Robert,

I would like to comment on a few things you said.

Robert A. Baron wrote:
[snip]
> Yes, indeed, but there is a difference between a museum's obligations to
> the "object" and its right to administer the "intellectual property" that
> exudes from that object.

As a Registrar I see no difference between the management of an
institutions physical assests (i.e. the collection) and its intellectual
assets (i.e. surrogate images, research reports, etc.).  Each has
significant "real world" value, both in the cost of creating
them/acquiring them and in managing them.  Even as a publically funded
organization our intellectual property belongs to the Corporation of the
City of Toronto -- I assure you they take their rights to manage these
assets quite seriously.

> The former needs attention to its physical
> welfare, the latter, once copyright is no longer an issue, the law of
> public domain frees to wander where it might.

This passage into "public domain" is a significant assumption on your
part.  The US Copyright office has recognised Corbis' copyright to
digital files (see _The Art Newspaper_ No. 60 [June 1996] page 6), these
may well represent surrogate images for original images which may have
passed into the public domain.  Being sure something is public domain
might be more difficult than we currently suppose in a digital realm.

> Captions and other
> identifying tags are themselves not copyrightable, so unless a museum can
> create unique intellectual properties with which to surround their objects,
> or services provided by staff; there may be little or no protectable value
> in a good part of museum collections.

Is this generally true?  I understood that for literary works (such as a
Shakespeare play) the Bard's text might be held as public domain, but
the table of contents, index, gloss on the text, footnotes, etc. are
held as copyright properties of the publisher.  And wasn't there a court
case in the early 1990s where an Israeli court granted a copyright to a
reconstruction of a manuscript from Qumron (Dead Sea Scroll) to the
scroll editor based on this principle.  (I'll check my files on this
one, but if any one can confirm or correct this I'd greatly appreciate
it.)

I guess what I am trying to say is this, as a Registrar I have a broader
stewardship obligation to both the physical and intellectual property
under my care.  I seek a ballence between the needs of all user groups
and those of the collections.  Given limited resources helping one group
may mean (regretably) that it will deny or delay access to another
group.

Richard Gerrard