Template talk:PD-USSR

message: For discussions about this template see Wikipedia talk:Image copyright tags --Denniss 10:57, 2005 May 1 (UTC)
:I believe this template is completely wrong. See Wikipedia_talk:Copyrights. Lupo 08:57, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And then there's the duplicate template . Lupo 10:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

message: Please add an interwiki link to the Vietnamese version of this template:
 vi:Tiêu bản:PD-Soviet
Thanks.
 – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 08:55, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, please don't; and please delete the tag on the Vietnamese WikiPedia. This tag is wrong. Lupo 07:55, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interwiki link to vi: 

message: *March/April 2005 - No clear outcome
*January 2006 - arguments for why pre-1973 is very doubtful, if not outright incorrect
*TfD discussion from February 2006.
User:Irpen decided after not even one day of discussion to remove the TfD notice from the template.    now redirects to this template. Lupo 08:33, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The discussions are already ongoing. Please do not try to cut it short just because you don't seem to care. Thank you. I do think until this IMO patently false tag is corrected, it should be deprecated with a warning and a pointer to the discussion like I did. I do resent your undoing this. Lupo 16:35, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I have re-instated the link to the talk page, but left the deprecation bit out. I voiced my concerns long ago. You didn't voice any opposition or disagreement then. Apparently it's necessary to advertise this more broadly, and using the tag itself to do so it an obvious way. Lupo 16:43, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Previous discussions on this template 

message: Maybe JYolkowski's rewrite helps to clarify matters, but it should be noted that it essentially is still equivalent to the previous version, but it may highlight the problem better. Although Soviet works published in the USSR pre-1973 were not copyrighted in the U.S. due to a lack of copyright treaties (as pointed out by 17 USC 104(b)(2)), such works became eligible for retroactive copyright restoration in the U.S. when Russia (and the other successor nations) joined the Berne Convention and the U.S. then passed the URAA (see WP:PD for a brief explanation of the URAA). See 17 USC 104a(h)(6)(C)(iii). Thus such works are only in the public domain in the U.S. if they were in the public domain in Russia on January 1, 1996 (see 17 USC 104a(h)(6)(B)).
Therefore, a tag that states precisely under which conditions a work (or at least, an image) entered the public domain in the USSR would make much more sense than this pre-1973 business. The USSR changed its copyright laws several times, and one would have to examine all these laws and their implementation acts to figure it out. (The implementation provisions are important to make sure one does not overlook a possible case where a new law was applied retroactively to works that had already gone out of copyright under the previous law.) 
The whole issue is of course complicated by the fact that there are many successor states of the USSR. Why only consider Russia? Is a USSR work considered to have been simultaneously published in all successor states? As a hypothetical example consider a USSR work that were copyrighted in Russia on January 1, 1996, but out of copyright in the Ukraine on that date. (Granted, I believe that such a case is unlikely, but it illustrates the problems.) What then?
Since this pre-1973 tag also seems to exist on the commons, it may be worthwhile to consider the situation in other countries, too. In particular the European Union would be of interest here. The EU does implement the "rule of the shorter term" (again, see WP:PD) towards non-EU countries, and thus I think for the EU the rule would be "if a Soviet work was in the public domain in the USSR, it is in the public domain in the EU, too". Again, the issue may be complicated in the case of USSR works that are still copyrighted in some but not all successor states of the USSR.
In any case the reasoning "Soviet works published pre-1973 are PD outside the USSR because the USSR was not party to international copyright treaties" does not hold. That 1973 date is a completely bogus lead as far as the U.S. is concerned. (I think it's also pretty irrelevant for the EU, but I'm not sure.) For the U.S., the critical question is "was the work copyrighted on January 1, 1996 in its home country (or countries)?" If so, it is covered by U.S. copyright (with the U.S. copyright terms!), if not, we may consider it PD in the U.S. Lupo 08:11, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: One thing I do not like at all about the rewrite is that it implies (although the statement in question is marked with  as needing verification) that works published pre-1973 indeed were in the public domain in the USSR (or its successor states) on January 1, 1996. That doesn't necessarily follow either. Lupo 08:17, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  JYolkowski's rewrite 

message: Is there any info about the work of the Soviet government?  All of the pictures at Grigori Nelyubov and most of the Soviet space program are from government sources.  Thanks! --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 16:58, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Work of Soviet government 

message: Since the pre-1973 rule doesn't work, let's see if we can find a more precise workable rule. 
#Works published in the former Soviet Union must be considered simultaneously published in all successor nations, because all these successor nations were considered members of the UCC with effective date of May 27, 1973 (the date the USSR had joined the UCC). See Circular 38a of the U.S. Copyright Office.
#The U.S. Uruguay Round Agreement Act (URAA) (TRIPS), codified in U.S. law as 17 USC 104A, says that a work's copyright is automatically and retroactively restored in the U.S. if it was still copyrighted in its country of origin on January 1 1996. In the case of simultaneous publication, a work has multiple countries of origin, and must be out of copyright in all of them to avoid this automatic retroactive copyright restoration.
#Georgia is one of those successor nations of the USSR. It has passed in September 1999 a retroactive copyright law defining a general copyright term of 70 years p.m.a. Anonymous works are copyrighted for 70 years since their first publication, unless the author becomes known within that period, in which case 70 years p.m.a. applies again. If an unpublished work is published for the first time after its original copyright had expired, the publisher is granted the economic rights (known as the publication right in the EU) for a period of 25 years.
#Since that law is explicitly retroactive, any works of authors who died 1929 or later were covered. (By now, according to that Georgian law, works of authors who died before 1936 are in the public domain.)
#The 70 year period of Georgian copyright law matches the periods of Russia and of the Ukraine. All the other successor nations have a period of 50 years (and various special cases). The Russian (1993/2004 law) and Ukrainian (2001 law) laws are retroactive "for a period of 50 years", whatever that means exactly. See Wikipedia:Copyright situations by country.
The only workable rule for Soviet works that I can deduce from all this is that they are no different than any other work; i.e. Wikipedia can consider Soviet works PD only if the author died more than 70 years ago, or, in the case of an anonymous work, if the work was published more than 70 years ago (but then we'd need to be pretty sure that it was indeed an anonymous work, it doesn't just mean "I don't know who took this picture"). Since we need to consider all successor nations' laws, any attempt to find "safe cut-off dates" based only on Russian law are wrong, and thus both 1954 (2004 - 50) and 1943 (1993 - 50) are incorrect.
Comments, anyone? Lupo 10:06, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not convinced of the Georgia argument. Speaking from an EU point of view I would like to follow the EU rule of the shorter term and accept only the 50 years pma rule (valid in Russia and most other successor states) as workable. We cannot avoid ALL risks and should go pragmatic ways diligently monitoring possible troubles. UNTIL we get troubles it seems the right "via media" between the pre-1973 NONSENSE and the 70 years pma rule (which has to be valid indeed for creators who are citizens of the three baltic former Soviet and now EU countries!!) to accept the 50 years pma rule --Historiograf 14:35, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

text: PS: PLEASE COMMUNICATE THIS DISCUSSION TO COMMONS VILLAGE PUMP! --Historiograf 14:38, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't understand— Russia has 70 years p.m.a. since 2004. Lupo 18:16, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry my mistake --Historiograf 23:38, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

text: So can we be confident that the 1925-1962 soviet law defining only 3 years (in special cases 5 years)(Ajvol, 09:32, 14 February 2006 in this discussion) for photos has been abrogated by the present Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian, Estonian laws, and that copyright that had expired after 3 or 5 years has been revived by the newer laws of those countries whenever the photographer is still alive or died after 2006 - 71 = 1935 (Georgia, Estonia) ;  2004 - 51 = 1953 (Russia, Ukraine) ? Teofilo talk 12:23, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know. First, you can ignore Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in the context of this discussion: these Baltic states are not successor states of the USSR. (Such is politics...) For Georgia, yes, I think your statement is true. For Russia and the Ukraine, I do not know how to interprete their "50 year retroactivity": does that mean the current laws cover any work whose author died less than 50 years ago (1954 or later for Russia, 1951 or later for the Ukraine), or does it mean they cover all works published after that? Or does it mean any works that were still copyrighted in 1954 or 1951 by the then current laws? And what about the earlier 1993 law in Russia, which also was retroactive for a period of 50 years? And I'm unsure about any interactions between this retroactivity period and the 70-year p.m.a copyright term in these two countries. But given the fact that for the U.S., we would have to consider all successor states, and Georgia is a pretty clear-cut case with an (unfortunately!) long copyright term of 70 years, I think this deliberation is moot. Lupo 12:57, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Even if Estonia is not considered a "successor state", wouldn't a US court consider that the present Estonian law applies for works first published in Estonia at the time that state was part of the Soviet Union ? Teofilo talk 12:11, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ask a U.S. court! Seriously, I don't know what a U.S. court would do e.g. for a work published by a publishing house based in Tallinn at a time when it was part of the USSR. Estonia is not a legal successor of the USSR. First and foremost, a U.S. court would apply U.S. law, that much is sure. It would also take into account foreign laws to figure out whether or not a work was copyrighted in the U.S. at all. But which foreign laws the court would consider in such a case, I do not know. Lupo 17:31, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What would be a workable rule? 

message: Huge number of people use pre-1973 Soviet publications as the public domain works. Many use them commercially. The legal reasons to depreciate the tag are obscure and certainly are untested in the USA courts. I can not imagine that the first test case will be Wikipedia (noncommercial  organization working for the common good). Depreciating the tag will be a catastrophe for a whole section of wiki and the risk is most probably just our imagination. I would suggest to stop the self-harming actions until a real danger (test case) will be present abakharev 22:38, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well said Alex! -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 22:47, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Alex in your opinion, would this be a violation and abuse of admin power? Have a look at Commons and I would like someone to draft this. --Kuban Cossack  23:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Alex, I would very much appreciate if you or Ezhiki (or another admin) to draft that too. I think it is really, really important! -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 23:11, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

text: This cannot go unnoticed. Please keep an eye out on the commons talk page as well. --Kuban Cossack  23:15, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Absolutely. I daresay that it's the cornerstone of the problem... :) -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 23:17, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

text: No, the first time he was openely blamed for not putting the Russian and Ukrainian as well as other communities and discussing it with them. This time he openely used his admin powers to  deprecate the tag, again with no comments on Russian and Ukrainian as well as other community noticeboards. Not only is that extreamely bad faith action, it was a direct insult to all people who use the tag and those who uploaded those 1000+ images. He also made us think that as an admin he has got an upper hand in pushing his original research thesis into wiki. THAT IS A DIRECT VIOLATION OF ADMIN PRIVLIEGES and it personally makes people feel exreamely insecure about renegade administrators. As he has stepped over the line twice I am not certain that he will not do it the third time, and yes this calls for a wider opinion of other admins (and if need to be - the arbcom). --Kuban Cossack  23:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, with supporters like this above, this will go a long way, I suppose. --Irpen 01:37, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Please stop trolling... -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 12:10, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

text: You have abused your admin rights. That is the mess that you are not going to get out of and I shall, if need to strat a full arbcom against you. Original research done by you, plus, twice neglegince of the whole Russian and Ukrainian communities, who unlike you write articles and improve them. Who unlike you are from Russia and do not care about work that was published in their country and unlike you are not copyright nazis. What's next first you attack all of our images, then you will attack all of the articles that we wrote, then you will try to get all of us off wikipedia. Right? It is called fascism and the fact that you spat in our face twice IS NOT GOING TO BE FORGOTTEN, Let I remind that 61 years ago we defeated one nazi and now will defeat you as well. --Kuban Cossack  12:05, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Wishful thinking? You wish. You got no clear proof that these pictures are not PD, and your attempt to do the same thing at commons encountered the same reaction. At the very least, another discussion should have take place. In the meantime, what you did is abuse of admin rights. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 12:09, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well Lupo it has started Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Lupo--Kuban Cossack  12:41, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  IMHO we are inventing non-existent problem 

message: To correct this tag, it must be deprecated, so that no new images may use it. Then, the images using this tag must be re-evaluated whether they could fall under ,  (if published before 1923),  or some other existing PD tag, or whether for some images "fair use" cases according to U.S. law could be made. Once this is done and no existing images use this tag anymore, we could rewrite this tag as a redirect to . Alternatively, we could write a new tag using text identical to , but additionally explaining the reasoning for Soviet works, and use that instead of  during re-evaluation, and then just delete this tag here, which would then not be used anymore. On the commons, the procedure is basically the same, except that the commons does not allow "fair use". Of course, all this is a lot of work, and the longer we wait, the more work it will be. As a first step, this tag should be reverted to the deprecated version I had written. We should also provide a solution for images uploaded and using the deprecated tag after it has been deprecated; my suggestion would be to treat them as . Lupo 19:28, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to correct the tag 

message: I can't figure out what status :Image:Luna3_farside.gif holds.  NASA thinks its PD, and it appears to be a 1940s Russian Space Agency photo.  Reading this conversation is a flamewar.  Did a conclusion ever come to order? Kevin_b_er 02:35, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, there's no conclusion yet. Nobody has provided any proof that the template were correct. The claim is completely unsourced. Not a single reference backing up the template's claim has been brought forward, and certainly none that would back up the claim in view of the developments in the 1990s (Russia's retroactive copyright law of 1993, Russia joining the Berne Convention in 1995, the URAA in the U.S. of 1996). All we have are extensive documentation pointing exactly the other way, indicating that the template is indeed wrong. I'm also still waiting for input by User:Zscout370... I still favour deprecating this template as described above. Lupo 08:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Lupo, it would seem to me that the RFC provided a pretty obvious consensus on the fact that there was not enough elements to sway the balance in your way. I will just quote Phr from there, "The "legal research" conducted by nonspecialist users looks useless and if anything will do more harm than good." So I suggest you stop that crusade, as it is might be false and also dangerous to WP as well... -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 08:45, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't you think that massive violation of licenses of copyrighted material would be far more dangerous to WP ? --Lysytalk 09:31, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Then one should start cleaning up all those fair-use images with no rationales, held by specific companies that have quite well defined copyrights on them. And unlike Russia (not mentioning the vasished USSR), they pose a threat. But not USSR images for which every allegation still has to be researched by a professional. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 09:36, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You did not understand me. What I'm suggesting is that the proponents of the tag should try to provide firm evidence, that Soviet authors do not hold rights to their works. Only if you fail to do this the individual image copyrights would have to be reassessed, and maybe sometimes removed. To me, it seems very strange that author's rights could be voided by the fact that someone (a Soviet publisher) published the work. I'm sure you know that the Soviets would publish everything without any respect for the international copyrights. --Lysytalk 09:48, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  What rights, patrimonial or moral? And where, here or in the US. For me, they retain moral rights everywhere, but no patrimonial rights outside the USSR. Meaning we can't alter their work or say we created it. That's all. But one has the right to display it at will, with no fair use limitations. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 15:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, that's not all, not only the integrity right but also the disclosure right, the paternity right, and the retraction right. --Lysytalk 15:50, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Absolutely, but how does WP violates any of those? -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 15:55, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Grafikm, provide evidence for this template's claims being correct nowadays. And please don't engage in selective quoting. Maybe you should re-read the whole RFC, including the opinions expressed there that don't agree with your view. Lupo 09:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm not a lawyer specialized in international copyright and I won't try and come up with a conclusion that might be inadequate because it is not my job. And I think you shouldn't either. Unless we have a specific answer from a profesional lawyer (or preferably several, since law is an oh-so-glib thing sometimes), all this "research" is about as useless as an umbrella is for a fish. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 09:42, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  No, it's obviously up to those who claim that the copyrights are voided by the fact of publication by a Soviet publisher to support their claims, not the other way round. If there are doubts, the tag has to go. --Lysytalk 09:50, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  They're no doubts as far as I'm concerned. A law, by default, is non-retroactive. If it is expressely made retroactive, that is one thing. And one has to prove that the retroactivity is valid outside the country, which AFAIK is not the case. And you see weird things in Russia too. For instance, there was recently someone who tried to prove that for an author who died in labor camps, the 70 years pma should be counted not from death but the rehab date. Thankfully, the demand was rejected. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 09:55, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, On May 23 1973 Soviet Union signed the Geneva copyright agreement. The recognition of the copyright law was not retroactive, thus Soviet Union and Russia were free to publish anything from abroad published before 1973 and people outside of Russia were free to use anything published in Russia as a public domain . It is the common understanding of the matter through out the world (see  as an example). Nobody AFAIK have challenged this state in a court. It is a fact, that in Russia or Ukraine, no money is paid to  foreign authors for works published before 1973. For some reason Robert Sheckley was much more popular  in USSR than in his home country, USA. His works for war published by millions and still are published in thousands (currently e.g. online shop ozon.ru sells 152 different publications by Rober Sheckley. In April 2005 during his visit to Ukraine he suddenly became ill. It was revealed that he never received any money from the USSR or xUSSR countries. During the fundraising campaign to pay for his hospital bills it was stated that even if he would receive a single cent for each copy of his boox sold in xUSSR it would be big enough for the matters of life and death. Even with the online publications of the modern work of Russian authors in Russia the copyright questions are fuzzy see e.g. Gevorkyan v. Moshkov article  Nor AFAIK any xSoviet author has received any western money for his pre1973 publication. Why should we be holier than the Pope? abakharev 11:19, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Lupo, are you a lawyer specialized in international copyright? If not, you have no power to make such statements. I'm not saying you're wrong (although it is IMHO quite probable) but you simply can't make them. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 12:18, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Speaking of the Bern convention I found a couple of articles. http://www.copyright.ru/publ-412.html L.I. Podshibikhin (deputy director of the department for protection of the Intellectual Properties of FIPS (Russian Patent Service)) and K.B. Leontiev (deputy director of Russian Society on Multimedia and Digital Networks)  named "Realization in Russian Federation of Bern declaration". This is a long article, but here some citatations:
Однако при присоединении России к Бернской конвенции Генеральный директор ВОИС был "уведомлен", что "действие Бернской конвенции об охране литературных и художественных произведений не распространяется на произведения, которые на дату вступления этой Конвенции в силу для Российской Федерации уже являются на ее территории общественным достоянием"*1*. ( But at the joining Russia to the Bern declaration, the General Director of the VOIS was "informed" that the Bern convention does not protect the works that were in public domain in the Soviet Union at the moment of signing the treaty. ). Later the article tells that this mean that everything published before 1973 (he took an example of Agatha Christie whose all work are the public domain. Farther down the article tells about a court case of a number of Russian newspapers against an American Russian language publication Kurier:
"Лучше всего пояснить это на следующем интересном примере. Несколькими известными российскими средствами массовой информации и издательствами (в числе которых были "Аргументы и факты", "Московские новости", "Комсомольская правда", "Независимая газета", "Эхо планеты", "Московский комсомолец", Российское информационное агентство "ИТАР-ТАСС", большая часть акций которого находится в федеральной собственности, и др.), а также Союзом журналистов России был предъявлен иск в окружной суд Нью-Йорка в связи с нарушениями их авторских прав*12*. Основным ответчиком по делу выступала компания, занимавшаяся публикацией и распространением в русскоязычных районах США газеты на русском языке "Курьер".
Суд установил, что "Курьер" за три года опубликовал не более десятка "собственных" статей, основную же часть публикаций газеты составляли перепечатки материалов из ведущих российских периодических изданий, которые просто вырезались из них и вклеивались в верстку*13*.
При рассмотрении данного дела американский суд применил нормы международного, американского и российского авторского права и предоставил российским истцам такую же защиту, которую при аналогичных обстоятельствах получили бы американские правообладатели. Суд не только запретил ответчику осуществлять несанкционированное копирование российской периодики, но и принял решение взыскать с него почти 700 000 долларов в качестве компенсации за причиненные убытки и возмещения истцам части расходов, связанных с оплатой юридических услуг. Таким образом, защита авторских прав на основании положений Бернской конвенции оказалась для российских организаций вполне доступна и реально осуществима.
Однако результаты данного дела могли бы быть еще более благоприятными для российских изданий, если бы американским судом не была полностью проигнорирована судьба тех работ, которые были опубликованы до 13 марта 1995 года*14*. Суд даже не затронул вопрос, подлежат ли данные произведения охране данные произведения на основании Бернской конвенции или на основании Всемирной конвенции. " The legal case was won by the Russian copyright owners, but only for the works published after 13 March 1995, the earlier works we considered not protected by the American law due to this Exception. Even later the authors argued how to revoke the exception and still keep the pre-1973 works as PD abakharev 12:57, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Alex, you're barking up the wrong tree, and I don't see why you brought up Robert Sheckley's works and their treatment in the USSR or in Russia. The article the Russian quote above comes from (a very interesting read, BTW, and thanks for finding it, even if it misses our subject here) is about the copyright of foreign works in Russia, but this template is about the copyright of Soviet works in other countries. That's something completely different. Lupo 14:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: BTW, as a courtesy to other people who cannot read Russian, would you please translate Russian texts into English? I'm not going to do that work for you. Lupo 14:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A propos: these authors also state that the fact that foreign works published before 1973 were not copyrighted in Russia even after it joined the Berne Convention due to that infamous reservation "might have been to a certain degree acceptable during an initial transition period, but increasingly generates numerous problems that may lead to extremely unfavourable consequences in the near future." Part 2 of the article Alex provided, at the bottom From when is the article? (I didn't see any date... from the text, it's clear that is was written after 2000—they mention at one point that it was already more than five years since Russia joined the Berne Convention.) Lupo 14:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Final à propos: the case Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc. (decided in 1998 by a U.S. court in favour of the Russian plaintiff Itar-TASS) has been linked above long ago. AFAIK, the court didn't consider pre-1973 Soviet works at all and didn't say anything about it because the object of the case were recent news articles from Itar-TASS copied by Russian Kurier, not any old ones. The case does show, however, that indeed Russian copyright holders can enforce their rights in the U.S. Lupo 14:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

text:  See above. We're not interested in the copyright of foreign works in Belarus, we're interested in the copyright of Soviet works in other countries. Lupo 14:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Also here is another point in Lupo's argument. Right now he is trying to replace the tag with one that states that all of the works published in USSR are PD only from the country with longest lenght. That is Georgia. So he wants to use a modern Georgian law to take down WWII Soviet images. Do I need to remind him that the direct successor to the USSR is Russia not Georgia. Therefore all works published in USSR are by default under Russian law, not Georgian or Ukrainian or Estonian. Even those published in the Georgian Ukrainian or Estonian SSRs. Private collections previously unpublished in the Soviet times might qualify for the 70 years p.m.a but those published in RSFSR are for sure PD regardless. --Kuban Cossack  13:07, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You fail to mention that I explicitly asked Soufron, the head of the foundation's legal team, if we could look only at Russia or also had to consider the other CIS nations. His answer was that we cannot just look at Russia. If you doubt this, take it up with Soufron. Lupo 14:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Like I said, works published exclussively in the Georgian SSR might be affected (although you are going to be very popular with our Georgian colleagues as well the moment you begin to take down their images), but for a 1945 image of Moscow, that was published in Moscow...to be in Public Domain in Russia, be restricted worldwide because Georgia put a restriction on it...sorry but I do not follow your authentic allegation. --Kuban Cossack  17:47, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  So what? 

message: All right, I think I see what is the problem. You (the proponents of the template) are confusing the rights of the publisher with the personal rights of the author (so called moral rights). Therefore the fact that Soviet publishers rights are void ("public domain" in this narrow sense) does not imply that we should be violating the rights of the authors. This is basic to any copyright law, especially in Europe but also in the US and I believe similar distinction must be present in Russian law (but this does not matter anyway).--Lysytalk 14:56, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No double standards, please. Talking about "moral rights", I advise all copyright freaks to review the validity of Template:PD-Poland, first of all. The template is clearly abused. If the statement contained in the template is true, there is no effective copyright in that country at all. And if there is no copyright in Poland, I don't see how it was admitted into the EU and World Trade Organisation. --Ghirla -трёп- 18:42, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, unlike PD-USSR, PD-Poland has its legal base explicitly given, and it is discussed and explained (here). That's what PD-USSR is missing. It should clearly state the legal grounds on which the claim is made. Copyright information must be reliable and verifiable. Facts, viewpoints, theories, and arguments may only be included if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. These sources should be cited  whenever possible. Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed.--Lysytalk 19:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

text: What do moral rights do in this whole thing? -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 14:59, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm equally puzzled... Lupo 15:03, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In 90% of cases the authors of pre-1973 works and their heirs are interested in promotion of their works (particulary on the English-language wikipedia E.g. I had e-mail exchange with the heir Eufrosinia Kersnovskaya who was very pleased with our work and with examples of her work appeared on wiki. The rest of the authors just do not care. In most cases the legal rights (if any) belongs to a state organization or to some shadow figure who privatized a publisher. Indeed I think that if either the author or a some sort of a legal rights owner will ask to pull an image out, I think we should delete it. I am not aware of any of such cases yet. abakharev 15:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Obviously the authors should be properly attributed. --Lysytalk 15:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  What do you mean? "Named" or something else? -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 15:43, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, the author should be attributed. But what's more important the template should clearly explain why is the work in public domain. I'm not saying that works published in Soviet Union are not PB but it should be shown why, beyond any doubt. --Lysytalk 19:17, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Lysy's confusion

message: Can we change "The works originally published in the Soviet Union before May 27, 1973, were not protected by International Copyright Conventions, and are thus in the public domain in many countries" into "The works originally published in the Soviet Union before May 27, 1973, were not protected by International Copyright Conventions, and are thus in the public domain in the U.S." ? It would be more relevant and less vague at the same time --Lysytalk 19:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've changed the template to read: The works originally published in the Soviet Union before May 27, 1973, were not protected by International Copyright Conventions. It is believed that they belong to the public domain in many countries including the U.S. However in some of the ex-Soviet countries, some of these works might still be protected by copyright. It seems that the text better reflects our present knowledge rather than the previous firm statement. We still need to find the sources to support our beliefs. --Lysytalk 20:29, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If the works are still protected in ex-Soviet countries then the US copyright will have been restored under 17 U.S.C. §104A, and so the tag is factually incorrect and dangerous. My guess is that they still are protected in ex-Soviet countries, that their US copyrights have been restored and that this tag should go. Physchim62 (talk) 10:20, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  One can "guess" as many things as he or she fancies, but there is no proof of your statement yet. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 10:31, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have given sources for the whole of my reasoning long ago at :commons:Template talk:PD-Soviet. If only you would read them. Start with Ms. Pilch's article series in SEEIR. In any case, "It is believed", "many countries", "might still" and a dubious extlink are weaseling. Lupo 10:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  many countries ? 

message: Alex, I disagree on the article of L.I. Podshibikhin, K.B. Leontiev, Realization of Bern declaration in Russian Federation that you have added to the template as a source. I do not think that the quote you've given above (from part 4) backs the template's claim. The article's main subject is the copyright of foreign works within Russia, not the copyright of Soviet works in other countries. Podshibikin and Leontiev only briefly touch on U.S. legislation and say that it would have been better if the court in the Itar-TASS v. Russian Kurier case had also considered pre-Berne works. I fully agree with that. But the problem is that the American court was unable to do so because of the sad state of U.S. legislation at the time. The court could only look at registered copyrights. (As Podshibikin/Leontiev are probably well aware of, as their footnote 14 shows.) The U.S. has long since required copyright registration for copyrights to be valid. In 1989, the U.S. joined the Berne Convention, which says copyrights are automatic, without registration. The U.S. nevertheless kept its registration requirement (a direct contradiction of the Berne Convention!) until 1996, when the URAA became effective. The URAA dropped the registration requirement and restored copyright on foreign (including Soviet) works that previously were not copyrighted in the U.S. because they were not registered. But the Itar-TASS v. Russian Kurier case began in 1995 and concerned copyright violations that had occurred 1995 and earlier, i.e. before the URAA entered in force on January 1, 1996. The URAA could thus not be applied on these acts and the courts could not consider copyright violations on unregistered works (see ex post facto: can't apply a new law to acts committed before that law was in force). Since 1996, the situation has changed, and in recent cases, the URAA is applied and copyrights on unregistered foreign works are recognized, see e.g. (just as an example) this 2003 case concerning copyrights on unregistered Mexican works. The lasting rule of Itar-TASS v. Russian Kurier is not the March 13 1995 date, it's the priciple to apply the foreign law to determine copyright ownership, and then to apply local law to judge the infringement. Given all this, I just do not see how this Podshibikin/Leontiev article claims or backed the claim that pre-1973 Soviet works were PD outside of Russia (or outside of the CIS nations). I suggest the highly misleading citation of this article be removed from the template. Lupo 21:33, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Podshibikhin/Leontiev source does not back the template 

message: Wikimedia has several people on a legal mailing list, as well as a legal council.  While Brad Patrick isn't discussing this, of course, are any other members of the wikimedia legal group in on this discussion?  It would be bad that there be a mistake in either direction on this.  With that said, I think some of Lupo's arguements are important, as just because the images would be 'extremely great to have PD', does not mean that they are that by will, as sad as that may be.  Unfortunately the Russians may not care enough if we can actually find an odd dispairity or ambiguity in the law.  Kevin_b_er 17:37, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Want to see this resolved. 

message: Just to give some perspective to this discussion, there are just over 1200 images which use this tag in :Category:Pre-1973 Soviet Union images. Physchim62 (talk) 10:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category 

message: I recommend people go look up the case Films by Jove, Inc. v. Berov, 154 F. Supp. 2nd (2nd Cir. 2001) and 250 F. Supp. 2nd 432 (2nd Cir. 2003). This was a complicated case about a copyright infringement (committed in the U.S.) on Soviet cartoons. The case was about many different Soviet animated films published from 1936 to 1991. Some of these films were of Cheburashka, which is considered by many people in Russia a kind of national property; the childrens' books that served as the base for these films were written by Eduard Uspensky in 1966. In that case (154 F. Supp. 2nd at 448) the court clearly stated that these were "restored works", i.e. works that had their copyright in the U.S. restored under the URAA (17 USC 104A). See also the discussion of Tydniouk, A.: From Itar-TASS to Films by Jove: The Conflict of Laws Revolution in International Copyright, Brooklyn Journal of International Law 29(2), pp. 917ff. Here we have a concrete U.S. court case in which copyrights on pre-1973 Soviet works were upheld. Furthermore, one of the plaintiffs was Soyuzmultfilm Studios, a private successor of a former governmental enterprise that had the same name. So much for the effects of privatization... (The case was then complicated tremenduously, but the arguments revolved around who exactly owned that copyright: a third-party claimed that the plaintiffs (Films by Jove and Soyuzmultfilm Studios) were not the copyright owners and thus had no standing in the case. The court ultimately also confirmed that the plaintiffs were considered the copyright owners and thus had standing.) Lupo 07:25, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: (Sorry for posting such a slew of Russian-language links here. I don't normally do this, but many good sources on that topic are in Russian only, and many participants in this discussion can read Russian. For those who can't, I guess we could work out some translations, but frankly said, I'd prefer not to do that alone but together with someone who disagrees with my point of view.) Lupo 11:45, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: BTW, the implementation act (No. 5352-1) is available in an English translation at the very bottom of the CIPR translation of the Russian copyright law (PDF, 372kB). Lupo 12:05, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: JFYI: For preliminary familiarization, one may use these automated translations tools: babelfish and Promt, good online dictionary is available at  Lingvo --jno 11:03, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A concrete court case in the U.S. 

message: I've re-tagged all "my" the PD-Soviet images with  --jno 08:46, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good.  That's why all the heat above is largely pointless.  en:, unlike Commons, allows for use of unfree images.  Many of the images in this category are going to PD for some other reason.   Many of them are not free, but we can make a Wikipedia:Fair use claim on them.  We just need to sort them properly, and not claim that they are free for the wrong reason.  Jkelly 16:46, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Except that there is no wrong reason, or at least, no sufficient evidence pointing out to a wrong reason. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 16:47, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's fine if you believe that all of the people who have looked into this issue don't know what they're talking about.  But it is not okay for a couple of editors to do some hand-waving about "German revisionism" and hold license and copyright cleanup issues hostage to some weird ideological grievance.  For the xth time, if you have some copyright issue that you want to bring forward to discuss, do so.  Otherwise we are going to start the cleanup job.  Jkelly 17:33, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Consensus never trumps copyright issues.  We cannot continue making a claim we know is wrong simply because people didn't "vote" delete in some TfD.  Research and careful deliberation is entirely different than "opinion", and we've been accomodating the latter for entirely too long.  Jkelly 18:00, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Who are those "we" who know it's wrong? You want the research and careful deliberations? Do so by all means! Do your research, come back to us to report the results and we will all see how this is all convincing. Best yet, bring an opinion of some known expert. Enough for now until then. --Irpen 18:04, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

text:  Do you see any deliberation, in a legal way, somewhere? I don't. All I can see is some commons admin decreting they thought this template was obsolete and deleting it. This is in no way a deliberation, rather a censorship. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 18:06, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd disagree; this was Commons admins deleting a template because they believe that the arguments presented that these works are PD are not convincing in the least.  We do not hold 'legal deliberations' - we're not a legal body - but we attempt to be conservative as regards copyright law, because we intend to make a free encyclopedia. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 18:48, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Speaking as a Commons admin, I would have closed the Commons debate in a similar manner to how Arnomane did. There has been a continuation of the discussion on the Commons AN, but nothing much will change on Commons unless someone finds a genuinely new legal reason.  On en not that many images will go its just this template. It may be an idea to produce an analogous . The images which cannot use a Fair Use rationale are not going to be particularly useful; so their loss is not a big deal. It may be worth searching Commons for useful FU images, they are subject to speedy deletion on September 27.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:08, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Trouble is, it is not up to Lupo or me or you to find this reason, but to a lawyer knowledgable in international copyright. Until than, it's just amateurish research with no value. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 08:41, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's up to you, and those who wish to make the extraordinary claim that these images are PD.  If we don't know if something is usable, we treat it as if it is copyrighted.  We don't know, with these images - and there are some pretty compelling reasons why they might indeed be copyright-protected.  Thus, we cannot use them as if they were PD.  Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 19:22, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Your arguement fails for at least one reason: it is for uploaders to ensure that images and other material are free of copyright, not WP. Wikipedia can, should and will delete any material which it believes to be infringing. I have asked the office to follow this discussion: if they haven't intervened as yet, that is their business (they never like to appear to be bossy). Until they do, it is up to interested Wikipedians to try to find a solution. As for the TASS question you raise, this has already been decided by a US court in what is appropriately known as the ITAR-TASS case: it is the photographer who owns the copyright as far as the US (and therefore WP) is concerned. Physchim62 (talk) 13:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The case may not be representative depending on the time, photographer, exact details and so on. One should look into the case more accurately. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 13:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I feel you are ignoring any comment that says what you don't want to hear.  It's up to those who wish to claim something is PD to give a convincing argument why - something that has failed to be provided, so far. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 19:25, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Images don't need deleting

message: Could someone please wrap the content of this redirect in  as I am nominating it for rfd
Pppery 20:20, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done: The page's protection level has changed since this request was placed. You should now be able to edit the page yourself. If you still seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:29, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protected edit request on 8 October 2016