Wikidata:Property proposal/copyright registration

US copyright registration ID edit

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Authority control

DescriptionID assigned by the US copyright office recording the registration of copyright for a creative work, or the renewal of such a copyright
Representscopyright registration (Q5169284)
Data typeExternal identifier
Template parametercopyright registration
Domainitem, subclasses of creative work (Q17537576), plus some instances of version, edition or translation (Q3331189)
Allowed values[A-Z][A-Za-z. ]*[\d-]+\d
Example 1copyright renewal (Q108896873) → A15797 (object has role (P3831)copyright registration (Q5169284))
Example 2copyright renewal (Q108896873)no value (object has role (P3831)copyright renewal (Q108896873))
Example 3Prelude to a Million Years (Q108896902) → A68499 (object has role (P3831)copyright registration (Q5169284))
Example 4Prelude to a Million Years (Q108896902)R273092 object has role (P3831)copyright renewal (Q108896873))
Planned useuse for recording renewal information currently captured in s:en:Template:Copyright-until
Number of IDs in source100s of thousands
Expected completenesseventually complete (Q21873974) (in that copyright IDs are no longer being issued as copyright in the US is automatic now)

Motivation edit

  WikiProject Books has more than 50 participants and couldn't be pinged. Please post on the WikiProject's talk page instead.: Works published in the US after 1926 and before 1963 has to be registered and renewed to retain copyright. This means the presence of a registration (which has a unique ID) is what determines if many works are in the PD or not. See more details at s:en:Help:Copyright renewals.

The prefix of the ID determines the type of work (e.g. A = book, E = music) and R means "renewal".

Sometimes a renewal or registration only covers part of a work (e.g. just the preface in a certain edition). So in that case, a qualifier of applies to part (P518) probably makes sense. A date qualifier for each should usually be present.

I am not sure if there should be a separate property for renewal, or if a qualifier of object has role (P3831) is better.

This will assist with automating and processing copyright information at Wikisource. Inductiveload (talk) 20:57, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relevant property that could be used as a qualifier on this property: Wikidata:Property_proposal/relevant_date_for_copyright

Discussion edit

See [1] for formatting, the prefix also indicates if the work was registered as published or unpublished. Jarnsax (talk) 15:21, 11 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Jarnsax: and the other file you showed me: https://www.copyright.gov/historic-records/admin-classification.pdf for a description of the historical formats, so the format is something much more complex.
And the actual formatting as printed in the Catalog of Copyright Entries is variable: phab:F34641030 says Class A, XXc, no. 232831, but by that guide PDF, it is also written more like A xxc 232831. So I changed the format to [A-Z][A-Za-z. ]*[\d-]+\d which should cover most variants.
There is still apparently no universal service for looking these up (LoC has post-1978 numbers at cocatalog above, Stanford has book renewals), so I'm not sure about the formatter URL. Inductiveload (talk) 18:55, 12 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@User:Inductiveload It's probably worth pointing out that the Standford db is explicitly not reliable (it's based on an unchecked transcription). It's only meant to serve as a finding aid, and errors are rampant. Jarnsax (talk) 19:06, 12 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  Support, long-needed functionality. PseudoSkull (talk) 11:21, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  Support but the proposed formatter URL should be entered instead as a third-party formatter - it's not the official one, and as noted it doesn't work for original id's. ArthurPSmith (talk) 17:26, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@ArthurPSmith: Happy to, but how does one enter it as a third-party formatter? Inductiveload (talk) 11:50, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Just use third-party formatter URL (P3303) on the property page after it is created. ArthurPSmith (talk) 16:49, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ah right, thanks! I removed it from the proposal. Inductiveload (talk) 16:20, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  Support, data can be added from enWS. - ei (talk) 18:17, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]