Corrections to the cultural heritage images licensing regime

Last year a mandatory fee regime was introduced for images of publicly-owned cultural heritage artifacts. This is morally wrong, but it is also impractical.

A new regulation came out in March modifying the rules and introducing exemptions. Wikimedia Italia wrote about it on their Arkivia blog.

Academic works and news are now exempted from the fees, and so are catalogues printed in less than 4000 copies.

The bureaucratic abomination under-girding the system, however, remains in place.