[OpenGLAM] Content Trafficking v.3

Wed Sep 11 16:36:07 UTC 2013

On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 8:54 AM, Estermann Beat <beat.estermann at bfh.ch>wrote:

>
> Personally, I’m not very happy with the term “content trafficking” as it
> seems unnecessarily polarizing to me. And I wonder whether the kind of
> black-and-white thinking implied by the term “content trafficking” and the
> definition that you suggest, will lead to the best possible results in
> terms of “content liberation”.
>

The word "trafficking" is polarizing in general in this day and age ("human
trafficking" being the most notable example), though it does successfully
add urgency to the matter, and in a day and age (again) where laws and
ideas of openness are evolving quickly, perhaps that urgency is needed.

> ****
>
> ** **
>
> I don’t find it particularly revolting if institutions partly withhold
> public domain works from the public domain if this is necessary to recoup a
> significant part of the costs related to digitization and enhancement of
> metadata. Some of the Google Digitization Partnerships would probably fall
> into this category: Public domain works are made available under some sort
> of a non-commercial use-agreement during 10-12 years; after that the GLAM
> institution is free to make the original scans available as real “public
> domain” works. Being able to full-text-search and consult the documents
> online now with some usage restrictions might be preferable to waiting for
> another 10-20 years, before the GLAM institutions actually is able to raise
> funds from other sources to finance the digitization of the works.****
>
> **
>

I *do* find it rather revolting. I've worked at institutions who have paid
for employee positions based on the selling of public domain works. It just
shows that there is a lack of funding on the donor side for digitization
programs. If donors were giving money to digitize, and provide free access
to PD collections maybe this wouldn't be a problem. But, development
departments are generally clueless (at least in the United States) about
copyright discussions and most donors are as well. It's going to take a
special type of donor to destroy the power that Google has over these
organizations, a power that I find particularly disturbing.

And I continue to stand by the concept that non-commercial licensing is
still not *true* free licensing. Free licensing isn't about fear.

> **
>
> What I find revolting, however, are GLAMs withholding public domain works
> or attaching CC-non commercial licenses to two-dimensional scans without
> actually recouping a significant part of the production costs. They often
> have their digitization programs financed by public funds, but still hamper
> the access to the public domain works. These cases are quite common, and I
> think it would be worthwhile focusing on them first, before we attack any
> other practices which are not ideal either, but might fall into some grey
> zone and might also have some good arguments in their favor.****
>
> **
>

In the United States, a large portion of the digitization projects are
funded from private foundations, with a small portion of funding coming
from public funds (which could even be defined a bit differently than EU
public funds, so to say). These private foundations often dictate the type
of content to be digitized. One example - in the federal government, when
you receive private foundation funding you have to (95% of the time) hire
contractors to handle the digitization. I could elaborate on the issues
with that, but, I won't right now. And of course, most of the museums in
the United States (and archives/galleries) are privately ran non-profits,
with libraries being state or county ran (with little to no money) or
privately ran (university). So we have a whole hot mess on our hands here,
which I know people tend to forget.

I just have to continue to stress that there are some differences in the
United States versus EU, just like many other countries.

-Sarah

-- 
-- 
*Sarah Stierch*
*Museumist, open culture advocate, and Wikimedian*
*www.sarahstierch.com*
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