[Foundation-l] [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF"

Fri Aug 22 07:58:19 UTC 2008

On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 8:03 PM, Erik Moeller <erik a wikimedia.org> wrote:

> 2008/8/21 Luiz Augusto <lugusto a gmail.com>:
> > So, yes, there is a need to an official statement. Erik and Mike have
> given
> > theirs *opinions*.
>
> There are three separate questions here:
>
> 1) Does hosting these images put the WMF in legal danger? Mike has
> weighed in on this, and said that based on the record so far, there is
> no reason to assume that this is the case. If you want to know if
> something should be deleted to protect WMF from harm, Mike is the
> person to ask. He has been asked and has answered.
>
> Sueing the WMF for publishing online photos of old work of arts may be
counterproductive for the copyright owner (at the end of the day if I see a
picture on Wikipedia I may just be tempted to go the museum and see the real
thing paying the ticket); however, I'm concerned that a bona fide reuser,
who has seen the PD tag on commons, may be sued.
Cruccone