Talk:Contemporary art

Spin-offs for public exposure of this campaign

 * How about initiating some specific GLAM-wiki projects to honor those artists who do release their work under free licenses? Organize specific  edit-a-thons on contemporary art, with freely released materials? Award  an international prize for significant/important 'releases'? Other  ideas?

Concerns
SF: In other words: for many contemporary artists, releasing documentation  and other digital materials about their work might constitute breach of contract  with their collecting agencies, if they are a member of one. We might expose ourselves to litigation. At least Pictoright, the Dutch collecting agency for visual artists, is very pro-active in that area. Good to know; are we ready for that?


 * It's up to the individual artist to negotiate or change their contract. We're merely suggesting open licesning, nothing more. Not our jurisdiction. And people sell plenty of work regardless of license, so I'm not too worried. SarahStierch 23:01, 28 September 2012 (UTC)


 * But they do need to know that CC licenses may clash with their Collecting Society contracts. Otherwise they will blame OKF if they have problems. --Rob Myers 13:00, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Do the licenses clash with DACS membership in the UK or ARS membership in the US? --Rob Myers 13:00, 29 September 2012 (UTC)


 * They generally do, unfortunately (re: ARS) - even with PD or "no known copyright" photographs of artists ARS represented, when I worked at an art archives, we were unable to release images to Wikipedia because we'd get a letter on our desk from ARS. (And note: that's a public domain image!) So how do we 1) express this? (we should start drafting it as a subpage or on the main page), and how do we advise artists/reps handle it? SarahStierch 17:02, 29 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I just spoke to a US artist I know who wasn't very impressed by ARS. :-) Does anyone have a written statement of their postion on CC licenses we can point people to? Likewise for European collecting societies... --Rob Myers 21:22, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

SF: Many contemporary artists (and mediators of contemporary art, such as  festival organizers) think that just by putting their work online -  video on YouTube, Vimeo, images on their website - 'they are already  open sourcing it'. This is a common misconception that I hear all the time and that we need to address very clearly.


 * Hence this document :) SarahStierch 23:01, 28 September 2012 (UTC)


 * They also tend to confuse different senses of "public domain". And to get upset when you explain that "open source" has an actual meaning that it is possible to get wrong. :-) --Rob Myers 13:00, 29 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Yeah, sounds VERY familiar. I've heard people in media/digital art (!) say that 'YouTube is public domain', that 'YouTube is an open source solution', that they do an 'open source event' by having some kind of open calls / open podium... heh. I don't want to spoil the fun, but just having a document that explains licenses is not going to be enough. How to make a strong argument? One suggestion I have: I can explain how it's been impossible for me to spread materials from 'my' archives (V2_, NIMk) any further because of lack of open licensing, and how that affects artists' exposure and long-term accessibility of their work. Other ideas? Sandra Fauconnier 17:38, 29 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I would make the case that definition X (the freedom to experience,copy,modify,share,and charge for) has positive consequences Y (enables promotion through study and critique, gains reputation through exposure, fosters freedom of expression) as well as being "the right thing to do" for freedom of expression, and that even for the best of reasons trying to back away from the definition has been shown not to have these effects (and isn't "the right thing to do"). So combine an ethical plea and a consequentialist argument? :-) --Rob Myers 21:22, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Also see this event at my former employer: http://nimk.nl/eng/calendar/the-value-of-openness - Paul Keller will speak there, unfortunately I'm unable to attend. Sandra Fauconnier 17:38, 29 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes it will be good to address this. There are things that people tend not to understand about the licenses that are worth addressing up-front - that they are irrevocable, that if you are producing adaptations they don't protect you from infringing, that your use of them as a practicing artist is commercial, that they don't cover design right or trademarks, and that apart from Moral Rights you can't legally protest at people's use of the work once you do license it. --Rob Myers 13:00, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Licences
It's worth making the case that CC0 is the best way of "dedicating work to the public domain". Public domain dedications are popular but of varying legal weight outside the US, CC0 addresses this. --Rob Myers 13:19, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

The LAL/FAL is now a robust licence as well as a principled one, but it is not as popular as the (later) BY-SA licence and placing work under it "fragments the commons", so I wouldn't recommend promoting it. I think CC are open to making BY-SA "compatible" with it in the future, and CC0 and BY are already "compatible" with it, so hopefully this won't be a problem in the future. --Rob Myers 13:19, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
 * You can see the licenses that we decided on we're going to focus on here. We also have to remember that you can multi-license something, as odd as that sounds. SarahStierch 17:04, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

The World Of Free And Open Source Art
Arts Council England commissioned Furtherfield to produce a guide to Free And Open Source Art:

http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/what-we-do/our-priorities-2011-15/digital-innovation-and-creative-media/digital-resources/collaboration-and-freedom/

http://p2pfoundation.net/World_of_Free_and_Open_Source_Art

It's a good overview of the ideology and practicalities of Free and Open Source art, although possibly skewed towards digital art. There are lots of useful resources included in and linked from it.

I worked on some of it, including the licencing guide and the glossary:

http://p2pfoundation.net/World_of_Free_and_Open_Source_Art#Licensing

http://p2pfoundation.net/Glossary_for_Beginners_in_FOSS_Art

It's all under BY-SA.

--Rob Myers 13:29, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Great, we'll add this to the resources section on the main page. SarahStierch 17:04, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Argument for free licenses: longevity / preservation

 * An oldie (from 2008): Jon Ippolito's 'Open Art Network' http://three.org/openart/ - mainly about the benefit of open licenses for longevity of (digitally-born) art. Might be interesting to involve Jon? Rob, do you  know him? Sandra Fauconnier 17:51, 29 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Only by reputation, I'm sorry to say. --Rob Myers 21:29, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Another good argument is that image reproduction costs are having chilling effects on art history, on scholarship, and on critique, all of which are key to building artistic reputations (and hence sales prices). --Rob Myers 22:23, 1 October 2012 (UTC)