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 ================================================