File talk:Pahari women kashmir1890.jpg

OK Fowler. Since you feign ignorance let me explain. The source you initially gave for the pics was this. Now do you see any pic on that page which even remotely is connected to the Toda images you've uploaded? NO? That explains why I initially tagged it as not having source info.

You then came up with this. Now, while that page sure has a scaled down image of what you've uploaded, it certainly by itself is NOT what you have uploaded. I am certainly aware that hi resolution and large pictures can be scaled down. But I've never seen a small original being scaled up.

Now, I am sure you will point me to this("large image") and say that is what you've uploaded. Right? Wrong. Here is the tricky part. That pic is NOT what you have uploaded. That pic has the British Library logo on it and yours doesnt... meaning you uploaded a cropped version of the original. Now thats still vio. The fact is, BL got their hands on the original(which either belonged to them right from day one or was obviously pd-old) and watermarked it. When they watermark it, it becomes a new creation. Now, unless they release their new creation on a license which allows you to produce derivatives, you are NOT allowed to produce derivatives. The British Library categorically says on their website that all pictures on their website are copyrighted to them. (I am sure they're professional enough to know what they're talking about). That being the case, it is not upto you to simply download their creation, modify it and upload it on wikipedia. You were being smart. Werent you? If you can actually get your hands on the original original(sans the watermark, ie.,) feel free to upload it on wikipedia. But NOT the British library creation.

While I'm explaining this, let me also point out another thing. You have uploaded some maps on wikipedia on which you credit yourself for annotating it. You can jolly well add such credits in the summary, but you are not supposed to have it on the actual picture itself because it is a watermark of sorts and watermarked pics are not allowed on wikipedia. The watermark concern apart, some would argue that it is vanity too. So take those pics down, fix them and re-upload them before somebody tags them too. Sarvagnya 02:06, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the above. As long as we remove the watermark, we can use the remaining portion of the public domain image. -- But|seriously|folks  02:19, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually the funny thing is that all my BL images were downloaded from their web site in early 2006 (and I have quite a collection). This was before they started tagging the images with that red BL mark. I will shortly upload a full scale version of the image without the label (and I haven't played any tricks with the image). Later in Fall 2006, I wrote a number of times to BL first asking them if it would be OK to upload the images to Wikipedia and then telling them I would be uploading them, but got no response. The red labels appeared sometime in early 2007 or at least that is when I noticed them. More soon. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:27, 26 October 2007 (UTC) Or, actually, now that I think of it, they were likely downloaded in Fall 2005. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:28, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Paharia women in Kashmir

And here is the original image. As you can see, there is no label. I did crop them, but that was done for symmetry and arrangement. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:46, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

The Copyright Issue

(unindent) Bridgeman v Corel does not apply in English law, and the prevailing legal opinion over here is that photographs of 2D works in the public domain may indeed be eligible for copyright. Since the British Library is located in London, under the laws of the country of origin of this image (i.e., the photograph of the original image of the Kashmiri women which the BL has put on its website and which Fowler&Fowler has uploaded), it is not in the public domain, and is very likely to be protectable by copyright. Wikipedia:Public domain suggests that the laws of the country of origin (in this case, the UK) should be taken into account in determining whether the image in question is sufficiently free for Wikipedia - if this is indeed so, which means that putting the PD tag on this image may not quite be in accordance with Wikipedia's guidelines. If en goes entirely by US law, ignoring the law of the country of origin, there is obviously no problem, but WP:PD doesn't give that impression. -- Arvind 21:01, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, now that we have got the issue of the actual watermark/tag out of the way (my images didn't have any watermark), I agree, the question remains whether the images were nonetheless copyrighted. Let's look at a more basic issue. The public domain page says:

“ Wikipedia, and the Wikimedia Foundation, its legal body, are based in Florida, United States. Although legislation is sometimes unclear about which laws are to apply on the Internet, the primary law relevant for Wikipedia is that of the United States.... In the U.S., any work published before January 1, 1923 anywhere in the world is in the public domain ”

In the UK, images go into public domain on the first of January of the year following the completion of 100 years since the death of the photographer. The very fact that we are able to upload images published in 1908 (say) only in the UK and declare them to be PD on Wikipedia says that it is the US law, not British law that is being applied. As for Bridegman vs. Corel, the UK museums' own Copyright Interest Group has this to say:

“ In the New York Southern District Court, Judge Kaplan, using UK law to reach his first decision, ruled that a photograph of an out-of-copyright artwork is not itself sufficiently original to have copyright protection. Judge Kaplan was asked to review his decision and following re-argument reached the same conclusion a second time, this time based on American law but again citing British law. ”

That means that even the museums' interest group acknowledges that under US law (however misguided :)) the Bridgeman Art Library, a British archive, could not legally copyright its images when it was challenged by the Corel Corporation a US listed Canada based organization. As far as I can ascertain, this means that the same US law would apply to Wikipedia (a US-based foundation) in respect of British "copyrighted" images of artwork. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:10, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

It depends on whether this particular wikipedia follows only US law, or a combination of the laws of the US and the country-of-origin in order to determine eligibility. I know that commons, for example, requires images to be PD under both US law and the law of the country of origin (as a result of which a whole lot of images with a status very similar to this one have been deleted in recent times), but I'm not particularly familiar with the English Wikipedia's policies. I just wanted to make sure people were focusing on the correct issue, rather than on the issue of the watermark, which is quite irrelevant. -- Arvind 00:24, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I just checked. You are right on the Wikimedia Commons policy. Here, for example, is the PD-US-1923-abroad template:

Do not copy this file to Wikimedia Commons.
This file might not be in the public domain outside the United States and should not be transferred to Wikimedia Commons unless it can be verified to be in the public domain in its country of first publication and that at least 70 years have elapsed since the author died. Commons requires that images be free in the source country and in the United States.
If this file is in the public domain outside the United States, add |pdsource=yes to this template to hide this warning.
If this file is not in the public domain in the source country but will become so in the future, add |out_of_copyright_in= and then the year its copyright will expire.

I wonder if the same would apply to the BL copyrighted image issue, i.e. those images could be uploaded to the English language Wikipedia, but not to the Commons? It should be easy to check. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:06, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

PS I just left this query at WP:MCQ as well. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:23, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Note that according to the commons (no source noted though), a scan of an image--even in the UK--is ineligible for copyright. The copyright is only for professionally staged photographs of a piece of artwork (or presumably a photo as well) taken from a distance, which this almost certainly is not. Calliopejen1 19:33, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

If this is a scan, yes. I'm not entirely sure it is, though - I know that some archives prefer taking photographs of photographs to scanning them. Anyway, I don't have a strong opinion on this question. Personally, I think it would be nice if :en could simply apply less restrictive policies than commons does on this issue too, as it does on many others -- Arvind 21:21, 29 October 2007 (UTC)