Galleries' High Fees for Reproduction of Art Works; Copyright and Scholarship

This is a very serious issue for those who seek to publish specialised articles or scholarly works about art:

 "British Museum and Tate ‘cash in’ on pictures of art", The Times

"Some of Britain’s leading art galleries have been accused of killing scholarship by introducing fees for the reproduction of images of works in their collections. Tate has led the way in imposing “crippling fees” on journals, according to The British Art Journal. The charges could amount to thousands of pounds for small-circulation publications to illustrate scholarly articles, the journal said, describing it as “a licence to print money, a licence to kill scholarship”.

Copyright… and non-copyright, The British Art Blog

"The outlook in Britain is depressingly outdated, with museums and galleries, as this journal has frequently pointed out, obstructing not only scholarship but also wider familiarity with their collections through the imposition of restrictive conditions on use and punitive fees. What makes it worse, much worse, are the outrageous claims to ‘copyright’ that are attached to the use of images, preposterously applied to the mechanical reproduction of original works of art long out of copyright. This loathsome practice must stop".

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