douglasmccarthy – Douglas McCarthy

Curiouser and curiouser: copyright and the public domain at the V&A

Furnishing fabric 'Alice in Wonderland' (detail) of roller-printed cotton chintz, designed by C. F. A. Voysey for Morton Sundour Fabric Ltd., Great Britain, ca. 1920.

The choices museums make about copyright as they digitise their collections have profound implications for public access.

Balancing access and income – the dilemma of museum image licensing

https://clevelandart.org/art/2000.17

Are museum picture libraries generating profits, and at what cost to public access?

Schrödinger’s copyright

Author’s remix of The Battle of the Pictures, 1745. William Hogarth (1697-1764), Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0

Why are there so few open access museums in the UK?

After THJ v Sheridan

How will the ruling in THJ v Sheridan on copyright and the threshold of originality in UK law affect cultural institutions?

What’s new in the Open GLAM Survey

Now in its sixth year of existence, the Open GLAM Survey has just undergone a significant overhaul. Here’s what has changed. Since Dr Andrea Wallace and I began the Open…

What does the Rijksmuseum’s landmark Vermeer exhibition tell us about museums, copyright and digital collections today? Vermeer is a major exhibition of the artist’s work at the Rijksmuseum that brings…

Four years of the Open GLAM Survey

Fresh insight, important updates and new visualisations into the global picture of open access to cultural heritage

Museums and NFTs – a conflict of interest?

Are NFTs compatible with the mission of cultural heritage institutions?

Europeana and the Open GLAM Survey

''Miss Mission'' series by Robert Yarnall Richie, August 1944. DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, no known copyright restrictions.

Why aggregators matter and how a fresh look at Europeana changed the picture of open access to cultural heritage in Europe

What’s the latest picture of Open GLAM?

As 2021 draws to a close, how many cultural institutions have adopted open access policies, and how have they done this? Here’s the latest picture.

Should museums be dabbling with NFTs?

Are museums monetising public domain collections with NFTs fulfilling their mission?

Emerson’s Nature and the commons

Emerson’s understanding of landscape and the public commons, and how they relate to museums and open access in the digital realm.

Open Access and Art History in the 21st Century: The Case for Open GLAM

Flemish, The Prodigal Son Among the Courtisanes, ca. 1530

A key principle of Open GLAM is that works in the public domain should remain in the public domain once digitised. However, many museums assert copyright in digital reproductions of public domain artworks. How legally legitimate is this?