Commons:Village pump/Copyright

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Welcome to the Village pump copyright section

This Wikimedia Commons page is used for general discussions relating to copyright and license issues, and for discussions relating to specific files' copyright issues. Discussions relating to specific copyright policies should take place on the talk page of the policy, but may be advertised here. Recent sections with no replies for 7 days and sections tagged with {{section resolved|1=~~~~}} may be archived; for old discussions, see the archives.

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various grub stake images copyright

I reviewed en:The Grub-Stake for GA status at en:Talk:The Grub-Stake/GA1. long story short it's very close to passing but the only matter left is the copyright of some files. I was told some files were public domain due to publication pre 1930. However the file pages at the source assert copyright and the nominator says it's too tedious to find the images in the original trade publications. Given that they're supposedly promotional photos for the film I am inclined to believe they are PD. The files in question are: File:Nell Shipman Promotion.png, File:The Grub-Stake in Spokane.png, File:Nell Shipman cliffhanging.png, File:Nell Shipman's Company.png, and File:The Grub-Stake ad.png. Any help? Therapyisgood (talk) 19:21, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Can confirm File:Nell Shipman Promotion.png is PD. Shows up in the archive at [1]. Can confirm File:The Grub-Stake ad.png is PD, shows up at [2]. Based5290 (talk) 01:02, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I did not notice your discussion on this page Therapyisgood. For added context: I searched for the original trade magazine publications of these images. This is rather hard as I initially searched for these images months ago under different parameters. I was able to find the original publications of File:Nell Shipman Promotion.png and File:Nell Shipman cliffhanging.png. Jon698 (talk) 18:16, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Copyright on Wiktionary

Hello friends. I often edit Wiktionary and make minor edits on Wikimedia Commons. But the Wikimedia Commons copyright regime seems to be so much better organized. Hence I would like to request that the experts here review the draft copyright policy Wiktionary:Copyrights. See this discussion: Multi-sentence_Quotes:_Copyright/Fair_Use. Please go over there and see if you can strengthen Wiktionary's copyright regime. Geographyinitiative (talk) 01:07, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Vladimir Musaelyan - TASS

Hi. I wanna see official photos of Soviet leaders on Wikipedia. The official and well-known photographer of Leonid Brezhnev, Konstantin Chernenko, Yuri Andropov is photographer Vladimir Musaelyan. He died in 2020, and according to Russian law, his photos are protected until 2020+70+1=2091. This is outrageous, of course. I know he has heirs, children Marina, Alexey, and granddaughter Anastasia. I know for sure that Alexey and Anastasia work as photographers too. I have their Telegram and VKontakte accounts for contact.

But... Vladimir Musaelyan was a photographer for the TASS and worked on behalf of the state (the Central Committee of the CPSU, the government of the USSR). The photographs taken by him as part of his official duties are "official works".
According to Article 14 of the Law of the Russian Federation "On Copyright and Related Rights" (which was in force at the time of Musaelian's death and the creation of most of these photos), as well as according to art. 1295 of the current Civil Code of the Russian Federation:

The copyright to the official work belongs to the author (photographer). The exclusive right (the right to use, reproduce, publish) belongs to the employer, unless the contract provides otherwise.

Vladimir Musaelian's employer was the STATE, represented by TASS. Does it mean that even Musaelian's heirs are not the copyright holders of these official photographs? They inherited personal non-property rights (the right of authorship, the right to a name), but not the exclusive right to use the images themselves.

Then who is the copyright holder and what about the protection? What should I do in this case? Roman Kubanskiy (talk) 10:34, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

• {{PD-Russia}} says that TASS photos taken before January 1, 1955 are PD in Russia. Can you share more information on the photos you want to use? When were they taken, when were they published? Are any of them published also in the United States or only Russia? Maybe with more info we can help you narrow down the possibilitites for your images. -Nard (Hablemonos)(Let's talk) 10:45, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

  Yeah, I know about pre-1955 stuff. So I did several days ago a bunch of uploads with that license. For example, I uploaded the official portrait of Joseph Stalin made by TASS photographer, which for some reason was previously deleted, allegedly referring to the fact that it was unfree.

  For example, we have official portrait of Leonid Brehzhev on Wikimedia Commons. Actually, it was also made by Musaleyan, but formally it is under CC0, because it was provided to the Dutch National Archives. (For me, this is license laundering, but in any case, it's the way it is).

  At the moment we also have an official portrait of Yuri Andropov. I took it out for deletion because page of the Soviet party ticket is PD-RU-exempt. The photo cut from this page is not PD-RU-exempt. The photo may be protected by copyright by default (for example, the copyright still belong to the TASS photographer, Vladimir Musaelyan). Only the entire stamps/documents are in the public domain, and not any cut-out objects located on them.' This photo also was published in American Soviet Life without copyright notice and so it's (possibly) PD in US.

  So I wanna upload (for example) these photos:
  - Official portrait of Chernenko
  - Official portrait of Andropov
  - Official portrait of Gorbachyov (and this) Roman Kubanskiy (talk) 11:06, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

  The Soviet Life magazine doesn't just make it PD in the US. If a work was also published in the US then Commons can skip the home country copyright check and just use the US status. So it's PD. I can't think of any reason the newer stuff would be PD though. -Nard (Hablemonos)(Let's talk) 12:30, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

  Andropov Soviet Life was deleted. Roman Kubanskiy (talk) 12:59, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Threshold of originality for design of website screenshot?

The screenshot image at the article w:NCAA transfer portal is marked as a Template:Non-free web screenshot.

But the NCAA logo image right above it is marked as public domain for not meeting the Commons:Threshold of originality.

The logo seems arguably more artistic than the very barebones text website. Is there an argument to be made that the design of the website as depicted in the screenshot also does not meet the threshold of originality? Opinions appreciated.

PK-WIKI (talk) 17:36, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Copyright questions

Hi, quick search for some second pair of eyes.

A user has been uploading images of copyrighted works and a couple have been reported for CSD but there's a couple I just want clarity on. If I understand correctly:

This first one[3] is a copyvio because it's a photo of a 1999 newspaper clipping that contains a photo of an artwork that does if you look closely have an acknowledgement written vertically near the bottom left that says "fountain courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art" and would therefore be subject to CSD because that photo has copyright of some description.

This second one[4] is a photo of a photo published pre-1930 and therefore copyright free so just needs the tag for that.

Is this correct? Rambling Rambler (talk) 21:40, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

For the New York Times clipping, there's no evidence that the uploader to Commons is the author of the text of the article, Sarah Boxer. The photo is a problem, but it's almost secondary in comparison. In the second file, the photo is free, but Commons does not need this bad copy, considering that it already has a better copy. -- Asclepias (talk) 22:09, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

@Asclepias thanks for the answers. I'll CSD the first then and put the second in for a regular deletion due to existing version. Rambling Rambler (talk) 22:21, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

File:Easthope2HPCrankcaseCoverAndClutchHousingDwg3055.png deleted.

Hi,
I see that File:Easthope2HPCrankcaseCoverAndClutchHousingDwg3055.png has been deleted from public view, apparently by an automated process. A contributor can miss the notice in the Talk page before the seven day countdown expires. A direct notification would be helpful.

This snag occurs about when I respond to the upload wizard that I didn't create the file. Consequently the wizard requests a permission email which is queued for processing by a volunteer. Also in this case, the wizard omits license insertion. Eventually permission is accepted by the human volunteer. If I forget to return to the task and add a license, the file is deleted without notifying me directly.

In general, a simple direct notification would be better than papering my talk page with boilerplate. As noted in my user page, my eaddress is peter at easthope dot ca. For the file cited above, administrative help is required to recover public access.

Thanks,       ... PeterEasthope (talk) 15:38, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

@PeterEasthope:

Several points here; the last is presumably the most important.

• There was no automated deletion process. Krd is a human, and a member of the VRT.
• You were notified of the problem (by a bot) 16:06, 7 August 2025 (UTC). No one has time to write thousands of bespoke notifications each day. We are all volunteers.
• Due to circumstances beyond any control of those of us who work on Wikimedia Commons, the Upload Wizard does not handle the third-party cases well; we informed the Foundation of this over half a year ago, and they haven't seen fit to fix it. The situation and the workaround are explained in Commons:Uploading works by a third party#How they can grant a license (and how you upload). I don't see a lot more we can do.
• FWIW, when you added the intended license, you yourself removed {{Permission pending}}, but…
• … if you are the inheritor of the intellectual property rights in question there was no reason to involve VRT. You should have used {{Cc-by-sa-4.0-heirs}}.
• Given that you are the inheritor of the intellectual property rights in question, you can request undeletion at COM:UDEL. I recommend simply stating that you are the inheritor of the intellectual property rights and linking this discussion, that should do it.

Jmabel ! talk 07:01, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Good. Thanks, ... PeterEasthope (talk) 20:03, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Taiwanese originality threshold

See this: https://tipnlaw.blogspot.com/2025/09/taiwan-court-found-mass-produced-work.html

Possibly an update to COM:TOO Taiwan. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 21:37, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

• I read the court ruling. It ruled that, “美術工藝品乃具有藝術品價值，可表現思想情感之單一物品創作，如係多量生產，則屬工業產品，不受著作權法保護” (A rough literal translation: a work of artistic craftsmanship is a singular work that possesses artistic value and can express thoughts and emotions. If it is mass-produced, then it is an industrial product, which is not protected by copyright).
• The ruling also stated that “industrial products” include “works that were made by injection moulding or mass-produced with machinery”.
• This means some mass-produced works that were previously considered as works of artistic craftsmanship and images of them were not allowed due to the FOP restriction, may now be allowed.
• For example, Commons:Deletion requests/File:Green ^ Pink 粉粉與綠綠 - panoramio.jpg may now be allowed as the image contains “artistic” bins, but it appears that they were mass-produced.

Tvpuppy (talk) 23:48, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

@Tvpuppy it may be eligible now, but I have one doubt, over the mascot itself. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 01:03, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

@JWilz12345 When I read the court case above, I was surprised that the court ruled against the plaintiff. The ruling recognized:

• The plaintiff was the designer of the sculpture (he drew the 2D sketch which the sculpture was based on).
• The plaintiff hired a sculptor, who based on the 2D sketch, sculpted a wooden sculpture
• A mould was created from the wooden sculpture, which was then used to mass-produce the sculptures in question
• The mass-produced sculptures have a same appearance as the wooden sculpture
• The 2D sketch and wooden sculpture is copyrighted, but the mass-produced sculptures are not copyrighted
• Since the mass-produced sculptures are not copyrighted, the defendant’s derivative work of the mass-produced sculpture does not constitute as a copyright violation of the plaintiff’s work.

I was surprised because clearly the mass-produced sculptures are derivative works of the 2D sketch and the wooden sculpture, so I had expected either (or both) the plaintiff or the sculptor would have copyright claims over them. However, the court ruled the mass-produced sculptures are simply not copyrighted (this means neither the plaintiff or sculptor have claims over them), just because of their method of creation (injection moulding).

I’m also surprised the ruling indicated any derivative works that were solely based on the mass-produced sculptures will not constitute as a copyright violation of the original 2D sketch or the wooden sculpture.

So, I agree the mascots (in the DR linked above) are clearly copyrighted, and the design of the artistic bins are clearly based on the mascots. However, according to the ruling, it is possible that just because the artistic bins are mass-produced, the bins have no copyright protection at all, and derivative works of them are allowed. Tvpuppy (talk) 02:02, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

@Tvpuppy: you wrote "the court", but assuming that there's a system of appellate courts: how high ranked is the institution that passed this actual ruling? Is it something likely to prevail, are there appeals possible or is the judgement definitive? Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 11:22, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

@Grand-Duc The court is the Intellectual Property and Commercial Court (see en:Judicial Yuan#Intellectual Property and Commercial Court , or its English website here). So, the court is more specialized than the district courts, but in terms of ranking, I think it is between the district courts and the high courts.

This court ruling is the first ruling of this case (made by 1 judge), the plaintiff can appeal to the same court for a second ruling (3 judges instead of 1). If the plaintiff still loses, they can appeal for a final ruling in the Taiwan High Supreme Court.

So yes, it is possible that there are appeals. Per the court document, the plaintiff would need to appeal within 20 days of the ruling (the ruling was made in August). However, I cannot find any records of the plaintiff filing an appeal, although it is possible that the records haven’t been publicized yet. Tvpuppy (talk) 14:53, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

That are helpful details, thanks Tvpuppy. So, I think that we should abstain at the moment in updating COM:TOO Taiwan, as there's not sufficient evidence of that view having become legally binding. By the way: is Taiwan more comparable to a en:Common law country with binding case law or does it function more like a civil law country where courts can deviate from preceding rulings? Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 15:48, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Taiwan is more like a civil law country. So, I agree it make sense to abstain at this moment. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 16:19, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Nadezhda Bravo Cladera photos

The uploader of File:Nadezhda Bravo Cladera in a school photography. Angloamerican School, Oruro, 1952.jpg appears to be en:Nadezhda Bravo Cladera, the subject of the photo as a young girl. I doubt the current licensing of the file is correct since the uploader seems to be misunderstanding the meaning of "own work" (see also File:Nadetif4-bmp.jpg). I'm wondering though whether this can be relicensed as {{PD-Bolivia}} due to the fact that Bolivian copyright law seems to allow copyright protection for only 50 years after creation for anonymous works. Since the uploader describes the photo as something taken while she was a student in 1952, I'm guessing it's probably en:work for hire kind of photo taken by an employee of the school. As for File:Nadetif4-bmp.jpg, this was taken in 2004 and is attributed to some newspaper. I don't really see any way for Commons to keep this without VRT verification because it's too recent, but perhaps someone else can think of one.

FWIW, several of the other photos uploaded by this user as "own work" also have licenses that need examining. Some of these might also have entered into the public domain by now. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:21, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

What about URAA? This is probably copyrighted in the U.S. until 2048. - Jmabel ! talk 07:02, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Pinging @Nadezhda Bravo Cladera, who probably should have been notified here. - Jmabel ! talk 07:05, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

So the subject of the article uploaded these a decade ago and nobody has questioned them since then? Other than no external proof of the licenses, they aren't on their face unreasonable. At least the yearbook photo, we can guess she owns the copyright or at least a license. And we can contact the University paper to verify the cc license. I'll email them later today. -Nard (Hablemonos)(Let's talk) 09:27, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

@Nard the Bard: How long ago something was uploaded doesn't necessarily mean it's licensed correctly; it could just as easily mean that nobody noticed it until now. Like Wikipedia articles, some files just fly under the radar (sometimes for a long time) until they're noticed by someone for whatever reason. As for At least the yearbook photo, we can guess she owns the copyright or at least a license., I don't really follow that. Being in physical possession of a copy of the photo doesn't make someone its copyright holder, at least that's my understanding of things. Most student yearbook photos are taken by third-parties (perhaps someone directly working for or contracted by the school), not the students themselves; so, any copyright associated with the photo most likely belongs (belonged?) to that person or the school. Regarding the paper's photo, as I posted above, VRT verification seems to be needed. So, if that can be obtained, then there should be no issues hosting the photo. How it's obtained is irrelevant, I guess. However, it's ultimately the responsibility of uploaders to provide evidence their uploads are licensed according to Commons policy. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:48, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

@Jmabel: URAA did cross my mind but thank you for bringing it up. It seems like a PD-Bolvia photo would've need to been taken prior to January 1, 1946, for URAA to not apply, right? Finally, I will post a {{Please see}} on Nadezhda Bravo Cladera user talk page about this discussion. I posted on their English Wikipedia user talk page about some images they uploaded locally to English Wikipedia and some other things, but forgot to do the same on Commons. My bad. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:48, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

prior to January 1, 1946: yes. - Jmabel ! talk 03:21, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

When to upload stuff from sketchfab?

Hey folks. The National Heritage Institute in Romania has a lot of 3d scans of artefacts in sketchfab under a free license (CC-BY-4.0). It's all automatically verifiable. With the potential (certain? haven't followed lately) sketchfab closure, I thought it was a good time to download that data.

Now, onto my dilemma. I would like to upload the data to Commons, but without support for textures, it will mostly be for nothing (imagine hundreds of white crosses all looking the same), so I would like to wait until phab:T246901 is solved. However, by then the site might be closed and the licence would be impossible to verify. What would be the best way to approach this problem? Should I wait? Should I upload now for the license to be verified, then see later what can be done? Strainu (talk) 19:15, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

@Strainu: my guess would be upload now while we can verify the licenses, worry about display later. - Jmabel ! talk 20:56, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Any feedback on the content in File:Situl_arheologic_de_la_Măgura_-_La_Biserică_-_0ad28701d6a14e52953862323ecd04b0.stl? After I setup a gltg2stl pipeline I will ask for permission to run a bot. Strainu (talk) 17:41, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Threshold of originality - logo

Hello, I uploaded File:Bahrain Philharmonic Orchestra logo.jpg but it has been tagged for deletion - any thoughts? Thank you, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 05:53, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

1500c AD image licenanced as share-a-like

This image is marked as Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, but I think since it is a faithful reproduction of an image from the 16th century, it should likely be marked by some sort of PD template? But I am not confident enough to go changing someone else's image's license. Similarly this image from the 19th century. Tideflat (talk) 06:31, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

@Tideflat: They are part of mass uploads copied from the Wellcome collection, whose website licenses its items with CC BY 4.0 by default, so it was likely easier for the mass uploads to just use that license tag without adjusting it individually for each file. I suppose that you could change the status tag to public domain tags if you wish. If you want to be less bold and more cautious, you can use something like {{Licensed-PD-Art-two|PD-old-100|PD-US-expired|Cc-by-4.0}}, in case a few countries might have laws that grant copyright or publication right to reproductions. -- Asclepias (talk) 15:52, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

The UK notably uses the sweat-of-the-brow standard for copyright, so plausibly scanning in old books grants a new copyright. Tideflat (talk) 21:42, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

UK case law has made the "sweat-of-the-brow" argument practically obsolete (I say "practically" as a caveat in case there is some weird edge case where it may still apply). See Commons:Copyright rules by territory/United Kingdom#Digital copies of images. From Hill To Shore (talk) 00:33, 19 October 2025 (UTC)