Wikisource:Copyright discussions/Archives/2012-08

Please do not post any new comments on this page. This is a discussion archive first created in August 2012, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date. See current discussion or the archives index.

Kept

Ab Khail VOA Report

The following discussion is closed:

Self closed. Found more information after posting. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 00:58, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

2002 work with no licence and no source. Unless this was released under a free licence, which I cannot confirm without the source, this is probably under copyright by Voice of America. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 00:33, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Update: On further investigation. Voice of America's terms of use state that "All text, audio and video material produced exclusively by the Voice of America is in the public domain. Credit for any use of VOA material should be given to voanews.com, Voice of America, or VOA." That appears to be compatible with Wikisource; licensed as {{PD-release}}.

Deleted

The cold equations

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted I see no explanation that this could be anything but a violation: three months on.

Hi. I need some help with The cold equations, a science fiction short story by Tom Godwin, first published in Astounding Magazine in 1954.--Mpaa (talk) 20:47, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

First published in Astounding Science Fiction August, 1954. Magazine renewed 31 March, 1982 (RE0000124647). However Godwin died 1980. Is this work in scope or out of scope? Beeswaxcandle (talk) 23:56, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Declaration of Human Duties and Responsibilities

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted Undisputed infringment

Work was added today, and it is does not seem to have come from an official UNESCO site, nor to be an official UNESCO text, though all a little vague and nothing evident to enable a clear decision either way. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:08, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

• Delete - It states "Copyright remains exclusively with the author." at the very end of the obviously copied text. -- George Orwell III (talk) 09:36, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Looks like it comes from here; not sure if that is the original source. Don't see a free license on the site, nor one claimed here. The "Copyright remains exclusively with the author" bit was actually a later edit (after removing the copyvio tag), and does appear on that site. Anyways, the copyright page for the website says the content is not available for commercial use (though it doesn't seem the copyright would actually be owned by them, but not sure). Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:01, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

• delete on the basis of the commentary above. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:21, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Other

Template:PD-1996

The following discussion is closed:

Updated - I edited the template with the agreed on text.--BirgitteSB 00:48, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Template:{{PD-1996}} seems to contain an error because it doesn't match the Cornell copyright term guide at the top of the page. Here is what it reads now:

I think it should read: "was in in the public domain in its home country as of 1 January 1996, and was not published in the US prior to 30 days after its first publication in its home country".

ResScholar (talk) 15:10, 7 August 2010 (UTC) corrected: ResScholar (talk) 15:40, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes. It still glosses over a few things -- if a work had a copyright notice and was still registered properly in the U.S. in the first place, it could still be copyrighted -- the URAA thing just means copyright was not restored; it would not remove existing copyright. Some countries have a URAA date later than 1996, etc. But the previous text was plain wrong, and this is a good improvement. Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:27, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Carl are you suggesting further amendments to Angr's rewording? — billinghurst sDrewth 04:22, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the logic of my suggestion is as plain as I supposed it was, so let me say here clearly that my suggested wording loosens the restrictions the current template declares now in its design of following the law. In their use and history of design, it can be seen many templates like these were originally intended to simply declare an exception in a large swath of cases related to the prohibitions of a convenient area of law, like a year, rather than explain all the exceptions applying to a particular law in one template. Over time some have been refined to be of even greater use through gradual incorporation of those sorts of explanations, sometimes through a wikilink to Wikipedia copyright policy statements, which are to prevail anyway.

Finally, this isn't simply an exercise of the intellect on my part, I found some cases I would like to use the template on to dispose of backlog, and I want to make sure all my Ps and Qs are accounted for when I apply the template to a particular case. If we want to redesign the template now that's fine too, but, Carl can correct me, what would remain would be items giving a fuller disclosure of reasons showing why the law applies and of countries to which the law does or does not apply. This would make the template more adaptable but bulkier, but these sorts of deferable trade-off questions might be better suited to a time when we want to deal with many templates at once. ResScholar (talk) 10:58, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

The bit about simultaneous publication seems overly technical to me -- maybe just say "foreign work" or "Non-U.S. work" instead (as something simultaneously published in the U.S. is considered a U.S. work). I probably would emphasize that the copyright was not restored, and link to the relevant URAA bit (or the wiki article). And possibly w:Wikipedia:Non-U.S._copyrights, which has a lot more detail. Actually... the wording in the first half of Commons:Template:PD-1996 is a lot more precise (and does include the 30-days bit); I'd say to switch to that, minus the note at the bottom which I think is more commons-specific. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:13, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Reading a bit more closely, the middle condition there should probably be changed to "first published before 1989 without complying with U.S. copyright formalities (renewal and/or copyright notice)" . Notices were required until March 1, 1989, but anything first published since would still be under copyright even if there was no notice. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:57, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Carl. I support the compositional principles you advise. When I get the energy I'll do a mock-up here of a new template with your ideas (if someone doesn't beat me to it), and we can work from there. ResScholar (talk) 09:12, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

• Add discussion notice at Template talk:PD-1996 Jeepday (talk) 10:35, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Here is the new mock-up. If you edit this section you can see the different wording in the #switch statements that would appear on Author pages:

This template still appears on about 240 pages. ResScholar (talk) 19:01, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

I took out the reference to 1978; that date did not significantly change things in respect to this tag -- notices were still required until 1989 (though the terms of compliance did change a bit). I guess the definition of "published" changed a bit as well, but I don't think the tag needs to get into that. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:12, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

• Looks like this discussion is ready to close with the language above to be populated in the template, I am not comfortable updating the template. Would someone update the template? then either close this discussion or make a note that the template is updated?

Copyright status of images used within a work of the U.S. Government

The following discussion is closed:

Images Redacted as precaution rather than from CopyVio verification. -- George Orwell III (talk) 20:28, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm currently working on proofreading the Pentagon Papers and have run into a bit of an issue. The document has already used several map images from outside sources, and I realized today while I was vectorizing one of them that there might be a copyright issue.

The maps on page ii and page B-41 are from Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare: Vietnam 1941–1954, published by the Special Operations Research Office at American University. According to this, it was produced under contract with the U.S. Government. However, I know that is still a grey area. Is this {{PD-USGov}}?

The map on page B-67 is from The Quicksand War, a book which does not appear in any way government-commissioned. Is this map then a copyvio?

The follow-up question then is if these are in fact copyvios, can the images be removed from the transcription (and, I suppose, also the DJVU file) while leaving the rest of the document on Wikisource? It seems like it would be silly to remove a valuable PD-USGov document over a few copyrighted images that could instead be omitted. Not to mention I'd be somewhat unhappy about quite a few hours of transcription work going to waste...

Anyway, thank you for any advice and information! – GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:30, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I was speaking to GW about this on IRC. Works that were originally classified are not prepared with Public Domain in mind, so where the government would ordinarily exercise a bit of care in what they were using, there's no feeling of obligation to use only PD works in a document like this. If a work was prepared under contract for the Army, that's not a grey area, it is Public Domain. Not sure what to do about the other one though. Deleting everything in order to get rid of one non-free image is kind of silly. I'm sure you can find a way around doing that. If you need any commons admin stuff done, drop me a line on IRC or at my Commons talk page and I'll handle it. Sven Manguard (talk) 04:38, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

w:Copyright status of work by the U.S. government#Works produced by contractors suggests otherwise... am I misreading it? – GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:40, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I might be completely wrong, but my understanding is that FAR and DFARS didn't exist before 1974, and that documents produced before 1974 were governed by a much less permissive set of documents. This will have to be researched a bit more, I think. Sven Manguard (talk) 05:06, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Note: I have also asked this question at commons:Commons:Village pump/Copyright#Possibly-copyrighted images within a PD-USGov work. – GorillaWarfare (talk) 16:39, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

There are several ways the images could have been originally used in the report. The US govt could have arranged to own the copyrights as part of the contract, they could have received permission four to use the image, they may be relying on an exemption from copyright protection, they may be relying on fair use, and finally they could just have been sloppy. IIRC this report was not meant to be released to the public, so I doubt very much thought was give to copyright at all. Surely we can redact the images from the djvu file rather than deleting the whole file. If we could figure out the actual copyright status of the images it would be nice to explain this in the redaction and record the date they are due to enter the Public domain. We probably do need to develop some best practices for this sort of thing and write up the instructions. This issue not limited to goverment reports. Any book where the author and illustrator are different individuals will have likely had some moment in time where the copyright status on different bits of the volume diverged. Even ignoring images there will be all sorts of collections and anthologies in the same djvu file under different copyrights.. It seems inevitable to me that we will need some sort of standardized redaction process to deal with reality.--BirgitteSB 23:28, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

• I'm pretty sure the 2 images published under the guise of SORO are ok to host. This was a "think tank" front operated by the DoD & CIA in reality so its only a contracted work as far as the deception of SORO being an independent entity went at the time - we know better today. The third one taken from The Quicksand War does seem contrary to Title 17 so it probably should be redacted in the file uploaded to Commons (I can do that if and when a consensus is reached to do so). -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:32, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

But it doesn't matter that the US govt directed or paid for the work of the think tank. It matters how the contracts were written. The PD-Gov is pretty much for direct employees of the US federal govt only. Or else a great deal of scientific research would be PD.--BirgitteSB 01:39, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I have decided to err on the safe side and remove the images. The PNG and SVG versions have been deleted, and I've removed the offending images from the djvu file like so. – GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:45, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

What contract? The one pretending those folks where not really being paid from the DoD & CIA "black" budgets for the sake of perpetuating a "cover story" for Lord knows what reason at the time? That's like also saying the Chemistry department at American University wasn't the Chemical Weapons research arm of the U.S. military at the time because the lettering on their lab door didn't say as much. Admitedly we will never know the answer for sure because while we know these things at AU at the time were government "fronts" in the scheme of the 'Cold War', we will never get to see the exact accounting of the "black" budgets to prove it 1000% in our lifetimes but that is no reason to make a logical assumption that they weren't direct indirect employess of the government here. -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:57, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh well. Problem solved I guess. -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:57, 1 August 2012 (UTC)