The National Portrait Gallery of London is threatening litigation against a Wikipedia user over his uploading of pictures of some 3,000 paintings.
All the paintings are 19th century or earlier and firmly in the public domain. Their claim? The photos are a 'product of a painstaking exercise on the part of the photographer,' and that downloading them off the NPG site is an 'unlawful circumvention of technical measures.' And remember, the NPG's taxpayer-funded mission is to 'promote the appreciation and understanding of portraiture in all media [...] to as wide a range of visitors as possible!'
You can see the lawyer's letter here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Dcoetzee/NPG_legal_threat
The portraits in question can be seen here (unless they get deleted by Wikipedia):
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:National_Portrait_Gallery,_London
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/07/11/1239244/UKs-National-Portrait-Gallery-Threatens-To-Sue-Wikipedia-User?art_pos=16
You can see the lawyer's letter here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Dcoetzee/NPG_legal_threat The portraits in question can be seen here (unless they get deleted by Wikipedia):
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:National_Portrait_Gallery,_London http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/07/11/1239244/UKs-National-Portrait-Gallery-Threatens-To-Sue-Wikipedia-User?art_pos=16 
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