Hi Jane,

I am sorry to hear this has been a concern. My intuition is that this would be far less of a tangible risk to a team project than the fuss about this stuff might lead you to believe, so long as we can demonstrate sensible advice, review and precautions being taken.

In the UK, FOP tends to be very liberal, however memorials have special issues to consider if the intention is for a free release on Commons. I would have encouraged some guidelines for photographers/uploaders to be written up, and then continued with the event with these in place, possibly with a means of contributors asking further questions and having their uploads reviewed for compliance via an on-wiki project page.

A few nuts and bolts of it based on my experiences on Commons (from a UK perspective, so this will vary somewhat in other parts of Europe) are: 1. Any memorial must be a permanent feature. Any work of art that appears temporary is unlikely to be covered by FOP. 2. Text on a memorial may be under its own copyright even though it is on permanent public display, so the text itself must be demonstrably out of copyright. This is a separate issue from the general FOP provisions. If the text is incidental to the photograph, i.e. not a close up and the text is effectively de minimus, then FOP is likely to be valid. 3. Text which is embossed and made 3D, such as being part of an inscribed plaque, may be considered a 3D work and covered by FOP. 4. Any memorial photographed whilst standing on private land may not be covered by FOP.

The US has free speech, but is a long way from a country that accepts FOP, however so long as the photo is taken in the EU and is of a fixed and identified memorial, EU copyright law is the principle one to consider and FOP applies.

Thanks, Fae