Everybody agrees that the original images are in the public domain. As far as I can see, this is about faithful reproductions of the original works. (Of course feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.)
The National Portrait Gallery has spent time, money, resources, energy, etc. to make replicas of these works, removing dust, bad shadows, etc. in order to make the replicas look as similar to the originals as possible. This seems to be undisputed.
The part I find amusing is that the NPG is deliberately trying to not make a derivative work, yet still wants to claim that they hold rights over the images. They're trying to make as close a copy of a work that everybody agrees is in the public domain. I agree that the National Portrait Gallery should be commended for their restoration and preservation work, but I don't for a moment believe that they can try to make an exact copy of a work and then claim to hold special rights to it. It seems almost paradoxical to me.
Now, I have no idea if U.S. or UK law would support my twisted thoughts. I'm not a lawyer and unlike others on the Internet I won't pretend to understand copyright law. But I did find at least this aspect quite amusing.
|