Jim wrote:
- Determination that the photos lack sufficient originality, thus the photographer can not claim copyright in the photo of a public domain work (following Bridgeman)
- Assuming that there is sufficient originality, so we need to find the copyright status of the photo seperate from the one in the portrait:
- If they are photos posted by the US govt and copied to wikipedia from there - then those are clearly in the public domain as a work of the US govt.
- If the photo was taken by a contributor - then we should refer to his license in uploading the work.
Personally, my review of the photos in question indicate that they clearly fall under the Bridgeman decision and the photographer can not claim a copyright in them as there is not the sufficient originality by the photographer
The problem is that Bridgman was only a district court case, not a circuit court case, and it is unclear that the reasoning in Bridgman will be followed by other courts. It is not much of a precedent to rely upon.
--Jimbo