Slashdot Mirror

"I would love to see museums that haven't been devastated do something of this nature as an insurance policy. Just think if could log into say, 2nd life and virtually tour the Louvre ..."

Mission accomplished

Louvre
http://www.louvre.fr/en/visite...

Guggenheim
http://www.guggenheim.org/new-...

National Gallery of Arts
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions...

British Museum
http://www.britishmuseum.org/w...

Smithsonian
http://www.mnh.si.edu/panorama...

The Met
https://www.google.com/cultura...

and so on

Picasso and Van Gogh doesn't need to be rewarded or encouraged to paint more (though, if they wanted to come out of a mortal retirement, I think the world would welcome them). However, the people and organizations that keep ownership of those works need some inducement, and the means, to protect those artworks, conserve them, and display them in a proper setting. The copyright for them may have expired ages ago, but that does not mean that they can just be given away to The People: they were expensive to acquire, and are surprisingly expensive to keep. Proper conservation of artwork requires climate controlled spaces, appropriate lighting, security and insurance, curators. For maximum impact and access, artworks need museums that have ample space to display large collections of related artworks, preferably in the middle of major cities where the most people can get to them. None of these things come cheap.

In other words, these artworks require some ongoing revenue stream. Without it, such artworks will eventually fall into disrepair, end up in private collections, and eventually be lost to the public in general. Consider it a tragedy of the commons, applied to Picasso and Van Gogh.

Count yourself lucky to be living in this day and age. Although you aren't yet able to access gigapixel renderings of every priceless work of art, for free, from your computing-device-of-choice, anywhere in the world, you are getting pretty damn close. No other generation in the whole history of humanity has ever had that chance. A century ago, if you wanted to have a good look at the Mona Lisa, you needed to travel to Paris and see it in person. While that is still mostly true (i.e., to see it yourself you have to travel to it, rather than the other way around), you can get close by visiting the Louvre's website. See also Google Art Project.

http://www.louvre.fr/llv/oeuvres/detail_image.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673457416&CURRENT_LLV_ILLUSTRATION%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673457416&CURRENT_LLV_NOTICE%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673226503&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=9852723696500857&&newWidth==557&&newHeight==760

At least for some it is free.

From here, here, and here, FOR FREE!

Oops.

This law is *stupid*. Providing links to material that is copyrighted is routine, and there is no way to easily tell whether the people following those links are *actually* infringing or not. For example, if someone downloads a copy of copyrighted material that they have already purchased, is that still infringement? What if the particular usage falls under "fair use"?

If the copyright owners want to prosecute people to protect the rights they get under copyright, then the obvious targets are the people who A) actually host/distribute the files, and B) people who actually download them. Links to material are like providing a list of books in a library -- somebody could use those to find them, borrow them (all fine), and then photocopy them (probably infringing). Should the library then be sued as a contributory to the act?

Seriously. Give it to Robert Langdon and Sophie, his cryptographer girlfriend. They'll make a bunch of bullshit guesses, and most of them will be accurate and lead them to the correct answer.

Of course, it won't point out the final resting place of the Grail. They already know where that is.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if users tried to view some artwork from, say, the Louvre (or most other art galleries), such as:

Venus

Hermaphrodite

Diana the huntress

The Turkish Bath

I'm not sure whether to include a "Not safe for work" declaration or not, especially for the last one :-) For those who wish to play it safe, here's the caption, so you don't miss everything:

"Completed when he was 82, this composition was the result of many studies which Ingres made from 1807 onwards of female bathers, a theme linking the female nude with Turkish exoticism. His illustrations of the harem might well have been inspired by the "Letters of Lady Montagu" (1764) which he read forty years earlier. The serpentile contours of the bodies and his repeated use of the same model add a note of abstraction to the sensuality of this accumulation of voluptuous flesh, a pure fantasy of an exotic, perfumed Orient which had entranced Europeans for over a century."

I can see text filters tripping on some of the descriptive terms too.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if users tried to view some artwork from, say, the Louvre (or most other art galleries), such as:

Venus

Hermaphrodite

Diana the huntress

The Turkish Bath

I'm not sure whether to include a "Not safe for work" declaration or not, especially for the last one :-) For those who wish to play it safe, here's the caption, so you don't miss everything:

"Completed when he was 82, this composition was the result of many studies which Ingres made from 1807 onwards of female bathers, a theme linking the female nude with Turkish exoticism. His illustrations of the harem might well have been inspired by the "Letters of Lady Montagu" (1764) which he read forty years earlier. The serpentile contours of the bodies and his repeated use of the same model add a note of abstraction to the sensuality of this accumulation of voluptuous flesh, a pure fantasy of an exotic, perfumed Orient which had entranced Europeans for over a century."

I can see text filters tripping on some of the descriptive terms too.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if users tried to view some artwork from, say, the Louvre (or most other art galleries), such as:

Venus

Hermaphrodite

Diana the huntress

The Turkish Bath

I'm not sure whether to include a "Not safe for work" declaration or not, especially for the last one :-) For those who wish to play it safe, here's the caption, so you don't miss everything:

"Completed when he was 82, this composition was the result of many studies which Ingres made from 1807 onwards of female bathers, a theme linking the female nude with Turkish exoticism. His illustrations of the harem might well have been inspired by the "Letters of Lady Montagu" (1764) which he read forty years earlier. The serpentile contours of the bodies and his repeated use of the same model add a note of abstraction to the sensuality of this accumulation of voluptuous flesh, a pure fantasy of an exotic, perfumed Orient which had entranced Europeans for over a century."

I can see text filters tripping on some of the descriptive terms too.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if users tried to view some artwork from, say, the Louvre (or most other art galleries), such as:

Venus

Hermaphrodite

Diana the huntress

The Turkish Bath

I'm not sure whether to include a "Not safe for work" declaration or not, especially for the last one :-) For those who wish to play it safe, here's the caption, so you don't miss everything:

"Completed when he was 82, this composition was the result of many studies which Ingres made from 1807 onwards of female bathers, a theme linking the female nude with Turkish exoticism. His illustrations of the harem might well have been inspired by the "Letters of Lady Montagu" (1764) which he read forty years earlier. The serpentile contours of the bodies and his repeated use of the same model add a note of abstraction to the sensuality of this accumulation of voluptuous flesh, a pure fantasy of an exotic, perfumed Orient which had entranced Europeans for over a century."

I can see text filters tripping on some of the descriptive terms too.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if users tried to view some artwork from, say, the Louvre (or most other art galleries), such as:

Venus

Hermaphrodite

Diana the huntress

The Turkish Bath

I'm not sure whether to include a "Not safe for work" declaration or not, especially for the last one :-) For those who wish to play it safe, here's the caption, so you don't miss everything:

"Completed when he was 82, this composition was the result of many studies which Ingres made from 1807 onwards of female bathers, a theme linking the female nude with Turkish exoticism. His illustrations of the harem might well have been inspired by the "Letters of Lady Montagu" (1764) which he read forty years earlier. The serpentile contours of the bodies and his repeated use of the same model add a note of abstraction to the sensuality of this accumulation of voluptuous flesh, a pure fantasy of an exotic, perfumed Orient which had entranced Europeans for over a century."

I can see text filters tripping on some of the descriptive terms too.

Here's a reality check for the people who think that they should be able to control what their presentation looks like via the web: The only way you can achieve that is to require that anyone who looks at your stuff uses exactly the same hardware and software you do. That means no using your website from a handheld or a web-enabled phone (wrong size screen, maybe wrong OS), no access for the blind (are you subject to the ADA? Are you sure?), no using a browser you didn't think to code for. You are discriminating against more than just the people like me who use Mozilla and lynx; you are also discriminating against the high-disposable-income folks who use the latest wireless gadgets. If you lard your site up with a bunch of pretentious, bandwidth-consuming garbage, you irritate influential, high income folks who don't have broadband.

One point that the article's author made which I thought was very good was this:

`` The irony is that no one beside Yahoo's management cares what Yahoo looks like. The site's tremendous success is due to the service it provides, not to the beauty of its visual design ...''

Cripes, that is ugly! I'll bet the architect was quite pleased with himself until he realised he had to put a door on it. But lest we condemn glass pyramids; at least there's I.M. Pei's Louvre.

>Digital copies of the Guide legally have to be bought

Read the subject. The discussion is about the possibility of Adams deciding to waive his copyrights.

The discussion has gone full circle.

-Peter

PS: The Louve is at http://www.louvre.fr/. Mona is at http://www.louvre.fr/fra ncais/magazine/joconde/jocon_f.htm


Slashdot cries out for open standards, then breaks them.

>Digital copies of the Guide legally have to be bought

Read the subject. The discussion is about the possibility of Adams deciding to waive his copyrights.

The discussion has gone full circle.

-Peter

PS: The Louve is at http://www.louvre.fr/. Mona is at http://www.louvre.fr/fra ncais/magazine/joconde/jocon_f.htm


Slashdot cries out for open standards, then breaks them.

Labels which imply a value judgement must be completely avoided: the definition of "obscene" depends entirely on who you are. Definitions of Mild, Explicit etc. need to be commonly understood from an openly published and clearly precise set of guidelines.

My point is that even fairly reasonable people may honestly believe they are applying objective criteria, when in fact, different people will see things differently. To use the racism example, a recent article in the Daily Cal quoted a black high school student saying something derogatory about the "white kids" at her school. It was mild, but a reader wrote in to comment on the fact that this was accepted but if the races had been reversed, it would have been labeled as racist.

I'm not saying that the lines are vague. I'm saying that there are many categories where one person will be 100% sure something should be labeled one way, and another person, also fairly rational, will be 100% sure it should be labeled otherwise. And these are frequently the criteria that would be most relevant to blocking. Everyone will have similar opinions about whether a page is about cars or computers. People will not have similar ideas about whether a page is "explicit", whether a given JPEG is art or pornography, or whether a page promotes drugs. Is Naked Lunch literature or pornography? How about Anne Rice's Exit to Eden with content as explicit as what you would find on the newsgroups, but also literary value as commentary on the impossibility of finding real gratification in debauchery (but much more so the former than the latter)?

This is why we need many moderators, and the ability to define your own effective moderation as a function of all the moderations.

--Kevin

Labels which imply a value judgement must be completely avoided: the definition of "obscene" depends entirely on who you are. Definitions of Mild, Explicit etc. need to be commonly understood from an openly published and clearly precise set of guidelines.

My point is that even fairly reasonable people may honestly believe they are applying objective criteria, when in fact, different people will see things differently. To use the racism example, a recent article in the Daily Cal quoted a black high school student saying something derogatory about the "white kids" at her school. It was mild, but a reader wrote in to comment on the fact that this was accepted but if the races had been reversed, it would have been labeled as racist.

I'm not saying that the lines are vague. I'm saying that there are many categories where one person will be 100% sure something should be labeled one way, and another person, also fairly rational, will be 100% sure it should be labeled otherwise. And these are frequently the criteria that would be most relevant to blocking. Everyone will have similar opinions about whether a page is about cars or computers. People will not have similar ideas about whether a page is "explicit", whether a given JPEG is art or pornography, or whether a page promotes drugs. Is Naked Lunch literature or pornography? How about Anne Rice's Exit to Eden with content as explicit as what you would find on the newsgroups, but also literary value as commentary on the impossibility of finding real gratification in debauchery (but much more so the former than the latter)?

This is why we need many moderators, and the ability to define your own effective moderation as a function of all the moderations.

--Kevin