Smithsonian Deal With Showtime Restricts Access by Filmmakers

[MountainLaurel]

Just more privatization of historic materials.

:cry:

As part of a near-exclusive deal with Showtime Networks, the Smithsonian Institution is restricting filmmakers' access to its scientists and archives, prompting another outcry over the museum's attempts to make money.

Filmmakers who have relied on the vast holdings of the Smithsonian, and typically pay to use historic film or copy an artifact, have raised objections to the new policy of limited access to the public collections. Now most filmmakers will not have in-depth use of Smithsonian materials unless they are creating work for the Smithsonian/Showtime unit.

Such films would be available through the Smithsonian on Demand cable channel to the small fraction of viewers with digital cable -- about 25 million homes.

Jeanny Kim, the vice president for media services at Smithsonian Business Ventures, said the filmmakers who were doing "more than an incidental treatment" of a subject mainly from Smithsonian materials or wishing to focus on a Smithsonian curator or scientist would first have to offer the idea to Smithsonian/Showtime. Otherwise, the archives could not be used outside the realm of news programs (such as "60 Minutes" and "Dateline") in most cases.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/03/AR2006040301699.html