[Commons-l] 100 years old images

[geni]

2008/5/19 contact at robinschwab.ch <contact at robinschwab.ch>:
>
>
> Rama Neko <ramaneko at gmail.com> hat am 19. Mai 2008 um 10:29 geschrieben:
>
>> Our mission is to collect and make available Free content. That is content
>> which can be used for any purpose without a fee, can be modified at will,
>> and whose modified version must be available under the same terms.
>>
>> "Available to everybody" is not Free. It is what is on the Web. Yann, you
>> should really be more rigourous before suggesting that people have "got it
>> all wrong".
>>
>> Also, this has been discussed over and over and over again, can we *please*
>> move on ?
>
> No we can't. As Daniel said unless you make a rule 160 years after publication
> there is always a theoretical risk that an anonymous work is copyrighted. This
> would be a new rule and require some consensus.

No no new rule.

> Personnally I think the 100 year rule is safe as things can be safe in life. It
> is practiced in many other wikis and by many big commercial publishers.

100 years is not remotely safe. Photographers are not going to be
remotely average life expectancy wise. They survived childhood and
while there may be some issues with some of the chemicals but
industrial illness levels are likely lower than say a coal miner. They
are likely to be the type that lives out their 3 score and 10.
Assuming carers start at 20 that gives you 120 years. Hobbyists are
even worse. The kit was not cheap so again higher social class so
longer life expectancy and maybe they let the kids take a few photos.

Now consider a famous case. The Cottingley Fairies were taken 90 years
ago. Under your rule we would consider them PD in about 2018. The true
date under UK law is around 2058 (which is why they should be deleted
from commons).


> If Commons decides for a 120 or 160 year rule we can adapt Mediawiki so that
> images for example from German Wikipedia can be used everywhere. They have a 100
> year rule.

No. A centeralised holding of non free images is not useful.



-- 
geni