Something interesting for those of us with an interest in public domain / copyright issues:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8156268.stm
Quote:
The battle over Wikipedia's use of images from a British art gallery's website has intensified.
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The NPG is threatening legal action after 3,300 images from its website were uploaded to Wikipedia.
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But the gallery insists that its case has been misrepresented, and has now released a statement denying many of the charges made by Wikipedia.
It denies claims that it has been "locking up and limiting access to educational materials", saying that it has been a pioneer in making its material available.
It has worked for the last five years toward the target of getting half of its collection online by 2009. "We will be able to achieve this," said the gallery's statement,"as a result of self-generated income."
The gallery says that while it only makes a limited revenue from web licensing, it earns far more from the reproduction of its images in books and magazines - £339,000 in the last year.
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The gallery has claimed that David Coetzee's actions have breached English copyright laws, which protect copies of original works even when they themselves are out of copyright.
The National Portrait Gallery now says it only sent a legal letter to David Coetzee after the Wikimedia Foundation failed to respond to requests to discuss the issue. But it says contact has now been made and remains hopeful that a dialogue will be possible.
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The British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies has backed the National Portrait Gallery's stance.
"If owners of out of copyright material are not going to have the derivative works they have created protected, which will result in anyone being able to use then for free, they will cease to invest in the digitisation of works, and everyone will be the poorer," it wrote in an email to its members.
But the Wikipedia volunteer David Gerard accuses the gallery of bureaucratic empire building.
"They honestly think the paintings belong to them rather than to us," he wrote.
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- Ahi