[Commons-l] a heads-up on Wikimedia France's adventures with the French cultural authorities

[David Monniaux]

Of special relevance to us is this section of the report:

Second recommendation

Lift the obstacles to the presence of French data on collaborative sites

Context

The Internet has changed because of the development of a multitude of
personal sites, as well as a new generation of platforms and services
whose content is provided by “communities”, some of which have become
powerful international industries. Thus, the sites Wikipedia around the
world welcome a total of 240 million unique visitors a month and the
site in French 10 million unique visitors a month. The articles on these
sites on topics related to France are currently illustrated by amateur
photographs, or photographs from foreign collections.

Arguments

When an encyclopedic site such as Wikipedia needs photographs of
Egyptian antiquities in order to get illustrations for its articles, it
calls a museum. For the Louvre, accepting to donate its photographs
would significantly augment their exposure to the world and, thus, the
visibility of the museum as opposed to, say, the British Museum or the
Cairo Museum. All the more, the presentation of paintings or drawings of
Ingres on a site with such a high number of visitors would be positive
for the museum of Montauban.

The presence of public cultural data on community-run platforms would
augment their visibility and that of the public organizations that
provided them, both nationally and internationally.

Nevertheless, some legal obstacles currently hinder agreements with
these platforms. Indeed, because these sites are mostly constituted of
texts written and posted by private individuals, they propose so-called
“free” licenses which are in certain respects incompatible with current
French intellectual property law : no royalties for right holders,
indefinite rights of reuse, incompatibility with certain moral rights.
Therefore, a common ground should be reached so that these legal
difficulties are not insurmontable.

Conditions for fulfilling this recommendation

Elaborate and implement a specific reflection that would take into
account the forces of the parties, the potential gains for visibility of
the data and public cultural institutions, and the legal obstacles of
the exposition of our public data on collaborative sites. Such an
agreement would evidently include restrictions on the resolution of
photographs or videos put online and the obligation to create links,
which could maximize the flow of visits and income to the donating
institutions and the distribution pole considered (RMN, INA, etc.).

[Note of translator: the report suggests centralizing the currently
dispersed system for licensing of public works on a few number of poles,
such as the Reunion of national museums (RMN; museum photographs) and
the National audiovisual institute (television archives).]