Fwd: [Commons-l] FOP in Europe: does this include WWII monuments with art? - Wikimedia-l

Tobias Oelgarte

2 Mar 2 Mar

11:59 a.m.

New subject: Fwd: [Commons-l] FOP in Europe: does this include WWII monuments with art?

The problem are not the European laws. It are the US laws that don't recognize the European FOP. That means it would be perfectly legal to host such images on an European server (in a country that recognizes FOP), but not on US servers, because they are subject to US law. Am 02.03.2013 12:34, schrieb David Gerard:

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---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jane Darnell <jane023(a)gmail.com> Date: 2 March 2013 10:59 Subject: [Commons-l] FOP in Europe: does this include WWII monuments with art? To: commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Hello, Apologies for cross-posting, but WMNL was recently approached for helping start a photo contest for WWII monuments. Based on this http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Freedom_of_Panorama_in_Europe_NC.svg We assumed that these photographs could be used on Wikipedia, but the recent discussions about the DMCA takedown notice for this http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Houseball_(Oldenburg_and_van_Bru… indicate that FOP in Europe is not really FOP. To be careful, we have decided to cancel the photo contest idea, though people are of course terribly disappointed about this. Does anyone know the status of this discussion? Of course, WLM has brought in several thousand of these "possibly-not-FOP" sculptures, as they are often WLM monuments themselves, or are situated directly in front of buildings that are WLM monuments. Thanks in advance for any info you have - we need a short and sweet way to inform the WWII monument committee and WMNL volunteers why we are cancelling. Jane _______________________________________________ Commons-l mailing list Commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

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Fae

9:24 a.m.

New subject: Fwd: [Commons-l] FOP in Europe: does this include WWII monuments with art?

On 3 March 2013 06:50, James Alexander <jamesofur(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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On Sat, Mar 2, 2013 at 3:59 AM, Tobias Oelgarte < tobias.oelgarte(a)googlemail.com> wrote:

The problem are not the European laws. It are the US laws that don't recognize the European FOP. That means it would be perfectly legal to host such images on an European server (in a country that recognizes FOP), but not on US servers, because they are subject to US law.

I'm sorry, I keep seeing this argument and while I can understand the basic idea every time I see it I feel like little kitten dies. There is no doubt that the US FOP laws are a little insane and that the EU ones are generally much more lenient, however, it is obviously far far more complectated then that. There are plenty of EU laws which would are applicable to site/image hosting which are far more complicated and harder (or impossible) for us to follow. Overall the laws in the US have still tended to be much much better to host, and that doesn't even get into the problem of hosting in multiple locations and still trying to serve to a site hosted (or with staff) in the US.

*No kittens were harmed during this discussion* We should keep an open mind, and the location of the servers to support the global movement should be reviewed and seen to be reviewed on a periodic basis, if nothing else international law, economics and political stability, changes every year. By default, we would never change unless there were jolly good reasons to justify the hassle and expense; though folks are always going to enjoy challenging the status quo, which is probably a healthy thing and the kittens get their dinners regardless. Cheers, Fae

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Jane Darnell

12:10 p.m.

New subject: Fwd: [Commons-l] FOP in Europe: does this include WWII monuments with art?

After discussing this issue with the daughter of a Dutch WWII veteran (yes, she's old!) I have come to the conclusion that the logic for handling photos of artwork on Dutch WWII memorials should follow the same rationale as this one: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Image:Boy_Scout… In that discussion, the whole category for the Washington, DC Vietnam memorial was nominated for deletion, see here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Category:Vietnam_Ve… The last word on that discussion was "I called the Smithsonian and the Park Service about this. Aside from laughing, they were confused why anyone would assume that the copyright was owned by anyone except the USGov, or that it wan't in the PD. I can't get anyone on the record about this." I would go so far as to assume that the same is true for Dutch WWII memorials, and if we cannot come up with a good way of preserving Dutch WWII memorial images for the Dutch Wikimedia community to use in any Wikipedia project (so not just the NL wiki), then I propose a Dutch Wikipedia blackout on May 4th out of protest, since obviously the only hindrance is the fear of Wikimedia Commons users that they will be legally pursued, and I assume that this fear is real enough that we can go public with it. On a personal level, as a Dutch citizen, I would be willing to be the first to be tried legally on such an issue, and after my discussion this morning, I believe I could crowd source my legal fees with support from the Dutch Wikipedia community. Jane 2013/3/3, Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org>rg>:

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However, the location of the servers wasn't the topic of the original discussion :) So jumping back to that: Is there already a clear outcome on the Commons community regarding the possible deletion of images that are legal in the country of origin but might not be permitted under US copyright law? Lodewijk 2013/3/3 Fae <faewik+commons(a)gmail.com>

On 3 March 2013 06:50, James Alexander <jamesofur(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Mar 2, 2013 at 3:59 AM, Tobias Oelgarte < tobias.oelgarte(a)googlemail.com> wrote: > The problem are not the European laws. It are the US laws that don't > recognize the European FOP. That means it would be perfectly legal to

host

> such images on an European server (in a country that recognizes FOP),

but

not on US servers, because they are subject to US law.

I'm sorry, I keep seeing this argument and while I can understand the basic idea every time I see it I feel like little kitten dies. There is

no

doubt that the US FOP laws are a little insane and that the EU ones are generally much more lenient, however, it is obviously far far more complectated then that. There are plenty of EU laws which would are applicable to site/image hosting which are far more complicated and

harder

(or impossible) for us to follow. Overall the laws in the US have still tended to be much much better to host, and that doesn't even get into the problem of hosting in multiple locations and still trying to serve to a site hosted (or with staff) in the US.

*No kittens were harmed during this discussion* We should keep an open mind, and the location of the servers to support the global movement should be reviewed and seen to be reviewed on a periodic basis, if nothing else international law, economics and political stability, changes every year. By default, we would never change unless there were jolly good reasons to justify the hassle and expense; though folks are always going to enjoy challenging the status quo, which is probably a healthy thing and the kittens get their dinners regardless. Cheers, Fae _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

_______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

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Jane Darnell

4 Mar 4 Mar

8:24 a.m.

New subject: Fwd: [Commons-l] FOP in Europe: does this include WWII monuments with art?

Hi Fae, Thanks for your thoughts. I think the problem is one of definition of terms. I checked out the links you listed and they are all interesting, but I don't believe any of them are applicable to the case of war monuments and memorials. I think war monuments and memorials are by definition intended to keep the public aware of the human sacrifices made in the past in any given municipality. Therefore, when an artist (who is often a local artist) is given the commission to create such a memorial, that person sees the commission as a public honor and relinquishes copyright of any images of the memorial to the municipality in question. I think there is a huge difference between a municipal monument for "the tomb of the unknown soldier" versus a private monument for the "tomb of a specific soldier". I don't know if anyone ever asked Maya Lin what she thought of the whole controversy, but it would definitely be worth finding out. As far as the Netherlands go, they can probably obtain permission from heirs or living artists in the usual Commons way, which is doable I think, since it's such a small country and the war memorials are all so well documented. I think I will try to do this for Haarlem as a test case, since for Haarlem, this one is important: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Man_voor_het_Vuurpeleton2.jpg As far as educational importance goes, I think the whole list here: http://www.ushmm.org/research/center/encyclopedia/ is worthy of a Commons photo project, and I really doubt any artist involved would object to photos of such monuments being on Wikipedia. Jane Jane 2013/3/3, Fae <faewik+commons(a)gmail.com>om>:

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On 3 March 2013 12:10, Jane Darnell <jane023(a)gmail.com> wrote: ...

In that discussion, the whole category for the Washington, DC Vietnam memorial was nominated for deletion, see here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Category:Vietnam_Ve… The last word on that discussion was "I called the Smithsonian and the Park Service about this. Aside from laughing, they were confused why anyone would assume that the copyright was owned by anyone except the USGov, or that it wan't in the PD. I can't get anyone on the record about this." I would go so far as to assume that the same is true for Dutch WWII memorials, and if we cannot come up with a good way of preserving Dutch WWII memorial images for the Dutch Wikimedia community to use in any Wikipedia project (so not just the NL wiki), then I propose a Dutch Wikipedia blackout on May 4th out of protest, since obviously the only hindrance is the fear of Wikimedia Commons users that they will be legally pursued, and I assume that this fear is real enough that we can go public with it. On a personal level, as a Dutch citizen, I would be willing to be the first to be tried legally on such an issue, and after my discussion this morning, I believe I could crowd source my legal fees with support from the Dutch Wikipedia community.

Hi Jane, I know it's all rather frustrating. I suggest a common sense approach to the Commons community. There are a few rather good copyright wikilawyers that dominate the discussion on Commons, the primary way of handling them (us?) is to make sure that there is (i) clear policy or agreed guidelines and (ii) legal clarification and external advice where this would be helpful. Our critical wikilawyers do not make the law, but they do help highlight how daft it can be at times. :-) Now, in the *real world*, there is unlikely to be any issue were the GLAM project you envisage to upload 1,000 or 100,000 images. A tiny percentage will be deleted for various reasons, as a matter of course, no matter how hard you try to run detailed guidelines. The idea that such a project either must not proceed, or would be judged a failure by the Wikimedia community, were a single image to be a potential copyright problem, is not feasible, and we do not want such great projects to be paralysed for fear of criticism because we have not got full answers to every possible risk. The key Commons policy to consider is the Precautionary Principle, so long as there are no *significant* doubts with regard to copyright, then this indicates it is perfectly okay to upload images where one has taken simple and obvious precautions.[1] Commons benefits from another great community approach, that of staying mellow, you may want to take the Smithsonian's approach and laugh most of this away. I suggest rather than brinkmanship and calling for black-outs and legal cases, you consider different avenues of community consultation, such as relevant questions on the village pump, the copyright noticeboard and set up a GLAM Commons WikiProject page for long term guidelines for your project members to discuss and improve. With such consultation banked, it would be hard for anyone to come along later and criticise you for not trying to address the issue and reach a practical conclusion.[2][3][4][5] My viewpoint is as a well known Wikimedia Commons contributor with 40,000+ image uploads, 600,000+ edits and over 1.2 million further edits by bot. Oh, and I do other more important stuff too. :-D Links 1. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Project_scope/Precautionary_princ… 2. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Staying_mellow 3. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:GLAM 4. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Copyright 5. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump Cheers, Fae -- faewik(a)gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

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