Images and desires: ownership, anxiety and the art of persuasion

In 1998 DIAMM (diamm.ac.uk) embarked on a rather usual strategy for obtaining high-quality digital images from a large number of libraries and archives: we bought the best available digital imaging technology and created a portable studio that travelled (eventually) all over Europe and to some venues in the USA and Japan, and still travels today. In the late 1990s digital imaging of any sort was in its infancy, so even persuading libraries that our images were going to be of suitable quality was difficult. Persuading them to let us come into their collections with a camera, and take away the pictures with us involved the development of a set of licences with the help of IPR expert Charles Oppenheim. There are numerous concerns involved in undertaking negotations to create an agreement with an institution like a library or public archive who allow public access to their content on a daily basis, not all of them legal: how they are initially approached can affect the outcome of negotiations, and that approach may be completely different depending on the country in which the archive is situated. There were some occasions where adjustments had to be made to suit the library, not all of which seemed particularly legally binding. A licence was not always the best way forward either, particularly with librarians who felt inadequate to deal with legal terminology. There are some cautionary tales therefore, some legal absurdities, and some extremely shaky agreements which nevertheless suited the library involved and have worked thanks to the good intentions of the parties to the agreement.