Wikisource:Proposed deletions/Archives/2008-05

Xiàndài Hànyǔ Chángyòng Zìbiǎo
This does appear to have been published, may be in book format, but our text is a far cry from that edition. It could be acceptable as a "Wikisource translation", however there are also copyright concerns. The text was transwiki'd from Wikipedia article Xiàndài Hànyǔ Chángyòng Zìbiǎo, using the PRC list of characters. This leads me to think the list is not an artistic work; the list appears to be factual which would remove any right to copyright protection. Babelfish does attempt to translate this page when "Chinese-traditional" is selected. Also, as a work of the PRC, it might be explicitly in the public domain. Wiktionary has expressed an interest in a transwiki, but would like the above concerns investigated. Wikibooks may also want to take this. John Vandenberg (chat) 07:50, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * It has been published. Perhaps it fits in Wiktionary better?--Jusjih 18:10, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It was officially published so the original Chinese version is eligible for PD-CN. To keep it here, we need the translated license.--Jusjih 18:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

There have been a lot of changes to this page; most of them look good but I cant know that for sure.

I think we should keep the page here if someone can identify when/where it was published, so that we can tag it as PD-CN. The translations that were done on Wikipedia were probably GFDL, and they are factual in nature, so copyright is not inherently protected anyway. John Vandenberg (chat) 04:56, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
 * As the only Chinese-speaking admin here, I can identify that the Communist Chinese governmental commissions published the table. I just found a cached version of the table from the website of the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China that would be official enough, but its site is not readily accessible, so I will try again later. The traditional Chinese, Pinyin, and rough English translations qualify for annotations and translations. As we accept users' annotations and translations, I am tagging the translation license and closing this discussion. If you wonder what changes are made to the page, just ask me and I can verify with my Chinese skill.--Jusjih 01:04, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Category:Acts of the Scottish Parliament
This category is currently empty. All Acts of the new Scottish Parliament are currently Crown Copyright, and this will be the case for many decades unless the law is changed. There is already a separate category for Acts of the Pre-Union Scottish Parliament (pre 1707). Having the category might encourage people to contribute texts that are Crown Copyright which is unhelpful to Wikisource.

John Cross 11:23, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom.-- Poetlister 16:52, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

206.01 Edicts of government. Edicts of government, such as judicial opinions, administrative rulings, legislative enactments, public ordinances, and similar official legal docu- ments 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.
 * Delete. Cowardly Lion 18:35, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
 * In the U.S. all laws, even of foreign countries, are considered PD. See question "3.6) Can the government copyright its works?" at copyright FAQ, which points to The Compendium of Copyright Office Practices (Compendium II) section 206.01:

The template for that is PD-GovEdict. John Vandenberg (chat) 04:59, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong keep, the category is no longer empty, and John is correct without contest on the copyright issue. Therefore, there would appear to be no grounds in the nomination to delete this category. Daniel (talk) 11:14, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep, In use and no copyright concerns about pages in it. Additionally, I have added it to a parent category where if fulfils an important role. Suicidalhamster 14:06, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep; PD and not empty. giggy (O) 07:34, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Kept as PD-GovEdict but this does not cancel the British copyright that has to be reminded.--Jusjih 03:31, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Crown Copyright waiver
There has been some recent discussion on WS:COPYVIO regarding allowing works via the crown copyright waiver. (UK-Crown-waiver)

In the past this has been seen to be incompatible with a project wide "GFDL". See WS:COPYVIO(2006-04)#British Statutes After 1955 where Zhaladshar refers to WS:S(2006-03)#Copyright debate at mailing list, which links to the mailing list archive for Feb 2006, where there are a number of threads, some baulking at attempts to use CC-BY-NC-ND, others claiming that all UN resolutions need to be deleted.

Now I can understand that we do not want to accept entire works under CC-BY-NC-ND as the GFDL is quite clear about requiring that commercial reuse is permissible, but I fail to see any provisions under the GFDL to stipulate that any modification or any reuse is permissible. The GFDL is not a license to do anything with a work - it is a license from the licensor to the licensee on what restrictions are imposed by the licensor.

In this case, the crown waiver would require that downstream users also adhere to the crown criteria which means that if they modify our texts, they cant modify it so that it no longer complies, and if they do re-use it, it cant be used in a non-compliant manner, etc, etc. Those restrictions are not imposed by the contributors - they are imposed by the law.

This is no different from moral rights not being revocable. Keep in mind that trademarks are permissible on Commons, and fair use is permissible on Wikipedia - both of these sites are also covered by the GFDL. There are always restrictions of all sorts imposed by many laws, and it is merely our duty to communicate any relevant restrictions to the recipient. We should not exclude works because downstream commercial re-use may be inappropriate; doing that robs all of the readers that are by definition in compliance, and all potential reuse that is in compliance with applicable laws.

As a result, I request undeletion of all of the previously deleted crown acts, including:


 * Arms Control and Disarmament (Privileges and Immunities) Act 1988
 * Canada Act 1982 (i.e. Special:Undelete/Canada Act 1982)
 * European Communities Act 1972 (UK)
 * Hunting Act 2004
 * Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988
 * Land Registration Act 1988
 * Local Government Act 1972
 * Peerage Act 1963
 * Scotch Whiskey Act 1988
 * The English Non-metropolitan Districts (Definition) Order 1972
 * The National Health Service (Food Premises) (Scotland) Regulations 1987

John Vandenberg (chat) 08:53, 23 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Irrespective of the waiver, as I have noted in regards to deletion discussion of Category:Acts of the Scottish Parliament, these works are considered ineligible for copyright in the U.S., so we can tag them with PD-ineligible or PD-GovEdict. John Vandenberg (chat) 05:08, 16 March 2008 (UTC)


 * First of all you would be better off comparing the waiver to the cursed Copyright policy rather than the GFDL (even though that was done historcally). I believe you are missing one historical discussion where I was pointing out the the cursed policy is impossible because if it read to be workable in regard to moral rights than it would allow Crown waivers.  However that discussion ended with me conceding there were more problems than just moral rights with the Crown Waiver (the argument had something to do with translations).  Looking at the Crown waiver again I see a few limtations on use and modification which do not qualify as either simple attribution or transmission of freedoms, nor are they equivalent to the "moral rights" clause found in some juristiction. First all reproduction of the Material should be made from an Official version. This means you may not make a reproduction of the text hosted on Wikisource and be covered under the waiver.  Second   the Material must be reproduced accurately. In the case of translations into other languages, a competent translator must be used where the translation is to be issued to the public This would seem to preclude some of the collaborative style translation that takes place on Wikisource were drafts known to need improvement are available to the public.  Other restrictions of the waiver seem mostly equivalent to interprtations of moral rights.--Birgitte SB  17:25, 18 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Copyright policy can change. Where is this historical discussion?  I am basing my request for undeletion solely on the US copyright office explicitly stating that laws in the US and overseas will not be given a copyright if sought, and the "fact" that 99% of the world would cough and splutter at the idea that the government has any right to control distribution and modification of the laws using copyright, in this day and age.  Who in their right mind would say that I am not allowed to copy a recent law here in Australia, in full, make a proposed modification and send it to my fellow, or an MP, for comment.  We have the ability to add to Wikisource the laws of every land, as currently amended, by taking advantage of the US jurisdiction the servers are located in, and where the laws of the local nation place additional controls on those laws, we can note these restrictions as we learn of it. John Vandenberg (chat) 00:21, 19 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I am basing my request for undeletion solely on the US copyright office explicitly stating that laws in the US and overseas will not be given a copyright if sought Then why are you talking about moral rights?? Just link to something supporting that what I quoted is true.  I find it believable that the quoted statement is true, but a good link would make things much smoother. With a caveat that these things being US ineligible has nothing to do with Wikisource accepting Crown Copyright Waivers.  Regarding your appeal to common sense, I believe you may have forgotten we are discussing copyright law? ;)--Birgitte SB  01:23, 19 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I mentioned moral rights because it is another example of rights other than copyright that place limits on reuse, and there is truckloads of discussion that have occurred in the past regarding the interplay between moral rights and free licenses, esp. the GPL.
 * See.
 * wrt the Waiver, if we did adopt a position of laws being PD-ineligible, I think we should need a specific template for the modern UK laws, so that UK readers are aware that recent laws have additional restrictions. John Vandenberg (chat) 01:49, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I support undeletion with PD-GovEdict (which might need to edited to emphasize that non-US mileage may vary when used on non-US works). I am not convinced that we can accept Crown Waivers.--Birgitte SB  02:56, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I just want to say that if an official work is copyrighted in the source country A, other countries that also copyright their own official works will mostly likely honor the official work copyright from country A, even if they do accept the rule of the shorter term. As PD-GovEdict does not cancel the official work copyright in foreign source countries or other countries honoring the right from the source, the template has to be edited accordingly. If we can post copyrighted British laws here with PD-GovEdict, how about the laws of Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, and more? These once-British places all copyright their official works.I mention Hong Kong and Singapore because they officially speak Chinese as I natively do.--Jusjih 01:14, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Strong undelete per rationale, as presented in the Scottish Parliament deletion request above. I find this argument to be very persuasive, and agree that I believe these works are not eligable for copyright in the US regardless of the status of their copyright in their home country. Daniel (talk) 11:21, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * If there are no strong objections, I will start undeleting the above mentioned British laws along with some other deleted Canadian and Singaporean laws, such as Copyright Act of Canada, Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, and Sedition Act (Singapore). They are eligible for PD-GovEdict, but we have to acknowledge their British, Canadian, and Singaporean copyrights as well. By the way, Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act of India is also eligible for PD-GovEdict but still copyrighted in India, so if not deleted, I will make an Indian template.--Jusjih 19:24, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * There is also a PD-INGov which was drafted for a specific case; it could be that the law is more permissive. John Vandenberg (chat) 22:44, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Undeleted all relevant British, Canadian, and Singaporean laws per community consensus to apply PD-GovEdict. We have British and Canadian tags, but I have to think how to make a Singaporean tag to warn that the copyright is not canceled in Singapore despite American dis-allowance.--Jusjih 02:51, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * While closing this discussion, I have added Template:Legislation-SGGov for Singaporean laws.--Jusjih 03:34, 26 May 2008 (UTC)