We can have our fresh and promising Wikimedian-in-Residence there raise the issue with museum staff. This news took us by surprise. Apparently, the Google-IMJ project is quite a bit more than simple scanning of the material, it involves more hypertextual contextual work.
Please, a more friendly and less sarcastic attitude will certainly help here. The museum has been showing a great deal of good faith in its GLAM cooperation with us, and doesn't deserve this kind of attitude.
We certainly don't want to run into a collision course with the Museum over this thing. The Dead Sea Scrolls are perhaps the museum's most important item on display, and a world-class cultural heritage item. Which means that as much as it matters to us, it will matter greatly to the museum, this is not some secondary work of art which they might turn a blind eye to copyright infringement on. We (WMIL) will look into the matter.
Harel Cain Secretary, Wikimedia Israel
On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 02:40, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
Wikimedia Israel and I met with the Israel Museum in the days immediately following Wikimania. The specific purpose of that event was to set up a 'Wikipedian in Residence' position at their research centre, starting with a project to create articles about Israeli artists in English and Hebrew Wikipedias. This is described in the August "This Month in GLAM" report: http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/August_2011/Contents/Isra...
Unsurprisingly, when we were giving our introduction presentation about what Wikimedia does, what we stand for and how we operate, the issue of Copyright-in-scans-of-Public-Domain-work was raised. Quite directly actually. We informed the museum on no uncertain terms that Wikimedia's policy is to follow the Bridgeman v. Corel precedent. They responded that it is standard practice of the museum industry worldwide to claim copyright in scans and that Bridgeman is not a precedent in Israel. All of which is true and correct.
Which brings us back to the same position we have with every museum that makes these copyright claims. We must stand by our principles and provide our readers with access to digitised versions of public-domain cultural heritage (such as the dead sea scrolls) when we have access to them. The museums must realise this is a key point of both principle and law for us. However, we must also try to politely stand by these principles in a way that is not deliberately antagonistic towards the museum - especially towards museums that are willing to work with us like the Israel Museum is. We are on the same side when it comes to sharing knowledge and public education, we just go about it in different ways.
We cannot expect museums to arrive at free-culture-compliant policies in one day. It will take time to make them comfortable with it. In the mean time it is our duty to demonstrate the value and advantages of sharing their content whilst (politely but firmly) criticising the current policies. Maybe one day our productive relationship with the Israel Museum will eventuate in them *inviting* us to have an editing-day dedicated to the Dead Sea Scrolls and will proactively *share* their own multimedia. Who knows? In the mean time, if you would like to get involved with the Israel Museum project you can read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/IMJ
-Liam
wittylama.com/blog Peace, love & metadata