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As someone active in an organisation that devotes considerable resources to defending and promoting copyright on behalf of its members, it galls me to see corporate bodies and individuals abusing copyright in this way. Oli is quite right, and I suspect that such copyright claims as he describes are unenforceable in Europe as well as the US.

I refer to corporations and individuals, as we often see the latter abusing copyright in this way. For example, I have recently come across local historians digitising antique photographs of historical interest, and publishing them on the interwebs along with grave warnings of what will befall those who infringe their supposed copyright in the images. Whilst it is entirely reasonable to expect acknowledgement and thanks for the time and effort put into the electronic archiving of out-of-copyright printed works, one cannot claim ownership of them. Creatively alter the images in some way, and there may be an argument based on artistic endeavour.

On 2 Oct 13, at 15:29, "Usher, Oli" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

If the Royal Society is serious about engaging with Wikipedia, I'd suggest the appointee's first job should be to eliminate the restrictive licensing of their image library (cf. https://pictures.royalsociety.org/terms-and-conditions).

The Royal Society, like a lot of UK organisations, asserts copyright over historical images in its archives that have, in their original version, long entered the public domain. See this 1731 illustration which the Society claims to own the copyright to, for instance: https://pictures.royalsociety.org/image-rs-10491 (the copyright for which expired in 1745, according to the laws of the time).

The rationale is that there is copyright inherent in the act of digitising a photo - but in an age of digital media this undermines the very concept of public domain, asserting private ownership in perpetuity over what legally would otherwise be public property.

Not to mention that it is probably unenforceable since it's not recognised in the US, and (US-based) Wikipedia's policy is to ignore it.

More on the background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp.

Oli

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