Category talk:PD-US-unpublished

Unpublished vs. PD-old
An unpublished work and one who is PD due to being very old are distinct cases. Although they use the same technical implementation I would not expect the tracking categories to change. Can you explain your reasoning for deleting these categories? --Xover (talk) 19:34, 2 November 2022 (UTC)


 * @Xover, my understanding is that the reasoning under US copyright law is also the same: PD-US-unpublished applies to works which have not been published (with permission of the copyright holder), and therefore were not published before 1 January 2003, which means that if the author died over 70 years ago they're in the public domain. In other words, the works which would be in the PD-US-unpublished are PD due to age. —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 03:43, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * @CalendulaAsteraceae: Yes, but the path they took to get there differs. For unpublished you need to research whether they were in fact published or not, while for -old you already know that and the determination is regarding when and where. The two also operate with different terms of protection (-old is going to almost always be pub. + 95 but unpublished will typically be pma. 70), and the logic behind the length of the terms is different. So while, yes, you can say both express "PD due to expired copyright", that would be very coarse-grained and of little help in practical matters. Xover (talk) 12:09, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * @Xover: Sorry, to clarify, works in Category:PD-old-US are pma. 70, and are placed there using
 * which is distinct from e.g.
 * —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 01:53, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 01:53, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 01:53, 4 November 2022 (UTC)