Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright of newly found image of Phineas Gage from 1850

[Carcharoth]

Daguerrotypes are quite interesting in terms of preservation and copying.

>From our article on them:

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

[That's one of the better 'start' articles I've seen, for those
discussing article assessment accuracies.]

"The daguerreotype is a negative image, but the mirrored surface of
the metal plate reflects the image and makes it appear positive in the
proper light. Thus, daguerreotype is a direct photographic process
without the capacity for duplication." (this is repeated later in the
article in different words: "lack of a negative image from which
multiple positive "prints" could be made")

"The image produced by this method is extremely fragile and
susceptible to damage when handled improperly. Practically all
daguerreotypes are protected from accidental damage by a glass-fronted
case."

"The best-preserved daguerreotypes dating from the nineteenth century
are sealed in robust glass cases evacuated of air and filled with a
chemically inert gas, typically nitrogen."

That would make slavish reproductions quite difficult.

There is a nice bit here as well, about patents versus 'free' invention:

"Instead of Daguerre obtaining a French patent, the French government
provided a pension for him[2]. In Britain, Miles Berry, acting on
Daguerre's behalf, obtained a patent for the daguerreotype process on
August 14, 1839. Almost simultaneously, on August 19, 1839, the French
government announced the invention as a gift "Free to the World.""

Quite ironic, really, considering how long the technology lasted
before being replaced by other methods (mainly the ambrotype in the
late 1850s, about 10 or so years later). The main reason, it seems,
being mercury poisoning.

"Unlike film and paper photography however, a properly sealed
daguerreotype can potentially last indefinitely."

In the copyright situation today, and with the advent of the internet,
what challenges face legislators comparing transient media with those
that can potentially "last indefinitely"?

Carcharoth

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 7:30 PM, Brian wrote:
> A daguerreotype of a well adjusted [[Phineas Gage]] holding the rod that
> impaled his frontal lobes was recently discovered. It will be published in
> The Journal of the History of the Neurosciences imminently. It was, in my
> opinion, correctly uploaded to Commons under the Public Domain. It is, after
> all, an uncreative photograph of a daguerreotype made in the 1850s by an
> unknown photographer.
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phineas_Gage.jpg
>
> That said, have a look at the copyright text of the image claimed by the
> gallery that took the photo.
>
> http://brightbytes.com/phineasgage/index.html
>
> **NOTE* We are not claiming copyright to the work of an anonymous 1850s
> photographer but to the photograph we made of this object in our possession.
> Since you can't upload a daguerreotype to the internet and no one else could
> possibly have photographed this object for over 30 years, the only
> photographs available are the ones we have made.*
>
> *For several years we have had an informal business supplying images in our
> collection  to publishers,
> film, and television producers. We often grant permission for educational
> and non-profit usage.*
>
> *High resolution photographs without a watermark are available for
> reproduction. Contact us for information on usage fees.*
> *
> *My reading of this is that they claim copyright of the image and that they
> often allow educational and non-profit institutions to use versions of the
> images that contain watermarks.
> ___
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Re: [WikiEN-l] At last, a new stats run for en:wp!

[Andrew Turvey]

Having these up to date statistics available is fantastic news. Is there 
anything we should learn from the 2.5 year interlude? 

- "David Gerard"  wrote: 
> From: "David Gerard"  
> To: "English Wikipedia"  
> Sent: Saturday, 18 July, 2009 09:53:17 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, 
> Portugal 
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] At last, a new stats run for en:wp! 
> 
> http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm 
> http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/07/new-statistics-for-the-english-wikipedia/ 
> http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/07/new-statistics-for-the-english-wikipedia-2/
>  
> 
> This means that we don't have to keep telling people numbers from Oct 2006 
> ... 
> 
> 
> - d. 
> 
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Re: [WikiEN-l] At last, a new stats run for en:wp!

[Charles Matthews]

Sage Ross wrote:
> To me, the data is really encouraging.  Take a look at the charts for
> New Wikipedians vs. Active Wikipedians.  We knew before that both of
> those peaked in early 2007.  But now it seems that the decline has
> more or less stabilized, and the decline in active Wikipedians was
> less severe than new Wikipedians.  Edits per month, and maybe new
> articles per month, look to be stabilizing as well.
>   
This also was my first impression: the last 12 months have not been so 
bad at all. I'd like to be able to combine this with a continuing 
thought of mine: WP's model is beginning to "bite", in the sense that  
it has not proved really problematic to bring new areas of content 
along, and there has also been progress in upgrading lower-quality 
existing articles. I think both points are still somewhat debatable; but 
if both of these are granted in a general sense (dodging say round BLP 
and a few vexed areas where edit wars are still typical) there is scope 
for optimism.

Charles


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Re: [WikiEN-l] So when do we send a bill to AP?

[Charles Matthews]

David Gerard wrote:
> http://idealink.vijtable.com/2009/07/17/associated-press-its-okay-if-we-do-it/
>
> Or a suggested donation to WMF, perhaps.
>   
Make sure to add the bill up wrong. I notice that people at AP clearly 
think 150 minutes is 3.5 hours, so there is scope for overcharging. (I 
could be wrong and they might be allowing nearly an hour for tea, paying 
respect to older, "slow food" traditions of cricket.)

Charles


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[WikiEN-l] Copyright of newly found image of Phineas Gage from 1850

[Brian]

A daguerreotype of a well adjusted [[Phineas Gage]] holding the rod that
impaled his frontal lobes was recently discovered. It will be published in
The Journal of the History of the Neurosciences imminently. It was, in my
opinion, correctly uploaded to Commons under the Public Domain. It is, after
all, an uncreative photograph of a daguerreotype made in the 1850s by an
unknown photographer.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phineas_Gage.jpg

That said, have a look at the copyright text of the image claimed by the
gallery that took the photo.

http://brightbytes.com/phineasgage/index.html

**NOTE* We are not claiming copyright to the work of an anonymous 1850s
photographer but to the photograph we made of this object in our possession.
Since you can't upload a daguerreotype to the internet and no one else could
possibly have photographed this object for over 30 years, the only
photographs available are the ones we have made.*

*For several years we have had an informal business supplying images in our
collection  to publishers,
film, and television producers. We often grant permission for educational
and non-profit usage.*

*High resolution photographs without a watermark are available for
reproduction. Contact us for information on usage fees.*
*
*My reading of this is that they claim copyright of the image and that they
often allow educational and non-profit institutions to use versions of the
images that contain watermarks.
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Re: [WikiEN-l] At last, a new stats run for en:wp!

[Stephen Bain]

On Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 2:15 AM, Sage Ross wrote:
>
> To me, the data is really encouraging.  Take a look at the charts for
> New Wikipedians vs. Active Wikipedians.  We knew before that both of
> those peaked in early 2007.  But now it seems that the decline has
> more or less stabilized, and the decline in active Wikipedians was
> less severe than new Wikipedians.  Edits per month, and maybe new
> articles per month, look to be stabilizing as well.

Yes, we've stopped having exponential growth, but have settled
comfortably into more-or-less linear growth.

-- 
Stephen Bain
stephen.b...@gmail.com

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Re: [WikiEN-l] At last, a new stats run for en:wp!

[Sage Ross]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 7:20 AM, Carcharoth wrote:

>
> Cool! I'm too lazy to look. Anything there worth discussing?
>

To me, the data is really encouraging.  Take a look at the charts for
New Wikipedians vs. Active Wikipedians.  We knew before that both of
those peaked in early 2007.  But now it seems that the decline has
more or less stabilized, and the decline in active Wikipedians was
less severe than new Wikipedians.  Edits per month, and maybe new
articles per month, look to be stabilizing as well.

Broadly speaking, there are two possible explanations for why
community activity level peaked and then declined: market saturation
(just about everyone likely to edit was exposed to Wikipedia by mid
2007) or project maturity (activity declines because people can't find
things to do).  Obviously there are elements of both at work, but
comparing the new and active charts suggests to me that market
saturation has been the dominant factor, and that editors are not
having too much trouble finding things to work on.  That's much more
cause for optimism than if people were leaving simply because they
were satisfied with a 'good enough' Wikipedia (which everyone here
knows has a long way to go yet).

In another thread, Will Johnson (I think) argued that activity levels
(new articles, in particular) would continue to decline rapidly in the
next few years and that by Christmas we would have fewer than 1000 new
articles per day.  Looking at the new stats, I'm more confident that
en-wiki can maintain a steady state of activity something close to the
present level (especially as the usability efforts begin to make it
easier for newbies to edit, after years of increasingly complex markup
that did the opposite).

-Sage

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[Carcharoth]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 3:17 PM, Carcharoth wrote:



> Picture Archive Council of America:
>
> http://www.pacaoffice.org/
>
> "PACA, the Picture Archive Council of America, is the trade
> organization in North America that represents the vital interests of
> stock archives of every size, from individual photographers to large
> corporations, who license images for commercial reproduction. Founded
> in 1951, its membership includes over 100 companies in North America
> and over 50 international members."

Hmm. Either there is another trade organisation in the USA, or the
industry is far more consolidated than in Europe (1053 members of the
European equivalent body). 100 sounds a bit low, unless there are some
giants in there like Corbis. But still, it would be interesting to see
how many museums and other "heritage" organisations are in that lot.

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[Carcharoth]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 2:47 PM, David Gerard wrote:
> 2009/7/18 Carcharoth :



>> You may want to look through the
>> BAPLA list and see if any charities or non-profit organisations are
>> there - there might well be, as I've never looked through the whole
>> list, but I suspect that even those ones would be selling their
>> images, not distributing them for free reuse (or they would be doing a
>> combination of free distribution and sales). The closest you might
>> come would be "non-commercial use" (e.g. museums), but that, as has
>> been made clear at Commons, is insufficiently free.
>
> BAPLA's stated ambitions appear to be to become the monopoly cartel
> for images in the UK - the RIAA or MPAA, with similar morals and
> ethics.

Where do you get that impression? They are a trade association.

Did you look through the list?

http://www.bapla.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=45

You may also want to look at the sister organisations:

"PACA in the USA and CEPIC across Europe".

Picture Archive Council of America:

http://www.pacaoffice.org/

"PACA, the Picture Archive Council of America, is the trade
organization in North America that represents the vital interests of
stock archives of every size, from individual photographers to large
corporations, who license images for commercial reproduction. Founded
in 1951, its membership includes over 100 companies in North America
and over 50 international members."

Co-ordination of European Picture Agencies Press Stock Heritage:

http://www.cepic.org/

"CEPIC is a European Economic Interest Group (E.E.I.G) not for profit
representing the interests of picture associations, agencies and
libraries in Europe, in total 1.053 picture agencies and libraries in
Europe, from the smallest to the largest, the sole trader and the
global company, covering all aspects of photography, news, stock,
heritage. CEPIC organises each year an Agent Congress, enabling agents
from all over the world to meet. "

It's a big industry (though many of the picture libraries are
vanishingly small and many get swallowed up by the giants). I think
most of it is photographers taking contemporary pictures and selling
them (remember this is mostly stock photography, news photography is
something different - Commons is interesting in that it combines news
photography and stock photography). Note the reference to "news,
stock, heritage" in the CEPIC description. The bit of interest here is
"heritage", though the very oldest of the news photography is now
falling into the public domain.

How much of the worldwide sales of images consists of sales from scans
of archives of public domain and historical material (or, for example,
the commercial sale of US-PD material, such as NASA and Library of
Congress), I don't know, but that is only part of the industry. The
main part is living photographers selling their photographs (news and
stock). The heritage or archival side of things, the historical photos
and scans of pictures in old books, makes up a chunk of it, but how
much I don't know if anyone knows. The different sources and
provenances for such images (and the sometimes uncertain status of
archives) complicates things as well.

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[Andrew Gray]

2009/7/18 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen :

> What is most striking to my mind in this issue of
> use of images, is how the status quo differs from
> that with regard to _texts_.

I suspect it's simply that with images - where the physical single
"master copy" is quantitatively different for publishing purposes -
it's a lot easier to assert a dodgy sort-of-copyright than it is with
a textual work.

The traditional approach is to say - "sorry, you can't take a
photograph or a scan of it. Oh, you want to publish it? Well, as luck
would have it, we can sell you a scan. $500. Oh, and there's terms and
conditions on that - you've got to credit us, you've got to destroy
that intermediate copy once you've set up the publication, you can
only use it in specified ways... why, yes, it is still in the public
domain, why do you ask? Oh. If you don't want to abide by this
contract, then good luck finding someone else who'll have a
good-quality print."

You can't really do that sort of footwork with a published work, since
setting up a faithful copy of it requires nothing more specialised
than a book and a typesetter.

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[geni]

2009/7/18 David Gerard :
> 2009/7/18 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen :
>
>> What is most striking to my mind in this issue of
>> use of images, is how the status quo differs from
>> that with regard to _texts_.
>
>
> Yes. One has to keep in mind, of course, that the NPG is qualitatively
> different to most museums, and behaves much more like Gollum with the
> One Ring. My *preciou.*
>

Questionable. Most of the national museums with 3D items are pretty
liberal about photography british museum, science museum, Royal Navy
Submarine Museum, royal armories, imperial war museums as long as it
is on display and 3D we've never really had a problem. HMS Victory is
something of an exception but it is also a still a commissioned
warship warship. County museums vary. Some will let you take photos
some will not. Much the same for private collections although the
national trust fairly firmly says no.

For stuff not on public display there are more issues.

2D is a completely different matter. The British museum prohibits
photography of much of it's 2D stuff as does every county archive I've
ever dealt with. Library services also tend to be somewhat jumpy. The
imperial war museum's 2D collection would cost serious money to get
access to on any scale. The British library present much the same
issue.

I never investigated the National Monuments Record that much but they
seemed to be fairly relaxed but then English heritage generally are.
Ordnance survey lost much of their collection during WW2 but they've
printed so many maps over the years that getting hold of the likes of
new popular edition and 7th series maps doesn't cost very much (even
less if you have parents/grandparents who didn't throw them out). On
the other hand their 1:500 maps from the 19th century appear to be in
county archives which makes accessing them hard.

All in all for 2D images you are very often better off looking outside
the major UK collections.

-- 
geni

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Re: [WikiEN-l] News suppression: Did it use Oversight or RevisionDelete?

[David Gerard]

2009/7/18 Luna :

> Obviously I can't speak to specifics, but especially when talking with
> people outside the usual Wikipedia sphere, it's all too easy to get vague
> about terms. Take deletion as an example: if something's "deleted", was the
> text deleted from the current revision, was the revision itself deleted (or
> perhaps oversighted), or was the article as a whole deleted by an admin? Any
> of those are potentially valid uses of the word, so it's hard to be specific
> unless someone is aware of and considering those various meanings.


Our internal jargon is *not English*, it just uses English words. This
is important to keep in mind when analysing what a newspaper article
about Wikipedia means. Even in the NYT, which is very clueful about
Wikipedia as media go, I am pleased when they get anything right
rather than upset when they get anything wrong.


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[David Gerard]

2009/7/18 Carcharoth :
> On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 1:44 PM, Jussi-Ville
> Heiskanen wrote:

>> Any chance of Wikimedia UK (the chapter) applying
>> for a membership of BAPLA? Or would they be considered
>> "insufficiently commercial"?

> Commons would be the equivalent constituent unit of the Wikimedia
> Foundation family, not Wikimedia UK.


Yes. It is very important that *chapters don't do the content*,
particularly in the UK. If it were ever judged otherwise, we just
wouldn't be able to have a chapter in the UK at all.


> You may want to look through the
> BAPLA list and see if any charities or non-profit organisations are
> there - there might well be, as I've never looked through the whole
> list, but I suspect that even those ones would be selling their
> images, not distributing them for free reuse (or they would be doing a
> combination of free distribution and sales). The closest you might
> come would be "non-commercial use" (e.g. museums), but that, as has
> been made clear at Commons, is insufficiently free.


BAPLA's stated ambitions appear to be to become the monopoly cartel
for images in the UK - the RIAA or MPAA, with similar morals and
ethics.


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[Carcharoth]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 2:35 PM, David Gerard wrote:
> 2009/7/18 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen :
>
>> What is most striking to my mind in this issue of
>> use of images, is how the status quo differs from
>> that with regard to _texts_.
>
>
> Yes. One has to keep in mind, of course, that the NPG is qualitatively
> different to most museums, and behaves much more like Gollum with the
> One Ring. My *preciou.*
>
> This anonymous comment on the WMF blog was interesting:
>
> http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/16/protecting-the-public-domain-and-sharing-our-cultural-heritage/#comment-1416
>
>
> #  A Publisher Says:
> July 17th, 2009 at 22:58
>
> Excuse me for not posting under my real name, but I’m a publisher of
> academic books in the UK, and I don’t want to embarrass my employers,
> since I’m not speaking on behalf of the firm.



Thanks for posting that, David. It was a fascinating read!

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[Carcharoth]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 1:44 PM, Jussi-Ville
Heiskanen wrote:
> Carcharoth wrote:
>> One more point:
>>
>> "The British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies has backed
>> the National Portrait Gallery's stance."
>>
>> We don't have an article on BAPLA, but we do have five references to
>> it (article on three of their members, one of the founding members,
>> and the current president). BAPLA is the UK trade association for the
>> picture library industry. Wikipedia is weak on its coverage of trade
>> associations, but if you want to get an idea of the range of picture
>> libraries and agencies in the UK, have a look at the BAPLA website:
>>
>> http://www.bapla.org.uk/
>>
>> "With over 380 member companies, we represent the vast majority of
>> commercial picture libraries and agencies in the UK."
>>
>> "Companies range from small specialists to multinationals,
>> collectively managing in excess of 350 million images, within an
>> industry estimated to be worth over £500m per year in domestic revenue
>> alone."
>>
> Any chance of Wikimedia UK (the chapter) applying
> for a membership of BAPLA? Or would they be considered
> "insufficiently commercial"?

Commons would be the equivalent constituent unit of the Wikimedia
Foundation family, not Wikimedia UK. You may want to look through the
BAPLA list and see if any charities or non-profit organisations are
there - there might well be, as I've never looked through the whole
list, but I suspect that even those ones would be selling their
images, not distributing them for free reuse (or they would be doing a
combination of free distribution and sales). The closest you might
come would be "non-commercial use" (e.g. museums), but that, as has
been made clear at Commons, is insufficiently free.

Are far as who buys images - this goes directly to the core of the
commercial versus free debate (competition?). Encyclopedias like
Encarta (as it was) and Encyclopedia Britannica (as it is) and any
other encyclopedia you see published in a bookshop, or being sold,
will obtain pictures from such sources (and pay for them). Whether any
of them also obtain pictures from Commons, instead of going to
traditional picture library sources (or commissioning a photographer
to take photos), I don't know. The question will likely be whether
they are aware of Commons, and where the best pictures are
(professional photographers do still outstrip Commons in many areas,
but not all).

But please do look through the BAPLA list and see what type of
organisations are members. I'm going to do that now, if they have an
online list, as I would be interested to see which ones we have
articles on.

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[David Gerard]

2009/7/18 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen :

> What is most striking to my mind in this issue of
> use of images, is how the status quo differs from
> that with regard to _texts_.


Yes. One has to keep in mind, of course, that the NPG is qualitatively
different to most museums, and behaves much more like Gollum with the
One Ring. My *preciou.*

This anonymous comment on the WMF blog was interesting:

http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/16/protecting-the-public-domain-and-sharing-our-cultural-heritage/#comment-1416


#  A Publisher Says:
July 17th, 2009 at 22:58

Excuse me for not posting under my real name, but I’m a publisher of
academic books in the UK, and I don’t want to embarrass my employers,
since I’m not speaking on behalf of the firm.

I’d just like to say that the National Portrait Gallery is one of the
worst offenders in the world in its digital practices. The terms and
conditions (quite apart from the cost) associated with getting
permission to use one of their images – itself a pretty offensive
idea, I know – are so bad that you can’t really afford to do business
with them.

This is particularly bad because the NPG often holds the only good
image of a historical figure. I’m publishing the only book in some
decades about a minor 18th-century writer, for instance, whom the NPG
owns the only contemporary painting of. It’s the obvious choice for a
cover image. But we can’t afford the money or the legal obstacles, so
it’s not on our cover. Instead we’re using an obscure etching of a
sketch made towards the exact same painting.

If I had to name one museum or gallery in the UK as the chief villain
in this all-too-common story, the NPG would be the one. They contrast
somewhat with the British Museum and the V&A, who are opening up a
little, though insisting that they own copyright and must be credited
as such, and restricting free use to scholars to print only, and
“non-commercial use” only, a term which of course is a little
difficult to define. But at least the BM and the V&A have some
sympathy with scholarship. That cannot be said for the NPG, which
seems desperate to monetise something it doesn’t and mustn’t own.

Don’t think that US galleries or museums abide by the spirit of Corel
v Bridgeman, incidentally; they frequently assert copyright exactly as
if it had never been ruled. They can do this because a publisher can’t
practicably restrict himself to one worldwide domain, and it’s only
law in a few countries. And museums often supply images with an end
user agreement containing amazing restrictions – e.g. that you must
show them physical proofs, before press, which they can veto; that you
cannot crop or show a detail of a painting now 200 years old; etc.,
etc.

Such “agreements” – never negotiable – mean any illustrated book
published today is a mass of little contracts. The result is that
second editions are never worth it any longer (the time, the
renegotiation, the fresh fees, etc.), and that books are frequently
unillustrated just to avoid the whole nightmare. I’ve known art
historians who had to pay £2000 out of their own pockets in order to
show details of painters no later than Rembrandt. We’re not talking
about trivial sums and a few simple emails.

Frankly I think this particular test case is not the ideal ground for
a fight, because the plundering was pretty blatant. But I’m very glad
people are fighting it, all the same. If these images do somehow
escape the NPG and get into anything resembling the public domain, it
will be an absolute good. Indeed, it will advance exactly the cause
for which the NPG was founded.


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[Carcharoth]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 2:04 PM, Jussi-Ville
Heiskanen wrote:
> Carcharoth wrote:
>>
>> Most of that is the sale of contemporary copyrighted photographs (by
>> living photographers earning money from their trade). But some of that
>> will be the commercial sale of scans of PD stuff that gets free
>> culture people up in arms. The root of this issue is the commercial
>> exploitation of the public domain.
>>
>> My view is that if people are prepared to spend time, money and effort
>> in finding, collecting, keeping and conserving public domain material,
>> and then scanning it and digitising it, then there is nothing to
>> prevent people selling the end product of such labours. And people
>> will pay for that service.
>>
>> Whether it is morally right to exploit the public domain (by selling
>> such scans for money), and whether it is morally right to appropriate
>> the scans made by others (by insisting the scans are also public
>> domain), is something I can see arguments for on both sides of this
>> divide.
>>
>>
>
> What is most striking to my mind in this issue of
> use of images, is how the status quo differs from
> that with regard to _texts_.
>
> With texts, what you have are Project Gutenberg,
> The Internet Archive, Wikisource etc. pretty much
> all of them with some form of copyleft, or at least
> not asserting silly Copyprotect rationales (total PD
> in the case of PG, with merely the proviso of *not*
> attributing if you don't include the full disclaimer
> of the "license")
>
> I do know there have been cases of good quality
> scans of texts being hoarded, or being totally
> disallowed in the past, such as the case of the
> Dead Sea Scrolls, but I don't quite see them as
> being relevant in this context.

This might be because people will pay more money for images. Picture
worth a thousand words. That sort of thing. And a picture, or a sound
clip, or a video clip, or a multimedia clip, is less 'editable' than a
chunk of text. There is also a longer history of written and printed
text. Photography is relatively recent (last 150 years), cinema even
more recent. Look back at the history of written text before the
printing press came along, and see how much people hoarded
manuscripts, or freely copied them. Then look at how things developed
after the printing press came along, and how the "hoard" vs "freely
distribute" (and credit the creators and provide them with income)
debates developed. And look at the various ways people developed to
earn money from texts, images and cinema and video. Then throw in the
internet.

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] So when do we send a bill to AP?

[David Gerard]

2009/7/18 geni :
> 2009/7/18 David Gerard :

>> http://idealink.vijtable.com/2009/07/17/associated-press-its-okay-if-we-do-it/
>> Or a suggested donation to WMF, perhaps.

> Unless AP actually wins their argument that very short extracts from
> news articles are copyvios I think the use there can claim to be De
> minimis/fair use.


Well, yeah. But given newspapers' whinging about very short extracts,
I'm sure we can make a moral case ...


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Carcharoth wrote:
>
> Most of that is the sale of contemporary copyrighted photographs (by
> living photographers earning money from their trade). But some of that
> will be the commercial sale of scans of PD stuff that gets free
> culture people up in arms. The root of this issue is the commercial
> exploitation of the public domain.
>
> My view is that if people are prepared to spend time, money and effort
> in finding, collecting, keeping and conserving public domain material,
> and then scanning it and digitising it, then there is nothing to
> prevent people selling the end product of such labours. And people
> will pay for that service.
>
> Whether it is morally right to exploit the public domain (by selling
> such scans for money), and whether it is morally right to appropriate
> the scans made by others (by insisting the scans are also public
> domain), is something I can see arguments for on both sides of this
> divide.
>
>   

What is most striking to my mind in this issue of
use of images, is how the status quo differs from
that with regard to _texts_.

With texts, what you have are Project Gutenberg,
The Internet Archive, Wikisource etc. pretty much
all of them with some form of copyleft, or at least
not asserting silly Copyprotect rationales (total PD
in the case of PG, with merely the proviso of *not*
attributing if you don't include the full disclaimer
of the "license")

I do know there have been cases of good quality
scans of texts being hoarded, or being totally
disallowed in the past, such as the case of the
Dead Sea Scrolls, but I don't quite see them as
being relevant in this context.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen


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Re: [WikiEN-l] So when do we send a bill to AP?

[geni]

2009/7/18 David Gerard :
> http://idealink.vijtable.com/2009/07/17/associated-press-its-okay-if-we-do-it/
>
> Or a suggested donation to WMF, perhaps.
>
>
> - d.

Unless AP actually wins their argument that very short extracts from
news articles are copyvios I think the use there can claim to be De
minimis/fair use.


-- 
geni

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Carcharoth wrote:
> One more point:
>
> "The British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies has backed
> the National Portrait Gallery's stance."
>
> We don't have an article on BAPLA, but we do have five references to
> it (article on three of their members, one of the founding members,
> and the current president). BAPLA is the UK trade association for the
> picture library industry. Wikipedia is weak on its coverage of trade
> associations, but if you want to get an idea of the range of picture
> libraries and agencies in the UK, have a look at the BAPLA website:
>
> http://www.bapla.org.uk/
>
> "With over 380 member companies, we represent the vast majority of
> commercial picture libraries and agencies in the UK."
>
> "Companies range from small specialists to multinationals,
> collectively managing in excess of 350 million images, within an
> industry estimated to be worth over £500m per year in domestic revenue
> alone."
>   

Any chance of Wikimedia UK (the chapter) applying
for a membership of BAPLA? Or would they be considered
"insufficiently commercial"?

:-P


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[Carcharoth]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 12:43 PM, David Gerard wrote:
> 2009/7/18 Carcharoth :
>
>> Could someone link to Erik Moeller's blog post and to any of the press
>> releases from the WMF?
>
> There's been no press releases from WMF as such - Mike Godwin is,
> funnily enough, treating this as a legal issue, i.e. a combination of
> chess and poker.

I saw something on the en-wikinews article talk page. What was that?

> Though Erik's post pretty much served as a press release:
>
> http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/16/protecting-the-public-domain-and-sharing-our-cultural-heritage/

Thanks.

> I've started a thread on foundation-l (and on my own blog) asking what
> things people would like to see from a compromise agreement, and what
> they think would work for both sides.

One thing that needs clarification is what the NPG are saying in
public and private:

"But the gallery insists that its case has been misrepresented, and
has now released a statement denying many of the charges made by
Wikipedia."

Is there a link to that anywhere?

Also note:

"A spokeswoman also said that the two German archives mentioned in
Erik Moeller's blog had in fact supplied medium resolution images to
Wikipedia, and insisted that the National Portrait Gallery had been
willing to offer similar material to Wikipedia."

They are now directly saying that they *had* offered medium-resolution
images. That needs sorting out: when, where and who were they talking
to? Possibly they thought they were talking to someone who could do
something, but in fact they weren't (they were possibly talking to a
random volunteer, or the WMF rejected the offer as "not free enough" -
strange to laymen's eyes in light of the example of the German
archives).

One more point:

"The British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies has backed
the National Portrait Gallery's stance."

We don't have an article on BAPLA, but we do have five references to
it (article on three of their members, one of the founding members,
and the current president). BAPLA is the UK trade association for the
picture library industry. Wikipedia is weak on its coverage of trade
associations, but if you want to get an idea of the range of picture
libraries and agencies in the UK, have a look at the BAPLA website:

http://www.bapla.org.uk/

"With over 380 member companies, we represent the vast majority of
commercial picture libraries and agencies in the UK."

"Companies range from small specialists to multinationals,
collectively managing in excess of 350 million images, within an
industry estimated to be worth over £500m per year in domestic revenue
alone."

Most of that is the sale of contemporary copyrighted photographs (by
living photographers earning money from their trade). But some of that
will be the commercial sale of scans of PD stuff that gets free
culture people up in arms. The root of this issue is the commercial
exploitation of the public domain.

My view is that if people are prepared to spend time, money and effort
in finding, collecting, keeping and conserving public domain material,
and then scanning it and digitising it, then there is nothing to
prevent people selling the end product of such labours. And people
will pay for that service.

Whether it is morally right to exploit the public domain (by selling
such scans for money), and whether it is morally right to appropriate
the scans made by others (by insisting the scans are also public
domain), is something I can see arguments for on both sides of this
divide.

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] News suppression: Did it use Oversight or RevisionDelete?

[Luna]

On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 6:08 AM, Joseph Reagle  wrote:

> I even said this to the NYT reporter when I spoke to him and he implied
> that this information had been suppressed...


Obviously I can't speak to specifics, but especially when talking with
people outside the usual Wikipedia sphere, it's all too easy to get vague
about terms. Take deletion as an example: if something's "deleted", was the
text deleted from the current revision, was the revision itself deleted (or
perhaps oversighted), or was the article as a whole deleted by an admin? Any
of those are potentially valid uses of the word, so it's hard to be specific
unless someone is aware of and considering those various meanings.

That's just a guess, though.

-Luna
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Does this make any sense?

[Luna]

On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 10:02 AM, Ken Arromdee  wrote:

> Summary:
> -- User is sent to Arbcom for date delinking.  The Arbcom remedy, however,
> prohibits him from making _any style change_ that is not specified by a
> style guideline.
>

Point of information: the restriction is not regarding *making* style
changes, but *reverting* style changes. That's a horse of an entirely
different color.

I should say that I'm not at all familiar with Greg L's involvement at that
arb case, but if someone came in front of the committee over this sort of
thing, it seems safe to say it's become a significant behavioral issue,
without necessarily commenting for or against it.

Looks like the block expired two weeks ago, ish. Not that I'm trying to
stifle discussion, just hoping to make that clear for perspective.

-Luna
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[David Gerard]

2009/7/18 Carcharoth :

> Could someone link to Erik Moeller's blog post and to any of the press
> releases from the WMF?


There's been no press releases from WMF as such - Mike Godwin is,
funnily enough, treating this as a legal issue, i.e. a combination of
chess and poker.

Though Erik's post pretty much served as a press release:

http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/16/protecting-the-public-domain-and-sharing-our-cultural-heritage/

I've started a thread on foundation-l (and on my own blog) asking what
things people would like to see from a compromise agreement, and what
they think would work for both sides.


- d.

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[WikiEN-l] So when do we send a bill to AP?

[David Gerard]

http://idealink.vijtable.com/2009/07/17/associated-press-its-okay-if-we-do-it/

Or a suggested donation to WMF, perhaps.


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[Carcharoth]

Could someone link to Erik Moeller's blog post and to any of the press
releases from the WMF?

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[Carcharoth]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 12:33 PM, Carcharoth wrote:

> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8156268.stm

Oh dear, they got his name wrong.

"David Coetzee" (it is Derrick, not David)

>From here:

http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1722735/dispute_between_wikipedia_art_gallery_heats_up/index.html?FORM=ZZNR6

"Thanks for running this story. A small correction: my name is Derrick
Coetzee, not David Coetzee as recently misprinted by the BBC."

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[Carcharoth]

On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 12:24 PM, Carcharoth wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 5:01 PM, Mathias
> Schindler wrote:
>> On Tue, Apr 3, 2007 at 9:22 AM, David Gerard wrote:
>>
>>> And then presumably we should ask the National Portrait Gallery about
>>> their claimed copyright on hundreds of years old pictures. [*]
>>>
>>>
>>> [*] hint: the NPG stopped sending us letters claiming this after Jimbo
>>> said "sue and be damned."
>>
>> at least until now
>>
>> http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/07/11/1239244/UKs-National-Portrait-Gallery-Threatens-To-Sue-Wikipedia-User?art_pos=1
>
> This is now in the UK newspapers:
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jul/14/national-portrait-gallery-wikipedia-row
>
> http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?National_Portrait_Gallery_sues_Wikipedia&in_article_id=702647&in_page_id=34

Here is the BBC article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8156268.stm

"Wikipedia painting row escalates
By Rory Cellan-Jones
Technology correspondent, BBC News"

Page last updated at 14:14 GMT, Friday, 17 July 2009 15:14 UK

Putting the above article date and timestamp to see if it changes at any point.

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] At last, a new stats run for en:wp!

[Carcharoth]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 12:23 PM, David Gerard wrote:
> 2009/7/18 Carcharoth :
>> On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 9:53 AM, David Gerard wrote:
>
>>> http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm
>
>> Cool! I'm too lazy to look. Anything there worth discussing?
>
>
> Look at that URL at least. You'll see the data for our recent
> discussion on article numbers laid out in a nice table, for instance.

I was looking for pretty pics, and nearly gave up, but then I spotted
a "Charts" button up at the top!

http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/ChartsWikipediaEN.htm

Five sets of graphs:

Wikipedians
Articles
Database
Links
Daily Usage

When I get a chance, I'll try and comment on each set and what they
sem to be showing. Or wait for others to do that.

BTW, did you know you have been quoted in a BBC article? I'll switch
to that thread.

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] At last, a new stats run for en:wp!

[David Gerard]

2009/7/18 Carcharoth :
> On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 9:53 AM, David Gerard wrote:

>> http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm

> Cool! I'm too lazy to look. Anything there worth discussing?


Look at that URL at least. You'll see the data for our recent
discussion on article numbers laid out in a nice table, for instance.


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] At last, a new stats run for en:wp!

[Carcharoth]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 9:53 AM, David Gerard wrote:
> http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm
> http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/07/new-statistics-for-the-english-wikipedia/
> http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/07/new-statistics-for-the-english-wikipedia-2/
>
> This means that we don't have to keep telling people numbers from Oct 2006 ...

Cool! I'm too lazy to look. Anything there worth discussing?

Carcharoth

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[WikiEN-l] At last, a new stats run for en:wp!

[David Gerard]

http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm
http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/07/new-statistics-for-the-english-wikipedia/
http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/07/new-statistics-for-the-english-wikipedia-2/

This means that we don't have to keep telling people numbers from Oct 2006 ...


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Ahhh, physics cranks

[Ray Saintonge]

Michael Peel wrote:
> It's always good to have several standard alternatives for  
> distributing information, and it will be interesting to see what  
> happens with this one. They could have chosen a better name, though -  
> vixra sounds like something you'd see in a spam email...
>
>   
The capital "X" in the name is significant. One would use it when having 
difficulty getting a hard physic.

Ec

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