Re: Fine Art Reproductions

On 1999-04-18, Robert Panzer <bigbusie[_at_]aol.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 12 Apr 1999, Amalyah Keshet <akeshet[_at_]imj.org.il> wrote:
> >
> > Any museum that can raise the money opens public-access study
> > rooms so that works in reserve can be seen and studied by
> > interested individuals. We have three.
>
> I was writing about public access for the purpose of reproduction.
> Seen and studied, yes, but would the museum allow interested
> individuals to produce high quality photographs for reproduction?
> Most museums in the U.S. would not. Public domain means the right
> to reproduce the work, not to look at it.

What about public domain works in private collections? Would you have the same expectations and make the same demands for access? How? What if museums finally went bankrupt, returning art works to their donors or selling them at auction to private collectors? There is indeed a problem where property rights and IP public domain overlap. But without museums, you wouldn't have access even for looking at the works.

Museums are mandated to collect, preserve, research, interpret, and exhibit works of art and cultural artifacts (in Israel, this is even expressed in the Museums Law), as I am often reminded, for the public good, not for private benefit. That is, while obviously we try to provide resources and access for viewing, learning, and just enjoying, there is no requirement to let private individuals use the collections for private gain, especially if there is any risk to the art works, or financial loss to the museum. The latter would be bad management, and derided as stupidity in any other business. Our Education Ministry is actually pressuring us to earn more income and support ourselves more independently, with better business practices. Ironically, donors are, as well. As "old money" philanthropic donors die away, "new money" donors, often business people, require the same of us. They want to see a "return" on their support, which they see as temporary.

I quite agree that the public domain IP status of works of art cannot be "cancelled" by museum policies, and there is an area where the two conflict. What we do is to attempt to balance the two. One point I think I've driven home in this discussion (relentlessly?) is that everything a museum does *costs money* -- a lot more money that most people imagine. $2 million electric bills, $40,000 for a *prototype* showcase for preserving ancient manuscripts. And, by the way, $30,000 for artists' copyright permissions for a recent exhibition catalogue. That's right: we recently paid close to $30,000 for artists' copyright permissions for use in one exhibition catalogue. That's just the permissions, not the cost of producing the catalogue. Aha. That's something no one has mentioned yet: the fact that museums aren't just image & copyright licensors, but image & copyright consumers as well. We're on both ends of the stick, as it were. We pay a fortune in repro rights and artist's copyright fees, and yes, we'd like to pay a lot less. But no, we don't get up in arms when we pay a repro rights fee for a photo of a Renaissance manuscript from the rare book collection of another museum or library. We know from experience that what they are charging is a drop -- no, a molecule -- in the bucket of what it costs them to preserve, document and photograph that manuscript.

Getting back to the question of access to works in private collections: significantly, the exhibition I mentioned above was of a private collection, never before seen outside the collector's home. 250,000 visitors stood in line for up to 4 hours to see these works of art *which we succeeded in providing access to.* Producing this exhibition was tremendously expensive, and despite its success, to the best of my knowledge we didn't even break even. We failed to make a profit, and we should have: as a non-profit institution, we should make as much money as possible in order to invest any profit back into our cultural and educational programs, as required for non-profit status. In short, yes, we must earn income from our collections, or cease to exist. If we cease to exist, you won't have exhibitions to go to, nor access to collections. What would PD status be worth then?

> Overall, I really applaud the practices at your museum. Your comments
> on CNI have been very thought provoking and enlightening.

I've been lurking faithfully on this list for a long time, and am immensely grateful for such a valuable resource. I'm happy that for once, I could contribute something.

amalyah keshet
head of visual resources, the israel museum, jerusalem board of directors, the museum computer network chair, the mcn intellectual property special interest group akeshet[_at_]imj.org.il
<http://www.imj.org.il/> Received on Wed Apr 21 1999 - 19:52:25 GMT