Klaus Graf writes:
For years there was no doubt that Bridgeman v. Corel was accepted on Commons. It is said that British courts would'nt accept Bridgeman v. Corel but there is no proof for this. It is true, in the contrary, that the NY US judge has diligently discussed UK law with the result that also according UK copyright law mere reproductions are NOT protected.
Bridgeman vs. Corel is an essential point for Commons and for all Wikimedia projects. This is not an issue some Commons pseudo-experts could decide. Before 500+ pictures of PUBLIC DOMAIN PAINTINGS are to be deleted the board of the Foundation should decide if Moeller's quote above is still its position.
I think it's still the Foundation's position, Klaus. We've gotten the occasional note from the National Portrait Gallery in the UK, asserting copyrights in reproductions of very old paintings, but to my knowledge we've never actually faced anything like legal action or a DMCA takedown notice regarding such images. I think the National Portrait Gallery may be afraid to put their claims to the test in actual litigation, since doing so would be a straightforward assault on the public domain, and could raise international enforcement issues besides. While I respect the Commons community's engagement in the issue of keeping Commons clear from copyright problems, it should be stressed that it is unclear whether the Foundation currently has any legal problems as a result of the public-domain paintings in question appearing on Commons.
--Mike Godwin General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation
Mike
Could I just check, please, whether you were just replying to an out-of-the-blue email from Klaus or whether you have replied after a review of
[[Commons:Deletion requests/National Portrait Gallery images (first set)]] where your email has now been publicly quoted.
The policy we at Commons have been working to is that images must be free in both the US and in the source country. I assume that is still the WMF general position?
The problem in the UK is that - contrary to what Klaus said - there is now a binding Court of Appeal judgement (Hyperion Records v Sawkin) which makes it very clear that the Bridgeman principle will _not _stand up in a UK court. You can find details of the UK case law at [[Commons talk:When to use the PD-Art tag#Reply to call for revision http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:When_to_use_the_PD-Art_tag#Reply_to_call_for_revision ]].
If it's official WMF policy that Bridgeman is assumed to apply in all countries, even in countries where there is jursiprudence to say that it will not, a formal statement to that effect would be most helpful. It will mean we can keep the NPG images, and quite a few others, and we can also dismantle much of the policy we have put in place to ensure that this issue is looked at on a country-by-country basis. We can for example delete the policy page [[Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag]] almost entirely. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:When_to_use_the_PD-Art_tag#Reply_to_call_for_revision
regards
Michael
Mike Godwin wrote:
Klaus Graf writes:
For years there was no doubt that Bridgeman v. Corel was accepted on Commons. It is said that British courts would'nt accept Bridgeman v. Corel but there is no proof for this. It is true, in the contrary, that the NY US judge has diligently discussed UK law with the result that also according UK copyright law mere reproductions are NOT protected.
Bridgeman vs. Corel is an essential point for Commons and for all Wikimedia projects. This is not an issue some Commons pseudo-experts could decide. Before 500+ pictures of PUBLIC DOMAIN PAINTINGS are to be deleted the board of the Foundation should decide if Moeller's quote above is still its position.
I think it's still the Foundation's position, Klaus. We've gotten the occasional note from the National Portrait Gallery in the UK, asserting copyrights in reproductions of very old paintings, but to my knowledge we've never actually faced anything like legal action or a DMCA takedown notice regarding such images. I think the National Portrait Gallery may be afraid to put their claims to the test in actual litigation, since doing so would be a straightforward assault on the public domain, and could raise international enforcement issues besides. While I respect the Commons community's engagement in the issue of keeping Commons clear from copyright problems, it should be stressed that it is unclear whether the Foundation currently has any legal problems as a result of the public-domain paintings in question appearing on Commons.
--Mike Godwin General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation
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On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 6:18 AM, Michael Maggs Michael@maggs.name wrote:
Mike
Could I just check, please, whether you were just replying to an out-of-the-blue email from Klaus or whether you have replied after a review of
[[Commons:Deletion requests/National Portrait Gallery images (first set)]] where your email has now been publicly quoted.
The policy we at Commons have been working to is that images must be free in both the US and in the source country. I assume that is still the WMF general position?
I sincerely hope this will not be the general position of WMF _ever_. English Wikipedia for one accepts PD-1923 content even if it isnt PD elsewhere, as does English Wikisource where the images are highly relevant to the project mission.
I firmly hope the WMF will continue to define its copyright policy in a precise manner where the cases are simple (obvious violations are not acceptable), and sensibly where the situations are not so simple. The definition of "free content" is quite different to "public domain", despite considerable overlap in the clear cases. It is silly to think that everything that even the most conservative person calls public domain can be backed by laws in two jurisdictions, and it is ludicrous to have WMF force projects to remove content because it might not be considered PD in the future, based on a presumed court case that hasn't yet happened, or due to lack of information that is unlikely to come to light.
For example, "This Land" by Woody Guthrie only became clearly PD after people pulled out all stops to prove it was, spurred on by a copyright case. It was however PD all along.
http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/JibJab_v_Ludlow/ http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/10_of_the_Woody_Guthrie_songs
-- John Vandenberg
Michael Maggs wrote:
The problem in the UK is that - contrary to what Klaus said - there is now a binding Court of Appeal judgement (Hyperion Records v Sawkin) which makes it very clear that the Bridgeman principle will _not _stand up in a UK court. You can find details of the UK case law at [[Commons talk:When to use the PD-Art tag#Reply to call for revision http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:When_to_use_the_PD-Art_tag#Reply_to_call_for_revision ]].
I strongly deny that Sawkins v Hyperion Records Ltd is by any means authoritative to the question of reproductions of 2D works of art. The infringed creative rework in that case were so vastly greater than a mere reproduction, that I can't believe you even bring it up in our context.
The question of originality in the reproduction of 2D images under UK law is quoting Michalos (see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:When_to_use_the_PD-Art_tag) "presently an open question in English law." On that page I pointed out, why I believe we should stand on the side of freedom and public domain and cite a UK legal scholar who thinks so as well and has strong arguments.
Ciao Henning
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