On 8 July 2012 16:44, Adam Cuerden cuerden@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.