[Commons-l] Flag copyright

[Brianna Laugher]

Can someone explain to me how this is supposed to work?

If a flag design is PD, and I make a faithful representation of it
(intended to be a duplicate), do I have any copyright over it or not?

Ditto COAs.

Some examples:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Ked.gif
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Coa_cote_d_ivory.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Lombardia-Bandiera.png
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Miranda_flag.png
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Martina_Franca-Stemma.png
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Petrzalka_erb.gif
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Ph_seal_guimaras.png
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Pommernwappen.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Provincia_Huesca.png
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Puglia-Bandiera.png
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Russia_coa.svg (some discussion)
 plus a whole bunch linked to
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:SlovakCityCOA

Some of these images have been marked as copyvios because they're from
Flags of the World (FOTW) website. Is FOTW even right to claim
copyright?

See, this ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Russian_Empire_1914-17_Flag.png
) is tagged as copyvio because it's from FOTW. Yet it's also listed as
being superseded by
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Russian_Empire_1914_17.svg
which is licensed CC-BY-SA!!! What gives??

I would have thought that either a flag design is PD or it's not.
(generally decided by the laws of the country.) If it's PD, it doesn't
matter how much time you spend on your SVG, you can't license it any
other way than PD. (And PD-self is *wrong* in such cases.) If it's
not, then it's gonna be copyrighted as we can't host it anyway.

Feedback please, and if you want to delete/retag any of the above
images that'd be great.

Brianna
commons:User:pfctdayelise