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>>> NINCH-ANNOUNCE <[log in to unmask]> 10/29/02 9:51:42 AM >>>
NINCH ANNOUNCEMENT
News on Networking Cultural Heritage Resources
from across the Community
October 29, 2002


         Creating Museum Intellectual Property Policy in a Digital World
                 Report on NINCH Copyright Town Meeting Available
             http://www.ninch.org/copyright/2002/toronto.report.html 


Full and summary reports are now available on "Creating Museum 
Intellectual Property Policy in a Digital World," a NINCH Copyright 
Town Meeting, hosted by the Museum Computer Network at its Toronto 
conference (September 7, 2002), and co-sponsored by the Canadian 
Heritage Information Network (CHIN).

This meeting follows "Copyright Policies in the University," a NINCH 
Copyright Town Meeting hosted by the University of Oregon in November 
2001, <http://www.ninch.org/copyright/2001/eugenereport.html>.

For Lolly Gasaway, Director of the Law Library at UNC, and a 
presenter at both meetings, Intellectual Property (IP) policy not 
only protects an institution, it can also educate its community and 
encourage creative use of copyright material, while establishing 
best-practice norms.  The digital expectation of easy universal 
access has heightened the copyright stakes and policy is one 
mechanism that can ease the transition into this new territory.

For Rina Pantalony, CHIN's legal counsel, museum IP policy can guide 
good fiscal management and drive better management of IP assets, 
while balancing the interests of users, curators and the institution. 
It can also enable museums to join IP debates in the broader 
community more effectively.

The Toronto meeting focused on practical steps and key considerations 
to be included in creating effective policy. The Guggenheim's Maria 
Pallante recommended a broad and on-going audit of an institution's 
IP as the best way to start and outlined how to do it. Such an audit 
grounds policy, she said, by declaring what a museum owns, while it 
can also trigger new creative projects using assets that it uncovers.

While Brian Porter of the Royal Ontario Museum convincingly 
demonstrated the role of IP Policy in effective asset management, the 
Smithsonian's Rachelle Browne, showed why and how economic and legal 
concerns have to be balanced by moral values. An institution's core 
values can measure how a proposed policy fits a museum's mission, 
enhances its services to the community and respects and supports 
innovation.

A practical workshop enabled participants to try out outlining policy 
responses to a range of situations in which many interests needed to 
be balanced. The report of this meeting will form the basis of a book 
on "Creating Museum IP Policy," to be written by Diane Zorich and 
co-published by NINCH and CHIN in Spring 2003.

The NINCH Copyright Town Meeting series has been generously supported 
by grants from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. For information on all 
the Town Meetings, see http://www.ninch.org/copyright/.


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