We do not need/want the NPG approach

Our relations with the #GLAM world are friendly and productive. We worked hard to mend fences with the National Portrait Gallery and overcome a sense of weariness particularly in the British museum world.

There was quite some drama when the lawyers of the National Portrait Gallery informed of their intentions to go to court because of material that was craftily copied from its website. Valuable time of lawyers and Wikimedians was spend in order to prevent it from going to court.

This kind of drama is exactly what we do not need. It is therefore disappointing when another website of a museum, this time the Metropolitan Museum of Art can find its high resolution pictures on Commons thanks to a crafty approach to what is available on its website.

It is disappointing because the MET was not even asked if we could have their public domain pictures. It is disappointing because we do not gather the statistics of the MET's traffic with the Baglama tool. It is disappointing because such behaviour does not help us build relations in the GLAM world.

Some people consider that such actions are legal even moral, for me it is short sighted, selfish and stupid.

All this reminded me of the joke of the two bulls on a hill but this other joke is more apt.

A bull called Hannibal eagerly looked at the cows who were put to pasture in a plot next to his. Marshalling all his courage he jumped the fence. 

Hello Hannibal mooed one of the cows.. Hello gorgeous. Call me Hanni as my balls are hanging on the barbed wire..

Thanks,
      GerardM