Which does not matter, as the person they are suing, and the website hosting the images, are in the US, and most likely don't give a damn.
What next - China suing someone because they argued in favour of democracy, or Iran suing because someone didn't follow Islamic law? Yes, it can and does happen, but no one takes any notice except to say how stupid it is for them to enforce their laws on people in other countries.
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.
First off, I can't even copy some quotes from the article at http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=865802, 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 all images of out of copyright material as public domain"
Imagine that - thinking that out of copyright material is public domain!
"and dispute there is any copyright in a copy of an original work"
Not true at all - the point is that making a copy of public domain material doesn't constitute original work. They are perhaps confusing effort with originality.
"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 them for free"
Just think, people might be able to use out of copyright material for free! When it's fully allowed by US law!
"but to assert the protection the law provides for their commercial interest"
US law provides them with no such protection. So they'll have to think up another way to profit from other people's work from centuries ago (not that there's any evidence that Wikipedia showing these images will harm their ability to profit - I don't think anyone goes "I'm not going to bother going to a gallery, when I could just sit at home on Wikipedia").
I fully agree that the paintings are in the public domain, but it does NOT mean that the digital photos are.
In the US, yes it does. Even the NPG acknowledges this. This is not up for debate.
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!
You are confusing effort with originality. A derivative work of public domain material is only covered by copyright if it shows some original work from you, AIUI. How much effort you took is irrelevant. Even if I wrote out the work of Shakespeare by hand, that doesn't mean I can claim copyright over that copy (in the US, at least).
If you want to argue with what you think the law should be, then by all means - but that doesn't have any relevance to what Wikimedia's response should be.
There are degrees of "good". We moan about the NHS in the UK, in that we might have to wait a few hours to be seen to, but it's still miles better than not having any treatment at all, or being lumbered with a massive bill.
Same with the public transport. Yeah, we moan about the trains being crap here - but that doesn't mean it's anywhere near comparable to not having any at all!
Smokers etc pay a disproportionate amount towards the system through taxes.
"Wow, smokers are expensive!" and then the government will tell you that you can't smoke.
Well let's see - in countries where we have national healthcare, smoking is still legal. OTOH, in the US without national healthcare, many drugs are illegal. So it seems there's no correlation, and no evidence for your assertion.
with a government pay system it will be government bean counters making rules.
I'd still rather that than a private insurance company doing that.
I'm in a well paid job, so would come off better than most. But I still don't want the risk of being ruined because I'm unlucky enough to have a bad accident - or if I rely on insurance, then I'm penalised for falling into certain groups, no matter what my individual health is like, or that I may be dissuaded from taking treatment for one condition out of fear of it increasing my premiums later on. Not to mention the problem of developing a condition when I don't have insurance, and then I can never get insurance because it's a "pre-existing condition".
I'd still rather everyone else receive healthcare too - An unhealthy workforce means more spread of disease, and less productivity, meaning less people paying taxes, more people receiving benefits.
Denying a kidney to a person because they are too old is not morally superior to denying a kidney to someone because they are too poor - either way someone isn't getting a kidney.
That's a completely separate issue, because the supply of kidneys are limited. But if we can afford to give healthcare to both - and I would hope the richest nation of the planet can - then why is it better to deny one of them?
I'm not sure who you are arguing against - that's exactly the point he is making: yes, everyone benefits from the work done by earlier people. No one has to pay for work they build on, when that work was done by people long dead - so why should copyrights be any different?
And as far as inheritance is concerned, just how many people today have the careers they do because of mommy and daddy forking over money for their university education?
I'm struggling to see how this isn't a non-sequitur. Yes, children do sometimes get things paid for by their parents. The same applies to the Tolkien family too. Your point is?
By your argument, there isn't a goddamned person anywhere who deserves anything.
Wait - because people who sit on their arses don't deserve anything, therefore no one deserves anything? I don't follow that logic.
So what, socialism then?
You're the one suggesting that people get paid for doing nothing... I fail to see how his post could in anyway advocate socialism. Seriously, are you sure you didn't reply to the wrong post?
Since he does support it, your childish rant falls flat on its face.
But since you bring the issue of estate tax up - if inheriting copyrights really is no different to inheriting property, does this mean that the Tolkien estate paid tax on the copyrights they inherited? Will the millions they receive here be taxable under estate tax?
Anyhow, I wish I could inherit my ancestors' continued wages when they die, rather than having to get a job.
Oh please - copyright does not cover anything so vague. If Jackson is using copyrighted material owned by Christopher Tolkien, then by all means he can sue on those grounds, and we'll see how the court case goes. But that's not the argument they are making, as far as I can tell. Their ownership of the LOTR copyright is not justified purely because they made a derivative work that Jackson then read.
By that reasoning, what about all the people who saw the LOTR films? Surely by your own argument, Jackson / New Line Cinema are now entitled to LOTR copyrights, as anyone who now makes use of the LOTR has probably seen the films, and hence would be influenced by them?
In fact I bet a far greater number of people saw the films, than read Christopher's books...
Who is being "screwed" here? Certainly not the ones who are sitting on their arses trying to demand money. The ones getting screwed are the ones being told they've got to fork out millions, if they're allowed to produce a film at all. Believe it or not, people don't hate the film industry as a whole, they hate the idiotic actions when it comes to copyright. Which are now being displayed by the Tolkien estate.
The only hypocrisy here is from people defending the copyright leeches. People here disagree when movie companies try to push for excessive copyright laws or terms, so why should it be any different when individuals do it?
Except the artist in this case is long dead, and has been buried in a field in Oxford for the last 26 years...
The only people involved now are vultures who, rather than getting a job like the rest of us, are trying to take vast sums of money off of people who are trying to work at creating movies. And don't think that this is just coming from the "evil movie companies" - increased costs will ultimately be paid by you when you go to the cinema or buy the DVD (assuming they give "permission" for the film to be made in the first place).
It's a good thing Shakespeare's descendants aren't still around owning the copyright - imagine them making millions off of anyone who tries to use one of his plays, and even being able to dictate what people are allowed to produce?
Whilst I don't have much sympathy for the movie companies, the Tolkien family are behaving on the same side as them, demanding vast amounts of money and rights to restrict other people from producing content, when they had nothing to do with creating the LOTR.
If anything, they're worse. At least when the movie companies whine, the people whining did create those films. This would be like in 50 years' time, the descendants of some movie exec whining about film piracy, of a film that they had nothing to do with creating.
Or a better analogy now would be Disney whining about Mickey Mouse becoming public domain, when no one in the company today was involved in the original production. All of them are talking nonsense.
Not at all. The recent news was merely that it will no longer be compulsory for everyone to have the physical piece of plastic. But the National Identity Register (the thing that people are actually opposed to) is still planned.
From 2011, everyone renewing their passport will still have to pay the increased costs for an ID card (£93, plus £30 in processing fees to a private company to collect your fingerprints), be entered onto the database, and be subject to £1000 fines for failing to notify authorities of a change in personal details. The only choice is that you don't have to have the physical piece of plastic that you've still had to pay for. IIRC it's also planned for anyone getting a driving licence, along with other groups of people.
So it'll only be "voluntary" if you give up your right to a passport, and to drive (remember this is the UK, where most people travel to Europe at least, and have a passport). The scheme is still here to stay, and most of the population will be forced onto it.
And your point? It's a good thing that people's objection to specific schemes like this aren't because people are opposed to any form of identity whatsoever.
Takes ages importing files; can't refresh when you add new files or update an mp3 tag, you need to reimport everything (if there is a way of doing it, the interface is so bad I can't find it). Often locks up doing stuff for no apparently reason. Non-standard interface. Can't cope with reading from filenames, so files have to be tagged in order to use them.
I prefer a program that Just Works.
The only "holy war" action is that I'll probably get modded down for saying something critical of Apple's software.
They sell a system, and are one of the very few companies left who still do.
Nonsense. Go to any mainstream computer company or store, and you will get sold "a system", no different to any Mac you buy. Same as if you buy a phone, mp3 player, stereo system, TV, car or whatever else from any other company.
Indeed, all just about all companies that sell to the end users will sell systems, so I'm not sure what you are basing your claim on? The only exception would be users who build their own PCs, which is an optional advantage you get with PCs, but it's probably the minority these days.
If you're going to quibble that PCs are sold with an OS made by Microsoft, that's about as relevant as saying that Macs come with chips made by Intel. The days when hardware companys made all their own custom hardware are long gone, and Apple certainly are not in that game.
OS X sells Macs; the iTunes Music Store sells iPods; the App Store sells iPhones.
Your evidence? This seems unlikely, if anything I would have thought the reverse is true. Most peope don't care about or even know what an OS is, they just see the ads and look at what the computer looks like. People buy Ipods because it's the only choice that most people get offered for playing music, which is what they want to do - where they get the music from is secondary to that. And there's nothing special about the Iphone's single application store, except that it's the only place you can get applications from for the Iphone.
If Microsoft or any other company engaged in such anti-competitive behaviour, there'd be no end of mocking them here on Slashdot. But Apple, that's okay.
There is no other platform (except perhaps consoles) where software has to be "approved" by another company. Comparing Apple's slow mandatory permission requirement, to a company's own internal approval process, is highly misleading. If any other hardware company did this, there'd be an uproar here on Slashdot, but because it's Apple, the RDF kicks into play.
When I publish an application for a phone such as my Motorola V980, I don't need to pay Motorola a penny, nor do I need a permission slip from them. It Just Works.
All I see hear is the same pro-Apple bias in the press, claiming that the Iphone is wonderful for having lots of apps, even when there are plenty of other phones, with plenty of apps, and more importantly, you don't need a permission slip from Apple in order to publish an application.
And even if it was true - after all those years of "It doesn't matter that there are no applications for Macs!" in the press, now we get "There are [allegedly] lots more applications for the iPhone, it must be the best phone ever, so we'll ignore all other phones!"
Morons.
As for trouble staying afloat, my suggestion would be to just post a story about it. Whilst an article about an application for any other platform would be rightly ignored as spam, so long as you add "On Your Iphone", it instantly becomes front page Slashdot news - even the BBC will give you free advertising.
Yeah, let's treat their desire for fictional war games by teaching them how to fight for real. And let's help their social skills, by making them not talk while someone yells in their face.
Playing a game isn't anti-social, btw, you presumably mean "unsociable", and I hope you include "watching TV", "reading a book" and "sitting at home quietly with a cup of tea" as similar "unsociable" activities. OTOH, teenagers who go out to the pub every night are doing fine...
For actual anti-social behaviours, I believe that boot camps have been tried in the US for young offenders. It's unclear how effective they actually are though.
Slashdot Mirror
Which does not matter, as the person they are suing, and the website hosting the images, are in the US, and most likely don't give a damn.
What next - China suing someone because they argued in favour of democracy, or Iran suing because someone didn't follow Islamic law? Yes, it can and does happen, but no one takes any notice except to say how stupid it is for them to enforce their laws on people in other countries.
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.
First off, I can't even copy some quotes from the article at http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=865802, 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 all images of out of copyright material as public domain"
Imagine that - thinking that out of copyright material is public domain!
"and dispute there is any copyright in a copy of an original work"
Not true at all - the point is that making a copy of public domain material doesn't constitute original work. They are perhaps confusing effort with originality.
"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 them for free"
Just think, people might be able to use out of copyright material for free! When it's fully allowed by US law!
"but to assert the protection the law provides for their commercial interest"
US law provides them with no such protection. So they'll have to think up another way to profit from other people's work from centuries ago (not that there's any evidence that Wikipedia showing these images will harm their ability to profit - I don't think anyone goes "I'm not going to bother going to a gallery, when I could just sit at home on Wikipedia").
I fully agree that the paintings are in the public domain, but it does NOT mean that the digital photos are.
In the US, yes it does. Even the NPG acknowledges this. This is not up for debate.
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!
You are confusing effort with originality. A derivative work of public domain material is only covered by copyright if it shows some original work from you, AIUI. How much effort you took is irrelevant. Even if I wrote out the work of Shakespeare by hand, that doesn't mean I can claim copyright over that copy (in the US, at least).
If you want to argue with what you think the law should be, then by all means - but that doesn't have any relevance to what Wikimedia's response should be.
No, that's pretty much how society works everywhere
Fixed that for you.
People act in their own interest. News at 11. Now what has that got to do with capitalism, anymore than any other kind of economic system?
There are degrees of "good". We moan about the NHS in the UK, in that we might have to wait a few hours to be seen to, but it's still miles better than not having any treatment at all, or being lumbered with a massive bill.
Same with the public transport. Yeah, we moan about the trains being crap here - but that doesn't mean it's anywhere near comparable to not having any at all!
Smokers etc pay a disproportionate amount towards the system through taxes.
"Wow, smokers are expensive!" and then the government will tell you that you can't smoke.
Well let's see - in countries where we have national healthcare, smoking is still legal. OTOH, in the US without national healthcare, many drugs are illegal. So it seems there's no correlation, and no evidence for your assertion.
with a government pay system it will be government bean counters making rules.
I'd still rather that than a private insurance company doing that.
I'm in a well paid job, so would come off better than most. But I still don't want the risk of being ruined because I'm unlucky enough to have a bad accident - or if I rely on insurance, then I'm penalised for falling into certain groups, no matter what my individual health is like, or that I may be dissuaded from taking treatment for one condition out of fear of it increasing my premiums later on. Not to mention the problem of developing a condition when I don't have insurance, and then I can never get insurance because it's a "pre-existing condition".
I'd still rather everyone else receive healthcare too - An unhealthy workforce means more spread of disease, and less productivity, meaning less people paying taxes, more people receiving benefits.
Denying a kidney to a person because they are too old is not morally superior to denying a kidney to someone because they are too poor - either way someone isn't getting a kidney.
That's a completely separate issue, because the supply of kidneys are limited. But if we can afford to give healthcare to both - and I would hope the richest nation of the planet can - then why is it better to deny one of them?
I'm not sure who you are arguing against - that's exactly the point he is making: yes, everyone benefits from the work done by earlier people. No one has to pay for work they build on, when that work was done by people long dead - so why should copyrights be any different?
And as far as inheritance is concerned, just how many people today have the careers they do because of mommy and daddy forking over money for their university education?
I'm struggling to see how this isn't a non-sequitur. Yes, children do sometimes get things paid for by their parents. The same applies to the Tolkien family too. Your point is?
By your argument, there isn't a goddamned person anywhere who deserves anything.
Wait - because people who sit on their arses don't deserve anything, therefore no one deserves anything? I don't follow that logic.
So what, socialism then?
You're the one suggesting that people get paid for doing nothing... I fail to see how his post could in anyway advocate socialism. Seriously, are you sure you didn't reply to the wrong post?
Since he does support it, your childish rant falls flat on its face.
But since you bring the issue of estate tax up - if inheriting copyrights really is no different to inheriting property, does this mean that the Tolkien estate paid tax on the copyrights they inherited? Will the millions they receive here be taxable under estate tax?
Anyhow, I wish I could inherit my ancestors' continued wages when they die, rather than having to get a job.
Oh please - copyright does not cover anything so vague. If Jackson is using copyrighted material owned by Christopher Tolkien, then by all means he can sue on those grounds, and we'll see how the court case goes. But that's not the argument they are making, as far as I can tell. Their ownership of the LOTR copyright is not justified purely because they made a derivative work that Jackson then read.
By that reasoning, what about all the people who saw the LOTR films? Surely by your own argument, Jackson / New Line Cinema are now entitled to LOTR copyrights, as anyone who now makes use of the LOTR has probably seen the films, and hence would be influenced by them?
In fact I bet a far greater number of people saw the films, than read Christopher's books...
Who is being "screwed" here? Certainly not the ones who are sitting on their arses trying to demand money. The ones getting screwed are the ones being told they've got to fork out millions, if they're allowed to produce a film at all. Believe it or not, people don't hate the film industry as a whole, they hate the idiotic actions when it comes to copyright. Which are now being displayed by the Tolkien estate.
The only hypocrisy here is from people defending the copyright leeches. People here disagree when movie companies try to push for excessive copyright laws or terms, so why should it be any different when individuals do it?
Except the artist in this case is long dead, and has been buried in a field in Oxford for the last 26 years...
The only people involved now are vultures who, rather than getting a job like the rest of us, are trying to take vast sums of money off of people who are trying to work at creating movies. And don't think that this is just coming from the "evil movie companies" - increased costs will ultimately be paid by you when you go to the cinema or buy the DVD (assuming they give "permission" for the film to be made in the first place).
It's a good thing Shakespeare's descendants aren't still around owning the copyright - imagine them making millions off of anyone who tries to use one of his plays, and even being able to dictate what people are allowed to produce?
Whilst I don't have much sympathy for the movie companies, the Tolkien family are behaving on the same side as them, demanding vast amounts of money and rights to restrict other people from producing content, when they had nothing to do with creating the LOTR.
If anything, they're worse. At least when the movie companies whine, the people whining did create those films. This would be like in 50 years' time, the descendants of some movie exec whining about film piracy, of a film that they had nothing to do with creating.
Or a better analogy now would be Disney whining about Mickey Mouse becoming public domain, when no one in the company today was involved in the original production. All of them are talking nonsense.
Spot on - the UK recently gave up on ID cards
Not at all. The recent news was merely that it will no longer be compulsory for everyone to have the physical piece of plastic. But the National Identity Register (the thing that people are actually opposed to) is still planned.
From 2011, everyone renewing their passport will still have to pay the increased costs for an ID card (£93, plus £30 in processing fees to a private company to collect your fingerprints), be entered onto the database, and be subject to £1000 fines for failing to notify authorities of a change in personal details. The only choice is that you don't have to have the physical piece of plastic that you've still had to pay for. IIRC it's also planned for anyone getting a driving licence, along with other groups of people.
So it'll only be "voluntary" if you give up your right to a passport, and to drive (remember this is the UK, where most people travel to Europe at least, and have a passport). The scheme is still here to stay, and most of the population will be forced onto it.
See http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/30/passport-details-id-card-database
In fact, as an example of how the scheme is still moving forward, only recently did the Government approve the fines for failing to notify changes in personal details including address, name, nationality and gender. Why would they do that, if the scheme had really been abandoned?
With a photo, people are only seeing what they can see in public anyway. That's not true with fingerprints, and especially DNA.
And your point? It's a good thing that people's objection to specific schemes like this aren't because people are opposed to any form of identity whatsoever.
Microsoft put the work in, why should anyone else be able to run software on windows?
Indeed, if any company tried the behaviour of controlling what applications could run on their platform, it'd be absurd.
Takes ages importing files; can't refresh when you add new files or update an mp3 tag, you need to reimport everything (if there is a way of doing it, the interface is so bad I can't find it). Often locks up doing stuff for no apparently reason. Non-standard interface. Can't cope with reading from filenames, so files have to be tagged in order to use them.
I prefer a program that Just Works.
The only "holy war" action is that I'll probably get modded down for saying something critical of Apple's software.
They're okay - the rules apply to companies that have a monopoly in the market, not to niche players like Apple.
They sell a system, and are one of the very few companies left who still do.
Nonsense. Go to any mainstream computer company or store, and you will get sold "a system", no different to any Mac you buy. Same as if you buy a phone, mp3 player, stereo system, TV, car or whatever else from any other company.
Indeed, all just about all companies that sell to the end users will sell systems, so I'm not sure what you are basing your claim on? The only exception would be users who build their own PCs, which is an optional advantage you get with PCs, but it's probably the minority these days.
If you're going to quibble that PCs are sold with an OS made by Microsoft, that's about as relevant as saying that Macs come with chips made by Intel. The days when hardware companys made all their own custom hardware are long gone, and Apple certainly are not in that game.
OS X sells Macs; the iTunes Music Store sells iPods; the App Store sells iPhones.
Your evidence? This seems unlikely, if anything I would have thought the reverse is true. Most peope don't care about or even know what an OS is, they just see the ads and look at what the computer looks like. People buy Ipods because it's the only choice that most people get offered for playing music, which is what they want to do - where they get the music from is secondary to that. And there's nothing special about the Iphone's single application store, except that it's the only place you can get applications from for the Iphone.
If Microsoft or any other company engaged in such anti-competitive behaviour, there'd be no end of mocking them here on Slashdot. But Apple, that's okay.
There is no other platform (except perhaps consoles) where software has to be "approved" by another company. Comparing Apple's slow mandatory permission requirement, to a company's own internal approval process, is highly misleading. If any other hardware company did this, there'd be an uproar here on Slashdot, but because it's Apple, the RDF kicks into play.
When I publish an application for a phone such as my Motorola V980, I don't need to pay Motorola a penny, nor do I need a permission slip from them. It Just Works.
Except we don't - that's a straw man.
All I see hear is the same pro-Apple bias in the press, claiming that the Iphone is wonderful for having lots of apps, even when there are plenty of other phones, with plenty of apps, and more importantly, you don't need a permission slip from Apple in order to publish an application.
And even if it was true - after all those years of "It doesn't matter that there are no applications for Macs!" in the press, now we get "There are [allegedly] lots more applications for the iPhone, it must be the best phone ever, so we'll ignore all other phones!"
Morons.
As for trouble staying afloat, my suggestion would be to just post a story about it. Whilst an article about an application for any other platform would be rightly ignored as spam, so long as you add "On Your Iphone", it instantly becomes front page Slashdot news - even the BBC will give you free advertising.
Yeah, let's treat their desire for fictional war games by teaching them how to fight for real. And let's help their social skills, by making them not talk while someone yells in their face.
Playing a game isn't anti-social, btw, you presumably mean "unsociable", and I hope you include "watching TV", "reading a book" and "sitting at home quietly with a cup of tea" as similar "unsociable" activities. OTOH, teenagers who go out to the pub every night are doing fine...
For actual anti-social behaviours, I believe that boot camps have been tried in the US for young offenders. It's unclear how effective they actually are though.
Even at just 2% inflation, you just have to wait about 1,900 years for something costing $1 today to be worth that amount.
Although when I first saw this story, I thought it was on about another RIAA fine for sharing mp3s.