Commons:Village pump/Archive/2026/08

Question about PD status of a Czechoslovak photograph

Ukrainian National Union (1939)

Hi all. As part of a good article review about the Ukrainian National Union, I have to verify the public domain status of this photograph of a UNO election truck. The PD tag states, per Czechoslovak copyright law, that it should have come into the public domain 50 years after publication, however it does not provide evidence of its original publication; I tried searching around to see if I could find it, but wasn't able. It also doesn't provide an author, nor could I find one. I think it'd be a shame for the article to lose this image, as this is the only photograph of the UNO we have available on commons (the other images are all posters), so wanted to ask here if someone can help verify the PD status of this image. Thanks in advance. --Grnrchst (talk) 08:37, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Hi, this kind of question is more appropriate in Commons:Village pump/Copyright. HyperAnd [talk] 01:32, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Ach, thanks, moved it there. --Grnrchst (talk) 08:54, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: (discussion continues elsewhere) Jmabel ! talk 23:47, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

ESO astronomy pictures

Hey everyone, I want to know why the site doesn't allow to upload images from ESO Flickr account like for example https://www.flickr.com/photos/esoastronomy/55321043227/in/dateposted/ Abdullah1099 (talk) 05:03, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

@Abdullah1099 sure you can. Don't know about terms on Flickr, but you can upload images from the official website providing that you will provide proper attribution (state source and author). See: https://www.eso.org/public/about-eso/privacy/ Nux (talk··dyskusja) 09:52, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Pasted wrong link :), this has copyright info: https://www.eso.org/public/copyright/ Nux (talk··dyskusja) 09:53, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

@Nux bro, I know that Images can be uploaded from ESO Website but what about ESO Flickr account. Also i want can request VRTS for a Template:Copyrighted free use images Abdullah1099 (talk) 13:42, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

coz User:Hedwig in Washington blacklisted it special:diff/370891134. see Commons_talk:Questionable_Flickr_images/Archive_5#c-BevinKacon-2019-08-26T19:00:00.000Z-ESO_Account. RoyZuo (talk) 18:28, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

I don't think this Flickr account should be blacklisted. Is there any way to remove it from blacklist Abdullah1099 (talk) 01:41, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

@Abdullah1099 please be asolutely sure that the files are not already on Commons before trying to import ESO pictures from Flickr. My bot systematically import all pictures from their website in quasi real time so there is a huge probability that you will import a duplicate if you import files from their Flickr account. vip (talk) 07:34, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

I know that @Don-vip, I just want to know why it is not allowed as in theory Flickr can also be used as source for ESO images by there official ESO Flickr account Abdullah1099 (talk) 07:39, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

@Abdullah1099 just find the files you want to upload on the official site. Flickr has lower quality images as is shown with examples under the link posted by Roy. Nux (talk··dyskusja) 09:10, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Yeah @Nux, Thanks i know that and i am kind of ok with it Abdullah1099 (talk) 09:14, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Personality rights for children in PD US DoD photographs?

Portrait of unnamed young teenager, c.30 years ago.

Portrait of unnamed child, perhaps 3 or 4 years old.

Looking at some mass uploads of DoD related photographs, and raising an album for possible out of scope duplicates, raises a secondary question I am unsure about and would welcome feedback, especially if a good consensus to refer to already exists!

The specific photograph is up for deletion, but the pdf of the album is not. Should we be concerned about photographs like this, which are not "historic" but within the last 30 years, are not outdoors or at obvious large public events but in this case might be at indoor gym training and where the subject would not have expected to give consent? Further the specific date and name of the photographer is not recorded, despite these being part of a military archive. There are other photos in this same album of younger people, ages probably about 2 to 6 years, where they could not possibly have consented or potentially understood they were being photographed and would later be published.

The related DR is here, please keep in mind that DR is on Scope grounds, not personality rights or copyright, and copies of all photos would remain on Commons, just the jpg duplicates are up for deletion not the pdf.

Note more generally, that in my own upload projects are a very large collection of DVIDs and DoD related photographs, I have no idea at this point how to identify which have detailed portraits of children, however the use of AI to help with subject identification and estimating age is making this possible for volunteers to work out and better retrospectively classify if this is a hosting problem for Commons. Fæ (talk) 14:16, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

In the example the subject looks at the camera. I would therefore assume that there was consent for publication. It is not something like a birthday party where the people might assume the photos to be used only within family and friends. GPSLeo (talk) 15:00, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Given the age of these photos (I think they're substantially older than Fæ estimated), these children are probably in their 40s or 50s by now, if not older. Coupled with the fact that the photos will remain publicly accessible through DPLA / DVIDS, I wouldn't get too concerned about the personality rights issue. Omphalographer (talk) 15:57, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

The date at the source is given as "10/2/1994 - 1999". So the photographs in the album may be 27 to 32 years old^*. There's no estimation, these are the dates in the archive. I'll add a second image better to illustrate the younger models used. There issue is there cannot be consent at that age, further the archive has no record about consent or even a named photographer, despite this being recent enough to expect the models to still be living.

^*Recognizing some inconsistencies I'm doubting this analysis. Effectively these are like badly organized shoe boxes of holiday photos with years written on the label, however with so little information, like a named photographer or specific dates, there seems reason to distrust even these date ranges. If we are going to make assumptions about personality rights or similar, all the information needs to be taken as effectively absent. --Fæ (talk) 16:40, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

But they are definitely government works and therefore public domain? If they are that bad organized my main concern would be that DPLA does not have the rights to publish these files as public domain. GPSLeo (talk) 17:23, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Keep in mind that on a military base, especially before the ramp-up of contractors in the 2000s, just about everyone likely to be around with a camera is a government employee. - Jmabel ! talk 00:58, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

This particular album has family accommodation, family events and portraits of families with children. There is no information on the archive record for who took these photographs, it could easily have been someone living on the base who was not a government employee but married to one. It is another assumption that the photographs were taken by the same person, given the unreliability of the dates which is the only consistent bit of information, but even that has been shown to be wrong. Fæ (talk) 06:12, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Personality rights in the U.S. are very limited. Mostly, they have to do with not implying an endorsement of a product or company; some states have rules against certain kinds of deepfakes, but there is nothing at a federal level. As long as we are not talking about CSAM (and clearly in these examples we are not), I'm not aware of anything that makes a legal distinction for photographs of people who are underage, so unless someone's got something they can point to, any issue of this sort would be one of Commons policy, not one based in personality rights. - Jmabel ! talk 00:52, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

I thought Commons:Personality rights was a useful reference and does not limit Commons to only being concerned about extremes like CSAM. The statement "A child or a person judged incompetent by a court of competent jurisdiction should be considered with even greater care, as they probably cannot give valid consent even if they appear to." is relevant and is clearly how organizations like NSPCC define these situations, refer to the section on consent at https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/online-safety/photographing-filming-children. These photos may have been taken 30 to 50 years ago, but these same considerations apply if the sources we are harvesting have no records about consent, or who took the photograph, or the date, or the context. Everything being assumed is just that, assumptions in the absence of facts, which is not a good basis for judging if there has been appropriate consent from a child. Fæ (talk) 06:08, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

We can choose to have a more restrictive policy, but that is not a right, it's a courtesy. - Jmabel ! talk 22:55, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Courtesy is fine. Nobody has mentioned rights. This is more about making the best ethical choice for potentially intrusive photographs of children and how we apply our understanding of the need for consent when photographs of potentially identifiable children are hosted. It seems appropriate to reconsider whether hosting close up photographs of children that have no realistic educational value, are not "historical", and are not of superior quality as portraits, is what Commons is for. Fæ (talk) 01:32, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

If the photo had first been posted by a random person, I might share the concern about consent, but presumably the DoD made such evaluations before posting. - Jmabel ! talk 00:56, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

@Jmabel: with Personality rights in the U.S. are very limited, you're certainly right, but only for scenes shot in the US, no? It's funny that this issue about personality rights came up again, as I opened Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:2 girls in Japan which includes File:Navy Misawa sailors participate in Career Day 140328-N-DP652-002.jpg and File:Brought together through music 130420-M-PZ610-505.jpg. Both are DoD images from a foreign base used by the US. I harbour the apprehension that US military photographers may operate only with US laws in mind, not regulations from abroad. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 07:04, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

I don't know in what degree Japanese civil law applies on a U.S. base in Japan. Do you have anything substantive on that? - Jmabel ! talk 23:01, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

I did some quick googling and found en:U.S.–Japan Status of Forces Agreement: Although the Japanese court system has jurisdiction for most crimes committed by American servicemembers in Japan, there are exceptions if the American was "acting in official duty," or if the victim was another American. In those cases the American system has jurisdiction, unless it is voluntarily waived.

That indicates that indeed US laws take precedence for military photographers, and your sentence "any issue of this sort would be one of Commons policy, not one based in personality rights." is all the more true: Commons:Photographs of identifiable people#Legal issues unmistakably states Commons requires photos to respect the legal rights of the subject in all of the following countries: (a) the country in which the photo was taken; (b) the country from which the photo was uploaded; (c) the United States (where Commons images are stored)., and military bases aren't embassies or the like, so definitively part of whichever country they are situated in, not some extraterritorial part of the country/countries using the base. It would have us follow the table in Commons:Photographs of identifiable people#Country specific... Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 00:42, 4 August 2026 (UTC)