Analysis Of The J. Paul Getty Museum

Museums create online collections of their objects to allow the public access for research or entertainment, and numerous museums have at least part of their collections online in some format, but many limit access due to copyright and other restrictions. However, as more and more museums allow this access other museums and cultural institutions feel the pressure to allow access to their collections as well. In this digital age, there is a presumption that everything is and should be accessible to everyone. This raises the questions of whether or not museums should be expected to have their entire collection online for the public? Should all objects in the public domain be freely accessible regardless of the museums ownership? And what about

Paul Getty museum created their Open Content Program to access public access to their collections. Typically, open content collections are images online of a museum’s collection without restrictions. Meaning that visitors can use the online images of the museums collections for whatever purpose they choose for free, for research purposes to selling merchandise as well. Many museums and other cultural institutions have many restrictions on images of their collections. Some restrict the usage of images because the museum themselves do not own the rights. For museums that don’t own the copyright on their object, they will typically have a nonexclusive licensing agreement. According to Anne M. Young’s Rights & Reproductions: The Handbook for Cultural Institutions having this agreement allows museums understanding “with respect to permitted uses by clearly spelling out what the institution can or cannot do with the copyrighted work, ranging from educational and promotional materials to retail

For example, James Cuno states “artists, students, teachers, writers, and countless others rely on artwork images to learn, tell stories, exchange ideas, and feed their own creativity.” Hamma similarly discusses “for reasons that seem too frequently unexamined, many museums erect barriers that contribute to keeping quality images of public domain works out of the hands of the general public, of educators, and of the general milieu of creativity.” The notion of creativity for the greater good of the public often comes into play when arguments arise out of copyright debate. Taking away legal restrictions also takes away the restrictions and fear allowing users to have creative