Re: Fair Use Question?

>Museums seem to be holding onto "their" copyright because they make
>money through their rights and reproductions offices, but the
>objects belong in the cultural domain once the creator's original
>copyright has lapsed. In response to museums trying so ardently to
>"protect" their images, I heard one librarian say to another at the
>VRA Reception "who would have ever thought that museums would be our
>enemy"? It was shocking thing to say, and I was shocked to find
>myself agreeing with it.
>
>Maryly Snow

Rather than "museums making money through their rights and reproductions", could I offer the perspective of the poor old photo curator who sees his early 20th century gelatin-silver photographs of *important* events like the 1906 SF earthquake quickly fading away.

Physical facilities are expensive, electricity to provide proper environmental conditions to ensure maximum life is expensive, and I have a board suggesting that our private non-profit research library should be run like a business and sustain its own balance sheet.

If my organization has *stewardship* of a one-of-a-kind and valuable visual document, and needs to continue preserving it, where is the fairness between open access and survivability-enabling use compensation. I would suggest that these same issues are now arising with the issues of electronic access via the Internet. What is access, and what is appropriate compensation for continuing to maintain these special collections in good health.

Many institutions now face self-support mechanisms or extinction! Eat or be eaten, lack of free lunch---how do we survive without charging some amount for fair use?

Robert MacKimmie
Curatorial Director of Photography
California Historical Society, San Francisco <rm[_at_]califhistsoc.org> Received on Tue Mar 15 1994 - 02:17:00 GMT