Museum Contends With Multimedia Rights

摘要

Wherever technology goes, legal issues regarding copyright ownership seem to follow. When law and technology collide, it's often over piracy and DRM (digital-rights management). But it turns out that technology can raise rights issues even when no technological DRM schemes or deliberate attempts at piracy are involved.rnOne such instance came to my at-rntention on a recent visit to LACMArn. I was there to learnrnabout the prequalification testingrnthe museum and its consultants per-rnformed before installing a campus-rnwide WLAN (wireless local-area net-rnwork). You can read the details in a re-rnlated article (Reference 1).rnOne feature of LACMA's WLANrnis that it delivers multimedia contentrnto visitors equipped with museum-is-rnsued PDAs (personal digital assis-rntants). "Traditionally, museums havernaudio tours and paper-based content,"rnsays Peter Bodell, LACMA's chief in-rnformation officer. "So, we stepped uprnand said, 'All right, we need to go tornthe next level; we need to get it tornmultimedia.'"