#1
The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) houses a collection of fine art, most of which is public domain (so, in other words, owned by us and not them in terms of their legal status in copyright definition). Recently, Wikipedia added a heap of NPG images to its website to further spread the availability of these images. Wikipedia is a public-interest non-profit online encyclopedia, just in case you've been on Mars for the last ten years and didn't know.
And now the NPG is going to war against Wiki over its use of the images. So, let's be clear on this, a bunch of jpegs representing public-domain images are being fairly used on a non-profit world class encyclopedia website. So why are the NPG going to war?
Do they have a real case here? Or is this just a case of the NPG flapping like spoilt brats?
I'm not sure how this all works legally, they are fighting in one hell of a huge grey area, but it does show just how fickle people have become over digital assets these days. Since the internet came around, people have banded around their "copyright entitlements" like nobody's business. In the world of free publishing and the empowerment that the internet offers to all, I think this type of behaviour is selfish, stupid, and does not benefit the public one bit.
Don't get me wrong - copyright is important and essential. I don't embark on piracy (I'm one of those rare breed that pays for every track of music I download), and I do believe that the creative endeavours of others should be rewarded appropriately. However, just imagine if Warner Bros sued for millions every Batman fanboy out there who has a bat logo on their blog, or if the Louvre sued every website that showed an image of the Mona Lisa? There has to be SOME freedom (and, under certain "fair use" guidelines, there is a bit of basic freedom) and when the "copying" is 100% in the public interest and breaks absolutely zero copyright laws and is worth zero dollars then why oh why do we see these stupid legal battles start up?
Surely the NPG would be far better using their resources to team up with groups such as Wiki?
Just my opinion.
Guest 657- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 3,037
#2
Hmmm.........my photographs used to get stolen from my website quite a lot, ditto some of my articles despite the fact it states they are copyright (in fact I have reduced the size of most of photos on my site now which has cut it down somewhat.)
I used a portrait shot from the NPG for a story a while back and wrote and obtained permission to do so. If they had said no I simply would not have used it.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#3
interesting point, i could understand an artist(one who is still alive of course), taking umbrage, and raising the issue of ccopyright in the noble cause of free publicity to the artist.
my understanding is that the displays in the national portrait gallery are either funded out of taxpayers money or are donated by a benefactor.