Wikipedia painting row escalates

bbc ^ | 17 July 2009 | Rory Cellan-Jones

[JoeProBono]

The battle over Wikipedia's use of images from a British art gallery's website has intensified. The online encyclopaedia has accused the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) of betraying its public service mission. But the gallery has said it needs to recoup the £1m cost of its digitisation programme and claims Wikipedia has misrepresented its position.

The NPG is threatening legal action after 3,300 images from its website were uploaded to Wikipedia. The high-resolution images were uploaded by Wikipedia volunteer Derrick Coetzee.

[JoeProBono]

Work by Sir Joshua Reynolds was among those uploaded to Wikipedia

[wendy1946]

Wiki could raise money by selling tickets to its own internal infighting and politics. There isn’t a bigger clown act.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Hm...I’m sort of on the side of the gallery on this.

[jessduntno]

I’m on the side of anyone against Wacky-pedia...

[Drango]

...breached English copyright laws, which protect copies of original works even when they themselves are out of copyright.

HUH?

[theFIRMbss]

A British painter
fooled many British "experts."
He forged "old masters"

but he painted them
using house paint (allergies
bugged the guy with oils)

and many experts
never caught on to the scam.
Yeah. British "experts."

The Fine Art of Fakery : How doctored papers and house paint laced with jelly resulted in a far-reaching fraud

[Mmogamer]

well I enjoy browsing wikipedia for, well articles on space, geology etc... just have to be aware of the lib bias...

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

A photographer can copyright a photograph of the Eiffel Tower or a solar eclipse or an historic event, but not the image of the subject. The museum owns the copyright to photograph, not the painting.

I’m definitely on the side of the museum on this one.