[WikiEN-l] Application of the {{pd-art}} tag

[Fastfission]

Well, the UK is a place in particular where the issue raised in
Bridgman v. Corel has not been ironed out one way or another. But it
is fairly clear that under U.S. copyright law, anything published
abroad in English that long ago is currently in the public domain, and
scan or close, 2-D photograph of something in the public domain would
not create a new copyright claim (and why should it?).

If scanning it does not create a copyright claim under U.S. copyright
law, then the website/archivist/whoever cannot license it at all, much
less restrively. Licensing requires a copyright claim to begin with.
They can use it, but they can't set restrictions on how others use it,
at least not by recourse to copyright law.

The only way this would be problematic would be potentially for
re-users based in the UK, but I think that falls into the "when you
move our content into your legal realm, its up to you to figure out
which of our PD categories do not apply where you live." And in any
case I'm fairly sure that it is at best legally ambiguous in the UK;
not outright prohibitive. (If I'm wrong on this, somebody correct me.)

There is a really handy table which parses out all of the various
clauses in US copyright law in relation to the public domain
(including works created outside of the US) at:
http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm

FF


On 4/11/06, Drini drini <wpdrini at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/11/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 4/11/06, Mak <makwik at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > According to a number of librarians I've spoken with, a number of US
> > Museums
> > > and libraries would differ with you on that. They believe that if they
> > own
> > > the original work, unless they license copies, all images of that work
> > > belong to them. They could very well be wrong, but that's what they
> > think,
> > > and would probably eventually be willing to test in court. For a lot of
> > > items they'll severely restrict access, just so that this sort of thing
> > > won't happen, and if the precedent is upheld, this is likely only to get
> > > worse. It's unclear to me whether we should use this case as a
> > precedent,
> > > although it's clear that both Wikipedia and the Commons
> > does.  </armchair
> > > lawyering>
> > > Makemi
> >
> > Well of course they would differ on that. They see revenue going out
> > the window as they tried in vain to claim active authorship rights on
> > something that was made two hundred years ago. The only claims I have
> > seen against the reasoning in Bridgeman and Feist are along the lines
> > of "but we'd like the money" and "it takes effort/resources to make
> > this product." Those are realistic economic considerations for a
> > business but it is a sort of argumentation which should have nothing
> > to do with copyright law -- it is the sort of argumentation which
> > leads you down the horrible legislative paths like the Sonny Bono
> > Copyright Extension Act ("We'd like it extended because it's worth
> > money, so fuck the principles"). Fortunately librarians and archivists
> > are not as potent a constituency as the music industry, or else
> > Congress would probably get involved. I have very little tolerance for
> > archivists who think that ownership is the same thing as authorship,
> > and do not care that copyrights are supposed to be LIMITED monopolies
> > on culture.
> >
> > The long-term effects of Bridgeman v. Corel -- which I don't think
> > anybody is predicting a swift overturning of -- are worth
> > contemplating but are really beyond our personal control. Whether it
> > will result in restriction of access (for the purpose of preserving IP
> > without resorting to IP law) is a possibility, but just one of many.
> > There are other ways to make revenue besides trying to misuse
> > copyright law, thank goodness.
> >
> > Since Bridgeman v. Corel currently IS the law (whether the archivists
> > like it or not) and has BEEN the law for the past six years, I think
> > we shouldn't be too worried about using it. In any event, if something
> > horrible happened which changed the legal situation we can always go
> > back over the images tagged as such and delete them.
> >
> > FF
>
>
> Another example in case:
> [[Image:Milaria Scotia Regium 1595.jpg]]
> the website license from where ti was taken specifically states you have to
> ask for a license, it got released "for educational non commercia purposes"
> (so it should be deleted per Jimbo's rule from last year), it's not being
> used on an article, yet IFD and WP:CP  said the image should stay (due to
> PD-art)
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