Pardon me if this has already been covered, but as I understand it the problem is not the legal status of the files in Israel, the problem is with the legal status of the files in the United States, where the Israeli Government may still have some copyright protections. So while the contents of the letter are nice, they don't address the problem.
It seems to me that rather than insisting that the files are permitted to remain, a more fruitful avenue might be to use WMIL's contacts with the Israeli Government to licence these images anywhere where copyright might still exist under a very free licence like CC-0. That way even if URAA or some future copyright shenanigans places these images back under copyright, they're usable by anyone. This ought to satisfy even the most dogmatic Commons admin that the images are indeed free.
Cheers, Craig
On 22 June 2014 17:30, Itzik Edri itzik@infra.co.il wrote:
The story continues.
WMIL uploaded a letter from the Ministry of Justice, addressed to the Commons Community, which confirm that the government don't have interest on this photos. And not surprising, he was deleted from Commoms by the same person who deleted all the photos so far:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ministry_of_Justice%27s_of_Israel_re...
Hard not to feel that the reason to this massive deletions and this kind of behavior does not cross the boundaries of URAA enforcement to probably more personal views...
The original letter can be found on Hebrew Wikipedia:
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%91%D7%A5:%D7%AA%D7%92%D7%95%D7...
Itzik
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ministry_of_Justice%27s_of_Israel_re...
On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 2:34 AM, Yann Forget yannfo@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
Some Commons contributors like to ask impossible requirements, and threaten to delete files if these are not met. We have now a case of famous pictures from the government of Israel and Israel Defense Forces.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Matanya#Files_and_pages_that_we...
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Beba_Idels...
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Abba_Hushi...
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Aharon_Mes...
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Avraham_Sh...
These are famous and valuable pictures, including two featured pictures on the Hebrew Wikipedia. These files have already been deleted and restored 3 times. When the URAA issue was not convincing enough, a new reson for deletion was advanced: that publication details were not given. Anyone with 2 bits of common sense can understand that these famous pictures were published soon after they were taken. There is no reasonable doubt about that. In addition, publication is not a requirement for being in the public domain in Israel.
After I restored these images, I was threatem by LGA, who is a delete-only account:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Use...
There, more contributors argue on this issue.
By asking absurb requirements about publication details, these contributors threaten the project as a whole. If insisting, it will lead people to upload pictures like these locally instead of Commons. Then the idea of a central repository for all Wikimedia projects is gone.
Instead of looking for a reason to destroy these files, they should try to find a reason to keep them.
Regards,
Yann
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