File talk:Paul Klee WI (In Memoriam) 1938.jpg

In Plain English please ?

Can anyone please explain concisely what the copyright situation regarding this JPEG is? I am viewing this page in a browser (D'Oh!). The location of the computer on which the browser is installed may or may not be in a particular country (I could be in an airplane or outside of territorial waters!). The host of any website that my browser points at may have servers in different countries meaning. This seems to me to mean that:

1. The electromagnetic file of the image may reside in more than one country similtaneously (due to standard back up procedures etc)

2. The host of the website may be registered in more than one country (ie ownership of any particular electronic file may be held by corporate bodies or individuals resident in more than one country)

3. The electromagnetic file is converted into a (human) visible artefact on a device whose location cannot be known with certainty.

How do these three factors relate to use of the image? Who is the primary corporate body/person responsible for complying with copyright and where is this person deemed to be resident?

Finally, what happens at the end of the various terms for the public domain existance of the work? How is it possible for something that is in the public domain to be taken back from the public domain after it has been used? This may be legal but it seems far beyond any form of common-sense.

I am floundering and the legalese does not help. Can anyone provide some practical bottom lines (above and beyond basic copyright law etc.) ?

LookingGlass (talk) 11:22, 18 October 2012 (UTC)