Commons:Deletion requests/ΦΕΚ: Β 1491 20051027
ΦΕΚ: Β 1491 20051027
[edit]User Conudrum has been marking [1] as copyvio our Greek images like Partenon, Acropolis, museums material... Based on:
Under Ministerial Decision of the Hellenic Republic (ΦΕΚ: Β 1491 20051027) all the royalties and copyright to this picture reside within the Archaeological Receipts Fund (TAP) of the Greek Ministry of Culture. You should attribute this copyright at all times, and specify the name and location of the monument and archaeological site or museum. You should also have applied for and have acquired license of use.
Objection: This piece of art is thousands of years old, there is no copyright anymore, and I seriously doubt the validity of any claims by the greek gouvernment. --h-stt !? 09:33, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Is the Greek gouverment able to take that measure? Isn't those art on open air, clearly free? Is it even reasonably? Specify name of the museum / place location can be ok but applying for permission over your picture if such museum allows photos is quite exagerated.
Plus, we have images taken before such law e.g. Image:AGMA Stoa d'Attale vue du SO.jpg taken 17 dic 1999 or Image:Kykladenidol.jpg on august 2004.
Platonides 10:13, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Objection: I totally agree with H-stt ! This piece of art is thousands of years old, there is no copyright anymore. Manchot 10:57, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Reply: First of all I must say how much I appreciate the effort of archaeophiles uploading pictures in the Commons. However, nobody could reasonably claim copyright over pictures that are not original and where "indeed, the point of the exercise was to reproduce the underlying works with absolute fidelity" (see indicative case Bridgeman Art Gallery v. Corel Corp 36F. Supp.2d 191 (S.D.N.Y. 1999). [3]). Moreover the situation has nothing to do about the author being alive or not because these items constitute cultural heritage and property of Greece.
I would also like to comment on what H-stt said. There appears to be some misunderstanding in his doubts that the Greek government can claim rights on the golden mask of Agamemnon, which is indeed kept in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens! We should always bear in mind that: “copyright and related rights are legal concepts and instruments which, while respecting and protecting the rights of creators in their works, also contribute to the cultural and economic development of nations. Copyright law fulfils a decisive role in articulating the contributions and rights of the different stakeholders taking part in the cultural industries and the relation between them and the public” [4]. Without the payment of these royalties remarkable monuments would have been deprived of vital funds for their restoration and preservation. Therefore, the Greek government is fully legitimate to regulate the distribution of depictions of Greek cultural heritage. Imagine what would have happened if anyone was allowed to use images of Greek heritage in order to further commercial or other aims without seeking permission. This could damage the integrity of such monuments in the eyes of millions of people. Besides, I would like to underline that guarding a nation’s cultural heritage is not yet another Greek peculiarity as Hstt might imply. For instance in the UK much stricter laws apply; landmark monuments such as the Tower of London, the Windsor Castle, the Hampton Court Palace are crown property and nobody is allowed to take photographs of their interior not even for personal use.
It is not an excuse that the Greek law may be unknown abroad. In fact this is not a recent measure. The ministerial decision published in ΦΕΚ: Β 1491 20051027 is probably an amendment of Ministerial decision αρ. ΥΠΠΟ/ΑΡΧ/Α1-Α2/22647/1336/5.5.1998 (ΦΕΚ 620/Β'/19.6.1998). The law 3028/2002 and the presidential decree ΠΔ 16/1980 (ΦΕΚ 8/Α'/ 16.1.1980) are also relevant. The protection regime dates back to the law 1947 of the year 1939 “On the establishment of Agency for Antiquities and Historical Monuments of the State” (ΦEK 366/Α'/6.9.1939). Perhaps the most recent ministerial decision (updating the licensing fees) can be found here [5] in Greek. The decision allows archaeological photographs for personal use only without flash, as most visitors of Greek museums are likely to know. Moreover the decision regulates the use of images of archaelogical content and the fees for using them on the Internet or Intranet, as the Greek state is the exclusive holder of intellectual rights of the content of these images. Interested parties should secure any complementary licenses according to the case e.g. photographic license.
Furthermore, the decision lists the fees that apply to each case. For educational, informational, scientific and cultural purposes the relevant fees are significantly lower. .Especially for use on the Internet for one month €20 per picture, six months €60 per picture, for a year €80 per picture, for two years €100 per picture. These fees apply only to pictures of low resolution (72 dpi) and only in one language. There applies a 50% increase for each additional language for each picture. For non-static pictures and higher resolution pictures an additional 60% is charged per picture. Furthermore a specific procedure for acquiring license of use of images of archaeological content is foreseen in the decision. An application should be submitted to the responsible Directorate of the Greek Ministry of Culture (ΥΠ.ΠΟ) (Directorate of Museums, Exhibitions, Educational programmes, Department of non public archaeological museums and collections, handling of antiquities and combating illicit trade in antiquities) or to the responsible regional authorities of the Ministry of Culture (Offices of prehistoric and classic antiquities, offices of Byzantine antiquities).
In addition all the images should be accompanied by short texts (captions) with the consent of the Ministry of Culture with the following information: a) for the immovable monuments: Name of Monument- Place (optionally Date and Use) b) for movable antiquities: Name of object and Place (Museum, Collection) number of Index (optionally Date and Use). In addition it should be written that the Copyright of the pictures belongs to the Greek Ministry of Culture as follows: "The Copyright on the depicted antiquities belongs to the Hellenic Ministry of Culture (law 3028/2002”. The images for which license is given should not be presented in a way that corrupts their content (composition, overlapping etc) without the prior special license of the Ministry of Culture. Non compliance with the aforementioned procedure brings upon sanctions according to law.
Consequently, as an immediate step licensing of these images under pd-self, and renouncing of copyright should be abolished. Moreover I believe that paintings, sketches, or drawings should be acceptable instead of unlicensed pictures and if you wish to maintain images of Greek archaeological objects located in Greece, license should be acquired and copyright attributed in all cases prior to publication.
Perhaps Wikipedia should contact:
Contact info:
Tameio Arxaiologikon Poron,
57 Panepistimiou str.
GR-10564 Athens
tel. +30 210 3722500
Keep clear copyfraud. --Rtc 13:18, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
In addition: en:copyfraud. Your conection between the greek claims and "Crown Property" in UK doesn't hold. In London taking pictures is prohibited. That's valid, based on the right to control access. Beside that we disregard those british copyright claims whenever we can: We do have a copy of the King James Bible on Wikisource - s:en:Bible_(King_James) (For those not familiar with british crown copyright: The King James Bible is subject to claims of a perpetual copyright for the crown. Only four printers in UK are allowed to reproduce it and they have to pay royalties. US publishers (and wikisource) don't give a shit for those claims and publish as they like). Let's deal with the greek claims the same way. --h-stt !? 14:32, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
- license should be acquired ? Unless greek goverment makes an exception for images which will have education purposes or similar, it's not possible. I think GFDL doesn't allow a must of paying fees (at least GPL doesn't). Platonides 14:14, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Reply: Please maintain civility Mr. h-stt. This is not an issue between you and me. I presented what the Greek Law foresees on the matter and comprehensively argued how a possible infringement can be avoided. Again, this is not “Greek claims”, it is LAW. As for your claims that ‘you don’t have to give a shit’ (sic) about royalties in both the U.K. and the Greek case, I believe they are null and void for the reason that the aforementioned countries are parties to the International Regime for the Protection of Intellectual Property, initially the Bern Convention and then also the specialised UN Agencies WIPO and UNESCO and are signatories to relevant treaties which provide for national treatment i.e. artistic works must be given the same protection in each of the other contracting States as in the State of origin (Berne Convention 1886). It should be noted that the International Law prevails in any case. Under no circumstances do Wikipedia’s policies lie above national and international law
It is not a case of convincing me, I understand that many people want to upload their holiday photos--which they are perfectly legitimized to keep for themselves and not to publish--but I am also pointing to the legal situation to which they should not turn a blind eye. Besides some of this massive amount of photos uploaded in Wikipedia do not respect minimum standards of a decent presentation of the monuments and often mistake and mislocate them.
Furthermore all the items in archaeological museums and sights are subject to copyright law because they are products of excavations and form parts of an exhibition, over which the Greek state has copyright. To make it clear, the image of the Golden mask is the result of excavation and restoration and is presented as part of a museum collection under special conditions of exhibition, (e.g. lighting, positioning, background colouring etc.) the copyright of which must be attributed.
On the other hand it is not legitimate to accuse the Greek State of stealing Cultural Heritage. The Greek State is part to the UNESCO 1970 Convention on the protection of Cultural Property and is indeed the Guardian of the monuments, not a thief. It is outrageous to accuse a State, Greece of copyfraud as a penal law delinquent. Greece has undertaken laborious tasks and spent immense amounts of funds -Greek taxpayers’ money- for the restoration of cultural heritage and the restitution of such heritage illegally kept abroad. Perhaps you have mistaken the victim with the perpetrator. Besides, the vast majority of Greek heritage sites are open to the wide public and photographing them for personal use is indeed permitted. But, publishing them in encyclopaedias is a completely different case. In the case of commercial use of images the regulations are even stricter. For instance there was a heated debate in Greece and in the General Archaeological Council in particular, after PHILIPS Corporation applied to use the Parthenon for an international commercial advertisement of its lighting. In return the company offered to provide the lighting for a number of archaeological sites in Greece. Archaeological receipts are used for the expropriation of property for the advancement of archaeological excavations, and do not end up in the pockets of private fat-cat collectors of illicit-in-origin and undeclared items.
I regret to observe that this may be a case of keeping double standards here. Whilst in other cases draconian rules apply which dictate speedy deletion of images, in the case of Greek antiquities the copyright standards seem to be kept disproportionately low. In addition I did not say that British crown property is an identical case, but if you search this site it is virtually impossible to find photographs from the interior of crown property sites. Furthermore, the absence of persecution in the case of Greece does not mean impunity and that unchecked circulation of fragmented snapshots of monuments is acceptable. All in all this is a legal issue, and expert legal advice should be sought. I expressed my opinion after reading the provisions of the Greek law which lead to the conclusion that unchecked publishing of such images constitutes copyright violation. If anyone has any questions or objections they should be better directed to the responsible Greek authorities.
To conclude I must restate that Greece adheres to the civil law tradition and so, much more than the mainly economic provisions for 50-70 years of Intellectual Property protection of the common law tradition, the Greek state has a droit morale perpetuel over the monuments, no matter how long time has passed since the death of their creator. --Conudrum 17:17, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
- If the letter of the law was to be regarded when it came to the Vigeland Sculpture Park, the Louvre Pyramid, the Eiffeltower at night, and others, because of their country law, then they should be applied here too. Absurd? Yes, I think so. But I don't have support.
- To prove a point, I think we should
Delete these Greek images. Maybe then, people will wake up and allow a change of the Commons policy. / Fred Chess 17:25, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
- This is totally different case. The pyramid of Louvre and the lightting installation of the Eiffel towers are copyrighted according to the European copyright law. Note that Eifel tower and Lovre building are NOT copyrighted. Greek law, even if it is effective in Grecce, contradicts international EU copyright law. Therefore, it has no power outside Greece. Kneiphof 12:33, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
- Please ignore these wild copyfraud claims. They are not acceptable. Nobody owns any copyright on things many hundreds of years old. If we start to accept this, we'd have basically to delete much of commons, ie, reproduction photography etc. Merely giving some objects a special lightning and background does not automatically give you a copyright. We cannot accept these brazen attempts to circumvent copyright expiry. There is no copyright on "result of excavation and restoration and is presented as part of a museum collection under special conditions of exhibition, (e.g. lighting, positioning, background colouring)" and on "undertaken laborious tasks and spent immense amounts of funds -Greek taxpayers’ money- for the restoration of cultural heritage and the restitution of such heritage illegally kept abroad" And BTW, Conudrum is entrirely wrong to claim a country of origin protection by international copyright law. it is in fact the opposite, it gives the protection of the country where this protection is demanded ("Schutzlandprinzip"). See w:Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works: "The Berne Convention requires its signatories to protect the copyright on works of authors from other signatory countries (known as members of the Berne Union) in the same way it protects the copyright of its own nationals, which means that, for instance, French copyright law applies to anything published or performed in France, regardless of where it was originally created." --Rtc 17:39, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
- Objection. I agree with H-stt and Rtc. There is no reason to delete photos of ancient artifacts that have been uploaded by the photographer. -- Carbidfischer 00:43, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
- Totally agree!!! Kneiphof 12:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
- From what I understand, the point is that the Greek government owns these objects and therefore has reserved all the rights of reproduction and publishing of images, which Wikimedia has not acquired or attributed. Of course this an interpretation of copyright rules often expressed by museums in their image use policy (see Hermitage museum[6])is unclear to me whether is legal or illegal. As for the Unesco conventions I believe they include ownership and protection but haven’t seen if they mention exploitation or reproduction, which I think is kind of bold inference. It’s very sad that Wikipages may have to be striped of all their pictures of monuments and museum objects in this way. Is there any expert in Wikimedia to consult on this? Is there copyright on items of archaeological discovery? Should we ask governments and museums for permission to publish? Obviously this is a big issue and I don’t know how to vote. Maybe
- I strongly agree with Fred Chess, and to restate this position, there are many ways to interpret the law. The letter of the law may appear strict, but it is a matter of political decision to cede these rights. And recreational non-commercial photography of these treasures is absolutely free. Could publishing them in Wikimedia commons be considered as such kind of use? Besides, educational, informational use of such material is viewed positively by the law. All this discussion has been based on the assumption that according to a strict interpretation of the law uploading pictures of artifacts on the internet may be of disputable copyright. This remains to be proved; because we only know provisions of the law, not the practice of the authorities vis a vis publishing of images on the internet. It would have been interesting to further examine the case. Finally, I would like to condemn the practice of the Commons. It seems that uploading pictures of British artifacts, night views of the Eiffel tower, Norwegian sculptures etc is restricted because of the country law, while there is an innumerable amount of images of Greek artifacts in obvious defiance of the country law. And this is not because they are thousands of years old, more recent Greek treasures subject to the same protection also appear in the commons. In conclusion, the commons should rethink their position -if they ever had one other than selective opportunism. And a serious policy does not depend on the subjective impression of some -who obviously defy the concept of copyright law in general- that a law appears “silly” or intelligent. We should either delete all these pictures that go against country law or keep them all because any intermediate position is an application of double standards. --Conudrum 14:44, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
- An "a la bande" attitude helps nobody: Being against the PD-Soviet deletion and thus now trying to find the most ridiculous example in order to show us a "serious flaw" in our general licensing policy and thus thinking that we lift the policy under the pressure of that example. This is not the way to go. So please do not mix things that do not belong together:
- The Eiffel tower itself is out of copyright. The very sad debate is about the copyright of the new Eiffel tower light installation. New norwegian sculptures and for example the Atomium in Brussels are all protected by copyright. So if these objects are the central part of an image the image is unfree or even a copyvio. As you see these works are all new works.
- Ancient greek works are orders of magnitudes older. Often you even don't know the peeples names that created it. Completely different situation and thus such claims are indeed copyfraud. No today living person can claim the astonishing originality of ancient greek artists for themselves (you hardly can draw a line of sucessors until today even if you know these persons).
- Ok let's look at todays greek works: If in Greece there is indeed nothing like "freedom of panorama" (as for example in Poland, Austria, Germany, Switzerland...) images of today greek works need to be deleted like it was done with equivalent belgican, french and norwegian images.
- So in summary do not blame failures of uploaders to the Commons admins blame it to the uploader themselves (you hardly can miss our beginners howtos in many languages that explain you everything important). Arnomane 16:52, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
- An "a la bande" attitude helps nobody: Being against the PD-Soviet deletion and thus now trying to find the most ridiculous example in order to show us a "serious flaw" in our general licensing policy and thus thinking that we lift the policy under the pressure of that example. This is not the way to go. So please do not mix things that do not belong together:
- Leaving aside the extremely weak arguments defending such law raised by the person who brought up this (for me as a Greek) embarassing subject, I would like to point out that this regulation refers mainly to commercial photography and commercial exploitation thereof. I have my doubts on the constitutionality (conformity with the greek constitution) of a law prohibiting the free distribution of non commercial photographs, especially non-commercial photos of open-air monuments. When visiting an open-air archaeological site after paying the entrance fee (THIS is a reasonable measure for recovering restauration expenses), one is explicitly allowed to take non-professional pictures without flash (and of course without fee outside the fence!). Taking pictures without flash is even in some museums allowed. The fact that the law and the ministerial decision seem to try to regulate the publication of legally taken (non-professional) photos even on non-commercial internet sites is apart from regretful also of highly disputable constitutionality. A simple search on the Internet can prove that almost all touristic websites have such pictures on them and these sites are clearly commercial. This means that the ministry of culture itself is not very keen on applying this law when it comes to single photos on internet sites. I would see this regulation as a too broadly phrased reservation, so that the government can intervene in case someone publishes pictures of such cultural items in an "inappropriate" manner or as a measure of purely pecuniary nature and thus of even more doubtful constitutionality. The person who brought this up will probably understand the phrase "let's not be more royal than the king himself". I would see no reason for deleting the pictures--Archidamus 19:25, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
- Comment. It's not obvious to me why we would accept that the placement of floodlights around the Eiffel Tower as making every image taken of it at night a derivative work, while heaping scorn on the idea that the effort and decision-making involved in what to preserve, what to reconstruct, and how to present to the public those preservations and reconstructions on the part of Greek archaeological agenices over the last hundred years is copyrightable or enforceable. I don't think we should delete these images (although a template noting that they may not be freely reusable in Greece may be a good idea), but I'm unhappy about the way that we're discussing a law that we don't like as if we know more about the situation than the relevant legislature does. Perhaps every court in the world would accept the claim that a big glass geometric pyramid in front of the Louvre prevents the free licensing of every image involving it, and none of them would accept that the current appearance of the Acropolis cannot be copyrighted by those people who have arranged that current appearance. We don't, however, know that, and we just need to make reasonable decisions about what we claim to be able to freely license, including noting compromises we might be making on universality and noting for our reusers any applicable local copyright law brought to our attention. Jkelly 19:02, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Comment. A good deal of Greek artifacts were excavated, analyzed, restored and documented by foreign institutions present in Greece, such as the British School at Athens. Do that means the copyright for these artifacts lies with these institutions? Did the Greek museums infringe their copyright by lighting them or providing them a background? Jastrow 07:04, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
- One of my points is that we shouldn't be assuming we know more about the situation than the Greek legislature does, a mistake that your statement here is a prime example of. Jkelly 17:31, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
- The fact that the Greek ministry knows about the situation does not mean they take the right or just decision about it. I wonder how the Greek ministry of culture can justify the fact that a foreign institution who has directed an excavation in Greece and assumed the cost of it should now pay for publishing a picture one of its scholars has taken. And yes, before making my statement here, I have asked for the opinion of one of the foreign scholars I'm talking about, who has personally excavated in Greece. Jastrow 22:37, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
- One of my points is that we shouldn't be assuming we know more about the situation than the Greek legislature does, a mistake that your statement here is a prime example of. Jkelly 17:31, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
{{keep}}I'm in a point with Bjs in it. It's a bad fake.--Mario Todte 09:42, 16 September 2006 (UTC) (has already voted above --Bjs 19:54, 16 September 2006 (UTC))
I'm writing on article for it. --Mario Todte 15:18, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
- Keep. It would be absurd to claim copyright over every peice of history inside a county. --Cat out 19:39, 29 October 2006 (UTC)