On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 8:41 PM, Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari@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/User_problems#User:Yann
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.