[Foundation-l] a heads-up on Wikimedia France's adventures with the Frenc...

Thu Oct 1 00:22:39 UTC 2009

wjhonson at aol.com wrote:
>  -----Original Message-----
> 
> From: wiki-lists at phizz.demon.co.uk
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Wed, Sep 30, 2009 4:17 pm
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] a heads-up on Wikimedia France's adventures with the Frenc...
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> wjhonson at aol.com wrote:
>> The image is in the public domain.  That's the point.
>> Public means all public, not limited to the whims of what the boundary of a 
> certain
>> country might be today.
>>
> 
> 
> Suppose someone goes into the Louvre not with a camera but with a laser
> scanner. they digitize the entire statue, convert the point cloud into
> surfaces, and then from the surfaces into CNC program files. Finally
> they slap a block of marble on a milling machine and mill out an exact
> copy of the original. Whilst they don't get to obtain any copyright on
> the copy YOU don't get to claim that the CNC files are yours of right.
> 
> Same with the digitization of a painting.>>
> --------------------
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> Are you believing that I'm stating there is a right to claim anything?
> Because if you are, I never did. I stated quite the opposite.
> Once something is in the "public domain" in any country, then you can use it.
> That is what I stated, and nothing more.
> 

   "Once an image has "been paid for" and is "in the public domain",
    that means that anyone, in this country, the next, or on Venus
    can use the image."

This entire discussion is concerned not with the work per se but with 
particular digital encodings of the work. Where some seem to think that 
just because the work is PD there is a right to all encodings of that 
work. If that isn't what is being claimed here then there is no problem, 
the museums are under no obligation to provide any digital representation.

> Turning a 3-d statue into a series of computer data files is quite a different
> animal from turning a 2-d painting into a exactly reproduced photograph.
> 

It is exactly the same thing. The CNC files are exactly equivalent to a 
jpeg. So I can't quite see why you'd consider them different.

> A photographic copy, adhering to the original painting, does not enjoy
> a new copyright.  A photograph of a painting which is in the public domain
> does not enjoy any new rights.  Once that photograph is posted online,
> anyone can make a copy of it and do whatever they want with it.
> 

The posited CNC files do exactly the same thing: they adhere to the 
original statue. In all probability they encode the reproduction of the 
original object more exactly then a jpeg encodes the reproduction of a 
painting. Logically under this doctrine that the digital encoding is the 
work if say some disgruntled employee were to post them online then 
"anyone can make a copy of it and do whatever they want with it."