Propose to update CC license tags to comply with the new wordings in CC deeds
I'm proposing this matter here per the advice of ChrisiPK at AN.
As we all know, CC had updated all of their license deeds after the release of CC 4.0 licenses. It is to educate the licensees (and licensors too) about the legal terms by highlighting them more promptly. And, we can see some terms like "remix", "work", "file" are not perfectly conveying the copyright terms. So CC changed them to "adapt", "material" to satisfy all types of works, means and medium we are using.
There is also a warning about the third party rights (like publicity, privacy and moral rights) that may limit the reuse. Our current practice is to add specific tags on individual files, which is time consuming and not perfect as we can't check all files.
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons <license name with link to deed> license.
"Foo" <title of the work with link to URI> by Real name (www.example.com) <attribution parameter provided in author field with a link to user page> is licensed under a <license name with link to deed> license.
You are free:
You are free to:
to share - to copy, distribute and transmit the work
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
to remix – to adapt the work
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
Under the following conditions:
Under the following terms:
attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
share alike – If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same or compatible license as the original.
ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
This deed highlights only some of the key features and terms of the actual license. It is not a license and has no legal value. You should carefully review all of the terms and conditions of the actual license (link to legal code) before using the licensed material.
to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
to remix – to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
share alike – If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same or compatible license as the original.
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
Under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
This deed highlights only some of the key features and terms of the actual license. It is not a license and has no legal value. You should carefully review all of the terms and conditions of the actual license before using the licensed material.
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
for any purpose, even commercially.
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Notices:
You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.
This deed highlights only some of the key features and terms of the actual license. It is not a license and has no legal value. You should carefully review all of the terms and conditions of the actual license before using the licensed material.
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
for any purpose, even commercially.
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Notices:
You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.
This deed highlights only some of the key features and terms of the actual license. It is not a license and has no legal value. You should carefully review all of the terms and conditions of the actual license before using the licensed material.
The layout of this proposal is confusing, it took me a few minutes to work out that this was a "from existing text" to "new text" proposal with them side by side. Adding to the confusion is that this appears to be trying to do all variations of Commons allowed CC licences in one go. I suggest the "from" and "to" texts are side by side in a wiki table and that each licence, or each licence component in CC0, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA are made clear rather than bundling. To go the extra mile, I suggest creating the new draft licences in a sandbox and linking to them here, so that the end result can be seen as it will appear on an image page. --Fæ (talk) 08:21, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Those license tags are so complicated; so difficult to understand for an ordinary volunteer. Probably Multichill can help. All tags of version 1.0 to 4.0 except CC 0 use that same components. CC BY doesn't use the "ShareAlike" part. I didn't look on NC as it is out of my interest. Will try to improve the presentation. Jee08:33, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I would clearly prefer to use a more grammatically correct presentation (like Wikimedia Commons does currently) than a BuzzImportantWordInCamelCase (like ShareAlike) terminology (like the new proposal offer to uniformize with Creative Commons text). --Dereckson (talk) 20:14, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Use of separate words than in the legal code will affect the legal validity in case of disputes. Jee02:41, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I just noticed that the links in the icons on the current tags are not working. It seems link= only works if full URI is provided. Jee03:53, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This looks like a useful improvement and brings our CC4 template in line with their deed.
I'm not clear how the ""Foo" by Real name (www.example.com) " bit works. Could someone give examples for Commons-sourced files and perhaps indicate if e.g., Flickr-sourced files would be done differently.
I like how "This file is licenced" has been dropped since CC have admitted they don't consider any of their licences to be file-based [something to consider changing in earlier templates too, but that's for another day].
I don't think the "You are free to" or "Under the following terms" should be in bold, nor the links.
I think "Notices" should better be titled "Caveats", since that's what they are.
The CC4 deed also has "for any purpose, even commercially." and "The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms". These are both important points and I don't see why we should miss them out.
I don't see why our "deed", if that is what this is, needs to link to CC's deed in the word "deed". It is just confusing to read "This dead" which contains a link to something else. Since ours is nearly the same, we've made theirs redundant and so re-users would be best jumping straight to the full licence text.
1. "Foo" by Real name (www.example.com) is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
I had spend a lot of time to understand the "marking" and "attributing" procedure. "A good rule of thumb is to use the acronym TASL, which stands for Title, Author, Source, License." It covers all the necessary information for attributing a licensed material (work). I understand your question as "original source" of third party uploads are different. In that case we may consider to add the source parameter too as in the Media Viewer. Then it will look like "Foo" by Real name (www.example.com) (Own work/external source) is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
Note that we try to provide attribution parameters through various ways (Creditline, attribution= in license tag, etc. But I noticed that external sites like eol.org only look into the author= field in Commons.)
2. This update will affect all CC tags except CC 0 as this edit request is on Template:CC-Layout.
3 Done.
4 Considerable if enough consensus (I'm not a native English speaker).
On point 1, I still don't understand and need an example. Since this is a generated template, where would one get "Real name" or "www.example.com" from. Please can you give a few examples from real Commons images. -- Colin (talk) 11:31, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Colin: Sure; you can see here how I provide attribution to the POTY winners.
1. Real name is given.
2. Only user name given.
4. Flickr user name, Flickr source, and name of adapter provided.
Support the text of {{Cc-by-4.0}} should match https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en. I did not check word by word the match of the proposed text with creativecommons.org version but it should be close. The same goes with all the translations already done by CC. One concern I have is with "Foo": most photographs do not have titles and we should not expect people to title them, but should allow someone to add title if desired. I would also like to keep the suggested attribution part as a separate field. Incorporating it into sentence will cause trouble as people can put all kind of nonsense there making the sentence incomprehensible. Current approach isolates injected text so it is less of an issue. We should probably update Commons:Credit line. --Jarekt (talk) 16:19, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The second option is "Attribution: Photo by Example / CC BY-SA" as a second line as in current template. But the current problem is we only (most people) provide attribution as "author name" only. It gives the re user a false idea that only author name is required as attribution. In fact, attribution requires Title (optional), Author, Source, License. Jee17:18, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the "attribution" statement might be misleading as it often only mentions author. Maybe we should update and expand Commons:Credit line and link to it (we might want to also rename it to something like Commons:License attribution). I do not think filename and title are equivalent: our filenames can be up to 240 bytes long and the only requirement are that they are unique. Many were chosen not by authors but by the uploaders, for example in case of flickr images (like all files here) --Jarekt (talk) 19:25, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I understand; and wonder how Media viewer handle this: <p><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Areca_catechu_nuts_at_Kadavoor.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Areca_catechu_nuts_at_Kadavoor.jpg"><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Areca_catechu_nuts_at_Kadavoor.jpg" alt="Areca catechu nuts at Kadavoor.jpg" height="480" width="360"></a><br>"<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Areca_catechu_nuts_at_Kadavoor.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Areca_catechu_nuts_at_Kadavoor.jpg">Areca catechu nuts at Kadavoor</a>" by <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jkadavoor" title="User:Jkadavoor">Jeevan Jose, Kerala, India</a> - <span class="int-own-work">Own work</span>. Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0" title="Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0">CC BY-SA 4.0</a> via <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/">Wikimedia Commons</a>.</p> displays "Areca catechu nuts at Kadavoor" by Jeevan Jose, Kerala, India - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Note that we need "title" or a word like "Photo" or "Media" at least to link it to the source. Further not that, according to CC this attribution may not be immediate visibility under the use. It can be in page footer, tail page of a book, or in a "credit page" especially created for that purpose alone in a website. In such cases, a meaningful tittle explains the media is the only way to associate them together. Jee02:25, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I got the ping. I still had this somewhere on my list. My main concern is that it's going to become some massive bulky template. The first prototype doesn't look promising at all. We should focus on getting a slick small template, not trying to teach copyright in a template. I'm inviting some of the WMF legal and design people to pitch in. Multichill (talk) 19:57, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm aware of it. But my opposing arguments are:
If we use a small template just covering the first line, people use their own templates to convey the remaining parts.
We our self applying {{Personality}}, {{Trademarked}}, {{Consent}}, etc. in selected works with makes the page more bulky than this. Further, that practice is not perfect as we can't filter all such files easily from our collection.
I think educating people is more important than limiting the page size; if it leads to misuse, thus makes damage to our potential contributors.
I agree with you that sound review by a legal team is necessary before applying the change. I think Media Viewer team can help us. Pinging Keegan (WMF). Jee02:40, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the ping, Jee. I'll have to read up on this and see how I can help pass it along, and to which part of the WMF, if appropriate. Pesky note: it's the Multimedia team ;) Keegan (WMF) (talk) 08:40, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Keegan (WMF). I know you're not from the legal but hope you get enough support from them. And it will be nice if the attribution requirement is provided in the same way in the "file page" and "Media Viewer". Otherwise it will add another confusion and annoying too. :)
What is your (team) opinion about "title" = "file name without extension"? It will be nice if we can add an extra field title= in {{Information}}. But we already have so many files. So I think adding it now is difficult? Jee09:15, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Jkadavoor: : The Multimedia team opinion is that adding these fields isn't difficult, you can use a bot or a Lua module to take care of it. In the long run, looking at Wikidata integration, it might even be beneficial. Structured data=good data. So yeah, go for it if the community agrees. No problem from this end. As for the legal aspect, I've passed that along for someone else to look at since it's outside my purview. HTH. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 18:06, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Keegan (WMF); this is interesting. I think adding such a field to {{Information}} will be a great improvement. May be a bot can set the default value for all existing files as "file name without extension" so that authors can change it later if they wish so. @Jarekt: , Multichill, Jean-Frédéric... what do you think? ({{Specimen}}, etc. based on Photograph template have already has a field "title"; so it can be used.) Jee02:07, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Many Artworks and artistic photographs have official titles, snapshots do not. As an uploader of a lot of photographs I think it would be pointless to title them and using a filename sounds like even worse idea: filenames were not designed to be titles they are only supposed to be unique. Welived for so long without titles for our photos why do we need them now? If I want a title to be mentioned in my cc license I will add it to the attribution string, since that what it was designed to do. Also you can always use {{Artwork}} or {{Photograph}} template if you need that field. But even there people are encouraged to use {{Title}} template or templates like Category:Multilingual tags: Title, which can be hard to fit in an attribution field. --Jarekt (talk) 02:59, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Jarekt: But how then people can specify source in the attribution? There is no need of a word if the image is hyper linked in a website or attribution is mentioned near the use. But it is not applicable for all cases. See, an e-book is published with 100 photos from Commons and attribution is provided altogether in the last page. Then it is better if we can "Common Lime Butterfly Papilio demoleus by Kadavoor" by Jeevan Jose...., "Acmella ciliata by Kadavoor" by Jeevan Jose...., etc than "Photo" by Jeevan Jose...., "Photo" by Jeevan Jose...., etc. It will be far better if we can mention better titles than "file names". ("Papilio demoleus at Kadavoor" is better).
Jarekt, I understand; and some file names by bots are also very lengthy. So what about picking title from {{Credit line}} if provided, else from {{Title}} if provided, else use file name without extension as a compromise? (BTW, that example is com:ADVERT and need to be renamed. :)) Jee14:37, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I am fine with picking titles from license attribution string, {{Credit line}} or {{Title}}, but if those are not provided than I would assume the uploader did not wish to title his/her images, like I do not care about titles in all the images I uploded over the years. Creating default titles for others would need to be a bot job and I doubt it would be approved. But we can offer a service where people that want titles can request for them to be added to their files. --Jarekt (talk) 14:53, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Jarekt: Then what about using a word like "media" to link to the source if no {{Credit line}} or {{Title}}? The Media Viwers also need to to updated; as it is now using file name as title. I think they did it on the advice of Legal. So we need to consult them (legal) too? Jee15:14, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The Media Viwer is not suggesting attribution strings. I do not see any problem with it. I also do not see how is it related to the discussion about a license template. --Jarekt (talk) 15:45, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Jarekt: See this discussion. Media Viewer or any other third party automated tools need to pick the license and attribution string properly from our tags. A manual user can pick it even from data scattered in various locations. Jee16:00, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Jarekt: While experimenting with [1], I found another option without title: "This work by <author name with url> is licensed under a <License name with url>. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at <source url>". Can we proceed this way? See Option 3. Jee09:34, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support the changes, but it would be good to include the "Licensor cannot revoke the licence" part in all the deeds here, and the CC Some Rights Reserved image on the left would look better using the version on our current commons deeds. --Graphium07:16, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Jkadavoor: Ok noted. Just adding one more suggestion. There should be a spacing between the "CC Some Rights Reserved" logo and the "Attribution" and/or "ShareAlike" buttons. The template appears better that way IMO. --Graphium05:32, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment As far as I know, the CC-licenses also require the re-user to name the license the work is made available under. That's something we have always neglected for reasons I don't remember, but this seems like a good opportunity to re-think the issue and maybe put an additional notice into the templates. --El Grafo (talk) 08:50, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Jee, I must admit I didn't notice that when I first looked through the proposal. All in all, it looks very reasonable to me. Are the wiki pages linked in the new template available in other languages than english? Couldn't find any direct links there … --El Grafo (talk) 15:03, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I like the approach this is taking and have promoted these changes in the past. Our license templates should at a minimum contain all the things the relevent CC Deed does. BTW, the word Notices is bolded and need not be to create a common format. Otherwise bold the other section headings. When there is a final version it should be put up for a !Vote, not yet while discussion ensues. Saffron Blaze (talk) 15:54, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Fix the English please. "Foo" by Real name (www.example.com) is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. --> "Foo" by Real name (www.example.com) is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. --Graphium16:13, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That's because they never spell out the full name with "License" at the end. "the" is required here for style reasons, without it it sounds clumsy. Regards, --ChrisiPK(Talk|Contribs)09:19, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks ChrisiPK, I re checked and found that they use a whenever full name is spelled. They use "License" and "license". So the or a? Jee09:30, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Jkadavoor: It would be good to follow what CC uses, which in this case is "a". However English-wise I think "the" is more appropriate. Let's wait for Chris' input. --Graphium09:42, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I added a second example covering all CC terms in the deed. Note that I included the "exception" clause too under "notices". Jee15:05, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
While it is clear that Swiss Copyright Law does not protect this image, but I see no reason to assume protection would not be offered in the US and so should not be hosted here. Have I missed something ? LGAtalkedits08:43, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
See for example Article 5 (2) of the Berne Convention (only US law determines whether the photograph is copyrighted in the United States, and foreign thresholds of originality may not have any influence on this) and Hasbro Bradley, Inc. v. Sparkle Toys, Inc. (Japanese toys are copyrighted in the United States although the same toys are ineligible for copyright in Japan as utilitarian objects). --Stefan4 (talk) 18:25, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to upload to Commons some images from a book published in US and UK in 1922. The book is on archive.org and Gutenberg.[2][3] So, regardless of exactly the publication dates in the two countries, I think the book is PD in the US so I have already uploaded to enwp. The book's authors were British with one Canadian. It was about an expedition organised, funded etc. by two UK organisations (one the RGS). As an example this photograph was taken by someone who died in 1930 (not credited in the book but stated on an RGS website) and the primary book author died in 1963. I cannot find any attribution for some of the other images. (By the way RGS supply hires images for a fee but it is unclear (to me) whether they are claiming copyright.[4][5])
I wonder if, since the photos and diagrams are unattributed in the book, they will by now be out of UK copyright (publication+70) or, if they were originally work for hire to a corporate body, they would also be publication+70? However, if the author(s) had copyright (would that be possible?) or some human in the RGS then it would not yet have expired. Might these images still be in UK copyright and are they suitable for uploading to Commons? Thincat (talk) 23:50, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think all material that was actually published in the 1922 book should be ok for Commons, because it is reasonable to assume that the book was first published practically at the same time in the U.S. and in the U.K., unless someone finds otherwise. If we look at the two "editions", it's really the same book, the same printer, printed identically, etc. Only the name of the publisher is different on the front page and an advertisement sheet is removed near the end. It is likely that they were printed practically at the same time and that the books to be distributed in the U.S. were immediately shipped to the U.S. So, on Commons you can probably use the U.S. copyright situation only, with the PD-1923 tag. For example, if you upload to Commons the photograph of the members of the expedition *that was published in that book* between the pages 178 and 179, that should be ok.
However, note that there are several pictures of the team members taken at about the same time at this camp, and the photograph of the members that you have uploaded to en.Wikipedia and linked above *is not the same picture* as the one published in the 1922 book. The photographs were obviously taken in succession at about the same time. They show the same persons in the same place. But you can see differences in the poses of the members. For example, look at the position of the right arm of Morshead. So, because the photo you linked above was not published in the 1922 book, if you want to upload it to Commons you will have to find when and where that photo was first published. By the way, this information is probably necessary on en.Wikipedia also if you keep this file there. There is also at least a third photo in this series, where the members exchanged places: those who were sitting in the other two photos are standing in this one and those who were standing are sitting.
Regarding the author, well if the RGS says that the author of those photographs is A.F.R. Wollaston, so be it. He is indeed one of the members who took some photographs. It is a little surprising because Wollaston is on those three photos, but the RGS is a source that ought to know, so I think that's the information you should use unless a better source tells otherwise. In many countries, it is the year of the death of the author that is used for the calculation of the period of the copyright, even if the copyright is owned by someone else. It's important to identify the author, more than to identify who owned the copyright back when the photograph was under copyright. Wollaston died in 1930, so his photos should be ok to reuse in many countries where the period of copyright is based on the death of the author, at least the photo that was published in the 1922 book.
For the UK copyright, the term is based on the life of the human author. Even if it was a work for hire, and someone else may have owned the copyright, the term is based on the photographer's life. If the photographer is unknown (and "unknown" would require some research to find if the author was made known at some other time), that is when the 70 years from publication would enter into it. If the RGS site has a credited photographer who died in 1930, that photo is fine. From reading the en-wiki article on the expedition, a number of photographs were also taken by Mallory (died 1924, so any of those are also fine), Bullock (died 1956, so not fine), and in separate areas Wheeler (died 1962, so not fine). The UK's copyright law might allow copyright on things like photographs of paintings, so many UK sites will claim copyright on just about any digitization -- for Commons though, that aspect is ignored, so photos known to be by Wollaston or Mallory should be OK to upload. As for the others... the US publication makes things interesting. If it was published in the US first, or within 30 days of the UK printing, then the US may actually be the country of origin and the UK copyright may not matter at all for Commons. Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:56, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, thank you both for your very careful replies. I had spotted that a few very similar team photos had been taken at the same time but not that "my" one was not in the book! I had selected pictures in the book and then looked around on the web for the best reproduction. I'll look again because only those in the book would have been "published" back then. I had seen the photographer was in his own photo – and he is looking very calm about it! I'm sure RGS were rushing to publish the book in both countries to attract funds for the 1922 expedition. I had not realised that Commons accepts "US first published" images even if they might still be in copyright in their "source" country. Thanks again, I'll replace the photo. Thincat (talk) 07:35, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It was probably published within 30 days in the US, because they would have had to do that to secure US copyright. I don't know that that makes the US the source country for the purposes of Commons, though.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:08, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Loriot and old German stamps
Hi, I was told that old German stamps might be affected by the Loriot case. I understand that this affects modern German stamps, but how could a court decision in 2012 affect stamps published in 1939, released into the public domain by "Deutsche Reichspost" or entered in the public domain in 1st January 2010? Yann (talk) 17:53, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It might help if you provide a link to what it is that you "were told" by your correspondent. Or if that is not possible, if you can explain what he said exactly about this subject. It's hard to comment about the rationale of your correspondent if you don't say what it is. For now, the only thing I can guess is that your correspondent may simply have meant that since the Loriot case has confirmed that stamps are indeed subject to copyright in Germany, then, to meet Commons policy, we must, for each case of German stamp, determine if the copyright on that particular stamp has expired or not in Germany, according to the rules of the German copyright law, as applicable to the case of this particular stamp.
For example, when the author of a stamp is identified on the stamp itself, and the year of the death of the author is used for determining when the term of the copyright will end, the calculation is done accordingly. To take one case, the file "File:DR 1939 734 Winterhilfswerk Frankfurter Römer.jpg" shows a stamp with, printed on it, the name of the author, H. Trier, who died in 1999. In the course of the project about the German stamps review, this file was diligently reviewed by a user on 16 July 2012 and it was marked as failing the review and, for this reason, this file was placed in the maintenance category " Category:German stamps review delete ", waiting to be deleted by an admin.
However, as you remarked above, it seems that this category was not emptied very often, and this file just gathered dust there. Until eventually on 22 December 2013 it was listed independently in a different deletion request, which invoked the URAA. Of course, if this stamp was still under copyright in Germany, the URAA had nothing to do with it. In an ideal maintenance situation, the file would already have been deleted because it was in the category of the copyrighted German stamps to be deleted, not included in a URAA request. This illustrates the phenomenon that some deletion requests that apparently invoked only the URAA actually included files that should have been deleted for other reasons than the URAA, so those requests actually meant something along the lines of "those files should be deleted either because of the URAA or because of other reasons". But since they had to be deleted anyway for a reason or the other, it did not matter too much at that time and the nominators of those requests only mentioned the URAA reason by facility, even if the URAA was not the reason for which many of those files had to be deleted. And this is why the recent decision to undelete URAA-related files mandated a procedure by which each file should be submitted to an undeletion request, because each case must be analyzed to determine if the file was really URAA-related or if it should remain deleted because of another reason.
It seems that this mandated procedure has not really been applied, because the way some of those requests have been closed as accepted as soon as they were made, without examining the files and without leaving the time for users to see the requests, much less discuss them if needed, is a mockery and ignores the reasons why the process was established. For example, a request about a list of stamps including the H. Trier stamp mentioned above, was made on 15 June at 11:50 and closed the same day at 17:07. Other requests were closed even quicker, in a matter of a few minutes. This is ridiculous, because obviously the closing admin did not do the job of carefully examining the copyright status of each file to determine if it met the conditions to be under copyright or not, and did not leave time to other users to do it either. Those undeletion requests could not fulfill their role of screening the files. The way it was done, it is just as if the files were mass undeleted automatically, bypassing the reason why examination through undeletion requests was mandated in the first place.
@Asclepias: Thanks for your answer. This already explains a lot of things. For the review process, I think it is better to reopen a DR, if the first DR was on another ground. This also allows a better archive and classification of when a specific file will become in the public domain, and when it can be undeleted. It is also much easier to review files which are not yet deleted. I created a DR from this category: Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:German stamps review delete.
Is there is list of engravers/artists of German stamps (I saw that there is one for French stamps)? Regards, Yann (talk) 08:49, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Does the copyright always belong to the designer, or there are other possibilities? I found here (Category:Richard Klein) a list of stamps for which the design is known and died in 1967, yet these files are tagged as being in the public domain in Germany. So? Yann (talk) 15:32, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there is the other possibility corresponding to the special case covered by the Template:PD-Germany-§134-KUG. This template states that it is for the special case where the stamp must meet all three conditions: 1. the author was not identified on the stamp itself, 2. the copyright on the stamp was owned by a legal entity (as under the old law before 1966), and 3. the stamp was published more than 70 years ago. -- Asclepias (talk) 16:06, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
See also Commons:WikiProject Public Domain/German stamps review - the Landgericht Berlin decided that § 5 Abs. 1 UrhG only applies for literary works (Sprachwerke) and not for works of the visual arts (Werke der bildenden Kunst). So, if I understand it correctly, according to this decision's reasoning, stamps (as works of the visual arts) were never in the public domain as "official works" in Germany to begin with and this applies to old stamps as well - only those where the usual reasons for PD apply (creator dead for more than 70 years, simple design) are in the public domain. Gestumblindi (talk) 17:23, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Gestumblindi: Thanks for your input. Yes, I read that page before posting here, but there are a few things which remain not clear:
Some files were put in a "delete" category, and stayed there for 2 years. Seeing how some people look for the smallest possible copyright issue, why these were not deleted?
On that page, it says stamps are in the public domain if not signed. So according to that, I assume that stamps by Erich Meerwald are in the PD. However, some stamps in this category, even as they are not signed, were tagged as not in the public domain.
If stamps which are not signed, but for which the designer is known, are not OK, then a DR should be started.
I restored stamps which were not signed, but deleted for URAA reason. Please tell me if there is any issue. Regards, Yann (talk) 18:54, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Yann: 1: No idea, I suppose they should be deleted now. Maybe people thought we should wait until all stamps are reviewed? 2: "On that page, it says stamps are in the public domain if not signed" - where, exactly? I don't see it... also, it would be news to me that the lack of a signature means a lack of copyright. Copyright in Germany is automatic and you don't need to sign your work to receive protection. 3: Yes, I agree. 4: If the creator isn't dead for more than 70 years, they should be deleted IMHO - whether signed or not. Gestumblindi (talk) 19:27, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
here is that claim: Stamps issued before 1942 are in the public domain in Germany, if the name of the author isn't mentioned on the stamp. Regards, Yann (talk) 21:40, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, all -- I'm more involved with en.wiki and am fuzzier about Commons. File:Nute_Gunray.png, I suspect, originally had a background and is otherwise copyrighted by Lucasfilm/Disney. Ditto File:Consejo_federación_de_comercio.jpg and perhaps even the logo at File:Logo_federación_de_comercio.jpg. My best recollection is that copyrighted and even fair-use images aren't appropriate for Commons. I'm about to post a notice to the user's Talk page pointing to this section. Advice, clarification, follow-up appreciated. Thanks, all. EEMIV (talk) 23:13, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Postal cancellations: presumably public domain but...
File:El Salvador 4.jpg, File:Argentina stamp type CA1.jpeg, undoubtedly others: I tried bringing this up on the uploader's talk page, but he doesn't seem to have solved the matter. Clearly Richard Stambaugh is in no sense the author of these images (nor is it meaningful to describe himself as the "source" of what he himself calls a "catalog image"). I don't thing the unnamed "catalog" could have any copyright on these, and I'd guess the underlying images are public domain, but the uploader's claim that he is releasing them into the public domain is presumably nonsense. Does anyone know how these should be tagged and what the file pages actually should say? - Jmabel ! talk16:30, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
As you say, Richard Stambaugh claims to be the author of many such franking machine images and clearly does not understand that just because he copied the image from elewhere or scanned it from an envelope, he is not the designer and therefore not the author. Maybe he is a franking machie robot! I highly doubt that all of his images are in the public domain; only those that are old enough can for sure be PD. Either one of two situations seems to apply here. The first is that Argentinian stamps, and these are stamps thopugh franking machine stamps that indicate postage payment so IMHO they are copyright for 50 years per Commons:Stamps/Public domain#Argentina or even worse the general artistic copyright of up to 70 years applies per Commons:Copyright rules by territory#Argentina unless they only comtain simple non-copyrigtable design elements. Many of the modern images, post 1964, used in b:International Postage Meter Stamp Catalog/Argentina appear to be copyright as they include the modern logo of the postal authority and most of these image appear to be from the same uploader. We probably need to review each and every one. I presume that Richard Stambaugh is the Editor Emeritus of the Meter Stamp Society as metioned on http://www.meterstampsociety.com/bibliography.html. I have not checked all the other images in the b:International_Postage_Meter_Stamp_Catalog but suspect he is responsible for most if not all of the images. Any I checked, he claims to be the source and author for most. It looks like an extensive problem to me. Ww2censor (talk) 14:20, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have concerns about this image. I have raised them on the file's talk page, but I doubt I will get a response there. Anyway, the image was sourced from http://www.copa2014.gov.br/, which claims that "all content on this site are published under the
Licença Creative Commons Atribuição 3.0 Brasil". However, the image itself is attributed to Getty Images, which leads me to believe that the original image may not be licensed under Creative Commons as the website claims. Can anyone help sort this out for me? PeeJay2K3 (talk) 22:12, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
JukoFF (talk·contribs) has apparently heard back from copa2014.gov.br, and Getty Images photos are indeed copyrighted. It looks like most match photographs from the site belong to Getty Images, but some belong to their staff photographers. In most cases, Getty Images photos credit the copyright holder in the metadata. Ytoyoda (talk) 05:16, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Applicability of URAA
Denniss recently speedily kept Commons:Deletion requests/File:1935 Reid Pictorial Map of Edinburgh and Leith, Scotland - Geographicus - Edinburgh-reid-1935.jpg citing the fact that URAA cannot be the sole criterion for deletion. I understand that, however I am wondering how this is a URAA case at all. URAA "restored copyrights in the U.S. on foreign works if that work was still copyrighted in the foreign source country on the URAA date." This is not the case, as far as I can tell, for that file, and I cannot figure out why it would ever have been PD in the US unless it was published in the US simultaneously as in the UK and not subsequently renewed. The Hirtle Chart seems to indicate that this is copyrighted for at least 95 years after publication. Denniss has not responded to my request for clarification, so I'm asking here. This potentially affects a number of the Geographicus images, so some community input would be appreciated. Cheers, Storkk (talk) 13:41, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Remember that not every user on Commons has a doctorate in copyright law with a specialization on the evolution of the US and UK legislations. If you want most users to understand a conclusion about the copyright status of a work, it helps a lot if you explain a least the broad lines of the rationale that leads to that conclusion. With some rewording to take into account the necessary implicit assumptions, one can see in your comment above essentially two conclusions:
1. You state that the work was not under copyright in the United Kingdom on January 1, 1996.
2. You state that the work was under copyright in the United States and remained so at all times from its creation until now.
Your conclusions may be right or wrong, I really don't know. But it would help if you explained the facts and the reasoning that lead you to them.
Just for the discussion, about the satement 1, I seem to vaguely remember that a reason why some works from that era were under copyright in the United Kingdom in 1996 is because they were still under copyright in 1995 in at least one country of the European Union (Spain?) and thus were caught by the copyright revival and extension provisions of The Duration of Copyright and Rights in Performances Regulations (en:Copyright law of the United Kingdom#Extension of copyright term). The missing element on that point is the explanation of why you conclude that this work eluded the British revival and extension of copyright. However, given the fact that, anyway, the work is certainly in the public domain in the United Kingdom today, that missing element is not really important for the purposes of Commons, here and now, unless the work is not under copyright in the United States for reasons other than the URAA.
Which brings us to your second satement, which is the important one to clarify. The question is double: how, if ever, did the work enter under copyright protection in the United States before 1996; and how did it retain that (pre-URAA) copyright protection in the United States until today? From my admittedly limited knowledge as an ordinary user, I can only guess potential explanations to a certain point, but you will need to fill the gaps. The reproduction that we can see shows that this copy of the work had a copyright notice in the form "Copyright of George A. Reid, Printer, 53 Elder St., Edinburgh". In 1935, it seems that this would have been a valid copyright notice to attract copyright protection in The United States for a map published in the United States, as it included both the word "copyright" and the name of the copyright owner and the U.S. Copyright Act did not require the mention of the date on certain types of works, including maps. But did a valid copyright notice protect in the U.S. works published outside of the U.S.? Apparently, it could have been the case under the Buenos Aires international copyright convention, of which the Unites States was a member, if we assume that the United Kingdom was also a member. If so, a tentative conclusion at this point is that this map may have been protected by copyright in the U.S. at least from 1935 until 1963. Is that right? If so, that's where my guesses stop and you will need to complete with the explanation of how this type of work retained its copyright protection in the U.S. after this point and until now, independently of the URAA. If it had lost it, then it was the URAA that restored it.
Also, remember that the Hirtle chart presents the real copyright situation, as it actually exists, which of course includes the URAA. But we cannot apply the actual reality, explained in the Hirtle chart, to the fantasy world of the current members of the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation, who ask us to imagine what the artificial situation would be in theory if the URAA had not existed. We don't have the equivalent of a Hirtle chart for this fantasy world. By its suggestion to continue to delete copyvios in general while stopping to delete copyvios of works that acquired their protection following the URAA, the WMF Board members have dumped upon the users of Commons an incredible burden, because it's extremely complex, time-consuming, and an error-prone task, to artificially distinguish works on this ground. It requires finding notices, renewals, checking publications, looking into the evolution of the US Copyright Act and of past agreements with other countries, etc. I suspect that I'm not the only user who finds that immense added burden impossible to fulfill. I would much rather have them ask us to accept, for example, copyvios of all works published before 1989 without the highly complicated task of having to try to distinguish those that have a relation to the URAA from those that do not.
Hi Asclepias, thank you for your in-depth and thoughtful reply. I think, however, you may have misunderstood me or I was unclear. I disagree with point 1 that you say I imply: instead, the work was not PD in the UK as of the URAA date. However, that is irrelevant to our situation (as you describe it, in a fantasy land where URAA is irrelevant). Let's stipulate just for the purposes of argument that URAA never existed or is unenforceable (this is essentially what I believe the WMF position is), and that it's correct to speedy keep URAA cases. My question is still, why is this a URAA case? For rights to be "restored", they have to have been lost at some point, and I don't see why they would have been lost in this case. Sorry if I misunderstood your point, and thanks again for taking the time to reply. Please help me understand correctly if I misunderstood you or am otherwise missing some crucial point. Cheers, Storkk (talk) 19:34, 19 June 2014 (UTC) Struck. I misunderstood your point. Storkk (talk) 20:34, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies - my screen font is too small, and even though I read your reply twice, I missed a crucial part starting with your point about the Buenos Aires convention until the end of the paragraph. I'll reply again in a few minutes. Apologies, Storkk (talk) 19:41, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks again, Asclepias, you have pointed me in the right direction, and I apologize again for the misunderstanding. It seems that the copyright law in effect at the time copyright would have inhered and also expired in the US was the Berne Convention (which the UK was party to in 1935) and/or 38 Stat. 2044 (which I can't immediately find the relevant vintage of), but which basically probably state that copyrights are granted to foreign works as if they were domestic works. Thus if not renewed in the US, US copyright on this would have expired the 28th year after publication (i.e. Jan 1 1963). Hence, stipulating the absence of URAA, this is PD-US, the deletion request was invalid, and Denniss was correct to speedy close. Please correct me if you think I have made a mistake. Best regards, Storkk (talk) 20:34, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, if we suppose that, in the U.S., the work was not protected or was not protected anymore between 1963 and 1995, then the decision to keep the file is ok according to the current practice on Commons, although its copyright was restored by the URAA. Also, yes, I see now that I had misunderstood your first statement, because of the succession of the words "(...) if that work was still copyrighted in the foreign source country on the URAA date. This is not the case (...)". Now I see that the part "this is not the case" did not refer to the words immediately before it, but instead referred to the fact that if the work had been still under copyright in the U.S. independently of the URAA, then it would not have been affected by the URAA. There are users around here that are specialists of the subtleties of the US copyright legislation. Hopefully, they'll chime in and tell us if we make sense or not. :) -- Asclepias (talk) 21:29, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's not entirely clear in US law (damn w:Twin Books Corp. v. Walt Disney Co.), but outside that Circuit (and I've never seen a free content collector worry about that decision), works published outside the US started the clock at publication anywhere in the world. There are some fuzziness on copyright requirements caused by judges trying to be fair, but I don't see any on renewals; if it wasn't renewed 28 years after it was published, it went into the public domain, and thus the URAA would have renewed it. (Theoretically, it could have been renewed, in which case it would have been under copyright independent of the URAA.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:08, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Placement of copyright notice
Århus tram #16 on route 1, in August 1969: Great shot.
Kurt Rasmussen donated several hundred photos of European trams of the 1960ies and 1970ies, such as this one (⇨), under a specific permission clause — see {{Kurt Rasmussen permission}}.
My question is: Should this template be added to the file page, as it is now — inside the {{Information}} section as |Permission={{Kurt Rasmussen permission}}, or have it isolated under a separate =={{int:license-header}}==, leaving inside the {{Information}} section a simple |Permission={{see below}}?
I thought as much; the only thing that made me consider changing is that this is a boxed template, probably meant to come on the page at full width, and as it is now it stretches its cell in the {{Information}} box more than it is usual, stretching also its neighbouring header cell. -- Tuválkin✉19:18, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
+1. Displaying license in the permission field is the long time practice, as documented in {{Information}}. Adding license outside {{Information}} seems introduced by Upload Wizard. Anyway Media Viewer currently handle/display what is written in permission only (under view terms). Jee17:30, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
In some PD templates, we use the insignia of the organization (i.e. FBI or UN), as an identifier. This is only cosmetic. However, the image used often has use restrictions and we have the emblem use template. The concern is that by using the emblem on the template, we appear to be asserting that the organization has made the determination about the copyright status, rather than Commons editors/community. For example File:Flag of the United Nations.svg has the Commons:Non-copyright restrictions template but we use it without regard for that. The UN has not made the determination that File:Flag of the United Nations.svg is public domain and I fear using the UN emblem in the PD template implies the UN has endorsed the view. The same is true for the FBI seal. While it is a PD image, its use is restricted. {{PD-USGov-FBI}} uses the image in the template as if the FBI has endorsed the template or the findings of the template. Particularly in the U.S., putting the seal on a template seems to imply that the FBI has endorsed the finding. That is not correct and representing that the FBI was involved in determining anything by using it's seal would run afoul of U.S. law. Example File:Flag of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.svg uses PD-USGov-FBI template with the FBI seal embedded in the template. The FBI, however, had nothing to do with the copyright determination and Commons use of the emblem seems to imply an authority derived from the FBI. This is not case. --DHeyward (talk) 21:27, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it is definitely common practice on Commons for license tags to use insignias as a source identifier, for example the FBI seal (File:US-FBI-ShadedSeal.svg) on {{PD-USGov-FBI}}, the US Department of the Army seal (File:Seal of the US Department of the Army.svg) on {{PD-USGov-Military-Army}}, or the UK Royal Coat of Arms (File:Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom.svg) on {{PD-UKGov}}. All of those source files mention that the use of those insignia may be restricted in some countries. I am glad you bring up the issue, because I don't think Commons has ever carefully considered whether our use of these insignia in our license templates is appropriate. I lean towards thinking that Commons using such insignia as a source identifier does not imply the endorsement of the insignia's organization, and thus the use in licensing templates is OK, but I could easily be persuaded otherwise. While Commons obviously can host the insignia files (see, for instance, s:Response from Mike Godwin to David Larson), it may well be the case that Commons has been too liberal with our use of these insignia in our licensing templates. —RP88 (talk) 23:00, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Faithful representation?
Wikipedia's "Featured picture" today is Manet's Olympia. Anyone familiar with this picture will recognise at once that the colour registration is far too warm. While Manet did indeed give the skin colour an unnaturally heightened yellow tone, it was nevertheless a cold and clinical tone. A critic at the time commented that the figure was like a cadaver at a morgue expired from yellow fever. The best indication that the editor has tinkered with the colour values can be seen in the attendant's robes, no longer pink because the blue channel has been suppressed, and also in the sheets which now take on a predominantly yellow tone rather than bluish.
The result is frankly horrible, but of course those of us accustomed to looking at images of art works know very well how variable they can be in their quality.
But what has happened in this case is that the editor has taken the original Google Art Project image and simply warmed it to his taste in Adobe Photoshop. On the discussion page for its "featured" nomination, he blithely agrees he hasn't seen the original and asks for input from someone who has. None was forthcoming, and after a few more opinions had been expressed based on existing images, the thing was passed as "featured".
Whatever the merits (demerits) of the result, isn't that procedure in itself a violation of copyright? The community is reproducing the Google Art Project image (such images usually are copyright to an agency) on the basis of US law regarding "faithful representation", and then at the same tinkering with it to produce something which certainly isn't faithful to the original? Isn't that strictly speaking a copyright violation? Coat of Many Colours (talk) 07:32, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That is a separate upload (without altering original) and the modification is clearly stated "Source/Photographer: Google Art Project: Home - pic Maximum resolution. Colours edited by uploader". It is enough even for CC BY/BY-SA files. Jee08:00, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes , exactly and see my following comment. The point is that it's no longer a faithful representation and for that matter not even true to Manet's intentions himself. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 08:13, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum: In fact the Google photograph is attributed copyright RMN (Musée d'Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski where Hervé Lewandowski is a noted fine arts photographer, webpage here, so it really does seem to be a substantial issue of moral rights involved here (a French invention of course, but one nevertheless recognised even in California I expect). I do think the tinkered (i.e. "featured") image really ought to be deleted. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 08:08, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It is a featured picture in three Wikipedia(s). So we can't even think about deleting such a file. If the author think there is moral right issues, he can approach WMF for take-down. (As far as I know Wikipedia prefers faithful reproduction than editor preferences. So if you think that review is a mistake, why not try to convince them at Wikipedia talk:Featured picture candidates? You can try a delist too.) Jee08:26, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, needless to say I don't rate the expertise, regarding this image at least, at "featured pictures". Are you saying that editing colour values is not altering the original? I can understand that editing to restore original colour values might be seen as legitimate, but this wasn't doing that because the editor confessed to not knowing what the original was. In reality he has edited to his own preferences, producing an image absolutely contrary to that Manet wished to convey and misrepresenting Manet's work. It is not a "faithful representation". That in itself is a copyright violation in my opinion. And then we have the photographer's moral rights to consider as well. Just because he doesn't have copyright in US law, doesn't mean he doesn't have moral rights.
There are issues here I really would like to see debated and this should be the place to do it, not at "featured pictures" where in general issues of copyright are not debated. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 09:45, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
.jpg){kind=link}
Done. Jee 09:42, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Support the text of {{Cc-by-4.0}} should match https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en. I did not check word by word the match of the proposed text with creativecommons.org version but it should be close. The same goes with all the translations already done by CC. One concern I have is with "Foo": most photographs do not have titles and we should not expect people to title them, but should allow someone to add title if desired. I would also like to keep the suggested attribution part as a separate field. Incorporating it into sentence will cause trouble as people can put all kind of nonsense there making the sentence incomprehensible. Current approach isolates injected text so it is less of an issue. We should probably update Commons:Credit line. --Jarekt (talk) 16:19, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
Comment As far as I know, the CC-licenses also require the re-user to name the license the work is made available under. That's something we have always neglected for reasons I don't remember, but this seems like a good opportunity to re-think the issue and maybe put an additional notice into the templates. --El Grafo (talk) 08:50, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
.jpg&action=edit&redlink=1){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
