[pd-discuss] Contact between Wikimedia Foundation and Wellcome Trust regarding image collections?

Fri Jan 14 00:27:28 UTC 2011

Hi there,

IIRC, photos of paintings are not copyrightable in the USA, courts have ruled that they are 'mere reproductions' and their whole purpose is to be the same as the original (ie, they do not meet a creativity test).

The UK is different, courts here have apparently recognised a 'sweat of the brow' argument, and claimed that copyright subsists in photos taken to faithfully reproduce public domain artworks. At least some lawyers in the UK think the courts have got this wrong.

This was discussed in 2009 in relation to a user taking images from the National Portrait Gallery and posting them on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Portrait_Gallery_copyright_dispute

On 13 Jan 2011, at 23:45, Jonathan Gray wrote:

> Thanks Mathias! In that case I think we'll probably write to them and
> perhaps cc some of the Wikimedia UK folks into the email.
> 
> Am I correct in assuming that Wikipedia would be interested in using
> the images if they were under a compatible license? I'm thinking
> particularly of things like:
> 
> http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/gallery/Treasures.html?f=1&
> 
> Also do you have any material to hand with success stories about
> cultural heritage institutions who have made low resolution images
> available under an open license, while perhaps selling access to /
> reuse rights for higher resolution versions?
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Jonathan
> 
> On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 10:30 PM, Mathias Schindler
> <mathias.schindler at wikimedia.de> wrote:
>> Dear Jonathan,
>> 
>> thanks for your email.
>> 
>> On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 7:07 PM, Jonathan Gray <jonathan.gray at okfn.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> We were interested in featuring several images of public domain works
>>> from the Wellcome Trust Image Collection [1] on the Public Domain
>>> Review [2], but we notice that their terms of use for the images in
>>> the collection is quite restrictive (personal, non-commercial use
>>> only) [3].
>> 
>> Do you have a clue what the legal basis for Wellcome Trust is to
>> justify restriction of usage? If the images are actually in the public
>> domain and no other copyright restriction applies, it would be safe to
>> ignore "terms of usage" that have no legal basis.
>> 
>>> I wonder whether anyone from Wikimedia has been in touch with them
>>> about licensing any of the images under CC-BY-SA or similar for use on
>>> Wikipedia and elsewhere?
>> 
>> Not to my knowledge. But I know about one Wikipedian who happens to
>> work there as a biologist.
>> 
>> Mathias
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Jonathan Gray
> 
> Community Coordinator
> The Open Knowledge Foundation
> http://blog.okfn.org
> 
> http://twitter.com/jwyg
> http://identi.ca/jwyg
> 
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Jim Killock 
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Open Rights Group
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