A really useful and under recognized part of Wikimedia Commons are the more detailed deletion request discussions, and the supporting policies, guidelines and essays for interpreting copyright.
It's worth reading through [1:Licencing], though I find [2:Copyright rules by territory] a constantly useful reference, which is updated frequently as the law changes in different countries. Unfortunately "orphan works" is a difficult area for copyright, made a lot worse by having to worry about publication rights, which can add decades of copyright protection to otherwise extremely old or works with unknown authors which should otherwise be public domain. In a recent discussion there were examples of UK works as old as 1860s that had legitimate copyright claims. If there's an area of copyright that interests you, it can really help Commons to follow the copyright noticeboard [3] and participate in some deletion request discussions. Asking questions and testing your own understanding of the policies and UK copyright legislation would quickly make you a valued participant. Getting the balance right of what constitutes "significant doubt" and cases where the research done is sufficient to keep an image on Commons within the law, even if much remains unknown, is a constant challenge and one where there is a real shortage of UK specific understanding and viewpoints. Once the UK leaves Europe, there's likely to be a lot of misunderstanding and misinterpretation of how we comply with EU legislation. I have no doubt that volunteers interested and following the nuts and bolts of changes in UK copyright law will be much in demand. I never thought that I would be referenced as being knowledgeable in UK and US military related copyright. :-) Links: 1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing 2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Copyright_rules_by_territory 3. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Copyright Fae On 15 October 2016 at 13:25, <leu...@fabiant.eu> wrote: > Hi all, > > There was some discussion of orphan works in Wikimedia UK when the new > legislation was introduced in May 2015. Please check government guidance in > this. Unfortunately the new regulations are not very favourable to us. > Arguing that creating exact copies created a new copyright would be > counterproductive as regards the use of non-orphan work that has become > public domain and copied by whoever. > > all the best > > Fabian > > aka Leutha > > On 15 October 2016 at 13:06 John Lubbock <john.lubb...@wikimedia.org.uk> > wrote: > > Could they not be declared orphan works if there was some due diligence > done to establish that the original authors could not be found? Couldn't > you argue that the authorisation for making a copy of the originals > produced a new copyright which was held by the museum? Presumably if > someone's grandfather left them the collection, it's their copyright to > release, but if a copy of the image was made in 1970 then surely the > copyright on that copy is the museum's? I've been trying to understand > copyright for years now and it's still a bit of a mystery to me. Especially > with photos it seems flexible to an extent. > > On 14 October 2016 at 09:15, Jonathan Cardy <werespielchequ...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > Fæ would be my first suggestion for a mass upload if he is available and > the collection is suitable. But reading through that link I'm not sure we > can use that collection. Apparently it was started forty years ago by a > curator who invited people to bring in historic photos and lend them to the > museum to make a copy. > > I'm sure that's fine for the Museum to use. But I wouldn't care to argue > on Commons that this constitutes a CC-BY-SA 3 licence for all those images. > Hopefully there will be a subset which can be dated early enough to argue > PD. Maybe there are some where the rights owner can be traced, but I'd > suspect there will be a lot of photographers from an era where some will > have died long enough ago to make it difficult to trace the heirs, and > others may even still be with us. At some point in the future no doubt we > can import the lot, provided a digital copy is still extant. > > Another reason why the movement needs a sealed repository from which stuff > can be migrated when it is out of copyright. > > Depending on the age range of the images and the quality of the metadata > there could be a useful proportion that would be safe to upload. It all > depends on the ratio of "my grandfather died in 1880 and left us this > collection" to "my grandfather died in 1980 and left us this collection". > > WSC > > On 14 Oct 2016, at 08:18, <r...@rodspace.co.uk> <r...@rodspace.co.uk> wrote: > > Hi all, > > I have just spotted an announcement of a historic photograph digitisation > project by the friends of the Somerset Life Museum Research Group (see > https://somersetrurallifemuseum.org.uk/2016/10/13/digitisation-project/ ) > aiming to digitise 15,000 images. > > I have made an initial contact asking about licencing and sharing and > mentioned “mass uploads” but I know very little about this. I believe there > have been some people who have done this for/with other GLAMS and/or > developed tools to handle this. Who would be the best person to put them in > touch with if they come back to me and they are willing to release under a > suitable licence? > > Rod -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
