It’s time to Wiki-fy the art

How do artists share their work without worrying about not being credited for that work? It’s a tough one. The conventional wisdom tells every photographer or artist to not share his works free of cost, without the restriction or protection offered by several copyright acts. But then that very same wisdom has held back many a works from reaching out to millions.

The recently organized Access to Arts conference organized by Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi in partnership with Wikimedia and Open Heritage Foundation at Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi Gallery, addressed such questions and concerns of the artist. The conference speakers included, Yann Forget who is a French Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons administrator, Rupika Sharma who is working with the Wikimedia Foundation as community strategy liaison, and Krishna Chaitnya Velaga, vice-president Open Heritage Foundation.

“The artists have to have a power to control what kind of access and permissions they grant to public without giving up their copyrights,” Diwan Manna, President, Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi and contemporary artist and photographer himself, shared some of the popular concerns of the artist community. “Sharing is fundamental to how we promote discovery, innovation, and collaboration in the digital age. Our mission statement is a world where every single human can share in the sum of all human knowledge. How do we bring more people into participating in our projects”, says Rupika explaining the initiatives by the Wikimedia community for making the knowledge free and shareable.

The global Wikimedia community of hundreds of thousands of volunteers actively uses collections uploaded to Wikimedia Commons to illustrate Wikipedia articles on topics of all kinds. Across its nearly three hundred language versions, Wikipedia amasses a staggering fifteen billion page views per month. Even a fraction of that attention directed to collection of artist or the cultural institution can significantly increase the reach of that institution’s mission.

At several cultural institutions, such as, The Met, more people (ten million a month) are now experiencing The Met collection on Wikipedia (two million page views a month). Because of these open licenses, anyone anywhere is empowered to share these collections in new contexts and to connect them with new audiences. Artists can choose how they share their work under Creative Commons licenses. They retain their copyright but allow people to copy and distribute their work provided they give you credit— and only on the conditions you specify. —TNS