Edited 4/13/2009 - Please review the comment from the B&O Museum. They have clarified their photography position. Thanks to Mr. Shackelford for this clarification of their policy. Time to add it back on the visit list.
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Spent part of the weekend in Baltimore with Daniel. Caught an Orioles game but the highlight of weekend was to be the B&O Railroad Museum. Usually, I will post pictures from the visit, but the museum has a strict no photograph policy if you want to post on your personal or commercial website.
From their website - "Photographs are permitted for personal use only and are not to be published anywhere (including personal web sites) without the expressed written consent of the Museum. Professional photography is strictly prohibited without the written permission of the Chief or Senior Curators."
Now, I can understand the professional photography reason, but to prohibit posting of photos on a personal, non-commercial website is ridiculous. Where is the harm in sharing a few photographs from your visit with your family via the web? Maybe someone will find the pictures and think, this is pretty cool. Let's go visit.
Looking at peer museums, the Railroad Museum of PA, National Railroad Museum located in Green Bay or the CA State Railroad Museum have no restrictions on the posting of photographs on a personal website. The Railroad Museum of PA website tell you to bring your camera. Inside and out.
I guess you can set any policy you want but I feel that this does nothing to enhance or promote future or return visitors to the museum, which is want they need to survive. While the B&O Railroad Museum has some nice equipment on display, in my opinion it is not worth becoming a return visitor.
Hopefully, someone at the museum with do a google search and this will come up. Something to think about as I will not be spending another $25 in admission, $9 in food and $15 in the gift shop.
1 comment:
Dear JRJ,
I have seen your recent posting on your blog site and wanted to take the time to respond to your comments. Taking pictures for personal use and posting has not been a problem in recent memory and neither has been posting the images on-line for non-commercial use. To date, those interested in posting usually contact the museum and have been given permission. The sign you quote in your posting is slightly out of date and dates to when the museum was beginning to deal with the widespread postings on-line and our policy was a little more strict and to be honest, has not been updated but I will do so to hopefully eliminate future consternation.
I'll provide our current photo policy: Still photography, filming, and digital imaging of the Museum's structures, rolling stock, and collection are permitted for private, noncommercial use only. Photographs, film, and digital images cannot be published, sold, reproduced, transferred, distributed, posted on the Internet, or otherwise commercially exploited in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the B&O Museum.
Why we have the policy:
The policy was developed because as you guessed, the Museum holds the legal rights to images created from the Museum's collections (including rolling stock, buildings, and collections items). The intent of the policy is to protect the legal rights of the Museum, protect how the Museum and it's collection are represented, restrict unauthorized commercial use, and limit the illegal reproduction of images with out the consent of the Museum. The stickler has been people taking pictures of the museum and trying to profit on them without asking or getting proper permission.
The reality of this policy and its implementation is pretty basic, we do and have allow personal pictures and their posting; however, we do not allow people to profit off of the museum's collection. We define personal images as basic family type images taken by visitors during their time at the museum. Again, personal images taken have been and continue to be allowed to be posted on web sites. We ask that they credit the museum, but have not been sticklers on this when the intent is not to sell and with the wide spread use of the Internet and digital photography our enforcement is only done when it is an obvious commercial venture without permission.
I hope this clarifies your situation, and by all means feel free to post your images. I personally feel the museum is a great place to visit and a wonderful site, and please feel free to contact me if you'd like to discuss further. I may be reached at chiefcurator@borail.org.
Dave Shackelford
Chief Curator
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