New Developments In NPG/Wikipedia Lawsuit Threat 345
Raul654 writes "Last week, it was reported that the UK's National Portrait Gallery had threatened a lawsuit against an American Wikipedian for uploading pictures from the NPG's website to Wikipedia. The uploaded pictures are clearly in the public domain in the United States. (In the US, copies of public domain works are also in the public domain. UK law on the matter is unclear.) Since then, there have been several developments: EFF staff attorney Fred von Lohmann has taken on the case pro-bono; Eric Moeller, Wikimedia Foundation Deputy Director, has responded to the NPG's allegations in a post on the WMF blog; and the British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies has weighed in on the dispute in favor of the NPG."
Pictures versus digital photos... (Score:4, Insightful)
I fully agree that the paintings are in the public domain, but it does NOT mean that the digital photos are. If he created his own photos, he could post them. The only question is whether or not a straight copy of a work can be copyrighted on its own... which is why the museum is arguing that artistry went into creating them.
Having done museum copywork in the past, I can assure you that getting high-quality images of paintings is NOT simple - lighting is critical to capture the texture, color, and avoid reflections and shadows. It's not just point-and-click. I'd side with the museum here, sorry!
madCow.
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Likewise, while it may not be easy to photograph one of these works, you are certainly not adding anything to the actual content of the image; indeed, you are actively trying not to. Technical expertise went into creating them, yes. Artistry, no.
That's like claiming that you're not adding anything when photographing a person. Realistically, we know that in either situation the photographer is applying their creative skill and making choices and judgments about what aspects to capture. The photograph will NOT be exactly the same as the original - it's a representation. Capturing the texture and the qualities of the canvas, deciding what lighting to use (and let's face it that affects the colour, the perception of the texture, everything), the angle
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The originality in taking a photograph of a person (or any scene) are nothing to do with issues such as colour reproduction. You have a whole load of extra issues to do with how the person is posed, the angle, what's in the background. There's also a huge difference in talking about lighting and colour as photographers/artists typically use them, or pedantically pointing out that no reproduction is perfect and there will always be some lighting or false colour effects.
The issue isn't something as simple as
US/UK Law (Score:2)
But US courts have already concluded that photographic reproductions of a public domain painting do not count - so tough, it's legal, and not up for debate.
From TFA: http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=865802 [bjp-online.com]
[Wikimedia Commons] regard all images of out of copyright material as public domain, and dispute there is any copyright in a copy of an original work,' [Simon Cliffe, NPG executive director] says. 'This is contrary to UK law. ... The 1988 CDPA recognises this.'
So according to this guy, US and UK law are in disagreement over this, making this case all the more interesting.
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Re:Pictures versus digital photos... (Score:5, Insightful)
On the contrary, you're just flat-out wrong -- at least for the sort of photography (for the purpose of archival/preservation/digitization) we're talking about here. The artistry in photography is expressed by the choices of the photographer, but no choices were made! Did the photographer choose the subject? No, he's just systematically shooting each painting in the gallery. Did the photographer choose the composition? No, it's rigidly defined to be orthogonal to the painting and cropped at the edge. Did the photographer choose the lighting, colors, effects, etc.? No, he just used whatever lighting and camera settings would best preserve the color gamut of the original (and "best" isn't his choice either; it means minimizing the measured, mathematical difference). It's a mechanical process, not a creative one!
Now, there can be artistry in photographing a painting, but the photo would have had to been made for some purpose other than digitizing an existing work. For example, this [usf.edu] photo (that I found randomly from a Google image search) is copyrightable because it was creatively composed. For another example, this one from one of the images being disputed, perhaps even this [wikimedia.org] would be copyrightable (even though the original [wikimedia.org] is certainly not) because whoever did the cropping had to creatively choose what to focus on -- and the copyright would belong to the cropper, not NPG.
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I think the point being made is: the photographs were created with the intention of being as faithful to the original paintings as possible without adding any new creative input. Doing that in photography is hard work, an incredible amount of time and expertise goes into the setup for the picture.
In the US, such a faithful duplication of a work that is in the public domain is also considered part of the public domain. The point isn't that the duplication was necessarily easy to perform, but that the duplic
Re:Pictures versus digital photos... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, in the same way that answering "four" when asked "what is two plus two?" is a choice. Or, for a less "trivially easy" example, how solving a crossword puzzle correctly instead of incorrectly is a "choice." Or in other words, it's really no choice at all -- it's either right or it's wrong, and you don't get to decide which is which!
The fundamental error in your thinking is that you think it somehow matters whether the thing was easy or hard to create. Here's a hint: it doesn't. Not even slightly! I could spend six seconds scrawling stick figures on a napkin and it'd still be copyrightable. Or I could spend 50 years painstakingly weighing every individual grain of sand in a jar and recording it into a database, and it still wouldn't! Creativity and effort are orthogonal; copyright depends only on the former.
Oh, and by the way: my girlfriend is an artist and has had to photograph her work before, so I do know how difficult it is. But that still doesn't give the photo it's own copyright separate from that of the original!
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Quoting from one of TFAs [wikipedia.org] (emphasis mine):
Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp., 36 F. Supp. 2d 191 (S.D.N.Y. 1999), was a
decision by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New
York, which ruled that exact photographic copies of public domain images could
not be protected by copyright because the copies lack originality. Even if
accurate reproductions require a great deal of skill, experience and effort, the
key element for copyrightability under U.S. law is that copyrighted material
must show sufficient originality.
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Even if accurate reproductions require a great deal of skill, experience and effort, the key element for copyrightability under U.S. law is that copyrighted material must show sufficient originality.
Which does not matter, as the museum is in the UK and threatening a lawsuit under UK law.
Re:Pictures versus digital photos... (Score:5, Insightful)
McKinnon ring a bell? (Score:4, Insightful)
UK resident.
Working on a UK machine.
Re:Pictures versus digital photos... (Score:4, Insightful)
However the US is a signatory of the Berne Convention [wikipedia.org].
The Berne Convention requires its signatories to recognize the copyright of works of authors from other signatory countries.
Recognising the copyright of a work created outside the the US is a different set of circumstances to refusing to grant a copyright to a digital photo created in the US.
A court might consider a work created and copyrighted outside of the US differently to a work denied copyright in the US under Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.
Re:Pictures versus digital photos... (Score:5, Informative)
No, no, no.
Berne requires that the US protect foreign copyright holders if and only if equivalent works published in the US by US citizens would be protected.
If a work is intrinsically ineligible for copyright in the US then the US does not and will not honor any foreign laws that say otherwise.
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The WP article asserts that it is basically the same under US and UK law [wikipedia.org] and that the issue is as yet untested in the courts in the UK.
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Which does not matter, as the museum is in the UK and threatening a lawsuit under UK law.
However: when the USA increased the length of copyright, again, such that when Steamboat Willie [wikipedia.org] was just about to come into public domain in the USA it became protected world wide.
Copyright restrictions/lengths in one country seem to be applicable world wide. Thus if these pictures are in copyright in the UK (which is where the governance of these pictures resides) then they are in copyright world wide.
I agree that pictures this old should have free to all photos available, however that does not appear to
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That's not what "creative" means. Difficult/requiring skill is different - they are orthoganal matters.
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Re:Pictures versus digital photos... (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree.
I don't care how hard it is, the result is not creative because you're not trying to express yourself, you're just trying to work around the limitation of that the painting can't be taken off the fall and fed into a scanner.
The desired result is an accurate reproduction of the painting, and that's precisely why it's not creative. How hard you have to work to get there is completely irrelevant, the fact is that the end result looks as much as the painting as possible, and any other photographer given the same task would attempt to produce something that looked similar.
Otherwise I could easily obtain copyright for a copy of anybody's work, I'd just have to do it by a laborious method.
Since you claim you know what you're talking about (Score:2)
Or somehow that's only true if you steal from the public?
Note that in my opinion it's stealing from the public if the public effectively no longer has free access to works that should be in the public domain[1].
Whereas it's copying if the company still has free access to its own originals/copies.
[1]
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Artistry and skill are not the same thing.
Does it take skill to produce a good photo of a painting?
Sure.
But that's a shortcoming of the tools, the prefect camera would make all those little adjustments for you.
If I made a scanner which took skill to operate or a bitwise copy util that needed extensive training to use that shouldn't automatically make whatever comes out of the tool an original work.
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Not quite. Copyright's purpose in the United States is to benefit the whole of society by encouraging production of new works. Making such production profitable is only the means of achieving that purpose, not the purpose itself.
Copyright's purpose in Europe is indeed profit (or at least ownership, which implies profit), but is not intended to benefit the whole of society.
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English law sides with you, and the gallery, American law sides with Wikipedia.
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Having done museum copywork in the past, I can assure you that getting high-quality images of paintings is NOT simple - lighting is critical to capture the texture, color, and avoid reflections and shadows. It's not just point-and-click. I'd side with the museum here, sorry!
The WP entry for the case linked in the summary states that "Even if accurate reproductions require a great deal of skill, experience and effort, the key element for copyrightability under U.S. law is that copyrighted material must show sufficient originality." We did not cover this case in my IP law class, so I won't vouch for the accuracy of the WP article; however, I will note that it's an interesting exception to general copyright rules.
The watershed case for copyrightability of photographs was Burrow-G [wikipedia.org]
Stealing hi-res versions (Score:4, Interesting)
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No hacking involved. Visit website; save image.
Your efforts to digitize collections of public domain will not give you some special IP protection, at least in the US. You may be able to impose a contract obligation not to reproduce the work, but then the only remedy is breach of contract. And I'll wager your damages for breach of contract would be diminishingly small since you're allowing people to use them for other purposes. So if someone wanted to copy all your images and throw them up on wikipedia o
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"Hacked" is rather misleading.
The NPG made high res images viewable online as a series of tiles, i.e. you might deliver the full image as twenty smaller images each showing a portion of the total.
His "hack" was to download each of these tiles individually and reassemble them into a coherent whole.
Nothing was done to gain unauthorize access or compromise their systems in any way.
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it costs us a lot of money and effort to digitise our 80-100 year old collections
Sure. Digitizing a bunch of stuff can cost a certain chunk of change.
We do want our images in the public domain and we do want them used, but we need to have the cash to keep doing this work as a small charity
There's an initial cost of digitizing all of the materials, and then an additional (but much smaller) cost of keeping the website serving them up and running.
it might jeopardize our ability to add other images on our already shoe-string budget.
How many new images will you add a year? Will all of the new ones be taken with a digital camera?
Doing initial setup and digitizing the huge historical log of data can be an overwhelming task, I agree. But as you state yourself, you've got a valuable resource that makes sense to put i
Re:Stealing hi-res versions (Score:5, Informative)
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> Having done museum copywork in the past, I can assure you that getting
> high-quality images of paintings is NOT simple - lighting is critical to
> capture the texture, color, and avoid reflections and shadows. It's not
> just point-and-click.
Is it a creative transformation or is it a technical process? Copyright is about protecting creative works, and while there's some argument that there could be some element of creativity involved, the question w
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Hypothetical question:
Supposing there are a series of photographs of portraits that are in the public domain, but the images all have the frames in shot.
I don't think the frame should be in shot, so I write a bash script to remove the frames in bulk. Not only has a great deal of technical sophistry gone into this (I'd be surprised if 2% of the general population were capable of doing that), but the resulting .jpegs are set up in a way that I have dictated, based on my personal artistic preferences.
Are these
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Whilst I don't know enough copyright law to know if the NPG is in the right or not, as a UK taxpayer I'm firmly against this legal action. Our culture is enriched by these images; let them be free!
Exactly. This is one case where I feel that both parties are in the wrong. Wikipedia should not be taking these images without permission - even if it's legally acceptable in the USA it is impolite to just grab a few thousand images from a site and reproduce them without asking permission. Similarly the NPG should be making the entire set available for download, and making these downloads as easy as possible; not doing so is counter to their mandate from the taxpayer.
The resolution I would like to see
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Same analysis under US law. If the original works are in the public domain (e.g., photographs of public domain works) then the result of your cropping would be as well. The modicum of creativity introduced by removing the frame* does not create a copyrightable work. If anything, removing the frame reduces the image to that of the public domain work. Slavish copying of public domain works and sweat of brow do not give rise to copyright rights in the United States.
* As an aside, simply changing the FRAME
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Did you even read the summary? Under US law, copies of public domain works are in the public domain. PERIOD.
Having done museum copywork in the past, I can assure you that getting high-quality images of paintings is NOT simple - lighting is critical to capture the texture, color, and avoid reflections and shadows. It's not just point-and-click.
The ease or difficulty, and quality of the copy, is irrelevant. They're copies of public domain works and can not be copyrighted.
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Hmmm...are those the only photographs available? (the ones made by the museum?) Can somebody walk in and take photographs? (or is that prohibited?).
Surely somebody or some institution OTHER than them have taken photos of these paintings? If the U.S. Gov has (Smithsonian?) then the wikimedia could use those right?
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Yeah - and if I gave you a CD-ROM containing the complete (public domain) works of shakespere and asked you to copy it, you'd need a sophisticated array of lasers, servos, A/D converters, high speed data transmission busses, tons of logic/control circuitry, and probably a general purpose CPU to do it. Let's not even get into what it takes to make the blank CD-Rs. So, clearly making a copy of a CD is a highly sophisticated process requiring a great deal of care to end up with an accurate reproduction. Nev
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Aha, having finally found somebody who has actually worked on this stuff, I have a question...
Last time this came up on Wikipedia people seemed to doubt that there was *creativity* as opposed to just skill and time involved in producing an accurate reproduction of a painting, given its 2D. My belief was that, since a painting is actually *not* just a photograph and *is* somewhat 3D due to texture of paints (particularly oil paints) that some subjective and creative work would be required. How much of this
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How reasonable is it to have tax payer money supporting court systems to hear such cases over and over again? The sad fact is that allowing copyright cases opens the door to thousands upon thousands of continuing copyright suits, It is exactly like porn law. Each year vast sums are spent with law enforcement and the courts chewing over whether a work is illegal or not. Each complaint generates a new public expense. The real answer is to forbid such cases from law completely. Give the tax payers a
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Even if I wrote out the work of Shakespeare by hand, that doesn't mean I can claim copyright over that copy
To be fair, yes you could - over the actual images of the hand-written pages. The words would not be copyrightable but the images of the handwriting would. That would be your creative work but the words would still be covered under public domain.
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Of course, the thing is that this is a legal gray area in the U.S.. Photographs are very much copyrighted, but if the museum had pulled the paintings off the wall and ran them through a big color copier, the result would not be copyrighted in the U.S.. The only argument is whether a photograph of a painting is a "straight-up copy" in the first place, as far as U.S. law is concerned, as you point out.
Surely Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. involved photographs, not a photocopier? How does it differ to th
Re:Pictures versus digital photos... (Score:5, Informative)
What we need is a UK Wikipedian to go down to the NPG and snap some photos and put them on Wikimedia under a CC license so this can all be dropped. I know in DC the Smithsonians sometimes don't allow flash photography when it could damage the work but I think that's only on special items and items that have been lent to the museum from a private/personal collection. So respect them and avoid those pictures. Any art teachers out there in the UK that want to offer their kids extra credit for some point and shoot photography and correctly labeling/wikipedia-ing the photos?
We would do it if we could. But in most UK galleries (the Tate, the Tate Modern, the NG, the NPG and lots of others), photography is expressly forbidden even without flash -- and it is vigorously enforced. This regulation was put in place to prevent exactly the scenario that you describe.
Globalisation (Score:4, Interesting)
Welcome to globalisation. Laws in the US aren't the same as the ones in the UK. In the UK we don't have fair use laws.
I'm wondering why this is different to the music mess caused by allofmp3; everyone was so upset that the Russians system was different and against "our" laws.
One of a couple of things is going to happen as we continue the Digital Revolution. Either we're going to need a global legal system since all this internet stuff is global, or we're going to have to shut down the internet and make it the "countrynet" so that everything you do is contained in the same legal framework.
Or, head, sand, bury.
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To reword: our fair use law is very restrictive and doesn't allow for commonly considered fair use cases, such as the right to transfer songs to your ipod from CD. The "fair use" laws we have in the UK are designed for the press and for educational use, not the common people.
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Facts are good, but they need reading. The page you linked to is a general commentary on copyright law, and specifically states:
"The actual specifics of what is acceptable will be governed by national laws"
The page you want for uk law is: http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law [copyrightservice.co.uk]
It explicitly covers the uk law "fair dealing" provisions, which is NOT the same as "fair use". Stating that the UK does not have fair use (in comparison with the US) is technically cor
Who would guess (Score:3, Funny)
the British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies has weighed in on the dispute in favor of the NPG.
There's a shocker. These people are just as bad as the *AA here in the U.S. Their about us [bapla.org.uk] page just screams "we make money of every dirty copyright trick we can think of and pretend to do it for you, the artist, the photographer, the little guy". It's all such a sham.
Check out their site, I was going to quote some of it but you can't even right click the page without their stupid JavaScript alerting you that their site is their content, blah, blah. Hello, 1996 called they want their cheap tricks back. Obviously this stuff is easy to defeat but it's still ridiculous that they even do it at all.
I hope this suit goes all the way to the new Supreme Court [judiciary.gov.uk] England is setting up and that these idiots get a total smackdown. Hey, a guy can dream a little right?
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Isn't View Source even easier?
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Also, in Firefox there is a specifc Javascript option in Tools->Options->Content->Advanced that disallows JS from replacing or disabling context menus.
This isn't a Robin Hood story (Score:3, Informative)
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Re:This isn't a Robin Hood story (Score:5, Insightful)
That depends on the reader being at or near the geographical location of the painting. When reading an article about the Mona Lisa on Wikipedia, I expect to see a photo of the article in question for purpose of discussion, not "to see this painting, please visit the Louvre in France"
I'd simply go elsewhere to find a picture.
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Exactly. And that is the real crux of this. While copyright is most often a tool for greed. In this particular case it really isn't. The choice is: allow these pictures to be free copied and distributed ad high quality and not be able to raise revenue to allow FREE access to the gallery. Or, allow the status quo to continue and provide an excellent free s
Re:This isn't a Robin Hood story (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the better solution is for both groups to compromise. NPG already offered lower-res versions of the same photographs for Wikipedia to use free of charge. I think to retain good-will for all, and not appear to be selfish asstards, Wikipedia should take them up on the offer. The representatives on all sides could then present this as a workable solution to similar future situations without involving courts and lawyers. Everybody wins, including the public.
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I don't agree. The paintings are in the public domain. We have the technology to digitalize them. Why can't everybody enjoy good quality copies of something that is part of our culture. Why should a museum be granted monopoly? Because they want so?
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The situation is problematic, I agree. However, I think museums need something of a shakeup on this issue. Natural history museums, in particular, need to make photographs of specimens much more easily available for research. Most of these museums have government funding streams, and should see the digital dissemination of their collections as part of their mission, not merely as revenue. Their collections are all to often jealously guarded, which is what making them public institutions is supposed to avoid
Re:This isn't a Robin Hood story (Score:4, Interesting)
Just to add some perspective to your comment though, because it doesn't tell the full story, the reason most museums don't do this is because whilst yes, they receive public funding, they also make a small fortune from gift shop sales from visitors or for charging for special exhibitions.
Their argument is that government funding alone does not provide them enough to run top end museums.
I don't know the first thing about their finances, I haven't look into it, but they do have reasonable arguments against doing what you say. Whether their arguments are valid, and whether the reason they need this extra cash is because they're not efficient enough with what they are given I do not know. Certainly in the UK though, most museums I've been too seem to be some of the most well run of all public institutions compared to the jokes that are places like local government and such.
I agree it'd be nice if you could see more on their websites, if more of the information they have was available free digitally, but the truth is we do not know if this is financially viable or not. If they lose visitors in doing it such that they ultimately lose income and can't afford to provide great exhibits in the first place then the idea you suggest is pointless. If however they can do it without detriment then as you say, they should.
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It's not just a matter of putting stuff on their websites. If you go to the NHM Libary, they make you sign a form giving them copyright on your own photographs of public domain material. This is a serious problem.
Further to this, the gift-shops are hardly packed to the brim with high-resolution photos of, say, sauropod vertebra or pterosaur specimens. Nor do they, last time I looked, even sell technical volumes where you might find this stuff. Making high-resolution photos of these specimens available would
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If they lose visitors in doing it such that they ultimately lose income and can't afford to provide great exhibits in the first place then the idea you suggest is pointless. If however they can do it without detriment then as you say, they should.
Maybe I'm unique. However, I'd never consider a virtual tour as a replacement for the real experience. Having digital images available would only encourage me to visit.
I a see reply below your post:
It's not just a matter of putting stuff on their websites. If you go to the NHM Libary, they make you sign a form giving them copyright on your own photographs of public domain material. This is a serious problem.
Some time ago, I had the opportunity to visit BodyWorks. It is a traveling exhibit concerning anatomy. I was very disappointed that photography was not allowed. It made me wonder if they were trying to conceal the low quality of the exhibit at first. Going through the exhibit was rushed. It was a hot environment
Re:This isn't a Robin Hood story (Score:5, Informative)
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So, unless you're suggesting the US change its law to accommodate to UK, your counterargument amounts to "Wikimedia should just be nice and back off so that the museums can keep this revenue stream, which supports their useful work." But this argument has many problems: (1) If it's just based on "being nice", even if Wikimedia backs off, someone else can just (l
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Hold up there! Most museums and libraries are non-profits that do this sort of stuff as a public service and WANT the general public to have as much access as possible to their material (that's what Wikipedia is talking about when they mention partnering with other museums and libraries). They make their money through donations, admissions, and selling physical goods in the museum gift shop.
The NPG is acting here more like a for-profit company. They're basically holding these original works hostage (witho
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Wikimedia foundation had an income of $7.75 Million last year and retained earning of $8m from previous years. The NPG had an income of £2.24 Million last year. So relatively speaking Wikimedia foundation is the rich one stealing from the poor one.
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Utter nonsense. As a UK taxpayer, I already paid for the NPG to digitize these pictures.
Rich.
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UK Law is not unclear (Score:2, Informative)
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Thanks for clearing that up. Unfortunately, you forgot to cite to the law which supports your assertion. I'm sure you'll get right on that. Thanks again.
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http://www.ipo.gov.uk/cdpact1988.pdf [ipo.gov.uk]
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There seems to be conflicting information on what's going on.
It sounds like the guy didn't take any photos himself but simply copied photos taken by a professional photographer for the NPG off of the NPG site.
Judging by the original solicitors letter etc. he has simply copied all the images from the NPG site and posted them to Wikipedia.
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The whole point of the claim central to this is that photographs of public domain works are not copyrightable in the US where the uploader and the Wikipedia servers are located. The argument is whether the NPG (a UK organization) can enforce UK copyright law (where the photographs are copyrightable) on a US uploader uploading files to a US website.
As for the issue of the NPG relying on revenue from commercial use of these images to fund the digitization of the NPG collection, maybe the answer is to license
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When you decide to sue someone for copyright infringement you must choose a country and sue them under the laws of that country. The copies were created in the USA and so USA law applies. "International law", such as it is, is irrelevant.
Re:UK Law is not unclear (Score:5, Insightful)
I seem to recall that people from the UK have been extradited to the US and charged, for things they did in the UK that the UK authorities decided were legal (or at least things that they should not be prosecuted for).
And a certain Russian programmer was arrested and jailed in the US for things he did in Russia that were legal there... remember that one ?
Why should the reverse not apply ?
Re:UK Law is not unclear (Score:4, Insightful)
You miss GP's point. The problem isn't that UK will extradite people to Iran (it doesn't). The problem is that UK will extradite people to US, because US demanded that, and a corresponding treaty was signed; however, US will still not extradite people to UK. That's where the hypocrisy is .
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You miss GP's point. The problem isn't that UK will extradite people to Iran (it doesn't). The problem is that UK will extradite people to US, because US demanded that, and a corresponding treaty was signed; however, US will still not extradite people to UK. That's where the hypocrisy is .
There is no policy that "the UK will extradite people to the US" or "the US will not extradite people to the UK". Extradition treaties have all sorts of provisos and lots of executive discretion.
Extradition is not about arrogant countries forcing others to enforce their laws. (At least, no more than any international agreements are coercive.) It's about countries that are friendly and cooperative working together to allow crimes to be prosecuted by the country that was most affected. America doesn't a
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Great, yet another thing to add to the looooong list of contortions and byzantine twists of the "logic" the peddlers of the "intellectual property" scam offer. So in the spirit of these new heady revelations as to the nature of copyright and public domain, lets consider this little wee scenario:
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Obviously, you haven't been paying any attention to anything posted above you.
NPG isn't right as far as -US- law is concerned. They ARE right as far as -UK- law is concerned.
Photographs of Public Domain works are not copyrightable under US law. This is a special exception to the general rule concerning copyright and photographs, and only applies to works in the Public Domain. In the specific case of Public Domain works, photographic reproduction of the works is treated as a mechanical process, and not a cre
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Photographs of Public Domain works are not copyrightable under US law. This is a special exception to the general rule concerning copyright and photographs, and only applies to works in the Public Domain. In the specific case of Public Domain works, photographic reproduction of the works is treated as a mechanical process, and not a creative process (the way photographs are normally treated under US law).
This isn't a special exception, it's an application of a general principle: in the US, a work can be copyrighted only insofar as it's at least minimally creative. The biggest general precedent here is Feist v. Rural. So when you do something technically very demanding, but uncreative, you get no new copyright.
If you reproduce ("slavishly copy") a work that was copyrighted by Bob Smith, then your reproduction is also copyrighted by Bob Smith, not you. If you reproduce a work that was in the public domai
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Under US Law, which you say is "actually the same thing" as UK law in this regards, you are quite entirely wrong.
For images there is "BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY, LTD. v. COREL CORP., 36 F. Supp. 2d 191 (S.D.N.Y. 1999) [cornell.edu]" which held that:
It's a photo of a painting! (Score:2, Offtopic)
Even though I can see where the problem is since UK law is unclear in this matter, it is still a photo of a painting and will never compare to the real thing.
I've seen loads of photos of the Mona Lisa, but does that mean if I was in the Louvre* would I not go and see it? Of course I would, because I'd want to see the genuine article.
*It's in the Louvre isn't it?
Re: (Score:2)
The BAPLA response (Score:2, Insightful)
First off, I can't even copy some quotes from the article at http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=865802 [bjp-online.com], because they've done that stupid hijacking of my browser (I know, I'm using IE - I'm at work), and they claim "copyright" over it (despite the fact that their article quotes over people...) Nevermind, View Source to the rescue.
Simon Cliffe of BAPLA says "We understand that other people who have had similar experiences with Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons have been told that they regard al
Music, Movies, Books,.. Museums next (Score:3, Interesting)
Musuems have collected and preserved much of the worlds cultural heritage. But at the same time they severely limit the publics enjoyment of the art and artifacts they seek to preserve.
I enjoy visiting a museum on occasion, but entry prices are usually extremely high and in the time that I have available I can usually only browse the highlights (from a respectul distance that hurts my eyes and blurs any details). Quick browses of paintings that their authors have spend weeks, or months on. You can ofen buy (expensive) books with again the same highlights of the collection, but not on a 1:1 scale.
High res scans would make all of this available to a much wider audience; worldwide, 24-7. Let them store that fragile 400+ year old painting in a secure bunker. Its the painting I am interested in, not the canvas.
Of course this would also make the museum obsolete; and kill off some major tourist attractions -- so expect some resistance from the old guard.
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Looking at an original painting is completely different from looking at a print or digital copy on a screen...
As for the entrance prices, they are often necessary to pay for the maintenance and restoration of existing and new exhibits.
That said, not being british or american, I completely side with US law on this one. A photo of a painting is a copy, no matter how you look at it, and shouldn't be subject to copyright.
Re:Music, Movies, Books,.. Museums next (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.spanisharts.com/prado/prado.htm [spanisharts.com]
http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/prado/ [google.com]
El Prado, Spain's biggest museum offers high resolution reproductions of its collection through google earth, and probably elsewhere too. They're such high quality you can get down to brush strokes.
Although IMO, there's something about seeing the painting/art work in person that can't be replaced by viewing it on a monitor. Something is lost if you see it on screen, especially if the space that you visit it in is repurposed or designed for the piece in question. This especially applies to sculpture.
NPG = Free Entry (Score:5, Interesting)
The National Portrait Gallery in London (Where the original pictures reside) DOES NOT CHARGE for entrance. I have spent many a wet lunch hour wandering around the Gallery enjoying the artwork.
I sells high quality prints of the Artwork. This is a way of raising funds for the upkeep and towards the purchase of new work.
As an Amateur photographer who has had their work pirated by someone from the USA and realises the futility of trying to stop them from claiming it as their own, I'm with the NPG on this one. Btw, I would have given the pirate a high quality copy of the picture if they had asked for it and agreed that the copyright was mine. Instead, he stole it.
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The NPG gets free entry out of taxes. It was a Labour manifesto commitment [bbc.co.uk].
As a UK taxpayer, I already paid for the NPG free entry and for them to digitize these paintings. Levying a secret tax (ie. copyright) is not the way to get the NPG out of financial staits - if they need more money, get it through the usual bargaining with the Treasury, government and the people.
Rich.
Re:NPG = Free Entry (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a difference. Your photograph was still within it's copyright period.
Copyright extends to 70 years past the author's death (in the UK). Since you are still alive, any photograph you take is obviously still within it's copyright - with one caveat.
The caveat is exactly what is at issue. You cannot claim copyright on a direct copy of someone else's work. You CAN claim copyright on a DERIVATIVE work. So the question here is was the photograph of the painting a derivative work?
The goal of the photograph was to reproduce the painting in digital form exactly as it was meant to be viewed in the gallery. No changes were made, and the painting was not used as the basis for a new work (even a person standing next to it within the shot is a 'derivative' work). Which would mean the photographs in question were NOT derivative works, but merely digital copies of the original, and not copyrightable in and of themselves (they would piggy back on the original copyright).
Which means any digital image of a painting that is in the public domain, is also public domain - as it is not a derivative artwork. And you cannot steal something that is public domain.
In your case, yes, someone stole your art work, because it IS within it's copyright. And regardless of whether they stole a print, the digital image, or any other faithful reproduction of your photograph, it would still be counted as illegally copying of your work. But 70 years after you die, anyone and their dog can take your image with impunity. They can even take the image of someone else's photograph of your image on a screen (as long as it's not altered in any way).
So as someone else said, yes, it might take a lot of technical expertise to faithfully capture these images to do them justice, but that does not suddenly give the person taking them copyright on what is, essentially, a faithful reproduction of the original artwork not a derivative.
By way of example, how about we take the works of Shakespear. Originally released in manuscript form. Someone took that manuscript and typed it into computer text files. Does that mean that person now has copyright on the resulting text file? It certainly took a lot of effort to transcribe the text - but it doesn't matter. Just because it took a lot of effort to do something (it takes a lot of effort to paint a forgery, too) does not infer copyright - if the text is identical to the original shakespear, then it is just a faithful reproduction on another medium and still int he public domain.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yep, you can fly to london and see the originals. Just like I can fly to NYC or Washington DC or Barcelona or PAris or St Petersbug (Russia) and visit the Museums and other places of interest there. That is what 'tourism' is all about.
Photography is banned in most museums not just the NPG. Flash photography can have a detrimental effect on works of art.
I have photographed in Museums on special open days when you can bring your tripod in and as long as you don't use any artificial light, you can photograph a
Re: (Score:2)
The Mona Lisa [blogspot.com] is available online, yet guess what the busiest room in the Louvre is?
Ok, im gonna send 5 bucks to eff then. (Score:2)
and i will type in paypal description 'for NPG case'. hehee. dont make fun of me, i do that all the time. my donations may be small, but at least it can pay some snacks for one of the staff. everything counts.
Difficult Case (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm seriously torn here about whether I support the museum or the little guy. I don't think anyone would argue that the original pictures are in the public domain but that isn't what is being shown on Wikipedia, what is getting shown there is a photograph of a public domain work. I think it's fair to argue that a non-trivial amount of work went into taking these photographs and therefore they fall under copyright legislation. If you think it was a trivial amount of work ask yourself how long it took a professional photographer to capture all these shots - I'll bet it ran to at least several weeks of work and probably more (at 20 paintings a day it would be 30 weeks work and I doubt they could do twenty a day).
On the other hand this museum is paid for by the people and presumably the payment to have the photographs taken was also public money. I would say, therefore, that there is a strong argument that these photographs should be in the public domain (at least for residents of the UK). Strengthening the freedom argument, to my mind, is the fact that the museum doesn't allow people to take their own photographs in effect causing a monopoly situation on public works.
I received this reply when I complained about this (Score:5, Informative)
Try doing the same in the US (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone care to try posting some images from Getty on Wiki....?
http://www.gettyimages.com/Corporate/LicenseInfo.aspx [gettyimages.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably for the same reason I can go to Amazon and buy a copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
UK gallery, UK law, US contributor *headscratch* (Score:2)
Oh dear, another confusing international internet legal kerfuffle. I'm not really clear what jurisdiction the British courts are going to have over this guy.
I'm moderately sympathetic to the NPG in this case - although, as noted, they are government-funded, it is UK taxes that fund it. They're *also* funded by licensing these photographs, AFAIK and by other donations, grants, etc. Given that, I can understand why they want to keep a revenue stream and also why they don't feel the need to provide images f
Low tech solution? (Score:3, Interesting)
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If the British government wants to keep these things out of British citizens' hands then they need to deal with it internally. If Britain wants to erect filters like China, that's their business. Block wikipedia (to the detriment of British citizens) if you want, But keep your noses out of US business.
The fact is, in MY country I have a right to post copies of public domain works regardless of the copies' quality. Interfering with my countrymen's rights IS evil.
Are we going to have to kick Britain's ass a