Museum Copyright
*This mirrors my problems with some museums NOT ALLOWING
photography of Oceanic Art, though flash photos would in no
way hurt the pieces. This is from BlackInk.com and superbly
sums up something that nobody seems to be angry with - - - *
"SF author and copywonk Cory Doctorow had visited the
Greenwich Maritime Museum, full of hundred-year-old
sextants, and even older devices that people used to find
their way around the world before we all had satnav on
our dashboards, and was struck by the “no photography”
signs everywhere. Surely, he thought, most of these things
cannot possibly be in copyright? Surely the museum cannot
prevent others reproducing them if they so desire?
So he asked about it. No, they weren’t in copyright. No,
there was nothing there likely to be damaged by a camera’s
flash. The musuem just wanted to safeguard it’s postcard
sales, and prevent people from taking any mementos home
that they did not have to pay for.
Doctorow makes the passionate, strident, and quite correct
argument that this is a complete betrayal of everything
a good museum should stand for.
Copyright (ostensibly) exists to ensure that a creator is
fairly recompensed in their lifetime. It exists to ensure
that there is an incentive for people to produce the
artifacts and technologies that shape our culture. But
it runs out for a reason - because these things are too
valuable to be allowed to remain in the possession of
any one person or institution.
Which is of course, also the reason we have museums and art
galleries. They provide places that the public can see,
interact with, and be inspired by these things. They are
the custodians of our culture. Doctorow’s argument is
that by preventing photography, especially just because
they want the money, the museums are betraying that trust
in a massive and disgusting manner.
The argument, is of course, not that simple. Museums are
expensive things to run - the cost of curating, preserving,
and securing these objects is enormous, and most of them
(in the UK, anyway) don’t charge, or don’t charge much
for access. Surely there’s a reasonable argument to be
made that their attempts to force cash out of people
are quite justified?
Well, only up to a point, in my view. I firmly believe
that you can accurate judge a culture’s level of
civilization by how it treats its libraries and museums.
If the museums are expensive to run, that’s not an reason
to allow them to attempt to crowbar more money out of
the public, that’s a reason to give them more public
money.
But even aside from that argument, there is of course
the possibility that the museum is simply not allowed
to permit photography on certain works - that they remain
in copyright, and that the museum has no choice but
to disallow photography, under the terms that the owner
or creator has allowed them to be exhibited under.
But on the other hand, surely it’s mostly Modern Art
that this would apply to? And surely Modern Art has the
least leg to stand on? Even aside from the fact that
most of these works have been photographed over and
over again, turning up in all sorts of media-related
discussions, there’s a sizeable body of modern art
that is derived from reproducing (or even simply appropriating
and re-presenting) other people’s work -
from Warhol’s Brillo Boxes to Duchamp’s Fountain. Surely
it’s the height of hypocrisy for the owners of this body
of art to attempt to prevent it’s reproduction and
remixing into new forms?"
[ Edited by: Cammo 2007-06-25 18:20 ]
