[Foundation-l] General copyright policy

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

Following the discussion about stamp copyright status on Commons (and many 
other discussions elsewhere), I thing we need better guidelines for works 
without unknown or unreachable author(s). This issue keeps coming back every 
now and then, takes our time and fustrates users because no clear solution is 
in sight.

So I think we should define a general policy about these works without getting 
paranoid about it. They are numerous works whom the author is not known or 
can't ever be reached. This affects all projects, but especially Commons and 
Wikisource. This concerns only "minor" works. If the work is famous, then the 
copyright owner is known, so the question doesn't arise.

I will take examples to show what kind works I am talking about. According to 
people I had on the phone from the French Postage Stamp Museum (Musée de la 
Poste), the copyright for French postage stamps belongs to the drawer and the 
engraver. So according to them, we have to inquire about each drawer and 
engraver for these stamps. They are hundreds of unknown artists for French 
stamps only and this is obviously not a workable solution.

See these stamps from 1917 to 1936:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Jeux_Olympiques_1924.jpg
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:PA_Marseille_rouge.jpg
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:PA_Paris_violet.jpg
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Orphelins_5plus5.jpg
This is not even the worst case, the name of the author is readable.
I tried to find more about them without success.
Then there are many others where the name of the author is not even known.

As a workable solution, I propose something like: If the drawer and the 
engraver are unknown or unreachable, and the work is more than X years old 
(70 ? 50 ?), this is similar to anonymous work, so we can publish it. So we 
still have to decide what are the criterias for considering the copyright 
owners unreachable or unknown, but I think an agreement could be reached 
about this.

Regards,

Yann
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