I just got word of an interesting notice that went out a few days ago from the new group Public.Resource.org dedicated to maintaining public intellectual resources. The memo to the Internet, which is worth reading even if you’re not a copyright-nik like me, tells of a Smithsonian image archive that has recently been made available online, and includes 6288 images. However, the site is difficult to navigate, only allows users to see low-res, watermartked images, and charges $200 for ligh-res images. Its copyright notice prohibits re-use without permission. The problem, as the memo points out, is that most of these images are in the public domain (their copyright term has run out) and the Smithsonian is a government organization, which is not supposed to hold copyright on its works.

So, the Public.Resource.org group has downloaded all the low-res images, organized them, and made them available for download in various user-friendly formats. (I’m downloading a 545Mb .tar archive of them as we speak.) They are also working to purchase all of the high-res images, and will make those that are in the public domain available online. Themselves.

One of the problems with the current context around information rights is that the whole terrain is precarious; content owners and database managers and trade organizations are so lawsuit happy, the kind of casual, small-scale, experimental uses that used to flourish in the space opened by the rarity and cost of lawsuits is nearly gone. So it has become necessary for groups who either think they have an airtight legal right, or are willing and able to risk a lawsuit to test it, to thumb their nose at copyright holders, as Public.Resource.org is doing here. Sut Jhally, the one behind the amazing Dreamworlds videos and the Media Education Foundation, recently commented at a conference that more copyright scholars need to be actively seeking lawsuits so that some of these principles can be tested. There are only so many who are in a position to do this, although kudos have to go to the activist organizations and academic centers who have taken up this challenge. Bravo.

(By the way… the blog nearly faded out of existence, but summer is upon us, grading is done, and I’m ready ro take up the reins again. Hopefully, you’ll be hearing more from me, more regularly. Tell your friends.)