Commons:Deletion requests/Luxembourg related coat of arms images by User:Sodacan

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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.
  • Add {{delete|reason=Fill in reason for deletion here!|subpage=Luxembourg related coat of arms images by User:Sodacan|year=2024|month=June|day=27}} to the description page of each file.
  • Notify the uploader(s) with {{subst:idw||Luxembourg related coat of arms images by User:Sodacan|plural}} ~~~~
  • Add {{Commons:Deletion requests/Luxembourg related coat of arms images by User:Sodacan}} at the end of today's log.
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All of these images are coat of arms respectively flags based on said coat of arms. I might have missed some and hope user:Sodacan himself will help in identifying any others he might have uploaded to commons. The Luxembourg lions (red ones) on the heraldic shields are clearly redrawings of artwork found in various Luxembourgish official publications (Note: this does not concern the supporters found in the middle and great arms, or the standard; nor the yellow lions on some of the shields which are Nassau lions, while these also seem to be derivatives, though less obvious ones, I'd have to do additional research to identify their original). The original drawings were hand made, therefore there are minor differences (yet always clearly the style of one artist) between those originals while the copies I report here use a hybrid vector image of those originals but clearly copying the style of the original author. The originals can be found in the following pdf legal document from a Luxembourg government site Memorial du 16 septembre 1993. I should note that Luxembourg law is generally based on French Law in which an author cannot wave his copyright only grant a license (be it to another person, a corporation or the government). This is very different from for example US law. So the argument that the original was commissioned as part of a government document and otherwise in (licensed) government use would therefore not change anything about its copyright status. I cannot identify the exact author of the originals, it might have been Dr. Jean-Claude Loutsch (deceased July 24 2002) who was head of the national heraldic council at the time of publication of this law. If needed I can try toconduct further research to identify said author. A different image was certainly used in previously relevant law Memorial du 16 août 1972 so we can safely assume that the original was commissioned expressly for the law of 1993. Lastly I don't think there can be any doubt about the originality of the original drawing of the lion (I could append 50 other images of heraldic lions that are clearly different). Hope I didn't miss anything important (by the way I'm not a lawyer, have no legal training or anything of the sort, just an amateur heraldist who used to actively contribute to our project), I will try to follow the deliberations and add additional information if I can. --Caranorn (talk) 18:06, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I accidentally seem to have listed two images twice above --Caranorn (talk) 18:10, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Have you a source for this claim (the law is the same as in France)? FOTW tells us there is no official depiction for design copyright.[1] But you are right in case of copyright claim by user Sodacan. The design is clear not his creation, so he can only claim copyright for his SVG work. -- User: Perhelion 20:47, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Will have to research concerning the exact Law. If not covered by a precise Law Luxembourg jurisprudence usually follows Belgian or French law, that's what I was referring to. --Caranorn (talk) 09:11, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    PS: Replacement, if you are right, we should replace the red lion with your CoA File:Armoiries_Comtes_de_Luxembourg.svg? -- User: Perhelion 22:54, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually no, I don't think I have any images representing those exact arms. I mostly dealt in medieval coat of arms and heraldry, in this case most importantly the blazons (heraldic description), has evolved quite a bit in the meantime. In any case we can probably find unproblematic images as replacements or else have some of our artists draw replacements (I can ask within the french language fr:Projet:Blasons--Caranorn (talk) 09:11, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • According to Wikipedia's article on Luxembourg's coat of arms the design including the red lion design is in or about 800 years old. As the original author is now long dead it would appear to be out of copyright. Blue-Haired Lawyer (talk) 03:04, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    There is no doubt that the design is no longer under copyright protection. If it ever was. But the design is it's description, not the exact way it's drawn, which is up to each individual artist. In this case it's the image of the lion which is problematic. --Caranorn (talk) 09:11, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Leaning Keep - surely the whole point of heraldry is to avoid original invention in a heraldic beast with a history going back centuries? Unfortunately the Commons categories are so full of SVG images there seem no historical originals for comparison. This very old deletion discussion may be relevant. Also several/most of these images have single-tailed lions, where the ones in the law annex are all I think double-tailed. Johnbod (talk) 04:12, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    First on the single and double tail. The double tailled Luxembourg lions are except for one case between 1281 and 1288 all representations of the 17th century or later (the first were actually errors). That makes these essentially different arms, one cannot replace the other. Today only a few municipal coat of arms as well as I believe some Belgian coat of arms still use the single tailed lion. If needed I think I could find late 13th century images of Luxembourg arms, though most would probably be either low size and difficult to distinguish (armorial seals) or later archelogial/restoration redrawings. As to the 2008 deletion request (I can't seem to find the image, might have been deleted for other reasons), I recall I was involved in that discussion too, in that case against deletion. That case, at least in part, in part supports my point in its conclusion where it is stated "So, either we delete all flags and COAs, which somehow seems ridiculous, or we keep them unless their graphic representation (the precise drawing itself) was someone else's copyrighted work. But that isn't the case here. " In this case we have images that seem to be derivations of someone else's drawings which was not the case back then. --Caranorn (talk) 09:11, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tagging Sodacan as they haven't been tagged by link yet so may not have received a notification. I've emailed the Luxembourg government to seek clarity on the status of the works described above, if I get a response I will add it to this thread. --Ethanmayersweet 02:15, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I have received a response, which is below:
Hello,
The use of the Coat of arms of Luxembourg is protected by the law of 27 July 1993 modifying and completing the law of 23 June 1972 about the national emblems. According to said laws, unless you are specifically authorized by the Government, fraudulent, commercial, industrial, professional or  advertisement use of the national emblems is prohibited.
If you want to use the national emblems for one of the above stated purposes, please apply for authorisation at the Prime Minister, Minister of State, Xavier Bettel: https://gouvernement.lu/en/gouvernement/xavier-bettel.html

Best regards,
Michael Schuster
Division communication gouvernementale et Internet

LE GOUVERNEMENT DU GRAND-DUCHÉ DE LUXEMBOURG
Service information et presse
Sorry for taking so long to look things up further. The response above by Michael Schuster refers to the use/bearing of the arms, wikipedia would not be using them but documenting them. Using the coat of arms (regardless of drawing style) instead of the wikimedia logo would be such a case of bearing the arms, also anything that might make it appear as if the Luxembourg government, the Grand Duke or such were endorsing a publication. In any case I have now tracked the exact image to a book published in 1989 predating the 1993 law. The book is Armorial Communal du Grand Duché de Luxembourg edited by Dr. Jean-Claude Loutsch, graphics by Marcel Lenertz, the copyright notice of the book is © J.A. Fisch, Luxembourg 1989, it is a semi official publication (p 7), meaning it's a private initiative under the patronage of the Ministère d'Etat. The cover and page 22 of that book show the Great Arms of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. A number of other images in that book show the same style. If needed I can upload scans (where? obviously just for review and then to be deleted) of the relevant pages. I also found the current copyright law http://legilux.public.lu/eli/etat/leg/loi/2001/04/18/n2/jo . I was wrong when I stated "an author cannot wave his copyright only grant a license", this law would obviously supercede any French law I thought might apply. Art. 6 of the 2001 law would indicate that a cooperative work, like the Armorial Communal du Grand Duché de Luxembourg, can be published under the single copyright of the editor or publisher. So the copyright notice of that book would cover text and images.--Caranorn (talk) 18:36, 1 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
 Keep Sodacan's works are original and immaculate. To delete them would be a massive loss for Commons. Fry1989 eh? 01:41, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
 Keep Per the reasoning stated above. The original creator of the CoA is long-dead, and the work on Wikipedia is Sodacan's based on the blazon. --Philly boy92 (talk) 19:50, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Per the nomination. The nominator did a good job of documenting and explaining the request. It is clear that the drawings are so identical that it cannot be a coincidence. The 1989 Lenertz (Fisch) drawing predates the 2016 Sodacan drawing. Obviously the older is not copied from the newer. Both could be copied from an older, public domain drawing, but in the absence of evidence, that would be speculation. A word from Sodacan would be welcome to clarify the matter, but apparently he chose to not participate in this discussion. I appreciate his works in general. However, that cannot be a reason to ignore this case. In the present situation, this should, sadly, be deleted. -- Asclepias (talk) 05:25, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted: per nomination - the 1989 copyright is likely to apply and should be taken into account unless evidence to the contrary is provided. --Jcb (talk) 23:03, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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