Wikimedia speaks out over image use

Wikimedia has responded to the National Portrait Gallery's threat of legal action over the use of images on the online encyclopaedia.

The National Portrait Gallery has been accused of undermining the public service aims of Wikimedia by threatening to take legal action over its use of images.

Erik Moeller, deputy director of the Wikimedia Foundation, has responded to the museum's warning by insisting that the two sides should be "allies not adversaries" in bringing important works of art to the public.

His comments come after the National Portrait Gallery said it planned to sue a Wikimedia contributor who downloaded over 3,000 high resolution images from its website.

Derrick Coetzee published the pictures on Wikimedia Commons - an archive of free-to-use images on the user-generated encyclopaedia website.

International lawyers acting on behalf of the National Portrait Gallery said his actions breached UK copyright laws and threatened the museum's ability to invest in its digitisation programme.

The National Portrait Gallery is currently spending £1 million to digitise its portraits and paintings - a process it claims involves huge costs for research, cataloguing and highly-skilled photography.

In a blog post, Mr Moeller said the Wikimedia Foundation does not believe Mr Coetzee has violated copyright laws and will support him should the National Portrait Gallery follow through with its threats.

And he pointed out that there have been many successful partnerships between the Wikimedia community and other galleries, such as the Bundesarchiv and the Deutsche Fotothek in Germany.

These two museums donated 350,000 copyrighted images under a free license to Wikimedia Commons - a move which benefitted both parties.

"It is hard to see a plausible argument that excluding public domain content from a free, non-profit encyclopaedia serves any public interest whatsoever," Mr Moeller stressed.