Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Storye book

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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.

Files uploaded by Storye book (talk · contribs)

[edit]

These are all images of scarecrows at various UK festivals. They are all temporarily exhibited, so FoP does not apply and they all have their own copyrights as sculptures. Anticipating the uploader's claims, which they made in a similar case at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Minskip 2 September 2023 (135).JPG, I point out that the fact that they are non-commercial is irrelevant -- all creative works have copyrights until they expire.

754 Images
* File:Darth Vader scarecrow geograph-1379636-by-Bill-Nicholls.jpg

.     Jim . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 20:48, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The following quotation is from the Wikipedia article Freedom of panorama#United Kingdom. It says that the creator of the photographed item must be both a craftsman and an artist for their creation to be considered an artwork for copyright puroses. However there is no evidence that all the villagers who created the scarecrows were professional craftsmen or professional artists, and there is no evidence that their purpose was to create artworks. Their purpose was to have fun making a temporary effigy out of bags of straw. All the examples of such intended artworks given in that article are saleable items made by professionals with a high degree of skill. That includes the hand-knitted jumper. I can design and knit a jumper because I have the professional skill to write knitting patterns for jumpers. socks etc. - but do you have that skill? No such skill is required to make a scarecrow effigy. A lot of the scarecrows are made by children and cub scouts, many of them under five years old. Are you going to delete pictures of their work, as if they are by professional artists? What are your legal grounds for doing this? Storye book (talk) 23:56, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The courts have not established a consistent test for what is meant by a "work of artistic craftsmanship", but Copinger suggests that the creator must be both a craftsman and an artist.[125] Evidence of the intentions of the maker are relevant, and according to the House of Lords case of Hensher v Restawile [1976] AC 64,[126] it is "relevant and important, although not a paramount or leading consideration" if the creator had the conscious purpose of creating a work of art. It is not necessary for the work to be describable as "fine art". In that case, some examples were given of typical articles that might be considered works of artistic craftsmanship, including hand-painted tiles, stained glass, wrought iron gates, and the products of high-class printing, bookbinding, cutlery, needlework and cabinet-making.

The United Kingdom has Panoramafreiheit, which, as I understand it, permits photography of scarecrows. United Kingdom law takes intention into consideration. It permits photography from the public highway of permanent items, items which may be considered de minimis, and creations by people who are not craftspersons or artists, and have not intended their creations as artworks. Scarecrows are effigies, i.e. non-commercial creations which are intentionally temporary and often crude representations of humans, animals and other things, and are intended for imminent dismantling or destruction. Whether or not they may be considered to have copyright, such effigies can be photographed under Panoramafreiheit in the UK.

Scarecrow effigies are temporary objects made for fun by anonymous villagers or townspeople and their children, and in general such a group is not considered as a whole to be an artist group with special skills for artworks. The effigies do not in themselves have a commercial value. In general, money for a village charity or for community benefit is made at scarecrow festivals by sales of a map or plan of the "scarecrow trail" i.e. a guide to the site of each exhibit within the village or town, and that 2D copyright graphic map is not reproduced on Commons. Money is not made directly from the exhibits themselves.

Consideration of intention is a large part of the structure of British law. British copyright is created for the protection of potential financial rights of the creator to the made object, i.e. it has a commercial intention. However, scarecrow effigies in UK scarecrow festivals have no commercial intention, therefore photographs taken of such effigies do not impinge on the creator's rights. When such photographs are uploaded to Commons under a free commercial-use licence, the creators have full use of those photographs anyway, so they lose nothing, and gain commercial opportunities from the photographs long after their temporary creations were destroyed. Scarecrow festival organisers in the UK tend to encourage photography of the exhibits in public places, because they can use the free-licence photos, and the publication of those photos is good publicity for them, anyway. Storye book (talk) 09:00, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Keep per Stoyre book's strong arguments here & at the other DR, which said everything there is to say. PCP is good, turning into copyright paranoia isn't. TheImaCow (talk) 09:29, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I note that the quote above includes "if the creator had the conscious purpose of creating a work of art". It is completely clear that the creators of the scarecrows were consciously creating works of art. There is nothing in the quoted paragraph which even suggests that there must be a commercial motive for a work to have a copyright. .     Jim . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 17:24, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jim. It is only your personal opinion which says "it is completely clear that the creators of the scarecrows were consciously creating works of art". For a start, a high proportion of the scarecrows are made by pre-school children - sometimes under parental/teacher supervision, sometimes not. Children that age cannot comprehend what a work of art is, and even then, the definition of art has always been a moot point. The best that we can do in law is to refer to professional intention, which tends to be commercial. British law is based on precedent (as opposed to adversarial law in US). As far as I am aware, there has been no precedent of a copyright case in British law concerned with the photography of scarecrows. Just the thought of the idea of that happening in a British court appears preposterous. (There may have been cases where an effigy was considered to be defamatory, but that is not a copyright matter, or about photography or whether it is art) Storye book (talk) 08:48, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I should add that in British law, quantifiable gain or loss by the perceived victim of an offence tends to be the major issue in a judge's summary decision. Potential financial gain or loss is the main quantifiable assessment in this type of case. Where no quantifiable financial gain or loss can be established, the complainant is likely to lose the case. In the case of these scarecrows, they are mostly bags of straw. You cannot store that in the house; straw is full of bugs, and rots down quickly. If you keep them in the shed, it rots down even more quickly. Festival scarecrows have to be dismantled soon after the festival in most cases, because they would otherwise require storage space, and most houses do not have that much space. New festival scarecrows are made each year, and must be disposed of. At Kettlewell, which is one of our biggest scarecrow festivals, the organisers come around at the end of the festival with a pickup truck, collecting scarecrows for disposal. Bearing in mind that most festival scarecrows are intended for a temporary existence, and are in themselves non-commercial, no British court could easily establish quantifiable loss where photographs of the scarecrows were commercially used. Whenever I have discussed my photography with festival organisers, they have always been grateful that they would get free-use photographs to share with their exhibitors. Storye book (talk) 09:04, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Here is a typical UK police view of taking photographs in public places. US readers please note that British police all follow the same laws, i.e. we don't have separate federal or state laws as you do in the US. So every police force in the UK works under the same laws as all the others (excluding small local-site bylaws which are not at issue here). This source makes clear that panoramafreiheit covers everything on British public highways. The only exceptions would be where the photographer compounded the issue by committing offences such as terrorism, stalking, blocking the highway etc. I hope that helps you understand that we are not under US law here. Storye book (talk) 15:39, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Once again, you are selecting quotes that are not on subject. You can, indeed, photograph almost anything you want in any country, including copyrighted works in the approximately half of all countries that have no FoP (there are exceptions that are not relevant here). You may not, however, use such photographs for much beyond private enjoyment if they are derivative of copyrighted works unless Fair Use applies. The policeman quoted says nothing about selling the photographs -- only taking them. The first is legal almost everywhere, the second is not often not.
"I hope that helps you understand that we are not under US law here." No, I don't understand that because it is wrong. Commons images must be free under both the law of the country of origin, in this case the UK, and free under US law.
"Whenever I have discussed my photography with festival organisers, they have always been grateful that they would get free-use photographs to share with their exhibitors." Sure, that's entirely natural and legal -- if you want to give photographs to exhibitors, that would be perfectly OK. You cannot, however, sell them to anyone, including the creators of the works, without getting a written license from the creator. Once again I remind you that the organizers have no right to say anything about the copyrights for the works -- they belong to the creators.
"For a start, a high proportion of the scarecrows are made by pre-school children". I don't believe that and I doubt that you really do either. The costumes are sewn, or purchased. It may be that the costumes are stuffed by children, but their creation has significant adult involvement.
Also note that COM:PCP explicitly forbids consideration of whether the copyright owner would sue. The discussion of whether a lawsuit could succeed is entirely irrelevant here. I also think that your analysis is wrong. It is well established that copyright applies even if the creator has no hope of profiting from their work -- consider artists who paint murals for the fun of it. However, you can not profit from their work without a license -- you could not sell your photographs. If your free license were valid, people could make and sell posters of the scarecrows. A court could make you, or those relying on your invalid licenses, turn over those profits to the creators of the scarecrow.
If suit were brought against you as a massive violater of copyright, it would succeed in the US and I guess also in the UK. There might or might not be financial damages but you would be enjoined from continuing your copytheft.
Carl, what do you think of this? .     Jim . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 16:15, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@JIm. You are overreacting here. By your logic, we could not upload any photographs of any man-made objects to Commons. Photographs of man-made objects make up a high proportion of our pictures here. Your example of murals is inappropriate, since I have not photographed 2D items in this case. No court could make me do anything. The scarecrows at issue were destroyed soon after creation, so there is nothing in existence with any copyright (if it had any copyright in the first place). You have given no evidence that there has been any claim to copyright on those scarecrows which, as intended, no longer exist. And if the villagers have given the festival organiser the right to hand out permission for photography (which they have) then he can hand out permission for photography. An adult overseeing a child stuff a bag of straw is not an artist, and is not creating an artwork. It is not a copyright breach to photograph old clothes worn by an effigy in a public place, because those clothes are de minimis. Please stop making up more and more spurious accusations of crimes. I have committed no crimes. This situation is amounting to hounding, and I find your behaviour offensive. What I have done was done in good faith that I was working within the law. And why are you only attacking photographs uploaded by me, personally? What about all those photographs of effigies/scarecrows uploaded over the years by people from other countries, including the US? And why has this type of photo suddenly become illegal for me and not for anyone else on the grounds of your lone voice? You threaten a suit against me personally. Yet that is not going to happen, because there is no reason for it to happen. You use words like "massive violater" and "copytheft" which is libellous. How dare you. This whole hounding incident looks illogical, obsessive and paranoid to me. That is my opinion of the matter. Storye book (talk) 18:23, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
 Keep I agree with Storye book here. It is a stretch to call scarecrow festival a collection of temporary sculptures, and someone photographing it "a massive violator of copyright" waiting to be sued. --Jarekt (talk) 01:01, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Update. I have spoken with some members of the Chartered Institute of Trademark Attorneys (CITMA). I understand that:
  • British courts do not define art or artists, nor do they differentiate between artist and non-artist, or art and non-art. This is because such definitions and differentiations are moot points and matters of opinion, which can never be decided in court. Therefore, the above complaint is null and void, and this request to delete 754 of my uploaded images on the sole basis of their Commons categorisation is spurious in the extreme.
  • British law takes intention into consideration. Therefore, in such a case as this, British courts would recognise the fact of creation, and would ask what was the purpose of the creator. Copyright would then be based on whether or not the creator had a purpose in mind when creating. Definition of purpose would be speculative in this deletion request case, since British festival scarecrows are almost always anonymous, because, for example, they are displayed in front of people's gardens, and British people do not like their names and addresses to be publicised. However we can be sure about the work of toddlers, especially those under two years old. The child psychologist Piaget reckoned that children under two are at that point of development self-centred, and cannot consider the responses or feelings of others. Therefor the toddlers who contributed festival scarecrows no doubt enjoyed stuffing straw and scribbling on paper plates, but they cannot be said to have had a purpose as creators of festival scarecrows - other than enjoying themselves for five minutes.
  • Unlike the US courts, British courts do not inflict judgements of punitive damages, and it is the punitive damages judgements which get the news headlines, because they can involve millions of dollars. In British courts, if the creator of a festival scarecrow instigated a case against someone financially profiting by my photo of their scarecrow, only the amount of financial profit made by the person commercially using my photo would be taken into consideration, and paid to the complainant - and that is all that they would get. As far as I can find out, there has been no record of such a case, because photos of festival scarecrows have little or no financial prospect, and certainly too little prospect to pay for the barrister's fees.
  • It would be very odd if I alone were to be punished for uploading pictures of festival scarecrows, and all the millions of other such uploads on Commons were to be pointedly left alone. For that reason, I understand this deletion request to be a vexatious complaint. The fact is, if this request were to be granted, we would then have to adjust the guidelines to fit, then go about deleting most of the images of British man-made 3D objects on Commons.
  • The above is why Commons has so far treated this kind of photography as a grey area. It is obvious that we cannot delete all images of British 3D man-made objects here. Even under the above complainant's definition of temporarily-displayed statuary, we still have many thousands of photos of festival effigies, religious procession effigies, Guy Fawkes Night effigies, and so on. Those things are displayed in public, with the expectation (and hope, usually) of the publicity of photos being uploaded on the internet. We have to treat all photos in these categories in the same way, and not just pick on the photographs of one photographer or uploader.
  • So I would ask those who have legal control of Wikimedia Commons to tell us on what basis all such items are officially judged, because if the above request to delete is allowed, then we must all suddenly go about starting millions of deletion requests, and there would be an outcry from all our British photographers. Storye book (talk) 08:57, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly?

And another thing. The above list of images, offered to be summarily deleted on the opinion of one individual, has not even been examined before being uploaded to this deletion request. I have just looked through the photos which I uploaded but which were not created by me, and noticed that in a lot of them, the scarecrows are de minimis in the photos. Commons has a clear guideline that de minimis items are not to be considered in copyright-deletion cases. The above list demonstrates that the complainant has judged these photos solely on the basis of their Commons category, and not on the basis of what is in the photos. Here are the de minimis examples which I have found so far:

  • Note to admin. Please leave all the abovementioned files undeleted until I have had a chance to check all seven hundred and fifty-four of them, because they have been listed on the basis of their category, and without any consideration of actual content. I have so far checked the first twenty-one, and found eight which are not relevant to the complainant's deletion request. I still have 733 files to check through. At the same time I am working full-time on producing articles on en.Wikipedia, so this job is going to take a long time. I am aware that the scarecrows in some of the pictures will be de minimis, and I remember that I discovered that at least one of the objects photographed was actually a cast concrete permanent roadside installation, which fact disqualifies it from the above list. So I have to find and note that here, too. Thank you. Storye book (talk) 08:59, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I have checked another 21 (up to Northowram no. 59) and found three more files which should not be in the list:
I still have 712 files to check. Storye book (talk) 08:47, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I have checked 26 more files (up to Northowram no. 33) and found six more files which should not be in the list, as per the reason given by the complainant:
I still have nearly 700 files to check. Storye book (talk) 10:54, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I have checked 21 more files (up to Northowram no. 13), and found eight more files which should not be in the list, as per the reason given by the complainant:
I still have roughly 680 files to check.
I am sick and tired of this utter waste of time. The above deletion request is ill-conceived and ill-thought out, and a waste of my time and everyone else's. I have so far checked a small proportion of this careless list, based on a commons category only, and on a false definition of scarecrows as artworks (which definition is not recognised in British courts), and found around 17 files which should not be in the list according to the above complaint, because the complainant has not even looked at these files, which are de minimis, i.e. the scarecrows in the photograph are too small and therefore too trivial, so as to be below the interest or notice of any judge. If the complainant had been believed, and all 754 files summarily deleted, than an awful lot of innocent files would have been deleted unnecessarily, What on earth are we playing at, here? Storye book (talk) 16:25, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep It's a hell of a stretch of a definition to call a scarecrow an art exhibition. (Unsigned comment by User:Mtaylor848.)
 Keep per Stoyre book's strong arguments of april 21th above. ThomasPusch (talk) 17:50, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Kept: consensus is to delete, and a reasoning has been provided about context re UK perspective with no argument to the contrary; no valid reason for deletion.  — billinghurst sDrewth 07:17, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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