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NPG launches legal battle against Wikipedia
14.07.09
The National Portrait Gallery has launched a legal battle against internet giant Wikipedia for breach of copyright - after 3,000 images from their website were uploaded to the online encylopedia.
The world-famous gallery - which attracts 1.8million visitors a year - is taking legal action against a volunteer of the US-based encyclopedia site after the high-resolution photographs were taken "without permission".
A spokesman for the central London gallery confirmed today that they are taking action against the website - which attracts 254million users a month.
The spokesman said: "In March 2009 over 3,000 high-resolution files were appropriated from the National Portrait Gallery website and published on Wikipedia without permission.
"The Gallery is very concerned that potential loss of licensing income from the high-resolution files threatens threatens its ability to reinvest in its digitisation programme and so make further images available.
"It is one of the Gallery's primary purposes to make as much of the Collection available as possible for the public to view.
"Digitisation involves huge costs including research, cataloguing, conservation and highly-skilled photography.
"Images then need to be made available on the Gallery website as part of a structured and authoritative database."
The spokesman added legal proceedings were enacted after the San-Francisco based non-for-profit organisation failed to respond to their concerns.
The spokesman said: "To date, Wikipedia has not responded to our requests to discuss the issue and so the National Portrait Gallery has been obliged to issue a lawyer's letter.
"The Gallery remains willing to enter into a dialogue with Wikipedia." The user who uploaded the "Victorian era" images revealed himself on US website Tech Radar as Derrick Coatzee - but denied he was employed by Wikipedia. He said: "Hi, this is Derrick Coetzee.
"I should emphasise that I am not, and never have been a Mediawiki developer or employee of the Wikimedia Foundation, and cannot speak for them in an official capacity.
"I acted only as a volunteer contributor in this matter." Situated in St Martin's Place near the bustling Trafalgar Square, the capital's famous gallery - established in 1856 - is home to hundreds of thousands of works of art, including works by past masters Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds.
It has been undergoing a massive £1million digitisation programme which has so far seen 60,000 of its celebrated paintings uploaded to an online gallery - which the NPG says has so far attracted "millions of users".
At the same time, however, Wikipedia launched its own Wikipedia Loves Art project - encouraging users to take photographs of works of art while visiting museums and upload them to the website.
It even gives advice to would-be photographers saying: "Tripod use in museums can sometimes be difficult and prohibited, so coordinating with museum staff will be important." Ironically Wikipedia also has on its site a section telling users how to report copyright violations.
But mounting a legal challenge to Wikipedia - which famously has no corporate structure and just 23 employees - has been problematic for the gallery's solicitors Farrer and Co.
The NPG spokesman added: "We haven't actually been able to track down anyone responsible for handling these kind of disputes." And the case could hit a legal minefield because in English law photographs ARE covered by copyright - with the copyright belonging to whoever took the photograph originally.
However in the US a photograph of a public domain image cannot be copyright because it "lacks originality".
Wikipedia - which has a PO box in San Francisco but no formal headquarters - was launched in 2001 by net entrepreneur and self-described "libertartian"Jimmy Wales.
Last year it was ranked 10th in a survey of the UK's most popular websites and is free of advertisements and promotions.
Its success can be attributed to an army of online volunteers who post and edit content.
But the website has not proved popular in all quarters with many schools in the UK banning their students from using it - because of a series of well-publicised inaccuracies and "unchecked facts".
There has also been innumerable instances of well-known celebrities having their profile information doctored.
In February the Tories altered a Wikipedia entry yesterday to cover up a gaffe by leader David Cameron - who taunted PM Gordon Brown for getting the age of painter Titian wrong, despite the artist's true age having never been established.
Within hours of the comment several changes were made to the Old Master's age on the website.
It began when David Cameron taunted Gordon Brown over getting the age of painter Titian wrong with a Tory spokesman blaming an" overenthusiastic member of staff".
And in Ireland the justice department banned staff working on asylum cases from using Wikipedia - saying it could not be "relied on" for gathering accurate information about other countries.
Wikipedia - which relies on donations to keep running - is now thought to be 42 times bigger than the Encyclopaedia Britannica and viewed 7 billion times every month.
A spokesman for Wikipedia was not available for comment.
Reader views (5)
Looks like the NPG have just chucked some money down the drain...
- Anton, Yeovil, UK
Why is it that the mainstream media simply cannot get a story about the Wikimedia Foundation without utterly botching a statement of fact?
"Wikipedia - which has a PO box in San Francisco but no formal headquarters..."
Oh, really? Then what are all those free culture geeks doing, marching into 39 Stillman Street every day?
- Gregory Kohs, West Chester, PA
All of these 3,000 paintings are in the public domain. By prohibiting the public to take photos of them, while at the same time claiming copyright on their own reproduction photos (which are not copyrightable in the US by the Bridgeman vs. Corel decision), the NPG effectively usurps what (according to copyright law) should be public property.
Yet the NPG is largely funded by the public.
The licensing income that they are so concerned about is less than 2.3% of its overall budget, according to the NPG's 200/2008 annual report.
- Torben, Chemnitz, Germany
What a bunch of muppets!
One has to ask whether Farrer & Co, for all their thousands of pounds per hour, could find their own backsides with a map and both hands.
Wikipedia's general counsel is prominent U.S. free speech lawyer Mike Godwin, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Godwin
The real problem for the NPG is that (unlike UK law) there is no new U.S. copyright in a faithful image of an old picture. (See <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp.">Bridgeman vs Corel</a>
. So they can't touch Wikipedia for hosting the images.
The NPG can try to go after Derrick Coetzee, but to make that stick they'll have to persuade a U.S. court to apply UK law against a U.S. resident for doing something that was legal under U.S. law. The last time somebody tried that in this area was... Bridgeman vs Corel.
Outcome:
If the NPG loses, they've wasted a lot of money, and established a definitive precedent against themselves.
If they win, they look mean-spirited and vindictive for picking on an individual; and the images will still be on the internet, because DCoetzee no longer has the access permissions to delete them.
Conclusion:
The NPG should shop around for a new firm of lawyers living in the 21st century, not one trading on a reputation from the 17th.
- James, London
Well, the Gallery should just make sure no one gets in there with a camera. That'll solve the problem. Museums here in the States do that all the time.
- Gary, Chicago, Illinois USA
