Commons:Deletion requests/File:"Appreciate America. Come On Gang. All Out for Uncle Sam" (Mickey Mouse)" - NARA - 513869.tif

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This deletion discussion is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive. You can read the deletion policy or ask a question at the Village pump. If the circumstances surrounding this file have changed in a notable manner, you may re-nominate this file or ask for it to be undeleted.

File:"Appreciate_America._Come_On_Gang._All_Out_for_Uncle_Sam"_(Mickey_Mouse)"_-_NARA_-_513869.tif

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Mickey Mouse will always be owned by the company, regardless how simple the shapes are →AzaToth 19:02, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

 Delete, not sure what relevance the shapes have, but Mickey is clearly not the work of the Fed, regardless of where it's hosted. Blurpeace 19:17, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but that does not necessarily mean the copyright to this poster is still in effect. If the copyright on this poster has still expired, you can distribute it (I think there was a case very similar to this recently). If you make derivative works which use additional stuff from the character copyright, that is where you can get into issues, but copying the poster (and making derivative works using *just* this material, which does not further infringe on the character, should also be OK). Touchy subject, with all sorts of borderlines, but really this poster has its own copyright, and the decision should follow whatever that status is. Now... this does have a clear copyright notice for Walt Disney Productions. The year is omitted, but I think that was OK for this type of work. That is just for the Mickey drawing. There is an additional copyright notice on the bottom left to "Appreciate America Inc" with a date of 1941. So, a renewal would have been needed in 1968 or 1969 -- if either part was renewed, we definitely need to delete. I have not done a search, but the fact that the National Archives calls this "unrestricted" (making their case on U.S. copyright law presumably) may be significant -- not sure if they did searches either, but given the blatant copyright notices you hope they would. However, the poster is not PD-USGov in any way, shape, or form, so we would need to do some renewal searches to keep it. Carl Lindberg (talk) 22:34, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
 Comment - there is also the WDP (Walt Disney Productions) copyright mark; without a year, it is defective; a renewal source would be needed to keep this. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 17:46, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, actually, it was not defective without a year -- the year could be omitted from the notice on certain types of works, and graphical works are among them, I'm pretty sure. Lack of renewal is the only way this is PD. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:51, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
 Comment - there is as well File:"Get in the Scrap" - NARA - 514359.jpg, which is a bit blurry to read the text, but I assume it's the same as the other one. →AzaToth 17:59, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
 Comment I took a shot at finding the renewal at http://babel.hathitrust.org/, but could not. That's not definitive, however, because not all the appropriate records are available there.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 18:53, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The renewals would be linked from here (1968 page and 1969 page). I think everything but some of the music renewal records are online now, so if there is a renewal it is in there. Carl Lindberg (talk) 19:54, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see anything relating to this under either the artwork or commercial print sections for 1968 and 1969. Disney had a number of renewals, but mostly involving Bambi and Dumbo stuff. As for the second, "Get In The Scrap" one, there is no year listed, so we'd probably have to look in 1970 through 1973 records as well, to cover all the war years, unless we can find a year mentioned. There is a little info on that one here; apparently the poster was done by W.L. Stensgaard & Associates, but no year mentioned and I can't read it there either. this page hints it may have been part of a 1942 campaign but that's not definitive. Carl Lindberg (talk) 20:17, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I also looked through them and I agree.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 22:10, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kept: No renewal      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 22:11, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This deletion discussion is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive. You can read the deletion policy or ask a question at the Village pump. If the circumstances surrounding this file have changed in a notable manner, you may re-nominate this file or ask for it to be undeleted.

File:"Appreciate_America._Come_On_Gang._All_Out_for_Uncle_Sam"_(Mickey_Mouse)"_-_NARA_-_513869.tif

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previous deletion debate ignored the copyright in the underlying work (see http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-October/069950.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work#Example) Anthony (talk) 13:25, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

 Keep I am tempted to speedy close this, but I won't, to give you an opportunity to respond. I don't think you understand the fundamentals here. The poster has a Walt Disney copyright notice on it, as required. So it had a Disney copyright until 1969. For whatever reason, Disney did not renew the copyright as required in 1968-69. Therefore this poster became PD then for lack of renewal.
Disney does not have any "underlying copyright" in Mickey Mouse -- there is no such concept in the law. All it has is a copyright in almost all of the instances of Mickey Mouse. That is enough to prevent any general use of derivative images of Mickey Mouse, because Disney would argue that any derivative work infringes the copyrights in all but this one of the images of Mickey Mouse.
     Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 13:47, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Feel free to speedy close. I only reopened this because David Gerard suggested that I do. Anthony (talk) 13:51, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Don't try to blame me - I told you to stop trolling foundation-l - David Gerard (talk) 13:52, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. re "Mickey Mouse will always be owned by the company" - that might apply to a trademark, providing that trademark doesn't fall into disuse. But copyright doesn't work that way. WereSpielChequers (talk) 13:55, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
 Comment that's my original reason when I opened up the discussion, and I've come to understanding that it's not relevant at all. →AzaToth 14:57, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, it was not ignored. If a renewal on that drawing of Mickey Mouse was found, then it would have been a problem. The copyright on the character copyright is still valid, of course, but distributing that poster would not infringe it. See the recent case involving Gone With the WInd posters (described here) of Warner Bros. vs Avela (decision text here). It's a complex situation because the underlying character copyright and movie copyrights still exist. In that case the district court rules that even distributing exact copies of some posters which originally had no copyright notice was prohibited because they were derivative of the character; the circuit court overruled that aspect: Even if the characters in the respective films are protectable under copyright, Avela is entitled to copy and use images of the characters which fell into the public domain. However, the court did rule that several types of works using the poster images were not just uses of the poster, but additionally infringed on the character, and were not OK -- for one, 3D figures made sort of based on the posters were not really derivative works of the posters, but rather direct derivatives of the film, and were disallowed. A T-shirt using a Dorothy poster would have been fine except they added "There's no place like home" as a caption; the court ruled that resulting T-shirt was closer to the character than just the PD poster and ruled that it was derivative of the character and therefore also not OK. That is why I mentioned you really can only use this specific drawing in derivative works; you would need to be very very careful to not infringe the character in other ways. But in this case, the copyright owner of the character (Disney) made a specific drawing of the character, and did not renew copyright -- that specific drawing then should be PD and can be copied, despite the valid copyright on the character (based on the Steamboat Willie movie) still existing. The situation could be different if there was a third party owning an original work upon which the poster was still derivative -- that is the aspect you mention in your court cases, but there are differences between that and this situation, whereas the Warner Bros. vs Avela ruling is close to a direct parallel. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:10, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • It was ignored, but you (and so far, only you) are now addressing it. One significant difference between "Gone With the Wind" and "Steamboat Willie" is that the latter is a cartoon, however. Another significant difference is that the "Gone With the Wind" poster was published [i]before[/i] the movie, whereas the Mickey Mouse poster was published [i]after[/i] the movie. (Don't you agree?) Anthony (talk) 14:13, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Learn to read. Carl Lindberg did write in his response in the DR about character copyright. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 14:36, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • I was fully aware of this Warner Bros court case in my original posting -- I even mentioned it -- and is why I posted what I did earlier. I just did not go look up the links at the time (though I should have mentioned Gone With the Wind to make it easier for others to look up). In some cases, being a cartoon movie may make a difference, but I don't think so here, if the argument is based on the "character" copyright. Additionally, the copyright owner of the original movie is the same entity which made this drawing, and not a third party -- that is more significant to me, as in that case the third party may have a case (though I think it would have to be due to specific elements in this drawing). However, Disney is the owner of both the original and this drawing. Obviously, if the drawing had been renewed but not the poster (there are two copyright notices to deal with here), then the poster would not be OK even if the overall poster copyright had not been renewed. However we can't find a renewal of this drawing either, which is directly from the copyright owner of the character as well. Not allowing distribution of this kind of thing would enable copyright owners to play all sorts of games to defeat copyright expiration by making things "derivative" of their own works; movie studios have tried to prevent distribution of PD films because they were derivative of the unpublished screenplay, which they claimed was still under copyright -- those were denied. However, PD movies which were derivative of a still-copyrighted novel could not be distributed, as they were still derivative, correct (though screenshots of that type of thing should still be fine, as the visual aspects did become PD). Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:38, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • I just finished reading the court case, and it turns out the court case itself draws a distinction between the Gone With the Wind/Wizard of Oz posters which were made before the movie, and the Tom and Jerry posters which were made after the movie. The court says that "With regard to all later Tom & Jerry posters, AVELA is authorized to make faithful reproductions, but not to reproduce those movie poster images on other products or to make derivative works based on Tom & Jerry", which while not making this particular image infringing, does make it non-free, and not public domain. By the way, my concern is about the copyright on the image of Mickey Mouse, not the character. Marking this image of the poster as public domain has already encouraged someone to extract the image of Mickey Mouse from the image of the poster. It's not clear to me how that is legitimate. Anthony (talk) 14:44, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • By the way, looking above I do see you said "I think there was a case very similar to this recently", which I assume was referring to the Warner Bros case? Sorry I missed that the first time through. I swear I do know how to read. :) Anthony (talk) 15:01, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • Yes, that was a reference to the Warner Bros case. ;-) I should have at least mentioned Gone With the WInd or Tom & Jerry though. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:11, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • Like I said, there are all sorts of borderlines here, and determination of "non-free" is not straightforward. Using just the Mickey image is making a faithful reproduction -- the copyright on the drawing (separate from the copyright on the poster) was not renewed from the looks of it, so extracting that should be OK. Many derivative works would not be OK, as you mention. Some still would. Using a free photo, combined with other stuff, to create a derivative of a character copyright would not be OK -- doesn't change the status of the photo. This is a lot closer case though... if using the Mickey image on a T-shirt could pose copyright issues, which it might, I can see opinions to the contrary. It's also possible that using the Mickey image combined with other stuff may be a problem, depending on what that other stuff is -- I don't think that aspect should cause it to be non-free though. Derivative works which manage to use just this material, and do not infringe on other existing copyrights should be OK, just like normal-- but yes, the "other existing copyrights" are very close by in this case, ruling out more derivative works than "normal", but that does not necessarily make this particular drawing non-free (to me). Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:11, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
            • Based on this case, and assuming you did the renewal search properly, I'd say that the legality of making "faithful reproductions" of the drawing is not in dispute. I'd question whether or not using the Mickey image with the flag removed is a faithful reproduction (I'm not even sure it's accurate - it makes it look like Mickey is hitchhiking). And I'd also question (based on the Tom and Jerry comment about "other products"), whether or not one could put the image on a T-shirt. If not, I don't think one could say this image is free / public domain. Anthony (talk) 15:23, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • "Additionally, the copyright owner of the original movie is the same entity which made this drawing, and not a third party" Are you sure about that? I've seen no evidence of that. Is there a registration of the copyright where we could find out for sure? Anthony (talk) 15:05, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • There is a separate copyright notice on the drawing to WDP (Walt Disney Productions); the Appreciate America Inc. notice is in the far bottom left. I was mostly concentrating on the Disney renewals in my search; this drawing has a separate copyright over and above the poster, and is the one in question. If the drawing was not renewed but the poster was, we would be entitled to extract the drawing but not use the entire poster. If the drawing was renewed, we couldn't do that (or use the poster, even if the poster copyright itself was not renewed, as it would still be derivative of the copyrighted drawing). I could not find renewals for either though -- Disney did renew a bunch of Bambi drawings from 1941 but that was all I saw. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:11, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
            • What did you check when you checked for renewals? As there is no date on the WDP copyright notice, it's not clear when the drawing was made. Is it possible to find the copy of the drawing which was deposited with the copyright office? Did every single (published) drawing of Mickey Mouse have to be separately copyrighted, registered, deposited, renewed? Anthony (talk) 15:23, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
              • There were several renewals made by Walt Disney Productions; I looked in those sections (typically under D). Every individual work had to be renewed, yes, as there are always graphic elements specific to that work which would be copyrightable. If it was part of a compilation which was renewed (hard to check for) that may complicate matters, but they did renew a number of separate Bambi drawings individually. Registration was not a requirement for protection during the first 28 years, so there is no guarantee they ever deposited a copy (though the separate notice on the drawing to WDP makes it pretty clear what their work is. Descriptions of the Appreciate America campaign indicate they contacted others to get permission (there were many other posters), and the drawings were made at the time, which seems to be backed up by the explicit patriotic nature -- so 1941 would seem to be the year. If Disney (or anyone) can produce a renewal record which contains this drawing, then of course we would delete, otherwise hosting the image is fine. The determination of free vs. non-free given the larger-than-normal restrictions on derivative works (which is based on separate copyrights) is the only issue to me. The court did rule that distributing faithful reproductions is fine, something normally under the purview of derivative rights, so the problems only crop up when changes must be made which are themselves derivative of other existing copyrights. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:48, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
                • By the way - how sure are we this picture was 1941? (or any specific year?) I ask because I initially misread the description as saying 1943, and sv:wp copied me, so nailing it down would be nice - David Gerard (talk) 16:02, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
                  • The copyright notice on the poster (the one with Appreciate America Inc. as the author at the bottom left) has 1941. And reading about the campaign, it was started in 1941 in the summer and fall (i.e. before Pearl Harbor). So, the drawing is no later than 1941, and highly unlikely to be any earlier. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:29, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
                • While I find the situation to be quite ridiculous (imagine if Microsoft had to renew every single published build of Windows lest that entire build become free to "faithfully reproduce"), it does seem to have been the law. Anthony (talk) 16:07, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
                  • I suspect "derivatives" of an author's own previous work would be treated differently than derivatives of someone else's work -- if some other entity owned the Mickey character copyright, and Disney was licensed to make this drawing for this poster, it would be a problem, since distribution would still be dependent on that original license (this is the main element of the other cases you brought up before). But there is, to me, a difference when authors make use of their own work -- those are not subject to an existing, separate contract or license, so permission for this drawing is basically implied by their failure to renew copyright. Also, of course, there are rampant trademark issues with using this -- the copyright status does not affect that. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:29, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
 Comment Found two more instances of the drawing, sans poster: a pin and a watch. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anthony (talk • contribs)

How does this case differ from the Fleischer Superman cartoon videos and screenshots, which have been kept after repeated discussions? -- AnonMoos (talk) 19:02, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment see also Commons:Deletion requests/File:"Appreciate America. I Get Exasperated at People Who Squawk" (Donald Duck) - NARA - 513868.tif →AzaToth 18:37, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As well, though they haven't been nominated (yet!), File:"Bear poster" (Disney) - NARA - 513938.tif, File:"Get in the Scrap" - NARA - 514359.tif, and File:"Come On Fellows^ The U.S.O's for the U.S.A." - NARA - 514069.jpg could probably use some scrutiny, too. Dominic (talk) 18:45, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
 Comment I made the File:Donald Duck - Derivative of NARA 513868.svg and it is a pretty close mechanical reproduction of the original, even if I prefer to call it a derivative work. I believe it is a derivative work of a work already in the public domain, and yes I'm veeeery interested in how you are going to figure out if this should be kept or deleted. My guess, its deleted and no-one is able to give an decent explanation why. Jeblad (talk) 19:01, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep Work by Disney Studio for US WWII effort. The Disney Company certainly retains the trademark to the Mickey Mouse character, but as to this particular poster I will not second guess the US National Archives which has dubbed it PD. Even if that was not so, the reason Jameslwoodward closed the discussion earlier by noting no renewal would by itself be sufficient to put this into the public domain per US law. Infrogmation (talk) 22:32, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak delete. Although the poster is technically public domain, its status is essentially the equivalent of a No Derivatives license due to other Mickey Mouse copyrights. This doesn't seem "free" enough to be hosted on Commons, IMO. Kaldari (talk) 06:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kept No renewal. Tricky, but OK. Obviously, we need to warn that some derivative works may not be in the public domain. Yann (talk) 12:11, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This deletion discussion is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive. You can read the deletion policy or ask a question at the Village pump. If the circumstances surrounding this file have changed in a notable manner, you may re-nominate this file or ask for it to be undeleted.

File:"Appreciate_America._Come_On_Gang._All_Out_for_Uncle_Sam"_(Mickey_Mouse)"_-_NARA_-_513869.tif

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It's a derivative work of the copyrighted character, and it's certainly not free. Yes, some copyright expired due to non-renewal, but it was the copyright on the new, additional expression -- the American flag, the rest of the poster, the separately copyrighted drawing of the pre-existing character. No way it can affect the underlying copyright on Mickey Mouse. And that underlying copyright makes this derivative work non-free. Some examples copied from the previous DR. There was a case when a company found that copyright on 16 episodes (episodes 80-95) of "The Andy Griffith Show" was not renewed, and began to distribute them. But the court decided that these episodes were derivative works from the previous 79 episodes, so they were still copyrighted (see [1], [2]). There was another case where the copyright registration on the "Pygmalion" movie (1938 screen adaptation authorised by Shaw) had expired due to a failure to renew. But the court found that the movie anyway can't be distributed and that it was still copyrighted, because it was based on the copyrighted Shaw's play (see Russell v. Price, 612 F.2d 1123, 1128 (9th Cir. 1979)). This case is pretty much the same -- additional material, created especially for this poster is in public domain, but the poster is still a DW from the underlying work, and it's still copyrighted as whole.

From what I see, the "keep" result of the previous nomination came from the incorrect interpretation of Warner Bros. v. Avela. In fact that case supports "deletion" decision as well. Yes, the court found that some posters of some copyrighted characters were free due to non-renewal. However, those posters were published before the corresponding movies/cartoons. The court found that the posters published after the cartoon (Tom & Jerry) are not free and can only be distribution with permission of the copyright holder, Warner Bros. (in that case the permission was provided):

We also held above that the characters of Tom and Jerry are not in the public domain. In addition, because the characters achieved copyright protection through the short films before all but the first movie poster entered the public domain, and the later movie posters necessarily exhibit those characters, even the use of any movie poster but the first requires Warner Bros.'s authorization. See Russell, 612 F.2d at 1128 (“Therefore, since exhibition of the film ‘Pygmalion’ necessarily involves exhibition of parts of Shaw's play, which is still copyrighted, plaintiffs here may prevent defendants from renting the film for exhibition without their authorization.”). Warner Bros. has granted such authorization to the extent it has averred that it will not challenge the reproduction of movie “posters as posters (or lobby cards as lobby cards).”

— http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-8th-circuit/1573132.html

In our case the poster was published ~13 years after the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, hence it's not free.

tl;dr -- all works with Mickey Mouse are not free until at least 2024. It doesn't matter if the copyright on these works was renewed or not. It's interesting that all these things are written in the w:Wikipedia:Public domain#Movies guideline, and Mickey Mouse was used as an example there. Trycatch (talk) 17:24, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

1) What's really the point in opening yet a third deletion nomination unless you can raise some new point which has not already been significantly discussed above? 2) How does this case differ from the Fleischer Superman cartoon videos and screenshots, which have been kept after repeated discussions? -- AnonMoos (talk) 22:08, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well... the recent ruling, as quoted by Trycatch above, does indicate that a pre-existing cartoon character copyright (with regards to the details on how you draw the character) can cause issues for things like this. Warner Brothers was not objecting to same-type reproduction use, but the above quote even puts that in doubt. I can't find the quote on which I based my previous keep vote above in the text of the ruling; I'm now thinking I was reading a defense brief by accident (i.e. that was their argument, but was not what the court ruled). So, a lot of my argument above is moot. Any additional material (such as the flag graphic here, if extracted) would be OK, but I'm now thinking this may be a problem. It's a little odd that this situation is the same when it is the same author with the original and the derivative (which they failed to renew), and indeed Warner Brothers did not try to prevent straight reproductions (probably thinking they would be allowed), and so the court allowed them -- but the wording above makes it sounds like Warner may not have even had to allow that. The "Andy Griffith Show" case also mentioned is a somewhat similar situation (later episodes were derivative of the same characters). As the Warner Bros case mentions, the "derivative work" determination, when it comes to character copyright on a single image, is a lot stronger with cartoon-type characters. I'm not sure screenshots of photographic films are an issue, but given these cases, the cartoon one may well be. The Warner Bros ruling was from May 2011, so yes that could change things. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:57, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Delete per Trycatch's compelling argument. It's a derivative work. --Xijky (talk) 17:04, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Delete per Trycatch and Clindberg. Also see Siegel v. Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. v. American Honda Motor Co. which establish the legal concept of character copyrights. Unless this poster was using a PD version of Mickey Mouse that predated the copyrighted depictions, these images are still subject to copyright claim from Disney. Kaldari (talk) 18:40, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  •  CommentTwo copyright status here. One, the non-renewal of US Gov, and the second, copyrights to Walt Disney Pictures. The matter is trying to find if copyrights were or not renewed by Walt Disney Pictures. If it was, then the image can't be here.--Sdrtirs (talk) 04:19, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Three copyright issues here. One the poster (not US Gov, but a private entity), and two this drawing of Mickey. From what I could tell, neither were renewed. If either had been renewed, this would have been easy. The third one however is the character (drawing) copyright on Mickey, established by the Steamboat Willie movie (which was renewed, thus the character copyright still exists). There was some debate on if duplication of this image is OK, with just derivative works being a problem, but the recent ruling indicates that even this is still a derivative work of the generalized Mickey drawings associated with the character despite the lack of rewnewal. Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:45, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Delete per Trycatch's careful, compelling and clear explanation of the law. @AnonMoos - Trycatch has demonstrated a significant new point by demonstrating clearly that the analysis of the situation that was given by others is incorrect and misleading. Actually, unless someone can demonstrate that trycatch is incorrect (I can't - his analysis seems spot on to me) then after this deletion has closed the other images mentioned here such as the the Fleischer Superman cartoons and the other NARA cartoons should be considered with fresh eyes aswell, as they also may also be prime candidates for deletion.Ajbpearce (talk) 12:32, 27 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
 Comment After further reasearch, The issue is not clear but I support removing these images or asking for a legal opinion from wikimedia. There is an excellent blog post available by Willem Patry that outlines the issues in clear language (although he rather unhelpfully concludes that these are ' public domain works that can't be copied' which is not helpfull for us!). The essential question is that: "where there is an authorised derivative work, shouldn't the original material included in the derivative work fall into the public domain when the derivative work falls into the public domain?" So far, we have assumed that they do (and we are not alone in this, as the many republishers of the fleishman cartoons appear to hold the same opinion). However, the research and cases quoted by Trycatch seem to show a strong element of doubt that this is actually the case. Ajbpearce (talk) 12:37, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As I've argued previously, Patry's conclusion is basically correct: These are public domain works that can't be copied (except for very narrow uses), due to the underlying character copyrights. This is similar to how the concept of de minimis works, but is even more restrictive. The republishers of the Fleishman cartoons aren't violating copyrights because they are reproducing the cartoons within a very narrow use (and without any modification or derivation of the works). It's perfectly legal for us (or anyone else) to host this NARA poster, but it is not a "free work" in the "free culture" sense. Thus we probably shouldn't be hosting it on Commons (although the line isn't well defined in our policy). The derivatives of this poster that we are currently hosting are even more problematic, and may in fact be violating Disney's copyrights. So those should definitely be deleted in my opinion. It's unlikely you'll get a legal opinion on this from the WMF as it would be risky for them to go on record in the event that Disney actually sued us (which they like to do). Kaldari (talk) 20:42, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What I am dubious about is that there is such a thing as a "public domain work that can't be copied" I don't think that is a correct way to look at the situation. Better to say that this work has some original elements ( now in the public domain) and some derivative elemnts ( still copyrighted). It is copyright 101 that the right to authorise and control derivative works is the exclusive right of the copyright holder (here Disney via Steamboat Willie). To quote Stephen Fishman in his Nolo book on the public domain: "The original work remains copyrighted, as do those portions of the original included within the derivative work." I can't see the basis for saying that the work as a whole was in the public domain because this work only licensed the design of Mickey for reproduction in this poster. We don't have that license to further reproduce it - so we are infringing on the copyright of Mickey if because to host it at commons because to do so is an infringement of the exclusive right of Disney to create and to control derivative works of that visual copyright. That is copyright infringement just as much as it would be for a poster of steamboat willie or the latest Pixar flick IMHO Ajbpearce (talk) 09:14, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Delete With this it is already agreed that the file cannot be used for any commercial purposes. And in the discussions of the original poster ([3], [4]) it is concluded the same about verbatim reproductions of the original image. This way the current presence of these files at Commons (including other NARA war posters of the series) under PD tag suggests that Wikimedia Commons interprets the Public Domain something like "to reproduce strictly verbatim and strictly for personal non-commercial use". With such definition of PD there is actually no non-PD items in this world. In particular the entire Flickr archives should be loaded to Commons.
    That does ridicule the whole concept of PD, Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia all together. The damage made by this to an international project is way over-passing any possible damage even if Mr. Mickey is not at Commons another "eternity minus one year".
    If the presence of Disney heroes here is an absolute must for too many participants, then at least it should be a separate template made for this particular series of posters, like say Ltd-PD-Disney. IMHO --Neolexx (talk) 11:29, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
*  Delete. Okay, I'm convinced. This image might be technically PD per US law, but even if so the copyrighted character is so inherent in the image as to prevent it being freely reused. It therefore doesn't belong on Commons. -- Infrogmation (talk) 16:35, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted Per Trycatch's argument and unanimous agreement with it. Deleted all three works listed as well as File:"Appreciate America. Come On Gang. All Out for Uncle Sam" (Mickey Mouse)" - NARA - 513869 - cropped and tidied.png and File:Mickey Mouse - Come on Gang, All Out for Uncle Sam.svg. Dcoetzee (talk) 14:43, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Files copied to wikilivres:Category:Mickey Mouse. Yann (talk) 11:40, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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