Image talk:Jews of K'ai-Fung-Foo, China.jpg

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[edit] Copyright?

This image has a copyright tag directly on it. If the Jewish Encyclopedia is really public domain, can I just crop the picture so that the (c) text is no longer there? --Storkk 11:50, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I see no reason to do that. The Jewish Encyclopedia was published 1901-1906 so it is (including all images contained in it) entirely in the public domain. The folks at jewishencyclopedia.com have done an admirable job of scanning in the images and making them available for public use, but slapping on a purported copyright tag does not grant them any right over control or access to the images. A scan of a public domain image is still public domain. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 13:37, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

The Jewish Encylcopedia (JE) is in the public domain, however, JE.com (IANAL) I would think has a copyright on their scans of the original document. I think (but may be wrong) that my opinion is backed up by their Terms Of Service, especially the following section (I have bolded relevant clauses):
3. Rights in Service Content and the Service
3.1 All content provided by JE.com on the Service is protected by copyright, trademark, and other applicable intellectual property and proprietary rights laws and is owned, controlled, and/or licensed by JE.com. The Service is protected by copyright, patent, trademark, and other applicable intellectual property and proprietary rights laws and is owned, controlled, and/or licensed by the Kopelman Foundation. JewishEncyclopedia.com is a trademark of JE.com. All other trademarks appearing on the Service are the property of their respective owners.
3.2 You may search, retrieve, display, download, and print content from the Service solely for your personal, internal use, and shall make no other use of the content without the express written permission of JE.com and the copyright owner (or its authorized agent) of such content. You will not modify, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale, create derivative works, or in any way exploit, any of the content, in whole or in part, found on the Service. Further, you will not engage in any systematic downloading or other activity directed towards any of the content, in whole or in part, found on the Service that would create any electronic data base or archive containing such content. However, assuming your compliance with the terms of this Agreement, you may on an occasional, infrequent basis distribute in paper form or through electronic mail single copies of individual works of content contained in the Service in connection with the uses permitted by this Agreement. You will not make any changes to any content that you are permitted to download under this Agreement, and in particular you will not delete or alter any proprietary rights or attribution notices in any content. You also will not "frame" any of the content on the Service or the Service itself without the express written permission of JE.com and the copyright owner or its authorized agent. You agree that you do not acquire any ownership rights in any downloaded content. Your further agree that all rights in the Service and any of the content found on the Service not granted to you under this Agreement are expressly reserved to JE.com and/or its licensors.
3.3 Certain content found on the Service may be subject to additional terms and conditions as specified in Section 11 below.
What I take this to mean (and I might be wrong), is that yes, the original 1906 edition is public domain, but you can scan it yourself if you want a photo. JE.com spent time uploading it, etc, and the online content is entirely theirs. Again, I may be wrong. This is just my take on things. I'd appreciate your thoughts. Thanks. :-) --Storkk 12:44, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
They can claim whatever they like, but it ain't so. Zsero 21:23, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Also, if it really is in the public domain, surely it would be better to remove the (C) information at the bottom of the picture. It would be easy to crop. --Storkk 12:50, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
I have just done exactly that, and cropped the image. --Storkk 13:13, 2 September 2006 (UTC)