[Foundation-l] a heads-up on Wikimedia France's adventures with the Frenc...

[Marco Chiesa]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 4:55 PM, Teofilo <teofilowiki a gmail.com> wrote:
> I should have said it in my previous message : the first and foremost
> priority for France, is that Government-owned museums allow visitors
> who paid their entrance ticket to carry a camera and take pictures of
> paintings and sculptures when the painters and sculptors died more
> than 70 years ago.

I partly agree, but keep in mind that the reason why some museum do
not let visitors take photos is not necessarily copyright. For
example, flashes can damage paintings, and I wouldn't like to visit a
crowded museum slaloming between hundreds of photographers with
tripods trying to take a picture of every single work of art present.
>
> In 2005, the Government-owned Guimet museum in Paris, which is famous
> for its Chinese and Japanese art collections, asked for 50€ for each
> non-commercial-purpose photographic shot and 5000€ for a
> commercial-purpose shot  (1).

Interesting. However, I'm not sure whether it refers to a
(semi)professional shot which may require using tripods, maybe closing
the room for some time to allow taking pictures and maybe use the
museum as the stage for something else, or this is what they charge a
visitor which wants to take a photo of his son next to a Japanese
dragon. Anyway, it is interesting to see that art editors are
considered as non-profit.

>
> Telling the Museum administrators that we want to use their pictures
> taken by their photographers is not the best message. The best message
> is : allow every camera carrying citizen to take his own pictures.

What we want to say is that they or their photographers do not have
the right to claim copyright on the photos, and that they have to
rethink this business model. Of course it is a "wrong" message from
their point of view, and of course they have every right not to
publish the high-resolution image their photographer took (in the old
days you could read it as they don't have to let you access the
negative), but if they choose to publish them they cannot stop people
making their own copies and using them for whatever reason. (I'm
assuming PD-art applies to France, otherwise it's only a matter of
good will)

Cruccone