Hoi,
<grin> you indeed can do better </grin> Often the person who did the photography is known, but it is not possible to contact him. Often the material does not have a known photographer but the material was donated by the organisation that commissioned the work. When you talk about "liberating", it is the wish of museums and archives to do exactly that.

The idea of Commons is to have a repository of material that can be used in the projects of the Wikimedia Foundation and that is freely licensed as such. The notion of "fair use" is open in many jurisdictions and it is for this reason that the English Wikipedia insists on using this. When we are talking about copyright orphans, orphans where serious effort has gone into finding a copyright holder by a reputable organisation, we are talking about prime candidates for liberating this material.

If Commons does not want this material we might want to have a second repository for such material. It would then be for individual projects to accept this material or not. The appreciation of what Commons is about seems also open for interpretation :)

NB I do make a distinction between organisations like museums and archives and what people contribute. What I find is that there is a need for a resource where material of museums and archives are registered. There are often mulitple repositories for the same material and research only needs to be done once.
Thanks,
       GerardM

2009/3/30 Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler@gmail.com>
2009/3/30 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>:
> Hoi,
> In the way you put it, there is no discussion possible. I do accept your
> position, I do not agree with it.
>
> What you write is more an article of faith then an argument why this is what
> we do. Mathias, you can do better.

Actually, the museums should do better. There is discussion possible
on various topics, including research to identify the proper owners of
copyright and rights of usage. If the basic idea of a cooperation with
museums and archives is to liberate content, then it is not a matter
of faith to ensure that the content is actually liberated and not put
into a situation that compromises the whole idea of Wikimedia Commons.

Mathias

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