Template talk:PD-SerbiaGov

Usage of the template?

I need help for the interpretation of what is and what is not allowed to be tagged with this license template. I am afraid that in some cases it has been frivolously used and some images will have to be deleted. For instance, the template is widely used for photographs of politicians, taken from governmental and other websites. The mentioned article 6 from the Serbian copyright law reads:

The following shall not be deemed works of authorship:

1) Laws, decrees and other regulations;

2) Official materials of state bodies and bodies performing public functions;

3) Official translations of regulations and official materials of state bodies and bodies performing public functions;

4) Submissions and other documents presented in the administrative or court proceedings.

May photographs taken from governmental websites qualify under line 2? And if yes, how can their PD-status be compatible with the copyright claims that most of these websites contain? Websites like the Government's and the President's claim only © Copyright, but for instance in the Army's site is explicitly written All rights reserved. Forbidden full or partial reproduction... →Spiritia 09:21, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that images are allowed. Government images exemption should be listed explicitly in law. --EugeneZelenko 15:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Eugene. In other countries, similar wordings do not include images. But the English translation of point (2) says only "official materials", and I don't know what exactly that includes or does not include in Serbia. Ideally, someone who can read Serbian and who is interested in such things could find out what it means by checking Serbian law commentaries (if those exist) or court decisions. Or maybe the original Serbian text of the law would already clarify this. Given the © notices on Serbian governmental websites, I would be surprised if it really did include images. Lupo 20:20, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Copyright notices are sprinkled around liberally where they should and shouldn't be. For example, here you can it is used for the Constitution of Serbia, which surely isn't copyrighted. Nikola 16:43, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I studied this issue, asking several lawyers, and no one could give me a straight answer as to what exactly "official materials" are. There have even been suggestions to write to the Parliament of Serbia for an official clarification. However, I don't see why should it exclude images, and no one has ever suggested that it should. If an image (or a sound, or whatever) is an official material, then it too is not copyrighted.

It is true that some people have used this tag where it doesn't belong, for various images downloaded from government websites, even some used by the govenrment under Serbian equivalent of fair use. Whether to delete them, IMO, should be decided on a case-to-case basis. Nikola 16:43, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

• I sent an e-mail to the Intellectual Property Office of the Republic of Serbia asking what are official materials as meant in the Law and if photos from government web sites can be defined as such. They answered me that their opinion is that this category (official materials) covers only: official acts, drawings and blueprints of building and cadaster agencies, diplomas, certificates, official reports of government agencies, statistical reports, drafts of Laws and other documents. They also explicitly state in their answer that we cannot include any photo from government's web sites in the category of official materials, nor anything else from government's web sites not included in the aforementioned categories. You can read the whole answer here (in Serbian). Vanjagenije (talk) 19:34, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

The link to the act

The link to the act is dead. Please update it. --Eleassar ^(t/p) 09:17, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

{{Edit request}}

Please update the link to https://www.zis.gov.rs/wp-content/uploads/COPYRIGHT-LAW-2019.doc, which is the latest English text available on their website. Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 00:11, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

 Done --Lucas Werkmeister (talk) 08:57, 30 December 2023 (UTC)