We photo
at 11:42am
on Monday, 4th February 2008
The Library of Congress recently began a fantastic trial with online photo sharing site Flickr. They've put up around 3000 of their photos up on their Flickr site. It's proving to be a really successful experiment - as of January 18th, apparently they had been veiwed over a million times.
Flickr lets you put your photos online, and allow anyone see them. You can categorise them with tags, descriptions and group them in sets. So in the context of big institutions with archives of historical and cultural material, its one of many ways to let more people see, discuss and think about some really significant collections.
They've also developed a new category of copyright for this experiment. Because the Library of Congress doesn't hold the intellectual property rights for the photos, they have attached a 'no known copyright restrictions' license; one which they are hopeful can be extended to other works if more institutions put on similar schemes.
It seems like flexible copyright ideas can offer some solutions that put the principles of access and cultural openness on a level footing with deference to property rights. (This is a great piece of work on intellectual property.)
This all connects very nicely with Demos associate Charlie Leadbeater's new book called 'We Think'. It's about what it means to see a cultural shift in which:
"participation will be the key organising idea rather than consumption and work. People want to be players not just spectators, part of the action, not on the sidelines."
I wonder if these kind of experiments by The Library of Congress really do or will add up to some new ways for people to talk about, share and ultimately be a part of the culture around them. Charlie did a TED talk, entitled The Rise of the Amateur Professional, covering related ideas. Have a look below:
Flickr lets you put your photos online, and allow anyone see them. You can categorise them with tags, descriptions and group them in sets. So in the context of big institutions with archives of historical and cultural material, its one of many ways to let more people see, discuss and think about some really significant collections.
They've also developed a new category of copyright for this experiment. Because the Library of Congress doesn't hold the intellectual property rights for the photos, they have attached a 'no known copyright restrictions' license; one which they are hopeful can be extended to other works if more institutions put on similar schemes.
It seems like flexible copyright ideas can offer some solutions that put the principles of access and cultural openness on a level footing with deference to property rights. (This is a great piece of work on intellectual property.)
This all connects very nicely with Demos associate Charlie Leadbeater's new book called 'We Think'. It's about what it means to see a cultural shift in which:
"participation will be the key organising idea rather than consumption and work. People want to be players not just spectators, part of the action, not on the sidelines."
I wonder if these kind of experiments by The Library of Congress really do or will add up to some new ways for people to talk about, share and ultimately be a part of the culture around them. Charlie did a TED talk, entitled The Rise of the Amateur Professional, covering related ideas. Have a look below:
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