Template talk:PD-Pre1964

Purpose

This template is for images and other material first published between 1923 and December 31, 1963 but which do not have a copyright renewal on file with the United States Copright Office. It applies irrespective of whether the original publication was filed with the US Copyright Office, though in order to have continued copyright protection beyond 28 years, a "work" such as a photograph or other copyrightable material must have filed a renewal with the Copyright Office prior to the expiration of 28 years. Here are some resources to aid in determining whether an image or other material was renewed. For work published between 1923 and 1963, the renewal dates are 1950 through 1992.

http://collections.stanford.edu/copyrightrenewals/bin/page?forward=home
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/renewals.html
Catalog of copyright entries. These include books, periodicals and submissions to periodicals. All renewals are available in a searchable database from 1977-1990. For the years 1950-1977, "art" is not yet available online. Renewals of photographs were extremely rare from 1950-1992 (28 years after 1923-1963). Searches should, of course, include all books, periodicals and submissions to periodicals where an author (photographer, etc.) can be identified.
Summary of copyright status of works in United States for works produced in the United States and also in other countries.

... Kenosis 21:59, 27 August 2007 (UTC) Discussion is also at Wikipedia_talk:Public_domain#Yet_another_PD_template_added, at least until a suitable location can be agreed as to where to consolidate the necessary discussion(s) about this class of images, one which represents an extremely important pool of public domain resources for WP. ... Kenosis 22:27, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Standard of proof

I do not know what standard of proof, and standards of rebuttal and counter-rebuttal, will ultimately be agreed suitable for this class of images and other material published between 1923 and 1963. But offhand, I suggest that at minimum requiring a statement of the uploader that s/he was able to identify the author's name or name of an assignee with a date of copyright, and have done a search of the Copyright Office records in the years that apply, which are the years equivalent to 26, 27 and 28 years after original publication. Images without an explicit copyright notice identifying the copyright claim should, of course, consider using Template:PD-Pre1978 instead, or consider submission of an image under "fair use" and the WP:NFCC. ... Kenosis 22:10, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]