Commons talk:Licensing

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This page is for discussing improvements to Commons:Licensing. For discussions of specific copyright questions, please go to Commons:Village pump/Copyright. Discussions that do not relate to changes to the page Commons:Licensing may be moved, with participants notified with the template {{subst:moved to VPC|LIC}}.

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(the dates are very approximate because some debates dragged on for months, while others became inactive very shortly)

• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive Ancient (Up to October 2004)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive 1 (Oct. 2004 – March 2006)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive 2 (March 2006 – June 2006 )
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive 3 (May 2006 – June 2006)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive 4 (July 2006 – August 2006)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive 5 (September 2006 – March 2007 )
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_6 (March 2007 – May 2007)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_7 (May 2007 – July 2007)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_8 (July 2007 – October 2007)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_9 (October 2007 – February 2008)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_10 (February 2008 – March 2008)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_11 (March 2008 – May 2008)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_12 (May 2008 – July 2008)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_13 (July 2008 – August 2008)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_14 (August 2008 – September 2008)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_15 (October 2008 – November 2008)
• Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_16 (November 2008 – January 2009)

• ...

• Some principally important discussions are archived in separate pages. There is no point in arguing on the archived pages, because few people will read it. If you wish to dispute an archived page, you should begin a new discussion on this page and provide a link to the archive in question.

(these headers are preserved in case someone has linked to them)

Against DRM 1.0

archived as Commons_talk:Licensing/ADRM

Review of license templates

archived as Commons_talk:Licensing/Review of license templates

U.S. patents

archived as Commons_talk:Licensing/U.S. patents

Ecoport copyleft

archived as Commons_talk:Licensing/Ecoport copyleft

Museums Bilder

archived as Commons_talk:Licensing/Museums Bilder (in German)

Explaining why Derivative Work and Commercial Use must be allowed

archived as Commons_talk:Licensing/Explaining why Derivative Work and Commercial Use must be allowed

Which countries' copyright laws determine copyright status?

archived as Commons_talk:Licensing/Which copyright law applies?

Still active discussions

Template protection after review

There are many country specific copyright templates on commons that need review and should be protected thereafter. Many images on commons use these templates and changing something in the template like accidentally adding a hot cat category would affect all of these and would require mass purging for all images. We should have a review department reviewing each available template and after discussion protecting it. We should discuss the layout of PD templates: Should they include why they are PD in the USA or should this be handled in another template like {{PD-Egypt}} and {{PD-Egypt-1996}}. With the URAA laws the copyright laws of a country doesn't mean that much without an explanation on why they are PD in USA. Something like {{PD-China}} doesn't work for commons because it doesn't specify why it's PD USA. And should there be templates for country specific templates for each case like found in Category:Egypt-related tags? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Diaa abdelmoneim (talk â€¢ contribs) 14:06, 2009 April 23 (UTC)

"No Known Restrictions" Question

Merged to Commons:Help_desk#License_Question, now archived here

Question

Moved to Commons:Village pump/Copyright#Question, now archived here

Folklore art does not have copyright?

Moved to Commons:Village pump/Copyright#Folklore art does not have copyright? now archived here

German PD help

Moved to Commons:Village pump/Copyright#German PD help

Problematic FoP-US-no notice template

A well-meaning editor created a template, {{FoP-US-no notice}}, specifically to cover the case of U.S. public art installed between 1923 and 1978 without a copyright notice. There are, however, 3 problems with this template:

• It is named and categorized as a Freedom of Panorama template, but the situation covered by the template has nothing to do with Freedom of Panorama.
• The template states that the photograph itself is also ineligible for copyright protection, which is incorrect. All photos of 3D objects (whether the objects are PD or not) are eligible for copyright protection.
• The situation this template is designed to cover is already adequately addressed by the {{PD-US-no notice}} template (in combination with a free license tag for the photo).

I have two possible proposals for fixing this:

1. Someone create a wrapper template for {{PD-US-no notice}} that is similar to {{Licensed PD-Art}}. The wrapper would contain a statement explaining the situation with U.S. public sculptures installed between 1923 and 1978 without a copyright notice and then accept a 2nd license tag as a parameter for the photograph licensing. We would then migrate {{FoP-US-no notice}} uses to this template.
2. Alternatively, redirect {{FoP-US-no notice}} to {{PD-US-no notice}}.

Thoughts? Kaldari (talk) 05:33, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

A wrapper template may be better, explaining that artworks installed before 1978 normally are considered as published. There are other reasons for them to be in the public domain, such as published before 1923 or no renewal, and it would be good to let a wrapper template pick the correct one, e.g. as {{FoP-US-artwork|PD-1923}}. --Stefan4 (talk) 10:51, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi. What should I be using until then? I'm working on a major public art push now that I have free time again, or should I just sit on things for now? Thanks for the help. Sarah (talk) 13:36, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I usually just put in two licenses, labeling one "Photo" and one "Sculpture" or something like that. This image was pointed out as an example of something like that. Someone did just make a {{PD-art-1923-3d}} tag for the case where the art was published prior to 1923. A generic wrapper may be a good idea, taking one license for the object and one for the photo, but it would need to take arbitrary wikitext for either argument because there are so many possibilities. Anyways, just use {{PD-1923}}, {{PD-US-no notice}}, or {{PD-US-not renewed}}, and label that as being the license for the artwork, with something else for the photo. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:18, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Since no one has volunteered to create the wrapper template yet, and unfortunately I don't have time to myself, I'm going to go ahead and redirect {{FoP-US-no notice}} to {{PD-US-no notice}} for now. Kaldari (talk) 21:00, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Licensing problems with ubiquitously used image

• File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R99859, Berlin, brennender Reichstag (Reichstagsbrand).jpg
• File:Reichstagsbrand.jpg
• File:Reichstagsbrand.gif

The later two versions are under a license that is invalid on Commons. There can be no doubt, that the NARA claims do not cover Germany, the place of origin of this picture, so Commons can't keep those photos based on "seized enemy property". The first one is more complicated: The German Bundesarchiv licensed it but gives credits to ADN, the former state news and photo agency of the GDR (East Germany). This is of course faulty, as ADN did not exist in 1938 and there is not the slightest hint how they could have acquired the rights for a picture that was taken in 1938. How do we deal with that? --h-stt !? 10:28, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Ähem, hat sich denn an deinem letzten Statement in Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Reichstagsbrand.gif etwas geändert? --Túrelio (talk) 10:41, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Lustig, an die LD zum .gif erinnerte ich mich nicht mehr, nur noch an die zum .jpg, das gelöscht (und seitdem zweimal außerhalb des Verfahrens wieder hergestellt) wurde. --h-stt !? 11:16, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

The claim is that it was published anonymously in 1933, which means that it has been PD in Germany/Europe since 2004. The NARA reasoning would stand to explain the U.S. side of things. Getty does have a couple of versions of it here and here, not really any further help on authorship. Perhaps it was a stock news image at the time, which ADN no doubt acquired at some point (perhaps it inherited some material from the former government's media archives?). But unless there was a human author named, I don't see how the licenses are invalid. Carl Lindberg (talk) 11:12, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Under German law, a photographer does not have to be named along the work to have a valid claim. Just any kind and place of mentioning is enough. We can't know and certainly not prove, that the photographer did not sign or archive or otherwise claim a single print sometimes or someplace. I'm totally unhappy with each and any "anon works" licenses with regard to Germany. rgds --h-stt !? 11:16, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

No, but we can disprove it, by finding an author's name somewhere. You're basically saying we can never use the Anonymous-EU tag, since it's always going to be impossible to prove that an author's name was never mentioned, even if we know the original publication was anonymous. Given the number of places this photo exists, you'd think the photographer's name would be somewhere if it was known. Anonymous seems a reasonable assumption, given the number of high-profile institutions which have copies with none of them having a known author, though of course it's always possible that a name would be found somewhere, at which point we would re-evaluate. Of course it's equally possible the photo was simultaneously published in a number of other countries, which means that some other country (with a shorter term) may be the "country of origin". Carl Lindberg (talk) 11:39, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Attribution of works for hire

When someone is hired to create a work that is then released under a Creative Commons attribution license, what is the correct way to attribute the work? Do you need to attribute both the artist and the person who hired them, or just the person who hired them? Does it depend on what country you're in (especially for countries that have moral rights)? Kaldari (talk) 09:53, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

If you are talking about the legal requirement in the Creative Commons license, the attribution is completely up to the copyright owner. The human artist in that case would have no say in the matter, and no rights to require it, I don't think. I'm less sure about moral rights; companies may not have an obligation to note the name of the individual employee which created a work, and for countries which have work for hire, the human artist never had any interest in the copyright to begin with (since they are not the "author"). Even countries where that is not the case would be likely to respect that aspect for foreign copyrights (the U.S., for example, would use foreign law to determine the copyright owner of a foreign work, and not try to apply U.S. law on validity of transfers and that kind of thing). However if the person is known, it probably should be mentioned somewhere even if not a legal requirement, as it could affect the term of copyright in some countries. If the copyright owner gave no guidance on attribution, I'd probably mention both the company and person if known, and if they did, just use the specified attribution, but somewhere else in the image description note the actual person. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:42, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I think there are several answers, depending perhaps on national laws. In Germany for example you may create a work for hire and the question if you have to be named or not has - always - to be dealt with in a contract. The author can sell restricted or unrestricted, exclusive or non-exclusive usage rights with or without duty to name him. Credit may even vary by kind of usage. News agencies i.e. often release press images where credit goes to the agency, but usages outside actual news require credit to the author. In any case, their is no "automatic" loose of being named. --Martina talk 21:27, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Is your question in regards to the requirements faced by the licensor (i.e. the commissioning party) or the licensee (i.e. someone reusing the work)? The former would primarily be governed by national law (as discussed above), while the latter would primarily be governed by the licensing terms. Quoting from section 4 (b): "[You must provide] the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied, and/or if the Original Author and/or Licensor designate another party or parties (e.g., a sponsor institute, publishing entity, journal) for attribution..." In other words, the license provides for cases where the attribution includes the author, the commissioning party, or both, and the licensee has to provide whatever attribution the licensor has stipulated. —LX (talk, contribs) 19:50, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

How explicit does a license need to be, when uploading files from another source?

As the discussion Commons:Village pump/Copyright#How_explicit_does_a_license_need_to_be.2C_when_uploading_files_from_another_source.3F may also affect Commons:licensing I encourage people who watch this page, to participate in the discussion as well. In kind regards, heb [T C E] 12:43, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Free in the U.S. and the country of origin of the work

The Licensing policy says that:

"Uploads of non-U.S. works are normally allowed only if the work is either in the public domain or covered by a valid free license in both the U.S. and the country of origin of the work."

I was trying to find the discussion that lead to this policy. En-wiki only require that the file is free in the U.S. and I would like to read more about why Commons has a different policy. If someone has a link I would be happy :-) --MGA73 (talk) 20:18, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Interesting question. I guess you could look back at the history of the page. I think it started out that since Commons was hosting images for all the Wikipedias, it should have a more international outlook. Following U.S. law is a requirement because that is where the organization is, but it looks like there was some desire to ensure works were free in at least much of the world as well, not just the U.S. It looks like this edit was when the "country of origin" stuff was first put in; the point being that if something was PD in its Berne country of origin, then it would also be PD in any country which follows the rule of the shorter term -- thus, being PD in a good many countries. For similar reasons, fair use images were not allowed from near the beginning from the looks of it, as that is U.S. law only and Commons needed to support several wikis which did not allow fair use at all. While en-wiki follows U.S. law, other projects more follow laws according to their intended audience. The country of origin rule is a very good one I think. For a while, actually, Commons was actually not following the U.S. part all that much because of the lawsuit over the URAA, resulting in the {{Not-PD-US-URAA}}, but since it was fully upheld we will probably be needing to remove those soon. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:38, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Oh my God! Do you realize what you're asking? (Experienced as you are, I'm guessing that you do) ;) If one reads through the entire history and archives of Commons talk:Licensing (and of Commons:Licensing), I think one might conclude that there is no real answer to that question.

Historically, back when Commons walked its uncertain early steps and proceeded to draft some licensing policy, users wrote a policy requiring that a work had to be free in its country of origin only. Why? For me, that is clouded in mystery. it is possible that in those early times, some users were still unfamiliar with what the German call the Schutzlandprinzip of the Berne convention. Anyways, in the discussion archives, one can see that at some later point someone lightened up to the fact that Commons must probably conform to U.S. copyright law, and then it was proposed to replace the requirement "free in the country of origin" by the requirement "free in the U.S." A good idea, if you ask me. However, the way things turned out, someone suggested to add the U.S. requirement "free in the U.S." but, oh well, let's also keep the requirement "free in the country origin" too. That's about all you'll really find about it. Why was the requirement about the country of origin kept? No deeply thought analysis. No real reason. I get the impression that, basically, the old requirement "free in the country of origin" was kept merely from inertia and the force of habit, even if people didn't really know why it was there in the first place. After the fact, each of us can try and rationalize the policy, with our own personal good or bad ideas about why we think the policy is what it is. If you ask any number of users, you may well get as many different answers.

Like any other user, I too can think of some personal rationalizations for the policy, for what they're worth. I can also think of negative effects of the current policy. The negative points may be more important that the positive points. (I may develop my comments later.) I would welcome a reasoned collective evaluation of the policy, so we could at least have a more solid basis for it and a good answer ready the next time someone will ask the question. :) -- Asclepias (talk) 22:42, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

It may be definition of project, so Erik Möller is right person to address this question.

If I'm not mistaken, it originated from German Wikipedia, which issued or considered to issue CD/DVD form of Wikipedia of that time.

This requirement seems completely reasonable for me. So it's good idea to ask why English Wikipedia and some other projects doesn't follow such policy. Editors live around a world, content is definitely used outside USA, as well as some servers located not in USA - for example, replication on Toolserver.

For me USA laws-centrism seems wrong policy for international projects like WMF ones.

EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:42, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Eugene. On projects of this nature, it would seem absolutely necessary that an image be PD in the county of origin (it's actually the U.S. part that I have mixed-feelings about, regardless of where servers might happen to be located). The en.wp policy, however, is just bizarre. Imagine a Canadian is taking an image created in Canada off a website based in Canada and uploading it locally to en.wp - yet the fact that the image is copyrighted in Canada is immaterial and all that matters is that it is considered PD in the U.S. If I were the copyright-owner in Canada, I am not sure that I would find the en.wp policy defensible. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:18, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

The WMF is a U.S. organization, and despite the international reach, it's not unreasonable to conform to U.S. standards for it. The said copyright owner in Canada would not be a copyright owner in the U.S.; they have no more rights to prevent U.S. usages and they should hopefully be quite used to that. Same situation can also go the other way; Canadian rights can expire before those in the U.S. In the end, following one rule or the other results in more material available (and thus a better encyclopedia) than the Commons dual rule... I'm pretty sure de-wiki follows German law quite a bit, it-wiki probably uses the Italian 20-year rule for photographs regardless of their status in the U.S., etc. The country-of-origin rule makes sense to me for Commons, but in a practical sense the U.S. rule is also close to unavoidable -- we are directly subject to DMCA takedowns and the like, so it's not something we can easily ignore. We could potentially host free-in-other-countries-but-not-the-US images under fair use rationales, but that may not go over too well and won't help with DMCA takedowns that much. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:36, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I find country of origin rules horribly confusing. Imagine a Iranian taking an image taken by a German solider in what is now the Ukraine, then Russia, from a server in Italy and uploading it to a US server (en.wp). By the Berne Convention, what's the country of origin? Trick question; it's the country of first publication! Let's say that it was first published by a Yugoslavian publisher who had offices in Sarajevo (now Bosnia and Herzegovina), Zagreb (now Croatia), and Belgrade (now Serbia). That's just not that unlikely in a project of this nature. You want to worry about all of them, there's laws in 9 languages you might want consider. I'd rather consider copyright in most places overbroad and accept the restrictions we have to.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:08, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you all for the info. The reason I wanted to know more is that it would be much easier if we had the same policy (except for fair use). If we allowed files that was not free in the source country they would ofcourse need different templates that the files that is free in both countries. What gave me the silly idea to ask is this discussion on en-wiki + related DR's :-) --MGA73 (talk) 19:47, 24 May 2012 (UTC)