Fae
When you use the headline "Copyfraud by the British Museum" (to describe the actions of some other organisation) and link to a discussion ([5] on your list) where you used the phrase "fraudulent copyright claim" twice,there is no other reasonable interpretation of your words than to understand that you are accusing the BM of fraudulent conduct. That is not a sensible basis for a serious discussion and I for one would not waste my rime getting involved with it: indeed I do not support your accusation in the slightest.
You state that as a charity the BM "must avoid copyfraud in any circumstances". Since you are using that word to cover, broadly speaking, any action to claim or protect intellectual property rights that you don't like, they clearly do not have any duty to behave exactly as you personally might happen to prefer. The question of harmonising intellectual property rights across various jurisdictions, the interaction between ownership of physical objects and their artisitic and photographic representations, the legal duties of charity trustees to achieve their charitable aims and their duty to maintain their ability to execute those aims, and all the other elements of this discussion deserve more than a causally dismissive "I'm not going to write an essay". If you can't be bothered to explain your position, I can't be bothered to support it.
If you really think your attitude of "I'm right, everyone else is wrong, and I'm not going to bother to be polite to people who don't do what I want the instant I demand it" is going to achieve anything practical, then I am not going to waste my time helping you to waste the time of people who have a job to do, which is rather more demanding, rather more worthwhile and rather less well paid than you choose to believe.
"Rogol"
On Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 7:43 PM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Rogol, thanks for your interest. I do not understand your reading of my words. However when I wrote "the restrictions are shockingly obvious cases of copyfraud" or "apparent ignorance over copyright", neither can be interpreted as an accusation of fraudulent conduct by anyone. If there is confusion about the word, I suggest reading the Wikipedia article, it's quite interesting.[1]
As for a reasoned case, I found the board level approved words on the official website, describing why the British Museum exists (see my original email), to be adequate enough to expect that their policies and their implementation of policy must avoid copyfraud in any circumstances. I'm not going to write an essay about something this obvious, nor do I expect to have to doublethink myself into giving positive reasons for a notice on an ancient artefact that claims it is under copyright, just to potentially make a few middle-managers in the administration of the two museums involved feel good about themselves. They are probably paid well enough not to worry about my plain words, or my simple-minded approach, failing to be politically diplomatic.
As previously stated, I'd be only too happy for the BM or the THM to get in touch. I'm even happy to have a chat over the phone as part of taking steps to ensure that this exhibition is fixed, and cannot reoccur in the display of future loans.
Links
Thanks, Fae -- Fae https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LGBT+ http://telegram.me/wmlgbt
On 28 Jul 2017 19:09, "Rogol Domedonfors" domedonfors@gmail.com wrote:
Fae,
I do know some people at the BM but I'm not going to waste their or my
time
on claims that start off by accusing them of "fraudlent" conduct and
finish
with demands that they immediately reverse their policies, just because
you
say so. If you were able to put together a reasoned case which showed
that
you were aware of the positive and negative sides of their and your positions, I might reconsider -- but to be honest, I'm not going to.
"Rogol"
On Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 1:02 PM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
The Tullie House Museum in Carlisle has a number of objects on loan from the British Museum,[3] and it appears that it is only those objects that have any restrictions on photography. I took photographs of two of these (without any flash), as the restrictions are shockingly obvious cases of copyfraud, and not for any reason that might protect the works from damage.[1][2] It seems incomprehensible as to why the British Museum would ever want to make copyright claims over ~2,000 year old works especially considering they are not a money-making commercial enterprise, but a National institute and charity, with a stated objective[4] that "the collection should be put to public use and be freely accessible".
Does anyone have any ideas for action, or contacts in the Museum, that might result in a change of how loans from the BM are controlled? I'm wondering if the most effective way forward is to make some social media fuss, to ensure the Trustees of the museum pay attention. The reputational risk the apparent ignorance over copyright by the BM loans management team seems something that would be easy to correct, so changes to policy are overdue. My own experience of polite private letters to a Museum's lawyer demonstrates that you may as well save hours of volunteer time by filing these in the bin, compared to the sometimes highly effective use of a few pointed tweets written in a few minutes and shared publicly and widely across social media.
Those of us Wikimedians who work closely with GLAMs tend to shy away from any controversy, wanting the organizations to move towards sharing our open knowledge goals for positive reasons. I'm happy to try those types of collegiate ways of partnering, however drawing a few lines in the sand by highlighting embarrassing case studies, might mean we make timely progress while activist dinosaurs like me are still alive to see it happen.
Links
century_bronze_jug,_with_copyfraud_notice.jpg 2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Museum_ Fortuna_statue,_with_copyfraud_notice.jpg 3. Tullie House, Roman Frontier exhibition: http://web.archive.org/web/20161030151228/www.
tulliehouse.co.uk/galleries-
collections/galleries/roman-frontier-gallery 4. British Museum "about us": http://web.archive.org/web/20170714042800/www.
britishmuseum.org/about_us/
management/about_us.aspx 5. Commons village pump discussion: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump# British_Museum_and_blatant_copyfraud
Contacts
Thanks, Fae -- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
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