QUOTE(Cedric @ Mon 13th July 2009, 1:29am)
It keeps getting
better and better:
QUOTE
I'm generally concerned that by leaving the NPG letter here largely without comment we're letting them have the floor. Many people are uninformed on the matter and don't realize the enormous harm that would be caused were the NPG allowed to arbitrarily seize the copyright on works hundreds of years old, and they don't recognize that there are ways to fund museum work which are fair and proportional and don't involve robbing our descendants by privatizing antiquities. It isn't widely understood that NPG's legal theories are suspect even under UK law and that in the US their copyright assertions are, quite possibly, criminal. Nor are many people making the connection with the mechanical shoot-first take down policies of other user contributed content sites which are widely decried for removing material which is unquestionably permitted by law. --Gmaxwell (talk) 20:46, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
(emphasis hilariously supplied).
See that, British people? The WMF is wresting your culture from the clutches of the evil copyright criminals at the NPG! Don't you feel grateful? (IMG:
smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif)
It isn't widely understood that if the WMF pursue this line of action, the likes of NPG will simply not bother to make such products in the future, and there will be no high definition images to acquire in the future. Typical freedophile illogic.
It is really, really simple. It is not about copyright - that is just one element of a legal argument - it is about the NPG making a high quality resource available at a reasonable price (£20 for 10,000 hi-res images, plus the organisation of that information) and having an expectation that it will not be abused. They did not realise that the WMF was such a disreputable organisation that instead of having some concern for their reputation, they instead characterise a reputable organisation, the NPG, as fraudsters - which I would suggest is actionable defamation.
If WMF were an ethical organisation, they would have a rational discussion with the galleries, and I'd suggest that the NPG probably would be willing to provide or allow lower resolution images for free - nick them off the web site and I doubt they'd be too upset - they have not taken any steps to make them protected.
I think that this would play out in a very interesting way in the UK mainstream press. It is an issue that the public can understand - Americans stealing by hacking from UK public institutions being lauded as freedom fighting with the US citizens cowardly hiding behind their borders while British citizens of suspect mental capacity are sacrificed to the US due to the UK giving into American bullying on an asymmetrical extradition treaty essentially to save the embarrassment of the US Military IT department who know diddlely-squat about how to secure a computer. David Gerard could end up sounding very stupid as self-appointed I'm So Smug Wikipedia press officer.