User:Gabldotink/April Fools' Day 2024

This topic was placed by me on Commons talk:Licensing at midnight on April 1, 2024 (UTC). Templates and magic words have been substituted. See this old version of the page.

Request for comment: Assume “really old, scratchy black and white photos” are public domain

This section contains material that is kept because it is considered humorous. Such material is not meant to be taken seriously.

Eons ago, in 2005, an Uncyclopedia editor uploaded a file and changed the copyright-scape forever.

The photo of a man on a pogo stick was unassuming, but its file description page (uncyclopedia:File:Bigenochpowellonapogostick.jpg) was revolutionary:

It's a really old, scratchy black and white photo, so it MUST be in the Public Domain.

When I first saw this, like, three weeks ago, I thought it was ridiculous and almost certainly satirical; however, I later realized that this sentence, verbatim, is actually included on the back of Magna Carta in invisible ink. And sure, that’s probably not binding or anything, but… like… it should be, come on.

My point is, we should definitely be taking this rationale into account at Wikimedia Commons. Think about it; if we had used this logic from the start, the famous Steamboat Willie would have been public domain years ago! — gabldotink [ talk | contribs | global account ] 00:00, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Does it count if you scratched them yourself? Or do you have to get someone else to make them look old? - Jmabel ! talk 07:13, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, it depends how old. We already assume 120 years old files to be in the public domain, unless proved otherwise. I think we should have a lower level of requirement for documents between 80 to 120 years, compared to recent files. It doesn't mean we should accept anything without some minimum research. Yann (talk) 08:48, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Any GIF, JPG or PNG file that was uploaded more than 80 years ago should definitely be considered public domain. --RL0919 (talk) 09:25, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Nothing was uploaded more than 80 years ago. Wkimedia Commons and the Internet didn't exist at that time. ;o) Yann (talk) 10:46, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I can't speak for Commons, but surely Albert Gore Sr had invented the internet by then. --RL0919 (talk) 12:45, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Nothing was uploaded more than 80 years ago: this will change in 2084. We have to be proactive :-D MGeog2022 (talk) 18:57, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

•  Comment, I recently made a mistake of assuming that an "old photograph" was old, the photograph appeared to have been taken in the 1910's and all the officials wore typical Nguyễn Dynasty mandarin dress from that period and it passed off as an "old Photograph" in basically every way other than the fact that several of the Confucian scholars in the picture were "bald chins" (men without beards), another contributor noticed this and warned me about this so I could quickly nominate it for deletion. It's not uncommon for people to make black-and-white photographs in 2024, and even many "old" black-and-white photographs from certain countries like Viet-Nam and the Philippines can be recent creations as people preferred to use the cheaper production process over colour photography. As much as I'd love to expand what we could accept here I think that we should take a lot of caution with this format and we should be able to reasonably assume that a photograph is from a certain period before accepting it.

A lot of hints can show us when a work was produced, architecture, fashion, Etc. but we must always remain cautious with this. Unfortunately, the best course of action in this case would be to lobby governments and intergovernmental bodies to shorten copyright ©️ duration, I don't think that such a proposal could realistically be implemented for the very simple reason that a lot of "old" photographs might be more recent than they first assume to be. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 11:30, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

If there’s unsurety, then it’s probably old and scratchy enough. — gabldotink [ talk | contribs | global account ] 14:11, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Riight, and we are now introducing our B&W scratching & flickrwashing service. :)   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 12:07, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

•  Comment, photo's physical status obviously doesn't mean anything, especially if you have not treated it with due care :-). But age, or presumed age based on some evidence, is something to be taken into account. Perhaps not for 80-120 year old documents, where there's still some doubt, but, if any document more than 120 years old is automatically considered Public Domain in Commons (unless there's a very specific reason for the opposite), I think Upload Wizard could be more user friendly on that. For works published in the United States, it's very easy: there's a deadline of about 95 years, when any work is public domain. For works from other countries, if you don't know authors and their death dates, it can be difficult to know if the work will be accepted in Commons, and more so to specify the file's Public Domain rationale on upload. It would be fine to have a 120 year global deadline, similar to the US 95 year one. MGeog2022 (talk) 18:47, 1 April 2024 (UTC)