Short version: A few countries currently do not participate in international copyright treaties. Most such countries have domestic copyright laws; however, many works originating in these countries are considered to be in the public domain in the United States due to the lack of a treaty relationship. In 2005, Jimbo declared that we would nonetheless respect the copyright laws of non-treaty countries as best we can [1]. Since mid-January, English Wikipedia has been having a well-advertised, but poorly-attended discussion that contemplates overturning this Jimbo-created rule. The proposed change would mean all works where the "country of origin" (as legally defined by US statutes) is a non-treaty state would be declared as public domain for the purpose of Wikipedia and allowed to be freely used. The current discussion features a 9-3 "consensus" in favor of this outcome [2], and some participants are now pushing for implementation on this basis [3]. Though all participants agree there no US copyright protection for works originating in non-treaty nations, this proposal raises a number of ethical and logistical problems. Longer version: As September 2010, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, San Marino and Turkmenistan have no copyright relations with the US. [4] All works published in these countries by nationals of these countries are considered to be in the public domain in the US unless they were also published in a country that has US copyright relations within 30 days of their original appearance. This means many modern and historical works originating in these countries may currently be used freely in the US. Nonetheless, most of these countries have domestic copyright laws protecting the intellectual property rights of their nationals. The law here is not in dispute, the question is how Wikipedia should respond to these works. Under Jimbo-created policy originating in 2005, we treat works from these countries as if they the countries DID have copyright relations with the US, even though they do not. This means excluding many works from Wikipedia that we would be legally entitled to. Personally, I agree with Jimbo that respecting the intellectual property rights of authors in non-treaty states is ethically the right thing to do. Simply appropriating all content published in Iran, Iraq, etc., as free is disrespectful to the authors involved. This is especially true since individual authors in these countries generally have no influence over whether their government chooses to participate in international copyright agreements. Allowing such images to be used on Wikipedia would also create a number of foreseeable problems for us and for reusers. Firstly, works in the public domain due to non-treaty status can be restored to copyright if the nation at issue chooses to join the relevant treaties. At the stroke of a pen, these nations could ensure their works were no longer usable. Such a change could create significant additional work for Wikipedians and numerous hassles for any reusers that chose to rely on such images. It is unclear how likely these countries are to seek treaty status in the future. However, membership in international copyright treaties is generally seen as a prerequisite for full member status in the World Trade Organization. Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Ethopia all have been applying for full member status in the WTO (the process takes years, and Iran began the application in 1996). The desire to join the WTO would appear to make it significantly more likely that these countries will join international copyright treaties in the foreseeable future. Personally, I think Wikipedia ought to focus on truly free content rather than "public domain" content with a significant chance of being revoked in the future. There are also practical problems with determining that a work originates in a non-treaty state, that the authors are all nationals of that country, and that the work was not also published in a treaty state. (Some US courts have suggested that placing a work on the internet actually counts as publishing in all countries were it is available, which would imply that internet works would be frequently covered by treaty obligations.) Anyway, I think a change of this magnitude needs a more thorough vetting by the community. A "consensus" of 9-3 shouldn't really be sufficient to change how Wikipedia deals with content from non-treaty states. Though this discussion has been presented to RFC and has been open for quite a while, I suspect that the way the issue was framed made it hard for most people to participate. I'm raising the issue here, because I know many people on foundation-l care about issues surrounding copyright and reuse, and a change like this could set a precedent for what we ultimately do on the other projects. -Robert Rohde [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-August/027373.html [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Copyrights#Usage_Option_1_Suppo… [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Copyrights#RfC:_What_to_do_with… [4] http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ38a.pdf