From: Matt McKay <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2017 08:40:59 -0600

As it is pertinent to the points made here, and on your blog
(http://onsnetwork.org/chartgerink/2017/01/13/false-claims-of-copyright-and-stm/)
I am posting STM’s response to your letter regarding copyright:

Thank you for contacting STM about the use of copyright by our member
organisations. If copyright has been incorrectly or inadvertently
claimed, we are confident the matter will be addressed in due course.

In the more general case, STM and its members believe that copyright
promotes the creation and dissemination of works and enables the
development of new services and innovations. We support a free public
domain and object, for instance, to “public domaine payant”, a system
some countries impose in relation to public domain works. One of the
chief merits of public domain is that such works may be re-used freely
to create new works that are based on them, but public domain does
not, of itself, promote dissemination of public domain works or ensure
their continued and unaltered availability.

If an organisation expends time, money, and other resources to make,
curate and keep a work in the public domain reliably and widely
available, then such organisation should be able to recover the value
of the service they provide. We note, for example, that entry into
museums hosting public domain works are not generally free, nor are
reproductions of very well known or famous public domain works such as
the Mona Lisa. Reasonable people can, and do, differ in their opinions
about appropriate prices for goods and services and such differences
are likely to persist. As you may be aware, for competition reasons,
STM cannot comment on specific prices within the industry.