Richard Walker was born in greater Los Angeles, California in the 1960s.
He currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Richard was a student of the late Robert Sheldon, of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Sheldon had studied with the renowned teacher Egon Petri. Richard often goes by the nickname "Reechard", i.e. "Richard" in the French pronunciation.
Public-domain (Poland and USA) image of Egon Petri added to Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Commons.
Todo
Explain why so much of the WP process for image copyright clearance was useless to me
Petri photo, PD-Poland, PD-USA, WP issues, notes, reminders
The situation: Subject is historically important. Photos of subject extremely rare. WP alert attached to bio requests a photo be contributed.
I predict very few such requests will result in contributions free of copyright restrictions.
I happen to know that only a handful of photos of Petri were published in the USA. He did not like to be photographed.
This photo is superior to them; it's the only one from Poland, the only one of Petri has a young man.
I found it because of my connection to Stefan K via Robert Sheldon, my mentor and a student of Petri.
I am not inclined to contribute other photos or debate copyright with WP editors as a lowly "contributor."
I infer from my experience that few public-domain arguments are attempted (and succeed) here
USA bias evident: "published" in alert 2 sentence 1 for {{PD-Poland}} means "published in the USA." It is wrong either way.
Read the caption; "fot. archiwum" (phot. archive) means "no copyright."
Images by Polish photographers published in Poland w/o a copyright notice between 1926 and 1994 are public domain in Poland.
This by itself is actually enough to determine {{PD-Poland}}, given the period Petri was in Poland; assurances from Stefan K. helped
Take advantage of this generous, now-defunct {{PD-Poland}} law to find other old photos in that magazine of special interest to some.
Only if an editor requests it specifically or the process improves, or I'm given increased privileges.
I've seen all those stinking badges. If you want more public domain photos, please figure out which ones I should have. Thanks.
The language in alert 2 improved a little in that it's now clear to me that without PD-USA you can't CC-0
the WP editors should have realized my PD-Poland implied PD-USA so the original upload could have been to Commons, giving CC-0 from the start.
But a lot has changed in this area; CC-0 is quite new. So the above may only apply going forward.
I assert that I qualify as editor based on this "todo" section and the argument I made in the WP forum on image copyright
There is room for improvement in the way the copyright alerts work. Paragraph 2 sentence 1 below makes it extremely unlikely that anyone other than myself will successfully assert {{PD-Poland}} and take it all the way to Commons CC-0.
Ideas, questions, assertions, legal folderol
At issue, paragraph 2 sentence 1: "This file may be copyrighted in the United States unless it was also published prior to 1923 or if it entered the public domain in Poland prior to 1996"
Legal if-or-and-but-not-unless clauses are difficult for humans to understand precisely.
They are difficult or impossible to express in English lacking grouping and exclusion constructs
Can we use interactivity to understand the way the clauses combine? Please?
With a checkbox for each if-or-and-but-not-unless option?
Compare to this, which is at least less wrong:
"This file may be copyrighted in the United States unless
A) in the USA, it was 1. never published or 2. published prior to 1923
B) ..."
Or avoid the problem entirely by asking a series of questions that traverse a flow chart:
Was it first published in the US prior to 1923?
Was it first published in the US in or after 1923?
Are you certain it was never published in the US?
Was it first published in Poland prior to 1994?
Was the author's name attached?
Was there a copyright notice attached?
Was there any other information (such as a caption) attached?
"published" in paragraph 2 means "published in the USA."
It is complete nonsense in this case, where it was never published in the USA.
The date I uploaded the image to WP, some time in 2009, is the date it was "published" in the USA.
How ironic that the act of contribution here would seem to subject it to the US copyright law requiring that it be published before 1923, to be public domain in the USA.
Since this photo was never published in the USA, how can it be "published prior to 1923" if it was published in Poland in 1930 something?
It can't, but that doesn't matter. Something that never happened did not happen before or after anything else.
This photo was "born in the public domain." It entered the public domain on the date of publication in Poland, captioned as an "archive photo" for the magazine. It entered the public domain immediately.
Hence the assurance from Stephan K. that he understood these things to be in the public domain.
He re-scans old issues of this magazine when he wants to re-publish a photo in a new article.
The magazine is its own "photo archive." These are not borrowed images, they belong to the magazine.
If I get any arguments from an admin about the copy in the Commons I will have to turn the implied "prove it wasn't published in the USA" into a request that someone "prove it was."
There's the issue: {{PD-Poland}} makes the most sense for content never published in the US.
How can one prove something was never published in the US? One can't.
One can only determine that first publication was in Poland, the US, or both.
"Published in the US" does not mean that publication had the legal standing to assert copyright, common practice notwithstanding. US content thieves do not have the right to steal from the Polish commons, not now, not prior to 1994, nor prior to that.
Using the language "entered the public domain prior to X" is poorly suited to this case.
It implies it entered the public domain via copyright expiration.
This is a typical US copyright bias. I'm not interested in lawyers in general. I don't fancy myself a lawyer.
I am very interested in how US copyright law seems to inhibit the public domain in Poland.
The 1996 date in paragraph 2 is no doubt the year the change made in 1994 to the law in paragraph 1 took effect.
It only helps confuse the issue when stated in the paragraph about US copyright law.
Public domain in Poland (PD-Poland) belongs in paragraph 1.
Public domain in the US (PD-USA) belongs in paragraph 2, it's understood you've already achieved PD-Poland.
The goal of both PD-Poland and PD-USA should get its own paragraph; It's the double hurdle that gets you the gold star: Wikimedia Commons universal CC-0. Free of restrictions everywhere.
So, that's a separate Commons alert (copy/move) inside the PD-USA alert inside the PD-Poland alert.
It should be more encouraging and more appreciative in its wording.
"Must be X and Y to do Z" doesn't cut it. "Please help us establish both X and Y so the whole world can enjoy Z" is better.
Do not explain in the affirmative why it may be restricted.
Let us go ahead and state in the affirmative all the things that must be cleared to reach the goal: contribution of restriction-free content.
Please avoid "may be copyrighted" and use "may not be copyright-free" or "might be in the public domain"
I assert that I have proven well beyond possible doubt, that paragraph 2 seems to directly negate the whole purpose of{{PD-Poland}}, because of a combination of poor word and phrasing choices, unfortunate laws, and shortcomings of English legalese.
I further assert that I have offered Wikipedia several things the community might try to make restriction-free contribution easier and more likely to occur at all.
Read the text of the alerts here.
Alert text
This image is in the public domain because according to the Art.3 of copyright law of March 29, 1926 of the Republic of Poland and Art. 2 of copyright law of July 10, 1952 of the People's Republic of Poland, all photographs by Polish photographers (or published for the first time in Poland or simultaneously in Poland and abroad) published without a clear copyright notice before the law was changed on May 23, 1994 are assumed to be in the public domain.
This file may be copyrighted in the United States unless it was also published prior to 1923 or if it entered the public domain in Poland prior to 1996. This image must be in the public domain in both Poland and the United States to be transferred to the Wikimedia Commons.
Note: If this image is in the public domain in the US, modify the end of the copyright tag from "}}" to "|commons}}". This will replace the preceding US copyright notification with a nomination for this image to be moved to the Wikimedia Commons.
Done/Other
Witold Lutosławski
Added Witold Lutosławski, another photo found in Ruch Muzyczny confirming archive is well worth investigating. Online archives of magazine only date back to 1995, but all issues contain re-printed articles of note from the past
Petri photo copied to Commons, with universal CC-0 (public domain USA). Awaiting admin approval
Successfully argued image is PD-Poland in WP forum on image copyright. We have Petri photo!
"music festival in Trogen, Switzerland where the local press praised her remarkable technique and sympathetic engagement in Bach’s D major Toccata. " Needs to be sourced
"Sharon Mann, a nationally recognized specialist in Bach’s keyboard music. " needs to be sourced
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