Can anyone help with an authoritative opinion about this? The doubts about it are causing problems on a number of articles, including during featured article reviews.
Where an image is in the public domain in its country of origin, and that country is not the U.S., I believe we still have to show that it is PD in the U.S. before we can use it, because the Foundation's servers are in the U.S.. There seem to be widely differing views on this, even among Wikipedians who seem knowledgeable about images. Some people say that if the image was not copyrighted in its country of origin on January 1, 1996, it is regarded as PD in the U.S., and may be uploaded to the Commons and used on Wikipedia as PD. This is according to the [[Uruguay Round Agreements Act]]. Others are saying no, this *may* mean they are in the public domain, but their status as such is not secure.
So my first question is: if an image was regarded as in the public domain on January 1, 1996 in its (non-U.S.) country of origin, is there a consensus as to whether we are allowed to use it on Wikipedia as a PD image? If so, what is the correct tag to use?
My second question: for images that are in the public domain in their (non-U.S.) country of origin, but were not PD in that country as of January 1, 1996, is there any way we can use them apart from claiming fair use?
Sarah