[Foundation-l] a heads-up on Wikimedia France's adventures with the Frenc...

[Liam Wyatt]

On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 9:35 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro at gmail.com
> wrote:

> David Gerard wrote:
> > 2009/9/28  <wiki-lists at phizz.demon.co.uk>:
> >
> >
> >>  From the earlier poster Teofilo:
> >>    I disagree. I think the priority is to have the full
> >>    resolution pictures of Public Domain works.
> >> That seems to be a demand to have the highest resolution copies
> possible.
> >>
> >
> >
> > That sets it out as a goal, not a demand.
> >
> > But getting back to the case in question - we're talking about the
> > sort of museum that's actually a government sub-department. Thus,
> > public domain images that the taxpayer has *already paid for*. I see
> > nothing whatsoever unreasonable about the idea of asking-to-demanding
> > those. They're owned by the public, not by the museum bureaucrats.
> >
> >
>
> In defense of museums, some of them do get it. The images of
> golden artifacts from the Staffordshire Hoard were immediately
> released under a CC license:
>
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/finds/sets/72157622378376316/with/3944490322/
>
>
> Yours,
>
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
>

Very interesting that you should raise the Staffordshire Hoard images as an
example. When they were first uploaded they were done so with a cc-by
license and therefore were copied across to Wikimedia Commons.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Staffordshire_hoard.jpg and appeard
on the frontpage of en.wp as the "in the news" image. However, subsequently,
the images were relicensed to cc-by-nc. Since we managed to get them when
they were indeed cc-by our copies are legal (as mentioned at the bottom of
our image page at the link I just gave). But it's an interesting that you
should raise that one as an example :-)

Also in defence of Museums, I can say very confidently that they are all
working through the tough decisions about changing licenses and coming to
grapple with this issue that we are so passionate about. Museums are a bit
like ducks: it looks like nothing is happening when you just look at a duck
floating in a pond, but underneath the water there is a lot of work going on
to move it forward - you just can't see it.

A positive experience of a Museum that we in Australia have been working
with is the "Powerhouse Museum". They wanted to make their content more open
but the discussion about changing the license of images of objects is a long
and complicated one that is still ongoing. So, they changed the license to
something that they *know* they own the rights to - the documentation. See
their post about it here:
http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/dmsblog/index.php/2009/04/02/powerhouse-collection-documentation-goes-creative-commons/I
think this a fantastic step and possibly even more valuable than the
images themselves. And, is one step in a broader strategy of encouraging
openness.

-Liam [[witty lama]]


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