Commons:Deletion requests/Template:PD-Afghanistan

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This deletion debate is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive.

Template:PD-Afghanistan

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Conflicts with a statement by Jimbo. This, basically now only makes the images free in the US, in violation of COM:L. --ViperSnake151 (talk) 11:41, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

 Keep Jimbo does not even mention Afghanistan. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 12:22, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Could you please elaborate how Jimbo's statement applies to a country that does not have copyright laws? Your request doesn't make sense to me as is. Patrícia msg 12:38, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
 Comment I think this tag is legally valid internationally, although we might still agree to grant authors some protection in cases like this. --Botev (talk) 13:21, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
 Comment I agree that Jimbo's comment about Iran, a country that, unlike Afghanistan, is a signatory to International Copyright agreements, and does have domestic copyright laws, is not applicable to Afghanistan, a country that is not a signatory to International Copyright agreements, and does not have domestic copyright laws. -- Nevertheless, I think it would be helpful if we got the legal advice of the wikimedia foundation's lawyers on this.
  1. Some wire services, and freelance photographers, treat images from Afghanistan as if all the rights to an image could be claimed by the first person to publish the image in a country that is a signatory to an international copyright agreement. That hardly seems fair.
  2. If the above were true, how would it affect images taken by US Federal employees, which would normally be PD by virtue of being taken by a US Federal employee. There are a bunch of images, clearly taken by GIs, but which weren't published by the DoD. My understanding is that US Federal works are born PD, even if they are unpublished, or classified. And, if they are published after being leaked or stolen they are in the PD.
  3. So, in 2010, Afghanistan signs on to some international copyright images, we send a bot to nominate all the {{PD-Afghanistan}} images for deletion? So what about those images which would also have been PD because they were taken by US Federal employees. Geo Swan (talk) 14:28, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
 Keep Jimbo's statement is completely unrelated, it talks about respecting domestic copyright law in foreign countries. That means respecting the Afghan lack of copyright law, at best. If Afghanistan said "death + 40!" in a few years, we would have to go through and take a closer look at all files -- but WMF is Not a Crystal Ball, and these images are legal to host and without copyright status anywhere in the world. Sherurcij (talk) 16:12, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep per above (though some expansion/claification of the license text may be helpful). Iran having a copyright law not recognized by the USA is not the same thing as Afghanistan having no copyright law at all. -- Infrogmation (talk) 19:01, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Kept. MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:33, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This deletion debate is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive.

Template:PD-Afghanistan

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Section 104 of the US Code does not cover does not exculpate completely a public domain status of such files. This is moving on thin ice. I'd rather suggest this template to get removed. --80.187.106.21 23:59, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really understand what you're saying. In my view, the law clearly says that works from countries with no copyright law are not covered by the law at all. You're right that it doesn't directly say such works are PD, but if there's no law that prohibits something, it can be done. (see Nulla poena sine lege) --PaterMcFly (talk) 07:18, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The template at the moment says "It's from Afghanistan, it's free". So, if in 2010 an Afghan author writes a ground-breaking novel, I can take the text, translate the text and publish the text anywhere in the world, making millions, without having to pay the original author a cent. Sucks for anybody producing creative works in Afghanistan, but it seems to be legal.
But what about older works? Is it confirmed that Afghanistan never had a copyright law? As far as I can see it's only confirmed that there is no law since 2001.
And what will happen when Afghanistan creates a copyright law? Based on "nulla poena sine lege" they cannot punish anybody who shared the works before the new law came into effect. But it seems they could penalize the use of the works after that date. What if I would re-publish an Afghan work under CC before a new law comes into effect? It's legal to publish PD works under any license you please. If the new law unPDs the work, what would be stronger: my (legal) release under CC or the new law?
I have a feeling that the template makes a very broad claim based on very limited information. --Slomox (talk) 11:38, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That is probably true, but as already stated further above, commons is not a crystal ball. We just don't know what's going to happen. --PaterMcFly (talk) 07:57, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The nulla poena principle prohibits retroactive criminal prosecution for breach of copyright, but it does not prevent the Afghen legislature from granting copyright protection retroactively and thereby prohibiting any future unauthorized use of the (now) protected work. A CC release of an Afghan work is currently void, since a CC licence, like every other copyright license, works only if copyright protection exists at all. A CC release of an Afghan work will become active and binding only after Afghanistan gets a copyright law. Sandstein (talk) 07:49, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, if Afghanistan has no copyright laws, there's no way that a work originating there can be at all under copyright. And if the country once had such a law but doesn't anymore, wouldn't the expiration or repeal of that law at whatever time in the past have ended any copyright existing in works published under that law? Nyttend (talk) 12:13, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If the Taliban had a law and after invading the country the US abolished Taliban laws, does that mean, that all Afghan creative works were expropriated at that moment? (And no successor law could reinstate their copyright, cause once PD all works could be legally relicensed under free licenses?)
I don't know. I think we need input from somebody who knows actual Afghan law. --Slomox (talk) 19:46, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that this is a bad situation for everyone creating works in Afghanistan, but I do think they have more pressing political issues than lack of a copyright law (which nobody will stick to, anyway). --PaterMcFly (talk) 20:31, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep I agree that this should be reexamined once Afghanistan has a copyright law, which can also be expected to address the issue of retroactivity. Or until we have US case law granting US copyright protection to Afghan works. Sandstein (talk) 07:41, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Kept. Clear consensus for keeping this template Belgrano (talk) 22:35, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This deletion discussion is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive. You can read the deletion policy or ask a question at the Village pump. If the circumstances surrounding this file have changed in a notable manner, you may re-nominate this file or ask for it to be undeleted.

Template:PD-Afghanistan

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I realize this topic has been discussed before but the prior discussion does not appear to be as detailed as one would desire on a discussion of this magnitude where we are essentially paving way for all works made in a country to be uploadable to commons without copyright limitations of any kind.

We had this discussion on en.wikipedia here. This is a very very bad idea. Let me elaborate:

Hence, we should avoid featuring any such content that we know will be copyrighted eventually. The individual images may be in the public domain for some other reason so we should take great care in re-licensing/deleting content.

-- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 21:10, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

 Keep The template accurately describes the copyright status of such works. You only seem to be concerned about Commons usage restrictions of such works. --Stefan4 (talk) 22:11, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We will need to delete all recent works soon after the treaty is signed. -- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 23:22, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
The purpose of the template is to describe the current copyright status of such works. Whether or not the works are acceptable on Commons is a different matter. --Stefan4 (talk) 23:39, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 Comment It is unclear when you would allow works from Afghanistan to be uploaded on Commons. Certainly ancient works would be allowed while you don't seem to want to have recent works here. How would you separate "recent" from "ancient"? Unlike Iran, where there is domestic copyright, Afghanistan has no clear limit. --Stefan4 (talk) 22:11, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
When they implement copyright as mandated by WTO application, they will need to have such a law. The main problem is recent content. If something is {{PD-old}} mark it as such. -- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 23:20, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
But how old would it have to be to be eligible for tagging as "old"? The definition varies from country to country, e.g. pre-March 1989 without a copyright notice, 50 years after publication (term for corporate works in Japan), 50 years after death (e.g. Canada), 100 years after death (Mexico) or approximately 500 years since publication (en:Book of Common Prayer in the UK). --Stefan4 (talk) 23:39, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The template {{PD-old}} seems to be undergoing an update. Pre 1923 rule can apply to works I suppose. This is the problem. We have no idea how severe afghan law will become. We should avoid populating commons with content that will become a copyright problem in the future. This template relies on a loophole to establish public domain and that will lead to problems one way or another. It is a known fact that countries later adopting copyright and/or TRIPS are often suckered into laws that are much more severe than their western counterparts due to copyright groups using the opportunity to influence local governments that are inexperienced in copyright law. So your guess is as good as mine. Wait and tell approach would only lead to the problem growing making it more difficult dealing with it later on. -- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 23:45, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
  •  Keep The day Afghanistan has a copyright law, and rules wich works have copyright protection and wich ones do not, that day we will delete the images that become protected. That day could be tomorrow, or it could be in a decade. In the meantime, there's no copyright law, works are not protected, thus they are acceptable here. Cambalachero (talk) 01:08, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep The case law on PD-Soviet isn't relevant here, as the Commons will be a reliance party under the URAA. We can't look into our crystal balls and know what the copyright law will be or how it will change in the future.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:11, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    And I don't know what point you're trying to make by saying "where we are essentially paving way for all works made in a country to be uploadable to commons without copyright limitations of any kind". We're not paving anything; Afghanistan has chosen not only to not be a signator of copyright treaties (letting them use our stuff without copyright limitations of any kind), they've chosen not to have an internal copyright law. There's no copyright limitation, by choice of Afghanistan, not ours.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:22, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Doesn't Commons have any version of en:WP:CRYSTAL? --Stefan4 (talk) 09:45, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    This may be very disruptive in terms of free redistribution of all wikimedia content. What do you think will happen to all offline uses of our content in particular? What about uses like OLPC or even Wikireader?
    We want our content to remain in the public domain forever not as long as a loophole in the law is maintained. Keeping content here we know will be copyrighted soon makes no sense. What you suggest will lead to perhaps millions of images that needs to be checked by the time and once a country signs a treaty that day. That day is something that can be completely avoided. This is something we know will happen. This was the mess with PD-Soviet template case where people assumed that Russian law had no bearing in the US as content once it entered the public domain. Commons was forced to mass-delete images tagged with PD-Soviet case after a US county code set the legal precedence to handle such future cases.
    Furthermore there already exists signed agreements between Afghanistan and US government that includes intellectual property rights. Furthermore WIPO also has some info on Afghanistan.
    Even more-so how can you be absolutely certain that the creators of these images had non-Afghan citizenship. Content created in Afghanistan by non-Afghans whom are citizens of Berne signatory countries will still retain copyright. We are almost randomly assuming that the content is in the public domain without identifying the author.
    -- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 10:26, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
    That is not a problem with the template but with image sourcing. If an image is not sufficiently sourced, I guess it should be deleted per COM:PRP. It is the uploader's responsibility to make sure that the correct copyright information is available. --Stefan4 (talk) 11:06, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    No, there is no such requirement that we check that day for such material. We would be a reliance party and would have at least a year to cease distribution. There's no way we will have millions of images with this tag; we have no more than 710 right now. The "signed agreement" you link to makes a "work plan" to "Establish a forum for the exchange of information on commercial matters including but not limited to ... Intellectual property rights protection and enforcement". They're planning to establish a forum to exchange information on IP rights protection! That's not a signed agreement that include IP rights at all.--Prosfilaes (talk) 10:43, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Which implies the law would be passed in not too distant future. And your scenario is something we want to avoid. You are saying we would need to collect offline copies of this content including perhaps OLPC laptops just to keep these images here for a few more years. The implications of this template is far too grand with limited (if any) gain. -- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 10:50, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
    Work plans to create forums for discussion imply nothing. Every year, in the US and probably elsewhere, thousands of bills reach legislative bodies and die before even being voted on, and you imply an agreement to discuss a the general subject implies inevitability?
    I have not and am not saying anything about offline copies.
    I don't understand why you think the implications of this template is grand. It says the same thing that every PD template says; that works in the public domain in the US and in their source nation are acceptable to Commons. If there would be no gain, there would be no debate, but it's obviously valuable to be able to host PD files from Afghanistan.--Prosfilaes (talk) 12:33, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    We want our content to be freely distributed beyond the US border. That is why content that is only in the public domain in the US is unwelcome in commons. We want to be the free image repository assisting the free encyclopedia that remains freely licensed.
    Implications are grand because Commons is used in far too many projects. This template may lead to all sorts of legal problems particularly for the secondary users of our content. OLPC and wikireader are merely one of the many other secondary users. This would also be an obstacle to all efforts in establishing a printed copies of content featured from commons.
    We also want to avoid creating future problems for the commons administrators. There are few things that are more annoying than a PD template that doesn't stay PD causing days worth of backlog all of a sudden.
    -- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 13:07, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
    This has nothing to do with the US. Unlike most of our PD files, I can not name a single country that will provide copyright to these files. We don't know whether this PD template will stay PD, but that is true for most of our PD templates.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:29, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Afghan content is freely distributed beyond U.S. borders. In fact it's freely distributable worldwide. Including *in* Afghanistan. It is more distributable than almost any other PD tag. Yes, it's annoying if a PD template stops being true, but that can happen with *any* PD template. We can't guard against all potential law changes -- just follow the law; that way we delete the minimum required. You're actually suggesting to pre-emptively delete lots of stuff without knowing that it will ever be required that we do so. Furthermore, existing users of works which become re-copyrighted are almost always granted extra rights to mitigate their problems -- often they are permitted to continue using the work in the same manner they had; it's just new uses which will be restricted. For example, in the U.S., we may only have to delete restored works where the owner files an NIE notice with the U.S. Copyright Office. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it -- and there is no guarantee we will ever need to. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:26, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    That is not a problem with the template but with image sourcing. If an image is not sufficiently sourced, I guess it should be deleted per COM:PRP. It is the uploader's responsibility to make sure that the correct copyright information is available. --Stefan4 (talk) 11:06, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Only a tiny fraction of the content tagged with this template makes an effort to establish the author which may very well be westerners working inside Afghanistan. -- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 13:11, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
  •  Question Exactly when would a file originating from Afghanistan be allowed here in the opinion of
    とある白い猫
    ? When would a file be sufficiently old? --Stefan4 (talk) 11:06, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    My main problem is declaring all content from Afghanistan no matter how recent as "public domain" property. This is the case legally for the time being, no question about that but the moment these countries establish copyright and sign the relevant international treaty we will only have problems. I would find it sufficient to consider something in the public domain if the image was published before 1923 and/or authors life + 50 (could be 70) (exceptions may apply of course but on a case by case basis). Why life + 50 years? That is the bare minimum berne convention would require. Countries can go for more but not less. This would eliminate the more recent stuff that is more than likely to be protected once copyright law is established. If URAA establishes a more drastic elimination, we can comply but we would have fewer content to deal with. Mind you if the files are licensed with creative commons or some other compatible free license that is still uploadable to commons without problems. They would forever stay freely licensed that way. -- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 13:07, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
    And what if the law is released on day X, and the terms are "Works created from X day on will be protected...". Who says that can not happen? Yes, there may be a bare minimum time of pma, but that minium may be applied to works created after the X date. As the 1923 date in the US, after all. Cambalachero (talk) 14:13, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    If you have an example case feel free to share it with us. Even if what you say happens, images can simply be undeleted. In the meanwhile we would not be creating a bigger mess by spreading these potential copyright time bombs. -- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 14:22, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
    As far as I know, the rule is that anything created (or published?) before joining the Berne Convention may remain under the old copyright term (creation+0 years in Afghanistan's case). This is applied in the United States in several ways:
    1. Works published before 1923 keep the old term of at most publication+75 years even if this is less than life+50 years.
    2. Works published between 1923 and 1977 keep the old term of at most publication+95 years even if this is less than life+50 years. In particular, {{PD-US-no notice}} and {{PD-US-not renewed}} tend to be shorter than life+50 years.
    Under US law, only those works copyrighted in Afghanistan on the URAA date (treaty joining date) would gain copyright in the United States, as long as they have been published. Under EU law, works no longer copyrighted in Afghanistan would be in the public domain per the rule of the shorter term. It would be very possible to grant copyright protection only to those works created (or possibly published) since the treaty joining date. --Stefan4 (talk) 14:55, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    "Simply undeleted?" Locating and undeleting some hundreds of images after they were deleted is anything but simple. I have been though that mess once, and frankly, I won't wish that curse even to my worst enemy. Cambalachero (talk) 14:43, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    It is simple if you maintain a list of the images you delete which you removed. Had you not remove the list and had it be processed properly it would be a lot easier to deal with the handful remaining content for starters. The risk of direct or indirect lawsuits to us or people reusing our content due to copyright violations is the problem here. -- とある白い猫 ちぃ？ 15:36, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
 Keep Afghanistan has not signed a copyright law. It's possible they might, and we may have to delete some works once that happens. But I see no reason to not follow the law, which at the moment (and for Afghanistan's entire existence), which is no copyright law whatsoever. It is not a guarantee they will ever create one, or sign the Berne Convention (those are separate questions). Even if they end up doing so, we don't know when that will happen, and we don't know the scope of the retroactivity (if any). It is no use speculating. It's just like any country which chooses to change copyright law in a retroactive manner -- we grumble, figure out what got re-copyrighted, and delete that. However, the current situation is pretty simple -- anything first published in Afghanistan by an Afghan is PD worldwide -- there is no copyright protection available anywhere for it. I see no reason whatsoever to not follow that -- they have chosen to never have a copyright law at all, which is fine. People have been calling it "inevitable" for years now and it hasn't happened -- nothing is inevitable. They may very, very easily decide that it's better to be able to copy the world's works at will rather than get protection for their own authors -- their neighbor, Iran, has made a similar decision, as has Afghanistan itself for almost a hundred years now. The only reason I can fathom for this DR is to avoid the potential pain of having to delete stuff in the future, but... that's not a good reason to me. We should follow the law, whatever it may be. Any country could decide to make a retroactive copyright law at some point... should we restrict ourselves to 70pma no matter what, in case some 50pma country makes a retroactive law someday? Carl Lindberg (talk) 21:54, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 Keep Until such time as Afghanistan passes a copyright law, there is nothing to discuss here. They may make some law that retroactively makes things that were PD now copyrighted or they may not. Speculating on "they might do XYZ so we have to remove all of our images" is absurd. Buffs (talk) 00:48, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep The nominator and several participants in this discussion write as if we all accept without question that Afghanistan is on the brink of signing the Berne convention. Some participants have described the current situation as "a loophole" -- as if it were a kind of anomaly, an accident.

    The underlying justification for granting intellectual property rights to inventors, composers, authors and photographers is that by allowing them to profit from disseminating their new idea we encourage them to keep disseminating new ideas -- and that the dissemination of new ideas is a good thing.

    Not everyone thinks the dissemination of new ideas is a good thing. Sovereign countries get to decide to reward the dissemination of new ideas. Countries where there is insufficient support for the dissemination of new ideas get to continue to decline pass domestic IP laws and get to continue to decline to sign Berne and other international IP laws. That Afghanistan has not signed Berne is not an anomaly, not an accident. Insufficient people who were in a position to pass IP laws in Afghanistan did believed in "progress" -- in the dissemination of new ideas. The Taliban was in power for less than a decade. Political support for the dissemination of new ideas was not present prior to the Taliban taking power. The Taliban has been out of power for over a decade, and sufficient political support has not arisen to pass IP laws.

    Many of the Afghan warlords who helped oust the Taliban are almost as conservative as the Taliban, and many of these former warlords are in positions of power now.

    ISAF is winding down. Many countries have withdrawn or seriously reduced their troop commitment. Over the last year or so we have learned that serious negotiations are underway to try to broker some kind of peace with the Taliban. Surely everyone here can recognize that these negotiations make IP laws for Afghanistan less likely? Geo Swan (talk) 01:16, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Nearly everyone in Afghanistan are conservative not only the ones you named. The peace deal with Taliban is only aimed at ending the insugency not so Taliban can come back to power. NATO is not showing any sign that they plan to leave from this place anytime soon, they are discussing permanent bases.--Officer (talk) 09:47, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep per Carl Lindberg's comments. There's not that many Afghan images to worry about. I also have a question. If an Afghan citizen and photojournalist crosses over into neighboring Pakistan to snap pictures with his/her camera, wouldn't PD-Afghanistan apply to those pics after he publishes them inside Afghanistan?--Officer (talk) 02:20, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep Keep the template, I agree with Carl Lindberg's first comment. Template adequately describes why images are PD. However, I'd agree with Stefan4 that there's a usage issue: images uploaded from Flika get checked by someone else after upload. I think it is necessary here. Another possibility would be that anyone using the template would have to give details on how the image meets the 3 criteria. Babakathy (talk) 06:49, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • What's "Flika", do you mean Flickr? Note that Flickr is a US web site, so a photo upload to Flickr is presumably treated as a publication in the United States, which gives copyright protection unless published in Afghanistan more than 30 days earlier. Also remember that unpublished works are copyrighted, so if the Flickr upload isn't considered as publication, the photo might get copyright protection as an unpublished photo. --Stefan4 (talk) 09:34, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • The wording on the template needs to be changed a little, to make it explain that the work doesn't need to be showing scenes of Afghanistan only in the background. Suppose I stand near the border and take picture which shows scenes of 2 countries then what?--Officer (talk) 09:47, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • I might be wrong, but I believe that the only things which matter are country of first publication, country of residence of the author and country of citizenship of the author and that the country of creation is irrelevant. That said, if it contains a derivative work of someone else's creation, it may be copyrighted as a derivative work. --Stefan4 (talk) 10:08, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Proposed close: Kept
8 keep votes and a single user proposing deletion, plus two previous deletion requests closed with clear consensus to keep. Per en:Wikipedia:Snowball clause, we should close this and prevent further drama. ~~~~
✓ Done Closed per proposal.
  •  Keep Unlike the situation in Iran, where copyrights exist but are not recognized in the United States, Afghanistan has no copyright law. In the absence of such a law, declaring that works first published in Afghanistan are protected would amount to us writing the laws. --Carnildo (talk) 01:20, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Kept, : clear consensus towards keeping; further, Afghanistan have not signed any agreement yet Blackcat (talk) 14:25, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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