The case for Open Licenses in Cultural Heritage

Here is a collection of good arguments for the adoption of OKD-Compliant licenses in the cultural heritage domain. It would be great if people could add arguments, counter claims, examples and any other material that will help us build a convincing case.

Being A Good Citizen
Being a good citizen is of value to the institution. It benefits the institution by encouraging contributions from individuals and companies, co-operation from other institutions, and support from funders.

Trying to use a restrictive licence or terms and conditions can lead to a project being shunned as "sharecropping":

http://bgbg.blogspot.com/2006/08/back-to-mashup-board.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/11/AR2007071101996.html

The State Can Play Fair
State-funded institutions that use restrictive licencing are denying value to taxpayers and displacing private competitors who could use the data.

Restrictions Restrict You, Too
Using more restrictive licences will restrict the institution as well: they cannot incorporate corrections, improvements or additions to their data if their licence is noncommercial and they themselves stand to profit from it, or if the licence doesn't allow modification.

Reduced Costs
Crowdsourcing can reduce costs:

http://archivesoutside.records.nsw.gov.au/crowdsourcing-for-archives-and-libraries/

Not having to police commercial use of the work saves administration costs. Not having to worry about how much more money could be made from access to the data if it was charged for rather than given away non-commercially (probably less than the administration costs ;-) ) removes pressures on the project that might skew its outcomes.

Increased Revenue
Licences that encourage the maximum distribution and use of data and other resources will provide the maximum network effects to raise the institution's profile and increase demand for its non-reproducible assets: the experience of its actual collection and location:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Network_effects

http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2007/01/give_away_the_m.html

There's a saying in Free Culture that "the problem isn't piracy it's obscurity". This applies to institutions and their collections as much as to contemporary authors and artists:

http://openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2002/12/11/piracy.html

This blog post from the Australian Powerhouse museum points out that Wikipedia is a major driver of traffic to their website:

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/dmsblog/index.php/2009/04/02/working-with-wikipedia-backstage-pass-at-the-powerhouse-museum/

Proprietary Licencing Has Failed In Comparison
The classic example of the success of an OKD-compliant-licenced-project is Wikipedia. Whether a similar project using a non-free licence would have succeeded as spectacularly isn't a theoretical question: the proprietary h2g2.com failed at the same time that Wikipedia was taking off.

Requests need to be visible at higher levels of the organization's management
This is a good point, but it is a matter of finding the correct sponsors within an organization rather than a problem with free licencing per se.

The case for ROI on investment in clarifying licences needs to be made
Particularly in the current "age of austerity".

There are many examples of the advantages of free licencing on this page that can be used to make the case for it.

Organizations don't always have full reproduction rights for their objects
This is true, but they should have them for catalogue data and interpretative material. Those can be freely licenced.

Reproductions of artworks and other objects that are still in copyright obviously cannot be freely licenced without lengthy negotiations. Existing reproductions of out-of copyright objects may have third party rights involved. Changing an organization's photography policy to allow public photography of out-of-copyright work (and of work in copyright under fair dealing/fair use) can address this. See "Wikipedia Loves Art" for how this can benefit organizations. And organizations outside the US should push for adoption of Bridgeman vs. Corel where it applies.

Releasing content for commercial re-use is problematic for some museums
Why?

Case Studies
We have a page of Heritage Open Licensing Case Studies from institutions that have successfully worked with open licences.