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Welcome to the Village pump copyright section

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2019 Guinean law

I have updated the entirety of COM:CRT/Guinea. (edit). Some of my insights:

• As Bsslover371 said on COMTalk:CRT, there is inconsistency on the word of the number and the numbers in the articles about the terms, like "soixante-dix (80)". I'm confident that they shortened the term, though, since other references to the terms are always written as "(70)", like under the second paragraph of Article 95: "Les expressions du patrimoine culturel traditionnel dont les auteurs individuels sont inconnus mais pour lesquels il y a tout lieu de penser qu’ils sont ressortissants de la République de Guinée, appartiennent au patrimoine national. Il en est de même des expressions du patrimoine culturel traditionnel dont les auteurs individuels connus sont décédés depuis plus de soixante-dix (70) ans."
• Speaking of the "patrimoine culturel traditionnel", the new provisions on the Guinean cultural heritage are more restricted now. Article 99 speaks of the creation of derivative works of Guinean traditional cultural heritage. Guinean citizens can freely make derivative works, but foreigners must seek authorization from the Guinean Ministry of Culture to freely make derivative works of Guinean traditional cultural heritage. The fees to be collected from the foreigners are going to be divided between the Guinean Copyright Office and either the collector (if there is no arrangement) or the creator (if there is arrangement).
• It doesn't matter if the creator or author of the work of traditional cultural heritage is still living or have died for less or more than 70 years. A Guinean work falls under the traditional cultural heritage if it is exclusively made up of "elements characteristic of the traditional artistic and literary heritage of Guinea, or works created by individuals recognized as fulfilling the traditional artistic aspirations of that community. These works include, in particular, folk tales, folk poetry, folk songs and instrumental music, folk dances and performances, as well as artistic expressions of rituals and folk art productions" (Article 95). The restrictions on derivative works of these - imposed on the foreigners - prevail whether the artist died less than 70 years ago or more. Quote from the same article: "The same applies to expressions of traditional cultural heritage whose known individual authors have been deceased for more than seventy years."

Ping users from both Commons talk:Copyright rules by territory/Guinea and Commons talk:Copyright rules by territory#Nouvelle loi for their comments or insights: @Aboubacarkhoraa, DarwIn, Aymatth2, and Bsslover371: .

No retroactivity according to Article 126. Here is the to the WIPO copy of the Guinean law (in French only). _ JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 04:00, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Bonjour @JWilz12345.

Merci pour vos explications supplémentaire sur cette loi guinéen.Aboubacarkhoraa (talk) 11:55, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Also pinging @Aboubacarkhoraa (I'll also seek opinions from other users whom I mentioned).

Should we create a new COM:Non-copyright restriction template for images of objects of national cultural heritage of Guinea? The template will warn foreigners (like many of us) to not create derivative works of the images, due to possible "extraterritorial" application of the law (the restriction on derivative works specifically targets foreigners, not Guinean citizens). Similar to {{Italy-MiBAC-disclaimer}}/{{Soprintendenza}} (both of which target Italians' domestic uses of public domain landmarks and monuments), perhaps the name of the tag is {{Guinea-traditional-heritage-foreign-disclaimer}})? JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 12:05, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Bonjour @JWilz12345

Je vais te demander de me laisser quelques instants. Nous sommes en contact avec les autorités et je vais leur demander de m'aider à interpréter ces questions avec leurs spécialistes notamment le Bureau Guinéen des Droits d'Auteurs (BGDA) et l'Office National du Cinéma, de la Vidéo et de la Photographie de Guinée (ONACIG).

En plus (@JWilz12345, DarwIn, Aymatth2, and Bsslover371: ), je souhaite recueillir toutes vos questions pour les soumettre ensemble afin d'obtenir des éclaircissements qui nous permettront de mieux comprendre cette loi. Aboubacarkhoraa (talk) 12:30, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Here is my suggested wording for a non-copyright restriction template that may be imposed on all uploads of Guinean national cultural heritage and traditional expressions here, uploaded on or after June 7, 2019 (the date the law was adopted as per inserted comment at the bottom of the last page of the WIPO Lex's French copy of the law). Similar to the wording at {{Soprintendenza}}:

This media file – published on or after 7 June 2019 – shows an object or work from Guinea that imbues "the elements of the traditional artistic and literary heritage of the country, or works created by individuals recognized as fulfilling the traditional artistic aspirations of that community." Under the copyright law of Guinea (2019 version), Guinean citizens have unrestricted rights to create derivative works of such cultural objects or works, but foreigners should obtain necessary authorization from the Guinean Ministry of Culture if they desire to create derivative works of such cultural objects or works, and possibly payment of relevant fees to the State.

While Wikimedia Commons is hosted in the United States of America and is not required to follow non-US rules that do not concern copyright, Wikimedians and Internet users in general who are not citizens of Guinea (regardless of their location of online access) are cautioned that they are solely responsible for any possible violation of local Guinean law. See our general disclaimer for more information. These restrictions are independent of the copyright status of the depicted work, whose artist or last-surviving artist has died for more than 70 years.

It is of course a question of how Guinean courts and authorities will enforce their law extraterritorially (given that only foreigners are not allowed to freely create derivatives of Guinean cultural heritage works). If they indeed have the way to enforce it outside their country, it is also a question if a photo or video of a Guinean cultural object (in public domain) constitutes a derivative work by itself and hosting of such media files by Wikimedia (despite this prospective template attached to those files) is already a breach of Articles 99-101 of the Guinean copyright law. _ JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 06:51, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Undelete and speedy deletion

Is it possible for users to set a undeletion category for a file while also nominating it for speedy deletion for copyvio? Trade (talk) 03:07, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

@Trade: if that is your intention, add an overt link to the file in the undeletion date category. You'll see a ton of these in Category:Undelete in 2029. (Anything else will get lost when the file is deleted, if there is no DR to categorize.) - Jmabel ! talk 03:34, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

King's flag for Australia

What is the copyright status of the flag designs in this FoI request (PDF reply viewable as HTML at [1])?

My thought are that while it is a new design, it comprises six heraldic symbols and a border which are presumably PD-old, and their 3×2 arrangement is too simple to copyright. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:32, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

US public hearing in public domain?

Is a public video of a public hearing by the U.S. government's Committee on Oversight and Government Reform's Committee on Oversight and Reform's Task Force in the public domain?

And what about a public video of a public hearing by a subcommittee of the U.S. government's House Oversight and Accountability committee?

If both or either is, which license tag to use?
Prototyperspective (talk) 15:09, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

What do you mean by "public video"? The PD status depends on who filmed the video - if it was, for example, C-Span or a news organization, then it's not public domain. If the House Committees filmed and released the videos themselves, then yes the videos can be categorized as PD US Gov. The content of the video doesn't matter, you can make copyrighted video of Congressional Committee hearings if you're not a government employee and you have access to the hearing/permission to film. It's the creator of the video that matters. 19h00s (talk) 15:28, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

I mean that the video is available to the public, intentionally so and released by the respective government org. The videos are featured on the gov website for the hearings and were posted on the Web by the GOP Oversight account. So it seems the videos are in the public domain. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:51, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

If it was initially published by the government then it is public domain, but "GOP Oversight" sounds like something partisan. Can you link the "gov website" in question? Much easier to discuss specifics than possibly ambiguous phrases. - Jmabel ! talk 20:00, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Given the above information I just uploaded the two files I was talking about: here and here. If there's an issue, it could also be raised there. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:25, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Ned Mamula, U.S. Geological Survey

Hi all,

There is an image of Mamula on his USGS staff profile, located at https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/ned-mamula. The USGS' images policy states that "the content of most USGS websites is in the U.S. Public Domain ... [copyrighted materials] are generally marked as being copyrighted." Because there is no indication on the webpage that the image does not belong to the USGS, one would think it would fall under PD-USGov.

I happen to have also noticed that a picture posted by a private company (his former employer) from before he was a USGS employee uses the same background, leading me to think that the images are from the same photoshoot. In that case, the photo on his USGS profile would not be in the public domain because it was not taken as a USGS staff image.

Can the image on his USGS profile be uploaded to Commons if it has not been listed as anything other than a public domain photograph?

Thanks in advance for helping clear this up! BhamBoi (talk) 23:42, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Are machine-translated text covered by PD-algorithm

https://web.archive.org/web/20121129042959/http://www.seo-translator.com/machine-translation-no-copyright-on-the-result/

(please ignore the spammy website name) I am curious to know if the conclusion here is in accordance with Commons policy Trade (talk) 08:49, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

There will usually be copyright on the result from machine translation because there was copyright on the original work. Machine translation won't produce a new copyright, but it won't remove the one that was there. It's likely to be apply more broadly than generative AI, since all any user who didn't write the text is doing is hitting a button. From one perspective, the prompt is trivial; from another the "prompt" is very non-trivial and clearly copyrightable, but the users of the translation software usually aren't the ones who wrote the "prompt".--Prosfilaes (talk) 10:29, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Polish newspaper article from 1937

Hello, I'd like to upload a photo of a newspaper article from 1937 that my father had. The article describes an airplane accident that my grandfather Jerzy Gablenz (1888-1937) perished in. I'd like to understand how I can legally add this document to page: pl:Katastrofa lotnicza pod Piasecznem. According to a quick search in Google... Under the copyright law in effect in Poland in 1937, a newspaper article entered the public domain 50 years after its publication. The Polish copyright law of March 29, 1926, was in force in Poland at the time the article was published. The law stipulated a 50-year term of protection that began at the time of publication. The 50-year period began in 1937, therefore the copyright expired on December 31, 1987. As of 2025, the article has been in the public domain for many years. In 1994, Poland passed a new copyright law that retroactively extended copyright terms for some works. However, this did not revive the copyright for works that had already entered the public domain under previous laws. Thank you, George Gablenz George Gablenz (talk) 15:38, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

If everything you say is accurate, then this should be in the public domain, but I'm not sure if we have a relevant template. - Jmabel ! talk 20:42, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Images for Saskatchewan Provincial Police from newspapers

Hi! I'd like to add some images to the Sask. Provincial Police article.

Third image on this cite: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/sask-government-to-look-into-creating-provincial-police-force-for-the-2nd-time-1.6234231

First image on this cite: https://paherald.sk.ca/museum-musings-saskatchewan-provincial-police/

Image on this cite: https://esask.uregina.ca/entry/saskatchewan_provincial_police.html

Two of the images are from the Sask Archives Board/ the Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan. I'm not sure about the other. As far as I can tell Canadian copyright expires 70 years after the death of the author. Any insight as to if any of these images are allowable? Thank you in advance! ConfidentBobcat (talk) 04:14, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

• Old Canadian photos were only copyrighted for 50 years, see {{PD-Canada}}. These images are safe to upload. -Nard (Hablemonos) (Let's talk) 05:05, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

  Thank you for the quick reply! I appreciate the clarification. Perhaps I should have been able to find that myself... Thank you! ConfidentBobcat (talk) 05:11, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Ludwig von Baczko portrait

I've just created a stub article on enwp for Ludwig von Baczko, and was hoping to add this portrait local to dewp. The artist isn't currently identified on the file page, I'm pretty sure this is Friedrich Wilhelm Bollinger (1777–1825), but if not, what would the relevant license template be (the current one prevents the Commons Export tool from being used). There's also a higher resolution scan of the same copy of the book (both are from München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek) on MDZ (the dewp scan is from Google Books, and not great quality). After working out the correct license to add, would it be better to upload the MDZ copy here, and leave the dewp file where it is, or update the license on dewp, and export it here? ‑‑Yodin^T 12:05, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

The German Digital Library (Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek) confirms that the author of the image is Bollinger: they have two images [2] where the first one is the one you want to upload and the second one is the one with author information. So, this should be {{PD-Art-100}}. Nakonana (talk) 16:03, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Or {{PD-old-auto-1996}}. And the version that is of better quality is the preferred version for upload. Nakonana (talk) 16:13, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Good find, thanks! I'll use that as the basis for a new cropped version, and try to get the dewp version moved to Commons after the license change has passed pending review there. ‑‑Yodin^T 17:59, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Bauhaus garden

Hi, What is the proper category for Bauhaus garden for these files? Thanks, Yann (talk) 21:41, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

I'd guess the photos were taken in the garden of Bauhaus Dessau. Nakonana (talk) 22:17, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Category:Bauhaus Dessau. Nakonana (talk) 22:20, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

• File:Nina Kandinsky and Gertrud Grote in the Bauhaus garden in Dessau.jpg
• File:Mrs. Guggenheim, Vassily Kandinsky, Hilla von Rebay, Solomon R. Guggenheim in the Bauhaus garden in Dessau.jpg

Air traffic control recordings below TOO?

Title basically. They're entirely automated, the people recording them record everything, the words being uttered certainly have no artistic merit...

Would they be ok to upload? JustARandomSquid (talk) 22:25, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

 Comment, see similar discussion at Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2025/01#Air traffic control recordings & TOO. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 23:31, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

pd-scan or pd-map or both?

What to use for File:1927_Aŭstralio_-_lando_kaj_popolo_(mapo).jpg? PD-scan? PD-map? Both? DustDFG (talk) 07:02, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

• I updated the tagging with author death dates and PD-map. Looks fine to me. -Nard (Hablemonos) (Let's talk) 14:19, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Clarification on photographs of identifiable people

I have contacted the photographer of this picture and they are willing to release it under CC0 CC BY-SA 4.0 via VRT. However I am unsure on what actions are needed regarding the rights of the subject of the picture, Ari Lemmke, in order for the picture to be hosted on Wikimedia Commons. See also my proposal on how to approach this, which got no replies. It's moon (talk) 12:57, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Given that it was already published in a magazine, I cannot imagine any reason to need a release from the subject of the photo. (In any case, there is no copyright issue here, which is what this page is for.) - Jmabel ! talk 18:55, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! It's moon (talk) 21:40, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Review of File:Richard Adolf Zsigmondy.jpg

In 2013, Commons:Deletion requests/File:Richard Adolf Zsigmondy.jpg was reasonably closed by User: Fastily as delete due to lack of consensus that a permissive enough set of laws applied at that time. A decade later, I think the basis of one of the key concerns has become moot: even if it was published in the US with all formalities in the mid-1920s, it's now {{PD-US-expired}}, which was not true at the time of the discussion. The remaining dispute is about the country of origin, to determine the other governing law. There is evidence it was published in Sweden in 1925, and there does not seem to be a dispute that if that were the original publication it would be PD there as well.

The image was taken by a German photographer who died in 1974. User:Adrian Bunk's final statement, "failed to provide proof that the image was not published first in some country other than Sweden...The photo might have been taken in 1924 in Germany and published in a German newspaper at that time.", seems an impossible prove-a-negative standard to meet in general for anything from a century ago, and it would have to prove it was first published there. Conversely, the nature of the publication gives great reason to think the publisher would have access to create a then-contemporary image for its own purposes. If Sweden is the country of origin, then it doesn't matter for Commons hosting purposes whether it was also published in a place with a more restrictive law.

Could I get some current analysis of whether this image can now be hosted on commons? DMacks (talk) 06:32, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Also pinging User:Materialscientist, the other editor involved in that discussion. DMacks (talk) 06:36, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

I agree with your analysis and so have undeleted the photo as being public domain in both Sweden and the US. Abzeronow (talk) 01:42, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, you can't prove a negative like that. If someone wants the file deleted, then show an earlier publication in a non-Sweden country. We can always re-evaluate if more information comes to light. But for now, the license seems the most reasonable. Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:46, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Thanks all! DMacks (talk) 06:43, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Colosio murder

The video of the Colosio murder was apparently published on public domain ([3]) (PGR desclasifica el video completo del asesinato de Colosio- Grupo Milenio) but i don't know if uploading the video. ಠ ಠ 18:43, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

• We have the {{PD-MX-exempt}} tag but this only applies to text files, not videos. The Attorney General website you linked to doesn't seem to have the video, only files from the case. The second link you provided is a news report with the video in it but this is copyrighted by the news agency. To upload the file, you'd need two things, 1) better proof that the video was actually released as public domain for copyright, and not just released for public use (which can be tricky, you'd have to prove there's zero restrictions on re-use, which is usually not the case and 2) a version of the video with nothing else added, no news report, no logo from the news station, etc. Hope this helps. -Nard (Hablemonos) (Let's talk) 21:48, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

  I tried to put the link but it was blocked. Milenio noticias article it's about the declassification of the video, the video maybe isn't on the public domain. ಠ ಠ 00:47, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Canadian Crown copyright

A professor of intellectual property law, quoted by the Supreme Court of Canada, observed that "what exactly Crown copyright covers is unfortunately murky". In a recent deletion request, a user raised the question of Canadian Crown copyright, which may be examined in light of the 2019 decision of the Supreme Court in Keatley Surveying Ltd. v. Teranet Inc., [2019] 3 SCR 418. I do not necessarily expect that many users of Commons will find interest and time to read the decision of the Supreme Court, but it would be helpful if even a few users read it and can offer their opinion on the matter and contribute to the definition of some consensus on what Commons can interpret as potentially included or not in the notion of Canadian Crown copyright. Beyond the file under discussion in that deletion request, and beyond works from the same source, the interpretation, broad or narrow, of what circumstances can cause works to attract or not a Canadian Crown copyright can have an impact on the understanding of the copyright status of works made available through entities of the eleven declinations of the Canadian Crown, the eleven governments, provincial and federal. There are also some comments on this page. -- Asclepias (talk) 22:01, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

• Duncan Cameron appears to have assigned his ordinary copyright (PMA+70) to the LAC. This is not analogous to the situation in Keatley, where land surveys are published through a formal scheme with the government. The LAC owns the copyright, and may even be first publisher on some of the photos (but were they really? He was a photojournalist, so many of his works may have already been published), but without a formal scheme in place like the land surveys, I don't think this transforms the copyright. But, as I said, LAC owns the copyright, if they want us to have his image, they can release it under a suitable free license. -Nard (Hablemonos) (Let's talk) 22:45, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

• That's an interesting court case, thanks. It appears that Canada still has roughly the wording on what works have Crown Copyright as the UK Copyright Act 1911. The UK got even a bit more aggressive with their definition in their 1956 law, but scaled it back to be more similar to PD-USGov (mainly works created by employees) in their 1988 law, which is still current. It appears that Canada did not make that 1988 type change, and still has the "published by" criteria from the older UK laws. The cited ruling constrains that some, where it can still include works published by the government, but only ones that filled some particular public purpose, if not actually authored by a government employee. In that case, much like the UK, it would seem the government is able to hold normal copyrights transferred to them, as those are not in the definitions of what makes work be Crown Copyright. On the other hand, the current Australian law *does* seem to say that works transferred to the government do change to have Crown Copyright terms -- so it may not be universal among Crown Copyright countries. Given that though, donating materials to the National Archives would not seem to come under the definition, so would still seem to have their normal copyright. But, it would mean the National Archives could then decide the license -- and the source page for that says there are no restrictions on use. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:52, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Large amounts of (potentially) pirated content being hosted on a user page??

I suspect this is a digital archive for someone, like they're using it as storage rather than other storage providers; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Atlasowa/New_video2commons/2025_June_1-10 This is the page i initially found, i was attempting to find all instances of a song and came across this, with multiple full episodes of The Amazing World Of Gumball just here.

User:Atlasowa/New video2commons heres the entire list, it feels like a rabbit hole.

Is this sort of thing allowed? It seems like its violating alll sorts of copyright law, but then again i see lots of videos with varying use/significance HyperNover (talk) 02:48, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

@HyperNover apparently, for example File:The Amazing World of Gumball- Gumball & Darwin vs. The Evil Baby.webm, the underlying video is commercially licensed (by Cartoon Network India). I'm not sure if CN India has authorization from their parent firm to release the cartoon works into free culture (commercial-type) Creative Commons licensing. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 04:05, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

One related video was deleted but later undeleted (Commons:Deletion requests/File:Tom & Jerry - Enjoy the Eternal Cat & Mouse Game of Tom & Jerry on Cartoon Network India.webm). I doubt on Cartoon Network India's legal right to commercially license their parent firm's productions, though, considering India remained among the "priority watchlist countries" in 2018. An email correspondence from Cartoon Network's parent firm may be needed to clarify if they indeed gave CN India the authorization, as well as the extent of CN India's rights to relicense the Cartoon Network productions. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 04:10, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

It looks like the user is displaying the videos of Category:Uploaded with video2commons but in chronological order of upload. -- Asclepias (talk) 11:47, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Please see the discussion I started below: Commons:Village pump/Copyright#Cartoon Network India. Nosferattus (talk) 16:13, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Cartoon Network India

All 4000+ videos posted on Cartoon Network India's YouTube channel are marked Creative Commons Attribution. These include videos of numerous cartoon franchises owned by numerous different companies (Looney Tunes, Tom & Jerry, Ben 10, The Amazing World of Gumball, Teen Titans Go, Lamput, Kiteretsu, Grizzy & the Lemmings, Batwheels, etc.). There is no way in hell that Cartoon Network India somehow overthrew capitalism and convinced some of the most litigious media companies on the planet (Warner Brothers, DC Comics) to relinquish control of their intellectual property and give away their cartoons for free in perpetuity. Please put on your thinking caps and ask if this actually makes sense. Clearly someone somewhere has made a mistake. If you think that's unlikely, notice that they also consistently misspelled the title of Grizzy & the Lemmings. Clearly this YouTube channel has low quality control and no one has noticed the incorrect license setting. We need to do two things, neither of which I know how to do:

1. Nominate all the videos in Category:Videos by Cartoon Network India for deletion (in a single discussion if possible).
2. Blacklist the Cartoon Network India YouTube channel from video2commons.

Can anyone help with this? Nosferattus (talk) 16:11, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Totally agree with you. To me, this is ridiculous on its face. This does not appear to be a purposeful choice by the actual rightsholder, but rather a designation made by an overzealous or misinformed staffer at a foreign subsidiary, which may or may not have the legal authority to license these videos as such - and that's not a legal authority I believe we should be comfortable "assuming" they had. We need some kind of proof that this was purposeful and authorized by the rightsholder, unlike with individuals, where it's generally safe to assume that any person has the legal authority to release their own work. However, it does appear that all the shows Cartoon Network India has uploaded are in fact owned by Cartoon Network or their parent company, Warner Bros Discovery, some via other subsidiaries (for example: Grizzy & the Lemmings was produced in part by the French TV channel Boomerang, which is owned by WBD; Batwheels is property of DC Comics, which is owned by WBD; and the rights to Tom & Jerry were purchased from Hanna-Barbera by Turner Broadcasting in 1986, which merged with TimeWarner in 1996 and eventually became WBD). 19h00s (talk) 18:30, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Warner Brothers Discovery's Clip and Still Licensing guidelines and contact info may be of relevance here. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 22:21, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

I took my own initiative and just sent correspondence to clipandstilldept@wbd.com, in hopes of getting a response from at least one department from WBD. Fingers crossed, though. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 22:35, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

PD statues of old scanned aerial imagery (NOAA)

Hi! I would like to ask if PD-USGov-NOAA applies to 1950s Hawaiian islands, [4], 1940s Guam, [5]. Thanks --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 09:48, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

• I highly doubt *anybody* except the United States government was making aerial photos of Guam and the Hawaiian Islands in the 1940's and 1950's. In fact, 1944 aerial photos of Guam are incredible, the US retook Guam from Japan in August 1944. Unless Japan took them (which is improbable), it is almost certain USG took them. Of course, NOAA didn't even exist then; the US Army likely took them, but for copyright purposes, it doesn't matter. -Nard (Hablemonos) (Let's talk) 16:00, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

  For wartime imagery, there is a definite possibility that other allied powers may have been involved, as ships of the allied fleets were often detached to support US operations. Many British Commonwealth ships carried a small number of reconnaissance aircraft, making aerial imagery possible even without an aircraft carrier. However, the US would be the most likely authors given the scale of military deployment in the area. On the balance of probabilities, I'd assume any images in this area were US military rather than allied military, unless further evidence emerges. From Hill To Shore (talk) 16:33, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

  I checked some of the Hawaiian photos, and they are captioned "USN". -Nard (Hablemonos) (Let's talk) 18:26, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Copyright on pictures printed in newspapers

I'm confused about the use of pictures of singers, musical artists etc. that are included in newspaper articles about them. Is there any general rule that can be applied? For example nothing at all can be clipped and reused from newspapers?

Can newspapers of a certain age be clipped and used? For example, old than 25/50/75 Years?

Many of these pictures were originally sent of by management of booking agents specifically to promote the artist. There were no restriction on the use of the pictures as they were pay-for-work bookings. I have a hundred or so original pictures like this, mostly purchased through https://historicimages.com.

I'm willing to update a number of pages that are poor quality and would like to include a picture. Any guidance would be helpful. Cathcam (talk) 21:17, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

@Cathcam: No, there is absolutely no general rule. There are different rules for different countries and different eras. To give you some (partial) idea of how complicated it is just for the United States, have a look at Commons:Hirtle chart, and that doesn't even get into the issues of what constituted publication, notice, etc., let alone a myriad of subtler issues.

If you can say what country or countries the images were created in and/or originally published in, and approximately what dates, there is a much better chance that someone can give you at least an indication of what criteria to consider. - Jmabel ! talk 00:48, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Verifying the license of my uploads

Fellow editors, I would like to request a speedy verification of the license of some files I uploaded just now, namely File:Poecilia butleri male female.jpg, File:Poecilia butleri male.jpg, File:Poecilia butleri male and female.jpg, File:Poecilia butleri in an aquarium.jpg, File:Poecilia butleri copulation.jpg, File:Poecilia butleri aquarium.jpg, File:Poecilia butleri group.jpg, File:Poecilia butleri trio.jpg, and File:Poecilia butleri female.jpg.

The copyright holder has released them under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International in a Facebook post at my request (which, as I understand from this discussion, is sufficient evidence of permission).

Unfortunately, instead of writing the permission in the caption, the copyright holder did so in a reply to my comment, and so I am effectively outing myself. I would like to remove my comment (which will, in turn, remove the license comment from the Facebook post) as soon as the license is verified here. Surtsicna (talk) 21:20, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Hello @Surtsicna, I reviewed them all since you already posted here publicly. In the future, you may want to consider contacting COM:VRT by email to review the images, which should provide more privacy than in here. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 21:54, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, @Tvpuppy. I suspected that there was a more sophisticated way to go about this. Is it okay if I now remove the comment (and thus the license tag at the source)? Surtsicna (talk) 22:07, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

@Surtsicna, feel free to remove the comment in the post. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 22:12, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

DR review request

Could an administrator take a look at Commons:Deletion requests/File:EF5 east of Parkersburg.png which opened 27 October 2025? The uploader removed the DR tag from the file (File:EF5 east of Parkersburg.png), but the DR is still marked open, so I do not know if that caused it to get missed/overlooked in DR lists. Noting that I am the editor who opened the DR. WeatherWriter (talk) 22:53, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

@WeatherWriter I'm not an administrator but I have restored the deletion discussion notice on the file. However, I don't think that has had an impact on closing the deletion discussion. The backlog currently goes back to July 2025 but your request is only from October 2025. The deletion will be closed in time. From Hill To Shore (talk) 23:05, 30 November 2025 (UTC)