On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 5:05 PM, Thomas Dalton<thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: Technically, the user could just ignore this - a lawsuit in a UK court without relevant jurisdiction, under US law as applies, can be ignored. A default judgement against him might be entered, however, and that might make future travel to Europe difficult. One might suggest attempting to get criminal charges for barratry brought in the users' home jurisdiction in the US, but that is probably a stretch. I hope someone's made sure Mike is aware... ? -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 5:25 PM, Thomas Dalton<thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: There has been significant discussion about this, relative to UK libel / slander claims / lawsuits against US authors or speakers. I don't know of anyone who was stopped, but some UK courts have asserted that they could and would if the defendant didn't show up. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

If Dcoetzee complies with the request made in the letter from the NPG, and some other user from the U.S. (having previously made copies of the images at issue) uploads them again, what recourse would the NPG have wrt its database rights and TOS claims? Nathan

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 9:00 PM, Geoffrey Plourde<geo.plrd(a)yahoo.com> wrote: Somehow I doubt they really want wiki-deletion anyway. To "permanently delete from the hard drive of your computer (or any computer upon which you or anyone from the Wikiemedia Foundation have stored them) all images that you have derived from our client’s website" would really require not just the admin bit, but rather someone at the WMF going in and erasing the files directly so that they can never be undeleted. -Robert Rohde

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 11:10 PM, Ray Saintonge<saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: I don't think now is a good time to encourage such silliness. Yes, the case would be different if 300 people were involved from the very beginning, but you aren't going to greatly alter the shape of things by involving an extra 300 people in this way after the fact. -Robert Rohde

Mike.lifeguard wrote: That would indeed be ridiculous, but it's not part of their letter to Coetze. They know that he's in the U.S. and didn't just show up at the NPG with his camera to take all those pictures. The claim is that he took them from their database. "Irrational" and "vindictive" don't apply when they are looking after what they perceive to be their legitimate interests. "Capitalist" would be a more appropriate epithet. Ec

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 5:05 PM, Thomas Dalton&lt;thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: <snip> There are serious legal disagreements about this, but people have argued for some time that the UK is perhaps the purest example of a "sweat of the brow" state with respect to their copyright law. In other words, the prevailing view of many has been that UK law rewards an author's effort irrespective of creativity (neither "creative" nor "creativity" appear in the UK statute at all). There has never been a good test case, but serious people have opined that Bridgeman v. Corel (the US case establishing PD-Art for photographs of PD works) would have been decided the opposite way in UK courts. In other words, there have been opinions that the effort involved in creating high quality photographs is by itself sufficient to embue that photograph with copyright protection in the UK even if the work being photographed is PD. However, though there is no statutory requirement for creativity, there is one for originality. Hence, most of the arguments in the UK hence turn on whether such a photograph would qualify as "orginal" or not. Some people believe that merely moving the image into a new medium is sufficiently novel to qualify for protection, while others dispute this. Again, there isn't a lot of guidance on this point. As repugnant as the conclusion might be, it is entirely possible that the NPG could win this case under UK law and establish that photographs of PD works are definitively not PD in the UK. It's not a sure thing, and comptent legal representation would no doubt make an important case out of it, but my reading of the commentaries in this area would such suggest that a victory by the NPG is entirely possible (and perhaps more likely than not) assuming the issue is decided based solely on UK copyright laws. -Robert Rohde

2009/7/11 Andrew Lih &lt;andrew.lih(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: We know that isn't the case under UK law, the question is whether the photographs involved substantial investment of resources.

2009/7/11 Gregory Maxwell &lt;gmaxwell(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: I don't know if there is precise precedent, but from what I've read I think most people agree that "sweat of the brow" is, at least in some cases, enough under UK law.

Andrew Lih wrote: From that one might conclude that if the photos were taken during the winter there would be no sweat of the brow. :-) Ec

Thomas Dalton wrote: I think it would be tactically unsound for WMUK to involve itself in this unless directly asked by the WMF. By doing so it would make itself an unnecessary target. Ec

Thomas Dalton wrote: Anyone who's been around here for any amount of time is familiar with the substantive arguments, but until an actual suit is filed they have yet to present the substance of their case. In the absence of such a presentation we are only speculating about what they might do. It is a big advantage for a putative defendant to let the plaintiff do all the work, and then poke at an overlooked weak spot in the attack. Ec