On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 3:57 PM, Falcorian<[email protected]> wrote: > Why are these images on Commons? According to [[Commons:Licensing]]: > "Wikimedia Commons accepts only media [...] that are in the public domain in > at least the United States and in the source country of the work." > Is it because they are potentially PD in the UK, but it's unclear?
Wikimedia's long standing position is that if copying a public domain work makes it copyrighted it would effectively eliminate the public domain. It's far from clear that the NPG's position will stand even under UK law: The specific matter hasn't been tried, and the US court that tried it also reached the same conclusion under UK law. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:When_to_use_the_PD-Art_tag#Why_do_we_allow_the_.7B.7BPD-Art.7D.7D_tag_to_be_used_for_photographs_from_any_country.3F Consider the incentive system that you create when you combine a copyright system which is effectively perpetual through retroactive extensions plus the ability to copyright any work in the public domain by making a slavish reproduction: New exciting viable business plans emerge, such as: 1) Obtain classic works of art and slavishly digitize them. 2) Destroy the works of art 3) Perpetual profit! _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
