5 ms·

This is utterly puzzling to me. I just don't understand how you sit on the museums side of the trial on this, without seriously questioning your own position a

• gyomu 2y ago
  > pure stubbornness or some weird, jealous hoarding mentality happening on the museums side Little people fighting for their big egos are far from uncommon in those institutions. > Is there no equivalent to "contempt of court" in french law? Is this typical? The French legal system has been under extreme duress over the last decade or so. https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2024/04/02/justice-la-colere-qui-monte-portrait-d-un-systeme-en-crise_6225525_3232.html https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2024/04/02/justice-la-c...
• newaccount74 2y ago
  > weird, jealous hoarding mentality happening on the museums side That's exactly it. I work on a website that makes ancient artefacts accessible. A lot of them are in museums. You wouldn't believe how many museums: - don't want to show you their archive - don't want to let you take pictures - want you to share only low res pictures - want you to get permission before you can "publish" their artefacts, etc. It's extremely common for museums to have courtyards or basements with special "unpublished" pieces that they don't let anyone see. You have to be a special friend of the director or something to get to see them. It's ridiculous. Fortunately, the people working on the website are relentless, and manage to eventually get collection after collection photographed and added mostly by being patient. For some collections it took 20 years before they got access -- but since everyone uses their website, and everyone apart from the local museum director wants the stuff to be in there, eventually they get access to most things. (Museums in Italy are the worst, allegedly. They really think they own antiquity.)
  • potato3732842 2y ago
    Comically, smaller museums generally have a "take a ton of pictures, share them on social, tell everyone" attitude because they want their name out there in order to drive foot traffic and other support. Trying to pull up the ladder is something people only do once they're on top.
  • holowoodman 2y ago
    That is because the stated goal of "preservation" isn't really their goal. Thats only lip-service. Their actual goal is getting visitors, and any kind of usable information in the form of photos, videos, 3d-scans, transcriptions or whatever leaving their premises is a problem. Add to that the associated huge business of tourism and you have the explanation why the state and the courts (who are usually good buddies with the state and the upper class, including the cultural elite) also don't want to change that status quo.
    • tomrod 2y ago
      Ah, the standard Music Industry response to Napster, alive and well decades later. "Make the information hard to get! We own it!" Never realizing that sampling of the information makes it just that much more prestigious and desirable to us, the unwashed masses, willing to pay to visit a museum that has AMAZING ORIGINAL THINGS. If you start with the assumption that every view is a lost sale, you're going to have a really bad time. Outside of the Louvre and maybe the Smithsonian, there are no current world-famous museums, simply regionally or subculture-appreciated museums, some with bygone fame that a small portion of the older population would recognize. The Rodin Museum may be popular among a tiny niche slice of people, but if they were to make an internally consistent strategy that they want growth then they'd release more information.
      • holowoodman 2y ago
        Actually, imho, the AMAZING ORIGINAL THINGS are actually useless. You can not touch them, get close, rotate them, look at them properly, take your time. You are just number 29387 that day visiting the Mona Lisa, you get 5s to view it, then the line moves on. A high-res photo or 3d-scan allows you to do all those things (maybe except really touching them). So aside from the emotional benefit of having been near the real original piece for a few seconds, all digital derivatives are logically far better.
• thrance 2y ago
  There is no supreme court in France, this is a gross mistranslation of "Court de Cassation", which is where you bring your case after you have lost your appeal, and is the last court where you can try to argue your point.
  • cinntaile 2y ago
    Same thing, different name.
    • kelseyfrog 2y ago
      Are the Council of State, the Constitutional Council and the Jurisdictional Disputes Tribunal also supreme courts too?
    • bambax 2y ago
      Absolutely not.
  • mardifoufs 2y ago
    So, a supreme court?
  • tshaddox 2y ago
    You’ve just described precisely what a supreme court is. This is definitely the supreme court of France.
    • cassepipe 2y ago
      Well the SCOTUS functions are divided among the Cour de cassation (last ditch appeal) and the Conseil Constitutionnel (Checks if a law is in line with the constitution)
    • bambax 2y ago
      No, it's different in many many ways. And there are not just one, but four courts of last resort in France: - Cour de Cassation, for civil matters - Conseil d'État, for matters regarding the administration / the State - Tribunal des Conflits: tasked with deciding who's right when the Cour de Cassation and the Conseil d'État disagree - Conseil Constitutionnel: issues rulings about the constitutionality of laws, both new (before they become law) and existing ones (QPC) This doesn't stop here however; there are two upper courts in the European Union, than can invalidate decisions issued by national courts: - Court of Justice (in Luxembourg) - Court of Human Rights (in Strasbourg) - - - Edit: Don't you love the idea of "Tribunal des Conflits"? The original idea was that the State could not be brought to court, its decisions being made by "the people" who is the absolute sovereign. Then France gradually accepted the idea that State's decision could be challenged, and created a whole different judicial system, the "justice administrative". It took a looong time: from 1800 to... 1980. A much simpler approach could have been to let people try their case against the State before the existing courts, but no... much better to build another system with its own rules, its own judges, etc. An inevitable consequence of having two different systems is that they sometimes disagree. (Another reason why it would have been so much simpler to just have one system.) Since the two systems are sometimes at odds with one another, we created... a third system! This was in 1872, so quite early in the process. This Tribunal des Conflits is a referee of sorts whose only job is to stop the fights between the two justice systems. I think that's great and tells a lot about the French way of solving problems: just add a new bureaucratic authority on top of all existing ones.
• ocdtrekkie 2y ago
  One of the things I find really funny about the law is that yeah, just not responding as long as you can or until someone acts to force you to is a common strategy, because it mostly works and adds cost and complexity to holding someone accountable. Some portion of plaintiffs will give up and not pursue even very valid claims if you just make the entire process a slog.
• potato3732842 2y ago
  >They were basically arguing that they are entitled to hide those scan artifacts to better protect their gift shop?! How can they even reconcile those arguments with preserving the artists legacy/serving the common good? If the museum folds and the collection gets auctioned off in parts and public access to it is reduced then the common good is not served. I think this is an asinine argument and they're mostly just protecting their own paychecks but there is a kernel of truth to it. >I'm also surprised at how nonchalantly the french supreme (!!) court seems to cope with the museum just ignoring their two month deadline for three months in the new trial... Is there no equivalent to "contempt of court" in french law? Is this typical? We all know that justice is only legally blind, not functionally blind. When you're the favorite or you're state adjacent you get a lot more leeway.
• deleted 2y ago
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• yard2010 2y ago
  Ah non. They are just being french. They don't need reasons. Excuse my humor. I'm a huge francophile actually.
  • Wololooo 2y ago
    No need to excuse yourself as a French speaker but not French, the baguettes will indeed unscrupulously bend people over if it serves their own interest without excuses or valid justification.
  • bambax 2y ago
    It's not exactly that but it's close. It is: the State is always right, you're wrong, and that's that. The reasoning behind it is that "the State" is 66 million people, and you're just one person, so it's really easy to tell who matters more. It can be viewed as a perverse interpretation of the trolley problem; but it's impossible to understand France without that information. That's why people selling train tickets are rude and unpleasant: they represent the national railway system, which is an extension of the State, which is 66 million people, and you're just one person, so fuck you very much. Etc.
• bambax 2y ago
  Welcome to France! France is built on the idea that the public can't be trusted, has not really reached adulthood (won't ever) and needs to be coached by an army of civil servants whose job is to protect the State and its finances. It's not corruption, exactly; it's the idea that the interests of the State are paramount, and everything else doesn't really matter. If the State sells reproductions of Rodin's work, well then you shouldn't be allowed to, and you certainly aren't entitled to any kind of help.
  • willy_k 2y ago
    > France is built on the idea that the public can't be trusted, has not really reached adulthood (won't ever) and needs to be coached by an army of civil servants whose job is to protect the State and its finances. I believe the term for that is “nanny state”.
    • loup-vaillant 2y ago
      I thought "nanny state" was a derogatory description of welfare policies?
      • willy_k 2y ago
        Apparently not “Nanny state is a term of British origin that conveys a view that a government or its policies are overprotective or interfering unduly with personal choice. The term likens such a government to the role that a nanny has in child rearing.”
    • DirkH 2y ago
      If "nanny state" is an important causal factor explaining why the museums are behaving this way, it suggests other nanny states could see similar museum behavior? So how are museums in Singapore treating 3D scans?
  • gabaix 2y ago
    This is an apt description of how things are, sadly. And it all starts at the crib when parents teach their children blind obedience.
• kergonath 2y ago
  > I'm also surprised at how nonchalantly the french supreme (!!) court seems to cope with the museum just ignoring their two month deadline for three months in the new trial... The conseil d’État is nothing like a Supreme Court. It is an administrative body, not a court of law. This phrase was used because it was easier than explaining how it actually works to a presumably mostly-American audience. France has a civil law system, there cannot be anything like the American Supreme Court. > Is there no equivalent to "contempt of court" in french law? Is this typical? It is not a court, and it does not have the powers American judges have. The role of the Council of State (one of them, anyway, and the relevant one here) is to rule on administrative matters. They cannot decide to fine someone or put someone in jail. They can decide that a government body was wrong on something and make it change, that’s it.
  • rtsil 2y ago
    For the purpose of this matter, the Conseil d'État is a court, not an administrative body, it is the highest level and last resort of jurisdiction for administrative law, i.e. the law pertaining to relations between citizens and the State or the local governments. It intervenes as the highest appelate court of administrative tribunals. Its members are judges and their decisions are judgement. But the Conseil d'État has also many other attributions that are non-jurisdictional. > They cannot decide to fine someone or put someone in jail. That's because only criminal court can do that. A divorce court cannot fine someone or put someone in jail. That doesn't make it any less of a court. A civil court doesn't fine, it only grants damages. That doesn't make it any less of a court.
    • kergonath 2y ago
      > Its members are judges and their decisions are judgement. They are civil servants, not magistrates. They don’t have the same independence and are nothing like American judges. > That's because only criminal court can do that. That was specifically addressing the contempt of court issue. The Council of State cannot do that. It can make the public institution do something, but it cannot punish the individual. Once the action was deemed illegal, the individual faces disciplinary action from their institution, but the Council does not decide this. > That doesn't make it any less of a court. A civil court doesn't fine, it only grants damages. That doesn't make it any less of a court. What makes it not a court in the American sense is that it does not have any magistrate. Commission would be a better word.
• deleted 2y ago
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• enimodas 2y ago
  Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy: In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals that the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.