Copyright issues

[Luis Diego Gomez]

As one of the policy makers in my country (Costa Rica, by design or
deviceor circumstance), I am inclined to answer Mr. Wills very pointed and
politically (?) charged questions.

The answer to all this is: Hype.

We are still collecting, describing, photographing specimens of all our
especialities. Nobody in any of our governments (?) is questioning that.
Well, not quite: I have heard (but not confirmed) that a South American
embassy contacted a researcher with the question -- You, respected
researcher, have published some new species from our beloved country.
However, we (the Government) have no record of your permits.--
I believe that is all unsubstantiated.

If we were true to blood, any image is, by natural law (pl. let's not get
into this line of thought) owned by the country where the specimen came from.

A museum, on the other hand, under another less globalized legislation,
acquired its specimens in any fashion of different ways. Although not a
subject of natural history, let us bring into the picture the Elgin marble
relics in the former BM. They have been used a trillion times by scholars
and amateurs alike. Nobody has ever raised the issue of copyright.

Why? Because any institution holding things that are "imaged" in the media,
gets a lot of publicity.

Why? Because by illustrating a katidis from Amazonian Peru may bring income
to that area (the ecotourist) or simply continue doing what we taxonomists
have been doing forever.

Let us discuss something more educating, shall we? like what did Karsten
meant in 1882 by Hydnum subgelatinosum? (it's a fungus. No pharmaceutical
value that we know of).