2009/7/11 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
It gets better: the editor they sent the threat to is an American. So, to recap: A UK organisation is threatening an American with legal action over what is unambiguously, in established US law, not a copyright violation of any sort. I can't see this ending well for the NPG.
In fact, the more legal success they have with this approach (and they do have a plausible cause in the UK, if they throw enough money at arguing so), the more *utterly radioactive* the publicity for them will be.
I’ll be calling the NPG first thing Monday (in my capacity as “just a blogger on Wikimedia-related topics”) to establish just what they think they’re doing here. Other WMF bloggers and, if interested, journalists may wish to do the same, to establish what their consistent response is.
- d.