Haggie: I've worked very successfully with Bridgeman for years. They are professional, friendly, and scrupulously copyright-conscious.
I suggest you contact them, explain the situation, get their side of the story, and yes definitely offer to provide better subsitute images. This will most likely lead to their offering to set up a contractual arrangement to represent your museum's images, sharing revenue, and I can definitely recommend doing so. It's a very comfortable additional revenue source. You can take it and develop the relationship from there. n.b. Image files -- the tools that are in demand for high-quality printing -- can be provided, licensed, sold precisely as such: as high quality digital files. This is separate from the underlying work of art that appears in the file; that work of art can be protected by copyright or it can be in the publilc domain. Logically, the value or price of the tool/file is separate from that of the artist's copyright clearance, which may or not apply. Bridgeman takes care of clearing artists' copyrights if that part of the equation applies. They also represent a large number of artists: http://www.bridgemanimages.com/en-GB/bridgeman-copyright-service Good luck! *Amalyah Keshet * *Image Resources and Copyright Management, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (retired)* On Thu, Aug 17, 2017 at 11:50 PM, Erik Landsberg <eriklandsb...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Maggie, > Not a lawyer, of course, but many museum have a "no commercial > photography"' notice in their literature, entrance info displays etc. > Perhaps that would give you grounds for a takedown notice. Just a thought. > But if PAM has a fully open access policy, would you consider just > providing Bridgeman with quality replacement images of those works? It > would be a far easier solution. > -Erik > > > On Thu, Aug 17, 2017 at 4:35 PM, Maggie Hanson <maggie.han...@pam.org> > wrote: > > > Hi, all - > > > > This question recently came up in our registrars dept. and I thought I'd > > kick it out to MCN to see if anyone else has encountered this issue and > > might have guidance. We'd be most grateful for any insight. Our rights > > specialist sent the following question to a registrars' list-serv and > > hasn't gotten much of a response: > > > > "It has recently come to my attention that Bridgeman Images has been > > selling images from our museum's collection (about 17 of them). We do not > > have an agreement with them, and the images are poor quality. I contacted > > our counsel, and he seemed to state that because everything they have is > in > > the public domain, we have no legal ground to stand on. That said, I > think > > it would be reasonable to contact them and ask them to take the images > > down, especially since the images are of such poor quality. Has anyone > else > > had this experience?" > > > > It might be a non-starter since the underlying works in the images are > > public domain, but we thought it was worth asking colleagues. Any > precedent > > would be useful. To be clear: this is not about us asserting rights, just > > about wanting to disseminate better images of the works in our collection > > (esp. when we'd provide better images for free!). > > > > Thanks, all! See you in Pittsburgh! > > Maggie > > > > > > Maggie Hanson > > Head of Library and Collections Information > > Portland Art Museum > > 503-276-4224 | direct > > portlandartmuseum.org > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum > Computer > > Network (http://www.mcn.edu) > > > > To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l@mcn.edu > > > > To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: > > http://mcn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l > > > > The MCN-L archives can be found at: > > http://www.mail-archive.com/mcn-l@mcn.edu/ > > > > > > > -- > *Erik Landsberg LLC* > *Cultural Heritage Digitization Consulting* > Serving Museums - Archives - Collectors - Artists > eriklandsb...@gmail.com > 732-456-0622 <(732)%20456-0622> > > _______________________________________________ > You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer > Network (http://www.mcn.edu) > > To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l@mcn.edu > > To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: > http://mcn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l > > The MCN-L archives can be found at: > http://www.mail-archive.com/mcn-l@mcn.edu/ > >
_______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l@mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://mcn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://www.mail-archive.com/mcn-l@mcn.edu/
