Per Andy. It would be interesting to see a timely and positive proposal from WMUK. If nothing else to arrange a meeting with the BM loans manager. I'd be happy to join in.
Replying to "misguided", please keep in mind that I supported and negotiated events with the BM over several years and was the (unpaid) Wikimedia UK national GLAM coordinator. I know how stuff works in practice and in politics. Any change that is promised to happen in more than a year is a waste of time based on hard evidence. Fortunately the BM has good lawyers and PR experts, I welcome them to contact me directly to assure our community of volunteers that the institution is serious about the public benefit and free access their board has committed to.
Any BM staff reading this can email me at faewik@gmail.com, I'm friendly and will keep an open mind. :-)
Thanks, Fae
On 28 July 2017 at 13:11, Richard Nevell richard.nevell@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Attempting to embarrass the British Museum is misguided and certainly would not build bridges for future collaboration.
On 28 Jul 2017 13:03, "Fæ" faewik@gmail.com wrote:
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
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Museum_2nd_century_bronze_ju... 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-co... 4. British Museum "about us":
http://web.archive.org/web/20170714042800/www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/man... 5. Commons village pump discussion:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#British_Museum_and_b...
Contacts
Thanks, Fae -- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk