A tale of two images
Yesterday (18th Aug, 2009) I had two very different experiences dealing with queries about the licensing of images. The first was a query from paleontologist Mike Everhart, working at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays, Kansas. Mike is working on a Pteranodon chapter in an upcoming book on pterosaurs and had discovered a photograph on Flickr of a Pteranodon specimen (AMNH FR7515) that I took during a recent visit to the American Museum of Natural History. Despite being on exhibit since the 1950s, it turns out the specimen had dropped out of the mainstream and has never been figured in a publication. By snapping the picture during a hurried visit to the exhibits (after giving a talk) I’ve helped the specimen to be rediscovered. Mike was asking for permission to use the image on his Pteranodon website, as my snapshot is apparently better than a much older official image.
The second query was from Monica Barrios, an associate producer for the Public Broadcasting Network in the United States. Monica is working on a NOVA documentary on Human Origins and needed an image of a gorilla louse (Pthirus gorillae) for one of their episodes. Previously Monica has contacted the NHM’s picture library, which also has a Pthirus gorillae image, however the cost of licensing this image was much more than PBS could afford. Monica contacted me because I have some Pthirus gorillae images that I have used in various academic publications and wondered whether I would let the images be used by NOVA. Unfortunately my pictures are of NHM specimens (taken before I started working for the NHM), and so the NHM own the rights on these, not me. Fortunately I contacted NHM picture library and (I think) we can come so some kind of arrangement, but this raises a number of broader issues about image and data rights which UK based Museums, archives, and cultural institutions are increasingly struggling with.
Recent high profile examples of this problem include the UK’s National Portrait Gallery (NPG), which is threatening litigation against a US citizen for uploading high resolution images 19th century paintings to Wikipedia. Amongst other things, NPG are claiming infringement of Copyright by asserting that that the photos are creative works even though the images are public domain. Selling images like these is part of many UK institutions funding model, and they are therefore protecting their interests. Suddenly cutting off a major stream of revenue could be catastrophic (although I’d be interested to see know just how significant these revenue streams are). On the other hand, museums are public bodies that receive public funds on the basis that they display and educate as many people as possible. The ability of others to disseminate high quality reproductions at no cost to them should be considered a tremendous benefit to those institutions, not a financial loss.
I am not in a position to pass judgment on any of these cases. What is clear is that until museums and other public bodies are better incentivized (probably financially) to manage images and data in harmony with their mission and not their balance sheet, these kinds of problems will persist.
Comments
Comments
Rights
Several things come to mind. The first is that some museums need to wake up and realise that that their antiquated approach to these matters (and misguided notions about intellectual property) are making them part of the problem, not part of the solution. Why can't the NHM take some leadership in this area?
Secondly, the Creative Commons license on your Flickr photo minimises the transaction costs. A user knows what he or she can and can't do, and can "skip the intermediaries" (as illustrated by the wonderful "Get Creative" movie http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/getcreative/ ).
Lastly, it's not clear to me whether the AMNH has a similar policy to the NHM about images of its collections. Are you sure any photo you take of AMNH material can be used as freely as you suggest?
AMNH and image rights
I have also thought a lot about how to handle images taken from Museum collections. I have a few thousand SEM images that I took during my PhD at the AMNH. They are mainly from specimens in their holdings, taken at the AMNH Microscopy and Image facility, working under one of their fellowships. You cannot get more ownership than that.
I will eventually dump everything in Morphobank once the work is ready for publication. In the mean time I have been using some of the images in my personal blog, where I have a Creative Common license allowing everything but commercial uses. Just to be on the safe side (and because I do think the AMNH deserves credit) I ask people to cite me and the AMNH if they wish to use any image. My logic (faulty perhaps) is for people to use the information in the posts (images and text) as if it were a scientific publications (albeit non-per-reviewed), and cite it likewise.
I don't know the AMNH official policies on the matter, but I know they champion openess. For example, you can get pdfs of all the Museum's publications for free, and the digital library has always been happy to host the thousands publications for antbase.org.
Reply to Rod
As you are no doubt aware, I agree...
Re. leadership, you could say the NHM has taken some leadership by appointing an intellectual property officer, and in general the official line is that we do support Create Commons in non commercial situations, although what this means in practice is not exactly clear. However, we manage IP in a very traditional way, despite the fact that the IP we generate is very untraditional, and the volume of content we generate means these traditional approaches just don't scale, especially on the web. It is this latter point which I find hardest to make. The kind of change you are referring to requires a cultural change at institutions like the NHM. This is happening, indeed compared to many institutions I suspect the NHM is leading. Its just that we still have a long way to go and change happens slowly.
Re. your point about AMNH, you are almost certainly right. The difference is that AMNH cannot fire me, and that the scientists everywhere would support what I've done, plus there was no money involved so no one really cares.
I can relate many more IP problems that I have come across. Increasingly these concern data, and occasionally there may be commercial implications. Sometimes the issues are difficult to grapple, but in general our large institutions have a habit of making things more complicated than they need be. CC keeps things simple which is why I use it where ever I can.