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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Rd232 (talk · contribs)'s closure of the discussion is copied from #Closure. Cunard (talk) 06:21, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

It's now been over two months since this discussion ground to a halt, without any sign (despite repeated requests) of anyone being willing to close. So I've taken on this thankless task.

Principles:

1. Change is costly. Changing things means changing infrastructure and educating users on the new situation. We should only do it when it's clear that the benefits outweigh the costs, and that the change is well-supported by the community.
2. Wikipedia aims to be a free content encyclopedia, and to spread knowledge throughout the world.
3. The United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights states (Article 27(2)) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Findings:

1. Various countries listed at Wikipedia:Non-U.S._copyrights#Countries_without_copyright_relations_with_the_United_States currently don't have copyright relations with the US, and therefore works copyrighted in those countries aren't copyrighted in the US. They are therefore legally in the public domain in the US, and there is no legal impediment to their use on this basis. There are however ethical arguments against their use.
2. If those countries sign the relevant international agreements, works copyrighted there will become copyrighted in the US (and in most other countries). This might mean removal of the images would be required, or addition of Fair Use Rationales.
3. Option 1 (country-specific PD templates, eg User:Buffs/PD-Iraq_in_US) is carried without opposition. Such templates allow all files to be identified if the situation for a country changes.
4. Usage Option 1 (use such files as PD, with appropriate templates for identification) has no consensus, and leans oppose.
5. Usage Option 2 and Usage Option 3 (which are virtually identical, and are to treat the files as non-free and apply fair-use rationales for each use) have no consensus. Two variations on this theme, Usage Option 4 and Usage Option 5 (treat files as if international copyright agreements had been signed by the few countries that haven't) are respectively strongly opposed and have no consensus.
6. The final arrangement proposal was opposed.

I believe that this means that all of this discussion, whilst it has clarified a lot of things, shows

1. no consensus for the status quo ante, which is Jimbo's stance that (quoting from Wikipedia:Copyrights#Governing_copyright_law, not his words) "Wikipedia contributors should respect the copyright law of other nations, even if these do not have official copyright relations with the United States". Various usage options supporting the status quo were rejected or did not gain consensus.
2. no consensus for change.

How do we deal with this? By relying on principles 1, 2 and 3 cited above. Each of these points towards sticking with the status quo ante, and that is my conclusion.

To this I would add a comment: some of the objections to respecting the copyright law of the relevant nations is that quite often Wikipedia practice chooses US copyright law over local copyright law, where they conflict and this approach places the content in the public domain in the US. I want to point out the distinction between (i) choosing to go with US law in a conflict situation between US and local law, resolving that conflict in accordance with international law and (ii) ignoring local law because the country hasn't signed the appropriate international agreements. In situation (i), the authors have had a chance to have their rights respected, and conflicts resolved by interpretation of the law; in situation (ii), the authors have not had that chance. I think this is worth saying in order to distinguish the situation we're discussing from many other situations that can be argued to be similar. Rd232 ^talk 18:07, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

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General discussion

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Due to bot issues this in not currently showing as an open RfC. However while we await legal input from the foundation it should remain open. I've queried the bots action with it's owner and started a section below #RfC tag. Dpmuk (talk) 19:00, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

What to do with respect to the copyright of countries with which the US does not have copyright relations?? This has come about because of the images of the US drone in Iran and an old (2005) e-mail from Jimbo that is referenced at WP:C. More history at the RfC. Dpmuk (talk) 04:06, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Currently WP:C states:

"Regardless, according to Jimbo Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, Wikipedia contributors should respect the copyright law of other nations, even if these do not have official copyright relations with the United States."

with a link to this 2005 from Jimbo Wales. When the images of the US drone in Iran, such as File:U.S. RQ-170 on display in Iran 1.jpg, were uploaded a PUF was started here. I have clarified with the closer here that in closing they were merely determining the images were PD, not whether we should be using them. A template was created for these PD images but was userfied as a result of this discussion.

The current situation would appear to leave us in the odd situation where we treat the images as copyright and so should require a FUR etc despite the whole system not really being set up to cover this situation. The current situation also seems out of synced with current policy where we allow use of images that are PD in the US for other reasons (e.g. time) but aren't in the country of origin. It should be noted that there is the complication with images such as these that if copyright relations were ever established these images would automatically become copyrighted in the US.

The current situation is obviously confusing and needs clarifying. Once that is done we can create the appropriate template etc. Dpmuk (talk) 16:10, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Unless we treat them as PD (as I think everyone agrees they are within the US and most other countries), this sort of rationale can only lead to images being tagged as both PD and but with Fair Use Rationales. If that's the way we ultimately decide to do this, fine, but we need direction for people to upload such images and let the bots handle them appropriately. Right now, some bots/people are removing FURs from PD images (and rightly so), but we need to make it clear how to actually handle these kinds of images.

There are two issues: labeling and usage.

• Labeling them as "Copyrighted" is simply false. They aren't copyrighted in most of the free world, but more importantly, they aren't copyrighted within the US. Just labeling them as copyrighted restricts people from re-using the images as they are allowed to do. If we are going to abide by Iranian copyright law, are we going to delete File:Neda Agha-Soltan.jpg? This image has been banned in Iran!
• Labeling them as "PD" is accurate, but more information would be better. The images are copyrighted in Iran, but that doesn't transfer to the US or UK.
• I contend it is best to label them thusly:

This is a temporary template for certain files that are under discussion. Both consensus and a WMF legal team review has determined these images to be in the Public Domain within the US and most other countries. Criteria for usage is still under discussion.

This file was first published in Iran. According to Wikipedia and Circular 38a of the U.S. Copyright Office, as of January 2010, Iran does not have copyright relations with the United States. Published works originating in Iran thus are not copyrighted in the United States, regardless of the local copyright laws. See 17 U.S.C. § 104(b), quoted in the Circular. Therefore, it is in the public domain within the United States. Other jurisdictions may have other rules, and this image might not be in the public domain outside the United States. See Wikipedia:Public domain and Wikipedia:Copyrights for more details. Pursuant to the Berne Convention and Title 17, Section 104 of the US Code, the following must be true to establish that the "country of origin" of this work is Iran: The work was first published in Iran. The authors of the work are citizens of Iran and are not also citizens or permanent residents of any country that participates in the Berne Convention. Within thirty days of its first publication in Iran, the work was never published in any country that participates in the Berne Convention.

Do not copy this file to Wikimedia Commons. No reason has been supplied as to why this file should not be moved to Wikimedia Commons!

• So, the next issue is how do we actually use the images? I contend that we should treat them as PD until such time as Iran becomes a signatory to relevant copyright conventions. There is no legal risk involved as the Iranians have no standing to bring a lawsuit in the US (they don't even have a consulate or embassy in the US). Jimbo is indeed correct that we should "respect" the rights of the Iranians, however, I contend that we should also respect the rights of those outside of Iran who have a legal right to use these PD images as they see fit. In a balance between the two, I side with the rights of those outside Iran to use the image as a PD image. This doesn't mean we are disrespecting/disregarding Iranian copyright, but the image would be appropriately labeled and should NOT be treated as a PD image in Iran.

In summary, label them as PD everywhere but Iran, note that they cannot be used as PD images in Iran, and treat them as PD within en-wp. Buffs (talk) 17:02, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Furthermore, by separately labeling them, should Iran decide to become a signatory, it would be FAR easier to change a single the image tag and remove copyrighted images in the future (should that be a condition of their signing). Labeling them as simply PD or treating them as copyrighted would not provide the same flexibility. Buffs (talk) 17:05, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

There are also a few other countries to which this applies as well (Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq, San Marino and Turkmenistan). I suppose we should include them in the specifics of our solution. Buffs (talk) 17:10, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I specifically worded it for "countries with which the US does not have copyright relations" for that reason although of course the example are all Iranian. Dpmuk (talk) 17:21, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

This is no longer true for Afghanistan or Iraq, though it was before 2001 and 2003, respectively. I can't confirm the cases regarding San Marino or Turkmenistan, but I doubt the issue would come up much. We're mostly just talking about Iran and Ethiopia here. – Quadell ^(talk) 18:00, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Where is your evidence of that? According to the US copyright office as of January 2010, this is still true for Iraq and Afghanistan Buffs (talk) 09:23, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Long ago, Jimbo Wales emphatically opined that we should not treat images as PD just because the U.S. does not have a copyright relationship with the country of origin. Instead, he insisted, we should treat such an image as copyrighted on Wikipedia if it is considered copyrighted where it was first published. Since then, many cases have come up that strain the logic of this directive. (E.g., the U.S. does have a copyright treaty with Mexico, and a photo by a Mexican citizen who died in 1920 would be considered copyrighted in Mexico but PD in the United States. Wikipedia doesn't honor Mexico's copyright laws in this case when they conflict with U.S. law, so why should we do so for Iran?) I understand why Jimbo Wales said what he said, but I think his advice is bad in this instance. And as far as I know, it was a single statement that he made once, many years ago, and I don't think the Wikipedia community should be bound by it. In my opinion, if an image is not protected by copyright in the U.S., we should be free to use it on Wikipedia and tag it as PD. – Quadell ^(talk) 18:00, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, Jimbo has just about no experience with files or file copyright. Rather than debate his statement, we should kick this to the WMF counsel, who does have training (presumably) in copyright, and have him release a legal opinion on the matter. If Jimbo or the board wants to establish additional parameters, they can do so in an official capacity after that opinion comes through. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:26, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

• Concur with Sven Manguard. --John (talk) 21:54, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I think the legal position here is clear - quoting from Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights:

    According to Circular 38a of the U.S. Copyright Office, as of January 2010, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, San Marino and Turkmenistan have no copyright relations whatsoever with the U.S. Published works originating in one of these countries thus are not copyrighted in the United States, regardless of the local copyright laws of these countries. See 17 U.S.C. § 104(b), quoted in the Circular. Unpublished works, however, are copyrighted regardless of their origin or of the nationality of the works' authors, as long as they remain unpublished. See 17 U.S.C. § 104(a).

    As this uses a publication from the US Copyright Office as it's source I think we'll safe in assuming such images are PD. I suppose it won't do any harm kicking it to counsel, assuming they have time to answer, but I do think it's safe to proceed with this RfC on the grounds that they are PD. Dpmuk (talk) 01:04, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I agree with the spirit of Jimbo's original sentiment. If we consider the intellectual contributions of others to be valuable (and I think we do), then ethically we ought to respect their works, even if we aren't legally obligated to do so due to quirks in international policy. If an Iranian creates something new and different and great, I can't agree that it is right to take that for our own use just because he is Iranian. Legally viable, but ethically icky. Quadell is correct when he says above that we aren't entirely consistent about rules like this, but personally, I think that consistency should come from giving more respect to authors and content creators, and not less. I will also note that "public domain" when it comes to non-treaty states doesn't have the same sense of permanence of the "public domain" we usually recognize. In particular, if one of those countries decides to become a treaty partner (admittedly unlikely for Iran in the near future) then their works would be restored to protected status and could no longer be used from that point forward. Personally, I don't feel very comfortable with a system that says: "go ahead and use this material now, because the author doesn't have any rights or recourse here right now, but you should still be on guard because he might have rights some day". I think it is ethically much more natural to treat the works of non-treaty partners with the same level of consideration that we would give nearly everyone else on Earth. Is it required of us? No. Should we expect similar consideration from them of our works? Probably not. But at the same I think our sense of what is ethically right and wrong should go beyond a mere consideration of what one can legally get away with. Dragons flight (talk) 01:38, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

"Ethics" on Wikipedia never lead to anything good. Our only "ethics" should be to get as much information free and clear to the public, to people who don't have the money to buy every book or the privilege of access to a fancy private university library, as we can possibly manage to do reliably. We have already seen the risk of public domain works being taken away from us with the copyright extension bills - nothing is really "safe", or ever will be, as long as the doctrine of copyright continues. Wnt (talk) 04:23, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Dragons Flight, I'm sorry, but...What?!?!

We can't possibly decide what images to use solely because their copyright statuses are "icky". These are legal issues here, not ethical ones.

"Public Domain" is a legal status, not a perception or some other pleasant nicety. Responding to "I will also note that "public domain" when it comes to non-treaty states doesn't have the same sense of permanence of the "public domain" we usually recognize", I couldn't disagree more. Europe made some changes when the EU formed and some things that were public domain suddenly re-became copyrighted and, yes, the US does recognize those copyright claims. Should that instance somehow come into play, I believe we could certainly adapt and properly annotate/use images.

I also don't think that the way you "feel comfortable" (though this goes for anyone, including myself) with a situation is truly relevant.

Lastly, this isn't a matter of respect for intellectual property on an ethical level. The rights of copyright for the individuals end at the border of Iran, period, because Iran has decided as a country not to sign several treaties. Again, those rights end at their borders. They create those images knowing full well that their copyrights don't apply worldwide.; those images are in the public domain in the US.

This isn't a matter of "getting away" with anything, this is a situation which has two needs to be addressed: 1. How to label these images and 2. How to use them. Right now, we have conflicting guidance. As I stated above, I'm more interested in defining both of these so we don't have problems in the future (or at least minimize them). As such I think it would be best to split the discussion into those subheadings for clarity (see below). Buffs (talk) 08:42, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but the issues are both legal and ethical. If we did everything that was legal, WP:NFCC would be nothing but a restatement of the case law on fair use. Sometimes we have higher goals than simply doing whatever we can legally get away with. Personally, this is one of those time for me. Historically, many groups (e.g. ethnic minorities, women, etc.) have been denied many rights for reasons that were entirely legal at the time, but seem very odd by modern standards. For me denying Iranians (and persons in similar situations) access to international intellectual property rights due largely to the ass-backwards nature of their government seems like one of those things. My proposal is simple, treat international authorship everywhere as if the Berne Convention did apply. Hence images that are protected in their country of origin would usually be subject to NFCC here. I realize it isn't actually true, but it seems the most fair and equitable solution. Dragons flight (talk) 01:24, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

• I object....fa wiki is only the persian(farsi) version of the English wiki and nothing else,it's not considered a different country and it does not have different policies.Wikipedia's servers are located in USA and don't have anything to do with Iran's internal rules and policies.it's like u say,the website of USA's embassy can't use american photos in it's persian translation of the site.makes no sense...besides,the most important fact that no one could reject and close eyes on is Jimbo's lettter,very clear and very fully..."Wikipedia contributors should respect the copyright law of other nations, even if these do not have official copyright relations with the United States."....JUST BECUZ U DID NOT LIKE IT,IT DOES NOT MAKE THE LETTER ODD...I emphasis again:wiki fa or eiki persian isn't a different country,it's just the persian version of wiki english...respects.--jasmine (talk) 14:06, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Jasmine, I must admit I am slightly confused by your message. What exactly are you opposed to doing? Your posting seems to also bring up an additional issue which is how the persian version of the cite should be treated. Honestly, that is up to you and those who contribute to that version of WP. As long as polices there are in line with WMF policies, you can do anything you want (example: the german wp has decided that NO copyrighted images can be on their version, while the english version has decided fair use of copyrighted images are acceptable in some cases).

Now I agree with what I believe Jimbo was trying to do: showing as much respect as possible for others' copyrights. However, there are problems that this entails that were NOT addressed in his statement:

Let's say we have an image that is copyrighted in Iran that should be used in an article. Should that image be labeled as PD? Or as copyrighted? Or as copyrighted in Iran, but PD in the US? Each one of these options has positives and negatives. Labeling the image as copyrighted is simply false and gives the false impression that there is a restriction on usage in the US (i.e. Someone writing a book in the US can't use a copyrighted photo without permission, when in fact, they can). Simply labeling it as PD also is incorrect as it still retains copyrighted status within the borders of Iran (someone in Iran can't write a book and include this image without getting permission).

Then there is how we will actually use the image on WP. Since it is copyrighted in Iran, it cannot be uploaded to Commons. Likewise, I'm pretty sure that the German WP could feel the same way, but it isn't copyrighted in Germany either, so...??? However, it can be used on the en-wp. So, how do we use it? Do we invoke a Fair Use claim and treat it as a copyrighted image (no matter how it is labeled)? Do we simply treat it as a PD image and use it whereever we want?

In short, no matter how we look at this, there are quite a few nuances that Jimbo's message didn't cover and Jimbo isn't the end-all, be-all in WP. We can change how we do things (especially 6-7 years later). And we should probably get the WMF's opinion on the subject and incorporate that into our solution.

Lastly, I really want to hear your opinion on the subject and make sure we can take your opinions into account. If you don't like the options you see below, please add your own. I wrote them, but I take no pride in authorship; if you have a better solution, let's hear it! :-) Buffs (talk) 19:36, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

To me it is a simple decision that does not involve ethics in any manner. Based on lessons learned from PD-Soviet use we want to avoid images that may not remain in the Public domain forever. The reason why PD images are allowed on the website at all is because they will remain in the public domain forever. All the PD images covered by this proposal (should it come to effect) would become fully copyrighted if the mentioned countries sign the Berne Convention or any other similar copyright agreement. The fallout of that is the pulling down every use of the covered images on all medians including printed copies which would require the collection of all copies even those given away for free. That would be very costly to say the least. Images can be used under fair use and we would avoid all the problems that way. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 16:44, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

This argument is a red herring. It is pure speculation that we would be required to collect printed copies containing these images (and I don't see the State Department going for that in their agreements). We also wouldn't have legal issues within the US (which is where the servers are hosted) since ex post facto applies in the US: you cannot change the legal consequences of an image's use that existed prior to the enactment of the treaty. Now, we would have to remove all non-Fair Use versions from our current WP, but that's a separate issue...and even be more of a reason to label these images in such a manner that allows for a quick search/update of all of them should that time arise. IMHO, labeling them as copyrighted isn't a viable option as it is straight up false. I'd like to see you draft an opinion below. Come! Join in our reindeer games! :-) Buffs (talk) 19:49, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

If the images become copyrighted due to the countries you mentioned signing an agreement like the berne convention the images would be covered by the protection as if they are covered in their country of origin. What about this is speculation? Labeling the images (under fair use) can be accompanied by the country of origin. ex post facto did not apply to PD-Soviet change, why should it apply now? See: commons:Template:PD-Soviet or commons:Template talk:PD-Soviet#A concrete court case in the U.S. (Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc.) to be more specific. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 12:58, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

You bring up a valid concern. Yes, if they sign the treaty tomorrow, these images will become copyrighted. I never stated anything to the contrary. What I AM saying is that we cannot be charged or sued for use PRIOR to the signing of the treaty. We CAN be sued for use AFTER the treaty is signed. In any case, even the case you cite doesn't bear out the bleak scenario you portray. In that case, after Russia signed the Berne Convention in 1995, organization #1 sued and sought an injunction to stop organization #2 from distributing their copyrighted works. Of the 500+ works, 28 had registered copyrights in the US (pretty clear/blatant case of copyright infringement), 317 were restored copyrights in which organization #2 continued to use even after copyright works were restored. The rest the courts determined were not eligible for copyright. The judge and appellate court found in favor of Org #1 because Org #2 took both items that were copyrighted AND those that had a restored copyright and copied/distributed and continued to copy/distribute them even once they knew they were in violation of copyright (they knew they were doing something wrong and kept doing it anyway). As stated by the appelate court, Russian law was used to determine who was the copyright holder (in our case, that isn't an issue since we acknowledge who owns the copyright...perhaps this is a field we need to include in the template?). However, US law was used to determine any associated penalties. Ex post facto applied and they were not fined for anything related to use of restored-copyrighted media used prior to 1995 (prior to the restoration of copyright). They were fined $500,000 for copying/distributing copyrighted works registered in the US and for continuing to copy/distribute restored-copyrighted works after copyrights were restored. To use this situation as a backdrop and assuming we utilize these images as PD images, let's see what would happen in 2020 if the Iranian Government decides to become a signatory. These images would become copyrighted and we could use them only under a Fair Use application (labeling these images differently than simply "copyrighted" or "PD" would allow us to quickly make the transition by editing a single template and removing them from ALL articles until they had a FUR). What we did with the images prior to 2020 would be completely irrelevant and Iran would have no standing to sue retroactively. If we printed something prior to 2020, those documents would be fine, but we couldn't continue to print them. Any documents printed and within WP custody would have to be removed/redacted/edited to remove the images in question. We would be under no obligation to "go find every document we ever printed and destroy it" as ex post facto would apply

In short, your concerns are valid, your initial analysis is spot on, but your dire predictions are speculative and have no case law to back them up. It really boils down to copyright paranoia. Buffs (talk) 19:39, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Please clarify first of all, this discussion is just limited to English Wikipedia and no where else? Each Wiki project has its rules, e.g. Deutsche WP or Japanese WP has no non-free contents, they have restricted themselves and you see no logos, album covers, etc. there. Another example is French WP which uses only logos as fair-use. If Jimbo has said that we should imitate from each country's rules, so why we have fair-use in enwiki but we don't in dewiki? Why do we have Japanese non-free images in WP while Japan don't permit us to use fair-use? ●Mehran ^Debate● 17:34, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this is limited solely to the English Wikipedia. This does NOT directly apply to other WPs. Buffs (talk) 19:52, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

As an FYI, the Japanese Wikipedia accepts some non-free images. I know this since my image of the Air France headquarters (non-free in France) is hosted on JA. But anyway, yeah, this is about EN. WhisperToMe (talk) 23:22, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Jimbos e-mail is very old so just applying it to any wikipedia should not be done as it's probably been superseded elsewhere. However here at en.wiki we still reference it in a policy so this RfC will hopefully update our stance so it no longer relies on an old e-mail that may well not be in keeping with current practice. Dpmuk (talk) 22:15, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I must say I also disagree with this. Jimbo made a valid point, but we simply must put it in context. I think dismissing it without consensus and/or a ruling from WMF is a bad idea. However, I also think Jimbo is simply wrong on this point. Buffs (talk) 03:56, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrary Break #1

I dislike the addition of the sections below. In general I am against them as they can stifle debate (look at how little reasoning is below), limit options and makes it look like a vote and votes are strongly discouraged at wikipedia. Specifically in this case I think the first section is definitely not the way to go. First it's not that relevant to the RfC. We can decide how to label them once we've decided how we use them. If we decide to respect the copyright then I think an explanation of this needs to be included in any template. But any such discussion is, IMO, to in the specifics for this RfC which should be on general policy. Even if people think we should be discussing it at the RfC it is, IMO, it's obvious we should use specific templates for each country but the implementation below is not the way to go. Firstly we should create categories for each country and use the template to populate these. Second, given the similarity in the templates, there should be one meta template which should be the basis for the actual templates. This is a good example of why I dislike listing option like has been done - my option isn't included. As for the second section I believe option two is redundant as I think it's well established the images are PD and it also poses the problem that it leaves us no nearer a solution when the legal opinion comes back that they are PD (assuming it does). I suggest the removal of these section and more discussion - at the very least until the options have been agreed upon. Dpmuk (talk) 22:15, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I disagree quite a bit.

First, most of the reasoning is already up top.

Second it is my no means a binding vote of any kind. Just a way to generically gauge support. If we have 100% people opposed to something, then it obviously isn't what we are aligning towards. If we have 100% support, well that just may be a good way to gauge what we should put into policy/guidelines. As of right now, we have a lot of people weighing in on this, but relatively few placing a !vote below. While there is little opposition to the below points, it doesn't mean there is by any means 100% support.

Third, How we label these is just as important as how we (and others) use them. Buffs (talk) 03:56, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I think I should repeat my question again:

1) Assume that we want to imitate each country's copyright rules, Germany has limited its rules about non-free content, so we shouldn't use any Deutsche fair-use works in enwiki (if we want to respect to Germany's rules), but now we have such works in our wiki without any questions. We have the same situation about the other countries such as Iran, Ethiopia, etc.. If we want to respect to the other countries' rules then we should delete all of the Deutsche, French, Japanese , ... works in enwiki. If we want to neglect their rules and imitate USA rules for them then we may neglect the other countries' rules such as Iran, Iraq, ...

2) What the purpose of the below voting since the rules are clear enough to discuss about them? Please hold it back! (However you can see the other users' tendency to participate this voting) ●Mehran ^Debate● 05:12, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

1. Mehran, you seem to be confusing the legal and wikipedia roles. Each Wikipedia can define its own rules irrespective of the borders of dominant states. These rule must fit within constraints set forth by the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). Germany has not limited rules on non-free content, the German Wikipedia has. Now, of course, the rules that govern WPs obviously must fit within the rules of the law as well. The legal issues you present aren't really issues at all. According to the Berne Convention (of which Germany, Japan, France, etc are all signatories), an international copyright treaty, clearly defines how creative works are to be treated between countries. Countries can expect their creative works to be protected properly by other signatories. This also gives them cause to sue should a country violate their treaty obligations.
2. The reason for the proposals below is to figure out how we are going to treat images from countries that are not signatories. These images are in the public domain in the United States (where the servers are located and the governing federal law should any problems arise), but they are still copyrighted in their home country. Quite literally, they have both Public Domain status and copyrighted status simultaneously. The suggestions below are merely possible ways we could both annotate this odd conundrum and clearly define how such files are going to be used. Buffs (talk) 05:45, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

1. I don't know exactly about Germany, but in France there are actually some rules which restricted the fair-use. e.g. please see here, according to this rule we can't use any French fair-use works such as album covers, movie covers, ... (except logos), the same reason that frwiki don't use these images. (Maybe a french informed user could help about it better) So these rules also should be existed in enwiki (and any other wikis). I should consider that the "Non-free content" has a very long discussions in almost every wikis, and many criticisms has been considered about the correctness of this WP policy.
2. So as you said (if I understand correctly), this voting is just a proposal and will not be a type of consensus. Anyway, my final point is that we should respect to each countries' copyright rules, we can't neglect them just because the country have no relationships with USA because of some political issues! (Same what Jimbo said). Regard to Iranian PD images, they will be PD 50 years after the death of its author or 30 years from the date of publication. [16] ●Mehran ^Debate● 06:49, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

1. The website you cite (English translation here) is merely the French law on the subject, not the rules of the fr-wp. Moreover, we can use images (to include "album covers, movie covers, ...") and we do under Fair Use. Our use is covered under part c of the document you mentioned. #There are indeed some LAWS (not just rules) in France that cover copyrighted works differently than in the US. For example, it doesn't matter who takes a picture of the Lourve in Paris, it essentially a copyright infringement, but one that can be justified under de minimus We have Freedom of Panorama in the US, but that same Freedom doesn't exist in France. Buildings themselves can be copyrighted in France, but not the US. As a signatory to the Berne & URAA treaties, the US is obligated to protect those copyrights. As such we can (and do) use the aforementioned image of the Lourve in its article on en-wp, but only under an exception noted in their copyright laws. We certainly can and do use French fair use images on the en-wp. What the fr-wp does is largely irrelevant to the discussion (whether they do so because of European laws, a communal sense of "fair play" within their community, laws in France/Switzerland/etc, or any other reason is up to them, not us). Their rules should NOT exist in en-wp as each entity is independently "governed" as long as they meet the rules set forth by the WMF.
2. Voting below is indeed ust a proposal and a forum to discuss how to phrase potential updates to policy. We could later use the exact verbiage or use something completely different. It's just a plce to discuss ideas. Right now, about a dozen people have weighed in on this discussion, but only 3 have voiced an opinion below.
3. Lastly, we aren't "neglecting" copyright rules, we are applying copyright LAWS. These aren't merely "political issues" or petty differences between countries. These are treaties between countries (or rather a lack of them). Copyright is a LAW and must be upheld within its confines. We shouldn't make up fictional rights where none exist. We have to base our internal rules on what actually exists in the law. If you believe we should apply everyone's laws to WP, well, that's going to be a severe issue when we delete any criticism of the Chinese government, Irainan government, or North Korean government, any image of Mohammed, any nudity, etc. The truth is, we can't even "respect" every law in every country, much less "respect" laws and treaties that don't exist bwtween counties. The best we can do is annotate the copyright status as accurately as possible (see below) and use them in a manner consistent with the WMF rules/rulings. Buffs (talk) 19:27, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I didn't say "any law" (like censorship!), I said "copyright rules". And yes, we should respect to copyright rules, whether it belongs to Iran or China or Europe or everywhere else. ●Mehran ^Debate● 04:29, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, "copyright "rules" are laws. If such images are banned, then they may not be able to obtain a copyright in their host country...

My overall point, though, is that it is not so simple to just say "use what copyright rules are available in their own country".

I would also argue that these people COULD get a copyright in other countries (for example, Iran does have consular relations with Switzerland and citizens could get copyrights there that apply worldwide).

Lastly, I understand the concept of "fair play". We should give people the opportunity to protect their works through copyright. IMHO, people in the aforementioned countries have the opportunity (especially their government works) and, unless otherwise stated, they are in the Public Domain everywhere except the host country. Buffs (talk) 19:14, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

It is also worth noting (see below) that Ethiopia and Eritrea don't even have copyright laws...how are we supposed to treat those images when they don't even have copyright protection in their OWN country? Buffs (talk) 19:14, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Two days ago, I came across two complex Iranian logos on English Wikipedia. Not knowing about this discussion, I created a template, ((PD-US-no treaty)), because the situation seemed identical to ((PD-US-1923-abroad)). After doing that, User:Buffs notified me about this discussion and asked me to comment.

First of all, I think that it would be useful to have some legal clarification regarding Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Somalia. This document states that there are no copyright relations with Turkmenistan, but this document suggests that works from Turkmenistan may be copyrighted in the United States under the Universal Copyright Convention if published in either Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan after 26 May 1973. Commons:Template:PD-Afghanistan and Commons:Template:PD-Somalia suggest that everything is in the public domain in Afghanistan and Somalia (due to the countries having no copyright laws at all), so it seems that all works from Afghanistan and Somalia are in the public domain in both the source country and in the United States, making them eligible for Commons.

Secondly, I have been thinking a lot about this matter. If a user takes a photo and uploads it here, the user would have to add a statement: "I hereby publish this photo under a free licence. This applies perpetually." Let's say that I would instead add a different statement: "I hereby publish this photo under a free licence. This licence will be repealed if the United States enters copyright relations with Iran." Would you then consider this photo free enough? In this case, we have a situation where the United States legislators have decided that the works of certain countries are in the public domain, but only as long as certain countries don't sign copyright treaties with the United States, so it is essentially the same situation.

In terms of public domain, one could argue like this: if a work is out of copyright because of age (published before 1923, author died long ago and similar reasons), the idea is that the work is meant to remain in the public domain for all future in a certain country. On the other hand, if a work is out of copyright because of lack of relevant treaties, the work is only meant to be in the public domain until relevant treaties have been signed, which makes it less free (free to use now, but maybe not in the future). Maybe one could regard the first situation as free and the second situation as not free enough.

In terms of templates, I think that all of the examples are bad. I think that it is unnecessary to have lots of templates, but it is also a bad idea if the country isn't clearly identified. I think it would be better to have a single template which takes the country as a parameter and adds a per-country category, e.g. [[Category:Public domain because first published in (({1))}]]. That way, it would be easier to locate all images from any specific country, should they become subject to URAA restoration at some point. With some intelligent coding, the template could also complain if a wrong country is specified. Some other templates already allow you to specify a country, e.g. ((PD-ineligible-USonly|the United Kingdom)):

This image is ineligible for copyright and therefore is in the public domain in the United States because it consists entirely of typefaces, individual words, handwriting, slogans, simple geometric shapes, etc. These are not eligible for copyright alone in the United States because they are not original enough or otherwise ineligible (see the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices (Third Edition), § 313 (pages 67-84)), and thus the image is considered to be in the public domain. See WP:PD#Fonts or Wikipedia:Restricted materials for more information. Please note: The public domain status of this work is only in regards to its copyright status. There may be other intellectual property restrictions protecting this image, such as trademarks or design patents if it is a logo. PD Public domain false false

Do not copy this file to Wikimedia Commons. This image is believed to be non-free or possibly non-free in its home country, the United Kingdom. In order for Commons to host a file, it must be free in its home country and in the United States. Some countries, particularly other countries based on common law, have a lower threshold of originality than the United States.

I'm not sure if I want Wikipedia to put any limitations on these images or not since it is a complex situation. If someone decides to put a fair use rationale on any of these images, I don't think that it should be removed since it is practical to have one of those, should the country be subject to relevant treaties at some point. It would save people some time in the future since they could more easily be retagged as unfree. On the other hand, I'm not sure if a fair use rationale should be mandatory; it might be better to make it optional. --Stefan2 (talk) 13:49, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Excellent points. Buffs (talk) 19:05, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

FYI: Someone has uploaded a screenshot of the web site for Baghdad University, and someone else reported it for speedy deletion as a copyvio. I happened to be looking at the copyvio category and noticed it, so I moved it to PUF instead: Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files/2012 January 19#File:BaghdadUniversity.png. Since it directly affects this discussion, you might wish to go there and comment the picture. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:39, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Discussion for how to label these types of images

Label Option 1

Label each with a country-specific template which states that the image is PD in the US, but may not be elsewhere. This template can later be updated to indicate usage guidance once we clearly decide how to use images.

Examples:

• User:Buffs/PD-Afghanistan
• User:Buffs/PD-Somalia
• User:Buffs/PD-Ethiopia in US
• User:Buffs/PD-Eritrea in US
• User:Buffs/PD-Iraq in US
• User:Buffs/PD-Iran in US
• User:Buffs/PD-San Marino in US
• User:Buffs/PD-Turkmenistan in US
• User:Buffs/PD-Tuvalu in US

Label Option 1 Support

1. As proposer Buffs (talk) 08:34, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
2. Bulwersator (talk) 12:53, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
3. Copyright law is not respected in Iran at all. All Iranians have access to the latest softwares or movies for just 1$. I can assure you that nobody cares about copyright in Iran. AMERICOPHILE 20:34, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
4. Support option 1, because Option 2 doesn't make it possible to differentiate between source countries. This would make it harder to identify pictures, if not all this countries establish copyright relations to the United States at the same time. Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{Let's talk}_{about my edits?} 13:33, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
5. Support. Separation of them into different countries is good, because if some country in the list suddenly enters into copyright relations with the US, it will be easy to identify all the relevant images. We should still get WMF's opinion on this, though. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:36, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
6. Much clearer than option 2. Even better would be the suggestion made above to have one template but individual parameters for each country; that would simplify the template situation without making it any more difficult to sort images by country. Nyttend (talk) 04:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
7. Exactly what King of Hearts said, word for word. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:06, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
8. Exactly what Sven Manguard said, word for word. Danger ^{High voltage!} 23:16, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
9. Support, per Danger. cmadler (talk) 20:09, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
10. Support - Seems to address all the issues, current and potential future. Rlendog (talk) 19:03, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
11. Exactly what Danger said, word for word. Babakathy (talk) 14:14, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
12. Sensible. --He to Hecuba (talk) 15:23, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
13. Seems to be the best choice to me.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2012; 17:28 (UTC)
14. No-brainer. --Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 19:28, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Label Option 1 Oppose

Label Option 1 Comments

What's that link in the end of this template? ●Mehran ^Debate● 06:52, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Nothing. I removed it. AMERICOPHILE 10:44, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. It was left over from previous use, but I forgot to remove it.

To answer one of the questions above, the reason to use country-specific templates instead of a flagged option is that we can more readily sort out any countries whose copyright status changes by just clicking the "what links here" button. Buffs (talk) 05:17, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Label Option 2

Label each with a generic template which states that the image is PD in the US, but may not be elsewhere. This template can later be updated to indicate usage guidance once we clearly decide how to use images.

Example:

• User:Buffs/PD-Only in host country

Label Option 2 Support

1. A viable secondary option to label option 1, but would require more effort to update when/if image status changes. I think country specific is the best option. Buffs (talk) 08:34, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Label Option 2 Oppose

1. Oppose Too general for me. It would only work, if all this countries establish copyright relations to the United States at the same time. Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{Let's talk}_{about my edits?} 13:35, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
2. Option 1 is definitely better; besides the possibility of such a country entering into relations with the USA, this template prohibits uploads to Commons for all of them. This has the result of prohibiting transfers to Commons of images that would over there be tagged as ((PD-Afghanistan)). Nyttend (talk) 04:53, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
3. Per King of Hearts' reasoning in option 1. There is no reason that we shouldn't split this into separate templates, and a very good reason to split them. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:08, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
4. No benefit over option 1, and drawbacks as mentioned above. cmadler (talk) 20:11, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
5. Oppose per Sven Manguard. Babakathy (talk) 13:19, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
6. Doubles workload. Or atleast increases. --Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 19:32, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Label Option 2 Comments

Discussion for how to use these types of images

Usage Option 1

Images can be used as any PD image can be used, but appropriate labels should be retained as their copyright status could possibly change.

Usage Option 1 Support

1. As proposer Buffs (talk) 08:34, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
2. Bulwersator (talk) 10:54, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
3. Iran is a strange country. When the Iranian copyright law is not respected in Iran itself, Why do you think that it must be respected in the US? AMERICOPHILE 20:43, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
4. Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{Let's talk}_{about my edits?} 13:37, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
5. Definitely. If we have a useful image published in Mexico before 1923 by someone who died less than a century ago, we happily use it because it's PD-US even though it's still under copyright there. Why should we treat these any differently? Nyttend (talk) 04:49, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
6. Per Nyttend. Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:55, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
7. Nyttend said it better already.Danger ^{High voltage!} 23:15, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
8. This proposal seems to make the most amount of sense, and also involves the least amount of legal headache for the English Wikipedia. Given that Wikipedia's servers are based in the United States, it should follow U.S. copyright law where it can, with notice that this might not apply elsewhere. elektrikSHOOS (talk) 22:19, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
9. Permits use today, consistent with the relevant law, and accommodates revisions later if such revisions become necessary in the future. Rlendog (talk) 19:05, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Usage Option 1 Oppose

1. Ethically, I think that we shouldn't be ignoring other people's intellectual property rights just because the government of the rights-holder and the government of the country where Wikipedia's servers are don't get along. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:17, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
2. Oppose. Unethical and creates problems both for future Wikipedians and reusers in the likely event that some of these copyrights are restored when these nations join the existing international agreements on copyright. Dragons flight (talk) 20:22, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
3. Oppose. We know the creator of the image intended to reserve their copyright under the law available to them. We know the reason they are PD in the US it not because of differences in copyright law (e.g. age of copyright differences between Mexico and US), but because the relevant country has not yet got copyright relations with the United States. Honestly, this option feels like the equivalent of wikilawyering. Babakathy (talk) 13:47, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
4. Oppose. With due respect to the proposers, I find what is being put forward to be highly unethical and distasteful. Appropriating cultural works created by Iranians or Sammarinese or Ethiopians just "because we can" is not morally justifiable. Quite apart from the moral dimension, there is also the practical consideration that the copyright status of these works could suddenly change, which could lead to thousands of recently "free" images suddenly becoming unavailable. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 12:49, 22 February 2012 (UTC).
5. We don't slavishly follow copyright laws in all respects; in some areas, we are quite a bit more strict. I think this should reasonably be one of those areas. Just like we choose not to take full advantage of the doctrine of fair use, I think we should act ethically and refuse to take advantage of authors living in failed states or authoritarian regimes that don't participate in IP treaties. Nathan ^T 16:33, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
6. In my view, a number of arguments combine to make this approach undesirable. Our philosophy is not "use everything that we legally can", it's much more of "promote liberal legal terms that allow maximum freedom to reuse". The comparison with fair use is instructive. Even when we use that rationale, we don't grab everything to which we could possibly have a fair use claim, it's limited to cases where freely licensed alternatives do not suffice. Also, even if our position is that US law applies to this site, I still think we should try to interpret "public domain" with a view to reusability worldwide. There are two problems here, the fact that public domain status may be limited to the US, and the significant probability that even this status will be lost with future changes in regimes and relations (as with the Soviet Union). Finally, I think even at present the challenge of establishing public domain status for these materials is being treated in too cavalier a fashion. Most of the time we rely on simple, affirmative claims to show something is in the public domain (it was published in Year X, or the author died in Year Y). Here it is not as simple, as the proposed template suggests, as to say that the work was originally published in a country like Iran. You also need to know that it was not published elsewhere within 30 days, and be confident that none of the authors is a national or domiciliary of another country that might cause copyright protection to be extended. In other words, it hinges on important negative claims, and proof of a negative is always harder to come by. Even without getting into the ethical and moral dimensions of how this approach treats the authors, because I don't believe the proponents have unethical intentions, I think there are plenty of reasons not to go this route. --Michael Snow (talk) 18:48, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
7. Ethically, I find this unacceptable. Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should. --Carnildo (talk) 02:59, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
8. Per Nathan. --ಠ_ಠ node.ue ಠ_ಠ (talk) 04:18, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
9. Ethically dubious, and makes Wikipedia truly free only in the US - not elsewhere. The Cavalry (Message me) 12:23, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
10. For numerous reasons well made by others. If I have anything to contribute, I will do it to the comments section. --Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 19:36, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
11. Per Sven Manguard above and Dragons flight. Also, a carte blanche for using such items would take away the healthy incentive of actually working towards getting real, cleanly licensed free images, and would open us up to a flood of low-quality "found it on the web" images that we really shouldn't even want to use. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:40, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Usage Option 1 Comments

SM, I don't think we are ignoring their rights in any way. Their rights stop at the border of Iran and they publish documents knowing this. Moreover, nothing prevents them from obtaining copyrights in other countries (like Switzerland) to protect copyright internationally. The fact that they have intentionally chosen not to do this leads me to believe they have no intention of protecting their copyrights abroad at this time. Buffs (talk) 02:49, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Buffs I do not think that is a realistic comment. How many people know the details of copyright law in their own country? And it can be a little complex. I am travelling to Ethiopia later today and if I take a photo I am not even sure which law applies: Ethiopian, being the location of the action or Zimbabwean, being my citizenship? (Not that it actually matters as I release my uploads and post into PD as a rule anyway but you get the point) And I kind of suspect that if I chatted with a local photographer it is not so likely he would know that his copyright is only valid in Ethiopia and not in US.... Babakathy (talk) 05:54, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Buffs I don't think you have any conceptualization of how difficult it is for an individual to go through the process of filing for copyright internationally for every image that they take. The modern system places copyright on the moment of production because filing applications manually takes a long time, and is complicated. In the case of international filings, it requires working knowledge of another language. If you took 47 digital pictures on your camera, it would require 47 forms. What you're asking is just not a feasible option for all but the largest corporations. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:05, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Sven, the difficulty or ease of use is irrelevant. What you are saying is that, just because it is easier to copyright a photo in the US, we should extend that right to those in countries on "the list". I vehemently disagree. Our laws are written a certain way, as are theirs. It is hardly our responsibility to extend rights to people in nations who have decided not to participate in international treaties. The WMF has clearly ruled below that these images ARE PD. In this portion of the discussion, I haven't seen a decent argument as to why we can't use them as PD now. Should they become re-copyrighted, we will add FURs or remove them (case dependant). I don't see anything difficult or problematic about this. Hell, I'll volunteer to do it myself. Buffs (talk) 18:21, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

For the record: the international copyright status of these images has typically been determined by the dictators of the respective countries and not by the people of the respective countries. If we do choose to use lots of images, how long time would we have to delete them if a country decides to join a treaty? According to List of parties to international copyright agreements, Vanuatu will join WCT on 2 March 2012 (which will by the way be the first treaty that the country joins, so maybe the works are PD in the US until then). According to the source, this was announced exactly three months in advance. So: does this mean that we'll have a three-month period to review images from specific countries if we suddenly need to delete a lot of images and add fair use rationales? Would this time be enough? --Stefan2 (talk) 22:40, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

"...international copyright status of these images has typically been determined by the dictators of the respective countries and not by the people of the respective countries." That's true in some cases (Iran to some extent), but not most of them (i.e. Afghanistan, Iraq, San Marino). However, that has little bearing on the case at hand

"If we do choose to use lots of images, how long time would we have to delete them if a country decides to join a treaty?" Again, not really a factor in how we use the images now. However, it would take mere seconds to delete them, if necessary. As you point out with Vanuatu, it looks like 3 months of lead time. That seems to be MORE than enough time. At the time such a notice appears, we could simply put a delete notice on the page for whatever day the treaty goes into effect and delete those without Fair Use rationales. Buffs (talk) 03:36, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Congress may one day change the copyright laws to retroactively cover US pre-1923 US works that are currently out of copyright. That doesn't prevent us from treating those works as out of copyright protection. If the law changes, we will need to adapt, and the proposal seems designed to permit us to do so.

Americophile please we are not just talking about Iran: how copyright law is enforced there is not really relevant, especially as we are covering several other countries. Babakathy (talk) 08:18, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure I agree with some of the "opposed" based on an objection to using material by living artists. We've never required a check whether the photographer is still alive when using pre-1923 images that are out of copyright protection in the US. Admittedly that would be pretty rare today, but a few years ago less so. Rlendog (talk) 03:00, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I probably could have phrased this better. Even to the extent that existing US copyright laws which permit the use of works by living artists generally restrict the situation to items old enough whereby the situation would be rare, that has still never been part of our criteria. There has never been a requirement for a cursory check of whether the creator is alive prior to use, nor has there even been a presumption that the creator is dead but if evidence turns up that the creator is still alive then we would not use the image on Wikipedia. Nor has there been such a process for items where the US copyright lapsed due to a technicality. As such it seems inconsistent to object to using images that are not subject to copyright in the US due to treaty issues on the basis that the artist may be alive. Rlendog (talk) 17:19, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I find it odd that people are opposing based upon "just because we can doesn't mean we should". Whether we should or shouldn't is an ethical question, not a legal one. Because we can...we can use the images. Buffs (talk) 04:48, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia can decide to hold itself to a more restrictive standard than we are legally permitted. Notwithstanding the fact that I don't see an ethical problem here, as described above certainly not an ethical issue for which we make restrictions for items subject to US copyright law. Rlendog (talk) 17:22, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Usage Option 2

Despite their PD status in the US, images under these criteria should use FURs and be treated as a non-free image until such time as the WMF gives a ruling. Since the images require such lengthy approval process, they should be retained to the maximum extent possible until WMF gives an opinion on how they should be used.

Usage Option 2 Support

1. As proposer, but prefer option 1 over option 2 Buffs (talk) 08:34, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Usage Option 2 Oppose

1. No need to respect the Iranian copyright law at all. AMERICOPHILE 20:46, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

   What about San Marino? Turkmenistan? Ethiopia? Sven Manguard Wha? 00:22, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

2. If there is no copyright relation, that it doesn't need to be respected. Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{Let's talk}_{about my edits?} 13:38, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
3. Copying my rationale from option 3, since I commented there first and don't see a substantive difference between the two. Whether or not Iranians respect their own laws is not relevant here, but highly relevant is the fact that these images are PD-US and copyrighted in their countries of origin. It's quite absurd to suggest that the English Wikipedia can do whatever it wants with L.H.O.O.Q. because it's PD-US but must pretend that we're bound by the laws of a country that has no copyright relations with the USA. Nyttend (talk) 04:45, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
4. Per Nyttend. Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:55, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
5. For the same reasons as option 3. It's just not needed. cmadler (talk) 20:46, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
6. No need for a temporary policy "until such time as the WMF gives a ruling", I believe they will do so soon. Babakathy (talk) 13:36, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
7. The WMF has given a ruling, which in characteristic fashion, isn't really useful. This option is now moot. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:54, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
8. Simply muddies the water, and as per above opinion, overtaken by events. --Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 19:42, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Usage Option 2 Comments

Usage Option 3

Despite their PD status in the US, images under this tag should be treated as non-free images and utilize a Fair Use Rationale for each use.

Usage Option 3 Support

1. Ethically, I think that we shouldn't be ignoring other people's intellectual property rights just because the government of the rights-holder and the government of the country where Wikipedia's servers are don't get along. Note that I would only apply this for images that are currently under copyright in the home country. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:18, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
2. I concur with Sven Manguard. Babakathy (talk) 13:34, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
3. Yes. How we treat creative cultural property should not be based on something as arbitrary as which particular piece of the planet the author was from. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 12:51, 22 February 2012 (UTC).
4. Face the countries will join the various international IP treaties eventually and recent experience on commons suggests that mass deleting when that happens will be a lot harder than people seem to expect.85.210.71.255 (talk) 12:58, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
5. Per Sven. Nathan ^T 16:33, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
6. Sven's got the right idea. --Carnildo (talk) 03:07, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
7. Per Sven. --ಠ_ಠ node.ue ಠ_ಠ (talk) 04:18, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
8. Good lord yes. The Cavalry (Message me) 12:24, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
9. Do no harm. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 19:45, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
10. Clean and safe solution, and ethically preferable. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:42, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Usage Option 3 Oppose

1. Buffs (talk) 08:34, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
2. Bulwersator (talk) 10:53, 13 January 2012 (UTC) (Wikipedia:Argumentum ad Jimbonem)
3. I can't understand why we must respect the Iranian copyright law when nobody cares about it in Iran itself? AMERICOPHILE 20:37, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
4. Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{Let's talk}_{about my edits?} 13:39, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
5. Whether or not Iranians respect their own laws is not relevant here, but highly relevant is the fact that these images are PD-US and copyrighted in their countries of origin. It's quite absurd to suggest that the English Wikipedia can do whatever it wants with L.H.O.O.Q. because it's PD-US but must pretend that we're bound by the laws of a country that has no copyright relations with the USA. Nyttend (talk) 04:44, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
6. Per Nyttend. Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
7. For English Wikipedia purposes, as Nyttend points out, all that matters is US legal status. It is PD-US, so no FUR is necessary. cmadler (talk) 20:42, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
8. The images are free under relevant law and should be treated as such. If the legal status changes in the future, that should be addressed at that time. Rlendog (talk) 19:07, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
9. Wikipedia's purpose is to make information and knowledge available. The only limitation to that purpose is legal reasons. If, as in this situation, there are no legal reasons to limit ourselves, then we shouldn't. "Ethics" is quite irrelevant here—if the rest of the US can use these images, why should Wikipedia impose an arbitrary limit on itself?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2012; 17:27 (UTC)

   We do, for the record, place additional restrictions on fair use, making us more restrictive than the law states we have to be. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:35, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

   You say it like it's a good thing...—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2012; 19:18 (UTC)

   I think it is. I also have some strong opinions about fair use itself that aren't pertinent to this conversation, but which I plan on publishing soon. Sven Manguard Wha? 20:08, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Usage Option 3 Comments

• If you support this option, why do you feel that works first published in non-treaty nations deserve more protection than we give to works published in treaty nations? Or, is it your position that works should be free in both the US and the source country, as on Commons? cmadler (talk) 20:51, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
  • They are PD in the US because of legal technicalities. Those technicalities aside, we're not giving files from non-treaty nations any more protection at all, Wikipedia already honors the copyright laws of nations other than the United States. What I'm advocating is that we ignore the technicalities, and treat all nations as if they were treaty nations. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:59, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
    • Just a clarification. English Wikipedia honors *some* copyright/IP laws of other treaty nations, some countries more than others, because compatibility is greater, and laws in some countries are saner than in others. (King James Version Bible -- Crown Copyright in perpetuity) and (Peter Pan -- ISTR recall controlled by the descendants of Barrie in perpetuity and given to charity). Also differing fair use and and familiar rights arise in some cases, in some differing laws handled better than others (attribution, lack of use in a manner defamatory to the author, and integrity of the titled work, just a few to mention a few examples from my own country). --Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 20:02, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Usage Option 4

Treat the works of all countries as if the Berne Convention (and similar international copyright agreements) applied even though some countries aren't currently participants in such agreements. Hence most images that are subject to copyright in their country of origin would be considered as subject to copyright on Wikipedia as well (subject to the occasional exceptions that Wikipedia has traditionally honored). This is similar to the historical position advanced by Jimbo, and the status quo on Commons (where images must be free of copyright in both the US and their country of origin).

Usage Option 4 Support

1. Dragons flight (talk) 01:35, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
2. This or #3. Nathan ^T 16:34, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Usage Option 4 Oppose

1. Phrasing is all wrong. I am open to a uniform treatment of images (if that's possible). Buffs (talk) 02:16, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
2. Oppose The Berne Convention only applies to signatories, and don't see any reason, why it should be treated differently on the English Wikipedia. Jimbo's positions are only belong to him, and are not binding for the community. Also Commons, a repository for all Wikimedia projects, isn't the same as the English Wikipedia, thus we don't need to follow the same rules. Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{Let's talk}_{about my edits?} 13:43, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
3. Oppose. We should not pretend that something is under copyright if it's in the public domain worldwide. Nyttend (talk) 04:40, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
4. I oppose deletion of more than 1621 images based on argumentum Jimboni Bulwersator (talk) 07:57, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
5. Per Nyttend above, and because it is silly to pretend that a treaty applies to non-signatories. Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:57, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
6. I'm not in favor of adopting any policy that I can't understand after reading twice. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:20, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
7. Per Nyttend. cmadler (talk) 20:13, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
8. Per Nyttend and Sven Manguard. Rlendog (talk) 19:08, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
9. Oppose, way too complicated. Babakathy (talk) 13:24, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
10. Hell no.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2012; 17:29 (UTC)
11. I don't think this is what Jimbo intended. There are are allways common sense exceptions. Too far into the other direction in term of hidebound application without thinking about what is ñot right. --Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 20:11, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Usage Option 4 Comments

Do you realize by implementing this protocol, there are quite literally thousands of images from the US alone and more from other countries that you are proposing we treat as copyrighted even though they are in the public domain? Buffs (talk) 02:14, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Such images are in the public domain everywhere (and already covered by treaties), so I fail to see why you think this proposal would change that. I'm merely say that we apply the treaty conventions as if they had force for all nations. The example you raise appears irrelevant to that. Dragons flight (talk) 02:27, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

So, this applies only to works that aren't already covered by treaties? How would you go about treating images that (some) countries claim indefinite copyright on? Buffs (talk) 05:46, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

The US Code implements all the requirements of Berne Treaty, but already includes the limitation that foreign works are not protected for longer than comparable works authored by US citizens would be protected. Hence, no perpetual copyright in the US regardless of where originally published which is an entirely reasonable approach. US copyright laws are actually relatively consistent in how they treat foreign and domestic works except that the US does not recognize any rights in foreign works from non-treaty states. All I'm suggesting is that we treat all foreign works the same way that we already treat foreign works from treaty states. (Nearly all states are already treaty states anyway.) Dragons flight (talk) 05:55, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

"Hence, no perpetual copyright in the US regardless of where originally published..." I agree entirely. But you are applying US law to come to that conclusion, not the Berne Treaty (or URAA for that matter). Why does US law not apply to images that do not have a copyright within the US? This seems completely inconsistent since you want to shorten some copyrights in some other countries (like those that have indefinite or longer copyrights than the US) and extend it for others (such as Iran, Somalia, etc). This doesn't make much sense to me. I guess my point is that if you are going to apply US law, then just apply it all around and annotate which works are protected outside the US and which ones are PD in perpetuity. Buffs (talk) 08:20, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Usage Option 5

• While images created by citizens of countries that are not Berne or TRIPS signatories are in the public domain currently in the absence of integration into the global copyright treaties, these images will become fully copyrighted should the involved countries (Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Iran, San Marino and Turkmenistan) sign the relevant treaties. Iran and many other countries (including Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ethiopia) are trying to join the World Trade Organization which requires them to ratify Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and/or sign the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works which would grant copyright protection worldwide.
• This will most likely lead to a situation which Wikipedians and particularly Commons contributors may remember from 2006, the Commons:Template:PD-Soviet case where:
  • Russia joined the Berne Convention on May 13, 1995: Since 1993, Russia had had a copyright law that placed Soviet/Russian works published after 1943 (or 1939 for veterans of WWII) or where the author died later under copyright. The Berne Convention very clearly states that any works protected in a joining country on the date it joins become protected in the other member countries. Thus a "pre-1973" rule on Soviet works outside Russia is invalid since 1995/1996, in the U.S. and also in other members of the Berne Convention.
  • The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation from June 19, 2006. decided (decision (in Russian)) that the 50-year copyright term defined in the Russian copyright law of 1993 (No. 5351-1) was retroactive and even restored the copyright on works on which the old 25-year copyright from the old Soviet code had elapsed.
  • There was a legal case on that matter in the US: The case Films by Jove, Inc. v. Berov, 154 F. Supp. 2nd (2nd Cir. 2001) and 250 F. Supp. 2nd 432 (2nd Cir. 2003). This was a complicated case about a copyright infringement (committed in the U.S.) on Soviet cartoons. The case was about many different Soviet animated films published from 1936 to 1991. Some of these films were of Cheburashka, which is considered by many people in Russia a kind of national property; the childrens' books that served as the base for these films were written by Eduard Uspensky in 1966. In that case (154 F. Supp. 2nd at 448) the court clearly stated that these were "restored works", i.e. works that had their copyright in the U.S. restored under the URAA (17 USC 104A). (see From Itar-TASS to Films by Jove: The Conflict of Laws Revolution in International Copyright
• Furthermore content tagged with "Public Domain" can be used commercially which could be a great problem particularly for people who are redistributing offline/printed versions of such works. This would also be a problem for NGO efforts like OLPC whom may be unknowingly trafficking freely licensed content of which the license may expire.
• Hence it would be better for Wikipedia for these images to be tagged with fair-use since their "public domain" status will be revoked should the countries involved sign the relevant international treaty. This would save us the hassle that would arise otherwise.

“

While content created by residents of Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, or San Marino, and published in one of these countries are not protected by US copyright law until they become party to bilateral or international copyright agreements, they are still treated as fully copyrighted unless they are freely licensed by some other mean. [feel free to expand on the idea]

”

Usage Option 5 Support

1. No one would go off to process gazillions of images that suddenly become copyrighted. Most such uploads would be deleted in bulk should the treaty is signed. That said tagging images based on their country of origin independent of the license template is indeed a good idea. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 19:08, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
2. I support the sentiment behind this (though the wording could be better). Images that are "public domain until treaty is signed", shouldn't be treated the same as the rest of the "public domain". I creates problems for future Wikipedians and problems for reusers. (Not to mention is an ethical quagmire as I discussed further up the page). Treating them as if they were copyrighted and subject to fair use, for the purposes of deciding inclusion in Wikipedia, avoids the foreseeable problems of copyright restoration arising from likely future participation in international agreements. Dragons flight (talk) 20:08, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
3. Images that are "public domain until treaty is signed", shouldn't be treated the same as the rest of the "public domain" captures this whole case in a nutshell. Babakathy (talk) 14:00, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
4. Prefer over #3 or #4. Nathan ^T 16:37, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
5. --ಠ_ಠ node.ue ಠ_ಠ (talk) 04:18, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
6. Essentially the same as usage option 3, so I'll support it. Sven Manguard Wha? 15:31, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Usage Option 5 Oppose

1. First of all, the phrasing of this is all wrong for a policy. Second, The characterization (as explained in other comments by me below) of the case is somewhat off. Third, the clear majority of those WPians who have chosen to voice an opinion in this section have shown support toward using US-PD images as PD images. To do otherwise requires severe complications with respect to international law. Moreover, this seems to be more of a labeling proposal, not a usage question. How we label them and how we use them are completely different portions of this proposal. Lastly, what some NGO or other entity does with these images is irrelevant to the discussion of our usage on WP. Buffs (talk) 23:43, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
2. Oppose per Buffs. Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{Let's talk}_{about my edits?} 11:53, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
3. per Buffs. Rlendog (talk) 19:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
4. Are we going to second-guess what kind of treaties and laws will be passed in the future for every situation? If the scenario outlined here ever happens, we'll deal with it then.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2012; 17:32 (UTC)
5. per Ezhiki Bulwersator (talk) 15:23, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
6. If Wikimedia should take any stance on TRIPS, it should be to not to mention TRIPS at all, and try to not get tripped up by it in practise. Many things about TRIPS are *evil*. Worst option so far.--Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 20:25, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Usage Option 5 Comments

• Seems to be putting the cart before the horse. (See comments below). Buffs (talk) 23:43, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

• Additionally, the labeling of such images is a separate issue, so the second to last paragraph is irrelevant. Buffs (talk) 23:52, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

• Actually what people do with our content is very relevant. There is a reason why the content is freely licensed and even commercially available. Our use of WP isn't just the website. A change in policy requires tens of votes not a few. Hardly anyone is aware of this discussion. It should be posted on various noticeboards and the village pump. Largest vote is 9 and that doesn't really constitute as a massive majority. This post is a product of what is discussed below. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 19:13, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

• No, what others do with it is both ethically and legally none of our responsibility. We have five disclaimers that completely relieve us of all such responsibility: Wikipedia:Content disclaimer, Wikipedia:General disclaimer, Wikipedia:Legal disclaimer, Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer, and Wikipedia:Risk disclaimer. We choose to label the sources of our images and provide a Fair Use Rationale, but that is not legally required. Likewise, if someone takes material from us and uses it, all they really need to do is properly attribute it. They can use it wherever they wish and in whatever manner they wish. If they take a copyrighted image (for which we have a valid Fair Use Rationale) and use it to decorate their webpage, they are responsible when the copyright holder sues them, not us.
• A change in policy requires people to voice their opinion. This discussion has been included on the ((cent)) template which is posted on the village pump. Since there is no opposition at this time, I'd say we have a consensus on how to label things, but not necessarily in how we use such images.
• There is no set "minimum" for a policy change; certainly not "tens".
• I never said that 9 constituted any sort of majority of users, however, of those that have chosen to voice an opinion, it constitutes a majority in this subject (16 people have voiced opinions). A majority does NOT necessarily form a consensus. As we are waiting on WMF to drop down a ruling of some kind on the subject, these discussions are merely academic. At a bare minimum, we shouldn't move forward until we hear their opinion. Buffs (talk) 19:58, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Your position that what others do is irrelevant is not at all in accordance with the views of the people who founded and manage Wikipedia at the Foundation level. I think many Wikipedians, and all the board members I've talked to, consider the ability of our content to be redistributed and republished to be one of our major virtues. So much so that is was one of the motivations for using an open source license (at a time when such licenses were uncommon for text), rather than going the more traditional route of writing a Wikipedia specific licensing agreement. Similarly, Board level resolutions require us to label non-free content to help upstream users make accurate decisions. We care the our content is reusable. We do make trade-offs, such as allowing content that is reusable in the US but not necessarily everywhere else. Such trade-offs involve value judgments, and not every such decision will be friendly towards reuse, but the hassle imposed on reusers is certainly something we should consider. Dragons flight (talk) 20:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

The bottom line is that we want to avoid copyright infringement. We cannot control what people do with images outside of Wikipedia (we can certainly make requests, but we don't control it), so we should focus on properly using images we do have and making sure they are properly labeled for everyone else's use. In this instance, I want to make it clear that in the case you pointed out, the people were sued for copyright infringement for uses after copyright was restored and after they ignored a cease-and-desist letter. We simply won't be sued for copyright infringement because we respond to copyright claims vigorously, accurately, and promptly.

Given the problems we had with PD-Soviet, I think it is worth taking due diligence should anything become copyrighted to determine what images should be kept under Fair Use claims, but that's really a separate issue. Buffs (talk) 19:58, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Break for additional comments 1

Comment: This discussion is still going? This is a matter for the Wikimedia Foundation to decide. We cannot decide to declare images freely licensed unless we can quote a law or some other legally binding document establishing free-license or free-license-like (PD) copyright status. My guess is foundation isn't in the business of exploiting loopholes in laws. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 03:03, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

1. Yes, the discussion is still continuing.
2. I've quoted both the law and the US Copyright Office's stand on images of this nature. If that isn't definitive enough for you, I don't know what can be. The issue is not the status of the images (which are PD in the US), but rather how we treat them and utilize them within WP.
3. What you mischaracterize (demonize?) as a "loophole" seems pretty clear to me as clear-cut law/policy within the U.S. The Foundation doesn't pay taxes as they are a non-profit organization, but I doubt you will categorize their failure to pay taxes as "exploiting a loophole". I certainly won't. Please stop being so hostile and just deal with the facts. Denying that the images in question are PD makes you sound unreasonable. Buffs (talk) 04:04, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Added ((cent)) and a short synopsis to garner new opinions from "the masses". Buffs (talk) 04:12, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to ask User:Moonriddengirl her opinion on the legal issues. I know she doesn't normally deal with images but given her experience of dealing with the foundation's legal staff her opinion may be useful. Dpmuk (talk) 04:50, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Why not just email Geoff directly? (Or another of the WMF's lawyers, for that matter.) /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 05:22, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Because, in my opinion, given the copyright office circular, this is not worth wasting their time on as the legal position seems completely clear to me and I know some time back they were stupidly busy. As I said on Moonriddengirl's talk page I'm more asking whether they think (in their volunteer capacity) this is worth kicking upstairs than their opinion on whether they are PD. If either Moonriddengirl or a couple more people here say they think it's worth kicking upstairs then I'll do so. Dpmuk (talk) 05:34, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

P.S. Should add that as I've never dealt directly with them I also have little idea of what we do actually kick upstairs. Dpmuk (talk) 05:35, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

They are currently evaluating the URAA situation on Commons. Regarding this situation, I can almost guarantee that their response would be that the images are legally fine to host, but that it is up to the community to decide whether or not they are "free" enough to keep on the English Wikipedia. They tend to defer all such touchy-feely content decisions to the community. Kaldari (talk) 09:11, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

A similar discussion was taken place on the Persian Wikipedia about fair use media files in Iran. As the discussion was getting heated, it seemed to be harder to reach a consensus. Finally, we decided to ask the foundation what to do. User:Huji accepted to communicate with the foundation and after a long time they just responded:

"I apologize for not getting back to you earlier. I discussed this matter with the General Counsel and we agreed that it is not the Foundation's place to take an official position on this matter. Our position on fair use has been established. However, individual language communities may apply that policy more narrowly if they wish in order to comply with local law. But ultimately it is a community decision."

IMHO, the English Wikipedia is much more important than the Persian one to the WMF, so they may respond you much earlier and in detail. You can also ask User:Huji for the details. AMERICOPHILE 17:52, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

A reason to why it is useful to contact the foundation is also that we need an accurate list of all relevant countries. There are some problems with this (see above) since different sources list slightly different countries. --Stefan2 (talk) 13:34, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry but the examples presented here are irrelevant. The point is we want the images to remain freely licensed FOREVER. If you were to take a look at this, you'll see that works "created by a resident of Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, or San Marino, and published in one of these countries" are "not protected by US copyright law until they become party to bilateral or international copyright agreements". Keyword is "until" and that is why this is a bad idea. These can become copyrighted and that is a situation we want to avoid.

The reason we do not care about how Germany lacks fair use laws because we have Case Law that establishes legal basis to guide us (google search). Same reason for pre 1923 PD images based on numerous examples of Case Law and even then 1923 isn't a golden rule with many exceptions. Your proposal has no legal basis unfortunately. While an interesting academic discussion for law, it is more than insufficient to be usable on Wikipedia. There are potential legal consequences of giving temporary copyright free status to images.

On an unrelated note, it is distressing that Farsi wikipedia seemingly is disregarding foundation input in regards to Iranian copyright law where we expect vast majority of Farsi speakers to live in. There is only one reason foundation steps in to override community decisions historically and that is over copyright. There even is binding policy to this end.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 22:38, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

White Cat, you "want the images to remain freely licensed FOREVER." That's fine, but it isn't reality and it isn't a reasonable expectation. Every image can become copyrighted if a country changes its laws. Basing our policies/guidelines on pure speculation about how something might happen in the future is ridiculous. It quite simply can't be done.

How is 1923 not a "golden rule" for images on the Commons?

We don't base policy solely on case law, but the law itself. If no court cases are present, are you advocating that we do nothing in that realm even if it is completely legal?

Lastly, you don't speak for WMF. Acting as if your opinions are WMF dictates is absurd. In short, I see no reason for your opinions to carry any weight since they are entirely based on speculation and WP:copyright paranoia. Buffs (talk) 23:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I think that the main point is that US law is designed so that these works won't remain in the public domain forever; they will only be in the public domain until the United States signs any applicable copyright treaty with the relevant states. Upon doing so, the works will become copyrighted in the United States under the URAA. I mentioned this somewhere earlier in the discussion. The statement at foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy does not seem to disallow material which is only temporarily free, although this might be a mistake in the policy. Of course, some of the works might enter the public domain in the source country before a treaty is signed, and in that case they would be ineligible to URAA protection. There is also the special case with Afghanistan in that there is no copyright law at all in the source country, meaning that everything is free there too. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:33, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

As Moonriddengirl offered, in her official role, to get an opinion for us I've now taken her up on this offer. Let's wait and see what the foundation has to say. My request is here. Dpmuk (talk) 23:38, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Fine. But the question remains as to how the images should be tagged in the meantime. I think it is best to label them with the aforementioned labels for now as it will make them MUCH easier to identify when/if the WMF gets us an answer. Right now, they aren't labeled with anything and that too is problematic. I'm going to go ahead and do that now in order to preserve the images as-is and to give fair warning for those who try to use the images. I'm doing so with the understanding that the result of this discussion and/or WMF input will over-ride any action I take now. Buffs (talk) 03:20, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, I will also annotate that the images and their usage are under dispute. To not do so would be disingenuous. Buffs (talk) 03:22, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me as long as it's done in a neutral way, which I'm sure it will be. Dpmuk (talk) 03:25, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Done for the following images: 1 2 3 4 5 6. If anyone should take issue with the manner in which these were added or the message attached to these tags, PLEASE feel free to edit them as necessary (to include the tag on my user page). Buffs (talk) 04:26, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I do not object you tagging images based on country. In fact I would openly support it. I however object you determining a copyright exemption based on that. This is because we know these images will become fully copyrighted once the necessary international agreements are signed, it is merely a matter of time. This isn't a case of Germany or US changing their copyright law which is unexpected but if it happens we would have to adjust to the change as required by law. Such modifications to laws typically have clauses explaining the transition to the change as well.

1923 is not a golden rule in commons (or here) because there are exceptions to the copyright expiration. Bambi, A Life in the Woods for example despite being published prior to 1923 in Austria is still copyrighted. It will be in the public domain on 2022. This is rare but there exist some examples in case law that are an exception to the 1923 rule. Copyright is anything but easy or clear cut.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 10:42, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

What does you object to "determining a copyright exemption based on that" mean? I'm confused. Are you saying the images are not PD in the US? Moreover, there is no "copyright exemption" (as this implies that something is exempt from copyright) at play here. It is quite literally copyrighted in one country and those copyright protections end at the border.

"This is because we know these images will become fully copyrighted once the necessary international agreements are signed, it is merely a matter of time." You act as if the papers are just waiting for a head of state to sign them, when, in fact, they've been soundly rejected in Iran and other places. These countries have no intention of signing them. It isn't a "matter of time" at all. It isn't inevitable that they will sign them and basing our policy on that flawed logic is a bad idea, IMHO.

Bambi was published in 1923, not before 1923, so any role you attribute to it WRT determining if it is PD just doesn't apply. It seems to be pretty clear to me that the book met all the publication requirements to retain copyright status.

"Copyright is anything but easy or clear cut." As a whole, I guess we agree, but there are some easy things that are quite clearly copyrighted and others that quite clearly are not. This situation, I think, quite clearly falls in the latter category and no where near the murky middle. Buffs (talk) 22:11, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Do read Bambi, A Life in the Woods's section on copyright. It is hardly clear cut as there were two court cases and the matter still is controversial. This was intended as an example on how even clear cut rules aren't necessarily rock solid.

My logic isn't flawed. Should any signatory of the Berne convention and/or other such IP treaty sign an agreement between each other, the copyright protection may extend all the way to the US. The "Public domain" claim would not necessarily hold in court even today despite what cornell.edu website claims. For instance Iran is working to join the WTO just like many other countries including Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ethiopia which are on your/cornell.edu list. So yes, it is a matter of time. Signatories of WTO must comply with Berne convention per TRIPS. Even if they do not join in the near future this is one of the first things candidates will ratify in order to continue negotiations. Iran and US do not need to sign bilateral agreements to have IP laws apply.

I guess my concern isn't clear. To illustrate, let me give to problems your proposal creates:

• Opens wikipedia to a potential lawsuit. Particularly, printed and offline copies of the content you are trying to mark as PD will become a liability whenever the involved countries ratify TRIPS which can happen in the upcoming years.
• Opens wikipedia to censorship. Signing TRIPS would allow Iran to enforce its copyright outside of its borders. Consider Iran forcing the collection of hard copies of Wikipedia because they do not agree with some of the content we write and use copyright violation as an excuse.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 04:16, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Your scenarios are inherently flawed and amount to just copyright paranoia.

1. In the first instance, they do not become a liability as ex post facto applies. In the US, the law is very clear on this: you cannot be charged civilly or criminally with a crime/infraction that was legal to do at the time you did it, but subsequently became illegal. While we cannot continue to publish them and additional copies still under our control should be destroyed, we cannot be held responsible for printed copies not under our control. I defy you to find ANY case law that supports your assertion. I can find a BUNCH that support mine: Calder v. Bull, Bouie v. City of Columbia, Stogner v. California, etc.
2. In the second, should ANY country decide to abuse its authority, it could sue to attempt to censor all or part of Wikipedia. In fact, the FBI tried to do just that!!! And they failed!!!

The censorship angle simply won't happen in the U.S., but even if it were a concern, use or non-use of these images would have nothing to do with it. Buffs (talk) 07:33, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Break for additional comments 2

None of those cases are related to intellectual property and copyright treaties. I do not see their relevance. What would be the copyright of works in countries that are late(r) signatories to TRIPS and/or Berne convention? That is the question here. Websites would be required to take down the content and printed material would need to be collected. At that point it becomes a crime to keep making derivatives, to keep freely distributing the content, or to keep making copies of the content that was in the Public Domain prior. This is why your approach is very problematic. This is what happened with PD-Soviet. Please see: commons:Template:PD-Soviet, you are greatly undermining the effect of international treaties on copyright. "The Berne Convention very clearly states that any works protected in a joining country on the date it joins become protected in the other member countries." Images are indeed PD NOW but will not be PD when countries sign TRIPS or Berne. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 18:28, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

• Just because the cases don't directly involve copyrights doesn't mean the principles don't apply. If you can't see how the principles of US law apply procedurally, I can't help you on that.
• "Websites would be required to take down the content..." Not exactly. The applicability of Fair Use would still apply and that content could still be used in that capacity
• "...and printed material would need to be collected." I don't get where you somehow believe this is a requirement. You somehow believe that every physical copy of a news broadcast that used an image under these conditions would somehow need to be collected including those held by private citizens. If I write a book and sell a book that includes screenshots from Iranian television, I am somehow required to go find every person that bought my book and confiscate it? That's absurd! I've seen nothing in any legal document/case which shows otherwise and you've presented nothing other than your personal opinion. This is merely uninformed and misguided speculation on your part and is why I keep referring to m:Avoid copyright paranoia.
• "At that point it becomes a crime to keep making derivatives, to keep freely distributing the content, or to keep making copies of the content that was in the Public Domain prior." At least we agree on these points. That is why it is so important to label them correctly so that if we do use it (either as Fair Use or as PD) or others use it, everyone knows what they are using. Perhaps we need to add a tag line that says something to the effect that "if Iran signs the URAA, this file may lose its status as a PD..." or something like that.

Buffs (talk) 02:46, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

• I agree with Buffs's suggestion in the last bullet above, that these templates should carry an additional caution that if Iran (or San Marino, or...) signs the treaty, the file may lose the PD status. cmadler (talk) 21:03, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

• I have given you a case law example of a US court upholding copyright decision based on the case law of a Russian court for PD-Soviet case. Clearly you have not read it. We were forced to mass delete images because of this. All of the images you are talking about that are indeed in the public domain currently WILL NEED TO BE DELETED in bulk the moment the treaty is signed based on our experience with PD-Soviet as case law guides us. We have taken down content in bulk - really good content too such as images in regards to Soviet space pogram - because it was impossible to deal with so many images at once on a case by case basis. It had wasted a lot of time. This is not a case of something obscure that might happen and instead is something that had happened before. The reason why magazines aren't collected is because they are a news source and they get to enjoy fair-use clause. The difference with us is we are not JUST an encyclopedia.
• How are you going to go off to find every printed copy to mark it as fair use? How will you establish fair-use rationale, source and other criteria the instant bill is signed to all involved images at once? Do you not see how difficult what you suggest makes life for people whom only get an offline copy of the freely licensed content? Content on wikipedia can be downloaded for offline use under the banner of NGO projects such as OLPC. An OLPC project sending laptops to a country where fair-use does not exist (say Germany) will have a serious problem in their hands if they discover they now need to hunt down scores of content that they thought were in the public domain. Such laptops do not always have access to internet after they are given away to children. This is just one example. By marking something PD you are telling people they can use it commercially so such an image can be printed on T-shirts, billboards, on aircraft and even more.
• To be on the safe side such images should be marked under fair-use since they will become copyrighted in the near future when these countries sign TRIPS or Berne or other such treaties. This way the content will be stable and everyone will know what they are dealing with. Marking them in the public domain has far too many negative implications and no good gain.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 10:50, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

• I think that the German example is bad. First of all, all countries allow some kind of fair use as guaranteed by the Berne Convention, but countries may have more restrictive rules than the US. I'm not sure about Germany, but in Sweden fair use only applies to text, so most of Wikipedia's fair use claims are invalid in Sweden. Secondly, a German reuser would already have to avoid using many images marked as "free" on Wikipedia because Germany applies 70 years p.m.a. on US works whereas the United States applies different terms (so ((PD-US)), ((PD-US-no notice)), ((PD-self)), ((PD-USGov)) and the like say nothing about the copyright status in Germany). A ((PD-US-Iran)) tag would just add an extra check for German reusers.
• If you already have a copy on your computer, I think that you can keep it for as long as you wish even if the law changes, so the offline laptops wouldn't have to be updated.
• Having followed this discussion, I think that it would be good to be very clear with the applicable terms of these images on the file information page. Instead of a normal "PD" or "non-free" template, use special templates which specify the country of the items and that they are currently PD in the US but not necessarily in other countries (are San Marinese items copyrighted in Italy, for example?) and that the US copyright status may change at any time. If the image is allowed under the fair use clause of the US copyright law, specify a fair use rationale so that it already is available when/if the copyright status changes. If fair use isn't allowed, I'm not sure what to do (keep anyway but delete immediately without checking if the copyright status changes or treat the images as not free enough).

--Stefan2 (talk) 13:56, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

• Germany has no kind of "educational use". This is why German wikipedia has no fair use. Also late(r) signatories of TRIPS tend to have far more restrictive copyright law than their counterparts as the article on TRIPS suggests. I'd wager, the files are in the public domain currently for every country who does not have a direct copyright agreement with the mentioned countries including Germany which will change once TRIPS or Berne is signed.
• Keeping an illegal copy of a file in your drive (or hosting it) is a crime. It is in essence a bootleg. The likelihood of you getting sued over keeping a local copy is low as an individual but if you have thousands to hundreds of thousands of copies of the same file in thousands to hundreds of thousands of laptops (like OLPC) it is a different story then. We want keeping offline copies of Wikipedia a reliable task.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 14:59, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I did read the Soviet/Russian-American court case you mentioned. I even commented on it above. With regards to the items with a restored copyright, those people were sued for infringement of copyrights only for uses AFTER the copyright was restored and even then it was only after they received a cease-and-desist letter and kept using copyrighted material anyway. In no case were they charged with copyright infringement for actions taken prior to copyrights being restored. The courts did not require the collection/destruction of any materials they made that were later restored copyrights.

No, keeping a copy on your drive is NOT illegal as long as you do not distribute it. If you download it from their site, they made it accessible for viewing on a computer. When you look at a web page, that image is downloaded and stored on your hard drive (that's how the internet works). It is no different from possessing a magazine that you purchased. The only difference here is that you got it for free instead of paying for it. However, hosting it for others to download IS indeed a crime.

Lastly, we don't necessarily need to delete every image should it's copyright status change. There may be Fair Use applications which could trump deletion. Buffs (talk) 20:40, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Exactly, these files are in the public domain as of this post! However, once these countries sign the treaty (say TRIPS) they will become copyrighted, this will lead to lawsuits and etc. Wikipedia did not wait to be sued to take down PD-Soviet tagged images. Commons slowly deleted the ones that cannot maintain a free license through other means. The copyright holder can demand the collection of all infringing material if they so much as desire. Often copyright holders just settle the lawsuit outside of the court before completing the trial though.

Temporarily downloading copyrighted content on the internet for technical reasons such as buffering videos or temporarily downloading images to view webpages is explicitly allowed by law. However keeping illegal copies of content is still illegal. People have been sued for the number of mp3s they had by MPAA in the past, not because they are hosting it. Also with projects like OLPC you would be importing copyrighted content with the laptop into different countries or distributing it along with the laptop itself. It creates all sorts of problems if freely licensed content suddenly becomes fully copyrighted.

The reality is Wikipedians and administrators will not attempt to write fair-use rationales, find sources and etc to meet fair-use related needs should things unfold like how PD-Soviet was handled, and trust me that is exactly what would happen. A lot of decent fair-use images would end up getting deleted because the total number of needed work to mark everything would overwhelm us. This has always been the driving factor of mass file deletions. There are 5 or 6 images to worry about currently but if your proposal comes into effect we would have scores and scores of content with public domain status at the leaders of the mentioned countries.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 22:03, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

"this will lead to lawsuits and etc." No, it will NOT likely lead to lawsuits. First of all, as you pointed out, those images PD-Soviet images were removed on sight, more-or-less. Of course that led to images being deleted that could have included a FUR, but it didn't lead to any lawsuits. Second of all, a person must have standing to bring a lawsuit: if the owner of a business sues another the Federal government over "Obamacare" and subsequently goes out of business, they do not have standing to bring a lawsuit. If we remove images from our servers, they will not have standing to bring a suit and the lawsuit will be thrown out. Moreover, as an encyclopedia, despite our Fair Use policy, we can use images under Fair Use without any justification. Any lawsuit brought under these conditions is quite likely to fail on a number of issues, namely, that we would remove any offending files as soon as we were notified of a problem. YouTube hosts all kinds of non-free content, but it isn't sued because it removes any offending content when someone notifies them of an infringement.

"People have been sued for the number of mp3s they had by MPAA in the past, not because they are hosting it." They were sued for sharing it via peer-to-peer networks and/or possessing mp3s that they did not have the rights to (i.e. they downloaded it from someone else who shared it illegally). That is a COMPLETELY different issue from this.

WP:TLDR version: Should the copyright status of these files change, we WILL get rid of them or provide FURs IAW our policy and we won't be sued (despite LOTS of copyrighted images being incorrectly uploaded, WP has never been successfully sued for copyright infringement). Buffs (talk) 01:30, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia never waits for actual lawsuits to delete content. If an avenue opens with changes in the law (even through case law) or the signing of copyright agreements images will get deleted. We will not wait for copyright holder to come knocking on our door. This was the case with how PD-Soviet was treated. You would have illegally downloaded the copy of the copyrighted content even if it was in the public domain at the time. When I say this do not think as an individual but as an organization such as OLPC. The idea is to properly tag these images under fair use (even though they are PD in the meanwhile) to avoid being forced to deal with it in the future.

Also mind that wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia. We should only AND only mark content with a free license if we are sure it will not become fully copyrighted eventually.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 16:51, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

We respond to copyright holders' complaints all the time. We also respond to legal challenges/lawsuits, though most are peripheral to copyright law. I understand that you and others want to limit such images to Fair Use within WP. So, we will have to agree to disagree on those points. From what I can see above, your opinion is the minority view.

Let's see what the WMF says (see above) and we will work from there. It looks to me like it boils down to "label them as a special case of PD and use 'em as Fair Use" or "label them as a special case of PD and use 'em as PD". Perhaps the WMF will eliminate one of the options. Buffs (talk) 17:40, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Late add with respect to "You would have illegally downloaded the copy of the copyrighted content even if it was in the public domain at the time."

• For the last time, no you wouldn't. At the time, it would have been perfectly legal for you to download and you could NOT be charged with a crime or sued for that action. If, on the other hand, when the item changed to "copyrighted" status, if you decided to keep that despite the fact that you knew it copyrighted and/or you received a legal notice to delete/remove it, then, yes you could be sued. WP will never get to that point as we will happily remove files to comply with the DMCA.
• Clearly, you do not understand the concept of ex post facto. I have tried to explain it to you, used numerous examples, cited legal cases with links, etc. In return you have simply voiced the same opinion over and over with no cited basis for that opinion. I am forced to conclude that you just don't get it and you probably never will. Buffs (talk) 22:22, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Break for additional comments 3

• I just wanted to note that the legal department of the Wikimedia Foundation has been working on this question this week and hopes to have an opinion by the end of tomorrow or Monday at the latest. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:56, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• That's great news! We look forward to hearing their opinion. Buffs (talk) 17:33, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

First published isn't sufficient

Under US copyright law (Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 104, last paragraph of section (b)), a work that is first published in a non-treaty state that is also published in a treaty partner state (or in the United States) within 30 days of its original publication will be treated as if it originates from the partner state and afforded all copyright protection afforded any other work originating from the treaty state. In other words, it isn't entirely sufficient that a work is first published in a non-treaty state, it is also necessary that we know it wasn't published anywhere else within 30 days of the initial publication. Dragons flight (talk) 18:51, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

"First published" means "first published as definied in Article 3 and Article 5 of the Berne Convention". If first published in one of the "no treaty" countries and then published within a treaty country within 30 days, the work is assumed to have been first published in the treaty country (so if a work is first published in Iran and then published in Russia 15 days later, the country of origin is Russia). If first published in one of the "no treaty" countries and not published in a treaty country within 30 days, the work is assumed to be first published in the country where the author is a citizen (so if a work by a Japanese citizen is first published in Iran and then not published anywhere else within 30 days, the country of origin is Japan). If the country of origin is determined to be a non-treaty country, the work isn't given any protection under the Berne Convention, so it is up to national legislation to decide how to treat the work. Some countries, such as the United States, choose not to give any protection, but the decision is entirely up to national legislators: if any country wants to protect these works anyway, that's fine according to the Berne Convention. I'm not sure if these works are protected in Europe or other Berne Convention countries. --Stefan2 (talk) 19:54, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

My point is not to argue about the legal meaning of "first published", but rather to be sure that any tags make clear that not everything that first appears in Iran (for example) is necessarily excluded from copyright in the US. As specifically, works that appear first in Iran and subsequently in other countries within 30 days may be covered by copyright. I assume that many readers of a copyright tag would understand "first published" on a copyright tag in only the colloquial sense of where it first appeared, and we need to be clear about these associated issues. The issue of national origin is another important point to note. Dragons flight (talk) 20:07, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

To give a more specific example, consider images like File:U.S. RQ-170 on display in Iran 1.jpg (which helped to launch this long discussion). This appeared in Iran on state TV and newspapers. Some of those newspaper websites are visible globally. Images were also distributed to the global press with encouragement for redistribution, and they were put into numerous print and TV reports in other countries. So, while the image appeared first in Iran, I am unclear whether any of additional availability of this image in other countries would be considered sufficient to count as publication under the rules above and thus lead to an enforceable copyright by virtue of it having been used in other jurisdictions besides Iran. Dragons flight (talk) 20:39, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

It probably counts as PD unless the author also published it outside of US which I heavily doubt. No serious judge would rule in favor of copyright in regards to the RQ-170 footage over public interest (fair-use) rather than law suit even if it was fully copyrighted. But this is a fair point for other content indeed. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 21:01, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, in the RQ-170 case the fair use argument is excellent, but for the general case we need to be prepared to explain what does and does not count as publication for the purposes of assessing these jurisdictional issues. I'm not actually sure anyone knows. In Kernal Records OY v. Moseley (2011), the US district court held that a Norwegian composer placing music on a Australian website had engaged in "simultaneous publication all over the world" and the associated work counted as U.S. work under copyright law. However, under a somewhat similar pattern of facts, Moberg v. Leygues (2009) held that images published on a German website by a German did not have to be treated as a U.S. work. Which suggests that the US courts are at least somewhat conflicted on the boundaries on publication versus national origin in the internet age. Dragons flight (talk) 21:15, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Excellent point!!! (even better that we all agree on it!). That nuance should be verbalized in whatever format we choose for tags of these files. I think it's also worth noting that this doesn't apply to Americans in non-treaty states as well. If, as an American, I photograph something in Somalia, it is still recognized by the US as copyrighted. I want to make sure these nuances aren't lost when we finalize the tag. Buffs (talk) 22:16, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if simultaneous fair use counts as simultaneous publication according to the Berne Convention, but since it all depends on the definition of publication according to that convention, we need to make sure that we know what first published in country XXX means. In terms of Internet publications, I would have assumed that the country of first publication would be the country where the physical servers are located. For example, in the Wikipedia case, it would mean simultaneous publication in the United States and the Netherlands. But if it means "any country in which the Internet can be accessed", there might be a problem. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:41, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

If you ask me, that's all the more reason to just stick with a single nation's laws to determine copyright (i.e. We will handle images as "Does Country X view them as copyrighted?"). Buffs (talk) 22:48, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

And in this case, "Country X" views them as copyrighted only if the country of origin is any of certain specific countries. And the whole problem is to determine what the country of origin is. Determining the country of origin is also an issue for determining whether URAA restoration or the rule of the shorter term apply. --Stefan2 (talk) 00:03, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

rule of the shorter term never applies since US Copyright follows the longer term offering additional protection. Just wanted to point that out. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 02:08, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

If we treat all recent images as if they are covered by the treaty then we might exclude some things from here that we could use, but we will never violate the law or anyone's rights. On the other hand, if we try to sort through the various issues around country of origin for the sake of making PD claims then we will almost certainly get it wrong at least some of the time and make claims that are legally incorrect. Personally, I think the first path is safer (and has other advantages mentioned higher up the page). Dragons flight (talk) 02:56, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Post to avoid archival. Buffs (talk) 05:32, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Additional Query

What about documents that are first published in the US, but are subsequently copyrighted elsewhere...where they have longer copyright protections? Surely this wont be much of an issue, right? Nope!

Wikipedia_talk:Copyright_problems#Bryan.27s_Dictionary_of_Painters_and_Engravers

While I know they are PD here in the US, it seems probable that they are copyrighted in the EU. So, what do we do now? Buffs (talk) 05:32, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Things which aren't copyrighted in the United States may still be copyrighted in other countries. The works from Iran and other countries which are discussed above may or may not be copyrighted outside the United States. Since there are no treaties which apply to those countries, no other country is required to provide copyright protection for the works, but some countries may nevertheless choose to do so. --Stefan2 (talk) 01:01, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I just want to make sure we incorporate this into whatever nuanced answer we come up with. Sounds like we're on the same page Buffs (talk) 22:03, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

South Sudan

Anyone know what the position is w.r.t. the world's newest country? Babakathy (talk) 13:53, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I would assume they are probably in the same boat as these other countries that don't have copyright relations with the US (we don't even have an embassy there yet), but it is also worth considering and applying whatever rules apply. Buffs (talk) 15:30, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

The US officially redesignated the consulate in Juba, South Sudan as our embassy in South Sudan on the same day as the transition. Hence we have always had an embassy in South Sudan. Dragons flight (talk) 19:02, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

That's a diplomatic relation, but it doesn't have anything to do with copyright relations. For example, there is an embassy in Iraq but there are no copyright relations between the United States and Iraq. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:16, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I know that. However, I was replying to Buffs blatantly erroneous parenthetical comment that the US doesn't have a embassy in South Sudan. Dragons flight (talk) 01:15, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Hey dude, chill. I was wrong, ok? But my point still stands that there are some similarities. It isn't that we should ignore it, but we should make the transition to assure any files from South Sudan are protected as they would be for any Berne signatory. Buffs (talk) 00:26, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

If first published before 9 July 2011, I think that the Berne Convention defines the country of origin as Sudan, i.e. not in the public domain in the United States. If first published on 9 July 2011 or later, it is also necessary to check the citizenship of the author: if the author holds Sudanese or dual Sudanese/South Sudanese citizenship, the country of origin is Sudan. --Stefan2 (talk) 18:26, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Under the Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan, all laws and institutions in existence in South Sudan before the transition remain in force after the transition unless and until they are modified by the newly formed South Sudanese Legislature. Assuming they didn't subsequently change it, it would appear that their domestic copyright laws are as strong as they were before the split, and the intention is to continue to honor international agreements. There are probably some formalities involved at the international level with having a new country "officially" join a treaty, but I would assume that such things will happen soon if they haven't already. Dragons flight (talk) 19:02, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

It would seem to me that upon that basis we assume South Sudan is covered by the Berne convention. Babakathy (talk) 05:42, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I concur that we should make sure any images that fall under this are properly annotated and protected...I don't think there are any. Buffs (talk) 00:27, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

RfC tag

I'm assuming that no one's going to disagree that we need to keep this RfC open until after we have legal input from the foundation. With that in mind I tried to revert the bots removal of the tag but it would appear the bot is trying to be too clever for it's own good and re-removed it. I've queried this with the bot owner. Dpmuk (talk) 18:58, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Skynet is taking over... Buffs (talk) 22:02, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Legal team's statement

The legal department of the Wikimedia Foundation issued the following statement today. Please let me know if there are specific follow-up questions; I will be happy to communicate them and report back when there is response. Thank you. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 20:02, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Legal replied, now what?

Maggie, thank you for your time and effort on our behalf, and thanks to the WMF legal office. However, this statement (like many statements from WMF Legal to the community) doesn't appear to tell us much of anything we didn't already know. These images aren't currently protected by copyright in the US, though copyright might be restored at some uncertain time in the future. I think everyone here already agreed on those underlying facts. The question is really one of how the community wants to deal with the various issues surrounding these images whose future status is potentially problematic, the related problems of determining country of origin, and whether there is any residual ethical problem in using appropriating modern works from non-treaty states even if there is no legal problem in doing so. In other words, I don't think the WMF statement settles anything since it leaves the community with the same basic questions and arguments that we have had here since the beginning. The community can choose to use these images, or not. Historically, we have tended to exclude them (and Commons certainly will continue to exclude them), but the discussion above has tended to lean towards their inclusion. Now that we've gotten the WMF response that some people have been waiting for, do other participants see some route towards concluding this issue? Are there other questions that need to be asked, and resolved first? For example, do we need better guidance on the "country of origin" issue for internet works, as discussed above. Should we try to publicize this issue more? (Despite the RFC, relatively few people have participated here.) Dragons flight (talk) 20:43, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it doesn't leave us with the same questions and it provides a basis for changing policy accordingly. Here's the key points I see from the above:

• "Content that originates from such countries is not protected by U.S. copyright law and falls within the public domain."

  Ok! It's confirmed that they are legally in the public domain as far as we are concerned.

• "...content from countries which the U.S. currently has no copyright relations with may be used in the same manner that any other content in the public domain may be used under current U.S. law. However, every user is responsible for the way he or she uses content and is subject to the laws of his or her own country."

  On Wikipedia, we can use them just like any other PD image. However, it's the responsibility of people to use such content legally where they reside.

• "The proper labeling and categorization of such content may help alleviate some these concerns, particularly if the labels state that the copyright status of the content is subject to change in the future. But it is up to the community to decide what is best."

  How the community labels these files is up to them.

So where do we go from here?

It looks to me like these are PD images, community consensus (to this point in the discussion) is that we should treat/use them as PD images, but they should be labeled with one of the aforementioned (through nearly unanimous consent) labels. We should be able to rapidly implement this and annotate it in policy for clarity.

This is not to say that other vocal opponents to the above conclusions don't exist!!! It merely reflects that consensus doesn't appear to be with those opposing these views.

Thoughts?

Re: "Should we try to publicize this issue more? (Despite the RFC, relatively few people have participated here.)" I wouldn't look too much into it. It's been well-publicized across en-wp. I see no reason to go to a banner (the only remaining step) for such a relatively minor issue. If others disagree, I'll happily push forward on it, but I'm pretty sure we're going to get a "no" answer. Moreover, we base consensus on those that choose to voice an opinion. Those that choose not to voice an opinion should simply be held to the resulting consensus. Buffs (talk) 22:20, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I think part of the reason it hasn't had much participation is that the issue was framed and presented poorly. If it had been as a binary choice: Here's what practice has been (vis a vis Jimbo), here's what we want to change it to, here are the arguments for and against, yes or no? It would have been a lot easier on people to contribute an opinion. Right now they have to wade through a lot to understand the question. For example, the labeling issue is actually secondary. If we agree that we want to use these images, then I think we can all agree on labels, but the decision on usage got buried under a lot of other stuff. I'd suggest the poor presentation to the community is a large part of why there are only 12 participants in the biggest "vote" here despite months of discussion among a small group. I sure we could improve upon that. I know people who I've talked to previously who support my position on this issue, but I haven't invited them here specifically, because I know that would smack of canvassing. However, I still have real doubts that the views expressed above are representative of the Wikimedia movement at large. Dragons flight (talk) 01:04, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for this, Maggie. One point of clarification: was the Legal Team's discussion above limited to published works? The Copyright Act is quite clear that unpublished works are covered by U.S. copyright, even they originate in a country that is not a U.S. treaty party or are authored by a national of a non-treaty party: "The works specified by sections 102 and 103, while unpublished, are subject to protection under this title without regard to the nationality or domicile of the author." 17 U.S.C. § 104(a). TJRC (talk) 23:37, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

The text above is as much as I have. :) I would assume that it is limited to published works. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:31, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

The legal guidance is helpful but it is very clear that it covers the opyright status of such images but not hwo the community may choose to use them (labelling, fair use requirement or not etc). We must still take a decision on usage, which legal makes clear is up to the community. I do not think we can say we have consensus on usage (though we seem close to it on labelling). Certainly "community consensus (to this point in the discussion)" and "vocal opponents to the above conclusions" are contradictory. The RFC has only been open since the weekend (and many users may have waited for Legal before commenting) so let us have more time for discussion. Babakathy (talk) 04:38, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I held off responding in order to see if there were any additional opinions. Consensus doesn't mean that everyone's opinions will be reflected, it means that we have a clear indication as to which direction we are going. It's a nebulous term, BUT one by which we gauge how we do things. A "vocal minority" merely means that those who oppose it are being quite insistent on their rationales and ideas (that's not a negative attribute). It doesn't mean we don't have a majority or consensus though: if 95% of the people in the US elect one guy, the other 5% of the electorate can hold up all the protest signs they want, but the result stands. There is no contradiction.

Wrapping this up

Final arrangment

1. (previous unanimous support) Label the files as PD, but not within the borders of the originating country. (I think we could also add a note to our general disclaimer and state that image usage outside WP must be done in accordance with local laws which may differ from that of the US)

2. (previous 75% support) Use the files as all other PD files are used and annotate that this usage may change.

3. Revisit this arrangement in 6 months to determine if WP can handle a change in copyright status(es) or if there are unforeseen circumstances that make the aforementioned arrangement untenable.

Final Arrangement support

1. As proposer Buffs (talk) 00:41, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
2. Concur, my reservations are expressed above but I believe this arrangement to be a suitable way forward. Babakathy (talk) 06:15, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
3. This gives us the broadest use within the current law while making it clear to reusers that a future status change is possible and giving us a relatively straightforward way to review all effected files if/when such a change occurs. cmadler (talk) 10:36, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Final Arrangement oppose

1. I oppose this change that I don't believe reflects the true views of the community. I would support efforts to develop a consensus that is clearer than 9-3, but I don't believe we should be making a site-wide change in copyright rules with such poor participation. Dragons flight (talk) 06:27, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
2. Premature. We can close the label options, sure, but not the usage options. Option 1 is now 9-5 and Option 3 is now 5-8. Those margins are too close to call, and the most recent votes are weakening what you're claiming is consensus. I'd support a reboot that deals only with usage and only has Usage Option 1 and Usage Option 3 to choose from, though. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:48, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
3. Oppose. I think this needs more input and wider participation before such a change can be made, especially considering the proponents of this change haven't addressed the ethical issues directly. The legal status of the materials in question isn't contested (although it is complex, given the tricky nature of determining nation of origin), but we don't necessarily follow lockstep behind the law. We're free to be more restrictive, and in this case we should be. Nathan ^T 16:55, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
4. --ಠ_ಠ node.ue ಠ_ಠ (talk) 04:18, 23 February 2012 (UTC) Per Nathan.
5. --Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 19:19, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Final Arrangement discussion

Everyone seems to be in agreement that we should label the images as PD in the US, but annotate that they are copyrighted in their home country (completely unanimous support). Likewise, the legal opinion is that the files are PD as far as WMF is concerned and we are free to use them as PD images if that's what the community decides to do. As noted by those opposing usage #1, there are two major points of contention with usage. The first is that, without fair use criteria, the images are subject to deletion should a country become a treaty member. I concede that is indeed an issue, however, Stefan2 pointed out above that implementation seems to have a 3-month waiting period which would give WP PLENTY of time to delete any images that don't meet our criteria. As someone making this proposal, I will happily lend my time/services to sift through any such files should treaty status(es) change. The second is that it is "unethical". I can't really speak to that as people will handle things on their own as their own ethics dictate. Per the WMF, the images are legally within the Public Domain and I see no reason to deprive the world of files that are both useful and informative solely because some people don't like it.

I believe that concerns about having to delete histories, printed materials, etc. are largely uninformed, mild paranoia with regards to copyright and should be dismissed accordingly. We have always complied with DMCA and we will continue to do so. I wholeheartedly agree that any image not meeting our NFCC should be removed ASAP, but these are not non-free files at this time.

It is worth noting that those opposed to the above usage indeed have some points, but are largely based on what MAY happen in the future. I am also not above making a compromise: Why don't we try the following arrangement for 6 months? At the end of that 6 months, we can re-evaluate and see how implementation went. The glory of WP is that we can always change our minds! I doubt any copyright changes will occur in the next 6 months, but other things may happen.

The preceding discussions were not a binding !vote. I think it's only fair to conclude that this one is. If someone else has a better idea on closure, I am all ears and am open to other ideas. Buffs (talk) 00:41, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I have not changed my view, but I feel that going ahead with tagged images and review in six months takes us forward for now. It helps that any change at that point (or earlier if US copyright status changes) can be addressed as the images are tagged. I also appreciate Buff's commitment to work on the files should treaty status(es) change. However I do feel we are taking advantage of a legal loophole here, more a case of wikilwayering than some of us don't like it. Babakathy (talk) 07:50, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Buffs (talk) 09:48, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

My support with reservations was on the basis that while I disagree I thought it was a usable compromise to take us forward. However, since the discussion has reopened substantially, with many new points coming in (and my reservations as expressed in the option votes above are unchanged) I am removing my vote and reserving for now. Babakathy (talk) 06:30, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Re: "I don't believe we should be making a site-wide change in copyright rules with such poor participation."

1. We can't force people to participate
2. This discussion has been posted broadly as an RfC
3. This discussion was added to the ((cent)) template for even broader input
4. The discussion was pushed to the WMF for a legal review which stated that Fair Use or not was up to us. For copyrighted images, the WMF has clearly stated that usage is NOT up to the local WPs, but must meet and clearly delineate how Fair Use applies; they made no such point in this case.
5. It had an article written about it in the Signpost
6. The issue's been ongoing for more than a month
7. Those who chose not to participate, must accept the outcome of the discussion. Should consensus change (and consensus can change), we'll fix 'er up and adapt.

We've gotten as much input as we possibly can and it is time to move forward. 9 to 3 in an issue that boils down to WP preference (not a legal issue) is a pretty strong majority. Considering Babakathy has changed his/her mind and supported (for now), I think that eliminates a third of the opposition.

I truly am sorry you think of this as a "loophole", but it is the law and legal opinions (along with popular opinion) is that these images are PD. I think with 3 months lead time, we can quite cleanly fix any potential problems relatively easily. Buffs (talk) 09:48, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I think at this point it's fair to dispense with the legal part of the discussion - everyone can stipulate, and almost no one has actually disputed, that it would be legal to treat these works as PD. The question then is whether we ought to do only the minimum required by law, or if we ought to do more for ethical and moral reasons. In these non-Berne nations, authors and other citizens typically have limited rights of political participation. That means that their status with respect to international treaties is totally outside of their control. It would be an unfortunate decision for Wikipedia to take advantage of their plight by regarding these authors as having no interest or rights in their own work, even if that is technically legal in the U.S. Nathan ^T 17:33, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

As I explained above, people in these nations have the option of getting a copyright in, say, Switzerland, and they have chosen not to do so (the vast majority of these are images from Iranian national TV). I think it is fair to say that those entities have plenty of ability in the political process and international affairs. Those in Somalia don't even really have a government. You are framing this as a "moral" issue, but I'm seeing this more as a political gesture e.g. "their citizens don't have those rights because they are oppressed, so we will extend them some rights". I don't think that's a good precedent for WP as it is a non-profit organization (the whole SOPA blackout could also have been interpreted as a political gesture and WP could lose its non-profit status). I'm also not seeing an ethical issue here. These people publish things in their countries with the full knowledge that their copyrights are not protected outside their borders. In the case of these images, we are quite clearly annotating that they are copyrighted within said borders. I see delving into moral and ethical issues as nebulous and misleading.

We already apply US law over the laws of other countries (see below).

You noted above that there will be a problem should relevant treaties are signed. I'm just not seeing it. We have a total of 8 images that fall into these categories right now and I don't see them expanding to the point that a single person couldn't handle them in a day. That's one reason I'm proposing we move toward a 6 month trial period. I am sorry you don't like the public domain. Buffs (talk) 20:01, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd also like to add that others in the US (and almost everywhere else in the world) can use these as PD images. The WMF mission is

"...to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally"

This proposal does not meet the mission of the WMF and, by extension, WP. Buffs (talk) 20:06, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

You're mistaken on several levels. First and simplest, this is in no way a political gesture in the vein of the blackout (which I opposed). If anything, a policy of ignoring the moral rights of creators to their own work because of Iran's intentional international isolation is a political decision. You are particularly wrong to suggest that such a "political gesture" threatens the non-profit status of the WMF, or that the blackout triggered the same risk. The suggestion is simply incorrect and reflects a misunderstanding of non-profit law. Moving on, taking these images without permission and ignoring the rights of their creators is the ethical equivalent of stealing, even if the law affords them no protection in the U.S. It's hard for me to understand how you can argue that these people voluntarily surrender intellectual rights to their creations, just by living and working in their native land. Your suggestion that Eritrean artists and authors simply register their works in Switzerland reads like an attempt at humor, but as you've repeated it I sense you are serious. I'll just point out to you that what sounds easy from wherever you are, may not be so easy where the artists in question live. Nathan ^T 20:29, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

First of all you are continuing to talk about "moral rights" of which "copyright" isn't even acknowledged as a right by the U.S. It's a law, not a right.

Second, if these people want international protection on their copyrighted works, they have multiple avenues to pursue that goal. Yes, it is more expensive than the US (where it is free) and yes, it is more complicated, but it is possible.

For better or worse, their copyrights end at national borders. The WMF legal team confirmed it too: "content from countries which the U.S. currently has no copyright relations with may be used in the same manner that any other content in the public domain may be used under current U.S. law." Buffs (talk) 00:34, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

As I said up thread, the issue has been presented poorly, with a lot of text and confusing options that makes it hard for people to join in. I think we could reframe this as a simple yes/no type of change with summary arguments from both sides and be able to gather much better participation. Dragons flight (talk) 17:42, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

No one is stopping you from proposing your own ideas. If you have a better idea, let's hear it. I don't see a solution with more consensus above. Buffs (talk) 20:01, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

This sets a VERY bad precedent

By extending copyright protections to images that are PD in the US, but copyrighted elsewhere, we will have to review tens of thousands of images and some images that are ok on Commons are suddenly not ok here!!!:

Architectural works in France have copyright protection (there is no freedom of panorama), so these images would require Fair Use rationales:

• File:Paris July 2011-27a.jpg
• File:Louvre Museum Wikimedia Commons.jpg
• File:Paris_July_2011-27a.jpg

Files from Mexico have copyright protection 70 years after the death of their authors, but the US doesn't protect works pre-1923 (these images are all copyrighted in Mexico):

• File:Adolfo de la Huerta joven.jpg
• File:Adolfo de la Huerta.jpg
• File:Venustiano Carranza de la Garza, portrait.jpg

Files from Japan aren't legally in the public domain in Japan, they are copyright-free; this provides additional rights that the US doesn't recognize.

• File:IJN Shimakaze (Minekaze class) Taisho 11.jpg
• File:I Was Born, But... 1932.jpg
• File:Hirohito in dress uniform.jpg

There are local exceptions that the US doesn't recognize for just about every country.

My point is that we ALREADY treat files as PD based on US law when there are restrictions and/or in the country of origin. Are we seriously advocating changing this concept? The files within our discussion are PD (there is no debate there). All I'm asking (and the majority so far agree) is to treat them as they are legally defined. No more. No less. Buffs (talk) 20:01, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Wrong. Photos of architectural works are allowed in the United States, so buildings from France should be tagged as ((FoP-USonly|France)). However, the photos you showed only present the pyramid as de minimis which is allowed in both France and the United States, so there is no problem. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:10, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Wrong. Mexico has a copyright term of life+100 years. However, works which are in the public domain because of older copyright laws remain in the public domain. This means that works by creators who died before some specific year (1950s?) are in the public domain in Mexico, and so are works published before some specific year (1940s?) without compliance of copyright formalities. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:10, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

(moved comments from above)

1. Please don't split others' comments by your comments
2. Ok, so some of the Mexican ones were a bad example, but my point remains: things that the US views as PD aren't necessarily PD in other countries. However for the photos in France, de minimus certainly is NOT applicable. The subject of each of those photos is the Lourve Pyramid. It is in the center of the image and certainly doesn't qualify under de minimus. If this image was taken by a WPian and uploaded, the copyrighted helmet logo would fall under de minimus and the image could be PD. Buffs (talk) 00:16, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

That's a strawman argument. As far as I can see, no one here has argued for changing the way we handle those issues. People like myself simply believe that our six-year tradition of treating all countries as if they did have copyright relations with the United States should continue. We don't allow the inclusion of all images that could be covered by fair use (WP:NFCC is far stricter than that), and traditionally we have excluded non-treaty status as an argument for PD usage. These policies are different from what is legally allowed, but in both cases I would argue that our policies are well-motivated. The fact that Wikipedia has made policies that are sometimes stricter than US law, does not automatically mean we also want to do so in any of the various cases you have highlighted above. Dragons flight (talk) 20:17, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

To the contrary, Jimbo himself made the argument and it was stated right at the beginning of this RfC: "Wikipedia contributors should respect the copyright law of other nations, even if these do not have official copyright relations with the United States" and it is at the heart of this discussion. Are we treating images by the copyright laws of the nation of origin or US law? People are saying we have a moral right to protect the copyrights of those in Iran and we should pretend they have copyright protection here in the U.S. because it is copyrighted in Iran. I submit to you that we already ignore certain copyright claims in France and Mexico (among others) because we are governed by US law and US law doesn't recognize those claims on copyright. I see nothing morally, ethically, or legally wrong with this. We should be consistent and apply the same logic to these countries. Buffs (talk) 20:46, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

You argue it should be one or the other. Personally, I think the right balance is in the middle. Applying your logic to NFCC, we would either allow all fair use or no fair use, but ultimately the community has settled on an intermediate position. Our relationship with international copyright law is also a middle-ground (though one that comes close to the US-only extreme). I see nothing wrong with adopting intermediate positions. Dogmatic consistency with one extreme or the other is not necessarily virtuous. The ethical and practical concerns with non-treaty works are different than with any of the categories of materials you mentioned above, and it is not crazy to therefore arrive at a different policy. Dragons flight (talk) 21:02, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

We already go beyond what the law requires when it comes to copyrights and non-free content. There's a vast ocean of content we could use under the fair use doctrine that we have chosen to disallow. This RfC is about a specific and narrow question - for those copyright protections that are near-universally standardized under the Berne convention and other treaties, should we apply them to content produced in non-Berne nations? The question of the interplay of other copyright regulations from France, Mexico, et al is much more complex and involves a spectrum of rights not at issue here. In this question, we're talking about the fundamental right to any protection at all - not, for instance, the right to protection of a particular time period. You're arguing that Eritrean authors and artists deserve no rights at all in their content outside Eritrea, based on the fact that they 'choose' to publish their work in Eritrea. Nathan ^T 20:56, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Wow. Where to begin?

1. NFCC: yes, we go beyond what is allowed and not allowed under fair use. We say that we restrict ourselves with regard to copyrighted works, and, in general, we do. However, when two copyright laws come into conflict what do we do? In the case of the French photos annotated above, it pretty clearly shows that we side with US law on the subject, and we don't upload them to Commons. Buffs (talk) 00:16, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
2. "The question of the interplay of other copyright regulations from France, Mexico, et al is much more complex and involves a spectrum of rights not at issue here." Bullsh**. The copyright laws and lack of viable treaties with Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc are the proximate cause of this entire discussion.
3. "we're talking about the fundamental right to any protection at all" Wikipedia cannot confer rights to anyone
4. "You're arguing that Eritrean authors and artists deserve no rights at all in their content outside Eritrea..." I'm not saying anyone deserves or doesn't deserve anything. I'm saying that those in the aforementioned countries do not have any copyright rights outside those countries. Likewise, as a U.S. citizen, I have no copyright rights within Iran, Iraq, etc. These are indisputable facts, not opinions. What they "deserve" or not is strictly a matter of opinion. Moreover, copyrights are not "rights" even in the U.S., they are laws/copy protections on original works.
5. "based on the fact that they 'choose' to publish their work in Eritrea." No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying they have the opportunity to obtain copyrights elsewhere and chose not to do so. That is their responsibility. Just because the U.S. has an easier/cheaper (free) way to obtain a copyright, it doesn't mean that we should apply that same standard worldwide. These images are PD and the WMF agrees.

The Fair Use of copyrighted works is one thing. We all acknowledge that they are copyrighted. People can't just use the files in any way they want...except in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc where US copyrights are meaningless. We cannot enforce copyrights there because we have no standing. So, all of our Fair Use rhetoric aside, it's completely meaningless in those countries. I would consider Reciprocity a factor here...

The use of PD files is quite another. I'm a Federal employee and everything I've created in the line of duty is a PD work. Whether that is "fair" or not is irrelevant. My works are PD, period. That's the law. We don't restrict the use of PD files anywhere on en-WP even if they are not PD elsewhere (see the above examples). Why are we extending additional benefits to people in those countries that we will not extend to Berne signatories?

So, I'll leave you with this question: It is not at all in dispute that these are PD images (WMF-legal concurs). They also agree we can use them as PD works. Right now, almost anyone can use these files in any manner they desire. I can post them on a webpage, put them in a book, or make a banner to post in Time Square. Why can't we use it on WP? Buffs (talk) 00:16, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Because in this area, as in many other areas, we try to adhere to a standard above the minimum required by law. I understand from this discussion that you prefer not to engage at all with the nature of our ethical obligations. Yes, I understand the concept of "moral rights" has no legal weight in the U.S. I understand these people have no legal right to copyright protection in the U.S. I understand we have this all confirmed by the WMF legal counsel. I think its all irrelevant; the law tells us only what we must do, not what we should do. Nathan ^T 00:44, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

To be clear, your reasoning is that we should "adhere to a standard above the minimum required by law" because it's unethical not to do so? Buffs (talk) 01:43, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

To belatedly reply to your question... That's somewhat of an oversimplification, but yes. The law is effectively a lower bound, there is no reason we can't be more ethical than the law requires. Nathan ^T 17:16, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I really do not think the argument that creators have the opportunity to obtain copyrights elsewhere and chose not to do so is realistic. Whilst large organisations like Iranian TV may have that opportunity, what is proposed here is to treat all works produced in the six countries as PD without any usage rules. I honestly do not think that your average Ethiopian artist or Eritrean photographer or Turkmen author is even aware that a work they have copyrighted is not protected outside their own country - let alone how they could protect their work elsewhere. I had this photo taken in Addis Ababa last week and uploaded it on my blog. If it had not been for this discussion, I would not have been aware there would be complications "publishing" it in Ethiopia. Although the point is moot as I uploaded it from Zimbabwe and released it PD anyway. Babakathy (talk) 06:48, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but what?!? Setting policy based upon the potential education level of someone is absurd. It's ridiculous to base policy on "some people might be ignorant of international copyright law and completely lack the ability to figure it out or ask for help". Come on. As for the ability to obtain a copyright in another country, people did so for years before TRIPS/Berne came into the picture. In fact, it was the basis for a lawsuit mentioned above in the whole Soviet fiasco (they were sued for using Russian movies that had registered copyrights in the U.S.). So, yes, it can be done.

As for your photo, what is your nationality? That might play a role in the subject at hand (The U.S. government extends copyrights to citizens abroad). Also, I'm sorry, but ignorance of the law is no excuse. If you had decided to publish it, you might be SOL. That's hardly my problem or Wikipedia's. If someone comes on here and releases a photo into PD and changes their mind later when they realize that others can use it, it's not really our problem. Buffs (talk) 07:38, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

What I said was to take issue with your argument that people in such countries choose not to obtain copyright elsewhere. I do not think it is an accurate characterisation for many individual creators in these countries. I referred to my image as an example of how complex the matter can be, and that many people who create and publish works may not be aware of this, so saying they have "chosen" not to protect is inaccurate. Of course the particular image I linked is (a) not on Wikipedia and (b) released as PD and will stay PD.

Plus we are not (per opening) considering extending copyright protections to images that are PD in the US, we are discussing what rules we want to use for images that are not copyright protected in the US. As various users have mentioned above, our fair use rules are narrower than law and we can choose to make rules for these images which are narrower than law.

More broadly Buffs, although the basic position you present is legal (can I summarise it as these images are PD-US so let's use them as such and tag them in case they change?) but some of your arguments go more to the ethics of the matter (e.g. creators have chosen not to obtain foreign copyright protection so that's their choice, no problem). This means quite a few of the replies go to the ethics too. Babakathy (talk) 08:19, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

What you are saying sounds reasonable, but I think that the main issue is that old versions of Wikipedia also need to be usable in the future and that the whole idea behind these copyright law sections is that these works only are in the public domain temporarily. --Stefan2 (talk) 10:28, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Relevant policy at Wikipedia:Non-U.S._copyrights

Wikipedia already has a method for dealing with works published in non-Berne countries: if the work has copyright there, we can only use it as fair-use. Perhaps I've missed something, but it appears to me that this discussion has been predicated on the idea that such a procedure does not yet exist. Danger ^{High voltage!} 19:55, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. Essentially the only part of that method that is relevant here is point 1 - points 2 & 3 deal with countries with which the US does have copyright relations. Point 1 appears to be predicated on the same e-mail from Jimbo that we're discussing here, although it's hard to know for sure given the history of that page, and so is just a more practical implementation of what is currently given on this policy page. This discussion here was never predicated on the idea that we had no relevant policy rather the question is does the community still support a policy based on a very old e-mail from Jimbo given the wider changes in our media-use policies in the mean time. Essentially this discussion has been on whether we should change existing policy. Dpmuk (talk) 20:15, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

You're correct; I misworded my post. It seems, however, that many of those discussing this policy were operating under the misconception that we currently have no policy in place. But the meta-discussion isn't important. I just wanted everyone to be aware what existing policy is (though phrased inelegantly). Danger ^{High voltage!} 21:19, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. And on my part I didn't want to stop people commenting because they thought it was moot (and in that regard I've boldly changed the title of this section). You're right, now we've cleared that up there's no need to continue this meta-discussion. Dpmuk (talk) 05:36, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I disagree greatly that #1 is "clear" and there are no problems. We use images from France all the time without Fair Use rationales as the US doesn't recognize copyrights on buildings (in the sense that people are allowed to take pictures of them). There are other numerous examples. Buffs (talk) 06:49, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

The test I linked to only considers countries not part of the WTO and not signatories of the Berne Convention, hence the "non-restored" bit in the heading. France is both. Wikipedia accepts material that is not copyrighted in the US, but is in other countries, hence our pictures of I. M. Pei's pyramids at the Louvre. I agree that it is inconsistent that we only respect native copyright status over US copyright status in cases where there are no official copyright relations.Danger ^{High voltage!} 07:28, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Messy voting

Am I the only one who thinks that the voting section is extremely messy? There are five options, although most of them say the same thing, and voting is going on in several different sections. Basically, there are only two options: treat as PD and treat as unfree. And if you support one option, you automatically oppose the second one. --Stefan2 (talk) 10:13, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree. However, I see no need to revote. We're at a pretty firm no-consensus at this point, and it doesn't look like the discussion is leaning towards making a change. Nathan ^T 22:43, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I completely disagree with your conclusion. The images ARE PD virtually everywhere except the their country of origin...then we have the problem of those countries that don't even have copyright. Kinda hard to "respect the copyright laws of other nations" when they don't even have a copyright. The only reason you support "no change" is that you believe it ostensibly supports your side when, in fact, it supports neither point in the discussion. The status quo is we don't have any guidance on what to do with them. I disagree as well that there is no need to "revote" when the above points were CLEARLY marked as non-binding. Buffs (talk) 06:45, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

The problems that need to be addressed

I see 5 major categories for "international images" (for a lack of a better term) and their associated legal status for use on WP.

1. Copyrighted in the U.S. and country of origin many examples readily available
   • LEGAL STATUS: Copyrighted amongst all most Berne treaty signatories. It may be PD in non-treaty states depending on the country of origin
   • WP Use: Must use a Fair Use rationale
2. Copyrighted in the U.S. but not in the country of origin some Canadian works
   • LEGAL STATUS: Copyrighted in the US and therefore must be treated as a copyrighted work WRT WP
   • WP Use: Must use a Fair Use rationale
3. Copyrighted in the country of origin in perpetuity This applies to several works in Britain such as the King James Bible and official symbols (note that this kind of perpetual copyright is only in effect for certain areas of the country, not even the entire country)
   • LEGAL STATUS: PD everywhere once the host country's "normal" copyright expires
   • WP Use: Treated as PD
4. Copyrighted in country of origin, but not in the U.S. Includes images of buildings in France and' those in non-Berne countries
   • LEGAL STATUS: PD and can be used on WP without fear of legal challenge
   • WP Use: Inconsistent. French images are treated as the owner licenses them (even on Commons), but...(see above)
5. No Copyright exists in the country of origin and PD in the U.S. Eritrean & Ethiopian Afghan works
   • LEGAL STATUS: Public Domain worldwide; no country recognizes the legal copyright
   • WP Use: Again, a subject of debate, but some above are advocating that copyright be applied.

If I'm missing anything, please feel free to add to the list. Buffs (talk) 08:27, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

The examples contain many errors.

1. Not necessarily copyrighted in all Berne Convention countries. For example, a work made and published by a European Union country in 1950 by an identified employee who died in 1970 is copyrighted in the European Union (life+70 years) and the United States (publication+95 years) but not in Japan (publication+50 years).
2. Can be a work from any Berne Convention country, not necessarily Canada.
3. As far as I know, Britain no longer has perpetual copyright. I seem to understand that the copyright to all of those ancient works will expire by the end of 2039 (or sometimes 70 years after publication, if published before 2039). However, other countries have perpetual copyrights, e.g. Canada for unpublished Crown Copyrights.
4. Not exclusive to buildings but can be any kind of work. Most countries use life+${\displaystyle n}$ years whereas the United States often uses publication+95 years, which results in expiration at very different dates. For example, if a European author who died in 1945 had a book published in 1922, the book would be in the public domain in the United States but not in the country of origin. And these are not accepted on Commons. For example, lots of photos of French buildings are removed all of the time.
5. I'm not sure about Eritrea, but copyright exists in Ethiopia. Afghanistan is a better example.

Stefan2 (talk) 21:45, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Yep, missed that on #1; fixed, but it should be noted that it entirely depends on if it was published in the US or not (and whether copyright was maintained). #2 was just an example. #3, sorry, but you're wrong on this one (see below), #4 Again, just an example, not all-inclusive. #5 You're right; fixed.

3 - From Crown copyright#United Kingdom: "Crown copyright applies "[w]here a work is made by Her Majesty or by an officer or servant of the Crown in the course of his duties". The Crown can also have copyrights assigned to it. There is, in addition, a small class of materials where the Crown claims the right to control reproduction outside normal copyright law due to Letters Patent issued under the royal prerogative. This material includes the King James Bible, and the Book of Common Prayer."

But the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer both enter the public domain in the UK on 1 January 2040 as far as I know. This is stated in the infobox in the article of the former. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:28, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Cat 1

This is pretty much the easiest to decipher. They are copyrighted and the US recognizes it. As a US-based entity, we have a legal obligation to uphold those copyrights on WP. If anyone disagrees on this assessment, I think the rest of your postings are highly suspect ;-) Buffs (talk) 08:27, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Cat 2

This limits our usage of images that are PD elsewhere, but still protected in the U.S. It doesn't "respect" the laws of other countries as Jimbo elucidated, but it recognizes the fact that the images are copyrighted in the US and, therefore, must only be used under Fair Use on WP. Buffs (talk) 08:27, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Cat 3

Things start getting murky here. Yes, they are copyrighted, BUT the US and everyone else doesn't recognize claim to that copyright.. Hell, even portions of their own country don't recognize those copyrights. Buffs (talk) 08:27, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Cat 4

Despite all the discussion above, no one has addressed the primary problem with restricting such image usage (since they ARE PD): Images under this category are already available on Commons. If we decide to restrict usage from images on Commons, we're going to have serious problems. Buffs (talk) 08:27, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Cat 5

I don't see why anyone is pushing for such images to be copyrighted by default. These images are PD literally everywhere. Buffs (talk) 08:27, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Fallacies of arguments

They might be copyrighted some day and ...

Every government worldwide can change its laws. The US could change to pma 120. Treaty holders could pull out of the Berne treaty. In short, LOTS of things could happen, but just because they could some day happen, doesn't mean they will. We shouldn't make policy or treat images in some manner solely upon what might happen, but we should instead base it on what is currently on the books.

They might be copyrighted some day and then we'd have to change everything.

WP can change and adapt. That's a major advantage of WP. When the Soviet-PD images became re-copyrighted, we deleted them. In retrospect, we probably did so with too much haste and got rid of some that would, today, have been quite useful. However, there was no legal threat nor moral problems then.

They might be copyrighted some day and then we might end up deleting some really useful images that could have obtained a Fair Use rationale.

Yup. But there's no reason that they can't be re-uploaded with a FUR just like every other image or challenged through WP:DRV

People are too poor in some of these countries to get a copyright in another country so we should extend them protection

This is a political decision. By the same logic, one could argue that we should extend copyright protection to 120 pma to everyone since that's the longest recognized currently worldwide. That way NO ONE is left out and there is no conflict. This however runs contrary to our mission which states "The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally." By avoiding this, we are undermining our core mission.

People in some countries are not educated enough to know they are giving up their copyright

How arrogant are you? Geez. "Poor, poor people are too dumb to know what's good for them, so let's give them EXTRA protection". Come on. How do you know that they didn't publish it in these countries knowing they'd be PD either outside their borders. It is the exact same situation when someone releases something into PD but they didn't mean to or change their mind a year later. Sorry dude. That isn't a revokable clause. These are PD images. I'm not asking us to pretend they aren't PD or that we ignore their authors, but they are PD. Buffs (talk) 08:27, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

On your last point Buffs, this is not at all what I am meaning. The legal position is clear (the works are legally PD-US, no argument), what we are debating is whether we as en-WP think it proper to use particular classes of images. That is the context: it is not about somehow giving people protection (which you say several times above) but what we think we should and should not use. Unless I misunderstand your argument, you seem to say that there is no problem with using images that are copyright in Ethiopia, since the creator could have got copyright elsewhere if they wanted. I see that as an ethical argument and I disagree with you on the ethics of it as it presumes the creator in Ethiopia or Eritrea has access to information about the problem (his/her copyright is only local) and the resources to get international copyright. That's your assumption here. Babakathy (talk) 06:38, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

That was the way it was up until about 1989, so why don't we apply it to those in the US? prior to 1989?

Moreover, realize that people in SOME of these countries don't even have local copyright laws (i.e. Afghanistan and others). Your argument relies solely upon a "poor guys don't know what they are doing, so it's up to us to protect them" mentality. You don't know that they didn't intend for it to be PD everywhere and you don't know that they didn't choose to not engage in a copyright elsewhere. Your whole argument is that they don't have the knowledge or money to get it copyrighted. In fact, all they'd really need to do is upload it to Flickr (or any other site) first for free. This would protect their copyright and publish it in the U.S. This leaves out all money and knowledge concerns.

As I said before, it is not about protecting people. If I really felt like that I'd set up a campaign to assist Ethiopian painters to get some copyright somewhere or whatever, rather than debating the issue with you here. There are movements that do that sort of thing, and help protect indigenous knowledge and so on and what I think about them is neither here nor there. The discussion is about what we do here on en-WP. I think that images that are copyright-ET or -ER should be used with Fair Use Rules alongside the appropriate PD-US tag. I do not think that making an assumption that the creator of a work in such a country did "intend for it to be PD everywhere" - or that they knew they were only protecting their work locally is a realistic assumption. At the very least it is an assumption that you're making and I'm entitled to disagree with it. I'm sorry that you seem to find that arrogant or condescending.

Since there is no such thing as copyright-AF, I do not see any alternative but labelling Afgan images as PD.

Further up, yeah a release to PD is perptual was someone saying otherwise? Babakathy (talk) 07:53, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

"release to PD is perptual" - untrue, Uruguay Round Agreements Act is an example Bulwersator (talk) 08:06, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Think what we were discussing was about someone deliberately releasing (specifically) to PD and changing their mind, not works deemed PD - but anyway not really to the point here.Babakathy (talk) 08:17, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Also in this situation it may be reversed by (stupid) law Bulwersator (talk) 08:19, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

On the other hand I agree with dismissing arguments based upon "they might be copyrighted-US some day". We all agreed to tag them appropriately and sorting out the copyright change would be simple. It's what God created bots for. Babakathy (talk) 06:40, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Buffs (talk) 06:58, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Another fallacy debunked:

These folks just can't get a copyright. It's too expensive/complicated

The truth boils down to: they have the opportunity to obtain copyright and didn't do so. According to the US Copyright office, anyone can register a copyright with them and obtain copyright protections. I offer the following article on just how easy it is! In my opinion, the "they didn't know how to obtain a copyright" or "they didn't know it wouldn't be protected" are simply arguments that the people are ignorant. Ignorance is no excuse, IMHO. If you have the ability to take a photograph and upload it (how else would we get these files?), then you have the ability to perform simple research into how to protect your works. The process is quite simple/straightforward. Moreover, unlike what was claimed above, it is not $20 per image, but $35 per 75 days. You can literally register THOUSANDS of images for $35. Buffs (talk) 22:26, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm struggling with how to say this politely, but... I frankly and quite honestly believe that your comment above is based in either ignorance or an unfortunate failure to understand the circumstances in which people may live in the countries affected by this issue. Can you tell me the average education level of an adult in Afghanistan or Eritrea? How about the average annual income? I find it fully realistic to imagine an adult artist, author (of poetry, political speech, or the full range of written expression), or photographer who is either totally unaware of the details of copyright law or (being aware) 100% incapable of producing the funding or completing the procedures necessary to secure a copyright internationally. Moreover, even I were to stipulate your point that getting a copyright is as easy as pie, I still would not agree with you that an individual's failure to take affirmative steps to secure a copyright justifies us waiving all of their rights and interests to their creative output. A state of anarchy exists in the absence of law, but the absence of law does not create the absence of ethics or moral duty. There may be no law preventing us from stealing from these people, but there is certainly no similar ethical loophole. Nathan ^T 22:51, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

The average Afghani earns the equivalent of US$ 500-600 per year and only 28% are literate. Assuming they could overcome the language and logistical barriers to registering, $35 would still be potentially prohibitive for many Afghanis. Further, most Afghanis are unlikely to foresee much benefit to registering since it is likely to cost significantly more money to meaningfully defend their copyrights overseas. Yes, there are issues of ignorance and poverty at play in these states. Some of your arguments seem to boil down to, we should exploit the poor and the ignorant because the law allows us to, but personally, I find such a position to be very distasteful. Dragons flight (talk) 23:53, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

That it is possible for the creator of a work anywhere in the world to register its copyright in the US, Switzerland or somewhere else is not in dispute. That it is the only way to get copyright for an Afghan work seems true too. But the practicality of it is highly disputable. Thirty-five bucks is lot if you earn twenty dollars a week. And Eritrea is not exactly a place where you pop into your neighbourhood internet cafe and do exactly what you want [17]. Ignorance is no excuse in law, but to say if someone did not know how to get copyright we can treat it as if they did not want to get copyright is illogical.

We are also not talking just about uploading files. We are also talking of photographs taken by someone of an Ethiopian (or...) work such as a painting, where the uploader is often not the creator.

This particular argument is getting uncivil. I know most of our views are based on our life experiences (which is why I have a lot more to say about ET or ER than AF or IR) but it will help if can stick to the merits rather than saying things about each other. Babakathy (talk) 06:32, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Another stat, 39% of Ethiopian population[18] and 25% of Turkmen population[19] live below the international poverty line of US$1.25 per day, 1994-2008 , that is less than $39 per month.Babakathy (talk) 06:50, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Awesome statistics...but they are just statistics.

By your logic, how we treat copyrights is dependent upon the author's financial status and education level? I'm sorry, but that's just not good enough, IMNSHO. Are you advocating reviewing images from the US from 1923-1989 too? Because that was how it was prior to 1989: you had to pay for and register your copyright. That's still the case in some countries.

My point overall point is that you're rationale doesn't hold water. Yes, I feel sorry for their financial status and lack of education, but countries with even less financial/educational options have implemented copyrights on an international level. This argument simply doesn't hold water. It is an emotional appeal, not one based upon fact. Iranians, for example, make FAR more per capita than the other countries. So, are you advocating that these countries do have the financial resources, so they should be treated as copyrighted?

Your "rationale" doesn't make sense. Buffs (talk) 05:21, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Buffs you cannot have it both ways: if a probable author's financial status and education level is irrelevant then so is your statement that "You can literally register THOUSANDS of images for $35" is irrelevant too. But since you said that, we have all been pointing out that the $35 you mention yourself is a lot of money for some people.

We disagree on this aspect, I doubt further discussion of this particular facet with change that. Babakathy (talk) 06:14, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Babakathy, the point is that the entire aforementioned reason is irrational.

1. It is first a relative aspect that has no bearing on how we treat other images (like those PD in the US from 1923-1989 because they didn't have proper copyright notices and lost their copyright status), so it is inconsistent.
2. Even today, other countries have lower per capita income/education levels, but we don't base our usage of their images upon income or education. We base them on the law and relevant treaties.

The more this discussion continues, the more I'm convinced we need to have a discussion on how we treat all "international copyrights". Images upon which the US doesn't recognize copyright are already used as PD images another example. By treating images differently and only having conflicting guidance on the subject, we're going to continue having problems. I'm less concerned with how we treat such files than having a consistent guideline as to how such images are treated. I thought this was a smaller issue, but it clearly has a wider reaching impact. Anyone else agree? Buffs (talk) 07:33, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Buffs you introduced this whole aspect back on 30 Jan when you said Moreover, nothing prevents them from obtaining copyrights in other countries (like Switzerland) to protect copyright internationally.. Everything I have said on people's access to and capacity/finance to utilise such systems is in response to that nothing prevents. We disagree, leave it at that.

I fully support your last point, but can I suggest you post it somewhere else on the page, with an appropriate heading etc - it is liable to get lost in this suhb-sub-sub-section.Babakathy (talk) 10:00, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok. Nothing substantial prevents people from reasonably obtaining a copyright in another country. As for the rest, working it. Buffs (talk) 13:51, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

My last post on this facet of discussion per WP:LETSNOTWINDEACHOTHERUPFURTHER (smile). Babakathy (talk) 14:06, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Solutions

Any solution must be applicable to all the criteria listed above. I see a few options:

1. Treat them as the US recognizes their copyright.
2. Treat them as copyrighted unless they are PD in both the US and their country of origin
3. Treat them as their copyright exists in their home country.

I advocate #1 as the most usable and in line with WP goals. #2 restricts images that are already acceptable on Commons. #3 is not legally tenable as we have to recognize US law no matter what the host country desires. I'm willing to accept that I may have created a straw man argument here because there may be other options I haven't considered. Please feel free to add your own solutions if I'm missing anything.

Treating images as we treat them now (inconsistently) is neither helpful nor reasonable. Buffs (talk) 08:27, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Commons does not allow any exceptions to rule 2 unless the licence template is either ((PD-Art)) or ((PD-scan)), so it would not cause us any problems with Commons images. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:35, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Those are the types of images I'm talking about. As for French Buildings, we use them on en-WP at will and I see no reason not to...and commons clearly doesn't erase all of them as I looked up several versions of the Lourve with no problem. Buffs (talk) 00:03, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

If you find any images which are not free in France, then it probably just means that no one has noticed them yet. If so, feel free to propose them for deletion. Also note that the Musée du Louvre is ((PD-old)) and that it is only the glass pyramid in front of it which is copyrighted. A photo of the main building might show the pyramid as de minimis, which is OK. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:24, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Why do you insist on complex formatting? It clutters up the TOC and makes participation much more difficult for other people. I suspect you won't get a lot of additional participation with the current format, and I'd support reducing a lot of the clutter down to the two or so "vote sections" with the most participation. The simple fact is there is no and there is not likely to be any consensus on changing our current treatment of these images (i.e. regarding them as though they were covered by the Berne convention). Adding 5 or 10 or dozens more sections isn't likely to be as convincing as a novel argument or point of view. Nathan ^T 19:53, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Re: "The simple fact is there is no and there is not likely to be any consensus on changing our current treatment of these images (i.e. regarding them as though they were covered by the Berne convention)." Sorry, but there is NO "current treatment" specified on any page and that's the problem. You act as if your opinion is the status quo when, in fact, there is no standard. Why you refuse to answer these questions or engage in any discussion other than "Let's just do things the way I want" is beyond me. Buffs (talk) 20:35, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

As for the formatting, I've edited it slightly. If all you are looking at is the number of sections, then you're right, it won't be convincing. However, if you actually read what I wrote, perhaps it might be more convincing. The reason I split them up was to allow people to more easily respond in each section rather then scrolling through pages. Do you see anything wrong with what I've written? All I'm hearing from you is "no, not that. let's jut not do anything" when that is the problem. There is no guidance on the subject. In this case, doing nothing solves nothing. Why not propose a solution yourself instead of poo-pooing everyone else's ideas? Buffs (talk) 20:40, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

There are a number of proposed "solutions" above, several of which I have supported. As you might have guessed, I support treating these images as though they were covered by international copyright treaties. As it happens, no particular position has garnered consensus, which means the status quo ante of this discussion is maintained - a status which was described in the opening of this RfC as "The current situation would appear to leave us in the odd situation where we treat the images as copyright and so should require a FUR etc despite the whole system not really being set up to cover this situation." The OP also linked to a comment from Jimbo saying that we should respect the copyright of works in non-treaty nations, written at a time when Jimbo was commonly understood to have the power to set policy unilaterally. As always, changing policy requires consensus, and as is often the case, there is no consensus here. Nathan ^T 20:59, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

You're also ignoring the very next sentence: "The current situation also seems out of synced with current policy where we allow use of images that are PD in the US for other reasons (e.g. time) but aren't in the country of origin." So there are contradictory policies in place. This is an attempt to resolve them. Buffs (talk) 21:08, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I "ignored it" because, as it says, it applies to other images in different situations. Their contradictory nature is your opinion, and one that (at the risk of becoming repetitive) does not share consensus support. Nathan ^T 21:14, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I disagree entirely (no surprise). As Stefan pointed out below, images from Afghanistan are largely PD as they have no copyright law. Images from Iran have copyright in Iran and nowhere else, but images from Afghanistan have no copyright at all. Lumping the two together and saying we're going to treat those images as copyrighted anyway goes completely against the goals of WP. You and I can disagree about images in France and Iran, but surely you aren't suggesting that we should treat images that are PD everywhere as copyrighted. I find nothing in policy anywhere to support that assertion. Furthermore, if we choose to implement that policy we will have to prevent images from Commons. Is that really what you are advocating? Buffs (talk) 00:54, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• FWIW, I've edited the TOC properties to de-clutter it. Feel free to revert if you disagree. Buffs (talk) 01:28, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Related to this discussion, you might also be interested in Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Template:PD-Afghanistan. In short, one user has proposed stopping to accept any material from Afghanistan on Commons. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:24, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

True, but so far 9 people have opposed that user's proposal, and no one has supported it. --Avenue (talk) 21:53, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I mentioned it because it is similar to this discussion that we're having here, not because of any specific opinion of the preferred outcome of the discussion. I assume that the nominator supports the nomination, so it would be 9 against 1. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:56, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

It's now been closed as keep. --Avenue (talk) 15:06, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Alternative

We started with the statement: The current situation would appear to leave us in the odd situation where we treat the images as copyright and so should require a FUR etc despite the whole system not really being set up to cover this situation. Not all cases are the same, so I would suggest:

1. With regard to copyright of countries with which the US does not have any copyright relations:

1.1 Tag appropriately (such as User:Buffs/PD-Ethiopia in US including ((Do not move to Commons)))

1.2 Use with fair use rules if image was copyrighted in country of origin

1.3 Use freely if image was not copyrighted

2. With regard to works from countries with no copyright laws

2.1 Tag appropriately (such as Commons:Template:PD-Afghanistan not User:Buffs/PD-Afghanistan_in_US which is less clear)

2.2 Use freely, but uploader needs to show that image meets criteria of PD-Af. Babakathy (talk) 08:41, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

One should note that the three caveats on Commons:Template:PD-Afghanistan apply equally to all non-treaty states. Even if the tags are just being used for labeling, as you seem to suggest in item #1 here, such caveats should still be noted on any Ethopian, Iranian, and similar templates. Dragons flight (talk) 19:03, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Excellent point. I'll make those changes in a few minutes (if there are any objections, please revert me). Buffs (talk) 21:17, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

 Done and added to the template list to include Somalia too

Support Part 2 With regards for part 2, I concur in general. I've rephrased/moved the Afghan template to be mostly in line with the Commons template. We already have template:PD-Afghanistan, but it misses most of the nuances of the commons template. Probably should rephrase accordingly and we should keep a local copy/version apart from Commons (especially considering that their template is up for deletion). I don't really care which version we use. I'm holding judgement on #1 for now. I see no problem implementing #2, but we should explicitly specify which countries it applies to so there is no confusion amongst noobs (copyright law is complicated enough). Buffs (talk) 18:58, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Great. Suggest easier to have different template for each relevant country. Babakathy (talk) 06:56, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we should have ouw own templates here, even if similar/identical to commons. Babakathy (talk) 07:03, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

What about...?

Ok, so these are relatively obscure instances that probably won't happen on WP in anything other than 1-2 per year (at best), but what about these countries? In circular 38a, they all have the copyright relations status of "unclear" (I omitted Vanuatu because they are in the process of joining).

• São Tomé and Principe
• Nauru
• Palau
• Kiribati

Buffs (talk) 22:08, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Nauru has an "Office of the Registrar of Patents, Trade Marks and Copyright" listed as the WIPO contact for copyrights. Assuming it is functional and active, this would seem to imply there is some form of copyright law active in Nauru. Similarly, there is a "Head of the Service of Copyright" registered with WIPO to represent Sao Tome and Principe. Palau and Kiribati do not have any official contact for copyright issues registered with WIPO. Dragons flight (talk) 00:21, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Suggest we treat them like Ethiopia, Eritrea etc (once we have agreed that). Babakathy (talk) 06:59, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I think it would be important to figure out their copyright modus operandi first and then determine how we're going to treat them. Buffs (talk) 05:53, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

So where do we go from here?

At the request of Babakathy, I'm reposting this comment here.

The more this discussion continues, the more I'm convinced we need to have a bigger discussion on how we treat all "international copyrights". Images in which the US doesn't recognize copyright are already used as PD images. Likewise, there are many governments that recognize trademarks as copyrighted even when the US doesn't. By treating images differently and having conflicting guidance & application on the subject, we're going to continue having problems. I'm less concerned with how we treat such files than having a consistent guideline as to how such images are treated. I thought this was a smaller issue, but it clearly has a wider reaching impact/scope. Anyone else agree? Buffs (talk) 14:05, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

1. Buffs (talk)
2. Babakathy (talk)

I recognize WP goal to have free content available as much as possible, but we also need to accept that we are in the real world. Some things that are PD in the US are copyrighted elsewhere and vice versa. I see three possibilties on usage:

1. Keep it as-is (not really a workable option given the problems/inconsistencies we have)
2. Treat all images as they are treated in their country of origin (this still has problems: what if a US citizen takes a photo of a copyrighted building in France and subsequently publishes it in the US as a PD image? The US views this as PD, but France views it as a copyright violation. Likewise, if there is a logo in the US that consists entirely of a few geometric shapes, it's PD in the US, but copyrighted in Germany) I feel that this is not a viable option as it pushes out some images and goes against our goals: what's the point of using images that are PD if some governments are going to say that they are copyrighted anyway.
3. Treat all images as they are treated in the US. This simplifies things (in reality, since the servers are in Florida, we're concerned about US courts) while still allowing for protection of legally-binding copyright protections. I'd like to emphasize that this option still requires all Fair Use images to retain Fair Use rationales. If implemented, we may need to specify how to use/tag international images.

Thoughts? Buffs (talk) 14:05, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Good start, thanks. I'll let others comment for now. Babakathy (talk) 14:15, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The proposed changes are a dead letter; where we go from here is where we are now. As Robert has pointed out elsewhere, the PD-Afghanistan tags and related discussions missed the fact that Afghanistan does in fact have a copyright law. For Afghanistan and other nations, the content that is not legally protected in the U.S. is treated as though it were subject to the Berne convention. This is an approach consistent with project ethics and the international nature of the endeavour. This RfC has not recently had any new participants, nor is any progress being made towards a consensus. As such, I propose that the RfC be closed with no action. Nathan ^T 17:29, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Nathan while you are correct in some capacity, you are disingenuous with others.

1. Yes, Afghanistan does have a copyright law, but no one here knew that until a few days ago. Had we known, we certainly would have simply lumped them into the same discussion with that of Iran/Iraq/etc. As such, it's simply a red herring
2. No where in our policies does it state "content that is not legally protected in the U.S. is treated [on WP] as though it were subject to the Berne convention."
3. You claim that your opinion is consistent with "project ethics", but you are claiming alignment with something that doesn't even exist. We don't have an ethical code, so claiming this is basically an attempt at a lie. What you are really saying is that it violates your own ethical ideals. While roughly half of the people agree with you, what about the other half? How does this align with the WMF mission "missionto empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally." if you are unnecessarily restricting material? This material is PD and under our mission statement, we have an obligation to disseminate it as much as is feasibly possible.
4. Closing this discussion as "no action" simply leaves us in the same boat we were in before. What do we do with these images? The WMF has already agreed they are PD. People in the US, China, Russia, UK, Brazil, and others can use these images as they wish as they are also PD just about everywhere else too. What you are really advocating is option #2 (listed above), but without answering any of the questions.

It is my opinion that the only reasonable choice is to treat files as they are classified in the US. That means if they are PD or under an acceptable license here, we can use them. If the servers were in France, I would advocate the exact same thing for France. If it was in Iran, same thing. By trying to treat all images as they are in the US and in the country of publishing, you introduce irreconcilable differences.

I also don't consider myself unreasonable. If you can reconcile these issues, I will acquiesce and agree with you:

1. Images that are copyrighted in the country in which they were taken, but the US does not recognize the copyright claims or that these are an infringement:
   • Image of The Lourve which is a copyrighted image in France, but the US "doesn't recognize photos of architectural works as a violation of copyright" (note that other images of The Lourve exist on Commons and enacting the rules as you describe will require us to block these images from use)
   • A logo copyrighted in Brazil, but for which the US doesn't recognize copyright claims, only trademark protection
   • Another example of the above case
   • Copyrighted in its home country, but the US doesn't recognize this copyright claim either
   • Works of a US federal official in the performance of his/her duties are PD by US law (even overseas), but Afghanistan affords it copyright protection under Chapter 2 of their Copy Right law
2. Images that are PD in the US, were first published in the US, but are recognized as copyrighted elsewhere
   • First published in the US but taken in Japan which recognizes the image as copyrighted until 70 years pma
   • Afghanistan recognizes this image as copyrighted until 2027 (50 years past publication)
   • PD in the US for failure to follow copyright laws, but copyrighted in France which doesn't recognize the copyright of the longer term and will keep it copyrighted until 70 years pma

In short is isn't so simple to say "We'll just recognize it as the country where it came from" because that doesn't reflect how other countries allow such images to be used. Buffs (talk) 02:29, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I just went through the voting above and there is a very clear absence of consensus (9/10, 9/9, 6/6). There seems to be equally strong support for (and opposition to) treat per us Copyright law only and treat per home copyright maybe + fair use rules. However, I do think it is worth working towards a compromise - Buffs and I already discussed one solution that would be explicitly for countries with no copyright law at all relations with US (as opposed to France/Mexico where there are copyright relations but differences). Let's give this some more work. Babakathy (talk) 07:19, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Japan is life+50 years (or publication+50 years for works for hire), not live+70 years. Besides, you seem to miss the point because what matters is not the country of creation but the country of first publication. --Stefan2 (talk) 10:45, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Not true. I can't take a picture of something copyrighted (a hi-res image of a painting for example) and then go to Eritrea to publish it. That image is of a copyrighted work and it retains its copyright as a derivative of said copyrighted work. With respect to the image from Japan, that image was published in BOTH Japan and the US back when the US required you to annotate the copyright notice and register your copyright. Japan didn't have the same provisions and retroactively applied modern provisions to older works. Buffs (talk) 18:00, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Any chance that this RfC can be closed at some point? --Stefan2 (talk) 01:21, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

It's been at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure for over a month now. I can't close it as I'm obviously involved, Moonriddengirl has declined due to her involvement in her WMF role and no one else seems to want to take it on. If you have any ideas about a neutral admin or experienced editor that may want to please feel free to ask them (in a neutral way). Dpmuk (talk) 13:36, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Closure

It's now been over two months since this discussion ground to a halt, without any sign (despite repeated requests) of anyone being willing to close. So I've taken on this thankless task.

Principles:

1. Change is costly. Changing things means changing infrastructure and educating users on the new situation. We should only do it when it's clear that the benefits outweigh the costs, and that the change is well-supported by the community.
2. Wikipedia aims to be a free content encyclopedia, and to spread knowledge throughout the world.
3. The United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights states (Article 27(2)) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Findings:

1. Various countries listed at Wikipedia:Non-U.S._copyrights#Countries_without_copyright_relations_with_the_United_States currently don't have copyright relations with the US, and therefore works copyrighted in those countries aren't copyrighted in the US. They are therefore legally in the public domain in the US, and there is no legal impediment to their use on this basis. There are however ethical arguments against their use.
2. If those countries sign the relevant international agreements, works copyrighted there will become copyrighted in the US (and in most other countries). This might mean removal of the images would be required, or addition of Fair Use Rationales.
3. Option 1 (country-specific PD templates, eg User:Buffs/PD-Iraq_in_US) is carried without opposition. Such templates allow all files to be identified if the situation for a country changes.
4. Usage Option 1 (use such files as PD, with appropriate templates for identification) has no consensus, and leans oppose.
5. Usage Option 2 and Usage Option 3 (which are virtually identical, and are to treat the files as non-free and apply fair-use rationales for each use) have no consensus. Two variations on this theme, Usage Option 4 and Usage Option 5 (treat files as if international copyright agreements had been signed by the few countries that haven't) are respectively strongly opposed and have no consensus.
6. The final arrangement proposal was opposed.

I believe that this means that all of this discussion, whilst it has clarified a lot of things, shows

1. no consensus for the status quo ante, which is Jimbo's stance that (quoting from Wikipedia:Copyrights#Governing_copyright_law, not his words) "Wikipedia contributors should respect the copyright law of other nations, even if these do not have official copyright relations with the United States". Various usage options supporting the status quo were rejected or did not gain consensus.
2. no consensus for change.

How do we deal with this? By relying on principles 1, 2 and 3 cited above. Each of these points towards sticking with the status quo ante, and that is my conclusion.

To this I would add a comment: some of the objections to respecting the copyright law of the relevant nations is that quite often Wikipedia practice chooses US copyright law over local copyright law, where they conflict and this approach places the content in the public domain in the US. I want to point out the distinction between (i) choosing to go with US law in a conflict situation between US and local law, resolving that conflict in accordance with international law and (ii) ignoring local law because the country hasn't signed the appropriate international agreements. In situation (i), the authors have had a chance to have their rights respected, and conflicts resolved by interpretation of the law; in situation (ii), the authors have not had that chance. I think this is worth saying in order to distinguish the situation we're discussing from many other situations that can be argued to be similar. Rd232 ^talk 18:07, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.