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British Museum makes lost Hokusai drawings available online

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: British Museum makes lost Hokusai drawings available online

#11

Post by andi999 »

contingencies wrote: post #4
pseudolus wrote: post #2

Link (collection search) to the drawings: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/search?keyword=Banb...

For those who can't read Chinese ('Kanji'), some of the portraits cover Vietnam, Yunnan, China, India, Korea, Thailand, Mongolia and the Philippines as well as Japan. Possibly also some other areas in northeast Asia, I am unclear on the period terminology. As they are dated 1820s but seem to use Chinese terms from earlier periods, I guess this was an adaptation of an earlier set of Chinese descriptive texts or (heres…

There is a huge overlap with Kanji, but I think chinese (characters) should be refered as 'Hanzi'or not? The page doesnt load too well on my mobile so not 100% sure what is on the page. Or you meant japanese kanji (adopted chinese characters)?

Re: British Museum makes lost Hokusai drawings available online

#12

Post by abetusk »

Angostura wrote: post #6
abetusk wrote: post #5

Wow, really unfortunate these are locked under copyright of "The Trustees of the British Museum" ([1] for example). [1] https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/1613716997

Not really, the copyright on the photograph will always belong to the photographer. The image is available under creative commons for non-commercial use, which seems fair enough.

To be clear, you're saying that a public institution [1] who's charter is to provide access to artifacts that would otherwise normally be in the public domain and who's funding comes from donations and tax dollars should be expected to then copyright it's material when providing it digitally to the public?

Further, you're saying that artifacts plundered from colonialist rule should then be restricted to the people they've plundered from under restrictive licensing terms?

[1] https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/governance

Re: British Museum makes lost Hokusai drawings available online

#13

Post by lioeters »

pseudolus wrote: post #2

Link (collection search) to the drawings: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/search?keyword=Banb...

Thank you for the link to the drawings themselves. The curator's comments are fascinating. The opening paragraph, for a taste:

> This group of 103 drawings represents a major new discovery relating to Hokusai’s life and works. An amazing range of subjects is represented – figure (religious, mythological, historical, literary), animal, bird and flower and other natural phenomena, and landscape.

> As the subtitle ‘India, China’ signals, the group is dominated by subjects that relate to China, Southeast Asia, India and lands further west.

> Some of the same subjects can be found within Hokusai’s known oeuvre, but many are completely new discoveries.

> Among the latter is a fascinating group of images which imagine the origins of human culture in ancient China – early forms of habitation, fire, agriculture, making rice wine and paper, among other scenes.

> All are treated with the customary fantasy, invention and brush skill found in Hokusai’s late works that could not be matched by any of his pupils – with the possible exception of his artist-daughter Eijo (art-name Ōi, about 1800-after 1857).

Re: British Museum makes lost Hokusai drawings available online

#14

Post by abetusk »

Quarrel wrote: post #10
abetusk wrote: post #5

Wow, really unfortunate these are locked under copyright of "The Trustees of the British Museum" ([1] for example). [1] https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/1613716997

This doesn't seem like it should be true, even if they claim it. " In 2019, the European Union adopted the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. Article 14 of the directive states that reproductions of works of visual art that are in the public domain cannot be subject to copyright or related rights, unless the reproduction is an original creative work " and on the digitisation of those: " UK Intellect…

This gets into murky territory and I'm not sure claiming their pictures are in the public domain would hold up in court. This is common practice for museums so I suspect there's precedent in their copyright claims.

I would imagine that they would argue that providing digital artifacts in the form of high resolution images or other media (3d scans, say) constitutes enough of an alteration from the original work so as to fall under copyright.

If anyone has any more information on precedent, court cases or the like, I would like to see it.

Re: British Museum makes lost Hokusai drawings available online

#15

Post by thiagocesar »

andi999 wrote: post #11
contingencies wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who can't read Chinese ('Kanji'), some of the portraits cover Vietnam, Yunnan, China, India, Korea, Thailand, Mongolia and the Philippines as well as Japan. Possibly also some other areas in northeast Asia, I am unclear on the period terminology. As they are dated 1820s but seem to use Chinese terms from earlier periods, I guess this was an adaptation of an earlier set of Chinese descriptive texts or (heres…

There is a huge overlap with Kanji, but I think chinese (characters) should be refered as 'Hanzi'or not? The page doesnt load too well on my mobile so not 100% sure what is on the page. Or you meant japanese kanji (adopted chinese characters)?

Considering Hokusai was Japanese, the descriptions are probably written in Kanji. The word “kanji” itself means Chinese character, so I wonder what exactly is your point?

Re: British Museum makes lost Hokusai drawings available online

#17

Post by cma »

abetusk wrote: post #14
Quarrel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't seem like it should be true, even if they claim it. " In 2019, the European Union adopted the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. Article 14 of the directive states that reproductions of works of visual art that are in the public domain cannot be subject to copyright or related rights, unless the reproduction is an original creative work " and on the digitisation of those: " UK Intellect…

This gets into murky territory and I'm not sure claiming their pictures are in the public domain would hold up in court. This is common practice for museums so I suspect there's precedent in their copyright claims. I would imagine that they would argue that providing digital artifacts in the form of high resolution images or other media (3d scans, say) constitutes enough of an alteration from the original work so as…

Isn't higher resolution less of an alteration?

Re: British Museum makes lost Hokusai drawings available online

#18

Post by cma »

Angostura wrote: post #6
abetusk wrote: post #5

Wow, really unfortunate these are locked under copyright of "The Trustees of the British Museum" ([1] for example). [1] https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/1613716997

Not really, the copyright on the photograph will always belong to the photographer. The image is available under creative commons for non-commercial use, which seems fair enough.

In the Us at least that was decided based on the photographer having creative input on composition, etc. A pure scan of someone's artwork I don't think qualifies here.

Some other countries have more of a laboriousness based theory though.

Re: British Museum makes lost Hokusai drawings available online

#19

Post by andi999 »

thiagocesar wrote: post #15
andi999 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a huge overlap with Kanji, but I think chinese (characters) should be refered as 'Hanzi'or not? The page doesnt load too well on my mobile so not 100% sure what is on the page. Or you meant japanese kanji (adopted chinese characters)?

Considering Hokusai was Japanese, the descriptions are probably written in Kanji. The word “kanji” itself means Chinese character, so I wonder what exactly is your point?

Refereing to chinese character as Kanji is inaccurate. (Also the meaning of compound Hanzi and Kanji is often different, take "jiudian" as an example).

Re: British Museum makes lost Hokusai drawings available online

#20

Post by bhickey »

abetusk wrote: post #14
Quarrel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't seem like it should be true, even if they claim it. " In 2019, the European Union adopted the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. Article 14 of the directive states that reproductions of works of visual art that are in the public domain cannot be subject to copyright or related rights, unless the reproduction is an original creative work " and on the digitisation of those: " UK Intellect…

This gets into murky territory and I'm not sure claiming their pictures are in the public domain would hold up in court. This is common practice for museums so I suspect there's precedent in their copyright claims. I would imagine that they would argue that providing digital artifacts in the form of high resolution images or other media (3d scans, say) constitutes enough of an alteration from the original work so as…

I'm unfamiliar with UK law, but it's unlikely that these faithful reproductions enjoy any protection in the US. Many American museums are simply engaged in wholesale copyfraud.

Bridgeman v. Corel, SDNY https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/...

Meshwerks v. Toyota, 10th circuit https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrief-m...

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