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Talk:National Portrait Gallery and Wikimedia Foundation copyright dispute

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Article milestones
DateProcessResult
August 3, 2009Articles for deletionNo consensus
August 1, 2009Deletion reviewRelisted

Little note

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If anyone needs sources, coverage, or anything, visit this page on Commons. ViperSnake151  Talk  23:20, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sources needing to be purged per BLP

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Copied from the AfD: This reference falls BLP standards. The "funny" should have tipped you off that it is a column stating opinion with the purpose of humor. Not a highly reliable source. It must be removed immediately. Artnet is not a highly reliable news source per BLP. It must be removed immediately. Amatuer photographer.com is not a highly reliable news source per BLP. It must be removed immediately. This is not a highly reliable news source per BLP. It must be removed immediately. Also, Wikipedia is not reliable per Wikipedia policy, and it cannot be used in a BLP. The uses of it also constitutes original research. This must be removed. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:59, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh now this is just stupid. The first article is about how Wikipedia has handled photography (and its use of "amateur"-quality photos), and last time I checked, WP:BLP only applies to information that is specifically ABOUT the person and does not subject the ENTIRE article to the policy (unless it is an article on the person himself), nowhere does it say "non-biographical article that mentions a living person", but it does say "biographical material about living persons on other pages". ViperSnake151  Talk  21:17, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As stated on the AfD - this is a lawsuit about a living individual. Thus, all aspects deal with a living individual. We have BLP to protect Wikipedia against libel charges and the rest. We cannot report second hand information unless it is highly reliable, which means that it cannot be questioned in any form. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:35, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ottava Rima is invited to persuasively describe the reasons for the evaluation that the cited sources are not acceptable, and the manner in which their reliability is questioned, and why the the asserted policy relates to this article.
-- Yellowdesk (talk) 21:30, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What makes Amateur Photographer unreliable? What makes Photography Law not reliable? (its not even citing a statement about the person, and per my interpretation of WP:BLP, that's unrelated to the person), although I am having second thoughts about the citation of Wikimedia policies. ViperSnake151  Talk  00:49, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Are you serious? It talks about a lawsuit. That would make it fall under BLP. Amateur Photographer is not a highly reliable source, nor would it possibly be considered one in terms of a not even started legal dispute. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:12, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I wish to note that no persuasive reason for the evaluations have been stated. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 02:23, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You have to prove a source is highly reliable, not the other way around. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:50, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I note again the failure of Ottava Rima to persuasively state the reasons for removing the cited sources. I further do not find the guidance that editor claims to find on the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons page. In brief, one must use reliable sources and the burden of evidence falls on the editor, and that burden has been met by supplying sourcing from edited journals of known stature, whether national or international in scope and audience, or that may specialize in a scope or readership, which includes photography, the arts, for example. At this point nearly every sentence of the article relies on one or more sources from an such edited works.
-- Yellowdesk (talk) 01:47, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. And by my interpretation, if its an article mentioning a living person like here, only the claims specifically involving the living person need to be aggressively sourced. The entire article shouldn't automatically be counted as a BLP. ViperSnake151  Talk  02:01, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In response to these critiques

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I think we should have a third party (and not me, or anyone who has participated on the AFD for this article) review this article's neutrality. ViperSnake151  Talk  16:48, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

New sources giving the EFF's position

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Hi all, I just wanted to recommend an additional source you may find useful - this Mediapost article is I believe the only one which quotes my attorney Fred von Lohmann directly. Dcoetzee 23:46, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Update: the EFF has just posted on their blog Deeplinks with their opinion and the letter they sent to the NPG. Dcoetzee 01:31, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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There is a proposal to merge this article into National_Portrait_Gallery_(London), which, in my view, is just the failed deletion proposal in another guise. See Talk:National_Portrait_Gallery_(London)#Merge_proposal_to_bring_National_Portrait_Gallery_copyright_conflicts_here. As a matter of protocol, I would have thought a merge discussion should be on this page, not the Talk:National_Portrait_Gallery_(London) page. Nunquam Dormio (talk) 09:19, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Index of discussion about this article elsewhere

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Just in case any one was wondering about the history of discussion of this article and its mention on other public forums. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 14:02, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Article

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  • Initiated - 03:38, 1 August 2009 by User:Killiondude
  • Resolved via already active deletion review
  • Initiated - 00:49, 4 August 2009 by User:Lar

Collateral public discussions

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  • Initiated - 04:56, 3 August 2009 b User: Wikidemon
  • Eventually withdrawn following extensive discussion, after the Afd Closed

British v. American English

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Is there a reason this page now says it should be written in British English requiring broad consensus for change? I notice that the parties hail from both sides of the Atlantic. I have a concern that a seemingly arbitrary decision by one editor to label the issue as British could become an issue in itself. After all, this is a case in large part about the choice of law to apply.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 04:04, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's about the NPG (British) and copyright conflicts it might have with any party. At the moment, that's mainly D. Coetzee but there will be many more over the years. Nunquam Dormio (talk) 08:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's the thing. It's about both a British entity's copyright claim, and an American individual and American non-profit organization's right to display the content (which I understand to be free from Copyright under U.S. law). To say that it's a British matter begs the question. Of course, as a wikipedian myself, I appear to have a WP:COI. Should Wikipedia be sued about this content, I would want the issue determined under U.S. law. If the Wikipedia community itself is conceding here in the choice of dialect that it's a British issue, it could implicate their future case that the issue should be determined by U.S. law. This is not a good situation. I would urge an Administrator to review this issue, possibly with the Wikipedia Foundation's legal counsel.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 15:24, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No sane barrister would ever make the spellings and dialect used in the article the lynchpin of his case. The judge would laugh him out of court! Nunquam Dormio (talk) 15:46, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Linchpin, hopefully not. But I can see the argument, it being: if wikipedia itself considers the matter to be "British" why shouldn't the case be determined under British law. Since I see no reason why this article should definitively be written in British English rather than American English, I object. --Cdogsimmons (talk) 02:29, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
An argument that the choice of dialect of English (or system of spelling) on this page could possibly affect the court's jurisdiction were the matter litigated would be doomed to failure in any English forum (I can't speak to the US). That should not be a concern. Francis Davey (talk) 20:55, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why not split the difference, write it in Canadian English and make everyone unhappy? Resolute 00:37, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Almost like a forum selection clause. I like the way you think. Shall we take a vote?--Cdogsimmons (talk) 02:29, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Should it matter that the Government of Canada still considers Elizabeth II to be its sovereign?--Cdogsimmons (talk) 02:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I did it because it was a tough choice. WP:ENGVAR says "An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation uses the English of that nation." Yet, in a similar situation, people still edit war about United States Grand Prix articles using British spelling even though it was an American stop on a international driving series. ViperSnake151  Talk  02:35, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe, but you added the box to the top of this talk page that says this article has to be in British English unless a high standard of proof is shown otherwise. There is no such box at United States Grand Prix. Your edit (being the first edit to this talk page) obviously represents only your personal opinion that the issue is a British matter, and not a general consensus. I think this box should be removed and a general consensus found.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 12:40, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Biased article

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Although I am totally with Wikipedia on this issue I am embarrased by the level of bias against NPG in this article. To make the case that putting these images on Wikipedia is in the public interest we should make this article an example of how good Wikipedia can be. For example I was going to point my MP to this page, but I am afraid in it's current state this article will make many UK readers side with NPG. The issue of whether US or UK copyright applies is complicated and applies to much more than the subject of this article, in my understanding the 'copyleft' terms of Wikipedia itself rely on (US) copyright law. The article should reflect the complexities of international law and not just assume that US rulings apply. I will try and make some improvements, but I am not a lawyer so I will have to read up on the issues first. Incidentaly I sent a complaint to the NPG about this issue, is there anywhere I can post/host the response? 82.46.2.42 (talk) 10:51, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The article is written entirely from the point of view of Wikipedia/Wikimedia. These are some of the items that I think need addressing to make it more neutral:
  • the title is written from the Wikipedia view: from the NPG side, it would be the "Wikimedia copyright dispute"
  • Statements made by the NPG are described as "claims" and "allegations", whilst those made by the EEF and WF are described as "statements".
  • not even an External link to the NPG letter, whilst statements by Moller and Lohmann are quoted in the text.
  • EEF statements are improperly listed as a "response" to the dispute, even though they are lawyers acting for one of the parties in that dispute.
  • the legal section favors US law over English law.
  • the most pernicious biases are however is what is left out: the response of BAPLA; the assumption that copy-protection software on these images was by-passed; the position of copyright in English Law; actions taken by Wikimedia to undermine any future court injunction on Coetzee to delete these images.
Do others agree with me? So far the consensus is that this article does not follow WP:NPOV: what should we do about it? Hallucegenia (talk) 09:22, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know about then, but it is certainly biased now. Meowy 02:10, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

POV concerns

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I've tagged the section titled "Reaction" as having POV problems. Currently it only has the responses of the organisation hosting the images and the organisation providing defence council. Guest9999 (talk) 19:18, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe {{unbalanced}} would be more appropriate. --Damiens.rf 16:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It appears to me that, rather than this section being "imbalanced," the article may be "improperly formatted"  :-) That is, the beginning of the article reports on the assertion of (c) claim, and this is the response to that assertion. I would expect that any "response" to an assertion of (c) -- that was other than "oops, our bad!" -- would present the opposing, "no, it's not (c) for these reasons" (and thus inherently non-NPOV (and accurately reported as-such!)) POV. If there is an NPOV flaw, perhaps it lies instead in pulling this "response" out of in-line text, thus "elevating" the point(s) of the "responders." I also might suggest that comments (in the press, and/or by people in library/law/art-history professions) on (both sides of) the conflict might more-properly be called "response" to the conflict; but maybe reports of conflicts are, by WP convention, reported in this format? 130.157.127.45 (talk) 23:24, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Time for an update?

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Three months on, are there developments we can report? Johnbod (talk) 21:40, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Two months later, I second that. I couldn't find any updates in Google News though. Searching for wikipedia "National Portrait Gallery" in 2009 turns up only a few results later than August. I couldn't find the September one. The October ones simply say "I am reminded of a recent case" and "The above is from a few months ago" using Google Translate. The December ones are apparently errors in Google News, as the datelines are from July and August. Galatee (talk) 18:23, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Why do I think this case was settled? I thought that I read something to that effect a while back, that an agreement was reached, anybody know?..Modernist (talk) 18:45, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Added a small update. It's still in discussion. Galatee (talk) 18:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not aware of any updates on the conflict myself. Dcoetzee 19:33, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't seem to have hit the main page for the conference yet, but Liam Wyatt posted somewhere that someone from the NPG will address the GLAMWIKI conference later this moth, with the title "Bad first date". Johnbod (talk) 14:53, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It this still unresolved? Kevink707 (talk) 19:38, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Countersuit

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Transferred to the more appropriate location.  —  Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX )  18:34, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments and notes

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The editor who placed the images on Wikimedia Commons, Derrick Coetzee, was a long-established administrator on Wikipedia [1] and on Wikimedia Commons [2] the time of the incident, so I think that should be stated in the aticle and have done so. Meowy 01:53, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The email sent to Coetzee: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Dcoetzee/NPG_legal_threat — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meowy (talk • contribs) 02:02, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Link to an page with one of the images, with a note stating that "Commons policy accepts the use of this media" and "The official position taken by the Wikimedia Foundation is that "faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain, and that claims to the contrary represent an assault on the very concept of a public domain". [3] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meowy (talk • contribs) 02:02, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The blocking of the user who sent Coetzee the email [4]. Blocked on the day the email was sent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meowy (talk • contribs) 02:08, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

All the updates I know

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I was asked for an update. Since I've had no further direct contact from either my attorney or the National Portrait Gallery, everything new I've learned about the conflict has been from the Signpost. See these articles:

And that's it. Dcoetzee 03:43, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Dcoetzee. You may be in a position to report something that isn't clearly mentioned in the article: was the copyright suit against you ultimately dropped or resolved in some other way? Thanks! -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 22:43, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Resolution - was there one? It seems there was?!?

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There was clearly some resolution. This dispute isn't ongoing. NPG apparently changed their policy. Indeed it looks like they did a deal to have Wikipedia remove the hi-def images in exchange for "medium" quality, it also looks like NPG stopped charging for access to many images and instead takes donations. So there certainly seems more to report that is in here now. Was there a gagging clause to an out of court agreement between the parties that's preventing this page from being completed?

This, http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/UK-museums-open-up-to-Wikimedia-920612.html, seems quite related - NPG and other British Museums suddenly decided to give Wikipedia more access. Pbhj (talk) 00:41, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That was one-off access to take your own photos (often permitted anyway), including using tripods in some places, & I'm pretty sure not related to this. Johnbod (talk) 20:52, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ban on Derrick Coetzee

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I reinstated the section on the permanent global ban on the subject of this dispute, because it seems to me potentially relevant although I do not prove of association. The page has a tag on it that requires updating. Clearly Coetzee himself cannot respond. This is what I wrote -

"A global ban was placed on the user behind all this, Derrick Coetzee, by the Wikimedia Foundation on Decembr 3 2014. According to his user page before it was blanked, he was a graduate student in computer science at the University of California, Berkeley in the United States. Whether this was related to this dispute is not stated." --Michael Goodyear (talk) 19:05, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And you signed it. I'm not going to revert you again, but please remove your signature from it. Signatures don't belong there. Also, the reference provided is a self reference to Wikipedia. Barring presentation of evidence, there's no association between his ban and the NPG events. Further, without secondary sources to support this, I don't really see how this is relevant to the topic. Was this reported in the press somewhere? --Hammersoft (talk) 20:19, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that this section should be removed, unless coverage in reliable sources reports a connection between the case and Coetzee's banning. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 05:46, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
From what I have seen in various online sources, it seems that the global ban on User:Dcoetzee is not directly related to the NPG vs WMF dispute. The Yeti 06:48, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Section should be removed. His being banned had nothing to do with the NPG incident. Bgwhite (talk) 08:15, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry Michael but I think you are out of line on this one. ww2censor (talk) 11:59, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Advice to Editors?

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Has any advice been written for Wikipedia editors looking to use NPG images today that keeps them in line with whatever agreement was put together to resolve this case? If so, could this article be updated to link to it? Chuntuk (talk) 10:37, 24 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like NPG images have the template {{SourceNPGLondon}} in the source column of their description which warns users of the copyright claim and possible implications. Opencooper (talk) 16:39, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
How about uploading a low-res NPG photo to a Wikipedia biography (not Commons) under WP:FAIRUSE? Is the NPG going to have a problem with that ? Muzilon (talk) 02:23, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Zoomify clarification

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@P64: Commons has some general information on Zoomify. My understanding from reading it is that websites can allow people to zoom into their high resolution photos by using it and it breaks the images into tiles. I think the lawyer was trying to say that putting a simple zoom interface over public domain images doesn't grant copyright. Does that clarify things? If so should it be put in a footnote? Ideally one would just fill in the red link but I don't know if it's notable and regardless context should still be provided in the original article. Opencooper (talk) 19:50, 3 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks.
I agree that Zoomify probably is not notable and that this page should anyway at least indicate some incomplete explanation. After reading the linked Commons material, the meaning is clear to me. I don't know precisely how that should be explained here, certainly not by simple copy and paste of your paraphrase and speculation into the article.
Explanation should be separate from the sourcenote, I feel strongly. So I added code for one explanatory footnote {{efn}} attached to the quoted word 'Zoomify'. Perhaps the content should begin, "Zoomify is a program that..." or "Zoomify is a technology that...".
The blockquote that immediately follows this quotation is unrelated, except that it shares a source. So I inserted "Lohmann also observed:", my only substantial revision. --P64 (talk) 20:19, 3 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed that it should be phrased differently. How about: "Zoomify is an interface that allows users to zoom into high resolution versions of images." I think the rest of the quote can speak for itself, unless you originally meant that the whole quote is confusing? Whoops missed your sentence about an explanation separate from the footnote. The best way to summarize his argument is that the actions that the museum took: making users agree to terms and conditions (browser warp), the effort put into compiling their database (database rights), and the technology added over the images (zoomify), altogether still don't give it the right to make a claim on the content (DMCA). Maybe you can find a way to phrase that more succinctly and in an encyclopedic manner? Opencooper (talk)
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