[Foundation-l] Has anyone been in touch with NPG yet?

[Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia)]

I'm not sure who is the appropriate person to contact the gallery to address
this issue, but I hope that it can be done as tactfully and
non-confrontationally as possible, and I trust that there will have been
consultation with the Office before any comments of a legal nature are made.

Newyorkbrad

On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 8:27 AM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> I was going to call NPG this morning first thing (as a volunteer, to
> see what could be reasonably done to avert a public battle - our own
> museum/gallery liaison volunteers can really, really do without a
> public battle fouling up their ongoing efforts) but was awake all
> night with a sick child and so I just got up ... has anyone here
> called yet, as a volunteer? I know Physchim62, who did a lot to get
> the American Chemical Society working with us, was going to call. Has
> anyone else?
>
> (I don't hold out much hope for this - the NPG's position has been
> completely consistent and completely uncooperative for many years..
> But it's always worth asking.)
>
> It's reasonably important to avoid discussing the possible legal case,
> for Dcoetzee's sake, *but* the NPG's lawyers have effectively written a
> press release read by ten thousand Wikimedians and a million Slashdot
> readers, that clearly does directly and personally affect a lot of
> them. I bet it's been more widely read than any intentional press
> release of theirs has been.
>
> Ideal outcome: PD everything, they welcome a team of our photographers in.
>
> Plausible good outcome: We put up the hi-res images with notes that
> they are PD in the US but the NPG claims copyright in Europe and
> releases them under CC-by-sa, and full credit is requested in either
> case. (Copyleft is not as ideal as PD, but it's plenty good enough for
> us.) We issue press releases lauding the NPG to the skies and say nice
> things about them forever.
>
> Another plausible good outcome: They welcome a team of our
> photographers in. Careful supervision, etc. Then we can do stuff like
> infrared shots as well (which can show interesting things about a
> painting's restoration history).
>
> Awful outcome: great big legal battle.
>
> Bad outcome: mainstream press about this at all, really. The NPG
> probably doesn't see it that way.
>
> Any other possible outcomes to list?
>
> Additional data point: the NPG has removed the hi-res versions. Thus,
> the Wikimedia copies are the *only* copies currently available.
>
> This makes it actually culturally important for us to keep them up!
>
>
> - d.
>
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