User talk:A Fellow Editor: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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::::** but since that section is likely to be archived, here's a [https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Village_pump/Copyright&oldid=230264031#Authorship_of_a_modified_public_domain_file--_who_gets_to_claim_it.3F permalink to the presumably relevant state]. - [[User:Jmabel|Jmabel]] | [[User talk:Jmabel|Talk]] 01:44, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

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== Closed conversations ==

Kev, you closed our discussion before I was done with the topic. Please forgive me for creating a new section heading and continuing with some more thoughts/ questions. If you do not wish for this conversation to take place on your talk page, I would be fine if you moved it to, say, the talk page of the .png file that was the subject of our previous discussion (that talk page currently does not exist).

I have two remaining significant concerns. The first is that from what you have said, volunteers in the graphics lab routinely take public domain works, modify them in ways that are technical and not transformative, and then claim authorship to the new (not genuinely derivative) works. Is this so? If it is, then the graphics lab volunteers probably need to have a refresher in copyright and claims to authorship of public domain works, 'cause that ain't so! Please clarify for me on that one. I am a graphic artist myself, and have donated several images to Commons, but my works are .svg files that I either create de novo or are so far from any other work to raise copyright or authorship questions. Fill me in.

The second point may seem like just a "point" in the sense of being "pointy" or simply "making a point", but please bear with me because at the root of the point is a fundamental meaning of authorship and the public domain that I am trying to figure out and maybe even draft some guidelines for that Commons can use broadly. The image of the scallop as it now stands mentions Yuri as the "original author" and you as the author of the "derivative work". I still have a problem with the second part of that— the bullet I want one of us to bite is the one that either means your name gets removed from the "author" field altogether (because your revision, though time-consuming and complicated, does not seem to represent significant original new creative content to me) or means that the work really ''is'' a thing that is entitled to its own copyright and therefore really ''is'' a "derivative" work (and I bite the bullet and shut the hell up!). I don't feel like we have come to an agreement on that point— from what I have been able to suss out from others' comments, your changes don't look like they rise to the level of new creative copyrightable content (PLEASE DON'T TAKE THAT TO MEAN THAT I DO NOT APPRECIATE THEM OR THAT THEY ARE NOT IMPORTANT BECAUSE I DO AND THEY ARE!!!!). If you are reading the same things that I am, then you cannot claim any authorship to the revised image, even as a derivative work, because it is not a derivative work, it is essentially a copy of a pre-existing work.

That all sounds like I am demanding that you swallow your pride and take your name off the file. Heck, it isn't my file, why should I care? I care only because I want to know how all this is supposed to work and what the correct outcome really should be. I will tell you that I, too, have spent hours of my time making changes to someone else's freely licensed work on Commons and then uploaded that work and reluctantly named the original author as the author of the work I had created... Except that I didn't create it, really, I just modified it. Still, it felt wrong, and I wanted to name myself as author of at least my changes to it! But when I sat down and went over everything, I had to admit that even though I had make lots of changes and improvements, I had not created a transformative, new work. I had only improved and modified an existing one. No authorship for me. And it felt wrong, but I think it was right, and I want to know for sure. That is why I am, er, picking on you! (Which I do not mean to do! Smack me with something! I might be a dick! I am trying to figure things out and making an ass of myself! But what is the answer???). Anyhow, putting that aside, and taking in all that we have talked about and that others have added, what do you think now about the authorship of the revised image? Please let me know. I will check back with you soon. [[User:KDS4444|KDS4444]] ([[User talk:KDS4444|talk]]) 07:19, 21 January 2017 (UTC)