So I had a closer look at the National Gallery as I could be sure that all of their collection was PD. Their initial digitisation if the primary collection (~2300 images ) was completed in 2003 at a cost of £382k. This figure includes equipment, operating costs, building works and staff costs. Then I queried the income earned directly by their picture library (the digital picture repository and database) for 2009 – £127k. This income is from ‘royalties’ based on 50% of the net sales value of products (faithful copies of PD works) sold via the National Gallery Company (a separate entity owned by the National Gallery Trust). This income is also distinct from money donated to the NG from either the National Gallery Trust (largely supported by gifts from the NGC) and direct payments from the NGC. Thus it becomes clear that the NG earned considerably more than the £127k for royalties during 2009. Let’s also not forget that they’re a publicly funded organisation with a grant of over £11 million.

I could go back and interrogate the figures for each year since 2003, but I can’t be bothered and I’m pretty convinced that the total returned will be significantly more than the initial outlay plus ongoing overheads. AFAICT the NG are profiting from PD works.

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/details_of_contracts_for_and_acc
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/initial_digitisation_costs

1) First opportunity to cash in on the freedom to copy and resell a work legally. There are various mechanisms to command a price above “free” (e.g. collect in advance, gather periodic subscriptions, sell advertising etc.) Discovering one that works in a particular context is an exercise left to the entrepreneur

2) Good PR and possible customers from being in the winners’ list on the post-auction page (with optional contact info so that copy-seekers can find them). OTOH, those who don’t appear but profit from propagating liberated works may be publicly shamed… possibly bad for business.

3) Having a scarce, numbered original package when most copies are generic (or merely virtual). Some may find prestige in displaying proof of one’s patronage of the arts. Some may find collectible value in the scarcity and provenance of original disks (complete with inserts, extras etc.)

BTW, I am glad to see someone discussing my company. Now if I can just connect that discussion to qualified investors…

It’s best feature is that everyone can make an honest, individual appraisal of their value of the work, with the confidence that they will not risk paying significantly above the market value.

Effectively the auction determines the equivalent retail price that would otherwise be attached to each copyright ‘protected’ copy.

LiberateIP is aiming the idea at copyright holders, e.g. as in the case of Blender (3D modelling software) where a large number of interested users successfully collected a fund for the copyleft release of the software. Today LiberateIP could be used to enable Michael Jackson fans to purchase the CC Share-Alike release of his digital masters (or the Beatles’ library).

Liberate IP seem to be applying this to commercial works, which I don’t quite understand.

Thus, if 3,300 images cost £1,000,000 to digitise then each image need only fetch £300 at auction to break even. £300 could be raised by 30 people bidding at least £10, 300 bidding at least £1, or 3,000 at 10p, etc.

There are ways of enabling the public to pay for works to be published that don’t involve suspending their liberty to share and build upon their cultural heritage (and that don’t involve dubious taxation).

As far as I am aware, the implementation of the Digital Art Auction closest to completion is currently: https://www.liberateip.com

NB There are many implementations of the Street Performer Protocol, but this is simply a means of collecting donations of varying amounts with a refund in the event the target fund isn’t reached. See http://fundable.com.

I see another FOI request in line for the NPG…

According to that FOI request the £39,000 explicitly does not include the costs of digitisation. Either way, it’s still a steal, but not a cheap one! It’s a question of means, not of worthiness: who pays?

Could a solution be for the NPG to release the pictures into the public domain once they had recouped the true cost of digitisation?

@Richard: Again, I’d argue there’s a difference between copying that’s free and copying that’s expensive — I’m not sure that it matters if that figure is disputed. If it was a quarter of that amount, it’d still be expensive.

@Julian: I’m not at all convinced that that’s a workable solution. Often those volunteers just don’t exist, and even if they did, digitisation is often a very specialised job. Taking pictures of NPG paintings would probably be a good task for volunteers, but scanning ~400-year-old original documents that are falling apart? Not so much.

It would certainly work in some cases, and of course people should do that if they can. Would NPG have spent all that money if they had a corps of volunteers who’d do the work for free? Unlikely.

* a figure to be disputed – - please see http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/cost_of_online_collections_2#incoming-1653