On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 12:21 AM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Speaking only for myself, not the Board, and speaking only in my traditional capacity, I can say that I very strongly support keeping these images. Public domain paintings are public domain. This is not about borderline cases around exact dates. This is OLD stuff.
I call on the National Portrait Gallery to release these images under a free license. Barring that, I propose that we ignore any illegitimate and unjust false claims to copyright in these things, unless and until they are willing to take us to court.
Mike Godwin and the Wikimedia Foundation have the final say, of course, and I respect that. But I hope we encourage courage in this area.
Yes! Now if the Foundation could set up a page clarifying the official position on this, we could just point to it in the future.
Magnus