Canada's National Gallery Confused About The Public Domain

from the a-lesson-in-copyrights? dept

With content in the public domain often shrinking or looked at with suspicion by content providers and the politicians they fund, it's unfortunate, but not that surprising, that folks at Canada's National Gallery don't seem to understand what the public domain means. The article first focuses on the ridiculous court order forcing people who bought the latest Harry Potter book early to return the book, along with any notes about the book -- and promise not to discuss it. However, it then follows it up with the story of a Canadian school who requested a copy of an old photograph from the National Gallery. The Gallery not only wanted to charge them a rather high fee for making the copy and sending it to them, but also demanded to see and approve how the photo would be used. Since this is a public domain photo, it's hard to see how they have the right to make that claim. The school in question then appealed to Liza Frulla, the Minister of Canadian Heritage (quite a title) who was recently quoted as saying that she "does not need advice on protecting Canadian culture" since "it is the story of her life." Frulla didn't feel the matter merited any attention and let the Gallery "protect" the public domain as it saw fit.