Secret 3D scans in the French Supreme Court

This the law of unintended consequences in action. I suspect that neither the government nor museums thought there was any legal obligations to make 3D scans public and I'd wager that the legislator did not have that in mind when they drafted the freedom of information laws.

But then, suddenly (as per linked article): "The Commission on Access to Administrative Documents (CADA) ... had never before considered any dispute about 3D scans. It affirmed my request that musée Rodin communicate copies of its scans to me, determining for the first time that public agencies’ 3D scans are in fact administrative documents and by law must be made available to the public."

A decision which has been going up the chain of courts since and is apparently close to the possibly dramatic climax.

Indeed, the commercial argument is therefore irrelevant to this and the museum was clutching at straws there, really...

Good laws try to be future-proof. Transparency of government is a big deal in liberal democracies.

It's incongruous for a museum to resist something like this, when exhibiting artifacts to the public is one of the main reasons for their very existence.

Legislators are human beings. "Future-proof" is one thing, guessing all possible cases is quite another and perhaps their aim simply wasn't things like 3D scans at all, as mentioned, because freedom of information laws came about to tackle a completely different issue (which was indeed transparency, not scans of sculptures...)

That's how it is and key to this case, and not really discussed in any comments. I am not commenting on the museum's actions to defend against this, which they must think is in their interest. So I don't understand the hate... it's getting difficult to discuss on more and more topics.

How is the publication of the scans an unintended consequence, if it was stated as intention in the grant application?!

I also dont see at all how this is even a problem for the museum: Their gift shop is basically a rounding error in their revenue stream in the first place, availability of cheap replicas online would only marginally affect gift shop sales anyway, and what person would ever go like "oh no lets cancel the trip to the museum because there is a good 3d model of their main exhibit on thingiverse"?!

As per quote in my previous comment the crux of the matter is that 3D scans were deemed "administrative documents" in the sense of the freedom of information laws. This might be why they are fighting tooth and nail because if that is ultimately upheld this will apply to all scans in all public institutions, which all become accessible.

>How is the publication of the scans an unintended consequence, if it was stated as intention in the grant application?!

Perhaps it's unintended in that they never thought they'd be called on it. Requests for public funding almost always claim it's for the betterment of the public despite almost never being so and no one ever gets called out on it.

>This might be why they are fighting tooth and nail because if that is ultimately upheld this will apply to all scans in all public institutions, which all become accessible.

Which is a pretty sweet comeuppance for not handing over these specific scans when asked.

Ok, I guess "transparency" doesn't begin to cover all potential cases, CADA's role is to ensure the freedom of access to administrative documents, but also to public archives and to the re-use of public information.

And any document created during a public service mission is concerned, regardless of whether it's in a text, visual, audio, etc. format, the law specifically abstaining from giving an exhaustive list or even type of documents, considering their variety.

And why would point clouds of statues be exempt when point clouds of buildings or landscapes are not ?

Legislators are human beings indeed, not computers, they are able to try to convey "the spirit of the law", and hope that their successors will be able to understand them.

The "hate" is from, yet again, taking taxpayer money, while basically doing the opposite of their job.

P.S.: Something to cheer you up : https://youtu.be/sQ9I4t0kJxg

> Requests for public funding almost always claim it's for the betterment of the public despite almost never being so and no one ever gets called out on it.

That's just corruption and we should absolutely be calling out every instance of it. If that's not the exception right now, I hope that changes in the near future.

The fact that this was the first time release of 3D scans was being requested does not imply those were not intended consequences: for any type of document, there has been a first.