At 10:56 PM 1/21/97 PST, Amalyah Keshet wrote:

>C'mon, Robert. Gathering current market information and using
>it in one's
>decision-making process is hardly in violation of anti-trust
>laws. It's just smart.
>
>The information is of use to museum rights & reproductions
>services/businesses (they
>are really both) in that it is often very enlightening,
>revealing that the same
>clients are used to paying fees to commercial photo agencies
>far higher than those
>they pay to museums, and often for mundane images.

Okay, I'll come clean.  First, we are talking only of US law.  I haven't
the slightest idea whether similar rules apply to commerce elsewhere, but
in the US certain restrictions do prevail.  This is how I came to my
conclusion: An acquaintance of mine is an attorney for one of those major
networks and spends considerable time in acquisitions of intellectual
properties, cable and satellite network systems.  During a conversation
recently he indicated that they are not allowed directly to compare their
advertising rates to those of competing networks.  You can't call one up
and say, I'd like to see how much you are charging for advertising in this
or that time slot with this or that Nielsen rating.  That falls under the
provision of anti-trust laws.  Comparing fee schedules among museums and
image supply houses seems to be quite similar, and may be viewed as an
effort to fix the cost of acquiring image rights in a non-competitive
manner.  To get around the restriction you must obtain the information you
seek through another party.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that compared to the alphabet networks,
museums and photo sales are small potatoes, but the principle seems the
same.  If museums are going to claim that their image products and
licensing ventures are to be regarded like commercial enterprises, one
might expect them to play by the same set of rules that govern everyone else.

Aside from the above, Amalyah is probably right, museums do charge too
little for use of their images when used for commercial purposes.




================================================
Robert A. Baron (mailto:[log in to unmask])
P.O. Box 93, Larchmont, N.Y. 10538
Guest Editor, Visual Resources:
"Copyright and Fair Use: The Great Image Debate"
For table of contents see:
http://oregon.uoregon.edu/~csundt/vrcfu.htm
================================================