Wikisource:Copyright discussions/Archives/2015

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Kept

Airasia flight QZ 8501 passenger manifest

The following discussion is closed:

Kept with {{PD-ineligible}} for now.--Jusjih (talk) 20:30, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

The Index for this was PRODed a short while ago and the File was deleted on Commons because it is not PD under the terms of Article 13 of the Copyright Act of Republic of Indonesia (Governmental releases). The list was promptly re-created here in the Mainspace with a licence suggesting that it is PD because the copyright has expired per Chapter III of the same act. I can't see the justification for this licence in this Chapter. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 19:43, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

  •  Delete -- AirAsia is a legal entity & this manifest was generated by "them". There is no expectation of any declaration/registration by them nor the need for attribution to a specific person; copyright protection is understood to be extended even if it was never formally published.

    The form entries themselves, while quite re-useable in some other format or list, would not meet our requirements for hosting regardless. We don't host bus timetables, tidal charts or the phases of the moon -- this list is just a variation on that same theme (and don't get hung up on the fact the debate started here in CopyVio instead of some other deletion forum either). -- George Orwell III (talk) 05:10, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

  •  Keep -- The Supreme court of the United States has stated many times that charts, tables, graphs, data, lists, and information cannot have a copyright owner, and therefor it's copyright cannot be infringed. 174.97.45.234 05:43, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
Reply a) SCOTUS' opinion isn't in question here, it's Indonesian law that applies. The licence given claims that the list is being published on behalf of the Government under Article 14 of the above act; b) Our policy What Wikisource Includes, specifically excludes lists and tables of data. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 06:09, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
Why is it Indonesian law that matters? The English Wikisource works under US law only.--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:22, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Reply A) Chapter 1, Article 1, Number 3 of the Copyright Act of Republic of Indonesia states that a work is defined as "Work shall mean any result of works of an Author, which shows originality in the field of science, arts and literature." A passenger manafest does not fulfill the requirements as a "work" under Indonesian law, and if it is not a work, it cannot be copywritten. B) It states that it excludes unsourced lists/data. " Reference data that is provided as part of larger publication (tables, appendices, etc.) is perfectly acceptable."174.97.45.234 06:20, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
Reference for what exactly? That's not going to cut it - at least not until the Final accident report is made public. Only then would this listing of simple form-entered data be considered a reference to a larger [published] body of work. You're not the first to make that leap erroneously and probably won't be the last. Sorry -- George Orwell III (talk) 06:34, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
  •  Keep I don't really understand what can be copyrighted here. It is like bus timetables: only the layout can be copryighted, not the times listed. Here, passenger names are not copyrightable and the layout was a product of computer software (Worldspan, Sabre, Galileo, Amadeus, etc.) whose license, most likely, did not assign exclusive rights to the licensee (Indonesia AirAsia). In short, I don't see how Indonesia AirAsia could claim any copyrights to this document. Regards, Kashmiri (talk) 01:48, 2 January 2015 (UTC)


Deleted

President Kocharyan's interview to Armenian National TV 02/11/2000

and President Kocharyan's interview to Armenian National TV 03/06/2000

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted both.--Jusjih (talk) 03:01, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Two television interviews with the president of Armenia. Commons has {{PD-AM-exempt}} – for works of folklore; communications on daily news or on current events that are press information; official documents (laws, decisions, decrees, etc.) as well as their official translations; state emblems and signs (flags, coats of arm (armorial bearings), medals (decorations), monetary signs, etc.); results obtained by technical means without the intervention of human creative activity.Commons:Commons:Copyright_tags#Country.2FRegion_specific_tags which may be relevant and if others think that it is we will need to add the licence. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:42, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

@billinghurst, it looks like you are questioning the copyright of these works and at the same time offering a Commons License that would cover them. By default unchallenged questions of copyright = delete, but you have offered a quality rebuttal, and no one seems to have an issue with the license you offer. Unless you have other concerns, I would say go ahead and bring the commons license over, and add it to the works. Jeepday (talk) 21:39, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
@Jeepday: they are works without a licence that have existed here for a while. It would seem of value to offer a solution, when one exists, rather than just present a problem. You indicate that you agree that this is a worthwhile solution, so we create the licence locally, which then allows us to apply an appropriate release/public domain US licence (our requirement). — billinghurst sDrewth 23:34, 13 January 2015 (UTC)


Mao Zedong's work

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted all as the translator Foreign Languages Press in Beijing founded in 1952 with website at www.flp.com.cn does not seem to be governmental, and the years of translations are unclear.--Jusjih (talk) 04:17, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Hello all,

Mao's work here all have the {{PD-CN}} tag. However, some of them (e.g. On Guerrilla Warfare) were not created on the behalf of Chinese government nor translated on the behalf of which. Since Mao's copyright is not expired before 2026 (50 years from 1976) or 2046 (70 years from 1976), should {{PD-CN}} still apply to those? -Mys 721tx (talk) 21:35, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Please specify which works you are questioning.--Jusjih (talk) 05:42, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
Basically all his early works before 1949. I have made a list of texts I went through so far that need attentions. I will check the rest later.
Please also refer to a early discussion on Chinese Wikisource.-Mys 721tx (talk) 02:09, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
Looking at the first work "On the People's Democratic Dictatorship" it states its sources as the published "Selected Works, vol. 5 (New York: International Publishers, n.d.), pp. 411423.)" This indicates that there is a series of works which are what we should be checking for their copyright status. Copyright protection for certain states at certain times may not exist in the US, so finding that series of books would be useful. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:44, 13 January 2015 (UTC)


Declaration of Charter 77

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted. There's no explicit free license. Even if we accepted the implicit manifesto license, I see no evidence it's a Free license, instead of being implicitly no derivatives.

I can't find that much information on communist Czechoslovak copyright law, but it looks like both Czech Republic and Slovakia do death+70 with no weird exceptions so the original was probably under copyright in home countries as of 1996 and remains under copyright to date. Prosody (talk) 23:32, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Consider that one of the subjects of Charter 77 is the "Freedom of public expression," and the fact that this was a public manifesto. Note that the Czech version already has a PD tag.

Charter 77 was meant to be xeroxed and distributed by samizdat as widely as possible. None of the signatories were at all concerned about copyright. There's plenty of places on the web to read an English translation. Google it.

Censoring a public manifesto, which itself protests censoring. Wikilawyering at its finest.

Czech version is at http://cs.wikisource.org/wiki/Prohl%C3%A1%C5%A1en%C3%AD_Charty_77 74.67.93.116

We are not censoring works by choosing what does and doesn't go in our collection, especially by content-neutral means of explicit licenses. Even as an implicit copyright license, public manifestos are problematic because the cost of a license that allows derivative works is that your political opponents can take what you did and rework it for their needs. If we're serious about open content, we need to know that the authors of this work wouldn't sue about that, and that's incredibly hard to say without an explicit license. I'd say that most implicit licenses implicitly have the JSMIN clause in it--"The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil."--and for the same reasons open content organizations don't accept the JSMIN license as free, we can't accept these implicit licenses as free.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:31, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
A justification worthy of Husak's regime. One of the anonymous authors might sue ?? That would be like Thomas Jefferson suing the colonies (or suing anyone, for that matter) for printing the Declaration of Independence. But whatever. I guess it'll have to be banned from Wikipedia till 2047. Vaclav Havel is turning in his grave. Either that, or laughing hilariously. I must admit that I got a good chuckle myself, at the irony of it.74.67.93.116 20:56, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
One further thought: Are the New York Times, and all the other papers that published the original and the "authorized translation" in English, in jeopardy of a lawsuit ??? Ridiculous... 74.67.93.116 21:33, 8 August 2014 (UTC)


Works by Edward Snowden

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted the airport speech and kept The Work of a Generation.--Jusjih (talk) 03:30, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Contemporary author, two prepared speeches, one's without license, the other is kind of dubious. As near as I can tell, the CC claim for the second is from the boilerplate of Common Dreams. It wasn't originally published there but rather as a testimony to a commission of the European Parliament. Although the way the attribution is set up on Common Dreams which suggests that it was published by the author or with his special consent, the fact that they don't have any exclusives from him makes me think otherwise. Prosody (talk) 20:34, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

I just have written a e-mail to Common Dreams editor with question about CC license at The Work of a Generation text. may they have a permission from Snowden. May be that any speech at European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee meeting is a public domain or common creative. Alexander Roumega (talk) 05:55, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

The Dream of the Rood (translation)

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted.--Jusjih (talk) 23:16, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

originally posted as a Proposed Deletion

A recent edit from a new user account seems to indicate that The Dream of the Rood (translation), added here in 2008, may be a copyvio. The linked translation is the same as ours, at least for the portions I have checked, and that site prohibits copying of the translation. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:51, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

 Delete; this is definitely Mary Rambaran-Olm's translation, and the website explicitly claims copyright. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 22:34, 4 March 2015 (UTC)


Priorities of Jean-Claude Juncker (2014)

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted.--Jusjih (talk) 03:30, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Contemporary position paper of candidate for presidency of the European Commission, no indication of liberal licensing. Prosody (talk) 22:16, 17 June 2014 (UTC)


Oh, give thanks unto the Lord and Oil in My Lamp

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted as not being PD (copyvio). --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:07, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Two contemporary {{PD-author-release}} works for which I can't find any evidence that that's true, submitted by a user with a history of misusing license tags. Prosody (talk) 02:49, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

You can go ahead and remove Oh, give thanks unto the Lord on the count of this evidence from the USCO and here is Oil in My Lamp copyright information according to USCO. --Rochefoucauld (talk) 00:46, 12 October 2014 (UTC)


File:PennDOT LRS.pdf

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted for no source or license while not edict of government.--Jusjih (talk) 06:26, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

A 8 year pdf document of a US state government document on transportation. No licence details and unused.

As it is not a federal government document, and there is no evidence that it is not in copyright, then it seems most likely that this is a copyright violation. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:04, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted.--Jusjih (talk) 07:39, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

It looks like a translation copyvio as www.lawbank.com.tw is private, not Taiwanese governmental website. I plan to post governmental translation under b:Annotated Republic of China Laws due to its having been amended that will require annotations beyond what are allowed here.--Jusjih (talk) 02:25, 2 December 2014 (UTC)


Index:Ior-arc charter 1997.pdf

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:16, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

and File:Ior-arc charter 1997.pdf Unclear license situation which is de-facto liable to mass deletion at Commons. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 22:50, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

{moved from WS:PD — billinghurst sDrewth 14:39, 28 December 2014 (UTC))


Moral Code of the Builder of Communism

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted.--Jusjih (talk) 20:03, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Spent a couple hours searching for a source for this work. I've seen mentions that it was on pamphlets, vs mentions that it was given to schools, vs possibly that it originated as a radio broadcast and was documented and translated to English by Radio Free Europe. However, the radio broadcast might be another work by the same name. In one book, I found the following footnote:

*From a radio broadcast delivered over Radio Moscow on May 11, 1962, as part of the series "The Moral Code of the Builders of Communism." Abridged and translated under the title "What We Shall Not Take with Us into Communism," in Radio Free Europe/Munich, Research and Evaluation Department, Background Information USSR, May 20, 1962, pp. 2-6. Excerpts reprinted from the translation by permission of Radio Free Europe.

—Katkoff, Vladimir. (1961[SIC!]). Soviet Economy: 1940-1965. Ardent Media. p. 121.

The book above also yielded references—and note, these references were on the book's copy of the list rather than the speech—to these:

  • Long, Delbert H., & Long, Roberta A. (1999). Education of teachers in Russia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
  • Kreusler, Abraham A. (1976). Contemporary education and moral upbringing in the Soviet Union. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International. pp. 183–84.

Even these may not be the original translators of the list. Who knows—but in absence of something better, this is probably a copyvio. djr13 (talk) 05:13, 27 January 2015 (UTC)


Translation:Baekbeomilji

The following discussion is closed:

Exported to Canadian Wikilivres:Baekbeomilji.--Jusjih (talk) 03:36, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

This work was published in 1947, in Korean, and in the country of origin. That would make it a 2042 release from copyright if my calculations are right. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:20, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Current version of Copyright act in Republic of Korea provides "seventy years" from author's death as your calculation. But that version has been enacted from 1st July 2013. Before that, it provided "fifty years' from author's death. So, copyright of the author who died in 1962 was expired 1st January 2013. But, copyright of the author who died in 1963 will be expired 1st January 2034. Anyway, Kim Koo died in 1949 and his copyright was aleready expired in 1st January 2000 by the old version of Copyright Act in ROK. HappyMidnight (talk) 11:51, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
Wikisource is based in the US, and uses US law, which does not include the rule of the shorter term. Works out of copyright in the Republic of Korea on January 1st, 1996 may be out of copyright in the US in part due to that fact, but if it was in copyright in Korea at that point it almost certainly is in copyright in the US for 95 years from publication.--Prosfilaes (talk) 10:41, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
To reference the meta article discussing this topic: See: m:United_States_non-acceptance_of_the_rule_of_the_shorter_term#Why_is_this_a_major_problem.3F The Haz talk 02:01, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
I find that rather polemic. It's not a major problem for us; life+n rules are easier for paintings, but for books, we usually have a publication date and yet frequently not a death date for authors. Magazines are trivial under publication+n rules, but a nightmare under life+n rules. The rule of the shorter term would open up some works, but a number of the obvious foreign ones were US works anyway (published within 30 days in the US), and we'd have to deal with all sorts of new quaint exceptions. And having a more limited selection of works is an annoyance, not a major problem.
As a citizen instead of a Wikisourcer, I want my law to be all available in my national language and as simple as possible. Including foreign law by reference breaks those rules. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, Chief Justice Fuller cites a hundred-year old French translation of Chinese law as if that were a sane way of determining current foreign law in practice; I don't want to see more judges ruling that way.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:25, 24 February 2015 (UTC)


Craftsmanship

The following discussion is closed:

Exported to Canadian Wikilivres:Craftsmanship.--Jusjih (talk) 22:56, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

British works from 1937, probably first published in 1942 in The Death of the Moth and Other Essays, by authors who died after 1927 (the relevant URAA date) are not in the public domain in the US.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:01, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

This is a transcript of a lecture first published as a BBC broadcast in 1937 (as was stated in the page). It is not the reworked version that was published in print in 1942. The author died in 1941. UK copyright is 70 years after death. Pigsonthewing (talk) 11:56, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
Sure, but Wikisource is hosted in the United States, and the United States copyright term is 95 years from publication. --Stefan2 (talk) 13:35, 29 March 2015 (UTC)


OMRLP general election manifesto 2001

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted.--Jusjih (talk) 01:40, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

This page appears to be copied from http://www.loonyparty.com/history-4/loony-archive/2001-general-election-manifesto/ which has no explicit statement of anything related to copyright that I can find. Our page has been tagged since 2007. Pathore (talk) 02:13, 18 April 2015 (UTC)


Dylann Storm Roof Manifesto

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted on 21 June 2015 by Beeswaxcandle.--Jusjih (talk) 02:57, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

See [1] Clearly and unequivocally a copyright violation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:40, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

And see also [2] - same document. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:20, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

I know, I know, only the Federal government has free speech in this project, per the current perverse understanding of copyright, which has been so dictated by the Federal government. Funny how that works, isn't it? -- Kendrick7 (talk) 04:54, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
The basic idea of copyright is that the author gets to reserve the right to copy their work for some period of time, at the very least a decade, with the current idea that that comes automatically. Ranting about the federal government says nothing about the fact that we haven't been given permission to copy these texts by their author. We could argue "fair use", and I doubt anyone would contend that, but we ourselves have tied our hands on that issue.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:46, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
We used to have PD-manifesto[3] for authors who clearly wanted their views to be shared, and I thought that template made perfect sense. There was no lawsuit to that effect; the administration simply got their panties in a bunch. It's patently absurd what we've come to, to wit: suppressing anyone who speaks or writes who either a) hasn't been dead for 70+ Mickey-Mouse years or who b) isn't acting as a member of the Federal Government (per PD-GOV). When did Wikisource become Soviet Russia? It's a shame. -- Kendrick7 (talk) 05:22, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
There is no need to get cross about this. PD-manifesto was simply a way that was being used to get around copyright law. We have to apply current law to current works. Current copyright law requires an explicit release by the author. If Dylann Roof had published his statements with a CC license of some sort, then we could host under that license. If he had published with a Public Domain release, then we could host under the appropriate PD license. However, he did neither and published without a license and therefore the work is copyright. The only we can host Roof's statements is for you or another person to get Roof to send a release via the OTRS process. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:55, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
When w:Richard M. Stallman, creator of the GNU GPL, uses ND licenses on his manifestos, I'm not impressed that the average person would choose freer license. Again, if authors want to put their works under a free license, they have the right to explicitly do so.--Prosfilaes (talk) 10:32, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
When did Wikisource this? Why did Wikisource that? KGB, KGB, KGB.... (Marsha, Marsha, Marsha).

At this point in the digital age, when are "authors" going to learn the basics and CC license their websites, blogs and posts? Who is holding the gun to their head & stopping them from adding one freakin' sentence releasing their work? Is it ignorance? Vanity? ??? The point is; nobody seems to blame the authors . I guess we'll play scapegoat for some until folks catch up to the 21st Century.

 Delete -- George Orwell III (talk) 09:55, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Wonderful, God is so wonderful

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:13, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

This song lyric is listed as PD-US-no-notice, but that's quite hard to prove for a song lyric, as a sound recording wouldn't have published anything, at least prior to 1972, and there's no mention of where it might have been first published.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:38, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

It was apparently based on "He's So Wonderful", a song by Virginia Davis and Theodore R. Frye, performed by Sister Jessie Mae Renfro, and released by Peacock Records in December 1951 as the B-side to a "In that Home, By and By" single.[4] There is an entry in the January 1952 copyright catalog:[5] He's so wonderful; words and music by Virginia Davis [arr. by V. D.] Chicago, T. R. Frye. 15¢ © Virginia Davis & Theodore R. Frye; 20Dec47; EP61820. So that has a copyright date of 1947, four years earlier. It was renewed in 1975:[6] R601647 -- He's so wonderful. w, m & arr. Virginia Davis. © 20Dec47; EP61820. Virginia Davis (A); 31Mar75; R601647. So at the very least it's a derivative work of a still-copyrighted lyric.  Delete Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:33, 13 July 2015 (UTC)


Works by Alexios Schandermani

The following discussion is closed:

deleted

Seem more like something that belongs on Wikibooks, but if not, they are likely copyvios. The Haz talk 18:01, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, looks that way to me. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 20:15, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
I don't see what Wikibooks has to do with this. WS:WWI says "These as well as any artistic works must have been published in a medium that includes peer review or editorial controls; this excludes self-publication." It's possible Gedicht und Gesellschaft 2009. Der Augenblick Jahrbuch für das neue Gedicht is a source and would count under that. But we'd need OTRS (that gave us a license) and a clear source for each poem we host.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:06, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
If we don't have a license, I'm going delete them in two weeks, on the 28th.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:21, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
I mentioned Wikibooks because I didn't know they were already published (no source was mentioned when I wrote that). Thanks for pointing that out. Haz talk 00:06, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
Deleted, along with the author page.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:07, 30 July 2015 (UTC)


The Little Prince

The following discussion is closed:

speedy delete

The original French text of Le Petit Prince is still under copyright in most of the world. An English translation of the book has been removed from view on Wikilivres because it won't be in the public domain in Canada until January 2019. I don't know if it's the same translation. I don't know if it's possible for a translation to be in the public domain while the original is still under copyright but I doubt it. Simon Peter Hughes (talk) 14:09, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Seems to have been previously deleted and you are correct that there is no evidence that the work is not in the public domain. No source, no translator. Deleting it promptly. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:57, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Nicomachean Ethics (Ross)

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted; Published in 1925 and still under copyright. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:21, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

An editor (User:Aphillipsmusique) uploaded this book. However, according to Author:Aristotle this book is copyrighted in the United States until 2020. I think that those pages should be deleted. --Omnipaedista (talk) 21:24, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

There are two publications dates listed (1908 and 1925) for Ross's translation. Our copy states 1908, which then would be in the public domain.— Ineuw talk 21:39, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
So why is this alleged 1908 edition of Nicomachean Ethics by W. D. Ross not listed on WorldCat? This date sounds like hearsay, incorrectly gathered from the 1908-1952 publication of the series as whole and broadcast across the internet.
Hint: There are two editions of Metaphysics in the same series, but the later one says "Second Edition" on the title page. ResScholar (talk) 09:05, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
...while the allegedly later 1925 Ethics volume does not! ResScholar (talk) 09:34, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
Leaning delete per this journal's blurb indicating the Ross translation first appeared in 1925. If there was something akin published in 1908, it would seem to have a different translator (as ResScolar labors to point out the long way :) -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:27, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 Delete Is this discussion still open? The 2009 edition states that "It was first published in 1925 in volume ix of The Works of Aristotle translated into English (Oxford University Press)" (p. xxx, "Note on the Text and Translation"). Furthermore, here's the 1925 volume ix and it states on the bottom of the preface, "First Edition, 1925". —Beleg Tâl (talk) 22:23, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Jihad and the Islamic Law of War

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted for no evidence of permission--Jusjih (talk) 01:03, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Marked by an anonymous user as {{PD-Release}} in this edit, but the linked source does not provide a confirmation that the work is in the public domain. The 2007 version of the work hosted at http://ammanmessage.com/media/jihad.pdf includes an express copyright notice (“©2007, The Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, Jordan”) on p. 4 of the PDF. To determine whether there was a more recent PD edition of the work, I searched for the ISBN number listed on Jihad and the Islamic Law of War (978-9957-428-30-3). That ISBN number corresponds to a different work, The Amman Message, which according to this site is also under copyright at present. The currently available information does not appear to show that this work is presently in the public domain. Tarmstro99 00:29, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Index:Glasgow Southern Medical Society Minute Book 7 1910-1923.djvu

The following discussion is closed:

No file exists here, so the discussion is closed. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:27, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Claim at commons that this was uploaded to public domain/IA at the request of the society concerned, There is no OTRS noted.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 21:03, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Under UK law, who owns the copyright to this? Because in the US, I think it would be the original authors, but I believe US courts would say the same people own it in the UK as in the US. If we don't have OTRS, we can use the parts that are life+70, which is probably hard to figure out, though the Society probably knows.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:57, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
  • I tagged this as "no permission" on Commons, but maybe a deletion request would be better. I think that there are several questions:
    1. How can the permission statement be verified?
    2. Is the society really the copyright holders? The original authors might be the copyright holders instead.
    3. Is this published material? As it is a manuscript, it might only exist in one copy which has not been published. United States copyright rules heavily depend on when a work was first published. Also, under United Kingdom rules, the copyright term is usually the greater of life+70 years and publication+50 years. Showing that the author has been dead for at least 70 years is therefore not enough; you must also show that it was published more than 50 years ago.
    4. When did the authors die? Many of the pages are signed, so at least some of the authors are not anonymous. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:47, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Index:Decree Protocol-Number-20120457.pdf

The following discussion is closed:

Already deleted, apparently. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:31, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

It was my understanding that works of the Vatican followed Italian copyright practice (unless indicated otherwise.), thusly a 2012 Vatican work was not out of copyright. However this document does appear to be an eclessiastical court ruling? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:01, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Anti-Semitism

The following discussion is closed:

deleted

This is a work by an American student, Sia Berhan, in junior high school in New York, and read on the air by her teacher on December 26, 1968. (I gather this from Google Books; http://digital.wustl.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=eop;cc=eop;rgn=main;view=text;idno=cam5427.0642.028 has extracts from an interview on the subject.) From a legal perspective, the problem is we don't know when (or technically even if) it was legally published; broadcast over the radio is not publication, and any publication without Sia Berhan's permission (and probably her legal guardians until she was 18) wouldn't matter.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:07, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Works by Portal:American Association for Respiratory Care

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted--Jusjih (talk) 23:22, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

The following works have been added to Wikisource, with no source and no license template. They are published between 2007-2010, they are non-governmental, their website has a copyright notice; I do not see any reason that these are not copyvio.

—Beleg Tâl (talk) 14:24, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Black Knight

The following discussion is closed:

deleted

2015 publication. No license. May also see w:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anirban Sen Gupta. Hrishikes (talk) 06:34, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

It's an elaborate hoax case. Discussion shifted to Admin NB. Hrishikes (talk) 01:27, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Environmental issues from a youth perspective (1992 Earth Summit)

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted.--Jusjih (talk) 00:38, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

This appears to be a transcription of a youtube video, or similar. Either way, it has not come from the speaker, or their agent. There is no evidence that speeches to the congress were released as public domain documents. :-( — billinghurst sDrewth 11:09, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Chaplet of Divine Mercy

The following discussion is closed:

Speedied as clear copyvio. Confirmed with print copy as well. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 18:39, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

The English version of the Chaplet was published in 1987 and its text is copyrighted by the Marians of the Immaculate Conception. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 17:53, 4 December 2015 (UTC)


Other

PD-EdictGov roundup

The following discussion is closed:

This is a long drawn out and confusing discussion with, putting this to bed as a new discussion begins at Wikisource:Possible copyright violations/Special discussion for pages tagged as PD-EdictGov Jeepday (talk) 14:52, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I sent up a trial balloon earlier but didn't get any response so I figured the correct thing to is blatantly disregard w:WP:POINT :-P

Hopefully this isn't too much of a mess to follow. We've had discussions about particular licenses before with mass deletion proposed, but those have been more or less uniform. By contrast, there's a lot of different stuff going on here and many are probably PD under a different justification. If this is too much to discuss under one heading, it's fine to break it apart or do it incrementally, obvious cases first etc.

So, quick prefatory comment: I'm suspicious of treating {{PD-GovEdict}} as broadly as {{PD-USGov}}. What little I've read of it seems to suggest that exists as a legal doctrine that people should in no circumstances be denied access to instruments of law and governance. A lot of stuff that governments do doesn't fall under that.

Speeches and the like by government officials or organs

Some sort of possible composite information thing

Non-actionable treaties

Works of private persons or organizations

Non-actionable law instrument type things

Miscellaneous things that aren't really instruments of law or whatever

Prosody (talk) 00:27, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I think you're right about a lot of these but I need more information about this law/policy. The wording is a bit vague and I haven't found much via Google to help explain it any further. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 08:56, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
Aside from the discussion below, about whether it pertains to non-US copyrights at all, I am at least convinced now that this licence does not apply to speeches, statements and similar. On the other hand, treaties might be close enough regardless of whether they are actionable or not (constitutions appear to count and they may not be entirely about rules; they can include general statements of values and aspirations, which would be vaguely similar to one of these treaties). I'm not sure about some of the other cases (although I'd say the 2008 Zimbabwean agreement is essentially a treaty, albeit an intranational one).
So:  Delete or re-license all speeches licensed with {{PD-EdictGov}}. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 21:55, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
The discussion below is largely putting the cart before the horse (but that is the way the question(s) were first introduced). In my view, the first point that should be addressed before we even begin to approach the academic or philosphical questions being addressed below is the most basic one...
Are any of these these authorized translations made into English by the same entity that created and/or first published them? If so, does that mean they cannot be copyrighted in the U.S.?
The idea that even authorized translations of "foreign" governments somehow still falls into the yet-to-be-properly-vetted-and-proved-legitimate 'Edict of Government' exclusion zone is a false notion. Simply visit the Copyright.gov search engine, select registration number and enter TX0003578346 for a prime example of the unproven "wishful thinking" long taking place now here on en.WS being contradicted in actual Copyright Office practice (well... at least as far as translations may go in all this).

UPDATE: Compendium I (Pre 1976 copyright law revision however) has a specific reference related to all this made in it HERE. Even then, the problem there is that its a caveat, mentioned as the exception to the rule and not the rule itself. Take any government work Not originally published in English but translated afterward and you have what qualifies regardless as new material which is 100% copyrightable (the rule) be it a foreign law or a foreign newspaper. There is no difference; only undue weight. -- George Orwell III (talk) 05:58, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Why would an English translation of a law be covered by {{PD-EdictGov}}? Swedish laws are written in Swedish. Although you can find English translations of some laws (for example [7]), the translations are not laws themselves, and the original Swedish text takes precedence if there is a difference somewhere. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:16, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Source of Law

The language of {{PD-EdictGov}} is supported by the link to http://ipmall.info/hosted_resources/CopyrightCompendium/chapter_0200.asp which is a University of New Hampshire site, a search for an "Official" government source finds http://www.copyright.gov/compendium/ "The Compendium of Copyright Office Practices is currently undergoing a major revision as of October 2011.". Is there a reason we are not hosting US Federal copyright laws here, particularly ones we use to justify our licensing? JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:54, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Compendium I, Compendium II & the yet-to-be-revised Compendium III all WERE NOT, ARE NOT & WILL NEVER BE considered prima facie evidence of the actual U.S. Federal law (U.S. Code) nor any official regulations (Code of Federal Regulations) derived from those Federal laws. Period.

It is inter-office guide book for employees of the Copyright Office designed to be an aid (a "cheat-sheet") for properly carrying out their official duties. The only reason it was ever "published" by the Government Printing Office was due to it being mentioned in passing in one or more of the Committee reports reviewing the proposed changes to the existing copyright laws and copyright office practices at the time. The only way to see what the Committees were referring to in hindsight was to 'go down to the Copyright Office and ask to see somebody's inter-office Xeroxed copy of it'. Basically, they got tired of it being "misplaced" by the office lackeys or having to accommodate every walk-in request for it so they finally slapped it all together and made it available through the usual channels for a small fee via the GPO.

In all my research to ascertain how or why the Compendiums have become such a relied upon authority & justification here in the wacky-wiki-world, I have yet to discover any significant or relevant lawful citation of it or precedent set by it in U.S. case law. Its really only mentioned or referred to in academic circles. Apparently somebody at the Wiki-Foundation took one of those classes, put 2 + 2 together and viola! the pseudo justification to host these works was born. Only its continued unquestioned use and the passage of time make it seem legitimate as a basis for anything. Other than that it is no more official U.S. Federal law than the Library of Congress' night-watchman's Official U.S. Government fire alarm response manual. -- George Orwell III (talk)

We have a few hundred documents using PD-EdictGov, there are about 120 items on Commons using the tag. Is there any stand up in court, support for it? JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 14:49, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
Even more Googling still didn't find much but it did suggest that the basis of this position are two 19th century Supreme Court cases: Wheaton v. Peters and Banks v. Manchester (I've added the latter to Portal:United States copyright case law).
The book Intellectual Property Protection of Fact-based Works (Google Books link) briefly covers this, using the phrase "expressions of law cannot be copyrighted", before going on to modern circumventions. Another book, Intellectual Property Law (Google Books again), has more detail, including the idea that expressions of law are just statements of facts and therefore cannot be copyrighted.
Wheaton v. Peters only really covers the judgements of the Supreme Court itself. Banks v. Manchester seems to be the most relevant, although I have not read it all. Wikipedia has no article on it but I was actually surprised to see that Conservapedia does. A relevant quote from the end of the Banks judgement: "The question is one of public policy, and there has always been a judicial consensus, from the time of the decision in the case of Wheaton v. Peters, 8 Pet. 591, that no copyright could, under the statutes passed by congress, be secured in the products of the labor done by judicial officers in the discharge of their judicial duties. The whole work done by the judges consitutes the authentic exposition and interpretation of the law, which, binding every citizen, is free for publication to all, whether it is a declaration of unwritten law, or an interpretation of a constitution or a statute."
That was technically about US law but the wording could be extended to all laws of all nations. I don't think it has ever been really decided (at least not from my minimal not-a-lawyer Google-based research) but it seems to be defensible at least. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:39, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
I left a note at Commons:Template talk:PD-EdictGov, about this discusion. They don't seem to have a copyright discusion page like ours so did not see anyplace else to drop a note. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 19:01, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
No, that was specifically about laws in the United States, where State (New York) and local (New York City) laws "share" the legal-space (up to a point) with Federal laws (United States of America). One needs to remember that folks in the United States are subject to two distinct & separate legal authorities - The Federal government and its laws cover all 50 states uniformly; anything not specifically covered by Federal law & government falls to the individual States. I've always held the belief that when one "reads" the Compendium's blurb as its been applied around here that if you are not familiar with this dual legal reality here in the U.S. one might not understand that ALL governments (New York, Arizona, Hungary, Boston, Sweden, Guam, France, Dallas, Egypt, etc.) are "foreign" as far as the U.S. Federal government is concerned - it is the supreme law of the land. But even an employee of the Federal government can not & does not go home at night at the end of the work day as a citizen of Federalistan or Federalitopia - the go home as a Californian, a New Yorker, an Alaskan etc. This in essence means, while all governments are "foreign" to the Federal government and Federal law, some governments however are officially recognized by Federal law (New York, Arizona, Hungary, Boston, Sweden, Guam, France, Dallas, Egypt, etc.). Based on this nuance, I believe the term "foreign governments" was used in the Compendium as a catch-all phrase to cover entities that do not technically fall under State or local but still subject to Federal statutes (i.e. Guam, Puerto Rico, the Mohawk Nation are not States for example but still bound by some degree of federal law. They are surely familiar & recognized by the U.S. Federal system but they are still technically run by "foreign" governments).

The second key to all this is mentioned in U.S. case law - it is the term binding every citizen. For the Compendium logic to universally apply, you must be a citizen of some formally Federally recognized entity and/or subject to whatever government that entity might have via the law. It's kind of crazy to think that inclusion of the edict of government term was thanks to some Russian citizen or similar that once tried to register existing Russian statute as a work he or she claimed was the author of and, as a result, was added to the inter-office list of ' do's & don'ts ' for mid-level copyright clerks. Even if he or she happen to be a representative of the Russian government, the idea that international policies from one nation to the next concerning copyright is handled by anything other than agreement or by treaty is bordering on the laughable imho. How that ever translated to mean every U.S. citizen should have the free and unfettered access to the rules and regulations they should be aware of and abide by [including those rare instance when on holiday in the south of France], I'll never know. Its far more likely for me to think the term "foreign" wound up in there to cover some question at some point concerning Puerto Rico rather than the inclusion or exclusion of copyright protections covering Polish law. -- George Orwell III (talk) 19:08, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

George could you clarify a bit, your statement starts out "No, that" in the singular where Adam is talking about two court cases. Jeepday (talk) 10:17, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
The Banks v. Manchester case cites the earlier Wheaton v. Peters court opinion to begin to layout & then support it's ruling, which opens by re-affirming the findings, etc., originally outlined in the earlier (Wheaton) opinion just the same. Banks then goes on to make it clear that it is just as unconstitutional to try and legislatively assign and/or judicially designate copyright rights to a person or persons (i.e. artificially create a copyright assignee) that would conflict with the relationship between a government & it's citizenship as it was unconstitutional back when the high court first ruled that any person or person's Constitutional right to secure copyright based on his or her own merits cannot supersede the same relationship between a government & it's citizenship as illustrated within the Wheaton opinion. Banks v. Manchester also helped erase any remaining implied limits or lines drawn in the scope of the governance -- local, State as well as Federal -- as it related to the citizenship after the acceptance of Wheaton. The initial unconstitutionality found in Wheaton now applied to any level of government and not just the Federal-level output.

The supreme point I was trying to make clear is one should not overlook the court's usage and application of the term citizen throughout any of these case opinion. There is nothing in any case law that I know of that even remotely mentions, forget about outright supports, a redefinition that extends to include foreign governments in addition to the lawfully recognized U.S. citizenship as originally stated. To me, it seemed like Adam was going to ignore that nuance based on nothing more than something similar giving rise to that apparent effect found only in what amounts to just an inter-office cheat sheet - not actual precedent set by any U.S. case law. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:51, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks George, that helps a lot. So there are two different concerns when applying PD-EdictGov
  1. Governments falling under US law.
    • U.S. Federal, any 1 of the 50 States & every local entity within that State
      • all covered by Wheaton v. Peters [8 Peters 591] vein of U.S. case law
      • Federal later enjoys 17 U.S.C. 105 for all works; not just edicts
  2. Governments outside of US Law.
    • Any type or level of government not mentioned in #1
      • an infered association with "public policy" principle set up in Wheaton found in Compedium II
      • no known statute, case law, proclamation, etc. supporting that association found

With #2 being the largest concern for lack of clarity or legal standing. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:45, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Right - sounds like you got that. <Note that I expanded the bullets in your list> There are a few more nuances that never quite added up or have no legal basis to support them as well but I don't see the need to address them right now until at least these points are digested by others first. -- George Orwell III (talk) 13:21, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
It's not that I was going to ignore anything, I just didn't pick up on the nuance of "citizen" (and I haven't read the court opinions in full). However, I do think this is the basis of the Copyright Office's assumption, that international laws are uncopyrightable as well as American laws, made when compiling their internal policy. Compendium I (linked above) is clearer on covering genuiely foreign countries, as separate from states and territories within the US, such as Canada or Australia. As you say, however, this is just an internal guide and has no weight in law. I get the impression that this has never been established in law either way. It is Schrödinger's Copyright, if you will. Until it gets challenged and a US court makes a decision, we won't know if the Copyright Office's opinion is correct or not. If I'm right about that, this changes the question from "Is this legal?" (because its legality is indeterminate at the moment) to "Which position do we want to take, assuming either could turn out to be wrong if it is ever established?" Deleting all non-US items covered by this licence would be the safest option. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 16:49, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Concur that without something else coming into support, it looks like all the foreign works with no other license will be deleted. There are a few hundred to review, so we will probably need a list, on a sub page of everything in Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:PD-EdictGov&limit=500 These will need to be reviewed, if they are foreign with another license just remove the EdictGov, if they are foreign without another license tag with {{copyvio}}, to give a chance for additional licensing to surface. And of course we will have to monitor our progress with notes on the sub page as there are bunch. I propose we give a week or so for something else to come out about foreign edicts, before starting the sub page and review. Jeepday (talk) 21:19, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Probably should limit that WhatLinksHere search to transclusions only: Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:PD-EdictGov&limit=500&hidelinks=1&hideredirs=1. - Htonl (talk) 22:32, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Let's not get ahead of ourselves - that's how the previous discussions on this matter wound up unresolved (& I'm probably the worst in this area 'cause I can't keep it under 5,000 words!).-- George Orwell III (talk) 04:56, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
┌─────────────────────────────┘
To the point on the inferred association made by the Copyright Office never being directly tested by the courts (paraphrased).
Well that's not entirely accurate.

While its true, to the best of my knowledge, that no foreign government has sought legal relief either way in the U.S. courts over copyright concerning their official works, many local and State governments have addressed (then readdressed) this in the courts - in spite of the 'Wheaton-Public Policy' guiding principle remaining sound. Keeping in mind that at some point in history (believe it started with the 1909 Copyright Act), the Federal government was ejected from this debate entirely with the enactment of the blanket provision covering all works authored by any Federal employee (codified today as 17 U.S.C. 105), all that the relevant court rulings managed to accomplish here was the speedied nationalization/localization of what some think was an insider's monopolistic publishing scheme, unfairly contracted out to chronicle the key areas of governance for a tidy sum in return. Nobody was rioting in the streets demanding copies of the local building codes or anything as noble as that.

Please recall; the courts said 'one could not profit from these works at the expense of limiting their access to the public' - they never said you couldn't insure to do both at the same time.... But you had to be the government, not a sub-contractor for it, to accomplish both aims satisfactorily and that is exactly the path events were taking during this era. Eventually, most local & State governments subsidized the individual's "guaranteed" access to their works by commercially distributing to those who were willing to pay for having those works available at arm's-length access (universities, law firms, corporations, etc.) instead. Both Wheaton and Peters are part of the modern day U.S. Reports for example and the prohibitive cost of an in-house Printing Office for most States or municipalities means contract-publishing is still very common today.

Also remember; it wasn't until the enactment of the 1976 Copyright Act that Federal law completely usurped local and state Common laws on copyright. This meant the whole 'affixing notice, timely registration & renewals by schedule' thing was largely done for appearance sake than any legal jeopardy or public necessity, if done at all, by the States (the nice thing about generating ridiculous amounts of content that nobody else has access to, nor the authority over, is you don't have to worry about counterfeiting & piracy stuff so much). Only the recent rise of the Internet would force these local and state actors back into what we'd consider "copyright compliance" - though the end of the recognition of Common Law copyright & the monopolies they protected by the 1976 Act had to have helped. If you look at the Copyright.gov registry today, you'll find oodles & oodles of local and state registrations for their official works - the [ironic] defense used to satisfy the 'Wheaton-Public Policy' principle being official state and local web sites host the same government content for any & all with little to no cost to Joe Publick. California is the only state to mimic the current Federal law; anything generated by the government(s) of the State of California has been legislatively waived of any possible copyright claim and released to the public domain (w/ caveats for scientific, technological, etc. advances of course).

So once again, the question of legality and policy of the copyright system falls to the relationship between any given level of government and it's citizenship. The absence of a foreign government & their official works being tested in a U.S. court for copyright infringement (or not) is of little significance and does not give rise to an "unanswered question" (imho). There is no lawfully-domestic-yet-unlawfully-foreign citizenship to speak of here (the U.S.), demanding free and unfettered access to something they really don't need to be made aware of nor have to abide by because, even if the work happens to have been created in English in the first place, the content is not made up of rules and regulations that touches them in some way regardless. The only reason for a foreign government to register anything with the U.S. Copyright Office is to secure standing ahead of suspected infringement and to deter counterfeiting, piracy, etc. (all of which would be preempted in U.S. courts by Treaties dealing with international copyright anyway if I'm not mistaken). -- George Orwell III (talk) 04:56, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

George I believe the above is primarily focused at #1 "Governments falling under US law.", but it trails the discussion on #2 "Governments outside of US Law" and includes some discussion about #2. Can you sort the arguments out so each stays separate? If non-US works survive this discussion they will at the very least have a separate version or indicator of PD-EdictGov. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:45, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
I am sorry that this the way the discussion has developed but it necessary to fully understand the points I'm going to make by the "end" of each segment - which will fit into the #1 #2 list as a single summarized sentence (hopefully).

The above outdent, which I hope was clear enough about being the post Banks v. Manchester time-line of events, serves 2 purposes:

a.) sets up the "fork" about to come covering what can and cannot secure copyright protections by State & local governments subject to U.S. law; and
b.) partially rebukes the idea there is an unresolved question developing for foreign government's thanks to not having any court cases to base a guideline on. Compared to State & local governments on the same time-line of events, enough accumulated case law testing the 'Wheaton-Public Policy' principle has been accrued by now to further refine it while there was little to nothing on the same point developing in the courts concerning foreign governments at the same time. Folks can read into that fact however they wish.
Point b.) is self-evident, imho, and is something just to keep in mind - not to add to the development in the #1, #2 list.

Moving on to point a.), with the understanding now that most State and local governments subject to U.S. law do manage to register copyright protected works while still providing the public access to the relevant rules and regulations the must abide by both at the same time, the following is to help break down that nuance so "we" can better develop en.WS policy & guidelines at the end of the day.

To open this segment, I must point out there is no official U.S. law or Federal regulation that formally defines the term edict of government. We have come to define it based on what Compendium II, etc. has said about the term and, for the most part, the consensus in this matter to date says (paraphrased) that an edict of government is an official government generated work that touches upon what by now should be the familiar 'Wheaton-Public Policy' principle by causing some effect/affect in relation to that government's recognized citizenship.

Now to illustrate an edict in action - a State Assembly introduces, marks-up and eventually passes a bill that's content is an amendment to a previously existing law; the Governor of that State signs that enrolled legislation, enacting it into a law; soon after, the State's secretary takes the executive's endorsed bill (remember it was an amendment to existing law) and codifies the legislative language into statutory form, updating the statutes lawfully in effect as being 'now current' in the process. Typically, the electronic (on-line) set of State statutes is updated to reflect change in standing law before any formally published print version is made available to the public. When all the changes made while the State government was in session are codified, the contracted publisher replicates the "public" standing law and then usually annotates, indexes, cross-references, etc. it for printing (i.e. makes a derivative of the codified law). This now annotated State statutes for a given year or session can be registered with the Copyright Office as new material added to previously public domain content.

That said, the breakdown for the above in relation to what is and is not copyright protected can be though of as...

  • a bill never formally introduced into the official record.
- citizens are not expected to know and abide by something never enacted into law
- bill was historically significant? Yes=probably excluded from copyright. No=can be registered.
  • a bill formally introduced into the official record & marked-up in official proceedings, but never became part of enacted law.
- citizens are not expected to know and abide by something never enacted into law
- bill was historically significant? Yes=probably excluded from copyright. No=can be registered.
  • a bill formally introduced into the official record, marked-up in official proceedings and eventually enrolled that became part of enacted law.
- citizens are expected to be made aware of and abide by something enacted into law.
- the rationale for copyright exclusion is based in the 'Wheaton-Public Policy' principle.
  • any secondary legislation generated by the Executive as a result of delegated authority found in the enacted law.
- citizens are expected to know and abide by something enacted into law.
- the rationale for copyright exclusion is based in the 'Wheaton-Public Policy' principle.
  • the codification of the enacted law into statutory form and merged to reflect a standing code.
- citizens are expected to know and abide by something enacted into law.
- the rationale for copyright exclusion is based in the 'Wheaton-Public Policy' principle.
  • judicial testing of the application or the interpretation of a standing code.
- citizens are expected to know and abide by something stricken out of the law as well.
- the rationale for copyright exclusion is based in the 'Wheaton-Public Policy' principle.
  • official publication of a standing code.
- citizens are expected to know and abide by the rules and regulations governing them.
- the rationale for copyright exclusion is based in the 'Wheaton-Public Policy' principle.
  • publication of derivatives based on the official publication of a standing code.
- citizens are expected to know and abide by the rules and regulations governing them.
- copyright exclusion based in the 'Wheaton-Public Policy' principle remains for officially published standing code.
- any and all additions made to the official standing code be they authorized by the gov't or made by a third party can be registered and secure copyright protections.
Given the above nuances, we can further modify the #1, #2 bullet-list (below) too better define the various points falling under each point expanded upon from the discussion(s) to date. --- George Orwell III (talk) 02:05, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks George, that reads well. I like the bullet list also. Why did you strike out "covered by Wheaton v. Peters [8 Peters 591] vein of U.S. case law" under "U.S. Federal"? As I understand it both 17 U.S.C. 105 & Wheaton v. Peters work to prevent copyright for these. Jeepday (talk) 11:01, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
I've amended it to better reflect the Wheaton principle is not invalidated at the Federal level, merely superseded by a more expansive (i.e. better) provision in the law, found directly in the current statutes of the United States. Thanks for pointing out the possible confusion. -- George Orwell III (talk) 20:00, 13 April 2013 (UTC)


  • Is there evidence of wide spread interpretation of allowing Wheaton & Compendium II to grant copyright prohibition to "Governments outside of US Law"? Is the lack of court challenges because no one is republishing these works? Jeepday (talk) 11:32, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
    Any interpretation should be approached from another direction. Currently we try to base inclusion/exclusion of Foreign Gov't works based on U.S. law, but this is counter intuitive compared to the adherence to the Copyright Laws of foreign nations and the international Treaties with them that "other" nations tend to follow. If a foreign government wants to release their works into the public domain (or not), they should be outlining as much in their own national copyright laws (just like the U.S. Federal government has). And we have dozens and dozens of examples of Nations both explicitly & implicitly placing their government works in the public domain. None of this Compendium-base c-rap is even necessary if we stick to that approach.

    Its not that government works similar to the output of the U.S. Federal government aren't being produced world-wide - they are just being "registered" at home (if at all) and not the U.S. Copyright Office (why in blazes would they? Most being recognized members of Berne, URRA, etc., "registering" at home basically provides them with the same protections as registering in the U.S. ever could but is being secured by treaty rather than by U.S. law). So it does seem to be true that nobody is "publishing" these works for normal distribution in the U.S. (again, why in blazes would they? It's not their citizenship!). The chances of a rogue publisher pirating official government works of a foreign nation here in the U.S. and actually making enough money to even cover expenses is just not very likely (well pretty stupid actually).

    I can see the best thing now is to show the Copyright Office's own Congressional testimony. If I remember right, I believe they even cast a long shadow of doubt on the application of anything in the Compendium starting with the age of the Internet, but it is been some time since that so I may be wrong. More later. -- George Orwell III (talk) 20:00, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

    As far as I have understood, the extra compensation provided by 17 U.S.C. 412 demands that the copyright holder has registered the work with the US copyright office, even if it is a foreign work. For this reason, there may be a reason to register a non-US work in the US, provided that you have reason to expect that you will need to sue someone in the US. I would assume that laws mainly are interesting in the source country of the law and that copyright violations mainly take place in that country, so registration in the US may be unimportant. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:09, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
Muench v. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publ. Co. says that the Compendium gets Skidmore deference, that is, “an agency's interpretation may merit some deference whatever its form, given the ‘specialized experience and broader investigations and information’ available to the agency.” Given that an actual court will give it deference, I don't see why we should be second-guessing it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 12:12, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
It goes on to say... "The Copyright Office's Circulars and Compendium II should be afforded this lesser deference, or Skidmore deference, so long as the Copyright Office's interpretations do not conflict with the express statutory language of the Copyright Act." 2010 WL 1838874 (S.D.N.Y.), p.6 of PDF.

More important is another citation found in the same case opinion (footnote 8 on p. 11 of the PDF):

FN8. As the Court of Appeals noted in Morris, “ ‘the Copyright Office has no authority to give opinions or define legal terms, and [...] its interpretation on an issue never before decided should not be given controlling weight.’ “ Morris, 283 F.3d at 505 (quoting Bartok v. Boosey & Jawkes, Inc., 523 F.2d 941, 946-47 (2d Cir.1975)). Nevertheless, the court found the Copyright Office's interpretation of the Copyright Act set forth in Circular 62 as applied to the registration procedures of serials to be “persuasive.” Id. And, as discussed above, Circular 62 provides that the registration of a serial by a claimant who owns all of the rights in the constituent parts will extend to the constituent parts. Id. at 506.    <highlighting by GO3>

So not only is the prior reference limited to only the Compendiums' interpretation of contributions made to serials - NOT edicts of government - but the ruling outright cites the role of the Copyright Office (& it's Compendium's) as NOT having any authority whatsoever to give opinion or define legal terms AT ALL. I'm afraid that supports rather than dismisses the previous discussion(s) far above resulting in the Wheaton principle summary outline below dealing with what are & are not properly interpreted statutes of Copyright Law for us to follow. -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:07, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Bullet item guideline

A running bullet-list of points summarizing developments of the above discussion(s). Please make changes to phrases, wording, etc. as desired but explain or comment on them in the discussion - not here.

  1. Governments falling under US law.
    • U.S. Federal
      • covered by Wheaton v. Peters [8 Peters 591] vein of U.S. case law Superseded see next bullet at this level
        • any work generated during official proceedings that ultimately factors into the establishment of a recognized "Edict"
      • Federal currently enjoys 17 U.S.C. 105 for all government generated works - past, present & future - not just "Edicts". PD

    • any 1 of the 50 States & every level of government within that State
      • all levels of State government covered by Wheaton v. Peters [8 Peters 591] vein of U.S. case law.
        • any government work generated during official proceedings that ultimately factors into the establishment of a recognized "Edict". PD
        • all government works outside of the scope outlined directly above. © (except in a few states - see, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-CAGov )
        • any historically significant government work inside the scope outlined directly above.  ?

  2. Governments outside of US Law.
    • Any type or level of government not mentioned in #1
      • an inferred association with "public policy" principle set up in Wheaton found in Compendium II
      • no known statute, case law, proclamation, etc. supporting that association has been found.
        • any government work generated during official proceedings that ultimately factors into the establishment of a recognized "Edict".  ?
        • all government works outside of the scope outlined directly above.  ?
        • any historically significant government work inside the scope outlined directly above.  ?

Edict of Government
  1. no known U.S. statute, case law, proclamation, etc. formally defining the term has been found.
    • loosely based on usage found in Chapter 2 of Compendium I/II

Edicts for Governments outside of US Law

Barring a successful argument in #Source_of_Law that changes #Bullet_item_guideline the current licensing of these works with {{PD-EdictGov}} is in question. At Wikisource we have a history of leaning to delete where there is questionable copyright status. In this case though we have multiple unrelated works of some notability (where notability indicates opportunities for notice, not to grant any special status), and there are no known challenges to the common interpretation. Does silence grant copyright prohibition on these works? Jeepday (talk) 11:24, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Should Wikisource continue to host Edicts for Governments outside of US Law, based only on PD-EdictGov?

Note:If the community decision is keep, we can add a country parameter to the template to facilitate future issue resolution.
  • Absolutely we should. Laws are laws. It is the proper application, and in earlier days it is fairly apparent that there was less rigour in the application of the licence. PD-USGov is about anything from a public servant of the United States. Edict of Gov is about official declarations of state from the Government, which is a smaller set in that it is not anything from a public servant, and addresses something that is a public release that specifically addresses legal requirements. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:53, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Assuming that the template, based on Compendium and practise/case law, is deemed good enough for the needs of Wikisource (and I assume it will), or some case law regarding foreign laws is added to this debate, or some evidence 'foreign' is commonly used as a euphemism for 'territories of the U.S.', I see no reason to exclude edicts of foreign governments in their official form (I am less sure about translations not issued by a foreign government). The Compendium is merely stating that case law indicates there is an incredibly high bar for edicts to obtain copyright - so high that the Copyright Office will go to court instead of registering the copyright of an edict. The Compendium is clearly aware of other nation-states, and liberally used 'foreign' for a range of purposes (use browser find tool on http://www.copyrightcompendium.com/), and never appears to use it in a sense that is limited to the governments of U.S. territories and other strange cases within the United States. Most of the recent case law in the U.S. has reiterated that a) edicts are authored by the people, and b) a law is a fact, and not an expression - it is the only valid expression, and therefore becomes fact once enacted. (Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress Int'l, Inc.) John Vandenberg (chat) 02:27, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Low hanging EdictGov fruit

While the debate about foreign laws seems to have got bogged down, I can't find any any support for speeches and government miscellanea under these terms. Their continued presence is likely to encourage the addition of more works under this licence. Should we at least (a) delete all such works, and (b) remove PD-EdictGov from any author pages (except for those of judges and similar officials)? - AdamBMorgan (talk) 19:53, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

or; (c) put off making any sudden moves or permanent changes until this October (the month that a little birdie has told me the finished revisions become released as the Compendium of Copyright Office Practices, III to the public). In my view, we would be doing more harm than good by changing what we've been doing until now in light of the possibility of more clarity being provided by this new edition either way (though I agree this [sticking] point has been lingering a bit too long now for my own comfort too).
fwiw... I've suggested a sub-title to help promote the coming edition and while they found "new & improved!!! INTERNET now included..." funny enough to warrant a reply from an actual human being instead of the typical government BOT, they said it didn't have a chance of passing the preliminary submission stage :( George Orwell III (talk) 05:49, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────┘

UPDATE:  It seems the U.S. Copyright Office did not escape the recent government shutdown & budget cuts - missing the original October 2013 release date for the new Compendium in the process. I've been searching almost daily for any new information since. Today, I found some.

According to this recap of a November 20th, 2013 event, the new target date for the revised 1st draft of the Compendium of Copyright Office Practices has been "set" for January 2014.

“ ... [Maria] Pallante announced that the beta version of the new Compendium of Copyright Office Practices, a project managed by Legal Advisory Board Member Mary Rasenberg, will be available for comments in January 2014. ”

Better late than never? -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:08, 23 November 2013 (UTC)


  •  Comment I am concerned about the confusion that is existing around this proposal. The confusion seems to be whether this is an existing licence, and whether the licence is being appropriately applied. From what I am seeing, we look to identify from authoritative sources the scope of the licence, and explain the use of the template, and then review its use appropriately. Works where it has been misapplied can then be deleted by grouping if that is clearly determined. Summary ... Keep the licence, review the works. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:02, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
    Seems like you did not follow the logic-tree above outlining why this license never should have been created in the first place and why its application since that mistake has largely been an over-reach in interpretation (plus it's authority was never based on actual U.S. law - neither by case law nor in codified statute, again, as outlined above). Hopefully the next Compendium will provide further clarity here, but even if the parts mentioning this area remain exactly the same as they are now - there is no lawful basis to keep the license. Works by foreign governments or their officers are no different in the eyes of U.S. law than the works created by other foreign organizations or individuals. Period. After Title 17, either the treaties with the nation/nationality in question & the U.S. dictate copyright protections or any waivers from such protections (CC-By-, etc.) do -- not the Copyright Office's internal practices on copyright registration. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:37, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
    I'm a bit puzzled by the lack of any mention in this discussion that the various Compendiums must cite some legal authorization for their publication before they can be published by the U.S. Government Printing Office. That legal authorization should shed some light on the origins of current copyright law in the U.S. I'm also puzzled by the lack of analysis by legal scholars in this discussion, as there appear to be several who have edited in Wiki. This discussion appears to involve only a very small number of well-intentioned persons who do not appear to be particularly well informed about U.S. copyright law or the U.S. court system, and that seems dangerous. For example, there does not seem to be any appreciation here of the legal status of U.S. territories like Guam (they have been described as "foreign" governments, despite the fact they have U.S. courts resident, which have much broader powers than do most local government courts). Isn't there some way to broaden the discussion and invite persons with copyright law expertise into it before a momentous decision is made, possibly in error? I came to this page via the Mt. Laurel doctrine decision, which is still identified as a candidate for deletion from Wikipedia as a copyright violation, which is utterly preposterous! Labeling American court decisions as candidates for deletion while this discussion continues does a great disservice to Wikipedia and to its readers. With all due respect, it appears you folks are in way over your heads. Mervyn Emrys (talk) 17:47, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
    That's just it - the sections in the Compendium refereing to edicts do not cite any authorities based in the Copyright Law. Yes the compendium itself exists because of regulations in the CFR authorized by law - but the question here is limited to the narrow scope of a section or two within the compendium.

    And to be clear, if your article was really a candidate for deletion, the deletion notice would be at the top of the article. The only thing pending deletion is the Edict of Government banner itself - not the articles that have applied it to date. We'll straighten the license situation out once a consensus has been reached. -- George Orwell III (talk) 18:15, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

    One more thing - you didn't link the court decision that brought you here but if it is indeed a U.S. court decision & not a court exclusive just to territory of the U.S. you should be using the {{PD-USGov}} license anyway. -- George Orwell III (talk) 18:46, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

I guess this is an analogous case to the one described in [8] (Dreier, Thomas. Overview of Legal Aspects in the European Union. Pp. 21 (last paragraph)–23), which states that legal texts deemed free in Germany are still copyrighted in France. --Eleassar (talk) 21:27, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Still Pending

It looks like the "Compendium III of Copyright Office Practices" is still pending release. a final release but the Public Draft was made available in late August 2014. Closure of this topic is in some part dependent on the guidence offered by the US Copyright office. Jeepday (talk) 00:01, 10 April 2014 (UTC) Updated by GO III on November 17, 2014.

To quote the public draft:

313.6(C)(2) Government Edicts

As a matter of longstanding public policy, the U.S. Copyright Office will not register a government edict that has been issued by any state, local, or territorial government, including legislative enactments, judicial decisions, administrative rulings, public ordinances, or similar types of official legal materials. Likewise, the Office will not register a government edict issued by any foreign government or any translation prepared by a government employee acting within the course of his or her official duties. See Banks v. Manchester, 128 U.S. 244, 253 (1888) (“there has always been a judicial consensus, from the time of the decision in the case of Wheaton v. Peters, 8 Pet. 591, that no copyright could under the statutes passed by Congress, be secured in the products of the labor done by judicial officers in the discharge of their judicial duties”); Howell v. Miller, 91 F. 129, 137 (6th Cir. 1898) (Harlan, J.) (“no one can obtain the exclusive right to publish the laws of a state in a book prepared by him”).

There is a limited exception to this rule. Section 104(b)(5) of the Act states that works first published by the United Nations or any of its specialized agencies, or first published by the Organization of American States are eligible for copyright protection in the United States. See 17 U.S.C. § 104(b)(5).

A work that does not constitute a government edict may be registered, even if it was prepared by an officer or employee of a state, local, territorial, or foreign government while acting within the course of his or her official duties. For example, the Office may register a tourist magazine written and published by Arizona’s department of tourism or a map created and published by the public transit authority for the city of Detroit. Likewise, the Office may register annotations that summarize or comment upon legal materials issued by a federal, state, local, or foreign government, unless the annotations themselves have the force of law. See Chapter 700, 717.1.

I think this cuts a pretty broad swath.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:47, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
The "problem" is not so much between the various levels of local, state & Federal governments within the U.S. and the U.S. copyright law but the remaining "foreign" government entities falling outside that group. The CO does not specifically give us clarification or even an example of a foreign government employee's work NOT being subject to the Copyright Laws just as any other foreign author's work would be subject to - they merely state that they won't register such works (e.g. you can't really seek copyright infringement when it occurs unless your work is properly registered by the CO to begin with).

Denying registration in effect denies the legal standing for a foreign government (not foreign citizens) to pursue action against the U.S. Government [the Copyright Office specifically] via any U.S. court proceeding normally available to individual U.S. citizens & non-citizens alike. That said, I think we should be looking to treat edicts of foreign governments just like any other work that's produced by an individual foreign author or entity.

Not being able to register a work here in the U.S. does not equal being 'free from any all copyright protections' nor does it let works fall arbitrarily into the public domain either. Lastly, 'no registration' should not mean works of those specific type are free and clear enough of protections in order to be hosted here.

So we got some clarification on governments subject to the force of U.S. law but not much foreign wise. -- George Orwell III (talk) 03:24, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

They won't register such works because they and their legal expertise believe they aren't copyrightable in the United States. I think they give sufficient clarification; the rules (about court cases and laws and administrative rulings that have the force of law) apply the same to foreign governments as they do to state governments.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:45, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
This is probably the only case where I will go out of my way to regurgitate any and all of the above even when others won't; so, to that, I repeat [to you] again...

... "The Copyright Office's Circulars and Compendium II should be afforded this lesser deference, or Skidmore deference, so long as the Copyright Office's interpretations do not conflict with the express statutory language of the Copyright Act." 2010 WL 1838874 (S.D.N.Y.), p.6 of PDF.

More important is another citation found in the same case opinion (footnote 8 on p. 11 of the PDF):

FN8. As the Court of Appeals noted in Morris, “ ‘the Copyright Office has no authority to give opinions or define legal terms, and [...] its interpretation on an issue never before decided should not be given controlling weight.’ “ Morris, 283 F.3d at 505 (quoting Bartok v. Boosey & Jawkes, Inc., 523 F.2d 941, 946-47 (2d Cir.1975)). Nevertheless, the court found the Copyright Office's interpretation of the Copyright Act set forth in Circular 62 as applied to the registration procedures of serials to be “persuasive.” Id. And, as discussed above, Circular 62 provides that the registration of a serial by a claimant who owns all of the rights in the constituent parts will extend to the constituent parts. Id. at 506.    <highlighting by GO3>

  1. The Copyright Office is not the legal authority nor the final interpretive body here -- the U.S. law & U.S. courts are. The fact that this particular conundrum hasn't been tested in the courts in any meaningful way to date does not insure our continued hosting of the works in question authored by others -- without any sort of consent on their part nor supportive case law to back that up -- is actually "lawfully compliant" in any way shape or form. Nor should anyone read any further into what amounts to inter-office guidance at best at the same time either; especially when the courts have said as much [footnote 8 above] regarding the Copyright Office & their Compendiums. The registration issue comes down to having the proper standing to pursue copyright infringement [if need be] in the U.S legal system. Not having the registration for the work in the claim of copyright violation is a huge [intentional?] hurdle to successfully prosecuting something like that. This does not infer the hurdle doesn't exist for others or that it is impossible to clear altogether.

    Plus there is no way the Copyright Office in of and itself can disassemble &/or nullify the automatic copyright protections and rights afforded to authors or creators -- bestowed upon them, in good faith, at the moment of creation by the statutes of U.S. Law -- regardless of any subsequent formal registration with the Copyright Office taking place or not; with any past deference given to that compendium in some sort of legal setting having taken place or not. The bottom line is until there is a ruling narrowly dealing with the specifics of the issue at hand handed down by the U.S. courts, we are obligated to apply the same standards we already believe to be beholden to and that is the [U.S.] law in force and in effect as it relates to the wiki-project(s) concerned with such matters.

  2. The Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution provides that "[n]o person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." This Due Process right mandates that citizens have notice of what the law requires of the citizenship [and of the government for that matter]. This is the legal basis behind the principle that everyone subject to U.S. law have unfettered access to the laws governing them, whether those laws are local, state or federal. Restricting public access to laws, either by precluding copying in printed or electronic form without the citizen having to seek permission and perhaps pay a royalty fee, constitutes a Due Process violation.

    This is why there is increasingly less and less of a hosting issue when it comes to the sub-divisions the U.S. & their respective governments [the 50 States plus the recognized territories of the U.S]; they are all subject to the laws they should know and have to abide by and they all should have as much ease and access to those laws as possible according to the case-law precedents to date -- most of which ruling in accordance with that same Constitutional principle & rationale behind them. And, since "our" servers are in Florida, one should consider Wiki__ part of the U.S. citizenship -- "we" are subject to the full force and effect of U.S. law (its the primary reason we can host certain source files locally instead of being in possible CopyVio when hosted on Commons).

    At the same time, "we" are not legally subject to foreign laws; works authored by foreign governments have no legal force nor effect upon the people (or citizens) currently subject to U.S. law. Sure, a work by foreign government might have the all force of law plus that of the Jedi at "home" but in no way could anyone expect for it to have the equivalent legal force or standing upon the citizenship of the U.S. Again, citizenship of the U.S. is subject only to the full force and effect of U.S. law. There is no Constitutional mandate to know "things" that might be considered a law somewhere else and those same subjects of U.S. law surely are not compelled nor required to lawfully abide by whatever those "things" might be believed to be either. Thus, there is no expectation of free and unfettered access to "things" the U.S. citizenship do not lawfully need to know nor are expected to abide by - there is no "impact" on the constitutional-governance relationship for parties of the U.S. either way when it comes to "things" in force in some other country.

A foreign work is a foreign work is a foreign work; period - be it authored by a foreign company or a foreign entity; be it an individual that is foreign or a government body that is foreign - they are all foreign works when it comes to the U.S. law (not the Copyright Office's registration policy).

The best once can hope for is that a treaty or series of treaties between the U.S. and whoever the foreign government in question might be have copyright related agreements already in place that may provide us with some guidance here. Otherwise, I just don't believe we can host those works in good conscience never mind lawfully. -- George Orwell III (talk) 10:13, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I didn't buy it the first time, and I don't see why repeating it (in a condescending voice) changes anything.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:52, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
To be less curt; the Copyright Office has said this is what the law means. The onus is now on you to provide a competent legal authority that disagrees with them, not demand a higher authority before you'll accept that. They have lawyers who are studied in the subject, and we shouldn't be dismissing that, even if a judge could, in theory.
It's been at least 3700 years since the birth of the principle that the laws should be made available to be known to everyone; I have little sympathy for polities that still don't understand that. There is a multinational audience of Wikisource, and even from the narrowest perspective, Americans have been known to travel abroad from time to time, and can be expected to familiarize themself with the laws of the places they are travelling to. I have absolutely no conscience issues with publishing these materials.--Prosfilaes (talk) 13:07, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
You should have left well enough alone until something new came to light. All that did was re-hash the 3 previous related sections (now merged into one) and [re]presented as if new clarity or something had been provided. I recognized it immediately.

Back to the basics... where again can we find the part in the actual U.S. law excluding an author or entity of an original work, published or unpublished, foreign or national, from the copyright protections and rights normally established by simple creation of such works if not at the time of first publication of them? Of course > nobody can. Just like one won't find the term edict of government defined anywhere in the U.S. Code either -- never mind within the Copyright portions.

The lack of any such statutory authorization means the Copyright Office is not capable of lawfully stripping said author(s) of their statutorily granted copyright protections and rights. Denying them registration is not the same as stripping away those established rights; only Congress or the Court's can do that. Its true agencies such as the Copyright Office carry a bit of legal weight; but, at best, in civil proceedings tops -- no where near the full force or effect actual Federal law. I don't believe the type of works in question here are so basic or so embedded in well-known fact that anyone believes that is the justification for being "non-copyrightable" right? I wouldn't think so but please chime in if you do.

Regulations need to be based in the law to have any force or effect and can never be anything other than in compliance with the law - never the equivalent of them (better known as a Parallel Table of Authorities). That's also why I wiki-linked to a place that starts dealing with both the Skidmore & Cheveron deferences, which is where I'm guessing this is all going go once again. :(

One more thing on perspectives, if Commons can't host certain works because they are still protected in their home countries but "we" can by hosting the same file here locally, does that mean when the opposite might be true, the principles of morality, civility, ethics, diligence, fairness and the like no longer apply to us? -- George Orwell III (talk) 14:02, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't care what you think the law says. You could, for example, say that the Supreme Court has no right to overturn Congress's laws, and while that it is a reasonable reading of the US Constitution, it is one that completely and totally ignores reality. The Supreme Court has no statutory authorization for what it does; does that mean that we ignore them, or do we recognize the reality on the ground? The courts have ruled that law is not protectable by copyright, and the Copyright Office has interpreted that. As legal authority, they may not trump courts, but they trump any interpretations from people here.
When you rehash the last few sections, the response is likely to be a rehash of the last few sections.
I don't know what you mean by "when the opposite might be true", but the pompous invocation of "morality, civility, ethics, diligence, fairness and the like" is completely inappropriate for a discussion. We aren't making stump speeches here; you actually have to make a case instead of casting aspersions. As I said, for 3700 years, there has been a principle that law is something to made available to everyone; I believe the application of law made to protect the profits (and sometimes privacy) of authors to laws in an effort to keep them from being known is an immoral thing, and see no reason to voluntarily subject myself to the those restrictions.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:39, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
I'm re-hashing again because I can't understand why in blazes you would post what amounted to a 'better-late-than-never', 'na-na, na-na, boo-boo ~ I can post better than you do', [re]affirmation of what -- to me-- seemed to be satisfactorily settled for some time now. The only question(s) left [in my mind] until you bumped this up was where exactly some folks wanted to draw the edict-uncopyrightable line when it came to foreign fishing licenses, political speeches, trade-union agreements, indigenous treaties, minister's web-blogs, economic summit pacts, floor-statements, newspaper editorials, tv & radio interviews and similar seemingly pseudo-official productions by [foreign] government officials to some (basically- stuff that my Congressman might get way with by submitting remarks into the Congressional Record or inserting them into a Committee Report). Any justification drawn using that type of false equivalency with the PD-USGov exemption is still complete & total bullsh!t btw.

Recap: the thing with the sub-divisions of local U.S. state governments was rationally worked over, point by point, until it felt acceptable to the handful still following the discussion. The other argument over un-copyrightable, straight statutes, regulations &/or decrees wasn't really an issue upon the closer inspection of the works themselves; the discussion was 'shelved' as a result. It turned out nearly all the additions in question didn't/wouldn't have >official< translations in English [being] provided; not without 3rd parties getting involved, or the contributions already enjoyed some sort of statutory waiving of protection in their nation of origin but nobody ever bothered to question that. AdamBMorgan might have more to say on this but he's on wiki-break at the moment. What's left to deal with is still listed above.

I'm still curious however. Are you even looking at the remaining works at the top-most level of this sub-section? Did you / Do you see any truly "compendium" compliant foreign statute, regulation or decree up there anywhere, maybe? I sure didn't - ∴ I wondered why the post yesterday. I realize now you weren't intentionally drudging-up that point again; you just thought you solved an already settled matter & I assumed you were picking at healing scabs by it. I should've known better by now. -- George Orwell III (talk) 15:05, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

The post that starts this sub-section says "Closure of this topic is in some part dependent on the guidence offered by the US Copyright office", so obviously Jeepday didn't think it was closed. I think you've argued louder then everyone else, but I don't see that you've convinced anyone else. If the consensus goes against me, I'm happy to let it drop, but I don't see any sort of consensus here.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:12, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
Right, the post that starts this [sub]-section says... a.) b.) c.) and so on... but there has been a good number of previous discussion on this, here and elsewhere, that I'm nearly certain that you've not participated in or maybe even just skimmed over. The same probably goes for other folks including us.

I realized as much yesterday, again, unless you believe any of the roundup articles pending deletion listed at the [top]-section fall into the same rationale for exclusion as -- what [I believe] has been the consensus for months now -- for:

  • certain U.S. non-federal (local state and other subdivisions of government) works are excluded from copyright because 'citizens should have free and unfettered access to the laws they are expected to abide by'; and
  • certain foreign national government works are excluded from copyright because 'their U.S. federal gov. equivalents (PD-USGov) are un-copyrightable as part of public policy' (the unsettled caveat [that I can recall] here was if that meant further sub-divisions of the foreign national government or not & believe only 'national' was in the majority before discussion faded off)
even a general yes or no to the roundup list will help clarify your position and allow Jeepday to make further deletions
But in order to better a.) stop folks from unintentionally or otherwise changing directions or repeating covered ground; and b.) end this debate once and for all by building consensus & having it reside in one place and one place only, I started to setup that consensus building page where all the background and archived stuff to date could be brought, reviewed by all and finalized.

See; Wikisource:Possible copyright violations/Special discussion for pages tagged as PD-EdictGov -- George Orwell III (talk) 05:24, 21 November 2014 (UTC),/p.

L'après-midi d'un faune

The following discussion is closed:

Exported to Canadian Wikilivres:L'après-midi d'un faune.--Jusjih (talk) 22:53, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

From Wikisource:Scriptorium/Help:

I am confused about the US copyright status of the English translation of the poem L'après-midi d'un faune by Bloomsbury Group artist Roger Fry. Would someone with clearer understanding of US law please review the tags I posted there, and come up with a suitable US tag? Although it became public domain in 1984, I think the URAA might have put it back in copyright in the US, and it may have to be taken down from Wikisource. --Hroðulf (talk) 09:24, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

This is complicated but British law might be the main problem rather than American. In 1995 UK statutory instrument SI 1995/3297 harmonised British copyright with Europe, which both extended the copyright period to 70 years pma and retroactively revived copyrights that had entered the public domain. So Fry's work The Poems of Mallarmé would have been in the public domain in 1985 but back under copyright from 1995 to 2005 in the UK and the rest of Europe. That's when the URAA becomes an issue. The URAA would only have brought the translation back into copyright if it was in copyright in its home country in 1996 (the URAA was the US response to the international community pressuring them to get into line on international copyright law, similar to the British SI). If it had been in the public domain in the UK in 1996, it would not have been affected by the URAA. However, as it had been brought back into copyright in the UK one year earlier, the URAA also brought it back into copyright in the US. Then a completely separate US law extended the copyright term to 95 years from publication, so it is probably still under copyright in the United States. The posthumous publication would have probably only affected the copyright if it had been published after 2004 (70 years pma). I'm not sure if I've got all of that right, so Im going to attach a {{copyvio}} and copy this thread to Wikisource:Possible copyright violations. Please note that the original French version is in the public domain so, if your French is up to it, a Wikisource translation is still possible. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:59, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

As mentioned, I not 100% sure about my summary. Several different laws are interacting here and I'm not sure if I got them all straight in my head. If I did get them right, then I think this is is a copyright violation in the US but could be ported to Wikilivres (and, as mentioned, would not affect a different, even user made, translation). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:03, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Works by British authors who died after 1925 published after 1922 that weren't published in the US within 30 days are going to be in copyright in the US. (With the exception of Crown Copyright.) (In 2019, 95 years from publication will be the prevailing rule, but due to grandfathering it's easier to remember before 1923 is in the public domain.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:07, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
That is about right. The EU countries increased to 70pma at different times, but the UK happened to do it on January 1, 1996, which coincided with the URAA date, so that law change affected its status in both countries. On December 31, 1995, it was PD in both countries, and on January 1, 1996, it was copyrighted in both. It has since re-expired in the UK from the sounds of it, but not the U.S. (will be 2032 for it to re-expire there). The 1956 UK Copyright Act actually had a term of 50 years from publication for posthumous works, so it may have originally expired in 1987, though that is now moot. The only chance for it to be PD in the U.S. was if it was also published in the U.S. within 30 days of its publication in the UK, as that would disqualify it from the URAA. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:36, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your thoughtful analysis.
  • When did the Fry translation expire in the UK? My French isn't good enough to appreciate the tone of the original, but it is a beautiful translation. If the UK expiration is not in doubt, it will be easy to move it to http://www.wikilivres.ca/
  • Since it has re-expired in the UK, does that permit Wikisource to host it?
  • If Chatto & Windus had a New York agent, or routinely exported to the US, (and we could find records) then that would help th 'published in the US within 30 days' issue, would it not? Does anyone know if they did?
  • I would love to see a user-contributed English translation on English Wikisource. I am afraid that if I were attempt it, it may put off someone with more expertise tackling it. Is there a message board where we can request a translation?

--Hroðulf (talk) 17:11, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

  • The Fry translation expired by 2007 in the UK; Wikilivres is life+50, so it should be completely okay there.
  • The English Wikisource includes files that are PD in the US, and UK expiration is not relevant there.
  • I don't know that shipping copies to the US would be sufficient to make it published in the US. In any case, I don't see any evidence that there were American copies. The Library of Congress lists "London, Chatto & Windus, 1936." in their entry and WorldCat doesn't reveal any other US libraries holding copies of the 1936 edition (with many holding copies of the 1951 American edition[9][10]). If you want, I can check the UNLV copy of the 1951 edition sometime in 2014, but I doubt that will help any.
  • We could create Wikisource:Request for translations, but I don't think that there's enough translators here to make that effective. I think if you don't do it, no one else will. With poetry, I would stress more about the literal translation then the poesy, but I think that's still quite useful, especially for students with some French.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:36, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Translation:Sonnet_of_the_Garland_of_Roses

The following discussion is closed:

Yann sent it to Canadian Wikilivres:Sonnet_of_the_Garland_of_Roses.--Jusjih (talk) 01:05, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

The underlying work is a 1936 Spanish work by an author who died in 1936, and thus the US copyright was revived by the URAA; it will leave copyright in the US on 2032-01-01.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:19, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

This might be transwikied to Wikilivres.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:21, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Author:Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti

The following discussion is closed:

withdrawn, found the statement about release to public domain, an have recorded that with a comment on the author's talk page. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:42, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

We need to do some research and come back with licensing for the works listed at Author:Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti. There is at least one claim of public domain work, and we need to check its veracity and hat of the others. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:07, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

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