Commons:Village pump/Copyright

↓ Skip to table of contents ↓ ↓ Skip to discussions ↓ ↓ Skip to the last discussion ↓

Welcome to the Village pump copyright section

This Wikimedia Commons page is used for general discussions relating to copyright and license issues, and for discussions relating to specific files' copyright issues. Discussions relating to specific copyright policies should take place on the talk page of the policy, but may be advertised here. Recent sections with no replies for 7 days and sections tagged with {{section resolved|1=~~~~}} may be archived; for old discussions, see the archives.

Please note

One of Wikimedia Commons' basic principles is: "Only free content is allowed." Please do not ask why unfree material is not allowed at Wikimedia Commons or suggest that allowing it would be a good thing.
Have you read the FAQ?
Any answers you receive here are not legal advice and the responder cannot be held liable for them. If you have legal questions, we can try to help but our answers cannot replace those of a qualified professional (i.e. a lawyer).
Your question will be answered here; please check back regularly. Please do not leave your email address or other contact information, as this page is widely visible across the Internet and you are liable to receive spam.
Please do not make deletion requests here – instead, use the relevant process for it.

Start a new discussion

	SpBot archives all sections tagged with {{Section resolved\|1=~~~~}} after 1 day and sections whose most recent comment is older than 7 days.

Alien copyright works

I'm noticing files like File:Birkenau Three Jewish men holding an elderly woman looking behind her.jpg have been tagged with PD-US alien property, but there isn't any evidence of the Alien Property seized the copyright to this image. Was there ever a blanket seizure of enemy government intellectual property by the APC (incl copyright) during WW2? Otherwise this image shouldn't be allowed. I found this US government magazine which said During World War II, the U.S. government ... assumed control of the copyrights of alien combatant nationals. Citizens of Germany, Italy, and other countries at war against the United States lost their intellectual property rights in the United States, but I could be misinterpreting it. Thoughts? —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 20:41, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, any copyrights or claims to copyright owned by the German or Japanese governments during World War II were included within the scope of the Alien Property Custodian's control over government property. The APC controlled copyrights held by governments themselves in addition to those of citizens of enemy countries. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 04:50, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But what happened to the copyrights after the war? I know that the State of Bavaria acquired the copyright to Mein Kampf and they used their ownership to block its publication in Germany. However its copyright expired in 2015 (70 years after Hitler's death) and this caused the Bavarian Government some concern. Furthermore, the Auschwitz Album was ever under US control until after the war. Its owner, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz found it in a drawer after the SS had fled and before she was liberated by the Soviets. This suggests to me that after the war, the copyrights, along with all sorts of other objects were returned to their rightful owners. I know that when William Shirer write his monumnetal book "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", he had a limited time to consult the original documents before the US Government retunred them to the Federal Republic of West Germany. As a result, I doubt that the US Government still controls such copyrights. Another point is that we do not know who the photographers were - two names were metioned, but it is not knows who took which photo (or even if they were the original photographers). All that we can say for definite is that the photogrpahs were taken as part of the official duties of employees of the Nazi State and as such are protected as annonymous photographs. Martinvl (talk) 08:24, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The scenario probably falls under {{PD-Germany-§134-KUG}}, since I doubt the work (photo) itself indicated the name of the author. At least that's what DeepL translates this German law as, it could be a bit off. It's not relevant whether the US government returned the copyrights or not, because s:United States Code/Title 17/Chapter 1/Section 104A#(a)(2) says was ever owned or administered by the Alien Property Custodian. Therefore, since the copyright would also still have been owned by the German government in 1996, there is no URAA restoration and since there's a very high chance US copyright formalities weren't followed for {{PD-Germany-§134-KUG}} to apply in the first place, it would be PD in both Germany and the US. Did I make a mistake in this comment? —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 10:37, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

{{PD-Germany-§134-KUG}} is very tricky. First of all, it only applies to regularly published works (“Juristische Personen des öffentlichen Rechtes, die als Herausgeber ein Werk erscheinen lassen, das den Namen des Urhebers nicht angibt, werden, wenn nicht ein anderes vereinbart ist, als Urheber des Werkes angesehen.”), not just any photo created for the state or by state employees. And by published I don't mean that some photographic prints were made and sent to others, which we often consider to be enough for publication in the context of US copyright law. I don't see PD-Germany-§134-KUG applying here. And that no names are indicated on a print does not necessarily mean we can consider such works to be anonymous. Per German law, if the author is known in some way that's enough for 70 years pma protection. It's very hard to find out if an author is known in some way, which is the main reason why the German wikipedia does not accept anonymous works which are only 70 years old; they need to be at least 100 years old and thoroughly researched. --Rosenzweig τ 12:01, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So what this essentially means is that the Auschwitz album is technically unpublished, since the photos weren't published with the consent of the author. Therefore the photos would have to be considered 70pma works, and they should be deleted. —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 14:52, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The whole APC scenario only applies inside the US. It does not affect copyright in Germany. So while the US copyrights to Mein Kampf were controlled by the APC, the German copyrights were transferred (by a tribunal decision) to the state of Bavaria (and finally expired at the end of 2015). --Rosenzweig τ 12:07, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

According to the Vaschem website Walters, in 1965/6, initially tried to deny taking the photos but eventually admitted to having taken some of them (we don't know which ones). According to Wikidata, he died on 7 August 1994. Ernst Hoffman disappeared after the war and could not be found in order to give evidence at the 1965/6 trial. Martinvl (talk) 13:26, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I vivited the New York Digital Collections Website and found similar photographs by anther Hoffman (a very common German surname). This Hoffman died in 1957. The copyright status, as given by the library was "The copyright and related rights status of this item has been reviewed by The New York Public Library, but we were unable to make a conclusive determination as to the copyright status of the item. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use." In other words, they were ducking the issue. Martinvl (talk) 13:37, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That would be de:Heinrich Hoffmann (Fotograf), Hitler's favorite photographer. His photographs are still protected in Germany until the end of 2027. --Rosenzweig τ 16:05, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, Hoffman is a very common name in Germany. Ernst Hoffman and Heinrich Hoffman were two different people. Heinrich died in 1957 and nothing has been heard of Ernst since 1945, even though the Germans wanted him to testify at the Frankfurt Trial of 1963/5. Martinvl (talk) 19:29, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You were writing about "anther Hoffmann" who "died in 1957". If this is not Heinrich Hoffmann, then who else? --Rosenzweig τ 07:12, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I visited the website of the United Stats Holocaust Museum and their website stated that there were no known copyright restrictions on the Auschwitz Album. (See for example here). The image in question is from the same collection, so in my view it should have the same copyright notice (ie PD). Since Walters would not identify which photos in the Auschwitz album were his, and Hoffman wad dissappeared, we must assume that the photos are orphaned and that we should count 50 years from the time of the 1963/5 Frankfurt Trial. maning that they are now in the public domain. Martinvl (talk) 19:29, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The original publication of these photos was presumably made without complying with the US notice and renewal requirements. And any work whose rights were ever held by the APC, and which would, if restored, belong to a foreign government or an instrumentality thereof (and these would belong to a government entity in Germany), is ineligible for URAA restoration.

This of course only speaks to the public domain status of these photos in the US. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 05:01, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly, I wouldn't spend much time worrying about the copyright of these images. They qualify for {{Orphan work}}, and there is no way a former employee of a Nazi concentration camp could claim a copyright today. Yann (talk) 10:06, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

German copyright law disagrees with that notion. Even Hitler's works were protected by copyright until the end of 2015. --Rosenzweig τ 10:22, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. But you need to make the distinction between theoretical copyright, and practical possibilities of enforcing it. The potential copyright owner would need to prove that he is the author, which not only practically very difficult, but also very risky as implication for his criminal activities. There is no contest that Hitler was the author of My Kampf. It is very different for an obscure employee to prove his status, and that he was the photographer. Concretely for us, this is way beyond significant doubt. Yann (talk) 10:42, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure we should be keeping files like this if they are not PD in the country of origin. The question is about the US side of things, if they are. (This one seems to be PD-anon-70 in Germany, now.) The US and other allies did confiscate foreign copyrights[1], but I think they gradually restored the copyright of any private individuals after the war. Owners likely could not sue for infringement which happened during the war, but did get their rights back for any future infringements. I'm not sure if that happened for government-owned works though. Of course, those rights did include the requirement to have a copyright notice on published works, and file renewals, so most still fell into the PD in the US anyways. The British did something similar -- they extinguished the copyrights in their territory. They did restore copyrights of private citizens, but not sure they ever did for government woks (and the EU copyright restorations may have only applied to expired works, not extinguished works -- there was a scholarly article which argued that.[2]) The URAA of course restored copyright lost to lack of notice; it does have the exception that any work in which the copyright was ever owned or administered by the Alien Property Custodian and in which the restored copyright would be owned by a government or instrumentality thereof was not restored. This particular work was never physically owned by the US government it sounds like, though became known, and used in evidence in some 1960s trials. The US copyright would have been conceptually owned by the Alien Property Custodian though, and it would be owned by a government today if it still existed. I'm not sure how such works would be treated, but of course the big reason behind that clause was to not allow suppression of Nazi materials via copyright machinations. It's a gray area, but you could make the argument that it was owned by the Alien Property Custodian. Not sure we should be deleting it, if the only reason is a maybe/maybe-not URAA restoration where we don't have any precedent. These copyright seizures of course only applied within the United States (and the British extinguishments within the UK) -- usage in other countries would not be affected, so we should be looking at the term in the country of origin as well. I would say the file in question is licensed OK. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:12, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, if we know the author, and s/he died after 1953, then it is clearly still under a copyright in Germany. I am talking about files for which authorship is unknown. For these World War 2 images, the copyright expired after 1996, so URAA may apply. If I understood correctly, that was the initial question, and that's why the Alien Property matters. In addition, for pictures of Auschwitz, Polish law applies, not German law. Yann (talk) 15:13, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

According to both Vashem and United States Holocaust Museum photos from the AUschwitz Album are Public Domain. Unless you have a qualification in copyright law (I don't), I believe that it is sufficent that we accept their word. In order to comply with Commons rules, I suggest that it is in order to place PD templates for both the United States and Germany wth a note stating that we are following the advice of Yad Vashen and of the United States Holocaust Museum. Martinvl (talk) 20:59, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No. I don't get the impression that either of these institutions particularly cares about German copyright, they focus on US copyright. In Germany, works by de:Bernhard Walter (SS-Mitglied) (who died in 1979, not 1994) are still protected until the end of 2049. Works by Ernst Hofmann (with one f, not Hoffmann with two f's) are also obviously not anonymous, since we do know the author. As long as we don't know when he died, the only way we could keep his photographs when applying German copyright is with {{PD-old-assumed}} after 120 years, so in 2065.

Yann claimed that for Auschwitz photographs, PD-Poland applies. Inside Poland, certainly. For us – I do have my doubts. The Auschwitz camp was located in a part of Poland that had been formally annexed by Nazi Germany. It's debatable of course if that annexation was legal, but it happened, and I've used the fact to actually keep files (not photographs, but stamps from there with PD-Germany-§134-KUG, one of the cases in which that template does apply). If these were photos taken by Poles somewhere in that annexed territory (not necessarily just the camp), I'd be less hesitant to apply PD-Poland than in this case, where the known authors were Germans taking the photos in a territory which had been officially declared to be a part of Germany. --Rosenzweig τ 11:18, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

These would have been simple photos in the pre-EU German law I think, maximum 50 years from publication, or 50 years from creation if not published. (At the time of creation, that term was 25, not 50. I can't remember exactly when the extension to 50 happened.) After the EU directive they would be anonymous, 70 years from publication, or creation if not published in that time. If Walters did not identify which photos were his, then I'm not sure that's enough to remove the anonymous state (the author must reveal their identity). Carl Lindberg (talk) 12:43, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Simple" photographs that were "Dokumente der Zeitgeschichte" (documents of contemporary history) were protected for 50 years in 1985; then in 1995 the distinction was dropped and all "simple" photographs were protected for 50 years. And then the courts basically abolished simple photographs (by declaring them to be photographic works with 70 years pma), with only few exceptions. The protocol of what Walter (not Walters) said is here. To me, it reads like Walter claimed these photos of prisoners arriving at the Rampe were taken by Hofmann. --Rosenzweig τ 14:29, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nationality is not a criteria used to determine copyright. It is the place of publication which matters. So unless we would know that the pictures taken in Auschwitz were brought to actual Germany and first published there, and never used at the time in actual Poland, I don't see any reason to doubt that Polish law applies. Yann (talk) 14:50, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why would we assume that they were first published in Poland? Even if they were developed in Poland, where they were handed to a publisher and reproduced is the question, and I can't see that being in wartime Poland.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:53, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What was the purpose of these pictures? Were they not used within the Auschwitz camp itself? IMO that would count as publication. Yann (talk) 20:20, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And Auschwitz, at that time, was in a territory which had been officially annexed by Nazi Germany. See above. --Rosenzweig τ 11:55, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So what? Using that excuse for deleting images of Auschwitz is certainly not right for me. Do we use Russian law for historical images of Baltic states, or for the part of Poland which was annexed by the Soviet Union at the same time? In addition, you seem to change tactics when one doesn't work: first saying nationality matters, and then annexation of territories by Nazi Germany should be taken into account. What next? Yann (talk) 14:46, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not using any "tactics" here, so I don't see how I could be changing them. Also, please refrain from personal attacks. --Rosenzweig τ 19:05, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosenzweig: Call it what you want, but you made arguments not based on copyright law. And you didn't answer my questions. Actually, after reading en:Auschwitz Album and fr:Album d'Auschwitz, I see that you could have made a useful argument. It is said there that these pictures were made to be shown to high-level Nazi officials, or in French, to "be shown to his superiors in Berlin" (montrer à ses supérieurs à Berlin). So one could indeed argue they were never used in Auschwitz, and that first publication occurred in Berlin only. Yann (talk) 22:45, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Moral outrage is also not a criterion of copyright. And what "arguments not based on copyright law"? You mean your remark about nationality? Please take a look at the Berne Convention, Article 5 (4) (c) about the country of origin for unpublished works (as these may well legally be), saying that the country of origin in that cases shall be "the country of the Union of which the author is a national". And yes, in the case of territories which belonged to different states over time (and I'm not talking about a "mere" occupation), we should consider which law to use when a specific period of time is concerned. I've applied German law to works published in the German empire in places which are now a part of Poland or Russia (or Denmark, Belgium, France), but were not in 1910 or 1925. Or take a place like Lemberg/Lwów/Lwiw, which changed hands several times. Between the World Wars, the city belonged to Poland, and if we have a work originating or published there in that time, we should consider using Polish law. --Rosenzweig τ 09:04, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Hoffman never claimed authorship himself -- so I do wonder if under German law they are still technically anonymous, thus PD-anon-70-EU. The English translation of the German law says it moves to 70pma only if the author reveals his or her identity within the period designated. The "leaves no doubt as to his or her identity" part seems to be only for a pseudonym, not purely anonymous. Carl Lindberg (talk) 11:42, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Clindberg: The relevant law for these old works is the old version of the Urheberrechtsgesetz before it was changed in 1995, see [3]. And § 66 about anonymous and pseudonymous works in that version says (2) Die Dauer des Urheberrechts berechnet sich auch im Falle des Absatzes 1 nach den §§ 64 und 65, [...] wenn innerhalb der in Absatz 1 bezeichneten Frist der wahre Name oder der bekannte Deckname des Urhebers nach § 10 Abs. 1 angegeben oder der Urheber auf andere Weise als Schöpfer des Werkes bekannt wird, [...] The important part is the last one: or if the author becomes known as the creator of the work in another way. No need for the author to reveal himself. --Rosenzweig τ 11:55, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In the old version of this law they became PD in 1970 or so (25 years after publication, or if not considered published, then creation). So not sure the older situation there matters -- just what is the law after the EU directive, since that is the only thing which could give it a copyright. Carl Lindberg (talk) 12:37, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, yes, that is a bit of a quandary in this particular case. The rule is (COM:Germany#Anonymous and pseudonymous works) to apply the old version of the law if the new version would shorten the term of protection. For most kinds of works, that is the case, since Germany had introduced terms of 70 years (pma) in 1965. Not for photographs though, because while the 1965 law already defined photographic works, they had the same term of 25 years (not pma) as the "simple" photographs. The 70 years pma for photographic works came in 1985, along with the 50 years for "simple" photos that were "Dokumente der Zeitgeschichte" (which those arguably are). If we take the year 1944 as the start year for the 25 year term, it would have expired in 1969. If we take 1965 as suggested somewhere above (and still within 25 years from creation), the original term would have lasted until 1990, and they would have received the new 70 years pma term introduced in 1985 (because the author had become known, and the change which eliminated that clause from the law happened only in 1995). So it seems to depend on what year is defined as the year of publication. Per [4], the publication history is somewhat convoluted, and I'm not sure which of the events mentioned there (copying, use of some photos in books and trials etc. until there was a book in 1980/1981) count as proper publication per German copyright law. --Rosenzweig τ 13:48, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like they would have been "Dokumente der Zeitgeschichte" even in 1985 -- it would not be until the EU directive went in, which also changed the threshold of originality, that their restored copyright would been longer. The old term would not have depended on the anonymous definition, at all -- before the EU directive they were (at most) 50 years from publication, or creation if not published. Even if not published until 1965, the maximum old term would have expired in 2016. So the only copyright is from the restored copyright in the EU directive. At that point, the question is if it's still anonymous (under the new law) or if 70pma applies. If 70pma, we are in orphan work territory, but with a government-owned copyright. If anonymous, then the publication date matters a lot -- if in 1944, or technically never, they are PD. If 1965, they would still have a copyright. It's on the fringiest edge though. I would care more about a private copyright, rather than government-owned where there are all sorts of additional gray areas and uncertainties. If the government issues a take-down (or DR) with supporting logic, we could analyze it better then. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:23, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A demand by the German government for Auschwitz photos to be taken down is extremely unlikely :-) --Rosenzweig τ 19:15, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosenzweig @Yann @Prosfilaes

Parts of this discussion highlight some more general problems with "country of origin" debates on Wikimedia Commons.

The purpose of the Berne Convention was never to designate a single country of origin in the way that Wikimedia Commons users would like (for finding that photos are in the public domain in the United States and the country of origin). Before Berne, countries' copyright laws often only protected works published in that country and/or published abroad by nationals of that country. The purpose of Berne was to provide for protection beyond what was already provided for in those older laws. The "country of origin" provisions have a fairly limited purpose. Their main function is to determine the minimum term of protection for a work not considered a domestic work under Berne.

Many countries' laws consider creations by that country's nationals, or first published in that country, to be domestic works — like under pre-Berne laws. For instance, the current German law provides for protection of all works by German nationals, persons eligible for restoration of German nationality, and EU/EEA nationals (§120), irrespective of where the works were created or published. Only in other cases do §§121–123 (on copyright protection for foreign nationals, stateless persons and refugees) apply, which include the provision (§121-4) that provides for protection according to the terms of copyright treaties (including the Berne Convention). When dealing with a work by a German national, the terms of the treaty never come into play.

The EU Copyright Term Directive, likewise, says, "Where the country of origin of a work, within the meaning of the Berne Convention, is a third country, and the author of the work is not a Community national, the term of protection granted by the Member States shall expire on the date of expiry of the protection granted in the country of origin of the work, but may not exceed the term laid down in Article 1." Technically speaking, this does not say that a work published by a Community national cannot have a third country as its country of origin, but it does mean that this fact cannot be considered whenever the author is a Community national.

Imagine the case of a German national who moved to Canada, and published a book in Canada before dying in 1971. That book's Canadian copyright has expired, because Canada had a Life+50 copyright term before a non-retroactive extension in 2022. But under German law, the author's German nationality means that the country of origin (and Berne Convention altogether) never enters into consideration, and the copyright will only naturally expire in 2042. Other EU/EEA countries would also have to treat this work by similar rules — that is, treating them like works by their own nationals — even if they would not extend protection to the work if its author were not a Community national. You'll find similar provisions in the copyright laws of many countries. In short, the question of "country of origin" generally only comes up for works that fall outside of the scope of that (historic) domestic protection.

You can easily find works that are treated as domestic under the copyright laws of multiple countries. (This is quite common for simultaneously published works as well.) The text of Berne says that the country of origin, when simultaneous publication occurs, is the country in which the term of protection is the shortest. However, my understanding is that this definition is only used in countries besides those in which (due to simultaneous first publication, nationality or other factors) the work is treated as domestic. This reflects how these provisions have actually been implemented. For instance, if our hypothetical Canadian author's work were published simultaneously in Canada and Germany, §121-1 of German law would seem to indicate that it would be treated the same way as a German national's work (under German law itself, without depending on the national treatment provisions of the treaties), since §121-4 (treaty-based protection) only applies in cases where §121-1 (protection for works first published in Germany, etc.) does not apply. (As you might imagine, the question of country of origin becomes significantly more complicated for recent works, thanks to the internet, but I'll leave that topic for another time.)

As applies to the Auschwitz Album, there are both factual and potential legal questions here. The factual questions are about the exact circumstances of the photographs' creation and first publication (who made them, where were they published, when were they published, was it a lawful publication, etc.). Legal questions could follow based on what the facts are (is this considered an anonymous work, etc.). The relevant questions depend on the jurisdiction in which copyright is being discussed.

Finally, we have an extra-legal question, "Whose rules should be taken into account on Commons?" I say this is extra-legal because Commons has no legal obligation to follow any non-US copyright law; Commons does so voluntarily. Should German or Polish law be taken into consideration? That's totally up to Commons. If these works were created by Germans, then they'd be treated as domestic works under German law, no matter what — though Germany might or might not be the country of origin under other countries' laws, depending on the precise facts. While the Nazi regime considered the area where they were made to be German territory, this annexation was not recognized as valid by many other countries. I don't think that is really relevant in this case, in all likelihood — I assume they were not published until after the war — but we must consider that, in a hypothetical scenario where a work was first published in that territory that Germany claimed to have annexed, during the time it was controlled by Germany, in those rare instances where country of origin is actually taken into consideration by actual law, a country that does not recognize the validity of the annexation would probably not consider it to have been published in Germany.

But, in the end, the country of origin rules were never intended to serve the purpose for which they are used on Commons.

D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 19:35, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So basically: Copyright law (of all nations) was not made for the age of the Internet. I'd even say it is ill-suited for almost anything except published books. --Rosenzweig τ 19:55, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes and no. While copyright law was not made for the Internet, and there are definitely many problems that might arise from its application online, this problem comes from a Commons community rule, not copyright law. Wikimedia Commons has to care about US law, because it's hosted in the United States. However, since Commons could be accessed from anywhere in the world, the community chose to adopt further restrictions based on foreign law. The most conservative policy would be to reject any content that isn't in the public domain everywhere. But this rule would be extremely restrictive, so it doesn't have much support from users. There are other potential general rules, but any general application of non-US copyright to all files would preclude the addition of many items that are in the public domain in the US due to a lack of notice or renewal.

So the Commons community instead decided on the "US plus country of origin" rule. But the country of origin provisions in the Berne Convention were not intended to be used for this purpose, and they often don't matter for determining the copyright status of work X in country Y. Moreover, Commons community decisions regularly fail to conform to the actual Berne rule. Commons users frequently fail to distinguish between a work's country of origin (under Berne, or US law) and other countries (such as the country where it was produced or where the author lived or was a national). In particular, the FoP rules are almost always applied based on country of production, even though that's not the country of origin. Arguably, all files first published on Commons are US works, but putting that aside... if an American visits France, takes pictures of buildings and returns home to the US before uploading the photos to Commons, the photos' country of origin is indisputably the United States — but such photos would uniformly be deleted because France is treated as the country of origin by Commons users.

By contrast, most other free-content sites only focus strictly on the copyright law in the country in which they are based. For instance, the major institutional and university library repositories of digitized content in Germany follow only the German law. Even the English Wikipedia allows for any PD-US content to be added there — and it of course is not legally distinct from Commons at all. There's no legal reason Commons couldn't decide to host any file that is PD in the US — the WMF already does this. Any problems resulting from difficulties in determining the correct country of origin arise only because of the community's rule. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 22:37, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is a totally different approach that can be taken - at the Frankfurt Trial Walter denied taking the photos, though he later admitted to having taken some, but did not clarify which ones. If his statement to the court is interpreted that he did not want to be associated with the photographs that he took, then he effectively put them into the public domain (or was happy for Hoffman to be credited with taking them). The copyright of the photographs that were taken by Hoffman however remained Hoffman's property. We know that Hoffman was born in 1901 and that he was last seen in 1945 when the Russians were advancing on the eastern parts of Germany. Under the German law of presumption of death, Hoffman would be presumed to have died on 31 December 1955, unless his presumed death was under "other disappearances under life-threatening circumstances [in which his death is assumed to have occurred] 1 year from the end of the mortal danger (one year after 8th May 1945) - ie 8th May 1946.

If the latter case were to be accepted by the courts, then any photos taken by Hoffman are out of copyright as 70 years have passed since his death, otherwise they enter the public domain on 1 January 2026. In summary then, we don't know which photos were taken by Walter and which were taken by Hoffman. Walter's performance in the Frankfurt Trial was tantamount to renouncing his claims on the photos that he took and there is a good case that Hoffman's images are already in the public domain. Therefore, either way, the photos are in the public domain. Martinvl (talk) 16:28, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If Hofmann (not Hoffman) was declared dead by a court, there must be a record somewhere. From what I know, such cases were recorded in the death register of the Standesamt I of Berlin (the civil registration office I). The records of that register from 1939 to 1955 are online at Ancestry, I could not find him in there. Maybe he was declared to be dead after 1955. Or maybe he was not. Such a declaration is only made on request (§ 16 of the Verschollenheitsgesetz) by either a state attorney, a legal representative of the missing person, family members or someone else having a legal interest in the matter. --Rosenzweig τ 18:48, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To illustrate: Werner Würbel was declared to have died on December 31, 1945 by a court declaration dated May 21, 1976. That death was recorded in the 1976 volume of the Buch für Todeserklärungen (book of death declarations) by the Standesamt I in Berlin. It was also added to the birth and marriage records of Würbel. I couldn't find those for Hofmann either, probably because he was born in a small town and those records are not yet available in digital form. --Rosenzweig τ 19:24, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The other alternative is that Hoffmann died in the general upheaval of 1945 and was buried as an unidentified person (or his ID papers were lost). I have not seen anything about where he was last seen, though his case might be similar to that of Martin Bormman who, in May 1945, committed suicide by biting a cyanide capsule. Borman was sentenced to death in absentia at Nuremburg (1946) on the assumption that he was still alive. His remains were found in 1972. Of course, Hoffmann might have fled to South America as did Adolf Eichmann, but unlike Eichmann, was never found. Unless there is a lead, no-one will put much effort into finding out what really happened to Hoffmann unless money is involved. Martinvl (talk) 21:27, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Btw, this article by historian Christoph Kreutzmüller credits many photos to either Hofmann or Walter and only a few to Hofmann or Walter. I don't know how he arrived at these conclusions. Christoph Kreutzmüller is the co-author of a thorough book about the album published in Germany in 2019, maybe he and his co-authors, while researching the book, found records allowing them this attribution to the photographers. --Rosenzweig τ 18:54, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That book is apparently not available online, but the en:Federal Agency for Civic Education offered a special edition for a rather low price. I've went ahead and ordered it; should arrive in a few days (Thursday or so). --Rosenzweig τ 19:03, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lets see what the legal pages of the book have to say. As I have said before, Yad Vaschem have stated that the images in the book are in the public domain, though we don't know how they came to that conclusion or whether there are any limitations as to what they mean by "public domain". I kinow that certain publishers are very careful about attributing the correct rights to the creators of images. As an example, in 2020 I received e-mail asking for permission to use an image that I had donated to Commons. The writer's publishers would not accept a Creative Commons licence, so I gave him explicit permission to use the image. One hopes that the authors of the book that you have ordered also give explict information about the copyright status of the photos that they have used. Martinvl (talk) 21:00, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have received the book and will report on what it has to say after I've had some time to look at it. --Rosenzweig τ 12:19, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, I could not find anything about the copyright status of the photos in this book. Which does not really surprise me. Most likely they didn't even consider that there could be copyright problems. The authors are historians, and for important historical photos of that kind, German copyright law offers various exemptions/exceptions (similar to US "fair use") which they can use to publish them. None of these would cover use for all purposes (including commercial/advertising etc. like we want), but reprinting such photos in a scholarly book discussing them in detail would be fine.

They did research the biographies of the photographers. That of Walter is well known (see de:Bernhard Walter (SS-Mitglied)), while Hofmann's is a bit more obscure. I've condensed what they report into a Wikidata entry, see Ernst Hofmann at Wikidata. Born in 1901, he did not die in the war, but got taken as a prisoner of war by Western Allied forces near Hildburghausen, Thuringia (close to where had been living before) on May 20, 1945. He was released from French custody in 1948 in the town of Tuttlingen in the French occupation zone, and that's the last trace they found of him. They go on to speculate (they have no evidence) that he may have lived out his life in West Germany (not East Germany because they think that the Soviets would have imprisoned him again or killed him).

The POW info came from the de:Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt), where records about millions of POWs are kept. They also inquired at his birth town and at the city archive of the city where he had worked before joining the SS, but they had no additional information. Ernst Hofmann was a rather common name in Germany in those days, even today it is not what I would call rare. He could have changed his name as well. That was apparently very easy right after the end of the war, but I can imagine it even in 1948. More information may be found at some point in the future, but right now the story ends in 1948.

They do identify the photographers for several of the photographs, mostly based on the style of photography it seems. I'll try to add that information to the files we have. --Rosenzweig τ 11:45, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion is continued at Commons_talk:Copyright_rules_by_territory/Germany. Martinvl (talk) 15:26, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Or rather below at #Alien copyright works (resumed). --Rosenzweig τ 16:09, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Non policy based closure decision

Hi, I'm not sure where to post this but I'm concerned that the decision to close Commons:Deletion requests/File:Pétain - portrait photographique.jpg is not policy based. Specifically, if you compare the closing rationale to what it actually says in COM:PRP. If the French state is the copyright holder and will probably not enforce its copyright, or alternatively the copyright holder is unknown, that is not a reason to keep the file. "The copyright owner will not bother to sue" is specifically given as an example of arguments to avoid. Buidhe (talk) 08:03, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this closure is based on Commons policies. We need a significant doubt, and this is clearly not the case here. Yann (talk) 08:24, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Usually we do not apply URAA when the copyright holder is a state. But moreover here, even if the current French state is the legal successor of the Vichy state, there is no way that it would enforce in USA a theoretical copyright which has expired in France. It is bit similar to the case discussed above (see #Alien copyright works), but even more unlikely.

More generally, we need to stop paranoid behavior towards copyright, and take into account practical possibilities for a copyright to be really enforced. Yann (talk) 08:24, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The idea to take into account practical possibilities for a copyright to be really enforced is not what Commons copyright policy currently says—indeed it says the opposite. Our servers are based in the US and the copyright policy doesn't allow for the type of exception to URAA that you suggest above. Deletion discussions should be closed according to the current policy and any changes should be made by actually changing the text of the copyright policy, according to community consensus and in agreement with WMF legal. Buidhe (talk) 14:57, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No. You don't understand Commons policies. Asking for deletion of these portraits is a perversion of the form and the spirit of Commons rules. Commons policies exist to protect users. There is no reason to delete a file where users do not need to be protected. In addition, WMF legal expressly says that URAA must be proved, not the other way round. Yann (talk) 15:27, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The URAA applies fully to copyrights owned by states. And you're wrong about the policy, just as @Buidhe says; we don't give a pass just because we don't think a copyright will be enforced.

However, this image is likely PD-US, so it can be kept. This is an official portrait of Pétain. Any potential copyright to this portrait probably would have been administered by the Alien Property Custodian during World War II. The URAA does not restore any copyright in a work which had been subject to Alien Property Custodian Administration and to which the rights in the country of origin belonged to a government or instrumentality thereof. If the would-be rightsholder in 1996 was the French government, then this image is in the public domain in the US. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 19:11, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You need to know quite a bit about French history and politics to understand why the current French state would never claim a copyright once owned by the Vichy state. Yann (talk) 19:18, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That the copyright holder has no interest in enforcement is never a valid argument. That is a black-letter rule in COM:PRP. In fact, the Free French government accepted various administrative acts of the Vichy regime, while rejecting the validity of constitutional and certain other laws.

Les actes de l'autorité de fait, se disant "gouvernement de l'Etat français" dont la nullité n'est pas expressément constatée dans la présente ordonnance ou dans les tableaux annexés (annexes non reproduites), continueront à recevoir provisoirement application.

There was never any express renunciation of Vichy state-held copyrights, and so the succeeding French governments would explicitly claim ownership over them. The relevant fact here is that, since such copyrights, even if not yet expired in France in 1996, would have been government property once administered by the APC, they are not subject to URAA restoration in the United States. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 19:50, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we do in fact treat state actors a bit differently, by necessity. For example, the UK government could claim perpetual copyright on the works of Shakespeare with the stroke of a pen, so we don't require government licenses to be irrevocable, because the government can always revoke the free status of any work (unless released explicitly by the copyright holder under a free license, but we don't require everything to be freely licensed, cf. all the public domain works we accept). So for example, we accept a promise by the UK government not to enforce expired Crown copyrights worldwide as valid. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:08, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is, I think, mixing up two things. Commons has to follow US copyright law. It doesn't have to follow foreign copyright law, legally, although it chooses to do so in the vast majority of cases, on top of US law.

The perpetual-copyright example is essentially just asking, "If a rogue foreign government declared works to be in copyright perpetually, should Commons voluntarily follow this restriction?" I think the right answer is "no." And if a rogue state did that, it wouldn't result in the US copyright term being extended. (For the record, the UK is such a rogue state; it has done exactly this for the King James Bible and Peter Pan! However, both of those works are in the public domain in the US, and we, in practice, don't choose to follow UK restrictions that go beyond life+70 for those two specific works.)

The question here is about when a foreign government owns a valid US copyright (which isn't the case in this instance, but is the case in some others). The UK crown copyrights are only expired in the US because they made a statement disclaiming them upon their expiry in the UK. You can't take back a public domain dedication under US law. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 20:40, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

D. Benjamin Miller Thanks for the info. I know about APC and I generally assume it applies when we're dealing with images uploaded via NARA or other US federal government sources, but this is a Gallica image. How did you come to the conclusion that the APC administered this image? Buidhe (talk) 19:58, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

APC administration has nothing to do with whether a copy of the image was digitized on Gallica, NARA or elsewhere. It instead has to do with the history of the ownership of rights to the image during the relevant period (World War II).

Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the administration (under US law) of property (including any copyright or potential claim to copyright) of an enemy government vested automatically in the APC under Section 5(b). See discussion of this section in US law as of 1943 by John Foster Dulles.

While the United States did not declare war on France, courts held that the (Vichy) government of France was an enemy alien under the Trading with the Enemy Act. See Government of France v. Isbrandtsen-Moller Co. (1943). Since the Vichy government was an enemy for the purposes of the Trading with the Enemy Act, the right to administer any copyrights it owned would be vested automatically in the APC.

D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 20:52, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The URAA exception is for any work in which the copyright was ever owned or administered by the Alien Property Custodian and in which the restored copyright would be owned by a government or instrumentality thereof. Technically, the U.S. copyright of any author from an enemy nation was seized and conceptually owned by the US, and thus the Alien Property Custodian. By that wording, it does not necessarily require that a physical copy of a work pass through the APC (though that would make things obvious, if it was). There is some other info (and links) as part of the #Alien copyright works discussion above. There is other gray area too, such as if the French government would give their wartime extensions to such works or not, and if not then it was PD by the URAA date (since their anonymous terms were still 50 years until April 1, 1997). But the Alien Property exception seems the easiest to rely on. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:59, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You're correct that applying URAA to works from a state, especially in the case of the Vichy regime, raises complex issues. Even if the current French government is the legal successor, enforcing a theoretical copyright in the U.S. for works whose copyright has expired in France seems highly unlikely. We should indeed move away from overly cautious attitudes towards copyright and focus on the practicalities of enforcement. After all, just as people share funny birthday memes without concern for copyright, we should recognize when works are safely in the public domain. Thomson70 (talk) 11:13, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, thanks. I'd like to repeat that our policies includes that there should be significant doubt for deletion, and that in the case of URAA, it should be proved that URAA applies, not the other way round. Yann (talk) 17:35, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Yann: Do you have a link to this "significant doubt" standard? Emiya1980 (talk) 22:28, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Emiya1980: Commons:Project scope/Precautionary principle. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 05:48, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: ::@The ed17, Freedom4U, and Hydrangeans: Seeing as how it was these editors' whose votes were unilaterally overruled, I think it's fair they be notified about this discussion.Emiya1980 (talk) 17:19, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the notification, Emiya1980. Let me say that I'm very troubled. Even after reading the above discussion, I think it remains the case that we do not have confidence that the image is in the public domain. That the image was 'probably' administered under the Alien Property Custodian doesn't inspire my confidence. Wikimedia Commons exists to accessibly host materials; not to function as a copyright laundering engine. I have no doubts about the good faith of those who advocate inclusion and overruled my policy-based reason for supporting deletion, but I am not persuaded that we are not, in practice, inappropriately disregarding copyright. That other Internet users breach copyrights by sharing funny birthday memes is not a reason for us to be derelict in our respect for copyrights. Hydrangeans (talk) 18:34, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

+1, thanks for the ping. Yes, the precautionary principle requires significant doubt—but Yann's discussion closure was not primarily based on any lack of doubt. Their argument was actually along the lines of 'the copyright owner won't sue us', and that's explicitly disallowed in the bullet points right below our precautionary principle.

I very much understand Yann being frustrated when a policy seems "utterly absurd" (their quoted words from below). I've been there myself. The solution is not to ignore them, but to propose changes to those policies. In that spirit, I look forward to seeing Yann's specific proposal on the PRP talk page or elsewhere, and ask that they ping me when they do so. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 05:48, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. It is agreed upon that the work is legally protected in the United States. The only doubt raised by the closer is whether the copyright holder would exercise their rights under US law, which, as far as I know, is not a good reason to keep the copyrighted work. Freedom4U (talk) 15:18, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

~~Seeing as how there is not a consensus in favor of either position, is it possible to open an Rfc on this topic in Wikimedia Commons? 21:26, 22 September 2024 (UTC)Emiya1980 (talk)~~

I see there is a lot of discussion about this image automatically being in the public domain on account of being administered by the APC after World War II. Is there documentation of this or are we simply making an assumption that is the case? Emiya1980 (talk) 04:04, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, as part of the #Alien copyright works discussion recently, and I'm sure other places. The U.S. seized all copyrights of enemy states (this of course only applied within the U.S. itself). The UK did something similar in their country. Vichy France was later declared an enemy state. The Alien Property Custodian was the U.S. government branch who dealt with seized copyrights. It probably wasn't actually administered by them, but it was at least conceptually owned, which also qualifies (the law says owned or administered so either one would be enough. The copyright today would be owned by a government, so it should qualify for URAA exception. As with anything regarding copyright, there can always be gray areas -- unless we have specific rulings from courts, the best we can do is try to interpret the language of the law. The practical goal of that URAA exception was to not allow suppression of Holocaust and other Nazi evidence through copyright games, and this is in that area, and qualifies per the wording. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:50, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is there documentation of this or are we simply making an assumption that is the case?: No documentation has been provided; the claim is merely being asserted without evidence. Hydrangeans (talk) 15:10, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

On account of the lack of concrete evidence that this work was in fact administered by the APC, I think the deletion discussion should be re-opened so an editorial consensus can determine whether or not the image should be kept. That's what I would prefer anyhow. Emiya1980 (talk) 00:39, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Standard of doubt

Thanks Carl and Benjamin for your messages. So my initial argument is now moot. But I maintain, as well as for the "#Alien copyright works" thread above, that we should not use the same standard of doubt as for recent works. Most of the pre-World War II pictures are in the public domain, mostly because the authors are unknown, and will always be. Any recent work is by default under a copyright (except a few exception). But public domain is the default for these old works, except for some where is the author is known. I find utterly absurd to use the same criteria to evaluate the copyright of these files as we do for recent files copied from the Internet. Yann (talk) 20:37, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The standard is significant doubt. I do wish we'd treat government works a little differently, but going by strict rules, they aren't different than private copyrights. When it comes to the URAA though, it does seems as though the burden of proof is flipped around a little bit -- whoever is claiming it was restored needs to show that. Works PD in the country of origin but there is a lot of doubt on the URAA either way may not be the types of files to delete. Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:36, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Closure of Pétain Deletion Discussion

Was the closure of the deletion discussion concerning the current lede image for Philippe Pétain proper under Commons policy? Emiya1980 (talk) 21:35, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This has been already discussed extensively above. Did you read the thread before asking again the same question??? Yann (talk) 21:38, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

~~A consensus has not been obtained in favor of either position. Therefore, more input from other editors is needed.~~ Emiya1980 (talk) 21:43, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Upon further review of the aforementioned discussion and recent comments posted to this thread, it appears that there is sufficient consensus to keep the image. Assuming a significant number of editors do not post arguments opposing said consensus within a few days, I will not oppose its closing. 04:33, 23 September 2024 (UTC)Emiya1980 (talk)

@Buidhe, Benjamin Miller, King of Hearts, Carl Lindberg, Thomson70, The ed17, Hydrangeans, and Freedom4U: In light of your participation in the prior discussion regarding this matter, you are invited to participate in this Rfc. Should you feel so inclined, please share your thoughts below. Emiya1980 (talk) 22:16, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@D. Benjamin Miller and Clindberg: See above. Emiya1980 (talk) 22:17, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The licenses currently on the file look correct, if not the closure reason. Would seem to be PD-anon-70 in France, and subject to the Alien Property exception to avoid the URAA in the US, if not other reasons. This was discussed at length in #Non policy based closure decision above. Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:15, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are you seeking some sort of action about Yann or the deletion of the photo in question, Emiya1980? Like, the closure was manifestly wrong. We can be clear about that because it without a shred of doubt contradicted the precautionary principle. It might be smart for Yann to be careful about making those sorts of administrative closures in the future. All that said, the discussion on this page made clear that the photo is allowable on Commons for other reasons that Yann did not consider in their close (and the deletion discussion did not discuss). Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 03:08, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing as how fair arguments have been made for and against keeping the image, I think the deletion discussion should be re-opened so editors can properly vote on the matter. Emiya1980 (talk) 03:44, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop this, it is a waste of time. I updated the closure rationale with the conclusion of the above discussion. Yann (talk) 08:16, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Emiya1980: Just for reference, VPC isn't really right noticeboard to discuss any concerns you might have about a DR close; it's better to discuss such things at COM:DRV instead. -- Marchjuly (talk) 09:15, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

DRs are not votes. They are places for giving arguments, and the admin will pick the best argument. The photo in question is PD in the country of origin, it certainly seems. After that you are getting into theoretical arguments on the U.S. copyright, which has all sorts of gray areas in this case -- did Vichy works get the wartime extensions, did government works get them (if either is no it expired before the URAA date), the APC exception, was it simultaneously (within 30 days) published in the U.S. as a publicity photo, and so on. Commons policy sort of reverses the evidence requirements for URAA deletions -- you pretty much have to demonstrate it was restored by the URAA to delete it, not just raise the possibility. This is probably not a photo worth wasting too much time over. When it comes to government-owned works, you get into all sorts of other complications and theoretical possibilities which will never be answered by a court, so these are often very theoretical and fringe deletions. It's a much better argument if it's still under copyright in the country of origin. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:50, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's true that discussions on Wikimedia are not votes but it's also true that closures are not super votes. A supermajority of participants favored deletion and provided policy-based reasons to favor deletion. The closer merely uniliaterally decided that the participants' doubts about the image entering the public domain weren't significant enough under the precautionary principle even though the discussants (myself included) explained why we considered our doubts significant enough. And I continue to have significant doubt that the image is in the public domain, and can't help but find all such talk of 'gray areas' as too much like a sleight of hand to get away from the core issue: that the image's public domain status hasn't been demonstrated, merely supposed and assumed and theorized. Hydrangeans (talk) 15:16, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Uploading a map copyrighted by government institutions while requesting the copyright permission

Hi, I'm an editor of en:Chernobyl disaster where I'd like to include a map from government publication (https://atom.org.ua/wp-content/uploads/plate01.PDF). I'm already in email conversation with publications.europa.eu with positive development (but not explicit enough wording of permission yet), I will have to request the permission from other institutions as well.

I'm doing this kind of rodeo for the first time and about 6 pages in regarding how to request permissions, I'm feeling a little lost and would appreciate advice.

Should I upload this before asking for permission? One how-to article suggests this, while sticking a template to it, but the upload wizard won't let me get through w/o checking "I confirm that this work does not include material restricted by copyright, such as logos, posters, cover art, etc." - which isn't true.
I would strongly prefer to keep the permission requests from these institutions under "my control" so that I know when to follow up, escalate etc., rather than having them fill in the interactive VRT generator on their own, or send emails to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org on their own.

My current plan is:

Request permission for "Atlas of caesium deposition on Europe after the Chernobyl accident, page 48: (European map of caesium-137 deposition Plate 1), also available on the internet at various locations e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Cesium-137-deposition-across-Europe-as-a-result-of-the-Chernobyl-accident-Reprinted-from_fig19_326972896 ." (I want to be a bit careful where do I reference examples from when communicating e.g. with the Russian government.)
Upload the image to commons only after I obtain the permission from all institutions.
Meanwhile, send a followup email to my email thread with the Publications Office of the European Union worded like this:

Could I please ask you to kindly clarify your statement "You have the permission to reuse the map from the European Union’s part provided the source is acknowledged"? To properly release it for use on Wikipedia, it needs to be expressly stated that anyone has such permission, and to confirm that this may include even commercial use. (I also confirm your condition to acknowledge the source, it will be acknowledged and the condition included in the licencing statement.)

If this is what you meant, the best way to express this is for European Union to state that it consents for this map to be hereby released (provided other copyright holders consent as well) under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license as explained here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode

I'm Cc'ing permissions-commons@wikimedia.org which I would kindly ask you to Cc in your reply as well as a receipt on the licencing statement for the Wikipedia Commons repository of images.

Am I doing this right? I'll appreciate any advice! Thank you. Pasky (talk) 17:48, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Pasky: The permission does not absolutely need to use a CC license, but it needs to state that derivative works are permitted. We can use {{Attribution only license}} in lieu of a more formal, contract-like license. - Jmabel ! talk 21:05, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I will then follow my plan except I will add an emphasis on permitting the derivative works, and ease on the CC licencing suggestion. Pasky (talk) 16:58, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. 廣九直通車 (talk) 03:11, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Youtube CC-BY extend to the thumbnail as well?

Does anyone have any clarity on whether or not the free license applied to a Youtube video also extends to that video's Youtube thumbnail image? Or does the free license only specifically apply to the content included in the video itself? RachelTensions (talk) 12:08, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@RachelTensions: Thumbnail is normally a still from the video. Is it not?

Of course, if the thumbnail is third-party work incorporated in the video, then the free license of the video is irrelevant to reusing the third-party work. - Jmabel ! talk 15:22, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jmabel The thumbnail in this case appears to be a photo that was taken at the same event but not specifically a still from the video footage itself. RachelTensions (talk) 00:53, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hard to know their intent, then. You are probably legally OK (thumbnail is effectively part of what they posted & released) but it would be polite to ask them, if possible. Thumbnail could be a photo taken by someone else. - Jmabel ! talk 08:32, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Our unadorned thumbnails of videos are from exactly the middle frame of each video. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 18:12, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As a note, YouTube allows verified content creators to use custom thumbnails that aren't derived from the video. Ixfd64 (talk) 03:13, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ixfd64: Does Commons allow that? If so, how is it specified? — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 03:41, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have no clue. Ixfd64 (talk) 15:19, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

President Of Ukraine on Flickr

The description https://www.flickr.com/people/president_of_ukraine/ says no commercial usage, yet most, if not all, photos as tagged as CC0 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/president_of_ukraine/54015989544/. Could someone tell me what is the actual license for a given photo from that account? -- DaxServer (talk) 14:13, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@DaxServer: The confusion here is between two different meanings of "commercial". On Commons, when we say "commercial" use must be allowed, we mean you can (for example) use the image in a book or newspaper that is for sale, or put it on a postcard, etc. The context on that site is "used for promotional purposes including on merchandise, or for commercial use including business materials." That is more like a personality rights restriction. Similarly, U.S. government photos of the President of the United States are in the public domain, but you cannot use them in an advertisement, or to imply endorsement. - Jmabel ! talk 15:26, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Jmabel for the explanation, CC0 it is with {{Personality rights}} -- DaxServer (talk) 16:15, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. 廣九直通車 (talk) 03:12, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Burning the Burning Man

I was going around Burning Man Festival and subcats, which seems to be an huge nest of copyvios by the sole fact that in the US there is no FOP for artworks, when I found out that adding to that, the event has a CC-NC license for every photo taken there that all participants have to sign, which is not compatible with Commons: "The only Creative Commons license Burning Man approves for personal use licensing is Creative Commons BY NC SA license, Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/); however, only images that do _not_ contain human nudity may be licensed in this fashion." . Images containing nudity, of which there are some in Commons, can't even be licensed at all. Can somebody familiar with this festival confirm if it is still the case, and, if so, if the hundreds of images from that festival can/should be deleted straightaway as copyvios, instead of nominated for deletion, reducing the backlog? Darwin ^Ahoy! 15:21, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We, and anyone reusing images, are not bound by BM's Ts&Cs. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:33, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Andy, in this case it may be more complicated than that. As I understand it, everyone attending gives consent that copyrights of any photographs created there are co-owned by Burning Man. I'm not sure where the limits stand on how enforceable that is, but it's different from photographing a PD work in a museum that says "no photos allowed." - Jmabel ! talk 15:37, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's not stated in the OP. Do you have a source for it? Do you have evidence that every photographer at BM has a contractual relationship with the organisers? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:41, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Pigsonthewing It's in the link above. There is a copy of the contract participants sign with the Festival, as of 2011, granting co-ownership of the copyright of all imagery produced at the event to the festival organization, with the stated intention of legally persecuting any commercial use they may see as "unchecked commercialization or commodification" of the festival. I've not found any indication that it has changed since then. Darwin ^Ahoy! 15:56, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is it? Or is it a copy of the contract ticket buyers sign with the Festival? Again: Do you have evidence that every photographer at BM has a contractual relationship with the organisers? And what about the many pics we have, that were taken at BM before 2011? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:38, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That contract is a contract that ticket buyers sign. There are photographers who are not ticket buyers; BM outlines the terms for such photographers. It seems highly unlikely that BM would allow free licensing under a license acceptable to Wikimedia Commons for the credentialed professional photographers, given their commitment to preventing this kind of photography from being done by anyone. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 02:42, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So there are at least seven types of people who might take photographs at BM:

People who buy tickets and enter into a contract that way
Accredited official photographers who are subject to some agreement, whose terms we do not know
People who enter on a ticket paid for by someone else
BM staff, whose terms of employment we do not know (and who might take pics in their down time)
Staff of trade stands, contractors etc., ditto
People who enter illegitimately with no ticket
People who take pics from outside the fence

And we think that one of these groups might be subject to the above terms, which may or may not have legal standing, since 2011. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:56, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The copyright assignment and license-restriction agreement is certainly in compliance with US law (see discussion below). The assignment of rights to a co-owner of copyright can prevent, where agreed upon through the terms, a co-owner from licensing the work.

We know that people in group (1) are subject to the terms. (If you are trying to apply radical skepticism here, that would be an inversion of COM:PRP, but we actually do know this about as certainly as we can know anything.)
People in group (2) are not subject to the same agreement, but they are certainly subject to some agreement. As you say, we don't know the exact terms. However, I would say that, considering what we do know about the kinds of values that BM states they have as an organization (and their publicly stated desire to enforce those values, including no free licensing for commercial use, on credentialed media), we should assume that the terms are likely restrictive in this respect (again, COM:PRP).
(3) is not a distinct group from (1) for our purposes. A person who enters the event using a ticket, even if that ticket was paid for by someone else, becomes a party to the agreement in the course of entering using that ticket.
People in group (4) are not subject to the terms that attendees are. But assignment of copyrights is often part of employment contracts.
There are no vendors or trade stands at Burning Man.
Maybe theoretically people in group (6) wouldn't be bound, but it's reportedly very hard to sneak in.
People in group (7) are not bound by the agreement. But many photos, if not all, are self-evidently taken from inside the fence.

Overall, we know that the vast majority of people present at Burning Man are subject to terms we know prevent them from licensing a photo freely. We also know that the other people who might be present at BM and take photos are also subject to some sort of terms, and we have good reason to believe these terms are restrictive.

We can ignore, for copyright purposes, the vast majority of museum photography restrictions, because museum tickets virtually never contain these (I would say draconian) copyright assignment clauses. That isn't the case here.

Applying COM:PRP, we should delete a file if there is significant doubt that it is in the public domain or released under a free license. The vast majority of photos taken at BM were taken by people in group (1), and we know that free licenses given by those people aren't valid, due to the restrictions agreed to in the assignment of rights. Under COM:PRP, we should assume that photos were taken by members of this group unless shown not to be.

People in the other groups that definitely exist, though in small numbers (2, 4) are bound by some agreement, and we should assume, from the incomplete information that we know, that free licensing wouldn't be allow by their agreement either. Group (5) doesn't exist, and group (6) probably doesn't exist in significant number at all. (We certainly can't start assuming that people managed to sneak in somewhere to avoid being bound by a copyright assignment agreement; we can't assume unlikely facts in our favor.)

I would agree that photos taken by people in group (7) would be fine, but the event area is extremely large, and most, if not all, photos we have were self-evidently taken within the area.

D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 16:29, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We don't know that the terms are legally binding on group 1, group 3, or any other. We don't know whether they applied in any other year than 2011. For group four I referred to people "who might take pics in their down time", so copyright not transferred by employment contract. In group 5 I included "contractors, etc." - there will be subcontractors, who empty the toilets, provide medical cover, or whatever. My "ditto" for that group refers to the "down time" issue. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:43, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You're correct that we're not bound by that contract, but the situation is more complex. The festival includes numerous sculptures and other works of art, and FOP does not apply for that in the US. This effectively reverses the burden of proof. For pictures that do not feature any artwork (e.g., close-ups of someone dancing), we are not required to actively investigate the T&Cs to determine if they are acceptable. However, nearly all photographs in those categories do feature some form of artwork. In this context, we do not assume the photos are acceptable; on the contrary, we assume they are not. We examine the T&Cs looking for a solution, rather than a problem. Unfortunately, such a solution is not present. That's what I'm reading from this. Rkieferbaum (talk) 20:16, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is orthogonal to the issue under discussion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:56, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is not orthogonal at all. If you'd like, let's just throw away those T&C. What do we have? Let me quote from COM:CB: "Beware of concert photos showing an artistic stage design: such photos are not ok, as they may infringe the stage designer's copyright. Close-ups of performing artists should be fine, though. On the other hand, you should be aware that uploading concert photographs here may infringe terms which you agreed to when purchasing the ticket or as a condition of entry." What you're saying is we're not responsible for the uploader's disregard for this last bit. What I'm saying is that the initial bit ("artistic stage design") is enough for us to not even look at the last bit (even though I still think we should when it's brought up). This is exactly what we're discussing here, so... Rkieferbaum (talk) 17:19, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My entire original comment was "We, and anyone reusing images, are not bound by BM's Ts&Cs." This applies whether or not the images are ineligible for some other reason, whether that is FoP or anything else. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:02, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@DarwIn: basically correct, as I remarked at Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Burning Man 2016. For artworks photographed by anyone other than the artist who made the artwork, I would imagine there is no question about it. For other things: I'm not sure if their claim of co-ownership of copyright via their terms of use would be enforceable for (e.g.) someone's selfie, or for someone's photo of their own individual creation. The latter seems particularly problematic: if a single individual makes a sculpture, takes it to Burning Man, and photographs it on the Playa, I can hardly see a court upholding Burning Man's claim to share copyright. Similarly, if someone were to take a picture inside their own tent or pavilion, with nothing on display that was not basically their own stuff. - Jmabel ! talk 15:34, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jmabel Thanks for the insight. From the document participants seem to sign to be there, apparently any image which can be easily identified with the festival is CC-NC co-owned by the festival, and they ostensively state their intention of persecuting commercial uses of those on court to protect the festival from "unchecked commercialization or commodification", so those should probably be nominated for deletion at some point too. What about the nudity photos? Is that the kind of T&C that can be ignored? Darwin ^Ahoy! 15:54, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This would only apply to the subset of photographers bound by such a contract, if indeed such a contract clause is legally valid. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:38, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, any specific contract would only apply to parties to that contract. But freedom of contract is strong in the United States, and parties to a contract can assign ownership or part-ownership of copyrights, as well as limit the rights of individual parties with respect to those copyrights (see below). All the ticket buyers at BM sign a contract which requires them to give up their right to release the image under a free license (because BM is specifically opposed to this). This cause is valid.

I strongly suspect any professional media photographer at BM would be be somehow prohibited from releasing an image under a free license under the terms of the contracts BM makes with professional media photographers. However, we don't have copies of those contracts. We surely shouldn't assume that anyone at BM, which uses these onerous (though totally valid) contracts specifically to stop this sort of open licensing, would be able to license unilaterally, though. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 02:48, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Joint ownership of the copyright doesn't seem to complicate the issue. A joint owner of a work can unilaterally grant non-exclusive licenses for use of the work. (See Views of the United States Copyright Office Concerning PRO Licensing of Jointly Owned Works, page 8.) So a CC-BY-SA license granted by the photographer is perfectly valid. Whether that photographer will have some liability to Burning Man for granting that license in violation of a contract is a matter for the photographer to worry about. Toohool (talk) 22:04, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, this is wrong. A joint owner can generally unilaterally grant non-exclusive licenses. But this is not unlimited. In particular, as mentioned in the document you linked, the joint owners are "free to alter this statutory allocation of rights and liabilities by contract." That is exactly what the Burning Man ticket contract does. This contract does alter the allocation of rights and prohibits the photographer from licensing the photo unilaterally. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 02:39, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fair point, though there is some nuance as to how those principles might apply here. But, more to the point, courts have repeatedly rejected arrangements like the Burning Man contract that purportedly assign copyright ownership but only for the purpose of enforcement, without assigning any of the exclusive rights that copyright comprises, such as the right to make and distribute copies. For example, Righthaven LLC v. Hoehn ("The assignment of the bare right to sue for infringement, without the transfer of an associated exclusive right, is impermissible under the Copyright Act and does not confer standing to sue."), John Wiley Sons Inc. v. DRK Photo ("The Act does not permit a plaintiff assignee to bring a claim for infringement without also having or having had a legal or beneficial ownership in some exclusive right under part of the allegedly infringed copyright."), Minden Pictures, Inc. v. Pearson Educ., Inc. ("Under Section 501(b) of the 1976 Copyright Act, only the legal or beneficial owner of one of the six enumerated “exclusive” rights is authorized to sue for infringement of copyright."). This scheme wouldn't hold up in court. Toohool (talk) 03:08, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A friend of mine who has at times been on the Burning Man staff says that if we want details, start with https://burningman.org/about/about-us/press-media/, which includes contact information as well. - Jmabel ! talk 05:45, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Zimbabwe dollar (ZWL) copyright question

Should we update the copyright warning to reflect that Zimbabwe demonetized more banknotes in April of 2024? They replaced the ZWL Zimdollar with the ZWG Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG). So, since all ZWL bills have been demonetized, wouldn’t that make all ZWL banknotes PD? Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 17:40, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The page in question is Category:Banknotes of Zimbabwe. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 17:43, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The relavant law here is the Zimbabwe Copyright Act, section 50. Which says that “the term of such copyright shall be the period from the date on which such bank notes or coin are issued until such bank notes or coin are demonetized in terms of the said Act.”; the link to this is http://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/zw/zw001en.pdf Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 17:55, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Further information: the ZiG was first announced on April 5, 2024; on that day, the Zimdollar started to be withdrawn from circulation; and from the ZiG’s introduction, people were given 21 days to convert their ZWL bills to ZiG. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 18:00, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The only issue with the new banknotes might be their US copyright, whose term may last the full length of COM:Hirtle regardless of local copyright terms. Felix QW (talk) 20:23, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If that is the case; then why does it say 2019 on the current warning? Surely U.S. copyright law hasn’t changed that much in the last 5 years. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 20:36, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You are absolutely right. Maybe someone with a deeper understanding of the interaction between special copyright terms such as this one and American copyright law can weigh in, too. See for instance this discussion on enwiki, which seems to have operated under the assumption that Zimbabwean copyright must have expired before 1996 for the banknotes to be in the public domain in the US. Felix QW (talk) 21:11, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The thing I think of. And this is just an opinion; I’m no expert. But usually when a government entity declares a copyright to be expired (on their stuff); it *usually* applies worldwide. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 21:21, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cutoff for threshold of originality for "simple geometric shapes or text"

What is the cutoff to determine the threshold of originality for "simple geometric shapes or text"? For instance, File:Savage Logo (Aespa).png and File:Aespa_-_Girls_Logo.png are technically just an image of a word but they definitely fall away from the concept of "simple" and are more of a stylized art piece than "simple geometric shapes or text".

Basically, how un-simple does text have to meet the threshold of originality? The origin country of these images is South Korea if it matters. RachelTensions (talk) 01:12, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment FWIW it is different for each country, and all we can usually do is look at what courts have decided in each country and then use our collective judgement. - Jmabel ! talk 05:48, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Autistic Pride Day logo: threshold of originality? (simple geometry?)

Does the stylized infinity logo (on its own WITHOUT the "Autistic Pride Day" text) featured on this page meet threshold for originality? https://autisticprideday.org/about-us/what-is-autistic-pride/

The creators are Australian and Commons:Threshold_of_originality#Australia has no guidance. Their website indicates they are claiming copyright but also uses a lot of language like "Together, these colors and symbols create a powerful message of identity, pride, and resistance against harmful messages and stigma, serving as a beacon of hope and connection for those on the autism spectrum" like it's supposed to be a community symbol. I know an infinity symbol on its own won't meet threshold for originality but don't have a sense of whether three concentric infinity symbols would qualify. Thanks! Intervex (talk) 01:57, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment if that is copyrightable, then so is the Woolmark logo, and then this probably infringes the Woolmark logo. I'm guessing neither is copyrightable (though the latter certainly is trademarked). - Jmabel ! talk 05:53, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

File:George Bernard Shaw ceramic head by Muriel Lanchester.jpg

Could someone take a look at File:George Bernard Shaw ceramic head by Muriel Lanchester.jpg and assess it's licensing? I believe the uploader's claim of "own work" is referring to the photo and not the ceramic head itself; so, perhaps the {{cc-by-sa-4.0}} is fine for the photo; however, I'm not sure whether the ceramic head itself would fall under COM:FOP UK because it might be more of a museum piece than a permently installed sculpture. Given that en:Muriel Lanchester died in 1992, this work could still be protected by copyright per COM:UK until January 1, 2063 (1992 + 70 p.m.a + 1 year). If it is, then it would seem that the COM:CONSENT of the work's copyright holder (Lanchester's heirs?) would be needed for Commons to host this file. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:44, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello @Marchjuly this is in the Malvern Museum (not sure why the link is red - there is an article). I contacted them and they took the photo. What do I need to do to make the photo acceptable please? BJCHK (talk) 05:48, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@BJCHK: presumably you cannot. You are unlikely to get a license from Lanchester's heirs.

Further, may I ask: who issued the claimed {{cc-by-sa-4.0}} license? And how could you possibly describe this as "own work" if the museum took the photo and Lanchester made the sculpture? - Jmabel ! talk 05:56, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have clearly got this all wrong - I am very sorry to have caused so much upset. How do I go about deleting things I have uploaded please? I simply can't take anymore of this ganging up. Please let me know how I delete everything - or point me in the direction I should look for answers - and i will be out of your hair. BJCHK (talk) 06:04, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@BJCHK: Anything you have uploaded in the last seven days you can mark with {{SD|G7}} and it will almost certainly be deleted.

Anything older you can nominate for deletion on some basis, just like anyone else's file. If you now believe you violated someone's copyright, just say so as your reason to propose deletion and (assuming you are correct) it will be deleted.

However, if it is legitimately a photo you took, and it is not derivative of copyrighted work, and it's been here over seven days, and you granted a legitimate CC license, it will not be deleted. As it says on the upload form, those are irrevocable licenses, and we only allow a week's grace period for someone to change their mind.

And, please, no one is "ganging up" on you. You uploaded things you do not own, claimed them as your own work, and offered to grant a license to use them. This is as if you told someone they could stay for a week at your neighbor's apartment. It's not surprising that more than one person would say, "you can't do that."

You remain welcome to participate in the project, but if you wish to then you need to understand at least the basics of the concepts of {{Public domain}} and free licenses. - Jmabel ! talk 08:40, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

File:Tramp puppet.jpg

This appears to be a photo of one of the marionettes created for the en:Lanchester Marionettes. Similar to the above, I believe the uploader BJCHK's claim of "own work" most likely only applies to the photo itself; however, it's the copyright status of the marionette that needs to be sorted out. Since the theatre was found in 1937, it seems reasonable to assume this marionette was created roughly around that time. It's not clear whether "puppets" of this nature are considered to be COM:TOYS or theatre props, but in either case it seems that the UK's standard copyright of "life + 70 p.m.a" would apply. The creators of the marionette are given as en:Muriel Lanchester and en:Waldo Lanchester. Since Waldo died in 1978 and Muriel died in 1992, the marionette might be eligible for copyright protection at least until January 1, 2049 and maybe possibly even until January 1, 2063. Perhaps some others can help sort this out? -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:00, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Marchjuly please let me know how I can delete everything I have uploaded. I tried my best but clearly got it wrong. BJCHK (talk) 06:06, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@BJCHK: You don't need to delete everything you uploaded. I've actually been trying to fix as many of your uploads as I can. I've done a few already like File:Portrait of Mrs Claud Mullins.png, but there are some that unfortunately might not be able to be fixed. Most of your photos of 3D works of art like File:William Cobbett (1763-1835) bust.jpg and File:Muntjac Deer sculpture by Graeme Mitcheson.jpg only needed some minor tweeking because UK copyright law allows such permenantly installed publicly displayed works to be freely photographed per the UK's freedom of panorama rules (COM:FOP UK). The only problem would be if you didn't take those photos yourself because then you wouldn't be the copyright holder of the photo. Assuming you did take those photos, all you really need to do would be to go to each file's page and and more information about the photographed work to the file's description (i.e. the who, what, when, where).

Some of your other uploads like File:Bauhinia blakeana, watercolour painting by Mark Isaac-Williams.jpg are a bit harder to sort out because UK copyright law doesn't extend freedom of panorama to such works. The "Mrs Claud Mullins" painting wasn't an issue because that painting had already entered into the public domain because its painter en:Philip Alexius de Laszlo died in 1937, and UK copyright law only protects such works for 70 years after the artist dies; the "Bauhinia blaeana" painting, on the other hand, is still protected because its creator en:Mark Isaac-Williams is alive. So, most likely the only way for Commons to keep that would be for him to agree to give his COM:CONSENT. Since artists make their livings off their artwork, many are reluctant to do so because Commons only accepts licensing that place very few restrictions of general reuse, and no restrictions of commercial or derivative reuse.

The other photos you uploaded of people like File:Peter Phillips and Steve Smith, co-founders of Gimell Records.jpg need to have their licenses more formally verified because you seem to be saying you didn't take them yourself. Even if they were sent to you by the subjects of the photo and the subjects told you it was OK to use them, Commons still needs a way to formally verify their licensing because (1) the subjects of photos aren't necessarily the copyright holders of such photos, and (2) Commons wants to make sure that the content it host is a free as possible so that anyone anywhere in the world can reuse it at pretty much anytime for any purpose. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:39, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

60s-70s pin badges from 7-Eleven

Back in the 60s-70s, the American shop chain 7-Eleven released a set of pin badges, an example of which is pictured here. Say I took a picture of one of these pins and wanted to upload it to Commons - would that be allowed under copyright? Does it fall under threshold of originality? (Side note, I swear there used to be a section on pin badges at COM:CSM, but looks like it's gone now...) Suntooooth (talk) 18:47, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

File:20240524 Trump groundwork for election denial.svg

I am asking for opinions on this file as it's currently being used on quite a few pages across Wikis, and there's a discussion to potentially add it (or a similar image) to w:Donald Trump. My main concern is over the copyright status of the original - because it's clear that this would be a derivative work if the original is copyrightable in the first place. The image was based on this New York Times article. Rather than this being simple numerical data being presented (for which the underlying data would not be copyrightable), I think that the underlying data may meet the Commons:Threshold of originality § Charts. I've quoted the NYT's note on their methodology below for discussion/reference:

Notes: The Times’s analysis counted specific references to “election interference,” “rigging,” “stealing,” “cheating” and related terms, as well as references to voter fraud, in posts on Twitter (now X) and Truth Social; at campaign events; and in interviews in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 election cycles. The analysis most likely represents an undercount of the number of times the former president has baselessly sown doubt about election fairness or integrity. Some transcripts were provided by Roll Call Factba.se.

There is obviously some originality in deciding what terms/phrases to include in the count, especially with "related terms" that are not identified. Furthermore, the choice of how exactly to count the statements/words/phrases matters too (and isn't specified). The number may be quite different if one post on Truth Social was counted as one instance of "fanning the flames" even if it had 5 unique (and false) claims of fraud/interference in it... versus counting each of those 5 statements in the post as it's own occurrence. The NYT doesn't specify how they handled these situations either for social media posts or for speeches/etc.

Ultimately, does the choice of what terms/phrases/sentences to "count", and how to count them, rise to the level of originality to make this "dataset" eligible for copyright, thus making the graph the NYT created to display it eligible for copyright as well? I'm leaning to yes, because of the combination of the decision on the words/phrases/statements to be counted, and when/how multiple words/phrases are counted separately versus as one "thought". If I'm not way off base here, it should probably be put up for a deletion nomination. Berchanhimez (talk) 22:37, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I've informed that discussion of this thread I've opened, that discussion is at w:Talk:Donald Trump § RfC re including chart quantifying increase in election denial rhetoric. Berchanhimez (talk) 22:41, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Retain Two separate issues: (A) The amount of labor or intelligence used to arriving at data, and (B) whether a subsequent charting of the data has sufficient originality. Generally speaking, copyright protects expressions of ideas but not the ideas themselves. Issue "A" (data) corresponds to the idea, which is not protectable by copyright; the NY Times chart "B" is an expression of the idea, which can be subject to copyright only if the charting itself has sufficiently originality. Here, issue "A" which you discuss at length, is not the issue. There are very few ways to express the data (idea): the only alternative chart I can think of is a rather dumb and pointless nine-year time axis with discontinuous data traces, rather than the NY Times days-preceding-the-election chart. Thus, to give protection to the NY Times chart would in effect prohibit others from expressing (charting) the idea (data) with reference to election days—which would be contrary to copyright law. Looking at thousands of charts on Commons over the years, it's clear that derivative charts are a mainstay here. (Disclosure: I generated and uploaded this chart.) RCraig09 (talk) 00:04, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Compilations, databases, and data that has choice/originality in how it is created may very well be eligible for copyright protection. See, for example, Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U. S. 340 (1991), which held the following:

Since facts do not owe their origin to an act of authorship, they are not original and, thus, are not copyrightable. Although a compilation of facts may possess the requisite originality because the author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the data so that readers may use them effectively, copyright protection extends only to those components of the work that are original to the author, not to the facts themselves.

So while the fact "Trump said (statement) on (date) via (source/medium)" would not be copyrightable, the question is whether the NYT's compilation of those facts is sufficiently original to qualify their "database" that they used to create that graph for copyright protection. I'd say it's very possible based on the decisions of what words/phrases count, and how to determine when one claim "ends" to allow a second one to "begin" versus just counting them as one long claim. I'm not arguing that their chart produces sufficient originality to qualify it for copyright - but I do think that the underlying data that is being displayed with that chart may be a database that exceeds threshold of originality, thus making the chart protected by copyright as a derivative work.

Of course, nothing is stopping anybody from doing their own analysis of Trump's statements, forming their own database of "number of false claims made", and releasing that into the public domain. A couple issues arise, however - the first being that it's unlikely to be of use on Wikipedia if it's a compilation created by a random person/editor. The second is that just because it'd be possible to make a similar database from the same original facts, that doesn't mean that all databases made from those facts are copyright free, nor that it would be okay to trace (copy) a graph displaying a non-free database. Berchanhimez (talk) 00:29, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Berchanhimez There can be no copyright in the procedure used to generate the chart, nor in the factual findings or analysis shown through the chart. The methodology is that a handful of related words were selected as indicators, and their frequency in the corpus is shown. Neither the corpus nor the selection of these keywords has any non-de minimis authorship. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 01:25, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There certainly can be copyright in the procedure used to extract a subset of data from a larger dataset - if it is creative enough. Furthermore, it is not as simple as "how often do any of these words/phrases appear in the larger dataset of 'all of Trump's statements'". The dataset being shown with the chart is "frequency of election denial claims". One claim may contain multiple words/phrases that may or may not be counted separately (we don't know, since the full methodology/subset has not been published). So there is more creativity involved than just "here's a list of words that we looked for". Berchanhimez (talk) 03:08, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I just saw your 03:08 post... There is no "copyright in a procedure", period. Copyright protects things fixed in a tangible medium of expression. See my 03:44 post below for why your entire discussion is off-topic for copyright. RCraig09 (talk) 03:48, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(after edit conflict)

It's good to read you (Berchanhimez) are "not arguing that their chart produces sufficient originality to qualify it for copyright"; agreed. The database cases (in the U.S. at least) refer to massive data collections, like the New York City phone book; this is simply not the situation here. Further, even a large amount of labor in collecting the data, does not translate to originality; note that the Supreme Court in Feist ruled that there was no copyright infringement. You're focusing on how NY Times researchers arrived at the data (non-protectable ideas), which is even further removed from copyright protection. Deciding which tweets constitute election denial involves routine reading comprehension—little creativiy involved. RCraig09 (talk) 01:32, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The NYC phone book would in fact be a good example of something non-copyrightable, because there is no creativity in selection other than "is in NYC". The choice of which words/phrases count as "false claims of election problems", however, is significantly more creative than "is the phone number for a person/business located in NYC". Berchanhimez (talk) 03:04, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here, the issue is not about whether a claim is "false". (After 100% of five dozen failed lawsuits etc etc, there is zero credible evidence of election fraud that would affect election results in a single precinct. The. claim. is. false.) Determining falsehood is not the issue. There is mere labor, but no "creativity", in determining whether a tweet says the election was stolen or rigged: it requires only basic English reading comprehension so the NY Times database itself is not subject to copyright! For copyright, we're talking about the charting of NY Times' data, not how they arrived at the data, so your 03:04 analysis here is misplaced. RCraig09 (talk) 03:44, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If the data itself is copyrighted, then a representation of that data would be a derivative work, thus protected by copyright as well. The issue here is that the analysis was not limited to "how many times did Trump use the words' stolen' or 'rigged' in a tweet", but was deeper than that. Berchanhimez (talk) 05:34, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The. data. itself. is. not. copyrighted; see my 03:48 post. No, reading whether tweets are election denialist is not "deep". No, expressions of data (charts) are not "derivative" of data itself, as "derivative" is understood in copyright law. I was an intellectual property attorney for a quarter century, and with respect I can see you do not understand the issues here. Please stop this line of argument, as I (and User:D. Benjamin Miller) have dealt with it clearly and at length. At Talk:Donald Trump, please briefly finalize your opinion on including the graphic without going off on tangents. RCraig09 (talk) 14:16, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Even if the chart were "how many lies does the NYT think Trump told each day," with each being based on an analysis of the facts, that information would also not be copyrightable. Your entire argument is based on the sweat of the brow principle — the idea being that, if the NYT's method of determining whether statements qualified or not were sufficiently laborious, it would be subject to copyright. However, this is not how copyright works. Assertions of truth or falsity (including assessments of claims) are not copyrightable at all.

To give you a direct comparison, PolitiFact is another website that publishes analyses of whether statements made by politicians are true or false. The articles on PolitiFact contain expression, and it takes labor (in research) to reach the conclusions they do. However, the conclusions are not copyrightable, and producing a chart graphing how many true or false statements (as rated by PolitiFact) were made by each politician would not infringe on PolitiFact's copyright in the articles.

A chart of "how many times did the NYT think Trump talked about voter fraud on each day" would not infringe any copyright, no matter how much research or labor went in determining whether or not Trump's statements qualified.

D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 20:06, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

NASA astronaut photos in Twitter/X

Do the images in this tweet fall under PD-NASA? The creator, Don Pettit is a NASA astronaut. C messier (talk) 18:59, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@C messier: Yes, but it's better to check the NASA image server first and pull from there, since they'll be higher quality than that posted on Twitter, and the descriptions and metadata will reveal important details (such as Matthew Dominick being credited for these particular images). See these images at https://images.nasa.gov/search?q=C2023%20A3&page=1&media=image&yearStart=1920&yearEnd=2024. I've uploaded them to Category:C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS). — Huntster (t @ c) 20:51, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Portrait of Halla Tómasdóttir

Halla Tómasdóttir has no image of herself on Wikimedia Commons. However I found this image of her on this document (https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/tp/2024/5724T18-075A.pdf) at page 21. The document says

"Creative Commons licence

You are free to copy, communicate and adapt this publication as long as you attribute it as follows: © State of Queensland, the Department of State Development, Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning, June 2023."

However it doesn't specify a specific creative commons license. Can it be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons? - Sebbog13 (talk) 22:17, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here is her page on enwiki: en:Halla Tómasdóttir - Sebbog13 (talk) 22:19, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Boy that is interesting. The stated rights could be taken as a license itself, and would seem to be fine, and correlate to a CC-BY-SA license. But I have found other documents with that same wording on their website which has a CC-BY[5], CC-BY-SA license[6], or CC-BY-NC-ND.[7]. The latter is a bit inconsistent as it does not give the right to adapt the way the the statement does, but I found several documents there with that license. Seems like they forgot to pick a license for this one. It may be best to ask for some clarification on that one. Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:15, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what to do. - Sebbog13 (talk) 12:48, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Making matters worse, this document actually writes CC-BY-NC-ND, which indeed seems to run counter to the text beneath, but displays the CC-BY icon... Felix QW (talk) 16:39, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That document doesn't contain the image I was asking about, but that is indeed a problem. - Sebbog13 (talk) 18:14, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Photograph of sculpture in Trafalgar Square

I've taken a photo of the new sculpture installed on the Fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, and am trying to work out if I can add it to Commons as a CC BY SA 4.0. Normally I'd assume that as a piece of art by a living artist, the answer would be no, but there are several other images on the fourth plinth page which are uploaded as such, like here and here. Any advice is gratefully received! LavaLampBamboo (talk) 12:07, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The UK has Freedom of Panorama for 3D artworks that have been permanently installed in a public place. Abzeronow (talk) 15:55, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think the key question would be whether the sculpture is treated as "permanently installed" or not, given that they seem to be temporary exhibits. Felix QW (talk) 16:36, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding a pic I uploaded

Hi there, I just uploaded several pics I found of the Pakistan national football team during a football tournament held in 1997 in Nepal. As the copyright of photographs in Nepal is of 25 years, it has expired in the country and most of pics I extracted are from posts of the physical pics of former national team player themselves present in the squad on their Facebook profiles. However I am facing an issue with one particular pic, right after uploading this pic, I realised it originated from AFP and was shared later by a Pakistani journalist here from where I found it initially when uploading. I am a bit confused here. Most of similar football pics in Wiki are uploaded such as here, here, here, here etc without any issues but I'm not familiar with AFP. Thanks JayFT047 (talk) 18:04, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

AFP is Agence France-Presse, a French news agency. Regardless of where it was first published, a 1997 photograph would be still copyrighted in the U.S. The Facebook source is not from the photographer and doesn't have a free license (and AFP doesn't grant free licenses) so it's a copyvio. Abzeronow (talk) 21:00, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Alien copyright works (resumed)

Previous discussion of the Auschwitz album photos, copied from Commons talk:Copyright rules by territory/Germany

@Pajz: I have done a little more research on the photos of the Auschwitz Album. The photos in Wikimedia Commons come from one of two sources - The United States Holocaust Museum or Yad Vashem in Israel. In both cases, the originating museum states that the photos are in the public domain, but do not qualify their statement. What licencing statements should be given to satisfy the Wikimedia Commons requirements as removing the images from Commons on account of some minor technicality when applying Commons:Project scope/Precautionary principle too rigidly whould tarnish Wikimedia's credibility and along with it, that of Wikipedia as well? Martinvl (talk) 15:44, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think under old German law, they were "simple photographs". At the time, a maximum of 25 years from publication, or creation if not published. That was later extended to 50, but it would take some rather fortuitous publication timing for these to have been protected by that 50. When the EU directives happened, these are no longer simple photographs, but "works". The retroactive terms of 70 years for anonymous works, or 70pma if not anonymous, should now apply (unless somehow that 50 year term was longer, which would require even more fortuitous timing of publication). The copyright owner would seem to be the German government. They would need to be anonymous or not based on the post-directive rules on what "anonymous" means, I think. Those, I believe, include a requirement that the author themselves make the authorship public. It seems as though it is strongly suspected that the photographers were two people, and one of them said certain photos were not him, but I don't recall if they identified them as being by the other for sure. Even if they did, not sure it would change them to be 70pma by the current rules. And I don't think that author specifically identified the photos he did take, so not sure that even his could be considered to have a 70pma term. The determination of when they were "published" may also be quite difficult, and that matters for the old term and the current anonymous term. To me, most likely they have the anonymous 70 year term, as never having the human author identifying themselves. Publication is harder, as they were used in the 1960s in a trial, but they were known about well before that. They seem to have been some sort of officially sanctioned work, so they could well be consdiered published at the time. Or even never legally published. If either at the time or never, they are PD today. Any claim of current-day copyright would have to be based on particularly unusual publication timing, or being 70pma and not knowing when the author died (and never being able to find out). And the country of origin could depend on where that publication happened. As for tarnishing Commons' credibility, that more comes from situations where we claim PD, but another party claims otherwise, and are ruled correct. That then includes practical considerations -- and in this case would involve the German government trying to claim copyright over Nazi material in order to suppress it (take it off Commons or somewhere else). That is ... fantastically unlikely, which puts this discussion into highly theoretical areas because we almost certainly won't get a court case about it. It is PD in Israel, which only protected photos for 50 years from creation, and the US due to the Alien Property exception. Other countries could be a tortured case-by-case thing looking at their laws. I think it's entirely plausible to just put {{PD-anon-70}} and {{PD-US-alien property}} on it. These are about the last photos I would expect to be a practical problem to host. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:57, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am afraid but a photo such as File:Selection on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1944 (Auschwitz Album) 1b.jpg certainly qualifies as a Lichtbildwerk under German copyright law (sec. 2), and not as a mere Lichtbild (sec. 72). Gnom (talk) 08:23, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The authors of d:Q130299692 say that this photo was taken by de:Bernhard Walter (SS-Mitglied) (1911–1979). --Rosenzweig τ 11:14, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is pure and wild assumption, nothing based on evidence. Sure, it was taken by an employee of the camp, but who? We don't know, and we will never know, as all witnesses died without giving any information. So the licenses mentioned by Carl above perfectly fits the case. And about "tarnishing the reputation of Commons" mentioned somewhere, deleting images of the Auschwitz Album under spurious reasons would certainly do that. Yann (talk) 13:25, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is not a "wild assumption". They had access to archival records from the camp and were able to determine the dates the photos were taken, sometimes precisely, sometimes within a few days, and also who was active as a photographer. They are certain that the album photos are by either Walter or Hofmann, and made the determination which of the two took specific photos based on characteristics of the photos. Like Walter's penchant to take photos from slightly elevated positions and his use of photographic composition, while Hofmann did not care about those, but characteristically often took three photographs directly in a row, only slightly moving the camera to the right after each shot. For some photos, they are not sure which one of the two is the photographer. While all that is not proof, I would certainly call it evidence. --Rosenzweig τ 14:56, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As per @Rosenzweig: 's proposal[8], I am resuming the Auschwitz Album discussion here.

As regards the United States, the :en:United States Holocaust Memorial Museum asserts that the photos in the Auschwitz Album are in the public domain. See for example here. They do not justify how they came to that conclusion and the only way that I can see them adopting that approach is by way of the "Enemy Alien" tag.

AS regards Germany, neither Walter nor Hoffmann nor their heirs have claimed authorship, so under Section 66 of the Urheberrechtsgesetz, the works are deemed annonymous. Furthermore I noticed that some of the files from the Auschwitz Album were loaded onto Commons in January 2015, which is within a month of the expiry of 70 year window described in Section 66.

I propose that a template 'PD-Auschwitz-Album which woudl be added to all imags from the Auschwitz Album be created as follows:

= = = = = = = = = Start of proposed template = = = = = = = =

This photo is believed to be the only surviving copy that was made from the original negative (destroyed in 1945). The physical photgraph is held by Yad Vaschen in Jerusalem.

This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired and its author is anonymous.
This applies to the European Union and those countries with a copyright term of 70 years after the work was made available to the public and the author never disclosed their identity.
Important: Always mention where the image comes from, as far as possible, and make sure the author never claimed authorship.

Note: In Germany and possibly other countries, certain anonymous works published before July 1, 1995 are copyrighted until 70 years after the death of the author. See Übergangsrecht. Please use this template only if the author never claimed authorship or their authorship never became public in any other way. If the work is anonymous or pseudonymous (e.g., published only under a corporate or organization's name), use this template for images published more than 70 years ago. For a work made available to the public in the United Kingdom, please use Template:PD-UK-unknown instead.

Neither Bernhard Walter (Auschwitz photographer), Ernst Hoffmann (Walter's assistant) or their heirs have claimed authorship of this photo, so under Section 66 of the Urheberrechtsgesetz, this photograph is deemed to be annonymous and entered the public domain within the EU on 1 January 2015.

This work is considered public domain in the United States because its copyright was owned or administered by the Alien Property Custodian and the copyright in the source country is or was owned by a government or instrumentality thereof. The above provision is contained in 17 U.S.C. § 104A(a)(2).

Public domain works must be out of copyright in both the United States and in the source country of the work in order to be hosted on the Commons. This file must have an additional copyright tag indicating the copyright status in the source country.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, in their catalogue of photographs assert that this photo is in the public domain within the United States. They do not justify their rationale.

= = = = = = = = = End of proposed template = = = = = = = =

Martinvl (talk) 22:13, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If we feel the need for a template for this album, this would be my best guess. I don't think we should have a tag for the simple photo aspect of German law, as in most cases it is superseded today, and can only rarely be used. My understanding is that in older German law, most snapshot-type photos were 25 years from publication, or creation if not published. The author being known or anonymous did not matter. At some point (I think 1980s), newspaper-type documentary photographs were increased to 50 (which these would seem to be). My understanding is that things like studio portrait photographs would have always been "works". When the EU directives came in, that all changed -- these photos became "works", a new definition of "anonymous" came in, and new copyright terms were introduced, restoring works even if they had fallen into the PD. These photos are now either anonymous by the new criteria, and 70 years from publication (creation if not published), or 70pma. It does seem as though people have deduced the likely two photographers, one of which died in 1979 and the other unknown, and can make educated guesses as to which photographer took which photo. But, I think the new "anonymous" criteria demands that the photographer identify themselves, which did not happen, even if they may not have been "anonymous" under older German law. There is certainly a lot of gray area and different points can be argued, but I just don't think they really rise to significant doubts in this particular case. As for the U.S., the entire purpose of the Alien Property exception was to prevent copyright games around photos like this, and they would seem to qualify. The Alien Property Custodian conceptually owned all German/Nazi copyrights of the era (within the U.S.), even if not directly administered, and while private copyrights were returned, government rights were not (or at least prevented URAA restoration). Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:01, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Martinvl: Why do you think that because Hofmann or Walter never "claimed authorship" for a photo they are anonymous? Please take a close look at COM:Germany#Anonymous and pseudonymous works, left column called The old method, which is likely still relevant here. First, unpublished works could not be anonymous works. Second, for published works, if the author became known within 70 years after publication (not creation), 70 years pma applied. Yes, I know that photographs initially had very short terms of protection partly based on time of creation, but so much changed after the adoption of the EU directive in 1995 that we should clarify what actually applies here. This requires some deeper knowledge of case law I think. Maybe Gnom or Pajz (if they want to, not everyone may like to be involved in this matter) can shed some light on this.

Second, after some further reading of d:Q130299692 I found a section where the authors write that Walter did confirm his authorship of (at least) two specific photos during the Auschwitz trial in 1964. These are two very similar photos taken within a few minutes; we have one of them (in two file versions) as File:Selection on the ramp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, 1944 (Auschwitz Album) 3a.jpg and File:Selection on the ramp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, 1944 (Auschwitz Album) 3b.jpg. The reference the authors give is „Vernehmung Bernhard Walter, 77. Verhandlungstag, 14. 8. 1964, FBI, FAP, AP 114.“ FBI being the Fritz-Bauer-Institut in this case, FAP is the Sammlung 1. Frankfurter Auschwitz-Prozess (collection first Frankfurt Auschwitz trial). So at least for those two photos, we do have a confirmation of authorship by the author. --Rosenzweig τ 11:16, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosenzweig: Why did Yad Vashem and the United States Holcaust Museum state that these photos are in the public domain? If they are in error, then maybe you should contact them first and then correct Wikimedia Commons. Martinvl (talk) 11:54, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You'd have to ask them if you want to know that. I won't contact them (why should I if you want to know this?), but my guess is they didn't mean German copyright law, but US and/or Israeli law. --Rosenzweig τ 12:05, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosenzweig: I don't think the "old method" applies because the old term for photographs did not depend on being anonymous -- the 25/50 years terms were based on publication/creation only, regardless of the author. The new EU terms would be anonymous yes, but you have to use only the new definitions that came along with it. You can't use a newer law's term but then combine it with a definition from the old law. If Walter did identify himself, that could be a complication for those. Granted that was under oath and not exactly voluntarily, but that may not matter. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:11, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The 70 years pma term for photographic works was introduced in 1985, 10 years before the EU directive and the new rules for anonymous works. So not a "newer law's term", but co-existent with the "old method" for anonymous works. --Rosenzweig τ 15:58, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosenzweig: But they were still the 50-year term for newsworthy photos in 1985 (if they even still had a copyright in Germany then), not based on an anonymous term. The only anonymous term they would have would be the ones from the EU directive, which has its own definition of anonymous. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:28, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's all very tricky. The 1907 law (KUG; § 26) had a term of 10 years for photographs, from publication (Erscheinen), but 10 years pma if not yet published at the time of the author's death. Erscheinen, publication, is defined as publication initiated by a Berechtigter, a rights holder (§ 30). A 1940 law [9] extended those 10 year terms to 25 years, from publication or pma. Then came the 1965 law (in force in 1966) and changed that (for both "simple" photographs and the new photographic works) to 25 years from publication, or creation if not published within 25 years from creation. Per § 129, that also applied to works created before 1966, so the copyright for 1944 photographs did expire at the end of 1969. However, per the U-Boot-Foto case, those copyrights could have been restored to 70 years pma terms in 1995. Or, in the case of anonymous works (§ 66), to 70 years from Veröffentlichung (publication) or 70 years from creation if not published within 70 years. Veröffentlichung being defined as something happening with the consent of the Berechtigter (§ 6). So if the photos are considered to be anonymous and never rightfully veröffentlicht (published), their restored copyrights would have expired at the end of 2014. If not considered anonymous, the term would be 70 years pma. I'm not sure if there is any case law on this. Probably not, but I don't know. At least the two photos for which Walter confirmed his authorship can hardly be considered anonymous I think. --Rosenzweig τ 10:32, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As I see it, there are two fidtinctly different issues:

Do we know who took which photo?
Are the photos still under copyright?

It is possible that the photographs are not under copyright for reasons not known to us, but which are known to Yad Vashem and the United States Holocaust Museum. Are we justified in taking their word for it? They have the paper trail to show the providence of the photos. If one of Walters' or Hoffmann's heir claims copyright, then Commons can refer them to Yad Vashem or the American Holocaust Museum, citing the German law of handling stolen goods in good faith. Martinvl (talk) 14:32, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is much more likely that they simply don't consider German copyright (as I wrote above), simply because they're based in the US and Israel, not Germany. --Rosenzweig τ 16:02, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The book The Auschwitz Album - Hellman, Peter - Random House, was published in 1981 in the United Stats (ISBN 10: 0394519329 / ISBN 13: 9780394519326) without, believe ,copyright notices regarding the photographs. Wikimedia Commons states "Anything published in or after 1978 but before March 1, 1989 with no copyright notice is in the public domain unless the work's copyright was registered within 5 years of the work's initial publication.". Thus any photos that appeared in Hellman's book are in the public domain in the US. The appropriate tag would be PD-US-1978-89 with a qualifier noting Hellman's book and the absence of copyright notices in respect of the photographs.

This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1978 and March 1, 1989 without a copyright notice, and its copyright was not subsequently registered with the U.S. Copyright Office within 5 years.
Unless its author has been dead for several years, it is copyrighted in the countries or areas that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works, such as Canada (50 pma), Mainland China (50 pma, not Hong Kong or Macau), Germany (70 pma), Mexico (100 pma), Switzerland (70 pma), and other countries with individual treaties. See this page for further explanation.

Deutsch ∙ English ∙ español ∙ français ∙ italiano ∙ 日本語 ∙ 한국어 ∙ македонски ∙ português ∙ português do Brasil ∙ русский ∙ sicilianu ∙ slovenščina ∙ 中文 ∙ 中文（简体） ∙ 中文（繁體） ∙ 中文（臺灣） ∙ +/−

This image appeared without a copyright notice in the book The Auschwitz Album' Hellman, Peter - Random House (NY), published in 1981. (ISBN 10: 0394519329 / ISBN 13: 9780394519326)

Martinvl (talk) 18:00, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If there was a copyright notice on the book as a whole, that would cover anything inside, technically. If that was the first publication (with permission of the copyright owner), then technically the U.S. is the country of origin. That seems unlikely though. Don't think that is the right path to go down. They are not under copyright in either Israel or the United States, which would be the law those two institutions would care about. Copyright expiration is always a country-by-country thing. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:33, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Clindberg: If there was a copyright notice on the book as a whole, that would cover anything inside, technically... I totally disagree. It only covers those part of the book that the person named in the copyright created - in the case of Hellman's book, the text that accompanies the photographs and not the photographs themselves. Hellman could not assign copyright of any particular photo to one or other of Walter or Hoffmann because he did not know who took which photograph. In law therefore, the copyright associateed with each photograph rmaioned dormant until claimed by the relevant photographer (or their heirs). This never happened and since more than five years have passed, the photographs have passed into the public domain. Martinvl (talk) 20:35, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Martinvl: From 17 USC 404(a): a single notice applicable to the collective work as a whole is sufficient to invoke the provisions of section 401(d) or 402(d), as applicable with respect to the separate contributions it contains (not including advertisements inserted on behalf of persons other than the owner of copyright in the collective work), regardless of the ownership of copyright in the contributions and whether or not they have been previously published. So, a single copyright notice in a newspaper or magazine or the like (collective work of photographs and literary works) is sufficient to preserve copyright in all the contained works (other than advertisements), even if it's the wrong name as copyright owner in the notice. That is the law. Something physically separate and not necessarily distributed with the original work like a dust jacket, then no. This is U.S. law specifically, but you were talking about notices. The owner of the copyright was irrelevant to the term in the U.S. -- only the publication date mattered (and then notice, and lack of renewal, etc.) But if they were published without permission of the copyright owner (the German government in this case), then that does not count as publication. Anonymous works get copyright protection just like any others do. Odds are high they would be considered published by U.S. law back in the 1940s though. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:41, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

easyGroup logo

We have several images of the logos of companies in the Category:EasyGroup tagged, as I would have expected, {{PD-textlogo}}. However, on the Talk page of File:EasyJet logo.svg, editor Mulat noted back in 2011 "This does not apply to registered logotype. Do not be fooled by this "licence". This graphic is copyrighted." There has been no response there, and it may well be incorrect.

Nevertheless, I do see that easyGroup, in the context of the original "easy" design process in 1995, specifically claim in the company history (6th ed, 2024) to hold not only trade marks, but also copyright (p.25, pdf p.14): "by virtue of the fact it is an artistic work pursuant to section 1(a) of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988. As a result of various international treaties and conventions (including the Berne Convention) this copyright is recognised in a majority of countries throughout the globe. All rights in such copyright are owned by easyGroup Limited." I suppose that UK is the country of origin. Just asking. - Davidships (talk) 17:25, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If UK is country of origin, then it's definitely under copyright. The UK's Threshold of originality (aka TOO) is very low. All the Best -- Chuck ^Talk 17:59, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to be a standard font, so even in UK, it is most probably OK. I deleted that talk page, it is wild assertion not backed up by evidence. Yann (talk) 19:20, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, on second look, inclined to agree. (looked at one logo that was more stylized than what we have). All the Best -- Chuck ^Talk 21:16, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Yann: That does not seem to be a valid case for deletion. Please restore the talk page and leave a comment there if you wish to disagree with its OP. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:16, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Pigsonthewing: Sorry, but which file are you talking about? I said above that the file wasn't a copyright violation. Yann (talk) 14:28, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not referring to a file. My comment was in reply to yours, in which you said "I deleted that talk page, it is wild assertion not backed up by evidence." Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:43, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

turkish sport clubs copyright

can someone who is knowledgeable about copyright in turkey solve this problem? the TRUE altay sports club logo is about to be removed, although there will be no problems in this regard. File:AltaySKArma.png. Akin for turkish (talk) 20:31, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

movie copyright

File:Amy Ryan 2007.jpg seems to be a frame from a movie and not an IRL photo. ... 69.181.17.113 04:57, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We have had permission for this on file for 15 years. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 05:51, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

De minimis?

File:Hakurei Shrine Reitaisai in Taiwan 3 (1).jpg (TW: SEXUAL CONTENT)

I'm sending this file here because I did make a deletion request last night. Someone did reply and may have a point. Would this file be de minimis? AuroraANovaUma ^-^ (talk) 14:37, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This is not to discuss the contents themselves, but the copyright status of them, and if this is de minimis or not. AuroraANovaUma ^-^ (talk) 14:39, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@AuroraANovaUma: It is always about content. — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 15:38, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I said that just incase people start talking about what is depicted. That's not the issue i have. The issue I have has more to do with the copyright status about the illustrations than what they depict. AuroraANovaUma ^-^ (talk) 16:16, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously this is not de minimis as all the content is protected. De mikið applies if one could think of the image without the copyrighed content and it would work just the same. So a poster deep in the background might be de minimis. A poster, even small, that is necessary for the meaning is not. h-stt !? 16:03, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They may be incidental though -- unavoidable for the subject. That is mentioned on the de minimis policy page though it's legally different. The photo is not focusing on one magazine in particular. I'm not sure any one magazine could really claim derivative work status. Granted, Taiwan's law may be different. It's certainly in some gray areas. Should photographers be able to document magazine stands? Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:47, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Question about French copyright protection term

I was referred by an English Wikisource deletion request where William Carlos Williams's Spring and All (published in France in 1923, author died in 1963) was reported to be copyrightable in France. According to COM:FRANCE, the standard term of copyright protection is 70 years p.m.a., and it was only changed in 1996/1997 from the original 58 years p.m.a (50 years + 8 years wartime extension).

Is the amendments made in 1996/1997 retroactive? Assuming it is not retroactive, then the work will enter French public domain in 2021. I would be grateful if anyone familiar with French can answer this question.廣九直通車 (talk) 03:11, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

From w:Copyright law of France: Act No. 97-283 of March 27, 1997, increased the authors' rights term of most works from life plus 50 to life plus 70 years. Because the related EU directive required implementation by July 1, 1995, the new authors' rights term was given retroactive effect to that date.

~~So, if it was only made retrospective to 1995, it probably doesn't apply to an author that published and died in '23.~~ — Alien 3
3 3 05:59, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it was retroactive; all the EU extensions were. Since WCW died in 1963, the work will leave copyright in France in 2034.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:03, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The license applied on the file is definitely moot. It is equally clearly PD in the US, but if we treat France as a source country per Commons rules then it would have to be deleted nonetheless. I am not quite sure how we as Commons (as supposed to the Berne convention) define source country, so here is an explanation of its publication history from English Wikipedia if it helps to decide between the US and France as "source country":

Spring and All was printed in an edition of 300 by Maurice Darantière. Darantière was a printer based in Dijon, France, who had printed the first edition of James Joyce's Ulysses in 1922, and who also printed a range of other significant modernist works. Williams himself said the book drew little attention at the time of publication. Williams biographer Paul Mariani notes: "...most of the copies that were sent to America were simply confiscated by American customs officials as foreign stuff and therefore probably salacious and destructive of American morals. In effect, Spring and All all but disappeared as a cohesive text until its republication nearly ten years after Williams’ death." Some sources indicate that half of the original print run was confiscated by the U.S. Post Office.

Felix QW (talk) 09:25, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image in Norwegian book

There's an photograph I've found in Nikoline Harbitz, 1841-1898 : familiebakgrunn, liv og forfatterskap that I want to upload. I cannot find any provenance for this photograph except the sitter who lived from 1841–1898, so I'm not sure if it would come under {{PD-old-assumed}}. However as it's from a book published in 1982 in Norway, would the date of creation be counted as 1982, and if so would it be uploadable? Spiderpig662 (talk) 15:24, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

File:LMS Garratt 498x.jpg

This image was uploaded and transferred back in 2009. There is no source or authorship listed. The release is based on the uploader's "I purchased this image for my personal collection." which as far as I remember, does not convey copyright. I would list this in requests for deletion, but I wanted to make sure it didn't qualify as {{PD-old}} first, however, similar images online date to the 1960s. Bastique ^{☎ appelez-moi!} 16:22, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The last of the type was withdrawn in 1958, so the image is likely, but not certainly, over 70 years old. Definitely over 60. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:08, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image over 70 does not mean much. Photographers do not usually die right after taking an image. I'd list it for deletion / COM:PCP. Glrx (talk) 18:49, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh, that description does not inspire confidence. There is another version on Flickr, which does confirm that no photographer was named at least, so 70 years from publication it would be {{PD-UK-unknown}} in the UK. Apparently the numbers had a "4" prefixed to them when taken over by British Railways in 1948, so the photo likely predates that. As such, a pretty good chance that it is now PD in the UK. The US copyright would be rather likely to still exist though. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:05, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Commons:Village pump/Copyright

Contents

Alien copyright works

Non policy based closure decision

Standard of doubt

Closure of Pétain Deletion Discussion

Uploading a map copyrighted by government institutions while requesting the copyright permission

Youtube CC-BY extend to the thumbnail as well?

President Of Ukraine on Flickr

Burning the Burning Man

Zimbabwe dollar (ZWL) copyright question

Cutoff for threshold of originality for "simple geometric shapes or text"

Autistic Pride Day logo: threshold of originality? (simple geometry?)

File:George Bernard Shaw ceramic head by Muriel Lanchester.jpg

File:Tramp puppet.jpg

60s-70s pin badges from 7-Eleven

File:20240524 Trump groundwork for election denial.svg

NASA astronaut photos in Twitter/X

Portrait of Halla Tómasdóttir

Photograph of sculpture in Trafalgar Square

Regarding a pic I uploaded

Alien copyright works (resumed)

easyGroup logo

turkish sport clubs copyright

movie copyright

De minimis?

Question about French copyright protection term

Image in Norwegian book

File:LMS Garratt 498x.jpg

Navigation menu

Commons:Village pump/Copyright

Alien copyright works

Non policy based closure decision

Standard of doubt

Closure of Pétain Deletion Discussion

Uploading a map copyrighted by government institutions while requesting the copyright permission

Youtube CC-BY extend to the thumbnail as well?

President Of Ukraine on Flickr

Burning the Burning Man

Zimbabwe dollar (ZWL) copyright question

Cutoff for threshold of originality for "simple geometric shapes or text"

Autistic Pride Day logo: threshold of originality? (simple geometry?)

File:George Bernard Shaw ceramic head by Muriel Lanchester.jpg

File:Tramp puppet.jpg

60s-70s pin badges from 7-Eleven

File:20240524 Trump groundwork for election denial.svg

NASA astronaut photos in Twitter/X

Portrait of Halla Tómasdóttir

Photograph of sculpture in Trafalgar Square

Regarding a pic I uploaded

Alien copyright works (resumed)

easyGroup logo

turkish sport clubs copyright

movie copyright

De minimis?

Question about French copyright protection term

Image in Norwegian book

File:LMS Garratt 498x.jpg

Navigation menu

Search