On Thu, 29 Feb 1996 17:25:51 GMT  Claudia Nicholson wrote:
>Does anyone have any practical experience in licensing images from their
>collections for use in a CD-ROM format?  I have the "Sample CD-ROM
>Licensing Agreements for Museums" from Muse, but I would like to hear
>about actual experiences.
>
>What are the pitfalls of participating in these type of projects?  What
>are the opportunities?
>
>
>Claudia Nicholson
>Curator of Collections
>South Dakota State Historical Society, Pierre
>
>[log in to unmask]
>


Yes, we have lots of practical experience.  The CD-ROM publishing business in th
e U.S. takes
advantage of (in the positive sense) the expertise of a large number of small hi
gh-tech
companies and CD-ROM developers here in Israel.  We supply to these developers,
and we developed
our own Guidelines for Electronic Publishing for our (and other museum's)  staff
, and our own
Electronic Publishing License agreement.  I've also worked on a second standard
contract,
together with a lawyer colleague, which can be used by one of the largest CD-ROM
 developers in
Israel for licensing images from us and other local museums without having to do
 extensive
repeat paperwork for each image. (The contracts are in English, as the parent co
mpanies and
distributors are, as I mentioned, in the US). The Muse document is excellent, by
 the way.

Pitfalls:  CD-ROMS demand vast quantities of images - far more than books.  The
images are
"hidden," that is, they have to be called up in order to be seen. By the nature
of the medium,
images often cannot be labeled and credited where and when they do appear. (I'm
obviously
talking about general-subject CD-ROMS, where your material is mixed in with a lo
t of others'.)
 Being listed in the credits screen is nice, but often the "reader" has no idea
which image
came from where, nor where a particular work of art can be found.

The sheer quantity of images in each title means that the value of each individu
al image per
se is less, and that in turn means that the publisher very often simply cannot p
ay the rate he
would if he were using the image in traditional print media. And that in turn me
ans that, if
one has limited man-hours to devote to image licensing, traditional media are mo
re lucrative:
one can charge by size of pubished image, repeat use (an irrelevant notion in a
CD-ROM: every
image is meant to be infinitely repeatable), double-spread, etc.  Other obvious
pitfalls
include undesirable manipulation and distortion of your images, or their use in
inappropriate
context or accompanied by inappropriate narration or sound. And the biggie: digi
tal theft.
There are technological solutions to the latter: but they MUST be written into t
he contract
and checked in person.

Opportunities: endless.

-------------------------------------
Name: amalyah keshet
visual resources / the israel museum, jerusalem
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Date: 03/04/96
Time: 15:52:41

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