Dear Members of the List,
in my function as a Webmaster at the Oakland Museum of California, I have
been approached by Gerard V. Perez of Artcom requestion updated /
corrections to his website at http://www.artcom.com/. The site claims to
list 1600 museums nationwide plus provide information on them, down to
exhibition schedules, and your institution probably has an entry on his
list. The entry for OMCA was wrong on each and every count, most
disturbingly on name of the institution and the opening hours, and it does
not provide a link to our museum website. The entry for the Berkeley Art
Museum, another institution I work for, also proved to be extremely
outdated. Chances are, if you check out the institution you're workin for,
you will find incorrect information, too.
I had a rather interesting e-mail exchange with Mr Perez during which he
turned from flippant to downright rude. After I requested that he remove the
incorrect information and just list our museum by its correct name plus a
link to our website, I got the following reply:
"Gerard V. Perez" wrote:
> Dear Guenter:
>
> There is still a First Amendment in this country....
>
> We can list whomever we want and it's up to us to decide what we publish.
>
> Not you.
>
> If you do not want to participate in our project.... so be it.
>
> No big deal.
>
> Regards,
>
> Gerard V. Perez
On the splash page of his website, he claims that "This page, and all
contents, are copyright © 1995-1999 by Art Emotion Corp." It seems to me
that most of the information on the webpage actually is copied and pasted
off of official museum websites, maybe with slight alterations here and
there. Then Mr Perez sends out an e-mail requesting updates: if you don't
submit updates, outdated, incorrect and misleading information will stay on
his site. The site seems to create revenue from sponsors (advertisement),
plus every year, Mr Perez burns a CD and sells it.
As you have probably already noticed, I do not think that this is a business
practise I'd like to see succeed. In my mind, Mr Perez co-opts copyrighted
information, re-arranges it, has it proof-read by the very people he stole
it from in the first place, and then sells it, copyrighted to his own
corporation.
I am sending out this e-mail both to alert professionals in museums to this
practise, and to get some "reality-check" feedback. Has anyone out there had
experience with artcom, or with similar sites? Do you know about any legal
recourse museums might have in this case? Do you have a policy about dealing
with third party sites listing information about your institution?
I'd love to get your input.
Guenter Waibel
Webmaster, Oakland Museum of California [log in to unmask]
Digital Access Specialist, UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive
[log in to unmask]
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