[Wikimediauk-l] Copyfraud by the British Museum

The Tullie House Museum in Carlisle has a number of objects on loan from the British Museum,[3] and it appears that it is only those objects that have any restrictions on photography. I took photographs of two of these (without any flash), as the restrictions are shockingly obvious cases of copyfraud, and not for any reason that might protect the works from damage.[1][2] It seems incomprehensible as to why the British Museum would ever want to make copyright claims over ~2,000 year old works especially considering they are not a money-making commercial enterprise, but a National institute and charity, with a stated objective[4] that "the collection should be put to public use and be freely accessible". Does anyone have any ideas for action, or contacts in the Museum, that might result in a change of how loans from the BM are controlled? I'm wondering if the most effective way forward is to make some social media fuss, to ensure the Trustees of the museum pay attention. The reputational risk the apparent ignorance over copyright by the BM loans management team seems something that would be easy to correct, so changes to policy are overdue. My own experience of polite private letters to a Museum's lawyer demonstrates that you may as well save hours of volunteer time by filing these in the bin, compared to the sometimes highly effective use of a few pointed tweets written in a few minutes and shared publicly and widely across social media. Those of us Wikimedians who work closely with GLAMs tend to shy away from any controversy, wanting the organizations to move towards sharing our open knowledge goals for positive reasons. I'm happy to try those types of collegiate ways of partnering, however drawing a few lines in the sand by highlighting embarrassing case studies, might mean we make timely progress while activist dinosaurs like me are still alive to see it happen. Links 1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Museum_2nd_century_bronze_j… 2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Museum_Fortuna_statue,_with… 3. Tullie House, Roman Frontier exhibition: http://web.archive.org/web/20161030151228/www.tulliehouse.co.uk/galleries-c… 4. British Museum "about us": http://web.archive.org/web/20170714042800/www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/ma… 5. Commons village pump discussion: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#British_Museum_and_… Contacts * https://twitter.com/britishmuseum * https://twitter.com/TullieHouse Thanks, Fae -- faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae