[Foundation-l] Dead Sea Scrolls

[Ray Saintonge]

There's an important point in what you say, though it is difficult to 
avoid sarcasm when feeling a Google spider creeping up one's back.

In many of these cases there is the legal analysis and there is the 
pragmatic analysis  They do not bear identical results.  The legal 
analysis could conceivably lead us to a serious criticism of the Israel 
Museum's protectivism.

In a pragmatic analysis my first piece of enlightenment would be with 
the fact that I don't know a word of Hebrew. If that is the case, what 
am I doing copying many many pages of Hebrew texts? If there is a 
copyright fight over this materiel would it not be better to leave that 
fight to those who are interested in and understand the texts?  That 
leaves only a rare few people in a position to pursue the argument.  And 
those few will still have an opportunity to come to an understanding 
with the IMJ. The NPG and JSTOR made targets of themselves by taking a 
stupid position publicly.  We also have individuals who allow themselves 
to be overcome by an excess of indignation. In dealing with them it's 
probably good if IMJ is made aware that these individuals are a minority.

Ray


On 09/26/11 9:26 PM, Harel Cain wrote:
> 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 at 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/Israel_report
>>
>> 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
>>