Undoubtably some of them will be public domain - those for which the author died over 70 years ago - but it tends to be troublesome to find out when the author did die. Others, especially any audio/video, will still be copyrighted by the author. Assuming the authors are still alive, we'd need to get their permission to release them under a free license (we're a bit stuck with those where the author died less than 70 years ago, though, unless anyone's any good at necromancy...)
Either way, there are a lot of cases where it will be non-trivial to find out the copyright status, and it would be good if we could work with the BBC to establish them. Mike On 29 Jan 2009, at 13:44, AndrewRT wrote: > Thanks for posting this Mike. I'm not clear if they're retaining > copyright for the paintings - presumably if they are we couldn't just > copy them into Commons? > > > On Jan 29, 9:29 am, Michael Peel <em...@mikepeel.net> wrote: >> This might be worth investigating. The BBC might put the content >> online in high-resolution form, so we could just grab a copy, but it >> might be simpler / quicker / better publicity if we could get them to >> 'donate' a copy to Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons. >> >> Mike >> >> Begin forwarded message: >> >> >> >>> From: James Forrester <jdforres...@gmail.com> >>> Date: 29 January 2009 00:03:12 GMT >>> To: Communications Committee <wmfc...@lists.wikimedia.org> >>> Subject: [Wmfcc-l] Tangential press: "BBC to put nation's oil >>> paintings online" >>> Reply-To: Communications Committee <wmfc...@lists.wikimedia.org> >> >>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jan/28/bbc-digitalmedia >> >>> We're not mentioned, but (a) good news, and (b) WMUK may want to >>> play >>> in (snag a complete dump for Commons?). >> >>> Random thought. Sorry not very well thought-out. :-) >> >>> Yours, >>> -- >>> James D. Forrester >>> jdforres...@wikimedia.org | jdforres...@gmail.com >>> [[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] >> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Wmfcc-l mailing list >>> wmfc...@lists.wikimedia.org >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wmfcc-l >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia UK mailing list >> wikimediau...@wikimedia.orghttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ >> Wikimedia_UKhttp://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia UK mailing list > wikimediau...@wikimedia.org > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK > http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
