Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-07-20/Copyright dispute

Some thoughts on things to cover

Some things I'd like to see this report cover if possible:

• Clearing up some of the confusion regarding money: what the NPG has invested in its digitisation programme (£1 million), what it spent on putting the images online (£39,000), what it earned from web licensing last year (£11,291), and what it earned from magazine and book licensing last year (£339,000), and the percentage this is of their total income (I've heard 2,3%, someone should check this).
• A note that no one has yet been sued (perhaps the most common misconception).
• A note that the Wikimedia Foundation has no holdings in the UK (at least one report got this wrong).
• A note that the gallery has free entry, but does not permit photography (with or without flash).
• Information about the current negotiations between the WMF and NPG (which I know very little about).
• Clarification that the Bundesarchive contribution was of freely licensed copyrighted works, not public domain works (which is why they were reduced resolution).
• Maybe some thoughts on image resolution.
• There has been at least one detailed legal analysis that may be useful.

Will add more thoughts if I think of anything. Dcoetzee 15:47, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

The 2.3% refer to the previous year (2007/2008), and (as described at Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-07-13/Open_letter#The_institutions.27_needs) were calculated from two numbers in the National Portrait Gallery Annual Report and Accounts 2007-2008:

• £16,610,000 "Total incoming resources" from the "CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2008", on p.36
• £378,000 income from "Picture Library" in section 2c, "Activities for generating funds" (definition), as given on p.43, in the "NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2008" (which, as noted on p.38, form part of the same account as the "Consolidated Statement)

(378000/16610000 = 0.02275...)

Some more remarks:

• Assuming that the "more than £339,000" (defined in the Guardian article as the "projected gross revenue from fees in 2008/9") refers to the same item, the income from the Picture library has shrunk considerably during the last three years:
  • £433,000 in 2006/2007 (see p.43 again)
  • £378,000 in 2007/2008
  • £339,000 in 2008/2009 (or a bit "more than" that)
• The majority of the licensing fees income goes to the cost of raising those fees itself. The 2007/2008 annual report says on p.17 that the Picture Library rendered "a surplus, less costs, in excess of £130,000 during difficult conditions in publishing, television and media markets, and during implementation, without interruption to service, of the first instalment of a new two-part computer system" (a statement that raises the question why the following year saw a further decline).
• Comparing the income from the Picture library to the other "Activities for generating funds", one finds that it is not much more than either that from "Catering franchise" (£290,000) or "Venue hire" (£321,000, apparently means renting the Gallery's buildings for corporate events), and is dwarfed by "Retail" (£1,437,000, I assume this means this means selling items such as postcards and catalogues, for which licensing fees have already been paid, in the museum shop and over the NPG's website)
• An aside remark, not quite relevant for the Signpost article: In 2006, NPG director Sandy Nairne seems to have gotten quite a favorable impression of Wikipedia, and he even made an edit ;) [1].

Regards, HaeB (talk) 18:43, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Derrick, I've incorporated as much of what you suggest as I think fits. Some of it is tangential to the main story, and I don't want to get into the Sisyphean task of correcting everything that's wrong on the internet.--ragesoss (talk) 19:16, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Not a problem, just suggestions. :-) Thanks for writing this. Dcoetzee 21:38, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

The NPG and other public/state museums, galleries and other bodies are the custodians of the objects they hold #not the owners#. The only things they have a claim to are the photographs, books and other created objects which the staff/hired in professionals have created as part of their work.

Various museums etc have an arrangement for 'photographs for personal etc use' and a number are prepared to come to arrangements with WP and similar bodies - presumably on the grounds of carrying out their remit, and because the publicity/information provided/other aspects will be of at least indirect benefit to them.

Should point out - we only hear from those bodies who are looking for problems (and are not willing to come to a 'use this image not that and provide a link for buying better quality images' arrangement). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.104.132.41 (talk) 09:27, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Update 2009-07-22

UK magazine Amateur Photographer quotes a statement from a spokesman from the NPG issued at 1340 BST on Tuesday 21:

We are pleased to announce that on Monday 20 July we received correspondence from D Coetzee's lawyer. We wish to give this due consideration before commenting further. The Gallery will make a further announcement in due course once the situation is clearer.

Looks like we're back in a waiting game to see what the NPG's next move is… Physchim62 (talk) 11:04, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Another interesting article was this MediaPost article, which quotes my attorney directly:

Fred von Lohmann, an attorney with the organization, says the dispute between the museum and Coetzee/Wikipedia poses a question that could affect a broad swath of U.S. Web companies that make content available throughout the world: "Are they going to be bound by the most restrictive copyright law anywhere on the planet, or by U.S. law?" [...]

Von Lohmann says his client has no obligation to comply with another country's restrictive copyright law. "It's not the case that as an American you have to worry about the laws of every other country," he says. "The U.S. Congress has made decisions -- based in part on our constitution and our First Amendment -- that certain kinds of works are not copyrightable," he says.

He says he hopes to resolve the dispute with the National Portrait Gallery out of court, but isn't ruling out filing a lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment against the museum. "We have not taken any options off the table," he says.

Dcoetzee 11:30, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Nice one, Derrick! I'd assumed you wouldn't want to comment directly (on the specific matters of the not-a-suit), but quoting someone who quotes your attorney is a nice way round the problem! Physchim62 (talk) 11:42, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Legal bloggers

I'll note here the qualifications of the two bloggers mentioned in the article: Simon Bradshaw appears to be a trainee barrister, with postgraduate qualifications in intellectual property law, who collaborates with the Open Rights Group; Andres Guadamuz is a lecturer in law at the University of Edinburgh, specialising in intellectual property law. A third blog which is relevant in this section is by Francis Davey, a practising barrister specialising in IP law. In short, these are analyses that should be taken seriously, even if the authors themselves admit that they haven't covered all the possible angles. Physchim62 (talk) 11:37, 22 July 2009 (UTC)