Image fees (ctd.)
March 30 2018
Picture: AAH
Roll up - I'll be talking about museum image fees at the Association for Art History's annual conference next Friday, 6th April, in London. It'll be between 13.45 and 14.45 at King's College London, and I'll be discussing the various issues with Jacqueline Riding and Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth. More details here.
Warning: I may get rather worked up.
Actually, while on the subject, here's a sorry tale: I met last week a Cambridge PhD graduate who has just completed many years of research into 17thCentury British portraiture. I had better not go into any identifying details here, but the thesis was on a fascinating aspect of our national art history, which deserves to be far better known about. But guess what, we'll never get to share in the knowledge, because, with 650 images, the student could not afford to even think of publishing the research, or putting it online. Due to licensing restrictions, only one printed copy can ever be made. What a ridiculous, daft, maddening, idiotic system we have in art history. It is the only academic discipline which shoots itself in the foot like this. Actually, it's worse; it shoots itself in the head. And all because some museums want to protect the fantasy that they can raise income from images. It's so utterly selfish!
