Re: [Commons-l] [WikiEN-l] Images that are PD in their country of origin

List overview All Threads
Download

newer

older

Office hours for Friday, February...

Imgur: Stolen Content and Social...

Michael Peel

8 Feb 2010 8 Feb '10

11:22 p.m.

On 8 Feb 2010, at 23:05, Ken Arromdee wrote:

...

This is also a particular problem with pictures of living people, since we've been told that since it's *possible* to take another picture of a living person, all non-free images of living people are prohibited. The official way of interpreting "it's possible to" takes no consideration of just how possible it is. In any other context this would be considered rules-lawyering-- we're basically officially rules-lawyering our own policies.

Personally, I think we should remove all non-free images from all language Wikipedias (and everywhere else they occur) - as they make it difficult to get freely licensed content off people that already have that content. Case study: I emailed ESA to ask for a photograph of a satellite to use in an article; they provided a 200 pixel image I could use as 'fair use' in return. In the past, we weren't big enough to have any leverage to get that content released - but now we are, and we could have that leverage if we want to take advantage of it. However, that is somewhat separate from the question of images that are in the public domain _somewhere_. It is somewhat crazy that US laws dictate what public domain materials you can upload to Wikipedia etc - irrespective of what laws apply in your own country. One possibility that might be worth investigating is something like Wikilivres - which holds books that are out of copyright in Canada (life+50 years) but not in the US. It can do that as its servers are based in Canada. Could we do something similar with Wikimedia Commons? i.e. host multimedia content on a server in a different geographical area, and then have that linked in with Wikipedia in the same way that Commons currently is? There shouldn't be any concerns about having thumbnail images of these works on Wikipedia, as these are all done under fair use anyway (e.g. all of those uncredited CC- BY-SA images...). Mike

Show replies by date

Rama Neko

9 Feb 9 Feb

9 a.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] Images that are PD in their country of origin

We do not game copyright laws in this way. You can see an example with Heinrich Hoffman's photographs: the USA consider them to be in the Public Domain in apparent disregard for international law on copyright; these photographs are protected by copyright in Germany, where they are the object of very proprietary publications. The policy on Commons is that we do not accept such images. -- Rama On 09/02/2010, Michael Peel <email(a)mikepeel.net> wrote:

...

On 8 Feb 2010, at 23:05, Ken Arromdee wrote:

Michael Peel

10:25 a.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] Images that are PD in their country of origin

That's a valid point, but I'm coming at it from different direction: works that are public domain in the country of origin but not in the US. I don't view that as gaming the copyright system, as I'm based in the UK and I don't view Wikimedia as an American website/set of projects. If a UK photographer's works are public domain in the UK but not in the US, there shouldn't be anything stopping me uploading them to (some variant of) Commons and tagging them as life+70 but not US-PD. Mike On 9 Feb 2010, at 09:00, Rama Neko wrote:

...

On 8 Feb 2010, at 23:05, Ken Arromdee wrote:

_______________________________________________ Commons-l mailing list Commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l

Eusebius

10:28 a.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] Images that are PD in their country of origin

Michael Peel

10:35 a.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] Images that are PD in their country of origin

The WMF is accepting my files? I thought that they were simply providing a service, and it was the community at large that was accepting the files. ;-) That said, the formal side of Wikimedia is not just the WMF. We have a growing network of chapters around the world, who are legally based in different countries (disclaimer: I'm on the board of of Wikimedia UK, which is an independent organization in the UK). Some of these might be able to host such a service as I proposed - e.g. Wikimedia Deutschland already runs the Toolserver. Mike On 9 Feb 2010, at 10:28, Eusebius wrote:

...

Maybe there is nothing preventing you from uploading from UK, but the US copyright law prevents the WMF from accepting your files, no? Eusebius Michael Peel a écrit :

On 8 Feb 2010, at 23:05, Ken Arromdee wrote: > > This is also a particular problem with pictures of living > people, since we've been told that since it's *possible* to > take another picture of a living person, all non-free images of > living people are prohibited. The official way of interpreting > "it's possible to" takes no consideration of just how possible > it is. In any other context this would be considered rules- > lawyering-- we're basically officially rules-lawyering our own > policies. Personally, I think we should remove all non-free images from all language Wikipedias (and everywhere else they occur) - as they make it difficult to get freely licensed content off people that already have that content. Case study: I emailed ESA to ask for a photograph of a satellite to use in an article; they provided a 200 pixel image I could use as 'fair use' in return. In the past, we weren't big enough to have any leverage to get that content released - but now we are, and we could have that leverage if we want to take advantage of it. However, that is somewhat separate from the question of images that are in the public domain _somewhere_. It is somewhat crazy that US laws dictate what public domain materials you can upload to Wikipedia etc - irrespective of what laws apply in your own country. One possibility that might be worth investigating is something like Wikilivres - which holds books that are out of copyright in Canada (life+50 years) but not in the US. It can do that as its servers are based in Canada. Could we do something similar with Wikimedia Commons? i.e. host multimedia content on a server in a different geographical area, and then have that linked in with Wikipedia in the same way that Commons currently is? There shouldn't be any concerns about having thumbnail images of these works on Wikipedia, as these are all done under fair use anyway (e.g. all of those uncredited CC- BY-SA images...). Mike _______________________________________________ Commons-l mailing list Commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https:// lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l

_______________________________________________ Commons-l mailing list Commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/ mailman/listinfo/commons-l

_______________________________________________ Commons-l mailing list Commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l

Eusebius

10:46 a.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] Images that are PD in their country of origin

Rama Neko

10:36 a.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] Images that are PD in their country of origin

My apologies if "gaming the system" has overly negative connotations, I am worried of having been unwittingly insulting. Are there concrete examples of works that are in the Public Domain in their county of origin but not in the USA? I was under the impression that under the Bern Convention, a work was not protected longer than it is in its country of origin. -- Rama On 09/02/2010, Eusebius <wikipedia(a)eusebius.fr> wrote:

...

Maybe there is nothing preventing you from uploading from UK, but the US copyright law prevents the WMF from accepting your files, no? Eusebius Michael Peel a écrit :

On 8 Feb 2010, at 23:05, Ken Arromdee wrote: > > This is also a particular problem with pictures of living people, > since we've > been told that since it's *possible* to take another picture of a > living > person, all non-free images of living people are prohibited. The > official > way of interpreting "it's possible to" takes no consideration of > just how > possible it is. In any other context this would be considered > rules-lawyering-- > we're basically officially rules-lawyering our own policies. > Personally, I think we should remove all non-free images from all language Wikipedias (and everywhere else they occur) - as they make it difficult to get freely licensed content off people that already have that content. Case study: I emailed ESA to ask for a photograph of a satellite to use in an article; they provided a 200 pixel image I could use as 'fair use' in return. In the past, we weren't big enough to have any leverage to get that content released - but now we are, and we could have that leverage if we want to take advantage of it. However, that is somewhat separate from the question of images that are in the public domain _somewhere_. It is somewhat crazy that US laws dictate what public domain materials you can upload to Wikipedia etc - irrespective of what laws apply in your own country. One possibility that might be worth investigating is something like Wikilivres - which holds books that are out of copyright in Canada (life+50 years) but not in the US. It can do that as its servers are based in Canada. Could we do something similar with Wikimedia Commons? i.e. host multimedia content on a server in a different geographical area, and then have that linked in with Wikipedia in the same way that Commons currently is? There shouldn't be any concerns about having thumbnail images of these works on Wikipedia, as these are all done under fair use anyway (e.g. all of those uncredited CC- BY-SA images...). Mike _______________________________________________ Commons-l mailing list Commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l

_______________________________________________ Commons-l mailing list Commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l

Petr Kadlec

10:47 a.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] Images that are PD in their country of origin

On 9 February 2010 11:36, Rama Neko <ramaneko(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Are there concrete examples of works that are in the Public Domain in their county of origin but not in the USA? I was under the impression that under the Bern Convention, a work was not protected longer than it is in its country of origin.

…except if another country chooses to protect the work longer, just like the US did. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_the_shorter_term -- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]

Michael Peel

11:02 a.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] Images that are PD in their country of origin

On 9 Feb 2010, at 10:36, Rama Neko wrote:

...

My apologies if "gaming the system" has overly negative connotations, I am worried of having been unwittingly insulting.

It wasn't - don't worry about it. :)

...

Lots - any work (in country of origin that's not the US) published after 1923 where their author died in or before 1939. For example, half of the works of Yeats are PD in the UK, but not in the US. [1] (Yes, text - but where does the OCR file live? ;-) ) For more texts like this, see Wikilivres [2] - "This site has more than 3,000 books and documents, and 1,000 images in 10,088 pages from more than 650 authors." Mike [1] http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:William_Butler_Yeats [2] http://www.wikilivres.info/

David Gerard

12:06 p.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] Images that are PD in their country of origin

On 9 February 2010 10:36, Rama Neko <ramaneko(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

*Lots* of examples from Italy. They are uploaded to it:wp but not to Commons. - d.

Eugene Zelenko

2:38 p.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] Images that are PD in their country of origin

Hi! Italy is different story. If I'm not mistaken, problem was with harmonization of copyrights law in EU. Italian Wikipedia may not agree with opinion of Commons. Eugene. On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 4:06 AM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On 9 February 2010 10:36, Rama Neko <ramaneko(a)gmail.com> wrote:

*Lots* of examples from Italy. They are uploaded to it:wp but not to Commons. - d. _______________________________________________ Commons-l mailing list Commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l

Gnangarra

4:39 p.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] Images that are PD in their country of origin

If the images were to be uploaded to a Commons server then it would require a number of additional questions at the time of uploading we already have enough problems in getting people to follow the current requirements and selecting the appropriate license. I've spent time in getting an understanding of the US copyright laws, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguay_Round_Agreements_Act and Australian copyright and how each interacts, this would become an added complication in how copyright subsists across borders. From an admin point of view I think it would cause a lot of dissention and harm in the community when it came to questioning the license of an image.

...

From my own vasitly limited experience I can envisage issues with using a

PD-Isreal image used in Wikipedia being displayed in Egypt, but they would be minor compared problems it would create for re-users of Wikipedia even to the extent that it may actually impede on Wikimedia's core value of being freely available. Imagine the problems for a third party reusing content thw amount of work that they would need to do to ensure that they could use our content As for hosting on Chapter servers I'd oppose such a move as it would place local Chapters in the questionable position of legal liability with regards to disputes over Wikimedia content as there would be a substantive link between the chapter and project content. ie chapter hosts WP content, chapter members wrote the content, chapters promote themselves to local businesses/government agencies as a contact point for establishing associations with foundation projects additionally Chapter committee members make themselves available to local media for information/comments on the projects therefore the chapter is/appears to act as the Foundation agent in situ thus responsible for content. Legal perspective aside, the chapters would need to have people available to address image concerns in a timely manor or give sysop access to commons sysops so that images could be deleted they would also need to make it possible for everyone to edit on their servers. There would need to be away of cross server categorisation so that all images could be viewed through Commons. I think the number of potential problems created are disproportionate to the value that we would gain, especially when local projects can already accept images that Commons cant. On 9 February 2010 22:38, Eugene Zelenko <eugene.zelenko(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On 9 February 2010 10:36, Rama Neko <ramaneko(a)gmail.com> wrote:

*Lots* of examples from Italy. They are uploaded to it:wp but not to

Commons.

- d. _______________________________________________ Commons-l mailing list Commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l

_______________________________________________ Commons-l mailing list Commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l

-- GN. http://gnangarra.redbubble.com/

5183

days inactive

5184

days old

commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org

Manage subscription

11 comments

7 participants

tags (0)

participants (7)

David Gerard
Eugene Zelenko
Eusebius
Gnangarra
Michael Peel
Petr Kadlec
Rama Neko