One aspect of the research I plan to do while I'm studying at the ISchool (University of Texas at Austin) involves international aspects of the adaptation to a networked world. In particular, I'm planning a soujourn in France this summer to study the French take on the future of libraries in a networked world.
To prepare, I study not only information studies, but French, and I read several French newspaper headlines/stories each day (news feeds) and some blogs about the future of research in the visual arts in France. This particular blog entry caught my eye as I was reviewing earlier entries because it illustrates the very point I was making yesterday when I posted the piece about the need for genre by genre development of fair use best practices: Le droit aux images a l'ere de la publication electronique.
Even if you don't read French, you might visit the post because the image that is the subject of the post speaks volumes (precisely the point, isn't it?). The post is about how the exercise of author's rights in images affects publication of works that are image-based, such as the one described in the post, an online retrospective review of art from the period, 1988 - 1999. The author of the post asks, in commenting upon the "vast white spaces" left by the omission of every image in the article, "would we accept seeing a review of literature shaved of its citations?" This comparison brings to mind as well the current struggle between the Joyce scholar, Carol Shloss, and the Joyce estate, over her ability to include in her research results (a book and Web site in her case) quotations from copyrighted works that illustrate and support the conclusions she draws.
Those who study and teach in fields that require the use of images (art, art history, architecture, media studies, etc.) could put forward a strong statement of fair use principles, like the Best Practices document I mentioned yesterday. This is a group that has for way too long labored under a very difficult copyright-related burden to carry on its important work.
