Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:G. L. Manuel frères

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Files in Category:G. L. Manuel frères[edit]

These are photographs from a Paris (France) based photo studio, G. L. Manuel frères, active from 1913 to 1939. G. L. are the two owners, two photographer brothers, Gaston Manuel and Lucien Manuel. There's a third brother, fr:Henri Manuel, who had a photo studio with his brother Gaston starting in 1900, until he went solo in 1913, and Gaston founded G. L. Manuel frères with his other brother Lucien. That probably explains why various web sites (including Wikidata) have 1900 as the year in which G. L. Manuel frères was founded.

Anyway, according to fr:Henri Manuel, Gaston Manuel lived from 1881 to 1967, and Lucien Manuel lived from 1882 to 1971. Archival records of the French Legion of Honor I could access with [1] confirm a December 28, 1967 death date for Gaston Manuel and a December 27, 1971 death date for Lucien Manuel. Which means their works are still copyrighted in France (and some of their works are most likely also still protected in the US because of the URAA if published, like postcards and such).

It is reasonable to assume that if two photographer brothers have a common studio, they are also the authors of the photographs by this studio. So all these photographs are still protected by copyright, and the files should be deleted. The files can be restored in 2042, 70 years after the death of Lucien Manuel. Any US copyrights for works published no later than 1939 should have expired as well by then.

Rosenzweig τ 15:47, 26 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  •  Comment If the photographs are credited to "Studio G.L. Manuel Frères" and not "G.L. Manuel Frères", then it is a company and not individuals.They are protected 70 years from publication not 70 years pma if they are considered as collective works (cf Studio d'Harcourt jurisprudence). — Racconish 💬 16:12, 26 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
As far as I saw, they are rarely credited to a studio (even though some editors here often wrote that in the file description template; an exception where it is right on the postcard is File:Paul Faure.jpg) or atelier. They are usually credited to G.-L. Manuel frères, G. L. Manuel frères, Manuel frères, G. & L. Manuel or Gaston Lucien Manuel. --Rosenzweig τ 17:33, 26 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
See here the rejected forms. — Racconish 💬 20:02, 26 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
We have {{PD-France}} for collective works, which says right in the template The collective work status is quite restrictive, please make sure that it is actually established. Is it? en.wp has an article on these collective works, en:Collective work (France), which says The concept of a collective work (œuvre collective) in French law is complicated and unclear, [...] The article goes on to say that all authorities agree that the concept of an oeuvre collective in France covers dictionaries, encyclopaedias and periodical works such as newspapers or magazines. I can't find photographs here. Later paragraphs of that article focus on contributions of employees who transfer their authorship rights in a collective work to a maître: The maître takes all the ownership rights in a collective work, and these rights are directly vested in the maître rather than transferred from the contributors, as long as the maître directed the creative process enough for it to be considered a collective work. Here we have a photo studio jointly owned by two brothers, so not employees, but owners. Probably not the same as Studio d'Harcourt. Can you provide links to more discussion, case law etc. about this? --Rosenzweig τ 16:40, 26 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
You can forget these irrelevant examples Clin. There is now a jurisprudence in France for the application of the concept of collective works to studio photos. If the corporate look is predominant, if it looks like a photo by Studio X and not by photographer Y, then it is a collective work. You will find easily a lot of discussion on the Studio d'Harcourt case. Here is one. Here is a more recent case. — Racconish 💬 16:51, 26 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Arguments are admissible and should be taken into account in order to comprehensively prevent any legal issue. Trauenbaum (talk) 05:51, 27 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The BNF has determined that these file are in the public domain in France[edit]

@Rosenzweig:

Ces fichiers proviennent du site Internet de la Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF). La BNF a établi que ce fichier est dans le domaine public en France; These files come from the website of the National Library of France (BNF). The BNF has determined that these files are in the public domain in France. Keep it --L'Ange au Sourire (talk) 16:00, 26 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Did they also tell why they think these are in the public domain in France? --Rosenzweig τ 16:40, 26 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I've looked them all up on the BNF web site. The German language version does not say anything about the rights status, French says «Droits : Consultable en ligne», and the English version says “Rights : Public domain”. That is not exactly a clear statement, you could even say it is downright confusing. --Rosenzweig τ 16:53, 26 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I would agree the argument of the authority of BNF to assess copyright is not very strong. BNF considers all periodical publications that have stopped their publication more than 70 years ago to be collective works, regardless of the question whether the copyright ot a certain work incorporated in that publication can be assigned to a person because it is signed. The question here is rather : should it be assigned to a person or to a collective entity with no way of knwowing precisely who did what? — Racconish 💬 17:04, 26 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

File from Norwegian National Library[edit]

The source of File:Portrett av den norsk-amerikanske sopranen Grace Holst (1892-1975) (34598798554).jpg can be found at The Website of Norwegian National Library. I see no reason to preemptively override their determination of this image being Public Domain. So I at least vote keep for this image. The others, I haven't looked into. TommyG (talk) 07:06, 27 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Response[edit]

 Comment I'll respond here to several arguments brought in this discussion (above). I'll list them below in bullet point form and sign each section separately to allow for easy and transparent discussion. --Rosenzweig τ 21:16, 29 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  •  Comment – original legal research: That is not an argument here at Wikimedia Commons. Unlike Wikipedia, where "original research" is frowned upon as a source for writing articles, Commons is a repository that hosts many millions of media files, but only if they are freely licensed or in the public domain. Establishing the copyright status of these files is what we need to do here, and we can't do that by just regurgitating what others have claimed. I'm an admin here, and trying to get the copyright facts is part of the job description. --Rosenzweig τ 21:16, 29 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Comment – copyright paranoia: Finding out that some files that are hosted here may actually not be freely licensed or in the public domain, and subsequently nominating them for deletion giving the detailed reasons why, is in no way "paranoia". It's part of the necessary process to keep Wikimedia Commons running and to minimize negative legal repercussions both for the project and its users. If you haven't done so yet, please read Commons:Project scope/Precautionary principle, where it says:
"Also, arguments that amount to "we can get away with it", such as the following, are against Commons' aims:"
  1. "The copyright owner will not bother to sue or cannot afford to."
  2. "The copyright owner will never find out."
  3. "The copyright owner will not mind/should be pleased that we have disseminated their work."
  4. "Nobody knows who the copyright owner is, so it really doesn’t matter."
  5. "The file is obviously common property. It can be found all over the internet and nobody has complained." --Rosenzweig τ 21:16, 29 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Comment – the BNF or some other library/museum determined this or that file to be in the public domain: Did the BNF really do that? As I remember, years ago they claimed many of their online contents to be in the public domain, but more or less quietly changed that to "Consultable en ligne" (viewable online). Like in this case: I checked all four files that were mentioned, and in every case the BNF now has them as "Consultable en ligne" (while the English language version of the web site still has them as "Public domain"). As I wrote above: That is not exactly a clear statement, you could even say it is downright confusing, and I don't think you can say that the BNF "has determined that these files are in the public domain in France".
This is not the only library, archive or museum to be (apparently) confused about copyright. Heidelberg University Library here in Germany posted the complete Jugend magazine online, 1896 to 1940. At first, they also claimed that these volumes were in the public domain, despite lots of illustrations in that magazine by (credited) artists who died less than 70 years ago. Then, after questions from Wikipedia/Commons users, they changed it to "Rechte vorbehalten - freier Zugang" (rights reserved - free access). I've seen more cases like these, but for now that example should suffice.
Given that even France's national library retracted its earlier "public domain" statement, why exactly should I trust the Norwegian or Lithuanian libraries to get the copyright statement right for French photos or postcards they have in their collections because they show a Norwegian or Lithuanian performer? The Norwegian library simply uses this "public domain" image without any reason why the photo would be in the PD (while also uploading it to Flickr with "no known usage restrictions"), while the Lithuanian library uses the words "public domain", linking them to the Creative Commons PD mark. Neither of them does in any way explain why the photo should be in the PD. Or even where the photo is supposed to be in the PD. In Norway or Lithuania perhaps? But to keep the files, we need them to be in the PD in France and in the US.
tl;dr: We shouldn't blindly believe anything that is claimed by a library, museum or similar, but think with our own heads and apply plausibility criteria if necessary. Like in this case: French photographers died less than 70 years ago, yet libraries from other countries claim their photos to be in the PD or say that there are "no known usage restrictions" without explaining why -> that is very implausible and should not be taken as true. --Rosenzweig τ 21:16, 29 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Comment – the photos by this studio could be collective works (which would protect them for 70 years from publication): I've read the two articles about court cases from 2014 and 2017 above. The second one immediately starts by saying that such court decisions declaring photographs to be collective works are rare ("Rares sont les décisions de justice admettant qu’une œuvre photographique est une œuvre collective"). The French Ministry of Culture, in this guideline for photographs in cultural institutions, calls collective works "rare exceptions". So it's not like such decisions are common for studio photos. On the contrary, the norm in French intellectual property law, as confirmed in the first article linked above, is not collective works, but works by individual authors, persons, not corporations. Collective works were introduced in 1957 mainly for the cases I mentioned above (dictionaries, encyclopaedias and periodical works such as newspapers or magazines), and while at least one court has now applied them to specific photographs, the summary given by Racconish – "If the corporate look is predominant, if it looks like a photo by Studio X and not by photographer Y, then it is a collective work." – seems to be quite abridged.
Both of the court cases, decided by the same court, same pôle (the one for intellectual property law), same chamber, in Paris, revolve around photographers employed by companies, in 2014 the Studio Harcourt, in 2017 some online merchant of clothes, shoes and fashion accessoires, hence the 2014 "studio" case and the 2017 "fashion photos" case. The first was brought by the photographer, the second by the company, but essentially in both cases the photographers wanted to retain control of their photographs and also additional payment for additional uses, while the companies wanted complete control over how the photographs were used, without any additional payments beyond what they had payed the photographer initially. So the companies argued that these photos were collective works because all the prerequisites demanded for this by article L.113-2 alinéa 3 of the French Code de la propriété intellectuelle (intellectual property law) were fulfilled, namely that (my summary) the work was created upon the initiative of a (natural or legal) person which edited this work, published and distributed it under his/her/its direction, and that the individual contributions of the various people involved cannot be distinguished anymore ("sur l’initiative d’une personne physique ou morale qui l’édite, la publie et la divulgue sous sa direction et son nom et dans laquelle la contribution personnelle des divers auteurs participant à son élaboration se fond dans l’ensemble en vue duquel elle est conçue, sans qu’il soit possible d’attribuer à chacun d’eux un droit distinct sur l’ensemble réalisé"), and the court agreed.
The court then decided, after hearing the case, reviewing evidence that was brought etc. that the photographers and other people involved (stylists, lighting, make-up) were basically working under such tight guidelines regulating every detail of the photographs that they did not have any room to express any creativity of their own, so that the resulting photographs basically reflected the studio's or company's style and one cannot identify any individual contributions anymore; therefore these photos are collective works by the reasoning of this court.
That court was able to decide these two cases after reviewing the facts brought in each case, which apparently included detailed insights into how photographs are created in these companies. For the Manuel frères photos, we have nothing of the sort, we don't know how it worked back then at Manuel frères. Unlike the 2014 and 2017 cases, it's also not a case of employed photographer against his employing company, these are two photographers who had their own studio. Finally, they certainly weren't expecting their photographs to be "collective works" when that whole category was only introduced into French IP law in 1957, 18 years after they had ceased operation.
tl;dr: For the reasons given above, we should definitively not jump to the conclusion that all photos by French photo studios (or all such photos with a certain distinctive "look") are collective works, regardless if they are credited to a "studio" or not (in this case, they were usually not credited to one). Unlike a court, we don't have the necessary insights and resources to make that determination, and we should therefore only label French photos as "collective works" if, like in the Harcourt case, there is a specific court decision declaring such. --Rosenzweig τ 21:16, 29 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Ecrire entièrement en anglais un énorme argumentaire alors que cela concerne un studio français et donc des images principalement utilisées par des francophones, c'est assez malhonnête car tous les francophones ne maîtrisent pas assez bien l'anglais pour le traduire, le comprendre et pouvoir y répondre.Guil2027 (talk) 15:29, 1 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Sorry, while I can understand written French, I'm not good enough at writing French, and English is the de facto working language of Commons. You can use one of the web translation services (like Google), try [2]. / (traduction automatique DeepL:) Désolé, bien que je puisse comprendre le français écrit, je ne suis pas assez bon pour écrire le français, et l'anglais est la langue de travail de facto des Commons. Vous pouvez utiliser l'un des services de traduction en ligne (comme Google), essayez [3]. --Rosenzweig τ 15:58, 1 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
This is very persuasive but I still have a question. We know these are not collective works, you have persuaded me. However, we don't know exactly whose works these are: we don't know which brother created this or that picture. Moreover, we don't know for sure that the given picture is indeed created by any of them and not by a certain employee of their studio. It's not that we just currently don't have this information for this case; rather it seems that this is very typical for this kind of studio photographs: nobody at that epoch bothered to keep personal authorship fo any picture. Under these circumstances shouldn't we see these works as anonymous? Andrei Romanenko (talk) 15:02, 2 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I don't think that the legal category of anonymous works was made for cases like this. The French IP code (copyright law) apparently does not define what an anonymous work is, probably because it's assumed that no explanation is needed. Looking back on the history of the copyright laws we currently have, you'll find that they basically go back to British laws, specifically the 1710 en:Statute of Anne, which was about printed books. And in the context of printed books, an anonymous author makes sense, you have a title page where the author is named, and if no author is named, that is deliberate. The French IP code seems to assume that scenario too, because in article L113-6 it says «Les auteurs des oeuvres pseudonymes et anonymes jouissent sur celles-ci des droits reconnus par l'article L. 111-1. Ils sont représentés dans l'exercice de ces droits par l'éditeur ou le publicateur originaire, [...]» (The authors of pseudonymous and anonymous works enjoy the rights recognized by article L. 111-1. They are represented in the exercise of these rights by the publisher or the original publicator, [...])
So anonymous, in this legal sense, means that the author does not want to be known. Here at Wikimedia Commons, it is often convenient to say that a certain work is anonymous. You'll find users who basically declare every photo (or other work) that was uploaded here without naming an author to be anonymous and in the PD after 70 years, with PD-EU-anonymous if it's an EU country or some other tag if it is not. Current copyright laws have to be applied to much more than printed books of course, so I think most people would agree that if a work (photograph or other work) is first (rightfully) published without naming an author, the author can be considered anonymous, unless the name of the author becomes known later (a provision you will usually find in copyright laws). But that we do not know the author does not mean that the author is also anonymous in a legal sense, and specifically, if an author (or two, like in this case) is (are) named, I don't think such a case fits the legal category of an anonymous author.
Instead, I think we should go with another category of work we have in the French IP code (and in many other copyright laws): The cooperative or collaborative work (oeuvre de collaboration), or co-authorship, in which the duration of copyright is determined by the date of the death of the last surving co-author. In our case, the Manuel brothers probably did not actually take their photographs together; most likely the majority or even all of the photographs were taken by either one or the other. But they chose to be credited together, as G. L. Manuel frères or similar (kind of like en:Lennon–McCartney :-)), so we can go with that. And yes, if they had employed photographers working for them, some of the photos could be the work of these employees, who could have lived longer than Lucien Manuel (or not). But unless it became (or becomes) known that a specific photo was actually made by a known employed photographer (because of, for example, a court case, by reviewing archival records or based on research someone does), we have the credit to the Manuel brothers as the legal basis for our assessment of authorship and therefore the duration of copyright. -- Rosenzweig τ 17:08, 2 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Delete all per Rosenzweig. A super-special French "collective work" theory is yet another angle of purely wishful thinking: if we're to apply anything but straightforward pma. 70 it would be cooperative or collaborative work (common enough in copyright acts, and fairly well understood and straightforwardly applicable for cases like this). That the BNF or Nasjonalbiblioteket (Norwegian National Library) has any special authority here is very much mistaken: the Nasjonalbiblioteket determines a work's copyright status in Norway, and they do so based on limited time and whatever information is available. They are often wrong (and are very appreciative of feedback to that effect). This has been the case for pretty much every library or archive I've been in contact with over the years. But in any case, their copyright determination is never going to be an assessment against Commons' policies, just their own internal criteria. It's useful information for us, but we can never just blindly accept it as self-evident and the final word on much of anything. --Xover (talk) 11:49, 6 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Keep. I agree on general principle with the arguments of {{PD-France}}, but I think there is a simpler way to think of these images besides getting into a ticky-tacky argument over French case law, which revolves around whether an individual creator or heirs can exercise a personal PMA copyright duration over a fundamentally collective work. Instead, {{PD-EU-no author disclosure}} seems the relevant license here. While there are a limited number of possible creators for these images (the brothers and their employees), we still don't know who took particular photos. Troubles caused by unknowable creators is why laws like {{PD-EU-no author disclosure}} exist. While we need to be cautious about tags claiming that the authors are not known, I think the sourcing in this case for the images is very authoritative. If the libraries these are drawn from do not have information on individual authorship, no one will. IronGargoyle (talk) 16:45, 13 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
By that logic, several songs by en:Lennon–McCartney would also fit PD-EU-no author disclosure (or a UK counterpart) 70 years after publication, because given the conflicting information we don't exactly know which of the two wrote them. I don't buy this "no author disclosure" theory for images with two named authors. --Rosenzweig τ 18:14, 13 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I don't think the Lennon-McCartney comparison really works for several reasons. First of all, songwriting has the potential to be a more collaborative work than photography in most cases. Lennon and McCartney had joint creative input into many songs. Second, if either author was a sole contributor for a particular song, it is much easier to determine who wrote what. McCartney is still alive (so you can ask him) and I'm certain there is just better historical documentation about The Beatles' works. It's all hypothetical because all these Beatles works are still copyrighted under any regime and will remain so in the US for considerably longer due to URAA. If, hypothetically, we find out that there is a "no author disclosed" Beatles song in the future, with strong evidence that we can never determine the author, and if for some reason we were no longer bound by US copyright, then yeah, I would support keeping this "no author disclosed Beatles song". Just as we don't keep files because we think no one will sue us, we don't delete files because someone might file a spurious suit (DMCA takedowns aside). You can't have your deletion cake and eat it too. This is either a collective work (in which case it should be kept due to {{PD-France}}) or a no author disclosed work (in which case it should be kept due to {{PD-EU-no author disclosure}}. IronGargoyle (talk) 18:53, 13 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Well, I've explained that I reject both of these categories (and why I reject them) and why I think that these are collaborative works with 70 years pma after the death of the last collaborator. --Rosenzweig τ 19:14, 13 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Additional discussion about TOO[edit]

@Matr1x-101: These portrait photographs are NOT below the threshold of originality in either France or the US. See COM:TOO France. --Rosenzweig τ 18:04, 19 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Rosenzweig: COM:TOO France says that French law asserts that a work is copyrightable when it bears the "imprint of the personality of the author". I would argue that some of these photos (like this and this) don't fulfill this criterion. This will probably have to be decided on a file-by-file/case-by-case basis. --Matr1x-101Pinging me doesn't hurt! {user - talk? - useless contributions} 18:18, 19 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Matr1x-101: I think this is a ridiculous notion. But believe what you want if it pleases you. --Rosenzweig τ 18:21, 19 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Rosenzweig, if you think my motion is "ridiculous", please refute it. If the pictures are below TOO, then they could be PD on the URAA date anyway. --Matr1x-101Pinging me doesn't hurt! {user - talk? - useless contributions} 19:01, 19 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Notion, not motion. That whole idea goes back to one outlier court decision about a photo of fish on a dining plate, which COM:TOO France tells clearly enough. That someone would come and think this is a reason to declare portrait photographs (of people, not food) to be below the threshold of originality is just another example of the usual antics here at Wikimedia Commons. And no, even if a photo had been in the PD in France on the URAA date because of this, that would not stop the URAA because it would not be “in the public domain in its source country through expiration of term of protection” (s:Uruguay Round Agreements Act/Title V). If there was no term of protection in the source country, that term did not expire, which means the work was protected by the URAA. --Rosenzweig τ 19:15, 19 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Rosenzweig: , I'm not saying that all photos are lower than French TOO; I'm saying that photos that don't involve much creativity (think of a generic background, no lighting, no facial expression, etc.) are maybe PD. So photos published before 1928 with minimal creativity could be PD, that's my theory. --Matr1x-101Pinging me doesn't hurt! {user - talk? - useless contributions} 19:34, 19 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Rosenzweig: I have (painstakingly) reviewed all of these images. Here's what I think is PD in France and the US.
✓ Is public domain (Use {{TOO-France}} and {{PD-US-expired}}.
 Will be public domain when US copyright expires (the date on the right is the undeletion date):
 Probably above TOO:
 Unsure about TOO:
 Unsure (no date/big range of dates):
I have been fairly conservative on this. If a photo had some lighting/originality, I put it in  unsure. Also, some of my undeletion dates may be slightly wrong. Most of the photos are just unoriginal generic portraits, so most are below TOO. Remember France has "a slightly higher threshold of originality in general, and particularly so in the context of photographic works" (quoting from COM:TOO France). See this blog for more info. --Matr1x-101Pinging me doesn't hurt! {user - talk? - useless contributions} 15:20, 25 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Rosenzweig: on a completely unrelated note, you said "If there was no term of protection in the source country, that term did not expire, which means the work was protected by the URAA". Doesn't that invalidate {{PD-Brazil-Photo}}? --Matr1x-101Pinging me doesn't hurt! {user - talk? - useless contributions} 18:33, 20 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Probably, but please let us not continue that here, take it to COM:VPC instead. --Rosenzweig τ 19:12, 20 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Conclusion[edit]

Je ne comprends vraiment pas cette demande de suppression qui s'éternise et qui manifestement est loin de faire l'unanimité. Comme il s'agit de photographies françaises, on peut se référer au droit français. Et celui-ci est clair :

  • Article L123-3 du code de la propriété intellectuelle : "Pour les oeuvres pseudonymes, anonymes ou collectives, la durée du droit exclusif est de soixante-dix années à compter du 1er janvier de l'année civile suivant celle où l'oeuvre a été publiée. La date de publication est déterminée par tout mode de preuve de droit commun, et notamment par le dépôt légal."

Lorsqu'il est écrit sous une photographie G. L. Manuel frères, il s'agit bien d'une oeuvre collective. On ne sait pas quel frère a réalisé ces photographies et peut-être même qu'il s'agit d'un de leurs employés. Guil2027 (talk) 11:38, 8 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The "collective work" claim has been debated extensively above. I have rejected it giving the detailed reasons why. I say this is a collaborative work:
Sauf qu'il est impossible d'attribuer à chacun des membres du studio G. L. Manuel frères un droit distinct sur chaque photographie, comment peut-on savoir qui a décidé de l'angle, de la pose du modèle, de la lumière, qui a pris la photographie, qui l'a développée etc ? Guil2027 (talk) 22:25, 8 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
En plus, la justice a déjà tranché dans ce sens pour un autre studio de photographes : https://www.village-justice.com/articles/Affaire-Pierre-Anthony-HARCOURT,16496.html. Guil2027 (talk) 22:29, 8 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I've discussed the Harcourt case (and another one) in detail above and come to the conclusion that these cases are so specific that we cannot just transfer them to other cases. Specifically, collective works are considered rare exceptions in French IP law and not the norm for photographs from studios. See details above. --Rosenzweig τ 08:18, 9 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Delete the onus for evidence is on whoever claims PD and I see reasonable doubt demonstrated with detailed research and back-and-forth (which I all read, and damn it's a lot). Also: gathering evidence to be in compliance with policy is a core function here, so claiming analysis to be copyright paranoia is quite bizarre. Hekerui (talk) 11:07, 14 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Deleted: This is the oldest active DR by a whole month, so it's time to close. There are good arguments in both directions, but ultimately it comes down to PCP. There exists some reasonable doubt whether these are truly in the public domain. This close is without prejudice against an undeletion request should new evidence come to light. --Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:39, 15 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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