Re: [Foundation-l] a heads-up on Wikimedia France's adventures with the French cultural authorities

David Monniaux said : "release lower resolution pictures under free license, keep high resolution pictures (those suitable for art books, posters and so on) proprietary." I disagree. I think the priority is to have the full resolution pictures of Public Domain works. Because this is what the French copyright law is saying. There is no need to negociate anything. There is no need to change a single word from the current French copyright law. Simply have the French government's cultural institutions (museums, archives) recognize that they have been wrong until now, by adding copyright notices on Public Domain works (in France: non-poshumous works whose authors have been dead for more than 70 years). If someone has another opportunity to write an article in Libération or elsewhere, please denounce the copyright notices added by the Musée d'Orsay on a picture like the photograph of Louis Blanc by photographer Etienne Carjat who died in 1906 (1). Please denounce the copyright notice added by Musée Carnavalet on a bidimensional work like the Declaration of Human Rights by Le Barbier (who died in 1826) (2). And don't tell me that a school teacher can use this work at school with a 400x400 px size, like what is available to them through the new agreement signed between the French ministry of Education and authors' representative bodies (3). A teacher needs to show his pupils every details on the picture. Negociating small size pictures could be only a lower level priority concerning truely copyrighted works when the artists are still alive and need money to buy their bread. (1) ©photo musée d'Orsay / rmn on http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/index-of-works/notice.html?no_cach… (2) © musée Carnavalet, © direction des musées de France, 2008 Droits photo © musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet on http://www.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/joconde_fr?ACTION=CHERCHER&FI… (3) http://www.education.gouv.fr/cid48874/menj0900756x.html 2009/9/22, Yann Forget <yann(a)forget-me.net>et>: