Perhaps the air would be slightly clearer if Wikimedia UK were to make Freedom of Information Act requests to the NPG and other Publicly funded galleries for the highest def digital photos they have available of any artworks in their possession.
--- On Sat, 11/7/09, Virgin, Steve Steve.Virgin@dowjones.com wrote:
From: Virgin, Steve Steve.Virgin@dowjones.com Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] [Foundation-l] About that "sue and be damned" to the National Portrait Gallery ... To: "'wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org'" wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Saturday, 11 July, 2009, 12:17 PM
David makes some excellent points. May I suggest one thing?
Wouldn't it better if journalists were making the calls that david rightly suggests?
If we have some 'friends' in this newspaper community could we not tell them what david explains below and get them to make this call?
If we wake them up to the weakness of their position they will simply fix it.
If we get the news 'out there' we can simply be interested bystanders watching their troubles. A nicer situation to be in.
----- Original Message ----- From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sat Jul 11 11:43:42 2009 Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] [Foundation-l] About that "sue and be damned" to the National Portrait Gallery ...
2009/7/11 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
It gets better: the editor they sent the threat to is
an American.
So, to recap: A UK organisation is threatening an
American with legal
action over what is unambiguously, in established US
law, not a
copyright violation of any sort. I can't see this ending well for the NPG.
In fact, the more legal success they have with this approach (and they do have a plausible cause in the UK, if they throw enough money at arguing so), the more *utterly radioactive* the publicity for them will be.
I’ll be calling the NPG first thing Monday (in my capacity as “just a blogger on Wikimedia-related topics”) to establish just what they think they’re doing here. Other WMF bloggers and, if interested, journalists may wish to do the same, to establish what their consistent response is.
- d.