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2/27/98 Opening remarks by
Welcome to the last of the Town Meetings that have been dedicated to discussing Fair Use in the academic environment. Today our meeting is divided into two parts. This first session will present three speakers offering papers on subjects that are becoming increasingly important now that the Conference on Fair Use (CONFU) has proved unable to produce agreement on Fair Use guidelines suitable to the majority of academic users. While earlier "Town Meetings" were devoted to issues springing out of the hope and prayer of CONFU, this last meeting will look at some of the paths and suggest some of the strategies that may lie ahead. After CONFU, we are discovering that the lines of self-interest are becoming more resolutely drawn—and perhaps, in this process, more clearly perceived. Such as it is, CONFU has made one thing clear: In the face of the inability to agree on Fair Use guidelines, in order to secure the continued delivery of images and other copyrighted materials to educators and scholars, new protocols must be investigated, and other strategies pursued. Indeed, I think that all our speakers today will tend to agree that to serve the ends of education and scholarship, we must develop methods of image acquisition that lie outside of Fair Use guidelines, indeed, perhaps even outside of Fair Use, itself—while not neglecting to strengthen and confirm those rights and privileges already won. PETER WALSH Art historians and scholars who believe copyright law exists to balance their interests against those of copyright holders tend to feel as if they have been left out in the cold—without much protection. It is hard to imagine why the statute seems to ignore practices that have become standard in the profession. Our first speaker, Peter Walsh, offers an explanation. Peter will show us that copyright law exhibits no understanding of what is meant by "copy" and by "reproduction" in the visual arts. The law, he asserts, strives to apply rules invented for copying "text" to the reproduction of visual materials. By comparing the traditional copying practices of artists and scholars to the legal definition of "The Copy," Peter shows us how the statute short-changes those who make and use art. Responsible for new technology projects and external relations at the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College, Peter Walsh has developed a keen understanding of copyright law as it is applied to images. At Wellesley he is also concerned with the museum's plans to participate in the AMICO site-licensing project that is the subject of the second half of this Town Meeting. Peter has also served as a publications specialist for the Harvard University Art Museums and for the Boston Museum of Fine arts. Currently he holds the chair of the Massachusetts Art Commission. GARY SCHWARTZ I'm sure that most of you are acquainted with the work of Gary Schwartz, so there is no need to list his expanding catalogue of monographs and articles on Dutch art. Many readers (myself included) eagerly await Gary's bi-weekly electronic column "Form Follows Dysfunction," a forum in which he entertains us by turning pat assumptions and unquestioned beliefs up-side-down. Recently, Gary has taken up the directorship of CODART (Curators of Dutch Art), an organization of his own invention operating within the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage. Its purpose is to unite under one umbrella all scholars, curators, collectors and institutions who have specific interests in Dutch art. I can not present him to you until I mention Gary's article "Copyright after the death of the author." Here he undermines that axiom of copyright law that acts as if artists and authors are the sole unique creators of their own works. Today, Gary has come to offer a set of strategies that art historians may be able to use to claim and obtain their traditional rights and privileges. We are going to hear some startling and provocative propositions on how scholars can trade on the inherent value of their own works and how traditional image distribution practices may be legally suspect. DAVID GREEN Whereas Peter and Gary approached their topics from legal or philosophic and from "commercial" perspectives, David Green will inform us about organizational and political issues and events. David is the executive director of the National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH). NINCH is a coalition of cultural organizations that believes in the importance of defining and creating a seamless information infrastructure to facilitate the work of creators, scholars, and the general public. David will tell us about some of the ongoing efforts being made by professional and library societies to address and influence upcoming legislative programs. If implemented, some of these could work either for or against scholars and their academic communities in their quests to guarantee continued access to and fair use of digital and traditional materials. Top | Return to Program | Home Page
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