opening up museum collections online
TRANSCRIPT
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