about the US and source nation, but the end of Belarussian copyright didn't mean end of copyright everywhere, or even everywhere outside the US.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:04, 1 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
The US law is called URAA or en:Uruguay Round Agreements Act which automatically restored U.S. copyright on all works that were still in copyright for many countries on January 1, 1996. URAA was the U.S.'s way of complying with the Berne Convention in regards to foreign copyrights (since before 1978, our copyright law required copyright notice and registration). Generally files deleted because of URAA are not restored by UDR until U.S. copyright has expired. Abzeronow (talk) 00:05, 1 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for the swift responses. It's unfortunate that these had to be removed, but I'm glad there is a valid reason for it. Cheers! JirroZ (talk) 00:45, 1 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 13 hours ago16 comments4 people in discussion
Are the pre-1927 works of the eminent cartoonist David Low (died 19 September 1963) protected by copyright ? His earliest works were published in his homeland New Zealand. Between 1900 and 1919 he worked in Australia, producing many caricatures for The Bulletin. From the information given in an earlier version of the upload wizard, I am unable to upload copies of this early work due to his comparatively recent death, but not according to the later upload wizard or from my reading of the Wikipedia article on Copyright law in the United States. Doug butler (talk) 02:05, 1 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hi Doug butler. Commmons requires that the content it host be within the public domain in both the US and its country of first publication. If the publication dates you're giving are correct, then these could be {{PD-US-expired}} under US copyright law, but whether they're OK to upload probably depends on whether they were still eligible for copyright protection in their country of first publication per COM:Australia#Non-government works. Since Australian copyright law allows works to retain their copyright status for 70 years en:post mortem auctoris (p.m.a), it would seem that they would still be protected under Australian copyright law until January 1, 2034 (the p.m.a. countdown starts at the begining of the next year following the author's death, i.e. 1963 + 1 + 70). I might be completely wrong here, but it seems that they can't really be uploaded to Commons until that time. Now, having said that, if these are within the public domain under US copyright law, then it might be possible to upload them locally to English Wikipedia under a en:Template:PD-US-expired-abroad license because English Wikipedia is only governed by US copyright law. In a sense, they are treated as "US only public domain" files for use on English Wikipedia, and thus aren't required to meet Wikipedia's non-free content use policy. You can find some examples of files licensed as such at en:Category:Images published abroad that are in the public domain in the United States. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:33, 1 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Doug butler: According to COM:New Zealand, there's a 50 year p.m.a.; so, it's possible Low's works are already within the public domain under New Zealand's law copyright law if that's considered the binding law because he was a New Zealander. I'm not exactly sure which law is binding here, but perhaps someone else can clarify. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:43, 1 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
My previous post was perhaps unclear. If it was published prior to 1929 outside of the US, then it would most likely be PD in the US per {{PD-US-expired}}; however, I don't know whether Australian or New Zealand copyright law applies since author was a New Zealander but apparently the works were first published in Australia. Does the en:rule of the shorter term somehow apply here? -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:07, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
I’d say if it was originally published in New Zealand; then it would be okay to host (but only if it was before 1929); but if it was originally published in Australia, then it still has 10 more years left. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 02:31, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
The story is: I have copied and cleaned up over 100 caricatures from a disintegrating folio (or similar) book Caricatures by David Low, published in 1915, endorsed on the cover "Taken from The Bulletin and other sources". Mostly Australian but many NZ, and possibly a valuable source for illustrating WP articles. Many could be used under "fair use", but it's easier (for me) to copy all of them to Commons. A list of subjects is at [8]Doug butler (talk) 22:29, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
They would likely be in the public domain in the United States; so “fair use” isn’t necessary; but it wouldn’t meet Commons copyright criteria. So it would need to be put on Wikipedia locally. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 22:39, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
That said: @Doug butler perhaps we should do the uploads while the content is readily available, then list them in and delete them. A decade from now, they could be restored. Would you be open to doing the uploads if this doesn't immediately make this into available content on Commons? - Jmabel ! talk23:39, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
When it says "unless otherwise noted", what does that specifically mean?
That second question above is what the deletion request evolved into.
Now, there is oddities and weirdness.
The NWS headquarters has this disclaimer, "The information on National Weather Service Web servers and Web sites is in the public domain, unless specifically annotated otherwise, and may be used freely by the public.".
Several of the other NWS field offices have similar statements:
NWS Sioux Falls, South Dakota - This is what Template:PD-NWS links to: "By submitting images, you understand that your image is being released into the public domain. This means that your photo or video may be downloaded, copied, and used by others"
NWS Omaha/Valley, NE "Submitted images will be made available to use by anyone in the NWS and will be in the Public Domain."
Others, like NWS Norman, Oklahoma link to the NWS Headquarters disclaimer using a linked up "disclaimer" button at the bottom of webpages.
Some offices do not appear to even have a disclaimer anywhere, or at least none I can easily find.
NWS La Crosse is the specific office for why this discussion is being opened.
Mid-Deletion Request, Hurricanehink started an email chain with NWS La Crosse. In that deletion request, NWS La Crosse replied (per Hurricanehink): "The information that has been passed down to me is : An individual who posts a photo on a NOAA website is not placing their photo in the public domain. By posting the image, the copyright owner is giving NOAA permission to use the image on the website" So for your uses, unless the images are already in the public domain (you can find them on other websites or a license allows for it), you will need to check with the owner."
NWS La Crosse's email above goes against the disclaimer on the NWS La Crosse "photos" webpage, which states, "Please note that this is a government site and in the public domain, so no copyright privileges will exist."
This is why a Commons Administrator is needed ASAP. We have two major questions, which affect thousands of images (including current Featured Pictures on EN-Wiki), and NWS seems to be disagreeing with itself now. A single deletion request should not be the place for a discussion this large, hence why it is being brought here. WeatherWriter (talk) 00:55, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
It also goes against two other disclaimers. The general disclaimer and the FAQ on NWS Norman’s website. It also goes against the terms of photo submission on NWS Sioux Falls. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 00:59, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Back in November 2023, Template:PD-NWS was changed because of a specific deletion request, which determined images produced by Getty Images on NWS webpages are indeed copyrighted. Given NWS La Crosse sent that new notice/email out in 2024, it appears NWS La Crosse has a different guideline from the headquarters. My personal solution would be to have a 2nd exemption rule, similar to the current Getty Image exemption on the template, specific for NWS La Crosse. Thoughts on this proposal? WeatherWriter (talk) 00:55, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
For my proposal, it would be for all NWS La Crosse images, 1970 to 2024, (the years NWS has existed) and it would apply retroactively. Basically, no image from NWS La Crosse webpages, submitted by non-government people, would be allowed on the Commons. That is an easy solution to this whole debacle, since NWS La Crosse appears to not go by the NWS Headquarters statements and is on their own, per se. WeatherWriter (talk) 01:08, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
That could also solve the dilemma of having to delete hundreds of files despite multiple things saying that images are in the public domain unless otherwise noted. So I’m going to Support this proposal. But I don’t entirely know whether or not my opinion is necessarily binding (I don’t know if the votes count for all editors or just administrators only; or if votes are even necessary) WestVirginiaWX (talk) 01:12, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
I do want to clarify that my support “vote” does not extend to NWS LaCrosse images that were created by that office itself. Only to images submitted to that office. Although just to be safe; you might want to consider asking the uppity uppities at the NWS headquarters to clarify once and for all. Just so we don’t end up having a similar discussion a few years from now. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 01:19, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
I would also like to add to the proposal though. I think any image submitted to the NWS from a news site that still has the banners/watermarks/tickers/etc. still on them should also be deleted; even if there isn’t an explicit copyright notice. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 01:49, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
I disagree that the NWS disclaimers (universally) are legally enforceable to require the submission to be released into the public domain in order to submit it to them. The question here is specific - only regarding non-NWS/government employee images that are submitted to the NWS to be featured on their website. There is no way to confirm what disclaimer the person submitting the image saw when submitting it in most cases, given that submissions are generally through email rather than a form. As such, the precautionary principle should apply, since there is no way to confirm that a photographer actually saw (much less agreed to) a specific disclaimer when doing so. The NWS cannot on their end waive the copyright rights of a photographer, and them marking an image as copyrighted (or failing to do so) does not affect the rights of the photographer. Yes, in an ideal world, we would be able to trust third parties (especially government organizations) to accurately describe the images they host as copyrighted or not. But ultimately this is not a ideal/perfect world. I do not see how an image being hosted on a NWS server should be treated any differently than any other agency/government/organization that "typically" releases their images into the public domain. If the image is not owned by that agency/government/organization, they do not have the authority to decide to release it into the public domain. Berchanhimez (talk) 03:38, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Of note, the PRP has already been tested with respect to images that are hosted on NWS servers but are not taken by NWS photographers and have not explicitly been released to the public domain elsewhere - Commons:Deletion requests/File:Aerial view of homes destroyed in Rolling Fork, Mississippi.jpg. There is zero reason that a private photographer should be treated any differently than a pool photographer or someone who licenses their image to an organization like Getty. The presumption is that every photograph someone takes, they hold the copyright for, and absent an explicit release into the public domain, we should presume they still hold this copyright. I am of the opinion that the NWS disclaimers are not adequately prominent on the submissions to qualify as an explicit release - whether the NWS legal team feels differently is irrelevant. Given this is a question over whether the disclaimers are adequate or not (at least in cases it can be proven that the photographer saw and agreed to those disclaimers when submitting), roping WMF legal in for their official opinion on whether it counts may be a good idea. Berchanhimez (talk) 03:49, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Request: why don’t we try to contact some of the people who submitted the images and see if they would be willing to release the images themselves under a suitable license? WestVirginiaWX (talk) 03:58, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
That's acceptable for this case just as it is for any other time someone wishes to use an image on Commons (or Wikipedia/another project) without it having an explicit licensure/release. Any editor should feel free to contact the photographer for any image to ask them to release it into the public domain/an acceptable license - with the photographer emailing the VRT to do so. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:05, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
To get what Berchanhimez said straight: NWS disclaimers don't mean anything? Why do we use website disclaimers then? We allow Flickr disclaimers to work same with YT disclaimers on video descriptions. If NWS disclaimers are not allowed, I request we remove all disclaimer usage then. WeatherWriter (talk) 04:01, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Flickr/Youtube disclaimers are "positive affirmation". The site requires someone to explicitly select that they are not uploading it under "all rights reserved", and when they do so they are presented with a clear and universal disclaimer of what their selection means. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:06, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
So if I say "by replying to this you agree to give Berchanhimez 1 million USD", that disclaimer (as absurd and legally unenforceable as it is) should be treated as a legitimate disclaimer? Get real. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:09, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
(As written below); I don’t think that would be legally enforceable. (In other words your hypothetical idea of getting rich quickly won’t work, no one in their right mind would pay any Commons editor a million dollars, regardless of what currency it was in); but I get the idea. Although I also get ChessEric’s idea too of “sucks to be you if you didn’t read the disclaimer”; so I think that issue might be better suited for an administrator (or better yet WMF legal) to handle. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 16:30, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Go try to upload an image to Flickr/a video to Youtube and select a creative commons/public domain licensure for it. Tell me that is equivalent to emailing your image to a NWS office. It's not. For one, there is no guarantee by the NWS that any photographer who emailed an image to them that they chose to use actually saw the disclaimer (I can email any NWS office without ever going to the NWS website by any number of means, for example). For two, there is no evidence that the disclaimer of "by submitting this it's in the public domain" is sufficient. Flickr/Youtube both require positive action - i.e. explicitly selecting that you are choosing to release the image. In other words again, they both presume copyright and require the user to take an explicit action to waive that right (either by licensing under a free license or the public domain). The NWS disclaimer is not equivalent to that, since it just states "any image uploaded/emailed to us may be public domain" or similar wording.Again, if people seriously want to debate whether the disclaimer counts, contact WMF legal and have them issue an official opinion. Failing that, the precautionary principle applies and we cannot assume that a passive disclaimer like that is acceptable. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:12, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
It's not our responsibility to check with every person to see if they read a disclaimer. It's like signing a contract. If I sign a contract and later discover that there is something in there that I don't like, I can't come back later and say I didn't see it because I would've seen it had I read the entire contract. Same thing applies here. If they didn't read it, that's on them. It's not our problem. ChessEric (talk) 04:17, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
And what if they didn't read it because they emailed the office directly saying "hey, I took some images of this recent tornado, hope they may be useful to you" without ever having gone to their website? Berchanhimez (talk) 04:29, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Which makes it impossible that they read this disclaimer, because the NWS website didn't exist half a century ago. Thanks for proving my point for me. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:33, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Regardless if it was your intention or not, it did a very good job, because it shows clearly that this purported license template is being applied to at least one image that it is impossible for it to have applied to. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:40, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
But to answer your question the way you put it. I don’t know. If I were to speak for @ChessEric, he’d probably say “sucks to be the copyright holder”; if it were my opinion though, I’d say if they didn’t say anything, then “sucks to be them” if they wanted it copyrighted; unless that is they specifically indicated the intent to copyright (then the weather service would indicate whenever a work is copyrighted, like they always do); as noted in the past; the National Weather Service always indicates whenever a work is copyrighted. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 16:36, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Berchanhimez, with all due respect, you have 125 contributions total on the Commons. Several of which is regarding this issue. The previous deletion request is already over 81,000 bytes in size. Given the implications of this (including that a Commons Administrator has violated copyright rules/laws), we need to let actual administrators handle this. I opened this specifically to get administrators. This goes for everyone honestly, can we stop the debate and let the administrators sort this mess out? They already have now like 90,000 characters of text to sort through. WeatherWriter (talk) 04:12, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Attempting to gatekeep this discussion is inappropriate. Further, attempting to make the claim that I don't understand copyright or Commons rules when I have never had an image deleted here nor have I had any copyright issues in multiple good articles on Wikipedia is inappropriate. Please do not attempt to gatekeep people from commenting here any further, given that multiple enwp editors who weren't admins here are being invited to comment here. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:14, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Berchanhimez -- It appears you are attempting to gatekeep in fact. You have just directly stated the Commons had violated copyright rules and laws for over a decade, implied that a Commons Administrator violated copyright laws (unintentionally), and that countless deletion discussions regarding this issue, which were closed, mean nothing. You are bludgeoning the process. Please let the administrators figure out what to do. You should read Commons:Deletion requests, as it states: The debates are not votes, and the closing admin will apply copyright law and Commons policy to the best of their ability in determining whether the file should be deleted or kept. Any expressed consensus will be taken into account so far as possible, but consensus can never trump copyright law nor can it override Commons Policy. Only administrators can close this and solve this debate. Right now, none of us, not you, me, ChessEric, any of us, can solve this issue. Only the administrators can. In fact, per Commons:Deletion requests, our thoughts don't really mean much. Sorry to tell you that. This entire thing was opened to try to get an administrator to solve the extremely long debate. My thoughts don't matter in this. Your thoughts don't matter in this. It could be 10 people saying to keep and it could be deleted. It could be 10 people saying to delete and it could be kept. The admin gets the final say while applying copyright laws. The fact you don't know that says you are not experienced enough or familiar enough with this topic, which goes back literal decades. There are at least 10 discussions all linked together regarding this topic. So please, let the admins do their work. That goes for everyone here. Stop the debate and let the admins sort it out. WeatherWriter (talk) 04:21, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Alright everyone: @WeatherWriter is right on this. This was intended to get the attention of administrators (to which none of us are); and everyone here including myself has turned this into the very same forum that accumulated 80 something thousand bytes and veered way off topic very early on. For our sake it might be better to let the admins handle this. Since according to @WeatherWriter, none of our opinions are binding. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 04:24, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
It is in fact you and other "weather editors" (as ChessEric called them on enwp trying to gatekeep) that are bludgeoning this discussion. Further, it is WMF legal that gets the final say on copyright laws, not volunteer admins on Commons. The fact that some "weather editors" are admins on commons, and/or the fact that your collective bludgeoning (which has resulted in multiple ArbCom requests and at least one case in the past) have resulted in admins here not being able to apply the precautionary principle appropriately is irrelevant. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:28, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Though it probably makes sense to wrap up the DR conversation first, just posting to say that I'm in complete agreement with Berchanhimez's understanding of copyright and its applicability to this scenario, including the need for a "positive action". I also agree with them that there is a lot of bludgeoning by people with "Weather" or "WX" in their usernames in this discussion and in the DR. Consigned (talk) 09:23, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
I haven’t been trying to bludgeon the process (although I agree that may have been the end result); I’ve only been trying to stop the argument that happened. Yet others on here (not naming no names) seemed to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to it and kept right on arguing and only escalated further. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 16:23, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Some accusations and counter-accusations that probably need not concern most readers
To note for administrators, User:WeatherWriter has canvassed at least a dozen "weather editors" to this discussion on the English Wikipedia (see their contributions). While I am not advocating for any individual editor to be removed from this discussion/have their opinions nullified, it should be noted that the "weather space" has resulted in at least one arbitration case due to inappropriate canvassing/collusion (including off wiki/private communications), and that the topic area has a history of immature (at best) editors who bludgeon discussions to attempt to stifle actual resolution of them. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:38, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Berchanhimez is a troll. The supposed canvassing alerts (example of one here) was sent to all editors who actively edit weather-related articles and upload images. Given there are several articles (some featured articles, featured article candidates, Good articles, GANs) and several other highly-viewed articles that use this template, all editors were told to not upload under it until the Commons could figure out what to do. A link to this discussion was not given to editors.
What is actually amazingly funny is how this discussion was started at 00:55, 2 August 2024, and the most recent EN-Wiki notification was sent at 23:54, 1 August 2024. So, Berchanhimez has accused me of canvassing a discussion which had not yet begun. I would really like to see how I can canvas for a discussion that does not exist yet. WeatherWriter (talk) 04:46, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
They were sent to specific editors, rather than to a wikiproject. While giving notes to wikiproject talk pages is generally appropriate, cherry picking editors is not. Further, canvassing to an upcoming discussion (in your words "There will be a discussion starting on the Commons Copyright Noticeboard within the next few days") is no different than saying directly "please go comment on this discussion". Berchanhimez (talk) 04:48, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
May I ask how? This isn't us trying to come to a consensus or agreement about something; it's us attempting to figure out what we should do moving forward. I've checked those edits and many of them don't even link to here. ChessEric (talk) 04:45, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
A link isn't required for it to be canvassing. The note stated explicitly that there would be a discussion on a specific page, and was all but explicitly inviting the editors to come comment here. That is textbook canvassing. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:49, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Can we please stop accusing people of stuff?? What happened in the past is in the past. We can’t change it. Many of these supposed canvassing incidents were that of @WeatherWriter pinging recently active editors to remind them of an ongoing discussion. I would have done the same thing. Let’s please stop trying to make @WeatherWriter or anyone else look like the bad guy. Please? This is rapidly veering way off course. Can we please remember that this is about the PD-NWS template; NOT about what WeatherWriter supposedly done in the past. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 04:46, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
It's quite funny (to me) that me making this note for administrators' attention has resulted in the same editors continuing to bludgeon and now resorting to personal attacks against me because I called out the canvassing. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:49, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
It ain’t a personal attack. It’s me politely asking you to please calm down and quit accusing people of things without just cause. It’s just me trying to keep you from getting blocked. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 04:53, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Calling someone a troll is a personal attack. I deliberately did not indent this to you as I was replying in general rather than to you directly. Berchanhimez (talk) 04:54, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Now I’m going to be as polite as I can here. If you keep accusing me or anyone else of stuff and you don’t have a good reason to do so; I will start reverting your accusation comments. And furthermore, I didn’t call you a troll, it was WeatherWriter that did so. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 04:55, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Can we all stop arguing and stop the needless back and forth accusations please? @Berchanhimez @WeatherWriter @ChessEric. This is rapidly spiraling into a very heated and un-civil argument and to be honest. As @ChessEric mentioned; if it don’t stop, we all will end up getting blocked. I am going to abstain from making any further comments until this cools down. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 05:05, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Everything. Let admins decide stuff like whether comments should be reverted because what you just said could be considered a threat, even if it was in good faith. Trust me; I learned the hard way. ChessEric (talk) 05:09, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
And as for @Berchanhimez; I am not personally attacking you (even though I did leave you a warning on your talk page politely asking and pleading you to quit the arguing); I am calling out this entire discussion and everyone here. This is a blanket statement for everyone. You all have got to quit arguing. That goes for not only @Berchanhimez, but the rest of us here. Please. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 05:10, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Comment: Not to criticize or anything; but I just looked at @Berchanhimez‘s contributions and curiously there is a three year gap where that user has a whopping zero edits between 2021 and June of this year. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 05:52, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
But let me be clear, it is far from enough evidence in my opinion to call the editor a “troll” or an equivalent thereof. Again my criticism is not on @Berchanhimez alone. I am not personally attacking anyone. My criticism is to this entire group. Everyone including myself (yes I am criticizing myself) is at fault here. Everyone who participated in the argument is at fault. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 05:57, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
@WeatherWriter: you are saying this is something for admins to decide. I don't really see what here is an admin issue. At some point, it will presumably be an admin who decides that the discussion has reached a conclusion (or a point of diminishing returns) and decide which side has the stronger arguments, but other than that there is no specific role for admins as such here. We (admins) are presumably all fairly knowledgeable about copyright, but many of the strongest copyright experts on Commons are not admins, and certainly I would listen far more to what they have to say about this matter than what some random admin has to say.
Offhand, this looks pretty thorny. It looks like the NWS does not handle this consistently; like some NWS sites may handle this better than others; and like it is difficult to determine whether any of them are careful enough to meet the standards of Commons' precautionary principle, except where we know that a particular image was made by a federal government employee. This is probably going to involve a lot of separate judgements, with a lot of different people able to bring their respective competences to sorting this out. - Jmabel ! talk05:10, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Oh. Well in that case, we can basically ignore this entire discussion that got opened here. My hope was that an administrator would decide whether the email trumped the disclaimers and/or how the disclaimers work with that email. That was my original hope for administrator intervention. The deletion request has so many moving parts, that this was sort of opened to try to solve one of those "parts". Looks like it won't and we just have to wait for an administrator to close the deletion request, however long it may take for a clear conclusion to be reached. Also, it is probably for the best we close this. This has now turned into something as long if not longer than the deletion request. WeatherWriter (talk) 05:14, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
I want to try to solve this, but it seems every part becomes so disorganized so quickly. Like you said, it will probably take several "ruling". I had an optimistic approach, hoping starting something here would solve a chunk of the issue. It just became a disorganized mess. WeatherWriter (talk) 05:20, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hey @Jmabel: , since this was opened and has led (and will continue to lead) nowhere, can we close this entire discussion as solved, with the understanding that the deletion request just need to finish normally and will eventually be closed? That seems to be the big takeaway here as that will be the true first step to solving the NWS debacle. WeatherWriter (talk) 05:31, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
To all who may concern: since this conversation got heated because one or two editors (not naming no names) started accusing one another of stuff. Here’s my new idea on how to quickly get things on track again. @WeatherWriter, can you please ignore and DON’T reply to any accusations made by anyone else. Everyone else, can we please do the same? WestVirginiaWX (talk) 05:33, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
So long as people don’t make accusations (and more importantly the other party ignores any that are made); this discussion can continue to go on smoothly. The more we just ignore those accusations above; the quicker they will go away and it won’t get back to the heated mess it was earlier. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 05:41, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
And let’s also remember this. The discussion is not a democracy; it is a dictatorship (the dictator being the closing admin) and our opinion won’t really matter a whole lot if it even matters at all. Let’s not post opinion votes because it is going to have little or no impact on the outcome of this. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 06:31, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
I agree that this isn't an admin issue, it's a community issue, but this is the right place to get community input. Still it makes sense to wait for the DR to play out so that we don't have to have the same debate at two places at one time. Consigned (talk) 08:56, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
I would encourage anyone contacting WMF legal to ask them to opine on whether the fact that a disclaimer is included on some pages about submitting to them covers images they get from, for example, Twitter, or submitted through email directly, or apps like mPING, etc. - I suspect they will say that the disclaimer is sufficient if and only if the image concerned can be shown to have been submitted through a format that the photographer saw the disclaimer - and in that case, since we do not know the provenance of any image on the NWS website that is unmarked/uncredited, we cannot assume that it was submitted with the disclaimer. In other words, simply asking the WMF if the disclaimer is sufficient or not will not provide an answer to the questions raised here. Berchanhimez (talk) 22:23, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
This NWS Webpage is a key one to look at. It is on tornadoes from 1979. The "Tornado Photos" tab is clearly marked with the copyright symbol. The "Damage" tab is clearly marked courtesy of without the copyright symbol. NWS always asks. That webpage basically disproves the theory that they do not ask the copyright status, even for historical photos. They clearly mark it as well, as evident here. Commons:Deletion requests/File:Twin tornadoes.jpg and Commons:Deletion requests/File:The Andover, Kansas EF3 tornado.jpg are two key previous deletion requests regarding this overall topic: one deleted and one kept. The disclaimer is indeed valid and is upheld on the Commons in the past, even when it has been directly assessed. Given NWS La Crosse even has the disclaimer on their own webpages, I would not be surprised if that email was actually some error on the return of whoever that meteorologists asked regarding it. Either way, the Commons has a clear stance on it and honestly, a clear precedent. The disclaimer works and ideas that it doesn't have no proof, while the idea of it existing does have proof (all the disclaimers alerting people when they send in photos). Every email to NWS is also FOIA requestable...i.e. in the public domain to begin with. This includes non-NOAA personnel. When you email the NWS, your email and their responses are open to public record in the public domain. (You can view some already requested emails regarding Hurricane Dorian here). That is why the disclaimers are all very clear on "it is public domain". When they send it to NWS, it is up to the user/photographer to know the terms and conditions of sending an email and/or photograph to the U.S. government. If I was assessing the situation, it seems clear the disclaimers are in place, are understood on several websites, linked to on almost every NWS webpage, and the general knowledge the U.S. government produces public domain info is widely known. So, to me, the disclaimers hold up and ideas to disprove them have no ground and/or no evidence to say they are not upheld...at least no evidence has been presented yet. WeatherWriter (talk) 22:47, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
We don't get to assume anything. If the argument is that the disclaimer is sufficient, then it is only sufficient if it is actually presented to and agreed to by the person when they submit. We also do not "trust" (even if we "think") that the NWS has obtained copyright permission to release it into the public domain. Something being FOIA requestable does not impact the copyright rights of the photographer/person writing the email. The fact that something is "public information" does not have any impact on copyright status - as an example, the Library of Congress routinely accepts copies of copyrighted works as part of their mission, but the mere fact they accept them and display them does not impact the copyright of the creator. Likewise, the FBI and other investigators routinely accept imagery during criminal investigations - including notably the January 6th investigation - but the fact that someone submitted an image for use in an investigation (and that the image may be used by the investigators for non-commercial purposes) does not impact their copyright of it. There are many examples of the NWS "accepting" (either for internal use or possibly for publication) photos from locations where there is no disclaimer present - such as [9], etc. Of note, their twitter information page contains no disclaimer that by tweeting an image at them, even if they reply, releases it into the public domain.It's also important to consider here the fact that the government generally has wide latitude to use copyrighted images under fair use - in some cases even wider latitude than private individuals may have. If the NWS has seen a copyrighted image that they intend to use for an educational purpose, they can post it on their website regardless of whether it's been released or not. This may be part of the reason that they don't seem to "care" about it as much as some people think they do - because while they try to mark if images are copyrighted or not, they themselves are not legally liable for failing to do so. On the other hand, if Commons accepts images that are copyrighted, they are legally liable for representing them under an inaccurate license. Furthermore, Commons requires that any disclaimer/etc be irrevocable - this is contrary to the NWS's policy, which is that a person who did not intend to release their image into the public domain can rectify/revoke their purported release by emailing them. See, for example, the FSD office disclosure: "If we receive complaints of copyright infringement, the image in question will be removed immediately".So to summarize, the disclaimer is not present nor linked to through all submission mechanisms, but only some of them. Where it is linked to, the wording varies between offices and is not clearly irrevocable as required by Commons. Hence my comment that if people wish to bring WMF legal into this for an opinion, it is not sufficient to ask WMF legal "does this disclaimer count" - we would need an opinion from them that the disclaimer is sufficient, that it is sufficiently displayed on any possible mechanism by which a photographer submits their image to the NWS resulting in it getting posted, and that it is sufficiently irrevocable. Otherwise PRP applies. Berchanhimez (talk) 23:48, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
I’m no expert; but the “complaints of copyright infringement” clause is mainly for someone who for example tries to submit Reed Timmer’s (and others) storm chasing videos (and the like) to the weather service; or if they didn’t know the policy. And it’s not going to be something you do 5 years later; it’s something that is done in a matter of days or weeks; maybe a month or two at most. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 00:32, 3 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Revocable is revocable. Commons doesn't allow for licenses that allow for it to be revoked 5 seconds later, or a few days later, or a few weeks later. Berchanhimez (talk) 00:34, 3 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Let me put that another way: let’s say I’m Reed Timmer (I’m not really; but for the purposes of this analogy, let’s pretend that I am), and I take a picture of a tornado say in Illinois; and someone pretends to be me and uploads it to the weather service; or someone uses my picture and they claim that they “took” it; and they upload it to the Weather Service, again without my knowledge and consent; and I then contact the Weather Service and ask them to remove the picture. That’s what the disclaimer means there. It’s to prevent people from using someone else’s pictures and pretend like they took it. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 00:38, 3 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Furthermore; the National Weather Service does (and I have a written policy to prove it) indicate whenever something is copyrighted. Go read it. It’s the NWS Norman FAQ. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 03:22, 3 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
First of all, a written policy for one office does not mean every office follows that. Second of all, we do not trust third parties that claim the copyright status of images unless they have proven to be solid and/or follow good practice. As an example, Commons allows Flickr/Youtube licensure to be used, because both of those sites default to copyrighted and require the user to take explicit, affirmative action to release their work under a non-full-copyright license. Berchanhimez (talk) 05:29, 3 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Listen: we can argue about it until the end of time; but unless you’ve got hard core evidence, I’m going to stand my ground when it comes to my
And not to discount your opinion, but you seem to be somewhat inexperienced compared to some of the other editors when it comes to Commons; I don’t mean that as an attack, I mean that as politely asking you to make sure that you have all the information on the copyright policy.
I’m saying this because I know how rules can be complicated. I am very active on Wikipedia; there are a lot of rules there that I didn’t know about until I ended up violating them by mistake and had a warning posted or had my edit reverted (some of them when I was an IP editor); the point being that I used to (and to a certain extent still am) the new guy who didn’t know what he was doing; and the last thing I (or anyone else) want to see is for you to end up embarrassing yourself if you do end up getting something wrong. Because I know from experience on this discussion that there are certain people (not naming no names) that seem have been heavily scrutinizing everything you say and openly criticizing stuff. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 05:46, 3 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
And also; it’s important to note that the National Weather Service is an agency of the United States government. Anyone submitting a picture to them is very likely doing it for the public interest. If they were wanting to keep it copyrighted; they would submit it somewhere else like to their local newspaper or television station; or onto Facebook or something like that. Someone like that isn’t going to email the NWS with a picture like that. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 05:50, 3 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
I'm not sure how many times myself and others have to point out to you that it doesn't matter if the people were "very likely doing it for the public interest". It doesn't change the facts. We don't get to assume things just to include images. You are the one who has repeatedly ignored this principle, and based your arguments over what you believe (you admit your opinions). It doesn't matter what you think the people who submitted them intended to do - commons does not assume it in the absence of specific evidence that they agreed to the license/status in play. Every time you have replied you have attempted to "deduce" or "assume" what the people who own the copyright to those images meant to do - and that's a clear sign that we cannot accept them on commons. You also have further made these vague threats, insinuations, and attacks against me repeatedly now - if you continue to do so I will be asking an administrator to step in and correct it. Berchanhimez (talk) 06:28, 3 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Abstaining from further comment after this: I have not made any threats or attacks. And I certainly do not appreciate the accusation of doing so. I am again merely trying to save you from getting accusations of gatekeeping and etc. from other people (mainly Weather Writer). I am in NO way accusing you of anything. And furthermore, the “assumptions” that I am making are based on written statements by the NWS itself. I think (especially after what you just said) it is probably best for me to just stay out of it henceforth and not reply back anymore. I’ll let the other editors argue their opinions. As I said in a previous deletion discussion; I have said my piece. It’ll go however it’s going to go and there ain’t nothing I can do to change that; I’ve put my two (hundred) cents into it; so I should probably stay out of it. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 06:43, 3 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
@WeatherWriter, WestVirginiaWX, MemeGod27, Sir MemeGod, and Berchanhimez: STOP. I opened this section to ask what here is an administrative issue, because, as an admin, I was trying to work out whether there was actually some action an admin might need to take. I did not say "would everyone please [angrily] rehash everything from the sections above and from the DR?" I suppose I'm an involved party, after a fashion, but if anyone continues in this section for any purpose other than to apologize to me, or to each other, I will be reporting them at COM:AN/U and requesting disciplinary action. (Consigned stayed on topic, so I have not pinged them, and I acknowledge that this was cross-posted with WestVirginiaWX's saying they are done discussing here.) - Jmabel ! talk06:52, 3 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
File:Kate Bush Hounds of Love (1985 EMI publicity photo) 02.jpg
Latest comment: 11 hours ago12 comments6 people in discussion
I see that this file is listed as public domain, with the copyright holder named as "EMI America", and I am not sure this is accurate. The photographer is known. His name is Guido Harari and he published a book titled The Kate Inside (2016) containing many pictures he took of Kate Bush over the years. Here's an article in The Guardian about the book featuring some of the images, including one from the same photoshoot as the file I am asking about. To me, his use of the images in the book indicates that the photographer, Guido Harari, still owns the copyright and this is why I am unsure it actually falls under public domain. I should specify that I am in Europe and therefore less familiar with US copyright laws, which adds to my confusion. Thank you in advance for your help. Should the status of this file change, there is also a cropped version here: File:Kate Bush Hounds of Love (1985 EMI publicity photo) 02 (cropped).jpgBizarre BizarreTalk modern to me04:24, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
It does not say that EMI America is a "copyright holder". (Indeed, if it is indeed in the public domain there is no copyright holder.) It says that they are the "author". I don't know if that is true (in a legal sense) but let's be accurate in saying what the file page says. - Jmabel ! talk05:14, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
If, indeed, this was distributed as a publicity photo in the U.S. on or before 28 February 1989, and if that publicity photo was distributed (which legally constitutes publication) without notice and without subsequent registration within 5 years, it would be in the public domain in the U.S. That would have no bearing on any other photo from that shoot. The images linked in the "source" section of File:Kate Bush Hounds of Love (1985 EMI publicity photo) 02.jpg at least very strongly suggest that there was no notice on either side of the image. In those circumstances, the burden would probably fall on the other side, to show that it was registered within five years (very unusual for a publicity photo, but imaginable). The only other case I can think of is if the photographer still held the copyright and did not authorize such distribution; it seems very unlikely to me that EMI did this without securing appropriate rights.
For what it's worth, a quick search in the catalogue reveals only sound recordings to have been registered under "Harari, Guido" since 1978.
EMI did copyright a record sleeve including a photo of Kate Bush (supposedly taken by "Kind Light") in 1983, a Gered Mankowitz registered a series of photographs including one of Kate Bush published in 1984, and a Daniel Root registered a photograph of Kate Bush published in 1985. If we are confident that our image is not any of these, but taken by Guido Harari, then we should be fine. Felix QW (talk) 10:46, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Definitely update the author field to name the photographer, as that will matter for the copyright term in other countries. In the U.S. before 1989 (when they joined the Berne Convention), a copyright notice was required on all publications, otherwise copyright was lost. File:Kate Bush Hounds of Love (1985 EMI publicity photo) 02.jpg clearly shows that copy was distributed, and even used by newspapers, and there was no copyright notice on it (although, it would be good to have the uncropped front uploaded, to show that -- the back is uploaded, but only a cropped version of the front). So, unless EMI America used the photo without permission, the copyright was lost, regardless of who would have owned the copyright. Whether EMI previously owned the copyright as a work for hire (with the photographer keeping the photos that EMI did not choose), or EMI was using it under license with the copyright retained , is hard to say and would probably be based on the contract the photographer had. It would be safe to assume the photographer kept the copyright on other photos. If the original photo was a wider crop, the photographer may still hold the copyright on that. But in the US, the published portion became (and remains) public domain, as it appears it was first published in the US. The copyright (whoever owns it) would still exist in many/most countries though, including all of the EU. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:41, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
First off, my apologies for using the incorrect term. My Wikimedia display language is not set to English and I mistranslated in my brain (it happens). I appreciate you bringing this important point to my attention, as those are indeed very different things. As for whether my question was answered, I think I understand better now. If you or anyone else involved feels that nothing new can be added to the discussion, I have no issue with closing it. Thank you and everyone else for taking the time, I hope this wasn't a bother! Bizarre BizarreTalk modern to me02:01, 3 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Bizarre Bizarre Publicity photos were typically done as a work for hire, EMI would have held the copyright. Record labels sometimes did not credit the photographer. The photograph was later 'published' and distributed sometime around 1985 without appropriate notice or registration and fell into Public Domain, in the USA only. The photograph is an individual work and would require a notice on the print itself, which it lacks. As mentioned above, notice was required for works published in the U.S. on or before 28 February 1989. It is still under copyright in other countries. It can be hosted on the Commons as it was first published in the USA. Now that a name of an author has been presented, the file should be updated. PascalHD (talk) 21:48, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
@PascalHD: "Publicity photos were typically done as a work for hire": do you have a basis for that? Not what I've typically encountered, though I deal mainly with an earlier era. - Jmabel ! talk23:45, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Correct; "work for hire" has a pretty stringent definition under US copyright law -- in this case, it almost certainly was not (the photographer was not an employee). Copyright ownership probably came down to what the contract was. Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:54, 3 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Jmabel I meant more like they were commissioned works. Work for hire might not be the correct term? EMI would have hired the photographer to take the photos for them. Record labels wanted the initial control over the works they were distributing, not wanting the photographer to keep the copyright. From what I have seen in regards to these publicity photos over the years. However, we cannot see the agreement to 100% confirm. When notices began being added to press and publicity photos, it is always copyrighted to the companies not the photographers. Example: [10]. A DR about a similar case: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Queen A Night At The Opera (1975 Elektra publicity photo 02).jpg. Hope that explains where I was coming from a little better. PascalHD (talk) 02:15, 3 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Speedy delete. @Yann: , you did not upload a copy of the original video -- despite most of the visual parts of file being the original video, the sound portion is a modern work / recording. The original short has a copyright notice in 1942 by Vidaphone and was presumably not renewed, but all the new portions are under copyright. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:17, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Are you also going to crop out all the parts of the video that are not the 1943 animation (there are lots of them scattered throughout and superimposed). 100.36.106.19918:35, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, they interspersed some other stuff every now and then, and jumped around cuts of the original short. Not really something worth trying to save. Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:58, 3 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
If, this license is valid, then are all the Prime Ministers (Number 10) Flickr files tagged with "Non-Commercial" licenses from previous years now eligible for uploading to the Commons? Thanks, -- Ooligan (talk) 16:29, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Per "license history" on Flickr, this file was uploaded as CC BY 2.0 before being changed to a non-free license afterwards. The same is true of, it seems, all the other new photos uploaded as well. The older license remains valid, so CC BY 2.0 should be usable for those photos anyway. Whether the indications of a different license mean "otherwise noted" is not entirely unambiguous. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 08:21, 3 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Is it really that straightforward, though? Can't they (a) stop distributing under the license, so that we may keep any images uploaded while the licensing was free but cannot necessarily do so now, and (b) have corrected an error almost immediately, on the same day as the upload, making the original license the sort of unintentional error we usually do not rely on? Felix QW (talk) 09:11, 3 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 hours ago1 comment1 person in discussion
David Iliff is still using the WMF projects to copyleft troll, and we aren't doing anything about it. This time, it looks like he's extorting an elderly couple in London that own a silver shop. David's photograph of London was used in a slideshow on a page encouraging people to visit London. The couple said that they removed the image, but would like to properly attribute David if possible. As usual, David has not responded to them. This behavior is a disgusting exploitation of our project. I'm all for protecting intellectual property against commercial exploitation, but this is just extorting reusers who don't understand how free licensing works. If anyone actually gives a damn about our reusers and the reputation of our project, come to Commons talk:Copyleft trolling and help us figure out a solution. Nosferattus (talk) 22:10, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Photograph in Straits Times Article under Copyright?
Per Template:PD-SG-photo, a photo is in the public domain (or "allowed to be distributed publicly" as you put it) if it was taken before 10 April 1987, and 70 years have passed since the end of the calendar year in which the photograph was taken (that is, it was first taken in or before 1953). Since there isn't a date given in the article, I'll assume it's taken in the year of publication (that is 1985). It'll only be PD after 70 years had passed since the end of the calendar year of publication, so in this case the date of PD is 2056/1/1, so nope it's not free yet. S5A-0043Talk12:09, 3 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 46 minutes ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I had tried to tell ヘマ that the PreCure posters were made by a third party company (Toei) but another user who uploaded another (Hirogaru Sky Pretty Cure.png) had removed the copyio templates from the posters.
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Comment Just to put in context: The quote comment is the answer to this question, nothing else. I didn't evaluate the CR status because I'm not French speaker and it was not requested anyway. --Ganímedes (talk) 10:54, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
Info The French Ministry of Culture bought in 1989 the negatives and client records from 1934 until 1979. Later in 1991 during the bankruptcy of Studio Harcourt the Association française pour la diffusion du patrimoine photographique (AFDPP) acquired the negatives from 1980 until 1991 [3]. The source gives very precise dates on the acquisitions, so it might even be possible to find public records about them. Günther Frager (talk) 18:36, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
Question, does this affect images that were submitted post 2009; or just the ones taken before then? WestVirginiaWX (talk) 01:00, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
Support this proposal. But I don’t entirely know whether or not my opinion is necessarily binding (I don’t know if the votes count for all editors or just administrators only; or if votes are even necessary) WestVirginiaWX (talk) 01:12, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
Request: why don’t we try to contact some of the people who submitted the images and see if they would be willing to release the images themselves under a suitable license? WestVirginiaWX (talk) 03:58, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
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Abstaining from further comment after this: I have not made any threats or attacks. And I certainly do not appreciate the accusation of doing so. I am again merely trying to save you from getting accusations of gatekeeping and etc. from other people (mainly Weather Writer). I am in NO way accusing you of anything. And furthermore, the “assumptions” that I am making are based on written statements by the NWS itself. I think (especially after what you just said) it is probably best for me to just stay out of it henceforth and not reply back anymore. I’ll let the other editors argue their opinions. As I said in a previous deletion discussion; I have said my piece. It’ll go however it’s going to go and there ain’t nothing I can do to change that; I’ve put my two (hundred) cents into it; so I should probably stay out of it. WestVirginiaWX (talk) 06:43, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
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