The Art Institute of Chicago Has Put 50k High-Res Images Online • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by exodust » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 12:26 AM UTC

jmkd wrote: post #74

exodust wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the images cannot be downloaded from Google Art Project (original name). It's irritating having to jump over complicated hurdles to get a seamless hi-res image capture from Google Arts. It requires some messing about, but I previously managed to grab about 100 high res images, but it took ages and was not easy. They printed out nicely in the end though, so was worth it. A simple download link as seen on…

I was deeply involved in the project for 5 years and the reason you can't download from it is because museum partners don't want you to. All the image security you find there comes from partner requests. If it's irritating, don't blame Google.

> All the image security

The word "security" can't be applied when the measures in place are "don't include a download link".

There is no "security" when the image displays perfectly fine on the screen. It just takes a few screens worth of panning, screen-grabbing and assembling a complete image in Photoshop. After a few rounds, I had a rather efficient workflow going using macros. Most of the artwork I was interested in was between 50 and 100 years old, and completely for personal use - printing out hi-res versions on paper of my choice (matte, never glossy like almost all commercial art prints.)

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

#112

Post by jmkd » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 11:34 AM UTC

fandango wrote: post #88

jmkd wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was deeply involved in the project for 5 years and the reason you can't download from it is because museum partners don't want you to. All the image security you find there comes from partner requests. If it's irritating, don't blame Google.

No. Don't shift the blame to other parties. Google decided to play ball with all these external requests. Google owns the project. Google is the one to blame.

Sorry, also no. Let me be clear, museum partners would not sign contracts - and thus the project would not exist - if these stipulations about preventing downloading were not met. It was a dealbreaker across the board, and Google's compromise was a good one. Without it there would not be this access to art and culture.

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

#113

Post by JdeBP » Wed, Nov 14, 2018, 1:13 PM UTC

steve19 wrote: post #100

ZenPsycho wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A Xerox machine is a complicated, specialist piece of equipment but using one to duplicate the work of someone else is not and should not allow copyright on the duplicate. What your colleagues did is literally reproduce the work of another, and assert copyright on the copy. What if I took the image your gallery took, used state of the art JPEG compression software on it and created a new optimized file, would I know…

It was a British gallery, and the British law that applies does indeed extend copyright to the act of making exact copies.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Portrait_Gallery_and_...

People who defend the legal position with "But it's creative effort!" do not quite understand the test that applies, and are not actually explaining things correctly. The legal test in British law is whether it is original, the qualifiation that is used in the legislation itself, and there have been a few landmark cases in the 20th century where originality most definitely did not mean creativity. Indeed, it is one of the little-mentioned problems with BrExit that it has quite drastic effects on copyright law, as some of the legal tests that apply derive from EU Court of Justice decisions that may or may not continue to have force. It has been opined by some that the so-called "Infopaq" standard may cease to be applied by British courts, which may revert to older, lower, thresholds for originality.

* https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/virtual-museum

* https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/1

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

#114

Post by sgc » Wed, Nov 14, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

akvadrako wrote: post #51

sgc wrote: 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+

8k @ 40 is 220 ppi, so getting well into close enough range.

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

#115

Post by mitchdoogle » Wed, Nov 14, 2018, 3:43 PM UTC

dahart wrote: post #87

adriand wrote: post #10

This is pretty incredible. There was once a time when the only way for the average person to see a beautiful painting was to go to church. Later on this role was taken up by art galleries. Now anyone can see this stuff from the comfort of their own home. What do you think this means for the future of art galleries? What are they for ? Different ones are answering this question in different ways. Some are reinventing…

> This is pretty incredible. ... Now anyone can see this stuff from the comfort of their own home. Agreed. And moreover, the licensing intentionally allows reproductions, so you can print life-size posters of these pieces to hang at home, if you want. > What do you think this means for the future of art galleries? What are they for? Hasn’t the primary function of a gallery always been to sell art, more than to be a p…

I wish these images were large enough to print quality life-sized posters. Only the smallest of them, such as the Great Wave at 10" x 14" would come close to being quality prints at the sizes I was seeing (Great Wave is 3000 pixels wide)