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 Yet it's also listed as being superseded by http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Russian_Empire_1914_17.svg which is licensed CC-BY-SA!!!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