Category talk:PD-US-unpublished

Unpublished vs. PD-old

@CalendulaAsteraceae: An unpublished work and one who is PD due to being very old are distinct cases. Although they use the same technical implementation I would not expect the tracking categories to change. Can you explain your reasoning for deleting these categories? --Xover (talk) 19:34, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

@Xover, my understanding is that the reasoning under US copyright law is also the same: PD-US-unpublished applies to works which have not been published (with permission of the copyright holder), and therefore were not published before 1 January 2003, which means that if the author died over 70 years ago they're in the public domain. In other words, the works which would be in the PD-US-unpublished are PD due to age. —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 03:43, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

@CalendulaAsteraceae: Yes, but the path they took to get there differs. For unpublished you need to research whether they were in fact published or not, while for -old you already know that and the determination is regarding when and where. The two also operate with different terms of protection (-old is going to almost always be pub. + 95 but unpublished will typically be pma. 70), and the logic behind the length of the terms is different. So while, yes, you can say both express "PD due to expired copyright", that would be very coarse-grained and of little help in practical matters. Xover (talk) 12:09, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

@Xover: Sorry, to clarify, works in Category:PD-old-US are pma. 70, and are placed there using {{PD-old-US}}

This work is from the United States and in the public domain because it was not legally published with the permission of the copyright holder before January 1, 2003 and the author died more than 70 years ago. This is a posthumous work and its copyright in certain countries and areas may depend on years since posthumous publication, rather than years since the author's death. Translations or editions published later may be copyrighted.

---

This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

which is distinct from e.g. {{PD-US|1953}}

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.

---

The longest-living author of this work died in 1953, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

—CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 01:53, 4 November 2022 (UTC)