There has been much in the press and social media in recent days about a new "Aerial Photograph EXplorer" made by Historic England [1]. It is indeed a treasure trove of aerial photography, including the Aerofilms archive, much RAF imagery, and more recent equivalents.
Some of the material on the site, particularly RAF imagery made before 30 June 1957, is out of copyright [2] and could be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. However, trying to save those images from their individual pages (by right clicking, in Windows) results in an interstitial stating "This image is copyrighted" [3].
[1] https://historicengland.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.htm
[2] "Crown copyright photographs created prior to 30 June 1957 have a copyright term of 50 years from creation." - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Copyright_rules_by_territory/Unit...
[3] Example: https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive/collections/aerial-photo...
Andy, I am aware that in Firefox, you can hold shift and right click to bypass custom right click prompts. There are extensions for Chrome which can perform similar actions. It may also be worth contacting Historic England and enquiring about the issue, so they can rectify it.
Berrely
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022, 11:38 am Andy Mabbett, andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
There has been much in the press and social media in recent days about a new "Aerial Photograph EXplorer" made by Historic England [1]. It is indeed a treasure trove of aerial photography, including the Aerofilms archive, much RAF imagery, and more recent equivalents.
Some of the material on the site, particularly RAF imagery made before 30 June 1957, is out of copyright [2] and could be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. However, trying to save those images from their individual pages (by right clicking, in Windows) results in an interstitial stating "This image is copyrighted" [3].
[1] https://historicengland.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.htm
[2] "Crown copyright photographs created prior to 30 June 1957 have a copyright term of 50 years from creation." -
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Copyright_rules_by_territory/Unit...
[3] Example: https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive/collections/aerial-photo...
-- 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
Hi all
I saw that you had asked them about this on Twitter Andy, but assume you didn't get a response?
I notice that they are working with Smartframe, so it's possible to share or embed the images but obviously with restrictions, which shouldn't be the case. I'm not currently in contact with Historic England but will get in touch with them about this issue.
Thanks Lucy
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 at 12:08, Berrely berrely1@gmail.com wrote:
Andy, I am aware that in Firefox, you can hold shift and right click to bypass custom right click prompts. There are extensions for Chrome which can perform similar actions. It may also be worth contacting Historic England and enquiring about the issue, so they can rectify it.
Berrely
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022, 11:38 am Andy Mabbett, andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
There has been much in the press and social media in recent days about a new "Aerial Photograph EXplorer" made by Historic England [1]. It is indeed a treasure trove of aerial photography, including the Aerofilms archive, much RAF imagery, and more recent equivalents.
Some of the material on the site, particularly RAF imagery made before 30 June 1957, is out of copyright [2] and could be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. However, trying to save those images from their individual pages (by right clicking, in Windows) results in an interstitial stating "This image is copyrighted" [3].
[1] https://historicengland.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.htm
[2] "Crown copyright photographs created prior to 30 June 1957 have a copyright term of 50 years from creation." -
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Copyright_rules_by_territory/Unit...
[3] Example: https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive/collections/aerial-photo...
-- 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
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 at 12:19, Lucy Crompton-Reid lucy.crompton-reid@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
I saw that you had asked them about this on Twitter Andy, but assume you didn't get a response?
None.
I have an ongoing FoI request, but they seem reluctant to provide the requested information there, also.
I'm not currently in contact with Historic England but will get in touch with them about this issue.
Thank you.
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 at 12:44, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 at 12:19, Lucy Crompton-Reid lucy.crompton-reid@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
I saw that you had asked them about this on Twitter Andy, but assume you didn't get a response?
None.
They have now replied, insisting "We're not claiming copyright in the RAF images." [*]
Nonetheless, the result of right-clicking on, for example, the 1941 RAF image in my original post in this thread, whose copyright expired at the end of 1991, is an overlay saying "This image is copyright",false.
[*] Technically, they're not "claiming" it; but they are asserting that copyright remains in place; my original question was not "Why are you claiming copyright?", but "Why are you putting a "this image is copyright" interstitial, on right clicking, over 70+ year old RAF photos, when Crown copyright expires after 50 years?"
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 at 12:44, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
I have an ongoing FoI request, but they seem reluctant to provide the requested information there, also.
They have refused my FoI request, and refused to conduct an internal review, so I have now referred the matter to the ICO's office.
Part of my request was to know how many pre June 1957 RAF images they have on the site. Though they have not answered that, they did say "There are over 37,000 historic RAF images on the map", and that I can have high-resolution copies for £12 EACH for "personal reference", but that "there may be an additional usage charge" for other purposes.
They also declined to answer my request to know "the basis for attempting to apply a charge for certain types of use of the images ... whose copyright has expired".
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 at 12:07, Berrely berrely1@gmail.com wrote:
I am aware that in Firefox, you can hold shift and right click to bypass custom right click prompts. There are extensions for Chrome which can perform similar actions. It may also be worth contacting Historic England and enquiring about the issue, so they can rectify it.
Thank you. I didn't know that, but now that I have tried it, it results in the download of a blank black image.
It seems that, without announcement, Historic England have now dropped the claim that copyright-expired pre-June 1957 RAF images are still in copyright, from their Aerial Photo Explorer.
They still prevent users from downloading them.
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 at 11:30, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
There has been much in the press and social media in recent days about a new "Aerial Photograph EXplorer" made by Historic England [1]. It is indeed a treasure trove of aerial photography, including the Aerofilms archive, much RAF imagery, and more recent equivalents.
Some of the material on the site, particularly RAF imagery made before 30 June 1957, is out of copyright [2] and could be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. However, trying to save those images from their individual pages (by right clicking, in Windows) results in an interstitial stating "This image is copyrighted" [3].
[1] https://historicengland.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.htm
[2] "Crown copyright photographs created prior to 30 June 1957 have a copyright term of 50 years from creation." - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Copyright_rules_by_territory/Unit...
[3] Example: https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive/collections/aerial-photo...
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
On 02 April 2022 at 14:14 Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
It seems that, without announcement, Historic England have now dropped the claim that copyright-expired pre-June 1957 RAF images are still in copyright, from their Aerial Photo Explorer.
They still prevent users from downloading them.
Indeed. They allow a form of hot-linking. It is also possible to get the images by screen capture. I wouldn't say downloads are "prevented".
Charles
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org