File talk:Margaret Taylor.gif

Ownership

I own the original full-length ambrotype of this one and only photographic image of Margaret "Peggy" Taylor, which is encircled with a gold frame that has the US flag and the US shield emblazoned on it.

The item was purchased in the 1990's in Washington. It was used once in my book America's First Families (2000) and in the catalogue of the National First Ladies Library (2003). Those are the only two places it was authorized for use. The NFLL was given permission to use it on its website with the explicit warning that it cannot be reproduced without permission.

Just as institutions such as Associated Press or United Press International or other photo libraries and reference sources may not be the artists and thus do not own the copyright, they own the original negative or the original item itself - and the right to license use of the image.

Wikipedia never sought permission to license the image. In fact, in its first appearance here, the image was willfully, falsely attributed to being in the collections of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photo Division.

It was in discussing the matter with a director of the LC, Prints and Photos, that she directly contacted Wikipedia and told them to remove the false attribution to its collection.

Great damage has been done to the private ownership and potential future licensing of the image to other publishing and online venues. Because Wikipedia has willfully and falsely claimed the right to simply post this image because the creator is dead long enough for the copyright to have expired while ignoring the issue of licensing infringement, the image has now been illegally appropriated by at least one highly commercial endeavor and even one sovereign nation's postal system, making Wikipedia directly complicit.

Besides this, the image as it appears on Wikipedia is an altered one - obviously without permission of the owner of the original art. The image as it appears here is simply a smaller detail of a full-body image. Yeagerm (talk) 09:59, 17 February 2009 (UTC) Yeagerm (talk) 10:02, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello Yeagerm, give me a bit of time to read up on the copyright situation please. I'll check, I promise. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:14, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, it seems you are probably right. I apologise for the misunderstanding of my fellow wikipedians, who were not aware of the special conditions of unbpublished works [1] and thought everything created before 1923 was public domain. The image is currently hosted on commons:, so I can't delete it from here. Will have to enter a deletion request on the other side first. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:23, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Umm, according to the chart on the same site,[2] the copyright of "unpublished works when the death date of the author is not known" expire "120 years from date of creation". Thus, would this not be in the public domain? Title 17, 303 does state that only those that were "created before January 1, 1978, but not theretofore in the public domain or copyrighted, subsists from January 1, 1978, ..." is copyrighted for the duration stated in 302. The photo created in 1845 by an unknown author would mean the copyright has expired in 1965 (1845 + 120), thus it is exempted from Title 17, 303 (unless someone names the author and establishes his or her death as 1909 or later...). Jappalang (talk) 12:33, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

IANAL, but the way I read it, the entry in the table of [3] that applies here is the one that says: "Date of publication: From 1 March 1989 through 2002" and "Conditions: Created before 1978 and first published in this period". Third column says: "The greater of the term specified in the previous entry or 31 December 2047". i.e., 2047 it is. This corresponds to the entry in the law, §303(a), where it says " In no case, however, shall the term of copyright in such a work expire before December 31, 2002; and, if the work is published on or before December 31, 2002, the term of copyright shall not expire before December 31, 2047." The quote you mentioned earlier, "but not theretofore in the public domain or copyrighted" doesn't apply, because according to the pre-1978 law, an unpublished work was in fact neither public domain nor explicitly copyrighted, but nevertheless protected eternally. According to our Public domain article, "unpublished works were not covered by the federal copyright act. Rather, they were covered under (perpetual) common law copyright." That's what seems to apply here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:44, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Guys? Just pass it on to Godwin or Daniel. It is sufficiently complex, and this guy is claiming to be sufficiently notable, that I don't think we want to be dealing with it as a bunch of armchair lawyers. --Narson ~ Talk • 19:14, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I sent an e-mail to Mike Godwin this morning (PST) asking him to look into this. --Dynaflow babble 01:23, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

• Since the file is on the commons, commons:File:Margaret_Taylor.gif, the discussion should move there. --evrik ^(talk) 00:04, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

• There is now a discussion here: Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Margaret Taylor.gif. --evrik ^(talk) 04:24, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Mike Godwin has e-mailed me back and says, "I don't see any compelling reason to remove the image of the work in question. If the purported owner of the work wishes to make a copyright complaint, that complaint should be directed to me [at mgodwin wikimedia.org]." --Dynaflow babble 00:34, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Please contact the Wikimedia Foundation

Yeagerm - please email the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel at info-en-c@wikimedia.org. Please be clear whether you assert copyright ownership or merely ownership of the physical photograph and other related rights. Thank you. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 19:38, 17 February 2009 (UTC)