File talk:Maria-Kotarba-Auschwitz.jpg

Fixed broken link
The link that the nominator for deletion supplied in July 2007 in the template as "This" went to a Wikipedia disambiguation page for "PD". I finally found the link that that nominator apparently intended and I fixed the link.

This image may (or may not) come from an exhibition in Block 6: The Life of the Prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, in Poland, that consists in part of photographs made by inmates ordered to photograph other inmates; if Wilhelm Brasse, for example, took this photograph (among the est. 40,000 to 50,000 that he says that he took), he did so for records that the Nazis were creating of "identity pictures" of these inmates after their arrival; the photographs are now part of the photo archive of that Museum, and it drew from its unpublished photo archive to make its exhibition in Block 6: The Life of the Prisoners, which was mounted as a "permanent exhibit" by the Museum and its staff employed by it in 1955. The Museum explicitly tells visitors that they are not allowed to use cameras in this and other "indoor" exhibits and not to photograph it at all.

The Museum claims ownership rights to its indoor and other exhibits on its official Web site, where it explains the rules for visiting the Site of the Death Camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. In the case of Brasse, he took photographs at what is now known as KL Auschwitz-Birkenau (Auschwitz concentration camp) from 1940 to 1945, when he was forcibly moved to another camp in Austria. These records are no longer German records; they are in the archives of this Museum, other memorial sites and museums, like the United States Holocaust Museum, which cites an affiliation with the A-B Museum and which respects and observes its rules for its exhibits of materials loaned to it for exhibition in the United States (according to sources that I have already added to Wilhelm Brasse and related articles. Brasse is a still-living (91 years old) Polish man, who stopped taking photographs after WWII (after 1945), but who has participated in a commercially-available documentary film about his life and work (including images of the photographs), The Portraitist.  The complicated situation of the "identity pictures" taken by Brasse and some other inmates forced by the Nazis to take them for their records, is not clearcut in terms of copyrights, ownership of intellectual (incl. artistic) properties such as photographs and photographs of photographs), Websites and print publications which may or may not have published some such photographs (in around 2002 and 2003 or before or later), copyrighted documentary film footage, and so on.

For related information, see the link I just provided in the template placed in July 2007, and also see Wikipedia:Public Domain#Public records, which also pertains to materials that were once public records but are now housed in the archives and exhibits of museums. These materials are not in the "public domain" in the United States; they were not published or printed prior to 1923 (if they were published or printed at all), and the source of the image uploaded to Wikipedia is not clearly enough identified; a newspaper article is the uploader's source for the image; but the ownership of the photograph in the image is more complex than the uploader's descriptions and fair use rationale state. That is why it is being discussed in w:WP:FUR:WP:FUR/WP:NFR. Polish copyright law (an stub-article in Wikipedia which I've templated for missing citations) is cited in the image page; however, Wikipedia policy relating to images, non-free content, and copyright law in the United States are most pertinent: the links to the pertinent policy are accessible via WP:Copy-vio.

If there is doubt about the copyright status of this image in the United States (Wikipedia is in Florida, in the United States), it cannot be uploaded to Wikipedia with a claim of "public domain." (The photograph was not even made until at the earliest 1940; dates of arrival of the inmate would be in article on the subject, based on records archived and accessible via the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Website search facility, or other search facility for Nazi concentration/extermination camp inmates/victims/survivors. Most of these photographs were made between 1940 and 1945.  They were not published or printed prior to 1923 (U.S. public domain year); and they were not necessarily published or printed in Poland prior to 1994 (as assumed/claimed/stated in the image page).

I don't think that this photograph is in the "public domain" according to current Polish copyright law or according to U.S. copyright law, which has exceptions for "public records", of which the photographs were and are (although held by different "owners"; Auschwitz-Birkenau is a State Museum in Poland, not Germany, and these are not held by the Germans or by Germany. I don't see how the photograph that this version in the image derives from is in the "public domain" in the United States or in the European Union.

But what counts most is whether or not this image meets Wikipedia policy for inclusion and provides the necessary fair use rationale (if and needed) and licenses (if and as needed) to be uploaded to Wikipedia without the possibility of claims against Wikipedia for potential copyright infringement. --NYScholar (talk) 05:49, 5 September 2008 (UTC) (additions) --NYScholar (talk) 05:57, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

It is highly doubtful that this image comes from a photograph in the "public domain" in the United States (or in Poland); the image page requires a fair-use rationale for each of its uses in Wikipedia (each article it is used in), the rationale in each case needs to identify the article it is being used in, and the uploader needs to identify the source of the image in the description (not just the source the uploader used but also the source that the newspaper used, which it states is the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum. This presentation of this image is still misleading and inaccurate, especially regarding legal matters such as "public domain" and copyright issues.  --NYScholar (talk) 06:04, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

If the uploader cannot identify precisely when the photograph from which this image derives was taken, how can the uploader claim "public domain" or no "copyright" being attached to it; how does this uploader know that? What reliable source of information for this photograph's history has this uploader provided to verify the claims of "public domain" in either Poland or in the United States? And, furthermore, even if it were in the "public domain" in Poland (which is being questioned), that does not make the photograph in the "public domain" in the United States. If it is claimed to be part of "public records", there are multiple exceptions in U.S. copyright law for "public records" (such as and including where they are held, in whose archives), which the uploader and those saying to "keep" this image in Wikipedia have not addressed or even taken into account. --NYScholar (talk) 06:09, 5 September 2008 (UTC)