I'm not sure who is the appropriate person to contact the gallery to address this issue, but I hope that it can be done as tactfully and non-confrontationally as possible, and I trust that there will have been consultation with the Office before any comments of a legal nature are made.
Newyorkbrad On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 8:27 AM, David Gerard <dger...@gmail.com> wrote: > I was going to call NPG this morning first thing (as a volunteer, to > see what could be reasonably done to avert a public battle - our own > museum/gallery liaison volunteers can really, really do without a > public battle fouling up their ongoing efforts) but was awake all > night with a sick child and so I just got up ... has anyone here > called yet, as a volunteer? I know Physchim62, who did a lot to get > the American Chemical Society working with us, was going to call. Has > anyone else? > > (I don't hold out much hope for this - the NPG's position has been > completely consistent and completely uncooperative for many years.. > But it's always worth asking.) > > It's reasonably important to avoid discussing the possible legal case, > for Dcoetzee's sake, *but* the NPG's lawyers have effectively written a > press release read by ten thousand Wikimedians and a million Slashdot > readers, that clearly does directly and personally affect a lot of > them. I bet it's been more widely read than any intentional press > release of theirs has been. > > Ideal outcome: PD everything, they welcome a team of our photographers in. > > Plausible good outcome: We put up the hi-res images with notes that > they are PD in the US but the NPG claims copyright in Europe and > releases them under CC-by-sa, and full credit is requested in either > case. (Copyleft is not as ideal as PD, but it's plenty good enough for > us.) We issue press releases lauding the NPG to the skies and say nice > things about them forever. > > Another plausible good outcome: They welcome a team of our > photographers in. Careful supervision, etc. Then we can do stuff like > infrared shots as well (which can show interesting things about a > painting's restoration history). > > Awful outcome: great big legal battle. > > Bad outcome: mainstream press about this at all, really. The NPG > probably doesn't see it that way. > > Any other possible outcomes to list? > > Additional data point: the NPG has removed the hi-res versions. Thus, > the Wikimedia copies are the *only* copies currently available. > > This makes it actually culturally important for us to keep them up! > > > - d. > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
