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Latest comment: 18 years ago59 comments13 people in discussion

History of Music

This is an excerpt from a speech marked "Used with permission" - illy 16:01, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Talk:History of Music does not clearly whether it is released under GFDL.--Jusjih 11:12, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

George Jay Gould II

Copies of Obits from the New York Times in 1935. Again marked "Used with permission" - illy 16:08, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Frank Hawks

An obit from Time Magazine, 1938. Again marked "Used with permission" - illy 16:12, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Edith Kingdon Gould

Excerpts from Time Magazine, ranging from 1934 - 1958. - illy 16:24, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Fair use? Delete or move to Wikiquote. --Kernigh 21:18, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Eddie August Schneider

Excerpts from various sources, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, etc. Dates range from 1931 to 1940. All marked with "Used with permission" - illy 16:29, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

The user who contributed these texts had contributed other similar texts. But he does not seem to read or answer messages at his talk page. /82.212.68.183 18:29, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Philippine Society and Revolution

This is an interesting one. It's written by the Chairman of the Communist Party of the Phillipines, so I doubt he would claim copyright, but we have no proof of this. Philippine Revolution Web Central [1] has the entire text up (I actually found it in several places) without a copyright notice. But I haven't been able to actually been able to find a copyright release statement by the author (Jose Maria Sison) anywhere and there is a new addition of the book that was released this year. My gut feeling is we're ok with this one, but since I can't find any proof of this, I'm unsure of what the call should be on this one. - illy 16:00, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Those seem to be fair use copies. Politicians can and do claim copyright, either to sell their work, or to control modifications. I doubt that Sison wanted to grant unlimited permission to modify this, which a public domain dedication would have done.
As I believe this to be fair use, I suggest deletion. --Kernigh 21:15, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Deleted--Jusjih 14:40, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

The role of South Africa in SADC

This appears to be all or part of an acedemic article. Most like under copyright. - illy 20:25, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

The Death Of A Next Door Neighbor

This was published in Theology Today in January 1980 by Gail White.--Politicaljunkie 20:20, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979

This a British Act of Parliament which is newer than 1955 and thus is still under Crown copyright. The Crown copyright waiver granted by OPSI is not compatible with the terms of the GFDL and thus this needs to be deleted. David Newton 13:25, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Comment. Just out of curiosity, have the incompatibilities of the waiver with the GFDL been discussed somewhere? I deal with a lot of Crown copyright material, and I am interested in reading more on the subject. Thanks. Road Wizard 15:23, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd be grateful for more detail on how the GFDL is in conflict with: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copyright/copyright-guidance/reproduction-of-legislation.htm

The Act is downloadable from http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/index/ancientmonuments.htm

Gordon Barclay

The Crown copyright waiver does not allow the reproduction of the material if it is used in a derogatory manner, for advertising or promoting a particular product or service or promoting personal interests or views. Those restrictions are tighter than what the GFDL allows consequently we can't have legislation under Crown copyright on Wikisource. I was involved in quite a lengthy discussion about this a while back on the foundation-l mailing list, amongst other places. It may be frustrating, but that is the way things are. David Newton 19:15, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Road Wizard,

We've had previous discussion about this in the archives: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Possible_copyright_violations/Archives/2006/04#British_Statutes_After_1955

Brave New World

This work (currently we have only the foreword at WS) was published in 1932, Aldous Huxley died in 1963 and the UK has a Life+70 copyright term, so I believe this is a copyright violation. I'm sorry if that should not be the case; please restore the text unit then. If it's not copyvio, it would be nice to have one of those PD-tags on the unit.--134.155.87.42 14:14, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Delete. It looks like a copyvio.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:33, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Canned Heat Blues

Lyrics from 1929--BirgitteSB 04:06, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Linus Torvalds

Copy of an e-mail authored by Linus Torvalds in 1996. - illy 20:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

R5RS

According to this page, R5RS was published in the journal Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation. Most likely, this is a copyvio.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 21:27, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Delete, but is there a fast way to delete all of its sub pages such as by a bot? For me I can only delete them manually.--Jusjih 14:29, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
I have notified the uploader user:Tony Sidaway who is no longer active. If no response, all of the subpages of R5RS should be deleted as copyvio.--Jusjih 09:50, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the notification. The Acknowledgments page contains the following permission: "We intend this report to belong to the entire Scheme community, and so we grant permission to copy it in whole or in part without fee. In particular, we encourage implementors of Scheme to use this report as a starting point for manuals and other documentation, modifying it as necessary." I hope that this is compatible with our site license. --Tony Sidaway 12:00, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
"[W]e grant permission to copy it in whole or in part without fee." It sounds like that we cannot copy this work for sale, in which case it is not compactible with the latest copyright policy here. Although Wikisource itself does not make commercial use of works, its license does allow redistributors to make such commercial use. Therefore, works with non-commercial licenses are prohibited from Wikisource. Unless this work in question is licensed to allow commercial use, such as copying for sale, it is still unacceptable here and has to go.--Jusjih 17:10, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
No, I think the phrasing means they allow us to copy/replicate the work without paying them to do so. I'm still not sure if a mere few sentences indicating free reproduction is enough for us to go ahead and distribute it, though, especially since we might distribute it commercially.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 17:24, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
The permission is not very clear as to whether "without fee" is GFDL-compactible. This is what I wonder.--Jusjih 14:50, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
No, I think it is. I believe they are saying that you do not have to pay them to redistribute it. If they were meaning that someone (say WS) could not distribute the work and charge other people, I believe they would have used other phrasing. But it couldn't hurt ot get clarification on this.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 01:39, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree that it's ambiguous at best. If one interprets "without fee" in a restrictive manner, then the permission is incompatible with the GFDL. R6RS, the successor of this document, is currently under discussion, and I'll try to find out if the committee producing the new standard intends to license it freely. --Tony Sidaway 01:27, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Will be Deleted no explicit confirmation. --BirgitteSB 00:59, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

All deleted. :) Jude (talk) 07:34, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Dumarest searches for lost Earth (excerpt)

Source text published in 1973.--Politicaljunkie 21:00, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Copyright violation Deleted --BirgitteSB 20:12, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The Great Gatsby

This work was published in 1925, and Fitzgerald died in 1940. Odds are his works are still copyrighted.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 21:21, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure about that. I was the one who made the article. As I state on the discussion page of the article I just copied it from another website. I presumed that because it was on the other website it is not copyrighted, but I don't know. We should do research into American Copyright Law and see when copyrights expire. --BenWhitey 02:32, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I just did a little research at http://www.copyright-laws.com/pgs/copyright-basics.html . It looks like the Great Gatsby (published in 1925) will not expire from its copyright until 31 December 2020. However, I did just copy and paste it from a website so I am now a little confused. I support the deletion if you guys think that it is a violation of copyright law. --BenWhitey 02:59, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, just because it's on another web page doesn't mean it's not protected under copyright. It just means that the person who runs the site doesn't care about copyright. For Wikisource, though, where there are real potential legal problems if we distribute The Great Gatsby without permission from the copyright holder and tell others they can freely distribute it, we cannot hold such works. It will have to be deleted until the copyright expires in 2020 (that's only 14 years from now--I'm sure we'll still be around). Sorry about the trouble.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 03:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Copyright violation Deleted by Danny June 18 --BirgitteSB 20:13, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Restoration of The Coming Technological Singularity

This article was deleted from WikiSource because it was originally distributed under a non-GFDL compatible license which expressly forbade commercial use.

I contacted the author, Vernor Vinge, regarding changing the license on this document to one which is hopefully compatible with the GFDL. He changed it to the following: 

 Verbatim copying/translation and distribution of this
 entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this
 notice is preserved.

The author CC'd permissions@wikimedia.org in the e-mail in which he informed me of this change, as well as changed the license in the official copy he maintains at http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/singularity.html

And this allows his work to be used for commercial purposes? Without permission to use it commercially, we cannot have it here.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:01, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Kept

Latest comment: 18 years ago25 comments13 people in discussion

Alchemy Rediscoverd and Restored

Here's what I've been able to dig up on this. It was first printed in England in 1940. In the US the first printing was in 1941. The author was British and died in the early 1940s (one website mentioned that he was killed in a German air raid). I believe this means it would be out of copyright in Britian. One website mentions that the copyright was not renewed, but gives no support of this. There have been new British(1992) and US(1999) versions published. My feeling is that this is out of copyright in Britian but that it's status in the US is uncertain. - illy 21:01, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I am confident this is OK. It available at www.sacred-texts.com which says it's copyright was not renewed. This site is very careful about their copyrights, and has one of best informational pages on copyright I have found. --BirgitteSB 22:05, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Agree to keep. Sacred texts is amazing with copyright, and I tend to trust their judgments about it. If it says that the copyright was not renewed, I think that's good enough to keep it. We should properly tag it, though, so people know why it is in fact PD even though it was written after 1922.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 16:10, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Metaphysics

Even though Aristotle (384 BCE – 322 BCE) wrote the original text, the translator W. D. Ross died in 1971, so the involved pages may be copyvio.--Jusjih 11:42, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Ross's book Aristotle was published in 1923. I will do more digging to see where it was published and if it contained this work.--BirgitteSB 17:25, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
I have found Ross's Metaphysics at classics.mit.edu and etext.library.adelaide.edu.au, however neither give the date of first publication. However, classics.mit.edu tries to claim copyright, and grants a noncommercial and nonderivative license (which is not well enough for Wikisource). As it happens, Ross also translated Nicomachean Ethics, first published in 1908. A page at people.bu.edu claims that the 1908 Nicomachean Ethics is "public domain". I was unable to determine where Ross published Metaphysics or when Ross died (as I do not trust the Wikipedia article, being unable to find any other source for the date of death). For example, if Ross published in a European Union country, then copyright lasts 70 years after death. All of Ross's work would be in copyright unless Ross died before 1936. --Kernigh 20:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Note that noncommercial licenses are explicitly prohibited by the copyright policy. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 21:20, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I also noticed that another page at people.bu.edu claims that Metaphysics translated by W.D. Ross is in the public domain. --131.15.48.59 14:19, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Is this an acceptable source for the date of death: Sir David Ross -- Encyclopædia Britannica? --199.3.224.3 05:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
From Encyclopædia Britannica:
Schooled in the classics at the University of Edinburgh and Balliol College, Oxford, Ross gained recognition as an Aristotelian scholar by editing the Oxford English translations of Aristotle (1908–31); he translated the Metaphysics (1908) and Ethica Nicomachea (1925) himself.
Metaphysics came out in 1908, PD by definition. Thanks for finding this!—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:32, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I have reverted to the last version before tagging copyvio, but is this PD worldwide?--Jusjih 19:26, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush

This page consists of excerpts from Ahmadinejad's letter relased by the White House, plus a translation of the entire letter from Le Monde. Thus Ahmadinejad and Le Monde both have copyright. --Kernigh 19:39, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Hamid Reza Asefi said the contents would be made public "at the right time". It seems to me that this determines intent for the letter to be "public domain". http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4983868.stm The letter seems to have been sent to many different media outlets (Reuters, AP, WSJ, Le Monde), so that this confirms that "the right time" has come, in other words, the work has been intentionally released in the public domain for media organisations to do what they like with.
The WSJ scan clearly shows that Le Monde's version is not a translation by Le Monde, it's a retyping or optical scan of the English version sent to media outlets as a public domain document by Asefi. So IMHO we should be OK with this, though IANAL...
Boud 01:59, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

The letter is now on an official Iranian website. The letter is broken down into 7 parts on the Islamic Republic News Agency website. Full text of President Ahmadinejad's letter to George Bush. Islamic Republic News Agency (Iran). It is in 7 parts. Links for "Next news" or "Previous news" work on most of the pages, but not consistently, and some links skip parts. All 7 parts were linked from the right column of some pages at one time. But not now. So to save time here are direct links to all the parts:

I think the letter is public domain if it has been sent to many different media outlets. Wikisource can be considered a news outlet too. Wikisource is now using the translation from the Islamic Republic News Agency.

The new shorter URL for the Wikisource text is:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ahmadinejad%27s_2006_letter_to_Bush

--Timeshifter 18:21, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:Wiktionary Okay, I agree with Boud and Timeshifter that this English version comes from IRNA and the Iranian government, not from Le Monde. However, I disagree that your evidence suggests that the letter is "public domain".

Public domain means not subject to copyright (or patents) – it is not the same as "public". IRNA made the letter public – several news organisations recieved and redistributed the letter verbatim, in the original English. The letter remains under a Berne-Convention "implied copyright" unless the copyright holder dedicates the letter to the public domain, which includes full permisssion for any kind of modifications. Do non-English editions of Wikisource have permission to translate this letter? Does Project Gutenberg have permission to make an ebook of this letter? If permission is required, as I suspect, than the letter is not public domain.

To be in Wikisource, the letter must be either public domain or under a license compatible with the GNU Free Documentation License. If this letter is not so, as I suspect, then we should delete this letter. --Kernigh 18:05, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

It's the exact same circumstances as say, The FLQ Manifesto or a million others. It's a public document, released by its author, and by his government. Sherurcij 21:44, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
I believe the translations done by others may possibly be copyrighted, but the original document and the translation that were both sent out widely by Iran to many news media, are both not under copyright in my opinion. And then there is the common sense view of this. Iran obviously wants this out as widely as possible. They are not going to complain if it gets out more widely into even more places. Especially not their own authorised translation. And I did not see a copyright notice at the Islamic Republic News Agency location of the English translation. The President of Iran has not complained about the full text of his letter getting out more publicly. More and more media and others are posting the English translation from official Iranian websites. I assume the media organizations believe that they are not violating any laws or restrictions in publishing the full text. For example, Radio Free Europe [3] or the Financial Times. Click this Yahoo News search shortcut for more locations: [4]

--Timeshifter 17:20, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Just because they think they aren't violating copyright doesn't mean that they aren't. We've deleted translations from WS because there WAS a copyright on the translation (it was from CNN or some large news agency). And, for all we know, the news agencies received permission to reproduce those translations. I still agree with Kernigh that there is not enough indication that the translation is PD.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 17:29, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

The official English translation keeps showing up in more and more places. In both standard and alternative media. Click the Google and Google News search shortcuts:

  • Berne Convention: Iran is not party to the Berne Convention. If/when Iran eventually does become party to the Berne Convention, it is unlikely to apply retroactively. So it seems to me that the document is not subject to copyright in the sense of the Berne Convention. Boud 22:47, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Andy's Gone with Cattle

The source text was published in the 1950s.--Politicaljunkie 20:58, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

The poem was originally published in 1896 in In the Days When the World was Wide and Other Verses.[5] The poem itself was written in 1888. The text can be from anywhere, but the duplication of it in 1955 did not change the material or make it unique. The author, Henry Lawson, died in 1922.--05:10, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to remove the copyvio notice, but feel free to restore it if you still think it's a copyvio. I won't edit war over the issue.--Primetime 08:00, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Public Domain Kept--BirgitteSB 20:14, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Restoration of Insects Insects, Their Ways and Means of Living

This was deleted as a violation as it was published in 1930 and archive.org had it listed as Public Domain because of being published in 1923 which was patently false. They have now updated thier info to state that is PD by Copyright non-renwal. An editor at Commons also found no record of renewal and discovered most of the material was previosly published by the US Agriculture Dept. in journals. I think we should restore his work and tag it non-renewal. Also the correct title should be Insects, Their Ways and Means of Living.--BirgitteSB 15:12, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

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