[Foundation-l] About that "sue and be damned" to the National Portrait Gallery ...

[Thomas Dalton]

2009/7/11 David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:
> ... the National Portrait Gallery appear to be sending legal threats
> to individual uploaders, after the Foundation ignored their claims as
> utterly, utterly specious.
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Dcoetzee/NPG_legal_threat
>
> The editor in question is US-based.
>
> So. What is WMF's response to this odious attempt to enclose the commons?

I don't know if the WMF can/will do much. When we've discussed this
situation hypothetically in the past the consensus was that we would
all rally round and pay for the appropriate legal representation
required (I hereby pledge £10). Wikimedia UK may also be able to help,
I don't know (we don't yet have a lawyer, but for something this
specific we can find one). I don't know if WMUK wants to get involved
with this sort of thing but if it does it could be a useful vehicle
for collecting the funds. I have cross-posted this to the UK list.

I imagine the user in question has no choice but the fight the case,
since he doesn't have the power to fix the alleged infringement (the
commons community may decide to remove them, but our community tends
to be of the opinion that we shouldn't bow down to such legal threats,
especially under non-US law). I don't know as much about UK copyright
law as perhaps I should, given my choice of hobby and my location, but
I would be surprised if there was enough creativity or work involved
in taking a photograph of a painting for it to be independently
copyrightable.