Thread

1. simonw · 1791066735 · focus · HN ↗

   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?

   1. geokon · 1791078087 · focus · HN ↗

      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

      1. CosmoWenman · 1791141987 · focus · HN ↗

         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."

         See: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;05&#x2F;29&#x2F;arts&#x2F;design&#x2F;museums-mull-public-use-of-online-art-images.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;05&#x2F;29&#x2F;arts&#x2F;design&#x2F;museums-mull-...

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