>>ICOM Economy: can money be earned through advertisements in ICOM News?

Valerie Jullien's comment on this question is very valuable. I see her
comment not as an opinion from the ICOM Secretariat, but as information. I
must admit that I sometimes during debates in the Advisory have wished that
a representative from the Secretariat could be invited to give brief
information on legal matters, earlier experiences and concrete, practical
consequences of this and that suggestion. Not in order to stop a proposal,
but in order to enable us to continue a debate with more background
information.

The reason for asking the question above was the obvious need to strenghten
ICOM's economy. If the legal restraints are as described, it also has
impact on several other possible sources of income for ICOM, and that is
indeed quite serious.

French law surprises me, since say in Norway, we would not be met with such
legal restraints on income as long as we are not making a net profit - that
is, earning more than we use for the organisation's non-commercial purpose.

Are the legal problems in this matter the same within all countries in the EU?

Legal matters aside: would it be economically worth while trying to get
advertisments? Certainly not in the start, but probably after a while. If a
national museum periodical with a thousand or two readers can cut some
costs through advertisments, it is extremely surprising that a global
museum periodical with around 15.000 subscribers (and increasing) should
have such a hard time finding companies that are willing to advertise. Most
of the companies offering their services to the museums are international
and the museums are increasingly using commercial companies for
exhibitions, transport, etc, etc.


Per B. Rekdal
ICME chairperson


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