[Wikimedia-l] [Commons-l] FOP in Europe: does this include WWII monuments with art?

[Fae]

On 2 March 2013 19:28, Andrew Gray <andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk> wrote:
> On 2 March 2013 12:04, Fae <faewik+commons at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 2. Text on a memorial may be under its own copyright even though it is
>> on permanent public display, so the text itself must be demonstrably
>> out of copyright. This is a separate issue from the general FOP
>> provisions. If the text is incidental to the photograph, i.e. not a
>> close up and the text is effectively de minimus, then FOP is likely to
>> be valid.
>
> One other thing to remember: most of this text is fairly uncreative -
> in many cases, standard phrases or dates, and lists of names. We could
> make a reasonably good case that they are unlikely to be copyrightable
> texts regardless of age.

That's true, and I have uploaded plenty of my own photos of war
memorials with close up details of names, rank and so forth. However I
have run into problems with memorial statements that contain poetry,
simple drawings and original dedications and some of these have been
deleted despite me being reasonably cautious. I still think this is
solvable with some simple guidelines/principles for those taking part
in an event to take care to avoid any later problems with uploads.

Cheers,
Fae