[Foundation-l] Stroop report

[Ray Saintonge]

SlimVirgin wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 5:42 PM, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>   
>> This came up in the discussion, but since the German occupation during
>>  WW2 is considered illegitimate under international law, Polish law
>>  applies, even in areas where the de jure Polish government didn't have
>>  de facto control. The discussion is here:
>>  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Category:Stroop_Report
>>     
> Does this mean that the images taken inside Auschwitz can be marked
> PD, either as PD in Poland or PD in the U.S. because seized enemy
> property? We've been told by several Wikipedians who specialize in
> images that we could only claim fair use for them, which has meant the
> images have been challenged quite a few times by people who say we
> can't claim fair use unless we know the name of the copyright holder.
> We've had several attempts to delete some of them on that basis.
Fair use does not depend on knowing the name of the copyright holder, or 
even the original copyright holder since that person may be long dead. 
Any prosecution for copyright infringement would require the copyright 
holder to be identified, and in most cases to prove that he is the 
holder.  That would not be easy

I still prefer to avoid fair use if a stronger rationale is available.

Ec