Posts tagged ‘copyright’

July 31st, 2011

I went to camp!

That’s right, I went to camp on Friday.
Copyright camp!!

Hosted by MPublishing (including Open.Michigan), Copyright Camp is a one-day unconference about, well, copyright.

Copyright & openly licensed content is an issue that’s near & dear to my heart and I recently blogged about it. On Friday I was able to explore these ideas in depth, with some wise & phenomenal peers.

The opening session was a talk by Deb Wythe who runs the Digital Lab at the Brooklyn Museum. Serendipitously, I had tweeted about their History pin project just a few days prior. She spoke further about that project and about working toward their newest goal, which is: :

to make as much of the collection available as possible, with as few restrictions as possible, as openly as possible, while respecting the rights of the artists.

That’s an awesome goal.

I took 3 pages of notes on their process of working toward that goal, but here are the highlights:

  • They release everything they can under a BY-NC (attribution/noncommerical) Creative Commmons license – they want to encourage creativity by allowing derivitives.
  • Recognize and accept risk.
  • Be willing to take the heat, revise & correct – perfection is not the goal.
  • Don’t make users guess about the copyright status of your collections online – be helpful.

The Brooklyn Musuem has a phonemenal list of resources for copyright issues that you can check out here.

At the “Open Content Roadshow” my coworker & I asked about making the content on ArabStereotypes.org [our fantastic new online exhibit] more open, even though not all of it is ours. Dave pointed us toward the U of M Library’s License page which release their own content under a BY license, but clearly marks out the exceptions [such as third-party content].

One of the best take-aways, in addition to exploring opening up our online exhibit & Flickr images with Creative Commons licenses, but the idea of adding or collections into Wikimedia Commons.

And I even got a water bottle & sticker to take home, to keep those warm & fuzzy camp memories alive.

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May 4th, 2011

Are you going to share, or should I just take that?

I’ve been thinking a lot about copyright, openly licensed materials and our new web archiving initiative a ton lately.

Bear with me as I do some mental exploring here…

These thoughts are especially prominent lately as I’ve been poking around a lot of photo sites [yay new camera!]. I’ve seen so much about watermarks, putting copyright all over and a general sense of frantically trying to mark your territory [or photos].

A copyright will protect you from PIRATES

Personally, I’m on the other end of the spectrum, I put a BY-NC license on most everything I can [Attribution/Non-commercial] and I’ve installed the Open Attribute extension for Chrome to let me know when I view a page that has openly licensed materials.

What’s the difference between the photographers who [understandably] want to maintain the integrity/ownership of their work and myself who is comfortable letting go & sharing? Really – I think it’s because I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what users want.

Here are a few things I personally believe to be true about users & their behaviors [in a very broad sense]:
- They want to find things
- They want to find them quickly & easily
- They don’t care if you call it an archival record, a museum object or a library resource
- If it’s not online, it doesn’t exist
- They want to collect things that inspire or interest them [Tumblr/Pintrest/We Heart It/Svpply/Evernote/Pinboard]
- They want to share it [Reddit/Twitter/blogs/videos/a million other ways]

What does that mean personally? Basically, someone is going to find a way to take your stuff whether you like it or not [I totally admit to taking screen shots of any/everything if I can't save it directly].

What does this mean professionally? We need to get our stuff out there, in full view & then let go of it.

OH NO! I HAVE LET GO!
I know that traditionally LAMS [libraries/archives/museums] have played the role of moderator, interpreter, and ultimately the gatekeeper of knowledge. Many organizations are reluctant to relinquish control,  but you can only hold out for so long before the user takes what they want anyway, or they go somewhere else, leaving you to fade into irrelevance. [Is that a bit harsh?]

This really has no direct connection to web archiving, but we’re developing our first two collections at the moment & I’m trying to remain user-centered, open to suggestions and thinking of ways to hand over control or our community. We’re also looking at new software lately & I’m endlessly frustrated by the lack of options that seamlessly integrate our activities into one user-friendly search.

Nothing I’ve said is new & hasn’t been said much more succinctly & eloquently, but these specific issues have been weighing on my mind a lot lately, especially as I begin my first full week at the museum and prepare to delve more deeply into my work.

Three cheers for being finished with school & having the time/initiative/energy to write a Real Blog Post.

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