Hosta

Template:PD-PhilippineGov

This template is not correct. At Commons:Licensing#The_Philippines we have:

"SEC. 176. Works of the Government. – 176.1. No copyright shall subsist in any work of the Government of the Philippines. However, prior approval of the government agency or office wherein the work is created shall be necessary for exploitation of such work for profit. Such agency or office may, among other things, impose as a condition the payment of royalties. No prior approval or conditions shall be required for the use for any purpose of statutes, rules and regulations, and speeches, lectures, sermons, addresses, and dissertations, pronounced, read or rendered in courts of justice, before administrative agencies, in deliberative assemblies and in meetings of public character."

While this says, on the one hand, that there is no copyright, it immediately follows that by saying that commercial use is prohibited without permission. Some of my colleagues may argue that the latter is a "non-copyright restriction" that we, by policy, ignore. I think, however, that the fact that it is an integral part of the copyright law makes it a copyright restriction. In any event, Philippine government images are certainly not free for general use.

It has been used only on twenty images from the Philippine Air Force.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 16:10, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[]

I've always found the wording on that particularly odd. It's hard to say "no copyright shall subsist" and then immediately make restrictions based on that non-existent copyright, but that's what they appear to be doing. The tag is at least valid for "statutes, rules and regulations, and speeches, lectures, sermons, addresses, and dissertations, pronounced, read or rendered in courts of justice, before administrative agencies, in deliberative assemblies and in meetings of public character". By a literal reading... you can argue the non-copyright stuff, as it explicitly says no copyright subsists, and therefore the restrictions are based on something else (namely, this section of copyright law, giving the government a special right ;-) ). The effect though seems to be a non-commercial copyright license, with the law made at a time when such licenses as Creative Commons were not a widespread thing. On the other hand, would a violation of this right be considered a copyright violation? Would it be enforceable outside of the Philippines (and if not, then it would not apply to other countries when applying the rule of the shorter term, which is a major reason why we give special status to the law in the country of origin). The plain wording "no copyright shall subsist" is a little hard to ignore, and it's not like that is a translation either. That seems quite explicit that the normal rules of copyright (including any claims under the Berne Convention in other countries) do not apply. Their regulations on registration repeat that bit too: Although no copyright should subsist in any work of the government, any employee may claim it by submitting for registration any work that has been created during the time of his employment but which does not form part of his regularly prescribed official duties. So they would appear to not allow copyright registration on government works. A dissenting opinion in this ruling made a passing mention: The law expressly provides that Works of the Government are not subject to copyright. This means that there is neither a legal right by anyone to demand attribution, nor any legal obligation from anyone to make an attribution, when Works of the Government are copied. On the other hand there is an even more odd ruling by the Philippine court basically requiring royalties for commercial use of the text of the court's decisions, under the above clause. Their "copyright" law does cover patents, trademarks, and other intellectual property rights though, so it may be very reasonable to think of this restriction as a separate intellectual property right inside Philippine borders -- which has a very real effect there though. It's an odd situation to be sure. I can't quite get around the explicit "no copyright shall subsist"; that would seem to plainly indicate that the government cannot use copyright law to enforce restrictions on such works, but must rely on the separate clause. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:19, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[]

 Keep but rephrase: I'm pretty much in agreement with Clindberg's analysis. I think it is clear from the clause that no copyright subsists in government works. However, the clause confers on the government a right to require prior permission to be sought for the use of certain government works for profit, and royalty payments. I regard this as a non-copyright restriction. This means we can host the works in the Commons, but that reusers intending to use the works commercially will have to obtain permission and may be required to pay royalties. The tag should be rephrased to state that:

• no copyright subsists in "statutes, rules and regulations, and speeches, lectures, sermons, addresses, and dissertations, pronounced, read or rendered in courts of justice, before administrative agencies, in deliberative assemblies and in meetings of public character", which may be reproduced without restriction; and
• no copyright subsists in other government works, but that people wishing to exploit such a work for profit are legally required to seek prior approval from the government agency or office in which the work was created and may have to pay a royalty. (Do we need to add some form of disclaimer stating that the Commons is not responsible for the consequences of non-compliance with this requirement?)

— Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:40, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[]

 Comment As a historical note, the non-copyrightability of Philippine government works dates from their law of 1924 (seen here in a copy from 1949, section 8). That was altered by Marcos in 1972, which introduced the current situation (section 9) -- no copyright exists, but the commercial exploitation bit was added. That language was basically kept as-is in the 1997 law. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:44, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[]

Thanks for your rapid attention -- I suspected that it might interest you both. Do I understand correctly that you both believe that this is a non-copyright restriction and that therefore we can host images such as File:16th Attack Squadron, Philippine Air Force - OV-10A 1.jpg with a revision of the template language? It probably should suggest (but not give legal advice) what a user such as Boeing (successor to North American Rockwell, builder of the OV-10A) would have to do to use this image in a corporate history.

If I understand correctly, then let's settle on the revised language for the template.      Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 23:26, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[]

Yes, my view would be that if there is sufficient evidence that the image is a government work, hosting it in the Commons is not a problem for us. However, a person who wishes to download and reuse it for commercial purposes would be under an obligation to comply with Philippine law (at least if within the jurisdiction of the Philippines). — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:05, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[]

Kept: per discussion Jcb (talk) 21:32, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[]