New Developments In NPG/Wikipedia Lawsuit Threat 345
Posted
by
timothy
from the I-see-portraits-of-dead-people dept.
from the I-see-portraits-of-dead-people dept.
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."
This isn't a Robin Hood story (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Globalisation (Score:3, Informative)
UK Law is not unclear (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Pictures versus digital photos... (Score:2, Informative)
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 "lighting", it's about showing artistic originality. Ultimately, any grey areas are up to the courts to decide. 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.
If things were as you propose, then it would mean in practice, nothing would become public domain. Everything from Shakespeare's works to paintings would be locked up in perpetual copyright - unless you could get hold of the original source and make your own copy, which would often be rather hard.
Re:Pictures versus digital photos... (Score:2, Informative)
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 this new case? I'm not sure there's any grey area here.
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.
Re:This isn't a Robin Hood story (Score:5, Informative)
I received this reply when I complained about this (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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.
Re:UK Law is not unclear (Score:3, Informative)
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 creative process (the way photographs are normally treated under US law).
There is no exception yet for photographic reproductions of Public Domain works under UK law, which is what this entire dispute is about: The conflict between the two laws, as it applies between NPG (UK) and Wikipedia (US).
As I stated in another post, the most fair and equitable solution for all sides is for Wikipedia to remove the high-res versions and replace them with the still high-quality but lower-res versions offered to them for 'Fair Use' by NPG.
Everybody wins, no courts or ambulance-chasers need to be involved.
Re:UK Law is not unclear (Score:1, Informative)
Because the US tends to be an arrogant nation that refuses to extradite its precious citizens even when it knows full well they've broken other countries' laws?
Re:Stealing hi-res versions (Score:3, Informative)
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 in the public domain. Locked-down data will likely restrict science, not push it forward.
One thing you could consider doing is to partner with a group like Archive.org. They can provide the hosting for the images and do all the sysadmin work, and all you have to do is provide the data. Don't worry about the old data at first. Just start out by asking yourself this simple question: If someone else deals with the servers and pays for sysadmins/bandwidth, can we afford the time/money to digitize new images and upload them to the server?"
If your group can afford the time and money required to add new data to this repository, then you're all set. New data will all go into the system. The old set of data is static and not increasing, so slowly over time you'll be able to digitize it yourselves or to find other people or outside funding to make this digitization possible. If other scientists want access to your data, don't charge them access fees, just ask them for a donation to help digitize some of your old collections, and put one of those thermometer-type graphs on your website showing how much of the collection has been digitized and how much remains to be done. You might even be able to get a small grant to do this work.
Good Luck!
Re:UK Law is not unclear (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:
For your book example you say
You are wrong again. Facsimile editions (which preserve the layout) don't get a copyright. Even new printings (same words, new layout) don't get a new copyright on the words (they layout may or may not). New text, like new introductions or authors bios do. That doesn't mean publishers don't claim copyright, but it may mean they are invalid. Take a look at the Project Gutenberg FAQ [rastko.net]
Re:Stealing hi-res versions (Score:5, Informative)