CosmoWenman

Re: what "FOI is for": see my previous comment above excerpting from FREEDOM OF INFORMATION IN FRANCE, LAW AND PRACTICE

Re: a hypothetical LLM: French FOI law covers all document formats. The CADA and courts have routinely recognized that documents produced by the government in formats such as audio recordings, x-rays, photographs (of submerged shipwrecks, no less), application source code, and computer algorithms may be considered administrative documents, communicable to the public.

So, if the French government produced an LLM and front end then, yes, that LLM model and its front end would be an administrative document, in principle communicable to the public. To me that does not seem improper or difficult or strange to imagine.

Musée Rodin, 2010-2013: "The curiosity aroused by the content and quality of the digital image and the 3D model will encourage Internet users to come and discover the sculptor’s work in its museum setting."

"In the short term, the project to put all of the Rodin Museum’s digital collections online in 2D and 3D will enhance the dissemination of the work of this world-renowned artist."

There are a few lesser works that the museum has not yet exhausted the legal maximum production of 12 posthumous, so-called "originals".

Re: what "FOI is for" please see my comment above, excerpting FREEDOM OF INFORMATION IN FRANCE, LAW AND PRACTICE.

Re: "Weird" documents: The CADA and courts have routinely recognized that documents in formats such as audio recordings, x-rays, photographs (of submerged shipwrecks, no less), video, application source code, and computer algorithms may be considered administrative documents, communicable to the public. FWIW, a 3D scan being an administrative document doesn't seem weird at all to me, nor did it seem weird to the many government attorneys at the CADA analyzing the issue, nor to the cultural heritage and open source and digital rights experts and advocates who joined my case, nor to the Paris court.

The Conseil d'Etat did not even say that scans could not be administrative documents, or that that would be weird; they just ruled that these documents in particular were akin to physical works and therefore part of the museum's inalienable collection, and so were outside FOI law.

The funding applications are linked directly in the body of my story.

I am very much in favor of private, and crowdsourced, and DIY scanning efforts. However, there is a real value to careful, high quality, accurate scanning of important works, and as the Rodin Museum itself might agree, the provenance of that scan data is important. When the originals are closely held and access is restricted, it's up to the institution to produce that high quality data and publish it.

IMO, their collected filings, both in the Paris tribunal and in the Conseil d'État, are a true trainwreck. I don't discount the possibility that they were lazy (it seems likely) but I also think they may be truly incompetent and genuinely indifferent to the law, and without a doubt they behaved and argued in bad faith throughout.

Excerpts from the museum's applications to the Ministry of Culture, seeking public funds for scanning its collection, statements that it reiterated over several years of renewed funding requests:

"The curiosity aroused by the content and quality of the digital image and the 3D model will encourage Internet users to come and discover the sculptor’s work in its museum setting."

"In the short term, the project to put all of the Rodin Museum’s digital collections online in 2D and 3D will enhance the dissemination of the work of this world-renowned artist."

Moreover, the Ministry of Culture's call for projects expressly emphasized that one of the main objectives of this program was to promote "free and open consultation of digital cultural resources for all Internet users"

(These statements are from the museum's applications and the Ministry's call for digitization projects, which are linked in the body of my story.)

Musée Rodin, 2010-2013: "The curiosity aroused by the content and quality of the digital image and the 3D model will encourage Internet users to come and discover the sculptor’s work in its museum setting."

Whenever I explain this case I really do my best to make it perfectly clear that the Rodin Museum solicited and received public funds from the Ministry of Culture for the express purpose of 3D scanning its collection. This public financing is not (any longer) a state secret. And yet one thing in this world is certain: if you ask the Rodin Museum to comment on its operations or any public policy issue, they will make sure to mention that they are "self-funded"...

And, IMO, Auguste Rodin's wishes (real or imaginary) are utterly irrelevant. I don't mean to dismiss the sentiment motivating people's desire to respect an artist's perceived wishes, but in practical terms they are usually, and in this case definitely and in every respect, completely irrelevant.

It is so strange to see people volunteer imaginary explanations for the Rodin Museum's behavior and motives. It is understandable, though, since the museum refuses to make any public comment on the case or its policies. In court, however, the Rodin Museum itself says it does not use its scans for conservation: in its many court filings it was adamant that it did not use its scans for any purpose whatsoever and that the scan documents were of such low quality as to be useless. They told the court they had to search for them in response to my request. Their scans do not guide any conservation work: they sit idle on DVDs in a locked filing cabinet.