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Re: Policies regrding sending electronic images



Sending out electronic images, as with negatives, creates a number of
possible hairy situations.  If, sometime in the future, they use the print
(image, whatever) in a publication and make money from it, whoever holds the
copyright is entitled to compensation if no agreement or payment is set in
the initial exchange.  This can lead to a lot of headaches.  Of course if
the use is strictly personal (family history, etc.) this seems like a lot of
trouble for nothing, but who can tell?

In addition to all this it allows them easy access to manipulate the image
almost any way they want, which in some situations can drastically alter the
original.

Forgive a new list member and lurker for giving opinion based on limited
personal experience.

Tom Anderson
Collections, Am. Museum of Science and Energy
300 Tulane Ave.
Oak Ridge, TN 37830
865-576-3228 (voice) 865-576-6024 (fax)
<ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU>
Date: Wednesday, September 06, 2000 4:01 PM
Subject: Re: [ARCHIVES] Policies regrding sending electronic images


Why not? I have provided perhaps a dozen researchers with electronic images
in the last few months and  I would far rather do that  than go to the
trouble of sending out an original or the negative to have a copy made
(often we don't have negatives, which makes it a lot more expensive for the
researcher and more worrisome for me). We don't have a policy in place for
reproduction charges and so far I have been scanning images for free. That
will probably change when our new policy manual comes out next year.

Before releasing an image I add "City of Saskatoon Archives" and the item
number to the bottom using Paint Shop. This isn't complete protection
against someone claiming it as their own (for whatever nefarious purposes
they may have in mind) as it is not usually that complicated to crop out or
otherwise alter the image. But this is equally the case for hard copy
photographs, so I don't see it as any different.

Of course anyone who wants electronic images has to accept them in the
format I choose to send them, ie, either on a  3.5 floppy or by email.

My question (see original letter, below) - why would it be a problem to give
a customer a negative if he/she was willing to pay to have one made?


> David Smolen wrote:
>
> Fellow Archivists, I was wondering if anyone on the list could share with
> me their policies regarding electronically sending images to customers who
> request a reproduction of an image rather than giving them a physical
> print. I feel like giving customers electronic versions of images is like
> giving them a negative and so I don't like doing it. The problem of course
> is that more and more people are asking for images to be placed on a zip
> disk and it gets harder and harder to tell people no. Any thoughts on this
> topic would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, David Smolen
>

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