Delirium (delirium(a)hackish.org) [050606 02:14]:
Sj wrote:
>At the second "Signal or Noise"
conference, a museum curator stated
>explicitly that many museums consider their images of their artwork to
>be copyrightable and copyrighted; they sell postcards, posters, etc of
>those images. They spend money curating the works of art, and
>commissioning the photos, and want to be able to recoup that. (I am
>more or less repeating verbatim arguments I heard).
That much is true, if they are "creative
works" rather than verbatim
copies, which is the gray area.
Interestingly, not all museums follow the anti-information-dissemination
route. All of Greece's national museums permit free photography without
a permit to all visitors, with the caveat that no flash is permitted (to
avoid either damaging the pieces or irritating visitors with incessant
flashes).
The Victoria & Albert Museum in London often allows photography, though
without flashes. But with a good digital camera that's not a problem. I
have some fantastic shots from the Vivienne Westwood exhibition I'll be
putting on Wikipedia some time before the Sun goes cold.
- d.