Commons:Monuments and copyright
Wikimedia Commons has strict requirements on copyright licensing. Photos taken by you of older monuments, completed before 1923 in the U.S., are generally acceptable. Photos of more recent works and of newer historical plaques on an older work can be subject to copyright restrictions as derivative works even if you took them. The US rules are, unfortunately, complicated.
Buildings themselves are not a problem under U.S. Copyright regulations, which define them as follows:
- "The term building means humanly habitable structures that are intended to be both permanent and stationary, such as houses and office buildings, and other permanent and stationary structures designed for human occupancy, including but not limited to churches, museums, gazebos, and garden pavilions." 37 CFR 202.11
Monuments, statues, gravestones, and other created works can be a problem, as can historical plaques. A few general rules:
- Keep the following dates in mind:
- Anything from before 1923 is automatically in the Public Domain (PD).
- Anything from 1923 to March 1, 1989 is PD if it does not have both (a) the word "Copyright" or the © symbol and (b) the creator's name. The date is not required on sculptures, but is on text. There are several exceptions to this rule, but they are not very common. If it does have the required notice, then it will be under copyright until at least 2018.
- Anything from after March 1, 1989 is generally not PD.
- There are also the following overriding exceptions:
- Anything created by an employee of the Federal government or the governments of Florida and California is PD. Thus plaques erected by the National Park Service and other Federal agencies are OK, but those erected by private groups are not. However, plaques are usually a problem only if they have a sentence or more of descriptive text
- Works commissioned and paid for by the Federal government are not OK unless the creator was an actual employee of the government. Works by independent artists are not OK, even if paid with government funds.
Commons is so much a repository of images that we forget that almost all text beyond a single sentence has a copyright that is enshrined in the US Constitution. Therefore, plaques describing an historical site need to be PD under the rules above to be acceptable for Commons. Thus most plaques from after 1989 are not OK for Commons, but many earlier ones have no copyright notice and thus can be used. If the date of the plaque is hidden in tiny type at the bottom, be sure to capture it.
It is up to the submitter of an image to demonstrate freedom from copyright restrictions, for example by noting the date of an older monument. Files that do not meet Wikimedia Commons copyright requirements will be deleted.
For more detailed information see:
