Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Anniejohnchapman1869.jpg

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.

Image:Anniejohnchapman1869.jpg

This image is NOT in the public domain. The original photo has never been released to the public. It is owned by the Chapman family and very strongly protected. The version that has been shown in public has been edited to improve viewing quality. Such editing creates a new copyright to cover the art and ability in cleaning the photo up. The photo was only released to the public in this new version with a very recent copyright (last ten years or so, I believe), and also EXPLICITLY with the understanding that the family would only allow those people they approve of (those showing respect for their ancestor's memory, not commercializing her, etc.) to use this new photo. 14:22, 20 May 2008 76.114.86.121

Legally, I suppose if someone had a copy of the ORIGINAL photo and either ran it as is or did their own enhancement that they released into public domain, they could get away with it without violating copyright laws. But nobody has access to the original photo except the family. Morally, however, to ignore the family's explicit conditions for use would still be reprehensible, as the only reason the public has seen this photo is because of their generosity. If the family had thought people would steal the image and redistribute it they never would have released it... but of course the released version has a copyright anyway.

• That's all very well, but the issue here is whether legally the Chapman family own the rights to a photograph taken in 1869. Morality doesn't come in to it- we should deal here only with the law. Under UK copyright law (and this image was taken in the UK) photographs taken before 1944 have a copyright term of 50 years from the date the photograph was taken, not from the date it was first published. If copyright applies, it belongs to Annie Chapman, or her husband, or the original photographer, all long dead. If copyright applies to an enhanced and artistically tidied up version of the photograph, which is debatable, the original image remains copyright free.

• • Morality should certainly come into it. But, more importantly, the original image may be copyright free, yes, then you NEED the original photo and NOT an extensively edited version under modern copyright. There is no evidence that the image uploaded here is the original copyright-free one, so it must be deleted, both by law and also by ethical standards of conduct. You can't just assert that the image is freely usable and use it, you have to have clear law on your side, and in this case you clearly don't, so it must be removed.

• I understand your moral argument, but the legal argument is more relevant here. If this is indeed a cleaned-up photo (which I'm happy to believe), then the person who did the cleaning holds the copyright and the photo is not PD.  Delete. Pruneau^talk 00:33, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
•  Keep Copyright expired photo. You can't just waive a magic wand and gain copyright. -Nard 15:15, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
•  Keep- clearly a copyright expired photo under UK law. Dreamspy (talk) 18:24, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
•  Comment - Being "edited to improve viewing quality" (presumably removal of artifacts, altering contrast, etc.) does not seem to constitute sufficient original creative/artistic input to meet the threshold of originality necessary to generate a new copyright. Note, however, that the source is entirely insufficient (a hitherto deleted en.wiki is not good enough; what is the "external" source of this image?) and there is no license. ЭLСОВВОLД _talk 20:17, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

---

Kept. All indications are that the image is in the public domain. --jonny-mt 04:00, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

No, a couple of people voting ignored all the indications of the actual legal status... but now there's even more proof that the legal status is not what they claimed.

Since the last "discussion" the tag for licensing under public domain in the UK was changed to indicate the accurate legal situation - that publication right trumps any self-perceived public domain status. This exactly the case here. This photo was not published in the past and only came out quite recently and the family has explicitly protected their rights and do not let anyone use it without permission. As the photo explicitly does not meet the criteria that the tag says it does for use here, it MUST be deleted.

��Any claims to making be operating go out the window when people have proven their ignorance of the law and demonstrated an unwillingness to take the time to educate themselves even when the info has been spoon fed to them in clear language. 68.47.239.11 22:09, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

• Above comment added by DreamGuy.

The comment added by DreamGuy above in reopening this closed case is incorrect. The new licence he quotes quite clearly states: "The owner of a copy of a posthumous work, as distinguished from the owner of the original of the work, is vested with no such right, where the copy was transmitted without intent of transmitting such right". The copyright to the image belongs to the original photographer in 1869, and not to the Chapman family who merely own a copy of that image. By selling the original owners a copy of the image he took the photographer did not transmit ownership of that image. If the subjects in the photograph had wanted further copies back in 1869 they would have had to have gone back to him. Jack1956 (talk) 08:13, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Your argument is quite simply entirely ignorant of how the law works in several ways. First, back then copyrights had to be explicitly filed in order to exist. The photographer did not file for a copyright. The copyright comes from publication, and first publication was by Neal Shelden on behalf of the family extremely recently. They own the copyright. Second, if copyrights did exist back then the moment something was made without any paper work toward that end, the photograph likely would qualify as a work for hire, as it was specifically taken for Annie Chapman and her husband, in which case the family would still own the copyright. This is the family in question, ownership of copyright would obviously transfer through the family with the original. They don't merely own a "copy" of the image, they own THE image. We aren't talking about some archive holding onto a newspaper that had lots of copies printed and trying to claim copyright by virtue of owning that one copy out of many, they own the original sole copy as well as all copies made of that original. On top of that, you don't know who the photographer was, and for all you know it could have been someone in Chapman's family.

And, on top of that, even if they didn't own the copyright of the original, the photo enhancement they did was extensive enough that it grants a new copyright, and *that's* the version you uploaded without permission. If the original is public domain, unless you break into the family's house and steal the original, scan it, and upload that, you are out of luck.

The bottom line here is the only way your argument would work is if one particularly convoluted legal interpretation which goes against what multiple different clauses of the copyright law says is valid. There are at least three different reasons why you can't use that image here, and any ONE of those is enough to make it a copyright violation. The presumption on such images is that you cannot use them unless you prove you have the legal right, especially when there is someone already claiming that right. You have not proven anything, you just keep claiming you are right and twist the words of any legal phrase you look at to try to justify it. You need to prove it 100% or it can't be used, not the other way around. And, certainly, the family has already proven ownership as far as the real world is concerned. 68.47.239.11 17:54, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

• Hi DG, You keep telling us what the family thinks about this, but how do we know that is what the family actually think. If they have an issue with the legality/morality of Wiki using this image let them come here and say so. Have they asked you to represent them? 82.0.83.149 07:59, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

How do I know? Because they've made it extremely clear. Anyone who has followed the field of Ripperology knows about it, having read it on the Casebook, and in Neal Shelden's books, or having Neal speak at conferences, the licensing info provided in the credits of the documentaries in which the Chapman family allowed the photo's use, and so forth. They have not asked me to represent them, I am just bringing it up as someone who knows the field and cares about legal rights. On top of that, I am interested in the well being of the field of academic Ripperology as a whole, and if people are allowed to get away with illegally republishing this family's photos in total contradiction to the requirements the family placed on them as a condition to allow them to be seen at all in the first place, then other researchers and families with relevant materials will be extremely difficult to ever share anything they have for fear that their material will be abused as well. It is the people who want to use the photo against the family's express wishes that have to prove they have the right to do so, not the family having to prove what the rest of the world already accepts. I don't have to get the family to be here to make us do the right thing, both morally and legally. 68.47.239.11 14:52, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

If the family have made their wishes so clear then certainly there must be links you can provide for this, otherwise you have presented nothing evidentiary or compelling...
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 15:13, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

This particular deletion request was closed in August and if you want to nominate it for deletion again you should to start a new deletion request. Someone just reverted the image to re-add this old deletion request. Start afresh and move the recent discussion to that request. Ww2censor (talk) 18:18, 18 December 2008 (UTC)