[WikiEN-l] "Permission required" on copyright expired images...

[Durova]

Actually the Bundesarchiv did something along those lines with 100,000
images last December.  They owned unambiguous copyright over the collection
so they relicensed medium resolution versions under CC-by-sa and uploaded
those to Commons while they retained full copyright over the high resolution
versions.

Of course Germany isn't Australia, and WMF servers are in the States, and
the readers of this list are scattered across a variety of countries.  It
bears repeating that cultural institutions have been asserting a variety of
innovative claims in order to assert proprietary control over media in their
collections.  One runs into these kinds of obstacles all the time when
working with historic media.  The claims range across copyright and contract
law, often entering untested areas.

There are basically four ways of responding:
1. Ignore the claims and use the material.
Probably nothing bad will happen to you although you might win the 'lottery'
and end up in the same legal position as Derrick Coetzee.  Do you want to
risk that hassle?

2. Jump through the institution's hoops.
You may have qualms about acting in ways that validate an assertion of
rights that you basically disagree with, but if the requirement isn't very
onerous it's one clear way of avoiding problems later on.  In the particular
instance of this library, part of the 'permission' requirement amounts to an
offer to have the staff research copyright status.  If it would take about
the same effort to do that research yourself then it might be worthwhile.

3. Back away sheepishly.
Not very satisfying, but safe.

4. Persuade the staff to change policy.
This is the approach I've been working on, one institution at a time.  A
group of volunteers have been pooling information and resources toward that
end.  We've had some successes and are gaining momentum.  For more
information see the open letter I coauthored for Signpost in July.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-07-13/Open_letter

And one of our subsequent successes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-08-10/Tropenmuseum_partnership

If this sounds intriguing, write to me off list.  Especially if you happen
to live near Montreal, Canada or Santa Barbara, California. ;)

-Durova

On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 2:42 AM, Carcharoth <carcharothwp at googlemail.com>wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 7:11 AM, Chris Down
> <neuro.wikipedia at googlemail.com> wrote:
> >> Although I suspect what's also happening is the image that we see
> >> there is low quality, and you'd need permission to get a higher
> >> quality, printable version. And they'd never give permission to cc-sa
> >> it.
> >
> > Copyright doesn't work like that. An image is not copyrighted by itself,
> a
> > "work" is, and most people would not consider an image that is simply
> > resized to be an entirely different work to the original. Therefore,
> > licensing a resized version differently to a higher quality original (or
> > whatever) is simply not possible
>
> Legally, I think you are correct, but in *practice* different-sized
> images are used very differently and this is reflected in how they are
> (in the commercial world) priced very differently. There is also
> sometimes more effort and labour involved in producing a
> high-resolution image (i.e. when careful scanning using hi-tech
> equipment is involved, as opposed to changing a setting on a digital
> camera).
>
> Consider a close-up of a high-res picture, showing previously unseen
> detail. The same close-up, with a low-res picture, would be a
> pixellated mess. Ask people if the images are different, and they
> would say "yes". So while they are both from the same "work", they are
> different images. They contain different sets of data and the
> information contained in that data is different. Sometimes
> high-resolution images will show you things that are not obvious to
> the naked eye when looking at the original.
>
> And high-resolution images are the ones used in print media, and to
> produce large poster-sized images in adverts. That is where the money
> side of things comes in. Low-resolution images are useless for most
> print purposes.
>
> So while none of this strictly relates to copyright, it does relates
> to the financial side of things, so it is unsurprising that people
> want to protect any investment they made have made in producing
> high-resolution images. That is something that can be sometimes
> forgotten by those taking a stand on the 'free culture' side of
> things. We are used to seeing others benefit from the fruit of our
> labours. Others are not.
>
> Carcharoth
>
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