Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2015/06

Peer review and document improvement request

This is a Peer review request to seek broader input to improve page: meta:Help:Form I & Affidavit (Customised for reliqushment of copyright as per 'free cultural work' definition) an option available under (Indian) Copyright act 1957 rules.

Rgds. Mahitgar (talk) 02:15, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Unisphere

I'm considering a photo trip to Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, and just wanted to check the copyright status of Category:Unisphere beforehand so I don't waste my time in case it turns out to be copyrighted. File:Unisfera Flushing.jpg claims that the sculpture is Template:PD-US-no-notice; can anyone dig up any evidence to the contrary? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:36, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

The Unisphere was 'published' in 1964 (for the purpose of a sculpture, publication would mean placing the work in a location where the public could make copies), when the World's Fair opened, and thus would have required a visible copyright registration notice. Per http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/reports/unisphere.pdf (a report by the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission) the image of the Unisphere and the name "Unisphere" were registered as trademarks, and a 'simplified representation' that was the official logo was copyrighted, but the sculpture itself was not and was widely used in printed and filmed advertisements by companies with exhibits. Got to love Google. :) Revent (talk) 03:59, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

File:El-Olympi 2015 news paper.jpg

Is the license correct? I think it should be modified like below. Few more files to be modified. File:Indian Newspapers.jpgInstruct me.--Info-farmer (talk) 02:40, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

This logo image consists only of simple geometric shapes or text. It does not meet the threshold of originality needed for copyright protection, and is therefore in the public domain. Although it is free of copyright restrictions, this image may still be subject to other restrictions. See WP:PD § Fonts and typefaces or Template talk:PD-textlogo for more information.

It should just be deleted. We can discuss File:Indian Newspapers.jpg as possibly being de minimis with respect to any one work, but we can't just post copies of modern newspapers.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:36, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

 Info I've added {{De minimis}} to File:Indian Newspapers.jpg. Should maybe be confirmed through a DR, though. --El Grafo (talk) 10:02, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks indeed both of you. I learned--Info-farmer (talk) 10:41, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

The file information page now specifically mentions newspapers (in the description and the file name) and copyrighted objects (in the {{De minimis}} template), meaning that there is text which refers to the copyrighted works. Since there is text which refers to the copyrighted works, de minimis doesn't apply. --Stefan4 (talk) 22:15, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Yearbook photo copyright status

I have come across several photos that appear to have been originally published in the University of Michigan yearbooks across several years and have been posted as PD for one reason or another. Most were posted by Cbl62 and I first asked him of my concerns a few weeks ago, but got no response, so I wanted to ask the community at large. I have posted my original note below. You can read the full details below, but my main concerns are 1) whether a simple online search is sufficient for "PD-US-not renewed" and whether a lack of copyright notice in the yearbook is sufficient for "PD-Pre1978", even if a photo credit was given in the book for the photo in question.

Hi Cbl62,

I see that you have previously uploaded several photos from the University of Michigan yearbook that are tagged as "PD-US-not renewed" or "PD-Pre1978" or both (which seems rather contradictory). Anyway, I see that there are many useful photos that you have uploaded under these tags, and my hope would be that there are many other college yearbooks out there from which photos could be used in this manner. It would be a major boon to college football and basketball on Wikipedia. Before searching yearbooks post 1922 for photos to add, however, I want to be certain that your methodology is correct in claiming them as public domain. I wanted to ask you about them first as the uploader, and then likely the community at large. There are several questions I have in assessing the copyright status of these photos.

• Are you certain that the copyright of the yearbook itself includes the copyright of the photos? Most yearbooks are a compilation. Could the copyright belong to a photography studio that took the photos? Were team photos even first published in the yearbook or could they have been published in a media guide or game program that was copyrighted? In specific examples, such as Bo Schembechler.png, A specific photo credit was given on 273 of the yearbook. Do we know with 100% certainty that the person listed there is not the copyright holder. If the answers to all of those questions aren't 100% certain, are the photos free enough to be called PD on Wiki projects, who seem to have strict definitions on the subject.

• Even if these photos are certain to fall under the copyright of the yearbook, is your methodology sound for determining that copyright was not renewed? Take for example 1923 Michigan Wolverines football team.jpg. The Stanford database you mention only seems to cover Class A books, and I would think that an annual publication such as a yearbook would not fall under the same classification that Stanford has cataloged. Second, The copyright office records prior to 1978 have not been fully digitized, so searching the online collection for renewals would not necessarily mean that no renewal occurred. Can we really be 100% certain that no copyright renewal occurred for these publications based on an online search.

Again, I sincerely hope that these photos are public domain, and this methodology can be extrapolated to make Wikipedia a much better resource, but I want to be 100% sure before adding anything post-1923 myself.

The 1923 team photo that I mentioned is only located on Wikipedia and not the commons, but it is tagged to be moved here so I believe it's still relevant to this discussion.SCMatt33 (talk) 15:28, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Show me a single yearbook that was renewed. Please. If you can do that, then I'll believe it's possible that a yearbook was renewed. All the volumes of copyright records published up to 1978 have been digitized -- http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/cce/ . Works published since 1950 may need the online database checked, which should contain everything. This is copyright paranoia; I'm far more scared that an "own work" is in copyright then American ephemera like this is still in copyright despite no evidence of it in the records available to us.

All copies of a work needed a copyright notice. If an American yearbook did not have a copyright notice prior to 1978 and legally used photos, then the photos are now public domain.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:33, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I've checked the transcribed renewals and see no yearbooks in this sense (though it frequently was used in the sense of annual, and those were renewed).--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:56, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

(ec) For U.S. yearbooks (and really all works) before 1978, if there is no copyright notice in the yearbook, then it is public domain. It does not matter if it was previously published with a notice; notice needed to be on *all* copies. That would be {{PD-US-no notice}}. From 1978 until March 1 1989, it would be public domain if there was no subsequent registration within 5 years. That would be {{PD-US-1978-89}}. If there is a notice, then pre-1964 yearbooks would also need to be renewed. Those may not be in the Stanford DB... those may be periodicals instead of books, which were a different set of renewals. For items published 1951 or later, all renewals should be online at www.copyright.gov. For earlier renewals, there are some online help pages at http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/renewals.html which has links to online copies of the renewal volumes. Renewals are definitely harder; it could have been renewed individually as a photograph, or as part of a compilation like the yearbook. Unlike notice, one valid renewal would be enough. I do not see any yearbooks listed on their periodical page, which may indicate that they were either renewed as books (and would be on Stanford) or not renewed at all. You could also look for visual arts renewals as a photograph. Those renewals are exceedingly rare though. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:49, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

So if I were to search the volumes listed on the Penn database and find no renewals (published pre-1964), that would be enough to definitively say it wasn't renewed? I wanted to use a couple of example yearbook photos to ask about this as there are certainly many more out there for many schools, and the ability to use these photos would be a boon to college sports pages. I'm still a bit confused for something like the case of the Bo Schembechler photo I listed. The yearbook itself did not have a copyright notice, but there was a clear photo credit given. Does this have any bearing as to whether the copyright remains with the photographer or is it PD with the rest of the book no matter what?SCMatt33 (talk) 18:05, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

The pre 1978 yearbooks I have seen (1940s and 1960s) did not have a copyright notice at all. Yearbooks were a collective authorship by students, faculty, and photographers. The yearbook was a preordered onetime sale; there was no future market so there was little incentive to file for a copyright. The student photographs were taken by a professional photographer who knew these were to be published in a yearbook without a copyright notice. None of my school portraits have a copyright notice; again there was no future market. Here is an example: File:Louisiana Tech 1967 Yearbook page 378.jpg -- Swtpc6800 (talk) 18:10, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I've definitely seen copyrights in yearbooks pre-1978. The 1924 Michigan Yearbook with the team photo I asked about has it. I've also seen such copyrights in other large college yearbooks. This might have been limited to large state and prominent private universities at the time, but those are the yearbooks most likely to have notable enough photos to add to the commons.SCMatt33 (talk) 18:23, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

If published from 1923 through 1950, you would have to check the UPenn resources, both for 27 years and 28 years after publication. For works published in 1951 or later, all renewals should be online at www.copyright.gov (which has all records files 1978 or later). If there is an indication that a photo was taken from another work, and it seems plausible that it was taken without permission, then the lack of notice in the yearbook may not have meant anything. But if a photo was in the yearbook with permission, then the lack of notice should have terminated the copyright. A credit was not enough, it really had to be a copyright notice (with the symbol or the word "Copyright" or an abbreviation, among other requirements). That is probably true of most photos in there. Do note that a single copyright notice on the title page of the yearbook would cover everything in it. Technically, renewals are only relevant if there was a copyright notice to begin with, but that is another avenue to reasonably claim PD status if we don't know if there was a notice or not. If both licenses seem to apply, it could make sense to add both. I'd guess it is overwhelmingly likely that such things were not renewed, so I wouldn't be surprised if you found nothing in the searches. Outside of books, it was only a very small percentage of even registered works which got renewed. It just takes work to search for it, and there is some uncertainty (were all possible classes of works checked, etc.). But if you do a reasonable search, then yes I'd assume PD status for those. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:54, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Utilisation d'une image dans un magazine print

Bonjour,

Je souhaite utiliser l'image suivante dans un magazine papier publié en Suisse: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lauteraarh%C3%BCtte.jpg Sa licence est CC BY-SA 3.0. Sous quelle forme, précisément, dois-je indiquer les crédits? Merci! Fleet ch (talk) 09:07, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

"Copyright Tallin, CC-BY-SA 3.0" avec un lien devrait convenir. Cordialement, Yann (talk) 14:54, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Merci. Mais précisément, pour cette histoire de lien, mentionnée partout: si la publication n'existe pas en ligne, le lien saute, on est bien d'accord? Fleet ch (talk) 08:19, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Le lien est optionnel. Dans ce cas, vous pouvez mentionner la source avec "Copyright Tallin, CC-BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons". Cordialement, Yann (talk) 09:07, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

C'est parfait, merci Fleet ch (talk) 13:48, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Copyright tags for UK paintings, and the meaning of "published"

Hello, I will be helping to give a Wikipedia/Commons training session to a number of art enthusiasts in England and I'm anticipating some tricky copyright questions. One thing I'm not sure about is which copyright tags to apply to photos of paintings (taken by the uploader) where the artist died over 70 years ago, and so are in the public domain in the UK. I expect {{PD-old}} or {{PD-old-70}} would be needed, but these need to be accompanied by a US licence. The templates for these seem to all refer to a publication date in the US, but what exactly does "published" mean in the context of paintings? Is it the date of first public display? Presumably (but not definitely) the paintings were never displayed in the US, so would they require {{PD-US-unpublished}}, or something else? Thanks, Bazonka (talk) 19:30, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

If it was published before 1923, then {{PD-1923}} is the US tag. Otherwise if it was PD in the UK in 1996, then {{PD-1996}} is the US tag. If it was not PD in the UK in 1996, and it was published 1923 or later, then it is still under US copyright. If it was never published, i.e. kept private, then yes you'd have to qualify for PD-US-unpublished (which for known artists is just PD-old-70). "Publication" when it comes to paintings is messy, but we usually assume they were published around the time they were created, unless there is documentation that the artist kept it to themselves, or it was kept private by the commissioning party, or something like that. If it was printed in a book or magazine or exhibit advertising, that was published, or also if it was openly sold. Just displaying it was not publication, unless the public were allowed to take pictures. Commons generally assumes that publication anywhere qualifies as "published" for the US license purposes, though the 9th circuit has contorted rulings which go a different direction (that is the Disney vs Twin Books case), but Commons does not use that logic. For some somewhat-related info, see Commons:Public art and copyrights in the US. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:32, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! Bazonka (talk) 21:41, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

In the UK, note that certain works get a minimum copyright of 50 years from publication, so unpublished paintings might be copyrighted in the UK even if the artist has been dead for more than 70 years. See this page for details (possibly incomplete).

Note that 'publication' means one thing in the UK but a slightly different thing in the US. The UK has two concepts: the work may be 'published', or it may have been 'made available to the public', and both concepts are relevant to the rules given in that PDF. A work is published if copies have been distributed to the public. A work has been made available to the public if it has been possible for the public to inspect the work, for example if it has been published, exhibited at a museum, displayed at a presentation, broadcast on television or uploaded to the Internet. This means that there are some works which have been made available to the public without having been published.

Also note that there is a European Union rule which says that if a work isn't published before the copyright expires but the work subsequently is published, then the copyright is restored for 25 years counted from the date when the work was first made available to the public. The EU rule mixes the concepts 'publishing' and 'making available to the public' in a way which looks very confusing when applied to countries such as Sweden and the United Kingdom where a work may be made available to the public without being published. Since the EU rule only applies if the copyright has expired in the first case, it is not relevant with respect to the United Kingdom in the cases where the United Kingdom gives unpublished works perpetual copyright protection. If the copyright has expired in all EU countries except for the United Kingdom and the work subsequently is published and made available to the public for the first time, then the publisher would become the copyright holder in all EU countries except for the United Kingdom, where the original copyright holder would remain the copyright holder. The EU rule may cause problems in cases like this resulting in the work having different copyright holders in different countries.

In the United States, the meaning of the word 'publication' was changed on 1 January 1978, and you should use the old meaning for acts occurring before 1 January 1978 and the new meaning for acts which occurred on 1 January 1978 or later. See COM:PACUSA for some information about this. --Stefan4 (talk) 22:51, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Paintings in particular are not subject to the 50-year-from-publication minimum in the UK. (For works that were -- literary, dramatic, and musical works, photos taken after 1957, and engravings -- the infinite unpublished copyright was ended in 1989 if still unpublished and given 50 years from then, so through 2039. But artistic works which were not engravings or photos are a straight 70pma published or not.) The EU 25-year publication right could matter though; if a work was first made available to the public more than 70 years after the artist's death, then the person who publishes it gets a 25-year publication right which is basically equivalent to copyright. That should be very rare for paintings though since if a painting was even exhibited in the 70 years after the artist died then there is no publication right. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:56, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Pictures of the coverbook of art catalogs and art books

Hi. Could you tell me about copyrights pending on pictures of the coverbook of art catalogs and art books published on the occasion of a vernissage? I explain: If I click the photo to a coverbook of an art catalog that I own , have I got the copyright of that photo? Might I upload it on Wikimedia Commons without asking any permission to anyone ? Thanks all --94.163.151.146 15:18, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Unless I completely misunderstood you: No. Buying something does not allow you to distribute copies of it. Doesn't matter if it's a photograph, a book or a DVD. --El Grafo (talk) 16:05, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

I understand that this is a follow-up question from this deletion discussion. I mentioned there that the author of a photograph is the person who creates the photograph (rather than someone being depicted), and that they are normally the copyright holder. That's true in that context, but in the context of depicting copyrighted objects, I should qualify that statement a bit.

If you depicted the object in such a way that you made creative choices about the angle and lighting (rather than just faithfully reproducing a two-dimensional work head-on with much the same result you would get if you had scanned it), you are an author and copyright holder of the result. However, you are not the sole author or copyright holder, and you cannot issue a valid copyright license without the approval of the copyright holder(s) of the original work. (If your photo is a faithful reproduction, then you probably have no authorship or copyright claim at all.)

So in this case, if you take a photo of a book cover, your photo is subject to the same copyright protection as the book cover. That means that if there is anything protected by copyright on the book cover (such as a picture and/or an original design), you cannot issue a valid copyright license to your photo without approval of the copyright holder(s) of the book cover. —LX (talk, contribs) 16:39, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

TL;DR, you 'might' own a copyright in your photo (if there was a creative aspect to it), but it's a COM:DW of the photographed object. Revent (talk) 09:43, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Rosetta NAVCAM images

Hi, On 04/11/2014, ESA announced that "all Rosetta NAVCAM images will be shared under a Creative Commons licence". New images have been released recently here, however the conditions there are different. So does the blog post mentioned above covers these or not? Regards, Yann (talk) 16:07, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

There seems to be plenty of confusion regarding ESA’s licensing. From a recent Help Desk topic it appears that files on their Flickr account, with bot-verified licences here, are now showing ARR at the source.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 23:11, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

OK. This one is still under a free license. I posted a message on the blog asking for more information. Thanks, Yann (talk) 05:05, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

I guess I'm not seeing any ambiguity. If an image was taken with the Rosetta NAVCAM instrument, it is released under CC-by-3.0-IGA. If it was taken by OSIRIS or other instrument, it remains ARR unless specifically stated otherwise (as a very small number have been). Yann, the copyright page you linked to is a broad ESA statement. For NAVCAM images, refer to this specific page. As for both Flickr and ESA's Image Archives, are you seeing NAVCAM images that are showing as ARR? I didn't see any in my brief survey. Odysseus1479, some non-NAVCAM images on the ESA Flickr account were changed to CC-by-3.0-IGA, imported to Commons, but later returned to ARR on Flickr. It's anyone's guess as to their intentions, and I suppose if they say at some point that it was accidental, we have the option of going hardball and saying "once released, always released" or play nice and delete the images. But it's in their court now. — Huntster (t @ c) 08:09, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

That's what I was looking for. Thanks. See Commons:Batch uploading/ESA-Rosetta-NAVCAM. Regards, Yann (talk) 14:36, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Tom Simpson memorial photos - no FoP France

I need some advice for Category:Tom Simpson memorial, Mont Ventoux please. Having nominated File:Stéle Simpson Ventoux 84.JPG for deletion, I didn't immediately realize that there was a whole category with similar images. According to Commons:Freedom_of_panorama#France the nomination seemed to be a clear case. But before purging a whole category, I would like some additional opinions: 1) Is the single file really against the "no FoP in France" rule? 2) If yes, should all images in the category be nominated as well? Thanks for any advice. GermanJoe (talk) 09:42, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

That one gets interesting. It looks to me as if the cyclist stone memorial is the only copyrightable thing in there. France has ruled that copyrightable elements that are part of a larger scene do not always cause the photo to be a derivative work -- the one example was taking a photo of a street which had a copyrighted building (en:Tour Montparnasse) at the end of it, which was prominently in the picture -- the court ruled that the photo was of the larger scene, and the building being there was incidental (I think they called it the "theory of the accessory" or something along those lines), and did not cause the photo to be a derivative work. Another example we give is the Louvre pyramid -- a photo of just the pyramid is not OK, but a photo of the entire Louvre museum square is OK even if the pyramid is unavoidably in the middle. This case is a bit harder... the stone carving is the most prominent part of the scene, but many of the photos do seem to be of the entire scene (including the steps and whatever items people have left there) and not specifically the stone carving part. It's a close call, but these might be in that area... The photos are of the entire monument site, and not specifically the stone carving. It may be a matter if you consider the stone carving part to be an accessory to the entire scene, or if it's too prominent in the scene to be considered that way. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:53, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Copyright of old photos / artwork

Hi everyone, for some time now I've been trying to help out here on Commons by looking at the maintenance categories and at files that need clean up or where infobox etc. are missing. I have a doubt about the files that are reproductions of ancient artworks or old photos but that have been published elsewhere, most recently, before being uploaded here. In this case which copyright status does apply? The copyright of the site / magazine that has published the work or that indicated in a template as, for instance {{PD-Art}}?

A concrete example: this artwork dates back to 1628 (so clearly Pd-old) but the source is this website which uses CC-BY-NC-SA (so no-commercial use and therefore deletable). How should I proceed in this case? Tag for speedy del, nominate for deletion or I just have to use PD-Old copyright tag? Thanks a lot for your help. --Nastoshka (talk) 16:26, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

See Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:29, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Prosfilaes. So, as far as I understood in my example the file should not be deleted since it is a "faithful reproduction" of an artwork. Did I get it? --Nastoshka (talk) 16:49, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, though the license template on that image was broken (it was showing an error) until I fixed it just now... you can't use {{PD-Art}} 'alone', but still have to specify a license template as the first parameter. The correct template there is either {{PD-Art|PD-old-100}} or {{PD-Art|PD-old-auto|deathyear=1650}}. Personally, I prefer using the autocalculating ones if we know the author's date of death (I got it from enwiki). Revent (talk) 18:40, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

@Revent: Thanks a lot for this kind and clear explanation. --Nastoshka (talk) 18:55, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Template:PD-Australia

The Commons {{PD-Australia}} seems to imply that it is okay to upload pre-1955 Australian photos. But my understanding is that the cutoff date actually should be 1946. Photos taken between 1946 and 1954 in Australia are PD in Australia but are still copyrighted in the United States (unless it was also published in the US and failed to comply with our formalities, or is PD in the US for some other reason). --B (talk) 11:08, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

The template {{PD-Australia}} explains when a work is in the public domain in Australia, not when it is in the public domain in the United States. The copyright status in the United States and other countries is provided by other templates. For example, {{PD-1996}} applies to most published pre-1946 photos, {{Not-PD-US-URAA}} applies to many published post-1945 photos, {{PD-US-unpublished}} applies to some unpublished photos and w:Template:Not-PD-US-Subsist applies to most unpublished photos and some published photos. --Stefan4 (talk) 11:48, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

That's right, when using a country-specific PD-template, a second template for the US is usually required. {{PD-old-70}} has a warning message:

You must also include a United States public domain tag to indicate why this work is in the public domain in the United States.

I think any PD-template that doesn't include information about the copyright status in the US should have such a warning message, including a link to Commons:Licensing#Interaction_of_US_and_non-US_copyright_law. --El Grafo (talk) 11:51, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I ran through about twenty images (at random) with {{PD-Australia}} on them before I found one that had any copyright template other than {{PD-Australia}}. If the intention is that a second template be used in addition to {{PD-Australia}}, that message isn't getting out. --B (talk) 21:22, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

If you browse many random files, you will find that having only a non-US template is depressingly common, and not just for Australian-source files. Revent (talk) 00:13, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I've nominated a bunch of files like that before but ultimately stopped doing that because there were just too many. So no, that message is definitely not getting out. Maybe we should create an auto-translated sub-template (something like {{Don't forget PD-US}}) based on the snippet above and include it in any non-US PD-old template? --El Grafo (talk) 10:10, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Quick proposal:

Commons policy requires that all files must be either in the public domain or covered by a valid free license in both the U.S. and the country of origin of the work. If this file page does not also include a United States public domain tag, the file may be subject to deletion.

--El Grafo (talk) 10:17, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Requiring two separate templates seems like a complicated process. 99% of PD-Australia images, if they are PD in the US, it's going to be because they meet the 1996 cutoff. Wouldn't it make more sense to just explain that rule on the template, similar to how the en template does? For the extremely rare case where something was published in Australia between 1946 and 1955 and was subsequently published in the US without a copyright notice, you could add the second template or even have a parameter to the PD-Australia template ... but it seems overly complicated to require two templates for the normal case. --B (talk) 11:28, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

If you look at it from a purely Australia-centered perspective, you might be right. But the thing is that we have dozens, maybe hundreds, of similar templates for other countries, which all have the same problem. That's why I proposed a one-size-fits-all solution, which could be applied quickly rather than figuring out the details necessary for each individual country template (which would probably never be done anyway). Doesn't mean of course that we can't have more specific instructions for single countries, if appropriate. But please, please avoid wordings like the stupid fuzzy often because used in {{PD-US}}. --El Grafo (talk) 11:52, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I think it should be adjusted so that the non-US tags get a mandatory parameter where you put a US tag. If new uploads don't use this parameter, they get a {{No US copyright tag since}} template with deletion after a week if no US copyright tag is provided, similar to the standard {{No license since}} tag. Otherwise, we are never going to get uploaders to provide sufficient copyright tags. Old uploads need to be sorted out in some other way.

99% seems a way too high number for PD-Australia images. Keep in mind that the 1996 cutoff date is irrelevant for all unpublished Australian photographs; those always get the standard copyright term in {{PD-US-unpublished}}. Most photographs are probably private family photographs (although we might not have too many of those), and private family photographs are usually unpublished. --Stefan4 (talk) 22:11, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't think deletion requests would help here. If files missing a US template could get a category, that would be a good start for solving the issue. Then a bot could add a template if the date is computer-readible. Or it can be done with Visual File Change. Regards, Yann (talk) 15:02, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, in the vast majority of cases, the image probably really is PD in the US as well. I'm not sure I see a reason for PD-Australia or PD-AnywhereElse templates that don't tell the rules for US copyright status for images from that country. There is never a case where it is acceptable to upload an image that is not PD in the US, nor do we make any effort to tell what the copyright status is in Australia (or anywhere else) unless the image was actually first published there. There is simply no benefit to a two-step process and there is certainly no benefit to having mass DRs on a bunch of images, the majority of which are probably safely out of copyright in the US, but which only fail to have the formality of a second copyright tag. --B (talk) 17:05, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that the {{Information}} field only contains one date, and it is not specified if the date is the year of creation or the year of publication. A bot adding United States copyright tags for Australian photographs would have to consider both the year of creation and the year of first publication for many photographs:

• First published before 1923 → {{PD-1923}}
• First published in 1923 or later but before 1 January 2003, publisher complied with all U.S. copyright formalities → {{Copyvio}}
• First published in 1923 or later but before 1 March 1989, created before 1946, publisher missed at least one formality → {{PD-1996}} (note that the template has a 'reason' parameter where you should specify which formality the publisher missed with sufficient information in order to verify this)
• First published on 1 March 1989 or later but before 1 January 2003, regardless of year of creation → {{Copyvio}}
• First published in 2003 or later, or still unpublished → {{PD-US-unpublished}} if it is compatible with the template, otherwise {{Copyvio}}

In particular when it comes to photographs, the problem is that many photographs remain unpublished for a long time, and it is often not very well documented on file information pages where the photographs were first published. If the publication was before 1964, one could at least assume that almost no non-U.S. publisher bothered to submit a copyright renewal to the United States Copyright Office. However, if the first publication was in 1964 or later, all the publisher needed to do was to add a copyright notice in order to get the full United States copyright term, and this may have been a lot more common. There are probably quite a lot of {{PD-Italy}} photographs which were first published in 1964 or later which were published with copyright notice, and those can't be on Commons. --Stefan4 (talk) 18:07, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

@Stefan4: I just uploaded File:Penguin-Daniel-1909.jpg. I thought it would be simple to find a relevant US public domain notice, since the photograph has been public domain in Australia for decades, as far as I know. However none of the templates seem to apply, since I don't have any information about previous publication: it may have been unpublished until the State Library of Victoria put it on their website (and I don't know what date that was either). As a newly published work, would it be eligible for a new US copyright? The photographer died in 1949. --ghouston (talk) 02:36, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

photos taken pre 1946 are pd in US as well as copyright had already expired in Australia before the URAA came into effect therefore your concerns about a 1909 photo are not an issue. The issue here is that when using the upload wizard if you add a PD-template it doesnt ask for anything else, maybe a bug report and the wizard to ask the second question is it PD in US, yes adds tag not sure adds a warning to check, no doesnt upload it. Gnangarra 06:15, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure that that applies to unpublished photos though. And if it is PD in the US, which US template should be used? --ghouston (talk) 07:15, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

In particular, I don't think Template:PD-1996 applies, because there's no evidence that the photo was published before 1996. Template:PD-US-unpublished doesn't apply either, because there's no evidence that the photo wasn't published before 2003, and the author died after 1944. --ghouston (talk) 07:34, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

theres no need because the copyright is based on when "taken" so the image taken 1909 had already had its copyright expired in its country of origin so therefore with the URAA copyright has also expired in the US. Gnangarra 11:41, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) {{PD-1996}} contains incorrect information. This has been pointed out several times, but it is a very complex template, so no one has found out how to formulate the template correctly in a simple way.

{{PD-1996}} means that the copyright expired in both the United States and the source country before URAA came into force (1 January 1996 with respect to Australia). If the copyright had only expired in one of the countries but not both of them, then the template can't be used.

The copyright to File:Penguin-Daniel-1909.jpg expired in Australia 50 years after it was taken, which was well before 1996. Therefore, the first part of the requirement in {{PD-Australia}} is satisfied.

In United States, the rule as of 1996 was that photographs from Australia were in the public domain if published before 1921, or if published before 1978 without a copyright notice, or if published before 1964 without a copyright renewal being submitted to the United States authorities, or if published before 1 March 1989 without a copyright notice and without subsequent registration with the United States authorities. If the photograph hadn't entered the public domain in the United States as of 1996 (by virtue of being unpublished as of 28 February 1989 or because it was unpublished as of 31 December 1920 and all publications complied with United States copyright formalities), then {{PD-1996}} doesn't apply. In that case, use {{PD-1923}} if the picture was published in 1921 or 1922 (the copyright expired 75 years after publication), or {{Copyvio}} in all other situations. If the picture was still unpublished as of 2002, then the copyright expires 70 years after the death of the photographer, per {{PD-US-unpublished}}.

Commons describes this as coming from the collection 'Mark Daniel's photographs of family, friends, scenes and events in Melbourne, 1898-1907'. Photographs of family and friends are often only meant to be used by family and friends, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of the photographs, in particular some of the photographs of people, weren't published until very recently. Some of the photographs of landscapes could easily have been published on postcards or elsewhere. The problem with photographs from archives is that it is virtually impossible to find out where the photograph has been published. No idea how to deal with these pictures. The picture was probably published at the latest as soon as the archive started offering copies of the picture to members of the public (for example, by visiting the archive in person, or by downloading copies from the archive's website).

Summary of the errors in {{PD-1996}}:

• Requirement 1 can be removed from the template altogether. If requirement 1 isn't satisfied, then the only thing which happens is that requirement 3 no longer needs to be satisfied. The situation where requirement 1 isn't satisfied is already covered by other templates, such as {{PD-URAA-Simul}}.
• Requirement 2 does not correctly describe the United States copyright formalities.
• Requirement 3 states that the work was in the public domain in the source country on a specific date, but United States copyright law states that the work must have been in the public domain through expiration of a term. This suggests that some works might be in the public domain for a different reason than expiration of a term, in which case the template doesn't apply. --Stefan4 (talk) 12:05, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the analysis Stefan. In that case I'll nominate the file for deletion, and if it does get deleted, it can be restored in 2020. --ghouston (talk) 08:17, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

PD-Art vs. PD-old

Hi, What is the right license for old pictures? i.e. File:Sarah Bernhardt, par Nadar, 1864.jpg. I thought that PD-old would be preferred, but the license was changed recently by Trzęsacz ([1]). So? Yann (talk) 15:07, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, that's not really a "vs.", it's "PD-old in PD-Art", the templates used are {{PD-art|PD-old-100}} - and that seems appropriate to me if the reproduction of the photo wasn't made by the uploader. If you photograph/scan and upload a PD-old-100 werk yourself, you don't need to apply PD-art, I'd say. Gestumblindi (talk) 15:26, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

The point is that scanning of PD-old-100 pictures are very rarely made by the uploader, yet we use PD-old-100 most of the time. I think the idea was that a digital reproduction of an old picture is not really a new work, where a digital reproduction of a painting is a new work. Or am I wrong? Yann (talk) 19:58, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Technically PD-Art is really for photographs of 2D works, not scans. We have a similar {{PD-scan}} wrapper for scans, though it's not used much, though might be good if someone is claiming copyright over a scan itself, and we use that to be clear. I would imagine most of the time we just use PD-old-100 (etc.) alone. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:41, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

PD-Art requires that the picture is faithful to the original. See for example this. Point at the painting to see another version of the painting. One picture is denoted as 'original' and the other as 'mezzotint'. The colours are quite different in the original version compared to the mezzotint version, and the mezzotint version was therefore ruled not to be faithful to the original, meaning that the mezzotint version is separately copyrighted. There are multiple different revisions of File:Sarah Bernhardt, par Nadar, 1864.jpg and the colours are quite different, which could mean that some of the revisions aren't 'faithful' to the original. If some of the revisions aren't faithful to the original, then those revisions may be separately copyrighted, i.e. they may be unfree and may need to be deleted. This problem may be more visible in Category:Mona Lisa where there are versions with widely varying colours, implying that at least some of the versions aren't faithful. No idea how to separate the faithful versions from the non-faithful versions, though. Also note that Alfred Bell & Co. v. Catalda Fine Arts, Inc. predates Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. by several decades, which might affect how you should determine if a picture is faithful to the original or not. --Stefan4 (talk) 22:26, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

There seems to be more distinction between the two versions of the Blue Boy then just the colors. In any case, the Copyright Office officially won't register a work distinguished by only color, except for colorized movies, and they made it very clear when they decided to register colorized versions of B&W movies, that didn't include recolored pictures of any type.--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:53, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

U.S. law requires some creativity. Slavish copies do not get additional copyright protection, however, some reproduction processes have inherent creativity in them and thus can get copyright protection that way. One example is engraving -- there are separate decisions on how thick to make lines etc. in making an engraving of another work. Another, as in the Alfred Bell case, is mezzotint -- that specific process involves some creativity, even if the resulting image looks similar. The coloration differences did not matter at all; it was the process of mezzotint itself. The Bridgman case decided that photographs of a 2-D item that amount to copies are slavish reproductions and there is no additional copyright in the process -- the copyrightability of a photograph depends on factors which are not present in these types of photographs (whereas with mezzotint it is present). The coloration will virtually never enter into the U.S. copyright determination -- different white balances etc. should not really matter. (The perceived color of paintings depends greatly on the lighting; there is really no single "faithful" color anyways. That is why having multiple photos of a painting can actually be interesting -- the color differences are not always just in the camera settings.) For U.S. law, there is no difference between PD-Art and PD-Scan. The distinction was made primarily for UK law, and countries based off the same, where it does. For a PD-Art work we are ignoring a potentially real copyright in the country of origin; for PD-scan we generally are not. If the photograph itself is not under copyright anywhere, then I don't think we should use PD-Art. PD-scan might be better used in places where images are taken from websites which publish scans and claim copyright -- sometimes such owners think they have some form of intellectual property rights over the scans themselves and the tag may better explain why we think it's OK to copy them here. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:53, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Carl. The additional issue is that {{PD-scan}} parameter is by default PD-old-70, and is rarely changed. I have seen many cases where this is wrong. Regards, Yann (talk) 17:10, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

@Clindberg: "Technically PD-Art is really for photographs of 2D works, not scans. We have a similar {{PD-scan}} wrapper for scans, though it's not used much" - indeed; it will also be often hard to determine whether a digital reproduction was made by means of (digital) "photography" or "scanning"; the borders are also blurry, as modern scanners may employ the same technology as digital cameras and are not necessarily flatbed scanners. Gestumblindi (talk) 15:04, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

The difference is more to do with UK law; with a photograph taken from a distance the photographer does exhibit some skill in the lighting etc. of the subject. With a scan, a work is placed on a machine and a button is pressed -- there is no real skill in the matter, so it would not be covered by the UK's "skill, labour, and judgement" threshold of originality. In the U.S., which requires some creativity for copyright, there is no real difference between those two tags because in both cases it is an attempt to create a slavish copy of the original. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:53, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

I use a scanner to photograph integrated circuits and other items. Here is an example of an IC with a quarts window. File:Altera EP1200 Close Up.jpg I turned it at a 45 degree angle so the shadow falls in one corner of the chip. The background is a non-glossy sheet of black paper. A scan of floppy disks File:Verbatim 5.25 minidisk tracks 1978.jpg did not require much creativity. -- Swtpc6800 (talk) 17:17, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

@Clindberg: I think it's a grey area (from the UK point of view): Using the adjustment options of a scanner resp. the software used for scanning to get the best possible results may also involve substantial "skill, labour, and judgement"; and on the other hand, making a simple reproduction with a digital camera may not involve much more than pointing the camera at the document and pressing the shutter button - I have made many such photographs myself, where the point was not getting any particular quality, readability was enough. So, I would tend to assume that one can't just say "photograph taken from a distance - needs skill"; "scan - doesn't need skill"; it would rather depend on the kind of photograph or scan - but the problem with that is that it's not always obvious from the result. Gestumblindi (talk) 22:35, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I think User:MichaelMaggs was pretty sure that mechanical reproductions (such as scanners) would in usual cases not get UK copyright; that was the idea behind the tag. He has a better idea of UK law than most around here, and I think he started the page. There are some jurisdictions where quick photographs do not get copyright protection (or at least not as much, as "simple photos") but for the US, it would need to be slavish reproduction to not get copyright protection, regardless of the UK situation. A child's quick scribble similarly takes no real skill, but that is still copyrightable expression. For the UK, the difference was in the professional and carefully-lit photographs of paintings; that does take some skill to do well, though (since it was a slavish reproduction) did not get US copyright. The PD-Scan tag was made to distinguish those type of UK works from ones which will not get copyright there; I seriously doubt that a couple of scanner options would result in copyright (if that is true then just about any quick Photoshop adjustment like exposure would also get copyright). Even the PD-Art case has not been proven in court in the UK (it was speculation from some copyright experts), and I have not seen any real speculation from experts (let alone court cases) which would indicate copyrightability of typical scans there (or anywhere for that matter). Scanning 3-D objects as above *might* get into some different areas, as such scans may be easily distinguishable from each other and some framing expression might come into play, and perhaps angle if there was no obvious flat edge to scan or such edge wasn't used, but many of the elements involved in photographs (even PD-Art photographs) just don't exist on a scanner. I was under the impression that scans were generally used as the example of what would not be copyrightable when explaining why PD-Art photos would be in the UK. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:33, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Passport photos

Aloha! I think we need some clarification about passport photos. Recent problem was: File:Tichomirow.jpg. AFAIK it is a Russian passport (will ask uploader). IMHO they are not OK to keep without permission by the original photographer in this case. How about other countries? Are there countries where the picture is taken by a government official and PD-GOV-ABC ? And how about photos taken in a self-service photo booth? Thanks guys! --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 01:57, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Hallo! The original photographer for my passport photo is myself , not a self-service photo booth or another one. The original photographer of all my photos in wiki is myself or my sister. Please leave these photos by the wiki. Thanks from Berlin--Grafboris (talk) 13:55, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

A self service photo booth has the same creativity than an scanner. If any creative choice is made, it's made by the user who chose to smile or not to smile - and in a man-made photograph we wouldn't give credit as author to the model for that choice. Therefore, a photo booth photograph is either copyrighted by the depicted person or below TOO.--Pere prlpz (talk) 16:30, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with that. Yann (talk) 19:11, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Passport photos will most likely fall beyond the established threshold for creativity, since no creative labour was put into their creation. As per Russian law, the case with photo-booth is that is possess simply no author, and thus no copyrights. --RussianTrooper (talk) 08:05, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Would the fact that the issuer of the passport (government agency) sets a number of requirements about the composition of a passport photo that must be complied with make them the copyright holder as everyone slavishly follows those requirements. Gnangarra 06:18, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

That's exactly what I argue. The requirements now for passport pictures are very very strict. So even if taken by a photographer, and not a booth, I don't think there is any possibility of creativity and originality, and therefore no copyright. Regards, Yann (talk) 06:51, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

United Nations resolutions

There are few hundred United Nations resolutions in Category:Media without a license: needs history check with discontinued {{PD-UN}} license template. According to en:Wikipedia:Public_domain#Works_of_the_United_Nations all UN resolutions are in Public Domain; however we seem not to have a license template for such files. Can someone more versed in law verify the wikipedia claim and propose wording of a license template? otherwise we might have to delete those files as "no license". If we get a new license, I volunteer to add it to the files. --Jarekt (talk) 13:00, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

The reference linked by enwiki (ST/AI/2001/5) on Internet publishing is still in effect (I specifically checked) and refers to an administrative instruction addendum specifically about copyright that is on Wikisource here. Basically, it comes down to a statement that the UN will not seek copyright protection for written material published under a UN 'document symbol'. A 'precise' definition of what is meant by a document symbol is here (it's the ST/AI/2001/5 or similar ID). There are other 'categories' of PD material described there, but actual resolutions (like File:Resolución_1522_del_Consejo_de_Seguridad_de_las_Naciones_Unidas_(2004).pdf) should all be under a document symbol and perfectly fine. Revent (talk) 09:36, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that the document on Wikisource only says that the United Nations won't attempt to comply with the United States copyright formalities with respect to United Nations works. However, countries which are signatories to the Berne Convention may not use copyright formalities. The document is therefore useless when determining the copyright status within countries which are signatories to the Berne Convention. --Stefan4 (talk) 18:16, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

I guess you are referring to material covered under {{PD-US-no notice-UN}}. I do not see it as a problem, since documents are supposed to be PD in country of origin and in the US, and if US is the country of origin than US-only license is fine. I am planning on resurrecting Template:PD-UN under {{PD-UN-doc}} name, but rewrite it to make it clear that it should be applied to selected text documents only. That template will be based on s:en:Administrative Instruction ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.2 section I, which specify which documents are considered PD and which are not. --Jarekt (talk) 18:35, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Section I of that document only lists material for which the United Nations won't attempt to comply with United States copyright formalities, but does not consider the situation where a country doesn't require compliance with United States copyright formalities in the first place. As such, the text in that United Nations document is only useful with respect to those countries which require compliance with United States copyright formalities in the first place, but the copyright tag becomes {{Copyvio}} in all other countries. --Stefan4 (talk) 18:45, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

That might be true but if US is the country of origin than the document only has to be in Public Domain in the US in order to be hosted on Commons. --Jarekt (talk) 02:19, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

I wrote

This text document, published by the United Nations without a copyright notice, was left in the public domain in order to disseminate "as widely as possible the ideas (contained) in the United Nations Publications" (detail). It falls into one of the following categories outlined in Administrative Instruction ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.2 (paragraph 2): Official records (proceedings of conferences, verbatim and summary records, periodic supplements, compilations of resolutions, etc.) United Nations documents issued with a UN document symbol Public information material designed primarily to inform the public about United Nations activities (not including material that is offered for sale) See Also: {{PD-US-no notice-UN}} to be used by document of the United Nations published in the United States prior to 17 September 1987 and {{PD-UN-map}} for UN maps.

. Any objections or suggestions? --Jarekt (talk) 03:26, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

@Jarekt: That sounds good to me. I think you meant to put this up in the section about the UN, tho. Revent (talk) 04:03, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Revent thanks for heads up. I am not sure how that happen. --Jarekt (talk) 11:58, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

That new template is based on the same reasons as the ones which were deemed invalid in Commons:Deletion requests/Template:PD-UN, as far as I can see. This means that the reasons are equally invalid in the new template as in the old one. --Stefan4 (talk) 11:24, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I think it's splitting hairs in the case of documents specifically mentioned in their missive. That could well be judged something like abandonment, and therefore effectively be a PD-author situation. As always there is gray area, but it's also just as possible that someone who gave a CC license (in theory permanent) and then change their mind, and a judge let them claw the license back. Given their particular nature, I think disallowing those named documents on Commons is going too far, really, and gets into copyright paranoia. The odds of them ever being a problem are infinitesimal, given their statement. If they rescind it, then we'd probably put a date on the tag and disallow further documents, or that sort of thing. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:46, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

File:Mark Of The Beast (Conspiracy Theories).png

Seems to be copyvio from [2]. Doug Weller (talk) 20:50, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Likely copied from there, and not {{Own}}, but probably not copyrightable. See en:Eye of Providence... this depiction is composed of simple geometrical shapes. Revent (talk) 21:35, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but whether or not it's too simple for copyright, we shouldn't have an own claim and the wrong author there.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:08, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, that's obviously broken. The copyrightability is indeed arguable... I think it's not, but an 'arguable' case. Revent (talk) 18:16, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

• DR started, Commons:Deletion requests/File:Mark Of The Beast (Conspiracy Theories).png. If it's not below the TOO, it's an incompatible license. Revent (talk) 18:24, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Question about authors who publish in different countries

I'm seeking clarification. If my understanding of copyright is correct (and excluding crown copyright, anonymous works, and other government work), if a work is first published in the United Kingdom, it becomes PD 70 years after the author's death (regardless of the author's nationality, residence, etc), but if that same author originally published a different work in the United States before 1923, the work is PD no matter when the artist died or their nationality. Furthermore, I assume that for works published simultaneously in different countries (e.g. a publisher with London, Paris, and New York headquarters), the most restrictive copyright (i.e. that with the longest term) takes precedent. Am I correct in these assumptions? Thanks in advance. Animalparty (talk) 02:30, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

No. Each country applies their own copyright law within their borders. In most cases, the creators of those laws have tried to normalize them against international standards, like the Berne Convention or EU regulations, and in some cases there's the rule of the shorter term (so a Canadian work would only get life+50 in the UK, because that's all it would get in its home nation), but it's always their own copyright law. If it's published simultaneously in London, Paris and New York, US law would treat it as a US work, UK law as a UK work and French law as a French work.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:04, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

As Prosfilaes mentioned, each country will apply its own copyright law within its own borders regardless of where it was published. The "country of first publication" really only comes into play when a country uses the "rule of the shorter term" in their law to determine the copyright length; in that case it is the shorter of that country's term or that of the "country of origin", which is defined as the country of first publication. That concept is normally of not much importance in the real world, but it has more significance on Commons, since we require works to be OK both in the U.S. and the country of origin. But that is mostly just a policy here. (And in the case of simultaneous publication, the Berne Convention actually does say the country of origin is the country with the *shortest* term.) So, if an author publishes two works, one in the US and one in the UK, then Commons would consider the country of origin to be different, and would follow different rules for them (though the U.S. part is a constant). But if that was a British author, the UK would treat both as UK works and would ignore the rule of the shorter term, and the US (since it does not use the rule of the shorter term) would give both works the same term, the one defined in US law. If it was a US author, then the US would treat them both the same, but the UK would give the UK-published work the 70pma term regardless, and the US work the shorter of 70pma and the US term (which would be 95 years from publication if published before 1978, otherwise, it's the same 70pma). Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:55, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Pre 1923 photos marked as copyrighted by Harvard

I found these series of old black and white photos on a Harvard astronomy site. Are they really copyrighted, or I can copy and upload some of them to the Commons? — Ineuw talk 04:43, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

The 'pre-1923' rule only applies when works were published or registered before that date... if a work was not published, it's 70 years after the author's death, and if anonymous it's 120 years. Most of the obviously pre-1923 photos unfortunately don't show any indication of 'contemporary' publication, or attribute the authorship, so it's not clearcut. Revent (talk) 05:12, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, makes sense. If I come across additional info about these photos I'll know what to do.— Ineuw talk 05:51, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Old family collection picture

An image that I have uploaded, File:Matthew Mclintock Scott, was taken circa 1900, as is evidenced by him wearing a cap with '1898' on it. This photo is a family photo that has been in our family presumably since it was taken. Whether the photo was taken by a family member or not is unknown. More likely not. The author, therefore, is unknown. What, if any, copyright issues are there surrounding the use of this image, and can I distribute it using any license I wish? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrewdwilliams (talk • contribs)

In UK (I assume this photo was taken in UK) a photograph created before 1957, which author is unknown, enters public 70 years after its creation or after it was made available to public. See also Commons:Anonymous_works. So, if this is the first time the work was revealed to public, then the photo is in public domain in UK. However in USA it can still be copyrighted as it was created less than 120 years ago. Ruslik (talk) 19:49, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

File:Jim Morrison 1968.jpg

Would love to get input on Commons:Deletion requests/File:Jim Morrison 1968.jpg since it's a tricky case (lack of copyright notice on a derivative work). Kaldari (talk) 18:51, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Gifts to the US Government

I just uploaded File:Charles J. Margiotti in D.C., 1937-07-16.jpg with a PD-US-not renewed license. It's accurate, but it also kind of misses the point. The photo in question was taken in 1937 by some employee of some media firm, which firm then in 1955 gifted a large number of images to the Library of Congress. See [3] for the details.

In brief, I would want something similar to the licensing on File:Carl Sandburg NYWTS.jpg. But I note its license is particular to the donor. Choor monster (talk) 12:31, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I found {{PD-Harris-Ewing}}. Choor monster (talk) 12:51, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

'Large number' is a bit of an understatement, lol. Apparently about 70,000 images. Very nice gift. Revent (talk) 13:00, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Simple enough?

Do you think the images in this article de:Me_and_Bobby_McGee are simple enough to make them inelegible for copyright? Best regards --Discasto _talk 19:35, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Probably yes, except logos. Ruslik (talk) 07:54, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

What do you mean? Couldn't be them fall under a de minimis clause? --Discasto _talk 19:38, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

They can be de minimis, of course. Ruslik (talk) 17:14, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

CC attribution on Twitter

If I use an image from Commons on Twitter and it is on a SA license, is there an excepted method of giving attribution? Obviously there is no room to provide full recommended attribution. Thanks Jason.nlw (talk) 09:24, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Jason.nlw, if the image you want to use only has a CC BY-SA licence, then it is not compatible with posting Twitter, Facebook, etc. You can post your own images to those services, of course, because as owner you can grant whatever licence you like. Posting to those websites generally grants the site owners "a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense)" which is not "share-alike" but more of a "do whatever you like with it". And the creator of the CC-licensed image has not given you permission to do that. See this article from The Telegraph newspaper. So, you shouldn't post such an image. Best to try to contact the image owner/creator to get written permission. And they should be very cautious about agreeing to do so. -- Colin (talk) 09:46, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Colin thank you very much for clearing this up for me. If only twitter would let you imbed data/links with an image (without adding to your word count) then all the necessary attribution details could be included - Something for the future perhaps! Thanks for your help. Jason.nlw (talk) 11:07, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Same with Flickr, I believe, i.e., Yahoo Terms of Service. --ghouston (talk) 11:16, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Ghouston. Similar but not the same. The Flickr Community Guidelines say you should "Only upload content that you have created". So you can't post someone else's photo on Flickr no matter what the licence. Also the terms of service you give above are much more reasonable that Facebook/Twitter in that you only grant them permission to use the photograph "solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made available" -- i.e. to show on Flickr in various resolutions, etc. And their licence to use your photograph terminates when you delete the photo from Flickr or end your account. Which seems perfectly reasonable and similar to other photo hosting websites aimed at professionals. Jason.nlw, the problem with Twitter/Facebook can't be resolved by links or better display of attribution: they really do want to make money from your photos. Billions of photographs are taken/uploaded every year and the rights grabbed by these corporations. They've got to earn the money somehow. -- Colin (talk) 11:39, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Is this copyright?

Hi, I have a screenshot of a Windows Forms application I made in Visual Studio Express. It is basically some controls laid out to demonstrate either Windows Controls, or how Windows 8 looks because that's what I made it in. Does Microsoft own the copyright, or is it my work?
Thanks,
--Thespaceface (talk) 18:40, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Montages that may contain File:O'Hara, Maureen.jpg

File:O'Hara, Maureen.jpg was deleted because of unclear copyright status; it may have been used in File:MontageOfIrishPeople (2).JPG, File:Irishpeoplemontage.JPG and File:MontageOfIrishPeople.JPG. Peter James (talk) 20:59, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

 Info Thx for the info. DR opened via Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by AnGael. Gunnex (talk) 21:13, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Copyrights held by authors with a life span of approximately 1,000 years

What consequences has an invention, that lengthens the life span of humans from 100 to 500 or 1,000 years? --84.61.149.157 22:09, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Copyright would last much longer, unless the laws were changed. However law changes generally lead to longer copyright , not shorter. --ghouston (talk) 23:15, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

File:Viktorija Ni.jpg

Does someone have a linkedin account to check what license the picture had when it was published? Looks to me like commercial, not CC 4.0. --Gereon K. (talk) 08:56, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Phylogeny = free?

Strange question, hope somebody can help: Is a phylogenetic tree intellectual property or not? I don't mean the actual image/diagram, but the underlying relationships that have been found in a study and are typically described in Newick format. In a way, this should be analogous to results held in a table or something similar.

My particular case is that I would like to take a phylogeny from a published study and create a (modified) cladogram from it to upload to Commons. The diagram itself would therefore be my creation. Tylototriton (talk) 13:53, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Abstract ideas are not protected by copyright, only specific expressions of these ideas are copyrightable. Ruslik (talk) 20:14, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

OK, thanks, so basically I'm safe. Tylototriton (talk) 10:59, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Request for input on deletion request of own upload

Please could I ask for input on Commons:Deletion_requests/File:John Finnie. Maids of All Work, 1864-65 (higher colour).jpg? I only realised after uploading and putting it into files that I may have made a faux pas, as I wasn't aware of the UK rules, and had checked everything else - date, artist's death dates etc, before doing so to make sure it met US copyright regulations. However I see that the notorious NPG files apparently haven't been deleted so I am a little unsure about whether I've mucked up or not. Thanks so much. Mabalu (talk) 16:53, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Need some help with image copyright uploads

Hi - can you please give me some guidance with the copyright tag I need to include for the images I wish to upload. They are images commissioned by the Organisation I work for, and we are able to use them where we wish, but I want to attribute the original photographer. I have been through the tags and can't seem to find one that fits appropriately. What copyright tag do I use? It is an Australian photographer and organisation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kookyrabbit (talk • contribs)

The tag would indicate whatever rights the copyright holder is releasing (whether the copyright holder is your organisation or the photographer depends on what has been signed). Pretty much the most restrictive license that is acceptable to Commons is CC-BY-SA (see {{Cc-by-sa-4.0}}, with an indication of how you'd want the photos attributed; more liberal licenses are also welcome.

Please see COM:OTRS for how to let Commons know formally that work that is also published elsewhere is genuinely yours to release. If the photographer remains the copyright holder, the email should come from him or her; if you are now the holder of those rights (that is, they've been formally signed over), it should come from you. - Jmabel ! talk 05:17, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

File:Flag of Shropshire.svg

Does a flag such as this which is being claimed as own work still need a source? It's not impossible, but fairly improbable that the uploader is actually the person who created this flag. Even if they did so at the county's request, it's not clear if the uploader would be the copyright holder. Can the uploader still claim this as "own work" in such cases?

Now, suppose the uploader just created a svg version of the image using something else for reference. That would make the uploader both the creator and the copyright holder, right? Don't they still, however, need to provide a source? Otherwise, there's no way to verify whether their version of the flag accurately reflects the actual flag.

I'm still unclear on the licensing used for user-created svg images of copyrighted logos/flags any clarification would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance - Marchjuly (talk) 07:39, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

It is usually each specific SVG that would carry a copyright, not the general design of the flag. Some flags are too simple to have a copyright, though sometimes just the vectorization might have a copyright (it is text, and is sometimes edited by hand). Some might be derivative of other SVGs or bitmap versions; those can be issues if the underlying is not licensed. It is common to have several representations, and each might have a different copyright status. It's nice to know as specific a definition as exists for a flag, but we normally don't need a source. For the Shropshire one, if the animal graphic came from somewhere else, that probably deserves a source, but if that was self-drawn, then no. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:33, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the response Carl. Do we just assume in good faith that the "animal was drawn by the uploader" or is it acceptable to ask them to further clarify the matter. - Marchjuly (talk) 07:43, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

File:VLeague2015.jpg

Image is the 2015 logo for the soccer league. The |Source= and |Permission= in the licensing are links to exactly the same page. The page is fine for the source, but there is no indication at all that the author (VPF) has released this into the public domain. Is this a candidate for COM:DR or is the license acceptable? - Marchjuly (talk) 07:41, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

It's broken, though without trying to dig up the details on the specific file.. The source link should be to a page that embeds the image, and preferably justifies the attribution, and the 'permission' link should be to a page that explains the author's licensing policy if it's not apparent from the source page. Revent (talk) 07:50, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

See Commons:Project_scope/Evidence#cite_note-1, specifically. Revent (talk) 07:54, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to "cite note 1" Revent. I tried finding something on static.bongdaplus.vn about the licensing, but the page appears to be down. I did find this page and this page online. I'm not sure if the first one is an official page and the second one looks official, but it is in Vietnamese. Regardless, I cannot find anything about the image being released into the public domain. Can the licensing be fixed if no source can be found? - Marchjuly (talk) 21:45, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Since it's a previously published work, and the 'soccerball' part of the logo is creative (it's not IMO a PD-textlogo, and is a derivative of the soccer association's logo) unless evidence can be found that it was actually licensed by the copyright holder then it will need to go away. I'm marked it as {{No permission since}}. Revent (talk) 22:57, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Challenge to CC-BY-SA and Broforce sprites

Following discussions could be possible of interest to Wikimedia folks http://opengameart.org/forumtopic/censored-broforce-sprites-and-game-ready http://bbs.progrider.org/prog/read/1434472234

some people (i.e. Clint Bellanger) challenge the CC-BY-SA license, that it is not okay to use, without asking author first anyway. Especially if file comes from Wikimeida Commons. And that Wikimeida Commons files are intended only for Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nikita Sadkov (talk • contribs) 2015-06-16T17:08:04 (UTC)

If you wish to use CC-BY-SA art in a game, then you may have to license the game under CC-BY-SA too. Games are typically licensed under other licences such as GPL. CC-BY-SA is generally unsuitable for games whereas GPL usually is unsuitable for pictures. An important difference is that games have a source code whereas pictures usually do not have any source code, and GPL and CC-BY-SA therefore differ with respect to what needs to be done with source code. --Stefan4 (talk) 18:13, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Many GPL and commercial games use CC-BY and CC-BY-SA art. CC artworks can be treated as dynamic libraries linked at run-time, which is okay with GPL. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nikita Sadkov (talk • contribs)

It has not been my understanding that the CC-BY-SA was viral in that way, or even that the GPL really was. As long as the images are stored externally as actually used and replaceable as such, they should be fine. If you actually embed them, then that's another thing; I would not use CC-BY-SA works in an Android or console game, as it would be a lot harder to claim they're separate works loaded only as data.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:25, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

(After reading through the discussion at opengameart.org) Please leave your flamewars at the sites they originated at. We have enough flamewars of our own and don't need foreign ones. Thank you for your consideration. --Sebari (talk) 00:23, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

That is no flamewar, but important discussion on re-use/forking ethics. Using "wrongly" CC-licensed content may damaged reputation of open source community, Creative Commons and Wikimedia, and end int lawsuit. Do you want that? Then a lot of commons images may miss model release or include trademarked content Nikita Sadkov (talk) 23:38, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Please keep your flamewar to the site it originated at. Another site chose to remove content you uploaded. They can do as they please. Just because you have been banned there does not mean you can continue your flamewar over here. --Sebari (talk) 18:33, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

So the official policy of Wikimedia community is that plundering Commons for game art is reasonable and ethical? Okay. --Nikita Sadkov (talk) 22:52, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

What about https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arsenal_Pripyat.jpeg - it has about 100 items of game assets, which can take several thousand dollars to produce. Is it okay to rip it for sprites? --Nikita Sadkov (talk) 22:56, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

That is licensed by the GFDL only -- so you'd need to follow those terms. The fine print on that is rather more onerous than CC-BY-SA. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:01, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

His point seems to be that even though something has been licensed CC-BY-SA, and therefore you may be legally OK to use them in lots of different ways, he believes they may not have been fully aware of the scope of what the CC-BY-SA license allows, and would prefer not to host the resources as to not antagonize the company unless a more explicit permission is obtained. It sounds like it is his site, and his prerogative. Our policy is free in both the U.S. and the country of origin, even though it would be legal to only host works which are free in the US, and even host many works which would be OK via fair use -- the additional restrictions are just policy. The CC-BY-SA license does indeed allow a large range of derivative works (as long as they are also licensed CC-BY-SA), so what you are doing is probably legal per the license (I have not looked at the works closely, just guessing). But, despite the license the company might have particular uses in mind, and would prefer that other uses (even if legal) not be made, and it might antagonize the company and cause his website issues (lack of cooperation in the future, who knows). There can always be issues beyond copyright law and those may be the ones that concerns him. He knows the terrain, and it's his site. It really doesn't have anything to do with the CC-BY-SA license. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:06, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

He is not the only one who thinks that way. I.e. should Wikimedia warn users, that their contributions could be used against them? I.e. somebody can take Commons sprites and use them during production of controversial material, like say pornography, which can damage image of company that contributed them to Commons. Or direct competitors can make use of it. --Nikita Sadkov (talk) 19:18, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

If you release something under a license, you should understand what that license entails. If a company releases something under a license, I have absolutely no sympathy for not having read it and understood it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:29, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes. But in our case, if you have read the twitter exchange with Broforce's main developer, they applied CC-BY-SA by mistake, thinking that the sprites will be used only on Wikipedia to promote their product. You're lucky, it wasn't Disney contributing Mickey Mouse footage, so there is no lawsuit, about Wikimedia being deceptive to contributors. TLDR: a big huge warning sign about CC-BY-SA consequences won't be redundant. --Nikita Sadkov (talk) 20:55, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Then Broforce's main developer is a fool. Read the licenses you use. We're not lucky it wasn't Disney doing it; Disney is way, way too smart to license its copyrights without being very clear what license it was using.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:07, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

If you associate the original company name with a controversial subject (to the point of damaging reputation) you run the strong risk of violating trademark. But that is a separate topic from copyright, and Commons. If you follow the license, they should not be able to bring a copyright lawsuit, that's all. As Prosfilaes said, if you license something, know the consequences. That said if you antagonize a person or a company in some way, they may find a way to antagonize back in other ways. So if you do something with their works following the license -- know the consequences :-) It simply sounds like the site owner wants to be very very sure he has nothing which antagonizes in that circumstance. Every situation is different; that is just his policy. It doesn't have anything to do with the CC license, really. So no, I don't think we need a warning. The license is pretty explicit about what rights are being given away. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:23, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

File:Asayish.jpg

Image is licensed as "Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International". It has a source, but the author is given as website and there's no indication that the website or the uploader is the original copyright holder or that the copyright holder has licensed the image for free use.

The same type of licensing has also been used for the following images uploaded by the same person:

• File:Northern Sun Battalion.png
• File:Desteya_bilind_a_kurd_logo_2.png
• File:Syriac military council.png
• File:Sutoro.jpg
• File:Sulaimani Polytechnic University.png
• File:Soran University.jpg
• File:Nineveh plain forces 2.png
• File:Nawroz University.jpg
• File:Jabhat al Akrad.png
• File:Hawler Medical University - Logo.png
• File:Gorran-logo 2.png
• File:Euphrates Volcano logo new 2.png
• File:Euphrates Volcano logo new.png
• File:Desteya bilind a kurd logo.png
• File:Cihan University.png
• File:Kurdistan Region Security Agency asayish.jpg
• File:American University Duhok Kurdistan logo.png

All of the images except one were uploaded on the same day within a few minutes of each other. They appear to be non-free logos of groups or other organizations that were downloaded from news websites, blogs or other official pages. A few of them even seem to be different versions of the same image. It's also seems unlikely that the uploader or the website they were taken from is the copyright holder. - Marchjuly (talk) 13:21, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

• The uploader claims that the pictures have been licensed, but the uploader has not provided any evidence of this, so I have tagged all of them as needing evidence of permission. --Stefan4 (talk) 13:32, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for taking a closer look Stefan4. It appears that almost all of the files have been deleted as copyvios. The licensing for File:Desteya bilind a kurd logo.png and File:Desteya bilind a kurd logo 2.png, however, have been changed by the uploader to {{PD-textlogo}}, but I'm not sure if those images are "too simple" to be copyrighted. - Marchjuly (talk) 21:46, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Changing my images' copyright to public domain

Just looked at my two images File:PyramidOfTheMoonTeotihuacan.jpg and File:PyramidOfTheSunTeotihuacan.jpg, which I photographed in 2007 and uploaded in 2009, at a time when I knew nothing of copyrights. Now I would like to change their copyright status to Public Domain. Can I just add the tag and remove the OTRS tags? — Ineuw talk 19:27, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

If you previously published the photos elsewhere, I would keep the OTRS tags, since that is about validating the license itself (whichever one you choose). But in general, yes, you can always change the license to a less-restrictive license, or add further licenses. You could use {{CC0}} which is a more formal style of Public Domain. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:30, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Much thanks for the quick reply and for pointing out the CC0 license. I was never sure about that. The images have never been published anywhere by me, unless someone else downloaded it from the commons, in any case I don't care.— Ineuw talk 01:10, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Indiana Police/Fire/Other Government Services Photo Copyright laws.

Hello. I live in Anderson, Madison County, Indiana, United States of America. Under Indiana law, are local police departments, fire departments, sheriff departments, etc. photos on facebook pages subject to copyright, or are they in the public domain? I was considering publishing Anderson Police Department and Fire Department photos from their facebook pages on Wikimedia Commons.PaulBustion87 (talk) 21:26, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

In general, I believe state government works can be copyrighted. The prohibition on copyright is basically only for the federal government. There are a couple of states which have decided (or have their courts rule) that their own laws put works into the public domain. en:Copyright status of work by U.S. subnational governments has a note on Indiana but it doesn't look like it would result in public domain status like some of the others (Florida, California). Obviously, they are still subject to copyright law so if works were published without a copyright notice before 1989, that could put them into the public domain. We'd have to find a court ruling or public law which placed them into the public domain (or a licensing statement). Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:25, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Robert Mallet-Stevens

The architect Robert Mallet-Stevens died more than 70 years ago, on February 8, 1945. Are the photographs of his buildings in France now acceptable in Commons? For instance, could the tags at [4] be removed and the picture moved to Commons? Also, a number of pictures of his buildings have probably been deleted, and could be maybe restored when the time is appropriate. Thanks in advance. Olivier (talk) 22:31, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

It's rounded up to the end of the year, so in 2016, but yes.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:34, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the quick reply! Olivier (talk) 22:39, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Countries not listed at COM:FOP

There's a file on enwiki pending possible transfer to Commons which is a photo of a memorial plaque mounted on a building in Malawi. (en:File:St Michael and All Angels Church, Blantyre, Malawi Plaque 1.JPG) The plaque appears to date from the 30s or 40s, and is thus possibly copyrighted -- there's no way to tell if it was crafted prior to 1946. An FoP exemption might apply, but COM:FOP doesn't list Malawi. In cases where the country isn't listed (implying we don't know whether there's an FoP exemption or not), is the default to assume the image is not allowed? —Darkwind (talk) 12:36, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

The text on this plaque is too short to get a copyright. Regards, Yann (talk) 12:49, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

The default is to assume it is not allowed. Malawi's law is here; they have FoP but only as part of audio-visual works or video recordings, not photographs. (They also have some folklore protection, which is outside the scope of the Berne Convention, and there is photographic FoP in Malawi for that). That said, I agree with Yann -- I don't think that comes anywhere close to a literary work (especially for the U.S., which is the only place the 1946 date would matter). The quote at the bottom is from the Bible. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:07, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Note that you can find links to the copyright laws of many countries at w:WP:NUSC. If you want to figure out if a country has FOP or not, you could try to check the copyright law (but it seems that some links on the Wikipedia page are dead). --Stefan4 (talk) 14:12, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

WIPO Lex (http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/) has copies of the intellectual property law (which includes copyright) for all nations that are WIPO members... many are in english translations, some just have a link to a crappy Google machine translation. Revent (talk) 09:58, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Wipolex changed their document layout a couple years back; that accounts for most of the dead links on that page. Most of those documents still exist; just have to find the new links. Carl Lindberg (talk) 10:32, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

File:Sukma2006.svg

Image is being claimed as "own work" and licensed as public domain. Perhaps it is too simple to be copyrighted per COM:TOO, but there is no evidence that this logo was created by the uploader. A version of the image can be found on this archived page of the en:2006 Sukma Games official website, but the site is not in English so it's hard to tell whether the contents of the page are protected by copyright. Shouldn't this at least be tagged with {{No permission since}} to verify that the uploader is the copyright holder or has been given permission to upload the image to Commons by the copyright holder? - Marchjuly (talk) 08:25, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

File:Novosel mushroom.svg

What about File:Novosel mushroom.svg this mushroom reminiscent of the Mario series—does it pass the threshold of originality? If not, should it be marked as trademarked or as anything else? It's from the Noun Project, so I expect that there was some sort of vetting there. – czar 20:24, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

• Comment here. Lazlo 17:11, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Raúl Jiménez

File in question

This image has its copyright PROVEN in the metadata. I have had words with the uploader on Wikipedia about fraudulently claiming copyrighted photos as his own. The original is here The Almightey Drill (talk) 12:51, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

@The Almightey Drill: FYI, the image was tagged by Turelio as a copyvio, and deleted by Denniss. Revent (talk) 09:24, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:    FDMS  4    16:11, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

File:Swift code.png

I think this file is under the wrong license. It is a screen shot of part of a wikipedia page which means it should not be PD but CC BY-SA 3.0/GFDL. However I'm not as familar with commons processes. I saw the header at help desk saying questions about license issues should be posted here, so asking here first. PaleAqua (talk) 02:44, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

That's not in the scope of Commons, since it's simply unformatted text. See Commons:Project_scope#Must_be_a_media_file. You are correct about the license, but it would need to be uploaded directly to Wikipedia itself, not on Commons. Revent (talk) 09:31, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

File:Coluche.jpg

Hi, Sorry for my poor english. Please note that this photography is not at all copyright free. [[5]] Its author is clearly not identified as the real person. It seems to be an agency picture (taken during early eighties). Thanks for your kind help. Tisourcier (talk) 10:52, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Right. Deleted. Thanks for reporting. Yann (talk) 11:42, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:    FDMS  4    16:11, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

File:Google Photos icon.svg

Does this image pass the threshold of originality? Got mixed opinions at enwp and wanted a third opinion. – czar 17:41, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

You will likely get mixed opinions here as well. Ruslik (talk) 18:23, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

I say it is under the threshold, just colours and shapes. But I'm sure others will disagree. EoRdE6^{(Come Talk to Me!)} 16:28, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Images of Gujarat flood by Indian Air Force

I intend to use images published by w:en:Indian Air Force rescue ops during w:en:2015 Gujarat flood. Here are images [6] and here license policy almost identical to CC-BY-SA. I have put notice on OTRS noticeboard also. Can I upload these images to Commons? Regards -Nizil Shah (talk) 20:40, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that license is Commons-compatible, as the requirement that the material be reproduced 'accurately' implicitly prohibits the creation of derivative works, which is part of our license requirements. Revent (talk) 08:24, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Very close indeed, but it is not clear what the IAF means by 'accurately'. May be a mail to them requesting clarification could help? Regards, Yann (talk) 16:19, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Often the "accurately" refers to more of moral rights, especially given the rest of the sentence (not used in a derogatory manner, etc.). But... it could be construed as to not wanting to allow derivative works, and there is no other indication that derivative works are allowed. So it is a bit unclear. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:38, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

+1. Yann (talk) 19:55, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

I see those requirements very similar tot those in Template:Attribution-gencat: "Not distort the meaning of the information" - which is understood as belonging to moral rights. I think a safe way for Commons is:

• Upload those images and see them as free enough.
• Copy exactly the requirements stated in the source, and let reusers decide if they fit their particular intended usage.--Pere prlpz (talk) 20:24, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Man grants permission for photo taken by his wife

I asked this at the OTRS noticeboard but perhaps this is the proper venue.

I have a 2012 e-mail from an individual who says his wife took a photo of him that I'd like to upload here. In the 2012 e-mail, I said:

Do you have a photo that we could possibly use at Wikinews and on Wikipedia? In order to do so, please note in an e-mail who the author is of the photo and whether they agree to a Creative-Commons Share Alike license. For information on this type of license see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

To this he replied (and gave the url to a photo online):

My wife took it with my camera. Feel free to use it.

I have since lost contact with the individual.

Would that suffice as a release to permit use of the photo? --William S. Saturn (talk) 05:35, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

There is no problem with spouses giving permission on each other's behalf. The problem is that we need explicit licensing i.e. it is not enough that he has said "feel free to use it" - because this implies that he has given you permission. What we need is permission for absolutely anyone to reuse the image for any purpose, even commercially, and to be able to modify the image in any way they wish. Green Giant (talk) 11:53, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Apart from the problematic formulation (what does 'use' mean?), there is an additional problem: the permission does not come from the copyright holder. We need evidence from his wife that she agrees to license the content. As he is not the copyright holder himself, he is not authorised to grant any permisson. --Stefan4 (talk) 20:06, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree the statement is insufficient on its own, but in context as a reply to a letter that mentioned CC-BY-SA 3.0, it can be construed as agreeing to that licence—at least it‘s in a grey area.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 20:43, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Is there an official policy about statements in context, i.e. giving permission in response to an inquiry that mentions CC-by-SA 3.0? --William S. Saturn (talk) 23:08, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

• There is an additional issue here. As described, this is a Commons:Own work/Bystander selfie, and discussion on the attached Talk page. The strongest opinion on that is that the subject in such (shown in the photo and whose camera was used, with the "photographer" not holding the image and having no power to use it) is at least a co-owner, with the right to release the photo (at least in the U.S.), and there is legal opinion that the subject is the sole owner,. If so, the subject did, in fact, have the right to release it. --Abd (talk) 18:54, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Twitter

This screenshot is the copyright property of Twitter and should be deleted The Almightey Drill (talk) 23:43, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Aside from maybe the small icon on the Follow button (which is borderline uncopyrightable), there is nothing there that is the copyrighted property of Twitter. The gravatar is copyrighted by someone, and the text... also borderline (short phrases are not copyrightable). That all said, it probably should be deleted, because it is most likely out of scope, and failing that the question of the photo (which is copyrighted, but not by Twitter). Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:50, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Redrawn petroglyphs

At a FAC image review[7], an image, which is a modern drawing of a petroglyph thousands of years old, is under discussion.[8] I argue that it is a derivative work of PD art with no original input, just like any other reproduction of two dimensional art, and that it is therefore not copyrightable, but others find it to be more iffy. Any thoughts? FunkMonk (talk) 19:25, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Hrrrm. A "derivative work" by definition is copyrightable; that is when someone adds copyrightable expression to an original. If someone makes a slavish copy of an original, it would not be copyrightable. But if there is some interpretation on how to represent the original... it doesn't take much. For example, an engraving of a painting is separately copyrightable, as the decisions on the actual engraving lines and thicknesses to simulate shading are separate from the contours of the original painting, and are separately copyrightable. Also note the Alfred Bell v. Catalda Fine Arts decision, where a mezzotint of a painting was ruled separately copyrightable. There is normally a pictorial comparison here but the server seems to be down. If it was traced directly from the rock... it may well not be, but if a somewhat subjective reproduction looking at a photo, I'd probably lean copyrightable. It feels like the latter. Granted, someone could look at the photograph of the carving, and make their own similar original drawing, and release that freely -- that should not be a derivative work of the photograph. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:42, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Based on previous deletions, this has sufficient creativity to fail the precautionary principle and needs a release from its creator. Faithful reproductions of a 2D artwork would have to be mechanical/automated in some fashion, any drawing done by hand, even a tracing or wax rubbing, is sufficiently transformative to be a derived work with a potential claim of rights for the artist. --Fæ (talk) 07:46, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Hmmm, if I made my own tracing after a photograph of those petroglyphs, would that be passable? FunkMonk (talk) 13:45, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Your own drawing would probably not have a separate copyright, but the photograph might have one if the original support is not flat. So your drawing would be a derivative work of the photograph. Regards, Yann (talk) 16:23, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

I would disagree on both counts. The photographer does not get a copyright over the petroglyph; a drawing (like the one mentioned) which only shows the design of the petroglyph (and doesn't recreate the exact shadows/lighting/etc. of the photograph) would not be a derivative work of the photograph. And if there was originality in the way he made the drawing (much like the drawing in question), then yes it can get a copyright on its own. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:35, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Carl, I don't see any information about the original support of the petroglyph. If it is a curved wall, I suppose that making a photograph may create a new copyright. If not, then PD-Art would apply, isn't? Now I don't see how a simple drawing of the petroglyph created with a transparent paper (i.e. en:Tracing paper) over the picture would create a copyright (I suppose that's what FunkMonk means above). Could you explain please? Regards, Yann (talk) 19:51, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

I disagree on the fact that a free drawing can't be made based on sources. Information about how the petrogliphs are is not copyrightable. If you avoid taking any copyrightable element of your sources (the redrawing and other sources), you are making you own work, just as we write articles on Wikipedia taking information from sources but not copying their text.

I suggest using as many sources as possible to make sure tell apart the elements of the original petroglyphs from those added by each source.--Pere prlpz (talk) 20:31, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

For the record, the photos and drawings can be seen here: http://donsmaps.com/utahmammoths.html If I "traced" the lines myself, I'd do it on a layer in Photoshop. FunkMonk (talk) 20:51, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

For me, that confirms what I said above: the pictures have a copyright, but I doubt the drawings would. Regards, Yann (talk) 21:28, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

The photograph very well may have copyright. However, that copyright is limited to the expression attributable to the photographer -- the lighting, angle, etc. It does *not* extend to the object being photographed. You can still use the photograph for reference of what the petroglyph looks like, then make a drawing of the petroglyph, and not be derivative of the photo, because the drawing is not copying any of the photographer's expression. If you use tracing paper on the rock, then no, the result would not be copyrightable. However, when you look at the linked drawing, that is not what was done -- it looked like a freehand drawing, in many places using individual dots to give form, and some degree of depth. The actual petroglyph does seem to have places where the point of the carving tool was put in, but the drawing does not seem to be copying those points slavishly -- that is just what the artist is using. If you had a few artists all draw the petroglyph in a similar style, all of the results would be distinguishable -- they are not slavish copies, but have a certain amount of expression in how the representation was done. Thus, I think that drawing (and others like it) most probably have their own copyright. As mentioned above, mezzotints of a painting (even though the result looked almost like the original) has extra creativity in it -- someone else making a mezzotint would have a distinguishable result. If the drawing above was obtained using a photograph and applying filters so it looks like a drawing, that may be different -- still not derivative of the photo (the photographic authorship has been removed) but there is really no human authorship left at that point. Overlaying the photo is fine; you are just getting the form of the petroglyph (which is not copyrighted); the question is if you add any expression in how you go about getting the result. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:00, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Carl, that's clearer to me. Yann (talk) 08:04, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

So everyone agrees I can redraw my own version based on the photos there? FunkMonk (talk) 11:22, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

I have now traced them myself:[9] FunkMonk (talk) 16:33, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

The scanning copyright

• It is a common view that scanning does not create any new copyright. The reason is, anyone may use the scanner to create the same digital copy. Yet let me discuss some special case.
• Let us scan some b/w negative film with film scanner. For each frame the scanning person has to decide about shadow adjustment, about highlight compensation, about the level to set the highlights. Speaking frankly, the b/w film allows 2 EV steps back and forth. Thus the shooting person decides about composition, and the scanning person decides about exposition.
• Is there any reason to name two authors in this case? --PereslavlFoto (talk) 20:57, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

It depends on how much personal creative input has gone into the digital enhancements.

The situation is more complex where the original raw scan has been enhanced on a selective basis, for example by means of some careful work in Photoshop to bring out certain details. This type of enhancement, although of course computer-assisted, may require a significant level of personal creative input, and as a result may generate a new copyright for the person doing the work. [...] A sensible guideline in such a case is to ask yourself whether the image appears to be purely mechanical scan or — from the evidence available — that it is so similar to such a scan that no copyright protection can be expected to arise. [...] if no evidence can be found of any significant level of personal creative input, there is no reason to assume that the image is copyright-protected.

— COM:SCAN#Introduction

Dalba (talk) 23:40, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Not in my opinion, at least in most cases. I can't think of a case along those lines which ruled that way (or anything close, really). It's not simply that choices were made, it's more that do those choices demonstrate any personal creativity and amount to human expression. It takes a lot more skill than the above to properly light and photograph a painting to get a good reproduction, yet the Bridgman case ruled that was skill and effort, and not copyrightable expression. It was a copy of the painting (and so would be another photo, differently lit). The U.S. Copyright Office generally holds that coloration differences are not copyrightable expression (until it gets to the level of colorizing a motion picture, per a court case). Something simple like the above would be easily rejected there, I'm pretty sure. Same goes for most Photoshop adjustments of pictures, as well. Visual impact or attractiveness is not considered by the U.S. Copyright Office -- the simple fact that a good job was done isn't enough; a bad job would be just as copyrightable. There are probably some examples of using a scanner creatively enough to get a copyright -- but those would probably be the exception. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:46, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. In terms of «skill and effort» versus «expression» I see there is only skill and effort in scanning, and no expression. A whole expression is done by photographer. All is clear for me now. --PereslavlFoto (talk) 11:22, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Copyright appeals decisions 2013 - 2014

The ipmall.info website has updated their list of U.S. Copyright Office Appeals Board decisions to include some from 2013 and 2014. Almost all of these get rejected (these decisions are of the second appeal of an original rejection), and are very educational when trying to determine several threshold areas of U.S. copyright. I haven't looked at all of them, but there are a few interesting ones. There are a number of logos rejected, such as Subway, en:Tokidoki, and the "o" in en:Rdio, and several other less notable ones. This one is about a sculpture which is basically 3-D text, and was rejected. The neon light display in the Bleecker Street subway station in New York was rejected; apparently the original rejections considered it a useful article (!?) but the final appeal agreed it was not utilitarian, but was still rejected at least as a sculptural work. The paperback cover illustration of the Jaws novel was rejected as being published without copyright notice... the ruling basically says that combining a cover with the rest of the book's content does not amount to a selection and arrangement copyright, thus there is no collective work where a copyright notice would also apply to the cover, thus the copyright notice in the book's title page was just for the book's content. This one was also rejected for being published in the Philippines without a copyright notice and not registered within 5 years in the U.S.; it discusses the issue of foreign publication, noting that even in the 9th circuit foreign 1978-1989 publications had to be with notice since that was explicit in the 1976 act, and notes the conflict in case law for pre-1978 publications (citing some cases which went completely opposite to Twin Books) even though that conflict was not applicable to the work in question. A car company apparently tried to get a registration on a car design -- I guess throwing something against the wall to see if it would stick (rejected as utilitarian and not separable). Some bottle designs were also rejected along the same lines. This one is about an ID card, which was rejected for selection and arrangement grounds, though the ruling does note that one or two of the logos on the card were previously accepted for registration -- so that is an example of what is above the threshold. The original en:Kong (dog toy) was rejected.

Are there any others which folks find interesting or relevant? Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:18, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I didn't read the Jaws case the way you did. I understood the problem being that the copyright notice named the author of the novel, who was not the author or copyright claimant of the cover. If the copyright notice had been in the name of the publisher who owned the text and cover, it would have been fine. Grabbing a few books off the shelf, it seems this might have been a frequent problem, though I don't know how much we want to push it.

http://ipmall.info/hosted_resources/CopyrightAppeals/2010/OwenSloane101103.pdf is a case where the Copyright Office registered cover art under the rule of doubt, even though the copyright notice said "all lyrics, music and arrangements of this material copyrighted", thus nominally not covering cover art. (Pure coincidence it dovetailed with the last comment.) So apparently we should read what a copyright notice covers expansively.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:33, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

The Earth Air Fire Water case is not surprising, but it's a good example against the "custom font" arguments, where a fairly extreme calligraphic modification was rejected for copyright for being just text.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:39, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, it looks like they touched on both subjects in the Jaws case (since both were arguments of the artist trying to register the work). First, if there was a collective work, then one copyright notice does in fact cover all the elements regardless if the name was wrong (that has been ruled on). However, the Office ruled that there was no collective work thus that part of copyright law cannot apply: Having found that the Book is not a collective work, the Board cannot accept your argument, pulled from Goodis, that the Word should be protected because it is part of the collective work that has sufficient notice in Peter Benchley's name to protect all of the components of that collective work. They actually do quote the House Report: Examples of “collective works” would ordinarily include periodical issues, anthologies, symposia, and collections of the discrete writings of the same authors, but not cases, such as a composition consisting of words and music, a work published with illustrations or front matter, or three one-act plays, where relatively few separate elements have been brought together. So, that was one argument (the one most founded directly on the law) which got rejected. But then you are right... technically, if there were two separate works, they each should have had their own copyright notice (even if the same author), but the courts have allowed a certain amount of technical errors and preserved copyright, and the artist was arguing that should also happen in this case. But since in this case the notice was from a completely independent third party having nothing to do with the work in question, the Board did rule that the allowance of technical errors did not cover this case. That does imply that if the notice was of an entity which was either a proprietor or licensee of both works (the book and the cover), then that might have been "close enough". (There was an even more vague third argument which said the separate notice should have implied that copyright was claimed, but the Board noted that the 1909 Act required notice in part to identify who owned the copyright, so the purpose of the notice was not served by the unrelated one.) So yes, either situation (a valid collective work, or a copyright notice which was at least in the name of a licensee if not the actual copyright owner) may cause such things to keep their copyright. And of course, this was based on the 1909 Act, so rulings might be a little different for publications 1978 and later. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:10, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Need copyright advice on en.Wikipedia file

I am currently doing a Good Article Review on Leni Riefenstahl, and Leni Riefenstahl as a young girl with her brother Heinz who was later killed in World War II is an image used and not yet moved to Commons. I am unsure about the Public Domain claimed, since the image was a private family photo first published in a non-specified year after the end of World War II. Riefenstahl only died in 2003. Does Wikimedia consider this image Public Domain? Maile66 (talk) 19:37, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Her lifespan is irrelevant; the only question is the photographer (and it's clearly not a personal photo; that backdrop screams staging in a professional studio.) In Germany, it's probably PD-Anon-70, but anonymous terms on unpublished (or published without legal authority) works last for 120 years in the US. However, if the family is considered to have the right to publish, it's probably PD-1996.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:14, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. Maile66 (talk) 21:32, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Hey everyone. I'm the guy who uploaded the image and I just have one question: what does "PD-1996" mean? Jonas Vinther (talk) 21:27, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Probably Template:PD-1996. And, by the way, if we get the copyright cleared up on this, I really think the image ought to be on Commons. Maile66 (talk) 22:06, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

You probably need a publication date to be sure. "After the end of World War II" could mean anything from 1945 to the present. --ghouston (talk) 01:44, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

For example, if the photographer is anonymous, then German law (that is, the law of the presumed source country) stipulates that the copyright expires 70 years after publication if published within 70 years from creation, but 70 years after creation if it took more time to publish the picture. If published in the 1960s, this would mean that the German copyright term expires 70 years after the 1960s, since the 1960s were less than 70 years after 1912. --Stefan4 (talk) 14:06, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

South Park characters images without the "Fair use" rule

Good evening. I work on the South Park project in the french Wikipedia. I would like to import some South Park characters images to illustrate articles, so I would like to know if this type of image could be imported to Commons, under the conditions Template:PD-shape and Template:trademarked (or under any condition that makes it possible). On the english Wikipedia, these images are hosted directly on Wikipedia, but as you maybe know, the "fair use" rule is irrelevant on the french Wikipedia.
Thanks in advance. Cdlt/Fugitron ^/Talk.../ 15:23, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

No. Fair use content cannot be hosted on Commons. {{PD-shape}} applies to simple geometric figures, i.e. things like circles and squares, not cartoon characters. —LX (talk, contribs) 16:42, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Also, the links in your signature are broken. Namespaces are in English here on Commons, so please change Utilisateur: and Discussion utilisateur: to User: and User talk:. —LX (talk, contribs) 16:46, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Copyright for night lights (illumination) of buildings

Do you I read correctly this article in its part about the Eiffel Tower? To me it says that night views of it are not copyright-free and not because of some special restrictions in France — but because an artistic illumination (lights) is a non-extricable component of the whole picture, and copyrights for this modern component are not yet expired. If my reading is right and the article itself is not wrong: would it mean that any photo of a night view with such artistic illumination would expose exactly the same copyright problem? --NeoLexx (talk) 20:44, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Actually, only a show perfomed in 2000 is under a copyright. The claim that any night illumination of the Eiffel Tower is under a copyright was not proved in court. Regards, Yann (talk) 21:42, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Could you provide any evidence of the first sentence? The fact that nothing has been proved in court doesn't prove anything; it could also be that there hasn't been any court ruling discussing the matter to date. --Stefan4 (talk) 22:08, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

See Category:Eiffel Tower at night. Regards, Yann (talk) 22:16, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

That category only reveals that it 'has never been proved in a court'. It doesn't say anything about whether there have been any court rulings on the matter in the first place. If there haven't been any court rulings, then there is no evidence for either position. --Stefan4 (talk) 22:29, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you guys for links, I'll take a look. My main point is about European countries all together including Germany as well. Is there something special exactly in French laws that makes non-extricable probably copyrightable light component to be a subject of concerns? I mean nearly any important European historical building in any country has a rather artistic and creative night illumination (thinking of my touristic visits). --NeoLexx (talk) 22:47, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

It's one of those things that we've treating as a one-off, an exception that won't come up again.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:00, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Stefan, that's exactly what I wrote above. What are you trying to do here? Yann (talk) 22:51, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Most country's law says everything above a Threshold of originality is copyrighted and use of it requires permission by the creator. But there are some exceptions to this copyright, like that the work is no longer copyrighted after a certain time, or Freedom of Panorama, which doesn't exist in FR and BE but i.e. in DE. So to be exactly it's about something special not in french laws. --Nenntmichruhigip (talk) 23:26, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

The Court de Cassation ruling text is here; apparently the Court of Appeals ruled that it was copyrightable (the light show in question), and the Court de Cassation dismissed the appeal from that ruling. The summary of that ruling there though would seem to indicate that the actual decision was much broader than a specific 2000 show: la cour d'appel a souverainement retenu que la composition de jeux de lumière destinés à révéler et à souligner les lignes et les formes du monument constituait une "création visuelle" originale, et, partant, une oeuvre de l'esprit ; qu'il en résultait nécessairement au bénéfice de son auteur un droit de propriété incorporelle, abstraction faite de l'évènement public à l'occasion duquel cette oeuvre lui avait été commandée, et qu'était donc manifestement illicite toute reproduction qui, comme celles de l'espèce, n'entrait pas dans l'une des catégories limitativement énumérée par l'article 41 de la loi du 11 mars 1957. That seems to say that the play of lighting of the tower designed to reveal its lines was copyrightable regardless of the event. Granted, that is not the actual Court of Appeals ruling, but rather a summary of it which might leave out some details (anyone have a link to the original ruling?). It's possible the lighting of that event went well above and beyond what the current lighting is, but the above text is highly suggestive that the ruling does go beyond the one show. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:56, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

That is what puzzled me in the light of the recent FoP buzz. If we accept the idea of any night illumination to be a separate copyright layer above otherwise PD building, and the idea that some already publicly claimed their rights (Eiffel Tower administration) while others are silent for now: then I don't see how anything would change. Even if EU takes a German word-by-word translation of their current Panoramafreiheit for the whole EU. And how anything different is for Germany vs. France after sunset even now. --NeoLexx (talk) 23:48, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Is light a 'permanent installation' if the light is switched off during the day? It's possible that German-style FOP wouldn't help here. --Stefan4 (talk) 23:58, 30 June 2015 (UTC)