I was the one asking at Commons. Section 7 of the
United States Headquarters Agreement for the United Nations, Public Law 80-357 does 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 Congress
within 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)