Compare The Smithsonian To London's National Gallery When It Comes To Public Domain Images
from the one-way-or-the-other dept
As noted here recently, London's National Portrait Gallery is involved in a legal tiff concerning whether the photos it put online of public domain portraits are public domain themselves. The Gallery insists they are not, and wants to prevent others from using them. However, jump across to this side of the pond and compare that response to what the Smithsonian is now saying, concerning its plan to get content more freely available and shared:Content Usage: Establish a pan-Institutional policy for sharing and using the Smithsonian's digital content, with particular focus on Copyright and Public Domain policies that encourage the appropriate re-use and sharing of Smithsonian resources.That sounds a lot better, and more in-tune with the mission of such a museum. To be fair, a few years back, the Smithsonian had its own troubles claiming copyright over public domain images, so perhaps it just takes a bit of time for these things to sink in.
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Filed Under: collaboration, fair use, national portrait gallery, public domain, smithsonian
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I think this is getting back to that question of the content of the image being public domain, but a newly shot image potentially being copyright. London's National Portrait Gallery paid to produce new images, did the Smithsonian do the same
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So is it illegal to bing the internet now?
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=h9DBynJUCS4
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At the very least its a true public service. Something our government keeps missing the point on repeatedly lately.
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In general if you are working for the government the public has full rights to anything you produce unless there is a reason to lock it down for national security or similar reasons. Any FOIA request should grant rights to publicly funded materials...
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Re: "so the Smithsonian could afford to take ultra high def photos.."
These actions should be already paying for themselves. The thing that has been lacking has been a way to properly open up these images and scans to the public, in a format that properly expresses that it is, in fact, for open domain use.
(along with making sure there is no claim to the work done by photographers or anyone else who would claim to control a piece because they held a lamp to light a shoot)
"Establish a pan-Institutional policy for sharing and using the Smithsonian’s digital content". In other words, the content is there, the hurdle is Doing something with it.
Bravo Smithsonian.
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"Hey, did you want to use a picture of this artwork in some advertising? Well, we've already photographed everything in the museum, so there's no need for you to go to the time and effort of producing your own photos. Here's a non-commercial-resolution version of the image in question, what do you think?"
I agree that lower-resolution versions of the photos should absolutely be public domain, but had this action been taken against some independent photog, working out of a stock images site, people would be up in arms in defense of the photog. I see the two cases as similar enough that the lack of sympathy for the museum rankles me somewhat.
Again, not totally sure of my facts here, if someone can prove me wrong, I'll hop straight over to the other side of the argument.
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Hmm..
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Public paintings
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