Hello, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests frequently sees recurring copyright debates, which I believe is basically because we are a bunch of amateurs trying to make decisions on complex international copyright law. This is no slight on the people who take part in these debates (I am one of them), but it simply seems to me quite silly. No one can be sure who is right, we argue in circles and it's really inefficient. I really feel out of my depth trying to argue on copyright cases, but I do it because *someone* has to - there just isn't enough attention given to these cases. And yet Wikimedia has a legal department: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_department . Villy (Jean-Christophe Chazalette), who is part of it, used to be quite active on Commons but hasn't been for some time. Therefore I propose that we (Commons community) ask the Legal department to create and fill a permanent position known as something like "Commons liaison officer" (CLO). Their job will be to mediate requests for copyright advice between Commons and the juriwiki mailing list/Legal department. Hopefully we could have a turn-around of about two weeks on any given issue. I hope this would be considered appropriate for the Legal department, because Commons is handling the vast bulk of media copyright issues, unlike text copyright issues which are spread almost everywhere else. Of course they should not be bothered with every little issue. Only things that cannot be resolved on [[COM:DEL]] should be taken to the CLO (presumably by admins). (For example we would not ask them to try and find the source of an item. The onus is on the uploader to provide the source. If they cannot, we have to delete.) The advice they offer should be recorded, interpreted as a precedent and binding. I hope to draw some attention to this issue here (and the Village pump) and if there is more or less unanimity, I will post a request to juriwiki and the foundation-l mailing list. Here are some recent issues that I would like resolved: * To what extent are we bound by local laws and to what extent are we bound by Florida's laws (as the home of our servers). Country copyrights vary considerably with regards to duration of copyright, "freedom of panorama" (Panoramafreiheit) /whether public objects such as statues and even buildings can be freely photographed and there is a lot of confusion about this. Should we respect local law always or interpret in terms of US law? (Big discussion at the moment about a photo of the interior of a German railway station: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:Berlin_H… ) * There was recently a discussion about the "Against DRM" license ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:ADRM ). * Logos. This has still not been sufficiently resolved, in that there is not a clear enough solution that everyone is aware of. Do we consider copyright independently of trademark status? Is that even possible? ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:CSU-Logo… ) * "Agencia Brasil" license ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Ag%C3%AAncia_Brasil ) also has been debated several times. Related to the wider issue of, "if a website says "these images can be used freely, can we interpret that as allowing commercial use and derivative works, and thus Commons-compliant? Or do we need to check each time whether they intend to allow these specific rights?" * Photographs of commercial products such as: Pokemon/Star Wars/Simpsons toys, box of Pringles, also people in dress-up outfits of characters such as Lara Croft/Chewbacca. Eloquence has raised this before ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#May_21 ) but I doubt even he would think this has been satisfactorily resolved. * US presidential portraits ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Official_paint… ). * Photographs of art - if the artwork itself is old enough to be PD, is it true that any photograph of the art itself is also PD, but any photograph of the art in its frame or on a wall is not? (Because it is 3-D, not 2-D anymore) * Personality rights. What permission is required of people photographed, if any? (eg "Can I take your picture"/"Can I publish your picture on a public database that allows commercial use?") Is this a copyright concern or a "other law" concern that we don't need to worry about? What if the people aren't recognisable (and how can you decide that anyway?)? ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#All_pictures_o… , also some of the "visible thong" pictures on http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/G-string have been nominated before) * Stock xchange images (current: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:SXC villy also wrote http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Aurevilly/sxc.hu_%282%29 but it seems to have stalled). What should be done with the existing images (which are intentionally not categorised in any way as such, so they might be hard to find), what do we have to do (if anything) in order to use current images? I don't really want to discuss any of these issues right now. I want to discuss whether or not other people think it would be appropriate to seek professional legal advice on issues like these and whether or not they think my idea of asking for the appointment of a CLO is a good idea or not. Thanks, Brianna /user:pfctdayelise