Template talk:PD-FinlandGov

Wording

Think something has been left out by mistake, "...copyright law of [2005?]..."? Should not the year/law be included? A link to finlex.fi would be nice too, in order to steer away these paranoid people who put template after template up on COM:DEL for shallow reasons. Scoo 22:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

The text can be found here: [1], "Tekijänoikeutta ei ole: ... 4) viranomaisen tai muun julkisen toimielimen päätöksiin ja lausumiin;" I don't know how to refer to it. --Hautala 13:43, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Added a link, swapped flag too (revert if you'd like). Great job on these template by the way, Scoo 14:58, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement

The Finnish "lausuma" term has been debated and explained for non-Finnish speakers at Commons:Deletion requests/Jokela images by KRP. Please note that the Finnish "lausuma" differs from the English translation "statement". --|EPO| ^da: 20:37, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Independent works included in a decision, public works

Independent works included in a decision that falls under 9 § in the copyright law are not in the public domain. The relevant wording (the law in Swedish, 9 § 2 mom.):

Bestämmelserna i 1 mom. gäller inte självständiga verk som ingår i sådana dokument som avses i momentet.

In the Jokela case a police officer decided to make the pictures "public" and the police officer answering an inquery thought this to be comparable to them being in the public domain, for wikipedia purposes. There is no way to put works in the public domain in Finland and I do not know the specifics about how a public work can be used under Finnish law. It can probably at least be freely copied in most cases. This should be sorted out.

Anyway it is very problematic that the template states that the work is "part of" a public decision, as it is the decision itself, not included independent works, that are in the public domain. Those independent works may or may not be such covered decisions by themselves (e.g. pictures of roadsigns created to be part of the decision should be public domain).

(Copyrighted independent works may still be used regardless of the copyright, as long as they are used in relation to the decision.)

--LPfi (talk) 14:34, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I would say that you are only partly correct. The opinion of the Constitutional Board of the Parliament (PeVL 7/2005) states that normally, there are no "independent" works in the statements by a public authority. Here, the Constitutional Board directly disagreed with the Cabinet which had believed that e.g. the image of a commemorative coin in the decree about its issuance would be such "independent work". So, unless the work is clearly independent, e.g. an informational appendix, it is an integral part of the decision and as such, in PD. Even an appendix may be considered an integral part of the authority decision, see e.g. Supreme Administrative Court 2008:33, where a memorandum which was a part of a decision was considered the official government position.

However, even "independent works" which are part of the decision or have been submitted to an authority during a proceeding may be used regardless of their copyright status when the subject matter is discussed. These files must nonetheless go to the individual Wikipedias, not to the Commons. --MPorciusCato (talk) 18:47, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

It is probably true that there normally (the Finnish word used, "yleensä", can have a slightly different meaning) aren't any independent copyrighted works in the legislation, but such independent works might be included in other kinds of decissions and statements by public authorities.

In the category there are photos from annual reports of public institutions. I do not see why there could not be a photo of a painting in these (e.g. by fair use). The painting would definitively not become public domain by this (and so the photo of it shouldn't be on commons). I still think the wording is misleading in this regard.

--LPfi (talk) 23:26, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you. The painting would not become PD. However, this is exactly what was meant by yleensä. However, I think that if a public authority publishes a private work (say, a poem) as a part of its decision, the private work is PD under the 9.1§ of the Copyright Act. The authority is then liable for damages caused to the private party, whose copyright to the work has been permanently lost. However, the public decision remains public and in PD. (You know, I was once working in a state authority, and really wondered whether I could place a few of my favourite poems into PD using this trick.) --MPorciusCato (talk) 18:09, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that is what was meant by "yleensä". Which in turn means that the statement by the Constitutional Board is irrelevant to these pictures, which are such exceptions. I definitely do not see how the poem could lose its copyright (and neither agree about the damages, if the poem was relevant for the decision).

The wording of the law is quite clear here: included independed works are not affected, other than regarding use in a context related to the decision where it was included. The question is not how a picture or poem is included but whether it is an independent work to begin with. If it is, it still has its copyright, if it is not, it never had (but see below). I repeat the wording of the law in Finnish (as I suppose that is your mother tongue):

Mitä 1 momentissa säädetään, ei koske itsenäisiä teoksia, jotka sisältyvät momentissa tarkoitettuihin asiakirjoihin.

The word "asiakirjat" (documents) here means the statements, decisions or such as a hole, not the individual parts, so something being included "inline" or as an appendix doesn't make any difference, as long as it is regarded as included. It can be noted, though, that photos have protection in Finland also when they aren't regarded as works. Such photos could lose their protection by being published as part of a decision (but do ask a lawyer).

--LPfi (talk) 14:51, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Relevant deletion request

Commons:Deletion requests/Photos tagged as PD-FinlandGov discusses some important points about the scope of this template, which is surprisingly broad. Often key is "included in a statement by a public body", which covers e.g. most photos and maps in reports. –LPfi (talk) 08:35, 5 September 2022 (UTC)