On 8 July 2012 16:44, Adam Cuerden <cuerden(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Dear David,
I'm commenting here because I honestly didn't think Commons could be
acting in a manner that required them to actively ignore laws, and
thought it highly unlikely that Commons would be actively removing
mere requests for credit from works. That Commons apparently is doing
both of those is pretty much my limit for trying to engage with
Commons.
-Adam
Well in this case the engraving is from 1872. Can you show that both
authors died before 1913? Otherwise you are ignoring the law of Ivory
Coast (life+99). I'm sure you see the problem.
Commons is based in the US which at the present time doesn't recognise
"sweat of the brow" as a valid mechanism to claim copyright. As a
result commons doesn't have to recognise it. Doing so creates an
extremely complicated situation as we would effectively have to set up
our own standards with little legal guidance something which never
ends well (see the de minimis mess)
I doubt for example that you would argue that the 15 mins or so I
spent messing around with:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Punch_sultan_visit_1867reduced.png
qualifies for copyright but depending on where you draw the sweat of
the brow line it could.
--
geni