Just a cheer in support of creative thinking!
And of course, creative lawyering.
Best regards,
Virginia
Special Counsel, Creative Commons
Chair, Art Law Committee, New York City Bar Association
--- On Wed, 5/20/09, Newman, Alan A-Newman at NGA.GOV wrote:
From: Newman, Alan a-new...@nga.gov
Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Image Sizes (later Image Theft)
To: Museum Computer Network Listserv mcn-l at mcn.edu
Date: Wednesday, May 20, 2009, 1:12 PM
Nik, Matt, Ken, Nancy, Mike et al,
Here's another music model --- from Radiohead (quoting from Wikipedia)
Radiohead's seventh album, In Rainbows, was released through the band's own
website on 10 October 2007 as a digital download for which customers could
make whatever payment that they wanted, including nothing; the site only
advised, it's up to you.[46] Following the band's sudden announcement 10
days beforehand, Radiohead's unusual strategy received much notice within
the music industry and beyond.[47] 1.2 million downloads were reportedly
sold by the day of release,[48] but the band's management did not release
official sales figures, claiming that the Internet-only distribution was
intended to boost later retail sales.
So we adopt a museum convention in use at the Met and elsewhere for
admissions: pay what you can afford for images. What could be more fair?
What could draw more attention to our collections? Who knows, this might be
the answer to Mariet Westermann's recommendation to streamline image
licensing.
When we build self-serve sites for image licensing which have trivial costs
after the build, and especially if we are using the people's money, it is
hard to justify charging for extant images of public domain art.
As Mark Jones, director of the VA remarked, paraphrased as told to me, the
people paid for this once, why should they pay again?
Nik, wish me luck getting this through.
Alan Newman
On 5/5/09 6:23 PM, Nik Honeysett NHoneysett at getty.edu wrote:
This reminds me of a classic example in the music industry in the early
90's.
Blue Note Record's legal team came across a 12 single called The
Band Played
the Boogie featuring an illegal sampling of Grant Green's
Sookie Sookie,
enjoying a huge underground following. Rather than
pursue a suit, Blue Note
hired the group and gave them access to their
full back catalogue. The
resulting release was Blue Note's first
platinum-selling album (Us3 - Hand on
the Torch).
So, put your images out there, wait for someone to figure out
how to
make money from them, then hire them.
(wish me luck with getting that
through our general counsel).
-nik
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