Elizabeth Goodspeed on what happens when we treat the past like a stock library

Not all borrowing is the same. Copying is often more about power than propriety. When working with archival material myself, I like to think in terms of the stand-up comedy rule: punching up vs. punching down. Picking up visual motifs from a billion-dollar corporation that’s built its empire on copyright hoarding? That’s punching up. Repackaging the work of a living artist from a marginalised background without credit or compensation? Likewise, using found material for an indie zine is a far cry from pulling from the same source for a corporate client that could easily afford to commission something new.

It takes a ton of effort to digitize art whose copyright is expired. This article does a great job explaining why.

I've said it before, but if I could pick any job for myself, it would be to take as many photographs as possible and release all of them into the public domain. Attending as many Comic Cons as possible to snap updated head shots of celebrities would be so much fun. Also, traveling to areas around me that are on Wikipedia but have no photo of them.

It seems like work that would outlive me, y'know?