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.
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
On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 9:48 AM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
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
Maybe I'm being naive, but how much such a decision would be UK-specific? Particularly in the sense that the images are published in the US? Italy has a similar problem, although we have the complication that the Law assigns a sort of copyright to the museum, even if the work of art is photographed by a random visitor. The body governing the museums in Florence sent us a take down notice from it.wikipedia a few years ago, and probably some images are still on commons (but cannot be used on it.wp). Regarding the NPG images, I think the main problem would be that a UK reuser would infringe the NPG copyright, while she reads that those images are PD; the NPG may decide that suing Wikipedia is not a great idea, but suing some British student that puts up his own website may be; transiting through the US to remove copyright appears to me as a kind of money laundering...
Cruccone
Marco Chiesa:
the Law assigns a sort of copyright to the museum, even if the work of art is photographed by a random visitor.
And even against the panorama freedom...
Regarding the NPG images, I think the main problem would be that a UK reuser would infringe the NPG copyright, while she reads that those images are PD; the NPG may decide that suing Wikipedia is not a great idea, but suing some British student that puts up his own website may be; transiting through the US to remove copyright appears to me as a kind of money laundering...
In fact somebody said that we should add «A template "don't use in... because..."»[1].
Nemo
[1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Deletion_requests/Nat...
Magnus Manske wrote:
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
My personal view is that this situation is best summed up in an allegorical fashion. So let me tell a story from when I was 3 to 4 years old:
I was enjoying a hot sumer at the cottage of a family who were very good friends of my family, way up in the North of Finland.
So one morning as I was walking down the path to the lake, skipping from stone to stone on the path, I stepped on a stone that was in fact a frog.
The wet and soft and slippery skin of the little amphibian felt very startling and I was naturally caused mild apprehension by its suddenness.
As it leaped away though, my parents and the rest of the onlookers explained to me how to approach the situation. Even though I felt more than a tinge of apprehension from the unpleasant sensation caused in such an unexpected fashion, the frog surely must have been much much much more scared than I.
And this I feel is how we should view the National Portrait Gallery. Or at least I am lead to believe by the views that have been expressed, that they are much more afraid of us than we are of them.
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org