[MassHistPres] Use of photographs in Commission Collections

[Garrett Laws]

Lee / Judy,

I look at these historic photo's in a similar light to historic maps. It's
crucial to be able to share the information but a potentially useful
revenue generator for the owner of the material.

I believe web sites like Flickr allow for the viewing of images and the
purchase of higher quality (non watermarked) images...potentially allowing
for both increased viewing and a small amount of revenue generation. I paid
for the 1895 map that my house is shown on, and think it was a great
purchase! I also look for additional information on a regular basis and
would definitely *consider *purchasing additional maps and documents that
are relevant to my home.

Cheers,
Garrett Laws,
President

The Copper & Slate Company, Inc.
Fine Roofing and Exterior Finish Carpentry
238B Calvary Street,
Waltham, MA 02453
(781) 893-1916

 Work we do:
http://picasaweb.google.com/copperandslate

 Where we've worked over the years:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=206210316541901083869.00049065ef8543e1ef9c3&ll=42.40115,-71.126862&spn=0.125241,0.289421&t=h&z=12


On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Lee Wright <lee at leewright.net> wrote:

> Good question about a topic of great interest, Judy.
>
> Since our goal is historic preservation and generating a greater
> appreciation of the importance of preserving historic buildings and other
> structures and artifacts, its in our best interests to make it as easy as
> possible for people to get and use high-quality digital images,
> unencumbered by copyright restrictions, fees, or releases.
>
> This is also the direction of society, especially young people who have
> grown up with a sharing and re-mix culture and who will continue that
> forward as a cohort.
>
> A Creative Commons Share Alike license helps accomplish these objectives.
>  Details: http://creativecommons.org/choose/.
>
> One common defense of the old way of approaching this is that we are
> "protecting" something.  This is, in my opinion, misplaced.  We're
> interested in protecting the structure or artifact, and shouldn't be
> concerned about the reproduction, including for commercial use, of the
> image or the "re-mixing" of the image.
>
> Two related observations from the New England Museum Association
> conference last week in Newport:
>
> - I spoke with someone at one of New England's most popular private
> historic sites.  He commented that they've tried to maintain the old policy
> of formal agreements, payment, and policing.  He wondered aloud, "If we
> added up all of the costs of administering this policy, they'd probably be
> greater than the small amount of money we make from the licensing."  Also
> not considered is the fact that, by limiting access and charging, they're
> reducing the number of times people see the images.  Aren't we interested
> in more people seeing these great historic buildings?
>
> - The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC is moving boldly in this direction
> in a way that may initially seem surprising: They invited digital artists
> into their galleries to photograph and make 3-D models of statutes,
> including combining images from different statues.  This was all done under
> a Creative Commons share-alike license and the digital files, which allow
> anyone else to download and print our (or manipulate and print out) these
> models were all posted to the Thingiverse site and are available as free
> downloads.  A post by the speakers at the NEMA conference that discusses
> this before the event took place is here:
> http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/now-at-the-met/features/2012/hackathon.
>  Other articles and posts covered the event itself.
>
> Good luck.
>
>
>
> Lee Wright  |  Marlborough  |   "Make this holiday historic!" - The
> campaign for historic sites and organizations at the holidays -
> http://www.thehistorylist.com/the-holiday-campaign-for-history
>
> . . .
>
>
>
>
> On Nov 19, 2013, at 4:07 PM, Judith Lund wrote:
>
> Dartmouth Historical Commission holds a number of photographs and
> negatives of buildings and street scenes, some dating back to the late 19th
> century.  Our town executive secretary has suggested that we adopt a formal
> policy for use of these photographs, both for town use and for personal
> use.  Having managed the photo collection at New Bedford Whaling Museum for
> a while in the past, I am familiar with copyright rules and with their use
> policy.  However, I am interested to learn how other commissions handle use
> of the photos like this that are the property of their towns.
>
> Judy Lund
> CoChair, Dartmouth Historical commission
> ******************************
> For administrative questions regarding this list, please contact
> Christopher.Skelly at state.ma.us directly.  PLEASE DO NOT "REPLY" TO THE
> WHOLE LIST.
> MassHistPres mailing list
> MassHistPres at cs.umb.edu
> http://mailman.cs.umb.edu/mailman/listinfo/masshistpres
> ********************************
>
>
>
> ******************************
> For administrative questions regarding this list, please contact
> Christopher.Skelly at state.ma.us directly.  PLEASE DO NOT "REPLY" TO THE
> WHOLE LIST.
> MassHistPres mailing list
> MassHistPres at cs.umb.edu
> http://mailman.cs.umb.edu/mailman/listinfo/masshistpres
> ********************************
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.cs.umb.edu/mailman/private/masshistpres/attachments/20131122/124908f8/attachment.htm>