[open-heritage] Tate Online Strategy 2010–12

Mon Nov 22 16:20:19 UTC 2010

Wow, thanks Rob...

Thats the wiki page in 1 there then, if you don't mind me copying it
verbatim as a starter for 10?

Ian.

On 22 November 2010 16:16, Rob Myers <rob at robmyers.org> wrote:
> On 11/22/2010 03:43 PM, ianibbo at gmail.com wrote:
>>
>> I'm more than happy to raise the issue of licensing the data with
>> them...
>
> That would be great!
>
>> Question (For my own benefit really)... apart from being good
>> citizens.. whats in it for cultural orgs to adopt these licenses? I'm
>> always worried that my answers to this question is badly lacking, and
>> that prevents uptake of the licenses... Any suggestions?
>> (If we can come up with some I can start a page on the wiki - toolkit
>> for explaining the benefit of OKD-compliant licenses to cultural
>> institutions or something akin to that)
>
> A wiki page is a great idea. I'm sure Wikimedia will have some good
> explanations of why working with them is good for museums, and that can be
> easily generalised.
>
> I *must* have some resources for this somewhere on my blog or the old FCUK
> wiki but I can't find anything just at the moment. So, anecdotally:
>
> Being a good citizen is of value to the institution. It benefits the
> institution by encouraging contributions from individuals and companies,
> co-operation from other institutions, and support from funders.
>
> State-funded institutions that use restrictive licencing are denying value
> to taxpayers and displacing private competitors who could use the data.
>
> Using more restrictive licences will restrict the institution as well: they
> cannot incorporate corrections, improvements or additions to their data if
> their licence is noncommercial and they themselves stand to profit from it,
> or if the licence doesn't allow modification.
>
> Not having to police commercial use of the work saves administration costs.
> Not having to worry about how much more money could be made from access to
> the data if it was charged for rather than given away non-commercially
> (probably less than the administration costs ;-) ) removes pressures on the
> project that might skew its outcomes.
>
> Licences that encourage the maximum distribution and use of data and other
> resources will provide the maximum network effects to raise the
> institution's profile and increase demand for its non-reproducible assets:
> the experience of its actual collection and location. This blog post from
> the Australian Powerhouse museum points out that Wikipedia is a major driver
> of traffic to their website:
>
> http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/dmsblog/index.php/2009/04/02/working-with-wikipedia-backstage-pass-at-the-powerhouse-museum/
>
> (There's some more good posts on that blog as well about how working fairly
> with the right free projects can benefit museums -
>
> http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/dmsblog/index.php/2009/08/14/some-clarifications-on-our-experience-with-free-content/
>
> http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/dmsblog/index.php/2010/01/25/why-flickr-commons-and-why-wikimedia-commons-is-very-different/
>
> http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/dmsblog/index.php/2009/04/08/one-year-in-the-commons-on-flickr-statistics-and-a-book/
> )
>
> The classic example of the success of an OKD-compliant-licenced-project is
> Wikipedia. Whether a similar project using a non-free licence would have
> succeeded as spectacularly isn't a theoretical question: I worked for
> h2g2.com, which failed at the same time that Wikipedia was taking off.
>
> - Rob.
>
>
>

-- 
Ian Ibbotson
W: http://ianibbo.me
E: ianibbo at gmail.com
skype: ianibbo
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