[OpenGLAM] FW: Wellcome

Tue Jan 21 12:58:51 UTC 2014

Dear Doug, 
thanks for the quick reply! i have heard this a number of times, but i have also heard a number op people disputing this. Now i am not really familiar with UK law (and how 19th century court cases influence things like copyright) but it would really great if someone give a fuller explanation 
of why there is copyright in these reproductions (or point us to one). 

That being said the fact that the welcome library has these rights does not mean that they need to license them (in the form of a CC-BY license). Instead the could apply a CC0 statement that would strip the reproductions of the rights that apply to the resolution and put them into where they belong: in the Public Domain. 
best, Paul 

On 21 Jan 2014, at 13:53, Doug Rocks-Macqueen <doug at landward.org> wrote:

> Sorry should have sent this to the list-
> 
> It might be a weird quirk of UK copyright law. If someone, for example a Museum or Library, takes digital photos of painting that is in Public Domain they technically own copyright to the photo. Even though that photo is an exact replication of the painting.
> 
> It is from an 1800s court case about the "sweat of the labour" and the effort one takes to make a replication.
> 
> This means in the UK museums own the copyright to hi-res images of works that they have taken.
> 
> So they technically they are adding CC to the digital works not the under lying images.
> 
> That might explain why they needed to add CC, for UK copyright because they are in the UK.
> 
> It is also more clear to people who don't know about copyright and might not know that an image is in Public Domain.  
> 
> Doug
> 
> > Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 13:41:43 +0100
> > From: mathias.schindler at wikimedia.de
> > To: jpekel at gmail.com
> > CC: open-glam at lists.okfn.org
> > Subject: Re: [OpenGLAM] Wellcome
> > 
> > 2014/1/21 Joris Pekel <jpekel at gmail.com>:
> > > Dear all,
> > >
> > > For those of you not on Twitter, yesterday the Wellcome Library announced
> > > yesterday that they have made over 100,000 high resolution images of
> > > manuscripts, paintings, etchings, early photography, and advertisements
> > > available using a CC-BY license.
> > 
> > Thanks for the link. I am still a bit unsure how a CC-license can
> > apply to works that are already in the public domain. In practice,
> > people might feel obliged to attribute the source by their own
> > editorial standards.
> > 
> > Mathias
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