[Wikimedia-l] Radiological images

[James Heilman]

>From time to time there is discussion on Commons regarding the copyright
status of radiological images. As no one has any idea if they are
copyrightable and on the off chance they are, no one has any idea who would
owns the copyright, there is varying degrees of support to delete images.
(possibilities for ownership include, Xray tech, patient, ordering
physician, radiologist, employer which could be the hospital, health
region, government)

So there are 10s of thousands of these images. They are of great
educational importance. Having Commons delete them all would be a shame.
Are we going to go with a copyright interpretation different than that of
the rest of the publishing industry, which allow both physicians and
patients to publish images? From what I remember from American law it is
frowned upon to have a lawsuit just to determine a legal interpretation.

DIscussion regarding one image is here, however there have been a bunch of
others before this.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Computed_tomography_of_human_brain_-_large.png
If
we go with a strict interpretation the only radiological images that would
be usable is those created by VA hospitals (maybe).

-- 
James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian

The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
www.opentextbookofmedicine.com