On Tue, 21 Jan 1997 17:55:58 -0500  Robert A. Baron wrote:
>At 10:56 PM 1/21/97 PST, Amalyah Keshet wrote:
>
>>C'mon, Robert. Gathering current market information and using
>>it in one's
>>decision-making process is hardly in violation of anti-trust
>>laws. It's just smart.
>>
>>The information is of use to museum rights & reproductions
>>services/businesses (they
>>are really both) in that it is often very enlightening,
>>revealing that the same
>>clients are used to paying fees to commercial photo agencies
>>far higher than those
>>they pay to museums, and often for mundane images.
>
>Okay, I'll come clean.  First, we are talking only of US law.  I haven't
>the slightest idea whether similar rules apply to commerce elsewhere, but
>in the US certain restrictions do prevail.  This is how I came to my
>conclusion: An acquaintance of mine is an attorney for one of those major
>networks and spends considerable time in acquisitions of intellectual
>properties, cable and satellite network systems.  During a conversation
>recently he indicated that they are not allowed directly to compare their
>advertising rates to those of competing networks.  You can't call one up
>and say, I'd like to see how much you are charging for advertising in this
>or that time slot with this or that Nielsen rating.  That falls under the
>provision of anti-trust laws.  Comparing fee schedules among museums and
>image supply houses seems to be quite similar, and may be viewed as an
>effort to fix the cost of acquiring image rights in a non-competitive
>manner.  To get around the restriction you must obtain the information you
>seek through another party.

Interesting. My gut reaction (as a red-blooded, US passport-carrying, American citizen) is: that sounds like a restriction of free speech.  How can I not call up my good friend at the XYZ Photo Agency (we work together on many clients' projects) and discuss our kids, our Most Annoying Client of the Month, and the prices we charge or heard are charged in England by her good friend in the business...and so forth.  Sending a third party off to reconoiter and come back with price info seems idiotically underhanded!  Especially since one can ask for and receive a printed price list anytime...some agencies even have their price lists on-line.

Come to think of it, this last point is a good idea for our MUSEUM-L colleagues who enquire about prices.  Anybody interested in my posting some URLs? (Or is that against the law...? Maybe I'll get ALL of us arrested! Do US prisons have e-mail?) I even subscribe to a stock photography listserv.  Prices are discussed there all the time. (If that list suddenly gets very quiet, I'll know what happened to THEM, eh?)

Seriously, I'm not suggesting setting a museum's price list strictly according to what commercial agencies charge.  I'm suggesting using that information as one element in the price decision-making process.  We have a good reason to charge less than what XYZ charges for loan of a color slide:  they supply only master slides; we most often supply dupes. On the other hand, we supply something XYZ cannot: curatorial knowledge on the object or work of art represented in the photograph, plus one hell of a lot of other professional advice and assistance. Again, my feeling is that we underrate ourselves: museums are very special, superior-quality sources of authenticated images, with what commercial agencies would proudly tout as "exclusive stock" in various subject categories. My point is that there are many common-sense business practices which we neglect to use to our advantage.

Amalyah

>
>Now, I'll be the first to admit that compared to the alphabet networks,
>museums and photo sales are small potatoes, but the principle seems the
>same.  If museums are going to claim that their image products and
>licensing ventures are to be regarded like commercial enterprises, one
>might expect them to play by the same set of rules that govern everyone else.
>
>Aside from the above, Amalyah is probably right, museums do charge too
>little for use of their images when used for commercial purposes.
>
>================================================
>Robert A. Baron (mailto:[log in to unmask])
>P.O. Box 93, Larchmont, N.Y. 10538
>Guest Editor, Visual Resources:
>"Copyright and Fair Use: The Great Image Debate"
>For table of contents see:
>http://oregon.uoregon.edu/~csundt/vrcfu.htm
>================================================
>