Public domain Smithsonian images now more public than ever.
by T. Colin Dodd
To test the limits of the Smithsonian Institution’s grip on (and ability to derive revenue from) 6288 apparently public domain photographs housed at SmithsonianImages.SI.Edu, a shadowy (that’s a compliment on this blog) non-profit group that calls itself Public.Resource.org has uploaded all of the lo-res versions of the images to Flickr. They’ve even divided the photos into 262 contact sheets which can downloaded for free (or purchased, bound) at Lulu.
Public.Resource.Org states in a public “memo” addressed to “The internet” that they have three goals for posting the Smithsonian’s images…uh…well…publicly.
We have three goals in diffusing this knowledge:
1. The unwieldy archive of low-resolution images on the Smithsonian site makes it hard for people to ascertain the public domain status of the vast majority of these images. By placing the database on sites such as Flickr and in convenient-to-examine PDF and tarball formats, we hope that the Internet commnunity is able to form a better judgement.
2. Some images are clearly in the public domain and of immense public importance. For these images, our nonprofit organization is attempting to systematically purchase these images and place them on the net for use without restriction.
3. We would like to see the Smithsonian adopt a policy for on-line distribution that is much more closely aligned to their mission, focusing on vastly increasing the store of public domain materials available on the Internet.
This should be an interesting case to watch.
