Commons:Deletion requests/File:Personalised St. Valentine's Day message, Rotterdam-Centrum, Rotterdam (2021) 01.jpg

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Jump to navigation Jump to search
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.

File:Personalised St. Valentine's Day message, Rotterdam-Centrum, Rotterdam (2021) 01.jpg[edit]

Part of series of 100+ posters with very specific types of text, which are still under copyright Mdd (talk) 16:41, 7 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Also

-- Mdd (talk) 16:55, 7 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Further comment (1)[edit]

The logo of the Erasmus University Rotterdam looks almost identical to the design of Loesje posters.

 Addendum, for context, I've asked other users and administrators before for what is and isn't a copyrightable standard for posters (see here as an example), and the TOO doesn't seem to be as low as the nominator proposes, for example see "File:2010 election posters doetinchem.JPG" which was kept twice. The VVD's election posters are way more creative than Loesje, yet multiple administrators over the years have found them to be below the TOO. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 12:51, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Update and request for permission[edit]

These works were part of a temporary street-art project in Rotterdam, see here initiated by Mothership. Now I contacted its director and asked for their opinion and if they would give us permission to keep sharing those works here. -- Mdd (talk) 18:19, 7 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yesterday I received a postive response of Mothership, that they are interested and prepared to cooperate. However, I did have my doubts about the possibilities here. And today just now I noticed I might have misread the origin of ths project in the first place. Every postern has the following text on the bottum:
Rotterdam. Make it happen. Dit project is mede mogelijk gemaakt Cultuur Concreet, Stichting de Loodsen, Hippr, notdef.org, Platform P., Rotterdam Festivals. Kooyman, Centercom.
There is a listing of eight producers of the project, of which the Rotterdam Festivals is the most prominent. The doubts I had yesterday was regarding the origin of the quotes on the posters. They don't seem to originate from one text writer, but seem to be personal notes/quotes of unique individuals. So here is probably a project with over 100 participants and 8 producers. It is practically impossible to get the approval for all of these works, or even for one. This is a dead end but there might be an other way. -- Mdd (talk) 11:06, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That's obvious, every poster is addressed to someone, then the message is written down, and then the writer is listed. The vast majority of these messages are too short and too banal to be eligible for copyright ©️ protection, for example "File:Personalised St. Valentine's Day message, Rotterdam-Centrum, Rotterdam (2021) 02.jpg" only reads "I love you and I stay loyal to you", that is isn't anywhere near creative enough to warrant copyright ©️ protection under Dutch law. Only a handful of them at most contain messages that might be eligible for copyright ©️, but I would refer to the "Backseat conversations" (De Endstra-tapes) where phrases like “she has a black belt in shopping, so uh …” weren't seen as creative enough to warrant the creation of copyright ©️, and these conversations are quite long. For a phrase to be copyrightable under Dutch law it has to be creative and original enough to warrant this protection. These works are below the "COM:TOO" for the Netherlands. Another random example, "File:Personalised St. Valentine's Day message, Rotterdam-Centrum, Rotterdam (2021) 64.jpg" is literally just an old proverb, in one (1) case the entire message is just the letter "X", are you telling me that just the letter X is copyrighted? --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 11:13, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Further comment (2)[edit]

Short or long, I think that does not matter. This is about creativity and the maker of a creative work has copyrights on that work. I saw some of these works and I think they are creative works, as are Loesje posters: the (short) sentences are new, show a different view on things, required creativity. If there are VRT tickets (as for some of the Loesjes posters) then they can stay, otherwise I think they should be deleted. --JopkeB (talk) 16:11, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Would you say that all these works are creative works by default? Regardless if they're generic sentences (like those I listed above)? Not all these sentences are new and many just contain generic messages with no additional creative input. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 23:06, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Having a "view" on things is not the same as creating a copyrightable work of authorship. Ideas are not copyrightable; expression can be.
All the "works" by Loesje are short phrases/slogans.
  • In the United States, the Copyright Office says, "Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases."
  • In the Netherlands, the government says that works must be "original and personal" and "[not] similar to works of others." In line with CJEU decisions, the work must be an "intellectual creation of the author." A single-sentence slogan or phrase will not be copyrightable in the Netherlands either.
The fact that Loesje members may claim that catchphrases and slogans are copyrightable does not make it so. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 00:40, 10 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I am not a lawyer, nor a specialist in copyright law. So I cannot answer these questions and remarks. Above I expressed my view, based on my interpretation of the Auteurswet, which states that "ieder voortbrengsel op het gebied van letterkunde, wetenschap of kunst, op welke wijze of in welken vorm het ook tot uitdrukking zij gebracht" can be subject of copyright. I think an administrator (or even better: a specialist in copyright law of the Netherlands) should be the judge whether these posters are protected by copyright or not. JopkeB (talk) 02:11, 10 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
All the Loesje posters I can find are short phrases, trite and banal, with no serious original character.
Following the Infopaq standard and more recent CJEU case law, the amount of content included in a short phrase, in order to be copyrightable, would have to represent a significant intellectual creation on the part of the author, reflecting the author's personality and the ability to express one's creative abilities in the production of the work by making free and creative choices. The Dutch courts have consistently applied a standard which would consistently reject the originality of such short and banal phrases as these, which often reflect simply plays on words or basic ideas which have been expressed similarly before.
Ideas and names are inherently uncopyrightable, since they are not works of authorship of any protectable kind. Signatures are also uncopyrightable in continental European counties; indeed, there is considered to be no potential for significant intellectual and creative expression in the writing of one's name.
The notion that copyright can exist in banal statements such as those put on Loesje posters is not in accord with any finding from a Dutch court. The purpose of the law is to protect substantial works of authorship, not regular phrases. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 05:59, 10 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@D. Benjamin Miller: Can you please give links to and/or other sources for:
  • Infopaq standard
  • recent CJEU case law that states that "the amount of content included in a short phrase, in order to be copyrightable, would have to represent a significant intellectual creation on the part of the author, reflecting the author's personality and the ability to express one's creative abilities in the production of the work by making free and creative choices"
  • evidence that "Dutch courts have consistently applied a standard which would consistently reject the originality of such short and banal phrases as these" (as copyrighted)
  • evidence that "Ideas and names are inherently uncopyrightable" in the Netherlands?
JopkeB (talk) 06:17, 11 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  1. Infopaq International A/S v Danske Dagblades Forening
  2. Infopaq International A/S v Danske Dagblades Forening (for example)
  3. Just read nl:Werktoets... See the [Van Dale v. Romme] and [Stokke v. Fikszo https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/details?id=ECLI:NL:HR:2013:BY1532]] cases. There are references to what have been found not to be copyrightable works. And, as the Dutch government says, works including catalogues, manuals, timetables, theatre programs and telephone directories may not be protected by copyright. In order to be copyrightable, something must be "original and personal [and not] similar to works of others." The phrases used on Loesje posters are trivial and banal and lack original personal character. For example:
    • Let's not buy new things until the second hand shop is sold out
    • Yes I understood what you said / I just wanted to hear your voice again
    • My life does not fit in my CV
    • You are responsible for what you don't do
  4. Names and ideas are not works. Works are about expression; they express ideas but are distinct from ideas themselves.
    • The ideas on Loesje posters are not particularly novel, either. They are typical platitudes expressing basic ideas. "Let's not buy new things until the second hand shop is sold out"? That idea has billions of matches on Google.
D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 07:04, 11 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thanks D. Benjamin Miller for your detailed answer.
--JopkeB (talk) 12:45, 11 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The thing about Infopaq is that it actually defines the standard universally (although it does not apply it directly). There is no difference, according to Infopaq, whether something was an extract from a larger original or not. The important thing is whether or not that extract, by itself, meets the qualifications to be a copyrightable work. (As an aside, collective vs. individual authorship is accounted for by the law, but this is dealt with separately.) D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 03:59, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Note for the administrator who will judge this request: Recently several discussions have been started on Category talk:Loesje, that might also be relevant to this deletion request. JopkeB (talk) 05:40, 15 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  •  Delete (unless permission is given) Although none of the individual elements of the poster are copyrightable in themselves, the combination and arrangement of all those elements pushes it past the TOO threshold. Each poster includes at least 4 different fonts of different sizes, colors, and graphic treatments arranged into a particular layout with a unique background color and border lines. If you cut out any particular part, it would not be creative enough on its own to be copyrightable, but clearly the production of the poster as a whole involved creative design choices and reflects creative authorship, as you can clearly tell whether or not a poster belongs to this series of posters just by the style and arrangement, regardless of what the text says. I do not, however, believe that something like File:Loesje_ukraine.jpg is copyrightable. The former is just barely over the TOO and the later is just barely under. Nosferattus (talk) 15:46, 27 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    This looks reasonable (like a kind of database to which the Database Act applies). But the same may apply to Loesje: many posters which show a particular layout, fonts, creative choises and creative authorship, recognizable by this particular layout and fonts. So I plea that the same is true for Loesje as well. JopkeB (talk) 16:42, 27 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    The 4 (four) different fonts in this case are 3 (three) standard uncopyrightable messages, namely the name of the neighbourhood on the top, the logo of the "Rotterdam. Make it happen." municipal art project, and a list of organising organisations that contributed to the final product, these can all be considered to be simple factual information that is outside of creative choices. The "unique colours" are still just simple plain colours. This would be no different than me changing the colour of the font I write in. The matter of the fact is that it's still very simple information written in an only slightly different way. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 22:51, 27 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Additionally, the threshold of originality in the European Union (EU) is unified and comparing these works to those found in "COM:TOO Italy" like those at "Commons:Deletion requests/File:AC Milan.png" and "Commons:Deletion requests/File:Inter Mailand.svg" (all three (3) nominations) it's clear that these files are much more complex and contain more creative choices than any of the works discussed here. These logos all have made much more complex and creative choices when it comes to colours, shapes, and presentation but are below the TOO. Hogan Lovells states "In summary, the threshold for an industrial design product to enjoy copyright protection is still quite high and even famous industrial design products have been denied such protection by Italian Courts." --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 00:50, 28 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Donald Trung: You seem to be reiterating what I've already said, which is that none of the elements, when examined alone, are copyrightable. I agree with that completely. However, you did not address the reason I argued for deleting the files, which is that the work as a whole involves significant creative authorship. I also disagree with your statement that "the threshold of originality in the European Union (EU) is unified". Although they may have similar laws, thanks to the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, how those laws are specifically worded and interpreted by local courts can vary significantly. We should be discussing TOO cases in the Netherlands and the US as those are the applicable jurisdictions. Nosferattus (talk) 14:34, 1 March 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Apparently there is a Dutch case in which the layout of a webpage was deemed copyrightable,[1] which would seem to have some bearing here, but I can't find the original court decision 😞. Nosferattus (talk) 15:12, 1 March 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Regarding the case you mentioned, per "COM:TOO Netherlands" it reads "Whether something is above the threshold of originality in the Netherlands is defined in the Supreme Court judgment "'Van Dale/Romme'". In this judgment, the Supreme Court ruled that: In assessing the ground of cassation it should be noted that, for a product to be considered a work of literature, science or art as meant in article 1 in conjunction with article 10 of the Copyright law (Auteurswet), it is required that it has an own, original character and bears the personal mark of the maker." which is used to state that a work needs to be sufficiently creative in order to be copyrighted, a website layout typically contains a lot more creative choices than a plain text poster. Furthermore, the "'Van Dale/Romme'" case requires that a copyrighted work bears both an original character and the personal mark of the maker which none of these posters do as they are just simple information on a coloured background. As user "D. Benjamin Miller" pointed out in the Copyright ©️ Village Pump, this court case is typically used in discussions to reference the Netherlands' rather high threshold of originality rather than low. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 00:57, 2 March 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Donald Trung: Regardless, we also have to deal with the United States TOO, and I'm pretty sure this would easily pass the TOO in the United States. For a comparable example, both of these No Soliciting sign designs were given registered copyrights in the United States: https://web.archive.org/web/20190102061605/http://no-solicitors-sign.com/. Nosferattus (talk) 02:59, 2 March 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The United States threshold of originality is considerably higher and text with different fonts on a coloured background like "File:Skyy vodka blue.jpg" and "File:Avenue of the Saints logo.svg" were denied to be copyrighted, as was "File:D'ni Letters Vs Numerals.svg" which only contains original symbols. The "No solicitors" signs also contain an intricate drawing and border, the files discussed here do not. And arguably less creative choices were made in these 2 (two) coloured images than in this image. In fact, regarding banal texts the US has "{{PD-text}}" which would apply to the texts at hand here. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 03:52, 2 March 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Additionally, the works at hand can be described as merely this:
  • [Location]
  • [Short quote]
  • [List of participating programmes and sponsors]
Neither the name of a place nor a list of sponsors is copyrightable, the Endstra case ruled that speech simply to inform isn't creative labour and that short unusual phrases aren't necessarily creative enough to be eligible to be copyrighted in the Netherlands.
In contrast the "No solicitors" signs have much more creative choices taken in them, the way you draw a character is entirely your choice, the placement of all the words on the signs is somewhat random, while the placement of the words here is simply, info 1 (one), quote, info 2 (two). If we were to make it info 2 (two), quote, info 1 (one), or any other combination it would barely change anything. Neither the way the information is presented nor the information itself made any significant creative choices. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 04:33, 2 March 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Regarding the Dutch-language Wikipedia linked above it states "de indeling van een webpagina - de rechtbank acht dit echter "weinig oorspronkelijk", en het voorkomen van relatief kleine verschillen is voldoende dat er geen sprake is van inbreuk" (The layout of a web page - however, the court considers this "little original", and the occurrence of relatively minor differences is sufficient that there is no infringement). -- — Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 06:34, 2 March 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Nosferattus: did you noticed the key subject of the Arrest Van Dale/Romme: Het geschil ging om de vraag of het trefwoordenbestand van het woordenboek de Grote van Dale auteursrechtelijk 'beschermd is. (translation: The dispute concerned the question of whether the keyword file of the De Grote van Dale dictionary is protected by copyright.... It seem to have been about a database, in hardly anyway related to graphic posterdesign. Also we have a key expert in the Netherlands Arnould Engelfriet, who sometimes gives us some direction here on Wikimedia Commons. He wrote a long blog, and I am pretty sure that the phrase "rather high threshold of originality rather than low" is not to be found there. -- Mdd (talk) 02:35, 2 March 2024 (UTC) P.S. If you are interested, you could try here, where there seem to be 37 cases to be studied.Reply[reply]

I was not referring to the Van Dale/Romme case, but to another case mentioned in that article. Nosferattus (talk) 02:50, 2 March 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I guess you lost me. There was one arrest and the text can be found here. I did just "speed read" through those 37 cases, and none of those seem to have brought up any reservations about any threshold of originality (scheppingshoogte), but it was just a short search. I did find another 600 cases that involved poosters, see here. -- Mdd (talk) 03:19, 2 March 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That's because you didn't search specifically enough, regarding posters I can't find any relevant case law, but the issue remains that the threshold of copyrights in the Netherlands is established through 2 (two) steps, a work must be original (that is be completely new), the format of these works isn't innovative and are literally just plain text on a background (the same goes for Loesje which is just a standard letter format) and the work must be creative, these are simply personal messages from one person to another saying every day phrases expressing affection, which according to the Endstra case wouldn't satisfy the Dutch threshold of originality. The way that these posters are set up is from a person, a banal love message, name of the sender, list of organisers (which includes the logo of the municipal cultural organisation). The level of creativity that went into these is comparable to a VVD poster which have been repeatedly found to be under the Dutch TOO. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 12:14, 3 March 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Addendum, regarding the TOO, comparing it to a number of Dutch logos we have at the Wikimedia Commons, an argument above is that the arrangement of the borders (simple stripes between the texts which is hardly an original idea) place it just above the Dutch TOO, but this logo has more colour choices in its text and a more complex border and has been judged to be sufficiently simple for the Netherlands. None of these posters (which should each be seen as individual works of art, rather than be judged on their "recogniseability" as many simple motifs can be recogniseable) make any many different colour choices or contain an intricately arranged element like either this logo (uploaded by an experienced user (former steward) who has participated in many deletion discussions) and even this logo (uploaded by the nominator). In fact, the NPO and RTL logos are "recogniseable" works of art when placed together as a series but individually none meet the Dutch or American TOO. The arrangement of the elements of each poster is hardly unique and if they weren't so simple by themselves would constitute de minimis elements. The arrangement of the elements (including borders) was constrained to the simple scope of these posters, mainly the short banal message, the location and lister of sponsors (which are by itself non-creative pieces of information) could only have been placed in either one (1) or another arrangement and hasn't been placed in a way that would actually constitute either original or creative thought. If individual elements aren't copyrightable then the copyright ©️ would come from the arrangement of the parts in an original and creative way, but since the information is constrained by subject of the poster it was always limited and similar looking posters could easily be the "accidental creation" of anyone else based on these very simple choices. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 20:50, 4 March 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

One solution: One sample kept (117) and request to relocate the rest[edit]

From this particular series I have kept one (as deminimis) and updated the documentation, see here. Furthermore I would appreciate if Donald Trung would relocate the rest to his own Flickr account of similar. These series as a whole has certain artistic and encyclopedic value (and could be restored in 2091). -- Mdd (talk) 20:09, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Kept: no valid reason for deletion. Discussion above didn't demonstrate that these logos are complex enough to have a copyright. --Yann (talk) 21:02, 4 March 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Retrieved from "https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Personalised_St._Valentine%27s_Day_message,_Rotterdam-Centrum,_Rotterdam_(2021)_01.jpg&oldid=857957042"