Template talk:PD-USGov

Should Template:PD-USGov-nocat tag not be merged into Template:PD-USGov?--Jusjih 16:16, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, or we can delete it. I don't really no why we have two different templates that say the same thing.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 16:53, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Probably delete. No pages use it.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 16:53, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
 * No, do not delete yet. So many pages use PD-USGov-nocat, so we cannot yet delete it until we make major changes. As I am an admin at five Wiki Sites and running for adminship at English Wiktionary and Wikimedia Commons, I cannot focus on changing PD-USGov-nocat to PD-USGov for now, so keep the redirect.--Jusjih 17:23, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I'll put Pathosbot to the task later. // Pathoschild (admin / talk) 18:43, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
 * This is weird. I checked a few hours ago which pages linked to PD-USGov-nocat and I got nothing.  Now a number of pages are showing up.  Yes, definitely hold off the deletion until Pathosbot can fix it all.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 18:54, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Copyright status outside the USA
This type work may also be in the public domain in other countries and areas if: Otherwise, the USA can still hold the copyright of works of the United States federal government in other countries and areas.
 * 1) The Unites States governmental agency publicly releases the copyright into the public domain without regard to national boundaries, like PD-USGov-NASA. OR
 * 2) Other countries and areas apply the rule of the shorter term to United States works. OR
 * 3) Other countries and areas exclude official works from copyright. OR
 * 4) Any valid copyright outside the USA has expired in any other countries and areas.

I disagree Clindberg's claim that protection in other countries is highly speculative. This claim is without regard to Mission about "around the world".--Jusjih (talk) 02:42, 14 January 2010 (UTC)


 * en.wikisource.org


 * plus they did away with all the PD-US(federal agency) sub-divisions on en.wikisource.org (except for the NASA one) so applying the disclaimer without the sub-division does not make any sense. George Orwell III (talk) 02:58, 14 January 2010 (UTC)


 * English wikisource uses U.S. law, and only U.S. law, I am pretty sure -- see Help:Public domain, which lists U.S. conditions for PD status only. Other countries' laws are relevant only so far as to determine URAA status inside the U.S.  Thus, the status outside the U.S. is not really relevant here, and shouldn't take up much of the tag (though it is highly relevant for other wikisources obviously, as I think they may use other laws).  As to the speculative nature, see my talk page where I left a longer account -- this very question was considered under the Universal Copyright Convention language in 1977-1981, and there was no clear resolution then.  It is even less clear after the U.S. became a signatory to the Berne Convention, which has different language.  Without actual precedents, it is hard to be sure what will hold up and what won't.  You are correct that it may hold up in some countries, as countries may choose to allow such copyright claims even if not required to by Berne, but it is a terribly tangled situation.  Not even Commons though requires that a work be PD "around the world"; they pick two countries and stop there.  Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:24, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Not entirely correct, US law determines what English Wikisource can host, that is not to say that other tags haven't been applied. This would usually be the application of an Indian tag for an Indian work, or Australian for Aus, or British for UK. I would suggest that the means to undertake this would be to actually add the fuller text to a /doc file, within the template, and simply refer to the full text. billinghurst  sDrewth  03:46, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

&larr;(outdent) - Not so simple. First the exact wording of Title 17, Section 105....

"Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise."

... followed by a caveat to Sec. 105 found in Title 15, Section 290e

Now, this particular caveat to Sec. 105 refers to a specific instance where the Secretary of a Federal Agency is tasked with securing copyright, here as well as abroad, on behalf of the U.S. Government. The inferred and logical assumption, minus any legal definition of what ‘‘United States Government’’ means specifically in either title, is that similar instances of extending or claiming copyright protections under legal systems Other than the United States' would be handled by the equivalent Secretary, Agency head, Department manager, etc. for the work in question at the time.

Since there is no current sub-categorization currently practiced on en.wikisource.org based even simply around the separation of roles and responsibilities of the very basic branches of the U.S. Federal Government (3), but there are also no sub-divisions nor sub-categorizations of the various entities that exist WITHIN those three simple branches of the US Federal Government to properly attribute to, make citation of or define further and similar when such instances of ‘‘agency’’ initiated copyright protection is/was secured for the work(s) in question.

Attempting to blanket the spectrum here by simply designating, everything and everybody as the ‘‘United States Government’’ just muddies the copyright waters further and unnecessarily IMO. George Orwell III (talk) 05:11, 15 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The tag is for those works where Sec. 105 applies. For NIST standard data, they have a full copyright which would of course be recognized in other countries.  NTIS has a 5-year copyright on a few things, which would also be recognized.   The question is those works which are unambiguously public domain in the U.S., where the U.S. tries to assert copyright in a foreign country.  I say the entire subject is speculative because to the best of my knowledge it has never happened (the U.S. actually filing suit in a foreign country over its copyrights), so there is no precedent to see if such a claim would actually be respected or not -- it is all legal theory with no practice whatsoever.  Even the claims which were put on the tag are also speculative -- even if a country does use the rule of the shorter term, you're trying to guess if a foreign judge would use a term of zero or the normal U.S. term when applying  the rule of the shorter term -- no guarantee either way.  As I noted on my talk page, many countries did go over this exact question in 1977/1981 -- and there were widely divergent opinions (and there is no guarantee a judge would think the same way as those opinions).  Since the U.S. has now agreed to the Berne Convention, even some of the reasoning used then may be out the window too.  It is an interesting question, and certainly of interest to countries outside the U.S., but I don't think the discussion of possible aspects should be 80% of the text on the tag (which it was, briefly), especially since that part is irrelevant as to whether the work is kept on en-wikisource or not.  I could see something in small text with a link to a larger discussion, although I'm not sure that discussion should even be on wikisource.  My only change was reverting the tag revision which added all the above text to what was previously a one-line template.  Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:47, 15 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed. All I'm saying is (disregarding the obvious attempt to combine United States works [geographic Sec. 101. definition] with work of the United States Government [specific Sec. 101. definition] for argument's sake here) you can't have it both ways. Either you sub-divide the categorizations to meet possible federal entity actions regarding their works on WS or you use the one banner to cover all the federal entities out there for any and all possible and/or taken actions regarding copyright. George Orwell III (talk) 08:34, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe the tags represent reasons for public domain status; PD due to sec. 105 is a single reason and applies to most of the U.S. federal government. Since all of the sub-tags all represented the same reason for PD status, they were rolled up here (on places like Commons, where there are many more works, it helps to more properly identify the source and helps with subcategorization, so they keep them separate there).  If works are PD for any other reason, they would need a different tag.   Works where the government acquired copyright, or the standard reference data, would have to use normal U.S. copyrights tags (PD-1923, PD-US-no_renewal, etc.).  I suppose PD-EdictGov could also apply to certain U.S. government works (and I see that tag was also just edited, with a red warning sign, for non-U.S. use).  Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:05, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Rename the Great Seal
Rename:
 * →  Rkt2312 (talk) 19:47, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Jan Kameníček (talk) 21:07, 4 August 2022 (UTC)