Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
2009/7/18 John at Darkstar vac...@jeb.no: Imagine this, if a gallery or museum has a painting of some Leonard van der Olsen-Mozart (he don't exist, hopefully..) then this museum should make sure there is a bio for the person and of his painting of The fallen Madonna with the big bottom, and those should link back to the galleries own pages. At those pages the gallery should make available any high res copies, uv-scans, scientific works, etc, about the painting and the painter. We should be the yellow pages for the GLAM-institutions. It should be so important for them to have a presence on Wikipedia that it should raise questions from the government if they don't have a sufficient presence. Giving galleries lots of links to their pages is something we should be happy to do, as it's informative, educational and helps the reader. One of the many Freedom Of Information requests people have filed with the NPG in the past week (since this storm broke) is: what proportion of their web hits are from Wikipedia/Wikimedia? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
IANAL, but I don't think I need to be to say the The Foundation is not in legal jeopardy here unless it chooses to be. It's protected by a four-thousand-mile moat, a war of independence, several layers of legal code and a US Supreme Court decision. It doesn't have any assets in the UK as far as I'm aware; there is absolutely nothing a UK court could punish them with. That's not the same as saying that a UK court case couldn't result in a judgment that was disadvantageous to the Foundation. For instance, I *believe* from the same set of legal issues as those surrounding peer-to-peer filesharing, that if the images were unequivocally found to be copyright violations in the UK, then any UK reader or editor who accessed them could be exposed to some sort of legal nastiness. I agree that any comment, however informal, from someone who *is* an English lawyer, would be very useful. --HM peter boelens pb...@xs4all.nl wrote in message news:cf6dc9a6b75e4d7583ccdca394fc6...@cc1070822a... I probably missed a few posts, but the way this is going raises some serious questions. It would be helpfull if someone with good knowledge of English Law would explain the risks of going trough the English Courts. I am a lawyer, but not an English one. What I do know of the English Legal system is that losing a lawsuit there is a very expensive excercise. And if this thing goes to court there is a real chance that the Foundation will loose. So a deal with NPG would be the sensible thing, and if a deal is not possible deleting seems the better option. Peter b. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
David Gerard wrote: I have been told this by Wikimedians who used to work in and with such institutions. Governments told them to be more businesslike, this attracted the people you describe. If there was a document originating from elected politicians, telling public *schools* to be more businesslike, that would cause public outrage, at least in Sweden. So can we find the sources where this kind of encouragement is directed towards public museums? We need document numbers and dates, to trace how the trend has spread between countries. Annual reports from some larger museums should be a good starting point. Our allies could be individual experienced museum people, archivists and librarians, who disagree with current policy. -- Lars Aronsson (l...@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
David Gerard wrote: That's what I mean - this issue goes way beyond NPG into how arts institutions are funded and sustained, which is why the NPG or people therein may believe they're really fighting for their lives and we threaten that. And if the NPG doesn't think that, other galleries may think that. And they may be right, if their funding's really bad. The only goal worth pursuing is lobbying UK to change their copyright law. Anything else is small fry. Ciao Henning ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
geni wrote: 2009/7/18 John at Darkstar vac...@jeb.no: Sorry, I don't follow you on this one. If the existing business model don't work and it should be changed, then work with them to change it and make the alternate options viable. John We do not have the capacity to raise sufficient funds to make it a worthwhile business model. How do you know that? Yann -- http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net http://fr.wikisource.org/ | Bibliothèque libre http://wikilivres.info | Documents libres ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
2009/7/18 Yann Forget y...@forget-me.net: geni wrote: 2009/7/18 John at Darkstar vac...@jeb.no: Sorry, I don't follow you on this one. If the existing business model don't work and it should be changed, then work with them to change it and make the alternate options viable. We do not have the capacity to raise sufficient funds to make it a worthwhile business model. How do you know that? Not out of our pockets directly, anyway. But helping them lobby for better funding from sources other than copyright claims on public domain works is absolutely in our interest as well as theirs. If we can set up such a program, we could plausibly help do something very financially efficient in terms of what we'd put into it. We already have lots of volunteers who would be very keen to help any way they can with such programs. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
2009/7/18 Yann Forget y...@forget-me.net: geni wrote: 2009/7/18 John at Darkstar vac...@jeb.no: Sorry, I don't follow you on this one. If the existing business model don't work and it should be changed, then work with them to change it and make the alternate options viable. John We do not have the capacity to raise sufficient funds to make it a worthwhile business model. How do you know that? Yann Our fund raiseing capacity is a few million $ a year. The NPG have spent over $1 million and they have one of the smaller UK collections. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
geni wrote: 2009/7/18 Durova nadezhda.dur...@gmail.com: Put me in touch with instructors at art schools and I'll incorporate restoration into their curriculum. You'll be surprised how scaleable this is, particularly if we work out exhibition opportunities. -Durova Restoration isn't the problem for the most part. The English part of the National Monuments Record contains about 10 million items (mostly photos I think). Wales and Scotland ad few million more. That includes a fairly complete public domain aerial survey of the UK from the 1940s. We do not have the capacity to support digitalization on that scale. Well, who's your we? In the case of the NPG, it is quite clear that the cost of the digitalization is small compared with the potential benefit. There are people and organisations willing to pay to have a copy of these famous portraits. The issue is how to collect the funds without puting a copyright on the images. For this, we need a new business model. Think about how donations was raised to free up Blender.[1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)#History Yann -- http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net http://fr.wikisource.org/ | Bibliothèque libre http://wikilivres.info | Documents libres ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
2009/7/18 Yann Forget y...@forget-me.net: geni wrote: 2009/7/18 Durova nadezhda.dur...@gmail.com: Put me in touch with instructors at art schools and I'll incorporate restoration into their curriculum. You'll be surprised how scaleable this is, particularly if we work out exhibition opportunities. -Durova Restoration isn't the problem for the most part. The English part of the National Monuments Record contains about 10 million items (mostly photos I think). Wales and Scotland ad few million more. That includes a fairly complete public domain aerial survey of the UK from the 1940s. We do not have the capacity to support digitalization on that scale. Well, who's your we? In the case of the NPG, it is quite clear that the cost of the digitalization is small compared with the potential benefit. There are people and organisations willing to pay to have a copy of these famous portraits. The issue is how to collect the funds without puting a copyright on the images. For this, we need a new business model. Think about how donations was raised to free up Blender.[1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)#History €100,000 is not a significant amount of money when dealing with trying to digitalize the various UK archives. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 10:19 AM, genigeni...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/7/18 Yann Forget y...@forget-me.net: In the case of the NPG, it is quite clear that the cost of the digitalization is small compared with the potential benefit. There are people and organisations willing to pay to have a copy of these famous portraits. The issue is how to collect the funds without puting a copyright on the images. For this, we need a new business model. Think about how donations was raised to free up Blender.[1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)#History €100,000 is not a significant amount of money when dealing with trying to digitalize the various UK archives. The exact amount of money is beside the point. I think the business model analagous to Blender goes something like this: A GLAM figures out the cost per item of its digitization project. Take that, add some modest figure for subsidizing the rest of the institution's activities, and that's the price for releasing any given reproduction. Anyone may contribute all or part of the price for releasing any given work. Once the full price has been reached, the scan is made available for free to anyone. Maybe this would happen in lots, with the most popular/useful/valuable works digitized in the early lots with higher prices so that the capital investments get recouped early on. The next lot gets digitized once a certain threshold is reached with the previous one (e.g., the break-even point to finance the next lot). Maybe there are tiers for any given work:$X for 800px, $2X for 1600px, $4X for 3200px, etc. If the 1600px version is available already but you really need the 3200px version, you pay the difference of $2X and now the 3200px version is available for everyone. The advantage of this scheme is that there are several groups who would be likely to help pay for the digitization: publishers who need hi-res versions and who would previously have paid for licensing; arts lovers who would be making donations anyway (and who can now point exactly to what their donation funded); free culture advocates. And if there is some way of recognizing the donors (This portrait was digitized thanks to the donations of John Q. Wikipedian and Sally B. Artlover), it might be much more financially successful in the short to medium term than the copyright-and-license model. -Sage ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
geni wrote: 2009/7/18 Yann Forget y...@forget-me.net: In the case of the NPG, it is quite clear that the cost of the digitalization is small compared with the potential benefit. There are people and organisations willing to pay to have a copy of these famous portraits. The issue is how to collect the funds without puting a copyright on the images. For this, we need a new business model. Think about how donations was raised to free up Blender.[1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)#History €100,000 is not a significant amount of money when dealing with trying to digitalize the various UK archives. Comparing the amount raised for a single (quite obscure) software with what could be raised to digitalize world-famous works of art does not make sense. Yann -- http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net http://fr.wikisource.org/ | Bibliothèque libre http://wikilivres.info | Documents libres ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
The problem is in sustaining the less used part of the collection, which from an archival standpoint and also ultimate cultural value is equally important. Normally, any such institution would expect to use the profits from the ones that sell most to support the others--[[The long tail]]. This is analogous to the principle that it is easy to finance a library of best-sellers--any town can do it, but only the very richest organizations can afford a library that includes everything that might be needed. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 2:36 PM, Yann Forgety...@forget-me.net wrote: geni wrote: 2009/7/18 Yann Forget y...@forget-me.net: In the case of the NPG, it is quite clear that the cost of the digitalization is small compared with the potential benefit. There are people and organisations willing to pay to have a copy of these famous portraits. The issue is how to collect the funds without puting a copyright on the images. For this, we need a new business model. Think about how donations was raised to free up Blender.[1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)#History €100,000 is not a significant amount of money when dealing with trying to digitalize the various UK archives. Comparing the amount raised for a single (quite obscure) software with what could be raised to digitalize world-famous works of art does not make sense. Yann -- http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net http://fr.wikisource.org/ | Bibliothèque libre http://wikilivres.info | Documents libres ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
Forget direct funding, its not practical. The interesting thing is, we do have sales organization that is very important for GLAM-institutions, and it is probably so interesting that a conflict with us is simply to damaging. How do we turn this around to make it even more interesting for them? Imagine this, if a gallery or museum has a painting of some Leonard van der Olsen-Mozart (he don't exist, hopefully..) then this museum should make sure there is a bio for the person and of his painting of The fallen Madonna with the big bottom, and those should link back to the galleries own pages. At those pages the gallery should make available any high res copies, uv-scans, scientific works, etc, about the painting and the painter. We should be the yellow pages for the GLAM-institutions. It should be so important for them to have a presence on Wikipedia that it should raise questions from the government if they don't have a sufficient presence. Now, how do we make this possible? Forget direct funding, that is simply not interesting. Making the material available is interesting because this creates further use, not to forget visitors. John geni wrote: 2009/7/18 Yann Forget y...@forget-me.net: geni wrote: 2009/7/18 Durova nadezhda.dur...@gmail.com: Put me in touch with instructors at art schools and I'll incorporate restoration into their curriculum. You'll be surprised how scaleable this is, particularly if we work out exhibition opportunities. -Durova Restoration isn't the problem for the most part. The English part of the National Monuments Record contains about 10 million items (mostly photos I think). Wales and Scotland ad few million more. That includes a fairly complete public domain aerial survey of the UK from the 1940s. We do not have the capacity to support digitalization on that scale. Well, who's your we? In the case of the NPG, it is quite clear that the cost of the digitalization is small compared with the potential benefit. There are people and organisations willing to pay to have a copy of these famous portraits. The issue is how to collect the funds without puting a copyright on the images. For this, we need a new business model. Think about how donations was raised to free up Blender.[1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)#History €100,000 is not a significant amount of money when dealing with trying to digitalize the various UK archives. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
If we forget about politics and who-did-what, what is the common grounds between us and them? To me it seems like they want us to use their material, but that they are scared to let go of a possible income. This seems fairly similar to the Galleri NOR -case. Would it be possible for us to define an acceptable resolution that is also acceptable for them? They have a lot more material available and to me the whole thing seems to be less than optimum for both parties. They want to get the material known, but also have the option to sell high resolution versions. We want to illustrate articles, but have no need to sell our copies, neither do we need highres versions - we infact downsample the versions. John ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
2009/7/17 John at Darkstar vac...@jeb.no: If we forget about politics and who-did-what, what is the common grounds between us and them? To me it seems like they want us to use their material, but that they are scared to let go of a possible income. This seems fairly similar to the Galleri NOR -case. Would it be possible for us to define an acceptable resolution that is also acceptable for them? They have a lot more material available and to me the whole thing seems to be less than optimum for both parties. They want to get the material known, but also have the option to sell high resolution versions. We want to illustrate articles, but have no need to sell our copies, neither do we need highres versions - we infact downsample the versions. This is in fact an apposite question - Erik has said WMF's in negotiation with the NPG: Quick note: The National Portrait Gallery contacted us to see if we can find a compromise regarding the images in question, and we’ve entered good faith discussions with them. Feel free to point this out in relevant places. That's a *really good thing*, because a lawsuit would be stupid for both of us. And working with people is always better than working against them. (The real problem, IMO, is funding - that governments tell galleries they have to make money from exploiting the works in their possession. This was barely workable last century, and is increasingly untenable in this one. This will require working with ministries of culture.) So: what would everyone here like to see in a compromise, that addresses the concerns of all sides? What makes the NPG happier and more secure, and will fly with WMF and with the Wikimedia community? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
2009/7/17 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: So: what would everyone here like to see in a compromise, that addresses the concerns of all sides? What makes the NPG happier and more secure, and will fly with WMF and with the Wikimedia community? Nothing. Wikimedia are not the only group that knows about Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. Some kind of joint fundraiser to pay for complete digitalization in return for the NPG dropping their copyright claims perhaps. But that simply leaves us with the same problem with say the national maritime museum. The release low res images as PD approach won't work in this case. We know the hi res stuff is PD in the US so have no real incentive not to use them (and if we don't others will). -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 5:26 PM, John at Darkstarvac...@jeb.no wrote: If we forget about politics and who-did-what, what is the common grounds between us and them? To me it seems like they want us to use their material, but that they are scared to let go of a possible income. This seems fairly similar to the Galleri NOR -case. Would it be possible for us to define an acceptable resolution that is also acceptable for them? They have a lot more material available and to me the whole thing seems to be less than optimum for both parties. They want to get the material known, but also have the option to sell high resolution versions. We want to illustrate articles, but have no need to sell our copies, neither do we need highres versions - we infact downsample the versions. Downsampling inline on the articles, yes, but a lot of people do click all the way through to see larger images. If it wasn't useful to people to see the larger images then they wouldn't have been online in the first place. It's also worth noting that the large image we have are actually small... and not especially suitable for careful examination or making actual size prints. For those purposes the NPG most likely has images with about 100x the number of pixels, at least if they are using a large format scan-back like everyone else. I've been in museums which provided loupes on cantilevers for examining the works. As I recall the NPG in London will loan you a magnifying glass for a couple of dollars. I'm not saying this to argue that there can't be a reasonable arrangement— only contradicting the position that there is some lower resolution which is just as good. The resolution of diminishing returns would be something significantly larger than what we have today. So agreements have to be on the basis of mutual benefit, rather than on sufficiency as I really doubt there is some middle spot that the involved parties can agree is completely sufficient. On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 5:37 PM, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: So: what would everyone here like to see in a compromise, that addresses the concerns of all sides? What makes the NPG happier and more secure, and will fly with WMF and with the Wikimedia community? An ideal resolution would: Provide the public with the greatest access to the works which can be agreed on. Access both quantity, quality, and broadness of character. (I.e. Broadness: Decorating my cubical in historic works of art is something both the NPG and the WMF should support and endorse, and arguably it in both of our charters although a bit slantwise) Maximize the probability of the information contained in the artwork surviving. (If the NPG has a severe fire, will the highest resolution digital copies be destroyed along with the paintings themselves? The digital medium has some wonderful properties for historical that are usually lost when extensive control is exerted) Would take advantage of the parties strengths. (Wikimedia's enormous amount of traffic, the Wikimedia communities ability to synthesize meaningful education works from raw material, and Wikipedia's ability to place the works in a larger intellectual context, and the NPG's large collection of historical artefacts, their established efforts to digitize and contextualize those works in a set of narrower but more detailed contexts). Would respect the parties mutual requirements: Would not impose DRM on the Wikimedia projects as has been suggested by the NPG (a violation of the content licensing). (*) Would not make the Wikimedia Foundation or its community of user appear to endorse or support the assertion of copyright on exacting reproductions of clearly public domain works. Wikimedia (as far as I can tell) and many of its users believes that it would be a significant harm to the public and a blow to the fundamental nature of copyright if that kind of loophole were allowed to exist. For the NPG, I'm not sure what their requirements are: The FOI request reflected only ~15k/yr in online licensing income, and at least some portion of that must come from the licensing of works which are entirely under copyright still. We could certainly find some ways to help make up that amount. But it would seem to me that their online program must already be operating at a loss. More information about their goals is clearly required. We could probably find people to sponsor or perform a substantial amount of digitization work and leave the NPG to their own images, if the access were permitted. I expect that the NPG is quite happy (and already easily funded) for doing their own doing their own digitization and enjoy the level of quality control that it provides. I'm doubtful that we could offer anything attractive to them on this matter. To meet (*) I suspect there may also need to be a degree of dealing with the cats out of the bag on the current images. Even if there was an agreement to use an alternative copy of some sort, we
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
geni wrote: 2009/7/17 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: So: what would everyone here like to see in a compromise, that addresses the concerns of all sides? What makes the NPG happier and more secure, and will fly with WMF and with the Wikimedia community? Nothing. Wikimedia are not the only group that knows about Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. Some kind of joint fundraiser to pay for complete digitalization in return for the NPG dropping their copyright claims perhaps. That would be a great outcome, and I would put some money helping the digitalization of their work if the NPG dropps their copyright claims. But that simply leaves us with the same problem with say the national maritime museum. The release low res images as PD approach won't work in this case. We know the hi res stuff is PD in the US so have no real incentive not to use them (and if we don't others will). Regards, Yann -- http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net http://fr.wikisource.org/ | Bibliothèque libre http://wikilivres.info | Documents libres ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
2009/7/17 Yann Forget y...@forget-me.net: geni wrote: 2009/7/17 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: So: what would everyone here like to see in a compromise, that addresses the concerns of all sides? What makes the NPG happier and more secure, and will fly with WMF and with the Wikimedia community? Nothing. Wikimedia are not the only group that knows about Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. Some kind of joint fundraiser to pay for complete digitalization in return for the NPG dropping their copyright claims perhaps. That would be a great outcome, and I would put some money helping the digitalization of their work if the NPG dropps their copyright claims. Not really. Remember there are a bunch of other collections. Many will be looking to use the NPG's business model. National maritime museum, Imperial war museum, British library, Various national archives. Can't afford to buy them all off. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
2009/7/17 geni geni...@gmail.com: 2009/7/17 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: So: what would everyone here like to see in a compromise, that addresses the concerns of all sides? What makes the NPG happier and more secure, and will fly with WMF and with the Wikimedia community? Nothing. Wikimedia are not the only group that knows about Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. What does Bridgeman vs. Corel have to do with it? We're talking about a UK legal threat. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
2009/7/17 geni geni...@gmail.com: Not really. Remember there are a bunch of other collections. Many will be looking to use the NPG's business model. National maritime museum, Imperial war museum, British library, Various national archives. Can't afford to buy them all off. It's worth noting that governments often expressly tell their galleries to be more businesslike and expressly require them to squeeze every penny from the (public domain) works they own. And to hell with the mission statement. So it'll be the usual mix of gentle one-at-a-time persuasion, luring people in, working under the radar, shifting paradigms, changing the culture, warping reality to a better shape, speaking softly and the occasional burst of action. Nothing we're not used to. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
2009/7/17 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: 2009/7/17 geni geni...@gmail.com: 2009/7/17 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: So: what would everyone here like to see in a compromise, that addresses the concerns of all sides? What makes the NPG happier and more secure, and will fly with WMF and with the Wikimedia community? Nothing. Wikimedia are not the only group that knows about Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. What does Bridgeman vs. Corel have to do with it? We're talking about a UK legal threat. Against a US resident and citizen using a website hosted in the US and owned by a US non profit. Bridgeman vs. Corel is the reason other US sites will do the same. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Thomas Daltonthomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/7/17 geni geni...@gmail.com: 2009/7/17 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: So: what would everyone here like to see in a compromise, that addresses the concerns of all sides? What makes the NPG happier and more secure, and will fly with WMF and with the Wikimedia community? Nothing. Wikimedia are not the only group that knows about Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. What does Bridgeman vs. Corel have to do with it? We're talking about a UK legal threat. We're dealing with a corner case cross-border legal threat. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 6:29 PM, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/7/17 Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com: (*) Would not make the Wikimedia Foundation or its community of user appear to endorse or support the assertion of copyright on exacting reproductions of clearly public domain works. Wikimedia (as far as I can tell) and many of its users believes that it would be a significant harm to the public and a blow to the fundamental nature of copyright if that kind of loophole were allowed to exist. I can imagine an NPG copyright tag that carefully states their claims without endorsing them: This image is public domain in the US, as a plain reproduction of a public domain work. The National Portrait Gallery asserts copyright over this scan in the UK and licenses said scan under [copyleft licence]. That would pass muster for Commons just fine, though many would be annoyed and consider it was a sellout not to push the public domain question. It would probably have to go as far as the full NPOV but X-Y-Z-respectable-notable-parties think this is would be a ruinous perversion of copyright, and not true even in the UK. (Consider: The Wikimedia communities are generally pretty diligent about actually following copyright, in my experience even more so than many commercial organizations much less online communities. Our communities will even behave more strictly than is required by law if we see some greater social purpose. Collectively we've taken the position we have because we have reason to believe the claims are both invalid and are socially harmful.) It's a pretty broad and complicated matter with ramifications far outside this particular instance. I surely don't want people coming back and telling me that slavish reproductions of PD art are copyrightable in the UK according to Wikipedia. Nor will the NPG want people claiming Wikipedia says their claims are bunk. Perhaps we can work out a scrupulously neutral statement which will satisfy both parties. I doubt this will happen unless both parties feel like they MUST come to an agreement. At it stands I think think that it's clear that agreement must actually be reached. As far as the sellout thing goes— consider that we already avoid accepting a lot of 'fair use' that we could legally get away with in the interest of expanding the base of of freely licensed works. You're point about copyleft is a good one though, generally a copyleft grant would completely satisfy our user community (as well as the foundation's formally stated mission). (There are more than a few things which are probably PD which we allow folks to assert copyleft licenses over; some of *my* SVGs probably fall into that bucket) But has this gotten so much attention that even that wouldn't be enough? I think probably so. Moreover, it's not clear enough that we could honestly negotiate it. I.e. the NPG could agree to it, but if the wider community doesn't like the arrangement and creates a lot of noise everyone involved would look like fools. Though, I'm prone to being too cynical at times. We've seemed to have had reasonably good luck elsewhere getting access to public domain art unencumbered by special requirements. We'd be short-sighted if we accept an unreasonably conciliatory compromise in this one case. I think we need to negotiate with the full expectation that whatever we permit here may be demanded in all future cases, even by non-museums, and even by those who would have previously asked for no special treatment. (Again, this is why the copyleft point is interesting— as we already accept copylefted works, I just have no clue how to reconcile it with the enormous amount of attention this has had so far plus the desire to not accept the validity of magically-not-PD trick) On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 6:49 PM, Thomas Daltonthomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: What does Bridgeman vs. Corel have to do with it? We're talking about a UK legal threat. I think Geni is making a cat's out of the bag argument. Regardless of the degree of validity of the claim in the UK a completely reasonable response to UK civil action against someone in the US is Good luck collecting on that!. A lot of people already have these images already. Getting clearly illegal content off the internet is already almost impossible. But something that appears to be clearly legal, in the US of all places,? Good luck with that. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
Sorry, I don't follow you on this one. If the existing business model don't work and it should be changed, then work with them to change it and make the alternate options viable. John David Gerard wrote: 2009/7/17 geni geni...@gmail.com: Not really. Remember there are a bunch of other collections. Many will be looking to use the NPG's business model. National maritime museum, Imperial war museum, British library, Various national archives. Can't afford to buy them all off. It's worth noting that governments often expressly tell their galleries to be more businesslike and expressly require them to squeeze every penny from the (public domain) works they own. And to hell with the mission statement. So it'll be the usual mix of gentle one-at-a-time persuasion, luring people in, working under the radar, shifting paradigms, changing the culture, warping reality to a better shape, speaking softly and the occasional burst of action. Nothing we're not used to. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
2009/7/18 John at Darkstar vac...@jeb.no: Sorry, I don't follow you on this one. If the existing business model don't work and it should be changed, then work with them to change it and make the alternate options viable. John We do not have the capacity to raise sufficient funds to make it a worthwhile business model. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
David Gerard wrote: (The real problem, IMO, is funding - that governments tell galleries they have to make money from exploiting the works in their possession. Ah, but do governments really say this? I think it's museum people who want to play business because business is glamorous and state-owned administration is dull and grey. I don't think governments originally came up with this idea. Someone should do research and cite sources. Wikipedia's article on museums, or the history of museums, should have a section about this annoying trend. I guess museum journals of the recent decades should have articles that can be cited as sources. -- Lars Aronsson (l...@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
2009/7/18 John at Darkstar vac...@jeb.no: Sorry, I don't follow you on this one. If the existing business model don't work and it should be changed, then work with them to change it and make the alternate options viable. That's what I mean - this issue goes way beyond NPG into how arts institutions are funded and sustained, which is why the NPG or people therein may believe they're really fighting for their lives and we threaten that. And if the NPG doesn't think that, other galleries may think that. And they may be right, if their funding's really bad. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] National Portrait Gallery
2009/7/18 Lars Aronsson l...@aronsson.se: Ah, but do governments really say this? I think it's museum people who want to play business because business is glamorous and state-owned administration is dull and grey. I don't think governments originally came up with this idea. I have been told this by Wikimedians who used to work in and with such institutions. Governments told them to be more businesslike, this attracted the people you describe. Someone should do research and cite sources. Wikipedia's article on museums, or the history of museums, should have a section about this annoying trend. I guess museum journals of the recent decades should have articles that can be cited as sources. I wonder if anyone's written about this without being sued ... - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
