Commons:Deletion requests/Template:PD-ItalyGov: Difference between revisions

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*'''Delete''' this is superseded by EU directives. Although they are not law, their implementation into national law is mandatory. Seems to be a phantom debate.--[[User:Wiggum|Wiggum]] 22:30, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
*'''Delete''' this is superseded by EU directives. Although they are not law, their implementation into national law is mandatory. Seems to be a phantom debate.--[[User:Wiggum|Wiggum]] 22:30, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
** you have no idea what you are talking about; Italy mostly accepted the EU directive but mantained a reduced copyright, of 20 years, for non-artistic works. [[User:Paulatz|Paulatz]] 08:54, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

*'''Comment''' Specious. Show us where in Italian law it says what you claim EU directives dictate that countries must do. As David pointed out, the law is unambiguous. Italy also is listed as having implemented the EU harmonization directive. Ergo- either we must conclude that you and the EU wand wavers have a mistaken understanding of EU directives, or we must conclude that the Italian government is mistaken. Sorry, but the Italian government has more credibility.
*'''Comment''' Specious. Show us where in Italian law it says what you claim EU directives dictate that countries must do. As David pointed out, the law is unambiguous. Italy also is listed as having implemented the EU harmonization directive. Ergo- either we must conclude that you and the EU wand wavers have a mistaken understanding of EU directives, or we must conclude that the Italian government is mistaken. Sorry, but the Italian government has more credibility.
::Err, no – we must conclude that either everything is fine with Italian law and the EU directive, namely that images are copyright protected 70 years p.m.a just as it says in the law, no matter who might hold the economic exploitation rights during that period, or that Mak is right, that the Italian government is mistaken, violates EU directives and strips privat persons of their rights, which strangely nobody has ever noticed or claimed, not the EU commission, not Italian lawyers, not LUCE, not the disowned copyright holders, not customers of agencies claiming copyright.
::Err, no – we must conclude that either everything is fine with Italian law and the EU directive, namely that images are copyright protected 70 years p.m.a just as it says in the law, no matter who might hold the economic exploitation rights during that period, or that Mak is right, that the Italian government is mistaken, violates EU directives and strips privat persons of their rights, which strangely nobody has ever noticed or claimed, not the EU commission, not Italian lawyers, not LUCE, not the disowned copyright holders, not customers of agencies claiming copyright.

Revision as of 08:54, 9 September 2006

{{PD-ItalyGov}}

This template is nonsense. There is NO consensus although Mak has recently changed Commons:Licensing. He is damaging our project because he does'nt accept arguments against his position. German reading people are invited to see also the discussion of User:Wikipeder --Historiograf 18:45, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lupo posted an analysis of the issue today. --Wikipeder 19:29, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

 KeepCreativeCommons doesn't seem to think it is nonsense. They declare on their italian site that works of the state expire after 20 years. Italian wikipedia article doesn't seem to think it is nonsense- their article on copyright makes the same statement. I have based my statements on citations of law. The opposing parties have declined to give any support in law for their position for the last month on this issue. What they cite is the EU directive on harmonization, making claims that Italian law is wrong.

The nutshell argument supporting this template is this. The two passages of law I cite in the template give the basis in Italian law for why the works of the government are public domain and expire 20 years after publication. These were the laws on the books as of January 1, 1996. Under US law (under Title17, 104A h6b), if a work is public domain in the country of origin on that date, it is PD in the US. As with the PD-US template, we can say that means it is PD in the US, and possible elsewhere.

A full elaboration of the arguments are found here:

This discussion has been going on since the first of the month. When reading the threads, there is a huge amount of noise about extraneous issues, so it is helpful keep in mind the question: "What is the basis in law for this person's assertion?" Note that EU directives have no legal force until they are implemented in law by the individual EU nations. -Mak 05:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  •  Delete The argument against this tag and against applying this exception on the Commons is, in a nutshell, that we do not know enough on the legal situation yet to be sure. There are considerable clues that the situation is not as assumed by the tag. We are running a high risk of opening a gate for stealth non-free content.

Raising doubt is among other things that

  1. the very law can be read differently, namely that the state holds some of the rights for 20 years merely within the 70 years pma. period,
  2. Italian legal commentaries point out that there is a grey area in this respect,
  3. in the reading suggested by the tag, parts of §11 would contradict the 1993 EU Directive on Copyright Harmonisation, stripping some private photographers off their image rights, which nobody would have noticed for 13 years,
  4. there would be lots of 20+ year old PD photographic works around in Italy, but even the Italian WP fails to mention these (it only speaks of simple photographs as being PD after 20 years),
  5. the precedence LUCE image, made by a department of the Italian Propaganda Ministry in 1939, is not at all PD as claimed by Mak, but copyrighted to Corbis (No. U821165INP).

Beyond that, it is not and must not be the standard procedure to introduce an novelty unless it can be proved wrong. The opposite is appropriate when it comes to peoples’ rights: If we are not sure if we will be violating rights, we must not take a step. --Wikipeder 10:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

EU directives are not law. They have no legal force until they are implemented in laws of the governments of the individual countries. Folks unclear on this may consult European Union directive for further information. We base our templates on law. The Italian government says these are PD, US Government code says these are PD, and the specific sections of law showing this to be the case has been presented. Opponents have declined to do so other than vague assertions that there are contradictions and alternate readings which in the discussions on the talk pages they have declined to show.


BTW- the full discussion of this has been consolidated at Template talk:PD-ItalyGov. On the Commons Licensing page, it has been recorded that this matter is disputed regarding the theory that the 70 year pma rule overides the rights of the Italian government to declare their works public domain after 20 years. Proponents of this theory need to muster an arguement with specific reference to law or caselaw to prove their theory.-Mak 18:40, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

 Keep Giving up or limiting the term of one's own copyright is not against any European Directive. -- 3247 23:25, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

comment: In the tag's understanding, however, the state was not giving up just his own copyright (he's doing that in §5), but also the copyright of third parties, i. e. of private photographers whose works are paid for and published by the state or even by academies, cultural and non-profit organisations, which would in fact contradict the directive and national law in all EU states.
The law plainly says that photographic works are copyright protected for 70 years pma. If the state, an academie, cultural or non-profit organisation commissions a shot, they have the copright for 20 years. This does not contradict the EU directive, but Mak's and the tag's interpretation that these works enter into the PD after these 20 years does. --Wikipeder 09:18, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Modify. Reading the translations of the law at UNESCO things seem to be fairly unambiguous. It states in article 11 that, "Copyright in works created and published under the name and at the expense of the State, the Provinces or the Communes shall belong to them." It then further states in article 29 that, "The duration of the exploitation rights belonging, under art. 11, to the State, the provinces, the communes, the academies or public cultural organizations, or to private legal entities of a non-profit making character, shall be twenty years from first publication, whatever the form in which publication was effected." That does not really leave room for much confusion. The Italian text is the definitive version, and something might have been lost in translation, but I don't think a radical reinterpretation of it would be necessary.

The upshot of this is that copyright in works published under the name and at the expense of Italian governmental organisations is held by those governmental organisations. The duration of that copyright, in Italy, is 20 years from date of first publication. Outside Italy we run into the same problems as we had with UK Crown copyright before I got that FOIA reply from OPSI in 2005. The position is ambiguous. Judging by the US WTO copyright restoring rules since government works have a copyright term of 20 years in Italy it would appear that government works not properly registered for copyright in the US and previous public domain in the US under this rule would remain public domain unless they were published after 1975, when they still would have been in copyright in Italy.

Outside of Italy and the US we cannot say that the works are public domain. This is one of the most tangled areas of international copyright law and, given the resources that governments can throw at lawsuits, one where we should tread most carefully. Consequently the template should be modified to make it clear that we are only claiming the works as PD in Italy and the United States. A provision should also be put in stating that only works published before 1976, and not registered for copyright under US formalities, are public domain in the United States.

The final thing that should be done is to try and get a definitive statement out of the Italian agency(ies) that administer government copyright about what they consider the situation to be in countries outside Italy. David Newton 09:46, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am ok with constraining this to the US and Italy for the first release of this template. First cut at this modification text has been made on Template:PD-ItalyGov. Comments are invited on the talk page. -Mak 09:08, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete this is superseded by EU directives. Although they are not law, their implementation into national law is mandatory. Seems to be a phantom debate.--Wiggum 22:30, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Specious. Show us where in Italian law it says what you claim EU directives dictate that countries must do. As David pointed out, the law is unambiguous. Italy also is listed as having implemented the EU harmonization directive. Ergo- either we must conclude that you and the EU wand wavers have a mistaken understanding of EU directives, or we must conclude that the Italian government is mistaken. Sorry, but the Italian government has more credibility.
Err, no – we must conclude that either everything is fine with Italian law and the EU directive, namely that images are copyright protected 70 years p.m.a just as it says in the law, no matter who might hold the economic exploitation rights during that period, or that Mak is right, that the Italian government is mistaken, violates EU directives and strips privat persons of their rights, which strangely nobody has ever noticed or claimed, not the EU commission, not Italian lawyers, not LUCE, not the disowned copyright holders, not customers of agencies claiming copyright.
Given that Mak has not produced the slightest evidence or even hint that there might be something to his interpretation, I certainly see more credibility with the standard interpretation. --Wikipeder 12:32, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding the nonsense about Corbis claiming copyright on one Italian government image, therefore the Italian law must be wrong. Consider the fact that Corbis claims copyright on hundreds of US government photos (a few listed here). Are we to conclude that we should delete all the PD-USGOV templates? Why are the opponents attempting to prop up their flimsy thinking with such absurd inferences? The opponents stubbornly cling to their illusions and refuse to cite law or caselaw to back up their unsupportable theories about EU directives. -Mak 09:24, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is not the Italian government that is wrong, it is your interpretation of the Italian law.
And frankly, a world wide renown agency as Corbis claiming copyright certainly is more credible than some bloke tagging an image PD-USGov because it's got some government stuff on it, innit?. Indeed, there may be heaps of images wrongly tagged as PD-USGov. --Wikipeder 12:32, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't care what you conclude. Read the first few sentences of en:European Union directive and then read the text of the harmonization directive (93/98/EEC) especially article 1 which is pretty clear:

1. The rights of an author of a literary or artistic work within the meaning of Article 2 of the Berne Convention shall run for the life of the author and for 70 years after his death, irrespective of the date when the work is lawfully made available to the public.
2. In the case of a work of joint authorship the term referred to in paragraph 1 shall be calculated from the death of the last surviving author.
3. In the case of anonymous or pseudonymous works, the term of protection shall run for seventy years after the work is lawfully made available to the public. However, when the pseudonym adopted by the author leaves no doubt as to his identity, or if the author discloses his identity during the period referred to in the first sentence, the term of protection applicable shall be that laid down in paragraph 1.
4. Where a Member State provides for particular provisions on copyright in respect of collective works or for a legal person to be designated as the rightholder, the term of protection shall be calculated according to the provisions of paragraph 3, except if the natural persons who have created the work as such are identified as such in the versions of the work which are made available to the public. This paragraph is without prejudice to the rights of identified authors whose identifiable contributions are included in such works, to which contributions paragraph 1 or 2 shall apply.

--Wiggum 13:56, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wiggum you are wrong. Plain and simple. This is a government work we are talking about. The government holds the copyright in that work. Ergo the government can decide how long it wants that copyright to run for. Until you and Wikipeder acknowledge that basic fact you have no credibility at all in this discussion.
If we were talking about a private work then what you say would have weight. We are not talking about a private work. David Newton 23:24, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We are talking about private works. Government works are dealt with e. g. in Article 5. Article 11 does not deal with works created by civil servants on duty. It deals with works paid for and published by private bodies such as academies, cultural institutions, private non-profit organisation, and the state. This includes far more than government works. If a ministry hires a private photographer or buys unpublished images from him—say for a leporello on health care—, publishing the images in the ministry's name, it will have the right to do so exclusively for 20 years without the need to fix that specifically in a contract.
The same goes for any other private academy, cultural institution or private non-profit organisation listed by the very same Art. 11. In these cases the state is not even remotely involved at all.
Releasing such private works into the public domain after 20 years would not at all be in line with EU directives. --Wikipeder 08:15, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Uh. Sorry? The template doesn't cover private works at all. Wikipeder, please show me anywhere the template says that people can use it for private works paid for private bodies such as "academies, cultural institutions,..."
In article 11, the first single, separate paragraph says the Italian government owns copyright to the works that it pays for in its name. It does so in very clear and unequivocal language.
"Copyright in works created and published under the name and at the expense of the State, the Provinces or the Communes shall belong to them." Full stop. The first sentence of Article 11, the only sentence in the first paragraph. (Source: Unesco translation of Italian copyright law- see article 11.)
The second paragraph extends the similar rights to other entities in the Public sector, but these rights are not asserted in this template. Wikipeder is introducing irrelevant obfuscations. He has had this pointed out to him on his earlier presentation on this idea. He had no response then. Perhaps now he will explain why consideration of the rights of other public sector entities has anything any bearing on consideration of the rights of the state asserted in Italian copyright law. -Mak 21:02, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For sure the Italian government could do with the pictures what they want if copyright is owned by the state. That the copyright could be owned by the government and that your interpretation of the italian law is correct should be proved. This could be achieved by a gouvernmental statement as David pointed out for Crown Copyright. However we should be clear about the fact that these works are protected throughout the European Union due to the berne convention and the UCC. Since the European court of justice decided (in 2002) that the rule of shorter term violates the ban on discrimination for nationality this argumentation is nearly invulnerable. As far as i know the US usually do not adopt the rule of shorter term so the pictures would be protected there as well. Since the PD-Soviet discussion is running at the moment i know that an US court decided to use Soviet law to determine the ownership of copyright instead of US law. (see en:Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc. for further information). So there is at least a possibility that these works might be PD in the United States. Concluding i don't see good chances to accept this template's claims so i will keep up my delete vote.--Wiggum 23:21, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Folks, just have a look at the Italian text, please. "Alle amministrazioni dello stato ... spetta il diritto di autore"[1] does not mean a US-style copyright is owned by the state. "Spettare" specifies who is allowed to exert a right, not to whom it is irrevocably transferred as it could be done with US copyright. The sentence means the author's rights shall be held by the state.

Article 29 tells us "La durata dei diritti ... spettanti ... alle amministrazioni dello stato ... è di vent'anni"—The duration of the rights that shall be held by the state is 20 years. What happens then? The right of the state to the author's rights expires, not the very rights of the author. --Wikipeder 14:31, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

as you are an "it-1" user I don't think you can understand the exact meaning of the a word so seldom used as "spettare". It means "to belong as a consequence of some right". Paulatz 19:16, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Just a funny thing. Someone voted for deletion saying The argument against this tag and against applying this exception on the Commons is, in a nutshell, that we do not know enough on the legal situation yet to be sure.. It sounds to me like I don't understand, so delete. Who cares if the template was written by an italian attorney and the whole italian community is saying it is perfectly compliant with current law. I can't understand it anyway!. I am astonished.--Jollyroger 19:47, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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