Durward3

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Where is the correct location to present proof that a photograph is in the public domain? Durward3 (talk) 04:29, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

The first problem with the licensing for these images is that you say that they're public domain ("PD") because you created the images. As long as you did your best to make a faithful reproduction, you have no copyright in these images: either you've simply copied a copyrighted image and don't have any right to release it, or you've copied a PD image and don't have any rights to control its usage. [By the way, don't think that I'm charging you with wrongdoing: I'm trying to say this in the simplest way possible, and "you have no rights" is the way that the copyright law works; it's not an assertion that you should get out of my way, or anything like that.] Therefore, there's no real evidence that we can use these images. Are the original photos PD? While most documents and photos created in the 1940s are copyrighted, it's possible that they're PD, such as if they were published without a copyright notice or if they were published with a copyright notice but their copyright was not renewed. I'm not an expert on these things; therefore, to get details, you should ask a question at Wikipedia:Media Copyright Questions or Commons:Commons talk:Licensing. These pages are frequented by those much more familiar with copyright than I am, so they should be able to help you. Nyttend (talk) 05:05, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the note; I need to get to church, but I'll try to reply this evening. Nyttend (talk) 17:19, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

It's unlikely that the AHS has rights over the image: ownership of the piece of paper on which the picture is printed isn't the same as ownership of the image itself. Unless the donation of the copy's records included donation of the image itself to the AHS, they don't own the image: his heirs do, so perhaps you could talk with the executor of the estate. You say that the brochure was published without a copyright notice; assuming that I understand you rightly, the image is public domain for this reason. Was the other image ever published? You can ask at Media Copyright Questions for the exact dates, but I expect that if it was never published, it's still copyrighted. Since you're familiar with this school and this photographer, I hope that you can document everything. Currently, the reason that I keep removing the items is that both are tagged as being public domain because you released all the rights. Unless you're one of his heirs in some way, you have no rights over either image, so you can't release anything; consequently, there's currently no evidence of permission on these images. Nyttend (talk) 01:59, 2 November 2009 (UTC)