Miller has a point with repect to his view that images of artworks held by public collections should be available free (I'd accept minimal cost). Museums do charge hefty fees for reproduction rights. Authors who are writing scholarly books -- with guaranteed low sales -- often need to come up with the funds to provide illustrations, usually of works held in public museums when their publishers refuse to take on those production costs.
However, I realize that some cavaets need to be addressed. How and under what circumstances should free images be provided? It's one thing for a scholar to have free images to study, or even to reproduce with all proper attributions, etc., but another to have someone 'manipulate' the image for whatever reason, including any commercial reason. Images that have entered the public domain by whatever path, are frequently morphed into commercial uses far from any art references. And of course there's always the problem of faking works to sell as the real thing. That's why there are legions of lawyers. Ah, that reminds me: Of the many reasons to admire Tocqueville, his noting that lawyers serve the purpose of a ruling aristocracy in a democracy because they have a special language that frames the laws of the land. Whoever controls that language, he argued, controls the state. And it's a language only lawyers can read. We also know that Mr. Bill Gates has all but bought up the rights to reproducing images. So one way or another, you'll pay him for their use. And you can be sure he has many lawyers to concoct the language that serves his growing monopoly of visuality. WC --- On Mon, 3/2/09, Chris Miller <[email protected]> wrote: > From: Chris Miller <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: High end amusement park > To: [email protected] > Date: Monday, March 2, 2009, 8:15 AM > Museums must have photos of every item they own, Cheerskep, > as part of the > documentation of their collection ( along with dimensions, > provenance, history > of restoration, exhibition, etc.) > > That's why, for example, within a few years, the > British Museum could post > hundreds of thousands of images. > > (BTW -- most photographs -- even ones that have been > screened and published in > books -- are dense enough to survive several degrees of > magnification and > still present a sharp image) > > But so far, only the British museum has decided to make all > those photographs > available as scans that are large enough to show every > detail. > > It takes just as much effort -- just as much expense -- to > make the smaller > scans that other museums are offering. > > And that's what troubles me. > > Most other museums have made a policy decision to offer > less. > > Why ? > > My speculation is that they are following the old > whore's wise advice: > > "Don't give it away for free, girls" > > BTW -- here is an example of the sufficient magnification > of a four foot > scroll -- allowing the viewer to taste every single brush > stroke: > > http://www.npm.gov.tw/en/collection/selections_02.htm?docno=60&catno=15&pagen > o=2 > > > > While -- here is an example of an image that zooms big -- > but just not big > enough: > > http://www.mfa.org/collections/search_art.asp?coll_accession=11.4000&coll_nam > e=&coll_artist=&coll_medium=&coll_culture=&coll_classification=&coll_credit=& > coll_provenance=&coll_keywords=&coll_sort=2&coll_sort_order=0&submit=Search > > (It's the "Night Attack on the Sanjo Palace" > in the Boston Museum. One of the > greatest paintings from any period in any American art > museum) > > > > ..... > > > >I'm unsure about this, but if it's anything > like the expenses in publishing,a > big cost comes from photographing the things properly, one > at a time. > Whenyou're talking about thousands of photographs -- > well, thruppence > 'ere,thruppence there... > > > ____________________________________________________________ > Be there without being there. Click now for great video > conferencing > solutions! > http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/fc/BLSrjnxPnB8tYjk9FbddBejK6SVnjm > 0ZEIZ4pdyANf6w3vgTvB9GZyITwJq/
