Copyright limbo

Today's example of Sigmund Freud isn't so much an example as a contemplation of copyright law.  The portrait was taken in 1914, which makes it public domain under United States law.  If the portrait had been taken ten years later then Wikimedia Commons wouldn't be able to host it.  Although all of Freud's writings entered public domain in the European Union at the start of 2010, United States law doesn't recognize all of his work as public domain.  It's a really weird quirk that causes big obstacles.

Copyright terms in the European Union run for the life of the author plus seventy years.  Freud died in 1939.  So on January 1 2010 all of his copyrights expired in Austria and the United Kingdom.  Most countries reflect that lapse in their own law by a provision known as the rule of the shorter term, but the United States doesn't follow the rule of the shorter term.

So I could republish all of Freud's writings from Vienna where they're public domain, but not from the US where they remain under copyright.  The Wikimedia Foundation servers are located in the United States.  So because the servers fall under United States law, Austrian Wikimedians can't bring Freud's later writings onto the German language Wikisource (which hosts free licensed texts).

United States copyright law is complex, but one rule that holds true nearly all of the time in the States is that material which was published before 1923 is public domain (no matter when the author died).  So this 1914 portrait is fine to reuse but a 1924 portrait wouldn't necessarily be free.  That copyright gap is going to widen: Anne Frank's autobiography will lapse into public domain in The Netherlands in 2015 but will remain under copyright in the United States.  Broadly speaking, United States copyrights are in a holding pattern until 2020.  So 1923 works won't lapse public domain for at least another ten years.

For the last thirty years U.S. copyright law has been getting a series of extensions.  Those extensions have something to do with lobbying by the Walt Disney Corporation: Mickey Mouse was created in 1925.  It doesn't actually protect the value of Mickey Mouse to keep Sigmund Freud under copyright in the United States, though.  The United States could adopt the rule of the shorter term without harming Disney's profits.

Other culturally valuable material is getting tied up because of this legal hitch: William Butler Yeats's works entered public domain in his native country of Ireland this year.  I can republish this 1911 portrait of him freely, but I can't republish his late poems.

And one thing worth wondering is this: with a normal copyrighted work it could be possible to contact the copyright owner and request a release under copyleft license.  How does one seek access to material that remains under a copyright which no one seems to own?

Crafty solutions

One of the copyright issues Wikimedians seldom think about is the creative copyright of original craft art designs. It's worth considering: in many cases this is the work of artists who operate microbusinesses. The creative design is their livelihood.

This is one reason why Wikipedians who have creative hobbies should be photographing and uploading their work. If you make your own designs then you own the copyright on those designs and you can place them under free license.

Don't be shy. It may seem like vanity at first, but it's actually a responsible way to address the economic pressures that globalization has been having on craft artists in first world countries. While raising the Navajo rug article to GA, one of the things I researched was the impact of imported Asian imitations on the indigenous weaving industry. The cost of living in Thailand or China is so much lower than in North America that the 150 year tradition of handwoven Navajo blankets is in decline.

Traditional Navajo designs are in the public domain, but most craft artists create their own patterns. These are as much their financial lifeblood as a writer's words are the writer's livelihood. Yet there are Wikimedians who wouldn't dream of plagiarizing text who violate copyright on craft work. Usually they do so accidentally; they hadn't thought about this.

And after all, sometimes the crafty hobbyist has an idea that is just plain fun. The number 12 on the clock below is a fossilized tooth from a mosasaur.