2009/7/11 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
Would I be right in assuming that you are American? You certainly have that religious view of free speech that is typical of Americans... This has nothing to do with suppression of free speech, it has to do with being responsible about what you say. I am not a legal expert and I have no spoken to Derrick about his wishes, which is why I am being very careful about what I say and do. All I am asking is that other people in the same position show the same restraint.
The problem is that this is an issue that affects all of us, not just Derrick - which is presumably (I haven't heard anything from him on this issue other than the publication of the threat letter) why his immediate response was to publish the letter.
(When I've gotten threat letters over the internet, my immediate response has been to publish them in full, then publish the letter upset that I published the first letter. I do realise not everyone is like me, thankfully.)
This affects all of us, so is all of our business.
On one end, an encroachement on the public domain being enforced by a threat letter from seriously expensive lawyers - that's flatly unconscionable and unacceptable to many.
On the other, people who are presently working with museums to get them to release their collections under a suitable free content licence by the "ask nicely" method - GLAM-WIKI is real soon, for example. This fouls up their work too - the hordes of pissed-off pitchfork-wielding nerds make a lot of unehlpful noise, and also the NPG setting a pathological example to other museums (meaning a bad outcome for the NPG may be *required* to demonstrate this is a bad idea). Both make this letter from the NPG *really badly timed*. But then, we didn't set the timing.
(I wonder if they realised sending the letter on a Friday would give everyone the whole weekend to get pissed off and work out our next step.)
So yeah, messing things up for Derrick would be bad. But a discussion is on-topic and *important*, because this matter affects everyone here.
- d.