[open-heritage] Tate Online Strategy 2010–12

Mon Nov 22 15:37:38 UTC 2010

http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/tatepapers/10spring/stack.shtm

"4.4.3  Data sharing

Tate’s collection database will be opened up through a public data feed 
or API (application programming interface) to allow Tate’s collection 
dataset to be accessible to third parties. This will be limited by 
copyright restrictions on images. Through the API, new acquisitions and 
changes to data will be pushed to users. Users will be able to combine 
Tate’s data with that of other organisations, for example, combining 
multiple museums’ collections and building visualisations and 
interpretations of this data or cross-collection search and browse 
interfaces. In all cases references to Tate content will need to include 
a link back to the content’s page on Tate Online.

4.4.4  Commons licences

Most of the content on Tate Online is published under restrictive 
end-user licences. We shall audit these and review what content could be 
released under a more permissive licence that would enable users to 
reuse and remix this content as part of their own creative projects or 
research.

These new public licences are likely to be based on a commons model, 
focusing on wide distribution which will democratise knowledge and give 
audiences the freedom to share their and Tate work. For example, users 
could take art work images from the collection and share them on their 
non-commercial blogs, social media profiles or online project so long as 
this includes the correct caption information and a link to Tate Online."

This looks like it could be really good.

Does anyone know what kind of licencing the Tate are planning? 
Attribution, clearly, but emphasizing "own creative" and "research" 
projects makes me worried that they might be considering non-commercial 
restrictions.

Is anyone in contact with them to make sure they use an OKD-compliant 
"commons licence"?

- Rob.