Wikisource:Copyright discussions

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Nigerian Works

There's a discussion at Wikisource:Scriptorium#Template:PD-NigeriaGov requesting a template for government works which are public domain in Nigeria. There ended being a discussion about whether the following works were public domain or not.

• 100 Facts About Nigeria (start transcription)
• A March of Progress - Collected Speeches of His Excellency Lt. General Olusegun Obasanjo (transcription project)
• Ibos in a United Nigeria (transcription project)

I would like to ask the opinion of those at Copyright Discussions about this. ToxicPea (talk) 22:43, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

 Comment There are more than three recent works that may fall under this discussion. The listed three are merely representation of recent additions. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:49, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

@Prosfilaes Section 106(3) of the Copyright Act, 2022 says

"(3) Without prejudice to section 6 of the Interpretation Act, the repeal of the enactment specified in subsection (1), shall not affect anything doneunder the enactment."

This seems to imply that the act is not retroactive, but section 107(6) says

"This Act applies in relation to works made before the commencement of this Act as it applies in relation to works made after the commencement of this Act."

which would imply that the act is retroactive.

Does a work which has copyright protection under the 2004 act but not under the 2022 act lose its copyright protection? ToxicPea (talk) 16:21, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

Additionally does the Nigerian government retain copyright over works in the US which have had their copyright expired in Nigeria? ToxicPea (talk) 16:37, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

Having looked at Nigerian Copyright Act, 2022, it seems to me these works could be kept per Section 3(b) of the act stating: “The following shall not be eligible for copyright … (b) official texts of a legislative or administrative nature as well as any official translations, except their compilations.”. However, to include such works in our scope we need to have a proper licence tag that would reflect this, but the related discussion at Wikisource:Scriptorium#Template:PD-NigeriaGov seems to have stalled. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 13:38, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

But would such works also be PD in the US ? -- Beardo (talk) 15:13, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

Does that mean that pre-2022 Nigerian legislation could be uploaded on commons? For example the file File:Anti-Torture Act, 2017.pdf which could not be uploaded to commons until 2088 prior to commencement of the Nigerian Copyright Act, 2022. Could this file now be moved to commons? ToxicPea (talk) 20:42, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

According to https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Copyright_rules_by_territory/Nigeria - "The 2022 act is apparently not retroactive". If that is correct, only works after March 2023 are covered by the new rules. -- Beardo (talk) 13:33, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Maxwell Court Documents

The User @TE(æ)A,ea. has raised a deletion request at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Maxwell_court_documents over potential copyvio. I would like to get the opinion of the people here at Copyright discussions over whether there is merit to the request. ToxicPea (talk) 23:01, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

Very late to the discussion, but US law is very clear. Transcripts of US district and bankruptcy court trials and hearings are considered works of the US Government regardless of who produces the transcript. As such, these transcripts are automatically in the public domain. See Guide to Judiciary Policy Vol. 6 § 560, which cites 17 USC § 101, § 105, and § 506(c), and several federal court cases. Jkudlick (talk) 21:36, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Slee v. Erhard, Plaintiff's Motion for Sanction of Judgment by Default Pursuant to Rule 37 (1990)

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived:

Deleted, public domain status not proven

A brief authored by a private (non-government) attorney. It postdates the last cutoff date for non-copyrightability. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 00:47, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

 This section is considered resolved, for the purposes of archiving. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 11:15, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

Constitution of Finland

No source, no translation licence. -- Jan Kameníček (talk) 21:00, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

According to the edit history, the original source was http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/kaannokset/1999/en19990731.pdf - that link no longer works but it can be found on wayback machine. -- Beardo (talk) 21:56, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

This translation appears to be from the Finnish Government which makes it public domain in the US. Therefore  Keep though the file should be uploaded to commons so the work can be scan backed. ToxicPea (talk) 00:42, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

The given link does not work. I will try later. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 11:31, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

I think that the Finnish website now only has an updated version. Here is a link to the original - wayback machine -- Beardo (talk) 16:30, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

Does it fall under {{PD-EdictGov}} when marked as "Unofficial translation"? --Jan Kameníček (talk) 17:42, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

I think what "unofficial" means in this context is that the translation is not legally binding. It would still fall under {{PD-EdictGov}} since it appears to be government made translation. ToxicPea (talk) 20:09, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

First Poem of Amy Lowell

Cited to be from The Lowells and Their Seven Worlds (1946). This is the earliest work I could find the poem was published within; these results show much later publications only. The Lowells and Their Seven Worlds had a renewed copyright, so this poem may be under copyright until 2042, unfortunately. SnowyCinema (talk) 18:31, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

 Delete per nom —Beleg Âlt ^BT (talk) 19:06, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Index:Tarde_Monadology_and_Sociology.pdf

The copyright notice includes "that you do not use this work for any commercial gain in any form and that you in no way alter, transform or build on the work outside of its use in normal academic scholarship without express permission of the author and the publisher of this volume." and "For more information see the details of the creative commons licence at this website: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/" - so it is not a compatible licence. -- Beardo (talk) 22:45, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

The Commons file has already been deleted. If anyone wants to view the work, it can be seen at https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1410631/1/Monadology_and_Sociology.pdf -- Beardo (talk) 00:24, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

The Charter COOPERATION COUNCIL FOR THE ARAB STATES OF THE GULF

Setting aside the fact that the title is wild and that the page needs some serious standardization (and a scan), I would like some evidence that this multi-state charter is in the public domain. SnowyCinema (talk) 01:59, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

The scan at https://treaties.un.org/Pages/showDetails.aspx?objid=08000002800e04ff is probably the best scan there is for this document. There's an index for this is at Index:UN Treaty Series - vol 1288.pdf. As for copyright, wouldn't this be considered an edict of government and therefore fall under {{PD-EdictGov}}? ToxicPea (talk) 02:30, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

@ToxicPea: I think you're right. A multi-state treaty I think would have to logically count as an edict of governments (though the template doesn't explicitly state that). SnowyCinema (talk) 02:47, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Voice of Bahrain petitions

• 1992 Petition for Reforms to Amir of Bahrain
• 1994 Popular Petition for Reforms to Amir of Bahrain

These two unlicensed works were apparently published on a website called "Voice of Bahrain", which according to Wikipedia, was something created by the Bahrain Freedom Movement, a "London-based Bahraini opposition group". So, this appears to have been a work by a UK private organization. (I will concede I know nothing about Bahraini politics, but this is just my understanding based on some research.) So, it looks to be that there's no evidence of free licensing of these works. SnowyCinema (talk) 02:03, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

40th Session of UNESCO General Conference Speech by H. E. Prof. Dr. Myo Thein Gyi, Union Minister for Education of Myanmar (14 November, 2019)

This is not really a work by the United Nations as an organization (so doesn't qualify for {{PD-UN}} AFAICT), and is instead a speech by a Myanmar official. I can't find a license template that fits this, so copyright status unknown: potential violation. SnowyCinema (talk) 02:14, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Actually, this could fall under Template:PD-Myanmar, since Myanmar law "exempts all Myanmar government and judicial documents, and their official translations, from copyright". But does this mean Myanmar government speeches are public-domain worldwide? SnowyCinema (talk) 02:16, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Speeches by Hamid Karzai

• Address by Hamid Karzai to Joint Session of Congress (2004—noting though that this was in the Congressional Record)
• Karzai's statement at the Second Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (2006)
• Karzai's address to Canadian Parliament (2006)
• Karzai's statement in Dushanbe (2006)
• Karzai's statement at Tokyo Conference (2006)

Many of these (except the first one which is unlicensed) were tagged as {{PD-EdictGov}} by AdamBMorgan, but it doesn't look to me like that's what they are. These are speeches of a diplomatic nature, not works that have actionable effect legally, AFAICT. And I found no evidence that Afghani government works are released into the public domain worldwide—and we don't have a PD-Afghanistan template. What's the status on these? SnowyCinema (talk) 02:36, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Adolf Hitler's Speech at the Annual Rally of Young Officer Cadets at the Berlin Sportpalast (18 December 1940)

The translation of the speech given here appears to be from a 1990 volume of Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations edited by Max Duramus. Therefore, I think this translation is still under copyright. SnowyCinema (talk) 02:52, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Agreement between the International Olympic Committee, Lausanne and the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee, Taipei

This appears to be a private contract between two sports organizations (the IOC and the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee). According to Wikipedia, the IOC is "the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games". It appears to not be a Swiss government work (as the page claims), and thus also not an edict of any government, so I see no evidence this is PD or freely licensed.

PS: The images on the work were also uploaded to Commons with the vague PD-US notice, so the images weren't given a specific public-domain justification either. They'll probably also need to be deleted, but that's for Commons to discuss. SnowyCinema (talk) 03:11, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

As you say, that licence looks wrong, and this appears to be copyright,  Delete -- Beardo (talk) 04:47, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Post Election Speech

Do resignation speeches count as {{PD-EdictGov}}? I don't get that impression. The author page for Atal Bihari Vajpayee says that his works are PD-EdictGov, but this remained unlicensed. {{PD-India}} says that "government works [...] are protected for 60 years after publication" (in India), by the way. SnowyCinema (talk) 03:19, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Barack Obama's Letter to James A. Grogan

This appears to have been written not under official federal government capacities. Written in August 2008, before he was President or President-elect but just a candidate for President, this was a letter written about and for his Presidential campaign (as it appears), so not in his official capacity as a senator. I sent this to CV for similar reasons to Barack Obama's Announcement to Run for U.S. President, which was previously deleted. SnowyCinema (talk) 03:25, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Agreed -  Delete -- Beardo (talk) 04:06, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing

This work is about open access and advocating for and defining open access, but I couldn't find evidence (including in the source provided) that the text is itself freely licensed. SnowyCinema (talk) 03:34, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

• Keep per lengthy (three-year) previous discussion. In short, one of the authors released it under a free license, and that (apparently) counts. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 05:09, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

The Blackmailers

1934 work by Algernon Blackwood, sourced from the 1935 work My Grimmest Nightmare, published in London. It says "The various stories in this volume were originally broadcast [could be itself a problem, see Music Modernization Act] to listeners in the British Empire, through the British Broadcasting Corporation's Empire Station at Daventry, ...". So, this story would apparently not be able to survive URAA. SnowyCinema (talk) 03:42, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

• Delete for lack of information regarding publication. There are a number of tough legal issues here, but as I read the URAA it only applied to works for which copyright existed on the date of restoration, and thus, works with Hatch–Goodlatte copyrights would not be restored. Although, the Hatch–Goodlatte Act deals with “fixed” sound recordings, and I don’t think that a broadcast is “fixed”—but perhaps that is its own publication? I’m also not sure whether that would involve an inquiry under British or American copyright law as to the last point. In any case, I think it is most likely copyrighted. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 05:09, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

The Music Modernization Act shouldn't ever be a problem, as I understand it. The recording may have been published, but the underlying work was not. Where was this first published in print form, is the question I think we have to worry about; whether it was in the UK or US.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:24, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, this is its first (and possibly only) printing, so URAA would have restored the copyright of the printed work, until 1935 + 95 + 1 = 2031.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:57, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Bold Robert Emmet

Traditional ballad, but was this particular version unpublished until the mid-20th century? I was able to find the first few verses of what's on our page here in one single book from before 1930, and it's right on the margin as it was published in 1929. It seems that most publications of the verses "The barque lay at anchor awaiting to bring me" and after were from at least a decade after 1930, so can we attach this to anything PD? SnowyCinema (talk) 03:52, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

By Proxy

The Bystander was a British periodical. As this was from a 1937 issue of that periodical, I think this was URAA'd. SnowyCinema (talk) 03:58, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Works by Osama bin Laden

• Scholars are the Prophet's Successors (1995)
• Second Letter to Shaykh Bin Baz (1995)
• Warning of Grand Plots Against Arabs, Criticism of Gulf Rulers (?)
• Bin Laden Statement (25 September 2009) (2009)

• "translation of the German subtitles"
• sourced to http://www.juancole.com/2009/09/bin-laden-message-to-europe-withdraw.html
• Said to be translated by the US Government, but no license for the original given

• Bin Laden Statement (13 September 2009) (2009)

• Said to be translated by the US Government, but no license for the original given
• Also no source given

Is there any reason to believe Osama bin Laden's works (the originals or these translations if that's what they are) are in the public domain? SnowyCinema (talk) 04:10, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

The Children of AIDS in Libya

Another work by a member of Al Qaeda, so no reason to think it's freely-licensed. Also said to be translated by as-Sahab, which is Al Qaeda's media wing, so even the translation should be copyrighted. (And if this is deleted, I'll probably nominate Author:Abu Yahya al-Libi for deletion as well since I don't see any works here that are PD, and some of the sources were taken down from IA anyway.) SnowyCinema (talk) 04:17, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Clarification on Release of Finder Goods Seized in China Square

Appears to be a press release by the Kenyan government, but I'm not immediately finding evidence that Kenyan government works are PD worldwide or freely licensed by default, and this is not an edict. SnowyCinema (talk) 04:28, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

The Times/1937/Obituary/Sir Walter Clode, K.C.

Published in The Times (London magazine), so should have gotten URAA'd. 1937+70=2007. Also, this work doesn't survive on being "too simple for copyright" either most certainly like some of the others do. SnowyCinema (talk) 04:31, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Also, it looks like a bunch of other works are also in The Times that are not simple and should have gotten URAA'd (most of which seem incorrectly tagged), so I wonder if we should have a larger discussion on all of them later. SnowyCinema (talk) 04:33, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Constitution of Abkhazia

Does not seem to match (what appears to be) an official English translation of this constitution: https://web.archive.org/web/20120315191553/http://www.mfaabkhazia.net/en/constitution So, the translator is unknown and thus the translation could be copyrighted, but the original is PD-EdictGov. SnowyCinema (talk) 05:01, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Constitution of Crimea, 1998

No source for this English version, translator unknown. Original would be presumably PD-EdictGov. SnowyCinema (talk) 07:23, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Constitution of Medina (Hamidullah)

I found no renewals for The First Written Constitution, but I also can't find a source for any 1941 version. The 1968 version was published in Lahore (major city in Pakistan). If the 1941 version was published outside the US too, that would definitely URAA this. So, I have no evidence that this translation is in the public domain. SnowyCinema (talk) 08:08, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Constitution of Romania (1948)

The source provided in the header gives literally no date and no information at all about its publication from within the scan, so that's suspicious (though from the type and condition, looks to be from ~1940s–50s to me). The earliest known source would be in a 1947 issue of The Rumanian Review, a cultural magazine which was published in Bucharest (capitol of Romania). So, the translation could have been URAA'd if not written by a government official in Romania.

PS: If this survives CV, it needs to get sent to WS:PD next because it's also just a raw OCR dump. SnowyCinema (talk) 08:22, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Constitution of Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

The website is a UK link, not a Cypriot or Turkish one. Earliest print source I could find was 1987: this source. Published by K. Rustem and Brother, which is a London publishing company, so not associated with the Northern Cypriot government. So, I found no evidence that this was an official translation. SnowyCinema (talk) 08:46, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Constitution of Yugoslavia (1931)

The earliest print sources I could find for the English translation's statements are from 1995 by what appear to be private compilers: see these results. Though I will say for this case that for the rest of the constitutions for Yugoslavia / Serbia that I looked into, I could find evidence of their English versions being official translations from the actual years listed. For this 1931 one though, I couldn't find hard evidence of that. SnowyCinema (talk) 09:16, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Downing Street memo

Though it's a leaked document, I think this should be under Crown Copyright until 2052, no? SnowyCinema (talk) 09:35, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

• Interestingly, it wasn’t actually leaked, just copied; so there is no source in existence that could be used to back it up. Most likely, it will be copyrighted until seventy years after Smith dies. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 16:59, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

  I assume the original is now in the National Archives under the 20-year rule. MarkLSteadman (talk) 17:09, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Elefantes

Well, the only source I could find that even talks about this "traditional" song meaningfully (I could find no results anywhere online at all except for our Wikisource page on it for the lyrics, so I'm tempted to even have the Wikipedia community look into its article on it...) is this now-dead 2007 web page. Our hosted lyrics may have been written by José-Luis Orozco (b. 1948), children's author, educator, and recording artist, and if so, definitely under copyright. SnowyCinema (talk) 09:50, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Declarations of the Lacandon Jungle

• First Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle
• Second Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle
• Third Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle
• Fourth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle
• Fifth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle
• Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle

1990s–2005. Not edicts of governments (by a private leftist organization), all unlicensed, presumably translated but no translator given. SnowyCinema (talk) 11:25, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Frisch-Peierls memorandum

British (originally secret so unpublished?) scientific document from 1940. I'm not thinking of any reason this British work could be PD in the US. SnowyCinema (talk) 11:52, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

How to Become a Man of Genius

Were Hearst Newspapers articles generally renewed? Was this one? No license was given, and only a web source from Kent was given. SnowyCinema (talk) 12:26, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Hussein of Jordan's Speech at Rabin's Funeral

Speech by a Jordanian king. Not an edict of a government, etc. Does not clearly qualify under {{PD-Jordan-exempt}}. SnowyCinema (talk) 12:32, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Hymn of the Russian Federation

I think these specific lyrics, even in Russian, given that they were written in 2000, would still be under copyright in the US, leaving aside this English translation. SnowyCinema (talk) 12:42, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

• The original is PD-EdictGov, as the lyrics were incorporated into the law acknowledging them. I’m not sure of the source of the translation, however. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 16:59, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Imperial Manifesto on Duma reform

A 1907 text, originally in Russian, translated by Daniel Field.

And who is Daniel Field? Apparently this person: "Daniel Field (1938–2006), a professor of Russian history at Syracuse University". So, I have my doubts this is in the public domain or freely licensed. SnowyCinema (talk) 12:55, 13 December 2025 (UTC)