opening up museum collections online

Open Content Licensing in Museums

Nick Poole, CEO, Collections Trust

#ctcopyright

The Collections Trust is...

...the professional association for people who work in

Collections Management

Special programmes

• We develop programmes addressing key issues and opportunities in collections management & digitisation:

– Security www.collectionstrust.org.uk/security

– Energy efficiency www.collectionstrust.org.uk/energy-efficiency

– Pests! www.collectionstrust.org.uk/pest-management

– Insurance www.collectionstrust.org.uk/insurance

– Participation www.collectionstrust.org.uk/participation

– Going Digital www.collectionstrust.org.uk/going-digital

– Copyright & licensing www.collectionstrust.org.uk/copyright-and-licensing

Copyright and licensing

We provide free resources to help museums with copyright issues and we’re addressing how recent legal reforms to copyright affect museums.

•Free resources at www.collectionstrust.org.uk/copyright-and-licensing

•Copyright: A Practical Guide – updated 2nd edition available to order today: www.collectionstrust.org.uk/shop (Print version £24.99, ebook version £20.00)

Case Studies on Open Content Licensing

Defining terms: open

• “A piece of content or data is open if anyone is free to use, reuse, and redistribute it — subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and/or share-alike.”

www.opendefinition.org

• This means that something is useable by all without the need to ask permission by the (rights) owner of a work.

• Open Culture or Open GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) is a movement that tries to help cultural institution to open up their collections: to make them available to all for reuse without the need to asking permission.

(Source: ‘Open Data for #GLAMS’, P2P University)

Open knowledge

• “Open knowledge is what open data becomes when it is useful, usable and used. The characteristics of openness are:

• Availability and access: the data must be available as a whole and at no more than a reasonable reproduction cost, preferably by downloading over the internet. The data must also be available in a convenient and modifiable form.

• Reuse and redistribution: the data must be provided under terms that permit reuse and redistribution including the intermixing with other datasets. The data must be machine-readable.

• Universal participation: everyone must be able to use, reuse and redistribute — there should be no discrimination against fields of endeavour or against persons or groups. For example, ‘non-commercial’ restrictions that would prevent ‘commercial’ use, or restrictions of use for certain purposes (e.g. only in education), are not allowed.

(Source: Open Knowledge Foundation definition of ‘Open Data’)

Defining terms: reuse

• Describes a wide spectrum of activities and applications of digital cultural content undertaken by 3rd parties

Europeana’s ‘layers’

Degrees of ‘open’

• Attitudes and approaches to ‘open’ reuse of museum content exist along a sliding scale:

‘Radically’ open

Fully commercial

Degrees of ‘open’

• Attitudes and approaches to ‘open’ reuse of museum content exist along a sliding scale:

‘Radically’ open

Fully commercial

Toe in the water

Degrees of ‘open’

• Attitudes and approaches to ‘open’ reuse of museum content exist along a sliding scale:

‘Radically’ open

Fully commercial

Toe in the water

Mission driven

Degrees of ‘open’

• Attitudes and approaches to ‘open’ reuse of museum content exist along a sliding scale:

‘Radically’ open

Fully commercial

Toe in the water

Mission driven

Steady state

Degrees of ‘open’

• Attitudes and approaches to ‘open’ reuse of museum content exist along a sliding scale:

‘Radically’ open

Fully commercial

Thinking about it

Toe in the water

Mission driven

Steady state

Open is a business model

If you are not trading on your brand or the uniqueness of your collection, the chances

are an open strategy will drive additional value to your

traditional revenue model

‘Open’ drives sales

• There are isolated examples of museums for whom ‘going open’ (as in licensing their digital content fully openly for both commercial and non-commercial reuse) has driven significant increases across existing revenue-generating activities

Source: ‘Democratising the Rijksmuseum’ Joris Pekel

Deciding what to share...

‘Radically’ open

Fully commercial

‘Primary’content

‘Discovery’ content

‘Radically’ open

Fully commercial

‘Primary’content

‘Discovery’ content

Getty Open Content Program

‘Radically’ open

Fully commercial

‘Primary’content

‘Discovery’ content

Getty Open Content Program Rijksstudio

British Library Flickr

stream

‘Radically’ open

Fully commercial

‘Primary’content

‘Discovery’ content

Getty Open Content Program Rijksstudio

tate Enterprises

V&A Enterprises

National Gallery

Company

British Library Flickr

stream

‘Radically’ open

Fully commercial

‘Primary’content

‘Discovery’ content

Getty Open Content Program

British Museum

Collections Search

Rijksstudio

tate Enterprises

V&A Enterprises

National Gallery

Company

British Library Flickr

stream

Europeana

‘Radically’ open

Fully commercial

‘Primary’content

‘Discovery’ content

Getty Open Content Program Rijksstudio

Academic & educational

use

tate Enterprises

V&A Enterprises

National Gallery

Company

British Library Flickr

stream

British Museum

Collections Search

Europeana

‘Radically’ open

Fully commercial

‘Primary’content

‘Discovery’ content

Getty Open Content Program Rijksstudio

Academic & educational

use

tate Enterprises

V&A Enterprises

National Gallery

Company

Literally nobody,

ever

British Library Flickr

stream

British Museum

Collections Search

Europeana

Case Study 1. Sharing collections online at York

Museums Trust

York Museums Trust

• Formed in 2002 as an independent Trust

• Managing a range of venues and sites across York

• Funded since 2012 as a Major Partner Museum

• Early investment in documentation & information systems

• Digitisation providing high-quality content to reinforce offline offer

Key developments…

York Museums Trust on the Google Art Project

Key developments…

Pat Hadley, Wikimedian in Residence at York Museums Trust

Key developments…

400 images ‘donated’ to Wikimedia Commons by York Museums Trust

Images for open re-use…

‘Download’ button added to thousands of works in the online collection

Images for open re-use…

License identified as ‘Public Domain’

Images for open re-use…

Images for open re-use…

Conditions

• Conditions associated with re-use:

• All images currently published in the online collection are free from known third-party copyright restrictions

• All images in the online collection are free to download

• All images in the online collection are licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 or Public Domain

• York Museums Trust expects to be attributed whenever an online collection image is used

Constraints

• “We have not yet released any images that have (or we suspect have) copyright restrictions – like pictures of modern art, images of magazine covers or photos of chocolate boxes. To use an image of a copyrighted work we would have to seek permission from the person or persons who hold the copyright. We would also have to negotiate terms of use.”

• Public Domain and CC BY-SA 4.0 materials are subject to a request for attribution, eg:

“Image courtesy of York Museum Trust :: http://yorkmuseumtrust.org.uk/ :: CC BY-SA 4.0”

Outcomes

• Outcomes of Wikimedian in Residence and GLAM-WIKI collaboration reported as very positive

• Content relating to the Middleham Hoard incorporated into front-page article generating some 6,000 views

• Positive outcomes in terms of profile, coverage and reputation

• “What actually surprised me most was the personal knowledge I gained about the history of our collections. This in turn sparked my thinking that this is a strong platform on which to spread knowledge of our collections to the world.”

Mike Linstead, Digital Marketing Officer

““It is the core mission of the Trust to maximise access to the collection. If you can do it for free, and give it to

as many people as possible, that’s compatible with our mission. There’s no marginal cost to sharing content in this way, and it is ultimately what

we are there for.”

- Mike Woodward, YMT

Case Study 2. Sharing collections images from Derby Museum and Art

Gallery

Images via Wikimedia Commons…

Derby Museum & Art Gallery on Wikipedia

Images via Wikimedia Commons…

Link to images from Derby collections on Wikimedia Commons

Images via Wikimedia Commons…

Derby images featured as ‘quality and valued’ images

Images via Wikimedia Commons…

Image available for download under ‘Public Domain’ license

Images via Wikimedia Commons…

Images via Bridgeman…

Outcomes

• 1,250 new articles on Wikipedia

• Over 100 articles in Russian, French, Czech, Catalan, Belorussion & others

• New articles in more than 28 languages & innovative QR code project

Decision-making process

• Start with your Mission (which should articulate how you will deliver value for your audiences)

• Quantify your goals, whether in terms of engagement, revenue or other value

• Quantify your business drivers, including your costs and anticipated gains

• Review the value in your collection & associated brand equity

• Develop an Action Plan with key stages for monitoring and review

• Iterate, evaluate & iterate again

Doing nothing is not an option

“At the moment, [sharing our digital content for open re-

use] is an opportunity. But it’s an opportunity that pretty soon is going to turn into a

threat.”

Keep in touch!

LinkedIn community (8,000+ members)

www.twitter.com/collectiontrust

www.facebook.com/collectionstrust

www.slideshare.net/collectionstrust

Nick Poole

@NickPoole1

nick@collectionstrust.org.uk