[WikiEN-l] Public Domain in occupied Iraq

Tue Oct 4 09:19:09 UTC 2005

steve v wrote:

>--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>  
>
>>I don't know whether this is better characterized as
>>irrational or 
>>incoherent. There is no suggestion that President
>>Hussein was the 
>>personal copyright holder for the photograph. Your
>>ramblings have 
>>nothing to do with copyright. It doesn't seem right
>>to want to punish 
>>all the citixens of a country just because you don't
>>like its former 
>>president.
>>    
>>
>Well, whats not to like? Its odd that you raise the
>issue of "punishment" when I was simply alluding to a
>major discrepancy in your claimed notion of what Iraqi
>law actually is. 
>
>According to the current Coalition-instituted "Iraqi
>law," Coalition soldiers can shoot whomever they
>please and by law must be released from custody. An
>"irrational" argument would be to claim (as you do)
>that a military occupied country that has essentially
>instituted extremely low value thresholds for the
>protection of its own people, should somehow be
>regarded for its IP "rights." *That* seems rather
>irrational to me. In a case where no doubt the
>photographer might want to remain anonymous, and yet
>have their photograph published anyway (presumably
>just to 'get the word out').
>
Copyright law is what has a direct bearing on what we do as 
Wikipedians.  I have no more facts about whether the photographer wanted 
to remain anonymous than you, but I prefer not to engage in speculation 
about it.  In the absence of personal knowledge about an anonymous 
photographer how can you possibly justify having "no doubt".

What does the fact that you condone murder by occupation troops have to 
do with IP law?  All I'm saying is that the military occupiers have no 
business imposing their IP values on the Iraqi people.

>If we really wanted to be nutty about IP law we could
>have taken down all the Abu Ghraib photos, as they
>were put up only on a prima fascia claim of public
>domain -- which assumed that the models/photographer's
>claim of "official duties" would stand in court. AIUI,
>according to military law rulings, those soldiers were
>not performing "official" duties. :) Would we need to
>go visit the photographers in prison to inquire if
>they want to release them under PD-GNU-CC?
>
The Abu Ghraig photos were taken by Americans who, as individuals, have 
not established any permanent residence in Iraq, so American copyright 
law should be applicable.

>"Do you have a model release for that photo?"
>
Releases from the "models" in the picture is not a matter of copyright 
law, but of the privacy of those people in the photos.
Ec