[open-archaeology] CyArk, Open Access and Creative Commons licenses

[Stefano Costa]

Il 29/10/2013 18:31, Eric Kansa ha scritto:
> I haven't followed CyArk too closely, except for that "take down"
> case. But I agree CyArk's behavior is cause for concern. Ut really
> does look like CyArk is engaging in "Open Washing", trying to appear
> open but making very strong claims of exclusive ownership of data.
> It's even more worrisome because of the justifications / claims made
> about preserving cultural heritage via their scanning efforts.
> 
> In effect, they are attempting to claim exclusive ownership of the 
> preservation record of many high-profile sites. I think there are
> some ethical issues in such claims, and I think this sort of thing
> makes it more difficult to engage in good data curation /
> preservation practices. Ideally the datasets should be widely copied
> and replicated ("Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe").

Thank you for your comments.

Do you think we have any solid counter-example to put forward, rather
than just pointing out the fallacy in their approach? As far as data
archiving goes, we have plenty of course, and the restricted
visualisation functionality they provide are certainly nothing
exceptional from a technical point of view (and don't need be).

I am also worried by the idea that 3D scanning is an effective way to
preserve cultural heritage *at all*. There is a lot more than physical
objects that can be scanned - again I found a disturbing message on
CyArk's Twitter feed:

> Recently while scanning rock art in Somaliland, we captured stories
> abt the art from locals. We need help translating! Any Somali
> speakers?

https://twitter.com/CyArk/status/392728090591244289

That they are doing a scanning campaign and nobody from the team is a
native speaker is horrible IMHO, and sounds like "preserving the past,
but we don't care about the present" (apologies for the cheesy one-liner).

Ciao
steko

-- 
Stefano Costa
http://steko.iosa.it/