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

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

wjhonson at aol.com wrote:
> 
> The image is in the public domain.  That's the point.
> Public means all public, not limited to the whims of what the boundary of a certain
> country might be today.
> 


Suppose someone goes into the Louvre not with a camera but with a laser
scanner. they digitize the entire statue, convert the point cloud into
surfaces, and then from the surfaces into CNC program files. Finally
they slap a block of marble on a milling machine and mill out an exact
copy of the original. Whilst they don't get to obtain any copyright on
the copy YOU don't get to claim that the CNC files are yours of right.

Same with the digitization of a painting.