[Commons-l] An idea to help solve Commons copyright woes

Sun Jun 11 08:09:46 UTC 2006

Hello,

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests
frequently sees recurring copyright debates, which I believe is
basically because we are a bunch of amateurs trying to make decisions
on complex international copyright law.

This is no slight on the people who take part in these debates (I am
one of them), but it simply seems to me quite silly. No one can be
sure who is right, we argue in circles and it's really inefficient. I
really feel out of my depth trying to argue on copyright cases, but I
do it because *someone* has to - there just isn't enough attention
given to these cases.

And yet Wikimedia has a legal department:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_department . Villy
(Jean-Christophe Chazalette), who is part of it, used to be quite
active on Commons but hasn't been for some time.

Therefore I propose that we (Commons community) ask the Legal
department to create and fill a permanent position known as something
like "Commons liaison officer" (CLO). Their job will be to mediate
requests for copyright advice between Commons and the juriwiki mailing
list/Legal department. Hopefully we could have a turn-around of about
two weeks on any given issue.

I hope this would be considered appropriate for the Legal department,
because Commons is handling the vast bulk of media copyright issues,
unlike text copyright issues which are spread almost everywhere else.

Of course they should not be bothered with every little issue. Only
things that cannot be resolved on [[COM:DEL]] should be taken to the
CLO (presumably by admins). (For example we would not ask them to try
and find the source of an item. The onus is on the uploader to provide
the source. If they cannot, we have to delete.) The advice they offer
should be recorded, interpreted as a precedent and binding.

I hope to draw some attention to this issue here (and the Village
pump) and if there is more or less unanimity, I will post a request to
juriwiki and the foundation-l mailing list.

Here are some recent issues that I would like resolved:
* To what extent are we bound by local laws and to what extent are we
bound by Florida's laws (as the home of our servers). Country
copyrights vary considerably with regards to duration of copyright,
"freedom of panorama" (Panoramafreiheit) /whether public objects such
as statues and even buildings can be freely photographed and there is
a lot of confusion about this. Should we respect local law always or
interpret in terms of US law?
(Big discussion at the moment about a photo of the interior of a
German railway station:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:Berlin_Hauptbahnhof_pano_06.jpg
)

* There was recently a discussion about the "Against DRM" license (
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:ADRM ).

* Logos. This has still not been sufficiently resolved, in that there
is not a clear enough solution that everyone is aware of. Do we
consider copyright independently of trademark status? Is that even
possible? ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:CSU-Logo_1998.jpg
)

* "Agencia Brasil" license  (
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Ag%C3%AAncia_Brasil ) also
has been debated several times. Related to the wider issue of, "if a
website says "these images can be used freely, can we interpret that
as allowing commercial use and derivative works, and thus
Commons-compliant? Or do we need to check each time whether they
intend to allow these specific rights?"

* Photographs of commercial products such as: Pokemon/Star
Wars/Simpsons toys, box of Pringles, also people in dress-up outfits
of characters such as Lara Croft/Chewbacca. Eloquence has raised this
before ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#May_21
) but I doubt even he would think this has been satisfactorily
resolved.

* US presidential portraits (
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Official_paintings_held_by_the_U.S._Government
).

* Photographs of art - if the artwork itself is old enough to be PD,
is it true that any photograph of the art itself is also PD, but any
photograph of the art in its frame or on a wall  is not? (Because it
is 3-D, not 2-D anymore)

* Personality rights. What permission is required of people
photographed, if any? (eg "Can I take your picture"/"Can I publish
your picture on a public database that allows commercial use?") Is
this a copyright concern or a "other law" concern that we don't need
to worry about? What if the people aren't recognisable (and how can
you decide that anyway?)? (
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#All_pictures_of_little_girls_uploaded_by_User:Belginusanl
 , also some of the "visible thong" pictures on
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/G-string have been nominated before)

* Stock xchange images (current:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:SXC villy also wrote
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Aurevilly/sxc.hu_%282%29 but it
seems to have stalled). What should be done with the existing images
(which are intentionally not categorised in any way as such, so they
might be hard to find), what do we have to do (if anything) in order
to use current images?

I don't really want to discuss any of these issues right now. I want
to discuss whether or not other people think it would be appropriate
to seek professional legal advice on issues like these and whether or
not they think my idea of asking for the appointment of a CLO is a
good idea or not.

Thanks,
Brianna /user:pfctdayelise