Craig, et al
On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 5:56 PM, Craig Franklin cfranklin@halonetwork.net wrote:
Pardon me if this has already been covered, but as I understand it the problem is not the legal status of the files in Israel, the problem is with the legal status of the files in the United States, where the Israeli Government may still have some copyright protections.
You are misunderstanding completely the issue. There is no evidence that Israel has a PD exemption for such government works, as we see for say, Russia,[1] which allows for letters such as this to exist on Commons.[2]
It seems to me that rather than insisting that the files are permitted to remain, a more fruitful avenue might be to use WMIL's contacts with the Israeli Government to licence these images anywhere where copyright might still exist under a very free licence like CC-0. That way even if URAA or some future copyright shenanigans places these images back under copyright, they're usable by anyone. This ought to satisfy even the most dogmatic Commons admin that the images are indeed free.
I have told someone that what needs to occur is for the GPO to release their claims over copyright worldwide in relation to URAA. The reason for this, is the same reason that the Israeli Government would NEVER CC-0 licence their materials -- because it opens them up to parody, satire and other uses that they might not agree with -- and we need to protect re-users who wish to use materials for such purposes. That's the same reason that the Australian Commonwealth Parliament refuses to CC photos of MPs, in case you weren't aware.
Cheers
Russavia
[1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-RU-exempt [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Russian_letter_to_FIFA.jpg