
Over 150k botanical illustrations enter public domain - bookofjoe
https://hyperallergic.com/541381/over-150000-botanical-illustrations-enter-the-public-domain/
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martin_a
Wasn't this on here like three days ago? Or were those different images?

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r_singh
Yes it was:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22295160](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22295160)

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anonsivalley652
Does anyone else subscribe to _Crime Pays But Botany Doesn 't_ or am I just a
weirdo on the internet asking myself rhetorical questions?

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3CBOpT2-NRvoc2ecFMDCsA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3CBOpT2-NRvoc2ecFMDCsA)

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toyg
If there is one thing the internet taught me, is that everyone is a weirdo in
one way or another (me included).

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r_singh
All images can be found here:
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/sets/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/sets/)

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tartoran
Thanks. Wonderful!!

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lars_francke
If you like that you might also be interested in the work of the Global
Biodiversity Information Facility

[https://www.gbif.org/](https://www.gbif.org/)

[https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/gallery?taxon_key=6](https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/gallery?taxon_key=6)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Biodiversity_Informatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Biodiversity_Information_Facility)

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jboynyc
Wonderful resources. There's also the Biodiversity Heritage Library at
[https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/](https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/)

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iSnow
Uh, that's the one from the submission?

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jboynyc
Ha, how did that not register??

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supermatt
And they will be on getty images with a €475 royalty free license in
5...4....3...

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teh
I think this is a common misunderstanding. The images are in the public
domain. Nothing stops Getty (or you, or anyone) from selling them, even though
you can just use them for free.

The value-add service that Getty offers is legal indemnification, i.e. they
cover the legal costs if the image turns out to be copyrighted after all. To
offer this service they spend some time and money upfront to research images'
copyright status.

Whether you think that's good value for money is up to you.

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mkl
> they spend some time and money upfront to research images' copyright status.

From the discussion a few days ago, that doesn't seem to be the case. It seems
to be more like they just gamble on not getting caught most of the time.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22340547](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22340547)

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spectaclepiece
Would be interesting to see these fed into a generative adversarial network
(GAN) to create illustrations of new species.

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fredley
Yes! This has been done for beetles with similar artwork:

[https://www.cunicode.com/works/confusing-
coleopterists](https://www.cunicode.com/works/confusing-coleopterists)

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tobltobs
It looks like they all are compressed with a quality of only 75. Are they
available somewhere with better quality? Also is there some metadata
available?

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codedrome
I don't know much about copyright law but presumably these were technically
public domain already, even if they weren't generally available. I wonder
whether they are still of use to scientists.

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blackandblue
that book with beetle and butterfly images looks incredible and is bookmarked!
thanks for sharing.

