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
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 9:29 AM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
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..
Who is the "we"? It's not clear to me how the location of the Foundation's servers would be relevant.
SlimVirgin wrote:
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?
In examining this one needs to distinguish between Wikipedia policy and copyright law. Wikipedia can establish its own policies, which largely, but not exclusively, tend to be more stringent that copyright law. In that it can be authoritative; it chooses what level of risk to accept.
As long as you depend only on copyright law there can be no authoritative answer. The failure of the United States to adopt the rule of the shorter term throws everything into a muddle. Every situation needs to be studied on its own merits. The case is still working through the legal system challenging, on first amendment grounds, whether that law would operate to re-protect works that had already gone into the public domain. It seems clear that UK authors who died in 1923, 1924 or 1925 would not have been captured by the URAA. In other cases much depends on how the law of some other country transitioned the extension of copyright from life plus fifty to seventy. There are many possible permutations of that problem.
Canada still uses life plus fifty, and it's anybody's guess whether it will adopt the extension. The last couple controversial efforts to add DRMs did not include term extension language. Stephen Leacock died in 1945 so his works would have gone into the public domain in Canada at the end of 1995; nevertheless some later works were published in the US, and the copyrights duly renewed at the appropriate time.
Images present additional problems about who owns the copyright. The simple fact that an image was included in a book does not automatically mean that the book's author owned the copyrights for the images. For the Winnie the Pooh books Shepherd, the illustrator, outlived Milne by a considerable margin so in a life plus system the copyrights on the images would last much longer than those on the texts.
In summary, it's up to Wikipedia to adopt its own policies. Personally, I would avoid too doctrinaire an approach; I would more tend to assume that if one takes a fair-minded approach to including material with uncertain copyright status the worst that can happen is that some ghostly obscure heir will emerge from the woodwork to make his claims. More likely, he will thank us for reviving the memory of his dead ancestor.
Ec
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 16:35, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
SlimVirgin wrote:
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?
In summary, it's up to Wikipedia to adopt its own policies. Personally, I would avoid too doctrinaire an approach; I would more tend to assume that if one takes a fair-minded approach to including material with uncertain copyright status the worst that can happen is that some ghostly obscure heir will emerge from the woodwork to make his claims. More likely, he will thank us for reviving the memory of his dead ancestor.
Ec
Thanks, Ray. The difficulties are arising at featured-article image reviews, where we try to stick closely to the image policies, but no one seems to understand what the policies say exactly when it comes to this issue. So editors who are using images that are PD in their country of origin are encountering different opinions depending on who conducts the review, which is frustrating. Someone writing an article about Australia is not able to use a picture of Australia that is PD in Australia, which seems wrong for an international project.
As you say, it's up to Wikipedia to formulate its own policy, so I'm wondering if that's being done anywhere, if there's an effort somewhere to clarify this.
Sarah
In summary, it's up to Wikipedia to adopt its own policies. Personally, I would avoid too doctrinaire an approach; I would more tend to assume that if one takes a fair-minded approach to including material with uncertain copyright status the worst that can happen is that some ghostly obscure heir will emerge from the woodwork to make his claims. More likely, he will thank us for reviving the memory of his dead ancestor.
Ec
With due respect toward Ray's very thoughtful analysis, I can't agree with
that conclusion.
Wikimedia Commons currently has 276 administrators and over 6 million images. Compare that against en:wiki's 1,714 administrators and 3 million articles and you'll get an idea how thinly things are spread. Commons has a serious deletion request backlog.
Experienced contributors--particularly at the featured content level--have an obligation to set the example and put the best foot forward. Yes, it can be frustrating to research copyright. It would be considerably more frustrating if a copyright owner who didn't thank us for the appropriation complained to the press.
About two years ago the featured picture program had an editor who was nominating copyright violations and running a vote stacking sockfarm. He had actually gotten a copyvio promoted to featured picture before we realized it; fortunately we caught onto the problem before it ran on the main page. Afterward a single administrator undid his siteban without discussion. Last fall he was banned again when he actually threatened another editor. During the noticeboard thread it turned out that he had gone over to the DYK program and had resumed submitting copyvios there--which apparently site culture was not doctrinaire enough about addressing.
If a fellow who had already been sitebanned for copyvio can return and continue copyvios for a year at a venue which runs on the main page, then perhaps a more doctrinaire approach is exactly what we need.
-Lise
On 07/02/2010, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
In examining this one needs to distinguish between Wikipedia policy and copyright law. Wikipedia can establish its own policies, which largely, but not exclusively, tend to be more stringent that copyright law. In that it can be authoritative; it chooses what level of risk to accept.
My understanding is that the Wikipedia doesn't really have any risk under the law.
Provided the strictures of the DMCA are followed, any uploaded copyrighted material simply has to be removed promptly if they receive a copyright violation notice. If the strictures of the DMCA aren't followed then the Wikipedia/media could be in big trouble.
Ec
On 8 February 2010 00:16, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
My understanding is that the Wikipedia doesn't really have any risk under the law. Provided the strictures of the DMCA are followed, any uploaded copyrighted material simply has to be removed promptly if they receive a copyright violation notice. If the strictures of the DMCA aren't followed then the Wikipedia/media could be in big trouble.
The problem for Commons is also reusability - Wikimedia could get away with just about anything, but reusers may not.
- d.
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 4:28 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 8 February 2010 00:16, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
My understanding is that the Wikipedia doesn't really have any risk under the law. Provided the strictures of the DMCA are followed, any uploaded copyrighted material simply has to be removed promptly if they receive a copyright violation notice. If the strictures of the DMCA aren't followed then the Wikipedia/media could be in big trouble.
The problem for Commons is also reusability - Wikimedia could get away with just about anything, but reusers may not.
The reality of the situation for reusers is that they are unlikely to be held liable for significant damages if they have plausible reason to believe they were using the image legally, and react appropriately if the owner informs them differently.
It is practically impossible to in the legal sense prove the provenance of images you didn't produce yourself, as a reuser. Everyone assumes the bundled provenance is accurate, or at least not fraudulent. The systems in the US and elsewhere protect those who rely on provenance they have available.
That does not mean we shouldn't pay attention to the problem. But we shouldn't let it cripple us.
Wikipedia's policy of generally being stricter (in policy, and enforcement) than legal requirements in the US should help protect us and our downstreams. We should not get lazy and rely on that, but we also should not be too defensive or paranoid.
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 18:28, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The problem for Commons is also reusability - Wikimedia could get away with just about anything, but reusers may not.
What kind of reusers do we have in mind? The reason I ask is that the image policies are crippling, or the way they're being applied is. I've lost count of the number of times Holocaust images are proposed for deletion because, we're told, there's a free equivalent somewhere. Prisoners risked their lives in concentration camps to smuggle out images to prove to the world what was happening, images that are PD in their country of origin, yet we're not supposed to use them (in the opinion of some Wikipedians) because they're not PD in the U.S. and there might be a free equivalent somewhere. If this is happening to make things easier for reusers, it would be good to know who they are and what this kind of policy application protects them from, because all it does is cause problems for us.
On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 2:05 AM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 18:28, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The problem for Commons is also reusability - Wikimedia could get away with just about anything, but reusers may not.
What kind of reusers do we have in mind? The reason I ask is that the image policies are crippling, or the way they're being applied is. I've lost count of the number of times Holocaust images are proposed for deletion because, we're told, there's a free equivalent somewhere. Prisoners risked their lives in concentration camps to smuggle out images to prove to the world what was happening, images that are PD in their country of origin, yet we're not supposed to use them (in the opinion of some Wikipedians) because they're not PD in the U.S. and there might be a free equivalent somewhere. If this is happening to make things easier for reusers, it would be good to know who they are and what this kind of policy application protects them from, because all it does is cause problems for us.
Possibly the reusers who stick images on T-shirts and mugs and sell them?
Carcharoth
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 20:24, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 2:05 AM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
What kind of reusers do we have in mind? The reason I ask is that the image policies are crippling, or the way they're being applied is. I've lost count of the number of times Holocaust images are proposed for deletion because, we're told, there's a free equivalent somewhere. Prisoners risked their lives in concentration camps to smuggle out images to prove to the world what was happening, images that are PD in their country of origin, yet we're not supposed to use them (in the opinion of some Wikipedians) because they're not PD in the U.S. and there might be a free equivalent somewhere. If this is happening to make things easier for reusers, it would be good to know who they are and what this kind of policy application protects them from, because all it does is cause problems for us.
Possibly the reusers who stick images on T-shirts and mugs and sell them?
I can't tell whether that's a serious answer. I hope we're not making editors jump through all these hoops, and depriving readers of important historical images, for the benefit of people who sell T-shirts. :(
On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 2:37 PM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 20:24, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 2:05 AM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
What kind of reusers do we have in mind? The reason I ask is that the image policies are crippling, or the way they're being applied is. I've lost count of the number of times Holocaust images are proposed for deletion because, we're told, there's a free equivalent somewhere. Prisoners risked their lives in concentration camps to smuggle out images to prove to the world what was happening, images that are PD in their country of origin, yet we're not supposed to use them (in the opinion of some Wikipedians) because they're not PD in the U.S. and there might be a free equivalent somewhere. If this is happening to make things easier for reusers, it would be good to know who they are and what this kind of policy application protects them from, because all it does is cause problems for us.
Possibly the reusers who stick images on T-shirts and mugs and sell them?
I can't tell whether that's a serious answer. I hope we're not making editors jump through all these hoops, and depriving readers of important historical images, for the benefit of people who sell T-shirts. :(
I believe the answer is serious in as much as the most contested (but allowed) re-use-cases of Commons content are for commercial purposes. It is a use-case that is both difficult to explain to many copyright holders but also important for us to retain as a standard for our free-culture project.
I agree that it is annoying to think of commons admins going to all this trouble just for the benefit of unknown people selling t-shirts, but if people *aren't* allowed to sell t-shirts then it's not free-culture project.
For the record, I agree with George Herbert (above): "We should not get lazy and rely on [legal requirements in the US], but we also should not be too defensive or paranoid." As they say about Fair Use - use it or lose it!
-Liam [[witty lama]]
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 11:13 PM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
I agree that it is annoying to think of commons admins going to all this trouble just for the benefit of unknown people selling t-shirts, but if people *aren't* allowed to sell t-shirts then it's not free-culture project.
It's not a free culture project. It's a free "educational content" (1) project.
SlimVirgin wrote:
As you say, it's up to Wikipedia to formulate its own policy, so I'm wondering if that's being done anywhere, if there's an effort somewhere to clarify this.
The fact is that copyright issues have been a perpetual topic of debate throughout my eight years of participation. It all gets caught up in the confusion of the policy making process. That process tends to be too adversarial, sometimes with too little practical understanding of legal realities. At some point someone has to be trusted and respected enough to say "These are our limits," and have it stick. This is a big challenge that extends well beyond the narrow topic of copyrights.
This is more about the elusive qualities of leadership. As a society we have all been disillusioned by the actions of those in power at any and all levels. Our era of rapid communications has made those actions more difficult to hide. We find ourselves unable to trust anyone. At the same time most find it difficult to function without leadership, and crave the certainties which that leadership brings.
Ec
Durova wrote:
In summary, it's up to Wikipedia to adopt its own policies. Personally, I would avoid too doctrinaire an approach; I would more tend to assume that if one takes a fair-minded approach to including material with uncertain copyright status the worst that can happen is that some ghostly obscure heir will emerge from the woodwork to make his claims. More likely, he will thank us for reviving the memory of his dead ancestor. Ec
With due respect toward Ray's very thoughtful analysis, I can't agree with that conclusion.
Wikimedia Commons currently has 276 administrators and over 6 million images. Compare that against en:wiki's 1,714 administrators and 3 million articles and you'll get an idea how thinly things are spread. Commons has a serious deletion request backlog.
Experienced contributors--particularly at the featured content level--have an obligation to set the example and put the best foot forward. Yes, it can be frustrating to research copyright. It would be considerably more frustrating if a copyright owner who didn't thank us for the appropriation complained to the press.
About two years ago the featured picture program had an editor who was nominating copyright violations and running a vote stacking sockfarm. He had actually gotten a copyvio promoted to featured picture before we realized it; fortunately we caught onto the problem before it ran on the main page. Afterward a single administrator undid his siteban without discussion. Last fall he was banned again when he actually threatened another editor. During the noticeboard thread it turned out that he had gone over to the DYK program and had resumed submitting copyvios there--which apparently site culture was not doctrinaire enough about addressing.
If a fellow who had already been sitebanned for copyvio can return and continue copyvios for a year at a venue which runs on the main page, then perhaps a more doctrinaire approach is exactly what we need.
-Lise
These are important consequences, but mostly begin to stray from the real issue.
Yes, lack of good administrators is a big problem, but the policies that they administer would remain the same without regard to the number of administrators. A simpler formulation of the rules could ease the administrators' burdens. Alternatively, the solution is more administrators.
I agree that experienced contributors need to set an example, but that too is within the rules as defined. Thus they too suffer from a lack of clear definition. I don't see complaints to the press as a big cause for worry. Remember that we are dealing with works whose copyright status is debatable, and not just last year's pop trivia whose rights are very clear. If we rediscover something that hasn't seen the light of day for fifty years, the owner's beginning his complaints with the press would ring a little hollow if in all those fifty years he took no other steps to protect those rights.
The story of the badly-behaved editor doesn't help us either. What we do about such behaviour is about the application of policy, not about determining what that copyright policy in fact is. I would even venture to guess that the individual in question would have as enthusiastically violated a liberal copyright policy as a stringent one. I'm sorry if my use of the word "doctrinaire" misled you in that direction. I was really referring to deciding the edge cases where the existence of a valid copyright is debatable.
Ec
Ian Woollard wrote:
On 07/02/2010, Ray Saintonge wrote:
In examining this one needs to distinguish between Wikipedia policy and copyright law. Wikipedia can establish its own policies, which largely, but not exclusively, tend to be more stringent than copyright law. In that it can be authoritative; it chooses what level of risk to accept.
My understanding is that the Wikipedia doesn't really have any risk under the law.
Provided the strictures of the DMCA are followed, any uploaded copyrighted material simply has to be removed promptly if they receive a copyright violation notice. If the strictures of the DMCA aren't followed then the Wikipedia/media could be in big trouble.
True enough, and none of us is supporting flagrantly infringing acts. But I don't think that Wikipedia gets many such take down orders. A most important requirement of those orders is that the claimant show that he has some legal interest in the material. If the claims could be made by third-party do-gooders a lot of people would be wasting a lot of time spinning their wheels.
Perhaps the risk is that such a notice might be received. We often seem to be guided by a pervasive naïveté about such things; it's never so simple as drawing a go-to-jail card in a Monopoly game. There are numerous things that must happen before some acts can be penalized, and always opportunities to jump away before it all gets out of hand.
Ec
David Gerard wrote:
On 8 February 2010 00:16, Ian Woollard wrote:
My understanding is that the Wikipedia doesn't really have any risk under the law. Provided the strictures of the DMCA are followed, any uploaded copyrighted material simply has to be removed promptly if they receive a copyright violation notice. If the strictures of the DMCA aren't followed then the Wikipedia/media could be in big trouble.
The problem for Commons is also reusability - Wikimedia could get away with just about anything, but reusers may not.
I sometimes wonder whether reusability is the rope with which the free-culture movement hangs itself.
Ec
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 22:13, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
I believe the answer is serious in as much as the most contested (but allowed) re-use-cases of Commons content are for commercial purposes. It is a use-case that is both difficult to explain to many copyright holders but also important for us to retain as a standard for our free-culture project.
I agree that it is annoying to think of commons admins going to all this trouble just for the benefit of unknown people selling t-shirts, but if people *aren't* allowed to sell t-shirts then it's not free-culture project.
Hi Liam, I understand and respect the free culture aspect, and in that sense, I understand the restrictions. But we are not promoting free culture when we try to restrict images the Polish underground managed to smuggle out of Auschwitz -- images of prisoners being forced to burn other prisoners -- which are PD in their country of origin.
Somehow the interests of hypothetical re-users have been given priority over the interests of free culture and the interests of the project. How did that happen, and why, and who if anyone is benefiting? Whenever it's discussed most people seem to agree that it has gone too far, so it's not clear that there is really consensus for it. I think we've gotten ourselves into a situation where we're increasingly forced to defend the ever-more-irrational.
Sarah
On Sun, 7 Feb 2010, SlimVirgin wrote:
What kind of reusers do we have in mind? The reason I ask is that the image policies are crippling, or the way they're being applied is. I've lost count of the number of times Holocaust images are proposed for deletion because, we're told, there's a free equivalent somewhere. Prisoners risked their lives in concentration camps to smuggle out images to prove to the world what was happening, images that are PD in their country of origin, yet we're not supposed to use them (in the opinion of some Wikipedians) because they're not PD in the U.S. and there might be a free equivalent somewhere.
The thing is, "there might be a free equivalent somewhere" isn't really an *argument*. It's an officially blessed excuse, officially blessed to such an extent that it's impossible to argue "well, I don't think there's a free equivalent somewhere" because even a ridiculously low chance of a free equivalent existing somewhere ias enough to count as "there might be", and there is no allowance made for "well, there might be, but the chance is so small that there may as well not be".
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.
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
On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 17:22, Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:
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?
Or we could simply make a decision as a project to respect the copyrights and the terms of release of the countries of origin.
I'm dealing with an image at the moment of Palestinian women refugees resting after being expelled from their homes as the Israeli army approached in 1948. It's in the public domain in Israel, which now controls the area in which the image was taken. I am 99.9 percent certain it was taken by an employee of the British War Office, which would make it public domain in Britain and the Commonwealth (and as far as the British are concerned that makes it PD everywhere). I sent off for an old first edition of a book I knew it had appeared in in the 1950s in the hope that it would explicitly credit the War Office, but sadly it doesn't.
Because of that small doubt, I have to claim fair use. And because I am claiming fair use, someone has said I will have to reduce the quality of the image for it to comply with our fair-use policy. It's insane.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
SlimVirgin wrote:
On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 17:22, Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:
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?
Or we could simply make a decision as a project to respect the copyrights and the terms of release of the countries of origin.
I'm dealing with an image at the moment of Palestinian women refugees resting after being expelled from their homes as the Israeli army approached in 1948. It's in the public domain in Israel, which now controls the area in which the image was taken. I am 99.9 percent certain it was taken by an employee of the British War Office, which would make it public domain in Britain and the Commonwealth (and as far as the British are concerned that makes it PD everywhere). I sent off for an old first edition of a book I knew it had appeared in in the 1950s in the hope that it would explicitly credit the War Office, but sadly it doesn't.
Because of that small doubt, I have to claim fair use. And because I am claiming fair use, someone has said I will have to reduce the quality of the image for it to comply with our fair-use policy. It's insane.
I'd like to point out that in fact, these images would be accepted on to Commons, because Commons respects the country of origin rule rather than the PD-US rule that more often applies on the English Wikipedia.
- -- Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 10:59, Cary Bass cary@wikimedia.org wrote:
I'd like to point out that in fact, these images would be accepted on to Commons, because Commons respects the country of origin rule rather than the PD-US rule that more often applies on the English Wikipedia.
Hi Cary, most of the image people I've checked with say that images on the Commons are supposed to be PD in their country of origin *and* in the U.S. Although there are images on the Commons that are PD in their country of origin but *not* in the U.S., they usually carry a tag that places the PD status in doubt and may be proposed for deletion. This means we can't use them on WP.
Look at this image for example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Refugees_from_Lydda.jpg
Palestinian refugees in the British Mandate of Palestine during the exodus from their homes after Israeli troops moved in, July 1948, photographer unknown, believed to be from, or working on behalf of, the British War Office. First publication date not known, but I do know it had been published by 1957. It's PD in Israel, which now governs part of that land. It's PD in Jordan, which governs the other part. 99.9 percent certain it's PD in the UK, which governed the land at the time. But not clearly PD in the U.S. It has therefore been proposed for deletion from the Commons. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Refugees_from_Lydda.jpg
To use it on WP, I have to claim fair use, which means I'm expected to deliberately reduce its quality. :)
Here is an official British War Office image from the 1940s, definitely taken before 1951. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:King_Abdullah_of_Jordan_and_John_Glubb_Bag... David Gerard got the British govt to confirm years ago that these are regarded as PD worldwide. But not clearly PD in the U.S. because of the January 1, 1996 rule; therefore we can't upload to Commons (safely) and can't use in featured articles (safely).
The above are no means isolated examples. It seems to me that when we find situations like this cropping up again and again, we have evidence of *reductio ad absurdum*, evidence that the image policies are irrational, and way too complex to expect editors to adhere to. All our content and behavioral policies have to watch out for this -- if we find a content policy is trying to force people to do things that everyone agrees are silly, we change the policy.
But with the image policies, no matter the tangles we end up in, no matter that we're basically telling every country in the world that they're not allowed to order their own affairs, and no matter that there are no real legal issues in the U.S. with images of this kind anyway, no sensible change in the image policies is permitted. That's what confuses me. Is it just that no one is bothering to sort them out, or is there resistance to it somewhere? Is it Foundation-level, or what is it?
Sarah
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SlimVirgin wrote:
On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 10:59, Cary Bass cary@wikimedia.org wrote:
I'd like to point out that in fact, these images would be accepted on to Commons, because Commons respects the country of origin rule rather than the PD-US rule that more often applies on the English Wikipedia.
Hi Cary, most of the image people I've checked with say that images on the Commons are supposed to be PD in their country of origin *and* in the U.S. Although there are images on the Commons that are PD in their country of origin but *not* in the U.S., they usually carry a tag that places the PD status in doubt and may be proposed for deletion. This means we can't use them on WP.
Look at this image for example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Refugees_from_Lydda.jpg
Palestinian refugees in the British Mandate of Palestine during the exodus from their homes after Israeli troops moved in, July 1948, photographer unknown, believed to be from, or working on behalf of, the British War Office. First publication date not known, but I do know it had been published by 1957. It's PD in Israel, which now governs part of that land. It's PD in Jordan, which governs the other part. 99.9 percent certain it's PD in the UK, which governed the land at the time. But not clearly PD in the U.S. It has therefore been proposed for deletion from the Commons. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Refugees_from_Lydda.jpg
Yes, of course I didn't make an exception to my comment, regarding whether or not an image was first published in the United States. :-) Foolish me for not pointing out the exceptions; however... this image was published in 1957 without a copyright notice, making it public domain in the US. I've noted that in the deletion discussion on Commons.
- -- Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
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Cary Bass wrote:
SlimVirgin wrote:
On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 10:59, Cary Bass cary@wikimedia.org wrote:
I'd like to point out that in fact, these images would be accepted on to Commons, because Commons respects the country of origin rule rather than the PD-US rule that more often applies on the English Wikipedia.
Hi Cary, most of the image people I've checked with say that images on the Commons are supposed to be PD in their country of origin *and* in the U.S. Although there are images on the Commons that are PD in their country of origin but *not* in the U.S., they usually carry a tag that places the PD status in doubt and may be proposed for deletion. This means we can't use them on WP.
Look at this image for example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Refugees_from_Lydda.jpg
Palestinian refugees in the British Mandate of Palestine during the exodus from their homes after Israeli troops moved in, July 1948, photographer unknown, believed to be from, or working on behalf of, the British War Office. First publication date not known, but I do know it had been published by 1957. It's PD in Israel, which now governs part of that land. It's PD in Jordan, which governs the other part. 99.9 percent certain it's PD in the UK, which governed the land at the time. But not clearly PD in the U.S. It has therefore been proposed for deletion from the Commons. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Refugees_from_Lydda.jpg
Yes, of course I didn't make an exception to my comment, regarding whether or not an image was first published in the United States. :-) Foolish me for not pointing out the exceptions; however... this image was published in 1957 without a copyright notice, making it public domain in the US. I've noted that in the deletion discussion on Commons.
Or does this fall under that crazy 1996 law...
- -- Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 12:07, Cary Bass cary@wikimedia.org wrote:
Cary Bass wrote:
On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 10:59, Cary Bass cary@wikimedia.org wrote:
I'd like to point out that in fact, these images would be accepted on to Commons, because Commons respects the country of origin rule rather than the PD-US rule that more often applies on the English Wikipedia.
Yes, of course I didn't make an exception to my comment, regarding whether or not an image was first published in the United States. :-) Foolish me for not pointing out the exceptions; however... this image was published in 1957 without a copyright notice, making it public domain in the US. I've noted that in the deletion discussion on Commons.
Or does this fall under that crazy 1996 law...
It might fall under that, yes. It was published in 1957 without a copyright
notice, but may have been published before that with one. I don't know. Nor do I know whether that matters.
It was regarded as copyrighted in its country of origin in 1996, I believe, if we take that as Israel, because taken in 1948 (plus 50 = 1998); therefore the crazy 1996 law may apply. If the country of origin is Jordan, I think it's 1948 plus 25.
Thanks for saying something about it on the delete page anyway.
Sarah
Yes, lack of good administrators is a big problem, but the policies that they administer would remain the same without regard to the number of administrators. A simpler formulation of the rules could ease the administrators' burdens. Alternatively, the solution is more administrators.
When people tolerate copyright violation at featured processes in the name
of "free culture" or "not being too doctrinaire", then that sets off a domino effect that worsens the problem everywhere else. If you'd like to help solve that problem by becoming a Commons administrator, please do.
I don't see complaints to the press as a big cause for worry.
One word: Siegenthaler.
I was really referring to deciding the edge cases where the existence of a
valid copyright is debatable.
People are prone to a lot of convenient errors in that regard. This
frequently happens with the European PD-70 rule. An editor locates a photograph of a German ship that was built in 1895, republished without photo credit. The absence of photo credit doesn't mean that the photographer was anonymous and a ship built in 1895 could have been photographed at any time it was operational. So if it was decommissioned in 1919 we can't assume that the photographer died within twenty years afterward...or we shouldn't.
But we keep getting editors who use the PD-old template anyway as an exercise in wishful thinking. Too often, "the existence of a valid copyright is debatable" becomes a euphemism for "I've got a lousy source and haven't done enough research."
On 10 February 2010 02:58, Durova nadezhda.durova@gmail.com wrote:
But we keep getting editors who use the PD-old template anyway as an exercise in wishful thinking. Too often, "the existence of a valid copyright is debatable" becomes a euphemism for "I've got a lousy source and haven't done enough research."
I've sometimes thought that, in an ideal world, we should just phase out PD-old and all its forms - it's often, as you say, wishful thinking, or sometimes (and I know in my early days I did this) a cover for a misunderstanding about just what the thresholds are.
So what'd we replace it with? Something functionally like...
{{copyright |date=1895 |location=Germany |author=anonymous }}
...and have it then spit out, well, "this image is free under German copyright law (sect. 473 ii) and in the United States (Title 15, 7)" or the like, with an option to click to have it generate a copyright status in Canada or France or where have you. We do *have* this data for a sizable proportion of our images, after all, and it's a bit lazy when we take all this and slap a "well, PD, I guess" rubber-stamp on it!
I doubt this is *practical* in the near term, of course, but it's a thought. Any other ideas?
On 10 February 2010 13:21, Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk wrote:
I've sometimes thought that, in an ideal world, we should just phase out PD-old and all its forms - it's often, as you say, wishful thinking, or sometimes (and I know in my early days I did this) a cover for a misunderstanding about just what the thresholds are. So what'd we replace it with? Something functionally like... {{copyright |date=1895 |location=Germany |author=anonymous }} ...and have it then spit out, well, "this image is free under German copyright law (sect. 473 ii) and in the United States (Title 15, 7)" or the like, with an option to click to have it generate a copyright status in Canada or France or where have you. We do *have* this data for a sizable proportion of our images, after all, and it's a bit lazy when we take all this and slap a "well, PD, I guess" rubber-stamp on it! I doubt this is *practical* in the near term, of course, but it's a thought. Any other ideas?
I think this is a brilliant idea and would deal with the problem marvellously. And it should be reasonably easy to implement in an incremental manner without disruption.
cc to commons-l - is there anything about this that'd be hard? Apart from going through a zillion images. The key point is it wouldn't disrupt anything existing.
- d.
On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 1:26 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 10 February 2010 13:21, Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk wrote:
I've sometimes thought that, in an ideal world, we should just phase out PD-old and all its forms - it's often, as you say, wishful thinking, or sometimes (and I know in my early days I did this) a cover for a misunderstanding about just what the thresholds are. So what'd we replace it with? Something functionally like... {{copyright |date=1895 |location=Germany |author=anonymous }} ...and have it then spit out, well, "this image is free under German copyright law (sect. 473 ii) and in the United States (Title 15, 7)" or the like, with an option to click to have it generate a copyright status in Canada or France or where have you. We do *have* this data for a sizable proportion of our images, after all, and it's a bit lazy when we take all this and slap a "well, PD, I guess" rubber-stamp on it! I doubt this is *practical* in the near term, of course, but it's a thought. Any other ideas?
I think this is a brilliant idea and would deal with the problem marvellously. And it should be reasonably easy to implement in an incremental manner without disruption.
cc to commons-l - is there anything about this that'd be hard? Apart from going through a zillion images. The key point is it wouldn't disrupt anything existing.
The great thing about it, is that it encourages people to go to their sources and find out what they *really* know about an image and its origins and provenance, rather than just guessing and being an armchair copyright lawyer. If you can find out something definite about an image, and source it, then that is good. Though what to do with "circa" dates, I'm not sure.
Carcharoth
Oh, and a current example, if anyone is interested:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Picture_upload_questi...
One of the big problems is finding out whether copyright was renewed, but I'm not sure if the artwork in question was ever published in the USA anyway. People miss nuances so easily. And how on Earth do you find out details of an artist called "David Barker"?
Carcharoth
On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 5:33 AM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 11:13 PM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
I agree that it is annoying to think of commons admins going to all this trouble just for the benefit of unknown people selling t-shirts, but if people *aren't* allowed to sell t-shirts then it's not free-culture project.
It's not a free culture project. It's a free "educational content" (1) project.
Really, to give the context, you need to quote it in full:
"The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.
In collaboration with a network of chapters, the Foundation provides the essential infrastructure and an organizational framework for the support and development of multilingual wiki projects and other endeavors which serve this mission. The Foundation will make and keep useful information from its projects available on the Internet free of charge, in perpetuity."
I agree that the "educational content" and "free license or in the public domain" aspects do often conflict, but both aspects need to be borne in mind when debating such cases.
Carcharoth
On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 04:34, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.comwrote:
I agree that the "educational content" and "free license or in the public domain" aspects do often conflict, but both aspects need to be borne in mind when debating such cases.
Right, but both aspects aren't borne in mind, that's the problem. The free
eclipses the educational. The educational often has to sneak in the back door under the guise of fair use, reduced in size and quality, argued over endlessly and depressingly year after year, just because it doesn't fit one of our standard U.S.-based free-licence tags.
Please ponder on the grotesque absurdity of a project designed to empower, collect, develop and disseminate etc having policies in place that threaten Holocaust images with deletion, images that were taken by victims at enormous personal risk precisely to tell the world what was happening.
Imagine that one of those victims were here now, part of this discussion. Please explain to him why we can't develop image policies that avoid that outcome.
Sarah
On Thu, 11 Feb 2010, SlimVirgin wrote:
Imagine that one of those victims were here now, part of this discussion. Please explain to him why we can't develop image policies that avoid that outcome.
If one of the victims was here now, and he took the picture, he could grant a free license and we could use it.
Anyway, I don't think there's as much a separation between this and our fair use image policy as you seem to think (not in this message, in previous ones). It's the *very same* attitude that creates a ridiculous fair use policy which also creates a ridiculous no-proof-it's-PD policy.