RARIN OPEN FORUM MINUTES
AAM Annual Meeting
Indianapolis, May 4, 2005


Introduction
Ruth Roberts introduced herself and asked attendees to introduce themselves and explain why they are attending.

The thirteen attendees were:

Ruth noted that the attendees have a variety of different levels of experience with rights and reproductions but seem to be at the same level with technologies. Ruth directed attendees to that RARIN Web site as a resource for forms, articles, useful links, and other information – including the survey of fees and procedures that was conducted last year.

Orphaned Works Issue
Ruth brought the attendees up-to-date on some initiatives going on in relation to the issue of orphaned works. The U.S. Copyright Office has asked for input from concerned parties on how much trouble we go to getting permissions to use works where the copyright owners are difficult or impossible to identify or locate and ideas respondents may have for solving the problem.

In response, the Getty, the Met, and the Guggenheim have collaborated on a lengthy proposal submitted to the Copyright Office (the full document can be viewed on the RARIN Web site at http://www.panix.com/~squigle/rarin/OW%20Comments.pdf). LACMA has sent a letter to the Copyright Office in support of the Getty/Met/Guggenheim proposal. It was suggested that LACMA’s letter be used as a model for other institutions to submit in support of the proposal—with the catch that all comments are due by May 9, 2005. While it was briefly considered that the group compose a letter in response, it was determined that there was not enough time allotted to do so.

After some further discussion of the orphaned works issue, it was noted that the common thread among all attendees was frustration in trying to do the right thing. It was suggested that a session on the issue be proposed for the AAM meeting in 2006, with Jules Sigall from the Copyright Office suggested as a possible speaker.

AAM 2006
It was noted that it would be good to have a rights and reproductions related session on the program for AAM 2006 after several years absence. It was noted that the orphaned works possibility previously discussed would be a timely topic for such a session. The Museum Computer Network has an active rights and reproductions interest group, and it was suggested that one of their sessions from the MCN conference could be easily used for an AAM session. Session proposals are due in June.
Rights & Reproductions Handbook

Under discussion for several years, the handbook is still something RARIN is very interested in doing. The idea behind the handbook is to provide a basic guide to what a rights and reproductions person does at a museum. There are many people handling this job function who are novices and have little or no training. The first step is for someone to create an outline of the topics that should be included in the handbook. Genevieve Ellerbee from the DAR Museum offered to get us started on a list of topics. If Genevieve can get the groups started, additional topics to be included should be brainstormed via e-mail with the entire group.

Discussion
Attendees shared thoughts on good resources for rights and reproductions information. Mentioned were: the MCN listserv, ALI-ABA’s annual “Legal Problems of Museum Administration” course, to be held next in Chicago, March 2006; and the MUSIP listserv on Yahoo Groups.

Attendees then shared some of their specific concerns:
• Licensing reproductions from living artists
• Curatorial input on use of works in commercial products
• Dealing with retail/marketing folks on licensing works for commercial products (it was suggested that this might make a good session topic)
• Fair Use – is there a standard use considered fair by the museum community?
• CORBIS posting images from our collections

Submitted by:
Megan Bryant
Registrar
The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
411 Elm Street, Suite 120
Dallas, TX 75202
(214) 747-6660 ext. 6619
meganb@jfk.org