Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Maximising the use of public domain government image collections

In some countries, works created by the government are automatically in the public domain, and are not subject to 50, 70 or 100 year rules for the expiry of work's copyright.

The most notable of such countries is the United States, and this is most beneficial, especially as a great amount of US government material is published on the internet or books, and are easily accessible.

While most countries have policies that are not so amenable with Wikipedia's need for free images, the wide influence that the US has in international affairs, through military interventions in other countries, or through a diplomatic presence, means that the US government also holds a great deal of photos that can be used in other country's topics.

Most notably these can include images of American military installations and activities while overseas, but US military or government publications often also discuss military officers or leaders from allied countries, often accompanied by photos of the said people, usually taken by US Embassy staff or other public servants or military officers to keep a record of things.

The most obvious places to look for photos can be

• US Embassy websites
  • They tend to keep images of functions in the said country where the ambassador, leading members of executive or legislature etc, meet with government/military officials of the host country or their compatriots abroad.
  • On more esoteric matters, the US Embassy sometimes also takes photos of celebrities who go to the US missions in their country to apply for a visa or other promotional events. example
• US military history websites, either for public consumption, or those used for training military officers
  • Such websites have hundreds of military history books in electronic form, which are PD as well if one wants to copy their text. The images in these books are usually created by military personnel during their service and should be PD. Searching in the relevant textbooks will also yield many images of military figures and facilities in other countries where the United States was involved, as well as the odd landscape, sometimes with a panoramic aerial view. Maps in government works and reports are also PD, saving the considerable trouble of having to create one.

Example of a free map in a US military textbook.

A list of US government websites, and their corresponding PD resources, can be found on the US task force page.

Aside from the images taken directly from US government sources, government-created images reproduced in third-party books remain in the public domain.

Leaked government reports/textbooks such as the Pentagon Papers are also PD.

Hidden goldmines

Sometimes a photo in a book, accompanied by a photo credit gives little information about the copyright status of the image, on the surface at least. Then, due to Wikipedia's desire for free content, one would usually have to err on the side of caution and eschew the use of the uncertain image. However, some indecisively labelled photos can actually be in the public domain as a government work regardless of age, even if they are not labelled as such.

For instance, take the following book about Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. serving as the US ambassador to South Vietnam.

• Blair, Anne E. (1995). Lodge in Vietnam: A Patriot Abroad. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300062265.

There are a variety of images in there, of US officials such as Lodge, General William Westmoreland, etc meeting with Vietnamese leaders such as General Nguyen Khanh. While none had any explicit information about the copyright status, and would otherwise be copyrighted (as they are only four decades old), some were labelled "Flott Collection" or "Dunn Collection". As Frederick Flott and Colonel Dunn were Lodge's personal embassy aides, those photos were either taken by themselves or their subordinates for government records, and are thus PD regardless of age.

Another prolific source is the "Douglas Pike Collection", a vast plethora of images, reports and documents of a CIA officer (and possibly his subordinates) who served in Vietnam, which are thus PD.

The Vietnam Archive at the Texas Tech University is a prolific online archive of Vietnam War paraphernalia, including cuttings, declassified reports, and photos taken by US officials and military personnel. They include many images and documents that may not be explicitly marked as such, but are PD if one knows the employment history of the author, such as the Pikes and Dunns of the world.

These examples apply to government works for countries with similar laws.

Foreign exchange

While most countries do not have automatic PD status for government reports, one can find a surprising amount of material relating to a third party nation by looking up material relating to conflicts in which the two countries were involved, as noted above. This can be particularly true if some of the military officials involved in other countries were US allies who were defeated, forced to flee and resettled in the United States. In order to learn the lessons of history, and to improve in future work, the US military education system often commissions textbooks written by senior officers from allied countries and these offer much unexploited free photos and maps.

A notable example was the Indochina Monographs series written by Army of the Republic of Vietnam and Khmer Republic officers who moved to the United States following the fall of Saigon and the Khmer Rouge takeover, such as Generals Cao Van Vien and Ngo Quang Truong.

Examples

• Ngo, Lieutenant General Quang Truong, The Easter offensive of 1972. Washington DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980.
• Sutsakhan, Lieutenant General Sak, The Khmer Republic at War and the Final Collapse. Washington DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1984.
• Tho, Brigadier General Tran Dinh, The Cambodian Incursion. Washington DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1979.