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Gee, Max, you have missed a lot of the fun already but it is never to late
to catch up!

 I have been representing ARLIS/NA at the CONFU proceedings at the
request of the Public Policy Committee and the Executive Board.  There
has not been a lot of discussion on the ARLIS discussion list perhaps
because so much has been posted on the VRA list.  According to Maryly
Snow (UC Berkeley) this is because this issue is only of interest to VRD
members who apparently only respond to the VRA list.  I have disagreed.
 I believe this is an issue of interest to all members of the Society.

The Visual Resources Association has been a presence on the
digital image archives working group for far longer than ARLIS. Kathe
Albrecht (American University) and Macie Hall (Johns Hopkins University)
 have worked incredibly hard to represent the views and needs of this
profession and the academic community.  Many changes in the
guidelines' content can be directly traced to their participation in the
process.

With regard to the content of the CONFU guidelines,  The most recent
draft available for review on the CAA web site has already been
revised. (View at http://alberti.mit.edu/caa/The_Profession/cei/index.html)
Another meeting has been scheduled for October 6th after which the
final draft will be released for the final discussion and ratification by the
Society.

There have been a lot of misconceptions about the guidelines.  Some
have said that they carry almost the same force as law.  This is
incorrect. They are intended to aid institutions in making decisions on
how to best digitize their collections, both pre-existing collections and
future acquisitions.  The biggest complaint I have  heard about the
guidelines is that they favor rights holders over users and that what has
always been considered fair use is said to no longer be in force.

Rights holders are given more protection under the guidelines because
that is exactly what they are; the person or organization that hold the
copyright of an image.  Remember when you were a teenager and your
parents let you drive their car.  They set the rules and conditions.  If you
wanted to use the car you followed them. If you didn't and were caught
doing something you shouldn't have, there was some forme of
retribution.  On the other hand, in addition to the rules, they also wanted
you to help out and use the car to run errands that would benefit the
family in general. Instead of paying for the gas and maintenance like you
might have, they let you use the car, maintaining it themselves, even
letting you use it for longer than you had agreed.

That was not the best analogy but it is my poor attempt at making the
issues we soon will face a little more clear.  Images that are under
copyright protection may soon be more difficult to digitize and mount on a
campus system if some rules aren't followed.  Artists who create works
of art, vendors who make slides available, museums that spend small
fortunes photographing art objects, publishers who reproduce them in
books, feel that some control needs to be maintained. This is not just  a
monetary thing, with the possible exception of the new (and growing)
companies that purchase the electronic rights to images from museums
and existing artists' rights organizations. Museums have long believed in
making their objects available for study to educators (from grammar to
graduate schools) and independent scholars at no fee or a reduced fee.
It is to the advantage of all rights holders to have a more art literate
society.

A legitimate concern about the guidelines has been the lack of
addressing what is fair use.  While I believe that the principle has finally
been stated in the guidelines, it does refer one back to the Copyright Act
in order for the reader to get the proper sense of the principle. Far too
few members of our profession have actually sat down and read the
Copyright Act. I don't blame them.  Booorrring!   It is, however, a vital part
of what we as art information professionals use in our daily work.  The
CONFU guidelines are an attempt to help us and our institutions make
decisions on digitization.  For those who have read and observed the
guidelines through the past year or so, you should have noticed the
growing acknowledgment on the importance of using digital images in
education and creating and maintaining a catalogue of images.  The
balance of weight in the guidelines has steadily been shifting from rights
holders to users so that no, the guidelines are much more balanced than
they were in the first drafts.

Please carefully read the guidelines as posted on the CAA web page.
Kathe Albrecht's recent posting to VRA-L contains revisions made on
September 4th.  After the October 6th meeting when the final draft is
complete, it will make reasoned dialogue much more relevant and assist
the Board in making their decision whether to endorse the guidelines or
not.  I will be happy to respond to comments on the guidelines and the
process behind them as best I can.


Gregory P. J. Most
Chief Slide Librarian
National Gallery of Art
Washington, D.C.
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