Commons:Deletion requests/File:Golan evacuation.jpg

File:Golan_evacuation.jpg

User:Jiujitsuguy nominated the Golan evacuation image based on his claim that: "The photo has no author, comes from an obscure and unreliable blog calling into question its veracity and it also may be in violation of copyright laws. The source site has no license specified" [1]

This is inaccurate as the photo is a historical image taken in Syria in 1967, and under Syrian copyright law, images taken before 1994 have they're copyright expired. The image is also not from an "obscure blog" as he calls it, its from syrianhistory.com/ which is a website entirely dedicated to Syrian history and run by Sami Moubayed, he has his own wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_Moubayed, has articles published in the Huffinfton post, [2] Asia Times:[3], The Washington post:[4], Gulfnews:[5] more info here about the site: [6]. So far not one shred of evidence or argument has been presented by Jiujitsuguy to delete this image, so the image should definitely not be deleted:  Keep --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 00:08, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

•  Keep {{PD-Syria}} /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 01:41, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

•  Keep No evidence for a copvio --Funfood Funtalk 09:09, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Should be possible to find the original source of the image if we ask Moubayed perhaps. FunkMonk (talk) 08:40, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

•  Delete Clear cut case of copyright violation if ever there was one. The source site does not specify a license. For that reason alone it should be deleted. In addtion, there are serious reliability problems here. The photo has no author and comes from an obscure Syrian blogger. We don't even know when the photo was taken as there is merely an imprecise date. The year 1967 is a rather large net.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 14:36, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

As has already been explained above, the source site does not need to specify a license as all photos taken in Syria before 1994 are free, so the image is free. What reliability problems? The photo is not from an "obscure Syrian blogger", its from syrianhistory.com, more about the site and who runs it has been provided above, which you have ignored. The source says: "during the 1967 War" Israel occupied the area during the 1967 war, which was 6 days. So the source is specific that it was taken during the six day war of 1967. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 15:03, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

It isn't "clear cut" at all. If it was published in Syria first, then it's PD and will stay here forever. If you can demonstrate that it wasn't, then it's "clear cut". As is, the precautionary principle is what could get it deleted. FunkMonk (talk) 14:56, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

If one follows the paranoia principle, the best thing is to close down Commons. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 15:30, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

•  Delete The latest copyright law from Syrian can be found here [7]. It doesn't seem to say anything about 1994. Anyone can start a history site and put what they choose up as valid. (I have one myself) That doesn't mean that everything they put up is valid history. It appears the author is an opinion columnist in his other life. Stellarkid (talk) 16:04, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

This source:[8], says on page 6, Article 25 "Copyrights of photographic, fine arts or plastic arts shall be enforceable for ten years as of the date of producing such work." Article 26: "All unprotected works or works with expired protection periods according to the stipulations of the law herein shall fall in the public domain.", this source: [9] says "the term of protection begins for 50 years from the date of production of the work and reduce the protection period of ten years from the date of production of seed with regard to photographic works", either way, this is further evidence that the image is infact free. Furthermore, Stellarkid is a blocked sock on Wikipedia [10] and I have evidence that he and Jijutsuguy are part of an of wiki canvassing group. So Jijutsuguy probably just sent him another email telling him to come here and back up his bogus attempt to delete this photo. Notice that he hasn't made one single edit on Commons for 1 year and then just "magically" showed up here. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 16:53, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Get real, SD. I like to keep my eyes on things here. Talk about the paranoia principle. Just deal with the issues, not personalities. Stellarkid (talk) 20:15, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

SD I’d rather not indulge you on your paranoid and asinine insinuations. If you’d like to talk about canvassing, I can easily link to a mysterious user who in one day contacted more than 30 editors with the message “Hello, I don't know who I should speak to about this important matter. The Golan article has been taking over by Israelis and they have removed everything mentioning an occupation and changed it to "disputed" They have also removed the "the neutrality of this article is disputed" that was on top of the article while it is written in a completely pro-Israeli way. Please do something about this!” Do you want me to link to that user? Please stick to the issues and stop engaging in endless paranoia and hypocritical personal attacks.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 20:37, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

•  Keep As there doesn't appear to be any evidence to the contrary, ie that the photo is of what it says it is and taken when it says it is then all is fine and dandy and should be kept as a valuable archival image. --Fred the Oyster (talk) 02:11, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. I don't contribute to Commons all that often but have had User:Supreme Deliciousness' Talk page watchlisted for a while and uploaded a file from an old phone of mine just now, which is how I got here. When I try to access samimoubayed.com I get redirected to http://www.cunemagazines.com/sami, with a message in the browser window that says "Bad Request (Invalid Hostname)." Is anyone else able to access his blog? We should check if Moubayed has other photos there that are obvious copyright violations, which would then indicate that he freely uses images without consideration of their copyright status. Otherwise, although I'm withholding voting temporarily, my inclination is to say that this photo doesn't depict Syrians at all and that Moubayed was either misled or is misleading for propaganda purposes. The issue came up once at in a Wikipedia discussion at Golan Heights, where an editor pointed out that the subjects' dress doesn't correspond to what Syrian inhabitants of the Golan would have been wearing at the time. That's a valid concern that needs to be addressed in order to convince me that this photo authentically depicts what Moubayed is claiming it depicts. In the event that this discussion should move to be closed before I can comment again, my vote can be considered  Delete on account of there being no accompanying data indicating who the photographer/publisher was, which would allow us to corroborate Moubayed's claims.Biosketch (talk) 07:03, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

•  Keep I see no evidence of copyright violation (that the requester calls "clear cut"). The request sounds biased, especially the characterization of the source site as "unreliable" and the requester not addressing clarifications about the source when presented by others. What exactly makes that site unreliable? And why is it relevant (to the deletion request) that it is Syrian? Why is it "obscure"? Is it obscure (or unreliable) *because* it's Syrian? And if the request is based on copyright violation, why are these characterizations being made about the source in the first place? The requester also does not seem to be able to justify or respond to the clarifications that have been made about copyright, either, while seeming to repeat that the request is "clear cut." These things smell fishy to me. I'm sorry if I'm contributing to an attack on users instead of content - I'm trying to look at the content of the request. Anyway, I guess an anonymous vote doesn't carry much weight but I'm not a regular contributor other than random minor edits from time to time.