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Photos / Screenshots from the "Apache" recording of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster

Hey everyone, I'm bringing up this photo hosted on the Commons in particular: "ColumbiaFLIR2003.png", which is a frame from this source video on YouTube, posted back in 2008. I wanted to make this image the infobox photo for the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster page on Wikipedia, as it depicts the most historically significant and memorable part of this tragedy. However, from prior mentions on Wikipedia talk pages and in the Commons' Village Pump, there's concerns about its "freeness" to use on Wikipedia and other sites, specifically because the helicopter's camera was operated by a foreign crew, either Danish (as per the CAIB Report Vol. 1), or Dutch (as per YouTube and Reddit comments and "public knowledge", as well as an unsourced article on the aviationist.com). Still frames from the original Apache recording were used and presented in the CAIB report Vol. 1 and 3 (published in August 2003), the Columbia Crew Survival Investigation report (2008), and the Loss of Signal Aeromedical Investigation Report (2014). All three of these are NASA documents authored by government employees, and none of them mention a linkable source for the original Apache video, besides that it was a military source coming from a helicopter, which is public knowledge. Something else to note is that the YouTube video where the Commons image comes from is clearly edited, specifically at the end with the slow-motion and increased zoom at the end.

So given all of the above, and previous discussions / context, is this photo, ColumbiaFLIR2003.png free-to-use or not? If it is free, should anything be changed to its Commons description to make that more clear? If it isn't free, it probably should be removed from the Commons, and if that happens, I should be able to use this photo or a similar one of the re-entry in the article under free-use, since there would be no freer options available. SpacePod9 (talk) 15:58, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Pinging @Kylesenior, Prosfilaes, LPfi, and Carl Lindberg as commenters in that section and UnderworldCircle as uploader.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 16:11, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I see this was previously discussed a few years back at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Copyright/Archive/2021/07#Footage_taken_by_Netherlands_military_pilot,_using_US_equipment,_on_training_in_US? PascalHD (talk) 19:15, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't think my opinion has changed. Any editing of the video was mostly like by US government employees. It may well qualify as a work for hire under U.S. law, making it PD-USGov anyways. I doubt we'd ever know for certain unless a lawsuit was filed and the details of the contracts were spelled out and judged on. To me, this falls into the "theoretical doubt" area, well below the COM:PRP threshold. It's probably fine, and near certain to never find out for sure. I'd vote keep. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:00, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I doubt that USA military would allow a foreign trainee to retain any copyright over such (very sensitive) images. There must be a clause buried in their contracts where they agree to relinquish any claims to copyright. Ruslik (talk) 20:06, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I am afraid I don't have anything to add to it. I never got any more details on it and I am not familiar enough with the law. Kylesenior (talk) 08:14, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

The description and the licensing don't match. The description says it's the product of "two RNLAF (Royal Netherlands Air Force) pilots", while the license says it's "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government". Either the description needs to be corrected, the license needs to be changed. Fourthords | =Λ= | 12:29, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

PD-USGov is also for works which are effectively "works for hire" of the U.S. federal government. Not directly in the legal text, but the legislative comments say that. It's just that there is a wide range of government contracts, and many of them would not fit under "work for hire". If U.S. personnel were directing activities though, this one probably does. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:46, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

For what it's worth, here's a quote from the book Bringing Columbia Home: The Untold Story, authored by Michael D. Leinbach (the KSC Launch Director for STS-107) and Jonathan H. Ward, the former I believe is who is narrating here. Pages 158-159, "The pilot of an Apache helicopter, who was returning to Fort Hood from a night training mission when Columbia broke up, recorded a particularly important video. Seeing unusual streaks in the sky ahead of him, the pilot trained his targeting cameras on the smoke trails. Realizing later that he had witnessed Columbia's disintegration, he personally drove the tape to Barksdale and played it for Dave Whittle and our leadership team. The tape itself was classified, but he allowed us to record portions of the video showing the breakup. In the same book, an annotated frame from that recording (which is identical to the below photo from page 1-76 of the Crew Survival Report) is credited as a "NASA photo" (9 pages before p. 139). Presumably the recorded video the NASA team obtained was then made public and ended up on the internet that way. But now I've got a question for @Carl Lindberg, would the annotated photos in the Crew Survival Report qualify for PD-USGov because they were presumably annotated by US Government employees, even if the original classified video came from a foreign crew, presumably Danish or Dutch? SpacePod9 (talk) 23:18, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

@SpacePod9: I'm guessing the "allowed" was because its U.S. government owner normally classifies footage from those cameras, but that particular footage was of course a different situation. I don't think that statement had anything to do with copyright ownership (though if classified and kept by the U.S., it would be another argument that it is PD-USGov). Any annotations would be PD-USGov, though much of the time those probably don't have enough originality to create a copyright. The photographic copyright would be unchanged by adding annotations. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:46, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Is this image public domain?

Moved from Commons:Help desk

Could the image of Bradley on page 68 of this USGS report be covered by Template:PD-USGov? BhamBoi (talk) 04:10, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

@BhamBoi: my take (though you might want to seek more expert opinion at COM:VP/C) is that it would probably come down to the status of The American Journal of Science Bradley Volume (1960). As a U.S. federal government document, the USGS report is presumably public-domain when handled as a unit, but if the image in question is copyrighted then its inclusion in the document is somewhere in fair use territory (and we can publish the document as a whole despite its containing copyrighted on something along the lines of a de minimis basis). The image as such doesn't become public domain just because it is included in a federal government document. Otherwise, the government could take away anyone's copyright by publishing their work in a federal document. - Jmabel ! talk 05:49, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

By stating: "Photograph from the USGS Denver Library Photographic Collection, Portraits, in the “Last Name A–B” folder; published in The American Journal of Science Bradley Volume," I'm led to think that it was a USGS file, thus government PD, but later republished in the journal volume.

For reference, a link to the Bradley Volume is here, and the image appears in this article. BhamBoi (talk) 05:59, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

USGS having it in a collection doesn't mean it was taken by a U.S. government employee. Again, you might want to seek more expert opinion at COM:VP/C. - Jmabel ! talk 06:03, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I will. Thanks! BhamBoi (talk) 06:19, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Note that anything that was published before 1964 and first published in the US and did not have a proper notice and renewal is in the public domain, though. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 07:23, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Just an update, I have not gotten a response from this board yet but would the image linked above be okay to upload to Commons? BhamBoi (talk) 23:13, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

@BhamBoi: I found no related copyright renewal records for "The American Journal of Science" or "The Bradley Volume" (the name of the book). So I think you can upload the photo under {{PD-US-not renewed}}. —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - useless contributions} 20:33, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

How does one go about uploading an image found in a PDF article? Screenshot?? BhamBoi (talk) 21:51, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

@BhamBoi: Please don't screenshot it, you'll lose a lot of the quality of the image. Instead, follow one of the techniques at s:Help:Image extraction § Extracting images from PDF files. Let me know if you need any help. Cheers, —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - useless contributions} 10:59, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

@BhamBoi: @Matrix: , I have uploaded the photograph as File:Wilmot Hyde "Bill" Bradley, American Journal of Science.jpg. I extracted via IrfanView and saved as a jpg because it's a photograph. Abzeronow (talk) 19:55, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Swedish FoP

Hi all,

As a representative of Wikimedia Sverige, I've had the opportunity to participate in a public inquiry convened by the Swedish government, to review and propose modernizations of the exceptions and limitations within Swedish copyright law. Such inquiries are the first step of the Swedish legislative process. One of the key areas under review is the freedom of panorama provision, and today, the proposal was handed over to the Minister for Justice. The proposal is available here.

The proposal contains several aspects beneficial to the Wikimedia movement. However, one significant obstacle remains with regards to freedom of panorama (regrettably, I'm not the sole representative involved in the inquiry… :/ ). While we intend to keep advocating to eliminate this obstacle throughout the political process, I'm eager to hear your thoughts, and particularly your arguments that could be employed to continue the fight within the parliament.

The proposal permits the use of all kinds of works permanently placed on or next to public spaces for reproduction through any means, including 3D digitization. It specifically highlights that Wikimedia platforms should be allowed to organize and structure databases of public art, such as the Offentligkonst.se project that Wikimedia Sverige managed.

Nevertheless, the proposal is restricted for some cases of "förvärvssyfte," a Swedish legal term that should be understood as using something to make financial gain. That is, the provision prohibits the reproduction of works permanently placed on or next to public spaces for financial gain, similar to the Danish and Norwegian Freedom of Panorama provisions. Presently, Danish and Norwegian Freedom of Panorama is not accepted on Wikimedia Commons.

The proposal acknowledges that all commercial uses are not excluded, permitting both businesses and private individuals to use these works, even for commercial purposes, as long as financial gain is not the general purpose. Determining the threshold for financial gain is obviously challenging, but the committee report submitted to the government emphasizes that this restriction is vital to adhere to the 3-step test.

Several Swedish lawyers I've consulted with are perplexed by how Wikimedia Commons can allow Belgian public art but not Danish and Norwegian. The Belgian provision replicates the second step of the 3-step test verbatim, which according to these lawyers also should effectively prohibit economic exploitation of such works. One lawyer even saw the Belgian provision, with the wording from the 3-step test, could be more restrictive than restriction for "förvärvssyfte".

I'm keen to hear your views on whether restrictions for "financial gain" are incompatible with Wikimedia Commons and CC BY-SA. If so, what distinguishes such restrictions from reproducing the second step of the 3-step test in the law? And perhaps further, how we can allow FoP works at all, when all exceptions and limitations, at least in EU law, are restricted by the 3 step test?

Any thoughts and input here will be extremely valuable as the process continues. Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 14:05, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi, Thanks for your message. Could you please explain, or link to an explanation about, the 3 steps you mention. Yann (talk) 14:25, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Of course, I thought I linked it! This is the English Wikipedia article on the 3 step test and here you find EU version. Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 14:28, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

@Eric Luth (WMSE) regarding Belgian FoP, the latest version no longer contains what you said. For proof, see here. You may use Google Translate to translate Article XI.190 (2/1°). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 23:34, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Basically, the current Belgian FoP wording has removed the three-step test-like wording, making it compatible with free culture and commercial licenses such as CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, CC-zero, and PD. I have some reservation that too much adhering to three-step test may result to Sweden being one-step backward in terms of free appreciation and enjoyment of Swedish public monuments by anyone for any purposes. The Spanish FoP was almost revoked here because of two Court rulings that treated the three-step test as a restriction to commercial reuses of Spanish public monuments. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 09:09, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @JWilz12345, this is very helpful. Do you have a link to the discussion on Spanish FoP? What I don't really understand in that regard is how the Commons community views the 3 step test in general? I mean, all EU countries are bound by the 3 step test in the Infosoc directive? Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 10:48, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

@Eric Luth (WMSE) it is at Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2023/08#NO-FOP in Spain?. MarcoAurelio gave some insight regarding the Spanish FoP and the Three-Step test issue.

The application of Three-Step Test here is somehow controversial. This is because it can lead to courts ruling that all non-commercial uses are not allowed, directly conflicting COM:Licensing that is anchored on the Definition of Free Cultural Works, in which commercial uses should not be forbidden by law. This free cultural works definition is what essentially supports the mission of Wikimedia Commons of providing freely-licensed content that anyone in the world can be freely reused, not bound for copyright restrictions. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 11:11, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments and for the links @JWilz12345, it is a very interesting read from @MarcoAurelio. I think that Marco Aurelio's wording under commercial use of media here is similar to what the lawyers referred to in their comments on Belgian FoP: that the second step of the 3-step test (especially the version in the InfoSoc directive (art. 5.5)) could be understood as very restrictive when it comes to commercial reuse, whereas the Swedish proposal outlines several ways in which commercial use would be completely legal, even though all commercial uses are not (depending on the purpose).

I am very well aware of Wikimedia Commons mission! But I suppose that my main question here is how to find room, given that all EU countries are bound by the 3-step test, for "enough" commercial use according to CC BY-SA, while still being compatible with the 3-step test? Providing such thoughts from the Commons community would be very valuable in my attempts to broaden the proposal and guarantee, to the extent possible, that the law ends up being compatible with CC BY-SA. Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 11:12, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

@Eric Luth (WMSE) take note, the law should also comply to two most liberal licenses too: CC-zero and PD. Users may share images under {{CC-zero}} or {{PD-user}}. The law should not restrict any commercial uses that are permitted by these two most liberal free-culture licensing. If not, then the future Swedish FoP becomes incompatible. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 11:26, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Noted, but what would the difference be? Are there any differences in what commercial uses are allowed under CC BY-SA, CC BY and CC0?

The discussion whether CC0 is compatible with EU law is of course another story… Still, there is no proposal to add an attribution requirement in the exception, and definitely nothing amounting to to SA. Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 11:40, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I think the FoP to be proposed should not prohibit the following free uses: post cards, calendars, tourism souvenir items, travel websites or travel portals, stamps, TV and Internet advertisements, commercial vlogs on YouTube or TikTok, and website development (if the websites are commercial; that is, they are supported by advertisments). Of course, unreasonable use is not allowed, just like German FoP's prohibition to alter or edit the image (to the point it no longer resembles the work seen as it is found by the Wikimedia/Flickr/500px/Pexels/Unsplash photographer) and Dutch FoP/Brazilian FoP's prohibition to edit out surrounding elements like the ground and the sky. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 11:34, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for this very concrete list. It helps a lot! But can you clarify how the prohibitions for altering or editing the image restricts commercial use?

In the proposal, it is allowed to use the artworks in any way (including everything you mention) but not for any purpose. Would your view be that everything on this list would need to be allowed freely (edit: that is, for any purpose)? In that case, do you have any thoughts on the compatibility of e.g. TV advertisements and the 3-step test? Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 11:45, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

@Eric Luth (WMSE) for both of your questions, I think I may call here three people who have sufficient familiariy on FoP: @Abzeronow, Clindberg, and Rosenzweig: . Anyway, other users should participate here, not just two of us with Nemo and Jeff G.. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 11:49, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for adding them here! I agree, it would be very useful to have a broad view from the community on these issues, for everyone I hope but for me in the legislative process that will follow in Sweden. Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 12:10, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I generally agree with Rosenzweig's interpretation below, if Sweden explicitly has a noncommercial-only FoP, then we should regard Sweden as similar to their neighbors Denmark, Finland and Norway. I'll watch this discussion but I don't have much to add since I'm not a lawyer. Abzeronow (talk) 21:35, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

The proposal is not a non-commercial only FoP, but an FoP with some restrictions on commercial reuse (when it is done for "financial gain"). I will of course try to broaden this proposal in the legislative process but I am trying to figure out if it is a matter of degree rather than kind before reaching a proposal that Wikimedia Commons would accept. Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 17:37, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. "Financial gain" is nebulous sounding, but if legally interpreted as a non-copyright restriction like personality rights, I believe it could something workable for Commons. Hopefully WMF provides the necessary legal support to this. Abzeronow (talk) 17:47, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

For altering/modifying part, I think such acts damage the integrity of the artwork and may lead to artist filing lawsuit against the reuser. Of course it is more on moral rights but we generally respect restrictions to editing notwithstanding the demands of the free-culture CC licenses, and non-invasive edits like non-substantial cropping are tolerated. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 11:51, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's a reference to the w:en:Berne three-step test. The three-step test is problematic (it should never be enshrined into law), but it's also a kind no-op provision because it's required by the InfoSoc directive for all copyright exceptions anyway, and it would probably be harmonized by the CJEU where needed.

Eric, can you clarify whether a definition exists in law for "förvärvssyfte", whether case law exists for it, and how it would be interpreted in cross-border situations? Nemo 14:29, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

But more importantly, if those lawyers think the "förvärvssyfte" restriction is less restrictive than the three-step test, then they should advise to not add such a restriction at all in the law, given it would be redundant with article 5(5) of directive 2001/29/EC. Nemo 14:47, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

There is no legal definition, but there is a lengthy paragraph in the constitutional commentaries. I can try to translate the relevant paragraphs, would that help?

In general, Swedish legislators tend to want to make sure that implemented laws already fulfill the 3 step test, so that users don't need to know the details of this abstract principle. So the idea from the lawmaker would be that a "translation" of the second step of the 3 step test in a Swedish implementation would be to restrict the exception with this "förvärvssyfte". Do you have any good ideas for arguments against that? My main argument is that it makes it much harder for a global movement, since all national or language based definitions make it much harder to understand laws across borders. Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 15:14, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Has any court enforced the three-step test enshrined into law? If not, could we safely ignore it?   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 11:16, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Jeff G. Yes, Wikimedia Sverige lost a court case in the Supreme Court on Freedom of Panorama, where the supreme court says that courts have to apply the 3 step test when judging individual cases of use based on limitations and exceptions to copyright. But I don't think that any EU country can ignore the 3 step test? I see that Portugal, Poland, Czechia and Croatia, for example, all have implemented 3 step test verbatim in national law, but Wikimedia Commons still accept FoP from these countries. Do you know of any discussions on this here on Commons (that is, the compatibility of 3 step test and commercial FoP?). Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 10:52, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Here's the court case for reference, but unfortunately in Swedish: https://www.domstol.se/hogsta-domstolen/avgoranden/2016/36003/ Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 10:53, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

@Eric Luth (WMSE): Thanks.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 11:22, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

It seems to me that each country can determine the "legitimate interests" of authors in their law. I think clearly the Berne Convention prohibits these copyright exceptions from allowing an outright copy -- a sculpture of a sculpture, or a photo of a photo or painting (cropped to the original) -- which would compete directly in the marketplace. But beyond that, countries may have a fair bit of latitude. For example, in the U.S., in USC 17 120 they explicitly define the scope of architectural copyright as not including pictorial representations of any building located in a public place. So, such photos are not part of the architectural copyright's "legitimate interests". There is no such provision for sculpture, but that may simply be a U.S. choice based on their situation with past "norms" on what people expect to be able to do, and not criminalizing them (given that the U.S. had no real architectural copyright at all before joining Berne and such photos were common). The U.S. though explicitly does not consider the text of the Berne Convention to be legally binding, while many other countries do (ones which permit self-executing treaties).

The way I have looked at it is that many countries have decided that in exchange for the notoriety and publicity coming from public (or maybe private) authorities choosing their work to be permanently in public, there is a certain limitation of rights which comes with that -- such authors should not gain rights over pictures of the public area as a result, really. I would think that any FoP provision would be limited to its depiction as seen in public; if you crop away or otherwise remove the public context then it would be more of a straight copy or "normal" derivative work which would indeed prejudice the normal interests in a work, if it had not been in public. Outside of that, countries seem to have latitude on how they treat them -- some disallow photos where a sculpture is the main subject (just allowing photos of the wider scene, similar to "incidental" inclusion) or disallow only commercial use, while others allow both -- at that point, that type of photo would seem to not be part of the "legitimate interests" of the underlying author. So to me, it's a matter of what a country's legislature and/or courts deems "right" or "wrong" for themselves. We would need to follow that per-country, of course. Ambiguous phrases like that tend to be interpreted different country to country (and even court case to court case), so not surprising to me there are disagreements. But I think it's within a country's right (such as the U.S. with architectural works) to define "legitimate" in some of these edge conditions. It may be considered a way to not dramatically increase an author's rights they gain by having it in public, really -- photos of a private sculpture are not going to happen nearly as often, or give artists nearly as many opportunities to file lawsuits, as numerous photos of a public work do. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:20, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I guess it's really a matter of how the limitations to FOP are interpreted and handled in each country. If commercial uses of FOP are generally denied by high-level courts because of the three-step test mentioned, I think we should disallow FOP images from those countries so that we can still comply with our free media only requirements. For Spain that was not really the case (if I remember it correctly) because there were only two cases from lower courts, at least that's how I interpreted it. I don't know about the situation in the countries that were mentioned (Portugal, Poland, Czechia and Croatia), I hope courts there don't interpret FOP in that way. If Sweden explicitly disallows some commercial uses right in the law, we might have to treat Sweden like Finland, Norway, Iceland and Denmark - FOP not applicable as far as Wikimedia Commons is concerned. --Rosenzweig τ 21:21, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

@Eric Luth (WMSE) both Rosenzweig and Abzeronow are right. Commons can only accept freely-licensed content. For me, commercial purpose and financial gain are just the same, no matter how Swedish lawyers and legislators try to differentiate both. A post card publisher that sells their post cards earns, so their commercial activity involves financial gain. Similarly, for-profit website developers who use images gain profit by embedding or adding advertisements. The same is true for travel portal websites. It is not logical to differentiate commercial purpose and financial gain.

If the restricted FoP pushes through and becomes part of the law, then we have no choice but no longer accept Swedish landmarks/monuments designed by architects and/or artists who died less than 70 years ago, depending on the outcome if the restriction applies only to sculptures/murals or extends also to architecture. It is also worth knowing if the restrictions are retroactive or not. In the case of Vietnam, they restricted FoP to non-profit or non-commercial use only by 2023, so new uploads from January 1, 2023 onwards are no longer allowed. Older uploads before 2023 are retained because the law is not retroactive. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 03:40, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

If I understood the limitations correctly it is more like limitations in the use of photos with people. Basically personality rights for buildings. If the limitations are the same we should also accept these photos. GPSLeo (talk) 07:22, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

I must say @JWilz12345 that I disagree with your interpretation that commercial use and purpuse of financial gain is the same, and especially if the Swedish legislature by law differentiates between the two of them. The issue here is if a prohibition of purpose of financial gain still leaves enough commercial room. Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 11:57, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

@Eric Luth (WMSE) you didn't specify what are the so-called acts of financial gain that are to be prohibited by the proposed change to Swedish FoP? Are those copyright-related or non-copyright related (like trademarks, personality rights, museum use restrictions, et cetera)? JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 13:21, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for these comments. Do I read you correctly, @Rosenzweig, that a FoP legislation needs to allow all commercial uses for FoP images to be allowed on Wikimedia Commons?

I'd like to reiterate here that I don't think that this is an issue of national courts in our case but the EU court and the mentioned InfoSoc directive. It would be interesting if someone could clarify how a fully commercial FoP provision would be compatible with the second step of the 3-step test in its InfoSoc version? Arguments along these lines would be very useful in the legislative process. Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 11:35, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

@Eric Luth (WMSE): Per Commons:Licensing “Wikimedia Commons only accepts free content, that is, images and other media files that are not subject to copyright restrictions which would prevent them being used by anyone, anytime, for any purpose. ” Therfore I don't see how anything that explicitly forbids some commercial uses can be acceptable for Wikimedia Commons. --Rosenzweig τ 11:57, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

For curiousity @Rosenzweig, how do you read that in relation to restrictions due to trademark law? Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 11:58, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Just take a look at Commons:Licensing. The very next sentence there says “The use may however be restricted by issues not related to copyright, though, see Commons:Non-copyright restrictions, and the license may demand some special measures.” --Rosenzweig τ 12:01, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

But if only content that can be used by anyone, anytime for any purpose is allowed, how come that Belgian FoP images were allowed when the 3-step test was part of the Belgian law? Or why are e.g. Polish FoP images allowed, that explicitly restrict purposes (Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Poland#Freedom of panorama)? Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 17:08, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

I think it would be good if WMEU could create a professional legal evaluation of this question. GPSLeo (talk) 17:21, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

The InfoSoc directive is pretty much the same wording as Berne -- do not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work or other subject-matter and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the rightholder. So what is a "normal exploitation" and what are "legitimate interests"? Those terms are not defined. For one example, there was the case described at de:Hundertwasserentscheidung -- that was a photo of a copyrighted building in Austria, taken from a private apartment across the street, and sold as a poster. Selling the poster was legal in Austria, but not in Germany which required such photos to be taken from a public place. If the three-step test was interpreted as not allowing commercial use at all, then the Austrian law is invalid. That seems to be a different dividing line on "legitimate interests" -- for Germany viewpoints of a building that everyone can see should not be part of the "legitimate interests" of the architect for making money. In Austria, any viewpoint of a public building would seem to not be part of their "legitimate interests". So each country seems to be able to define that for themselves. If the act of putting something in public dramatically increases an author's chances to make money, to the detriment of many other people, it may well make some sense to put some limits on that. I'm not sure that many court cases examine that three-step test wording in particular as they will usually go by the wording in the country's law, but the Hugenholtz and Okediji interpretation mentioned on the Wikipedia article seems way off to me. Obviously, you can't allow something that amounts to a copy -- that definitely interferes with the "normal exploitation" of the original work, before it became public. Beyond that, there is lots of gray area.

As for "commercial use", that can be a tortured term. As Commons uses it, it is strictly in relation to copyright -- things like trademark and publicity rights are considered non-copyright restrictions and are treated differently (it just has to be legal for Wikimedia to host the image, without worrying about how some uses may violate those other laws). So prohibiting "commercial use" in a trademark context is fine; that has a completely different meaning despite being the same words. Our question is if a possible commercial use (i.e. one that makes money in some way) could result in copyright infringement particularly. With photos of course, there is gray area there -- we allow de minimis inclusion of copyrighted works. If you crop an image to the copyrighted object, that ceases to be de minimis and would not be allowed. Same if something is "incidentally" included, like the Louvre pyramid in a photo of the entire Louvre plaza. So our policies have some leeway and interpretation. The question is more, is there a possible use of the photo exactly as uploaded, which could result in a copyright violation, per the copyright law, simply due to its commercial nature. If selling postcards of a photo of a sculpture or building is OK, it would seem to be fine. Moral rights are also considered non-copyright restrictions; we are more about the economic right in particular. I don't completely understand the limitation that Sweden is contemplating, and if that could result in a violation of copyright specifically or some other Swedish law (a very different situation for us). Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:22, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

There are several differences between the 3-step test in the InfoSoc Directive and the Berne Convention – the context differs, where the former closes an exhaustive list of accepted limitations, and it also explicitly concerns applications of the limitations in the article and thus does not work as a general interpretation principle such as in Berne. This turns the InfoSoc 3-step test into a rather special version of the 3-step test. But you are right that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has not defined 'normal exploitation' and 'legitimate interests', giving some leeway for national interpretation (until the CJEU harmonizes these concept). My understanding is that the Swedish proposal perfectly allows users to add a CC BY or CC BY-SA license on reproductions of FoP artwork (as the proposal does not prohibit commercial use) but that does of course not mean that Wikimedia Commons accepts such FoP images. Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 17:34, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

I think GPSLeo's formulation of "Basically personality rights for buildings" is on the mark. We're going to have to see where the courts actually draw this line. For example, we certainly accept that in the U.S. a photo of a person cannot be used to imply an endorsement they didn't make, and hence cannot be used in an advertisement without their permission. As far as I can tell, the same also goes for the use of someone's image on trading cards. It seems to me that if this turns out to be something like that, we should probably accept it on that precedent. I'm going to guess (though this is only a guess) that it will turn out to be fine to use these in any "normal" way in a book, magazine, website, etc., and that all that will be excluded will be directly monetizing the image as such, and I bet even a lot of cases of that will be tolerated. It's going to be interesting to see what they say about postcards, for example, or selling such an image as a stock photo. - Jmabel ! talk 21:02, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel (also ping @Rosenzweig and Clindberg: here) will this have a bearing on our treatment on Norwegian and Finnish FoP for monuments? @Eric Luth (WMSE): basically says that the proposed Swedish FoP would be more or less similar to Norwegian and Finnish FoP here. But Eric may need to clarify if the Norwegian and Finnish FoP do allow commercial use of public monuments just like what Swedish lawyers claim (this is per what Eric said: "Several Swedish lawyers I've consulted with are perplexed by how Wikimedia Commons can allow Belgian public art but not Danish and Norwegian.") And again, the restrictive three-step test style in the Belgian FoP has been removed in the current version of the law, so the use of Belgian FoP here as an example is now moot. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 02:02, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

I think we have taken Norway's law to mean you can't sell a postcard if the sculpture is the main subject of the photo. It's OK if it's part of a wider scene, but we typically allow that type of picture anywhere as I don't think we have been shown a court case from any country which has ruled a photo like that an infringing derivative work. Finland is pretty much the same -- buildings OK, sculpture not, with the same qualification. That would still be an improvement on the current situation in Sweden, where it's clouded by that court case. Non-commercial use where the statue is the main subject is fine without permission, so it would be legal for Wikimedia to host. If that is the distinction -- photos where the sculpture is the primary subject versus photos which included it as part of the scene -- then no change. I'm only going by the English translations though which may miss nuances in the original language. If there is an implication that the "for gain" or "used commercially" in Finland/Norway's laws more refers to using it in advertisements only as a form of publicity rights, then less sure -- but if using it in advertisements is a copyright violation of the economic right as a derivative work, with the full penalties which come with it, still not sure it would be OK as that is a restriction based on copyright. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:27, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks all for these insightful comments. This conversation is helpful to me, and for the continued legislative process.

I am not an expert on the Danish, Norwegian and Finnish provisions, so I don't know exactly to what extent they allow commercial use. It would require looking into court cases and legal commentaries from the respective countries. There is an extensive amount of court cases in Sweden that tries to establish the scope of "purpose of financial gain", and from what I understand from the lawyers I am talking with, courts have tended to limit the scope, meaning that more and more commercial uses are seen as falling outside it. I initially proposed that "marketing purpose" would be better from our perspective, but was advised that in contrast, courts have tended to widen the scope of "marketing purpose", meaning that marketing can be pretty much anything, the result being that Sweden would likely end up with a more restrictive limitation if it used "marketing purpose" rather than "purpose of financial gain".

I think you are right @Clindberg that this is a question of nuances, which is difficult to transfer between languages (and to English). What I am trying to understand is if there is a way in which a restriction of "purpose of financial gain" can still be compatible with Wikimedia policies. If there is, I am optimistic that we can get improvements in the political process to that end. If the Wikimedia Commons community, on the other hand, is convinced that there is no such way, then we would need to initiate a political campaign for a completely different proposal, which is perhaps less likely to be achieved and with the risk of losing other potential improvements as per above. So it is somewhat of a strategic choice here to be made. Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 10:37, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

It's important to mention too that this restriction does not apply to buildings, like in other Nordic countries. Buildings are completely free to reproduce (according to the proposal). Eric Luth (WMSE) (talk) 10:40, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

@Eric Luth (WMSE) I hope for the successful endeavors of your Wikimedia chapter. The ball is now on the legislation of Sweden if the proposal would continue to classify Sweden as a yes-FoP country for permanent outdoor works or not (yellow in map, meaning only architecture is allowed).

But just a note, not all Nordic countries. Iceland, which is a Nordic country too, severely restricts anything. Even buildings there cannot be freely distributed under commercial-type Creative Commons licenses or PD-user. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 14:08, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

That is very good for buildings, which is by far the most aggravating part of FoP when it comes to deletions here. But if there is any other restriction on sculpture (other than say attribution type stuff), enforced via copyright law, it still may not be "free" -- as the law would clearly be treating the two types of works differently for a reason, and there are different allowed scopes. If a law does not distinguish between types of work, we generally assume that it applies the same way to *all* types -- so if there is no FoP, that applies to architecture too since there isn't anything explicit in Berne which treats them differently (and which the case in Germany showed is in fact possible). I don't recall anything in the EU directives treating them differently either. So if a country has the right to make photos of buildings completely free to reproduce, they should have the same right for photos of public sculpture if they so choose. It's certainly a valid choice to not 100% allow sculptures (the U.S. does the same thing). If there is no way to get the conditions on sculpture the same as what is currently proposed for buildings, then it may not be worth it to fight. Using a term which is defined more narrowly by the courts will help practical usage in Sweden -- which is probably more important -- even if it doesn't attain our theoretical "free" threshold. And given that Finland and Norway have similar criteria, it seems understandable the sense of "right" and "wrong" would be the same in Sweden, too. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:36, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

@Eric Luth (WMSE): an important question is the retroactivity of the proposed changes in Swedish FoP for sculptural monuments (if ever passed). If not retroactive, the restrictions only cover future uploads from the date of effectivity of the proposed revision of the copyright law; but if retroactive, then the restrictions also cover all existing uploads of copyrighted Swedish public monuments here, from around 2002 (the beginnings of Wikipedia, if the files were later transferred here to Commons) up to the date a day before the proposed revision to the law became effective. See, for example, COM:CRT/Eswatini. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 19:05, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

History of Hindu–Arabic numerals images are almost certainly copyright violation

The image File:Evolution of Hindu-Arabic numerals.jpg is a very lightly modified version of a diagram from Karl Menninger's book Number Words and Number Symbols (1969), page 418, originally published in German (1934) as Zahlwort und Ziffer. This is a very clear copyright violation, though the author user:Hu741f4 claimed this as their own cc-by-sa licensed work.

A couple other images are almost certainly also copyright violation: File:Numeration-brahmi fr.png is translated into French, and according to the image description got the numeral images from Datta and Singh (1935) History of Hindu Mathematics which according to w:History of Hindu Mathematics and IA is in the public domain (I am not sure if that is accurate; the copyright page of these scans says "all rights reserved"). I can't immediately tell if this is true and the uploader user:Piero remade the image, or if this was also just scanned from Menninger then overwritten with translated labels, but either way this diagram is too closely based on Menninger's diagram to not be a clear-cut derivative work, and it's especially shady that there's no attribution to Menninger. This was then translated back into English as File:The_Brahmi_numeral_system_and_its_descendants.png by user:Tobus. Again Menninger is not credited, and this one has a description page which no longer makes any claims about where the glyph images come from.

It would be nice if someone would redraw an image that is not such a blatant ripoff. The wide use of these images across Wikimedia projects testifies to their importance. –jacobolus (t · wp · wt) 23:54, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Not obvious to me that there is anything copyrightable there. - Jmabel ! talk 21:38, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

The precise layout, labels, and content of a diagram are assuredly copyrightable. The generic idea of drawing a tree is not copyrightable. So if you take the raw data for the chart (collection of re-drawn glyph shapes, historical connections between sets of numerals) and then hand it to someone who never looked at the original and ask them to draw a new diagram, what you end up with is going to look substantially different from the original, and should be free and clear. But just directly duplicating someone else's diagram without attribution is (a) very likely copyright infringement, and (b) unethical plagiarism. –jacobolus (t · wp · wt) 08:50, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

No, these are not original enough to get a copyright. These are factual descriptions, and only a few words. Yann (talk) 10:26, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Are you @Jmabel or @Yann a copyright lawyer/expert, or just laypeople speculating based on personal desires? My somewhat experienced layperson's understanding is that the "factual description" part is not copyrightable, but the choices made in the diagram (how to lay out the numbers, how to lay out the boxes, the choice of labels, the precise choice of examples to use, the specific drawings of the numerals, the choice to put a vertical divider between 1–5 and 6–0, the style of the arrows, etc. isn't something you can just copy wholesale and then pass off as your own original work. It's extremely unlikely that someone will sue Wikimedia in this case, since it's an 89-year-old diagram by an author who has been dead for 60 years, which has been widely copied in the mean time, but that's a different question than whether the work is copyrightable or not. But it also shouldn't be hard for someone to draw a new better diagram, especially anyone willing to do some additional research to find better examples; I'd recommend e.g. using colorful backgrounds instead of solid boxes, arranging the numerals in 2 rows for each set, adding a couple of other examples of further evolution of the Sanskrit numerals to make the diagram less Eurocentric, etc. –jacobolus (t · wp · wt) 15:11, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

@Jacobolus: I'm not a copyright lawyer, and in my experience there are probably a dozen, maybe two dozen, people on Commons who are more expert than me on copyright (most notably Carl who replies below), but I'm certainly more than routinely knowledgeable. I don't particularly feel like rattling off credentials and history here, but since you raise the subject: are you a lawyer, and if so in what country, and do you have any particular specialization in copyright? - Jmabel ! talk 20:27, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

No I am not a lawyer, that's why I say "my layperson's understanding". I'm not trying to be passive aggressive. Copyright law is just somewhat tricky. I think Wikimedia should err on the conservative side, absent specific legal advice. –jacobolus (t · wp · wt) 21:16, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

The 1934 original appears to be here, on page 233 of Zahlwort und Ziffer. Our graphic is pretty clearly a copy (using the same exact glyph drawings) with the Shang numerals added at the top. Our image was copied directly from here (same faded lines on the top box), an article called The Evolution of Mathematics in Ancient China by Frank Swetz, on page 31 of a book called Mathematics: People, Problems, Results edited by Douglas M Campbell and John C. Higgins of Brigham Young University (each article had a different author, dozens of them). It was published in 1984 and has a copyright notice by "Wadsworth, Inc.". The article says If one views a popular schematic of the evolution of numeration and places the Chinese system in the appropriate chronological position, an interesting hypothesis arises, namely that the numeration system commonly used in the modern world had its origins 34 centuries ago in Shang China! (and no further credit that I see). So, the Shang element at the top was an addition by that author, with the rest a direct copy. Unsure if it was (and is) considered a "popular schematic" such that it was commonly copied and considered general property, or not eligible for copyright in the first place, or only because the original book was probably public domain in the United States at the time.

It was obviously copied. But, none of the numerals or labels would have a U.S. copyright. It would come down to "selection and arrangement". They are arranged chronologically, which is not original, and vertically, also not really original either. The placement of the East/West Arabic, bit more likely but extremely thin. The choice of which ones to include, the "selection" part, may have a bit more merit (especially the ones at the bottom). It's not all that many elements though. Certainly the original upload, with an "own work" claim which was clearly a scan, and with no credits or context, is bad. It would be an extremely thin copyright, protecting mostly exact copying, with almost any other variation not being derivative. And it's possible this diagram was routinely copied. Still, it rubs me the wrong way that we have an exact scan from still-copyrighted works, where there is a slight question of copyright, when it would be rather easy to make an original representation showing the same idea, or copy a similar comparison from an out-of-copyright work such as this or here or I'm sure many more (those cite some others). Carl Lindberg (talk) 12:32, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Popeye cartoons under character copyright?

We have quite a few Popeye cartoons that presumably were not renewed in their own right, but due to Commons:Character copyrights, shouldn't these be under perpetual copyright? Popeye's first appearance was in a 1929 comic, which presumably is PD next year, and his first appearance in film was in a 1933 Betty Boop cartoon which I believe was renewed. Although I doubt his appearance in either matched his appearance and likeness in 1936 and beyond, so I think it's safer to undelete them later than 2025...

Here's the ones I could find that probably need to be assessed based on similarities to previous likenesses of Popeye:

• Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor (1936)
• Category:Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves (1937)
• Gopher Spinach (1954)
• Bride and Gloom (1954) SnowyCinema (talk) 10:53, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

• @SnowyCinema: Yes, please create deletion requests. Thanks, Yann (talk) 09:55, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

@Yann: How do you make one to nominate several at a time? SnowyCinema (talk) 10:10, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

@SnowyCinema: Hi, and welcome. Please see Mass deletion request (manual tagging for standard deletion of a mass of files), which links to VisualFileChange AKA VFC (semiautomatic tagging and other operations for 1 or more files).   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 11:25, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I'd like to add to this. I did some research on Popeye about a month ago, and it seems like his status is a bit more in-flux than assumed.

It seems he was first introduced in a weekly comic strip entitled Thimble Theatre, which was published in The New York Journal. However, I could only find one renewal for Thimble Theatre from 1956-1958, the 27-29 year range from 1929. This renewal is for a 1930 contribution. Additionally, I did a more broad search through the logs for "king features syndicate" which the copyright is attributed to, and I found no renewals for a 1929 work. Again this was only for 1930.

The original strip from a publication in a syndicated newspaper does feature a copyright notice physically, but without a registration he might never have been under copyright at all.

As for his shorts, the first cartoon was produced in 1933. That short was renewed in 1961. So honestly, I would consider the cartoon Popeye to be a derivative of the 1931 short. So those later shorts should be held off until at least 2027 when the short will be public domain. @Yann@SnowyCinema@Jeff G. SDudley (talk) 01:34, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Ambigious PD-animal situation

These photos were taken by the rats pushing the button on the bottom of the frame, making them arguably PD-animal. However, in the only precedent I know of (the monkey selfie, of course) the situation was far less engineered than this one. Lignier picked the camera angle, not the rats, and the box was specifically designed to get the rats to take these pictures. There's also no precedent at all in France. Snowmanonahoe (talk) 23:06, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't strictly matter whether or not there is precedent in France — both because of how the French legal system works, and because Wikimedia Commons is hosted in the United States, not France. (Compare PD-Art and, in effect, PD-algorithm.)

Anyway, I do not think there is any human authorship here. The entire content of the images is determined by the rat positioning itself and pressing the button at a time not determined by the human. The presence of the button at the bottom is not enough to put human authorship in the image. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 02:51, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

This could be interesting. Per court cases the copyrightable aspects are generally the framing of the camera, possibly the posing, maybe the lighting, maybe the timing, and other effects under control of the photographer. Who presses the shutter does not necessarily matter. But, most of those aren't done by a human here. A human did set the camera framing, but it's pointing straight at a blank wall -- might be a non-created framing and positioning given the rest of the setup. Humans did set up the lighting. A bit different than the monkey selfies, where the camera was also held by the animal so there could be no claim of framing (and it was natural lighting outdoors). Not sure authorship could be claimed here either, but it's a tiny bit closer than the monkey selfies. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:59, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Town Meeting TV

Recently I was reviewing from the YouTube channel of Town Meeting TV, a public broadcaster, and although the videos have the CC-BY 3.0 license when reading the description of a video I found the following text:

This video belongs to http://www.cctv.org and published with permission under Creative Commons License CCTV Center for Media & Democracy Programming is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

It is also present on other random videos from the same channel that I opened. Their official website http://www.cctv.org has on the footer also the CC-BY-NC-SA symbol. I guess they selected the "Creative commons" license in YouTube assuming they could pick any of the CC licenses. As there are a lot of images involved I would like to ask for opinions before opening a DR. Günther Frager (talk) 22:11, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

The licenses are both valid. The videos are available under both CC BY 3.0 unported and CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Yes, they're mostly redundant, but there is no valid reason to delete these items. We can acknowledge the additional license offered in addition to the CC BY license. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 07:37, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Reproductions of 2D Public Domain Works in Germany

I recently stumbled across some scans of drawings of Alexandrian archaeological sites done by August Thiersch on a website from the Technical University Munich. August Thiersch died in 1917 so the original drawings are definitely in the public domain in Germany. However, the website lists the scans as being CC BY-NC-ND. Now, it's my understanding that faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works are themselves not copyrightable under German law but I'm by no means an expert on the subject. I e-mailed the website admins about it and they pretty much ignored my question in their reply and simply restated that the images were subject to the licence listed on the website. Was hoping that either someone with more knowledge of German copyright law could chime in or that someone in a different jurisdiction (like the US, where these would absolutely be public domain) could upload some of these for me?

These are some of the works in question:

• http://mediatum.ub.tum.de/?id=1065643
• http://mediatum.ub.tum.de/?id=1075571
• http://mediatum.ub.tum.de/?id=1065646
• http://mediatum.ub.tum.de/?id=1065645

Not-A-Kitty (talk) 22:35, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

You are right, as the author died more then 70 years ago, the images are in PD in Germany. Do you happen to know when these drawings were published? If these were published before 1929, the images are also in PD in the USA and you can use {{PD-US-expired}} when uploading the files to Commons. Ellywa (talk) 23:21, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

If they were published before 1964 and there was no renewal, or before March 1989 without following US notice requirements, they'd also be PD-US. Works from Germany by an author who died in 1917 aren't URAA-eligible. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 07:35, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

@Not-A-Kitty: The three paintings appear to be preliminary proofs of illustrations for a work that may or may not have been published at the time. Do you know if they were actually published in any form before they appeared on the website of the Technical University of Munich? If not, that's a problem, because there is an additional publication right in Germany, separate from the original creator's copyright. The first publisher of an unpublished work (as long as that work had previously fallen out of copyright, as was the case here) gets 25 additional years of protection. See Commons:Copyright_rules_by_territory/Germany#Related_rights and en:Publication right. So if the university library first published them on its website in 2015 (for example), they hold the publication right, the NC license is binding, and the images would not be eligible for uploading to the Commons until 2040. That, at any rate, is how I understand the current law. Choliamb (talk) 13:59, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, binding in Germany, anyway. However, a few considerations.

• If first published online, we should just apply US rules (per our practice for simultaneously-published works). See Template:Simultaneous US publication. A work first published online, which is accessible to US internet users, is first published in the US (and simultaneously in other countries), even if the author wasn't and the publisher isn't American.
• In Germany, this work would be considered in the public domain (that is, its copyright has expired), but protected by a related right (which is technically separate). Should we reject works protected by related rights but not by the copyright (which can only vest in the originator and heirs)?
• Also, if the work is redistributable in Germany under a non-free (NC) license, but actually free in the US (being in the public domain), could that be fine to post?

In any case, the US copyright status is as follows, according to the actual date of first publication. This is relevant for English Wikipedia, at the very least, even if the work is not accepted by Commons due to the community rules.

• 1928 or earlier: definitely PD-US-expired
• 1928–1963: potentially PD-US-not renewed + PD-URAA (if no US-form notice+renewal)
• 1964–1977: potentially PD-US-no notice (if no US-form notice)
• 1978–1989: potentially PD-US-1978-89 (if no US-form notice and no use of curing provision)
• 1989–2002: copyrighted in the US until 2048
• 2003 or later: PD-US-unpublished

D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 17:21, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply! It took me a bit to research whether they'd been published before but at least some of them appear to have been published in 1904 in a book called "Zwei antike Grabanlagen bei Alexandria. Untersucht und beschrieben" by Hermann Thiersch. I have not been able to find a digital copy of the book (even though it, too, should be in the public domain by now) but some of the illustrations can be seen in this listing of a physical copy: https://antiquarisch.de/giaq/article/42609675-aegypten-aegyptologie-alexandria-thiersch-hermann-zwei-antike-grabanlagen-bei-alexandria#

I would need to find a digital copy to ascertain which specific illustrations were part of the publication, though. From photos in this and oher online listings of the book, I know that at least the following ones are included:

https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/?id=1065643

https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/?id=1065646

https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/?id=1065645

http://mediatum.ub.tum.de/?id=1065644

Although in all these cases the published versions have been altered/cleaned up compared to the TUM scans (pencil notes and scribbles around the sides have been removed in the book versions). Also, in some cases there appear to be at least two separate versions of the same illustration that look almost identical at first glance but are definitely separate drawings/paintings as there are subtle differences in the linework, etc. Thus, since Thiersch was apparently very good at creating what are essentially carbon copies of his own work, it's theoretically possible that some of the illustrations that were published in 1904 are not the exact ones that the TUM uploaded here. (But I believe the ones I listed are - the only real differences I can spot in these are the removed scribbles around the edges and the colours having faded a bit over the last century. The question then would be whether these scribbles showing up for the first time in the TUM scans counts as its own original publication or whether it'd still be considered the same work published in 1904.)

In any case, perhaps the safest route would be to find a digital copy of "Zwei antike Grabanlagen bei Alexandria. Untersucht und beschrieben" and take the illustrations from that. That way I'll know for sure that I'm dealing with the published version and I'll also get copies with the original colours rather than the faded ones of the TUM scans. Not-A-Kitty (talk) 05:50, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Ah, of course, I would succeed in finding it just after submitting. If anyone else is interested: https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/thiersch1904/0029/image,info Not-A-Kitty (talk) 05:56, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

The TUM website entries seem to imply that some of the almost identical copies are prints which, I guess, he then drew and painted over. For example, this is apparently the original drawing of the Sidi Gaber cross section: http://mediatum.ub.tum.de/?id=1065638

The image quality is markedly better than the book scan (not least since the latter is a print with the usual printing artefacts) so it would be ideal if I could use this but like I said, I'm not sure whether the changes made for the book version mean that the TUM publication is technically the first publication or not. Not-A-Kitty (talk) 07:04, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

These are not distinct works of authorship from one another. They are different copies of the same work of authorship. You can upload either. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 21:16, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Another possibility for U.S. public domain: any images that were not published as of the end of 2002 would also be public domain in the U.S., because then p.m.a.+708 would apply under current U.S. copyright law. (If you don't follow that, look for "2003 or later" in the Hirtle chart.) - Jmabel ! talk 21:09, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

PD-old-70 and Cc-pd-mark-footer

From Template_talk:Cc-pd-mark-footer#PD-old-70

{{PD-old-70}} includes the well-known requirement You must also include a United States public domain tag to indicate why this work is in the public domain in the United States. It has long been a requirement that a tag like {{PD-US-expired}} must be added in addition, or else material is subject to deletion despite being PD in its home country (and for once, without involving URAA).

Yet {{PD-old-70}} also includes {{Cc-pd-mark-footer}} https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ which places such content into Category:CC-PD-Mark. Yes, they're both PD. But their semantics are different.

So is that requirement no longer in force? Is {{PD-old-70}} alone sufficient? Either the template message should be revised, or {{PD-old-70}} should not imply {{Cc-pd-mark-footer}}, or at the very least we need to stop doing DRs for either missing a {{PD-US-expired}} or for {{PD-US-expired}} being later than 1929.

File:Avenue de Stalingrad with railroad bridge near Place Lamartine, Arles PK-F-EAB.2005.jpg as an example. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:44, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm guessing that since most PD-old-70 files are also PD in the US, that mark was added in preference to not adding it at all for those files, as there is no easy way within a template to find out if another US template also exists, and many files only have that tag for better or worse. The policy has not changed, but adding PD-mark is probably just an expedient as being "more correct than not", without a better solution being available. And really, the file would be PD in most of the world, which is what that mark is for -- our policy for keeping a file is PD in the US and in the country of origin, but that is not necessarily the same policy when it comes to adding PD-mark. And in fact, files we do keep per that policy may well still be under copyright in many other countries besides the two we look at, so as always you need to look at your own country's laws to see if a work is actually PD there even if it has that mark (or other PD tags). Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:55, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Copy Rights

Good Morning I am trying to find out what we need to just show the dvd Patch Adams at our booth at a health and wellness shows in Wisconsin. My boss has the DVD and would like to show it but do not know if we need anything to say we have the right to play it. I would apricate if someone can help me. Thank You Dawn DawnTurnKey (talk) 17:03, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Not something we can really help with, as it's outside our control.

That said, something like that DVD will be the publisher's copyright and you will need their permission to either watch it yourself, to show it 'publicly' (as here) or to hire it out like Blockbuster used to. If you read the small print on the DVD, it will usually tell you. Typically this includes the right to watch it privately (they'd not sell many otherwise), clearly prohibits rental for reward, but the rules for a free showing in a space that somewhere between private and public will be complicated and you're going to have to read that particular disc's licence statement. I'm afraid that's as much anyone outside the publisher can really tell you, speaking generically. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:16, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

In the US, the first sale doctrine gives you the right to watch it privately or rent it (Blockbuster just had to buy normal DVDs in the US), but showing it publicly is going to cost an extra penny; I've heard that they sent a bill of $300 for a PTA to entertain kids with The Lion King while running a fundraiser for their parents. MPLC looks to be a good bet in the US for proper commercial licensing.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:27, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Giuseppe Castiglione painting A Hundred Horses

A mid 1750s Qing Dynasty treasure, 12 picture folio of 3' x 25' scroll painting scanned by me and reassembled. My version is much improved from the one in the artist's wiki. I have several resolutions available and would like to know what is preferred and how to donate it. Dave42Hasse (talk) 17:57, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

@Dave42Hasse: Hi, and welcome. Please see COM:HR re resolutions. Artwork from the mid 1750s Qing Dynasty should be PD. You are welcome to upload (and to improve en:Giuseppe Castiglione (Jesuit painter)#Style and techniques and similar sections), but please do not overwrite File:A Hundred Steeds.jpg per COM:OW (although you may copy from the file description page and link the two images). Any donation has to comply with COM:L.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 11:27, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

How does Google Images determine the copyright status?

Google Images allows users to filter for images available under a Creative Commons license. But how does it determine the copyright status of the image?

For example, this page showed up when I applied the Creative Commons filter to my search results. However, the page in question does not seem to mention any sort of free license. Ixfd64 (talk) 21:16, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

If you click on each article, you'll find links to the source of the image, and all three are under a free license. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 23:28, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Oh I see. I was searching for "Creative Commons" on the page. It seems Google checks for image attribution and follows any links to their sources. Ixfd64 (talk) 00:11, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Andy Warhol's films

Hi, I wonder what is the copyright status of Andy Warhol's films, i.e. File:Kiss (1963) by Andy Warhol.webm. I think most of them do not have a copyright notice, but were they published? Some of them were shown to a large audience, but what's the limit? (Kiss was shown as small TV-sized projections at the entrance lobby to the third New York Film Festival held at Lincoln Center.) See also en:Andy Warhol#Filmography. Yann (talk) 19:32, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

I known nothing about the legalities here, but do be aware that the Warhol Foundation area roughly as litigious as Disney, so with anything about Warhol makes sure you are standing on very solid ground. - Jmabel ! talk 20:09, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

@Yann I think you need to delete this. Exhibition under the 1909 act is performance, not publication. The number of people who saw a film is not relevant to copyright status. Films became published because they were offered to theaters (that is, copies were offered to someone for distribution). If they were published (offered to theaters) without a notice, then they entered the public domain. A film that was shown to a large audience, but which never had its copies distributed, is not published.

A pre-1978 work would only have a statutory copyright (subject to the renewal requirement in 1963 and earlier) if registered with the copyright office. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 21:50, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

There is some info on this page, and court rulings on this page, about publication in motion pictures. That also mentions the first Compendium, which stated: Publication of a motion picture is generally deemed to have taken place when prints of the film are placed on sale, sold, distributed to the public, or distributed to film exchanges, film distributors, exhibitors, or broadcasters under a lease or similar arrangement. [...] Mere public exhibition or performance is not generally regarded as publication of a motion picture. They give some examples either way. It's not the size of the audience (broadcasting over TV wouldn't be publication either), it's more when copies left his control. By the above, not sure it was officially published. Was it registered for copyright, and if so what did they give as a publication date? Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:21, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Registered 1990 (PAu001359108); no publication date given. 1963 is given as the date of creation. Unless you have evidence that it was distributed without a notice (during the time period when that was still required), it can't be here. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 03:45, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

OK, and when will it be in the public domain? Yann (talk) 09:39, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

The "u" in the "PAu" prefix indicates it was registered as an unpublished work. A work created before 1978 but which was unpublished as of 1978 has a term of 70pma, so undelete in 2058. (There is a minimum term until 2048 if it was actually published between 1978 and 2002, but that's moot because 70pma is longer.) Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:27, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

OK, deleted, and added in Category:Undelete in 2058. Thanks for the links above. I added one in Commons:Publication. Yann (talk) 19:37, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Conflicting licenses?

If someone's userpage says that all their images are available under CC-BY-SA, and then subsequently they add that none of their images can be used for commercial purposes, but "CC-BY-SA" is still on there, which license takes precedence?

And if it's the latter, do we need to delete all the images they've uploaded since adding the 'no commercial use' statement to their userpage? DS (talk) 19:32, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

@Neuroforever: Please explain.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 19:48, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Is this a hypothetical, or are we talking about a particular user? Presumably, someone cannot retract an irrevocable license they have already issued by writing something on their user page. Otherwise, any user could trigger the removal of all of their original work from Commons by making a note on their user page. - Jmabel 20:11, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

As mentioned, it's user:Neuroforever, who last edited 7 weeks ago, and who uploaded +1800 high-quality images of ancient artifacts after making his statement of "no commercial use". Do those all need to go? DS (talk) 22:15, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Noting DS also alerted the user in question User talk:Neuroforever#Commercial use. DMacks (talk) 22:39, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Anything submitted under a CC BY-SA license is still valid, notwithstanding any contrary conditions offered by the uploader on other pages. As the license itself says:

For the avoidance of doubt, the Licensor may also offer the Licensed Material under separate terms or conditions or stop distributing the Licensed Material at any time; however, doing so will not terminate this Public License.

Any arrangements, understandings, or agreements regarding the Licensed Material not stated herein are separate from and independent of the terms and conditions of this Public License.

D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 22:50, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Aba-liga.com

This website says Legal notice: ABA League, in cooperation with its clubs, grants access to a number of photos from ABA League games, as well as some additional events, linked to the competition. These images are high resolution and downloadable directly from the the photo galleries. They are free to use for editorial purposes. Please, make sure to credit the authors of the photos with the source, signed beneath each photo in order to avoid undesirable legal consequences. Does this mean images from there are suitable for Wikimedia Commons? Radun Balšić (talk) 13:34, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

[1] --Radun Balšić (talk) 13:35, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

@Radun Balšić: No. "free to use for editorial purposes" is not a general license allowing derivative works and commercial use. - Jmabel ! talk 17:15, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Claire Mathieu

A picture of Claire Mathieu is here (bottom of the page) : https://www.irif.fr/users/claire/index

It is written "Libre de droit" (Copyright free).

It can be useful for this wikipedia article : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claire_Mathieu

So, is it possible to add it to Wikimedia Commons ? Dubdub (talk) 13:49, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

I would reach out to the institution or photographer first, who is named in the statement. It is better to confirm the copyright status than to assume it. PascalHD (talk) 16:31, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

"Libre de droit" perhaps is better translated as "royalty-free." That is a type of license, bjt we shouls really get a more specific and permissive license. "Libre de droit" doesn't necessarily imply the right to make derivative works. Can we send an email asking for CC BY-SA, CC BY or CC Zero to be applied? D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 19:19, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Advise on uploading on someone's else work

Hi, Recently, I noticed a major change to the uploading template on Commons, and I've been struggling with uploading someone's work, although I've gotten permission to do so. Previously, we used to add "{{OTRS Pending}}" to notify the community about this type of upload. Unfortunately, I don't know where to apply the template now. Can someone help me? Olaniyan Olushola (talk) 16:44, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

@Olaniyan Olushola: I'm not sure what you mean by "uploading template". What tool are you using to upload? Special:UploadWizard or something else?

Please see Template:PP for the correct way to mark a file for VRT (formerly OTRS).

This can to pretty much anywhere on the file page; at the top is ideal. If you can't work out how to do it with the uploading tool, you can always add it by editing the file page immediately after upload. - Jmabel ! talk 17:20, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel, Yes, i used the Special:UploadWizard. Olaniyan Olushola (talk) 16:44, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

@Olaniyan Olushola: I don't much use the Wizard. But, as I say, once you upload, if it didn't produce quite what you intended you can just go in and edit. Again, please see Template:PP for the correct way to mark a file for VRT. - Jmabel ! talk 21:12, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Frederick Murray Trotter

I did a quick Google search for an image of Frederick Murray Trotter after seeing him on the front page of Wikipedia, and have found this image of him here, but I'm not sure of whether it's in the public domain or not. Presumably, if it depicts him in 1927, it should be in the public domain at least in the US, no? I'm sorry, I'm not very well versed in the public domain. Pineappman (talk) 23:51, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

The main relevant factor for the US is when the image was published, not when it was taken. If it was published in 1928 or earlier, then it's in the public domain in the US. If it was only published afterwards, then it depends on when it was first published (and some other factors).

You can upload to Commons if the image is in the public domain in the country of origin (probably the UK) and the US. You can upload to English Wikipedia if it's in the public domain in the US even if it isn't in the country of origin.

Note that if the image is under Crown Copyright in the UK, then different rules apply. If you can find an image of Trotter which was created by the UK government, then it is in the public domain (if published over 50 years ago, or created before June 30, 1957). See Commons:Copyright rules by territory/United Kingdom. This applies worldwide and any expired UK government work can be uploaded on Commons.

If you can't find a photo that is a government work, then here's how you determine the status. You may need to know the year of publication (different from the year the photo was taken). You also may need to know if the photo was first published in the US (which includes any instance where it was first published in both the UK and US). However, we can say that in all likelihood we can assume any photo wasn't first published in the US, so I'll give the rules for determining status in the US under this assumption.

1. First published in 1928 or earlier?
   • Yes
     • {{PD-US-expired}}
   • No
     • Continue
2. First published in 1929–1963?
   • Yes
     1. Is there a valid copyright notice and a renewal in the US Catalog of Copyright Entries?
        • Yes
          • Not PD-US until 95 years after publication
        • No
          • Continue
     2. Was it in the public domain in the UK on January 1, 1996?
        • Yes
          • {{PD-URAA}}
        • No
          • Not PD-US until 95 years after publication
   • No
     • Continue
3. First published in 1964–1977?
   • Yes
     1. Is there a valid copyright notice?
        • Yes
          • Not PD-US until 95 years after publication
        • No
          • Continue
     2. Was it in the public domain in the UK on January 1, 1996?
        • Yes
          • {{PD-URAA}}
        • No
          • Not PD-US until 95 years after publication
   • No
     • Continue
4. First published in 1978–February 1989?
   • Yes
     1. Is there a valid copyright notice?
        • Yes
          • Not PD-US until 95 years after publication
        • No
          • Continue
     2. Was it in the public domain in the UK on January 1, 1996?
        • Yes
          • {{PD-URAA}}
        • No
          • Not PD-US until either 2048 or 70 years after the author's death, whichever is later
   • No
     • Continue
5. First published in March 1989–2002?
   • Yes
     • Not PD-US until either 2048 or 70 years after the author's death, whichever is later
   • No
     • Continue
6. First published in 2003 or later?
   1. Is the author known to have died in 1953 or earlier?
      • Yes
        • {{PD-US-unpublished}}
      • No
        • Not PD-US yet

To determine the UK status, including the status on January 1, 1996, if relevant, see Commons:Copyright rules by territory/United Kingdom.

D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 01:22, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, that seems to be the only image online of him, so I'll look for where it's from. Pineappman (talk) 01:49, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

See also COM:Hirtle chart, probably the best summary of the interaction of authorship, publication date, etc. under U.S. copyright law. - Jmabel ! talk 21:14, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Public domain?

Edward Ayearst Reeves via Getty Images, also available from [2]. BhamBoi (talk) 01:33, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

In the US, almost certainly not, if actually taken in 1930. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 01:52, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Copyright violation on the main page

The Merrie Melodies cartoon Fox Pop is on the front page, as File:Chuck Jones - Merrie Melodies - Fox Pop (1942) (restored HD version) (2).webm.

The copyright in the cartoon was not renewed. But the opening theme was separately published earlier (first in 1935) and is still under copyright. The file must be deleted until the opening theme is muted, at the very least (assuming for the moment that the visual sequence is not copyright protected, purely for the sake of argument — although it well may be).

cc @Yann since I know you deal with copyright in videos fairly often. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 01:44, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

@D. Benjamin Miller: Do you have details on that 1935 publication of the opening theme? It's also used in the closing. Is it listed on en:Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography (1929–1939)#1935?   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 13:19, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

The original song Merrily we roll along was by Eddie Cantor, Charlie Tobias, and Murray Mencher (words and music). Wikipedia article is Merrily We Roll Along (song); more info here. It was registered for copyright (E46607) with a publication date of February 15, 1935, and was published as sheet music (plus arrangement for guitar) by Harms Inc. There were three renewals for it all dated Feb 14 1962, R209953 (by Eddie Cantor, author), R209954 (by Charles Tobias, author), and R291199 (under the names of all three authors, specifically for the words and music and not the arrangement). I think today there is a royalty split between Eddie Cantor and Warner Brothers. Don't think it was used as the opening for the cartoons until later in 1936, which was a different recording at the least and maybe arrangement. But, the song is definitely under copyright until 2031. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:09, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the cartoons' theme music is derivative of this copyrighted song, and the theme music (the version in the cartoons) was likely first published in that arrangement by inclusion in the first cartoon that used it, which wasn't this one. And that cartoon (from 1936) remains under copyright. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 19:19, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Copyright relinquishment statement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g0j5oad2eo&t=110

he says "i've relinquished all copyright on it". is this a sufficient statement such that the video he was referring to can be uploaded to commons? RZuo (talk) 20:22, 28 January 2024 (UTC) (link corrected, sorry.--RZuo (talk) 13:52, 29 January 2024 (UTC))

If he really said that, then that is a public domain dedication. However, note that this doesn't apply to any content integrated into the video from a copyrighted source (that is, the things which were not created by him). D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 21:04, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Copyright issue: incorrect source image

(This_image) suggests that (this_PD_image) is the source image.

However, the actual source appears to be: | this image on a third-party website.

In relation to that, the author, the copyright and license of the image might all be incorrect. What should be done about this situation? Is there some suggested tag or review process to invoke in this case? The uploader seems unresponsive (| see this).

In short: what should be done to clear up this situation? Z80Spectrum (talk) 22:04, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

The photo is in the public domain. The gradient pattern is ineligible for copyright. Even if it were, the source, File:RGB 24bits palette color test chart.png, is dedicated to the public domain. Putting this on a ZX Spectrum screen is not authorship of any kind. Dithering methods are not authorship. The notion that there is some copyright being infringed here is spurious, as Yann said on the other page you've linked to. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 22:29, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for partially clearing it up.

However, I've got two objections:

1. The source is not File:RGB 24bits palette color test chart.png, as you claim. The gradients are similar, but not the same.
2. "The gradient pattern is ineligible for copyright" - in which country / jurisdiction? Are you sure? Can you back up your claim?

Noone would be happier than me if your claims are correct. However, you haven't presented sufficient evidence. Why can't it be cleared up, why must there be doubt?

What's the process for clearing it up? Z80Spectrum (talk) 22:56, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

You haven't supplied any evidence that it is copyrightable, either. What expression do you think is copyrightable here, aside from the parrot photo? I don't see any difference at all in the gradients, let alone anything that could qualify for a copyright. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:17, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

1. The gradients are the same in terms of what they are; the fact that they are rendered without a black border is irrelevant. Even if they were appreciably different in any way, this difference is not reflected in File:Zx spectrum 8x2 attributes.png.
2. This gradient pattern is virtually certainly ineligible for copyright in any jurisdiction. It is simply a light-dark gradient of red, green, blue, the CMYK colors, the CMYK colors' halfway points, a rainbow and a rainbow crossed with a light-dark gradient. This is a paradigmatic example of something that is not a work of authorship. You cannot copyright a spectrum. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 23:20, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

   My original question is (still unanswered):

   • What should be done with images that have source image incorrectly specified, in a way that could affect their copyright status?

   Unrelated, about copyright eligibility: I thought that test images (monitor test image, image quality test, and similar images) are eligible for copyright. For example: | this test image Z80Spectrum (talk) 00:38, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

If there is an attribution mistake, then fix it. The one you brought up however is not an example of such. There is no additional copyrightable expression in the image you linked compared to the source images named, both of which are far more relevant than the one you found (as they have the licensing documentation). The fact that someone else on the internet also combined two PD (or free images) in a similar way doesn't change that.

No work is automatically eligible for copyright based on its type -- there has to be an original amount of copyrightable expression in some aspect, be that drawing or textual or something similar. You can also have a "selection and arrangement" copyright, if you combine enough public domain elements together in an original way. Gradients are not copyrightable, and a basic stack is not a copyrightable arrangement. The selection of the RGB and CMYK colors is also not copyrightable. The test image you linked has a substantial amount of text, which is probably the only copyrightable thing there (though that is enough). Someone could copy the non-text elements and be OK. Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:55, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Where do you see any text? D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 00:57, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

In this image that was linked in the immediately preceding question (NOT the same image as originally discussed). That has a copyright claim in it (though a claim doesn't always mean it's copyrightable, either.) Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:00, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Yes, that one has a copyright claim, although I doubt the copyrightability of this particular text in the US. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 01:49, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, that sounds as a reasonable explanation. As I have said, I'm not an expert on copyright, so I might have been wrong. Thanks for the explanation.

Which implies that @4throck is not guilty, except for some minor issues. So, sorry @4throck for the trouble.

As I'm not guilty either, I'm counting this as another failure of Wikipedia. Z80Spectrum (talk) 03:04, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

No harm in asking questions, but speedy deletions should really only be when you're sure. That all said, looking at the main image in question, it should not have been an overwrite but rather a separate upload. That did violate the COM:OVERWRITE guideline. Carl Lindberg (talk) 09:26, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Can I ask you for a small favor? Could you upload the source image to Wikimedia Commons, and set the proper licensing information? I can't do it, because I'm not an expert on copyright issues. The upload would clarify the entire situation. Then, I could easily do everything else. Z80Spectrum (talk) 13:08, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the point would be -- the image in question looks like it was showing how dithering worked on a particular device, using the parrot image and a color test image to show what they look like. We have the two original images on Commons already. That other image is the same or similar combination of the two images, but it's the same unoriginal combination (you can't get a selection and arrangement copyright by combining two things simply that way). It may or may not be the source for the dithered image, but it doesn't matter too much, since there is no copyrightable aspect embodied in it. Much like if we upload a PD-US-no_notice postcard -- doesn't much matter which site we found it at; if there was no copyright notice on the front or back (and those are uploaded) that's pretty much all we need. In this case, we need the copyright to the parrot image, and it's a good idea to credit the creator test pattern image too (it's possible in some countries there could be a copyright on it I guess, but even if not somebody put out the effort to create it). But there is nothing at all special about the combination of the two. Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:21, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Ideas wanted to tackle Freedom of Panorama issue

Hello all! We are looking for ideas to tackle the problem of media deleted because of Freedom of Panorama-related issues, and we're looking especially for admins and people who are knowledgeable in this issue to intervene. If you are interested, please join the discussion. Thanks in advance! Sannita (WMF) (talk) 17:02, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Seeking Guidance on Adding a Logo to Wikimedia Commons

I'm new to adding logos to articles on Wikimedia Commons and would appreciate guidance. I found a charity logo on their website that I'd like to include on its article page, but I'm unsure about its eligibility and the proper procedures to follow.

The logo is associated with the charity and appears to be copyrighted as their trademark, but I lack detailed information. While the design seems simple, I'm not an expert and seek help and guidance.

Any assistance or advice would be greatly appreciated. Accuracy-searcher (talk) 19:59, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

You need to actually link us to the logo, or else it's impossible for us to give an opinion. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 20:00, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

AIDS Committee of Ottawa (ACO) website: http://aco-cso.ca/

Logo: http://aco-cso.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ACO_2005-copy.jpg Accuracy-searcher (talk) 21:02, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

PD-textlogo in the US, for sure. Probably fine for Canada too. You can upload the logo. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 21:16, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Should I be using Special:UploadWizard to upload the logo? Are there any specific instructions I should be aware of to ensure a smooth upload without errors? Accuracy-searcher (talk) 00:04, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Or do I use this? Special:Upload Accuracy-searcher (talk) 00:47, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

• @Accuracy-searcher: Either, whichever you are more comfortable with. We usually recommend Special:UploadWizard to beginners, but Special:Upload is fine as long as you know how to fill out the {{Information}} template. - Jmabel ! talk 01:19, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Hieratic glyphs reproduced by Georg Möller

Georg Möller, who died in 1921, faithfully reproduced many glyphs of the hieratic script as they were written on various papyri thousands of years ago, in works which were published in Germany in 1909, 1927 and 1936. Each glyph is "only simple text [or] shapes". Am I correct to understand Commons:Licensing and Commons:Threshold of originality as meaning that it's fine to isolate and upload images of each hieratic glyph? (Each image I upload would be similar to File:HER BA.jpg: a black glyph on a white background. I see someone uploaded one of his tables as File:Hieratic Table from Möller.png.) What licence template is most appropriate, {{PD-ineligible}}?
And is there a way (in the main Commons upload tool, or by using another tool) to set "creation date" and licence info for every file in a group, at once? If I do this, I don't want to have to input the same creation date and licence over and over, one file at a time, for several thousand files... -sche (talk) 20:48, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

1. The glyphs are not copyrightable. Even if they were somehow copyrightable, they were ancient, not Möller's original work. There is also PD-text. Either way, it is fine.
2. Möller's works are in the public domain in Germany (because he died in 1921). All works by anyone published in 1909 and 1927 are in the public domain in the US. But also note that Möller's entire 1936 book is in the public domain in the US unless it was published with a notice and had a US copyright renewal. This is because Möller died in 1921: his works were already in the public domain in Germany on January 1, 1996, and so are not subject to URAA restoration.

And yes, you can copy the metadata to all files using the Upload Wizard (or PattyPan).

D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 21:09, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Fantastic, I appreciate the confirmation that these are uploadable. How do I copy metadata (besides licence/copyright) to all the files? I see where I can set licensing info for all the files all at once, but it looks like I have to input a creation date for each one individually (with UploadWizard; I will try PattyPan next). It would also be helpful if I could put them all into one category at the same time, rather than having to input the same "hieratic glyphs" category for each one individually. As long as I'm asking questions (and getting helpful answers, which I appreciate) : what creation date should I input? A date very very vaguely corresponding to when the glyphs were written, thousands of years ago? The date Möller's work (reproducing them) was published? The date I isolated the glyph (removing surrounding text) just now? -sche (talk) 00:49, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Algorithm-specific template split from AI-related works

Maybe this is impossible to do at this point, but... I feel that we should have a separate template from {{PD-algorithm}} for non-GPT-related algorithms, such as QR codes or bar codes or other algorithmic products that just don't involve neural networks. The legal disclaimer we use right now really only applies to AI art, and doesn't apply to computer-generated codes and the like. Maybe this could be accomplished with a parameter to the PD-algorithm, like "disc=no"? SnowyCinema (talk) 05:33, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

... or like "disclaimer=no" so people like me don't spend 20 seconds going "What does this have to do with a disc?" - Jmabel ! talk 07:33, 30 January 2024 (UTC)