[WikiEN-l] Wikimedian image restorations exploited on eBay

[Rich Holton]

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:53 PM, Durova <nadezhda.durova at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Several months ago I wrote to this list after discovering that my
> restoration of US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis was being used
> uncredited by *Time* magazine.  To date, no one has joined my letter
> writing
> campaign to contact the magazine.  The magazine still isn't replying to
> email.
>
> The Louis Brandeis restoration was 20 hours' labor.  Extensive staining and
> chemical damage required careful reconstruction including large portions of
> his face.  It is, likewise, shocking to encounter a senior editor--an
> arbitrator no less--who calmly presumes such work entails no creative input
> and no share of authorship.  If *Time* were to plagiarize a text editor the
> matter certainly would be taken seriously.  The Brandeis restoration is
> also
> among the items exploted by this eBay vendor.
>
>
I am not a copyright expert. I probably have the proverbial "dangerous
amount of knowledge" of the topic. I am also not an editor for a major
magazine.

Nonetheless, I was a bit puzzled when, after reading the above, I visited
the commons image of Louis Brandeis you refer to (I assume this one:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brandeisl.jpg). There's a tag there
that clearly states that the image is in the public domain. Following the
link "Reusing this image" took me to a page that reinforced in my mind that
anyone could reuse the image without any legal obligations (at least in the
US).

I will readily admit that I could be wrong. If I am wrong, I'd love it if
someone would explain it so I can understand.

But my confusion arises from the apparent disconnect between Durova's
obvious frustration and the information I read on the image's description
page. I'm further confused when I see that the pertinent contents of the
page were apparently added by Durova at the time of the upload.

(As an aside, one of the tags there indicate that the image is available
from the US Library of Congress. I assume this actually refers to the
original, unrestored image, but it's not immediately clear.)

I'd say that Time magazine and the eBay culprit(s) *should* have given
Durova credit for the restoration. But the "should" I'm using has to do with
common decency--something that is becoming rather uncommon.