---

Currently, the following countries do not have copyright relations with the U.S.: Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, and San Marino. These countries do not recognize U.S. copyright, and the U.S. does not recognize their copyright. All work created by a resident of those countries, and published in those countries, is public domain in the United States, and much of the world. WP:C currently states:

The Wikimedia Foundation is based in the United States and accordingly governed by United States copyright law. Regardless, according to Jimbo Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, Wikipedia contributors should respect the copyright law of other nations, even if these do not have official copyright relations with the United States.

And Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights currently states:

It is longstanding Wikipedia policy to respect the copyright law of other nations, even if these do not have official copyright relations with the United States. What this means in practice is determined case by case, bearing in mind the goal of being able to freely distribute Wikipedia in the country an incorporated work originates from.

The last RfC on whether or not the English Wikipedia should host such content was 4.5 years ago and was closed with no consensus for the status quo, and no consensus for change. Should the English Wikipedia host content that is public domain in the United States because the country of origin does not have copyright relations with the U.S.? Ramaksoud2000 ^{(Talk to me)} 23:06, 21 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support hosting such content

1. Support because the English Wikipedia already hosts content that is public domain in the United States, but not in the source country. We have {{PD-USonly}}, which is used on 900+ pages, mainly for work that is copyrighted in the country of origin due to the Sweat of the brow doctrine. We also have {{FoP-USonly}}, which is used on 400+ pages for work that is copyrighted in the country of origin due to a lack of freedom of panorama there. In addition, there is {{Do not move to Commons}}, which is used on almost 10000 pages. The English Wikipedia even hosts content that is copyrighted in the United States per WP:NFCC. All of this is in pursuit of the goal of hosting as much encyclopedic content as possible. I don't see why content that is in the public domain in the U.S. due to a lack of copyright relations is any different. Ramaksoud2000 ^{(Talk to me)} 23:06, 21 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
2. Support, but create appropriate copyright tags - The countries without copyright relations with the US also don't have copyright relations with most (if any) other countries. Copyright is based on national law and most countries only recognize copyright for foreign works by reciprocity. As such, works first published in countries like Iran are not copyrighted in most countries, but can be in the future if those countries join the Berne Convention. Copyright templates for works from these countries should be created similar to Template:FoP-USonly, which would allow works from these countries to be identified in the future if they become copyrighted by virtue of the origin country joining the Berne Convention. AHeneen (talk) 17:16, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
3. Support, but with the caveat from AHeneen above. It does not further Wikipedia's mission to attempt to enforce the contradictory copyright states in multiple countries, and we don't currently do so. Enforcing U.S. copyright law is a simple, effective, legally enforceable solution. – Quadell ^(talk) 13:48, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
4. Support I don't understand why we would treat such images any differently from other images that are copyrighted in their home country but free in the US (as noted by Ramaksoud2000). Others below say that we are assembling content that is free throughout the world, but that is not in fact what we are doing. My one concern is that (as noted below by opposers) this policy would reduce the incentive to create new, freely licensed works that would be free worldwide. But I don't think this concern outweighs the utility of using the many images that already exist and are in fact in the public domain in the United States and in many other countries. And I don't buy that this creates a "mess" in case a country joins the Berne Convention in the future. No one has presented evidence that this is likely to happen, and if it does, images tagged appropriately can be deleted. There have been statutory copyright restorations in the US in the past, which have essentially the same effect. We don't worry about the contingency that more could happen in the future. So why should we worry about the possibility that a country will join the Berne Convention? Calliopejen1 (talk) 13:53, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
5. Support. I see a lot of misunderstandings here. There's a lot of talk about how we should only host content that's PD in the source country, but we already host content that's only public domain in the United States. That's the current English Wikipedia practice. Why would we carve out one weird exception for these five countries? If we're going to change the whole policy, that's a broader discussion we should have, but a targeted exception makes little sense. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 19:28, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose hosting such content

1. Oppose - Our mission is to present the world with a free encyclopedia. While it is true we do accept fair use under some circumstances, it's explicitly because to avoid doing this would significantly detrract from the quality of the encyclopedia. While I would tend to be lenient on borderline cases for NFCC criteria, we should only accept such images if they are at least plausibly following the said criteria. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:16, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
2. Oppose Per what I said in the section below - it's not a given such works will stay PD. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:24, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
3. Oppose. The content is not really "public domain" in the United States; the US simply refuses to enforce an otherwise valid copyright -- but is willing to do so at any time in the future, if certain conditions are met. That fact doesn't make the content free for reuse without limits, and it's not really free content. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by administrators since 2006. (talk) 19:26, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
4. Oppose. In general the other US-only tags are for situations where the other country's copyright has been respected as much as the Berne Convention mandates in the United States, at least (i.e. passed through the URAA). If works are simultaneously (within 30 days) published in a Berne country, then that country is the country of origin -- and "country of origin" published on the web get can very "interesting", so it can be dangerous to assume Iran etc. as the country of origin. I don't think we should respect terms from such countries beyond what the U.S. term would have been (i.e. before 1923), but anything still copyrighted in those countries is liable for retroactive restoration under the URAA when or if those countries join Berne (or the WTO), so there is a much higher risk we'd have to remove such works in the future than there is from works from any Berne country. I suppose we could qualify as a "reliance party" in that situation if we did have the works, but... that's not really the spirit of "free". I think it'd be OK to use the rule of the shorter term (since that is what the URAA will do if it becomes effective) but otherwise I think we should continue to respect such copyrights (i.e. keep the status quo). Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:25, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
5. Soft Oppose. We could do this, and we could clean up the mess if/when the copyright status changes. I would soft-support doing that if it were just us cleaning up the mess. However we encourage people to reuse our content. I just don't think it's worth it to create this mess and drag other people into it, if/when it has to be cleaned up. Alsee (talk) 11:16, 24 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
6. Oppose The idea is that Wikipedia should be free content everywhere in the world. It may not be an ideal we can live up to, it may even be an ideal we should abandon, but not by the back door. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:57, 28 December 2016 (UTC).[reply]
   
7. Oppose per Hullaballoo Wolfowitz. tl;dr, it's not free (as in free beer) content. -FASTILY 02:14, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
8. Oppose In my opinion a lack of relations is a blanket no, in the same way as if a country decided that it would refuse any PD agreements with anyone. Basically operating under the assumption that the relation allows it, and a lack of relation, being the opposite, doesn't. (Metaethical argument over if an extreme needs to have an opposite impending). Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 18:54, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
9. Oppose per User:Od Mishehu and User:Iazyges. John (talk) 21:49, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
10. Oppose. In addition to what others have said above: from my experience, in virtually all cases where I've seen editors pushing for the inclusion of such material, it has been in order to push poor-quality material – images that were either objectively so bad that we ought not to be wanting them in the first place, regardless of their legal status, or images that would have been easy to replace with properly licensed ones. This seems to be true in the present instance too: the initiator cites File:Isfahan Metro.jpg as the trigger for this dispute – a low-resolution, everyday shot of some random metro train in a large modern city. There are plenty of local Wikipedia editors in Iran, so it would be trivially easy to get properly licensed self-made pictures from there. We should continue to uphold our strategy that has been successful throughout the history of our project: make it hard to use less-than-perfectly free pictures, in order to provide an extra incentive for the creation of high-quality, genuinely self-made free ones. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:05, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
11. Oppose: My view on this hasn't changed in the past four years: we should host these images under the same rules as any other non-free content. --Carnildo (talk) 00:07, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
12. Oppose: Hosting content that is not fully free (as defined in wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy) worldwide, with limited exceptions, is fundamentally against the mission of Wikipedia as a global free encyclopedia. Exceptions should be kept to a minimum, and there is no compelling reason to exlucde works of this nature from the requirement of being free everywhere. Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights states that "Wikipedia prefers content that is free anywhere in the world" and we are voicing that preference in this RfC.– Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:34, 6 January 2017 (UTC) (modified by – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:05, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

    @Finnusertop: But ... they are free. They're fully free in the United States, just like many other images we host that are public domain in the United States but not the source country. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 03:19, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

    @BU Rob13: Apparently, if a work is free in Nauru and nowhere else in the world, it can be still used "by anyone, for any purpose" according to the Definition of Free Cultural Works. That "anyone" is just quite small in number. I've revised my reasoning above. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:05, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

    @Finnusertop: In response to your updated reasoning, I just want to make clear that we're not voicing that preference in this RfC. This RfC does not change the fact that if a work from Mexico is copyrighted in Mexico but not in the United States, the English Wikipedia will gladly accept it as free content. It just carves out an odd exception for these few countries where we consider their country's copyright law, while we don't consider the copyright law of any other country with copyright relations to the United States. That's quite odd. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:10, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

    @BU Rob13: I know. What you consider an odd exception, many consider a step in the preferential direction. And judging by many comments here, there is nothing odd about it. Indeed, it closes a strange loophole. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:51, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

13. Oppose, it seems like that would be highly problematic if the copyright status changes. I'm not conviced that would be in the best interests of the encyclopedia. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 01:24, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

General discussion

Just wanted to add some background here. The photo that is the cause of this kerfuffle is here: File:Isfahan Metro.jpg. I originally tagged it as a copyright violation and then brought it to FFD after being informed of the whole "the US doesn't recognize Iranian copyright" issue. I withdrew the original FFD after about twenty minutes after thinking about the can of worms that it might open. The can of worms being the {{PD-USonly}} tag mentioned above and the sheer number of pages it is being used on. Not to mention the {{PD-ineligible-USOnly}} tag which would increase that number exponentially and would require a review of each and every image that is tagged that way if the status quo was changed.

The case-by-case basis is what is in question here. I understand that the US does not recognize these images but I have a problem with the idea that anyone can grab any image they want that was produced in Iran (or any of those other countries) and use it freely to their heart's content. All that does is quash any desire for the legitimate release of images under a truly free license that can be used across all projects. Not to mention that the image that caused this whole RfC is only being used in a way that does nothing to increase the reader's understanding of the article in any determinable way. Also, if we do allow such things there needs to be a category for these images. If the US ever does restore copyright relations with these countries, see URAA and bilateral copyright agreements of the United States, then every image that is hosted this way needs to be immediately deleted. --Majora (talk) 00:28, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That image reminded me of the issue, but I don't particularly care about that specific image. I'm more interested in the policy as a whole. And yes, there would need to be a category per country. There was much discussion in the last RfC about proposed templates and categories. Those never got used due to the result, but they can be looked at again if there is consensus. Ramaksoud2000 ^{(Talk to me)} 00:39, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And I disagree that it would quash a desire to release under a free license. There are other projects than the English Wikipedia, and English isn't the main language of any of those countries anyway. Ramaksoud2000 ^{(Talk to me)} 00:43, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest pinging WMF legal. — JJMC89 (T·C) 02:34, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You can read their response at the previous RfA at Wikipedia_talk:Copyrights/Archive_14#Legal_team.27s_statement. Ramaksoud2000 ^{(Talk to me)} 02:38, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

But yes, they should be informed of this RfC. I will e-mail them. Ramaksoud2000 ^{(Talk to me)} 02:42, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hey JJMC89 and Ramaksoud2000 - I've sent them an email. Though it's not the end of the world if they receive two! :) Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 13:33, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• The policy on Commons is to consider the copyright in the original country for such items. Partly because it is possible that such works will end up under US copyright per URAA if any of these countries were to enter into copyright relationships in the future. My sense is that works in such countries should be considered fair game if they are PD in the country, and "fair use" (or "no use") if not. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:22, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The goal of Wikipedia is to create a free encyclopedia. Copyright is defined by national laws; in most countries, foreign copyright is based on reciprocity. The countries that don't have copyright relations with the US don't have copyright relations with most (if any) other countries. Therefore, the works from those countries are free of copyright in most countries. This is similar to the situation with freedom of panorama. Most countries do not allow freedom of panorama (see Commons) and several only allow it for non-commercial purposes. However, since US law allows FoP for buildings, even for commercial purposes, we allow images of copyrighted buildings in countries without FoP (example). The copyright policy on Commons--that a work must be free in both the US and country of origin--is in contrast to the policy of considering only US copyright on Wikipedia (Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights). I agree that images, such as the Isfahan metro photo (per Flagfox, the server hosting it is located in Iran), from countries without copyright relations with the US should be tagged with a copyright template that allows them to be identified and removed if they become copyrighted in the future if the country of publication joins the Berne Convention. No such copyright template presently exists for Iran. AHeneen (talk) 17:05, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I would need to spend time to look up where he suggested it, but Jimbo did say that we shoukd treat works from these non binding countries as if they were copyrighted, and thus subject to hosting and usage as any other copyrighted image as defined under NFC. --MASEM (t) 08:41, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The exact quote from 2005 is here. But I don't think that we should treat something that Jimbo wrote in an email 11 years as the ultimate authority. Ramaksoud2000 ^{(Talk to me)} 00:02, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

True, but it is also very conservative/worst case advice. We aren't letting the proverbial copyright cat out of the bag to respect non URAA copyright, should that change in the future. --MASEM (t) 19:00, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I notified everyone who participated in the 2012 RfC with the following message:

-AHeneen (talk) 21:07, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Another idea: Could we have some sort of policy where images that are fairly easy to obtain cannot be used in this way? This would encourage the creation of free content. I don't know what the cutoff would be. But something like a photo of the Ifsahan metro station cannot be used but a photo of Rouhani meeting with such-and-such foreign leader could be. This could be a good compromise -- food for thought... Calliopejen1 (talk) 14:02, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The WMF policy (wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy), mentioned among the oppose votes, reads in relevant part: All projects are expected to host only content which is under a Free Content License, or which is otherwise free as recognized by the 'Definition of Free Cultural Works' as referenced above. (emphasis added). The Definition of Free Cultural Works includes: In order to be considered free, a work must be covered by a Free Culture License, or its legal status must provide the same essential freedoms enumerated above. (emphasis added). As I mention in previous comments, copyright for foreign works is based on reciprocity; as such, works first published in countries that are not a party to the Berne Convention and not published within a certain time (eg. 30 days under US copyright law) in a country that is a member are not copyrighted in Berne Convention member states (currently 174 of the roughly 200 sovereign states). Such content is free of copyright in the US and 7/8ths of the world and should not be considered non-free content, which several of the opposing voters mention.

All projects must adhere to U.S. laws (because of the location of WMF servers and the place of incorporation of the WMF), but the choice of other applicable law is a project-by-project decision. The current choice of applicable law is found in the lead at Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights: While Wikipedia prefers content that is free anywhere in the world, it accepts content that is free in the United States even if it may be under copyright in some other countries.

Concerns about the reusability of such content are misfounded. As I mention above, we already allow images of buildings that are copyrighted in the origin country but that are free of the building's copyright in the U.S. under the freedom of panorama copyright exception (see Wikipedia:Freedom of panorama). But the even greater issue is the inclusion of non-free content, based on the fair use doctrine of U.S. copyright law. While similar exceptions can be found in the copyright laws of other countries (see Fair dealing#By country and Fair use#Influence internationally), such exceptions are far from universal. In the EU, member states can pick among 22 permissible copyright exceptions, but many countries have very restrictive exceptions. So an image that meets our NFC criteria and satisfies US fair use and UK fair dealing standards probably won't be free to use in France (which has few exceptions). In this way, Wikipedia content already is limited in its reusability, much more so than content that is free of copyright because the origin country is not a Berne Convention member state. Concerns about the future usability of files from non-members join the Berne Convention and images become copyrighted can easily be addressed by creating appropriate copyright templates. AHeneen (talk) 15:05, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]