Hoi, Historic has the meaning of old and it has the meaning of relevance. For archives and museums the rights issue is not really their concern they are interested in who produced what material. This is more relevant to them based on what their core function is. The fact that a photographer may also be the right holder is seen as a bonus.
This is best demonstrated with the excitement when a work is discovered to be of a master like Rembrandt or Leonardo da Vinci. Thanks. GerardM
2009/3/30 Mathias Schindler mathias.schindler@gmail.com
2009/3/30 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Hoi, When you talk about clearing properly you are applying modern notions to historic situations. The notion of copyright and clearing copyrights is quite modern. Licensing is also quite modern. It is easy to expect the clearing of copyright to be done properly it is however an unreasonalbe expectation.
Truly historic images are not a problem, as they should be PD. The more recent the images get, the more sensible the agencies, museums and other institutions get to properly record the rights issue. It is not an unreasonable expection but a necassary one.
Mathias
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l