Income
generation and sustainability
Commissioned from Harvard Consultancy Services Ltd by UKOLN on behalf of NOF in
association with the People's Network
An Information Paper from the NOF Technical Advisory Service
Projects funded through the nof-digitise programme are expected to remain
sustainable for at least three years beyond the lifetime of NOF funding. Therefore
projects must give consideration to ways of establishing a sustainable basis for
development. Although it is a requirement that content funded through the programme must
be made available free to users at the point of access, there are a number of ways in
which this content can be used to generate income whilst still fulfilling this
requirement.
This paper is intended to be used as a means of focussing on the issues associated with
income generation and sustainability for digitisation projects. The advice given is for
guidance and should not be seen as the only solution. It is recommended that each project
should be reviewed on its own merits, using these guidelines as a starting point. The
paper covers the following range of income generating options available and considers
their advantages and disadvantages for NOF funded projects:
- Sale of content on-line
- Subscription-based services
- Licensing of collections to third parties
- Advertising
- Affiliate programs
- Sponsorship
- Online shops
- Portals
This paper has been written assuming that most NOF projects will be working with a
range of digitised content, which includes text, image, video and audio. However, as the
most mature area in this sector for revenue generation is that for the digital image, we
have focussed more in this area when giving examples.
It is also important to appreciate the difference between sustainability and income
generation. The former does not necessarily rely on the latter. For example, an
institution could decide that its digital library is a core service and should be
maintained and developed from the central budget - particularly as many institutions
customers are coming to expect such digital services.
Finally, a few words on intellectual property rights and copyright. Before considering
any of the income generating options, it is important that each institution understand the
rights position regarding their collections. Each consortium must tackle this issue in its
own way and come to its own agreement with all partners and suppliers of content/images.
If there is any doubt about the rights position for a consortiums collection it is
strongly recommended that it is not used in any way to generate revenue.
A useful book on rights and related issues, Guide to Copyright for Museums and
Galleries, has been produced by Peter Wienand, Anna Booy and Robin Fry, in conjunction
with the Museums Copyright Group [1].
The copyright consultant Sandy Norman has published a number of titles covering
copyright across a range of libraries in conjunction with the Library Association. More
information is available from the Library Association Web site [2].
An excellent paper by the Networked Services Policy Taskgroup covering copyright and
the networked environment is available from the EARL Web site [3].
In addition, the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) [4] has useful
guidelines on good practice for digitisation projects. Digital content can also be
deposited with VADS, through both voluntary submissions and strategic alliances. This
benefits content providers by providing a long-term archival home for the materials in
which they have invested time, effort and money. Providers also benefit from VADS
promoting the digital collections and the organisations who created them. There is a
licence agreement online [5] that may be useful, although it does not
deal with the commercial sale of content.
Target markets
There are a number of ways in which income can be generated directly from digitised
material. Before looking at the specific mechanisms, it is important to understand the
target markets available. Generally speaking, there are three main target markets:
- The public
- Commercial organisations
- The culture and education sectors
The public
This is a notoriously difficult sector to generate revenue from, especially when using
the Internet as a channel to market. It is estimated that as at August 2000, there were
over 17.5 million UK users of the Internet, representing almost one fifth of the
population [6]. In the short to medium term, this is expected to continue
growing at the rate of around 11,000 new users per day [6]. This rate of
explosive growth has been greater than the take-up of almost any other technology
platform, including radio, TV and telephone.
Usage started to accelerate in 1995, with the largest increases during 1999-2000. As
such, it is still very much an immature medium through which to market (As an example,
commercial direct telephone services - such as telephone banking and insurance services -
only started maturing in the 1990s, 10 or so years after they first came to market
and over 115 years after the phone was invented!) It is not expected that the Internet
will take anything like this long to mature, but the reality is that it is still a very
young medium, particularly for selling.
New business models are still developing and predicting successful models is not easy.
Few could have predicted, for example, the success of online auction services, such ebay [7] and qxl [8].
The public are also very nervous of using online commerce, especially when using credit
cards. Recent high-profile security scares from major organisations Web sites have
done little to help this.
It should be remembered also that a large percentage of the population still currently
do not have Internet access or the knowledge of how to use it and many do not have credit
cards. The demographics of the Internet consumer-base are not that of a typical retail or
mail order business opportunity. This needs to be considered when reviewing potential
business opportunities. However, the Government is committed to providing universal
Internet access, and all UK public libraries will be offering public access to the
Internet by 2002.
Typical revenue levels generated from sales directly to the public are very much lower
than those for commercial sales. Experience of organisations that deliver digital content
is that a typical content sale to the public will result in revenue of around £5 - £15
per item. To get a sufficient return on investment, selling in this area may require a
high volume of sales per item of content.
Some examples of cultural institutions that sell content online include: The British
Museum [9], The Natural History Museum [10], SCRAN [11], and HPAC [12].
Content sales are not the sole source of income into this sector, as there will be
opportunities to generate additional revenue from other sources, such as advertising,
affiliate programs and sponsorship. These are covered in more detail later in this paper.
Finally, any business opportunities in this area will need to be supported by a
marketing strategy and related resource and budget.
What does this mean to organisations planning to sell their digital collections?
Currently, direct selling to the public using the Internet is risky and revenue levels
are likely to be fairly low. Any revenue plan based primarily around public sales needs to
be realistic; detailed cash-flow forecasts should be prepared showing likely sales and
revenue figures. There may be value in providing a public-facing sales opportunity as part
of a wider offering, as long as it is not the primary source of income.
Commercial organisations
This sector presents the opportunity to generate the most revenue from the sale of
digitised assets. However, it is not an easy route and is one that needs to be considered
very carefully.
Some organisations can certainly generate income from the sale of content in this
sector. For example many of the leading national museums and cultural institutions have
commercial photo libraries that generate substantial revenues including The British Museum
[9], Natural History Museum [10], SCRAN [11]
and HPAC [12].
To illustrate the potential for business to business content sales in this sector, one
cultural organisation, having similar content to a library or museum, sells conventional
(non-digital) copies of its photos and transparencies. It does not market the images and
relies on word of mouth. In 1998, they generated around £125,000 from the sale of around
5,000 images - mainly to publishers and media organisations for use as book covers,
pictures for magazines and advertising. Although this is not a unique example it should be
said that this particular organisation has excellent staff and some good collections that
are in demand, however it proves a point that revenue can be generated from cultural
content.
Few cultural institutions currently have operational business to business sites on the
Web. Examples of institutions having their own internal commercial libraries include (note
that these are links to the main site and not to a specific commercial service): The
Victoria & Albert Museum [13], Science Museum [14],
Imperial War Museum [15], Royal Geographical Society [16],
Royal Photographic Society [17] and The British Library [18].
However, be very careful when trying to assess the value of your content, as many
cultural institutions believe that they are sitting on a gold-mine and this is not always
the case. It is all about the real value and saleability of content. Marketing is an
important consideration too as the institution highlighted in the illustration above has a
reputation and contacts built up over a long period of time that many institutions will
not have.
ICT can provide benefits in automating many of the processes associated with meeting
customer demand for commercial product.
However, there are several major issues associated with commercial content sales:
- Protection of rights as in any method of commercial
exploitation, projects must ensure that IPR and copyright is not abused, either
intentionally or unintentionally
- Billing especially when purchasers may be from overseas, in
different time-zones using their own currencies
- Marketing the service and images effectively enough to meet revenue
targets
What does this mean to organisations planning to sell their digital collections?
To exploit these commercial opportunities institutions need to become, in effect, a
commercial content library.
This may not be feasible or desirable for many. However, there are several choices
available that could overcome this:
- Work with other consortia to aggregate collections and share
infrastructure. This collective approach could provide the infrastructure necessary to
deliver a commercial service, whilst giving an acceptable balance between income
generation and the effort required to run it.
- Approach existing commercial content services and explore
opportunities to use their existing infrastructure and marketing to help sell collections.
This approach is covered in more detail later in this paper.
Content sales are not the sole source of income into this sector, as there will be
opportunities to generate additional revenue from other sources, such as advertising,
affiliate programs and sponsorship which are covered in more detail later in this paper.
Again, it is recommended that detailed and realistic revenue and cash-flow forecasts
are created if this is a chosen option.
The culture and education sectors
These sectors provide further opportunities to generate subscription or license
revenue. This sector has the demand as well as the infrastructure (in most cases) to use
such a service. However, funds to date have been limited and it is unlikely that cultural
institutions or education establishments would commit to funding multiple services.
The recently announced guidance from the DfEE on the development of the National Grid
for Learning in 2000/2001 however, requires 15% of budgets to be spent on developing
and providing content [19]. This is part of a long term strategy
to encourage the continuing development of an educational software industry that will
provide high quality resources. Schools, LEAs and Regional Broadband Consortia may
therefore provide both a market, and also a mutually beneficial source of partnerships.
The Regional Broadband Consortia are, in some cases, developing their own digital learning
resources, and it may be possible to build long term partnerships which will include the
hosting and delivery of digital learning resources [20]. Becta [50] have developed a Curriculum Software Initiative, giving information to
support developers of educational software and digital learning resources.
It is this sector that is likely to provide more two-way transactions between projects
and third parties - cultural and educational organisations probably offer the greatest
opportunities for projects and consortia to work collaboratively with them to form
longer-term partnerships to develop and deliver Web services.
A very successful and relevant model to consider is that used by SCRAN the
Scottish Cultural Resource Access Network [11]. SCRAN is a searchable
resource base of history and culture with photos, objects, artwork, movies and audio.
SCRAN has negotiated licensing arrangements through central bodies, such as JISC (the
Joint Information Systems Committee of the Higher and Further Education Funding Councils)
and Local Education Authorities and offers its full service to schools, further and higher
education establishments for a license fee, ranging from £60 to £2000 per annum,
depending on the type and size of institution. The five-year contract they have negotiated
with JISC pays for access from every further and higher education authority. Two thousand
schools also have access.
However, the SCRAN model is not just about sustainability, it also covers rights
management, IPR issues and how contributor/providers are dealt with. SCRANs
licensing model ensures that the new digitised object remains the Intellectual Property of
the owner of the original, while securing for SCRAN a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive
licence for its educational use.
SCRANs approach to rights management includes sophisticated authentication and
authorisation, as well as a dynamic watermarking and fingerprinting system, which
invisibly encodes into every copy image downloaded, a unique audit trail including the
copyright status of the object, who downloaded it, when and on which machine. So downloads
of high quality content can be restricted to users in licensed institutions, such as
public libraries, and they have the means to police licensed users to discourage
unauthorised use of SCRAN content.
What does this mean to organisations planning to sell their digital collections?
To market and sell to potential users effectively in this sector a collaborative
approach is recommended. Approaches to schools, further and higher education
establishments are best made centrally, through Local Education Authorities and the
Regional Broadband Consortia, for example.
Another issue is ensuring that potential users in the education sector are aware of the
resources that are available and understand how they might use them to meet their own
requirements - in a classroom situation - for example. Projects may consider it worth
while to address these issues. This may take the form of simple awareness training, but in
some cases could extend to providing training resources, such as manuals or guidelines on
how to use the service most effectively.
Main types of income generation
Essentially there are two main types of income generation for digitised assets on the
Internet:
- Income directly derived from the digitised material
- Other income associated with the publication of digitised material
Income directly derived from the digitised material
This includes online sales, royalty payments, license fees and subscriptions from the
sale or provision of access to the digitised assets.
Sale of content online
This is where the rights to use content is sold online.
Users should be given the opportunity to search, browse and download content. It is
recommended that wherever possible, processes connected with the display, download and
billing for content should be automated, to minimise impact upon the institutions
concerned.
It is important that consideration is given to the management and control of licensing
and rights and that appropriate steps are taken to prevent abuse of copyright. This could
include a rights management database, encryption, file locking and watermarking.
There are many providers in the market of digital library rights management systems and
services. For more information, it is suggested that the mda [21] could
be a good starting point as they have a register of technology providers active in the
culture sector. Also providers outside of this sector should be considered as digital
library and rights management tools are very mature in sectors such as publishing and
medicine.
Issues surrounding copyright and licensing are outside of the scope of this paper
however further information on IPRs can be found in the nof-digitise FAQs section of the
Peoples Network Web site [22].
To give a benchmark of likely image sales, commercial photo libraries work on the basis
that 5%-10% of their collections will sell every year. The British Association of Picture
Libraries and Agencies (BAPLA) [23] publishes a recommended scale of
fees for image sales. The Tate Gallery has also published its scale of charges on the Web
[24].
The advantage of this revenue generating approach is that if an institution has digital
assets that are popular, the service can actively promote these to stimulate maximum
possible revenue. However, there is a risk in developing a service focusing on generating
revenue from the most popular digital assets, as it could skew the service or
divert the project from its original aim. Also, more complex processes and systems,
especially billing, need to be put in place and the project may need to ensure that it
makes a high volume of images available.
Subscription-based services
This is where a subscription fee is charged, allowing access to a library of images.
Some sites operate on a multi-tier subscription basis, where basic information is given
for free and more detailed information is accessible for a one-off fee or for a regular
subscription.
The best approach depends on the type of content and site structure and projects must
continue to ensure that NOF funded content is made available free to users at the point of
access.
As an example of a subscription-type service, see the Fathom Web site [25],
which provides lectures, interviews, online course and trails, for example, from their
member institutions - which include The Natural History Museum, Cambridge University
Press, the University of Chicago and the New York Public Library.
The advantage of a subscription-based service approach is that the billing process and
systems can be simplified, as only a regular subscription is required. It also allows a
more regular cash-flow. However, there is a limit to the revenue levels that can be
generated (limited by the number of users multiplied by the subscription fee). There is
also a need for more behind the scenes sophistication with the underlying technology.
Licensing content to third parties
Another option for the generation of revenue from digital content is through the sale
of licenses to third parties, such as commercial digital libraries or software companies
producing, for example, educational software or games.
This would typically involve the agreement of a licensing arrangement. The third party
would undertake the marketing and distribution of content, and in the case of a software
company, repackaging of the digital content for use in a specific commercial product. In
exchange, the project would receive a percentage of the sales revenue or a fixed fee for
allowing the commercial exploitation of their content.
The leading organisations in this sector for digital images are: Corbis [26],Hulton
Getty [27] and Bridgeman [28]. For digital textual
content see: Lexis-Nexis [29],Reuters [30], Dialog
Corporation [31], Newsedge [32] or Ananova [33].
The advantages of this approach are:
- All of the work associated with marketing and distribution of content
is handled by a third party, saving time and money
- Commercial services have established distribution channels, which
could be time-consuming and difficult for projects to develop
- They will almost certainly generate more sales than a cultural
institution could hope to achieve
The disadvantages of this approach are:
- Commercial organisations are likely to require very specific content
in some instances institutions may find that the vast majority of their collection
will not be selected for use
- The third party may insist on rights agreements which may not be
acceptable or in the best interests of the institutions concerned
- Projects may have little or no control over how the content will be
used
- The institutions will lose a percentage of the sale of each item of
content in commission to the third party
Other income associated with the publication of digitised material
This includes advertising, affiliate programs, sponsorship and merchandising.
Advertising
Looking at general sites on the Internet, advertising is a principal source of revenue
for many commercial Web sites. Indeed, some sites generate sufficient revenue to cover all
of their running costs and make a substantial profit. This is particularly true of portal
sites such as MSN [34], Yahoo [35] and Virgin.Net [36], which provide a range of services and links.
Advertising can take a number of forms. Banner adverts for example, are typically 468 x
60 pixels (16 x 2cm) 72 pixels per inch (ppi) and run across the page and appear on the
menu/home pages of Web sites. Brian Kellys paper Advertising on the network [37], although aimed at options for higher education institutions provides a
useful summary.
If you regularly e-mail users, adverts could be incorporated into these messages -
offering more revenue potential. This can be quite an effective marketing tool, especially
if you hold user information and can target specific user groups with specific
mails/adverts. There are data protection and data security issues to consider here of
course, and it necessitates user-registration (which may put some people off from using
your service). Also, if you are visibly associated with an advertiser or sponsor, users
may be suspicious that you may be holding data about them for purposes other than in the
context of your project.
The advantage of using advertising to generate revenue is that reasonable revenue
generation levels may result.
The disadvantage is that advertising can cheapen a site if done badly, particularly if
not relevant or contemporary with the subject matter, so approach with caution. Also, for
advertising to be effective, you have to have a defined audience profile which the
advertiser wishes to address and you have to be able to quantify the 'throughput' or
number of visits to your site - there are Audit Bureau of Circulation [51]
approved ways of counting the throughput - and you need to be able to tell the advertiser
just exactly what the make-up of your visitor segments are.
Affiliate programs
Another important stream of revenue is through affiliate programs. This is where a site
will feature a product or service and provide links to a vendor to supply it. The vendor
will pay commission for any products sold. The most common examples are books and CDs -
all of the major online bookshops and CD stores offer this sort of service.
The way this works is that after registering with the store, you will have a unique
code and access to promotional imagery that you can use on your site. You set up a link to
the affiliate site featuring your code and any time someone clicks through, the vendor
registers that it has come from your site and credits your account if a purchase follows.
There are several options available, if you set up a simple link from a Web site to the
home-page of the book or CD store, most vendors will pay a commission of around 5% on any
subsequent purchase made. If you make a link from your Web site to a specific book/CD and
this is subsequently purchased, typical commissions of up to 15% can be paid.
For examples of affiliate programs, see Amazon UK [38], WH Smith [39] or Internet Bookshop [40].
This could be an important source of revenue for sites and can be targeted more
specifically. For example, if a project is featuring a specific period in history or type
of collection/information, it could be very relevant to provide links from those pages to
a handful of books which provide more information on the subject.
There are other affiliate programs, which will pay if people click through to (usually)
a shopping portal or search engine. The revenue levels per click are much lower, for
example $0.01-$0.02 per click (most originate in the US) and they can be another potential
source of income. For examples, see Goto.com [41] and AskJeeves [42].
The advantages of the affiliate-based approach are that it is relatively simple to set
up and can generate a steady stream of income. From a users perspective, they will
also have access to a broader range of information on the subject matter concerned. A good
way to maximise the effectiveness of a range of affiliate programmes and other income
generation opportunities is to create a portal, a option which is discussed later in this
paper.
The disadvantages are that it needs more work to set it up. A considerable amount of
research will be necessary to establish the most appropriate products and vendors. Also by
engaging affiliate programs, you may be encouraging and creating ways for people to leave
your site, rather than stay. Care needs to be taken in page design and layout to prevent
or minimise this and to make sure that programs are presented in a way which does not
detract from your site.
Sponsorship
Sponsorship is another form of revenue, although it is more difficult to obtain and
needs time and patience in developing a sustainable strategy. This would normally manifest
itself as a payment to the organisation or consortium, in exchange for which, sponsoring
organisations would receive a range of benefits such as having their logo and/or adverts
featured on the site, a guarantee of a certain customer 'reach' as the service will be
available through a given number of outlets, etc. As an example, in some circumstances it
may be appropriate to charge Web site designers and/or suppliers to feature their name in
the text pages designed/made by xyz or powered by abc company that
is included on every page of the project Web site. Think of your pages as your
virtual real estate, looking at every inch of screen-space as a saleable
commodity.
Although this approach is one that can generate reasonable revenue levels it can be
difficult to find sponsorship and its use could potentially cheapen a service if a sponsor
insists on being featured heavily across a site.
Shops
There are also opportunities to offer online shopping and to sell related products
through the project Web site. However, there is likely to be a significant cost associated
with this as, for example, a display, billing and shipping system will be required to
manage transactions. Although it is unlikely to generate significant revenue streams, this
option could be useful as part of a broader revenue package. Again, a collective approach
is recommend for enabling this and to put the infrastructure in place.
For examples of an online shops, see The Tate [43], The Smithsonian
Institute [44] or The Victoria and Albert Museum shop [45].
The advantages of this approach are that it is relatively straightforward to establish
a shop and many institutions will already have merchandising and products which could be
sold, although a key issue here is fulfilling and distributing orders - areas which have
proved problematic for a number of even well-established retailers . It is important, of
course, that such e-commerce opportunities are sensibly related to the project and thus
provide a viable business case to justify time and resources invested in their
development.
Portals
In an earlier section, reference was made to portals - gateways or one-stop sites for
information, links, products and services relating to a specific subject or group of
individuals. One of the limiting factors for many commercial portals is that they do not
have sufficient content themselves and have to strike deals with a number of content
providers to provide a viable service. A portal can successfully combine many of the
elements mentioned in this paper (advertising, shops, affiliate programs, sale of content
and subscription services) into one focused service.
This is one area where nof-digitise applicants have an advantage, in that they are rich
in content. Therefore one potential route for applicants - whether consortia, groups of
consortia or stand-only partnerships - is to consider the development of a portal. To
better illustrate this multi-faceted option, an example is given below for a fictional
organisation The Museums, Archives and Libraries (MAL's) of Sandfordshire:
Sandfordshire MAL's are engaged in a digitisation program and have generated a large
quantity of digital images, text, database records and digital multimedia assets. They
have created a Web presence and because of their geographic location, have developed it
into a portal aimed at people living in or with an interest in the region of
Sandfordshire.
Visitors to the portal enter via an attractive home page. This presents many different
options:
- Free access to nof-digitise resources, whether digital collections or
learning packages, is presented through various links which could include a searchable
database
- A series of channels, offering targeted information on
specific themes or areas of interest
- Links to a virtual shopping mall, with access to partner vendors and
also to Sandfordshire MAL's own shop containing merchandise and books
- Visitor information on how to travel to Sandfordshire MALs
building, including links and booking forms for local hotels, guest houses, other local
attractions and more generic, but relevant sites; for example, The Met Office (for
weather), AA/RAC (for road travel routes and traffic information), Railtrack/local train
company (for train times and service information), Tourist Information sites. Local links
are structured so that Sandfordshire MAL's receive a commission for each successful
booking
- Information about Sandfordshire MAL's allowing users to join the
Friend's Group, become Corporate sponsors and book for events held at Sandfordshire
- A site search facility allowing free-text searching on any subject
- Links to other sites having information on Sandfordshire's region and
subject matter
- Pages displaying information on complementary events, places,
services and people. e.g. information on and links to craft fairs, cultural events,
exhibitions, concerts, etc
- Themed pages; e.g all-inclusive itineraries that encompass the
travel, accommodation, entrance tickets and souvenirs for a given subject, theme or tour.
This would generate revenue for Sandfordshire
- The Sandfordshire MAL portal carries both sponsorship and
advertising. The advertising is a mixture of generic (i.e. larger organisations) and local
(tied to local, complementary services). This would generate revenue for Sandfordshire
- All pages displaying information upon a subject or aspect of
Sandfordshire MALs collections would have links to book, CD and gift stores with
targeted products of interest. e.g. on a page focussing on the Romans, there would be
links to books of a general nature, but also to archaeology books, replica jewellery,
clothing and CDs of example music from the period. Each of these links would be to
specific products and services from third party services via their affiliate programs.
This would generate revenue for Sandfordshire
This example helps illustrate how a number of methods of revenue generation can be
combined into a single service. However, it is important to note that this approach almost
certainly will be beyond the reach of individual projects and would only really work if a
collaborative approach is taken.
There are currently few examples of these portals in the non-commercial sectors
(although this is expected to change). Examples of portals in different sectors include:
Portsmouth.web - a portal covering Portsmouth and all it has to offer [46],
Microsofts flagship site [47], which has advertising, links,
shops, affiliate programs and content derived from third party sources (see below) UK
Plus, [48] - UK-based search engine and portal, and Cumbria - The Lake
District [49], which provides tourist information and activities related
to the area.
The key is to ensure that there are sufficient levels of visitors to the site and that
stickiness is encouraged this is to ensure that visitors stay longer on
the site and keep returning in the future. One effective way of encouraging this is to
offer a broad range of additional information and links.
Sources of potential additional content (most of which is free) include:
This information is by no means exhaustive, but does give examples of types of services
that could be made available.
In conclusion
When considering ways to sustain projects beyond the initial funding period, it is
probably worth considering multiple income streams to generate the maximum possible
revenue.
Each project should look at its own individual business needs when developing its
business plan and business requirements specification, an approach that is standard
practice for IT projects generally and a requirement for the New Opportunities Fund. The
business plan should include revenue generation and cash-flow forecasts.
It is important that potential solutions, especially IT solutions, should not be
considered until this process has been undertaken. Each solution can then be matched
against the needs and it may be that one or more of the solutions outlined above are
considered appropriate.
Cash-flow and revenue generation forecasts should be realistic, tested wherever
possible upon the market and take into account each of the revenue streams.
Again, concerning IPR, before considering any of the income generating options, it is
important that each institution understand the rights position regarding the material they
are going to use. Each consortium must tackle this issue in its own way and come to its
own agreement with all partners and suppliers of content. It is strongly advised that a
licensing and rights management system be put in place. Some content might have been
created with the permission of third party rights holders, and all of it will be created
with public money. We all have a duty of care to protect this. Without an appropriate
rights management system, anything put online will be effectively in the public domain and
potentially used for the profit of others. Even if a project has established the right to
exploit its content, entering into commercial activities may prejudice (future)
relationships with content provides who may be reluctant to provide content (on favourable
terms) if it is going to be exploited for profit. The New Opportunities Fund expects
projects to demonstrate that they have understood this issue and will require successful
applicants to indemnify the Fund against any future action over ownership or mis-use of
content.
In conclusion then, although content must be provided free at the point of use, there
is scope to generate income through exploiting content and services imaginatively,
provided that adequate projection is afforded to the IPRs of the content and that a sound
business case can be established.
References
[1] Wienand, P., Booy, A. and Fry, R. Guide to
Copyright for Museums and Galleries, Routledge, 2000.
ISBN: 0415217210.
[2] Library Association Publications
http://www.la-hq.org.uk/directory/publications.html
[3] EARL Network Policy Taskgroup Issue Paper
http://www.earl.org.uk/policy/issuepapers/copyright.html
[4] Visual Arts Data Service
http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/
[5] VADS License Agreement
http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/depositing/deposit-licence.html
[6] Source: NOP Research Group, August 2000
[7] ebay
http://www.ebay.com/
[8] qxl
http://www.qxl.com/
[9] The British Museum
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/
[10] Natural History Museum
http://owen.nhm.ac.uk/cgi-bin/newbrowsing/piclib.pl
[11] SCRAN
http://www.scran.ac.uk/
[12] HPAC
http://hpac.org.uk/places.htm
[13] Victoria and Albert Museum
http://www.vam.ac.uk/
[14] Science Museum
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/
[15] Imperial War Museum
http://www.iwm.org.uk/
[16] Royal Geographical Society
http://www.rgs.org/Category.asp?Page=mainarchives
[17] Royal Photographic Society
http://www.rps.org/piclib.html
[18] British Library
http://minos.bl.uk/index.html
[19] NGfL Standards funding
http://www.dfee.gov.uk/standardsfund/ngfldevo.html
[20] Regional Broadband Consortia
http://www.dfee.gov.uk/standardsfund/ngflrbcs.html
[21] mda
http://www.mda.org.uk/
[22] Peoples Network:
nof-digitise Stage Two - FAQs
http://www.peoplesnetwork.gov.uk/nof/faqs.html#IPR
Issues
[23] British Association of Picture
Libraries and Agencies
http://www.bapla.org.uk/
[24] The Tate
http://www.tate.org.uk/shop/charges.htm
[25] Fathom
http://www.fathom.com/
[26] Corbis
http://www.corbis.com/
[27] Hulton Getty
http://www.hultongetty.com/
[28] Bridgeman
http://www.bridgeman.co.uk/
[29] Lexis-Nexis
http://www.lexis-nexis.com/
[30] Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/
[31] Dialog Corporation
http://www.dialog.com/
[32] Newsedge
http://www.newsedge.com
[33] Ananova
http://www.ananova.com/
[34] MSN
http://www.msn.co.uk/
[35] Yahoo
http://www.yahoo.co.uk/
[36] Virgin.Net
http://www.virgin.net/
[37] Kelly, B. Advertising on the Network
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/articles/vine-120/article.html
[38] Amazon UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/subst/partners/associates/associates.html/026-4188069-9380467
[39] WH Smith
http://www.whsmith.co.uk/whs/Go.ASP?Partnership=Y&shop=4317
[40] Internet Bookshop
http://www.bookshop.co.uk/par/parpge.asp?siteno=1&Shop=56
[41] Goto.com
http://www.goto.com/d/ssn/overview/
[42] AskJeeves
http://www.askjeeves.com/docs/affiliates/index.asp
[43] The Tate
http://www.tate.org.uk/shop/browse.htm
[44] The Smithsonian Institute
http://www.smithsonianstore.com/
[45] The Victoria and Albert Museum shop
http://www.vandashop.co.uk/
[46] Portsmouth.web
http://www.webvision.co.uk/portsmouth.web/
[47] Microsofts portal
http://www.msn.co.uk/
[48] UK Plus
http://www.ukplus.com/
[49] Cumbria - The Lake District
http://www.cumbria-the-lake-district.co.uk/
[50] Becta
http://www.becta.org.uk/technology/software/curriculum/developers.html
[51] Audit Bureau of Circulation
http://www.abc.org.uk/
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