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The Art Institute of Chicago Has Put 50k High-Res Images Online

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Re: The Art Institute of Chicago Has Put 50k High-Res Images Online

#61
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be in the public domain? If I take a photograph of something, don't I own the copyright to that photo? Even if it is a photo of the Mona Lisa or the Parthenon?

In the US, no. A photograph of a 2D artwork is just a copy of that artwork, and not a copyrightable original work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel... .

Reading over the linked page, it appears that the distinction is how much originality there is in the photograph. In this case, it seems clear the museum is just posting a "mere copy" without any embellishment or artist changes.

So I guess I'm with the OP about being unclear what the value of the license is. Oh well, maybe it's just a simple CYA/clarify expectations/whatever.

Re: The Art Institute of Chicago Has Put 50k High-Res Images Online

#62

Is there any sort of organized, searchable index of artwork online? It's sort of a massive undertaking, but it's the kind of thing that a wiki would be good for, and there have been a handful of different museums which have made these kinds of sets available.

WikiArt comes to mind: https://www.wikiart.org/

Re: The Art Institute of Chicago Has Put 50k High-Res Images Online

#63
post #55

It gives me server errors. Example: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/181616/self-portrait-etching-...

I found an even less pretty error: https://www.artic.edu/artists/36351/pierre-auguste-renoir

Yeah, I got a bunch of JSON errors as well.

Re: The Art Institute of Chicago Has Put 50k High-Res Images Online

#65

On a technical note, the Art Institute of Chicago images are being served using an API called IIIF, which allows you to scale, extract regions of interest, etc. [1]. There are about 1-2B images worldwide being served from museums and libraries using the API [2] and viewers that can work with the content from multiple institutions at the same time, for instance to compare two van Gogh self-portraits from different mus…

Interesting. There seams to be no way to get a list of available images or a search though. How would one us this API without info about available images?

Or am I missing something?

Re: The Art Institute of Chicago Has Put 50k High-Res Images Online

#66
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have long considered buying high end tvs just to use as slide show viewers in my house. I could probably justify it at this point with the number of available high quality images and the quality of screens. But I would really like a 250 ppi+ screen that is 40+ inches to pull the trigger.

you might want to consider the Samsung Frame TV: https://www.samsung.com/us/explore/the-frame/highlights/ 43" at 4K is 102 PPI, so I guess you would need a 16K TV to get 250+

I'd be careful buying Samsung TVs. They will probably release an update that injects ads into the UI at some point

https://gist.github.com/peteryates/b44b70d19ccd52f62d66cdd4b...

Re: The Art Institute of Chicago Has Put 50k High-Res Images Online

#67
post #65

On a technical note, the Art Institute of Chicago images are being served using an API called IIIF, which allows you to scale, extract regions of interest, etc. [1]. There are about 1-2B images worldwide being served from museums and libraries using the API [2] and viewers that can work with the content from multiple institutions at the same time, for instance to compare two van Gogh self-portraits from different mus…

Interesting. There seams to be no way to get a list of available images or a search though. How would one us this API without info about available images? Or am I missing something?

Here's the link for the search API: https://iiif.io/api/search/1.0/

Re: The Art Institute of Chicago Has Put 50k High-Res Images Online

#69
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, no. A photograph of a 2D artwork is just a copy of that artwork, and not a copyrightable original work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel... .

in Australia, yes a photographic reproduction of a 2D artwork is copyrightable. this was a point of conflict between the wikimedia foundation and a gallery i used to work for, which made a significant income from licensing photos of artworks, many of which were themselves in the public domain. this might seem unreasonable but it’s worth pointing out that producing highest quality photo reproductions of artwork is a s…

The threshold of originality is complicated and judged differently by different people and countries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality

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