Museum Photography Policies

[Maladict]

Had Nephele published a museum photo of her pharoah here, she would have violated the museum's copyright. She published her own, to which she has the full rights.

 

Even when the museum doesn't allow photography?

[Nephele]

Had Nephele published a museum photo of her pharoah here, she would have violated the museum's copyright. She published her own, to which she has the full rights.

 

Even when the museum doesn't allow photography?

 

 

In the case of travelling exhibits, as the Hatshepsut exhibit at NYC's Met about three years ago, I think the Met would be hard-pressed to prove I'd taken the pictures in their museum. I also don't know of any precedent having been set by a museum (especially the Met) of suing a visitor for taking a couple of pics on the sly. Especially if the non-flash pictures were harmless to the exhibit. What sort of "damages" could the museum prove? The most they could do, is throw me out for breaking their rules, as one museum did to Maty. And, as a publicly funded museum, I'd like to see them try it.

 

I think the Met (and other publicly funded institutions) would be asking for more trouble than it's worth, if I and other taxpayers should decide to make a class action issue of such policies. Anybody who receives public funding -- our money -- is, ultimately, answerable to the taxpayers.

 

-- Nephele

[Klingan]

Had Nephele published a museum photo of her pharoah here, she would have violated the museum's copyright. She published her own, to which she has the full rights.

 

Even when the museum doesn't allow photography?

 

How about open air sites, such as the forum Romanum, Pompeii, Tivoli, etc?

[Nephele]

Had Nephele published a museum photo of her pharoah here, she would have violated the museum's copyright. She published her own, to which she has the full rights.

 

Even when the museum doesn't allow photography?

 

How about open air sites, such as the forum Romanum, Pompeii, Tivoli, etc?

 

Are photography licenses required at those places, or are there rules against taking photos at those places? Klingan, have you been having to pay to take those pictures that you've been posting, that we've all been enjoying? I had no idea.

 

-- Nephele

[Maladict]

Had Nephele published a museum photo of her pharoah here, she would have violated the museum's copyright. She published her own, to which she has the full rights.

 

Even when the museum doesn't allow photography?

 

 

In the case of travelling exhibits, as the Hatshepsut exhibit at NYC's Met about three years ago, I think the Met would be hard-pressed to prove I'd taken the pictures in their museum. I also don't know of any precedent having been set by a museum (especially the Met) of suing a visitor for taking a couple of pics on the sly. Especially if the non-flash pictures were harmless to the exhibit. What sort of "damages" could the museum prove? The most they could do, is throw me out for breaking their rules, as one museum did to Maty. And, as a publicly funded museum, I'd like to see them try it.

 

I think the Met (and other publicly funded institutions) would be asking for more trouble than it's worth, if I and other taxpayers should decide to make a class action issue of such policies. Anybody who receives public funding -- our money -- is, ultimately, answerable to the taxpayers.

 

-- Nephele

 

I don't see anything like that happen either, but it was more of a theoretical question.

Do you own full rights to a picture that was taken when it was specifically forbidden to do so?

I'm guessing if you were make a book out of your pictures and publish it, you would get sued, and rightly so.

[Maladict]

Are photography licenses required at those places, or are there rules against taking photos at those places?

 

-- Nephele

 

No licenses required, and no rules save in case of wall paintings and other sensitive materials.

[Klingan]

Are photography licenses required at those places, or are there rules against taking photos at those places?

 

-- Nephele

 

No licenses required, and no rules save in case of wall paintings and other sensitive materials.

 

God no! I didn't pay for them!

 

The thing is that I've heard from a very reliable source that the authorities charge you 55

[Maty]

'If you were make a book out of your pictures and publish it, you would get sued, and rightly so.'

 

 

H'mm. I'm not a copyright lawyer but that would be an interesting case. For example if I were to publish a book of my favourite pictures in a particular art gallery, can the gallery claim I have violated their sole right to publish pictures that are in its possession? Furthermore, the law (at least in the UK) explicitly allows photography in public places unless there is a good reason why not (e.g. security), and most museums certainly count as public.

 

It would be hard to enforce a law which gives ownership of images no matter who created the images (though I'm sure some film stars would love the idea). You could only claim copyright violation if you made the original exhibit in question (e.g. logos or cartoon characters), and I can't see many museum owners copping to that.

 

I've certainly used pictures taken in museums in my work (not the same as a book of pictures I agree) and have credited the museum where the pic was taken. In one museum in Germany, once I explained the pictures were for a book, the staff could not have been more helpful, and certainly did not invoice me afterwards.

[gilius]

Do you think photography in Roman museums should be allowed? Quite a lot of them ban the use of cameras; for example:

*Vindolanda

*Carlisle (British Museum artefacts only)

*British Museum (special exhibitions only, i.e. Hadrian)

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

For special exhibits I must confess I hate the practice but can still live with it for it is a way to keep things "exclusive" and thus generate much needed revenues. For permanent collections on the other hand I think open access is to be fully granted and photography permited WHITOUT FLASH in any museums (although I hate taking pictures in painting museums). If they want to restrict photography they must then offer full, high resolution, multi-aspects pictures of each and every artifact in the collection for free use. They often live thanks to tax money and have a mission of both conservation and public education that they must fulfill, including granting to each the possibility to access the pieces from wherever they are, if possible with as much open metadata about them, in order to allow date re-utilization (for exemple : if all museums in the world put in common their roman imperial portraits we could create a fine database that would speed up research and allow faster pre-identification of roman portraits by facial recognition software)

[Melvadius]

Topic merged with earlier discussion on Museum Photographic policies

[stevefrank]

Well just stay and more visit there beautiful places see this pic. is one of the my favorite places in Rome..

[Maladict]

Rome has changed a lot lately.