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New Developments In NPG/Wikipedia Lawsuit Threat

Posted by timothy on 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."

4 of 345 comments (clear)

  1. Globalisation by paulhar · · 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.

  2. Stealing hi-res versions by patch0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It kind of worries me that he hacked in and took the hi-res images. We run a gallery of biological images and it costs us a lot of money and effort to digitise our 80-100 year old collections in order to make them useful to the public and scientific community. 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 so clearly there needs to be some balance. If someone hacked in and took our hi-res images it might jeopardize our ability to add other images on our already shoe-string budget. If he gets away with that I'd be quite upset to be honest...

  3. NPG = Free Entry by RotateLeftByte · · Score: 4, 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.

    --
    I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
  4. Try doing the same in the US by benwiggy · · Score: 4, Interesting
    If US law is so clear (that copies of public domain works are themselves public domain), then can anyone explain to me why Getty Images charges me full whack for pictures of works of art from days gone by; and gives me chapter and verse about what I can do with the images?

    Anyone care to try posting some images from Getty on Wiki....?

    http://www.gettyimages.com/Corporate/LicenseInfo.aspx