Template:Did you know nominations/Roshanara

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Allen3 ^talk 11:08, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Roshanara

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Roshanara by Robert Henri

... that Roshanara (pictured), who was born and trained in India, taught Bette Davis to dance?

Reviewed: QPQ = 6 of 8 Barred fruiteater

Created by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) and Victuallers (talk). Nominated by Victuallers (talk) at 21:57, 14 October 2015 (UTC).

New enough (moved to articlespace on 14 October), long enough (2341 characters). Article is neutral, appropriately referenced, and spotchecked material did not reveal plagariasm or close paraphrasing. Hook is interesting, and appropriately worded. One correction should be made prior to acceptance and queuing: the sentence supporting the hook appears to be missing a word ("Craddock taught and the later film star, Bette Davis was one of her dance pupils", probably should read "taught dance").

The image requested has some licensing issues. In fact, all three images have licensing issues to a greater or lesser extent. The first two are both licensed PD-US as works published before 1923, but there needs to be evidence that they were actually published and not just taken prior to that date (I'm pretty sure these are both publicity photos, which would clearly have been distributed and, thus, published, but that should be clarified). The third image, which is requested as part of this DYK, is licensed PD-old-80, but this is not sufficient to demonstrate the artwork is in the public domain in the United States. Because this image may have been cropped somewhat from the actual artwork, it is not safe to assume that it did not comply with the initial copyright registration formalities in 1926 when it was created; however, since Robert Henri died shortly after painting it, it is very unlikely that a copyright renewal was filed in 1954. That would, at a minimum, qualify it for PD-US-not renewed, but you will need to check the 1954 Catalog of Copyright Entries to be certain of that. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 17:43, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

hmm you are setting some difficult problems. I'll answer the three of them in the order you raised them @Squeamish Ossifrage:

As regards the hook - please suggest an alt that suits you. It makes sense to me, but I don't understand your suggested change that addresses the point you are making.
The first two images. You ask for prove that publicity pictures were distributed. I know how to show publishing but I have no idea how to do prove distribution if not published. Are you suggesting we delete them as one is from the Library of Congress. Maybe they have the evidence you say is required? Otherwise this might snowball into deleting a great number of photographs on Commons. Do you know how to prove that pictures were distributed? I think it unlikely that incontrovertible evidence exists and 'common sense/reasonable person view' may be required. If you are sure then we'll delete them.
Was the third image cropped? Strange question. (Can you supply a link to the rule as I've never seen that bit) But being as this image was placed on line and sold for 130,000 dollars then I would guess that it may be fairly complete. What evidence is required? There is a picture of it in a frame on commons.

Thats a long reply I'm afraid, but you have raised some issues and it seems fair that I address them in detail. Victuallers (talk) 22:31, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

My apologies if some of my statements were unclear:

1) The hook is fine. I was just pointing out that the associated line of text in the article itself (that I quoted, above) reads awkwardly and should probably be cleaned up a little.
2) I know no one likes dealing with the technical details of image licensing! The issue here is that the pre-1923 date only ensures material is in the public domain if it was published prior to that cutoff, not merely created. Upon further review, the Underwood & Underwood image is fine; it has their studio insignia, and is clearly a piece prepared for distribution rather than merely a photograph. I'll @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ):, who uploaded the other of these two images, to see if there's information available to ensure the licensing is all in order there as well.
3) I've done what I can to fix this for you. Mostly, it needed a US-PD notice. "Publication" for artwork is sometimes tricky, but there's very little chance of this being other than in the public domain now.

Sorry to be a stickler for the details of licensing. Hopefully everything will be squared away shortly. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 14:02, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Thats OK - we are trying to keep inside the law - whilst completing the prime directive (:-) ). The details of "Richard"s image are now available. I did think they were there but they were not obvious. If you follow the link then it will take to the Library of congress Flickr stream which confirmed that the image was published by the Bains new service in 1915 .... so the 1923 rule applies... and the Library of Congress say its PD Victuallers (talk) 15:48, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Yep, I think we're good now. Ideally, that one line in the article could use rewording to improve the prose, but I'm not going to stand on principle over it. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 16:39, 16 October 2015 (UTC)