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The link to the Art Institute of Chicago: https://www.artic.edu/articles/713/behind-the-scenes-of-the-website-redesign https://www.artic.edu/articles/713/behind
by malshe 8y ago
The link to the Art Institute of Chicago: https://www.artic.edu/articles/713/behind-the-scenes-of-the-website-redesign https://www.artic.edu/articles/713/behind-the-scenes-of-the-...
From the link:
Students, educators, and just regular art lovers might be interested to learn that we’ve released thousands of images in the public domain on the new website in an open-access format (52,438 to be exact, and growing regularly). Made available under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, these images can be downloaded for free on the artwork pages.
We’ve also enhanced the image viewing capabilities on object pages, which means that you can see much greater detail on objects than before. Check out the paint strokes in Van Gogh’s The Bedroom, the charcoal details on Charles White’s Harvest Talk, or the synaesthetic richness of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Blue and Green Music. If you are doing research, you’ll appreciate how our collections search tool makes it easier to drill down and find exactly what you’re looking for.
- sgc 8y agoHow is it possible to release public domain images using a CC0 license? That sounds completely unenforceable to me.
- yarrel 8y agoIf it isn't it doesn't matter. If it is, it has the same effect as if it isn't.
- freddie_mercury 8y agoWhy would it be in the public domain? If I take a photograph of something, don't I own the copyright to that photo? Even if it is a photo of the Mona Lisa or the Parthenon?
- kps 8y agoIn the US, no. A photograph of a 2D artwork is just a copy of that artwork, and not a copyrightable original work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel....
- ZenPsycho 8y agoin Australia, yes a photographic reproduction of a 2D artwork is copyrightable. this was a point of conflict between the wikimedia foundation and a gallery i used to work for, which made a significant income from licensing photos of artworks, many of which were themselves in the public domain. this might seem unreasonable but it’s worth pointing out that producing highest quality photo reproductions of artwork is a specialist skill requiring quite expensive equipment, and there are specific choices that must be made that are on some level subjective. to put it in hacker news language- it’s a lossy operation and the photographer decides what is and is not important to keep- e.g. textural or reflective properties of the paint, vs. vividness of colours. and how exactly are you supposed to reproduce photographically the gold foil on gustav klimt’s work? A CC0 license or some such could well be a reasonable hedge against such vagueness by making explicit the terms of use.
- MattHeard 8y agoThe threshold of originality is complicated and judged differently by different people and countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality
- steve19 8y agoA Xerox machine is a complicated, specialist piece of equipment but using one to duplicate the work of someone else is not and should not allow copyright on the duplicate. What your colleagues did is literally reproduce the work of another, and assert copyright on the copy. What if I took the image your gallery took, used state of the art JPEG compression software on it and created a new optimized file, would I know be entitled to copyright on that?
- lb1lf 8y agoBut a Xerox machine does not add any creative aspect; if you are going to shoot a painting and do it well, you'd need to decide on what lighting you wanted, then rig that - say, side lighting to highlight the brush strokes or a more head-on, softer light to subdue them. In your jpeg example, I think (IANAL!) you might have had a stronger case if you artifacted the heck out of it, rather than faithfully recreating the original photo - the artifacts could be argued to be some form of artistic expression.
- sgc 8y agoThey stated as much in the release.
- bdr 8y agoThe images are almost certainly in the public domain under current U.S. case law. Releasing them under CC0 is a way of saying, “just in case they aren’t in the public domain, now they effectively are.” I don’t know what you mean by unenforceable—what is there in CC0 to enforce?
- ZenPsycho 8y agoif you want to release images as public domain, you might also wish to release them with a CC0 license since I have heard (but don’t know any specific examples) that there are some situations/legal jurisdictions where use of a public domain asset might be unacceptable, but a clear license mostly equivalent to the public domain is acceptable
- Tomte 8y agoGermany, for example. There is no "putting something into the public domain", works pass into the public domain only through time-limits of copyright.
- sverhagen 8y agoIs it common that a museum can release photographs of the works like this? Aren't (maybe just more recent) works copyrighted in a way that would prevent a museum from doing this?
- lvh 8y agoIt’s complicated, and there are exceptions (archiving a deteriorating work for example) but in almost all cases it’s just expiry via passage of time.