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Ask HN: Finding the Australian Aboriginal flag in all artworks

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Re: Ask HN: Finding the Australian Aboriginal flag in all artworks

#42
The closest flag I could find in the ten minutes of Google searching I could allot is the flag of the kingdom of Württemberg (1805 - 1918). It's just missing the yellow circle. Coincidentally the coat of arms involves a yellow oval and would often be placed in the centre of the flag.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_W%C3%BCrttemberg

Re: Ask HN: Finding the Australian Aboriginal flag in all artworks

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a decent summary of the ongoing copyright debate -> https://theconversation.com/explainer-our-copyright-laws-and...

From that link, "Thomas was successful in establishing his claim to authorship before the Federal Court in 1997." IANAL, but I believe you're 23 years too late

Authorship isn't sufficient for ownership of copyright.

Trademark is probably the issue that's most pertinent. Even if the flag weren't a work owned by Thomas, for copyright purposes, then it seems it's their trademark (registered or established by use).

IANAL

Re: Ask HN: Finding the Australian Aboriginal flag in all artworks

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't claim copyright on something you copied, you have to be the original creator. Depending on jurisdiction and when copyright was claimed (laws change) that is not necessarily true. In USA use to be first to file was awarded the copyright. Also in USA, for instance, copyright is granted for collections, organizations, arrangements or compositions of pre-existing things. Such a photographer can claim copyrigh…

You're mixing up patents with copyright. First-to-file is an element of patent law, where priority is given to the first person to file the patent as opposed to the prior version in the US law (first-to-invent) where priority would be given to someone who demonstrated that they invented it first. The actual law for the US (17 USC §201 (a)): > Copyright in a work protected under this title vests initially in the autho…

They're probably not confusing patents/copyright.

AIUI, USA didn't adopt copyright as an unregistered right, ratifying the Berne Convention, until 1988, 100 years after most of the rest of the World.

I don't quite know how registration works (see copyright.gov) but it seems there might be a presumption of ownership that's established? They still have registration in USA and it affords greater rights (higher damages in cases of infringement I think). Notably, novelty is not an absolute requirement for copyright registration.

Re: Ask HN: Finding the Australian Aboriginal flag in all artworks

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're mixing up patents with copyright. First-to-file is an element of patent law, where priority is given to the first person to file the patent as opposed to the prior version in the US law (first-to-invent) where priority would be given to someone who demonstrated that they invented it first. The actual law for the US (17 USC §201 (a)): > Copyright in a work protected under this title vests initially in the autho…

They're probably not confusing patents/copyright. AIUI, USA didn't adopt copyright as an unregistered right, ratifying the Berne Convention, until 1988, 100 years after most of the rest of the World. I don't quite know how registration works (see copyright.gov) but it seems there might be a presumption of ownership that's established? They still have registration in USA and it affords greater rights (higher damages i…

The Copyright Act of 1976 is the big recent overhaul of US copyright, which switched copyright to automatic registration and established regimes for unpublished and orphaned works, which was previously largely handled by state laws, usually under common law.

The requirement that the author must hold copyright seems to be implicit in earlier versions of copyright law all the way back to the 1790 Copyright Act; I don't see any provision that would let one copyright a work one was not the author of.

Registration creates prima facie evidence that the registrant is the legitimate owner of the copyright. Anyone who disputes the claim in the face of a registered copyright has the burden of proof to demonstrate that the registration was erroneous.

Re: Ask HN: Finding the Australian Aboriginal flag in all artworks

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pre-existing is the keyword there, I believe. You can't claim copyright on something you copied, you have to be the original creator.

> You can't claim copyright on something you copied, you have to be the original creator. Depending on jurisdiction and when copyright was claimed (laws change) that is not necessarily true. In USA use to be first to file was awarded the copyright. Also in USA, for instance, copyright is granted for collections, organizations, arrangements or compositions of pre-existing things. Such a photographer can claim copyrigh…

> Also in USA, for instance, copyright is granted for collections, organizations, arrangements or compositions of pre-existing things.

Yes, but you're not copyrighting those pre-existing things in that case, you're copyrighting the collection, organization etc. And if somebody else had done those before, you'll again have a hard time copyrighting it (given that you've copied it).

> Such a photographer can claim copyright on photo of a bridge.

But not of the bridge, which is the pre-existing thing. His photo didn't exist before.

Though photos are, in my opinion (and I'm not a lawyer), one of the really interesting things that I believe make a lot of the issues of our current system of copyright very visible: 100 photographers can stand in the same spot, aim their identical cameras at the same point and make virtually identical photos, and can all, individually, claim copyright on their photo that, if you printed them out and mixed them, they couldn't pick from a line-up.

Re: Ask HN: Finding the Australian Aboriginal flag in all artworks

#47

I am not an ML expert, so I cannot respond myself, but I am disappointed at how few responses address the ML aspect of the question.

You're disappointed that a bunch of "ML experts" were not monitoring HN, in real-time, just waiting for posts like this so that they could drop whatever they were doing and immediately respond with a solution to this "problem" -- in detail, with the use of ML -- on a Monday morning, within roughly an hour or so after the question was initially asked? --- To make up for this unimaginable transgression that you have be…

This is unnecessarily abusive.

It also ignores the fact that the one who asked the question was hoping for the same thing as SubiculumCode.

Re: Ask HN: Finding the Australian Aboriginal flag in all artworks

#48

Please don't put tracking links in your text

I was just over the character limit so put them in. No intention to use, happy to switch them to some privacy centric alternative, but I don't know any.

I've replaced two bit.ly links with the URLs they point to in your text above. In the future, as gpm points out, you can just use 'edit' to get around the length restriction.

Re: Ask HN: Finding the Australian Aboriginal flag in all artworks

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many flags did you design that later got adopted by countries or people groups? There’s no question he designed it (although that artwork that contains a very similar design is very interesting). But the Government should have probably compulsorarily acquired it by now if he isn’t willing to give it up... I guess they’re waiting for him to die so it won’t be as easy for them to be dragged to the high court over t…

It won't be in the public domain until 70 years after his death. (Though it might be easier to override his heir's claim after he is deceased)

Probably longer. Each time Mickey gets close to the end of the countdown, it gets extended by the US government and their crack squad of Disney negotiators.

Re: Ask HN: Finding the Australian Aboriginal flag in all artworks

#50
Interesting problem. What is the general class of "find this object in other pictures" called? I've noticed that most image search aims at a different goal: "find pictures like this picture" so tineye, Google Image Search, and friends are unlikely to be of use.

By the way, it reminds me of the flag of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (a party from my home state in India), which coincidentally also uses a Sun amongst their symbols. I wonder if they've got a version with the Sun on their flag.

If I were an organization with clout in the field I would propose an alternative flag, but I imagine people are attached to this one. Well, good luck!

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