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

[wjhonson at aol.com]

 -----Original Message-----

From: wiki-lists at phizz.demon.co.uk
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Wed, Sep 30, 2009 4:17 pm
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] a heads-up on Wikimedia France's adventures with the Frenc...










wjhonson at aol.com wrote:
> 
> The image is in the public domain.  That's the point.
> Public means all public, not limited to the whims of what the boundary of a 
certain
> country might be today.
> 


Suppose someone goes into the Louvre not with a camera but with a laser
scanner. they digitize the entire statue, convert the point cloud into
surfaces, and then from the surfaces into CNC program files. Finally
they slap a block of marble on a milling machine and mill out an exact
copy of the original. Whilst they don't get to obtain any copyright on
the copy YOU don't get to claim that the CNC files are yours of right.

Same with the digitization of a painting.>>
--------------------

Are you believing that I'm stating there is a right to claim anything?
Because if you are, I never did. I stated quite the opposite.
Once something is in the "public domain" in any country, then you can use it.
That is what I stated, and nothing more.

Turning a 3-d statue into a series of computer data files is quite a different
animal from turning a 2-d painting into a exactly reproduced photograph.

A photographic copy, adhering to the original painting, does not enjoy
a new copyright.  A photograph of a painting which is in the public domain
does not enjoy any new rights.  Once that photograph is posted online,
anyone can make a copy of it and do whatever they want with it.

To prevent that, all you have to do, is take a photograph of the Mona Lisa
and include your girlfriend standing next to it.  That would make it unique
and not merely an exact copy of the painting.

I have never stated that you have a "right to demand" the photograph.
I've only stated, that the photographer does not have a right to
order you to cease.  Quite a different animal.