
British Museum makes 1.9M images available for free - edward
https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2020/04/28/british-museum-makes-1-9-million-images-available-for-free/
======
adelHBN
This article is misleading in one important aspect - the license for the use
of the collection of British Museum in commercial settings.

The article states that the collection of the British Museum can be downloaded
for free under the Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0
([https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)).
This international license permits the use of the subject licensed materials
for commercial purposes. But a deeper look into the British Museum license
proves that CC BY 4.0 is not applicable here. The Museum defines its license
in specific terms ([https://www.britishmuseum.org/terms-use/copyright-and-
permis...](https://www.britishmuseum.org/terms-use/copyright-and-
permissions)): the Museum's license specifically excludes commercial use in
its license and even gives examples of sites and blogs that promote services,
etc. So watch out! Don't rely on the Creative Commons license in this case. If
you have a blog and you use one of their photos you may get in trouble. Go
into the Museum's site and specifically read their license terms.

~~~
Freak_NL
The article correctly states that the images are licenced under one of the
Creative Commons 4.0 licences, and correctly states that only non-commercial
use is allowed in the third paragraph, but the author of that article
mistakenly links to the CC BY 4.0 licence instead of the correct one.

The British Museum webpage you link to specifies the licence as CC BY-NC-SA
4.0.

~~~
greyman
Yes but it should be added that "only non-commercial use" excludes almost all
practical usages. Even wikipedia doesn't allow to use non-commercial, since
it's a legal minefield.

~~~
ghaff
I'm a big fan of CC in general. And I can sort of get behind No Derivatives
even though it goes against the "remix" idea that was some of the impetus for
CC in the first place. (I actually learned the other week that even the FSF
uses ND for media.)

However, Non-Commercial is really bad. Yes, it encourages people to put their
work into the commons with the knowledge that no one can legally profit off
it. But it's essentially a feel-good license that lets people get warm and
fuzzies for putting works into the commons even if, in practice, almost no one
can use it.

It's telling that CC spent literally _years_ trying to define what NC meant
and as far as I know never got to any sort of official definition.

------
simonsarris
This isn't new, the 1.9M were already up. It was one of my favorites and its
in a list I keep of "High Quality Collections of Digitized Art and Archival
Finds" (here: [https://simonsarris.com/art-
collections](https://simonsarris.com/art-collections))

What's truly new here is a detailed search function that works FAR better than
the old one, which would sometimes have a warning/apology box that it didn't
quite work!

~~~
willvarfar
Wow your site is gorgeous!

Its a shame some of your stuff is linked off to Medium. But I've just
discovered your home build posts, and that's something that fascinates and
inspires me too, so I have a to go now and read through all that stuff.

Thx for real content!

~~~
jahn716
Your comment in turn piqued my interest - very much enjoyed seeing Simeville
and now having a great list of browsing material.

Virtuous circle!

------
hannob
This is actually an unfortunate, but common abuse of the Creative Commons
licenses.

Most of these objects are old enough to be in the public domain. Unless the
photograph itself can be considered a work of art (which you may argue for 3D
objects, but for simple replications of a 2D picture - hardly reasonable) a
digital replication of them is in the public domain as well. Applying a
"noncommercial" clause to a public domain image is trying to restrict freedoms
that copyright law grants.

The Creative Commons FAQ even mentions this case explicitly:
[https://creativecommons.org/faq/#may-i-apply-a-creative-
comm...](https://creativecommons.org/faq/#may-i-apply-a-creative-commons-
license-to-a-work-in-the-public-domain)

~~~
CaptArmchair
Copyright law specifies that a photograph or a scanned copy becomes an
original work of art if there's a discernible original creative element
present.

Copyright law doesn't define that creative element though. It's entirely
subjective. And for good reason because copyright laws are intended to be
universally applicable. Another legal principle is the principle of equality
when applying a legal framework. A lot of discussion ends up halting in
struggles over equal treatment.

This can be avoided in the context of digitization of historical objects
though.

When a photographer is contracted or employed, part of the procurement process
or the employment contract could include a waiver of photographer copyright.

However, this is a policy choice, not a requirement.

On 26 March 2019, the European Parliament adopted the Copyright in the Digital
Market directive. Among all the upheaval about internet freedom, it also
contains legal changes that make it more clear for member states on how to
deal with cultural heritage in the public domain:

[https://pro.europeana.eu/post/copyright-reform-passed-by-
eur...](https://pro.europeana.eu/post/copyright-reform-passed-by-european-
parliament)

Now, Article 14 sounds like it's banning the practice of acquiring revenue
through copies of public domain works. However... it's - again - far more
complicated:

[http://copyrightblog.kluweriplaw.com/2019/06/27/the-new-
copy...](http://copyrightblog.kluweriplaw.com/2019/06/27/the-new-copyright-
directive-article-14-or-when-the-public-domain-enters-the-new-copyright-
directive/)

Ultimately, the hard part about copyright law is that it tries not to
differentiate between specific formats and representations. And so, if
copyright law bans the sale of reproductions of public domain works it would
also, unintentionally, ban the sale of other reproductions: postcards, printed
t-shirts, coffee mugs and so on: it would put a lot of souvenir shops out of
business as well.

~~~
kragen
> Copyright law specifies that a photograph or a scanned copy becomes an
> original work of art if there's a discernible original creative element
> present.

This varies from country to country. Thank you for the discussion of Article
14 of the EU CDSM directive!

------
sbr464
Random facts I found googling around:

Site redesign completed by Numiko (agency) for £146,593. Uses drupal,
elasticsearch on the backend.

[https://www.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/digital-
outcom...](https://www.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/digital-outcomes-and-
specialists/opportunities/7179)

[https://twitter.com/numiko/status/1255102332704096264](https://twitter.com/numiko/status/1255102332704096264)

~~~
themodelplumber
Almost 200K USD. That seems like quite a steal, almost a reverse heist.
Amazing that the museum was able to work that out. I wonder about the size of
the team, how tight the spec was, etc. It's been fun to search around...a very
impressive collection for sure.

~~~
sbr464
Near the bottom of the UK bid site is public Q&A with some interesting
technical tidbits, such as integrating with a Magento web shop, etc.

~~~
themodelplumber
Yeah, that's pretty interesting for sure:

> A previous project to replatform and rebuild the site that was aborted in
> early 2017, has yielded a significant amount of development work on the
> design, creating multiple assets including content models and front-end
> design that we would like to repurpose.

> Earlier this year we conducted a new discovery phase to re-establish what we
> were setting out to achieve and this has culminated in a new vision and
> objectives for the website, high level requirements, user stories and
> technical options and recommendations.

Phew. Reading that and trying to imagine the circumstances, I feel for those
previous-platform people too.

------
est31
> are being made available for anyone to use for free under a Creative Commons
> 4.0 license.

I wonder why are they not public domain? IIRC if the image itself is public
domain, a non-artistic picture of it is public domain as well because the act
of making the picture isn't an act of art any more but an act of craftmanship.

~~~
Confiks
Museums really try to hold on to the 'copyright' on their reproduction, for
example by claiming that the act of reproduction can be seen as creative, and
not purely technical. See for example this response by the Van Gogh museum
[1].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21671790](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21671790)

~~~
zozbot234
_Some_ museums try to do that. It's not a very well-regarded practice.

~~~
Angostura
If your museums and galleries are free to the public, like most are in the UK,
it’s a reasonable part of the funding model

~~~
saagarjha
Don’t many museums run on donations and tax money?

------
andrewshadura
Important note: CC BY-NC-SA is a non-free license since it discriminates
against fields of endeavour.

[https://www.britishmuseum.org/terms-use/copyright-and-
permis...](https://www.britishmuseum.org/terms-use/copyright-and-permissions)

~~~
smichel17
...which makes it really a shame when people use it, since it fragments the
commons -- you can't combine it with CC-BY-SA content.

For anyone considering, please just use by-sa. The share-alike requirement is
probably enough to discourage the exploitative type of commercial use you
probably want to avoid.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I think CC-BY-NC-SA is quite good: basically the NC means that if you want to
make money from this content then you should share with the creators, or at
least ask for extra permission, that's reasonable IMO. You can still share my
content, just not make money by sharing it (unless you ask).

Is that really bad?

~~~
m4rtink
The problem with any Non Commercial licenses is where you draw the line. Say
you want to mirror these images, can you show ads on the site to cover hosting
costs ? What about asking for donations ? What if you want to print them and
distribute to schools - can you get reimbursed for the paper ink and
distribution costs ?

It gets murky pretty fast, often preventing people from even using such media
as they fear possible issues down the line due to uncertainty. At the same
time, any bootleggers won't care.

Due to this NC clauses are generally not recommended and are for example not
part of any OCI accepted open source licenses.

~~~
gerdesj
"What if you want to print them and distribute to schools - can you get
reimbursed for the paper ink and distribution costs"

That does not fit my mental definition of "commercial", which I would define
as for profit. I'm sure there are corner cases but I don't think that is one
of them.

Running ads whilst mirroring them - that might be hard to justify unless the
revenue was only enough to support the website. Then you should wonder why
mirror them at all? Now what about using them in a novel way which is ad
supported? Probably OK, provided its at cost and you attribute the source.

~~~
judge2020
Commercial usage includes any exchange of money, even if you're taking a huge
financial loss by using the images, so this license prohibits all of that.

~~~
eru
'For profit' status isn't about actually making a profit, but about specific
commercial arrangements. A money losing company doesn't suddenly become a
'non-profit'.

But no clue whether the license care about this?

~~~
m4rtink
That's the main issue as I see it - it makes many uses quite murky so people
will just avoid those all together rather than risk someone deciding later on
it was a comercial endeavour and thus breach of the license.

------
hk__2
FWIW most of these images are plain 2D reproductions of already-public-domain
images on which the museum can’t claim any copyright.

~~~
Symbiote
Under British law they can claim copyright of the photograph.

~~~
yarrel
Or so they claim. The legal arguments that museums rely on to assert this are
... really bad. I mean really bad. But taking on the combined might of the UK
museum sector is not a good idea. So we have to pretend that a couple of
irrelevant old judgements mean that "sweat of the brow copyright" isn't the
nonsense it so plainly is.

------
Cenk
Link to collection:
[https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection](https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection)

------
clapsclaps
Still applying copyright to digitized versions of public domain works. That's
NOT OK.

------
tpmx
I've read so many of these announcements over the years. I always end up being
disappointed.

Lithmus test:

1\. Is there a .torrent?

2\. If not, is there a batch download mechanism?

3\. Why not?

IMHO: I think museum curators do it this way because they feel doing it more
liberally would strip them of their power.

(Also: why would anyone downvote this? I'm puzzled.)

~~~
hk__2
For me the most disappointing thing is the licence: they all use the NC clause
which makes the licence non-free, and thus these images can’t be uploaded on
Wikimedia Commons.

Having a .torrent or a batch download mechanism is just a technical issue,
which can be solved.

~~~
kragen
Probably most of them can as long as US copyright law doesn't start permitting
sweat-of-the-brow copyright.

~~~
callamdelaney
What does US Copyright law have to do with it?

~~~
bhickey
These images are not subject to copyright in the US.

------
hn_check2
Serious question for HNers -- is this the biggest shithole on the Internet?
Dang has gone to great lengths to ensure that only far-right anti-science,
anti-intellectual noise sustains.

If you want to deny AGW, the impact of COVID-19, hail the president, etc --
this is the place for you.

I'll email Paul Graham about this. Does he realize how his baby has become
such a shithole?

~~~
jshevek
If there is any evidence for your accusation, you should be able to link it.
Do you have any?

------
epanchin
I’m personally happy with the licence, which makes it easier for people to use
without being pursued by Getty or similar as happens with public domain
images.

People here are complaining about it not being public domain, but as soon as
image set is made public domain, HN posters complain about how Getty will
abuse it. Can’t win!

~~~
yarrel
That doesn't make any sense.

You can win, just don't claim things aren't in the public domain when they
are.

This includes you, Getty.

------
yarrel
Hello rightswashing.

Sticking an NC license on faithful reproductions of 2D images is a bit low.

------
Vaslo
I wonder when Getty Images will come claim them and then sue to Museum for $1M

------
wdb
Thank you for posting this. I had missed this -- I am excited to improve
Desktop Pictures collection with Egyptian, Roman and other beautiful artefacts

------
sbr464
Sample API query URL (undocumented)

    
    
      https://www.britishmuseum.org/api/_search?keyword[]=greek

~~~
Tenobrus
And in case anyone's interested, the relative locations the API gives are
relative to
[https://media.britishmuseum.org/media](https://media.britishmuseum.org/media)

~~~
sbr464
Thanks, marked off my todo list.

------
mellosouls
As an aside, the excellent

 _History of the World in 100 Objects_

is currently available for download.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nrtd2/episodes/downloads](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nrtd2/episodes/downloads)

~~~
ranko
For context, this series of radio programmes is presented by a former director
of the British Museum and features 100 objects from the collection of the
museum (full list here:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/about/british-
museum...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/about/british-museum-
objects/)). The objects range from the prehistoric (2 million years ago) to
the modern (10 years ago).

~~~
mellosouls
Thanks, I was going to add this context, but my anti-procrastination app-
blocker kicked me off before I could do so. :)

------
guerrilla
I'd like to see an AI have a look at these and spit out what the average image
looks like in this collection.

~~~
OJFord
> average

My money's on brown splodge. And I don't think you can call that AI.

~~~
ssalazar
One goal of AI/ML for this kind of task is to discover a latent space of the
source images, such that the “average” in that space is always a “valid” image
(not splodge).

------
SimeVidas
Animal Crossing QR code generator or it didn’t happen (joke)

