On 7/8/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote:
I've got one more question on our Lindisfarne Gospels image. Since it would almost certainly be "protected" under British law I wonder if the [[Berne Convention]] would require the United States to uphold this protection.
Not at all. Even assuming that the museum's dubious claims were upheld by British courts, the operating principle in the US would be not to give greater protection than would be available in a comparable situation in the US, i.e. of source material owned by a US museum. The US courts have already gone further in determining the non-copyrightability of such materials.
Ec
Again, I thought the main concern with image licensing, after avoiding legal issues with wikipedia.org, was to ensure the encyclopaedia was "free" for others to use (presumably by extension, outside the US, in the UK, etc.) At the moment, simply a mirror in some other countries will have copyright violations, regardless of the same images not being problematic in the US.
The issue of only US law applying to wikipedia.org is surely irrelevant even if it is true - as far as creating a "free" encyclopaedia for all goes.
Zoney