On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 8:41 PM, Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Images on Commons must be public domain in both the source country and
the US. The
images are definitely copyrighted in the US. The question is
whether they are copyrighted due to following US formalities or due to the
URAA. Without details about how they were published, it is impossible to
determine which is the case.
After I restored these images, I was threatem by LGA, who is a
delete-only account:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Us…
There, more contributors argue on this issue.
By asking absurb requirements about publication details, these
contributors threaten the project as a whole. If insisting, it will
lead people to upload pictures like these locally instead of Commons.
Then the idea of a central repository for all Wikimedia projects is
gone.
Deleting copyrighted images from Commons doesn't "threaten the project as
a whole". If you want to argue that they should be kept on the URAA
technicality, you should present a case at Deletion Review, preferably with
some evidence to support your case. Wheel warring over a small handful of
images does more to damage the project (by eroding trust good will between
participants) than deleting these images does.
I realize it is frustrating having to deal with the United States' absurd
copyright laws, but unfortunately, those are the laws we are stuck with for
the time being. Even if these files are ultimately kept on Commons, they
will still be vulnerable to deletion by complaint of the copyright owner
(presumably the government of Israel), regardless of which circumstances
they are copyrighted under. You might argue that the government of Israel
would never assert its US copyright over the images, but there is no way we
can be sure of that. Personally, I don't really care if we keep the images
or not, but we have deletion discussion forums for a reason. Commons
operates by consensus, not by unilateral force of will. In the future I
hope you will choose to utilize those forums rather than acting
out-of-process.
Cheers,
Ryan Kaldari
Did you actually read the deletion discussions? Every single discussion
vote for every file at issue was "keep." And yet in each the result was
"delete." How do you explain that? If "Commons operates by consensus",
that
is.