Because copyright expiry is governed by local laws, some special noteworthy cases exist, in particular for photographs. These cases are interesting for Wikipedia if a work was not published in the U.S., because then, the law of the originating country must be examined. There is a whole slew of country-specific image copyright tags for precisely that purpose; see the list of image copyright tags. However, being in the public domain in its home country does not automatically mean that the work was also in the public domain in the U.S. Wherever these country-specific tags are used, they should be accompanied by a rationale explaining why the image is thought to be in the public domain in the U.S., too. (Remember that Wikipedia is primarily subject to U.S. law!)

Some examples of such country-specific rules are:

• In Australia, the copyright on published photographs taken before May 1, 1969 expired 50 years after the creation. (For photographs taken later, it expired 50 years after the first publication.) As a result of the Australia-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), new legislation became effective on January 1, 2005, extending the copyright term (also on photographs) generally to 70 years p.m.a, but explicitly ruling out a revival of copyright on works whose copyright had already expired. Any published photographs created before January 1, 1955 are thus in the public domain in Australia. The same also holds true for other works, which were protected 50 years p.m.a. prior to January 1, 2005: any work of an author who died before January 1, 1955 is in the public domain in Australia. See Infosheet G-23: Duration of Copyright by the Australian Copyright Council. These rules even apply for works where the government holds the copyright, i.e. that are under Crown copyright. (There is the template {{PD-Australia}} for tagging such images.) See also copyright expiration in Australia.
• In Canada, any photograph created (not published!) before January 1, 1949 and not covered by Crown copyright is in the public domain. This is a consequence of the Canadian Bill C-32: An Act to Amend the Copyright Act, which replaced the old rule for photographs ("copyright expires 50 years after creation of the work") by 50 years p.m.a., but not retroactively applying the new rule to works that were already in the public domain by the effective date of the bill, January 1, 1999 (see at the bottom). Wikipedia has the template {{PD-Canada}} for tagging such images.

For an exhaustive list of the current situation in many countries, see Wikipedia:Copyright situations by country. This may help dealing with such cases. UNESCO also maintains a collection of copyright laws from many countries around the world. For works (photographs and others alike, but excepting sound recordings made prior to February 15, 1972) not published in the U.S., the following rule applies:

January 1, 1996 is the date the U.S. Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA) became effective. The URAA implemented TRIPS, part of the Uruguay Round of the GATT negotiations, in U.S. law. The URAA essentially is codified in U.S. law in 17 USC 104a. It had the effect of automatically restoring copyrights of works that were still copyrighted in their country of origin but whose copyright had lapsed in the U.S. due to non-compliance with technical formalities such as proper registration of the copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office. Since works that have entered the public domain in their country of origin prior to January 1, 1996 are not eligible to this copyright restoration, such works remain in the public domain in the U.S. This, however, is valid only in cases where the U.S. federal copyright law (17 USC) applies. There are some specialized cases that are subject to state law, where other rules may apply (see the section on sound recordings below).

For the above cases, this means:

• Australian photographs taken before January 1, 1946, not published in the U.S., and where no copyright was registered in the U.S., are in the public domain in Australia and the U.S.
• Other works first published in Australia whose author has died before January 1, 1946 and where no copyright was registered in the U.S. are also in the public domain in Australia and the U.S.
• Canadian photographs taken before January 1, 1946, not subject to Crown copyright, not published in the U.S., and where no copyright was registered in the U.S. are in the public domain in Canada and the U.S.

Additionally, because of the rule of the shorter term, such photographs are likely to be also in the public domain in Europe and in Japan, unless published there. (For the EU, one may probably even apply the 1955 and 1949 cut-off dates.)

The obvious difficulty here is to show that any particular work was indeed not published in the U.S, especially when considering works by Canadians. Even worse, one has to show that the work was indeed first published in Australia or Canada, respectively. If it was published in the U.S., the whole deliberation about copyright expiry in other countries doesn't come to play at all—the work is copyrighted in the U.S. (unless it was published before 1923, or in a few very specific, difficult to verify cases, see "copyright notices" below). If the work was published first in some third country—such as the United Kingdom—that third country is the country of origin, and consequently, one has to apply that country's copyright regulations to determine whether the work's copyright had expired by January 1, 1996. There are some other problems, too:

• If a work has multiple countries of origin because it was published in several countries within 30 days, it is unclear what rules would apply. Most probably, the copyright on the work would have to be expired in all of them by January 1, 1996 for the work to be in the public domain in the U.S.
• It is entirely unclear how retroactive legislation would affect this rule. What if a work had been in the public domain in its country of origin on January 1, 1996, but that country subsequently modified its copyright laws such that the work's copyright was reactivated?

While the author of a photograph can often be determined quite easily, it may be rather difficult to ascertain where and when a particular image was first published. And strictly speaking one would also have to verify that a non-U.S. work was not covered by copyright in the U.S. by virtue of some bilateral agreement of the U.S. and the foreign country (see and "Circular 38a" in the "external links" section below). Country-specific public domain tags must therefore be used with the utmost care only.

Hak cipta Kerajaan United Kingdom

Crown copyright is a special form of copyright on governmental works (including works made by employees of government agencies in the course of their duties) that exists in the United Kingdom and a number of other Commonwealth realms. Crown copyright for published works generally lasts for 50 years since the first publication (this is true not only for the UK but also e.g. for Canada or Australia). When Crown copyright expires on a work in its country of origin, the work enters the public domain in that country, but it may still be copyrighted in other signatory countries of the Berne Convention because these other countries apply their own laws, which may have longer copyright terms and not even know the concept of a "Crown copyright". (See e.g. Sterling 1995 towards the end, section titled "Protection of Crown copyright in other countries".)

An exception to this is UK Crown copyright. Although UK works on which the Crown copyright has expired also could still be copyrighted elsewhere, the British Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI), which manages all Crown copyrights on behalf of the coypright holder (the Crown), has explicitly stated in an e-mail to Wikipedia that they consider UK Crown copyright expiry to apply world-wide.

There is a flowchart explaining the precise rules for UK Crown copyright expiry. For photographs the rules are as follows:

• For photographs taken before June 1, 1957, Crown copyright expires 50 years after the creation of the image.
• For photographs taken after that date and published before August 1, 1989, Crown copyright expires 50 years after the first publication. For photographs created between these two dates, but published only on or after the 1989 date, Crown copyright expires on December 31, 2039.
• For photographs created on or after August 1, 1989, Crown copyright expires 125 years after the creation or 50 years after the first publication of the image, whatever is earlier.

There is the template {{PD-BritishGov}} to tag images which are claimed to be in the public domain under these rules.