Re: [MCN-L] Bridgeman Images question

[Maggie Hanson]

Thanks so much, all! We really appreciate the additional perspective. 


-Original Message-
From: mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of Heidi 
Raatz
Sent: Friday, August 18, 2017 7:41 AM
To: mcn-l@mcn.edu
Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Bridgeman Images question

Hi Maggie,

I'd like to echo what Amalyah said so succinctly. Mia has had a terrific 
professional relationship with Bridgeman Images in place for ~5 years now.
They represent a selection of our museum's images and primarily assist us with 
requests for commercial uses of such. We regularly provide updated photography 
to Bridgeman to ensure that our collection is represented via quality images.

We also provide hi-res images directly (and freely) for educational, scholarly, 
research, non-commercial uses, including to the museum community for exhibition 
catalogues and support, monographs, catalogues raisonné, etc. People are free 
to download images directly from our Collection website and many of our works 
in the public domain have been shared openly elsewhere on the web (Wikimedia 
Commons for ex.).

As Amalyah mentions, image licensing can coexist with open access policies, and 
the revenue source is indeed helpful.

Best regards,
Heidi


Message: 7
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 13:36:18 +0300
From: Amalyah Keshet <amalyah.kes...@gmail.com>
To: Museum Computer Network Listserv <mcn-l@mcn.edu>
Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Bridgeman Images question
Message-ID:
<CAKD+RFp1BPjoZYE5z7CKp=svt3qxbhvykharpg3yh8ez1nn...@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

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)*

--
Heidi S. Raatz, MLIS
Visual Resources Librarian | Permissions Officer Minneapolis Institute of Art
2400 Third Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN  55404

612.870.3196 | hra...@artsmia.org | www.artsmia.org | VisRes Request Form 
[internal use] <http://ow.ly/43q4p>
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Re: [MCN-L] Bridgeman Images question

[Heidi Raatz]

Hi Maggie,

I'd like to echo what Amalyah said so succinctly. Mia has had a terrific
professional relationship with Bridgeman Images in place for ~5 years now.
They represent a selection of our museum's images and primarily assist us
with requests for commercial uses of such. We regularly provide updated
photography to Bridgeman to ensure that our collection is represented via
quality images.

We also provide hi-res images directly (and freely) for educational,
scholarly, research, non-commercial uses, including to the museum community
for exhibition catalogues and support, monographs, catalogues raisonné,
etc. People are free to download images directly from our Collection
website and many of our works in the public domain have been shared openly
elsewhere on the web (Wikimedia Commons for ex.).

As Amalyah mentions, image licensing can coexist with open access policies,
and the revenue source is indeed helpful.

Best regards,
Heidi


Message: 7
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 13:36:18 +0300
From: Amalyah Keshet <amalyah.kes...@gmail.com>
To: Museum Computer Network Listserv <mcn-l@mcn.edu>
Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Bridgeman Images question
Message-ID:
<CAKD+RFp1BPjoZYE5z7CKp=svt3qxbhvykharpg3yh8ez1nn...@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

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)*

-- 
Heidi S. Raatz, MLIS
Visual Resources Librarian | Permissions Officer
Minneapolis Institute of Art
2400 Third Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN  55404

612.870.3196 | hra...@artsmia.org | www.artsmia.org | VisRes Request Form
[internal use] <http://ow.ly/43q4p>
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Re: [MCN-L] Bridgeman Images question

[Amalyah Keshet]

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 
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 
> 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:
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> >
> > 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>
>
> ___
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> Network (http://www.mcn.edu)
>
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>
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>
>
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Re: [MCN-L] Bridgeman Images question

[Maggie Hanson]

Ha! 

Thanks so much for this, Nik! I do have your old blog post on hand for these 
conversations, as a matter of fact! Thanks for the reminder. 


-Original Message-
From: mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of Nik 
Honeysett
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2017 2:10 PM
To: mcn-l@mcn.edu
Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Bridgeman Images question

Good luck… but I agree with Erik.

The more interesting question is, have they actually licensed any of your 
public domain images? If they have, please try and find out who and distribute 
to this list, I have some “property" they might be interested in…

Marginally more helpful, if you’re still wading through the internal 
discussions for this, might be this old post from my time at the Getty which 
talks about the process of getting to an open content policy by breaking up the 
(numerous) dimensions of what it means for an institution: 
https://recoveringtechnologist.com/2013/12/11/scripting-an-open-content-program/
 
<https://recoveringtechnologist.com/2013/12/11/scripting-an-open-content-program/>
-nik



Nik Honeysett | Chief Executive Officer | BPOC | www.bpoc.org


M (805) 402-3326  P (619) 331-1974  E nhoneys...@bpoc.org 
<mailto:nhoneys...@bpoc.org>
1549 El Prado, Suite 8, San Diego, CA 92101

A technology collaboration that connects audiences to art, culture and science.







> On Aug 17, 2017, at 1:58 PM, Maggie Hanson <maggie.han...@pam.org> wrote:
> 
> Thanks, Erik -
> 
> We're kind of in-between right now. We're mostly operating with open 
> access mindset internally, but we don't yet have official 
> language/policies behind it. (We're working on that part . . . )
> 
> Providing Bridgeman with better images might be the best/easiest solution. 
> 
> Thanks for your feedback!
> Maggie
> 
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf 
> Of Erik Landsberg
> Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2017 1:50 PM
> To: Museum Computer Network Listserv <mcn-l@mcn.edu>
> Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Bridgeman Images question
> 
> 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.