Technology and ‘the death of Art History’
CHArt ANNUAL CONFERENCE
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Technology and ‘the death of Art History’
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Fred Poyner IV
The Digital Image as Janus: Balancing Fair use and Image Licensing for Digitized Art in Museum Collections
In this paper, the author seeks to examine the subject of how institutions with collections of digitized and ‘born digital’ art engage in programs which offer images of artworks for both Fair use and commercial licensing by the public. There is a recursive duality where digital art collections are concerned, whether this involves rights managed and public domain artworks, how non-profit organizations compare to ‘for-profit’ image licensing companies, or in institutional determinations as to when an image is available for free verses when it involves licensing for revenue gain, and how artworks considered to be in the public domain fit into this digital paradigm.
Institutions today are faced with a host of challenges and choices, when it comes to offering digital art for public audiences. Factors such as the role of an institution, its mission, the types of art collections it may offer, and whether or not it offers images for only fair use, through a licensing program, or both, are covered in the course of discussion.
In particular, copyright law as it applies to digital images is key to understanding the relationship between collections offered for fair use without restrictions, and how these same collections may in turn be licensed for either editorial or commercial use by the institution charged with their ownership. Legislation such as the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act – and what this means for collections with rights restrictions – is one of several legal considerations reviewed as far as their present impact on institutions with digital art collections.
Finally, current examples of how art museums are seeking to make digital images of their collections available online are offered, in the interest of seeing how these institutions are addressing artist copyright concerns, how rights to original artworks are being secured for licensing purposes, and how digital technologies are being employed to protect or manage access to an institutions collections online.