Nick et al
I'm not aware of any museums making their *collections* available under CC licenses but there are very appropriate applications of CC to other museum content. Unfortunately many discussions of CC end up in an all or nothing flamewar - which, as you've said, is rather silly.
We've been using CC (Non-commercial, Attribution) for our teachers kits and craft worksheets (on our kids website - play.powerhousemuseum.com) mainly after we noticed that we started receiving cheques from a Copyright collecting agency who had been charging teachers and educators for their reproduction and use in the classroom. Now whilst it was nice to get the cheques they went totally against the purpose of the worksheets - they were meant to be openly and freely reproduced within classrooms. The Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) in Australia has statutory rights to collect from educational institutions for duplication of Copyright materials and does regular audits from which payments and fees are determined. We *didn't* want to say our educational resources were public domain, nor did we want to say they were Copyright (meaning CAL would collect on their usage) - and CC offered a good middle ground - allowing us the option to seek payment for commercial reproduction by, say, textbook publishers, but at the same time preventing CAL from charging schools for using them.
We've also been using the same CC licensing for our original non-object photography on a case-by-case basis as a means to increase awareness of the non-object photography that the museum engages in. These are on our Photo of the Day blog (www.powerhousemuseum.com/imageservices).
We are very careful with CC as, like Europe, we face moral rights implications on content as well - something the US doesn't have to deal with.
But on to Frankie's point, I think, is that musuems that *do* hold obviously public domain content should not be charging for it or claiming Copyright over it. I don't think that there is a blanket yes or no answer to this because there are obvious revenue implications either way.
It is fascinating that in the UK the economy for museums has shifted from venues/admissions to publishing because in Australia we are going in the opposite direction. In some ways our ability to rely on venue/admission charges for revenue allows us to do a lot more with publishing and experiment with more open models as a way of building brand recognition and through the door revenues (i expect innovators like the Brooklyn Museum do likewise).
I wonder if it would be different in the UK if the sector went back to charging admission/entry fees?
Seb
Sebastian Chan
Manager, Web Services
Powerhouse Museum
street - 500 Harris St Ultimo, NSW Australia
postal - PO Box K346, Haymarket, NSW 1238
tel - 61 2 9217 0109
fax - 61 2 9217 0689
e - [log in to unmask]
w - www.powerhousemuseum.com
b - www.powerhousemuseum.com/dmsblog
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group on behalf of Nick Poole
Sent: Sat 19/04/2008 5:57 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: copyright licensing and museums
Hi Jessica,
At the risk of kicking off a whole new thread, we've been looking seriously at CC for the past 3 years and found that as a model it is absolutely fraught with issues and risks for culture-sector organisations. A recent (I think JISC-funded?) report did an excellent job of looking into the takeup of CC among cultural institutions and found that it was absolutely minimal.
The reasons are many and various, but include the fact that the licenses (in their raw form) are worldwide, irrevocable and carry (or carried - they may have been updated in the interim) no provision for defamatory use. The other difficulty was that they are *only* applicable where you are clearly and uniquely the rightsholder, and therefore have the right to attribute the content under a CC license - for most cultural organisations this is not the case. I also know that at the time we were looking into CC, there was almost no relevant international case law, and none at all in the UK.
Like everyone else, the museums sector in the UK got caught up in CC evangelism a couple of years ago, and like everyone else, the enthusiasm has dissipated in the face of real issues of rights management. It seemed to offer so much, and there is considerable merit in models such as the 3-tier presentation (RDF/legal/human), but I would counsel almost any cultural institution against the unilateral adoption of CC unless you have a really clear idea of the rights status of your works. There is also a lot of potential in models such as the BBC Creative Archive License.
At the end of the day, however, CC is *just* a set of licenses. It doesn't change the law, and it is only applicable where it is applicable. I would far rather that cultural institutions became confident negotiators of rights agreements and used licensing as a flexible tool for managing permissions, rather than adopting a framework from somewhere else without understanding the full implications of what they're doing.
Now, any negative comment on CC tends to invoke a flame war (not from you, Jessica, but there are enough 'party faithful' left in CC-world to make it an issue), and I would rather avoid this. If our assessment (based, I have to say, on quite a lot of in-depth work) is incorrect in respect of the current generation of CC licenses, I would welcome a gentle and reasoned clarification! I'd also love to hear from museums who have successfully implemented CC over their collections (and particularly images being syndicated for use elsewhere).
Best regards,
Nick
Nick Poole
Chief Executive
Collections Trust
www.collectionstrust.org.uk
www.collectionslink.org.uk
www.cuturalpropertyadvice.gov.uk
Tel: 01223 316028
Fax: 01223 364658
Until the end of April 2008, the Collections Trust's legal trading name is: MDA (Europe) Ltd
Company Registration No: 1300565
Reg. Office: 22 Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 1JP.
The Collections Trust believes that everybody, everywhere should have the right to access and benefit from cultural collections. Our aim is to develop programmes and standards which help connect people and culture.
The Collections Trust was launched from its predecessor body, the MDA, in March 2008.
-----Original Message-----
From: j trant [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 18 April 2008 16:01
To: Museums Computer Group
Cc: Nick Poole
Subject: Re: copyright licensing and museums
Nick,
I'd urge you to look seriously at CC+ it's not at all an
"irrevocable open content licenses like Creative Commons [that]
fundamentally undermines our ability" but a widely recognised tool to
do just what you argue: respect the different relationship between
museums and their many, varied constituencies.
/jt
At 3:16 PM +0100 4/18/08, Nick Poole wrote:
>Dear all,
>
>Echoing Naomi's email, this is one of the fundamental principles
>which led us to make the change from MDA to the Collections Trust.
>
>The place for this discussion as at the intersection between
>technologists, legal experts, managers, accountants and marketers.
>In the absence of such a focus, this discussion tends to be (has
>already been) repeated in each community separately, and each time
>with a slightly different set of assumptions about the needs,
>priorities and potential contribution of those 'other' communities.
>
>As Naomi says, this conversation has been had (many times) in
>copyright world. It has been had in Europe. It is being had
>nationally as part of discussions about standards and development.
>It is being had in Government in the context of rationalising
>cultural organisations.
>
>Copyright is the key to navigating this situation intelligently
>instead of simply blundering through it. Setting aside copyright
>law, a genuinely intelligent approach to licensing enables us to
>satisfy most of our wishes, and the needs of our users, at the same
>time.
>
>Licensing can direct the same piece of content to be freely
>available, mashable etc in some circumstances, and locked-down and
>paid for in others. It's not an either/or and the 'set it free'
>militancy and wanton application of irrevocable open content
>licenses like Creative Commons fundamentally undermines our ability
>as a sector to take control of what we want people to do, and what
>we don't.
>
>The tension is clear - on the one hand, Government and the Treasury
>are talking about museums becoming more innovative and risky. The
>implication is that there will be less public investment available,
>so museums are going to have to become more commercially-oriented
>(speaking recently with a Government officer, whose comment was
>'museums need to start thinking like businesses, before they don't
>have a choice').
>
>Technology world has engendered a number of new business models,
>which we have pored over in previous discussions on this list. While
>I do believe that there is scope for some of these models to provide
>sustainable income (both economic and in the form of public value)
>for museums, the upfront message is 'freedom', 'open', 'set the
>content free' - which apparently undermines the more business-minded
>messages coming through from Government.
>
>The fact is that we are talking about a whole different industry
>model. Our economy used to be based on venues and objects. It is now
>based on publishing. Technology certainly provides one of the
>mechanisms by which our published content is brought to market, but
>actually making the whole process sustainable depends on a
>rock-solid foundation of marketing, business modelling, financial
>management and licensing.
>
>We need to have the conversation holistically, or we run the risk of
>fundamentally undermining our own position.
>
>Nick
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Nick Poole
>Chief Executive
>Collections Trust
>
>www.collectionstrust.org.uk
>www.collectionslink.org.uk
>www.cuturalpropertyadvice.gov.uk
>
>
>Tel: 01223 316028
>Fax: 01223 364658
>
>
>Until the end of April 2008, the Collections Trust's legal trading
>name is: MDA (Europe) Ltd
>Company Registration No: 1300565
>Reg. Office: 22 Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 1JP.
>
>The Collections Trust believes that everybody, everywhere should
>have the right to access and benefit from cultural collections. Our
>aim is to develop programmes and standards which help connect people
>and culture.
>
>The Collections Trust was launched from its predecessor body, the
>MDA, in March 2008.
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
>Of Naomi Korn
>Sent: 18 April 2008 08:29
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: copyright licensing and museums
>
>Dear Frankie (et al)
>
>I have been following the discussion with some interest and being into
>copyright and all that, felt compelled to respond hook line and sinker when
>you first raised the topic, but decided to sit back a bit first (unusually
>for me) and wait a little for the discussion to unfold.
>
>I think that your distinctions below are really helpful and map out well the
>different types of works that we have in our collections and the "freedoms"
>that are associated with each. Underpinning this, is that if a collection
>doesn't own the rights or have the permission from third party rights
>holders, then they will also lack the freedom to control how the work is
>accessed and used. An excellent case for trying to get these necessary
>permissions sorted when a work is acquired or created. I have an anecdote
>about a very nasty little person sitting out there in cyberspace who is
>lurking and waiting for cultural heritage organisations to use his stuff
>without his permission, and when they do, going in for the sting. Its not
>pleasant, rights holders can do it, and rather skews our risk evaluation
>pragmatism when dealing with certain types of works.
>
>Picking up on your "grey" - works of "no known copyright restrictions",
>would, in my mind, encapsulates the works which we don't know who owns the
>rights or the rights holders cannot be traced. Some of the more geeky
>"copyright" lists that I belong to spend many, many hours discussing the
>issues surrounding these so called "orphan" works, simply because there is
>the potential to have just so many of them in any one collection and there
>is currently no legal certainty for collections who wish to use them. This
>is a good example of where the necessary collision of worlds needs to happen
>- between my geeky copyright friends and the experts on this list. They are
>all talking at the moment about the preventative measures needing to be
>implementing at an international, organisational and collections level to
>stop these works being created in the first place. But referring to the need
>to capture "information" and use "databases". This seems to me to be very
>much talking as we would 10-20 years ago. We need these discussions held by
>m'learned friends to be thinking and actively talking about integrated
>systems, dynamic licences, embedded metadata, standards, collections
>management systems, digital rights management etc etc if we want to really
>try and reduce the number of orphan works. Anyone up for a joint session?
>
>Best wishes
>
>Naomi
>
>IP Consultant
>www.naomikorn.com
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
>frankie roberto
>Sent: 17 April 2008 18:09
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: copyright licensing and museums
>
>A few quick distinctions to make.
>
>There are at least 3 types of images museums have:
>
>1) scans of artworks/photographs, where the original's copyright has
>expired (ie is Public Domain)
>2) images where the museum owns the copyright (either through taking
>the photo, or through assignment of all rights)
>3) images, or scans of images, where a third-party
>(artist/photographer) owns the copyright.
>
>(there's also the grey area of 'no known copyright restrictions', but
>lets ignore that for now.
>
>There are also a few different freedoms that a museum can grant:
>
>1) freedom to view online, on our websites, plus by extension to
>download for personal use.
>2) freedom to republish or redistribute (eg put on your blog/website,
>or print in a book).
>3) freedom to make derivative works (to parody, to draw moustaches, or
>to make photoshop 2 images together)
>4) freedom to make money from doing 2) or 3).
>
>From my perspective (and of Michael Gueist's), you should certainly be
>able to have all 4 freedoms with public domain works (type 1). In
>fact, it's impossible not to, other than by misleading people or by
>making the images physically inaccessible. These are the kinds of
>images that Flickr Commons is all about.
>
>With type 2 works, where we own the copyright, there's no legal
>obligation to grant any of the freedoms, but there's a moral argument
>that we should be, for the public good, and also a possible
>practical/business one - granting the freedoms may generate more
>interest, and revenue (in print sales, exhibition tickets, etc) down
>the line.
>
>For type 3 works, things are a little more complicated, but we can
>still try and make the case to the rights holders that they'd benefit
>from making their works freer, in at least some of the above ways.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Frankie
>(a slightly younger hippy and open source geek)
>
>
>On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 5:30 PM, electronic museum
><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> All
>>
>> I think this is a really interesting thread.
>>
>> Understanding what value can be had from exposure is obviously key.
>There's
>> lots of evidence out there that getting more eyeballs to your
>> stuff (and accepting that some "stealing" will take place) is a much
>better
>> business model than hiding your assets away and people simply not getting
>to
>> it at all.
>>
>> The evidence often clusters around PDFs downloads: see
>> http://torrentfreak.com/alchemist-author-pirates-own-books-080124/ where
>> Paulo Coelho, author of "The Alchemist" says this:
>>
>> "In 2001, I sold 10,000 hard copies. And everyone was puzzled. We came
>from
>> zero, from 1000, to 10,000. And then the next year we were over 100,000.
>[.]
>> I thought that this is fantastic. You give to the reader the possibility
>of
>> reading your books and choosing whether to buy it or not. [.]
>> So, I went to BitTorrent and I got all my pirate editions. And I created
>a
>> site called The Pirate Coelho."
>>
>> With the demise of music DRM apparently on the horizon, it's a hot topic
>> with the major music labels, too. Ian Rogers from Yahoo! wrote a
>fantastic
>> post with slides entitled "Losers wish for scarcity. Winners leverage
>> scale". I've written about this on my blog:
>> http://electronicmuseum.org.uk/2008/01/14/scarcity-vs-scale/ ...
>>
>> What would be fantastic (if unlikely) would be if a museum or gallery
>agreed
>> to take part in a quantitative study: take one selection of images and
>hide
>> them away behind watermarking, DRM and thumbnails; take another and make
>> these widely and hugely available via Facebook, MySpace, Flickr,
>blogging,
>> etc. Offer both sets for purchase in hi-res, then sit back and measure
>over
>> a period of time. Common sense says that people will steal all the small
>> ones and not bother buying: increasing bodies of evidence show the
>opposite
>> is actually true.
>>
>> I'd personally argue that once stuff is on the web, it's being "stolen"
>> anyway, so we can fight this or go with it and do what we can to
>encourage
>> sales off the back of the "scale". But I don't run a picture library so
>I'm
>> more than ready to put my neck on the line
>>
>> So. Any museums going to step up to the "make it free" challenge? :-)
>>
>> ta
>>
>> Mike
>>
>> ________________________________________________
>>
>> electronic museum
>>
>> ..thoughts on museums, the social web, innovation
>>
>> w: http://www.electronicmuseum.org.uk
>> f: http://electronicmuseum.wordpress.com/feed
>> e: [log in to unmask]
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Ridge, Mia
><[log in to unmask]>
> > wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> > Frankie Roberto wrote:
>> >
>> > > At the conference there did seem to be a vague consensus that we
>> > > should be moving towards giving access to these images (the public
>> > > domain ones at the very least) away though - especially with the
>> > > general buzz around Flickr Commons.
>> > >
>> > > Does anyone have any thoughts about this? And what are the
>> > > barriers we need to overcome?
>> >
>> > I think we gain more than we lose when we provide access to our images,
>> > but then I'm an old hippie and open source geek.
>> >
>> > I think we need to show that it's going to benefit our audiences and
>our
>> > institutions; and particularly that it's not going to lose money for
>our
>> > institutions.
>> >
>> > I'd love to see the figures for total expenditure on commercial image
> > > licensing and print services versus total income - do these services
>> > currently make a profit, and would that profit be enhanced by increased
>> > exposure and 'discoverability' or would that profit be dented if people
>> > no longer feel the need to pay for images? Do our museums even know if
>> > their image services are truly profitable, and if so does anyone want
>to
>> > volunteer their data?
>> >
>> > Someone's just started a discussion on the MCN list
>(http://www.mcn.edu)
>> > with the subject 'Monetizing museum web sites' and that thread might
>> > also throw up some useful suggestions.
>> >
>> > cheers, Mia
>> >
>> >
>> > Mia Ridge
>> > Database Developer, Museum Systems Team
>> > Museum of London Group
>> > 46 Eagle Wharf Road
>> > London. N1 7ED
>> > Tel: 020 7410 2205 / 020 7814 5723
>> > Fax: 020 7600 1058
>> > Email: [log in to unmask]
>> > www.museumoflondon.org.uk
>> > Museum of London is changing; our lower galleries will be closed while
>> > they undergo a major new development. Visit www.museumoflondon.org.uk
>to
>> > find out more.
>> > London's Burning - explore how the Great Fire of London shaped the city
>we
>> > see today www.museumoflondon.org.uk/londonsburning
>> > Before printing, please think about the environment
>> >
>> > **************************************************
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>> > website at http://www.museumscomputergroup.org.uk
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>>
>>
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