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Secret 3D scans in the French Supreme Court

(cosmowenman.substack.com)
771 points abetusk | 9 comments | 18 Oct 24 08:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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Symbiote ◴[18 Oct 24 12:06 UTC] No.41878622[source]▶
> The court ruled that the museum’s revenue, business model, and supposed threats from competition and counterfeiting are irrelevant to the public’s right to access its scans, a dramatic rejection of the museum’s position

It would have helped the museum and government ministry if this had been clear before the government-funded scanning program was started. (Maybe it was, I don't know.)

I was initially sympathetic to the museum, as it's common for public funding to be tight, and revenue from the gift shop or commercial licencing of their objects can fill the gap. I don't know about France, but I expect the ministry has been heavily pushing public museums to increase their income in this way.

However, that doesn't justify the deception described by the article.

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ACS_Solver ◴[18 Oct 24 12:36 UTC] No.41878841[source]▶
This same person fought for years to get the Berlin Egyptian museum to release 3D scans of the famous Nefertiti bust. The museum also claimed it would undermine its revenue streams through the gift shop, but as the case progressed, that turned out to be very misleading - the museum had made less than 5000 EUR over ten years from 3D scans.

https://reason.com/2019/11/13/a-german-museum-tried-to-hide-...

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whimsicalism ◴[18 Oct 24 15:20 UTC] No.41880239[source]▶
They’re afraid of losing out on the revenue from selling replicas, etc. which is probably a very reasonable fear given that the guy filing suit and writing this blog post runs a company that creates replica artwork?
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1. squigz ◴[18 Oct 24 15:50 UTC] No.41880539{3}[source]▶
The huge piles of revenue?

> SPK confirmed it had earned less than 5,000 euro, total, from marketing the Nefertiti scan, or any other scan for that matter. SPK also admitted it did not direct even that small revenue towards digitization, explaining that it was not obliged to do so. In the nearly 10 years since it had created the Nefertiti scan, SPK had completely failed to commercially exploit the valuable data idling on its hard drives.

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2. whimsicalism ◴[18 Oct 24 15:53 UTC] No.41880564[source]▶
Not sure if you are intentionally missing the distinction I’m making? Your comment just restates the GP
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3. squigz ◴[18 Oct 24 15:54 UTC] No.41880581[source]▶
I'm not sure what distinction you're trying to make, no.
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4. whimsicalism ◴[18 Oct 24 15:56 UTC] No.41880602{3}[source]▶
Revenue from “marketing the 3d scans” is not the same as “revenue from selling replicas” and it is the latter that they are trying to protect, not the sale of the scans directly
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5. squigz ◴[18 Oct 24 15:58 UTC] No.41880621{4}[source]▶
My impression from that article was that '3D scans' and 'replicas' were grouped together.
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6. whimsicalism ◴[18 Oct 24 15:59 UTC] No.41880630{5}[source]▶
Yes, I agree the article very intentionally tries to give that impression, true
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7. mandevil ◴[18 Oct 24 16:12 UTC] No.41880755[source]▶
Right, no one is buying the digital scans. But tons of people buy physical replicas- I have been a volunteer at a different museum and our physical models of our most famous artifacts were very nice money makers for us, so I presume they would be for them as well. And using that digital scan you can make your own competing physical replica. Which is why the museum doesn't really want to make it easy for any 3D printer to compete with them.
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8. cortesoft ◴[18 Oct 24 23:57 UTC] No.41884533[source]▶
You could just buy one replica and scan it yourself.
9. javawizard ◴[18 Oct 24 23:58 UTC] No.41884539{6}[source]▶
Am I to understand that impression is incorrect then? Where might one look to ascertain the actual revenues involved?