Dear All,

Thanks for beginning  discussion on this important topic,Pandarpur and God Viththal is very old and very central to Marathi and Maharashtra culture,  I still remember few years back I failed to upload an image of God Vitthala of Pandharpur  on commons, subsequently some one succeeded to upload an image under proper license.

While it is true that we need to believe in people, I have very closely observed  quite a few people selecting some license for the sake of it or just to retain the image. While it is true that now that Vithathal image is there on wikipedia pages,still I am not sure how far legal it is ?

while god is one or many, for Indian Legal system  idols in temples are treated as person and those are public places but not necessarily in public domain per say, many temples across India you will notice  having notice boards which strictly prohibit taking a photo graph of the idol and temple; I dont know why this system exist in the temple but when it is there we are supposed to comply the law.

Why we need to be concerned ?

So an image coming without permission from temple authority is anyway illegal.What we need to understand is not that we are concerned about copy right for the sake of it, we ( commons/wikipedia) are concerned of the issue because we just do not want to do a collection of  information and knowledge, but we share, and  we do not want just  share through wikipedia site but we want wikipedias to be a vehicle of knowledge sharing where other medias of communication can come forward to take this info and knowledge to masses. When we share info knowledge with other media people, they will do so only if they are assured that material available at wikipedias is legal enough.

There is total lack of awareness , concern and sensitivity and above all Law is a complex subject. Given that, the funny thing is you go to a person with a request to make otherwise an unimportant thing  copy right free he may not co-operate ask you thousand frustrating questions, but the same fellow you may find,floating copy-right of others happily every now and then    


At Wikipedia for many Indians, it is there first time in life time that some one is asking them about copy right, they are simply surprised in disbelief and usually they are so passionate about their subject at their hand at least until they receive several requests/warnings they happily tend to ignore such communications .

And why not so ? just few years back,to write copyright related help pages (on marathi wikipedia), I thought to procure few Copyright related books from the market, In Pune I went from shop to shop what I could get just a bare act copy.Only one shop was carrying book with detail commentary and the price he told me for the same was just Rs 12000!.Then at least for few months I tried to get an appointment with a law college principal and simply all that effort turned out to be futile without getting an appointment ever.

Servers are in USA! So can I  bypass the Indian laws ?
Again I see a huge number of people  using fair use clause for uploading images on Wikipedia, and that too under provisions of non-Indian laws ! Whether servers are in USA and some thing is legal under their law suffice the requirements of Indian Laws ? When a kite is floating from Indian soil to out of India border or a kite is floating in Indian sky from out side India,is it not  an Indian law, at least to all Indian subjects, is supposed to get applied ?

Accepted that intellectual property acts in most countries are similar  now a days but those simply can not be the same because laws are subject to final definition by supreme judiciary of each country independently.  

How fair is the fair use under Indian Laws?

While I dont have a detail commentary of Indian Copy right law , what I read until now is bare copyright law .My understanding is  while Indian  Copy Right act has provisions of fair dealing but those concessions are largely for educational and restricted community performances. While Wikipedia has educational component and non profit but we are not a website that restricts other making profit from the info available on it so in perfect sense we are not supposed to get concessions on account of fair use/deal under present Indian Copy right act; unless owner of the copyright himself permits such usage.

Similar to commons,unlike to english wikipedia, I have kept a proposal on Marathi Wikipedia to bar usage of fair use provision since according to me we (wikipedia and indic wikipedians) are not supposed to benefit any concession under Indian Copyright fair use clause. We do lack enough legal expertise at mr-wiki community,so inputs on this issue from other indic wikipedians are most welcome ,imporant and will be valuable to us all.

Look forward to read more opinions on above issues and continued discussion of copyright subject on this forum

Thanks

Mahitgar from Marathi Wikipedia

   




















  




 




 




From: "wikimediaindia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org" <wikimediaindia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org>
To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Tue, 10 May, 2011 12:18:54 PM
Subject: Wikimediaindia-l Digest, Vol 35, Issue 17

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Today's Topics:

  1. Re: Fwd: Copyright problems of images from India (Sreejith K.)
  2. Re: Fwd: Copyright problems of images from India
      (wheredevelsdare@hotmail.com)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 10 May 2011 16:48:23 +0530
From: "Sreejith K." <sreejithk2000@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Fwd: Copyright problems of images from
    India
To: Wikimedia India Community list
    <wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID: <BANLkTinaqSxY1=q4WnrnGcYDxTgv2F6J_Q@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

All paintings of Hindu deities are not copyright free. There are clauses for
it. As per Indian copyright act, only paintings that were published 60 years
before are in public domain. Now the question here is how to prove the age
of the painting. Lets take a different example, may be Lord Ram or Lord
Shiva. How can we prove the age of the painting? In one discussion, a
commons admin asked me to find a book that was published 60 years back in
which this image is included. I need not explain the difficulty in getting
such a proof.

Similar case with photographs of images before 1943. Colorization does not
add new copyright, unless they add changes to it which makes it
significantly different from the original. Now, how do you prove the images
of such photographs? These photographs were taken during their lifetime and
probably belongs to their family when it was taken. As per current rules in
Commons, the family will have to send OTRS saying that the image belongs to
them. Even then, someone could say that the photographer is not from their
family and so the OTRS cannot be accepted. See this example ->
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_undeletion#File:Varghese_Palakkappillil.jpg

There are a lot of copyright violation photos uploaded to Commons. In
between those deletions, a lot of genuine photographs get deleted for lack
of proof. The concern here is on how to save them.

- Sreejith K.


On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 4:37 PM, Bala Jeyaraman <sodabottle@gmail.com>wrote:

> 1) >>Ayyappan, a popular god of Kerala, has his image circulated
> everywhere on the plant with no proof of copyrights. It makes sense to
> believe that this image is not eligible for copyright because
> Hindu deities are all common property,
>
> i have to disagree with this. All images of Hindu deities are not public
> property. Most of the popular images were done by painters some time in the
> immediate past - Ravi varma's paintings form the base for many deity images.
> Similarly there are many unknown temple artists, who have gone uncredite
> because of our practice of gross insensitivity to others' copyright.
> Claiming that deity images are not eligible for copyright is wrong. They do
> have copyright and unless there is iron clad proof of publication, dont
> decalre them to be in public domain. The fairuse clause is there for cases
> like this.
>
>
> 2) While i understand what sreejith is saying, repeated copyright
> violations in commons by Indian uploaders is mainly to blame for this
> backlash. In Ta wiki and in commons, i have to repeat many times to people
> that "everything that comes out of google image search is not free". In my
> experience, about half the people react defensively to such advice and
> reflexively claim the image is "own work" and they "took it". They do not
> like being pointed out they are wrong and thus damage the reputation of
> Indian uploaders further. Many of the regular commons users thus become
> immediately suspicious when a new indian user claims that an image is "own
> work". Even in the outreach programs i participated, people listen to me
> drone about how taking images of google image search is not ok and do the
> same the immediately after. This issue is not restricted to Indian users,
> but is a major problem for us. The only way to deal with this is a
> relentless copyright awareness campaign for Indian users.
>
> 3) Images of people who died prior to 1951. Here too the case is not clear.
> Many photos of such people are reconstructive work done post-1951.
> Colourisation of black and white pictures is a major concern. I am still not
> clear, if colourisation passes the originality threshold and becomes a
> original work on its own. If so, then such a work cannot be claimed as PD.
>
> Personally i add a ton of descriptive information and long arguments to
> prove PD in india and in case of my own images, i always upload with full
> resolution and metadata. It is a sad bad situation, but the root cause is
> relative ignorance of Indians (including me) about copyright.
>
> regards
> Bala
>
> On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 4:07 PM, Shiju Alex <shijualexonline@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Dear All,
>>
>> I am forwarding the below mail on behalf of a Malayalam wikipedian who is
>> very active in Wikimedia Commons.
>>
>> Of late it is becoming very difficult for many Wikimedians from India to
>> contribute to Wikimedia Commons especially if they are uploading historical
>> images which are in PD.  We are facing lot of issues (and many a times
>> unnecessary controversies also) with the historic images in PD, images of
>> wall paintings and statues, and so on. Please see the below mail in which
>> Sreejith citing various examples.
>>
>> It is almost impossible for the uploaders from India to show proof of the
>> century old images of  Hindu Gods and Goddesses. The current policies of
>> Commons are not permitting many of the PD images from India citing all sorts
>> of policies which might be relevant only in the western world. With these
>> type of policies we are going to have serious issues when we try to go for
>> GLAM type events.
>>
>> But I also do not know the solution for this issue. Requesting
>> constructive discussion.
>>
>>
>> Shiju Alex
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Sreejith K. <sreejithk2000@gmail.com>
>> Date: Thu, May 5, 2011 at 12:03 PM
>> Subject: Copyright problems of images from India
>> To: Shiju Alex <shijualexonline@gmail.com>
>>
>>
>> Shiju,
>>
>> As you might be aware already, we are having trouble keeping historical
>> images about India in Wikimedia commons. This pertains mostly to images
>> about Hindu gods and people who died before 1947.
>>
>> Please see the below examples:
>>
>>    - File:Narayana Guru.jpg<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Narayana_Guru.jpg> -
>>    This is the image of Sree Narayana Guru<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narayana_Guru>,
>>    a Hindu saint, social reformer and is even considered a god by certain
>>    castes in Kerala. This image has been tagged as an image with No source.
>>    Narayana Guru expired in 1928 and considering the conditions in which India
>>    was in during that period and before, it is very difficult to get an image
>>    source online. Most active Wikipedians does not have access or information
>>    on how old the image is or where a source of it can be found. Any photograph
>>    published before 1941 in India is in public domain as per Indian copyright
>>    act. Common sense says that this image meets this criteria because the
>>    person was long lead before 1941, but we still need proof of the first
>>    publishing date. Deleting this image on grounds that no source could be
>>    found will only reduce the informative values of all the articles which this
>>    image is included in.
>>    - File:Aravana.JPG: This image has already been deleted, but you can
>>    see the amount of discussion that went in before deleting it. See Commons:Deletion
>>    requests/File:Aravana.JPG<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Aravana.JPG>.
>>    (An almost similar image can be found here<http://www.flickr.com/photos/anoopp/5706721852/in/photostream/>.)This
>>    image as put for deletion because it had the image of Swami Ayyappan<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Ayyappan>in it. Ayyappan, a popular god of Kerala, has his image circulated
>>    everywhere on the plant with no proof of copyrights. It makes sense to
>>    believe that this image is not eligible for copyright because
>>    Hindu deities are all common property, but again, Commons need proof that
>>    the image is in public domain. This is the same case with all Hindu
>>    gods/goddesses. The images can only be kept in Commons if the uploader can
>>    provide proof that the images are in public domain.
>>    - File:Kottarathil sankunni.jpg<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kottarathil_sankunni.jpg>:
>>    This is a picture of Kottarathil Sankunni<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kottarathil_Sankunni>,
>>    the author of the famous book Aithiyamaala<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aithihyamala>.
>>    Kottarathil Sankunni died in 1937 and so it makes sense to believe that this
>>    image was created on or before 1937 and thus falls in Public Domain. But
>>    some people in Commons is refusing to believe that and is asking for proof.
>>    Now it becomes the responsibility of the uploader to show proof that this
>>    image was published 60 years before today. The editor who nominated the
>>    image for deletion is on the safer side because it is not his responsibility
>>    to prove that the image is a copyright violation. So long story short,
>>    anyone can nominate any image for copyright violation and it becomes the
>>    uploaders responsibility to prove that its not. The deletion nomination need
>>    not be accompanied with a reason for disbelief.
>>    - File:Anoop Menon.jpg<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anoop_Menon.jpg>:
>>    This is the picture of Anoop Menon<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoop_Menon>,
>>    a popular actor from Kerala. A discussion is going on about the uploaders
>>    credibility whether he is the original photographer of this image. Please
>>    see File talk:Anoop Menon.jpg<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File_talk:Anoop_Menon.jpg>.
>>    The reason for doubting the uploader is simple. This image has professional
>>    quality and so the uploader cannot be the copyright owner because this is
>>    his first upload. Strange? Now, it becomes the responsibility of the
>>    uploader to prove that he took this image and I do not know how and nor does
>>    the person who is arguing for it. He claims that the uploader can upload the
>>    full resolution image with EXIF but whats even funny is that most of images
>>    from the person who is saying this does not meet this criteria. Again, back
>>    to round 1 in my first example. Its the responsibility of the uploader to
>>    prove his image and anyone can doubt him for any stupid reason and commons
>>    hardly cares.
>>
>> As you can see, it is getting quite difficult to maintain images from
>> India in commons. India is a country which has only started to use Internet
>> less than a decade ago and we still do not have many of our countries' books
>> or sources of information online. So any image from India which gets
>> nominated for deletion in Wikimedia Commons get deleted for absence of
>> proof. Commons is ruled by *precautionary principle*, where in they are
>> not willing to take any risks on copyright and will delete any image for
>> which anyone has doubts. This is in contrary to local wikipedia projects in
>> India where it is rules by the *good faith principle* where we will trust
>> the uploader and it becomes the responsibility of the nominator to prove
>> that the image has false copyright claim.
>>
>> This issue is beginning to hurt the contents from India. If we can do
>> something, its time we act immediately. If we are just going to just spent
>> out time discussing about it, the pictures of all Hindu gods and people who
>> died before independence might get deleted by that time.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Sreejith K.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
>> Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
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Message: 2
Date: Tue, 10 May 2011 11:18:48 +0000
From: <wheredevelsdare@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Fwd: Copyright problems of images from
    India
To: Wikipedia India Mailing List
    <wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID: <SNT117-W158C3B69D4E0B151F09314BD870@phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"


I dont understand where PD is concerned why proof is asked for, have we forgotten "Assuming good faith"?

> From: wikimediaindia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Wikimediaindia-l Digest, Vol 35, Issue 16
> To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Date: Tue, 10 May 2011 11:07:14 +0000
>
> Send Wikimediaindia-l mailing list submissions to
>     wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>     https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>     wikimediaindia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
>     wikimediaindia-l-owner@lists.wikimedia.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Wikimediaindia-l digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. 13th Meetup of Wikipedians in [[Pune]], [[Maharashtra]] -
>      please note details and register (Ashwin Baindur)
>    2. Fwd: Copyright problems of images from India (Shiju Alex)
>    3. Re: Fwd: Copyright problems of images from India (Bala Jeyaraman)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 9 May 2011 11:15:53 +0530
> From: Ashwin Baindur <ashwin.baindur@gmail.com>
> Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] 13th Meetup of Wikipedians in [[Pune]],
>     [[Maharashtra]] - please note details and register
> To: "Mailing list for Wikimedians in Pune,    India"
>     <wikimedia-in-pun@lists.wikimedia.org>, mr-wiki@yahoogroups.com,
>     wikimediaindia-l <wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>,     Wikipedians
>     for Indian Nature <Wiki_India_Nature@googlegroups.com>,
>     wikimedia-in-mum <wikimedia-in-mum@lists.wikimedia.org>,     "Agarwal,
>     Shirish" <shirishag75@gmail.com>, "Bagade,    Ashok "
>     <ashok.bagade@gmail.com>,     Col Ashwin Baindur
>     <ashwin.baindur@gmail.com>, "Jogalekar,    Sudhanwa "
>     <sudhanwa.com@gmail.com>,     "Patankar, Anand"
>     <anandpatankar@gmail.com>, "Rasal,    Prasad" <studioblossoms@gmail.com>,
>     "Sharma, Chandan" <chandan7882@yahoo.com>, "Vaidya,    Prasad"
>     <prasad.vaidya@gmail.com>
> Message-ID: <BANLkTimrnYci=Pg=V-X7AS+XztUUFLqDkA@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> A reminder for the 13th Meetup of Wikipedians in [[Pune]], [[Maharashtra]].
> Please see the[[Wikipedia:Meetup/Pune/Pune13|meetup page]]  for details and
> indicate your attendance.
> The intended purpose of the meetup is:
> <blockquote> '''to discuss the Campus Ambassador Program and forthcoming
> WikiConference 2011'''.</blockquote>
> ''Highlights - '''Hisham Mundol''', National Director, India Program &
> '''Bishakha
> Datta''', Global Trustee, Wikimedia Foundation will be present for the
> meetup.''
>
>
> [[User:AshLin|AshLin]] ([[User talk:AshLin|talk]]) 04:13, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
>
> Warm regards,
>
> Ashwin Baindur
> ------------------------------------------------------
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 10 May 2011 12:37:25 +0200
> From: Shiju Alex <shijualexonline@gmail.com>
> Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] Fwd: Copyright problems of images from
>     India
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
>     <foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org>,     "Discussion list on Indian
>     language projects of Wikimedia."
>     <wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <BANLkTin0sOEbFnw9YROCdrMyM463UdDynw@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Dear All,
>
> I am forwarding the below mail on behalf of a Malayalam wikipedian who is
> very active in Wikimedia Commons.
>
> Of late it is becoming very difficult for many Wikimedians from India to
> contribute to Wikimedia Commons especially if they are uploading historical
> images which are in PD.  We are facing lot of issues (and many a times
> unnecessary controversies also) with the historic images in PD, images of
> wall paintings and statues, and so on. Please see the below mail in which
> Sreejith citing various examples.
>
> It is almost impossible for the uploaders from India to show proof of the
> century old images of  Hindu Gods and Goddesses. The current policies of
> Commons are not permitting many of the PD images from India citing all sorts
> of policies which might be relevant only in the western world. With these
> type of policies we are going to have serious issues when we try to go for
> GLAM type events.
>
> But I also do not know the solution for this issue. Requesting constructive
> discussion.
>
>
> Shiju Alex
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Sreejith K. <sreejithk2000@gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, May 5, 2011 at 12:03 PM
> Subject: Copyright problems of images from India
> To: Shiju Alex <shijualexonline@gmail.com>
>
>
> Shiju,
>
> As you might be aware already, we are having trouble keeping historical
> images about India in Wikimedia commons. This pertains mostly to images
> about Hindu gods and people who died before 1947.
>
> Please see the below examples:
>
>    - File:Narayana
> Guru.jpg<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Narayana_Guru.jpg> -
>    This is the image of Sree Narayana
> Guru<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narayana_Guru>,
>    a Hindu saint, social reformer and is even considered a god by certain
>    castes in Kerala. This image has been tagged as an image with No source.
>    Narayana Guru expired in 1928 and considering the conditions in which India
>    was in during that period and before, it is very difficult to get an image
>    source online. Most active Wikipedians does not have access or information
>    on how old the image is or where a source of it can be found. Any photograph
>    published before 1941 in India is in public domain as per Indian copyright
>    act. Common sense says that this image meets this criteria because the
>    person was long lead before 1941, but we still need proof of the first
>    publishing date. Deleting this image on grounds that no source could be
>    found will only reduce the informative values of all the articles which this
>    image is included in.
>    - File:Aravana.JPG: This image has already been deleted, but you can see
>    the amount of discussion that went in before deleting it. See
> Commons:Deletion
>    requests/File:Aravana.JPG<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Aravana.JPG>.
>    (An almost similar image can be found
> here<http://www.flickr.com/photos/anoopp/5706721852/in/photostream/>.)This
>    image as put for deletion because it had the image of Swami
> Ayyappan<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Ayyappan>in it. Ayyappan,
> a popular god of Kerala, has his image circulated
>    everywhere on the plant with no proof of copyrights. It makes sense to
>    believe that this image is not eligible for copyright because
>    Hindu deities are all common property, but again, Commons need proof that
>    the image is in public domain. This is the same case with all Hindu
>    gods/goddesses. The images can only be kept in Commons if the uploader can
>    provide proof that the images are in public domain.
>    - File:Kottarathil
> sankunni.jpg<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kottarathil_sankunni.jpg>:
>    This is a picture of Kottarathil
> Sankunni<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kottarathil_Sankunni>,
>    the author of the famous book
> Aithiyamaala<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aithihyamala>.
>    Kottarathil Sankunni died in 1937 and so it makes sense to believe that this
>    image was created on or before 1937 and thus falls in Public Domain. But
>    some people in Commons is refusing to believe that and is asking for proof.
>    Now it becomes the responsibility of the uploader to show proof that this
>    image was published 60 years before today. The editor who nominated the
>    image for deletion is on the safer side because it is not his responsibility
>    to prove that the image is a copyright violation. So long story short,
>    anyone can nominate any image for copyright violation and it becomes the
>    uploaders responsibility to prove that its not. The deletion nomination need
>    not be accompanied with a reason for disbelief.
>    - File:Anoop
> Menon.jpg<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anoop_Menon.jpg>:
>    This is the picture of Anoop
> Menon<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoop_Menon>,
>    a popular actor from Kerala. A discussion is going on about the uploaders
>    credibility whether he is the original photographer of this image. Please
>    see File talk:Anoop
> Menon.jpg<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File_talk:Anoop_Menon.jpg>.
>    The reason for doubting the uploader is simple. This image has professional
>    quality and so the uploader cannot be the copyright owner because this is
>    his first upload. Strange? Now, it becomes the responsibility of the
>    uploader to prove that he took this image and I do not know how and nor does
>    the person who is arguing for it. He claims that the uploader can upload the
>    full resolution image with EXIF but whats even funny is that most of images
>    from the person who is saying this does not meet this criteria. Again, back
>    to round 1 in my first example. Its the responsibility of the uploader to
>    prove his image and anyone can doubt him for any stupid reason and commons
>    hardly cares.
>
> As you can see, it is getting quite difficult to maintain images from India
> in commons. India is a country which has only started to use Internet less
> than a decade ago and we still do not have many of our countries' books or
> sources of information online. So any image from India which gets nominated
> for deletion in Wikimedia Commons get deleted for absence of proof. Commons
> is ruled by *precautionary principle*, where in they are not willing to take
> any risks on copyright and will delete any image for which anyone has
> doubts. This is in contrary to local wikipedia projects in India where it is
> rules by the *good faith principle* where we will trust the uploader and it
> becomes the responsibility of the nominator to prove that the image has
> false copyright claim.
>
> This issue is beginning to hurt the contents from India. If we can do
> something, its time we act immediately. If we are just going to just spent
> out time discussing about it, the pictures of all Hindu gods and people who
> died before independence might get deleted by that time.
>
> Regards,
> Sreejith K.
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> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 10 May 2011 16:37:12 +0530
> From: Bala Jeyaraman <sodabottle@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Fwd: Copyright problems of images from
>     India
> To: Wikimedia India Community list
>     <wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <BANLkTi=S8U-55_EmShLVOgWbNJbnT=TeJA@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> 1) >>Ayyappan, a popular god of Kerala, has his image circulated everywhere
> on the plant with no proof of copyrights. It makes sense to believe that
> this image is not eligible for copyright because Hindu deities are all
> common property,
>
> i have to disagree with this. All images of Hindu deities are not public
> property. Most of the popular images were done by painters some time in the
> immediate past - Ravi varma's paintings form the base for many deity images.
> Similarly there are many unknown temple artists, who have gone uncredite
> because of our practice of gross insensitivity to others' copyright.
> Claiming that deity images are not eligible for copyright is wrong. They do
> have copyright and unless there is iron clad proof of publication, dont
> decalre them to be in public domain. The fairuse clause is there for cases
> like this.
>
>
> 2) While i understand what sreejith is saying, repeated copyright violations
> in commons by Indian uploaders is mainly to blame for this backlash. In Ta
> wiki and in commons, i have to repeat many times to people that "everything
> that comes out of google image search is not free". In my experience, about
> half the people react defensively to such advice and reflexively claim the
> image is "own work" and they "took it". They do not like being pointed out
> they are wrong and thus damage the reputation of Indian uploaders further.
> Many of the regular commons users thus become immediately suspicious when a
> new indian user claims that an image is "own work". Even in the outreach
> programs i participated, people listen to me drone about how taking images
> of google image search is not ok and do the same the immediately after. This
> issue is not restricted to Indian users, but is a major problem for us. The
> only way to deal with this is a relentless copyright awareness campaign for
> Indian users.
>
> 3) Images of people who died prior to 1951. Here too the case is not clear.
> Many photos of such people are reconstructive work done post-1951.
> Colourisation of black and white pictures is a major concern. I am still not
> clear, if colourisation passes the originality threshold and becomes a
> original work on its own. If so, then such a work cannot be claimed as PD.
>
> Personally i add a ton of descriptive information and long arguments to
> prove PD in india and in case of my own images, i always upload with full
> resolution and metadata. It is a sad bad situation, but the root cause is
> relative ignorance of Indians (including me) about copyright.
>
> regards
> Bala
>
> On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 4:07 PM, Shiju Alex <shijualexonline@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > Dear All,
> >
> > I am forwarding the below mail on behalf of a Malayalam wikipedian who is
> > very active in Wikimedia Commons.
> >
> > Of late it is becoming very difficult for many Wikimedians from India to
> > contribute to Wikimedia Commons especially if they are uploading historical
> > images which are in PD.  We are facing lot of issues (and many a times
> > unnecessary controversies also) with the historic images in PD, images of
> > wall paintings and statues, and so on. Please see the below mail in which
> > Sreejith citing various examples.
> >
> > It is almost impossible for the uploaders from India to show proof of the
> > century old images of  Hindu Gods and Goddesses. The current policies of
> > Commons are not permitting many of the PD images from India citing all sorts
> > of policies which might be relevant only in the western world. With these
> > type of policies we are going to have serious issues when we try to go for
> > GLAM type events.
> >
> > But I also do not know the solution for this issue. Requesting constructive
> > discussion.
> >
> >
> > Shiju Alex
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Sreejith K. <sreejithk2000@gmail.com>
> > Date: Thu, May 5, 2011 at 12:03 PM
> > Subject: Copyright problems of images from India
> > To: Shiju Alex <shijualexonline@gmail.com>
> >
> >
> > Shiju,
> >
> > As you might be aware already, we are having trouble keeping historical
> > images about India in Wikimedia commons. This pertains mostly to images
> > about Hindu gods and people who died before 1947.
> >
> > Please see the below examples:
> >
> >    - File:Narayana Guru.jpg<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Narayana_Guru.jpg> -
> >    This is the image of Sree Narayana Guru<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narayana_Guru>,
> >    a Hindu saint, social reformer and is even considered a god by certain
> >    castes in Kerala. This image has been tagged as an image with No source.
> >    Narayana Guru expired in 1928 and considering the conditions in which India
> >    was in during that period and before, it is very difficult to get an image
> >    source online. Most active Wikipedians does not have access or information
> >    on how old the image is or where a source of it can be found. Any photograph
> >    published before 1941 in India is in public domain as per Indian copyright
> >    act. Common sense says that this image meets this criteria because the
> >    person was long lead before 1941, but we still need proof of the first
> >    publishing date. Deleting this image on grounds that no source could be
> >    found will only reduce the informative values of all the articles which this
> >    image is included in.
> >    - File:Aravana.JPG: This image has already been deleted, but you can
> >    see the amount of discussion that went in before deleting it. See Commons:Deletion
> >    requests/File:Aravana.JPG<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Aravana.JPG>.
> >    (An almost similar image can be found here<http://www.flickr.com/photos/anoopp/5706721852/in/photostream/>.)This
> >    image as put for deletion because it had the image of Swami Ayyappan<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Ayyappan>in it. Ayyappan, a popular god of Kerala, has his image circulated
> >    everywhere on the plant with no proof of copyrights. It makes sense to
> >    believe that this image is not eligible for copyright because
> >    Hindu deities are all common property, but again, Commons need proof that
> >    the image is in public domain. This is the same case with all Hindu
> >    gods/goddesses. The images can only be kept in Commons if the uploader can
> >    provide proof that the images are in public domain.
> >    - File:Kottarathil sankunni.jpg<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kottarathil_sankunni.jpg>:
> >    This is a picture of Kottarathil Sankunni<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kottarathil_Sankunni>,
> >    the author of the famous book Aithiyamaala<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aithihyamala>.
> >    Kottarathil Sankunni died in 1937 and so it makes sense to believe that this
> >    image was created on or before 1937 and thus falls in Public Domain. But
> >    some people in Commons is refusing to believe that and is asking for proof.
> >    Now it becomes the responsibility of the uploader to show proof that this
> >    image was published 60 years before today. The editor who nominated the
> >    image for deletion is on the safer side because it is not his responsibility
> >    to prove that the image is a copyright violation. So long story short,
> >    anyone can nominate any image for copyright violation and it becomes the
> >    uploaders responsibility to prove that its not. The deletion nomination need
> >    not be accompanied with a reason for disbelief.
> >    - File:Anoop Menon.jpg<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anoop_Menon.jpg>:
> >    This is the picture of Anoop Menon<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoop_Menon>,
> >    a popular actor from Kerala. A discussion is going on about the uploaders
> >    credibility whether he is the original photographer of this image. Please
> >    see File talk:Anoop Menon.jpg<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File_talk:Anoop_Menon.jpg>.
> >    The reason for doubting the uploader is simple. This image has professional
> >    quality and so the uploader cannot be the copyright owner because this is
> >    his first upload. Strange? Now, it becomes the responsibility of the
> >    uploader to prove that he took this image and I do not know how and nor does
> >    the person who is arguing for it. He claims that the uploader can upload the
> >    full resolution image with EXIF but whats even funny is that most of images
> >    from the person who is saying this does not meet this criteria. Again, back
> >    to round 1 in my first example. Its the responsibility of the uploader to
> >    prove his image and anyone can doubt him for any stupid reason and commons
> >    hardly cares.
> >
> > As you can see, it is getting quite difficult to maintain images from India
> > in commons. India is a country which has only started to use Internet less
> > than a decade ago and we still do not have many of our countries' books or
> > sources of information online. So any image from India which gets nominated
> > for deletion in Wikimedia Commons get deleted for absence of proof. Commons
> > is ruled by *precautionary principle*, where in they are not willing to
> > take any risks on copyright and will delete any image for which anyone has
> > doubts. This is in contrary to local wikipedia projects in India where it is
> > rules by the *good faith principle* where we will trust the uploader and
> > it becomes the responsibility of the nominator to prove that the image has
> > false copyright claim.
> >
> > This issue is beginning to hurt the contents from India. If we can do
> > something, its time we act immediately. If we are just going to just spent
> > out time discussing about it, the pictures of all Hindu gods and people who
> > died before independence might get deleted by that time.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Sreejith K.
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
> > Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
> >
> >
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