Drawing up battle lines – art gallery takes on Wikipedia
The appearance of some of the world's most famous portraits on a website could create a legal landmark
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Independent Minds
In her coronation robes, Elizabeth I looks formidable and stately – the Virgin Queen in her pomp, an image to propel rivals into battle. Some 400 years after her portrait was painted, that is precisely what she has done.
Hers is one of more than 3,000 images from the National Portrait Gallery uploaded onto the free internet encyclopedia Wikipedia in April by Seattle-based Derrick Coetzee. The gallery, founded in 1856, responded last week by threatening legal proceedings against the PhD student.
That action unleashed outrage in cyberspace and quickly led to a stand-off between the proponents of free information and cultural institutions wanting to protect one of their few revenue streams – licence fees for reproducing images of their artworks. The row also goes to the heart of an internet revolution which does not recognise borders or national laws.
The gallery has instructed the law firm Farrer and Co, which represents the Queen, to sue Mr Coetzee unless the pictures are removed. They claim that letters to Wikipedia were unanswered. While the portraits are long out of copyright, the photographs are not and, the gallery argues, the digitisation process to create high resolution images has cost it around £1m. They are, they say, therefore entitled to a licence fee.
Wikipedia, which is supporting Mr Coetzee, argues that the portraits are owned by the public. Moreover, they work with many global cultural institutions which are glad to have their images widely disseminated. A further complication is that Mr Coetzee is a US citizen based in America, where copyright laws around images of publicly owned art are different. The gallery points out that Wikipedia's servers are based in the UK and come under the jurisdiction of a UK court.
But Alison Wheeler, an editor and administrator for Wikipedia in the UK, said the Inland Revenue takes the opposite view. "It's a very significant case, and very complicated," she said. "It gets to the heart of the internet. The Inland Revenue argues that if you buy something online, it doesn't matter where the server is located, you still pay tax. So the gallery wants it both ways.
"My view is that our taxes have paid for these, but you can't see them unless you live in London. People have a right to see them. I think the gallery has taken advice from other institutions and decided now is the time to act and settle this matter once and for all. There is no doubt they are taking it seriously."
Yesterday the leading art critic Brian Sewell waded into the row, calling the gallery managers fools. He added: "The National Portrait Gallery has always been managed by fools and this is another example of their folly. I'm on Wikipedia's side. The only thing the gallery has to preserve are the pictures themselves. The images must, in some sense, be public property already."
Media lawyer Duncan Lamont, of Charles Russell solicitors, disagreed. "This is the arrogance of new technology which thinks it can trample over rights and say, 'I'll have this for free'," he said. "Copyright law is very clear. If somebody has taken a great deal of effort to get the lighting right to produce the best picture possible then they should be protected."
Mr Coetzee said he could not comment, as he is being represented by the internet freedom campaign group Electronic Frontier Foundation. The group could not be contacted yesterday.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth_I_in_coronation_robes.jpg
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Comments
It's not often that I agree with Brian Sewell's opinion on anything, but I'm with him on this one.
I hope Coetzee gets nailed in court, but it's really the irresponsible content ghouls at 39 Stillman Street who really ought to be prosecuted.
than a technical measure to protect the copyright. Anyway, the quoted section of the CDPA states "effective technological measures have been applied" which, without question, they aren't "effective" hence they haven't been contravened!
It might also be interesting to discuss "a copyright work other than a computer program" as a JPG, PNG, GIF etc are, in essence, instructions to a computer telling it how to arrange pixels to manufacture a representational image, ie a computer program!
Even at the increased resolution Coetzee placed onto Wikimedia Commons they aren't the 'high resolution' which would be needed to print a reproduction.
I understand that discussions are ongoing between the NPG and Wikimedia, but the questions raised by each jurisdictions approach to public domain images will continue to be an ongoing issue.
The relevant law says that
"technological measures" are any technology, device or component which is designed, in the normal course of its operation, to protect a copyright work other than a computer program.
The "normal operation" of zoomify does not give you the full image it cuts it up into bits. In effect it scrambles or transforms the data. That someone unscrambles the bits by pasting them together is contrary to the Act.
See:
http://www.zoomify.com/support.htm#a200
There is no mention of any security aspect of the software under the "key benefits of Zoomify" section.
The Zoomify site does mention security further down on the link above, claiming that their system does make it more difficult to copy images, but then they go on to say how it's not really much protection after all and therefore they "provide Zoomify as a viewing solution and not an image security system".
For anyone who knows even the slightest thing about the internet, and website browsing etc, it's instantly obvious that zoomify is no protection at all for your images. Sometimes there is a bit of a gap between "computer people" and "non-computer people". For the former using zoomify as image protection would be like placing the keys to your car underneath an upturned glass on the bonnet and claiming that this was an anti-theft security device.
As far as this aspect of the controversy is concerned I feel a little sorry for whoever was in charge of setting up the whole zoomify database. Either someone at NPG was completely mislead and/or some tech contractor was completely irresponsible.
It doesn't say that it it must be military secure, and whilst you are dissembling as to what the zoomify site says, why haven't you mentioned the first part of the FAQ section you are so keen on:
myopia? The section then goes on to say that a copier would have to stitch together small portions. In other words unscramble the bits. At the very least your collegiate thief knew that the site was attempting to protect its high resolution scans. He didn't just stumble upon an open FTP directory.
You and your fellow wiki editors and administrators are behaving shamefully. You seem to think that because UK law can't touch you in the US you are somehow in the right. In fact you are behaving like robbers of days gone by that would steal in one State and then run across the border into another to evade responsibility.
Edited at 2009-07-20 11:05 am (UTC)
why haven't you mentioned the first part of the FAQ section you are so keen on:
I mentioned the exact part you linked to. Only it's not "the first part of the FAQ section you(I) am so keen on", but it is "further down on the link" like I stated. The very structure of the links should have pointed out your error:
http://www.zoomify.com/support.htm#a200
further down from the link above you will find your link:
http://www.zoomify.com/support.htm#a200
As far as interpetation of the act is concerned, again I know nothing of legal speak (so I accept that in legalese I may be interpreting this incorrectly) but to me the act that you quoted implies that the technology needs to be designed to protect copyright, as in there was intention on behalf of the designer for the technology to have that effect. My point (as a internet tech hobbist) is just that I don't believe there was any such intention, and therefore there Zoomify was not "designed, in the normal course of its operation, to protect a copyright work other than a computer program."
To repeat myself, my reasons are that:
1) the company itself doesn't mention it under the key benefits section, or in fact anywhere when they are introducing/explaining the product. When they do mention it under the security section we both mentioned, it comes across as a secondary benefit with caveats. (and they are overplaying the security benefits they do mention)
2) anyone with only a basic knowledge of the internet and computers would know that it just doesn't provide any protection at all. See my rather poor analogy about cars. No insurance company would accept that the glass holding the keys was designed to foil car theft, although it might be slightly more secure than leaving them in the ignition.
Regardless of the above, please don't invent stuff about someone you of course do not know (I am not a shameful, myopic American acting in a cabal of wiki editor/administrators trying to emulate some inter state criminal operation of the past).
Actually I do wear glasses.
Stick to the text please.
Your article states the following: "The gallery points out that Wikipedia's servers are based in the UK and come under the jurisdiction of a UK court."
This is entirely untrue. None of Wikipedia's servers are based in the United Kingdom, and none of Wikimedia Foundation's operations are conducted in the UK. Please correct this false statement of fact as soon as possible.
--Mike Godwin
General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
415-436-9333 x 608