Apologies (ctd.)

February 19 2018

Sorry again for the lack of news - things are a little busy. I'm currently on a train south to London, finishing a piece for the FT's forthcoming Tefaf Maastricht supplement. Tomorrow I'm meeting the new arts minister, Michael Ellis MP, to discuss museum reproduction fees. And then on Wednesday I'm filming the first day of a new episode of Britain's Lost Masterpieces, at a top secret location. 

Will post when I can. In the meantime, celebrate with me the excellent news that the Finnish National Gallery has made all their images free to use. You can read the director's faultless logic here. British museum directors, pay special attention to this bit:

It seems to be a widely shared view, both here in Finland as well as in other countries, that  generous open data policies increase museums’ popularity and generate more visitors and more engaged audiences. Talking about a museum’s business policies, it’s worth considering thoroughly the transaction costs involved in licensing and distributing images, compared, for example, with selling products based on images of artworks and objects in the collections. I don’t recall hearing regrets from any museum that decided to execute a open data policy.

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