[WikiEN-l] Our Featured Article of the Day Contains Probable Copyright Violations

[Neil Harris]

Ray Saintonge wrote:
> geni wrote:
>
>   
>> On 3/7/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>>  
>>
>>     
>>> John Lee wrote:
>>>
>>>    
>>>
>>>       
>>>> [[Triumph of the Will]] has a gallery of fair use pictures. The gallery
>>>> itself violates fair use under American law, which requires that the
>>>> subject of the images be critically discussed by the article using those
>>>> images. As if that were not enough, the images are *high-resolution*. It
>>>> has been suggested that the images are public domain, but this has not
>>>> been conclusively proven, and the images are currently marked with a
>>>> copyright of 2005 by the uploader, who also wrote much of the article.
>>>> It would be bad enough if this is any ordinary article, but...
>>>>
>>>>  1. It's a featured article, which means it's the best we have to offer
>>>>  2. It's on the frickin' main page right now
>>>>
>>>> Then again, I suppose this does reflect the condition of how fair use
>>>> and copyright law are blatantly ignored/misunderstood by most
>>>> Wikipedians...for further information, see [[Wikipedia:Fair use
>>>> review]], which has a fuller description of what's going on.
>>>>      
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> Why are we talking about fair use when the film is clearly in the public
>>> domain?  It was released in 1935!!!  1935 + 70 = 2005.
>>>
>>> Ec
>>>    
>>>
>>>       
>> Wrong country. Leni Riefenstahl died in 2003.
>>
>> Further details:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)&diff=42060761&oldid=41976931
>>  
>>
>>     
> Riefenstahl did not own the copyright; she did the work as an employee 
> of the German government. The talk page for the article cites 
> http://www.twobirds.com/English/publications/articles/GermanFilmsandUKEnemyPropertyAct1953pt1.cfm  
> "Leni Riefenstahl appealed, and the German Federal Supreme Court of 
> Karlsruhe ruled on 10 January 1969 that the copyright was not vested in 
> Leni Riefenstahl but in the former Nazi party"  The 70 year clock for 
> government and corporate copyright owners starts when the work is made 
> public.  The US situation is even simpler, because the extension of 
> foreign copyrights from 50 to 70 years was not applicable to enemy 
> properties.  The rights there expired at the end of 1985.
>
> What "wrong country" are you talking about? 
>
> Ec
>   
I seem to remember reading something about the Allies voiding all German 
government copyrights at the end of WWII. Can anyone confirm or deny 
this? I seem to remember something about the copyright of Mein Kampf 
being a special case, since it was never owned by the German state.

-- Neil