On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 3:57 PM, Falcorianalex.public.account+WikimediaMailingList@gmail.com wrote:
Why are these images on Commons? According to [[Commons:Licensing]]: "Wikimedia Commons accepts only media [...] that are in the public domain in at least the United States and in the source country of the work." Is it because they are potentially PD in the UK, but it's unclear?
Wikimedia's long standing position is that if copying a public domain work makes it copyrighted it would effectively eliminate the public domain.
It's far from clear that the NPG's position will stand even under UK law: The specific matter hasn't been tried, and the US court that tried it also reached the same conclusion under UK law.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:When_to_use_the_PD-Art_tag#Why_do_...
Consider the incentive system that you create when you combine a copyright system which is effectively perpetual through retroactive extensions plus the ability to copyright any work in the public domain by making a slavish reproduction:
New exciting viable business plans emerge, such as:
1) Obtain classic works of art and slavishly digitize them. 2) Destroy the works of art 3) Perpetual profit!