2009/7/18 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com:
What is most striking to my mind in this issue of use of images, is how the status quo differs from that with regard to _texts_.
Yes. One has to keep in mind, of course, that the NPG is qualitatively different to most museums, and behaves much more like Gollum with the One Ring. My *precioussss.*
This anonymous comment on the WMF blog was interesting:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/16/protecting-the-public-domain-and-sharin...
# A Publisher Says: July 17th, 2009 at 22:58
Excuse me for not posting under my real name, but I’m a publisher of academic books in the UK, and I don’t want to embarrass my employers, since I’m not speaking on behalf of the firm.
I’d just like to say that the National Portrait Gallery is one of the worst offenders in the world in its digital practices. The terms and conditions (quite apart from the cost) associated with getting permission to use one of their images – itself a pretty offensive idea, I know – are so bad that you can’t really afford to do business with them.
This is particularly bad because the NPG often holds the only good image of a historical figure. I’m publishing the only book in some decades about a minor 18th-century writer, for instance, whom the NPG owns the only contemporary painting of. It’s the obvious choice for a cover image. But we can’t afford the money or the legal obstacles, so it’s not on our cover. Instead we’re using an obscure etching of a sketch made towards the exact same painting.
If I had to name one museum or gallery in the UK as the chief villain in this all-too-common story, the NPG would be the one. They contrast somewhat with the British Museum and the V&A, who are opening up a little, though insisting that they own copyright and must be credited as such, and restricting free use to scholars to print only, and “non-commercial use” only, a term which of course is a little difficult to define. But at least the BM and the V&A have some sympathy with scholarship. That cannot be said for the NPG, which seems desperate to monetise something it doesn’t and mustn’t own.
Don’t think that US galleries or museums abide by the spirit of Corel v Bridgeman, incidentally; they frequently assert copyright exactly as if it had never been ruled. They can do this because a publisher can’t practicably restrict himself to one worldwide domain, and it’s only law in a few countries. And museums often supply images with an end user agreement containing amazing restrictions – e.g. that you must show them physical proofs, before press, which they can veto; that you cannot crop or show a detail of a painting now 200 years old; etc., etc.
Such “agreements” – never negotiable – mean any illustrated book published today is a mass of little contracts. The result is that second editions are never worth it any longer (the time, the renegotiation, the fresh fees, etc.), and that books are frequently unillustrated just to avoid the whole nightmare. I’ve known art historians who had to pay £2000 out of their own pockets in order to show details of painters no later than Rembrandt. We’re not talking about trivial sums and a few simple emails.
Frankly I think this particular test case is not the ideal ground for a fight, because the plundering was pretty blatant. But I’m very glad people are fighting it, all the same. If these images do somehow escape the NPG and get into anything resembling the public domain, it will be an absolute good. Indeed, it will advance exactly the cause for which the NPG was founded.
- d.