On 12/16/2013 03:36 AM, Andrew Gray wrote:
Remember that while US caselaw is clear on this point, it is less clear-cut elsewhere. We at WM tend to take a clear line that 2D reproductions are ineligible, but it's not a guaranteed absolute truth, particularly in the UK! We can predict how a court might rule... but they haven't yet, and claiming copyright is a legally defensible position in many cases.
("Legally defensible" is not always "correct", of course...)
As a result, an explicit declaration is a positive thing and definitely should not be discouraged.
I would actually prefer it be more explicit. The EXIF data says "public domain", but Flickr says "No known copyright restrictions" (why not "public domain" or "CC0"?).
However, we can do our own standard PD-Art analysis to confirm this.
Matt Flaschen