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

[Carcharoth]

On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 1:26 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10 February 2010 13:21, Andrew Gray <andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk> wrote:
>
>> 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?
>
> I think this is a brilliant idea and would deal with the problem
> marvellously. And it should be reasonably easy to implement in an
> incremental manner without disruption.
>
> cc to commons-l - is there anything about this that'd be hard? Apart
> from going through a zillion images. The key point is it wouldn't
> disrupt anything existing.

The great thing about it, is that it encourages people to go to their
sources and find out what they *really* know about an image and its
origins and provenance, rather than just guessing and being an
armchair copyright lawyer. If you can find out something definite
about an image, and source it, then that is good. Though what to do
with "circa" dates, I'm not sure.

Carcharoth