Message: 1 Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 20:04:43 +0200 (CEST) From: Fredrik Josefsson fred_chessplayer@yahoo.se Subject: [Commons-l] PD-UN template To: Commons-l@wikimedia.org Message-ID: 20061023180443.22932.qmail@web23010.mail.ird.yahoo.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
On behalf of a user who asked a question on Commons:
Question about [[s:en:Template:PD-UN]] http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/en:Template:PD-UN and its Chinese and French versions hereto. When Wikisource was a multilingual site accepting all languages, it had so many UN Security Council resolutions posted by various users unaware of UN copyright. As the UN Headquarters is subject to the same USA laws, works published there are copyrighted in the same way as works published in the USA.
Works published in the USA between 1978 and 1 March 1989 without copyright notices and without subsequent copyright registrations are in the public domain in the USA, but should subsequent copyright registrations be validly made, the works become copyrighted. I would like to ask if these works are acceptable here. This is critical as most, if not all, images at [[:Category:Stamps of United Nations]] may be indeed copyrighted.
I thought I ask at the mailinglist, see if anyone can provide an answer...
/ Fred-Chess
Message: 2 Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 20:10:02 +0200 From: David Monniaux David.Monniaux@free.fr Subject: Re: [Commons-l] PD-UN template To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List commons-l@wikimedia.org Message-ID: 453D057A.4070908@free.fr Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Fredrik Josefsson wrote:
On behalf of a user who asked a question on Commons:
Question about [[s:en:Template:PD-UN]] http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/en:Template:PD-UN and its Chinese and French versions hereto. When Wikisource was a multilingual site accepting all languages, it had so many UN Security Council resolutions posted by various users unaware of UN copyright. As the UN Headquarters is subject to the same USA laws
How so? The headquarters are in extraterritorial territory.
I was the one asking at Commons. Section 7 of the United States Headquarters Agreement for the United Nations, Public Law 80-357http://www.un.int/usa/host_hqs.htmdoes apply American laws to the UN Headquarters in New York unless otherwise provided. This would apply American copyright law there as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain#United_States_law says, "Until the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988, the lack of a proper copyright notice would force an otherwise copyrightable work into the public domain, although for works published between 1978 and 1989, this defect could be cured by registering the work with the Library of Congresshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Congresswithin 5 years of publication. After 1988, an author's copyright in a work begins when it is fixed in a tangible form; neither publication nor registration is required, and a lack of a copyright notice does not place the work into the public domain."
If Wikipedia is correct, works published in the USA and the UN Headquaters between 1978 and 1989 with no copyright notice would be in the public domain in the USA now since much more than 5 years have passed since 1989. This is why I would like to ask before bringing Template:PD-UN from Wikisource to Wikimedia Commons. However, we should have a verifiable citation to the 5-year claim.
Jusjih, admin at 8 Wiki sites (Commons, English and Chinese Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource)