Commons talk:Copyright rules by territory/Laos

Freedom of panorama and reporting

We currently assert that Laos has no FoP, but the quoted legislation clearly allows fair use reproductions "for the purpose of reporting current events by means of photography, cinematography, broadcasting or communication to the public by wire, literary or artistic works seen or heard in the course of the event may, to the extent justified by the informatory purpose, be reproduced and made available to the public." Since w:Vientiane Railway Station reports on the construction of the railway station in question, would File:Vientiane_Railway_Station_facade.jpg not qualify? Jpatokal (talk) 07:23, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

In a broader sense, the work of Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons could well be argued to all be "justified by the informatory purpose [to] be reproduced and made available to the public". And note that there's nothing about commercial vs non-commercial use either. Jpatokal (talk) 04:56, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

@Aymatth2, Brainulator9, Ameisenigel, Ox1997cow, Basile Morin, Brackenheim, A1Cafel, and JWilz12345: Any ideas? Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 03:57, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

@Jpatokal: Wikimedia Commons is more than just providing informative photographs of public works. Notice Commons only accepts free licenses? The free licenses of Creative Commons that mandate free commercial uses, like reprints in souvenir items, postcards, or uses by vloggers. Thus Laotian FOP is still insufficient. Also, there is another subprovision, in which if the photos are not for strict informatory purposes, the public art or architectures must be incidental (not the main subject or secondary). Thus Laotian FOP is still not OK. It will become OK only if Lao PDR removes incidental use restriction so that even photos that show works as main subjects can be freely used, even for commercial purposes. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 04:06, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Although Commons is supposed to host only educational medias, the sense of 'educational" is broad, and the reusers do not need to respect this condition for personal projects. Thus, I wonder for example if a picture is used for an artistic controversial work, would it be acceptable? And should Commons let these documents available to anyone, considering the special prerequisites? -- Basile Morin (talk) 04:31, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

@Basile Morin: that question is best posted at COM:Village pump. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 13:38, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Commons offers no guarantees that a work can be used for any purpose. For example, if I take a public domain picture of Barack Obama (legally hosted on Commons) and use it in an ad where I proclaim that Obama endorses Jpatokal Brand Snake Oil, he can still sue me.

Also, I don't see anything in the Lao FOP provision that would prevent me from using that train station photo in "reprints in souvenir items, postcards, or uses by vloggers", as long as I can reasonably claim that I'm doing so to document a current event. Jpatokal (talk) 04:40, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Common's images required commercial uses, and simply allowing informatory purpose is not enough to be accepted on Commons. At this point, Laos FOP rules are not OK on Commons. --A1Cafel (talk) 06:34, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

@Jpatokal: you seem to mess up things. The Barack Obama picture analogy isn't applicable: we permit any photos of him here on Commons as long as these are either Wikimedian photographers' self-photographs or imported from freely-licensed sites like the Official Website of White House. We can always slaps the description pages of all photos showing him, whether incidental or intentional, with {{Personality}}.

This case is different, however. Wikimedia Commons is very vulnerable to lawsuits or take down notices. A notable take down notice in 2012 from the camp of now-deceased sculptor Claes Oldenburg annihilated all pre-2013 photos of his public works throughout the United States as well as some from certain European countries and Japan. Fast-forward in 2015, during the EU Parliament discourse on FOP throughout the EU, France was the notable critic of Wikimedia's freedom of panorama movement, accusing the media repository of harming architects' or artists' economic rights, and even went as far as suggesting the Parliament to approve their EU representative's proposal to mandate non-commercial FOP EU-wide, which was fortunately rejected in the parliamentary vote. These two examples show that the mission and vision of Wikimedia Commons (in sharing free knowledge to all via pictures and photos) does not sit well with some who oppose seeing their public art and architecture hosted here. For this, Commons takes freedom of panorama matter seriously and applies COM:Project scope/Precautionary principle here. Commons does not want more legal actions from the copyright holders of public art and architecture from no-FOP countries, Lao PDR included.

In the case of "I can reasonably claim that I'm doing so to document a current event," that may not be the case. Vloggers earn tons of money everyday for every video they create. Makers of postcards and souvenir items also make money. So even if a postcard publisher may claim that they only exploit a certain Laotian sculpture or recent architecture for "current events" purposes, they are certainly at the losing side as they also earn. Take the 1990 cases in France for example, in which postcard publishers were sued because they exploited w:en:Grande Arche and w:en:La Geóde. More recent is the 2003–2013 case Gaylord v. United States, in which the now-deceased sculptor successfully sued the U.S. Postal Service, despite the latter's claim of fair use over his Korean War Veterans Memorial sculpture, taking from them as reward (from their act of infringement) more than US$600,000. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 13:37, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

The Laos freedom of panorama provision is typical. If it is not possible to adequately report a current event without partly reproducing a protected work, that is allowed. "Event" would normally mean a parade, demonstration, speech, accident etc. in which the protected work is visible or audible in the background. "To the extent justified by the informatory purpose" means that no more of the protected work would be allowed than needed. Events like "construction starts", "workers on strike" or "officially opened" can be described verbally, perhaps with some pictures of officials or workers taking part in the event. A portion of the protected work may be visible in the pictures, but it should be minimal. File:Vientiane Railway Station facade.jpg does not depict any event in the construction project. It depicts the finished work, and unreasonably prejudices the legitimate interests of the author by helping other architects copy the work. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:31, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

When you say "fair use", do you mean in the sense that Commons forbids? -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK) 19:58, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

@Brainulator9: Laotian law treats their insufficient FOP as "fair use". Perhaps they consider all enumerated limitations/exceptions to copyright as fair use. To quote:

Article 115 (revised). Acts Consistent with Fair Use
The following acts shall be permissible without consent of the author, and without remuneration:
...
3. reproducing, by photography or cinematography, images of works of fine art, photographs, and other artistic works, and works of applied art, provided such works have already been published, publicly displayed, or communicated to the public, where such reproduction is incidental to the photographic or cinematographic work and is not the object of the photographic or cinematographic work;

Note I underlined the restriction on Laotian FOP. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 02:22, 17 December 2022 (UTC)