Hi all,

I'm giving a talk next month on the legal aspects of Virtual Museums on the
Internet to a group of museum people in Salzburg. The other members of the
panel are lawyers and will cover the legal details (I hope) so I intend to
address issues of ambiguity and law and how artists are dealing with this
online at this time.

While there has been a great deal of discussion about copyright for images
there are other legal issues looming on the horizon and I would appreciate
any information about unusual legal situations you have faced recently as a
result of having an instituion online.

An example would be the "pirating" of the Documenta X Web site by Vuk Cosic
or the use of trademarks by artists in their art works that would be
ignored in a painting but not in a Web site -- recent cases involving the
trademarked "Barbie" would be an example. Also the issue of who owns the
material in a database is particularly ambiguous.

Just today there was a report about a Web site created by the artist Valery
Grancher for the Foundation Cartier where he signed an agreement not to
reproduce the site, essentially making him the only person on the Web not
allowed to reproduce his own site. This is obviously a situation where
standard agreements no longer apply.

Law, especially international law, is a flexible and fascinating arena --
not unlike art.

Best,




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ROBBIN MURPHY
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