Perhaps the air would be slightly clearer if Wikimedia UK were to make Freedom of
Information Act requests to the NPG and other Publicly funded galleries for the highest
def digital photos they have available of any artworks in their possession.
--- On Sat, 11/7/09, Virgin, Steve <Steve.Virgin(a)dowjones.com> wrote:
From: Virgin, Steve <Steve.Virgin(a)dowjones.com>
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] [Foundation-l] About that "sue and be damned" to
the National Portrait Gallery ...
To: "'wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org'"
<wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Date: Saturday, 11 July, 2009, 12:17 PM
David makes some excellent points. May I suggest one
thing?
Wouldn't it better if journalists were making the calls
that david rightly suggests?
If we have some 'friends' in this newspaper community could
we not tell them what david explains below and get them to
make this call?
If we wake them up to the weakness of their position they
will simply fix it.
If we get the news 'out there' we can simply be
interested bystanders watching their troubles. A nicer
situation to be in.
----- Original Message -----
From: wikimediauk-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
<wikimediauk-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
To: wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
<wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Sat Jul 11 11:43:42 2009
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] [Foundation-l] About that "sue
and be damned" to the National Portrait
Gallery ...
2009/7/11 David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>om>:
It gets better: the editor they sent the threat
to is
an American.
So, to recap: A UK organisation is threatening an
American with legal
action over what is unambiguously, in established
US
law, not a
copyright violation of any sort.
I can't see this ending well for the NPG.
In fact, the more legal success they have with this
approach (and they
do have a plausible cause in the UK, if they throw enough
money at
arguing so), the more *utterly radioactive* the publicity
for them
will be.
I’ll be calling the NPG first thing Monday (in my
capacity as “just a
blogger on Wikimedia-related topics”) to establish just
what they
think they’re doing here. Other WMF bloggers and, if
interested,
journalists may wish to do the same, to establish what
their
consistent response is.
- d.