@anon: I think you’re a bit too dismissive about the art, but thanks for the reminder that at bottom, this is all about the art itself — and if no one is interested in talking about the actual portraits, that may say something, about us or about the art or both…

@eivind, @amateur6, @pianom4n: I agree it’s problematic that no one else is allowed make copies of the NPG images. It’s hard to see what real-world effect the “public-domainness” of the images has under these circumstances.

@amateur6: I admit I have not squared this post with my post on Google Book Search. My thinking on Google Book Search has been evolving and I intend to get around to writing a new column about that soon. In short, I’m still of the opinion that we should give a lot of credit to anyone willing to do the work of scanning/digitizing/reproducing old materials (Google scanning old books in that case), but that doesn’t mean they should get monopoly control over the materials.

@mjkerpan, @haeB: I don’t pretend to understand the NPG’s finances. There is a tradition in the U.S. (admirably upheld by NASA) of putting most images obtained at public expense in the public domain. If the NPG says they need the revenue from the licensing of these images to fund further digitization, they’re likely telling the truth.

@J. van Doesberg: Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. This is about sustainability. We need to rise above the Napsterish debate over the place of copyright and talk about how to actually support the sharing of this work.

So the question is: did Coetzee have permission? How did he get access to them? Coetzee studies computer sciences. Has he been hacking, or writing a tool to harvest images from sites, unbeknownst to the owners?

Even if NPG has been negligent, they still are the proprietors of the digital images. So Coetzee and WikiMedia may argue, but they should settle for the low-res images that NPG does want to share.

But that’s not the point. If America chooses not to support a strong public domain that is it’s right. We are not limiting your ability to practice the law as you want _in your country_. If you choose to support a neutered public domain which puts duplication as a copyrightable act then that is your choice but don’t expect other countries to respect that. In the meantime take the gift of our federally funded public domain NASA galleries as a gift from a nation which (at lease sometimes) promotes the idea that a strong public domain is vital for society. But after a work has been published for a hundred years I fail to see why someone has a monopoly over profits derived from that work. It’s not a question of wanting everything free, it’s about being able to reasonably put images of public domain works online. Let the UK prosecute its own citizens who break their laws, that is not the job of the American government to enforce.

Computer geeks, the sexless set, people who think text messages are relationships and today’s “music” is art .. the great unwashed slightly chubby masses of the free-give-me-free crowd particularly prominent in the USA with their 44 ounce big-slurp-eee drinks, Clif Bars and blogs.

Socialists, communists, the free-give-me-fee crowd, simple burglars, fat wanabees who can’t make the team but complain .. it’s all the same.

How do they sleep at night … not very well. They are desperate to run counter to the entire thrust of human creation; they are desperate to “take down” the awake, creating, leaders.

But they can’t because the total nature of humans is to create rather than steal; the free-give-me-free crowd don’t sleep.

So they turn again to the Excitment of writing on computer bulletin boards, ranting (ultimately to themselves), masterbating hopelessly and .. again .. tweeting, twitting, ‘booking and posting.

If you’d be satisfied with a photo taken without flash, you ought to have been satisfied with the medium resolution files they did provide. At least they don’t have parallax and perspective problems, or incorrect colour.

As for the LoC images the vast majority of those online are 1K along the longest side.

HaeB How exactly is that “a vital revenue stream”?

If they’d make a lot they’d be accused of profiteering, if they make a little its not worthwhile. Damned if they do damned if they don’t.

And that includes all media. According to a 2009 Freedom of Information Act request, the NPG’s income from licensing to other websites was between £10,000 and £19,000 during the last five years.

How exactly is that “a vital revenue stream”?

The free riders are smaller and third world countries who don’t contribute works like this. (not that I have a problem with it)

And Eivind os 100% correct. This would nowhere near a problem if you were allowed to take photos (without flash) of the paintings. But they don’t. They’re trying to impose a perpetual copyright, and that’s the real problem.

Project Warhol, anyone?

(you know, for the whole “multiple copies” thing)

And by the way, Wade, are you sure you’ve completely squared this post with your position on Google Book Search? Seems to me they may be more comparable than you might think.

By your own numbers 60K paintings where digitized for a million, which isn’t infact very expensive, it comes out as 15/painting.

My bet is, there are plenty of Wikipedians and others who’d gladly produce high-quality digitizations of paintings, if one would only LET THEM. Witness how Project Gutenberg has digitized thousands of PD-works, and scanning, ocring and manually correcting the unavouidable OCR-errors is a process that is MUCH more work than taking a professional digital photo of a painting.

Essentially, the museums position seems to be “If we took the photo, you may not copy it, and you may not take the photo yourself”, which comes pretty close to saying “This work may not be available on wikipedia at all, despite it being in public domain”.

I mean, people have heard of these famous painters; it’d definitely be nice to be able to freely use their digitised work, but do people really care about it so much that they’d be willing to sacrifice their public domain rights in order to get them?

And if the public cared so much, wouldn’t the museums be getting enough money from them not to have to resort to looking for commercial revenue?

I say, this whole art thing is grossly overrated.

The final digital files to control the 3D printer would fall even further into the category of “slavish copy”, and in wiki-logic should be made freely available, despite the fact that the act of creating them would cost £1000s.

Who would risk such an enterprise?