Comment by drzaiusapelord | Hacker News Reader

Comment by drzaiusapelord | Hacker News Reader

Interesting stuff. As a once kinect enthusiast I was completely blown away by the quality of this thing. Normally, the kinect is a pita to deal with, is very touchy, and gives a faily low quality/res return. I just assumed they were using some fancy image stabilization and some fuzzy logic/hand cleanup to make it not look terrible. Or that the Xbox One kinect was just much higher resolution than the original, but a quick google search tells me the difference is negligible. Hell, if the kinect could do resolutions at this level natively, everyone would buy one as it would exceed 3D laser scanners costing thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars.

The hacker theory is interesting, but I wonder if someone with access to this statue during off-hours performed this with a proper laser scanner and the kinect story is cover to make sure he doesn't get caught. Sounds like someone might be in trouble now. Of all the countries to have an intellectual freedom debate/trial, it seems that politically unstable Egypt would be one of the worst for any positive outcome here.

Its all a shame. We should have good 3D scans of every museum item of note by now and available for free for the public. How can we sell this concept to the boards, trustees, curators, and bureaucrats who control these items? Wasn't there a big controversy when high-quality color film came out way back when about publishing photos of art pieces and museum pieces? Seems like we're destined to re-invent this conflict over and over as technology advances.

edit: This bust is permanently housed in Germany, I just assumed it was on temporary loan. Thanks for the correction below.

> Of all the countries to have an intellectual freedom debate/trial, it seems that politically unstable Egypt would be one of the worst for any positive outcome here.

Well, in this case, the original bust is in Germany, and it's Egypt that wants the copy (really, wants the original back, but). So in a case like this, (a) I don't think any trial would be in Egypt, but rather in Germany, and (b) if the trial were in Egypt, I don't think the court would rule against the scanners, who are merely trying to repatriate the object as best they can.

>We should have good 3D scans of every museum item of note by now and available for free for the public. How can we sell this concept to the boards, trustees, curators, and bureaucrats who control these items?

Why not convince legislators instead?

Because coercion is strictly inferior to compromise

Which is why laws that coerce to not do this (and thus require use to 'sell' the idea to certain groups) need to be removed. If a Museum holds some artifact from long ago, their only claim to it should be that it was entrusted to them by the will of the people for safe keeping, so their only input to scanning should be based around protection of the original. Any sort of ownership of the artifact should only be upheld if they can show they have truthful ownership following back from creation of the artifact. Just because you bought it from some guy who stole it 100 years ago does not give you any moral claim to it, and any legal backing of such a claim is coercion against the many to serve the interests of the few.

Just because you bought it from some guy who stole it 100 years ago does not give you any moral claim to it

That would mean no one owns the house they live in.

How long ago does land have to be stolen for it to be recognized as belonging to the new owner? If you show that I have your family heirloom (but in no way show I was the one who took it, that question is still open), how long must I have held onto it for it to be mine?

>We should have good 3D scans of every museum item of note by now and available for free for the public. How can we sell this concept to the boards, trustees, curators, and bureaucrats who control these items?

Because one of the greatest source of funds to museums and libraries are their licensing of images and objects in their possession.

Many of which are considered creative works in the public domain.

We ought to be very cautious when using public laws to enable otherwise non-viable business models to exist.

There is a large variation in museum attitudes toward amateur reproduction, largely because there is no international consensus on the correct balance between a museum's duty to remain financially solvent as curator of valuable antiquities and its duty to maintain the broadest possible access to the public for works in the public domain.

It is likely that a public law having nothing to do with copyright could encourage quality professional digitization of works in the public domain, by extending limited monopoly privilege on the digital copy until the cost of creating it can be reasonably recouped. If a museum cannot recover the costs of making quality scans, it won't make them. But copyright is the wrong way to go about recovering costs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com