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UK's National Portrait Gallery Threatens To Sue Wikipedia User
jpatokal writes "The National Portrait Gallery of London is threatening litigation against a Wikipedia user over his uploading of pictures of some 3,000 paintings, all 19th century or earlier and firmly in the public domain. Their claim? The photos are a 'product of a painstaking exercise on the part of the photographer,' and that downloading them off the NPG site is an 'unlawful circumvention of technical measures.' And remember, the NPG's taxpayer-funded mission is to 'promote the appreciation and understanding of portraiture in all media [...] to as wide a range of visitors as possible!'"
I have a modified IR camera I use that I built to photograph artwork- it's amazing what you can sometimes see 'underneath' the paints the artist chose.
In one gallery in Germany I saw a work of art in IR that had been severely damaged and retouched- it was clearly evident in the IR photograph but not in the VIS photograph. I showed them to the curator (I spoke no German and he spoke no English) and tried to ask what had happened to it in its history (as there was no statement of that on the work).
I swear the man was going to shit a brick. He had a look of pure panic on his face when he saw the IR photograph- I think he immediately ran up there to check on it. I don't think he understood what he was seeing (not surprising) so my wife and I left ASAP.
Now to me, IR would bring value- so would UV photographs of the artwork. I know there are places that can do this much more professionally ... but hey, a hobby is a hobby.
The museum is out of line. In a 'real world' they'd lose. They'll probably respond by banning photography and forcing anyone that does want to do shots to sign a waiver.
The NPG's UK taxpayer-funded mission.
So they're working under UK law. It kinda sucks that our copyright laws and, in some ways, less friendly than the US. Even stuff the government itself produces is not public domain over here. But that's the law here, that's how it works.
Making a high resolution reproduction of a work of art requires special equipment and skills, so I really think it's fair enough if that's copyright - somebody has invested money, skills and effort in making the reproduction be as good as possible. The situation is different in the US but the NPG ain't in the US. If the UK taxpayer funded it and UK law says that it's copyrightable, you can understand the NPG feeling the need to protect the UK taxpayer's investment by maintaining control of the images.
Given they control their own reproductions of the pictures, would it be acceptable for them to deny visitors the right to take their own photographs? I think not. But that's a separate debate because this guy didn't go there and invest the time to make photographs that he would then have had copyright on under UK law, he downloaded them from the National Gallery's website. I agree with the many posters before me that whilst it somewhat sucks that these creative works aren't available digitally in the public domain, the NPG are really being pretty reasonable about this - they've offered to work out terms for lower resolution imagery to be made available to Wikipedia, which is a lot more constructive than you'd expect from a corporate entity. It really looks like they're trying to defend their legal position sensibly whilst still facilitating the transfer of information - good for them.
But, please, Wikipedia users and everyone else - feel free to increase pressure on our government and institutions (and those in other countries) to have a strong public domain and sensible, fair copyright laws. We still have further to go, it's just a question of how we choose to represent ourselves.
'...someone in a different post argues that National Gallery does not allow the public to take pictures. Is that true? Not even without flash?'
Yes. Cory Doctorow has some fun with their policy here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/nov/13/pop.art.copyright
'The excellent programme for Pop Art Portraits, the current exhibition at London's National Portrait Gallery, has a lot to say about the pictures hanging on the walls and the diverse source material the artists used to produce their provocative works. Apparently they cut up magazines, copied comic books, drew trademarked cartoon characters like Minnie Mouse, reproduced covers from Time magazine, made ironic use of a cartoon Charles Atlas, painted over iconic photos of James Dean and Elvis Presley...Despite this, the programme does not say a word about copyright...There is, however, another message about copyright in the National Portrait Gallery: it is implicit in the "No Photography" signs prominently displayed throughout its rooms, including one by the entrance to the Pop Art Portraits exhibition. These signs are not intended to protect the works from the depredations of camera flashes (otherwise they would read "No Flash Photography"). No, the ban on pictures is meant to safeguard the copyright of the works hung on the walls - a fact that every member of staff I asked instantly confirmed. Indeed, it seems every square centimetre of the National Portrait Gallery is under some form of copyright. I wasn't even allowed to photograph the "No Photographs" sign. A member of staff explained that the typography and layout of the signs was itself copyrighted...Perhaps, just perhaps, this is actually a Dadaist show masquerading as a pop art show. Perhaps the point is to titillate us with the delicious irony of celebrating copyright infringement while simultaneously taking the view that even the "No Photography" sign is a form of property not to be reproduced without the permission that can never be had.'