Rethinking digital access to France’s national collections: are recent reforms fit for the 21st century museum?
According to a recent press release from the Syndicat National des Musées et Domaines CGT, the Louvre Museum and RMN-GP have opted for the quasi-status quo by opening the collections in a very limited way.
Timeline
Let’s look back over the past two years. As part of the French government’s policy of opening up public data, a circular dated 8 June 2018 was sent to museum officials to “formulate proposals, respectful of copyright, regarding free access to images from major museums in connection with the RMN-GP. This is one of the eight major projects of the President of the Republic, in line with the “Museums of the 21st Century” mission. A working group was set up to reflect on this issue, and two scenarios are proposed:
- Scenario 1 named Open data (AKA Open GLAM): high resolution content released on open access terms (including commercial reuse)
- Scenario 2 called Fair use, which we rename quasi-status quo: high resolution content released only for scientific and educational uses, with strict control of usage.
Ahead of a December 2018 meeting, the working group circulated a questionnaire. In addition to this, a report was commissioned from Accenture Strategy and, in June 2019, a working version entitled ‘The development of open access to images from national museums: the state of the art and impact analysis of the proposed strategies’ was presented as a series of 35 slides.
The Accenture report
Wikimedia France was not consulted, unfortunately, which may have avoided the report’s questionable assertion: ‘Risk of value capture by powerful commercial players such as GAFA or Wikipedia’.
Wikipedia, the 4th most consulted site in France and the world, is managed by volunteers and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization. Its business model is not based on the sale of personal data or advertising, and all content is available free of charge. Most of its funding come from donations; in 2018–19, more than seven million donors raised $113 million (Fundraising report 2018–2019).
Once Wikipedia is not characterised as a commercial actor, talk of ‘value capture’ becomes misleading. The Wikimedia movement is focused on disseminating knowledge and helping cultural institutions to enhance their collections. Furthermore, Wikimedia is an ethical alternative to GAFA (‘big tech’) which every cultural organisation should be happy to see. The fear of cannibalisation of the institutions’ websites by Wikipedia should be discarded because the context and uses are quite different.
Let’s take an example. This portrait of Saint François de Sales, bishop of Geneva from the National Monuments Centre (CMN) is the most viewed image in January 2020 of the batch of 1811 open access images uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.
The portrait illustrates the Wikipedia article devoted to the Essays of Michel de Montaigne. It does not in any way detract visitors from the Château de Bussy-Rabutin, where the painting is stored.
Let’s return to the Accenture report. It states that the RMN-GP photo library contains around 712,300 digital images of public domain works. Three scenarios are envisioned, concerning economic and financial impact, on jobs and the institution, on the digitisation of collections, the enhancement of collections and the public, and finally in terms of the institution’s influence.
If in doubt, commission a report…
While the Accenture report is not without interest, it is the latest in a long list of such documents:
- CSPLA report, The Open Availability of Works of the Mind, June 2007
- Report from the Ministry of Culture, Sharing our cultural heritage — Proposals for a charter for the dissemination and reuse of public digital cultural data, May 2010
- Report by Mohammed Adnène Trojette, Opening up public data — Are all exceptions to the principle of free access legitimate?, July 2013
- Report of the Ministry of Culture, Opening and sharing of public cultural data for digital (r)evolution in the cultural sector, December 2013
- Report of the IGF and the IGAC, Evaluation of the Policy of Development of the Own Resources of the State’s Cultural Organisations, March 2015.
- CSPLA report, Open Licensing in the Cultural Sector, December 2017
- Images/Usages Programme White Paper, Image Law, Art History and Society, November 2018
- Report of the Court of Auditors, The International Valorisation of Engineering and Cultural Brands: The Case of National Museums, March 2019
At this rate, an artificial intelligence should soon have enough reports to learn how to write one! Let’s hope we’ve finally gotten around to finding out if open access is relevant, economically viable, legal and practical…!
The evolution of museums outside of national jurisdiction
While the situation is blocked at the level of the national museums dependent on RMN-GP, institutions beyond its framework have encountered fewer difficulties (particularly in terms of copyright) in opening their collections:
- In November 2019, the National Monuments Centre opened 14,000 images from its collections (of 82,000 files in total);
- In January 2020, Paris Musées implemented open access policy for the collections of the Paris City Hall, publishing 150,000 images under a CC0 waiver;
- Also in January 2020, the City of Marseille voted to open access to its heritage collections.
‘Reform’ at the Louvre that changes almost nothing
Let’s return to the working group that produced the report leading to a new policy for the Louvre. What is the biggest French museum going to do? What will its ambitious new policy be, the fruit of two years of work? The press release from the Syndicat National des Musées et Domaines CGT reveals the president’s plans. It plans to sign a new agreement with the RMN-GP for the distribution of photographic collections of works from the Louvre. Article 8, entitled ‘opening of public data’, stipulates that the opening will be restricted to scientific use worldwide, such as exhibition-related publications and catalogues raisonnés in Europe with a print run of fewer than 1500 copies — a very low threshold. By consulting the Louvre’s 2018 annual report, we see that the smallest print run of an exhibition catalogue was 2000 copies.
In late February, an accident of timing put the Louvre and RMN’s modest policy shift into sharp perspective, when the Smithsonian announced total open access to 2.8 million images. This vast complex of nineteen museums and nine research centres (located primarily in Washington, D.C. and managed by the U.S. federal government) now allows people around the world to download, share, and transform this content for any purpose, free of charge, without prior authorisation from the Smithsonian.
It seems unimaginable that this major project, which is part of its “Museums of the 21st Century” mission, would lead only to free access for researchers and completely abandon new uses and Wikimedia projects. Wikimedia France will continue to advocate opening up public art collections to society as a whole, as well as helping French institutions to open up their collections, helping Wikimedians to photograph works exhibited in museums, and helping to digitise photographic collections entrusted to us.
The CGT press release
To conclude, let’s go back to the press release. The Syndicat National des Musées et Domaines CGT is right to put its finger on the future of the administrative and marketing staff at the RMN-GP photo agency, as the rest of the photo agency should be kept. In our opinion, this probably represents a few dozen people. For more than ten years, Wikimedia France has warned of a necessary change in practice to better promote French heritage on the Internet. During all this time, the necessary preservation of the jobs concerned could have been handled by the people in charge. But the status quo, masked by the setting up of working groups, commissions, and reports has been favoured.
Author: Pierre-Yves Beaudouin, Wikimédia France
This article was originally published on the blog of Wikimédia France. Special thanks to Elisa Gravil for translation; proofreading and copy editing by Douglas McCarthy.
