Museum Pictures

[Robert Vermaat]

At Mainz [..] the text clearly said *any* kind of publication, for-profit or not.

Well, they can demand that, before you take pictures. It's not a question if they're within their rights, but it's for the photographer to take or leave it. Now if they allow it without those rules, they can't slap you with a fee afterwards.

At Hamburg KGM I was instructed that no commercial publication of any kind would be allowed, nor would I be permitted to use the pictures to make replicas, but then told the museum would not prosecute unless it felt its reputation was harmed. ???

That's normal. No commercial gain from their stuff, or it's a loss of income for them. I can understand that. Also, no harming the museum - you can't publish the pictures when you're going to claim they did a rubbish job or something. Very understandable.

At Istanbul Archeological Museum I was told that the pictures could be used for research and reconstruction to my heart's content, and used in not-for-profit publication, but should not be put into digital format due to control issues.

Heh. You can't digitise your pictures lest you'll pass one to a friend, who passes them to a friend.. Of course they can't claim that. Either you take pictures or not, they have no control of how you store or distribute them, as long as you don't publish them and tell all who get them of the stipulations. They might have told you not to look at each picture for more than a minute! Rubbish.

I don't know what the legal basis is exactly, but generally there is such a thing as the right to control the image of art you own

Most of what I read here is about us not making money from their collection (which sounds fine) or not damaging the material while making pictures (sounds fine too) or us not bringing the museum into disrepute (sound fine, as long as they do a good job). All else is just for the museum to ask and us to agree to. Besides that, the objects are not their in a way that they can control the copyright, as long as the pictures are yours and not theirs.

We depend on their continued goodwill.

That we do! But within limits, I hope.[/quote]