Sangiuliano's decree on photo reproduction fees to cultural heritage (causing discussion)

While the art world last week has been busy huddling over the campaign dedicated to Venus, few have instead taken a look at the April 11 ministerial decree, number 161, with which Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano launched the guidelines for determining the minimum amounts of fees and royalties for the concession of use of assets on consignment to state cultural venues. The rationale of the decree is to bring order to the matter by establishing fees valid for all, both for room rentals and for reproductions of works of art. The decree contains tables with coefficients that determine the minimum fee to be paid in each situation.

For space rental, rates range from 100 to 500 euros for rooms up to 50 square meters, to the 900-3 range.200 euros for venues over 1550 square meters, to be multiplied by the coefficient of the location’s “class of value,” where value is determined by the high number of visitors, whether it is a unique or exceptional testimony to an era or period, the importance of the patron, the presence of frescoes or permanent collections, and so on. A further multiplication will then have to be made, with the coefficient of use (institutional purposes, nonprofit, lucrative). So how much might it cost, say, an evening devoted to a fashion show in the Cortile d’Onore of the Pinacoteca di Brera? Given the area of 2,000 square meters and assuming a maximum coefficient of value (5) given the centrality of the place, assuming the minimum rate of 900 euros, it is necessary to multiply by the coefficient of value (5) and the coefficient of use (for a fashion show it is 15, to be multiplied by the days of the event) and obtain a rental fee of 67,500 euros. In addition, the renter will also have to pay for living expenses (electricity, heating, staff and so on).

A figure within the reach of any haute couture fashion house that wants to hold a fashion show in a museum, but according to many, the biggest problem is found in the chapter on reproductions of cultural property. Photographs of works of art, in a nutshell. The mechanism is identical: fees are identified according to the type of photo that should be requested from a museum or a directorate (photographic prints, photocopies, scans, digital images, slides), and must be multiplied by the coefficient of use and the coefficient of quantity. A trade magazine that prints 5,000 copies and needs a digital image for an article, in color and high resolution, will spend 12 euros to be multiplied by the use coefficient (in this case 1), the quantity coefficient of reproductions (from 1 to 1,000 pieces the coefficient is 2) and the print run (in this case 5), and will spend 120 euros for the photo.

The problem noted by many lies in the fact that, unlike in the past, scientific journals will also have to pay. In fact, the decree makes no distinction between scientific journals, popular magazines, newspapers, and whatever else: all are required to pay, regardless of their activity, if the journal is for profit. Reproductions will be free and gratis only if carried out on a non-profit basis, for purposes of study, research, free expression of thought or creative expression, and promotion of knowledge of cultural heritage. The contradiction that many people point out is that research and promotion of cultural heritage knowledge need to fund themselves, which is why many scientific or trade journals have a cover price, not to mention the fact that in any case the promotion of heritage can safely coexist with free enterprise.

So what to do? An initial appeal to the minister comes from the Federations of University Councils of Archaeology, the National University Council for Art History and Sisca - the Italian Society for the History of Art Criticism. Meanwhile, the acronyms explain, it is not clear whether the charging system applies to reproductions that are already available to the user, for example, as a result of downloading from specialized sites or filming by one’s own means: the decree in this sense is not clear. But the most serious aspect, according to the appeal, lies in the fact that “the decree directly affects research because it generalizes the application of fees on the publication of images of cultural heritage in any publishing product.”

“With a leap back more than 30 years,” the text continues, "in one fell swoop the April 8, 1994, DM, which had established free for publication in all periodicals and monographs within a circulation of 70 euros and 2,000 copies, and the Guidelines for the Acquisition, Circulation and Reuse of Reproductions of Cultural Heritage in the Digital Environment, published last summer by the Digital Library of the Ministry of Culture, are zeroed out, although it claims to take them into account."

The Digital Library’s document, unlike this decree, which is considered unilateral, had been the result of more than a year of internal work within the ministry and public consultations, precisely during which the Federation of University Councils of Archaeology, in a note dated June 6, 2022, had been able to appreciate the main novelty of the Digital Library’s document, namely the provision of free of charge for the publication of images of state cultural property in any publishing product, regardless of the type, print run or relative cover price. “To the harm that this decree represents for researchers,” the acronyms continue, "is therefore added the mockery against all those to whom it had been announced, a few months earlier, that they would be free for any editorial use.

Ultimately, according to the councils, the problem is that the line adopted by the ministry will “end up having repercussions against those who study and enhance the cultural heritage and against the same ministry which, by multiplying controls, levies and authorizations, finds itself-and will increasingly find itself-bearing burdens far greater than the income from concession fees.” All this while trade associations have for years repeatedly appealed to the principles of the Faro Convention to emphasize the need to foster the conditions for the widest reusability of data and images of our cultural heritage, in an Open Access logic that identifies free reuse as a fundamental tool to incentivize not only research, but also publishing, cultural and creative entrepreneurship, design and all those sectors of Made in Italy that the government claims it wants to promote.

“Taxing research and innovation means, inevitably, introducing unnecessary barriers and mortifying a multitude of initiatives that the ministry should - on the contrary - actively encourage by putting anyone in a position to be able to reuse, in the same way, the images of cultural assets that belong to them,” the acronyms conclude. The demand coming from below is therefore the withdrawal of the decree and the reformulation of the fee schedule in coherence with what has already been expressed in the National Digitization Plan and with the oft-requested widespread adoption of Open Access licenses by museums, archives and libraries. The acronyms also call for an urgent meeting to discuss this and various other issues related to the freedom of cultural heritage research.

Pictured: the Collegio Romano, headquarters of the Ministry of Culture. Photo: Finestre Sull’Arte

Sangiuliano's decree on photo reproduction fees to cultural heritage (causing discussion)

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