[Foundation-l] At least 500 images will have to be deleted from the National Portrait Gallery

[Michael Maggs]

Klaus - You already have a reply to that point on Wiki.

Unfortunately, Moeller's comment does not help even if he was in fact 
intending (which I doubt) to override longstanding Commons policy that 
images must be PD in both the US and the source country.

Firstly, if you read the thread you will see that the comment was made 
in response to the closure of 
[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Images_from_Darwin_Online 
a DR relating to Darwin Online images] as "delete".  That DR has since 
been re-opened and closed as "keep", and Commons policy has been changed 
accordingly.

Secondly, the previous posting to which he was replying quoted Lord 
Oliver in ''Interlego'' as saying "But copying, per se, however much 
skill and labour may be devoted to the process cannot make an original 
work".  As explained at [[Commons talk:When to use the PD-Art tag#Reply 
to call for revision]], that quote has since been explicitly disapproved 
by the Court of Appeal in the later Sawkin case.  It is not wrong, but 
it applies in narrow circumstances only such as where an engineering 
line-drawing has been copied.  The Court of Appeal has held that it does 
not apply in cases such as the present where the photographer has to 
apply significant skill and labour in setting up lighting, filters and 
so on.

Nobody wants to delete these images but Commons policy is that the image 
must be PD in both the and the UK.   According to this recent case law, 
these are clearly copyright images in the UK.

Michael