[Foundation-l] Bridgeman v. Corel worldwide for Wikimedia Commons - yes or no?

[David Gerard]

On 15/03/2008, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:

>  There also seems to be near-unanimous agreement among experts that a
>  case in the UK would be decided the opposite of Bridgeman v. Corel, but
>  it doesn't seem to have actually come up. Maybe everone's so sure of it
>  that nobody bothers to try to challenge it.


The last actual precedent was in 1851. There is widely held opinion
that mere sweat of the brow may earn you a copyright even without a
whole lot of creativity ... but no-one at all seems very keen to test
it.

FWIW, the National Portrait Gallery hasn't bugged Wikimedia about
images of pictures they own (which they claim copyright on, and which
we have marked "public domain due to age") since Jimbo told them to
sue and be damned, a few years ago. It can be *very useful* to be the
800-pound gorilla of free content.


- d.