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

[David Gerard]

2009/7/11 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>:

> Would I be right in assuming that you are American? You certainly have
> that religious view of free speech that is typical of Americans...
> This has nothing to do with suppression of free speech, it has to do
> with being responsible about what you say. I am not a legal expert and
> I have no spoken to Derrick about his wishes, which is why I am being
> very careful about what I say and do. All I am asking is that other
> people in the same position show the same restraint.


The problem is that this is an issue that affects all of us, not just
Derrick - which is presumably (I haven't heard anything from him on
this issue other than the publication of the threat letter) why his
immediate response was to publish the letter.

(When I've gotten threat letters over the internet, my immediate
response has been to publish them in full, then publish the letter
upset that I published the first letter. I do realise not everyone is
like me, thankfully.)

This affects all of us, so is all of our business.

On one end, an encroachement on the public domain being enforced by a
threat letter from seriously expensive lawyers - that's flatly
unconscionable and unacceptable to many.

On the other, people who are presently working with museums to get
them to release their collections under a suitable free content
licence by the "ask nicely" method - GLAM-WIKI is real soon, for
example. This fouls up their work too - the hordes of pissed-off
pitchfork-wielding nerds make a lot of unehlpful noise, and also the
NPG setting a pathological example to other museums (meaning a bad
outcome for the NPG may be *required* to demonstrate this is a bad
idea). Both make this letter from the NPG *really badly timed*. But
then, we didn't set the timing.

(I wonder if they realised sending the letter on a Friday would give
everyone the whole weekend to get pissed off and work out our next
step.)

So yeah, messing things up for Derrick would be bad. But a discussion
is on-topic and *important*, because this matter affects everyone
here.


- d.