Hoi, With a growing network in the GLAM work we can get attention for this collection. When you read the documentation, Corbis did the equivalent of strip-farming. They took everything where the copyright is with them out and now what is left is the material that does not have clarity about the copyright holder.
Given that Mr Bill Gates is involved in Corbis, we can see what his appreciation is of this situation. Also the European Union is pondering what to do with orphan works. When we adopt this collection, it allows us to put pressure on the copyright junkies. Thanks, GerardM
2011/2/28 Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com
On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 3:20 AM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
Responding to Gnangarra - this is a very interesting issue indeed, and
one
that we might be able to make a big impact with, but I don't think this
is a
Wikimedia FOUNDATION issue as it involves the creation/purchase of
content.
Rather I would suggest that this is an issue that falls within the scope
of
the Chapters - in this case WM-FR. Either money could be spent directly
from
a chapter(s) budget or potentially the chapter(s) could run a specific donation-drive to fund such a purchase? Besides, how much are we talking here? $50,000? $500,000? $5million?
Response to Jon - the way I read that, it means that 75% of the
photographs
were taken under contract with Corbis and therefore the copyright would
come
with the purchase of the collection. Any purchase could presumably be specified to only those images which come WITH the copyright.
It's not exactly clear to me. One thing though, if the copyright lies with an agency, it lies with Sygma, and not Corbis. Or rather, with the company that resulted of Sygma's buying and that is being dissolved. But the phrasing is very strange, and talks about a contract not being signed, so I am really not sure what the exact copyright status of this collection is.
One thing is certain, it's a huge amount of photographs (some 12,5 millions, 7km of shelves!), which means that as such there is little chance that Wikimedia (France or other) has the financial potential to on the one hand buy the collection (although Gnangarra has a point in that it's probably not too expensive), but more importantly to preserve such a collection.
Delphine
-- @notafish
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