Wikipedia talk:Copyright on emblems

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Scope, and status

I've added the geo-scope tag, lest there be any confusion as to which body of copyright law is being glossed here. I can find nothing to take issue with in the content, but then again, IANAL (not that I like to boast). I'm not really sure how to regard it as it stands: are we expecting editors and admins to be "copyright police" on the basis of the advice contained within (making it an "actionable" guideline, or perhaps even the basis of a policy), or is this purely on a "FYI" basis? Alai 16:16, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever consensus decides it to be. I have just written it to explain the issue. The geo-scope tag is maybe a bit overkill; it's impossible to cover all countries' laws, and this is not an article. U.S. law is the primary law for Wikipedia as that's where the servers are and where the foundation is based. Other countries' laws must still be taken into account, though. I have tried to give pointers to the relevant paragraphs in the relevant international treaties where I could find them easily, but if we can improve that, basing it less on the U.S. Code and the recommendations of the U.S. Copyright Office, that'd be great (as long as we don't contradict the advices of the U.S. Copyright Office). Lupo 16:22, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, I've just removed the {{Globalize}}: the edit link went wrong (into article space!). Feel free to re-add it, though, if you can solve that bug. Lupo 16:29, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I hadn't spotted that; thanks. Hopefully fixed now. I essentially agree, it doesn't need to be "globalised" as such (as in rewritten to be a completely general treatise on copyright worldwide), just contextualised to make clear that US law is what's being assumed, and why, and caveats as to applying it elsewhere. It's my understanding that the German wikipedia has decided that German copyright law is applicable, notwithstanding the infrastructure being out-of-jurisdiction, presumably due to concerns about liability of editors based on location, and relating to intended audience. Alai 19:13, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've clarified the law being discussed and removed the tag. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:49, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Blazon vs. emblazon

The American Heritage Dictionary says that blazon can refer to either a coat of arms or a description of one, and doesn't countenance emblazon as a noun at all. We also don't have an article on emblazon, although we do on blazon. I think this usage might be rather confusing, especially if taken out of context: shall we replace them with less technical terms? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:53, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

According to Merriam-Webster, "emblazon" is a transitive verb with a rather specific meaning; the noun would be "emblazonment". I had based the terminology on the heraldic primer, where they give "emblazon" both as a verb and a noun. Lupo 09:16, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reactions

Copied from my talk page:

Thanks for the heads-up on this new page. Looks reasonable, and I've notified FOTW members about it so they can have a look too. Grutness...wha? 02:50, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of the people on FOTW are lawyers, and both of them had a look. The more polite response from them was that the page is "complete bull" and contrary to copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere (I won't repeat the less polite response). Expect to see some severe editing of it sometime soon. Grutness...wha? 09:39, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good. I hope they know how to source their claims, and remember to explain their changes. Just saying "it's bull" is neither helpful, nor convincing, nor polite. Lupo 07:15, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lupo 08:31, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Playing devil's advocate

From what I saw, the page appears to be suggesting that reproductions of flags aren't copyrightable. For those of you that hold that opinion, how would you respond to the following scenario?

Computer programs are copyrightable.
Therefore, a computer program that draws an image of a flag is copyrightable.
If that program were compiled into object code, the resulting object code would be copyrightable.
Imagine that there were a compiler that could compile the above program into a PNG. Wouldn't the PNG be as copyrightable as the object code in the previous bullet?
Therefore, PNGs (or, by association, other image files) of flags are copyrightable.

Comments? Cheers, JYolkowski // talk 22:18, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you modify something creative so as to remove the creative aspects, it is no longer subject to copyright. Likewise I could paint a picture, digitize it, and run it through a program that changes it to a copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. The input would be copyrightable, the output wouldn't. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:17, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]