[WikiEN-l] Images that are PD in their country of origin

[Andrew Gray]

On 10 February 2010 02:58, Durova <nadezhda.durova at gmail.com> wrote:

> But we keep getting editors who use the PD-old template anyway as an
> exercise in wishful thinking.  Too often, "the existence of a valid
> copyright is debatable" becomes a euphemism for "I've got a lousy source and
> haven't done enough research."

I've sometimes thought that, in an ideal world, we should just phase
out PD-old and all its forms - it's often, as you say, wishful
thinking, or sometimes (and I know in my early days I did this) a
cover for a misunderstanding about just what the thresholds are.

So what'd we replace it with? Something functionally like...

{{copyright
|date=1895
|location=Germany
|author=anonymous
}}

...and have it then spit out, well, "this image is free under German
copyright law (sect. 473 ii) and in the United States (Title 15, 7)"
or the like, with an option to click to have it generate a copyright
status in Canada or France or where have you. We do *have* this data
for a sizable proportion of our images, after all, and it's a bit lazy
when we take all this and slap a "well, PD, I guess" rubber-stamp on
it!

I doubt this is *practical* in the near term, of course, but it's a
thought. Any other ideas?

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk