[WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[geni]

2009/7/18 David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:
> 2009/7/18 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro at gmail.com>:
>
>> What is most striking to my mind in this issue of
>> use of images, is how the status quo differs from
>> that with regard to _texts_.
>
>
> Yes. One has to keep in mind, of course, that the NPG is qualitatively
> different to most museums, and behaves much more like Gollum with the
> One Ring. My *precioussss.*
>

Questionable. Most of the national museums with 3D items are pretty
liberal about photography british museum, science museum, Royal Navy
Submarine Museum, royal armories, imperial war museums as long as it
is on display and 3D we've never really had a problem. HMS Victory is
something of an exception but it is also a still a commissioned
warship warship. County museums vary. Some will let you take photos
some will not. Much the same for private collections although the
national trust fairly firmly says no.

For stuff not on public display there are more issues.

2D is a completely different matter. The British museum prohibits
photography of much of it's 2D stuff as does every county archive I've
ever dealt with. Library services also tend to be somewhat jumpy. The
imperial war museum's 2D collection would cost serious money to get
access to on any scale. The British library present much the same
issue.

I never investigated the National Monuments Record that much but they
seemed to be fairly relaxed but then English heritage generally are.
Ordnance survey lost much of their collection during WW2 but they've
printed so many maps over the years that getting hold of the likes of
new popular edition and 7th series maps doesn't cost very much (even
less if you have parents/grandparents who didn't throw them out). On
the other hand their 1:500 maps from the 19th century appear to be in
county archives which makes accessing them hard.

All in all for 2D images you are very often better off looking outside
the major UK collections.

-- 
geni