Template talk:PD-Australia

message: In the Template it says "This image was created in Australia ...", so does this mean any images created by an Australian outside of Australia before 1955 is not in the public domain. I am thinking Frank Hurley here and his shots from Antartica and World War I. Anyone care to clarify. Nomadtales 22:54, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Firstly, I think the copyright holder for Hurley's WWI photos is the Australian government (ie., Crown copyright) seeing as he was a temporary captain in the AIF.  Secondly, copyright depends on who owns the copyright and where the copyright material is used, not where it was created.  Geoff/Gsl 21:47, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  It is not crown copyright, that argument has been had over on Oz notice board. Anything before 1955 regardless of who took it is now public domain. I think the copyright is not just if the photo was taken in Australia (although this in itself is questionable, are photos taken by foriegner in Australia, Australian property?) but taken by an Australian. So perhaps the wording may need to be changed in the template? Nomadtales 22:27, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: the provisions of the Australian Copyright Act only cover Australian citizens. Xtra 22:37, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

text:  I would be very surprised if photos taken by official war photographers such as Hurley and Parer weren't crown copyright.  I would think if you were commissioned to take photos by the government, and paid for it, then the government would hold the copyright.  But, as you say, the identity of the copyright holder is irrelevant for Hurley's WWI photos as under crown or normal copyright, they are now public domain in Australia. Geoff/Gsl 22:54, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

text: OK, so can anybody agree that using the word in, in the template should be changed to by. So it reads something like "This image was created by an Australian .... " Nomadtales 23:18, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sounds fine to me.  Geoff/Gsl 01:31, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Location or Person 

message: Crown Copyright applies to more than photos we should probably reword the template to make that clear. --Martyman-(talk) 09:53, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Crown Copyright 

message: I find it rather disturbing that Physchim62 has chosen to protect this article especially as an involved party to the discussion. I would also like to point that it is also rather pointless as both User:Rebecca and myself are both admins. Secondly I find the lack of good faith expressed rather offensive. I also assume that the protect is because Phychim62 thinks there is some kind of edit war occuring yet as per WP:PPOL admins should not protect pages when they are involved as a party to the dispute, except in the case of simple vandalism or libel issues against living people.. Given this total disrespect, the amount personal offense I take from this action, I have no further intention of continuing this discussion either here or on commons. Gnangarra 17:01, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have unprotected the template. The changes made do not apply (nor are they claimed to apply) to the vast majority of articles with this tag, so having the changes would lead to large confusion when a "this should be deleted" tag appears on every Australian public domain image. If it is established that this is an actual copyright concern for images post-1946 (and Physchim62 would do to explain why, something he's been very shy about doing), then he should create a new tag for those articles - and it should be one which is considerably more clear about the matter than his original draft. Moreover, protecting a page you are in an edit dispute over (especially in light of the above ramifications of your incompetent edit to the page) is a flagrant abuse of admin powers. Rebecca 01:47, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you are both admins, you should know better. You should be aware:
#that most copyright tags are protected, for reasons which I would have thought fell into the realms of common sense
#that you do not have consensus for the changes you wish to make, especially for a sensitive template such as a copyright tag
#where to go to obtain advice on the copyright issues which seem to bother you (If, by chance, you don't know, there is a helpful link in the title of the section below, which has been there since February)
#that this template does not say that image should be deleted
#that my talk page is open to you, and should have been used before reversing an admin action, and certainly before accusing me of "flagrant abuse of admin powers"
Physchim62 (talk) 15:09, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree that such language is unhelpful, but your action was certainly against policy and not at all justified by your response above. I don't think it will aid discussion to point out the disingenuous elements of that response, but I hope that you can acknowledge misstepping here (even if only to yourself), and that all of you can work to develop a consensus.--cj | talk 16:06, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Page protection

message: A template that says an image might be PD in the U.S. isn't very useful for WP deciding whether the image can be classified as free or not free.
Can I suggest two new templates are needed:   for images that are believed PD in Australia and the U.S.;  and  for images that are free in Australia but not in the U.S.
The present template should then be deprecated, in favour of the more specific ones.  Jheald 15:46, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On an ideal Wikipedia, all the PD-country templates would be deprecated. They are leftovers from the days before we realised that PD-in-a-country doesn't mean PD worldwide. Physchim62 (talk) 19:46, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This would not make any sense. The images covered by this template are PD in both the US and Australia (except for, perhaps, the very small subset of these images being discussed above) - but if they were American images, quite a number would not be PD in either. On a similar note, please stop re-adding the template to this article. By doing this, you are tagging every Australian PD article (not just those you think should be deleted) with a notice saying they are not PD, which is completely and demonstratably false. Rebecca 04:50, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Rebecca, have you read the addition?  It said, "In addition, the work may be subject to a subsisting United States copyright if it was first published on or after January 1, 1923" (emphasis added).  This is contradiction to your last sentence.  --Iamunknown 19:35, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The template itself is framed really unhelpfully. It looks at first glance like the templates for material that needs to be removed, and states at first "The United States copyright in this Australian image was restored by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1994...". With the exception of the phrase "if it falls into one of the categories below", which is buried in the middle of the text, it looks exactly like a template for images that should be shot on sight. As such, there is a very real possibility that this could see indisputably public domain images deleted. We need a template to apply to the actual images affected by this (which is not very many, if it is indeed the case at all), and for gods sake, we need one that is actually clear on the detail of this - which the existing Aus-PD tag is, but this most certainly is not. Rebecca 01:31, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How can you hope to convince people of your position if you will not adopt a modicum of good faith and civility. I don't have time to explain the inicracies of U.S. restored copyright simply because I have to go around clearing up after you. If you wanted an explanation, you could always have asked at Wikipedia talk:Copyrights, or read Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights: I can see no evidence that you have taken either of these elementary steps. As such, I have restored the version before your somewhat unhelpful interventions and protected the tempate for fourteen days so that a real consensus can be reached. Physchim62 (talk) 12:23, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You have now flagrantly abused your admin powers a second time. I have asked a neutral admin to overturn the protection, and this has been done. This is a clear-cut as it comes, and you are looking at an arbitration action for abuse of your powers if you continue to protect the template. I'll put this once again: you are not a lawyer, let alone a copyright lawyer, and your interpretation of things has been contradicted by at least one other editor after doing research. If you wish to change the long-standing consensus version of this template, then please either a) explain why you think this is the case beyond aggressively asserting that it is so, or b) calm down and join us in seeking legal advice on the matter. And finally, please stop re-adding the template to this template in its current form - even if you are right about the copyright matter, as I have explained above, it is inappropriate and misleading to add it here, because it could very likely lead to indisputably public domain images being deleted due to its bad design and phrasing. Rebecca 01:20, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

text:  don't just revert, and certainly don't wheel war. I have asked you to suggest alternative dispute resolution, but you have not done so. The legal rationale behind the addition which I proposed above, and which another user decided to add, is at Template talk:PD-Australia/U.S. copyright issues, as it is a bit long for this page. Physchim62 (talk) 12:26, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

text: This is the sort of explanation which we've been asking for for some time (other editors have tried and failed to find it on their own). Had that been presented in response to the repeated earlier requests, and before the actions over the template, much of this nastiness would have been averted. As for the changes to the template, see below. Rebecca 01:12, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

text: For works not in the public domain in the United States but in the public domain in Australia, apply ; beyond that, if editors feel up to cataloging images on Wikipedia that are in the public domain in Australia but not in the United States, go ahead.  --Iamunknown 21:25, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree, there is no need for a seperate template for images which are PD in Australia but not PD in the US, because such images are not PD as far as Wikipedia is concerned: they can only be used under non-free content policy, and should not be tagged with a "PD" template. This template should be changed so that innocent users are not misled into thinking that a given image is PD when it isn't (under the terms of WP:PD). Physchim62 (talk) 12:26, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Having read the link above, I agree. However, because of the problems I've outlined above, the draft template above (and which has been repeatedly added to the bottom of this template) it is not appropriate. Rather, I think we just need to change the dates on the current template to 1946 (instead of 1955), and clarify in the header that it is the copyright of these images in the United States that matters, instead of whether or not they are public domain in Australia. A link to the page that Physchim linked above, as well as the ACC sheet linked already, should provide sufficient explanation for anyone interested. Rebecca 01:12, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

text: A more complete link is the page Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights, although it is obviously not as specific, as it tries to cover all countries, not just Australia. I'm not sure your solution is 100% workable at the moment: there are images in the category which have been uploaded in good faith under the old template but which (by simple human error) are mistagged as WP-PD. As I've explained, IMHO, these will need to be placed in a non-free category, with all that that entails. There are about 1200 files in :Category:Australian public domain photographs, which is a lot, but a manageable number to go through. I can't guarantee a timescale if it's just me who does it, although in an even trickier case at  I got through over 300 images (including notifiying uploaders, resolving non-obvious cases etc.) in about six weeks. It's the project management of such things which actually takes the most time, in my experience... Still, feel free to post a suggestion for a new wording for this template if you wish. Physchim62 (talk) 14:51, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see where you're coming from. I think your tag above could be appropriate for this (as long as it is created as a seperate tag, and is not put in this one) if someone is prepared to go through and re-tag all those that were mistakenly tagged in the past. It would need to be reframed some as a "this is definitely non-free" instead of a "this might be non-free" tag, but I don't think that would require too many changes to its current state. I'd also point out that there are probably considerably more than 1200 files that will need to be sorted through, considering a lot of the Aus-PD stuff is now at Commons. I think this would allow us to get rid of the backlog - then changing this template as I suggested above could make sure it doesn't happen again. Rebecca 05:45, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for posting the link to Template talk:PD-Australia/U.S. copyright issues. From my reading of it (as a bush lawyer!) it seems that the guidance is that only a very small percentage of Australian PD-tagged images are likely to not be tagged correctly (I wouldn't be suprised if NONE of the images are tagged incorrectly given the low likelyhood of applications for US copyright covering them ever being made), and that we should assume good faith and not regard this issue as being any kind of crisis. That page seems to suggest that we work on the assumption that the images are in fact PD unless proven otherwise, which seems sensible given that only a few years worth of images are potentially risky, and very few of those images will have ever been registered in the US. --Nick Dowling 23:55, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops, it seems like I've not been clear enough again! There are two sets of images which might be incorrectly described as PD. For images published between 1923 and 1945 (subsisting copyright), I agree with you, we can probably assume that they weren't registered in the U.S. unless we have reason to believe otherwise, and so there's little if any problem. For images published in or after 1946 (restored copyright), registration in the U.S. is irrelevant to their current U.S. copyright status: they're protected under U.S. copyright until at least 2041. Physchim62 (talk) 22:28, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

text: This table  is quite useful on different ways things can fall for U.S. law.  It seems to me there could be a problem with any images under this tag that were published after 1945.  Jheald 00:04, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Need for new templates?

message: Firstly, I apologize if I misrepresent anyone's argument from above.  As I can see, the main actionable objection came from Rebecca.  An excerpt of Rebecca's post is as follows.
: "It looks at first glance like the templates for material that needs to be removed, and states at first "The United States copyright in this Australian image was restored by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1994...". With the exception of the phrase "if it falls into one of the categories below", which is buried in the middle of the text, it looks exactly like a template for images that should be shot on sight" ([ diff]).
I fully agree that, on a cursory reading, the proposed addition appears to assert that the United States copyright for all images have been restored (which is inaccurate).  Thus I propose that we consider the contested addition, with the following change to the header.
: "If this Australian image falls into one of the categories below, the United States copyright was restored by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1994 (17 U.S.C. §104A). Otherwise, if the work was published on or after January 1, 1923, it may be subject to a subsisting United States copyright.
: "Such images may only be used on Wikipedia where there use is covered by our non-free content policy.
: "Additionally, they should be tagged with a non-free image copyright tag."
As I read the modification, the sentence-construction issue is resolved (but please comment if I have missed something).  We need to work on a compromise.  Please discuss.  Thanks, Iamunknown 06:05, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we've already moved beyond this point. Physchim62 has been going through all the Aus-PD images and listing the affected ones - when that's done, we'll either need to adjust the current one to a "this is definitely non-free" or whack a generic non-free template on them. As I pointed out above, having taken these images out of the picture, simply changing the years from 1955 to 1946 and adding a few words to the header (including a link to Physchim's detailed explanation above) to explain the change would achieve the same ends without making the template any more confusing. Rebecca 09:18, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I basically agree with Rebecca. Once we get the problem images out of the category, the change to the template becomes much simpler. As mentioned below, I'm in the process of checking all images at the minute (help is always welcome, there are still plenty of images whose date is not recorded on the image description page as it should be). If things are left to me, I will leave it until the latest possible moment to change the tags on these images, to try to stop any over-zealous admin deleting them before we've had a chance to get them in order! I don't see any policy problem in this—several admins are aware of the problem and it's in the process of being sorted out, so another couple of weeks with the wrong tag won't actually hurt anyone. All the same, if anyone's favorite image is marked with a red cross on the checklist, they are welcome to change the tag for an appropriate non-free tag with fair-use rationale: one less for the rest of us to do! Physchim62 (talk) 10:05, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Okay, changing the dates (and adding a note why the dates are changed) as opposed to adding more template bloat sounds good.  --Iamunknown 18:52, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moving towards a compromise 

message: What about this case? SYSS Mouse 15:51, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Non-US_copyrights#Subsisting_copyrights]] 

message: when does the copyright on maps expire, such as those in the National Library collection? --Astrokey44 11:25, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd assume that they are an artistic work (Category C)? enochlau (talk) 14:02, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There been a recent court decision on maps, it changed the way copyright applies, details are on the Australian copyright Council website. Gnangarra 07:07, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: according to  Australian copyright Council, maps where copyright is owned by the government(crown copyright) its 50 years, where its privately held the copyright is 70 years after the creators death, if author is unknown it 70 years after it was first published. First published has been determined by the Federal court as being when the map is handed over by the surveyor to the client, what this means  is that if the client is the NSW government and the creator was the NSW government lands dept , the map was created in 1955 for use in a report that wasnt pbulished until 1960 the copyright on the map would have expired in 2005 Gnangarra 07:18, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  maps? 

message: If have compiled a list of all the images in :Category:Australian public domain photographs at Template talk:PD-Australia/Image check in order to check for restored U.S. copyrights. So far, I have checked about 300 images (roughly a quarter of the total)—all help in checking is gratefully received. The number of "problem" images is quite small, as people can see from the first three sections of the list. There are also some images which are not properly sourced, which I've been noting as I come across them. Physchim62 (talk) 17:15, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image checking 

message: Hi, 
What other information should go along with this tag. I keep getting harassed by bots to have a fair use rationale. Is this correct considering it is public domain? The image I am referring to is :Image:Univeristy of Adelaide around 1869.jpg Muzzamo 23:49, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the only other information it should need is a link to the source. Having a "non-free" rationale template (as is there now) for a free image may be confusing the bots, but if they persist in tagging images already tagged as Aus-PD, please come back and post here, and it can be chased up with the bot owners. Rebecca 23:57, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What else needs to go with it 

message: The link http://www.copyright.org.au/admin/cms-acc1/_images/7942729524c8dbfec9a120.pdf (ACC Information Sheet G023v14 (Duration of copyright) (Feb 2008)) seems to be broken. The site copyright.org.au is running. --Quedel (talk) 18:17, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed Magog the Ogre (talk) 22:43, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Broken again :( -- Nbound (talk) 03:19, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link broken 

message: *(See Also: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Australian_Images_-_Copyright)
This template mentions nothing of these, though these images make up a reasonably large proportion of AU images (archives, etc.), despite that they can be still covered by copyright in the US for upto 120years post creation. Thoughts? -- Nbound (talk) 15:06, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: That's true. But it's true for any country; it's not specific to Australia. – Quadell (talk) 15:24, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unpublished works 

message: According to c:Template:PD-AustraliaGov, crown copyright expirations apply worldwide. Should we edit this template to reflect that? Wikiacc (¶) 16:58, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Crown copyright 

message: Dear fellow editors,
I have been working on some suggestions for upgrades to the PD-Australia and PD-AustraliaGov templates, and for a new template for licensing Australian photographs. The suggestions encompass both the Commons and Wikipedia templates. If you would like to read/comment, please visit Template talk:PD-Australia at Commons. Cheers, Simon –   💬  at 05:24, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestions for upgrades to the PD-Australia and PD-AustraliaGov templates