Template:Did you know nominations/Port Sunlight War Memorial

The following discussion 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 Ohc ^¡digame! 13:54, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Port Sunlight War Memorial edit

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... that some critics thought that the figures on the Port Sunlight War Memorial (examples pictured) were too realistic?

Reviewed: Delaware Breakwater Range Rear Light

Created by Peter I. Vardy (talk). Self nominated at 14:26, 25 January 2014 (UTC).

Hook is good to go IMO. Details below. Herostratus (talk) 17:22, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Article: Age OK. Length OK. Image copyright OK and no duplicates online. Image is used in article, and while sort of crowded for 100x100 this is not a deal-killer IMO. Other images in article OK. (Hook image is public domain, and UK has freedom of panorama; other other images CC from Commons' Geograph Project.) NPOV OK. General article quality OK. Article referencing OK -- relies rather heavily on one book, but not to the point that its disallowable, and given that its a fairly obscure subject referencing is reasonable. No evidence of copyvio or plagiarism -- cannot be absolutely sure of this, since main ref is offline, but there're no warning signs. No other problems that I can see.
Hook: Length OK. Interestingness OK -- quite interesting actually. Hook is ref'd, again with caveat that ref is offline, so going on AGF here. Hook is true, I'm confident. NPOV OK. No other problems with hook.
One small point though. The article reproduces the text on the plinths of the monument in it's entirety (in text, not in photographs.) This text was published in 1921. It is conceivable that it's under some sort of copyright. But: presumably no copyright claim was ever filed and there's no copyright notice on the monument. The author may be (or may not be) unknown and unknowable, and if so has no known heirs (if dead, which she presumably is) and so no one exists to claim the copyright. It's a public monument, the monument text was written for public use, and the original is publicly owned (I think). All things taken together, I'm confident that this is least legitimate fair use. Herostratus (talk) 17:22, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Comment This is used as a quotation and is cited as such. I don't think copyright applies here, does it? --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 20:22, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

It would, I guess. I don't see what you mean by "used as a quotation" unless you're confusing copyvio with plagiarism. Any copyvio is by definition quoting the copyrighted work. However, my opinion is that we could claim fair use. It's maybe a stretch, but any copyright claim (and for all I know it's not under copyright anymore) would be so nebulous that a little fair use stretching is justified in this case. Herostratus (talk) 04:16, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

What is meant by "used as a quotation" is that they are all contained within a {{Quotation}} template. It's the equivalent of placing the text within quotation marks" which I understand is acceptable.--Peter I. Vardy (talk) 10:22, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Oh. I don't see that that makes any difference, legally. I couldn't make an article about a copyrighted poem, and give the text of the entire poem, and putting it in the {{Quotation}} template wouldn't change that. I could give short excerpts of the poem for the purposes of discussion under fair use. Here, we're giving all the text on the monument, and also not discussing it. If I were arguing in court, I'd say that the text on the monument is not an independent work, but part of the monument, so that even giving all the text is giving just a small "excerpt" of the monument as a whole, and though we don't discuss the text itself we do discuss the monument. Maybe the judge would buy it, maybe not, but there's the argument for fair use I think. Since it's arguably fair use we're good to go here I think.

Hmmm. Looking at Copyright law of the United Kingdom: Other works (such as sculpture, architecture, etc.) will typically vary in copyright term, depending whether the author of the work is anonymous. If the author is unknown, the copyright period ends 70 years after the making of the work; or, if during that period the work is communicated to the public, 70 years after that date. If the author of the work is identifiable, copyright in the work expires 70 years after the death of the author.. I don't know if the monument text is considered "sculpture" or a "printed work" but if I'm reading correctly it doesn't matter: if the author is unknown then copyright would have expired around 1991. If his identity is known then only if he had died by around 1944, which he might well not have, would copyright now be expired. And his name is probably listed in some document somewhere, if these still exist. So absent sending someone over to England to paw through old files, we're left with fair use, which for my part is good enough. Herostratus (talk) 02:21, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Pre-1923 publication makes this text public domain in the US ("Any work published before 1923 is in the public domain in the United States, regardless of its source country"), which means we can use it without worrying about fair vs unfair use even if it may be non-free in the UK ("While Wikipedia prefers content that is free anywhere in the world, it accepts content that is free in the United States even if it may be under copyright in some other countries"). Nikkimaria (talk) 17:14, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Want to emphasize that my review indicates that hook is good to go. Fair use, no problem, according to me the reviewer, and nothing in the above discussion gainsays that. Herostratus (talk) 16:17, 29 January 2014 (UTC)