The WMF licensing policy puts the burden on being able
to declare a work to be "free content" or else use an
EDP. Unless something is *really* old you have to
know who held the copyright in order to show that
their rights have expired. Not being able to
determine the copyright holder, or even being able to
prove the copyright holder is 100% unknown and always
was, does not release the work into the Public Domain.
Orphaned works are still copyrighted in the US.
There is no provision for a work to be declared "free
content" unless it a) released under a free license or
b) in the Public Domain. *Many* works do not fit
either of those criteria and still have 0% chance of
anyone being awarded damages for copyright
infringement.
But we are limited by the WMF licensing resolustion,
which has a very high standard for "free content" and
what is allowed to be hosted as such on WMF servers. I
don't particularly like the licensing resolution for a
number of reasons, but we can't just ignore that it
exists and decide use a different standard that is
more appealing.
Birgitte SB
--- Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Would the copyright holders of said images ever be
able to reasonably
make a claim to copyright? How could they prove
that? They can't,
probably, assuming they are still alive.
Mark
On 23/03/2008, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com>
wrote:
"Freely usable in any practical sense"
was not the
standard adopted by WMF in the licensing
resolution.
They adopted a very stringent standard for what
the
can be considered free content and hosted on the
WMF
servers outside of EDPs. Perhaps the board
should
revisit this resolution. But I don't think
following
a different standard in practice then has been
outlined by the WMF is a good idea.
BirgitteSB
(Wikipedia)" <newyorkbrad(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> It seems to me that common sense should be used
in
> this as in all
> other matters. A 60-year-old photograph that
has
> never been the
> subject of any claim of ownership and which has
been
> repeatly used in
> multiple media around the world without
challenge is
> freely usable in
> any practical sense.
>
> Newyorkbrad
>
> On 3/23/08, SlimVirgin <slimvirgin(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> > On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 5:42 PM,
Delirium
> <delirium(a)hackish.org> wrote:
> > > This came up in the discussion, but since
the
> German occupation during
> > > WW2 is considered illegitimate under
> international law, Polish law
> > > applies, even in areas where the de jure
Polish
government didn't have
> de facto control. The discussion is here:
>
> >
> > Does this mean that the images taken inside
> Auschwitz can be marked
> > PD, either as PD in Poland or PD in the U.S.
> because seized enemy
> > property? We've been told by several
Wikipedians
> who specialize in
> > images that we could only claim fair use for
them,
> which has meant the
> > images have been challenged quite a few times
by
> people who say we
> > can't claim fair use unless we know the name
of
> the copyright holder.
> > We've had several attempts to delete some of
them
> on that basis.
> >
> > Sarah
> >
> >
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
____________________________________________________________________________________
Never miss a
thing. Make Yahoo your home page.
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
--
Refije dirije lanmè yo paske nou posede pwòp bato.
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
____________________________________________________________________________________
Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page.