Robert Baron wrote:

(vast snip...)

Under such a dire scenario, what is a museum to do?  First of all, museums
must supply images that are finer than what can ordinarily be obtained
through other channels; and these images should be provided only after a
valid contract for use has been signed.  Museums may take a hint from the
auto industry and plan to make older photographs obsolete.  A museum may
also wish to establish means that will hold scholars and researchers to
predetermined usage restrictions.  Photos and electronic files supplied for
research purposes by museum may be limited to a quality insufficient to
publish.  Such restrictions, certainly unenlightened, in this writer's
opinion, will only serve to exacerbate tensions between the museum and the
scholarly community.  A more practical and politically effective solution
may be to sell photographs to scholars for near cost with implied license
to use freely in scholarly studies.  Such images may be limited to certain
types of reproduction and publications.  Obvious for-profit enterprises
will continue to pay for photograph rights -- and these users, no doubt,
will want to use the highest quality images available available to them
under license.  The real intellectual property museums have to sell may not
be the images, but rather the research and opinions that are attached to
the images.  Traditionally museums have been loathe to let this information
out to the public, but this rich store of intellectual content may hold
unimagined treasures.

(snip)

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Well put.  In my experience, "the research and opinions that are attached to the
images" is not only under-recognised intellectual property (under-recognized not by
outside clients, but by museum staff themselves), but a very up-scale and pricey
commodity.  It is what makes our "product" unique, and valuable.

Consider this, while we're at it: when was the last time your museum hired a
consultant on any topic -- systems analysis, flooring, you name it -- and didn't pay
them?  I can answer that:  Never.
Now, when was the last time you were approached by someone from outside your museum
for professional opinions or advice -- and you (your museum) got paid?

I'm obviously not referring to serious cooperation with scholars and researchers and
colleagues and students.  I'm talking about all that free consulting curators with
MAs and PhDs are doing for other people's projects, films, etc.  When confronted
with the idea that this is substantive material which has a price, and that
curatorial time has value,  "outside clients" sometimes briefly protest (because we
didn't
ask them to pay in the past -- our mistake), but more often: they understand the
logic, agree, and pay.  Just like they pay an interior decorator, a financial
consultant, or for that matter a dietician or an astrologer. Just think about it:
the astrologer gets paid, and an expert on Bronze Age archaeology or Renaissance
drawings or Colonial costumes  doesn't?  No: that's not what he/she gets a salary
for.  The curator is paid by the museum to work for the museum -- not for outside
clients' projects.  Every minute during which a curator must set aside the work
he/she is doing for his/her employer, and devote to an outside client's project,
should entail reimbursment to the museum by that outside client.  That's the way it
works in the "real" world, and that's the way it should work in the museum world.

--Robert again: -----------------

Rather than holding museum image users at bay until they consent to obey
certain restrictions, a more open policy -- one which awards and respects
scholarship and which has faith that scholarship will improve the
reputation of museum-held lesser-known works and catapult them into the
public consciousness -- may have unexpected positive benefits.

-----------------------------------

Now I'm going to play devil's advocate. We've all heard this many times;
unfortunately, it seems to be a romantic notion. Scholarship "improves the
reputation of lesser-known museum-held works" among scholars. Which is of course
invaluably important in itself. But museums have paid PR staff whose job it is to
"catapult" things into the *public* consciousness, via paid journalists looking for
good stories.

Robert, you end your post metaphorically: "The fabric of law is much less tightly
woven than the fabric of tradition and mutual respect."  To which, after a day spent

dealing with "I under-budgeted, so I'll just get it from a museum"  clients, I can
only reply, "Wanna bet?".

=====================================
amalyah keshet
head of visual resources, the israel museum, jerusalem
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
date: 02/25/97
visit our web site at http://www.imj.org.il
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