National Constitution Center Reponse Re Ban on Photography

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Stanton McCandlish <mech () well com>
Date: December 2, 2004 5:27:33 AM EST
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] National Constitution Center Reponse Re Ban on 
Photography

> From: Jim Zellmer <zellmer () virtualproperties com>
and/or
> From: Michael Ravnitzky <mikerav () mindspring com>
[sorry, the attribution was a little hard to follow.]

> Date: December 1, 2004 6:55:54 PM EST
> To: FOI-L () LISTSERV SYR EDU
> Subject: National Constitution Center Reponse Re Ban on Photography
>
> It is true that we cannot permit any kind of photography in the exhibit
> halls, with the exception of Signer's Hall. The reason for this is that
> we do not own most of artifacts that are on display. They are on loan 
> to
> us, and the lenders strictly prohibit photographs being taken for their
> own rights and protection. (In a few cases, it is a matter of the flash
> being harmful to the artifacts, but in most, it is not, which is why
> even non-flash photos are prohibited.)
    [...]
> Director of Public Relations
> National Constitution Center


This doesn't surprise me at all.  Most of the stuff in museums isn't
actually owned by them, and the photo/publication rights to them can
theoretically be pretty lucrative, leading most actual owners to be
restrictive.

I caught all kinds of hell on the Isle of Man, that interesting
Gaelic-Nordic quasi-sovereign island between Ireland and Scotland,
trying to take photos (no flash involved) of some very specific pieces
of the art on exhibit - heck, really just detail areas of them. Hhere's
the rub: prints of them, at any cost,  weren't sold by the museum or
anyone else as far as I've been able to determine, even more than a
decade later.  Namely Archibald Knox's works.  (Unless you are even
weirder than I am, you would not recognize that name.  Think Alphonse
Mucha's Art Nouveau, in execution, meets thickly "Celtic
Twilight"-period William Butler Yeats, in inspiration, and you have
*some* idea.  Really beautiful, fantastical stuff, even if it was
cheesy on one level or another.)
The museum did have a little 30-page magazine-like "book" of his stuff,
but almost nothing in that booklet coincided with what was on the walls.
Eventually I found someone that worked at the Isle of Man national
museum [exact name of the institution escapes me, sorry; that was 13
years ago] who allowed me to take a FEW pictures - NO FLASH! - as long
as I FIRST bought the pre-packaged retrospective "book" they were
selling (and from which royalties were of course being paid).  And I
practically had to swear upon the lives of my as yet unborn children
that I wasn't taking pictures for commercial purposes.

Ireland was far less flexible.

I had precisely the same, and ultimately worse, problem when it came to
the museum-hung works of another artist in a similar vein, in the
Republic of Éire.  I cannot to this day remember his name (and <ahem>
don't have any pics to work with to figure that out).  His style was so
undeniably influential of [upon? I'm not sure what preposition to use
here] the works of globally famed Celtic-fantasy artist Jim FitzPatrick
that I just HAD to take pictures of some of his works, in particular
details of a few paintings that were very clearly so directly
inspirational of several of FitzPatrick's works, it was almost uncanny.
I hadn't even gotten in a stable position to take a photo before I was
seized upon by museum rentacops.  I was almost *pounced* upon by them.
And - here's the rub - the institution in question didn't even sell
their own (or anyone else's) books, or even overpriced prints, of the
works in question.  They were ultimately just *off limits* to anything
but my own hardly eidetic memory.

I don't blame either of the museums for this.  It wasn't really their
idea or policy; it was dictated to them by the people who nominally
owned the works in question.  I think it really comes down to yet
another excessive overextension of the intellectual property legal
fiction.  Here's stuff you can LOOK at all you want, EVERY single day
for the rest of your life - you can literally bring an easel and sit
there and practice painting copies of them! -  until you have memorized
every single brushstroke and could probably paint a totally convincing
forgery of it; but you're going *straight to Hell* if you even think
about taking a picture of a corner of it for research or even just
plain personal interest reasons.  Because SOMEONE somewhere might
actually pay some probably piddly amount to take pictures of it for a
dry art history book, than none of us would actually buy anyway.

Pfah.

All I have to say in the end is more power to the people making
miniaturized photographic equipment.  I'd love to have even a 640x480
grainy picture of some of that art, even just particular details of it.
And the tech that's already available now could have produced far
better that 5 640x480 pics, with an easily-concealable handheld
equipment size.  Too bad I was playing art-tourist in 1991 instead of
2004.  My camera was a huge 2lb Nikon SLR monstrosity with a fat macro
lens attachment on it.  I didn't stand a chance.  I was probably more
obvious than someone trying to light the paintings on fire.  At least a
Zippo is palm-concealable.

Basically, I think the situation is stupid and pathetic.  I will have
no ethical or other qualms about using a phonecam or other
less-than-blatantly-obvious cameratic technology to capture images of
much of anything henceforth.  If I'm allowed to look at it, I should be
allowed to look at it again later on my own time, thank you.

If I tried to SELL pictures of it, different story. I don't think I-P
rights are utterly void, after all.  I just think they need to have
some limitations.  Like the ones they had when they were invented out
of thin air and forced on everyone in the first place, before Disney
and Hollywood-at-large (not to mention the New York and London print
publishing realms, et al.) quietly lobbied them into perpetual and
forceful permanency.


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