[Foundation-l] a heads-up on Wikimedia France's adventures with the French cultural authorities

[wiki-lists at phizz.demon.co.uk]

Teofilo wrote:
> David Monniaux said : "release lower resolution pictures under free
> license, keep high resolution pictures (those suitable for art books,
> posters and so on) proprietary."
> 
> I disagree. I think the priority is to have the full resolution
> pictures of Public Domain works. Because this is what the French
> copyright law is saying. There is no need to negociate anything. There
> is no need to change a single word from the current French copyright
> law. Simply have the French government's cultural institutions
> (museums, archives) recognize that they have been wrong until now, by
> adding copyright notices on Public Domain works (in France:
> non-poshumous works whose authors have been dead for more than 70
> years).


Well you're probably not going to like this but I cannot understand the
mentality that thinks that just because an image is in the Public Domain
they have a right to demand someone's digital representation of that
image. Its absolutely crazy and I await the demand for the divvying up
of William Blake's copper plates, C19 lithographic plates, and
Daguerreotypes.