In my capacity as Vice President of Wikimedia Australia on Thursday I spent several hours with the Rights and Permissions Officer of the National Galley of Australia. As you might assume from a meeting that went for 2.5 hours he was well disposed towards Wikipedia and to Commons.

However, there were some concerns raised that I thought it a good idea to talk through with you. 1) Attribution statements and 2) fair-use vs. {{self}}. I also had meetings with several other Australian national museums and galleries over the last couple of days each equally interested in us but with similar concerns.

1) Attribution statements.

Let me start by saying that I am aware that there is no legal requirement that an image in the Public Domain have an attribution. However, in the context of artworks, I can see no reason why we would not provide attribution - to do so is in the furtherance of our mission after all.

Our custom of attribution is to list the name of the author and a link back to where the image was found. Galleries and Museums have a much more extensive attribution culture and as I discovered, if we would like to develop and maintain good relations with galleries we nee to take up their attribution standards. Take for example this picture:

This is a PD image in the National Gallery collection that they are very happy for us to have. Furthermore, this is one of the nation's most iconic photographs and the Galley makes a lot of money selling posters of this picture. So, their happiness for us to have a copy shows their understanding of Public Domain. Such understanding cannot necessarily be assumed when dealing with galleries/museums/libraries. See, for example: http://ragesossscholar.blogspot.com/2009/01/libraries-and-copyfraud.html

The attribution information alongside the "Sunbaker" photo is copied directly from the gallery's website, which is also linked from the image. Furthermore, the filename is the same as the Gallery's record number. Attention to this detail is something that they greatly appreciate. Furthermore, displaying such information with the object is often a condition of its donation to the institution. In short, all the information that we would often see as superfluous - such as, "Type C photograph, gift of the John Doe foundation, 1975" - they see as absolutely essential to the attribution. We have no reason not to follow their practice as it makes no difference to us. Our insistence that "we don't have to, it's PD" only makes us look silly and them less likely to want to work with us. Meeting their requirements would be a good thing to do.

So, I ask that when we copy images from galleries/museums/libraries, or even when we take photos of the originals ourselves, we include the comprehensive attribution that the gallery/museum itself includes. I would suggest that this should be the Commons policy when dealing with art.

2) Fair-use vs. {{self}}.

Later in the meeting I was directed to look at two images:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Warlugulong.jpg and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Margaret_olley_still_life_1975.JPG

Both of these paintings are in the Australian National Gallery collection, both are self-made photographs taken by a visitor to the gallery, both are uploaded to en:Wikipedia and the subject matter of both are in copyright. However, one is listed as a fair-use claim whilst the other is listed as Public Domain by virtue of the photographer releasing the photo under that license. The question is, which copyright licence is correct? They are both in the same circumstances. At the time I did not look closely enough to see that the images were taken by wikipedians (as opposed to having been supplied by the gallery) and so I wrongly listed the File:Warlugulong.jpg for speedy deletion on the basis of an incorrect "self-PD" claim. As it turned out, even though my speedy deletion request was incorrect, showing that an image can in fact be listed for review by administrators was very encouraging to them. I also explained the basis of our fair-use system on the English wikipedia - and therefore the legal justification for our use of the Margaret Olley image - and this was also accepted and understood.

However, the original question remains, if I go into a gallery and take a photo of an in-copyright painting (and only the painting - I'm not talking about things that appear in the background here) should it be uploaded as fair use or as self-made? One of the above two examples is incorrect and we need to change it. I'm sure we have a policy about this kind of thing around somewhere but this policy is clearly not consistently applied enough for us to look professional when talking to galleries.

So, I ask that in the same way as we have a well defined and well publicised system for using fair-use on en:WP but not on commons (or de:WP for example) we should also make a well defined, consistent and well publicised system for dealing with self-made photographs of in-copyright artwork.

Your thoughts on these matters would be appreciated.

Sincerely,

-Liam Wyatt

email: liamwyatt@gmail.com

skype: wittylama

wikipedia: [[user:witty lama]]