File talk:Beddgelert-2.jpg

Remark: This is definitely PD-old, as it is called on Wikipedia, because it's a works photo from 1878. No copyright, no license, free to use for everything. --84.57.29.177 (talk) 01:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Granted in what you say is probably correct.

However, in the earliest days of this wiki, when the photo was loaded, we didnt have the facility for marking any proper copyright, and doesnt even register the uploaders id.

If the status can be definitely established, rather than surmised, then it should be changed. - Anyone got the Hunslet catalogues for the period?? (I have seen one somewhere on line) --Keith (talk) 2008-4-15T08:21:28 (UTC)

Sorry, I couldn't create a talk page without registering. So I've registered now! :-)

I'm no international picture and copyright expert, but to my knowledge, the US- and EU law says that pictures are PD if the author (photographer) has died more than 70 years ago. That's the tag {{PD-old}} on Wikimedia Commons (example). Another version of the same picture in this wiki is tagged als copyrighted (Image:JTJ.S.jpg). That's almost certainly not true; the fact that a picture is part of a collection or a library doesn't create a new copyright!

In many cases of very old pictures the photographer is unknown, so of course we can't be 100% sure. Theoretically the person who took the picture in the given example could have lived longer than 1938 (if he was 20 in 1879 he would have been 79 in 1938), but that's very unlikely.

Additionally there are rules applying to government pictures of certain countries and to pictures which have been published before a certain date, which can result in even younger pictures being PD.

Some wikipedas have a PD-100 rule: They accept pictures if the author is unknown and the picture is more than 100 years old, because then it is very probably PD-old.

What I have not heard of is what is called PD-oldphoto in this Wiki (Category:Photo taken before 1st January 1945). If this really applies to british (?) photographs, practically all the historical photos in this wiki would be PD. But you should check this (I have my doubts...).

In any case, I hope you don't mind if I "borrow" some of the pictures for Wikipedia! :-) --FritzG (talk) 16:11, 19 April 2008 (UTC)