Hi Kimberlee, Thanks for the background, it makes a lot more sense now.
In the case of these particular images, I believe that it's not just a matter of popping the slides onto a scanner and pushing a button. To digitize them in a decent quality without damaging the original media, one first has to make a print from the negative onto special paper, and then that has to be scanned. It's a rather specialised and labour-intensive process, especially in this day and age where glass plate negatives are primarily historical curiosities, rather than objects in everyday use. So, there's a fair bit of labour involved, but on the other hand, I don't think there's much "creativity" that goes into the process. How does this affect the legal situation? I'm not really sure, but it seems reasonable to say that QM's claim is either completely bogus (in which case the images are free), or it's valid but under a free licence, in which case the image is also free. Anything else seems like splitting hairs. It also would seem that the claim *would* be valid in the UK where we know the doctrine does apply, so even if it's not recognised in this country, someone using them in the UK would have to abide by the terms of the CC-BY-SA-3.0 licence. I'm happy to be corrected on that point, though! Cheers, Craig -----Original Message----- From: wikimediaau-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediaau-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Kimberlee Weatherall Sent: Monday, 9 November 2009 5:20 PM To: Wikimedia-au Subject: Re: [Wikimediaau-l] The A E "Bert" Roberts photograph collection Interesting. FWIW: - 'copyfraud' is a word that has been used in the academic literature to label overly broad or ambitious assertions of copyright (asserting copyright that doesn't or is unlikely to exist). See Jason Mazzone, Copyfraud (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=787244&rec=1&srcabs=3193 21). - An assertion based on 'sweat of the brow' is much more questionable following the IceTV decision by the High Court. If it's just work/running the photo through the processor, then it's questionable whether such digitised photo is copyright-protected even in Australia. However, when such cases have been raised in the UK they have been based on 'extensive work' getting the photograph to faithfully reflect the original. We haven't had that case come to court in Australia; reasoning in IceTV suggests it may not hold up here (anymore). Kimberlee Weatherall -----Original Message----- From: wikimediaau-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediaau-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of John Vandenberg Sent: Sunday, 8 November 2009 1:53 PM To: Wikimedia-au Subject: Re: [Wikimediaau-l] The A E "Bert" Roberts photograph collection On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 10:11 AM, Craig Franklin <cr...@halo-17.net> wrote: > Hi Peter, > > Unfortunately the physical objects that the collection is based upon (the glass plate negatives) are in a locked cupboard somewhere in the QM warehouse, so the possibility of getting our hands on them and making our own copies are fairly remote. > > I've deliberately worded the info in the infobox to be slightly ambiguous - QM *claim* copyright on the digitisation (much the same as the NPG in the UK), but there has not been a legal case here in Australia to my knowledge or the knowledge of QM's copyright people to confirm whether the "sweat of the brow" doctrine would hold up in an Australian court. We only say that QM "assert" copyright over the digitisation, not that we recognise that particular claim. And because the digitisation part is then released under a free, acceptable licence, the whole shebang is fine to go on Commons. the template is here: [[commons:Template:QM_Infobox]] watchlist it! ;-) > The images are tagged PD because they are unquestionably PD in the United States, which is what really matters in this case, but it's worth mentioning that there is a possible bit of CC-BY-SA-3.0 in there just so that nobody in Australia or the UK gets caught out. A similar example of a claim like this is: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phineas_Gage_Cased_Daguerreotype_Wilg usPhoto2008-12-19_Unretouched_Color.jpg and the derivative http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phineas_Gage_Daguerreotype_WilgusPhot o2008-12-19_CroppedInsideMat_Unretouched_BW.jpg Legally we are better off having a CC image than a PD image - the definition of the latter can change. For cases like this, it would be nice to have a CC-0-digitised-attribution license which requires attribution of the digitiser, but does not assert copyright over it. nice work Craig! -- John Vandenberg _______________________________________________ Wikimediaau-l mailing list Wikimediaau-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l _______________________________________________ Wikimediaau-l mailing list Wikimediaau-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l _______________________________________________ Wikimediaau-l mailing list Wikimediaau-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l
