Wikimedia news/numero 35/en

Italian monuments may be photographed and posted on Wikipedia Commons
The Italian Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali (Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities, MiBac in short) and Wikimedia Italia join their forces to raise awareness among owners of Italian cultural heritage, asking them to offer the opportunity to the participants in the Wiki Loves Monuments competition to see their images depicting the Italian cultural heritage published on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. The photo taken in Italy for the contest Wiki Loves Monuments must in fact follow the "Code Urbani". In order to publish pictures of Italian cultural heritage and landscape, people must therefore knock on the door of all the entities involved (Ministry, curators, regions, provinces, metropolitan cities, municipalities and private entities) to discover the legitimate owners. A massive undertaking, but the team of Wikimedia Italy, organizer of the Italian branch of Wiki Loves Monuments, did not give up: with the important support and help of SeLiLi - Service for Free Licenses and Nexa - Center for Internet and Society, we were able to contact the Ministry and involve it in our project.

"Thanks to the support of the law firm of the attorney Deborah De Angelis - said Frieda Brioschi, President of Wikimedia Italy - we were able to contact MiBac and get its valuable support to the initiative, creating a true collaboration with a precise meaning: the highest Italian authorities in terms of protection of cultural heritage agrees that the sights of our beautiful country may be photographed and published on Wikipedia." And there's more to it. Through the framework agreement, the Ministry commits itself to ask all the peripheral bodies to indicate the "lesser-known cultural heritage, for which the right of taking photographs is granted without request for a monetary compensation", for images to be published on Wikipedia.org (in all its languages) and Wikimedia Commons, the photo database of Wikipedia.

"We chose to join Wiki Loves Monuments project with enthusiasm - says the Directorate General for Development of the Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture - because we believe it is a great way to involve actively the people in our country in the discovery and sharing of our historical and artistic heritage. In particular, we wanted to direct the project to all the places of culture which are less known outside the major tourist routes, but are no less beautiful and charming. Nowadays the development of cultural heritage must also pass through social media, like Wikipedia, through which we can reach groups of users different from the usual frequenters of museums."

This is a very significant advance in order to provide the community the wonderful cultural heritage of Italy.

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