Well.. Actually, this is the formal letter from Israeli government official. So it is formal, governmental document. I don't know the Israeli law, but if Israel has a law which excludes official state documents from copyright this is obviously in public domain. The logo on top of the letter is an official emblem of Israel. See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coat_of_arms_of_Israel_%28Alternati… According to this "logic" COA of Israel should be deleted as well... 2014-06-22 10:03 GMT+02:00 Jane Darnell <jane023(a)gmail.com>om>: -- Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.cbmm.lodz.pl/work.php?id=29&title=tomasz-ganicz

that sounds like a rather simple statement to make. is there a reason the isreali govermmemt does not want to do that, or is this somenthing which follows autimatically? Rupert Am 22.06.2014 11:22 schrieb "geni" <geniice(a)gmail.com>om>:

Hi Geni, I wonder when was the last time you, or any other person who responded till now requested his government to make a public statement - in any issue, not only related to this issue, and the government so quickly done that, exactly as he way them to do so - without a long process which involve 100 legal advisers, ministries, committee discussions and many others steps involve. Itzik On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 11:01 AM, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote:

It is a bit crazy :-) The use to be copyright holder of these files is Israeli goverment. But according to the goverment it does not claim any copyrights as it clearly stated that the these files are not copyrightable, and it is no longer copyright holder. One can have an assumption that next Israeli government may change its mind. But the government can change the mind even if it releases these pictures under CC-0 waiver. In most jurisdictions the licenses can be revoked and the non-revocable clauses in CC and GNU/FAL licenses have no any legal value. I mean the absolute attitude of Commons towards copyright freedom of media hardly make any sense in most jurisdictions. It ignores many facts and is sticked to some others without clear reasons. This not an absolute as in absolute terms there is no any single media about which one can say it is free globally with 100% certainty, and also it is not any practical attitude really preventing our re-users from legal problems, as we mainly ignore non-copyright legal issues. This is rather a derivative of long discussions on Commons which are subject of group thinking syndrome, which made some arguments kind of dogma . 2014-06-22 12:07 GMT+02:00 Andre Engels <andreengels(a)gmail.com>om>: -- Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.cbmm.lodz.pl/work.php?id=29&title=tomasz-ganicz

Craig, et al On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 5:56 PM, Craig Franklin <cfranklin(a)halonetwork.net> wrote: You are misunderstanding completely the issue. There is no evidence that Israel has a PD exemption for such government works, as we see for say, Russia,[1] which allows for letters such as this to exist on Commons.[2] I have told someone that what needs to occur is for the GPO to release their claims over copyright worldwide in relation to URAA. The reason for this, is the same reason that the Israeli Government would NEVER CC-0 licence their materials -- because it opens them up to parody, satire and other uses that they might not agree with -- and we need to protect re-users who wish to use materials for such purposes. That's the same reason that the Australian Commonwealth Parliament refuses to CC photos of MPs, in case you weren't aware. Cheers Russavia [1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-RU-exempt [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Russian_letter_to_FIFA.jpg

Russavia, I am aware that that is the issue (and I was talking about the original problem images, not this letter). I'm a bit confused though about the parody/satire angle, my understanding is that a CC licence does not extinguish things such as moral rights that are not related to copyright. Also, I do find it a bit odd that the Israeli Ministry of Justice would be comfortable disclaiming any copyright to the image within Israel per their letter, but would be uncomfortable licencing them in other jurisdictions under a licence that does essentially the same thing. We can but only ask, and see what they say; if they say "no" for the reasons you outline then nothing has been lost. I do agree that the Australian Commonwealth is behind the curve as well here, but in my experience and with some honourable exceptions, most federal bureaucrats still conflate these issues with the unrelated matter of FOI law. But, I guess what I'm trying to get at, is that if these images *are* useful, a more productive course of action than arguing about it on a mailing list would probably be to identify what steps can be taken in good faith to move them from a disputed copyright situation to a situation where everyone is comfortable that there are no problems with re-use. If all the energy that had gone into these threads and the various tit-for-tat nominations on Commons had gone into that instead, we'd probably already be halfway there. Cheers, Craig On 22 June 2014 20:26, Russavia <russavia.wikipedia(a)gmail.com> wrote:

https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%91%D7%A5:%D7%AA%D7%92%D7%95%D… Such a statement from GOI can't override US copyright law for all works originated from Israel. (as Geni said above) But one thing they can do. They can make a statement that they have no plan to claim copyright for Govt works per URAA in USA. So all the works of Israel will become PD in USA too when they become PD in Israel. I think this is the opinin expressed by Carl Lindberg at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Copyright/Archive/2… Jee On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 4:49 PM, Fæ <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 22/06/2014 17:10, Itzik Edri wrote: They had better not be using them on flickr accounts as flickr may delete the entire account, for infringing the flickr and Y! T&C. The issue being that flickr accounts should only contain material that the photographer has taken themselves, there is some leeway for old family photographs. Accounts that contain material that has been hoover up from around the web tend to get deleted. https://www.flickr.com/help/guidelines/ That includes material that is CC'd and also material where the photog has given explicit permission. The issue is that on flickr there are many places where a copyright notice is added that references the account. So if Fred Bloggs uploads John Doe's photograph, it will falsely be attributed as "Copyright Fred Bloggs" this attribution violates all CC licenses.

On 23 June 2014 09:48, Steffen Prößdorf <steffen.proessdorf(a)wikimedia.de> wrote: As one of the more experienced Commons contributors, I'm going to spell out a hint. I attempted to highlight this in a more subtle way, before this email discussion went off on various tangents, I guess I was being too British. FACTS A. The April 2014 RFC[2] was closed with the firm statement "URAA cannot be used as the sole reason for deletion. Deleted files can be restored after a discussion in COM:UDR." B. An RFC does not overrule policy, however the RFC does provide a specific community consensus as to the preferred process that must be followed to comply with policy. C. Admins do not have free reign on Commons to delete whatever they fancy, they can *easily and speedily* (compared to other Wikimedia projects) be de-sysopped if they fail to follow policy or the community (not just other admins) feel they are abusing their powers.[1] Desysop requests can be raised by anyone, anyone can vote in them and a *majority consensus* rules, so "about 50% is sufficient to remove the admin". A preliminary discussion before creating the de-sysop request should be created at AN/U - which gives the admin fingered for disruption an opportunity to walk away or explain how they intent to comply with policy or offer a more harmonious approach.[3] CONCLUSION If substantial numbers of Commons community members feel that admins are failing to implement the RFC as stated, possibly by ignoring successful undeletion requests (a community consensus process) and ignoring the specific process agreed in the April RFC, then a single member of the same community (both admins and non-admins, and most readers of this email) can start the de-sysop process for any administrator on the grounds that they are abusing their powers. Now, rather than moaning on this list, you can stick you head out of the window and start shouting,[4] or you can go to Commons and contribute to this great project. Links 1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators/De-adminship 2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Massive_restoration_of_deleted_i… 3. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Us… 4. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Network_%28film%29 PS Nobody can de-sysop me, just you try to create a de-sysop request and see what happens. :-) Fae -- faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

On 23 June 2014 11:41, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote: No they aren't. Are you under impression that governments can't do exactly that?

In my opinion as soon the letter is submitted through OTRS, the same letter releases this content and defines that it's allowed to have it in Commons. URAA extends the copyright, it doesn't block the possibility to renounce to the copyright. Regards On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 11:56 AM, Craig Franklin &lt;cfranklin(a)halonetwork.net&gt; wrote: -- Ilario Valdelli Wikimedia CH Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera Switzerland - 8008 Zürich Wikipedia: Ilario <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ilario> Facebook: Ilario Valdelli <https://www.facebook.com/ivaldelli> Twitter: Ilario Valdelli <https://twitter.com/ilariovaldelli> Linkedin: Ilario Valdelli <http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=6724469> Tel: +41764821371 http://www.wikimedia.ch

The question is whether that is implicit, and whether that is necessary at all. I find the argument that for government works we only have to bother about the law of the source country, very persuasive. 2014-06-23 14:27 GMT+02:00 geni &lt;geniice(a)gmail.com&gt;om>:

I think following the opinion of Carl Lindberg is the best option [1]: "I would personally be happy about not having to delete governmental works which have expired in their own country... those always have felt different to me than privately-held copyrights." Hope Fae will support me when I start a mass de-admin request followed by my self admin request. :) Links: 1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Copyright/Archive/2… Jee On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 6:29 PM, Fæ &lt;faewik(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: