Fastfission wrote:
> Well, the case you are thinking of is surely Bridgeman v. Corel. (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_v._Corel) or something that affirms
> it (like the recent Meshwerks v. Toyota).
> I understand that at the moment Wikipedia has a rather complicated
> determination of whether they use it or not.
>
> Most of the legal question revolves around whether there is a lot of
> creativity in doing a reproduction. There are arguments on either side of
> things. Still, I think in the case of Corbis, the fact that at most they are
> just putting a photo onto a flat-bed scanner, maybe applying "auto-contrast"
> to the results (or doing some other sort of color syncing), ought to
> preclude the idea that they are doing anything "creative" in such cases.
>
> (One thing that has long annoyed me in the discussions about Bridgeman is
> that the question is always posed as whether or not the adjustments were
> creative enough to generate a new copyright. In my mind this ignores the
> question of whether they are creative enough to generate a new copyright
> _and thus give the modifier monopoly control over the previous public domain
> material_. Moving things from the public to the private domain is a
> dangerous game and should only be reserved for truly substantial and
> worthwhile efforts to rehabilitate something that would otherwise be fairly
> useless -- massive restorations of crumbling things that require an amount
> of artistry on par with that which created the restored object in question
> -- and not just tweaking the reds and greens a bit, removing a scratch here
> or there with the clone tool. In my opinion. But I am neither a lawyer nor a
> judge.)
The law in this regard has more to do with whether the work is 
"original" rather than "creative". The distinction may seem somewhat 
hair-splitting, but that's what law suits are about.

Ec

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
[email protected]
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Reply via email to