Can I scan in pre-1923 photographs from books and upload them to wikipedia without violating copyright? Arcadia Publishing has the Images of America book series, many of which have pre-1923 photographs. Same thing for Eyewitness Books. For example they have a book on money which has images of coins and currency going back hundreds of years. My question is... could I scan in some of these images from these books and upload them to, say, Wikipedia? In the United States anything published before 1923 is public domain but what exactly does that mean? Like if I want to upload a pre-1923 image from one of these books to Wikipedia do I have to track down the original and upload scan it in myself or can I rely on the scans that other people did?
Date and Place of Publication Matter If the photographs were published in the US prior to 1923 (or indeed now prior to 1927) by a US resident, they are now in the public domain (PD) in the US under US law. Wikipedia will generally accept such photos, and the persons who would otherwise be the copyright holders will not be able to bring an infringement suit in a US court. If the pictures were taken before 1923, but not published until after 1980, they will be under copyright until 70 years after the death of the photographer, or until 2047, whichever is later. If they were taken before 1923, but published after 1927 with a proper copyright notice, and if published in 1963 or before, and their copyright was properly renewed 28 years after publication, the copyright lasts for 95 years after publication. There are various other sets of circumstance that may apply. The famous Cornell chart &quot;Copyright Term and the Public Domain&quot; covers all the relevant cases and spells out in which cases works are in the public domain, or if not, how long the copyright lasts for. If the photograph(s) were first published outside the US, or the photographer was neither a US citizen nor a US resident, then a suit could be filed in the country of origin of the photographs, under the laws of that country. Copyright term varies in different countries, but in most it is calculated from the death of the author (the photographer) varying from 50 years to 100 years after the author's death. 70 years is perhaps the most common term, including most countries in Europe. The Wikimedia Foundation (publisher of Wikipedia) takes the legal position that it is governed only by US law. To the best of my knowledge there has never yet been a successful copyright suit over an image (or text) published on Wikipedia that is PD under US law, but not by the law of its country of origin. So you will see that the date of publication is a key fact, and the place of publication may also be relevant. The copyright page of the book which you are scanning will give the date that book was published, and may well give the dates of publication of images included inn the book, if those are earlier. Under US law, scanning a previously published image will not generally give a new copyright on the image, nor will re-publishing a previously published image. Creating a modified (derivative) version of an image may well give a new copyright on the modified elements, but will not extend the copyright on the original image. (All this is also true for texts.) The age of the subject of a photo (or other image) is not relevant to the duration of the copyright of a new, original image of that subject. The date that the image was created (as opposed to being published) will only rarely be relevant. Money Images of US coins and currency (bills) are a special case. They are considered to be &quot;works of the US Federal Government&quot; and so are not protected by copyright within the US at any time. A new US coin or bill first put out in 1922 would still not be protected within the US. Money of other countries may be protected, or not, depending on the laws of its country of origin. But money issued before 1927 would be PD under US law.
&quot;Plagiarism&quot; is an academic concept, not a legal one Plagiarising the work of another without attribution is academic misconduct in every reputable academic facility and can lead to disciplinary action. But it's not against the law, and you can't be sued for doing it. Copyright violation is against the law You violate copyright when you copy or make a derivative work from the copyrighted work of another without permission or without an exemption under the law. In some jurisdictions, authors and artists have moral copyright, which operates alongside proprietary copyright and gives certain rights, including the right of attribution and the right for their work to be treated respectfully. In those jurisdictions, even if you have the copyright holder's permission, you must still respect the moral rights. Let's make some things explicit by considering a particular artwork. Say, this one: This particular piece is not subject to copyright because a) it was created before there was such a concept, and b) da Vinci died in 1519, so if there had been a copyright law, copyright in this work would have long expired. So, you can make as many copies of this as you like. Now, let's consider what the situation would be if Leonardo's alchemical pursuits had been more successful and instead of dying in 1519, he died last Tuesday. If you want to make a copy of this image, you must have Leonardo's heir(s) permission or be operating under an exemption under copyright law in your jurisdiction. When you train your AI, you will need to make a copy of the image. Do you have permission? Do you have a relevant exemption? If you obtained your images by scraping websites then the answers are no and (probably) no. Whether the image has metadata identifying the author is irrelevant to answering the questions. Whether there is any way of identifying the artist is also irrelevant - you still need their permission even if you don't know who to ask. If your AI, when prompted, generates an image that is strikingly similar to a copyrighted image it was trained on, that is a derivative work and you need permission for that. Under current law, the programer(s) are likely the copyright violators rather than the users of the AI.
http://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/dk/dk091en.pdf is the Copyright Law in English for Denmark. You should probably try to find a Danish version to ensure the translation is accurate. Chapter 2 lists the exemptions from the general rule that you need the copyright owner's permission to use their IP. Unfortunately, the usage you have made does not meet the requirements for private use (s12): digital copies may only be shared among the members of one household, placing them on the web extends beyond your household. It may meet the requirements of educational use (s13) providing that your school has met the requirements for Extended Collective Use (s50). For photographs, this seems unlikely, such arrangements are usually limited to songs and television works. Under Chapter 6b, you are permitted to use "orphaned works", however, this requires that you have made a diligent search for the owners and have been unable to either identify or locate them. Copyright violation is subject to both penal sanctions (fines and in egregious violations imprisonment) (s76) and damages (s83). TL;DR Yes, you could be sued. Yes, the copyright holder would probably be successful. No, it is extremely unlikely they would bother.
The Mugshot was most likely made by a state employee in the course of their work. Employees don't get a copyright for works from their work but their employers do so generally, as that is work for hire. However, the government is different: The US government specifically can't have any copyright from works of its employees. They are public domain. 17 USC 101 &amp; 105 State governments are a little different. Technically they could be copyrighted unless they are laws and edicts, but states might disclaim such: Arizona employees make Arizona copyrighted works. California works require public access and are public domain unless the state specifically authorizes a work to be copyrighted. Florida and its employees can't have copyright in government works unless they specifically make a law that carves a work out from this beforehand. Indiana employees make technically copyrighted works, but they can't restrict use by obtaining a license or fee in any way under IC 5-14-3, making them quasi-public domain. A public domain image can be done with whatever you want. No strings attached, no rights of rightsholders violated. However, not everything made on behalf of the government is made by the government: Contractors do have the copyright in the first place, and then can assign it to a government, which does not make a work public domain.
Under United States copyright law, according to the Copyright Office, 206.01 Edicts of government. Edicts of government, such as judicial opinions, administrative rulings, legislative enactments, public ordinances, and similar official legal documents are not copyrightable for reasons of public policy. This applies to such works whether they are Federal, State, or local as well as to those of foreign governments. Referencing laws is even clearer: copyright doesn't protect referring to something like "Section 830 of the Penal Code of the State of California." Note that this is assuming that they remain within the US, where copyright law is a federal issue. Other countries don't all have the edict of government rule. If a place were to legally secede and become their own country, they would cease to be bound by US copyright law. They would get to decide if it was legal for them to do it or not; this is just like how it works between the UK and US (the UK claims copyright on its laws, but US courts will not enforce that copyright because it's incompatible with US law). Treaties complicate things, but the Berne Convention allows the edict of government exception. That said, seceding from the US unilaterally is both legally and practically impossible; seceding from a state is likewise generally going to be legally and practically impossible without permission from the state. So, it all depends on the agreements made. EDIT: To specifically address the model codes issue, Veeck v. S. Bldg. Code Congress Int’l, 293 F.3d 791 (5th Cir. 2002) was a case specifically about what happens when model codes are adopted wholesale into law. The Fifth Circuit (after initially finding that the model codes were protected) reversed en banc, finding that a model code produced for the purpose of being incorporated into law, and which has been incorporated into law, and which is then reproduced as the law of the place that incorporated it into law, is not subject to copyright. Veeck may not apply to cases where the law merely references the model code, or where the thing in question was not made to be incorporated into law (e.g. state laws referencing the Red Book valuation of a car didn't make the Red Book public domain). If both of those are true, it probably doesn't apply; if one holds but not the other, it's unclear. However, if the actual municipal code directly contains the text of the model code, and you reprint it as the law of that municipality (rather than as the model code), there is no copyright in the law.
OSM does use aerial/satellite images. But as the OSM FAQ explains, Google Maps and similar sources have unsuitable terms of service. These would prevent use even if no copyright was involved. The location of a street is factual and cannot be copyrighted. However, a photo of a street (whether at eye level or from a satellite/plane) can be protected by copyright, as can the presentation of this fact as part of a map. Maps are not necessarily just databases of facts1 but involve decisions in how to best present and arrange this information. Similarly, projecting aerial photography onto a map is not merely a gallery of images – it requires warping, stitching, retouching, and color-adjusting images e.g. in to remove cloud cover. Creating the raw images also requires decisions about flight patterns, altitude, camera perspectives, lenses, and exposure times. Compare the guidance in Circular 42 of the US Copyright Office: The copyright in a photograph protects the photographer’s artistic choices, such as the selection of the subject matter, any positioning of subject(s), the selection of camera lens, the placement of the camera, the angle of the image, the lighting, and the timing of the picture. The result: Whether I make a panorama snapshot with my smartphone camera, or a billion-dollar company flies a plane to create an array of aerial photographs – the result is likely to be a copyrightable image, regardless of the substantial involvement of automated means. Even if the subject of the photo is very boring and seems uncreative.2 Of course, there is some public domain imagery that can be used. In particular, works created by US government agencies is public domain within the US. However, the materials produced by the likes of NASA and the NOAA/NWS are not necessarily useful for mapping purposes. And public domain status within the US is of no use to people outside of the US, which many OSM contributors are. 1. Databases are subject to copyright in some jurisdictions, notably the EU. 2. Technical photography without artistic merit is still covered by copyright. Other countries might apply a different threshold of originality, but this aspect is somewhat universal.
The USPS and other postal services have created a service called Digital Postmarks or EPCM (Electronic Postal Certification Mark) to address exactly this problem. Basically you can upload any document that you want to be "unalterable and time stamped". The service computes a hash (a number that will change if the contents change), and store the time stamp and the hash on a secure server. If, at some time in the future, you want to confirm the authenticity of the document, you can upload another copy - the fact that it produces the same hash proves it's not been tampered with.
united-states The composition of a photograph, a painting, or an image of any sort is one of the elements that can be protected by copyright, and indeed one of those aspects that make an image original and thus a proper subject of a copyright under US law. A new image that imitates the original and distinctive composition of another might be held to be a derivative work, and thus an infringement of copyright if done without permission. Note that the composition must be original. A photo of, say, two people standing side-by-side has been done many times, and would probably not have any distinctive element of composition. The images shown as part of the question look rather distinctive to me, but for all I know this is a cliche that has been done over and over. If this came to an actual lawsuit a defendant could present evidence showing the composition to have been previously used by others, and thus common coin, free for anyone to adopt. This would be similar to the Scènes à faire concept. Things that have been done over and over are not original and are thus not protectable by copyright. That would ultimately be a judgement for the court to make, dependent on the facts of a specific case. I suspect this answer is correct for the laws of many countries, but I can only confirm it for US copyright law.