Hello Keegan

Thanks for the reply. Good to hear from you. I can’t speak for the CapeTown Heritage Foundation, but I popped into visit Dianne Steele from Johannesburg Heritage Foundation. She’s also a Wikipedian and she confirmed that the JHF are very happy with the plaques appearing on commons. She worked with @BobbyShabangu, who has also uploaded many of these images for Joburgbedia. She completed the form for three files (that I uploaded) indicating they are released.

The text in from the form itself is not perfect. But it should be clear enough

I agree to publish the above-mentioned work under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International. I acknowledge that by doing so I grant anyone the right to use the work, even in a commercial product or otherwise, and to modify it according to their needs, provided that they abide by the terms of the license and any other applicable laws. I am aware that this agreement is not limited to Wikipedia or related sites. I am aware that the copyright holder always retains ownership of the copyright as well as the right to be attributed in accordance with the license chosen. Modifications others make to the work will not be claimed to have been made by the copyright holder. I acknowledge that I cannot withdraw this agreement, and that the content may or may not be kept permanently on a Wikimedia project.

There are a number of comments on the page itself. (I sound rather shrill). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Files_in_Catego...

Be great to have your voice heard..

Best Derek

On Fri, 10 Oct 2025 at 16:24, Keegan Leech keegankai@gmail.com wrote:

Thanks for raising this Derek.

A quick question on copyright. Does anyone know what the Johannesburg/Cape Town Heritage Foundations would have to do to allow for pictures of the plaques to be used on Wikimedia? Is it possible for them to release some statement allowing for the use of these images without releasing their copyright over the text on the plaques? I'm sure it would be relatively easy to contact the J/CTHF and request a declaration from them. Something posted on their websites would be fine.

Additionally, it seems as though not all of the plaques were erected by these two foundations, and so there may be more copyright holders here. (E.g. this plaque seems to have been posted by the Geological Society of South Africa https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GSSA_W4A_Siltstone.jpg ) Can anyone can confirm who the copyright owners are?

Unfortunately, I do believe that the text of these plaques would be protected by copyright as artistic works (see copyright act: https://www.saflii.org/za/legis/consol_act/ca1978133/ ). Just being informational does not exempt them any more than it would exempt, say, a history book. However, there are cases in which copyrighted works or excerpts thereof, may appear on Wikipedia. So these images could theoretically be uploaded to individual Wikipedia pages, if clearly labelled as including copyrighted material. They should probably not be on Commons under creative commons licenses (as many of them are) unless the JHF or whoever the copyright holders may be have released them from copyright.

Regards, Keegan

On Fri, 10 Oct 2025 at 09:58, Derek Moore weblearning@gmail.com wrote:

...

Dear fellow Wikipedians.

This is an odd issue, and I would appreciate your advice and support. Blue Plaques are a wonderful way to remember South African Heritage. Now for some reason, a Wikipedian in Canada (I think) has initiated a big deletion request of Blue plaques both in Cape Town and Johannesburg. See

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Files_in_Catego...

...

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Files_in_Catego...

...

It would be good if you could make your voices heard in the discussion

and

...

contest the deletion

Thanks

Kind Regards Derek

*Derek Moore* (He/Him) | Lead Consultant for Weblearning

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