Talk:New York Public Library opens collection of 275,000 digital images

Original reporting

Please contact me on my talk page if you'd like more details on the emails. The Lessig email is reproduced in full; the rest of the Lisanti email is pretty dull. I do not have any special connection to either person (although I did meet Lessig once at a presentation).

Quote

Note that the quote below from an email from Tom Lisanti to me also appears on the library's website. I assume that he just cut and pasted it from there.

"The usage fee is not a copyright fee. You are free to obtain a copy of these images from a source other than NYPL. Usage fees help ensure that the Library is able to continue to acquire, preserve and provide access to the accumulated knowledge of the world."

In any case, I hereby swear and affirm that he actually sent me those words in an email. Pingswept 05:44, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Pretty funny that even the New York City library is trying to prevent people from copying public domain pictures; thats the first time I've heard of a library I've heard trying to restrict copying of public domain pictures!

I assume they have no recourse if you use an image from their website that is in the public domain and don't pay them for it. Right? —Christiaan 11:00, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

To quote Larry Lessig from the end of the article, "This hangs on a tough, unresolved question: whether the digitization produces a 'thin' copyright around the public domain work. That copyright would not forbid you from extracting the public domain component, though how you would do that is hard to see (and hence this is a hard question)." Pingswept 04:59, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Pingswept, but on what basis might digitisation produce a copyright on a public domain work? —Christiaan 09:08, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

On the basis that the courts have not made it sufficiently amply clear yet, perhaps (personally I think there isn't much merit to simple mechanical scanning creating a new copyright because there is not any original creation going on). Note that the library claims that it is not a copyright matter but a reproduction fee, though, so their claim appears not to be relying on copyright at all, but on contract law from accessing their site and agreeing to their terms. Jamesday 10:57, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This would remind me of the EULA used by software manufacturers in those installation/first-time startup dialogs, but there was no interaction of that kind at the NYPL site when I browsed their gallery of public domain images.

How does merely clicking on a link to access a public domain picture constitute agreement to a contract?

I was able to access and download a number of public domain pictures from the NYPL site without encountering any license or contract agreement, so how am I bound by their terms?

As long as NYPL has posted these public domain images on a publically available site, with no gateway or "Accept" dialog in the way, it seems a bit of a stretch that I agree to terms which are not made known prior to granting access to the site (or at any other time from what I can tell).

The NYPL is basically hijacking public domain images from the public domain, re-imposing long-expired copyrights on material, to build a revenue stream for themselves on the backs of long-dead photographers, at the expense of citizens who would otherwise be fully-entitled to use these images for their own purposes.

The NYPL gets points for creative fund-raising - apparently they intend to charge outrageous prices of hundreds or even thousands of dollars for some of the images, which goes way beyond the bandwidth costs. Really, my hat's off to them for trying to assert control over public domain material, I can't blame them for trying, there couldn't be a worthier beneficiary of such a scheme.

Unfortunately, the NYPL's action in this matter is just another piece of the movement towards wresting control of all creative works from the general public into the hands of an elite few.

Their claim that they haven't hijacked these works from the public domain, because one can just get a copy somewhere else is brilliant, given that most of the material is available nowhere else than in their archives.

So much for copyright expiring after a reasonable period of time. — DV 11:22, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

While I think it's somewhat unfit for a library to be charging serious fees for material (it would seem like their public mandate involves free access to information), I think what they're doing is exactly what the public domain is about. That is: completely unhindered use of public domain information, unencumbered by copyright. Just like Open Source Software is possible to sell for money, public domain content is sellable as well (publishers still manage to sell works by Plato and Aristotle).

With content that is in the public domain the way to combat people who charge is to charge less (or nothing at all). I believe that one could pay these "access fees" once, download the images, and then republish them, for free, somewhere, and since the data is PD that'd be legal. -- IlyaHaykinson 11:35, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Actually the above is not true. Their contract terms forbid it. Sneaky bastards! -- IlyaHaykinson 11:41, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You know I think this might be something EFF might be interested in looking into and challenging. I've sent them an email, so we'll see what they have to say. —Christiaan 19:01, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This was EFFs repsonse: "Thanks for writing. We're curious about this ourselves. It's not something that we're likely to challenge right now (limited resources vs. other pressing litigation), but it does strike us as bizarre that they'd try to condition the use PD material. Let us know if you hear of any enforcement attempts by NYPL for the public domain stuff." -Christiaan 20:30, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)