Michael Geist on MW2008, heritage fees
The keynote speaker of last week’s Museums and the Web in Montreal Michael Geist is looking back at the conference with a critical article in the Toronto Star. In short, Geist summons Canada’s museums to remove fees and contractual barriers to Canadian heritage.
«The dozens of presentations at the conference highlighted the remarkable transformation in how museums display their collections and interact with the public.»
He goes on to say that «(m)any museums are using online video, social networks and interactive multimedia to pull content from diverse places to create «virtual museums.» So, the museum community has emerged as a leading voice for the development of legal frameworks to facilitate digitization and avoid restrictions that could hamper cultural innovation.»
Yet, according to Geist, who holds the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa faculty of law, «some fear the advocacy and actions of museums in embracing the Internet are not consistent, particularly in their policies on works for which copyright has expired.»
According to documents obtained by Geist under the Access to Information Act, the National Gallery of Canada appears to be treating public-domain works as a profit centre.
«(T)he gallery often added hundreds of dollars to the total cost of fulfilling a request, despite the fact that the images were in the public domain. In fact, the permission costs for such works were actually higher than those for works still subject to copyright. The gallery reasoned that the copyright holder would apply additional charges.»
Read his full article (Toronto Star, April 15, 2008)
Visit Michael Geist’s homepage
Related posts: Museums and the Web 2008, day 1 // Museums and the Web 2008 // Creationist museum challenges evolution // Sweden: Entry fees deter visitors // American museums recover from 9/11 //
april 15th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Thanks for catching this follow up article… I totally missed it. And interesting because the same issue questioning the ethics of selling what is probably public domain content came up in session at the Peabody Museum. Food for thought!
april 15th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
You’re welcome Rebecca, and thanks for commenting. It is an interesting topic, and Geist seems to be the authority in Canada.