Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:First Spouse Program

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This deletion discussion is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive. You can read the deletion policy or ask a question at the Village pump. If the circumstances surrounding this file have changed in a notable manner, you may re-nominate this file or ask for it to be undeleted.

First spouse gold coins/medals designed by AIP contractors

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Each of the nominated coin designs was created by an Artistic Infusion Program contractor. For reasons explained at Commons:Determining if U.S. coins are free to use, coins designed by Artistic Infusion Program contractors are not freely usable and are therefore ineligible to be hosted on Commons. Please see User:Mysterymanblue/U.S. Coins with known copyright statuses#First Spouse gold coin program for more information on how this determination was made.

 Mysterymanblue  01:02, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[]

Well, then move the files to Wikipedia to save them. This unnecessarily decimates the images of the First Spouse Program, part of a fine article, and if no Artistic Infusion Program contractor has contacted Commons after all this time (and it's a good guess that they surely know that the images are being shown on Wikipedia pages) then Wikipedia would be a good place to store them as fair use. Makes no sense to jump directly into deletion, better to save them until such time as actual legitimate ownership objections arise. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:52, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[]
Please see COM:PRP: "The copyright owner will not mind" is not a valid reason to keep a file on Commons. The purpose of Wikimedia Commons is to be a repository of free media, not just to provide images for the various Wikimedia projects. The value of a repository of free media ceases to be when it is filled with files that are not truly freely licensed. Some files may be reuploaded to the English Wikipedia under fair use, but the number of files would have to be significantly reduced per w:en:WP:NFTABLE: "The use of non-free images arranged in a gallery or tabular format is usually unacceptable...." If there was more, well sourced commentary on the individual designs in the first spouse program article, reuploading all the files might be plausible, but as it stands, most of them will have to go.  Mysterymanblue  04:14, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[]
@Mysterymanblue: Not to be rude, but the only two places medals are mentioned on that page relate to a link to your user page. Which from what I can tell is just a table full of references to articles about designers or the specific coins. None of which actually says anything about copyright law. Nor is a table on someone's user page by itself authoritative. So do you have a link to laws that specifically say commissioned medals are covered by copyright? or are we just suppose to take your word for it because you created a fancy table in your user space with a bunch of random links? --Adamant1 (talk) 04:09, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[]
@Adamant1: The links on that user subpage shows that the nominated medals were designed by AIP contractors. AIP contractors are not federal employees, so the works they create are not in the public domain under the provisions of 17 U.S. Code § 105(a); in fact, statute specifically specifies that the "United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise". AIP contractors transfer the rights to their designs to the mint, so the copyright in the designs is held by the mint. The citations at Commons:Determining if U.S. coins are free to use support this claim. These citations apply to both coins and medals.

Established in 2003, the Artistic Infusion Program (AIP) contracts talented, professional American artists who represent diverse backgrounds and a variety of interests. These artists work with Mint staff to create and submit new designs for our coins and medals.

— https://www.usmint.gov/learn/artists

The Contractor shall create and submit one or more original designs based on the information and narrative provided in each delivery order.

— United States Mint | CALL FOR ARTISTS: SEEKING ARTISTS TO CREATE UNITED STATES COIN AND MEDAL DESIGNS

All design submissions to the United States Mint shall be assigned to the United States Mint and will become its sole and exclusive property.

— United States Mint | CALL FOR ARTISTS: SEEKING ARTISTS TO CREATE UNITED STATES COIN AND MEDAL DESIGNS
Neither Commons:Determining if U.S. coins are free to use nor User:Mysterymanblue/Copyright statuses of U.S. coins and medals is "authoritative" because the reasoning presented therein stands on its own. This reasoning has been upheld in at least two prior DRs: Commons:Deletion requests/Post 2003 U.S. commemorative coins designed by AIP artists or as part of a competition and Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Patriot62371. Wikimedia Commons requires affirmative confirmation that the medals are freely usable for them to be hosted here; in the absence of such evidence, the files must bee deleted.  Mysterymanblue  18:35, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[]
@Mysterymanblue: "The Contractor shall create and submit one or more original designs based on the information and narrative provided in each delivery order" says absolutely nothing about copyright law and it's kind of ridiculous that your acting like it does. Same goes for the other sentences you cited. None of them say anything about what the law for medals is. Which is what I asked you for.
Re your other assertions: You citing two past DRs is just circular. Things get deleted and un-deleted all the time. In the meantime, "All the logos should be deleted because 2 logos were deleted before" isn't a valid reason to delete all the logos. More so because they related to coins, not medals, and you were the one that voted delete. Seriously, I swear this is just one massive circular exercise on your part. Literally everything related to this leads back to you somehow.
Also, your whole "affirmative confirmation" thing is not how copyright law or Commons works. For instance, we can assume any work that we think doesn't meet the threshold of originality is PD without the creator of said work giving us specific, affirmative confirmation about it. In the meantime, it's on them to file a complaint and have the work removed if it turns out we are wrong. I don't see how this is any different. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:15, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[]
@Adamant1: Copyright law says nothing specifically about U.S. coins and medals. Instead, it generally provides for copyright protection in all creative works fixed in a tangible medium of expression and carves out specific exemptions for some types of works. The generally accepted standard on Wikimedia Commons is that the burden of proof is on those that want a file to be kept to provide affirmative evidence that it is in the public domain or is freely licensed. Files that fail to provide valid evidence of free usability have to be deleted under the precautionary principle. (This is what I mean by "affirmative confirmation".) In the case of most works from the U.S. government - including works marked with the {{PD-USGov-money}} and {{PD-USGov}} templates - the affirmative proof that we need comes in the form of 17 U.S. Code § 105(a), under which works of the United States government are generally in the public domain. A work of the United States government is defined by 17 U.S. Code § 101 as "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties". If we can show that a file was invalidly uploaded under this rationale, the file no longer has affirmative proof of free usability and it must be deleted unless a valid rationale can be found.
The citations substantiate three very important things that show the provided rationale is invalid:
  1. Artistic Infusion Program artists are contractors, not employees, of the federal government.
  2. The copyright in AIP designs is transferred to the mint, who then owns them.
  3. AIP contractors design both medals and coins.
This leads us to three very important conclusions:
  1. 17 U.S. Code § 105(a) cannot apply to coins and medals by AIP contractors, so the rationale under which these coins and medals are uploaded is invalid.
  2. The copyright in the designs is assigned to the United States Mint, which 17 U.S. Code § 105(a) explicitly allows for. This is further evidence that the coins and medals are not in the public domain.
  3. It is absurd to assert that there is a different intellectual property standard for coins and medals designed by AIP contractors, since the agreement and job description include designs for both on equal footing.
All of this shows that the rationale under which these files were uploaded is incorrect and that they should be deleted. The burden of proof falls on those who want the files to be kept to show that they are freely usable under some other rationale.
Deletion requests are closed by disinterested third parties (most often administrators) who make their decisions based on facts and consensus. That I started these deletion requests and am citing them is not circular reasoning. I am not citing myself as evidence that I am right; I am citing the fact that these DRs were closed toward deletion as evidence of some sort of precedent. Obviously, this sort of precedent is not very strong, and if you believe that the DRs were closed in error, I strongly encourage you to file an undeletion request.  Mysterymanblue  22:30, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[]
@Mysterymanblue: What this comes down to for me is point 2. "The copyright in AIP designs is transferred to the mint, who then owns them." Combined with "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties." Since the medals/coins are still being prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government, even if they are "designed" by contractors as part of a competition or whatever. The artist doesn't retain the copyright. The United States Mint does, and they are employees of the government.
Plenty of federal, state, county, town, Etc. Etc. things are partly designed by third parties, but still PD because the work is ultimately "prepared" by employees of the United States Government. A government agency consulting an outside source for the design of something doesn't negate it and in no way does the mint imply that they aren't the ones preparing the coins/medals. It's not magically not prepared by them because someone else drew the design unless you can explicitly show that "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties" doesn't apply in this specific instance, but I highly doubt you can.
Also, coins and medals are different, because the copyright clauses you have cited specifically say "coins", not "everything prepared by the United States Mint" And the United States Mint is pretty clear they don't consider medals and coins as the same thing. Really your making some kind of nonsensical "same general shape and material = same copyright rules" argument and I don't care what your personal opinion about it is. I care what the Mint and copyright laws say. In the meantime, the precautionary principle doesn't mean each DR shouldn't be discussed on it's own merits or that "precaution" means "take whatever the nominator says at face value." Notice it does say it means "where there is significant doubt about the freedom of a particular file, it should be deleted." It's 100% on the nominator to create the significant doubt in their nomination rational. Which you haven't done. --Adamant1 (talk) 05:53, 11 September 2021 (UTC)[]
@Adamant1: You misunderstand the effect of layers of copyright. The coin/medal sculpture is a three-dimensional work based on a two-dimensional design. The sculpture is almost always prepared by employees of the United States Mint, so the sculpture itself is not protected by copyright. However, the sculpture is a derivative work of the design, so it is also protected by the copyright of that underlying design. This principle is laid out in the official Wikimedia Commons guideline on derivative works, which requires that derivative works on Commons be based on freely usable preexisting works or receive the consent of the copyright holder of the preexisting work.
The fact that copyright law denies protection for every work "prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government" does not imply that federal government employee-created derivative works of copyrighted material are freely usable. Federal statute specifies that the copyright of a preexisting work is in no way affected by the creation of a derivative work:

The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work... The copyright in such work is independent of, and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of, any copyright protection in the preexisting material.

— 17 U.S. Code § 103(b)
Coins and medals are absolutely not the same thing. I know this because I have essentially reviewed every coin and medal produced by the United States Mint in the past 30 years. However, the processes by which they are produced are extremely similar. You say that the copyright clauses I have cited only apply to coins, but this is clearly false. None of the cited copyright statutes mention coins; the AIP website says that AIP contractors "submit new designs for our coins and medals"; and the job contract for AIP contractors is literally subtitled "SEEKING ARTISTS TO CREATE UNITED STATES COIN AND MEDAL DESIGNS" and almost every instance of the word "coin" is accompanied by the word "medal".  Mysterymanblue  07:01, 11 September 2021 (UTC)[]
@Mysterymanblue: Your leaving out an important thing here though. That the original designer gives up the copyright of the design to the United States Mint. So there is no "original copyright holder of the design" to get consent from, because there is no original copyright. Except for later on when the coin/medal is turned into a " fixed work" by employees of the United States. There is no copyright held by the designer though. According to 17 U.S. Code § 101 "A work is “created” when it is fixed in a copy or phonorecord for the first time." The original design is not the "created work of the coin/medal in a fixed copy." It's only one step in the overall process of "fixing the work for the first time." Which is probably why the designers give up copyright. So there is no risk of them suing the federal government over them, or anyone elses, usage of the design after the fact. In the meantime, are you seriously going to argue that Wikimedia Commons can't host images of cakes because "they are derivatives of Betty Croker cake mixes. So precautionary principle Etc. Etc....."? Or more on topic, should a construction worker (who is likely contracted) be able serve Wikimedia Commons take down notices for it hosting images of government buildings? What about contractors who build bridges, should we not host images of any public bridges not directly and only built by government employees? What about if a catering business is contracted to serve snacks at a White House dinner, should we not upload images of it because it involved contractors and images of the dinner are "derivative works" of their catering? "Hey precautionary principle man. We should delete every image of a politician eating cheese and crackers just in case." --Adamant1 (talk) 00:10, 12 September 2021 (UTC)[]
@Adamant1: Several things:
  • You are right that the copyright is not held by the AIP contractor; it is held by the Mint. We are not worried about the contractor suing us or the Mint; only the Mint has the power to sue for copyright infringement over these designs. As previously clarified, "the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise" (17 U.S. Code § 105(a)). The federal government can, but rarely ever does, sue for copyright infringement; however, per COM:PRP "The copyright owner will not bother to sue" is not a valid defense against the non-free status of a work.
  • A work is created when it is fixed in a copy for the first time. The coin designers create line drawings of the coin designs, which are protected because they have been fixed on paper or in a computer's memory. See here for an example of a design that was fixed in a tangible medium before being made into a coin.
  • In the context of copyright law, cakes are not derivative works of Betty Crocker cake mix because only the shape and decoration of a cake can be protected by copyright. But this is a non sequitur and has nothing to do with this DR.
  • Government buildings (recently) designed by contractors are protected by copyright. However, freedom of panorama means that the copyright holder does not have the exclusive right to make photographs of their building, so we do not delete photos of copyrighted buildings on the basis of architectural copyright. But this is a non sequitur and has nothing to do with this DR.
  • Whether art made in the form of food (such as the arrangement of food on a plate) is protectable is an interesting legal question that you can read more about here. If a federally contracted caterer arranged food sufficiently creatively and if it was determined that arrangements of food can be copyrightable, photographs of that food would not be allowed on Commons unless we had evidence of free usability. But this is a non sequitur and has nothing to do with this DR.  Mysterymanblue  09:10, 12 September 2021 (UTC)[]
@Mysterymanblue:
1. Nowhere have I said the images of medals should be kept because "The copyright owner will not bother to sue." Nor is that at all what my argument against deletion of the medals is about. So that's a strawman.
2. As you say "A work is created when it is fixed in a copy for the first time" and the work here is not the original 2d design, which is only one step in the process of making a medal. Nor is the original design what's being hosted in Wikimedia Commons. File:2012 Alice Paul bronze medal obverse.jpg is not "a line drawing that is fixed on paper or in computer memory." So that is also a strawman.
3. If you think the government building example is a non sequitur, cool. The point to the question is, where in the process of a government employee creating something with the consultation of an outside party does it no longer become a work of said employee? Because according what you've quoted the designs are "based on the information and narrative provided in each delivery order." Which doesn't sound like the contractor has all that much involvement in the process. Except for the United States Mint saying "draw a picture of Frances Cleveland" and the designer doing it. Realistically, what is that, like 5% involvement in the overall medal creation process? I don't personally thank that's enough to say the actual medal that we are hosting an image of is no longer ""prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government." Especially since the government employee is the one that comes up with the information and "narrative" for the design. Your treating this like the copyright laws say if something is touched by a contractor it is suddenly, magically, no longer in the public domain. That's not how the copyright works. --Adamant1 (talk) 10:49, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[]

Deleted: Per nomination including the essay Commons:Determining if U.S. coins are free to use. The terms of use on the website of the US Mint state ‘’Coin and medal designs may be based on sources that are copyrighted and licensed to the United States Mint or otherwise used with permission. In some cases, such designs may themselves be covered by third-party copyrights assigned to the United States Mint. Numismatic designs may also contain third parties’ other proprietary material, trademarks, or logos licensed or provided to the United States Mint for limited purposes. Reuse of such designs may require permission of the rights owner.’’ There is a possibility these coins are copyrighted. Consequently, the uploader – or any other Commons user - has to show per COM:EVID that the image can be used with an acceptable licence. This has imho not been done in this case. It is not the other way round, that somebody has to prove the coins are protected by copyright. So therefore these images must be deleted. --Ellywa (talk) 17:06, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[]

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