On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 12:03:04 +0100, "David Gerard" <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: The same way that the UK Top Ten is the property of the company that publishes it, and a list of No. 1 hits in the UK is asserted by them to violate that copyright. Do you actually *know*, David? That's what I was after, a better-informed opinion. Where the answer is a competition between educated guesses, the precautionary principle argues for exclusion. I'm actually trying to find out if anyone can do better than an educated guess, perhaps from personal experience. Thank you so much for that. Of course you are right: I went out clicking Special:Random looking for content to delete and found this, then thought of a Really Good Reason for removing it. You have rumbled my evil plan to waste whole days of worthless Wikitime, and rightly imply that I have nothing better to do. Oh, wait, that was a bit sarcastic, wasn't it? I know you included "whether or not". You are right: I dislike lists taken from external sources and dumped into Wikipedia. Especially when the sources are primary. It does not feel right. WP:FREE. Specifically, then, this is a list of cars which is assembled into categories by the show. It seems to me to be functionally identical to, say, the "100 greatest humans" or "100 worst pop sings" lists which are broadcast or published - the list is the compilation of the show, and the intellectual property is likely to be vested in the show's owners. In terms of the 100 greatest humans, consensus was to include a selection (and I'd be happy with that on the cool wall too). Some other "top 100" lists have been deleted by consensus as violating copyright. So: BBC compiles a list of cars, broadcasts it on the show, and we reproduce the list. Can you not see why that would look like a copyright violation? But I want a more informed view. Is it not the case that the onus is on the editors seeking to include the content, to show that it does not violate policy? The fact that it is apparently assembled from watching numerous shows and writing stuff down is a separate issue, and plagues many popular culture articles. If we are the *first* source outside of the original media to publish some fact, that does rather indicate to me that we are doing something wrong. Encyclopaedia = tertiary source. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. However, for certain reasons, this particular subtopic of copyright is, err, very dear to my heart, and I will immodestly boast of having argued down at least one mistaken lawyer over it. Under US law, the keywords you would want to understand are called "compilation copyright". http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html "A "compilation" is a work formed by the collection and assembling of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship." And actually, "facts about the show" CAN be owned! http://www.rcfp.org/news/1998/0824i.html "SECOND CIRCUIT--A trivia quiz book testing readers' knowledge and recollection of lines from the 'Seinfeld' television show does not qualify as a "fair use" and as such constitutes copyright infringement ..." In general, you really, really, don't want to try to get useful answers to questions of copyright law by throwing them out to a mailing list and debating them from intuition. -- Seth Finkelstein Consulting Programmer http://sethf.com/ Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/ Interview: http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote: I see nothing wrong with Wikipedia being the first source to bring together a group of facts from disparate sources (in this case from each individual show) and publishing them together in one article. Fundamentally, that's what _all_ of our articles are supposed to be. Would there be something wrong with Wikipedia having a list of American Presidential veterinarians (for the pets of presidents) that had been compiled in a similar manner from an assortment of presidential biographies rather than being copied from a single source? And I agree with David, this really looks like you're just searching for any excuse you can get to get rid of that list. Copyvio and OR are almost diametrically opposed to each other as reasons to delete something; copyvio means it's a direct copy of something creative that someone else came up with and OR means it's something creative that was come up with ''de novo''. They can't both be true. Accusing this stuff of being both in the same message seems like you're just throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks.

Seth Finkelstein wrote: But if this list was compiled by Wikipedia editors (as JzG claimed when arguing that it's OR) then the _editors_ own the compilation copyright and are perfectly within their rights to release it under the GFDL. But we the editors have to make these sorts of decisions dozens or hundreds of times per day. We _have_ to try to figure out what copyright law means, we can't go running to a professional lawyer with every question. And personally, I believe that any law that is so byzantine and obscure that a layperson it applies to cannot figure out what's legal most of the time is a really bad law. If copyright law was like that we might as well just give up because if someone wants to sue there's really nothing at all we could do to avoid it. In this case, I've had a look at the list and I don't see how it could reasonably be considered a sufficiently detailed summary of facts about the show to violate fair use. It's much less so than our oft-mentioned compilation of Pokemon trivia or hundreds of other such examples. Unless a professional IP lawyer decides to pipe up at this point with contradictory information to convince me otherwise I feel comfortable with my interpretation.

On Mon, 02 Apr 2007 09:19:35 -0600, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote: [[WP:SYNTH]] does, I think. [[WP:ATT]] talks a lot about *secondary* sources. This is collected by watching *primary* sources. And the categorisation in the four categories of coolness is the creative work of the programme makers. You seem to be under the impression that I am so bored and underworked that I can go cruising round looking for things to build up into problems. If I want some Wikiwork to do all I need do is log on to OTRS, I have no need to go looking for problems. That said, when I find them, I try to deal with them. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On Mon, 02 Apr 2007 09:34:03 -0600, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote: No. The list exists in the form of a series of judgments made by the show's presenters, to categorise various cars in various places. The Cool Wall is the Top Gear "car coolness" chart, just as the 100 greatest people list is the author's own view and can't be reproduced without violating his copyright. The reason you have to watch shows is that they blank it at the start of each series, cars move down or up sometimes, and they don't publish the list on the website. It's not that big a thing that they consider it worth republishing, I think. It's still the Top Gear Cool Wall, as arbitrarily decided by Top Gear presenters on the Top Gear show. I'd need a pretty compelling argument that this was not covered by copyright, and I've yet to see one. Which is not to say none exists, I just have yet to see one. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On 4/3/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote: Wait a minute. As I understand it, the policy Phil is defending in his present post states that primary sources are acceptable where the interpretation drawn is not novel (i.e. new). This is how I understand our policy, although Phil in another post seems to have criticised this interpretation (that primary sources should not be cited unless there are secondary sources available). If there are no extant secondary sources, any interpretation whatsoever of the primary source is novel. I suppose one could argue for the face-value, literal meaning interpretation as non-novel, but it's suprising how often people can disagree on a literal reading of a source. Johnleemk

On Apr 2, 2007, at 12:37 PM, John Lee wrote: Well, yes and no. First of all, this is where talk pages become useful parts of our process. Second of all, there are cases, including in academia, where you have to allow for some slippage here. My usual example here is [[Jacques Derrida]]. There are hundreds of secondary sources on him, but the good ones are A) no easier to interpret than the primary sources, and B) POV to high hell about what it is his philosophy means. The accessible general overviews are of mediocre quality at best, and are far from respected by any important Derrida scholars. Attempting to write an article primarily from secondary sources about Derrida is a doomed proposition. The way to write a good Derrida article is to have a bunch of people who use Derrida's ideas in their own scholarship write up summaries of Derrida's thought, and have points of disagreement and tension (i.e. the points where people disagree on exactly what On Grammatology means right here) sourced to secondary sources and explained in an NPOV fashion. This is important. The best way to write this article on a major philosopher who nobody would even think to nominate for deletion is from primary sources, using secondary sources only when needed. (This was, it should be noted, how [[Michel Foucault]], a similar article, was written and became a featured article. No citations anywhere in the "Works" section aside from the implied citation to the primary sources. Damn good artlcle, and a great overview of Foucault's work. This should be a model.) -Phil

On Apr 2, 2007, at 1:07 PM, William Pietri wrote: The issue becomes how it's being reported, then. Is the list of cars being compiled in relation to cars, or in relation to the list- makers? If it's the latter, it's much more like FA cup results. -Phil

On Tue, 3 Apr 2007, John Lee wrote: In this case, it's the word "interpretation" which you're stretching out of all reasonableness. Procedures like making simple logical deductions, arranging in alphabetical order, or collecting lists of items are not interpretations.

On 4/3/07, Ken Arromdee <arromdee(a)rahul.net> wrote: I chose the word "interpretation" for a reason. Sorry if I didn't make this clear earlier, but I'm not debating the Top Gear case at all - truth be told, I forgot that that was the original topic in the first place. I'm speaking in general terms about policy, because it seems to me that Phil is advocating a view of policy that permits primary sources even where secondary sources don't exist. Johnleemk

On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 00:37:38 +0800, "John Lee" <johnleemk(a)gmail.com> wrote: That's pretty much how I see it, too. A subject which has *no* reliable secondary sources is probably unencyclopaedic, a subject which is primarily drawn from reputable secondary sources may undoubtedly contain individual facts drawn directly from primary sources, provided no novel conclusions are proposed as a result. And I suspect Phil and I would agree on the majority of calls either way, although we might well disagree as to what constitutes a reliable secondary source for a given article. In some cases we have articles where the level of quality of the source is reduced and reduced until a non-trivial one can be found, on the grounds that it is "obviously notable", like bands that have appeared on Eurovision. And in some cases people are still psychologically back in the "good old days" of 2004 and earlier, when we actually needed lots more content. By now a pretty high proportion of new articles are vanity, spam or both. And the spammers are getting smarter - some companies now employ SEOs directly. But I digress. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 10:48:30 -0700, "Matthew Brown" <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote: Um, no. This is a classic case of "hard cases make bad law". If the list is taken to have been presented as part of the content of the show, then it is almost certainly a copyright violation (I have contacted the rights holders to check, of course). If, on the other hand, we argue that it is not a copyright violation because the list itself is not presented as part of the show's content, then the list in the article is a novel synthesis from original materials. It rather depends on whether you count a list which identifies the vehicles by photograph rather than text label, as being equivalent to the same list translated into text labels, Each week Clarkson and the Hamster stand up and invite the audience to help them decide whether the Ford Blah is cool or not; the decision made, it goes on the wall. The Top Gear criterion of "coolness" has been the basis of derivative works published by the BBC (e.g. Hammond's "What Not To Drive"), but the only way to get the list as text is either to watch every show and write them down, or to recognise the pictures. Of course, I believe it doesn't actually matter which you do, because reproducing the list *in its entirety* is to a very /very/ high degree of probability a violation of the BBC's copyright. It's further complicated by the fact that the BBC don't appear to consider it important enough to put on their website. So the one authoritative single source that might exist for the list as text, but which would at the same time unambiguously make it copyright, does not exist. I also apply the simple man's copyright test: if something you produce is based entirely on copying from another source which asserts copyright, it's probably copyright violation. Needless to say, Top Gear has a copyright statement at the end of every broadcast. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 13:13:10 -0400, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner(a)gmail.com> wrote: The article is on the Top Gear Cool Wall. It lists the cars which Top Gear put on the Top Gear Cool Wall, grouped by the section of the wall in which the Top Gear presenters and audience decided to place them. It is broadcast as part of Top Gear, a copyright BBC programme. There is no objective standard by which the list could be independently derived, the way it is derived is an intrinsic part of the Top Gear show. Specifically, one of the criteria is "would Kristin Scott Thomas be seen driving this?" And this is not based on asking her, as was made abundantly clear when she appeared on the show and trashed a number of the cars which Clarkson had rated as cool using the Scott Thomas test. Put that way it looks a bit less ambiguous than even I had thought... Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On 4/2/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote: I was addressing the 'original research' part of the argument; I don't think it was original research. It's quite likely that the list is copyrighted, however, since it is not a factually based list. The argument then becomes whether quoting that list in Wikipedia is permissible fair use (or the more restrictive UK equivalent, if you're located there). -Matt

On Mon, 02 Apr 2007 15:14:14 -0700, William Pietri <william(a)scissor.com> wrote: A bi like documenting a book by reproducing it in its entirety :-) Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote: That's a case where subjective interpretation may be necessary in order to determine whether an item is a member of the list. In this case, the criterion for list membership is "has been on the Top Gear Cool Wall". This is no more a matter of subjective interpretation than coming up with a cast list for an ongoing TV show. If there's a show where season 1 stars Joe Bloe and Jane Foo, and season 2 stars Jane Foo and Billy dePlume, would it be original research to have the cast list * Joe Bloe * Jane Foo * Billy dePlume in the article about that show, even if nobody else had ever published the list in a secondary source before?

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote: No, we're not reproducing the contents of Top Gear in its entirety. Not even remotely close. Is <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/79th_Academy_Awards> a reproduction of the 79th Academy Awards show in its entirety? It lists the winners.

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote: So I take it you'll be putting <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/79th_Academy_Awards_nominees_and_winners> up for deletion, then? That list also records a copyrighted series of judgments. Doesn't matter if it's more widely known, it's still copyrighted under this interpretation. You're taking an extreme fundamentalist position here that IMO can't possibly work if Wikipedia is to have meaningful coverage of anything post-1920s.

On Mon, 2 Apr 2007, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote: That doesn't follow, because Wikipedia's definition of "novel synthesis" isn't a legal definition. It's entirely plausible that a list can be "novel" in a legal sense, yet non-novel by Wikipedia standards. This smells highly of an attempt to delete listcrufy by whatever means and stretching definitions. I've seen a lot of stretched definitions lately, and they can really hurt us in the future. You are creating Wikipedia's Commerce Clause.

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote: Having followed this thread, I have to voice some frustration with your tactics, Guy. At one point you argue strongly that it's a copyvio. At the next moment that it's OR. And you seem to slip back and forth as is convenient for your argument. When someone makes a point in support of it not being a copyvio, you bring out the OR defense. And when someone makes a point about it not being OR, you bring out the copyvio defense. As I say, this leaves me frustrated. Not because I necessarily agree or disagree with any particular position, but because the conversation does not seem to be headed toward any conclusion. -Rich

On Mon, 02 Apr 2007 17:24:40 -0600, Bryan Derksen &lt;bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca&gt; wrote: No. Awards are published one per year, and listing recipients is a matter of adding one per year, many secondary sources will do this. In this case the Cool Wall is a construct of the show, the list of vehicles with placements on the wall is more analogous to a pop chart, and those definitely are copyright. But we are all guessing, albeit that I have yet to hear a robust analogy which is shown not to be copyright. Where there are competing guesses, I would suggest that we should be cautious, where copyright is concerned. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 17:45:26 -0700 (PDT), Ken Arromdee &lt;arromdee(a)rahul.net&gt; wrote: This is not a list article. It's an article that reproduces someone else's list within the text. If you want listcruft, look at the list of tall men. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On 03/04/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG &lt;guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net&gt; wrote: Has anyone considered actually asking the BBC their opinion?

On Tue, 03 Apr 2007 00:21:17 -0500, Rich Holton &lt;richholton(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: So let me be clear: I think it's a copyvio, and should be excluded on that basis. That is my reason for removing it from the article. Reproducing the list in its entirety is very very likely to violate the BBC's copyright, which is asserted in the show. I *also* think it's original research, in that we are to my knowledge the only place where this list is reproduced outside of the BBC, but that is a separate issue. I am not the only one who thinks that "if not one then the other" applies here, and we should not include the list in its entirety. But my fundamental reason for removing it is copyright, and if the BBC says it is not copyright then I will add it back. I have asked them. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On Mon, 02 Apr 2007 18:08:44 -0600, Bryan Derksen &lt;bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca&gt; wrote: Has anyone asked the Academy if they assert copyright over the list? Oh thank you so much. And there was I thinking that reproducing chunks of stuff directly out of primary sources was forbidden by law, and I was just trying to stop us getting sued. Now I realise that I am just trying to prevent us covering anything at all that happened in the last seventy-odd years. Excuse me while I go and nominate Wikipedia for deletion. Oh, wait, I didn't actually nominate the article for deletion, did I? Once upon a time there was a presumption that the editor seeking to include text was responsible for justifying it. Seems that's changed, then. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 08:14:21 +0100, "James Farrar" &lt;james.farrar(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I have done so. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 08:17:25 +0100, "David Gerard" &lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I'll find the OTRS ticket ref for you if you like. The company sent us an email asking us to remove the list. Convenience? In what way is it convenient to me to have a days-long argument over the removal of cruft from a crufty article? Frankly I don't give a flying fuck about the content, but I *do* care if we violate copyright. Silly of me, I know - and evil, apparently, in that I'm just trying to wreck Wikipedia. I thought I was doing the right thing removing content with ambiguous at best copyright status, perhaps I will know better last time. Yup. But first and foremost I think it's a copyvio. I still don't think Wikipedia should *ever* be the first place to publish a concept, but copyright is the big problem here in my view. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote: Such as your image uploads http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Chichester-Psalms.jpg and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Durufl%C3%A9-Requiem-Kirie.jpg for example? Those particular pages of sheet music aren't even directly discussed in the articles they're used in, they're just there for decoration. You're taking a radically extreme interpretation of copyright in this one case of "fancruft", but clearly you realize that Wikipedia's copyright guidelines actually aren't that stringent or you wouldn't have uploaded those copyrighted scans. In the first post of this thread you ended your description of the situation with: Well, you've been getting plenty of guidance; lots of editors have chimed in to agree that we're highly unlikely to get sued over this and that it isn't original research in any significant way. But you don't seem to be appreciating it, you seem to have had your mind made up to the contrary from the start. So much for "you decide" and "what do I know?" IMO it's looking more and more like you just wanted to find excuses to back up the removal of some content you didn't like. You may win individual battles that way but if you really want to rid Wikipedia as a whole of fancruft then I'd suggest debating _fancruft itself_ rather than trying to warp other unrelated policies to the task. You'll just wind up annoying people and possibly causing unintended side effects.

On 4/3/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG &lt;guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net&gt; wrote: Huh? You keep repeating this, but the evidence for the claim just isn't there. OH MY GOD! Someone watched every show! I know, let's shut down Wikipedia for three months. (Yes, that's someone else's idea, but it does seem to be silly season right now.)

On Tue, 3 Apr 2007, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote: As I've said, "if not one then the other" ignores the fact that Wikipedia's definition of "original research" is not the same as any legal definition related to copyright. It does *not* follow that if not one then the other. Why? You claim that either it's copyright, or it's OR. If you truly believed this, surely if the BBC says it is not copyright, you would conclude it's OR and still leave it out for that reason. (And what are we doing using British copyright laws in a Wikipedia run in the US anyway? Surely the BBC won't tell you if it's copyright under *American* law.)

On 4/2/07, Bryan Derksen &lt;bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca&gt; wrote: Exactly the point of avoiding copyright paranoia.

On 4/3/07, Bryan Derksen &lt;bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca&gt; wrote: I suspect Guy knows quite well that project consensus does not back him as far as he'd like on the 'fancruft' issue. Unfortunately the end result is that topics disliked by some editors who think they shouldn't be in an encyclopedia are subjected to stricter interpretations of Wikipedia policies than those in subject areas not normally contentious. -Matt

On Tue, 03 Apr 2007 04:20:31 -0600, Bryan Derksen &lt;bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca&gt; wrote: That might have some merit if I had included the entire score. I didn't. That is the point here: the list was included *in its entirety*. A few examples? No problem. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 09:20:01 -0400, "The Cunctator" &lt;cunctator(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Paranoia? Or reasonable caution? Paranoia, I'd say, would be a fair judgment if I'd removed - what - three or four examples from each category. That would be paranoid. Reproducing the entire list, that looks a lot like copyright carelessness. We delete hundreds of images a day for this kind of copyright carelessness. One man's cautious is another man's paranoid, clearly. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote: The Cool Wall is only a small portion of the show, as is my understanding, and there's more to it than simply the name of the car that winds up on the board. It is ridiculous to claim that including a listing of cars that have been on it is reproducing the show *in its entirety*. You're stretching really hard here.

On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:31:41 -0600, Bryan Derksen &lt;bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca&gt; wrote: And indeed I did not. I claimed that we were reproducing the cool wall list in its entirety. A chapter in the book that is Top Gear, if you like. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote: Wikipedia allows fair use of copyrighted material, and furthermore it follows American copyright law rather than British so even if the BBC claims "the list is copyright us, don't touch!" and a British lawyer says "they're right, you know" that doesn't necessarily mean we can't include the list. It may be uncopyrighted in the US, and at the very least I expect it's easy fair use.

On 04/04/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG &lt;guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net&gt; wrote: In which case, we'd better remove it. Just in case we get sued.

On 4/4/07, Bryan Derksen &lt;bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca&gt; wrote: I suspect so too. Of course, Wikipedia's US hosting doesn't affect the legal liability of British contributors, who must follow UK copyright law. -Matt

On Wed, 4 Apr 2007 16:48:48 -0400, "The Cunctator" &lt;cunctator(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Not as text, it appears as a pictorial representation. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On 4/4/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG &lt;guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net&gt; wrote: That ticket references the UK music charts, not this BBC Top Gear thing. As far as the music charts go, their copyright status in the US would be questionable. If the charts are actually simply a sales analysis - as they claim to be - such facts would not be copyrightable, since nothing creative goes into producing them. As such, I find the automatic deletion of them based on a questionable copyright claim troubling. I don't think their UK copyright status enters into it, as far as the legality of hosting it on Wikipedia. As I understand it, UK copyright law allows the copyrighting of uncreative works. -Matt

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote: Cite? I thought you said they considered it so trivial they didn't even include a listing on their homepage, part of your "original research" claim on this subject. Now it's a major revenue stream instead?

On 04/04/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG &lt;guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net&gt; wrote: Realism is hardly the first characteristic I'd apply to the recent copyright paranoia I've seen here.

On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:26:21 -0600, Bryan Derksen &lt;bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca&gt; wrote: What purpose would that serve? To get form one to the other you either have to listen to the script week by week, or recognise the pictures. I don't think you would dispute that the latter is original research. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On 4/4/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG &lt;guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net&gt; wrote: So the use in question is highly transformative. That's one factor in favor. And the Cool Wall *doesn't* appear in its entirety, if you're claiming that is the work in question. Only the text of the wall appears, rearranged in a non-creative order. That's another factor which is neutral at worst. I'd say there's no way this is copyright infringement. On the other hand, it's not free content either. So the question shouldn't be whether or not this falls under fair use, but whether or not it's the type of fair use which belongs in a free encyclopedia. Anthony

Anthony wrote: Not that I'd want to spoil the fun, but I'll put $25 toward an intellectual property lawyer's professional opinion. Anybody want to pass the hat around? I would, but I'm off on vacation shortly. William

On 4/4/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG &lt;guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net&gt; wrote: We recognise pictures all the time for Wikipedia content. -Matt

On 4/5/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG &lt;guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net&gt; wrote: One consists of transforming spoken words in a particular order to written words in that same order. The other consists of transforming a bunch of photos of cars arranged on a wall to a list of the types of cars in each section of the wall, arranged alphabetically per section. Seems different to me. No, that may or may not be a violation of copyright, depending on the details of the situation. I mean that the Cool Wall didn't appear in its entirety in the article. If it had a photo of the wall, that would be a copy of the wall in its entirety. Anthony

On 4/5/07, Anthony &lt;wikilegal(a)inbox.org&gt; wrote: It's the TV show/ magazine's opinion that gets a car on the Wall. That it's on the wall is factual. Any detailed description or justification they give is content, and copyrightable. The mere fact of appearance isn't, under US law, with as I understand it rare exceptions. It's not a US show, but here we run into the "ok, just what *are* the trans-national copyright law difference practical effects, particularly on the Internet?" hard problems, which nobody really has any firm solution for. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On 06/04/07, Ray Saintonge &lt;saintonge(a)telus.net&gt; wrote: I think their opinion is crucial, since if they see no copyright violation, there can be no claim.

On Fri, 06 Apr 2007 15:07:17 -0700, Ray Saintonge &lt;saintonge(a)telus.net&gt; wrote: It was lower down in threaded view, in my mail client anyway. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote: Here is where I see the crux of the issue in this thread: you are not interested in keeping the information in question. You do not value it. You are willing to eliminate it at request (which is all that their reply could possibly be seen as). Wikipedia/Wikimedia was established (and I hope continues to exist) to make information freely available. Caving in to unreasonable claims of copyright is not the way to do that. Note that I'm not saying that their claim would be unreasonable--I am not an expert in copyright law. But your position is that their mere request should result in our removing the information, when the question of whether this is a copyright violation is still very much in question. -Rich

On 06/04/07, Ray Saintonge &lt;saintonge(a)telus.net&gt; wrote: True, but let's cross that bridge when we come to it.

John Lee wrote: Sometimes that the most sensible approach. Every article giving a plot outline of a TV show episode does this. Ec

Ken Arromdee wrote: In all fairness, since the programme is produced in Britain then British law would apply to determine whether the work is copyright. If US law differs the work could be reproduced in the USA, but not world-wide. Having the servers and company offices in the US does imply that we must consider US copyright law, but not exclusively so. Ec

Bryan Derksen wrote: Would it be readable? Ec

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote: You have more than once referred to the list as "cruft" (or at least suggested that it was). To me "cruft" is a term of disparagement. Others have pointed out that you seem to be looking for a good reason to get rid of the list (your original post suggested that it was either copyvio, OR, or "cruft"). While I may have stepped over the line by stating as a given what I perceive to see as your motives, I still hold the opinion that if you thought this information to be more important than "cruft", you would be more willing to listen to those opinions that differ from yours. After asking for "guidance", you have argued strenuously that it is in fact copyvio (or original research). No, I don't really think you are. I think that, before you acted on *any" asserted copyright, you would check things out. If someone said that certain content was from their web page, you would first go to their web page, would you not? Before deleting the information? And you'd see if the content was "really" a copyvio? If it was paraphrased, wouldn't you try to explain to the complainant why it was not copyvio? If the alleged source was a printed book that you happened to have on a shelf, wouldn't you look at the book first? If you didn't have the book, wouldn't you at least check to see if anyone else had quick access to it? These things seem to be minimal steps to take before acting on "any" asserted copyright violation. Even though you're not a copyright lawyer, you still see if it is an obvious case (one way or the other) before acting on it. In fact, isn't that why you're asking here now? I really don't *know* what you'd do in any of these cases, but I sure hope that you are not so paranoid about copyrights that you immediately act on any allegation of copyvio. No, I understand the difference between free-as-in-beer and free-as-in-speech. Of course we're not "allowed" to include content that violates copyright, nor am I suggesting that we do. But I am suggesting that we not cave to unreasonable claims of copyright. I'd even go as far as saying that we should push back when copyright claims are not obvious and go against free-as-in-speech. This is *not* a clear copyvio. We should fight to include it, and relent only when it is established that it is a copyvio, which in my mind requires more than a reply to your inquiry. We have a process for authors who believe that their copyright is being violated. See [[Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Copyright]]. Again, I don't know how the volunteers at info-en-c(a)wikimedia.org behave, but I'd be surprise if they removed without some level of verification. I'm not interested in discussing the merits of this case. As I said before, I am not a copyright lawyer. Nor do I consider myself to have anything beyond a basic acquaintance with copyright law. You see, I was right about you. You didn't "eliminate on request". You got Brad's advice, and then only partially complied with the request for removal (if I understand correctly). Something led you to ask for Brad's advice--could it be that it was not an obvious copyvio (i.e. not a direct copy-and-paste)? We do make decisions about removing non-free content from Wikipedia. In some cases (biographies of living people), we often remove first and ask questions later. In those sort of cases, we need to begin from a position of not causing harm via unsubstantiated/unreferenced "facts". But this is a different type of situation, and our position should not be so quick-to-delete. We can be more deliberate (at least, until we get an official take-down-request). We can be more assertive of our rights and of our mission. -Rich

On Fri, 06 Apr 2007 17:49:45 -0500, Rich Holton &lt;richholton(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Ah, right, so you just want to have a go at me for taking an action ha conflicts with your view that we should include copied conflict unless someone actually sends us a takedown notice or sues us. I can see why this is an unproductive discussion. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On Sat, 07 Apr 2007 14:10:19 -0500, Rich Holton &lt;richholton(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: And you are wrong. That would apply if I AfD'd the article, but what I said was that the list is, in my view, copyvio, we can give some examples from each category but we should not repeat in its entirety a list which is the creative work of someone else. I don't think it degrades Wikipedia at all not to have the entire list. Clearly the show doesn't think it's that important, it's not even on the website. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On Sat, 07 Apr 2007 15:39:03 -0700, Bryan Derksen &lt;bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca&gt; wrote: Is it (the article, that is, not the list) fancruft? Tricky. As a fan of the show I am not well-placed to judge. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On Sat, 07 Apr 2007 19:46:26 -0700, Ray Saintonge &lt;saintonge(a)telus.net&gt; wrote: Well yes, that's true. What I hadn't realised was that there appears to be a degree of philosophical opposition to the idea of copyright, or at least to the idea that we should only include what we know to be clean, rather than waiting for conclusive proof before removing anything. That's a reversal of the burden of proof, as far as I'm concerned. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote: Not really. The initial burden of proof lies with the person bringing the matter to court. He must establish 1. that the material was copyright in the first place 2. that he has a legal right to claim copyrights, and 3. he must identify exactly what infringed upon the copyright. Only then does the defence need to say anything on any of a number of bases such as the material was not copyrightable, the plaintiff did not properly inherit the copyright, or fair use. These are not the only ones. The recent case against Dan Brown shows that it's not always easy to win a significant copyvio case.. In many of these situations only a court decisiion can determine what is clean. All we have is opinions with not enough at stake to make a lawyer's opinion worthwhile. What the lawyer says is still nothing more than an opinion. Philosophical opposition is fine as long as one approaches copyright with a sense of respect for the person who may be the holder of those rights. Simply saying that humanity needs to have this information is not a sufficient rationale for copyright violation. Our rules are perhaps already more restrictive than what might be required by the courts. That's fine. Still, there must be a place for legitimate challenges to particular copyright claims, and the first thing that I would look at when a person seeks to add what could be copyright protected material is some element of clue about copyright law. Ec

On 4/9/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG &lt;guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net&gt; wrote: I'd say there's probably a large degree of philosophical opposition to the idea of copyright over a collection of 4 groups of 20 or so names of cars - not as much over the idea of copyright itself. If you really want to exclude absolutely all copyrighted materials from all articles, lest a lawyer goes through and gives a professional opinion on whether or not the article is infringing, most articles on TV series would be decimated. If a list of 20 names of cars is copyrighted, what about a list of 20 character names? Seems to me that would be even *more* likely to be copyrightable, as the individual names themselves are creative. At that point, maybe it's time to start a new project for fictional works. Anthony

On 4/9/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG &lt;guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net&gt; wrote: I'm sorry, which part is that? And where is there evidence that this "policy" is followed? When has a lawyer gone through and approved the listing of characters and plot summaries from [[Lost (TV series)]], or [[Mission: Impossible]]? Or should this all be deleted too? Is there an article on a television series which in your opinion *shouldn't* have major sections of it removed until a lawyer has signed off on them? You can't discuss a fictional work without reproducing at least a little bit of it. [[Dangerfield (TV series)]] has a list of characters in it. You agree with me that this list is copyrighted, correct? Do you feel it should be removed? Anthony

On 4/9/07, Oldak Quill &lt;oldakquill(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Excluding absolutely all copyrighted materials from all articles would be a rather dramatic action. As for it harming Wikipedia, I think that would all depend on how the fork was executed. But it's not likely to happen, so maybe it's best to just ignore this argument. Anthony

Anthony wrote: This is an interesting point. Some of our plot summaries go into considerable detail. Why do we not hear complaints from the producers? It they could commit themselves to a policy of saying, "You can do this, but you can't do that," it would make our task much easier. A lot of what happens reflects custom rather than law. They realize that a certain amount of public discussion and information helps sell their product. Taking a clear stand on some of this, even the most obvious, would be a loss of tactical advantage. Ec

On 4/9/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG &lt;guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net&gt; wrote: A list which is compiled according to novel criteria probably is itself subject to copyright. But I think a lot of people have a philosophical opposition to *that*. Not to copyright itself, but to copyright being granted to an unordered list of things someone thinks is cool. Again, I'm not denying that copyright protection probably is available to such a list. Just that it's ridiculous to do so, and that it doesn't really matter because use of such a tiny amount of copyrighted materials is almost always fair use, especially in the context of an encyclopedia article about it, distributed by a non-profit charity. Anthony

On 4/10/07, Anthony &lt;wikilegal(a)inbox.org&gt; wrote: Just a side-note, without any comment on the debate concerning list copyright: we intentionally restrict how we use fair use so that it would not hurt downstream users who happen not to be non-profit charities like us. That's why [[WP:FU]] is more restrictive than US law. Johnleemk

On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:13:59 +0100, "Oldak Quill" &lt;oldakquill(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Yes. They have not yet replied. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On 4/10/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG &lt;guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net&gt; wrote: Isn't Top Gear produced by one of the indies now? That might explain it. -- Sam Blacketer London E15

On 4/10/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG &lt;guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net&gt; wrote: And that's exactly what was done in [[The Cool Wall]].

On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 12:46:59 -0400, Anthony &lt;wikilegal(a)inbox.org&gt; wrote: Bong! Wrong answer. The list was reproduced in its entirety. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote: That's an uncivil and overly categorical way of saying your opinion differs. Calling the list "the entirety" of a copyrighted work is quite dubious. The "cool wall" segment consists of more than just the list of cars, and the "top gear" show consists of much more than just the "cool wall" segment. As an analogous example, you didn't have a problem with reproducing the entirety of the first page of several copyrighted works on Wikipedia (those sheet music scans I mentioned earlier); it's qualitatively different from reproducing the entire score. At some point you get down to the individual atoms of creativity that simply cannot be copyrighted themselves. A symphony can be copyrighted, a single note cannot. A TV show about cars can be copyrighted, the name of a single car cannot. Somewhere between these is a fuzzy gray dividing line and I think most of the participants in this thread are in the camp that simply listing the cars that have been on the Cool Wall is on the safe side of that line.

On 4/12/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG &lt;guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net&gt; wrote: I hope that it's been at least somewhat educational. What happens with this list itself is rather irrelevant, but if at least some people have grown in their understanding of copyright and fair use then the discussion hasn't been a waste of time. I don't see how that's ironic, I don't agree with you that the copyright violation would then become unambiguous, and I don't think it's necessarily true that the reason the list isn't on their site is because they consider it trivial. And even if the list *was* on the site, which it apparently isn't, that wouldn't change the argument at all, because the list on Wikipedia was not copied from the (nonexistant) list on the site. But the fact of the matter is *there is no list* being published by the TV show producers, so to say that the list has been copied in its entirety is entirely unfounded. In order for something to be copied in its entirety it has to exist in the first place. Wikipedians did not copy a list. They copied elements from an entire series of shows and described a work which appeared on that show (the cool wall). Wikipedia has an article on [[The Cool Wall]]. You may consider this work too trivial to have an encyclopedia article about, but the fact is Wikipedians have decided to have it. Claiming that a description of the wall is a copyright violation seems to me to be a bad way of appealing that decision. Anthony

On Tue, Apr 3, 2007 at 9:22 AM, David Gerard&lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: at least until now.... http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/07/11/1239244/UKs-National-Portrait-Galler… Mathias

I just got curious and read up on Bridgeman vs. Corel. To my complete surprise, though heard in the US, it cites UK precedent (Privy Council, House of Lords) in forming its opinion -- it is /not/ purely a case based upon US law. It turns out the case was heard under UK law (!). It cites as authorities a Privy Council case ruled by the UK Law Lords, *Interlego v Tyco Industries*(on which we have an article): "Take the simplest case of artistic copyright, a painting or a photograph. It takes great skill, judgement and labour to produce a good copy by painting or to produce an enlarged photograph from a positive print, but no-one would reasonably contend that the copy, painting, or enlargement was an "original" artistic work in which the copier is entitled to claim copyright. Skill, labour or judgement merely in the process of copying cannot confer originality." "Lord Oliver held that in order to afford copyright protection on a copy of a work, "[t]here must in addition be some element of material alteration or embellishment which suffices to make the totality of the work an original work". He stated that such an alteration or embellishment must be "visually significant", and that it is insufficient simply for the alteration to convey "information". Thus the court held that the modifications that Interlego had made to its designs did not constitute an original work, and thus were not affored copyright protection. Although they may have involved skill, labour, and judgement, that skill, labour, and judgement lay solely in the process of copying." Full ruling here <http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKPC/1988/3.html>. it also cites the UK House of Lords in a prior case, with a remarkably apposite quote: "By attributing new periods of copyright protection to every minor alteration in the form of a brick which is recorded in, such a drawing they seek to obtain, effectively, a perpetual monopoly. In *Re Coca-Cola Go's Applications [1986] 2 All E.R. 274*, at 275, the House of Lords drew: attention to the undesirable practice of seeking to expand the boundaries of intellectual property rights beyond the purposes for which they were created in order to obtain an unintended and undeserving monopoly." "To accord an independent artistic copyright to every such reproduction would be to enable the period of artistic copyright in what is, essentially, the same work to be extended indefinitely. Thus the primary question on Tyco's appeal can be expressed in this way: can Lego, having enjoyed a monopoly for the full permitted period of patent and design protection in reliance upon drawings in which no copyright any longer subsists, continue their monopoly for yet a further, more extensive period by re-drawing the same designs with a number of minor alterations and claiming a fresh copyright in the re-drawn designs?" Given that Bridgeman has been cited as a purely US based precedent, this could be quite a major change in my understanding of the legal position :) FT2

FT2 wrote: (snip some very interesting stuff, well worth reading from the parent in this thread) Purely on grounds of curiosity (never mind the legal niceties) personally I would like to know what the photographer who actually was there in the gallery, pulling the trigger of the camera for NPG thinks today about all this stuff going on about the work she/he is/was doing. Did they think they were engaged in a noble act without revenue streams flickering in the back of the retinas of the people who actually hired that photographer for the job. That is, if one were to even provisionally stipulate, purely arguendo, that there was even a vanishingly small possibility that the NPG's case had even a rickety leg to stand on, what would the view of the "author" whose "creativity" the NPG is claiming to use as a justification for trying to "Dredd Scott" works already escaped into PD, "back south" into Copyright Protected dominion, be? Did the photographer get payed a proper artists dues? Or did they do this "ever so creative work" in largely conveyor-belt fashion, without much thought into what it was precisely that they were *reproducing*? Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

Carcharoth wrote: Granted without a question. But that just begs the question. If they are claiming a "creative act" in producing the image, and not being satisfied in acknowledging they are just copying it, is it not really even "best practices" for them to acknowledge the authorship to the person doing the creativity? Personally I think aggressive approaches by them for some purported creative function they have provided, when not even supplying the name who might have standing to declare their creative contribution was being impinged upon, is frankly ludicrous! Just being professional doesn't mean you aren't being creative. I want to be very clear about that. But even if you are being very inventive in the solutions you employ in producing a good and professional _result_; the result would in most cases aim to be "faithful" to the original image, and not to impart some "creative spark" from the forehead of the photographer themselves, which would forever mark the image as the work of that and no other fungible photographer, I rather suspect. Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 2:44 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen&lt;cimonavaro(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Agreed. Ironically, if the NPG *had* done photographs of the portraits in their gallery settings, including the 3D frames and with lighting and angle considerations, and there had been a developed 'style' of how to frame the photographs of the pictures, that would be a greyer area than faithful archival quality scans. I think. Carcharoth

On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 2:50 PM, Carcharoth &lt;carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com&gt;wrote;wrote: ...a developed *and distinctive* style ... FT2

On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 9:51 AM, Carcharoth&lt;carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote: That's pretty mild compared to Jussi-Ville's evocative language: "trying to 'Dred Scott' works already escaped into PD 'back south' into Copyright Protected dominion" Since this is a UK issue, though, maybe our inflammatory rhetoric should use the tropes of imperialism. Of course, sooner or later the rhetoric of copyright politics all ends in the same place: http://ideas.4brad.com/hitler-tries-dmca-takedown

Carcharoth wrote: One wonders about the state of journalism in England when the people at Metro can't tell the difference between a lawyer's letter and an actual lawsuit. I can imagine some future encyclopaedist referring to Metro as a reliable source to establish that the NPG had in fact sued Wikipedia. (not even Wikimedia). Ec

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 12:33 PM, Carcharoth&lt;carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote: Oh dear, they got his name wrong. "David Coetzee" (it is Derrick, not David) http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1722735/dispute_between_wikipedia_a… "Thanks for running this story. A small correction: my name is Derrick Coetzee, not David Coetzee as recently misprinted by the BBC." Carcharoth

2009/7/18 Carcharoth &lt;carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com&gt;om>: There's been no press releases from WMF as such - Mike Godwin is, funnily enough, treating this as a legal issue, i.e. a combination of chess and poker. Though Erik's post pretty much served as a press release: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/16/protecting-the-public-domain-and-shari… I've started a thread on foundation-l (and on my own blog) asking what things people would like to see from a compromise agreement, and what they think would work for both sides. - d.

Carcharoth wrote: Any chance of Wikimedia UK (the chapter) applying for a membership of BAPLA? Or would they be considered "insufficiently commercial"? :-P Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 2:04 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen&lt;cimonavaro(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: This might be because people will pay more money for images. Picture worth a thousand words. That sort of thing. And a picture, or a sound clip, or a video clip, or a multimedia clip, is less 'editable' than a chunk of text. There is also a longer history of written and printed text. Photography is relatively recent (last 150 years), cinema even more recent. Look back at the history of written text before the printing press came along, and see how much people hoarded manuscripts, or freely copied them. Then look at how things developed after the printing press came along, and how the "hoard" vs "freely distribute" (and credit the creators and provide them with income) debates developed. And look at the various ways people developed to earn money from texts, images and cinema and video. Then throw in the internet. Carcharoth

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 1:44 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen&lt;cimonavaro(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Commons would be the equivalent constituent unit of the Wikimedia Foundation family, not Wikimedia UK. You may want to look through the BAPLA list and see if any charities or non-profit organisations are there - there might well be, as I've never looked through the whole list, but I suspect that even those ones would be selling their images, not distributing them for free reuse (or they would be doing a combination of free distribution and sales). The closest you might come would be "non-commercial use" (e.g. museums), but that, as has been made clear at Commons, is insufficiently free. Are far as who buys images - this goes directly to the core of the commercial versus free debate (competition?). Encyclopedias like Encarta (as it was) and Encyclopedia Britannica (as it is) and any other encyclopedia you see published in a bookshop, or being sold, will obtain pictures from such sources (and pay for them). Whether any of them also obtain pictures from Commons, instead of going to traditional picture library sources (or commissioning a photographer to take photos), I don't know. The question will likely be whether they are aware of Commons, and where the best pictures are (professional photographers do still outstrip Commons in many areas, but not all). But please do look through the BAPLA list and see what type of organisations are members. I'm going to do that now, if they have an online list, as I would be interested to see which ones we have articles on. Carcharoth

2009/7/18 Carcharoth &lt;carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com&gt;om>: Yes. It is very important that *chapters don't do the content*, particularly in the UK. If it were ever judged otherwise, we just wouldn't be able to have a chapter in the UK at all. BAPLA's stated ambitions appear to be to become the monopoly cartel for images in the UK - the RIAA or MPAA, with similar morals and ethics. - d.

2009/7/18 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen &lt;cimonavaro(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: I suspect it's simply that with images - where the physical single "master copy" is quantitatively different for publishing purposes - it's a lot easier to assert a dodgy sort-of-copyright than it is with a textual work. The traditional approach is to say - "sorry, you can't take a photograph or a scan of it. Oh, you want to publish it? Well, as luck would have it, we can sell you a scan. $500. Oh, and there's terms and conditions on that - you've got to credit us, you've got to destroy that intermediate copy once you've set up the publication, you can only use it in specified ways... why, yes, it is still in the public domain, why do you ask? Oh. If you don't want to abide by this contract, then good luck finding someone else who'll have a good-quality print." You can't really do that sort of footwork with a published work, since setting up a faithful copy of it requires nothing more specialised than a book and a typesetter. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 3:17 PM, Carcharoth&lt;carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote: <snip> Hmm. Either there is another trade organisation in the USA, or the industry is far more consolidated than in Europe (1053 members of the European equivalent body). 100 sounds a bit low, unless there are some giants in there like Corbis. But still, it would be interesting to see how many museums and other "heritage" organisations are in that lot. Carcharoth

On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 7:23 PM, FT2&lt;ft2.wiki(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: For anyone interested, we have this on Wikisource http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library,_Ltd._v._Corel_Corp. There are a number of redlinks at the bottom. It would be good if Wikipedia articles were written about: * Fine Arts Copyright Act 1862 (see [[Edwin Wilkins Field]]) * Graves' Case (1869, LR 4 QB 715) I cant quickly find a copy of Graves Case on the Internet. If anyone can obtain pagescans of it, I will set it up on Wikisource as a transcription project. -- John Vandenberg

2009/7/20 FT2 &lt;ft2.wiki(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: I understand that Wikisource treats all laws everywhere as public domain; don't know about court rulings. - d.

On checking, of course Wikipedia would have an article on it. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_copyright> !! FT2 On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 10:00 AM, FT2 &lt;ft2.wiki(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 2:16 PM, Carcharoth&lt;carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote: <snip> Some more blogs on this raised some interesting points. First I'll quote what I said earlier, and then comment after it. Now look at this blog and the comments on it: http://lawclanger.blogspot.com/2009/07/its-not-often-that-copyright-cases-g… The comments that do a much better of job of explaining what I was trying to say above are here: http://lawclanger.blogspot.com/2009/07/its-not-often-that-copyright-cases-g… http://lawclanger.blogspot.com/2009/07/its-not-often-that-copyright-cases-g… http://lawclanger.blogspot.com/2009/07/its-not-often-that-copyright-cases-g… http://lawclanger.blogspot.com/2009/07/its-not-often-that-copyright-cases-g… Some quotes to give a taste of the arguments being put forward: "A large format camera with a betterlight scanback is rigidly attached to a display platform where the art is placed, along with the lighting. All the camera movements, focus, etc, are fixed except a rail allows the camera to be adjusted to match the measured depth of the frame. Images of a calibration target are taken, then the art. Basically scanner turned inside out and scaled up to a large size." "there's actually quite a lot of skill required in using the system. Each image require individual calibration, and an appropriate lighting direction needs to be chosen. You wouldn't light a Turner in the same way as a Van Gogh. So the NPG can argue that skill has been required." "[C]opying technology has reached a stage now where exact replicas of works of art can be created. The resulting digital files that drive the 3D printers, or CNC machines to reproduce the work may be the culmination of months of work and the expenditure of £10000s." "The HP system involves custom calibration and lighting to produce a version of the image that gives a remarkably accurate 3D image of the paint surface and texture; it takes a lot of time (a decade for the permanent collection at the NG I think), costs a lot of money, needs training of the operators and is used as the basis of the print on demand system in the National Gallery shop." Also here: http://robmyers.org/weblog/2009/07/wikipedia-against-gallery-copyright-over… "Suppose the Van Gogh museum did produce high quality copies of their collection, such copies would be a colossal public benefit, as would the cost of creating the digitization. Now say those files leak out, should the museum have any ability to stop someone from using those files to produce and sell exact copies, and if they don't, if someone can just snag their production data, what incentive do they have in make the artifacts available in the first place? And so we return to the NPG. Just how do they protect their investment in producing their digital files?" These issues of how to fund digitisation projects and what protection should be afforded, if any, are not going to go away. Carcharoth