This is wonderful, Andrea! Congrats to Wikimedia Italia El 13/09/2012, a las 07:56, Andrea Zanni <[email protected]> escribió:
> Dear all, > Great news from Italy! After over one year of talks between Wikimedia Italia > and MiBAC, the Italian Ministry of Cultural and Artistic Heritage (MiBAC is a > quasi-acronym from its official Italian denomination "Ministero per i Beni e > le Attività Culturali"), we have managed to sign an agreement which will > allow us to participate to Wiki Loves Monuments in a much broader way that we > could before. MiBAC explicitly states in the agreement that «the Ministry > considers particularly useful, in order to promote awareness of such goods > [the ones managed by the Ministry - note that this is different from "owned > by the Ministry", see below], the production of specific items about them on > wikipedia.org, in all its languages, and the publication of images on > Wikimedia Commons, at the site http://commons.wikimedia.org.» Moreover, it > will explicitly ask to its local branches to give us the list of "lesser" > monuments, those which are not usually known but are nonetheless beautiful... > and poorly described in Wikipedia. Italian law however puts some constraints > unrelated to copyright issues: this means that the pictures uploaded must > bear the the template {{Italy-MiBAC-disclaimer}}[1]. The text of the > disclaimer is shown below; to understand what it actually means we put up > this text, which provides a bit of context about the history of the agreement > and the Italian law. > As you know, Wiki Loves Monuments started in 2010, and went European in 2011. > Wikimedia Italy wanted to participate to that edition, but we discovered a > great obstacle to the project, a law called "Codice Urbani"[2]. > "Codice Urbani" is an Italian law which states, among other provisions, that > to publish pictures of "cultural goods" (meaning in theory every cultural and > artistical object/place) for commercial purposes it is mandatory to obtain an > authorization from the local branch of the Ministry of Arts and Cultural > Heritage, the "Soprintendenza"[3]. The Superintendence can require the > payment of a fee; moreover, the authorization granted is will be for the > requester only (usually a publishing company) and only for a given > publication. Personal use and use for study and research are allowed without > a request for authorization. You certainly noticed that Codice Urbani is > problematic for a smooth realization of Wiki Loves Monuments. In fact, I can > make pictures of monuments I can give up my copyright allowing others to copy > my image without requiring my explicit permission; but the Codice Urbani says > that if I want to publish those picture a fee can be requested to me, so > anyway a third party can't make profit out of my picture without asking in > advance an authorization to the Soprintendenza. This issue is completely > independent from any issue regarding copyright: Coliseum and the Leaning > Tower fall (no pun intended) under Codice Urbani. So we were in difficulty in > organizing a photocampaign in Italy and asking people to (potentially) break > the Italian law, since the unclear points where many. > We started challenging this problems in Summer 2011: we contacted people from > the Ministry, we set up a draft of the project, we met once in Rome to speak > with high delegates. To make a long story short, we managed to obtain the > promise of receiving the lists of the monuments which could be photographed: > but then things slowed down, our contacts were moved to other offices, and > the Ministry himself (who was aware of the project) was replaced or political > reasons (unrelated to WLM, of course). Thus, we could not participate in WLM > 2011. > In December 2011 we started working out a new strategy: meanwhile, as you can > imagine, endless discussions were made in our mailing lists. We contacted > NEXA Center for Internet and Society[4a], an institution from the University > of Turin which supports and promotes Creative Commons: they are actually the > official contact for Creative Commons in Italy! We decided to allocate some > resources and hired Deborah De Angelis[4b], a lawyer specialized in Creative > Commons and cultural heritage. Deborah, who is based in Rome, started > contacting again the (renewed) Ministry of Cultural Heritage, proposing a > draft for an agreement between the Ministry and Wikimedia Italia. Several > months of discussions and bouncing of documents followed. > In January Wikimedia Italy also hired a Project Manager for Wiki Loves > Monuments, Emma Tracanella. Emma started developing and pursuing another > tactic developed by WMI to get permission for taking pictures of monuments: > asking directly the authorization to specific municipalities and > institutions. In fact, it is the "owners" of a monument who have the right to > authorize pictures of it. It's Codice Urbani itself which gives them these > rights, indeed. > Thus, we had two strategies: one top-down, that is discussing with the MiBac > to obtain an agreement clearly stating that we could organize Wiki Loves > Monuments in Italy, and explaining which were the boundaries of the law (the > dream here would have been to change the law itself, but we would have needed > to bring the issue in Parliament, and more urged matters pressed); the other > bottom-up, that is asking the permissions to the single institutions. Note > that the bottom-up strategy meant having to deal with 8000+ different > municipalities, endless cultural institutions, uncountable churches (every > parish priest has the right for is own parish, unless this is in some special > list from the Ministry). We let you imagine the complexity of the landscape > that was opening in front of us: it was a nightmare, but at least it could > give us some "free" monuments. > Emma started making calls to everyone who could give us authorization for > taking photo of monuments. We started spreading the word, calling friends of > friends for help, starting a blog (our wikilovesmonuments.it), begging for > authorization everywhere. We had a great ally in APT Services, the Tourist > office for Emilia Romagna, with which we already partnered in the past for > some Wikipedia-related projects; they organized meetings with mayors and > regional politicians. In the end, we reached different regions and provinces, > and several municipalities (here there is a list[5]). Our list of monuments > counts in hundreds, and it's still improving everyday (here there is a map of > the lists[6]). A drop in the ocean, if you think at the enormous Italian > cultural heritage: but it is all we managed to get. > This up to yesterday. Today, we had finally an answer from MiBAC, and it was > positive. The Ministry signed an agreement with Wikimedia Italia saying that: > the Ministry, with the aim of promoting the knowledge of the Italian Cultural > Heritage, finds useful that the monuments have an article on Wikipedia with > photographs. (yes, it is *actually* saying that). > the Ministry will send an internal communication asking to every > Soprintendenza to send us a list of the monuments they control, along with a > permission to take photos of them. Pics of these monuments can be released in > CC-BY-SA, in the sense that the maker of the photograph can relinquish his > own rights; no fee is needed to be paid to the monuments' owners by the > photographer if he does not want to use them for commercial purposes. > As part of the agreement, we however have to add a disclaimer to the > pictures; the one in {{Italy-MiBAC-disclaimer}}. The text of the advice is > shown below: > This image reproduces a property belonging to the Italian cultural heritage > as entrusted to the Italian government. Such images are regulated by Articles > 106 et seq. of the Italian Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape under > Legislative Decree No. 42, dated January 22, 2004, and its subsequent > amendments. These regulations, unrelated to copyright regulations, establish > a system for the protection Italy’s historic and artistic heritage and its > standards of dignity. Among other things, these regulations provide for the > payment of a concession fee by those who intend to benefit economically from > reproductions of property belonging to the Italian cultural heritage. > Reproduction of this image is permitted for personal use or study. A further > authorization by the Italian Ministry of Heritage and Culture is required for > reproduction for any other purpose, and particularly for commercial use. Such > commercial use includes, but is not limited to, use in (a) any form of > advertising, and (b) any company name, logo, trademark, image, activity, or > product. > Our lawyers (which are people from Creative Commons Italy) assure us that > this license is compatible with CC-BY-SA, because the provisions of the > license, which deals only with intellectual propriety, is saved and the > limitation occurs on another, different, level. In other words, the > photographer releases the picture in CC-BY-SA, the Ministry allows to put it > on Commons waiving its own right to get a fee, but Codice Urbani keeps > staying in force, protecting the pics from automatic commercial use by third > parties. To be more explicit, please have a look the the section 5 of the > Legal Code of Creative Commons CC-BY-SA-3.0 [7], which we are quoted below: > boldface is ours. > 5. Representations, Warranties and Disclaimer > Unless otherwise mutually agreed to by the parties in writing, licensor > offers the work as-is and makes no representations or warranties of any kind > concerning the work, express, implied, statutory or otherwise, including, > without limitation, warranties of title, merchantibility, fitness for a > particular purpose, noninfringement, or the absence of latent or other > defects, accuracy, or the presence of absence of errors, whether or not > discoverable. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied > warranties, so such exclusion may not apply to you > As you may see, it's true that the author of the photo cannot vouch for the > merchantability of the images, since this is not a right of his/her; but > CC-BY-SA explicitly takes into account that case. > To the best of our knowledge, this agreement is the first one of its kind in > Italy, and sees an official recognition of the existence of Creative Commons > licenses; moreover, it is a necessary step towards new regulations > recognizing the importance of the free dissemination of information about the > cultural and artistic heritage, which cannot just be "museum stuff". We are > thrilled to see what will come out, and how Italians will answer to this > challenge. We are very proud to have obtained this. > Feel free to ask us anything you think relevant, we'll do what we can to > answer. We are also open to prepare some FAQ, if we see the need for them. > Best regards, > Cristian and Andrea > on behalf of the Wiki Loves Monuments organizing committee in Italy > > References > [1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Italy-MiBAC-disclaimer > [2] http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codice_Urbani > [3] http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soprintendenze > [4a] http://nexa.polito.it/ > [4b] http://nexa.polito.it/fellows > [5] http://www.wikilovesmonuments.it/istituzioni/ > [6] http://www.wikilovesmonuments.it/monumenti/lista-monumenti/ ; also on > wiki at: > http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progetto:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012/Monumenti > [7] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode > _______________________________________________ > Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments > http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org
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