[Wikimediaindia-l] Fwd: Copyright problems of images from India
Achal Prabhala
aprabhala at gmail.com
Tue May 10 14:11:28 UTC 2011
Bala's point, about not all Indian religious iconography - of any
religion - being in the public domain is spot on. However, as with a lot
of religious iconography (though perhaps not with Raja Ravi Varma
specifically), the intent of the creation in the first place is
propagation, and as a result there is widespread public use of these
works almost as if they were public domain works in the strict legal
sense - which they are not. The analogy might work best with, say,
evangelical pamphlets from a religion or sect; if the point of these is
to be given away, the copyright holders are likely to be encouraging of
their piracy, even if they haven't formally notified for the pamphlet to
be put in the legal public domain.
Aside from the point of authorship not always being credited (the
reasons for which are too numerous to list, but which involve all the
usual problems around collaborative creativity - the structure of
religious art, monuments and iconography, across all religions, is a lot
like Wikipedia except perhaps with a lot more hierarchy) I think the
interesting point here is intent vs legal status.
I do think (intuitively) that for some, not all, religious iconography,
the spirit in which they were produced is exactly similar to the terms
of CC BY SA or the GFDL; it's just that people didn't have these
licenses in the 10th century or even most parts of the 20th :) The
problem is determining the intention and conjoining it with a differing
legal status in the litigious world of today, for which we perhaps have
to think more creatively and boldly. (Perhaps there is a way to hold all
such images in one place and seek public domain approval from related
religious bodies in India for their use?)
(A minor aside is that India's new copyright law, to be effective soon,
increases the copyright term of photographic works from life of the
creator + 25 years to life + 60 - on par with other literary and
artistic works.)
So, I can't see any easy solution here except for determining the
antecedents of an image, and establishing that the image has lived past
its copyright term.
On Tuesday 10 May 2011 04:37 PM, Bala Jeyaraman wrote:
> 1) >>Ayyappan, a popular god of Kerala, has his image circulated
> everywhere on the plant with no proof of copyrights. It makes sense to
> believe that this image is not eligible for copyright because
> Hindu deities are all common property,
>
> i have to disagree with this. All images of Hindu deities are not
> public property. Most of the popular images were done by painters some
> time in the immediate past - Ravi varma's paintings form the base for
> many deity images. Similarly there are many unknown temple artists,
> who have gone uncredite because of our practice of gross insensitivity
> to others' copyright. Claiming that deity images are not eligible for
> copyright is wrong. They do have copyright and unless there is iron
> clad proof of publication, dont decalre them to be in public domain.
> The fairuse clause is there for cases like this.
>
>
> 2) While i understand what sreejith is saying, repeated copyright
> violations in commons by Indian uploaders is mainly to blame for this
> backlash. In Ta wiki and in commons, i have to repeat many times to
> people that "everything that comes out of google image search is not
> free". In my experience, about half the people react defensively to
> such advice and reflexively claim the image is "own work" and they
> "took it". They do not like being pointed out they are wrong and thus
> damage the reputation of Indian uploaders further. Many of the regular
> commons users thus become immediately suspicious when a new indian
> user claims that an image is "own work". Even in the outreach programs
> i participated, people listen to me drone about how taking images of
> google image search is not ok and do the same the immediately after.
> This issue is not restricted to Indian users, but is a major problem
> for us. The only way to deal with this is a relentless copyright
> awareness campaign for Indian users.
>
> 3) Images of people who died prior to 1951. Here too the case is not
> clear. Many photos of such people are reconstructive work done
> post-1951. Colourisation of black and white pictures is a major
> concern. I am still not clear, if colourisation passes the originality
> threshold and becomes a original work on its own. If so, then such a
> work cannot be claimed as PD.
>
> Personally i add a ton of descriptive information and long arguments
> to prove PD in india and in case of my own images, i always upload
> with full resolution and metadata. It is a sad bad situation, but the
> root cause is relative ignorance of Indians (including me) about
> copyright.
>
> regards
> Bala
>
> On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 4:07 PM, Shiju Alex <shijualexonline at gmail.com
> <mailto:shijualexonline at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Dear All,
>
> I am forwarding the below mail on behalf of a Malayalam wikipedian
> who is very active in Wikimedia Commons.
>
> Of late it is becoming very difficult for many Wikimedians from
> India to contribute to Wikimedia Commons especially if they are
> uploading historical images which are in PD. We are facing lot of
> issues (and many a times unnecessary controversies also) with the
> historic images in PD, images of wall paintings and statues, and
> so on. Please see the below mail in which Sreejith citing various
> examples.
>
> It is almost impossible for the uploaders from India to show proof
> of the century old images of Hindu Gods and Goddesses. The
> current policies of Commons are not permitting many of the PD
> images from India citing all sorts of policies which might be
> relevant only in the western world. With these type of policies we
> are going to have serious issues when we try to go for GLAM type
> events.
>
> But I also do not know the solution for this issue. Requesting
> constructive discussion.
>
>
> Shiju Alex
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: *Sreejith K.* <sreejithk2000 at gmail.com
> <mailto:sreejithk2000 at gmail.com>>
> Date: Thu, May 5, 2011 at 12:03 PM
> Subject: Copyright problems of images from India
> To: Shiju Alex <shijualexonline at gmail.com
> <mailto:shijualexonline at gmail.com>>
>
>
> Shiju,
>
> As you might be aware already, we are having trouble keeping
> historical images about India in Wikimedia commons. This pertains
> mostly to images about Hindu gods and people who died before 1947.
>
> Please see the below examples:
>
> * File:Narayana Guru.jpg
> <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Narayana_Guru.jpg> -
> This is the image of Sree Narayana Guru
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narayana_Guru>, a Hindu saint,
> social reformer and is even considered a god by certain
> castes in Kerala. This image has been tagged as an image
> with No source. Narayana Guru expired in 1928 and
> considering the conditions in which India was in during that
> period and before, it is very difficult to get an image
> source online. Most active Wikipedians does not have access
> or information on how old the image is or where a source of
> it can be found. Any photograph published before 1941 in
> India is in public domain as per Indian copyright
> act. Common sense says that this image meets this criteria
> because the person was long lead before 1941, but we still
> need proof of the first publishing date. Deleting this image
> on grounds that no source could be found will only reduce
> the informative values of all the articles which this image
> is included in.
> * File:Aravana.JPG: This image has already been deleted, but
> you can see the amount of discussion that went in before
> deleting it. See Commons:Deletion requests/File:Aravana.JPG
> <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Aravana.JPG>.
> (An almost similar image can be found here
> <http://www.flickr.com/photos/anoopp/5706721852/in/photostream/>.)This
> image as put for deletion because it had the image of Swami
> Ayyappan <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Ayyappan>in it.
> Ayyappan, a popular god of Kerala, has his image circulated
> everywhere on the plant with no proof of copyrights. It
> makes sense to believe that this image is not eligible for
> copyright because Hindu deities are all common property, but
> again, Commons need proof that the image is in public
> domain. This is the same case with all Hindu gods/goddesses.
> The images can only be kept in Commons if the uploader can
> provide proof that the images are in public domain.
> * File:Kottarathil sankunni.jpg
> <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kottarathil_sankunni.jpg>:
> This is a picture of Kottarathil Sankunni
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kottarathil_Sankunni>, the
> author of the famous book Aithiyamaala
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aithihyamala>. Kottarathil
> Sankunni died in 1937 and so it makes sense to believe that
> this image was created on or before 1937 and thus falls in
> Public Domain. But some people in Commons is refusing to
> believe that and is asking for proof. Now it becomes the
> responsibility of the uploader to show proof that this image
> was published 60 years before today. The editor who
> nominated the image for deletion is on the safer side
> because it is not his responsibility to prove that the image
> is a copyright violation. So long story short, anyone can
> nominate any image for copyright violation and it becomes
> the uploaders responsibility to prove that its not. The
> deletion nomination need not be accompanied with a reason
> for disbelief.
> * File:Anoop Menon.jpg
> <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anoop_Menon.jpg>:
> This is the picture of Anoop Menon
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoop_Menon>, a popular actor
> from Kerala. A discussion is going on about the uploaders
> credibility whether he is the original photographer of this
> image. Please see File talk:Anoop Menon.jpg
> <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File_talk:Anoop_Menon.jpg>.
> The reason for doubting the uploader is simple. This image
> has professional quality and so the uploader cannot be the
> copyright owner because this is his first upload. Strange?
> Now, it becomes the responsibility of the uploader to prove
> that he took this image and I do not know how and nor does
> the person who is arguing for it. He claims that the
> uploader can upload the full resolution image with EXIF but
> whats even funny is that most of images from the person who
> is saying this does not meet this criteria. Again, back to
> round 1 in my first example. Its the responsibility of the
> uploader to prove his image and anyone can doubt him for any
> stupid reason and commons hardly cares.
>
> As you can see, it is getting quite difficult to maintain images
> from India in commons. India is a country which has only started
> to use Internet less than a decade ago and we still do not have
> many of our countries' books or sources of information online. So
> any image from India which gets nominated for deletion in
> Wikimedia Commons get deleted for absence of proof. Commons is
> ruled by _precautionary principle_, where in they are not willing
> to take any risks on copyright and will delete any image for which
> anyone has doubts. This is in contrary to local wikipedia projects
> in India where it is rules by the _good faith principle_ where we
> will trust the uploader and it becomes the responsibility of the
> nominator to prove that the image has false copyright claim.
>
> This issue is beginning to hurt the contents from India. If we can
> do something, its time we act immediately. If we are just going to
> just spent out time discussing about it, the pictures of all Hindu
> gods and people who died before independence might get deleted by
> that time.
>
> Regards,
> Sreejith K.
>
>
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