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I took many pictures of modern art paintings at a museum.
I uploaded the public domain ones to Wikimedia Commons, and wonder to what website I could upload the others.

Requirements:

  • The website should keep the uploaded images, and provide visitors with as much as what the copyright laws allow (for instance only metadata and a fair-use thumbnail)
  • The website should upload images to Wikimedia Commons as soon as they become public domain (the website should make calculations and keep track of that)
  • The website should allow visitors to provide metadata, such as title, author, year, description. This metadata should be semantic/searchable, for instance one could query all paintings painted in 1925. Ideally it would use the same classification as Wikimedia Commons
  • Users should not have to worry about licenses or copyright expiry dates. Users should just be asked the author's name/country/etc. From that information, the website should calculate the copyright expiry date and current rights.
  • Pictures that are reusable except for commercial use (like pictures of sculptures in Japan) should be available for download with a specific license excluding commercial use.

Illustration: Thumbnail of my picture of a 1925 painting realized in France by Catalan painter Joan Miró (1893-1983), owned by MOMAT and kept in Japan, will become public domain in 2053 if my calculations are correct and if laws do not change:

oh ! un de ces messieurs qui a fait tout ça

My goal is that:

  • Wikimedia Commons receives the images as soon as legally possible.
  • Copyright length calculations are double-checked and organized, I don't have to keep track of all laws by myself.
  • If the painting is bought by a collector and kept private forever, at least we have a picture that will eventually be released.
  • If the museum burns, at least we know that a picture exists.
  • Have my pictures go to the greater good even if I die before 2053. And even if my backup disks fail before 2053, which is probable as well.

This "open-input dark archive" would prove vital to preserve:

  • My pictures of copyrighted public murals in Syria, where they have probably been destroyed by war
  • My pictures of modern art installations at a annual event after which installations are discarded
  • My rare picture of a stadium that has been demolished while still protected by France's architecture copyright law
  • My pictures of copyrighted election leaflets and transient propaganda material

I suggested the idea at WMF and got 53 votes for, 3 votes against. An issue has been created but is stagnating.

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  • flickr does most of this. although pretty sure it doesn't automagically update licenses. but you can do that easily in groups/albums
    – albert
    Jun 8, 2015 at 17:59
  • @albert: Thanks I have thought about Flickr indeed, unfortunately it only satisfies the third requirement, and not in a very satisfactory way (you can type author and year as free text, but it will not be easily usable for categorization, for instance to list all paintings painted in 1925). I edit the third requirement a bit to mention searchability.
    – Nicolas Raoul ♦
    Jun 9, 2015 at 2:42
  • i disagree entirely. but thats why i offered the comment and not an answer. i don't even understand requirement 1 but flickr follows the rest, except for the updated licensing. you can easily query all paintings in 1925 if you tag the images. you can't expect the service to tag them for you. well curated tags are extremely important, as we both know on here. i've been wrong a few times offering up services, but i think this is the closest thing to a winner. happy to find out i'm wrong and there's a great service out there
    – albert
    Jun 9, 2015 at 7:48
  • 1
    Many museums and libraries participate in what are called 'Dark Archives'. They cover the 'if the museum burns' case, where they keep the info safe as a backup, but legally can't release it to the public. (some of it might be permissible to transfer via ILL (Inter-Library Loan), if the request is made by a librarian, though)
    – Joe
    Jun 9, 2015 at 23:10
  • @Joe: Interesting! I added the last paragraph to show how this "open-input dark archive" could benefit to more than just museum collections.
    – Nicolas Raoul ♦
    Jul 17, 2015 at 6:19

1 Answer 1

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The website should keep the uploaded images, and provide visitors with as much as what the copyright laws allow (for instance only metadata and a fair-use thumbnail)

Might be someone would want to setup a server in Marshall Islands where there is no restriction in term of using photos for non-commercial purposes.

  • The website should upload images to Wikimedia Commons as soon as they become public domain (the website should make calculations and keep track of that)
  • The website should allow visitors to provide metadata, such as title, author, year, description. This metadata should be semantic/searchable, for instance one could query all paintings painted in 1925. Ideally it would use the same classification as Wikimedia Commons
  • Users should not have to worry about licenses or copyright expiry dates. Users should just be asked the author's name/country/etc. From that information, the website should calculate the copyright expiry date and current rights.
  • Pictures that are reusable except for commercial use (like pictures of sculptures in Japan) should be available for download with a specific license excluding commercial use.

Perhaps the proposed NonFreeWiki project on Wikimedia would suit these needs: See: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/NonFreeWiki (Although there are some controversies regarding the project because of circumstances around it because of some conditions raised by original proposers)

Have my pictures go to the greater good even if I die before 2053. And even if my backup disks fail before 2053, which is probable as well.

The most reliable way is probably to donate them to libraries. Also, Upload onto multiple cloud services and write them down onto will and maybe find a manager for the purpose if you have enough money (Individual cloud services probably won't last that long and some of those services would also delete unused accounts so they need to be managed). Or contact any of those pirate parties around.

This "open-input dark archive" would prove vital to preserve:

This term make me think about IPFS which is a decentralized way to store info and doesn't really need to worry about copyright, but then it seems too uncertain about whether this IPFS would survive until 2053 and then even if this case would anyone recall about it at the time and upload them back onto open web.

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