Images of Works of Art in Museum Collections: The Experience of Open Access A Study of 11 Museums
abernard102@gmail.com 2013-06-30
Summary:
Use the link to access the full text report. The introduction opens as follows: "This report describes the current approaches of 11 art museums in the United States and the United Kingdom to the use of images from their collections, when the underlying works are in the public domain. A work is considered to be in the public domain when it is not under copyright for one of several reasons: It may never have been under copyright; it may have passed out of copyright; or rights to claim copyright in the work may have been forfeited. Also, works created by the U.S. government do not have copyright protection. Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines 'public domain' as 'the condition of being free from copyright or patent and, hence, open to use by anyone.'The following museums are included in this study: [1] British Museum, London [2] Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis [3] J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles [4] Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles [5] Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York [6] Morgan Library and Museum, New York [7] National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. [8] Victoria and Albert Museum, London [9] Walters Art Museum, Baltimore [10] Yale Center for British Art, New Haven [11] Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven ... Each museum has taken a slightly different approach to making images of the works in its collection more openly accessible. Within this group, some have been leaders in putting high-resolution digital files of works of art in their collection online for use by anyone for
any purpose. Others have a highly refined 'fee and free' system that adroitly mixes revenue generation with the promotion of scholarship by licensing the images for commercial use, while giving them away for academic and scholarly use. Still others evaluate each request on its individual merits. Some are committed to open access, while others are just considering it. The policies of these museums represent different points on a spectrum of practice. Although all of the museums in this study qualify as 'large' according to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) definition, their budgets range from less than $20 million to more than $300 million. Some have encyclopedic collections, while others have specialized collections. No museums of modern or contemporary art are included, as either the artist or the artist’s estate still
holds the copyright to many of the works in those collections."