File:Pinski-Tailor.jpg

New Deal era U.S. government-sponsored presentation of a Yiddish Theater play in Chicago.

Category:Event poster images

Discussion of doubts about Public Domain status (on en-wiki)

[NB: Originally tagged PD-Gov; not convinced it would have been a US government produced work as opposed to one for hire, so PD tag removed to err on the side of caution. Poster tag kept. Shimgray 12:55, 23 September 2005 (UTC)]

Seems it me like excessive caution by Shimgray, and I see that the fair use claim is now being challenged. I originally uploaded this with and I still think that was correct. Up until now, I ignored Shimgray's change, because I didn't really care on what basis we kept this, as long as we kept it. I am now reverting from {{en:Template:Non-free poster}} to {{en:Template:PD-USGov}}.

As far as I know, copyright was never claimed on any Federal Theatre Project posters (or any other WPA-related materials). Besides the federal government issue (and this was certainly work by a government employee: the Federal Theater Project was a depression-era employment program), this is from a date where copyright did not apply by default. As I understand it, the only way this would be under copyright is if it was somehow created by someone other than an employee (unlikely) and that someone also actually claimed and renewed copyright (yet more unlikely).

I would be surprised if there is even one case of the government (or any individual artist) claiming copyright on materials created for the Federal Theater Project or other WPA projects. Obviously, it's very difficult to prove a negative for the particular poster, but the same would apply to most federal government materials. These materials rarely have an overt statement of being public domain.

The Library of Congress seems to agree with me: almost certainly public domain, but difficult to prove absolutely. See the Federal Theater Project Collection on their site. They say (in their Restriction and Notice Statement), "The Library of Congress is not aware of any copyright in the materials in this collection." Of course, they can't make guarantees. But it seems to me that the Library of Congress believing that the materials are in the public domain ought to be a strong enough justification. - Jmabel