[ExI] intellectual property again

[Sarah Wood]

On Mar 3, 2010, at 12:07 PM, spike wrote:
> I will start it: I now think that society is justified in providing  
> a legal
> means of protecting information as property; in most cases current
> intellectual property law is adequate and not overly restrictive.  I
> recognize there are absurdities with protocol patenting, but I don't  
> see a
> better way.
>
> Your turn.

Additional problems arise when a copyright-holder takes an  
inconsistent approach towards reproduction of its material.

Take, for example, the Bundesarchiv - the German national archive,  
which is one of the most digitized archives in the world. The BA has  
an agreement with Wiki to make available hundreds of thousands of  
large, high res photographs without watermarks. Now, if I want to  
publish one of those same photographs in a photo-journal, I must first  
purchase a print, and then further purchase reproduction rights, for a  
total cost of about €50 per image. This of course all has a  
significant impact on my COGS. When my book is printed and I send out  
review copies, a kind reviewer will then promptly inform his  
readership that these images may be seen for free at such and such a  
URL. Ouch.

I am of two minds about this. As a graduate student in LIS, I was  
virtually indoctrinated to believe that information wants to be free,  
and I still do cling to the notion to a certain extent. As a  
publishing professional, however, I also want to sell books -  and I  
want to sell books with pictures that people have seen before. Now, if  
I think an image is so indispensable to my subject matter that it's  
prior dissemination ceases to be relevant, well .... then why should I  
have to pay for it when others do not?

As a counterpoint, the United States NARA has no charges whatsoever  
associated with copying its images. However, it is also barely  
digitized - so getting images means traveling to DC and digging  
through dusty boxes of moldering documents while wearing white gloves.  
I guess everything has its price!