[HN Gopher] Smithsonian Releases 2.8M Images into Public Domain
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Smithsonian Releases 2.8M Images into Public Domain
Author : ChrisArchitect
Score : 206 points
Date : 2020-02-25 21:06 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| markdown wrote:
| The search feature seems to be getting a hug of death.
| blackbrokkoli wrote:
| Aw, man!
|
| I really don't have anything substantial to say, but this is
| incredibly refreshing: No dark patterns, no marketing ploy, no
| signup, no bullshit. No licenses, no traps, no business
| interests!
|
| Javascript not required, but smooth UI & UX! Just pure knowledge.
| API access; millions of files! Works right down to Lynx, an has a
| 3D previewer which is smooth and gentle to my mid range laptop.
|
| I think this is gonna be my new example if someones says that
| commerce & ads are the backbone of the internet. If anyone of the
| responsible people happens to read HN, please continue to do good
| in the world!
| [deleted]
| saberworks wrote:
| Are we on different websites? I used the search box to search
| "cat" and the "enter" key doesn't work to perform a search, I
| have to mouse over and click the magnifying glass to get it to
| work. It takes about 45 seconds to load about 2 screens of cat
| pictures. I have to scroll down and then click "Show more" to
| get some more. There's no indication of how many times I have
| to click "Show more" to get all the cat pictures. Once I click
| "Show more" it appears that nothing is happening, but about
| 30-45 seconds later the screen starts blipping and then another
| couple of screens of cats start popping into view. Clicking on
| an image takes another 30 seconds and then it brings you to a
| slightly bigger view, and then clicking it again shows another
| slightly bigger view but trapped into some weird-scrolling
| viewer with 3 layers of vertical scrollbars. The back button is
| also broken, having to click it multiple times to escape the
| single-image screen.
|
| I think a simple pager with a fixed number of images on each
| page would have been a much better experience. It would also
| let me link to specific pages so I could share the page I'm
| viewing.
| zacharycohn wrote:
| This is a great example of tax dollars at work. The Smithsonian
| is part of the United States government.
| [deleted]
| wpasc wrote:
| It's a 501c3 which is ~half funded by taxpayers and half
| funded by philanthropy. Almost like it forces you to
| recognize the benefits of both types of funding
| kbutler wrote:
| The Smithsonian is unique.
|
| If interested in the history of how it came to be, Mike Rowe
| tells the story well in "The Illegitimate Son-of-a-Smith"
| podcast: http://thewayiheardit.rsvmedia.com/episode-135-the-
| illegitim...
|
| The Institution is 62% federally funded (a combination of the
| congressional appropriation and federal grants and
| contracts). ... the Smithsonian has trust or non-federal
| funds, which include contributions from private sources
| (endowments; donations from individuals, corporations and
| foundations; and memberships) and revenues from the
| Smithsonian Enterprises
| https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/factsheets/smithsonian-
| instituti...
|
| From https://www.si.edu/ogc/legalhistory
|
| created by Congress in 1846 to exercise the authority of the
| United States in carrying out the responsibilities Congress
| undertook when it accepted the bequest of James Smithson "to
| found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian
| Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion
| of knowledge among men."...
|
| ...the Smithsonian is not an agency or authority of the
| Government...
|
| ...the Smithsonian is so "closely connected" to the federal
| government that it shares the immunity of the United States
| from state and local regulation...
| projproj wrote:
| Oh, cool. They have a search API. I'll plan to add this as a
| source to canweimage.com.
| nessunodoro wrote:
| OT- Neat, have you considered incorporating non-Wikimedia
| Commons images in your public domain-only search? Flickr in
| particular has a surprising amount of quality highres images
| that the authors have released into the PD.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > Flickr in particular has a surprising amount of quality
| highres images that the authors have released into the PD.
|
| Arguably, such images should be mirrored onto Commons ASAP
| (if they plausibly have educational value and are PD in most
| of the world). It is unwise to rely on a single profit-
| oriented company like Flickr to keep hosting this sort of
| stuff for the foreseeable future, whereas Commons is
| independently supported and specifically intended as a host
| for permissively-licensed media content.
| tzfld wrote:
| How much time until getty start sending copyright notices on
| these?
| Spoom wrote:
| Probably immediately since it's likely driven by a bot. They
| likely don't actually claim to own the copyright, just that you
| haven't negotiated a license for the image with them (they
| probably avoid mentioning that you don't need to).
| riazrizvi wrote:
| Tax dollars, invested into an institution that creates a public
| good, that is then made available to the public, where any
| entrepreneur can recycle it for profit and create more tax
| revenue. Beautiful fair capitalism at its finest!
| Koshkin wrote:
| > _for patrons_
| gjm11 wrote:
| I don't think that means anything like "for people who have
| physically visited the Smithsonian" or "for people who pay us
| some sort of subscription"; if you use their website then
| you're a patron in the relevant sense.
|
| Their webpage says "Welcome to Smithsonian Open Access, where
| you can download, share, and reuse millions of the
| Smithsonian's images--right now, without asking." And
| everything's CC0-licensed.
| nessunodoro wrote:
| If you're into natural history, search the 3D models. The in-
| browser viewer works great.
|
| https://www.si.edu/object/3d/490b6301-3869-455a-ba71-a89f5b6...
| dTal wrote:
| Holy crap. "Works great" doesn't do it justice. I'm on mobile
| and I was not expecting a buttery-smooth, photorealistic,
| flawlessly erogonomic multitouch experience with an abundance
| of advanced powertools like section analysis. That thing would
| be one of the most impressive _apps_ I 've ever seen, never
| mind Web Apps!
|
| I want this as a Jupyter plugin, very badly.
| reaperducer wrote:
| "CC0 only applies to copyright so you may still need someone
| else's permission to use a CC0-designated digital asset."
|
| So, not actually "public domain," but about as close as we get in
| 2020.
| kibwen wrote:
| IANAL, but as I understand it CC0 is equivalent to public
| domain in jurisdictions where the concept of "public domain"
| exists. It's an abstraction layer over the fact that not all
| countries have such a thing.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Typically, this refers to relatively uncommon issues like
| trademarks, or privacy/publicity rights wrt. depictions of
| (contemporary, not historical) people. It's good that
| Smithsonian is pointing out these issues, but sophisticated
| reusers are well aware of them.
| colonwqbang wrote:
| No that's not how I read it at all. A museum doesn't originate
| anything, they get donations. "You may need someone else's
| permission" because the Smithsonian doesn't guarantee that
| noone else in the world has a (good or bad) IP claim to one of
| the donations.
|
| That's the kind of guarantee that you will never get unless you
| pay for it.
| ryan_lane wrote:
| CC0 license on assets, which is pretty great.
| gowld wrote:
| "Releasing to the public domain" isn't something that can
| affirmatively be done. The best you can do, which Smithsonian
| did, is CCO
|
| https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
|
| Thanks to Creative Commons team for teaching the government how
| to do its job .
| chipsa wrote:
| Unless you're the US government, in which case everything is
| public domain. A copyright cannot be claimed on USG work
| product.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Assuming that you _actually_ control the copyright, of
| course. This used to be (and may still be) a significant
| issue wrt. the Smithsonian itself; they host all sorts of
| content on their websites for which the actual copyright-
| ownership situation was apparently entirely unknown (to the
| Smithsonian themselves and anyone else).
| bluedino wrote:
| Torrent?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I asked for a data dump via email, waiting to hear back.
| Ripping it all out is going to cost someone a pretty penny
| since it's hosted in AWS, better to ask someone to fill and
| ship some SATA drives. Then off to the Internet Archive!
| zorm wrote:
| I saw a companion AWS blog on this: https://aws.amazon.com/bl
| ogs/publicsector/smithsonian-3-mill...
|
| Looks like its part of the public dataset program so you can
| probably just ask for the bucket name and get full free
| access to everything.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > just ask for the bucket name and get full free access to
| everything
|
| Jed or jeffbarr, what say ye?
| carapace wrote:
| https://www.si.edu/openaccess The actual thing.
|
| > Welcome to Smithsonian Open Access, where you can download,
| share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian's images--right now,
| without asking. With new platforms and tools, you have easier
| access to nearly 3 million 2D and 3D digital items from our
| collections--with many more to come. This includes images and
| data from across the Smithsonian's 19 museums, nine research
| centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.
| lootsauce wrote:
| Is there a comprehensive list of all such large collections that
| have been made available. I recall the Metropolitan Museum of Art
| released hundreds of thousands of images a while back.
| lootsauce wrote:
| Ah here is prior discussion on the Met release
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7781846
| botwriter wrote:
| Until Getty starts suing people for using them!
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(page generated 2020-02-25 23:00 UTC)