Commons talk:Copyright rules

Maximum limit?

This applies unless a country has made a specific law. Which means that 50 years is a minimum, not a maximum. Someone might take that a bit literally. Many western countries hold on to a 70 year limit. There might be a country where it is 90 years. What is the longest tem known? Are there any countries with an infinite period?

Moreover: do we need these extra rules? Have there been many discussions recently which couldnt be settled using common sense?

Teun Spaans 15:08, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

It is not a minimum either. Copyright terms for photos are not necessarily prolonged retroactively, and copyright terms were much shorter 50 years ago. The copyright of photographic images of 1965 from e.g. Finland have expired, although they are not 50 years old. --LPfi (talk) 07:25, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Anonymous works and pma

If a work is truly anonymous, then pma (after death of author) makes no sense. I doubt any country has such terms. If the work is not anonymous, but the author is unknown to us, then we should use the more common 70 years pma, unless country of origin is known. I changed the wording of the Borda example (again). --LPfi (talk) 07:25, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Germany has a 70 years p.m.a. term for graphic works published (or possibly created) before 1 July 1995. See the warning in the {{Anonymous-EU}} template. A very odd rule, I think. --Stefan4 (talk) 07:37, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

How to handle problematic copyright issues?

I found following interesting case. There is a user on Flickr, who takes public domain images, adds a frame and republishes them under a CC-BY-SA license. It was subsequently uploaded by Commons user and as this CC license is acceptable for Wikimedia Commons it passed the FlickreviewR process as well. IMHO the practice of this Flickr user is at least problematic. Should this be deleted in Commons? In the specific case we have the original file imported as well...

• File:Loen Kjendalskronebrae Nordfjord Norway (1).jpg - the picture under CC-BY-SA from Flickr source
• File:Loen, Kjenndalsbreen, Nordfjord, Norway, ca. 1897.jpg - same picture as public domain from the Library of Congress

--LC-de (talk) 11:01, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

70 years PMA

The following text (from the article) seems illogical:

Assume that the author of the image on the right is unknown to us, but not unknown in the copyright sense. We know that the image represents the ship Borda, which was scrapped in 1891. The image could have been taken that year by a 20-year-old man, who could die of old age in his 90s; this brings us to 1960. Assuming the normal terms for "works" apply and a 70-year long copyright term pma, the image would be covered by copyright until the 2050s. If the work was truly anonymous, then the copyright probably did not exceed 1891 + 70 = 1961, which means it is free if it was published before 1923 (or free in USA for other reasons).

Surley 70 years after 1960s is the 2030s? Greenshed (talk) 19:56, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Album Covers

How do you properly cite an album cover? — Preceding unsigned comment added by PeterMGrund (talk • contribs) 03:30, 21 August 2017 (UTC)