I really want to understand the perspective of the other side of this case. Why did this museum care so much about this issue? They appear to have put an enormous legal effort into preventing the release of these point cloud scans. Why?
I often have the experience of going to a museum, seeing a painting I like, and then not being able to find any image of it online - let alone a highres scan. In my casual searches I've found museums generally don't share high resolution scans of their collections. Try to find high resolution images of famous, but not super famous paintings. It's often virtually impossible.
I remember in college my art history professor had a personal digital collection of high quality scans that he'd procure somehow that were impossible to find online. The data seems to be highly guarded, I'm guessing b/c it can be used to make merchandise
So my impression is that the Rodin Museum is not really the exception here
> I'm guessing b/c it can be used to make merchandise
I doubt it. How much merchandise relies on high quality 3D scans?
I think the real reason is that a lot of people are naturally paranoid control freaks. Their instinct is that these scans should be secret and they never really think beyond that.
>I'm guessing b/c it can be used to make merchandise
Weird that anyone would care, since most of those works are presumably public domain. Is it not the legal right, in most of the Western world, of the public to reproduce such works, let alone to use them as elements in their own work?
Yeah, it would probably be legal to take a picture in the museum and make merchandise, but the museum isn't going to actively help you by giving you a scan.
Well, that's the crux of the issue, isn't it? The museum has possession of the scans, but do they - should they - own them? Or are they resources that the public has a right to access?
The exceptional Taco Dibbits, Director of Collections at the Rijksmuseum:
"We’re a public institution, and so the art and objects we have, are, in a way, everyone’s property… With the internet, it’s so difficult to control your copyright or use of images that we decided we’d rather people use a very good high-resolution image from the Rijksmueum rather than using a very bad reproduction… If they want to have a Vermeer on their toilet paper, I’d rather have a very high-quality image of Vermeer on toilet paper than a very bad reproduction."
simonw · · focus · HN ↗
geokon · · focus · HN ↗
I remember in college my art history professor had a personal digital collection of high quality scans that he'd procure somehow that were impossible to find online. The data seems to be highly guarded, I'm guessing b/c it can be used to make merchandise
So my impression is that the Rodin Museum is not really the exception here
someguydave · · focus · HN ↗
kQq9oHeAz6wLLS · · focus · HN ↗
IshKebab · · focus · HN ↗
I doubt it. How much merchandise relies on high quality 3D scans?
I think the real reason is that a lot of people are naturally paranoid control freaks. Their instinct is that these scans should be secret and they never really think beyond that.
underlipton · · focus · HN ↗
Weird that anyone would care, since most of those works are presumably public domain. Is it not the legal right, in most of the Western world, of the public to reproduce such works, let alone to use them as elements in their own work?
echoangle · · focus · HN ↗
underlipton · · focus · HN ↗
echoangle · · focus · HN ↗
I don’t think every work done by a state controlled entity is automatically public domain, right?
CosmoWenman · · focus · HN ↗
See: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/arts/design/museums-mull-public-use-of-online-art-images.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/arts/design/museums-mull-...