[Foundation-l] a heads-up on Wikimedia France's adventures with the French cultural authorities

Tue Sep 22 20:18:47 UTC 2009

I have, and it's linked to http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Quality#Content_Partnerships 
  which is the page on content partnerships. :-)

Philippe

On Sep 22, 2009, at 3:06 PM, Sue Gardner wrote:

> Yann, thanks for this -- it's useful.  Can I ask, have you or David
> put yourselves forward for the strategy project? I don't know who the
> best person for it would be, but it looks like the strategy project
> will have a task force dedicated to exactly this topic (cultural
> partnerships) and the experiences and views of the French chapter
> would be valuable there.  And regardless of direct participation, we
> should post this summary as fodder for the task force, on the strategy
> wiki.
>
> (And when I say "we should," I mean you could, or I will, or maybe
> Philippe would. If you've got a minute, please feel free :-)
>
> Thanks,
> Sue
>
> On 22/09/2009, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
>> Hello, I think this is worth a larger audience. Yann
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: [Commons-l] a heads-up on Wikimedia France's adventures with
>> the French cultural authorities
>> Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:51:12 +0200
>> From: David Monniaux <David . Monniaux @ free . fr>
>> To: commons-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>>
>> Since its foundation, the French chapter has attempted to reach out  
>> to
>> French cultural institutions, such as museums, and incite them to  
>> either
>> put their images under free licenses, either allow photographers that
>> contribute freely licensed pictures to take photographs in good  
>> conditions.
>>
>> At first, to be frank, we got the cold shoulder. At the time,  
>> Wikipedia
>> was demonized by the French media, calling it a cesspool of  
>> amateurism,
>> plagiarism, a danger to the youth's intellect, and so on. In  
>> addition,
>> certain members of the cultural establishment were at the time  
>> attacking
>> Google and other big American sites, pushing their own solutions.
>>
>> Things might be changing though. In 2008, I represented Wikimedia  
>> France
>> before a commission tasked with proposing new policies to the  
>> Minister
>> of Culture regarding the reuse of public cultural works. The  
>> Ministry of
>> Culture is in charge of most national museums and monuments (e.g. the
>> Louvre, the Versailles Castle...) and its agencies have large
>> collections of photographs - but these are copyrighted by the  
>> agencies
>> and available under unfree licenses.
>>
>> Our position was as follows: unfree licenses may in the short term  
>> allow
>> cash-strapped government agencies to earn some money from selling
>> photographs to publishers, but in the long run they are
>> counter-productive, because media, publishers and important sites  
>> such
>> as Wikipedia, worldwide, prefer free and easy to obtain photographs  
>> to
>> photographs that they need to purchase from unfamiliar foreign
>> institutions, and thus French cultural institutions would lose  
>> visibility.
>>
>> We gave the example of aerospace activities on Wikipedia, which are
>> overwhelmingly illustrated by US government pictures, which somehow
>> convey the impression that countries outside the US do nothing in  
>> this
>> field. We pointed out that museums such as the Smithsonian  
>> Institution
>> were putting up content on FlickR, and that it was inevitable that
>> publishers and other people that want an illustration from an artist
>> would prefer getting one from FlickR rather than ordering one from  
>> the
>> French museums. In contrast, if French museums would release pictures
>> under a free license, they would get free publicity - imagine what it
>> would cost them if they wanted to advertise their exhibitions on
>> Wikipedia (if Wikipedia accepted advertisements), whereas they can  
>> get
>> publicity for free simply by the attribution of the photographs!
>>
>> Note that it is not out of ill will that museums and other  
>> institutions
>> refuse to release pictures under a free license. There are some legal
>> difficulties involved - sometimes they do not own the rights to the
>> pictures (only in 2006 it was established for sure that rights to  
>> works
>> done by civil servants as part of their duties belonged to their
>> employer; also, they sometimes employ private photographers), and
>> besides, there are tricky issues with so-called "moral rights" that  
>> may
>> render certain aspects of free content licenses illegal in France.  
>> Also,
>> public institutions are pressured to make some money by themselves.
>>
>> I had written a memo, which I gave to the commission.
>> http://david.monniaux.free.fr/pdf/Wikimedia_France_Monniaux_oeuvres_publiques.pdf
>>
>> This August, I received the report from the commission, with an
>> associated letter from the Minister of Culture, Frédéric  
>> Mitterrand,
>> stating that he endorsed the findings in the report. This report
>> advocates many changes that we approve:
>> * stop trying to make insignificant sums of money - instead release  
>> as free
>> * cut the red tape - authorizations for reuse of content should be
>> centralized to competent, professional services, rather than be
>> decentralized to many institutions most of whom do not have the
>> technical, legal and financial infrastructure to deal with them
>> * collaborate with free content sites such as Wikipedia - more on  
>> this.
>> http://david.monniaux.free.fr/pdf/rapport_culture.pdf (scanned  
>> version)
>> http://david.monniaux.free.fr/pdf/rapport_culture_ocr.pdf (OCR  
>> version)
>>
>> The cultural services are reluctant to release pictures under free
>> licenses. When I met them, they expected that it would be possible to
>> "negotiate" with Wikipedia and get an exemption from this  
>> requirement. I
>> explained to them that freedom was not negotiable. It was, I think,  
>> very
>> surprising to them that Wikipedia, an amateurish organization, would
>> dare say that to the Government!
>>
>> I proposed a way out: release lower resolution pictures under free
>> license, keep high resolution pictures (those suitable for art books,
>> posters and so on) proprietary. The suggestion has been retained by  
>> the
>> commission - even though they still seem to toy with this idea of
>> "negotiation".
>>
>> In the meantime, the National Library of France (www.bnf.fr)  
>> announced
>> it was entering negotiations with Google for digitizing their  
>> content.
>> This would announce a sharp change in policies since when Jean-Noël
>> Jeanneney was head of the library - Jeanneney had written a book
>> denouncing Google's hold on the world.
>>
>> I seized the occasion to make our point of view heard. On Wednesday
>> September 16, I published in op-ed column in the national daily
>> Libération, explaining that our cultural policies on were
>> counterproductive - rather than fight the "American cultural  
>> invasion"
>> as their proponents suggest, they actually reinforce this invasion by
>> making French content invisible on the Web - because it is kept  
>> proprietary.
>>
>> *** This is, I think, the first time such ideas were exposed in the
>> mainstream media. ***
>>
>> Since the report called for renewed contacts between the Ministry and
>> free content sites, I wrote to them thanking the Minister for sending
>> the report and telling them that we are at his disposal for further
>> discussion with his services.
>>
>> We are trying to keep up the "buzz" on these issues - see the  
>> Heritage
>> Day email.
>>
>> Just to avoid misconceptions:
>>
>> I do not expect that anything will change soon in the policies of  
>> French
>> cultural institutions. It is extremely difficult to change the  
>> policies
>> of large, traditional organizations unless there is a strong  
>> political
>> will to do so - and I do not think that putting up free content  
>> online
>> is a national priority.
>>
>> My foremost goal is to get the ideas of free content and free access
>> across, to the common public and to the people in charge.
>>
>> This is not so easy, because there are many misconceptions about what
>> Wikipedia is about. For instance, contrary to what is often implied  
>> by
>> the media, Wikipedia is not a free-for-all where anybody can do  
>> anything
>> anytime - but many people believe it and thus are horrified by such a
>> pandemonium, and because of this, they simply won't listen to what we
>> say. Simply overcoming such misinformation is already considerable  
>> work.
>> It took us years to be considered respectable enough to be heard by
>> officials, and to get a short op-ed printed in the press. This means
>> that in the meantime, myself and others (Florence Devouard, Pierre
>> Beaudouin, and so on) had to go to many meetings, whose outcome many
>> often just have been that people that did not know us would then see
>> that we are not dangerous anarchist teenagers or raving idealists,  
>> but
>> sensible, responsible folks.
>>
>> --
>> http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
>> http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
>> http://fr.wikisource.org/ | Bibliothèque libre
>> http://wikilivres.info | Documents libres
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/ 
>> foundation-l
>>
>
>
> -- 
> Sue Gardner
> Executive Director
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
> 415 839 6885 office
> 415 816 9967 cell
>
> Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
> the sum of all knowledge.  Help us make it a reality!
>
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l