Dear Patrick, The Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO -- sounds like amigo) exists to enable just this kind of exchange of information within the educational sphere. Working from the foundations laid by the Museum Educational Site Licensing project (MESL) we've developed a not-for-profit framework within which to make images available for educational use. See http://www.amico.org for full background -- membership in AMICO is open.
We're doing this as a not for profit, in partnership with others like the Research Libraries Group, another not-for-profit, in order to ensure that we can create a sustainable, and persistent resource of lasting value to scholars and of assistance to museums. Licenses offer one way to ensure that image distributed for scholarship are used in that manner, and not in other commercial ways. In partnership with universities involved in a testbed last year, we've finalized liberal and livable license agreements that make high quality digital reproductions available for educational use. The texts of these agreements are available on our web site. The points raised by many in this discussion highlight the issues facing museums who are creating and distributing digitized images and information about works from their collection, and using other's intellectual property in their own creations. Creating bodies of material that are useful for scholars is a high-overhead, low-return investment in the development of future knowledge. The scholarly research community is very demanding, and has begun to expect the ability to "search across" all collections. Managing intellectual property rights is complex. Merging information from many sources demands considerable investment in technical and editorial standards. By addressing this together, the members of AMICO are pooling their expertise and resources, and developing a common solution that we hope will benefit education widely. We're interested in enabling educational access for primary and secondary schools, and life-long learners, through public libraries as well. And museums, who are heavy users of each others' collections, also benefit. AMICO members have full access to the entire library, under a license tailored to museum use. You're right when you say that we need to rethink our economic and social relationships in the networked information environment. AMICO has evolved as one way to facilitate the exchange of information in the educational environment while protecting the rights and interests of many stakeholders. best, jennifer ________ J. Trant 2008 Murray Ave, Suite D Executive Director Pittsburgh, PA 15217 USA Art Museum Image Consortium http://www.amico.org Phone: +1 412 422 8533 [email protected] Fax: +1 412 422 8594 ________
