Soft Machine³ - Arts Tech and Other

That last one can now be removed as the Petri biography now shows this photograph:

Let me say first that my irritation with this process is aimed mainly at the legal disaster we call “copyright” or “intellectual property” law. “Death of the author plus seventy years” is enough time for everyone to forget who the subject is and why they should care! This generous (since amended) Polish copyright law allowed common sense to prevail here. The future looks dimmer.

The rest of my irritation is at the way Wikipedia has addressed this. For example, there is no guideline that tells me to take the action I did. I suppose that’s to be expected, but still, I’m pleased that I was able to make a “public domain” argument successfully, given what little I had.

None of this would have been possible without the reply from Stefan Kutrzeba where he told me he didn’t know anything about the photo, but had scanned it in from the magazine, and that he thought these things were in the public domain.

I knew at the outset it was necessary to “go on the offensive.” I’m sure the editors spend a lot of time answering the same questions. I’m not sure  how many public domain arguments are made, or how successfully.

See how Hammersoft gives me the standard line about why permission isn’t enough, that I need to obtain clearance, etc. etc. he obviously doesn’t realize I’m making a public domain argument here and his standard request for a release is not possible and beside the point. 

Thank heavens, my arguments eventually made sense to DreamGuy, but I had to be persistent and have all my ducks lined up in a row. It also may have required him to read up on Polish copyright law, or perhaps he conferred with others in a chat room… I’m not sure. I suspect something went on in the two and a half hours between DraeamGuy’s question, and the final green light, but I don’t really know. In that time I did check the Polish->English translation, and verified the thing says “Phot. Archive”… I was making sure I’d made all of my arguments as strongly as possible and responded to the questions of theirs that I could.

Note, that I never ever responded to questions about who took the photo, and when, and what the copyright was. These are all losers, as I don’t have answers (!) but at the same time my argument is independent of those questions.

from Wikipedia’s “Media Copyright Questions” archive 

I’m extremely irritated with this process. Please help.

I do not wish to navigate your image contribution waters ever again. I am attempting to contribute an old photograph of an important person who did not like to be photographed. He is long dead.

I have a source, another rather important person, who I bothered (he’s preparing master classes right now) in order to contribute this photo. He was kind enough to answer promptly regarding the photo.

Now, if a Wikipedia editor would do me the courtesy of providing assistance, I could go on to other more productive work.

The photo in question is of Egon Petri. My source is the Polish pianist, author and lecturer Stefan Kutrzeba. You can see the photo here.

I can explain why this is all O.K. if an editor deigns to help. Like I said, I’m extremely irritated with this process. The photo has been requested; here it is; here am I. Reechard (talk) 20:17, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

• I can not read the language of that source page you noted, but we’d need to know the age of the photograph before making any judgments about its status under public domain. If it is not under public domain, then the rights to the image must be released under a free license by the rights holder in order for the image to be used here under any free license. See Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission. It is not enough to get permission to use the image on Wikipedia. If a release can not be obtained, the image must be used under terms of fair use. See WP:NFCC. In that case, permission from the rights holder is not required. Since the subject of the image is dead, the use of fair use imagery to depict the person is permissible. Hope this helps? —Hammersoft (talk) 20:56, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
• Yeah, we can upload right away as fair use… but if we knew the copyright status that’d be better. Is “Fot. Archiwum” the credit line? Do we know who that is? When the photo was taken (which would be good for the caption anyway)? DreamGuy (talk) 21:06, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • thank you! Egon Petri was born in 1881 and died in 1962. In 1927 he had made his home at Zakopane in Poland, but in 1938 he moved to America. Please refer to Polish copyright law and understand that my source scannned this photo from this Polish magazine, and it had no copyright notice attached. “According to the Art.3 of copyright law of March 29, 1926 (valid until 1952) and Art. 2 of copyright law of July 10, 1952 of the People’s Republic of Poland, all photographs by Polish photographers (or published for the first time in Poland or simultaneously in Poland and abroad) printed without a clear copyright notice before the law was changed on May 23, 1994 are public domain.” That makes it pretty clear-cut, don’t you think? The photo is eighty some-odd years old, taken in Poland, printed in this magazine, and is one of the only known photos in existence of Mr. Petri. Reprinted in the same magazine in 2006, in an article by my source, about Petri. The photo caption says “Photo archive” meaning it had no photographer credit, no copyright. Reechard (talk) 21:52, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I’m planning to establish more facts about Egon Petri, I mention that on my User Page, thank you for helping me clear this important hurdle first. I have two sources to draw from which you can see here if you like.Reechard (talk) 22:05, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Sigh - where did you guys go? Here is the rather poor Google translation from the Polish, which shows clearly the caption says “Phot. Archive”. Should I upload this? I’d prefer it if you did, frankly. Pretty please! I’ll check back later. The Petri talk pages specifically requests a photo, by the way. Reechard (talk) 22:39, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, got it…. when you go to Special:Upload to upload the photo, don’t choose one of the default licenses, just put a {{PD-Poland}} tag in the summary field (along with the rest of the summary, and then fill the rest of the page out. You should just be able to do it right away, but if you have problems post back here for help. DreamGuy (talk) 22:34, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

• thank you x 100 will do it now. Reechard (talk) 22:43, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
• I think it worked, it has that re-assessment warning though, I’m assuming that comes with {{PD-Poland}} Anyway, good enough, I’ll put it to use now. Thanks again DreamGuy! - Reechard (talk) 23:05, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Needless to say, it’s not quite the entire story. This thread between myself and two editors was preceded by more frustrating navigation around Wikipedia, in an attempt to clear legal hurdles.

This legal clearance bar is set so high that most people will give up and walk away. I certainly don’t plan on doing much more of this sort of thing, unless I can streamline a process, and contribute lost items from a certain Polish magazine that fall within a timeframe, for example.