That it's a non-commercial licence is really disappointing, but that's still a little better than nothing…
https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2020/04/28/british-museum-makes-1-9-million...
The British Museum has revamped its online collections database, making over 1.9 million photos of its collection available for free online under a Creative Commons license.
Under the new agreement the majority of the 1.9 million images are being made available for anyone to use for free under a Creative Commons 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. Users no longer need to register to use these photographs, and can now download them directly from the British Museum.
Under the terms of the Creative Commons license, you are free to share and adapt the images for non-commercial use, but must include a credit to the British Museum. [continues]
Thanks Owen! The Natural History Museum did this with their Data Portal https://data.nhm.ac.uk/?_ga=2.238260164.53692689.1588158237-150062690.1588158237 as they were building it. Thanks to Andy Mabbet for letting us know that high-res images of their specimens are now being uploaded on Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Digital_Collections_Programme,_Natural_History_Museum,_London. I'm an advocate for getting their bee specimens on Commons if anyone wants to give that a go :)
On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 11:44, Owen Blacker owen@blacker.me.uk wrote:
That it's a non-commercial licence is really disappointing, but that's still a little better than nothing…
https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2020/04/28/british-museum-makes-1-9-million...
The British Museum has revamped its online collections database, making over 1.9 million photos of its collection available for free online under a Creative Commons license.
Under the new agreement the majority of the 1.9 million images are being made available for anyone to use for free under a Creative Commons 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. Users no longer need to register to use these photographs, and can now download them directly from the British Museum.
Under the terms of the Creative Commons license, you are free to share and adapt the images for non-commercial use, but must include a credit to the British Museum. [continues] -- Owen Blacker, London GB @owenblacker http://twitter.com/owenblacker _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 11:43, Owen Blacker owen@blacker.me.uk wrote:
That it's a non-commercial licence is really disappointing, but that's still a little better than nothing…
With the emphasis on the "little". There are two things wrong with this, which we as a movement (and individually) need to challenge; at very reasonable opportunity.
Firstly, there's the way they're spending public money making non-free original content. we need to persuade GLAMs - and lobby funders - that such material should be freely reusable.
But far more troubling is the attempt to claim copyright in works whose copyright - if the work didn't pre-date copyright completely - expired decades or centuries ago. The latter means, in effect that they are trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all.
This is a difficult problem to solve. Remember that the WMUK was talking with the British Museum way back in 2009/2010, which led to the first Wikipedian in Residence. That they are now using a CC licence is a good step forward, however I suspect the ’NC’ difficulty is related to the existence of https://www.bmimages.com/ .
On the plus side, my photos of the Hoxne Hoard have seen ~400,000 views over the last 10 years through enwp. It’s just a shame that BM is losing out on that traffic for their own imagery.
Thanks, Mike
On 29 Apr 2020, at 21:04, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 11:43, Owen Blacker owen@blacker.me.uk wrote:
That it's a non-commercial licence is really disappointing, but that's still a little better than nothing…
With the emphasis on the "little". There are two things wrong with this, which we as a movement (and individually) need to challenge; at very reasonable opportunity.
Firstly, there's the way they're spending public money making non-free original content. we need to persuade GLAMs - and lobby funders - that such material should be freely reusable.
But far more troubling is the attempt to claim copyright in works whose copyright - if the work didn't pre-date copyright completely - expired decades or centuries ago. The latter means, in effect that they are trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all.
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Andy makes some important points.
We know that even if editors in the UK respect what the British Museum is doing and don't upload those images to Commons or Wikipedia; where they are public domain images under US law, it is just a matter of time before someone in the movement, anywhere in the world, uploads any of those British Museum images that are of old two D objects to Commons as Public Domain images that can be used without attribution to the photographer or the institution.
Of course large parts of the British Museum collection would involve images of three d objects. In those case we can't use the BM images, but outside of lockdown people can either go there and take photos, or if you can't get yourself to the British Museum with a camera, make a request via the London Meetup, and if the object is on display we can get results such as at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_altarpiece_(WB.232)
The chapter remains in the awkward position of liaising with institutions that regard it as acceptable to claim a non commercial copyright on out of copyright material, and of in effect advocating for a position at variance with that of the wider movement.
One option that the chapter could consider would be to shift policy and instead start to diplomatically lobby UK Museum's to, as Andy put it, stop " trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all." Perhaps those on this list who are still members of the chapter might consider raising this for a debate at the next AGM?
Regards
Jonathan
On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 21:06, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 11:43, Owen Blacker owen@blacker.me.uk wrote:
That it's a non-commercial licence is really disappointing, but that's
still a little better than nothing…
With the emphasis on the "little". There are two things wrong with this, which we as a movement (and individually) need to challenge; at very reasonable opportunity.
Firstly, there's the way they're spending public money making non-free original content. we need to persuade GLAMs - and lobby funders - that such material should be freely reusable.
But far more troubling is the attempt to claim copyright in works whose copyright - if the work didn't pre-date copyright completely - expired decades or centuries ago. The latter means, in effect that they are trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all.
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Thanks WSC,
Though our recent experience in UK chapter AGMs is that they neither have hustings nor honestly welcomed "debates" for a few years now. As this year's AGM will be a yet to be detailed virtual event, it's even more unlikely that sufficient of the 500{{cn}} registered members will take part actively to make meaningful hustings, or more than 10% of the members to be engaged enough to vote on anything even if enabled remotely using more than passive broadcast methods.
With regard to the British Museum, as Mike notes, some of us have been educating through to lobbying them about better copyright policies for a decade, frequently with individual curators as supportive of better policies as we are. It is no coincidence that my own photograph of an object in the BM collection is the lead image on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyfraud. Facts are facts, those of us passionate about open knowledge should not be so worried about an institutional or middle-management focus on PR that we fail to be openly critical in plain English about their commercial choices that seriously damage open knowledge or the free use of public domain works.
Fae
On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 12:21, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
Andy makes some important points.
We know that even if editors in the UK respect what the British Museum is doing and don't upload those images to Commons or Wikipedia; where they are public domain images under US law, it is just a matter of time before someone in the movement, anywhere in the world, uploads any of those British Museum images that are of old two D objects to Commons as Public Domain images that can be used without attribution to the photographer or the institution.
Of course large parts of the British Museum collection would involve images of three d objects. In those case we can't use the BM images, but outside of lockdown people can either go there and take photos, or if you can't get yourself to the British Museum with a camera, make a request via the London Meetup, and if the object is on display we can get results such as at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_altarpiece_(WB.232)
The chapter remains in the awkward position of liaising with institutions that regard it as acceptable to claim a non commercial copyright on out of copyright material, and of in effect advocating for a position at variance with that of the wider movement.
One option that the chapter could consider would be to shift policy and instead start to diplomatically lobby UK Museum's to, as Andy put it, stop " trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all." Perhaps those on this list who are still members of the chapter might consider raising this for a debate at the next AGM?
Regards
Jonathan
On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 21:06, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 11:43, Owen Blacker owen@blacker.me.uk wrote:
That it's a non-commercial licence is really disappointing, but that's still a little better than nothing…
With the emphasis on the "little". There are two things wrong with this, which we as a movement (and individually) need to challenge; at very reasonable opportunity.
Firstly, there's the way they're spending public money making non-free original content. we need to persuade GLAMs - and lobby funders - that such material should be freely reusable.
But far more troubling is the attempt to claim copyright in works whose copyright - if the work didn't pre-date copyright completely - expired decades or centuries ago. The latter means, in effect that they are trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all.
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
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
I agree that it's only a matter of time before somebody does it but, as with the NPG a few years ago, the BM are likely to be quite upset if we can't get them to see it from our point of view. If anyone has any relevant contacts it might be worth reaching out. It could be that they don't fully understand the difference between CC-By-SA and CC-By-NC and how the latter prevents use on Wikipedia. On the other hand, it could be that they're claiming copyright based on the "sweat of brow" doctrine, which hasn't been fully tested in British courts.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 12:21 PM WereSpielChequers < werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andy makes some important points.
We know that even if editors in the UK respect what the British Museum is doing and don't upload those images to Commons or Wikipedia; where they are public domain images under US law, it is just a matter of time before someone in the movement, anywhere in the world, uploads any of those British Museum images that are of old two D objects to Commons as Public Domain images that can be used without attribution to the photographer or the institution.
Of course large parts of the British Museum collection would involve images of three d objects. In those case we can't use the BM images, but outside of lockdown people can either go there and take photos, or if you can't get yourself to the British Museum with a camera, make a request via the London Meetup, and if the object is on display we can get results such as at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_altarpiece_(WB.232)
The chapter remains in the awkward position of liaising with institutions that regard it as acceptable to claim a non commercial copyright on out of copyright material, and of in effect advocating for a position at variance with that of the wider movement.
One option that the chapter could consider would be to shift policy and instead start to diplomatically lobby UK Museum's to, as Andy put it, stop " trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all." Perhaps those on this list who are still members of the chapter might consider raising this for a debate at the next AGM?
Regards
Jonathan
On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 21:06, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 11:43, Owen Blacker owen@blacker.me.uk wrote:
That it's a non-commercial licence is really disappointing, but that's
still a little better than nothing…
With the emphasis on the "little". There are two things wrong with this, which we as a movement (and individually) need to challenge; at very reasonable opportunity.
Firstly, there's the way they're spending public money making non-free original content. we need to persuade GLAMs - and lobby funders - that such material should be freely reusable.
But far more troubling is the attempt to claim copyright in works whose copyright - if the work didn't pre-date copyright completely - expired decades or centuries ago. The latter means, in effect that they are trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all.
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
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
Dear all
As a number of people have noted already, it is indeed disappointing that the British Museum has released these images under a non commercial licence, given the obvious restrictions to people actually accessing and using them. Whilst staff at Wikimedia UK have many partnerships within the cultural sector, including larger institutions, the BM is not currently one of them. However I will get in touch with them and point out the issues with the licence they’ve chosen. If anyone has any contacts at the Museum they would be able to share with me that would be very helpful - and of course, you are also welcome to lobby them as individuals.
I’m not sure that I quite agree with the characterisation of Wikimedia UK as “advocating for a position at variance with that of the wider movement when it comes to claiming non commercial copyright on out of copyright material”. Indeed, in a talk I gave at a Westminster Media Forum policy event on the EU copyright directive last year, I said:
*“Access to and re-use of centuries old paintings, part of our cultural heritage, is being increasingly restricted by an array of laws and in-house rules within cultural institutions aiming to maintain control of their digital copies. This causes many classical works, for instance, to be unavailable to the public online, despite them being part of the public domain. *
*Part of the social balance under copyright and related rights is that at some point the exclusive economic rights expire and the works become part of our shared cultural heritage. This makes up a large portion of the public domain and ensures wide access to our culture and the freedom to create and innovate. Unfortunately, in the past decades we have seen increasing attempts to restrict our cultural heritage by claiming copyright on public domain works, or by establishing new rights on exact digital copies of old works. These practices complicate and sometimes prevent the digitisation of and digital access to our culture. *
*The [EU copyright] Directive therefore provides for a safeguard of public domain works. We must make sure no new rights are applied to digital copies of artworks whose copyright has expired. This includes both no copyright term extension for such rules and no related rights. The current situation in the UK on this is quite inconclusive, with works that would be considered to be public domain under US law potentially subject to copyright under UK law. Indeed the courts in the UK traditionally applied a very low test for photographic originality, based on the "skill and labour" required to capture the image. In the IPO’s updated copyright advice notice in 2015, it acknowledges that there is a degree of uncertainty regarding whether copyright can exist in digitised copies of older images for which copyright has expired. However it also states that according to the Court of Justice of the European Union, copyright can only subsist in subject matter that is original in the sense that it is the author’s own ‘intellectual creation’. This higher standard should be unequivocally applied to UK cultural heritage institutions, who might be inadvertently engaging in copyfraud.”*
Previously, at a ministerial roundtable on the directive, I raised this very point with the Minister (at the time), who seemed completely unaware of the practice of copyrighting digital reproductions of public domain works, and remarked that this was certainly “outside of the spirit” of existing law and proposed legislation. Both of those policy interventions point to our general approach towards non-commercial licenses and to issues around copyfraud.
However it’s true that we do, as a chapter, work with a broad range of institutions, some of whom claim non commercial copyright on out of copyright material. We challenge this where we see it, albeit usually through meetings and discussions, rather than in public fora. Indeed, much of our work with the cultural sector involves this kind of internal advocacy, and we can see the impact of this in the institutions who go on to change their policy and practice and release a substantial amount of content onto open licences. We also continue to talk to grantmaking organisations to encourage them to move away from non commercial licences for themselves and their grantees - although again, we primarily do this in collaboration/discussion rather than on a public forum. It’s probably fair to say we take a carrot, rather than a stick, approach on this - but I think that’s a question of tactics, rather than of policy.
Having said all of that, I don’t want to shut down debate and would be very happy for there to be questions and discussions on this at our next AGM (which is indeed going to be online, for reasons that are clearly outside of our control). As a staff team we have recently started planning this event, which is going to be on Saturday 18th July, and have already started thinking about how we ensure the Q&A part of the day is as productive and inclusive as possible, particularly given the unusual set up.
To come back more specifically to the BM issue, I will follow this up next week. I think it will be relatively easy for me to find someone to talk to there but as I say, if anyone does have an existing contact/relationship at the museum I would be very pleased to hear from you.
All best wishes
Lucy
On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 12:48, Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com wrote:
I agree that it's only a matter of time before somebody does it but, as with the NPG a few years ago, the BM are likely to be quite upset if we can't get them to see it from our point of view. If anyone has any relevant contacts it might be worth reaching out. It could be that they don't fully understand the difference between CC-By-SA and CC-By-NC and how the latter prevents use on Wikipedia. On the other hand, it could be that they're claiming copyright based on the "sweat of brow" doctrine, which hasn't been fully tested in British courts.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 12:21 PM WereSpielChequers < werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andy makes some important points.
We know that even if editors in the UK respect what the British Museum is doing and don't upload those images to Commons or Wikipedia; where they are public domain images under US law, it is just a matter of time before someone in the movement, anywhere in the world, uploads any of those British Museum images that are of old two D objects to Commons as Public Domain images that can be used without attribution to the photographer or the institution.
Of course large parts of the British Museum collection would involve images of three d objects. In those case we can't use the BM images, but outside of lockdown people can either go there and take photos, or if you can't get yourself to the British Museum with a camera, make a request via the London Meetup, and if the object is on display we can get results such as at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_altarpiece_(WB.232)
The chapter remains in the awkward position of liaising with institutions that regard it as acceptable to claim a non commercial copyright on out of copyright material, and of in effect advocating for a position at variance with that of the wider movement.
One option that the chapter could consider would be to shift policy and instead start to diplomatically lobby UK Museum's to, as Andy put it, stop " trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all." Perhaps those on this list who are still members of the chapter might consider raising this for a debate at the next AGM?
Regards
Jonathan
On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 21:06, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 11:43, Owen Blacker owen@blacker.me.uk wrote:
That it's a non-commercial licence is really disappointing, but that's
still a little better than nothing…
With the emphasis on the "little". There are two things wrong with this, which we as a movement (and individually) need to challenge; at very reasonable opportunity.
Firstly, there's the way they're spending public money making non-free original content. we need to persuade GLAMs - and lobby funders - that such material should be freely reusable.
But far more troubling is the attempt to claim copyright in works whose copyright - if the work didn't pre-date copyright completely - expired decades or centuries ago. The latter means, in effect that they are trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all.
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
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
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 16:19, Lucy Crompton-Reid lucy.crompton-reid@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
[...]
To come back more specifically to the BM issue, I will follow this up next week.
Thank you, Lucy.
I have been reflecting on this over the weekend. As well as the two prongs of our lobbying the BM (choosing a better licence for images where they hold the copyright; and not claiming copyright in PD material), I think there is a third approach we can take, not specific to the BM.
We as individuals and as a movement, and WMUK specifically could do more to inform the public of their rights - that material whose copyright has expired is theirs to freely reuse, and that bogus copyright claims regarding such material impinge on such rights.
Yes, I think that's a very good point Andy. I agree that many people are probably unaware of their rights to our collective cultural heritage, and would instinctively feel that publicly funded institutions should, at the very least, uphold those rights. Thanks, Lucy
On Mon, 4 May 2020 at 10:55, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 16:19, Lucy Crompton-Reid lucy.crompton-reid@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
[...]
To come back more specifically to the BM issue, I will follow this up
next week.
Thank you, Lucy.
I have been reflecting on this over the weekend. As well as the two prongs of our lobbying the BM (choosing a better licence for images where they hold the copyright; and not claiming copyright in PD material), I think there is a third approach we can take, not specific to the BM.
We as individuals and as a movement, and WMUK specifically could do more to inform the public of their rights - that material whose copyright has expired is theirs to freely reuse, and that bogus copyright claims regarding such material impinge on such rights.
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Dear Lucy,
It's just over 3 months ago that your offer to talk with the British Museum about claiming copyright over public domain images, and consequently charging academics and other reusers large fees to use images which should be free to the public. Has there been any progress and what came of the plan to discuss this topic at the recent AGM?
As a further reference case study of the British Museum continuing using what Wikimedians call "license laundering"[0], this week they have claimed all rights reserved for my own photograph released on Wikimedia Commons a decade ago to support Wikipedia editathons working with the Museum, as CC-BY-SA.[1][2] The BM has removed EXIF data, and not attempted to apply a simple attribution, or perhaps fail to understand what is required to respect moral rights. A remarkable failure considering the museum and their online presence sets the standard for many other UK GLAM institutions.
Thanks, Fae
Links 0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:License_laundering 1. https://web.archive.org/web/20200812105445/https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanu... 2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_Gold_Cup_lid.jpg
-- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
---- On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 16:20, Lucy Crompton-Reid lucy.crompton-reid@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Dear all
As a number of people have noted already, it is indeed disappointing that the British Museum has released these images under a non commercial licence, given the obvious restrictions to people actually accessing and using them. Whilst staff at Wikimedia UK have many partnerships within the cultural sector, including larger institutions, the BM is not currently one of them. However I will get in touch with them and point out the issues with the licence they’ve chosen. If anyone has any contacts at the Museum they would be able to share with me that would be very helpful - and of course, you are also welcome to lobby them as individuals.
I’m not sure that I quite agree with the characterisation of Wikimedia UK as “advocating for a position at variance with that of the wider movement when it comes to claiming non commercial copyright on out of copyright material”. Indeed, in a talk I gave at a Westminster Media Forum policy event on the EU copyright directive last year, I said:
“Access to and re-use of centuries old paintings, part of our cultural heritage, is being increasingly restricted by an array of laws and in-house rules within cultural institutions aiming to maintain control of their digital copies. This causes many classical works, for instance, to be unavailable to the public online, despite them being part of the public domain.
Part of the social balance under copyright and related rights is that at some point the exclusive economic rights expire and the works become part of our shared cultural heritage. This makes up a large portion of the public domain and ensures wide access to our culture and the freedom to create and innovate. Unfortunately, in the past decades we have seen increasing attempts to restrict our cultural heritage by claiming copyright on public domain works, or by establishing new rights on exact digital copies of old works. These practices complicate and sometimes prevent the digitisation of and digital access to our culture.
The [EU copyright] Directive therefore provides for a safeguard of public domain works. We must make sure no new rights are applied to digital copies of artworks whose copyright has expired. This includes both no copyright term extension for such rules and no related rights. The current situation in the UK on this is quite inconclusive, with works that would be considered to be public domain under US law potentially subject to copyright under UK law. Indeed the courts in the UK traditionally applied a very low test for photographic originality, based on the "skill and labour" required to capture the image. In the IPO’s updated copyright advice notice in 2015, it acknowledges that there is a degree of uncertainty regarding whether copyright can exist in digitised copies of older images for which copyright has expired. However it also states that according to the Court of Justice of the European Union, copyright can only subsist in subject matter that is original in the sense that it is the author’s own ‘intellectual creation’. This higher standard should be unequivocally applied to UK cultural heritage institutions, who might be inadvertently engaging in copyfraud.”
Previously, at a ministerial roundtable on the directive, I raised this very point with the Minister (at the time), who seemed completely unaware of the practice of copyrighting digital reproductions of public domain works, and remarked that this was certainly “outside of the spirit” of existing law and proposed legislation. Both of those policy interventions point to our general approach towards non-commercial licenses and to issues around copyfraud.
However it’s true that we do, as a chapter, work with a broad range of institutions, some of whom claim non commercial copyright on out of copyright material. We challenge this where we see it, albeit usually through meetings and discussions, rather than in public fora. Indeed, much of our work with the cultural sector involves this kind of internal advocacy, and we can see the impact of this in the institutions who go on to change their policy and practice and release a substantial amount of content onto open licences. We also continue to talk to grantmaking organisations to encourage them to move away from non commercial licences for themselves and their grantees - although again, we primarily do this in collaboration/discussion rather than on a public forum. It’s probably fair to say we take a carrot, rather than a stick, approach on this - but I think that’s a question of tactics, rather than of policy.
Having said all of that, I don’t want to shut down debate and would be very happy for there to be questions and discussions on this at our next AGM (which is indeed going to be online, for reasons that are clearly outside of our control). As a staff team we have recently started planning this event, which is going to be on Saturday 18th July, and have already started thinking about how we ensure the Q&A part of the day is as productive and inclusive as possible, particularly given the unusual set up.
To come back more specifically to the BM issue, I will follow this up next week. I think it will be relatively easy for me to find someone to talk to there but as I say, if anyone does have an existing contact/relationship at the museum I would be very pleased to hear from you.
All best wishes
Lucy
On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 12:48, Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com wrote:
I agree that it's only a matter of time before somebody does it but, as with the NPG a few years ago, the BM are likely to be quite upset if we can't get them to see it from our point of view. If anyone has any relevant contacts it might be worth reaching out. It could be that they don't fully understand the difference between CC-By-SA and CC-By-NC and how the latter prevents use on Wikipedia. On the other hand, it could be that they're claiming copyright based on the "sweat of brow" doctrine, which hasn't been fully tested in British courts.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 12:21 PM WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
Andy makes some important points.
We know that even if editors in the UK respect what the British Museum is doing and don't upload those images to Commons or Wikipedia; where they are public domain images under US law, it is just a matter of time before someone in the movement, anywhere in the world, uploads any of those British Museum images that are of old two D objects to Commons as Public Domain images that can be used without attribution to the photographer or the institution.
Of course large parts of the British Museum collection would involve images of three d objects. In those case we can't use the BM images, but outside of lockdown people can either go there and take photos, or if you can't get yourself to the British Museum with a camera, make a request via the London Meetup, and if the object is on display we can get results such as at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_altarpiece_(WB.232)
The chapter remains in the awkward position of liaising with institutions that regard it as acceptable to claim a non commercial copyright on out of copyright material, and of in effect advocating for a position at variance with that of the wider movement.
One option that the chapter could consider would be to shift policy and instead start to diplomatically lobby UK Museum's to, as Andy put it, stop " trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all." Perhaps those on this list who are still members of the chapter might consider raising this for a debate at the next AGM?
Regards
Jonathan
On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 21:06, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 11:43, Owen Blacker owen@blacker.me.uk wrote:
That it's a non-commercial licence is really disappointing, but that's still a little better than nothing…
With the emphasis on the "little". There are two things wrong with this, which we as a movement (and individually) need to challenge; at very reasonable opportunity.
Firstly, there's the way they're spending public money making non-free original content. we need to persuade GLAMs - and lobby funders - that such material should be freely reusable.
But far more troubling is the attempt to claim copyright in works whose copyright - if the work didn't pre-date copyright completely - expired decades or centuries ago. The latter means, in effect that they are trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all.
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
-- Lucy Crompton-Reid Chief Executive Wikimedia UK +44 (0) 203 372 0762
Wikimedia UK is the national chapter for the global Wikimedia open knowledge movement, and a registered charity. We rely on donations from individuals to support our work to make knowledge open for all. Have you considered supporting Wikimedia? https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk
Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827 Registered Charity No.1144513 Registered Office Ground Floor, Europoint, 5 - 11 Lavington Street, London SE1 0NZ
The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Hi Fae,
The reuse seems to be by the British Library, not the British Museum, here. Asking them for £400 seems a bit odd/steep (https://twitter.com/Faewik/status/1293503130987122688).
Thanks, Mike
On 12 Aug 2020, at 13:05, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Lucy,
It's just over 3 months ago that your offer to talk with the British Museum about claiming copyright over public domain images, and consequently charging academics and other reusers large fees to use images which should be free to the public. Has there been any progress and what came of the plan to discuss this topic at the recent AGM?
As a further reference case study of the British Museum continuing using what Wikimedians call "license laundering"[0], this week they have claimed all rights reserved for my own photograph released on Wikimedia Commons a decade ago to support Wikipedia editathons working with the Museum, as CC-BY-SA.[1][2] The BM has removed EXIF data, and not attempted to apply a simple attribution, or perhaps fail to understand what is required to respect moral rights. A remarkable failure considering the museum and their online presence sets the standard for many other UK GLAM institutions.
Thanks, Fae
Links 0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:License_laundering
- https://web.archive.org/web/20200812105445/https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanu...
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_Gold_Cup_lid.jpg
-- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 16:20, Lucy Crompton-Reid lucy.crompton-reid@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Dear all
As a number of people have noted already, it is indeed disappointing that the British Museum has released these images under a non commercial licence, given the obvious restrictions to people actually accessing and using them. Whilst staff at Wikimedia UK have many partnerships within the cultural sector, including larger institutions, the BM is not currently one of them. However I will get in touch with them and point out the issues with the licence they’ve chosen. If anyone has any contacts at the Museum they would be able to share with me that would be very helpful - and of course, you are also welcome to lobby them as individuals.
I’m not sure that I quite agree with the characterisation of Wikimedia UK as “advocating for a position at variance with that of the wider movement when it comes to claiming non commercial copyright on out of copyright material”. Indeed, in a talk I gave at a Westminster Media Forum policy event on the EU copyright directive last year, I said:
“Access to and re-use of centuries old paintings, part of our cultural heritage, is being increasingly restricted by an array of laws and in-house rules within cultural institutions aiming to maintain control of their digital copies. This causes many classical works, for instance, to be unavailable to the public online, despite them being part of the public domain.
Part of the social balance under copyright and related rights is that at some point the exclusive economic rights expire and the works become part of our shared cultural heritage. This makes up a large portion of the public domain and ensures wide access to our culture and the freedom to create and innovate. Unfortunately, in the past decades we have seen increasing attempts to restrict our cultural heritage by claiming copyright on public domain works, or by establishing new rights on exact digital copies of old works. These practices complicate and sometimes prevent the digitisation of and digital access to our culture.
The [EU copyright] Directive therefore provides for a safeguard of public domain works. We must make sure no new rights are applied to digital copies of artworks whose copyright has expired. This includes both no copyright term extension for such rules and no related rights. The current situation in the UK on this is quite inconclusive, with works that would be considered to be public domain under US law potentially subject to copyright under UK law. Indeed the courts in the UK traditionally applied a very low test for photographic originality, based on the "skill and labour" required to capture the image. In the IPO’s updated copyright advice notice in 2015, it acknowledges that there is a degree of uncertainty regarding whether copyright can exist in digitised copies of older images for which copyright has expired. However it also states that according to the Court of Justice of the European Union, copyright can only subsist in subject matter that is original in the sense that it is the author’s own ‘intellectual creation’. This higher standard should be unequivocally applied to UK cultural heritage institutions, who might be inadvertently engaging in copyfraud.”
Previously, at a ministerial roundtable on the directive, I raised this very point with the Minister (at the time), who seemed completely unaware of the practice of copyrighting digital reproductions of public domain works, and remarked that this was certainly “outside of the spirit” of existing law and proposed legislation. Both of those policy interventions point to our general approach towards non-commercial licenses and to issues around copyfraud.
However it’s true that we do, as a chapter, work with a broad range of institutions, some of whom claim non commercial copyright on out of copyright material. We challenge this where we see it, albeit usually through meetings and discussions, rather than in public fora. Indeed, much of our work with the cultural sector involves this kind of internal advocacy, and we can see the impact of this in the institutions who go on to change their policy and practice and release a substantial amount of content onto open licences. We also continue to talk to grantmaking organisations to encourage them to move away from non commercial licences for themselves and their grantees - although again, we primarily do this in collaboration/discussion rather than on a public forum. It’s probably fair to say we take a carrot, rather than a stick, approach on this - but I think that’s a question of tactics, rather than of policy.
Having said all of that, I don’t want to shut down debate and would be very happy for there to be questions and discussions on this at our next AGM (which is indeed going to be online, for reasons that are clearly outside of our control). As a staff team we have recently started planning this event, which is going to be on Saturday 18th July, and have already started thinking about how we ensure the Q&A part of the day is as productive and inclusive as possible, particularly given the unusual set up.
To come back more specifically to the BM issue, I will follow this up next week. I think it will be relatively easy for me to find someone to talk to there but as I say, if anyone does have an existing contact/relationship at the museum I would be very pleased to hear from you.
All best wishes
Lucy
On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 12:48, Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com wrote:
I agree that it's only a matter of time before somebody does it but, as with the NPG a few years ago, the BM are likely to be quite upset if we can't get them to see it from our point of view. If anyone has any relevant contacts it might be worth reaching out. It could be that they don't fully understand the difference between CC-By-SA and CC-By-NC and how the latter prevents use on Wikipedia. On the other hand, it could be that they're claiming copyright based on the "sweat of brow" doctrine, which hasn't been fully tested in British courts.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 12:21 PM WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
Andy makes some important points.
We know that even if editors in the UK respect what the British Museum is doing and don't upload those images to Commons or Wikipedia; where they are public domain images under US law, it is just a matter of time before someone in the movement, anywhere in the world, uploads any of those British Museum images that are of old two D objects to Commons as Public Domain images that can be used without attribution to the photographer or the institution.
Of course large parts of the British Museum collection would involve images of three d objects. In those case we can't use the BM images, but outside of lockdown people can either go there and take photos, or if you can't get yourself to the British Museum with a camera, make a request via the London Meetup, and if the object is on display we can get results such as at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_altarpiece_(WB.232)
The chapter remains in the awkward position of liaising with institutions that regard it as acceptable to claim a non commercial copyright on out of copyright material, and of in effect advocating for a position at variance with that of the wider movement.
One option that the chapter could consider would be to shift policy and instead start to diplomatically lobby UK Museum's to, as Andy put it, stop " trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all." Perhaps those on this list who are still members of the chapter might consider raising this for a debate at the next AGM?
Regards
Jonathan
On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 21:06, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 11:43, Owen Blacker owen@blacker.me.uk wrote:
That it's a non-commercial licence is really disappointing, but that's still a little better than nothing…
With the emphasis on the "little". There are two things wrong with this, which we as a movement (and individually) need to challenge; at very reasonable opportunity.
Firstly, there's the way they're spending public money making non-free original content. we need to persuade GLAMs - and lobby funders - that such material should be freely reusable.
But far more troubling is the attempt to claim copyright in works whose copyright - if the work didn't pre-date copyright completely - expired decades or centuries ago. The latter means, in effect that they are trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all.
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
-- Lucy Crompton-Reid Chief Executive Wikimedia UK +44 (0) 203 372 0762
Wikimedia UK is the national chapter for the global Wikimedia open knowledge movement, and a registered charity. We rely on donations from individuals to support our work to make knowledge open for all. Have you considered supporting Wikimedia? https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk
Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827 Registered Charity No.1144513 Registered Office Ground Floor, Europoint, 5 - 11 Lavington Street, London SE1 0NZ
The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents. _______________________________________________ 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
Hi Fae,
Mike is correct, this is a British Library blog post, which discusses the Royal Gold Cup, which is an item in the British Museum collections. However the gold cup is mentioned in British Library manuscripts, hence the connection and relevance, for including an image of the cup in the blog post about the manuscripts.
I am not sure which British Library curator in the Medieval and Early Modern Department has written this blog post, it may be written by a collaborative PhD student from that section. I'm sure the post's author would willingly add an attribution and a link to Wikimedia Commons, or would you prefer your photograph to be removed from the post? I can contact the Head of this Dept to ask.
I am trying to encourage my curatorial colleagues in the British Library to add out of copyright BL digitised collections to Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource. I am also in the process of being able to hire a new Wikimedian in Residence for the British Library (I've been arranging funding sources for this), who will assist with staff training and guidance, building on from the fabulous work that Andrew Gray did a few years ago. So I am keen for my British Library colleagues to have good relations with the Wikimedia community.
best wishes, Stella
On Wed, 12 Aug 2020, 17:05 Michael Peel, email@mikepeel.net wrote:
Hi Fae,
The reuse seems to be by the British Library, not the British Museum, here. Asking them for £400 seems a bit odd/steep ( https://twitter.com/Faewik/status/1293503130987122688).
Thanks, Mike
On 12 Aug 2020, at 13:05, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Lucy,
It's just over 3 months ago that your offer to talk with the British Museum about claiming copyright over public domain images, and consequently charging academics and other reusers large fees to use images which should be free to the public. Has there been any progress and what came of the plan to discuss this topic at the recent AGM?
As a further reference case study of the British Museum continuing using what Wikimedians call "license laundering"[0], this week they have claimed all rights reserved for my own photograph released on Wikimedia Commons a decade ago to support Wikipedia editathons working with the Museum, as CC-BY-SA.[1][2] The BM has removed EXIF data, and not attempted to apply a simple attribution, or perhaps fail to understand what is required to respect moral rights. A remarkable failure considering the museum and their online presence sets the standard for many other UK GLAM institutions.
Thanks, Fae
Links 0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:License_laundering
https://web.archive.org/web/20200812105445/https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanu...
-- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 16:20, Lucy Crompton-Reid lucy.crompton-reid@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Dear all
As a number of people have noted already, it is indeed disappointing
that the British Museum has released these images under a non commercial licence, given the obvious restrictions to people actually accessing and using them. Whilst staff at Wikimedia UK have many partnerships within the cultural sector, including larger institutions, the BM is not currently one of them. However I will get in touch with them and point out the issues with the licence they’ve chosen. If anyone has any contacts at the Museum they would be able to share with me that would be very helpful - and of course, you are also welcome to lobby them as individuals.
I’m not sure that I quite agree with the characterisation of Wikimedia
UK as “advocating for a position at variance with that of the wider movement when it comes to claiming non commercial copyright on out of copyright material”. Indeed, in a talk I gave at a Westminster Media Forum policy event on the EU copyright directive last year, I said:
“Access to and re-use of centuries old paintings, part of our cultural
heritage, is being increasingly restricted by an array of laws and in-house rules within cultural institutions aiming to maintain control of their digital copies. This causes many classical works, for instance, to be unavailable to the public online, despite them being part of the public domain.
Part of the social balance under copyright and related rights is that
at some point the exclusive economic rights expire and the works become part of our shared cultural heritage. This makes up a large portion of the public domain and ensures wide access to our culture and the freedom to create and innovate. Unfortunately, in the past decades we have seen increasing attempts to restrict our cultural heritage by claiming copyright on public domain works, or by establishing new rights on exact digital copies of old works. These practices complicate and sometimes prevent the digitisation of and digital access to our culture.
The [EU copyright] Directive therefore provides for a safeguard of
public domain works. We must make sure no new rights are applied to digital copies of artworks whose copyright has expired. This includes both no copyright term extension for such rules and no related rights. The current situation in the UK on this is quite inconclusive, with works that would be considered to be public domain under US law potentially subject to copyright under UK law. Indeed the courts in the UK traditionally applied a very low test for photographic originality, based on the "skill and labour" required to capture the image. In the IPO’s updated copyright advice notice in 2015, it acknowledges that there is a degree of uncertainty regarding whether copyright can exist in digitised copies of older images for which copyright has expired. However it also states that according to the Court of Justice of the European Union, copyright can only subsist in subject matter that is original in the sense that it is the author’s own ‘intellectual creation’. This higher standard should be unequivocally applied to UK cultural heritage institutions, who might be inadvertently engaging in copyfraud.”
Previously, at a ministerial roundtable on the directive, I raised this
very point with the Minister (at the time), who seemed completely unaware of the practice of copyrighting digital reproductions of public domain works, and remarked that this was certainly “outside of the spirit” of existing law and proposed legislation. Both of those policy interventions point to our general approach towards non-commercial licenses and to issues around copyfraud.
However it’s true that we do, as a chapter, work with a broad range of
institutions, some of whom claim non commercial copyright on out of copyright material. We challenge this where we see it, albeit usually through meetings and discussions, rather than in public fora. Indeed, much of our work with the cultural sector involves this kind of internal advocacy, and we can see the impact of this in the institutions who go on to change their policy and practice and release a substantial amount of content onto open licences. We also continue to talk to grantmaking organisations to encourage them to move away from non commercial licences for themselves and their grantees - although again, we primarily do this in collaboration/discussion rather than on a public forum. It’s probably fair to say we take a carrot, rather than a stick, approach on this - but I think that’s a question of tactics, rather than of policy.
Having said all of that, I don’t want to shut down debate and would be
very happy for there to be questions and discussions on this at our next AGM (which is indeed going to be online, for reasons that are clearly outside of our control). As a staff team we have recently started planning this event, which is going to be on Saturday 18th July, and have already started thinking about how we ensure the Q&A part of the day is as productive and inclusive as possible, particularly given the unusual set up.
To come back more specifically to the BM issue, I will follow this up
next week. I think it will be relatively easy for me to find someone to talk to there but as I say, if anyone does have an existing contact/relationship at the museum I would be very pleased to hear from you.
All best wishes
Lucy
On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 12:48, Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com wrote:
I agree that it's only a matter of time before somebody does it but,
as with the NPG a few years ago, the BM are likely to be quite upset if we can't get them to see it from our point of view. If anyone has any relevant contacts it might be worth reaching out. It could be that they don't fully understand the difference between CC-By-SA and CC-By-NC and how the latter prevents use on Wikipedia. On the other hand, it could be that they're claiming copyright based on the "sweat of brow" doctrine, which hasn't been fully tested in British courts.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 12:21 PM WereSpielChequers <
werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andy makes some important points.
We know that even if editors in the UK respect what the British
Museum is doing and don't upload those images to Commons or Wikipedia; where they are public domain images under US law, it is just a matter of time before someone in the movement, anywhere in the world, uploads any of those British Museum images that are of old two D objects to Commons as Public Domain images that can be used without attribution to the photographer or the institution.
Of course large parts of the British Museum collection would involve
images of three d objects. In those case we can't use the BM images, but outside of lockdown people can either go there and take photos, or if you can't get yourself to the British Museum with a camera, make a request via the London Meetup, and if the object is on display we can get results such as at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_altarpiece_(WB.232)
The chapter remains in the awkward position of liaising with
institutions that regard it as acceptable to claim a non commercial copyright on out of copyright material, and of in effect advocating for a position at variance with that of the wider movement.
One option that the chapter could consider would be to shift policy
and instead start to diplomatically lobby UK Museum's to, as Andy put it, stop " trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all." Perhaps those on this list who are still members of the chapter might consider raising this for a debate at the next AGM?
Regards
Jonathan
On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 21:06, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk
wrote:
On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 11:43, Owen Blacker owen@blacker.me.uk
wrote:
> > That it's a non-commercial licence is really disappointing, but
that's still a little better than nothing…
With the emphasis on the "little". There are two things wrong with this, which we as a movement (and individually) need to challenge; at very reasonable opportunity.
Firstly, there's the way they're spending public money making
non-free
original content. we need to persuade GLAMs - and lobby funders -
that
such material should be freely reusable.
But far more troubling is the attempt to claim copyright in works whose copyright - if the work didn't pre-date copyright completely - expired decades or centuries ago. The latter means, in effect that they are trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all.
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
-- Lucy Crompton-Reid Chief Executive Wikimedia UK +44 (0) 203 372 0762
Wikimedia UK is the national chapter for the global Wikimedia open
knowledge movement, and a registered charity. We rely on donations from individuals to support our work to make knowledge open for all. Have you considered supporting Wikimedia? https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk
Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales,
Registered No. 6741827
Registered Charity No.1144513 Registered Office Ground Floor, Europoint, 5 - 11 Lavington Street,
London SE1 0NZ
The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate
Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
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
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Seems like a good solution Stella, thank you! We all make mistakes, especially in organisations, and we know you mean well and that this was a genuine mistake. I hope Fae will see attribution as fine.
Fae obviously feels very strongly about large museums and open rights, and he's put a lot of emotional effort into pushing things to be more open. We all have, and sometimes our feeling comes through very strongly and can read as a little harsh.
But don't forget that you and your colleagues are part of our community too! Thank you for the work you're doing once again.
Richard
On Wed, 12 Aug 2020, 18:02 Stella Wisdom, stella.wisdom@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Fae,
Mike is correct, this is a British Library blog post, which discusses the Royal Gold Cup, which is an item in the British Museum collections. However the gold cup is mentioned in British Library manuscripts, hence the connection and relevance, for including an image of the cup in the blog post about the manuscripts.
I am not sure which British Library curator in the Medieval and Early Modern Department has written this blog post, it may be written by a collaborative PhD student from that section. I'm sure the post's author would willingly add an attribution and a link to Wikimedia Commons, or would you prefer your photograph to be removed from the post? I can contact the Head of this Dept to ask.
I am trying to encourage my curatorial colleagues in the British Library to add out of copyright BL digitised collections to Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource. I am also in the process of being able to hire a new Wikimedian in Residence for the British Library (I've been arranging funding sources for this), who will assist with staff training and guidance, building on from the fabulous work that Andrew Gray did a few years ago. So I am keen for my British Library colleagues to have good relations with the Wikimedia community.
best wishes, Stella
On Wed, 12 Aug 2020, 17:05 Michael Peel, email@mikepeel.net wrote:
Hi Fae,
The reuse seems to be by the British Library, not the British Museum, here. Asking them for £400 seems a bit odd/steep ( https://twitter.com/Faewik/status/1293503130987122688).
Thanks, Mike
On 12 Aug 2020, at 13:05, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Lucy,
It's just over 3 months ago that your offer to talk with the British Museum about claiming copyright over public domain images, and consequently charging academics and other reusers large fees to use images which should be free to the public. Has there been any progress and what came of the plan to discuss this topic at the recent AGM?
As a further reference case study of the British Museum continuing using what Wikimedians call "license laundering"[0], this week they have claimed all rights reserved for my own photograph released on Wikimedia Commons a decade ago to support Wikipedia editathons working with the Museum, as CC-BY-SA.[1][2] The BM has removed EXIF data, and not attempted to apply a simple attribution, or perhaps fail to understand what is required to respect moral rights. A remarkable failure considering the museum and their online presence sets the standard for many other UK GLAM institutions.
Thanks, Fae
Links 0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:License_laundering
https://web.archive.org/web/20200812105445/https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanu...
-- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 16:20, Lucy Crompton-Reid lucy.crompton-reid@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Dear all
As a number of people have noted already, it is indeed disappointing
that the British Museum has released these images under a non commercial licence, given the obvious restrictions to people actually accessing and using them. Whilst staff at Wikimedia UK have many partnerships within the cultural sector, including larger institutions, the BM is not currently one of them. However I will get in touch with them and point out the issues with the licence they’ve chosen. If anyone has any contacts at the Museum they would be able to share with me that would be very helpful - and of course, you are also welcome to lobby them as individuals.
I’m not sure that I quite agree with the characterisation of Wikimedia
UK as “advocating for a position at variance with that of the wider movement when it comes to claiming non commercial copyright on out of copyright material”. Indeed, in a talk I gave at a Westminster Media Forum policy event on the EU copyright directive last year, I said:
“Access to and re-use of centuries old paintings, part of our cultural
heritage, is being increasingly restricted by an array of laws and in-house rules within cultural institutions aiming to maintain control of their digital copies. This causes many classical works, for instance, to be unavailable to the public online, despite them being part of the public domain.
Part of the social balance under copyright and related rights is that
at some point the exclusive economic rights expire and the works become part of our shared cultural heritage. This makes up a large portion of the public domain and ensures wide access to our culture and the freedom to create and innovate. Unfortunately, in the past decades we have seen increasing attempts to restrict our cultural heritage by claiming copyright on public domain works, or by establishing new rights on exact digital copies of old works. These practices complicate and sometimes prevent the digitisation of and digital access to our culture.
The [EU copyright] Directive therefore provides for a safeguard of
public domain works. We must make sure no new rights are applied to digital copies of artworks whose copyright has expired. This includes both no copyright term extension for such rules and no related rights. The current situation in the UK on this is quite inconclusive, with works that would be considered to be public domain under US law potentially subject to copyright under UK law. Indeed the courts in the UK traditionally applied a very low test for photographic originality, based on the "skill and labour" required to capture the image. In the IPO’s updated copyright advice notice in 2015, it acknowledges that there is a degree of uncertainty regarding whether copyright can exist in digitised copies of older images for which copyright has expired. However it also states that according to the Court of Justice of the European Union, copyright can only subsist in subject matter that is original in the sense that it is the author’s own ‘intellectual creation’. This higher standard should be unequivocally applied to UK cultural heritage institutions, who might be inadvertently engaging in copyfraud.”
Previously, at a ministerial roundtable on the directive, I raised
this very point with the Minister (at the time), who seemed completely unaware of the practice of copyrighting digital reproductions of public domain works, and remarked that this was certainly “outside of the spirit” of existing law and proposed legislation. Both of those policy interventions point to our general approach towards non-commercial licenses and to issues around copyfraud.
However it’s true that we do, as a chapter, work with a broad range of
institutions, some of whom claim non commercial copyright on out of copyright material. We challenge this where we see it, albeit usually through meetings and discussions, rather than in public fora. Indeed, much of our work with the cultural sector involves this kind of internal advocacy, and we can see the impact of this in the institutions who go on to change their policy and practice and release a substantial amount of content onto open licences. We also continue to talk to grantmaking organisations to encourage them to move away from non commercial licences for themselves and their grantees - although again, we primarily do this in collaboration/discussion rather than on a public forum. It’s probably fair to say we take a carrot, rather than a stick, approach on this - but I think that’s a question of tactics, rather than of policy.
Having said all of that, I don’t want to shut down debate and would be
very happy for there to be questions and discussions on this at our next AGM (which is indeed going to be online, for reasons that are clearly outside of our control). As a staff team we have recently started planning this event, which is going to be on Saturday 18th July, and have already started thinking about how we ensure the Q&A part of the day is as productive and inclusive as possible, particularly given the unusual set up.
To come back more specifically to the BM issue, I will follow this up
next week. I think it will be relatively easy for me to find someone to talk to there but as I say, if anyone does have an existing contact/relationship at the museum I would be very pleased to hear from you.
All best wishes
Lucy
On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 12:48, Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com
wrote:
I agree that it's only a matter of time before somebody does it but,
as with the NPG a few years ago, the BM are likely to be quite upset if we can't get them to see it from our point of view. If anyone has any relevant contacts it might be worth reaching out. It could be that they don't fully understand the difference between CC-By-SA and CC-By-NC and how the latter prevents use on Wikipedia. On the other hand, it could be that they're claiming copyright based on the "sweat of brow" doctrine, which hasn't been fully tested in British courts.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 12:21 PM WereSpielChequers <
werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andy makes some important points.
We know that even if editors in the UK respect what the British
Museum is doing and don't upload those images to Commons or Wikipedia; where they are public domain images under US law, it is just a matter of time before someone in the movement, anywhere in the world, uploads any of those British Museum images that are of old two D objects to Commons as Public Domain images that can be used without attribution to the photographer or the institution.
Of course large parts of the British Museum collection would involve
images of three d objects. In those case we can't use the BM images, but outside of lockdown people can either go there and take photos, or if you can't get yourself to the British Museum with a camera, make a request via the London Meetup, and if the object is on display we can get results such as at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_altarpiece_(WB.232)
The chapter remains in the awkward position of liaising with
institutions that regard it as acceptable to claim a non commercial copyright on out of copyright material, and of in effect advocating for a position at variance with that of the wider movement.
One option that the chapter could consider would be to shift policy
and instead start to diplomatically lobby UK Museum's to, as Andy put it, stop " trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all." Perhaps those on this list who are still members of the chapter might consider raising this for a debate at the next AGM?
Regards
Jonathan
On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 21:06, Andy Mabbett <
andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk> wrote:
> > On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 11:43, Owen Blacker owen@blacker.me.uk
wrote:
>> >> That it's a non-commercial licence is really disappointing, but
that's still a little better than nothing…
> > With the emphasis on the "little". There are two things wrong with > this, which we as a movement (and individually) need to challenge;
at
> very reasonable opportunity. > > Firstly, there's the way they're spending public money making
non-free
> original content. we need to persuade GLAMs - and lobby funders -
that
> such material should be freely reusable. > > But far more troubling is the attempt to claim copyright in works > whose copyright - if the work didn't pre-date copyright completely - > expired decades or centuries ago. The latter means, in effect that > they are trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all. > > -- > Andy Mabbett > @pigsonthewing > http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
-- Lucy Crompton-Reid Chief Executive Wikimedia UK +44 (0) 203 372 0762
Wikimedia UK is the national chapter for the global Wikimedia open
knowledge movement, and a registered charity. We rely on donations from individuals to support our work to make knowledge open for all. Have you considered supporting Wikimedia? https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk
Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales,
Registered No. 6741827
Registered Charity No.1144513 Registered Office Ground Floor, Europoint, 5 - 11 Lavington Street,
London SE1 0NZ
The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
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
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
Thanks Richard. I honestly think the lack of attribution in this specific blog post was ignorance rather than malice. I've contacted the Head of Department and they will be adding an attribution next to the image.
In my experience, there are many staff working in GLAM organisations wanting to make more digital collections open, but organisational change is not always easy, or quick! Especially in a climate of austerity, budget cuts etc. However, there is definitely a willingness in the BL to collaborate more with Wikimedia and for the Library to learn how to be more open.
Stella
On Wed, 12 Aug 2020, 20:16 Richard Symonds, chasemewiki@gmail.com wrote:
Seems like a good solution Stella, thank you! We all make mistakes, especially in organisations, and we know you mean well and that this was a genuine mistake. I hope Fae will see attribution as fine.
Fae obviously feels very strongly about large museums and open rights, and he's put a lot of emotional effort into pushing things to be more open. We all have, and sometimes our feeling comes through very strongly and can read as a little harsh.
But don't forget that you and your colleagues are part of our community too! Thank you for the work you're doing once again.
Richard
On Wed, 12 Aug 2020, 18:02 Stella Wisdom, stella.wisdom@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Fae,
Mike is correct, this is a British Library blog post, which discusses the Royal Gold Cup, which is an item in the British Museum collections. However the gold cup is mentioned in British Library manuscripts, hence the connection and relevance, for including an image of the cup in the blog post about the manuscripts.
I am not sure which British Library curator in the Medieval and Early Modern Department has written this blog post, it may be written by a collaborative PhD student from that section. I'm sure the post's author would willingly add an attribution and a link to Wikimedia Commons, or would you prefer your photograph to be removed from the post? I can contact the Head of this Dept to ask.
I am trying to encourage my curatorial colleagues in the British Library to add out of copyright BL digitised collections to Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource. I am also in the process of being able to hire a new Wikimedian in Residence for the British Library (I've been arranging funding sources for this), who will assist with staff training and guidance, building on from the fabulous work that Andrew Gray did a few years ago. So I am keen for my British Library colleagues to have good relations with the Wikimedia community.
best wishes, Stella
On Wed, 12 Aug 2020, 17:05 Michael Peel, email@mikepeel.net wrote:
Hi Fae,
The reuse seems to be by the British Library, not the British Museum, here. Asking them for £400 seems a bit odd/steep ( https://twitter.com/Faewik/status/1293503130987122688).
Thanks, Mike
On 12 Aug 2020, at 13:05, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Lucy,
It's just over 3 months ago that your offer to talk with the British Museum about claiming copyright over public domain images, and consequently charging academics and other reusers large fees to use images which should be free to the public. Has there been any progress and what came of the plan to discuss this topic at the recent AGM?
As a further reference case study of the British Museum continuing using what Wikimedians call "license laundering"[0], this week they have claimed all rights reserved for my own photograph released on Wikimedia Commons a decade ago to support Wikipedia editathons working with the Museum, as CC-BY-SA.[1][2] The BM has removed EXIF data, and not attempted to apply a simple attribution, or perhaps fail to understand what is required to respect moral rights. A remarkable failure considering the museum and their online presence sets the standard for many other UK GLAM institutions.
Thanks, Fae
Links 0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:License_laundering
https://web.archive.org/web/20200812105445/https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanu...
-- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 16:20, Lucy Crompton-Reid lucy.crompton-reid@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Dear all
As a number of people have noted already, it is indeed disappointing
that the British Museum has released these images under a non commercial licence, given the obvious restrictions to people actually accessing and using them. Whilst staff at Wikimedia UK have many partnerships within the cultural sector, including larger institutions, the BM is not currently one of them. However I will get in touch with them and point out the issues with the licence they’ve chosen. If anyone has any contacts at the Museum they would be able to share with me that would be very helpful - and of course, you are also welcome to lobby them as individuals.
I’m not sure that I quite agree with the characterisation of
Wikimedia UK as “advocating for a position at variance with that of the wider movement when it comes to claiming non commercial copyright on out of copyright material”. Indeed, in a talk I gave at a Westminster Media Forum policy event on the EU copyright directive last year, I said:
“Access to and re-use of centuries old paintings, part of our
cultural heritage, is being increasingly restricted by an array of laws and in-house rules within cultural institutions aiming to maintain control of their digital copies. This causes many classical works, for instance, to be unavailable to the public online, despite them being part of the public domain.
Part of the social balance under copyright and related rights is that
at some point the exclusive economic rights expire and the works become part of our shared cultural heritage. This makes up a large portion of the public domain and ensures wide access to our culture and the freedom to create and innovate. Unfortunately, in the past decades we have seen increasing attempts to restrict our cultural heritage by claiming copyright on public domain works, or by establishing new rights on exact digital copies of old works. These practices complicate and sometimes prevent the digitisation of and digital access to our culture.
The [EU copyright] Directive therefore provides for a safeguard of
public domain works. We must make sure no new rights are applied to digital copies of artworks whose copyright has expired. This includes both no copyright term extension for such rules and no related rights. The current situation in the UK on this is quite inconclusive, with works that would be considered to be public domain under US law potentially subject to copyright under UK law. Indeed the courts in the UK traditionally applied a very low test for photographic originality, based on the "skill and labour" required to capture the image. In the IPO’s updated copyright advice notice in 2015, it acknowledges that there is a degree of uncertainty regarding whether copyright can exist in digitised copies of older images for which copyright has expired. However it also states that according to the Court of Justice of the European Union, copyright can only subsist in subject matter that is original in the sense that it is the author’s own ‘intellectual creation’. This higher standard should be unequivocally applied to UK cultural heritage institutions, who might be inadvertently engaging in copyfraud.”
Previously, at a ministerial roundtable on the directive, I raised
this very point with the Minister (at the time), who seemed completely unaware of the practice of copyrighting digital reproductions of public domain works, and remarked that this was certainly “outside of the spirit” of existing law and proposed legislation. Both of those policy interventions point to our general approach towards non-commercial licenses and to issues around copyfraud.
However it’s true that we do, as a chapter, work with a broad range
of institutions, some of whom claim non commercial copyright on out of copyright material. We challenge this where we see it, albeit usually through meetings and discussions, rather than in public fora. Indeed, much of our work with the cultural sector involves this kind of internal advocacy, and we can see the impact of this in the institutions who go on to change their policy and practice and release a substantial amount of content onto open licences. We also continue to talk to grantmaking organisations to encourage them to move away from non commercial licences for themselves and their grantees - although again, we primarily do this in collaboration/discussion rather than on a public forum. It’s probably fair to say we take a carrot, rather than a stick, approach on this - but I think that’s a question of tactics, rather than of policy.
Having said all of that, I don’t want to shut down debate and would
be very happy for there to be questions and discussions on this at our next AGM (which is indeed going to be online, for reasons that are clearly outside of our control). As a staff team we have recently started planning this event, which is going to be on Saturday 18th July, and have already started thinking about how we ensure the Q&A part of the day is as productive and inclusive as possible, particularly given the unusual set up.
To come back more specifically to the BM issue, I will follow this up
next week. I think it will be relatively easy for me to find someone to talk to there but as I say, if anyone does have an existing contact/relationship at the museum I would be very pleased to hear from you.
All best wishes
Lucy
On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 12:48, Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com
wrote:
I agree that it's only a matter of time before somebody does it but,
as with the NPG a few years ago, the BM are likely to be quite upset if we can't get them to see it from our point of view. If anyone has any relevant contacts it might be worth reaching out. It could be that they don't fully understand the difference between CC-By-SA and CC-By-NC and how the latter prevents use on Wikipedia. On the other hand, it could be that they're claiming copyright based on the "sweat of brow" doctrine, which hasn't been fully tested in British courts.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 12:21 PM WereSpielChequers <
werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Andy makes some important points. > > We know that even if editors in the UK respect what the British
Museum is doing and don't upload those images to Commons or Wikipedia; where they are public domain images under US law, it is just a matter of time before someone in the movement, anywhere in the world, uploads any of those British Museum images that are of old two D objects to Commons as Public Domain images that can be used without attribution to the photographer or the institution.
> > Of course large parts of the British Museum collection would
involve images of three d objects. In those case we can't use the BM images, but outside of lockdown people can either go there and take photos, or if you can't get yourself to the British Museum with a camera, make a request via the London Meetup, and if the object is on display we can get results such as at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_altarpiece_(WB.232)
> > > The chapter remains in the awkward position of liaising with
institutions that regard it as acceptable to claim a non commercial copyright on out of copyright material, and of in effect advocating for a position at variance with that of the wider movement.
> > One option that the chapter could consider would be to shift policy
and instead start to diplomatically lobby UK Museum's to, as Andy put it, stop " trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all." Perhaps those on this list who are still members of the chapter might consider raising this for a debate at the next AGM?
> > Regards > > Jonathan > > > > On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 21:06, Andy Mabbett <
andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk> wrote:
>> >> On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 11:43, Owen Blacker owen@blacker.me.uk
wrote:
>>> >>> That it's a non-commercial licence is really disappointing, but
that's still a little better than nothing…
>> >> With the emphasis on the "little". There are two things wrong with >> this, which we as a movement (and individually) need to challenge;
at
>> very reasonable opportunity. >> >> Firstly, there's the way they're spending public money making
non-free
>> original content. we need to persuade GLAMs - and lobby funders -
that
>> such material should be freely reusable. >> >> But far more troubling is the attempt to claim copyright in works >> whose copyright - if the work didn't pre-date copyright completely
>> expired decades or centuries ago. The latter means, in effect that >> they are trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all. >> >> -- >> Andy Mabbett >> @pigsonthewing >> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
-- Lucy Crompton-Reid Chief Executive Wikimedia UK +44 (0) 203 372 0762
Wikimedia UK is the national chapter for the global Wikimedia open
knowledge movement, and a registered charity. We rely on donations from individuals to support our work to make knowledge open for all. Have you considered supporting Wikimedia? https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk
Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales,
Registered No. 6741827
Registered Charity No.1144513 Registered Office Ground Floor, Europoint, 5 - 11 Lavington Street,
London SE1 0NZ
The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
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
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
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
"organisational change is not always easy, or quick! Especially in a climate of austerity, budget cuts etc"
I need the above printed on a t-shirt I think!
On Wed, 12 Aug 2020, 20:46 Stella Wisdom, stella.wisdom@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks Richard. I honestly think the lack of attribution in this specific blog post was ignorance rather than malice. I've contacted the Head of Department and they will be adding an attribution next to the image.
In my experience, there are many staff working in GLAM organisations wanting to make more digital collections open, but organisational change is not always easy, or quick! Especially in a climate of austerity, budget cuts etc. However, there is definitely a willingness in the BL to collaborate more with Wikimedia and for the Library to learn how to be more open.
Stella
On Wed, 12 Aug 2020, 20:16 Richard Symonds, chasemewiki@gmail.com wrote:
Seems like a good solution Stella, thank you! We all make mistakes, especially in organisations, and we know you mean well and that this was a genuine mistake. I hope Fae will see attribution as fine.
Fae obviously feels very strongly about large museums and open rights, and he's put a lot of emotional effort into pushing things to be more open. We all have, and sometimes our feeling comes through very strongly and can read as a little harsh.
But don't forget that you and your colleagues are part of our community too! Thank you for the work you're doing once again.
Richard
On Wed, 12 Aug 2020, 18:02 Stella Wisdom, stella.wisdom@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Fae,
Mike is correct, this is a British Library blog post, which discusses the Royal Gold Cup, which is an item in the British Museum collections. However the gold cup is mentioned in British Library manuscripts, hence the connection and relevance, for including an image of the cup in the blog post about the manuscripts.
I am not sure which British Library curator in the Medieval and Early Modern Department has written this blog post, it may be written by a collaborative PhD student from that section. I'm sure the post's author would willingly add an attribution and a link to Wikimedia Commons, or would you prefer your photograph to be removed from the post? I can contact the Head of this Dept to ask.
I am trying to encourage my curatorial colleagues in the British Library to add out of copyright BL digitised collections to Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource. I am also in the process of being able to hire a new Wikimedian in Residence for the British Library (I've been arranging funding sources for this), who will assist with staff training and guidance, building on from the fabulous work that Andrew Gray did a few years ago. So I am keen for my British Library colleagues to have good relations with the Wikimedia community.
best wishes, Stella
On Wed, 12 Aug 2020, 17:05 Michael Peel, email@mikepeel.net wrote:
Hi Fae,
The reuse seems to be by the British Library, not the British Museum, here. Asking them for £400 seems a bit odd/steep ( https://twitter.com/Faewik/status/1293503130987122688).
Thanks, Mike
On 12 Aug 2020, at 13:05, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Lucy,
It's just over 3 months ago that your offer to talk with the British Museum about claiming copyright over public domain images, and consequently charging academics and other reusers large fees to use images which should be free to the public. Has there been any progress and what came of the plan to discuss this topic at the recent AGM?
As a further reference case study of the British Museum continuing using what Wikimedians call "license laundering"[0], this week they have claimed all rights reserved for my own photograph released on Wikimedia Commons a decade ago to support Wikipedia editathons working with the Museum, as CC-BY-SA.[1][2] The BM has removed EXIF data, and not attempted to apply a simple attribution, or perhaps fail to understand what is required to respect moral rights. A remarkable failure considering the museum and their online presence sets the standard for many other UK GLAM institutions.
Thanks, Fae
Links 0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:License_laundering
https://web.archive.org/web/20200812105445/https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanu...
-- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 16:20, Lucy Crompton-Reid lucy.crompton-reid@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Dear all
As a number of people have noted already, it is indeed disappointing
that the British Museum has released these images under a non commercial licence, given the obvious restrictions to people actually accessing and using them. Whilst staff at Wikimedia UK have many partnerships within the cultural sector, including larger institutions, the BM is not currently one of them. However I will get in touch with them and point out the issues with the licence they’ve chosen. If anyone has any contacts at the Museum they would be able to share with me that would be very helpful - and of course, you are also welcome to lobby them as individuals.
I’m not sure that I quite agree with the characterisation of
Wikimedia UK as “advocating for a position at variance with that of the wider movement when it comes to claiming non commercial copyright on out of copyright material”. Indeed, in a talk I gave at a Westminster Media Forum policy event on the EU copyright directive last year, I said:
“Access to and re-use of centuries old paintings, part of our
cultural heritage, is being increasingly restricted by an array of laws and in-house rules within cultural institutions aiming to maintain control of their digital copies. This causes many classical works, for instance, to be unavailable to the public online, despite them being part of the public domain.
Part of the social balance under copyright and related rights is
that at some point the exclusive economic rights expire and the works become part of our shared cultural heritage. This makes up a large portion of the public domain and ensures wide access to our culture and the freedom to create and innovate. Unfortunately, in the past decades we have seen increasing attempts to restrict our cultural heritage by claiming copyright on public domain works, or by establishing new rights on exact digital copies of old works. These practices complicate and sometimes prevent the digitisation of and digital access to our culture.
The [EU copyright] Directive therefore provides for a safeguard of
public domain works. We must make sure no new rights are applied to digital copies of artworks whose copyright has expired. This includes both no copyright term extension for such rules and no related rights. The current situation in the UK on this is quite inconclusive, with works that would be considered to be public domain under US law potentially subject to copyright under UK law. Indeed the courts in the UK traditionally applied a very low test for photographic originality, based on the "skill and labour" required to capture the image. In the IPO’s updated copyright advice notice in 2015, it acknowledges that there is a degree of uncertainty regarding whether copyright can exist in digitised copies of older images for which copyright has expired. However it also states that according to the Court of Justice of the European Union, copyright can only subsist in subject matter that is original in the sense that it is the author’s own ‘intellectual creation’. This higher standard should be unequivocally applied to UK cultural heritage institutions, who might be inadvertently engaging in copyfraud.”
Previously, at a ministerial roundtable on the directive, I raised
this very point with the Minister (at the time), who seemed completely unaware of the practice of copyrighting digital reproductions of public domain works, and remarked that this was certainly “outside of the spirit” of existing law and proposed legislation. Both of those policy interventions point to our general approach towards non-commercial licenses and to issues around copyfraud.
However it’s true that we do, as a chapter, work with a broad range
of institutions, some of whom claim non commercial copyright on out of copyright material. We challenge this where we see it, albeit usually through meetings and discussions, rather than in public fora. Indeed, much of our work with the cultural sector involves this kind of internal advocacy, and we can see the impact of this in the institutions who go on to change their policy and practice and release a substantial amount of content onto open licences. We also continue to talk to grantmaking organisations to encourage them to move away from non commercial licences for themselves and their grantees - although again, we primarily do this in collaboration/discussion rather than on a public forum. It’s probably fair to say we take a carrot, rather than a stick, approach on this - but I think that’s a question of tactics, rather than of policy.
Having said all of that, I don’t want to shut down debate and would
be very happy for there to be questions and discussions on this at our next AGM (which is indeed going to be online, for reasons that are clearly outside of our control). As a staff team we have recently started planning this event, which is going to be on Saturday 18th July, and have already started thinking about how we ensure the Q&A part of the day is as productive and inclusive as possible, particularly given the unusual set up.
To come back more specifically to the BM issue, I will follow this
up next week. I think it will be relatively easy for me to find someone to talk to there but as I say, if anyone does have an existing contact/relationship at the museum I would be very pleased to hear from you.
All best wishes
Lucy
On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 12:48, Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com
wrote:
> > I agree that it's only a matter of time before somebody does it
but, as with the NPG a few years ago, the BM are likely to be quite upset if we can't get them to see it from our point of view. If anyone has any relevant contacts it might be worth reaching out. It could be that they don't fully understand the difference between CC-By-SA and CC-By-NC and how the latter prevents use on Wikipedia. On the other hand, it could be that they're claiming copyright based on the "sweat of brow" doctrine, which hasn't been fully tested in British courts.
> > On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 12:21 PM WereSpielChequers <
werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> Andy makes some important points. >> >> We know that even if editors in the UK respect what the British
Museum is doing and don't upload those images to Commons or Wikipedia; where they are public domain images under US law, it is just a matter of time before someone in the movement, anywhere in the world, uploads any of those British Museum images that are of old two D objects to Commons as Public Domain images that can be used without attribution to the photographer or the institution.
>> >> Of course large parts of the British Museum collection would
involve images of three d objects. In those case we can't use the BM images, but outside of lockdown people can either go there and take photos, or if you can't get yourself to the British Museum with a camera, make a request via the London Meetup, and if the object is on display we can get results such as at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_altarpiece_(WB.232)
>> >> >> The chapter remains in the awkward position of liaising with
institutions that regard it as acceptable to claim a non commercial copyright on out of copyright material, and of in effect advocating for a position at variance with that of the wider movement.
>> >> One option that the chapter could consider would be to shift
policy and instead start to diplomatically lobby UK Museum's to, as Andy put it, stop " trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all." Perhaps those on this list who are still members of the chapter might consider raising this for a debate at the next AGM?
>> >> Regards >> >> Jonathan >> >> >> >> On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 21:06, Andy Mabbett <
andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk> wrote:
>>> >>> On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 11:43, Owen Blacker owen@blacker.me.uk
wrote:
>>>> >>>> That it's a non-commercial licence is really disappointing, but
that's still a little better than nothing…
>>> >>> With the emphasis on the "little". There are two things wrong with >>> this, which we as a movement (and individually) need to
challenge; at
>>> very reasonable opportunity. >>> >>> Firstly, there's the way they're spending public money making
non-free
>>> original content. we need to persuade GLAMs - and lobby funders -
that
>>> such material should be freely reusable. >>> >>> But far more troubling is the attempt to claim copyright in works >>> whose copyright - if the work didn't pre-date copyright
completely -
>>> expired decades or centuries ago. The latter means, in effect that >>> they are trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all. >>> >>> -- >>> Andy Mabbett >>> @pigsonthewing
>>> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
Lucy Crompton-Reid Chief Executive Wikimedia UK +44 (0) 203 372 0762
Wikimedia UK is the national chapter for the global Wikimedia open
knowledge movement, and a registered charity. We rely on donations from individuals to support our work to make knowledge open for all. Have you considered supporting Wikimedia? https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk
Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales,
Registered No. 6741827
Registered Charity No.1144513 Registered Office Ground Floor, Europoint, 5 - 11 Lavington Street,
London SE1 0NZ
The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
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
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
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
On Wed, 12 Aug 2020 at 20:45, Stella Wisdom stella.wisdom@gmail.com wrote:
organisational change is not always easy, or quick!
That's a fair point - but it's also worth bearing in mind that the BM had a Wikimedian in Residence in 2010, and the BL (for whom I and other WMUK volunteers have also donated our time, at several events) had one in 2012.
there is definitely a willingness in the BL to collaborate more with Wikimedia
That's good to hear.
On 26 August 2020 at 13:22 Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
On Wed, 12 Aug 2020 at 20:45, Stella Wisdom stella.wisdom@gmail.com wrote:
organisational change is not always easy, or quick!
That's a fair point - but it's also worth bearing in mind that the BM had a Wikimedian in Residence in 2010, and the BL (for whom I and other WMUK volunteers have also donated our time, at several events) had one in 2012.
It is also worth bearing in mind that Liam Wyatt was at the British Museum only for a short time in summer 2010; and that Matthew Cock, the Head of Web with whom most of the Wikimedia dealings went on, was concerned mainly with public engagement rather than open content, and left the BM in 2014. I see no point in overstating what a WiR can do, but of course others may disagree.
Charles
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org