Don’t Do Art History

Mary Beard, of the Times Online, explains her frustrations concerning the time and money necessary to obtain copyright permissions to images necessary to produce an academic book or article.

OK — people who write really popular books have picture researchers — battalions of (usually) ladies, who “source” the images and arrange the copyright fees to reproduce. It’s a full time job. Most of the rest of us do it ourselves (though in my case I am lucky enough to have an assistant to share the burden). However the work is organised, next time you pick up an illustrated book, you can reckon it will have taken 8-10 hours to find and get permission for every picture in it.

Her very interesting article, Don’t Do Art History, is not immature and whiny like so much “free culture” diatribe these days, so I do dare say, enjoy it!

Tags: art history, Art Law, Copyright, fair use, infringement, intellectual property, publishing