New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art makes available almost 400,000 images(metmuseum.org)
metmuseum.org
New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art makes available almost 400,000 images
http://www.metmuseum.org/research/image-resources/frequently-asked-questions
5 comments
Upload them to wikipedia commons. See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Guide_to_batch_up...
Better finish getting them all before the museum adds restrictions.
Better finish getting them all before the museum adds restrictions.
[deleted]
Is there any concern over there about the misleading rhetoric around this, i.e., that it just happened, not that it happened in 2011?
The Museum's OASC initiative provides license- and cost-free access to images of artwork in the collection that the Museum believes to be in the public domain and free of other known restrictions for scholarly use in any media which the Museum has identified as Open Access for Scholarly Content (OASC) Icon on the site
I don't understand this in two ways.
i) How can the Met claim copyright of reproductive scans of works which are in the public domain?
ii) If the Met provides "license-free" access to images to a certain group of academics, even if we accept that the Met holds a copyright over those images surely the academics are then free to redistribute those images license-free such that they can be used by anyone for any purpose?
I don't really understand what "license-free" means in this context.
I don't understand this in two ways.
i) How can the Met claim copyright of reproductive scans of works which are in the public domain?
ii) If the Met provides "license-free" access to images to a certain group of academics, even if we accept that the Met holds a copyright over those images surely the academics are then free to redistribute those images license-free such that they can be used by anyone for any purpose?
I don't really understand what "license-free" means in this context.
i) They can claim what they want, and even if there is no way it would hold up in court, can still discourage people from using what they do have the right to use.
Does anyone know where we can lookup all the legal cases the Met has been involved in? I am wondering if they have ever actually tried to enforce these policies.
Does anyone know where we can lookup all the legal cases the Met has been involved in? I am wondering if they have ever actually tried to enforce these policies.
They probably mean "free of license costs in academic contexts"
They are overstating the case a little bit, but this is still a big step. These images have actually been available since 2011; back then, until now, it was under a license very similar to the old Creative Commons attribution-noncommercial. But it was not so easily understood as a CC license.
What they have done recently is assert that images of artworks that are public domain are also in the public domain. Other museums and institutions have done this, but for the Met to do it is a big deal.
What they have done recently is assert that images of artworks that are public domain are also in the public domain. Other museums and institutions have done this, but for the Met to do it is a big deal.
This appears to be a very narrow degree of access, though there are some attempts to make it more liberal:
"The Museum's OASC initiative provides license- and cost-free access to images of artwork in the collection that the Museum believes to be in the public domain and free of other known restrictions for scholarly use in any media...
"What is scholarly content?
"Scholarly content encompasses scholarly publication in all media and is defined here as the dissemination of ideas and knowledge derived from study or research for educational/cultural purposes.... Scholarly publication is not limited to academic institutions or university publishers, since commercial publishers/entities may also produce scholarly publications. Scholarly publication is not restricted by print run. For the purposes of the Museum's license-free Open Access for Scholarly Content (OASC), users are encouraged to make their own assessment. However, all users must carefully review this website's Terms and Conditions prior to downloading or using images or any materials on this website.
"What are some examples of scholarly content?
"All school and academic work (including theses, dissertations, etc.), conference proceedings, journal articles, essays in Festschrifts, museum exhibition catalogues, non-commercially produced textbooks and educational materials, books published by university presses or the academic/scholarly imprint of commercial publishers, self-published books, and documentary films. All of these examples apply to scholarly publication in any media format (print, electronic, film, etc.)."
Note that this doesn't specifically include blogs, though "self-published books" tends to suggest they are included. However:
"What is not scholarly content?
"Commercial use, publication, or distribution in any media or format is not scholarly content. Some examples include: commercially published general-interest books in print or electronic media; all products, merchandise, (including posters, calendars, notecards, datebooks, mugs, etc.), advertisements, or promotional materials for any services or products in any media format; feature films or documentaries funded by commercial organizations."
While I can appreciate the desire to prevent untrammeled commercial use, this creates a fairly considerable area of ambiguity. Would a beaker incorporating an image be considered scholarly use? An academic group using an image in a presentation? For conference signage? For a conference shirt? Does the consideration change if the shirts are included in registration or sold separately?
How about images used in a scholarly work which is then cited, referenced, quoted, or included in a "general interest" publication?
In previous licensing developments, attempts have been made to distinguish "commercial" from "noncommercial" use. The boundaries have generally proven less than clear. In particular, they tend to discourage further use of works under such licenses.
One alternative is to distinguish use of images with other marks of the Museum in use. The Debian Project draws this distinction: the entire distribution is available free of charge, and there are a set of logos which are similarly free to be used. There is also a set of restricted logos which may be used only by the Debian Project itself (or others to whom it's specifically licensed).
A converse of this would be to require that an attribution or logo be included in all uses of the images. In effect the images then become additional advertising and publicity for the Museum. Of course, one risk becomes use of images in contexts for which the Museum may not wish to be associated (political content, sexually explicit uses, violent or other uses).
Another approach would be to limit the quality of images available. Even fairly high-quality online images tend not to be applicable to, say, high-quality hardcopy replication.
The fact that many of the works depicted in the images are themselves far outside copyright protection only further muddies the situation.
"The Museum's OASC initiative provides license- and cost-free access to images of artwork in the collection that the Museum believes to be in the public domain and free of other known restrictions for scholarly use in any media...
"What is scholarly content?
"Scholarly content encompasses scholarly publication in all media and is defined here as the dissemination of ideas and knowledge derived from study or research for educational/cultural purposes.... Scholarly publication is not limited to academic institutions or university publishers, since commercial publishers/entities may also produce scholarly publications. Scholarly publication is not restricted by print run. For the purposes of the Museum's license-free Open Access for Scholarly Content (OASC), users are encouraged to make their own assessment. However, all users must carefully review this website's Terms and Conditions prior to downloading or using images or any materials on this website.
"What are some examples of scholarly content?
"All school and academic work (including theses, dissertations, etc.), conference proceedings, journal articles, essays in Festschrifts, museum exhibition catalogues, non-commercially produced textbooks and educational materials, books published by university presses or the academic/scholarly imprint of commercial publishers, self-published books, and documentary films. All of these examples apply to scholarly publication in any media format (print, electronic, film, etc.)."
Note that this doesn't specifically include blogs, though "self-published books" tends to suggest they are included. However:
"What is not scholarly content?
"Commercial use, publication, or distribution in any media or format is not scholarly content. Some examples include: commercially published general-interest books in print or electronic media; all products, merchandise, (including posters, calendars, notecards, datebooks, mugs, etc.), advertisements, or promotional materials for any services or products in any media format; feature films or documentaries funded by commercial organizations."
While I can appreciate the desire to prevent untrammeled commercial use, this creates a fairly considerable area of ambiguity. Would a beaker incorporating an image be considered scholarly use? An academic group using an image in a presentation? For conference signage? For a conference shirt? Does the consideration change if the shirts are included in registration or sold separately?
How about images used in a scholarly work which is then cited, referenced, quoted, or included in a "general interest" publication?
In previous licensing developments, attempts have been made to distinguish "commercial" from "noncommercial" use. The boundaries have generally proven less than clear. In particular, they tend to discourage further use of works under such licenses.
One alternative is to distinguish use of images with other marks of the Museum in use. The Debian Project draws this distinction: the entire distribution is available free of charge, and there are a set of logos which are similarly free to be used. There is also a set of restricted logos which may be used only by the Debian Project itself (or others to whom it's specifically licensed).
A converse of this would be to require that an attribution or logo be included in all uses of the images. In effect the images then become additional advertising and publicity for the Museum. Of course, one risk becomes use of images in contexts for which the Museum may not wish to be associated (political content, sexually explicit uses, violent or other uses).
Another approach would be to limit the quality of images available. Even fairly high-quality online images tend not to be applicable to, say, high-quality hardcopy replication.
The fact that many of the works depicted in the images are themselves far outside copyright protection only further muddies the situation.
Wikipedia believes faithful reproductions (i.e., scans) of 2-d public domain work to also be in the public domain [1]. If that interpretation is correct, then the Met's licensing restrictions--at least for their scans of paintings and the like--are just hot air, and perhaps dishonest/opportunist hot air at that.
Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly grateful they're making available such an important cultural trove, but this whole "intellectual property" madness that's gripping our society is a modern tragedy. I don't know how the Met can demand licensing terms for a scan of a 3000-year-old hieroglyph with a straight face, especially since their mission statement claims they operate in service to the public [2].
[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reuse_of_PD-Art_p...
[2] http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/mission-statement
Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly grateful they're making available such an important cultural trove, but this whole "intellectual property" madness that's gripping our society is a modern tragedy. I don't know how the Met can demand licensing terms for a scan of a 3000-year-old hieroglyph with a straight face, especially since their mission statement claims they operate in service to the public [2].
[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reuse_of_PD-Art_p...
[2] http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/mission-statement
Yep. There is a very strong cognitive dissonance within the museum, which has 2500 employees, many of whom have yet to understand the hypocracy. They believe they are serving the public by not sharing images, in a backwards sort of way.
You can most probably ignore this and use the image any way you like, if it is in the public domain. They don’t actually have the right to determine how the image gets used after it gets out—after all, there is no copyright on the image.
They do have the right to control your access to the resource, i.e. only provide low-res images.
It is really disheartening to see institutions do this kind of stuff, but it is quite common (a positive exception being the Library of Congress, who make it quite clear that they hold no copyright over the collection). Carl Malamud has been on this before: he harvested images from Smithsonian seemingly put under draconian licensing, and uploaded them to Flickr.
http://boingboing.net/2012/11/19/absurd-licensing-terms-impo...
They do have the right to control your access to the resource, i.e. only provide low-res images.
It is really disheartening to see institutions do this kind of stuff, but it is quite common (a positive exception being the Library of Congress, who make it quite clear that they hold no copyright over the collection). Carl Malamud has been on this before: he harvested images from Smithsonian seemingly put under draconian licensing, and uploaded them to Flickr.
http://boingboing.net/2012/11/19/absurd-licensing-terms-impo...
They do limit the quality of images. If you want to see the highest resolution image, take any of the image urls and replace 'web-<WHATEVER>' with 'web-original'.
This is a small step in showing they are trying to understand what it means to 'open up' access. Note that museum policy does not necessarily agree with the law. In fact US law protected the user in cases where museum policy restricted use.
The #1 cited fear within the museum for restricting access to imagery of things like public domain objects? "We don't want people selling shower curtains with our art on it".
The more people make interesting use of the content, the stronger our case can be. Our being the people working for the museum who want to share more data.
This is a small step in showing they are trying to understand what it means to 'open up' access. Note that museum policy does not necessarily agree with the law. In fact US law protected the user in cases where museum policy restricted use.
The #1 cited fear within the museum for restricting access to imagery of things like public domain objects? "We don't want people selling shower curtains with our art on it".
The more people make interesting use of the content, the stronger our case can be. Our being the people working for the museum who want to share more data.
[deleted]
Check your posts for typos. A few points are less than clear. Shower curtains, e.g., "with our art"?
jeez i need my eyes checked, thanks for pointing it out!
s/web-<WHATEVER>/original/g
In a practical sense it depends how forthcoming the MET are about giving people permission on an individual basis when there is confusion about the licence. Expecting people to make the decision themselves does not prevent legal action at some point in the future if they make the wrong choice. In that sense the licences is really just "ask a lawyer".
this is going to ruin my productivity tomorrow
http://github.com/jedahan/collections-api
http://scrapi.org
This is my first foray into generators, and building an API that hopefully will be used more publicly, so any suggestions are welcome.
Also if you want to chat about what its like working for the Met, more specifically the media lab there, ask away!
Also, if you are looking for a giant dump of those images on a hard drive, get in contact with me as the site is not the easiest to crawl. I only have about 260,000 of the images, and its about 260gb.