Hi, Rob,
On 9/7/2011 20:24, Rob Weir wrote:
<snip>
Hmmmm... As I understand it, a work is copyrighted from the time it is
created. We might not know who owns the copyright. But that is
different than saying it has no copyright. A work might be anonymous
and copyrighted, or have an author we cannot ascertain, but still
copyrighted.
Some considerations here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Anonymous_works
But I wonder, even if we don't know the author, can we establish that
the PDL was attached to the work from the start? From the site TOU or
from the wiki history? If so, that might be sufficient.
-Rob
If it helps, AFAIK, nothing ever gets lost on the MW wiki. The History
tab lets you determine the initial creator, and even view the original.
You can verify the page creation by clicking on the "Contribs" link from
the earliest contributor; that Special Page will show a big "N" marking
a new page. (You can find the right entry by the date from History.)
Finding the author's user-ID may or may not be useful; some User pages
are filled out, others aren't.
The copyright tag (like, {{PDL1}}) will show up somewhere; normally, the
template call is at the bottom of the page (very last thing). It may be
in the original text; the edit summary may show it being added; at the
worst, grinding through the successive version diffs /will/ turn it up.
If and when the MW wiki is transferred, I'll help with the tracing,
should that be needed.
--
/tj/
