Commons talk:Hirtle chart

Foreign Nationals

The term "foreign national" means something different outside the US, it may be worth using different text. -- Nbound (talk) 13:17, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Given the context, IMO it's fairly obvious what it means. Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 21:45, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Well I had just started two threads about this, thanks to the confusion it had caused me (one here, one on WP). Given you are from the US, it is obvious to you, because its being used in a US specific way :P. To me it reads as: Works First Published Outside the U.S. by Foreign Nationals (or U.S. Citizens Living Abroad). (or in other words, two different ways of saying the same thing), because US citizens living abroad would be foreign nationals in those countries under the other definition. It would be much less regionalised if it said something like: Works First Published Outside the U.S. by citizens of foreign nations, or U.S. Citizens Living Abroad. (or similar), and would still retain the exact same meaning for all involved. -- Nbound (talk) 22:57, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps you could define the term at the bottom of the article, with a footnote next each usage. Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 04:07, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Ideally it would be best to change the text itself, a footnote requires the reader to realise they are they dont understand the term as intended. -- Nbound (talk) 08:26, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

No rights can be derived

What does the footer mean by, "No rights (both in and outside of wiki) can be derived from the statements in this table."? It might be a way of saying IANAL, but it's not clear. Superm401 - Talk 10:25, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

That was added by TheDJ, the original adapter of Peter Hirtle's chart to this page. I think you're right, it's his equivalent of "IANAL, TINLA", i.e. "I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice." Don't expect this chart to substitute for the advice of a competent intellectual property lawyer licensed to practice in your jurisdiction. If for some reason the right to use an image is important to you and the consequences of the work not actually being in the public domain are very great, speak with a lawyer, don't rely on this chart for advice. For that matter, the original author, Peter Hirtle,, isn't a lawyer either, he is an archivist. —RP88 10:58, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

We should state that more directly. "Rights cannot be derived" is, ironically, a lawyeresquely complicated way of saying, "this page does not constitute legal advice." Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 05:15, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

 Done Superm401 - Talk 05:21, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Date of publication

Could this be clarified? How to treat a never-published photograph from a family archive, for example? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 06:35, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Those pictures go under the 'Never published, Never registered works' section. If the picture is published tomorrow, then it ends up under 'Date of Publication: 2003 or later'. It makes no difference if the picture was placed in the family archive in 2015 or in 1815. --Stefan4 (talk) 16:54, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Afghanistan

Date of Fixation/Publication	Conditions	What was in the public domain in the U.S. as of 1 January 2024	Commons license tag
Fixed at any time	Created by a resident of Afghanistan [...], and published in one of these countries	Not protected by US copyright law because they are not party to international copyright agreements	{{PD-Afghanistan}}

I am unsure if this assessment still holds for Afghanistan. http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/profile.jsp?code=AF and http://www.trade.gov/static/2011CCG_Afghan.pdf for instance implies there is some copyright relationship. Murky, sure. -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 15:18, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

As far as I can determine, there is still no copyright relations between the U.S. and Afghanistan. Afghanistan is not a signatory to any of the major international copyright treaties (Berne, UCC, TRIPS, WCT) nor has it established bilateral copyright relations with the U.S. (see U.S. Copyright Circular 38a, last updated Jan. 2014). Your first link (the WIPO Afghanistan page) doesn't include any copyright treaties in its "Treaty Membership" section. Your second also does not include anything that suggests Afganistan has signed a copyright treaty with the U.S., in fact it says dire things like "While Afghanistan has laws on Patents and Copyright, there is no enforcement", "Afghanistan is not a member of the WTO Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement or the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Internet Treaties" and "Afghanistan currently has no laws enforcing intellectual property rights. Investors should have no expectation of protection". —RP88 (talk) 00:33, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but what is the progress? Did really nothing happened since Jan 2014? :/ -- とある白い猫 ^ちぃ？ 09:53, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Go back and check the four international copyright treaty links I provided. They are current and up to date — Afghanistan is not a signatory to any of the major international copyright treaties. With regards to bilateral copyright relations with the U.S., the U.S. Copyright Office issues an update to Circular 38a when an updates is necessary. None of links you've provided explain why you think this table is out of date with regards to Afghanistan. —RP88 (talk) 10:34, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

@RP88: What about now that Afghanistan is a signatory to TRIPS and has copyright relations with the US. Can I remove it now? 4nn1l2 (talk) 13:02, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I think removing Afghanistan would be a good idea. It looks like the U.S. Copyright Office updated Circular 38a on December 5, 2017, to indicate that Afghanistan now has copyright relations with the United States. I suspect that Hirtle/Cornell will make the same change to their chart in January (they update their chart once a year usually in early January). —RP88 (talk) 19:28, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

License templates for copyrighted versus uncopyrighted architectural works

In the Architectural works section, for architectural works that are not copyrighted in the US, it might be possible to specify the {{PD-US-architecture}} template for the Commons license tag column. For copyrighted architectural works, perhaps it would be possible to specify "For photos of such buildings, a license template for the photo AND one of the license templates in Category:FoP templates" under the Commons license tag column. Thoughts? --Gazebo (talk) 13:53, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Gazebo This is too much for me to follow. Can you provide an example? Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:35, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

I have added some copyright tags for architecture to the page. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:01, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

• User:Gazebo added "For photos of such works, use one of the copyright tags in Category:FoP templates". Isn't there only one United States copyright tag in that category? In that case, it makes sense to list that template instead of referring to a whole category which is full of templates from the entire world. --Stefan2 (talk) 10:31, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

License templates for pre-1972 sound recordings

For the first case under the Unpublished Sound Recordings, Domestic and Foreign section and the first case under the Sound Recordings Published in the United States section where a recording was fixed prior to February 15, 1972 and is subject to state statutory and/or common law protection, it might be possible to specify the {{PD-US-record}} template under the Commons copyright tag column, given that the current policy seems to be to allow such recordings (or at least some recordings in this category) along with the {{PD-US-record}} template. There is also the {{PD-Edison Records}} template which appears to be intended for published recordings which were produced by Edison Records.

Under the Sound Recordings Published Outside the United States section, for the first two cases where state statutory and/or common law applies, the {{PD-US-record}} tag could be applicable. For the third case, which involves recordings fixed after 1922 but before Feb 15, 1972 and with the recording still under copyright in its home country on the URAA date, it would seem that the {{PD-US-record}} tag should not be used because such recordings can, from what one understands, be subject to US federal copyright by virtue of the URAA even if the recording was fixed prior to Feb 15, 1972. Thoughts? --Gazebo (talk) 14:23, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Gazebo This is too much for me to follow. Can you provide an example? Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:35, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

The conditions under which {{PD-US-record}} can be legitimately applied are both narrow and nuanced, I think it is misleading to recommend its use on this reproduction of the Hirtle chart, so I've partially reverted your change. See meta: Wikilegal/Copyright Status of Sound Recordings Fixed Prior to February 15 1972 and the deletion discussion at Commons:Deletion requests/Template:PD-US-record. With regards to foreign sound recordings fixed prior to February 15, 1972, I agree, Title 17 §104A(h)(6)(C)(ii) indicates that URAA “restoration” provides “subject matter protection in the case of sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972”. —RP88 (talk) 11:43, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

• Does URAA cancel the state copyright to sound recordings? That is, is it possible to use {{PD-1923}} for non-US sound recordings which were first published in 1921 or 1922 and which were still copyrighted in the source country on the date of restoration, if the date of restoration was in 1996, or in 1997 if first published in 1922? --Stefan2 (talk) 12:11, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you are getting at, you are considering ways to take advantage of the URAA for foreign sound recordings whose U.S. term (if they had them) would have expired before the effective date of the Copyright Term Extension Act. Foreign sound recordings fixed in the period before United States law began to permit copyright protection to sound recordings (i.e. before February 15, 1972) were granted subject matter protection by the URAA if they were not in the public domain in their home countries on the URAA date. A foreign sound recording fixed/published in 1921 and not in the public domain in its home country on the URAA date (usually January 1, 1996) would have received a 75-year term of federal copyright protection, which would have expired before the CTEA extended the term. Unfortunately it still would not be completely public domain in the United States. While normally Federal copyright protection preempts the similar protection offered by state statue or common law, under Title 17 §301(c) sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972 do not have these protections preempted until February 15, 2067. —RP88 (talk) 14:04, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Unpublished works of the United States Government

This page suggests that {{PD-USGov}} only applies to published works. This is wrong, right? Or is it something remaining from pre-1978, where unpublished works were protected by state law instead of federal law? --Stefan2 (talk) 14:48, 20 May 2016 (UTC)