A working group under the auspices of the National Gallery of Iceland has, together with Myndstefi, the copyright association of visual artists, worked on an agreement on the publication of copyrighted works from the collections of recognized museums and state museums. Upon signing it, museums will be granted permission to publish photographs on an online catalogue of copyrighted works. This will greatly increase the public's and schools' access to information from catalogues. On Thursday, December 20, the National Gallery of Iceland and the National Museum of Iceland signed the first agreements with Myndstefi on the publication of copyrighted material in the presence of Lilja Alfreðsdóttir, Minister of Education and Culture.
Access to information from art museum catalogues online for schools and the public has until now been almost exclusively limited to textual information, but it is now possible to publish photographs of works (digital publication) along with textual information. With this new agreement, Icelandic visual art will be made much more accessible for teaching and for the public.
The agreement is drawn up with all types of recognized collections in mind, as generally some part of a collection is always subject to copyright as specified in Copyright Act No. 73/1972. All museums that have been recognized by the Museums Council or are owned by the Icelandic state and operate in accordance with the law can enter into agreements with Myndstef. The museum in question pays an annual fee to Myndstef and undertakes to observe the right of decency when registering and marking according to the copyright law. It will be prohibited to use photographs that appear in the museum catalogues of copyrighted material for financial purposes. Images are watermarked, but as before, you must contact the museum in question and purchase a license for such use and pay copyright for use in accordance with the agreements.
The working group included Harpa Þórsdóttir, director of the National Gallery of Iceland, Þóra Björk Ólafsdóttir, director of the Museums Council, Ágústa Kristófersdóttir, director of Hafnarborg, and Ragnar Th. Sigurðsson, chairman of Myndstef.
The collections of the National Gallery of Iceland and the National Museum of Iceland are registered at www.sarpur.is
Images are from Myndstef's website, see: https://myndstef.is/safnasamingar-undirritadir/