Commons talk:WikiProject Public Domain
WikiProject Public Domain aims to support the Commons community's efforts to organise Commons' public domain materials, and to ensure that these materials meet Commons licensing policy. This is the talk page about this project and public domain issues.
See also Commons:Requests for comment/PD review and Commons talk:Requests for comment/PD review
Improving public domain templates edit
I think one of the best things this project could do would be to go through all of the public domain templates and figure out how to specify the entry-into-the-public-domain dates for both the country of origin and the United States. It might make sense for only the earlier (more stringent) of the two to be visible, and the other to be collapsed/hidden somehow, so that the relevant dates are clear to users and uploaders. It might also make sense to have each tag have different parameters like year=XXXX so that users will be forced to enter a year, and invalid uses can be easily detected (and valid uses can be easily confirmed). Calliopejen1 (talk) 19:27, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
- Agreed. {{PD-old-auto-1923}} is a good template in terms of being clear on both US and source country. {{PD-old-auto}} does a similar thing for post-1923 publication, but doesn't know US status. I'm not quite sure how to make changes in a way that's workable; do you have any ideas? Rd232 (talk) 15:12, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
- I am here because of the red text now showing up in new uploads using the PD-Art template. For artworks older than say 1850, shouldn't these 2 dimensional digital representations be PD worldwide? Is is just a factor of dates or not? I am dazzled by the number of templates, and the default uploader is no help in these cases. There should be a PD template for digital representations of 2 dimensional works that have not "been registered with the US copyright office", especially in the case of newly discovered ancient works that pre-date the US, such as dead sea scrolls and so forth. Am I missing something basic? Jane023 (talk) 09:29, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
- shouldn't these 2 dimensional digital representations be PD worldwide - no, that's the WMF {{PD-Art}} position. In some countries these representations are themselves copyrighted, even if the underlying work is PD. In addition, because of the URAA the underlying work is typically only PD in the US if published before 1923 (unless it's a US work, when the URAA doesn't apply and post-1923 works may be PD under US rules, see COM:Hirtle chart). Finally, PD-old type laws usually require the work to have been published in the author's lifetime - different rules apply if it's posthumous, there can be en:publication right. To come to a more practical conclusion: works created before 1900 are usually treated as having been published before 1900, unless there's evidence to the contrary. This means {{PD-Art|PD-old-auto-1923|deathyear=XXXX}} can usually be applied to pre-1900 works. Later works are more of a judgement call, ideally based on more information. Rd232 (talk) 17:20, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for your prompt reply! Does this mean a new version of an existing image of a Rembrandt painting (let's say with higher res or something like that) needs to have the {{PD-Art|PD-old-auto-1923|deathyear=1669}} template rather than the old {{PD-Art}}? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jane023 (talk • contribs) 8 December 2012 (UTC)
- Yes. All Rembrandt paintings should be marked with that, or at least with something like {{PD-Art-100}}. But the auto template is better, because providing the exact deathyear to the template means if we ever need to change things (eg if copyright in some countries gets extended beyond 100 years...) it'll be easier to handle via changing just the template. Rd232 (talk) 17:02, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
- As a rule, I always use an "auto" template with a death year if I know the death year of the author. If I don't know the death year of the author but I know that the work is very old (e.g. anonymous painting from the 17th century), I use {{PD-Art-100}}, or something similar. For more recent works, the death year variant is even more practical as the template automatically updates from PD-old-50 to PD-old-70 to PD-old-75 and so on, thereby covering as many countries as possible. --Stefan4 (talk) 17:10, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
- Good. Agreed. :) Rd232 (talk) 18:41, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
- As a rule, I always use an "auto" template with a death year if I know the death year of the author. If I don't know the death year of the author but I know that the work is very old (e.g. anonymous painting from the 17th century), I use {{PD-Art-100}}, or something similar. For more recent works, the death year variant is even more practical as the template automatically updates from PD-old-50 to PD-old-70 to PD-old-75 and so on, thereby covering as many countries as possible. --Stefan4 (talk) 17:10, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
- Yes. All Rembrandt paintings should be marked with that, or at least with something like {{PD-Art-100}}. But the auto template is better, because providing the exact deathyear to the template means if we ever need to change things (eg if copyright in some countries gets extended beyond 100 years...) it'll be easier to handle via changing just the template. Rd232 (talk) 17:02, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for your prompt reply! Does this mean a new version of an existing image of a Rembrandt painting (let's say with higher res or something like that) needs to have the {{PD-Art|PD-old-auto-1923|deathyear=1669}} template rather than the old {{PD-Art}}? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jane023 (talk • contribs) 8 December 2012 (UTC)
- shouldn't these 2 dimensional digital representations be PD worldwide - no, that's the WMF {{PD-Art}} position. In some countries these representations are themselves copyrighted, even if the underlying work is PD. In addition, because of the URAA the underlying work is typically only PD in the US if published before 1923 (unless it's a US work, when the URAA doesn't apply and post-1923 works may be PD under US rules, see COM:Hirtle chart). Finally, PD-old type laws usually require the work to have been published in the author's lifetime - different rules apply if it's posthumous, there can be en:publication right. To come to a more practical conclusion: works created before 1900 are usually treated as having been published before 1900, unless there's evidence to the contrary. This means {{PD-Art|PD-old-auto-1923|deathyear=XXXX}} can usually be applied to pre-1900 works. Later works are more of a judgement call, ideally based on more information. Rd232 (talk) 17:20, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
- I am here because of the red text now showing up in new uploads using the PD-Art template. For artworks older than say 1850, shouldn't these 2 dimensional digital representations be PD worldwide? Is is just a factor of dates or not? I am dazzled by the number of templates, and the default uploader is no help in these cases. There should be a PD template for digital representations of 2 dimensional works that have not "been registered with the US copyright office", especially in the case of newly discovered ancient works that pre-date the US, such as dead sea scrolls and so forth. Am I missing something basic? Jane023 (talk) 09:29, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
Files not in the PD in the US - host them on the Dutch servers! edit
Many files are in the public domain in the source country and the European Union, but not in the United States. Please comment on my proposal to host those files on the Wikimedia servers already situated in the Netherlands. -- Robert Weemeyer (talk) 23:53, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
- As pointed out there, Commons is the wrong forum for this discussion. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 10:43, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Files using this redirect might need a review. w:Template:PD-release on English Wikipedia doesn't say who the copyright holder is, whereas our local template does. If people haven't cleaned up files properly, this could mean that some files moved from English Wikipedia contain additional information about the copyright holder which isn't available on English Wikipedia and for which we do not have any indication that it is correct. --Stefan4 (talk) 20:52, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
See above, regarding a recent change in Flickr's license options, and the implications for Commons. Ultra7 (talk) 14:42, 2 April 2015 (UTC)