Beauty itself doth of itself persuade The eyes of men without an orator.

August 13, 2014 10:49 AM

Folger Shakespeare Library Releases 80,000 Images for Creative Common Use. The Folger Shakespeare Library announced yesterday, that they have released the contents of their Digital Image Collection under a Creative Commons Share-Alike (CC-BY-SA) license. Full database can be accessed here.
posted by Fizz (18 comments total)

Wow, this really is the best part of waking up today.
Thanks.
posted by Kabanos at 10:57 AM on August 13, 2014 [3 favorites]

Well, that's nice. Too bad about the SA, though.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:57 AM on August 13, 2014

ChurchHates Tucker, do you mind explaining the SA part and why it's bad. I'm not versed in the particulars of the limits of creative commons, etc.
posted by Fizz at 11:00 AM on August 13, 2014

SA (Share Alike) limits how something can be used. Here is a filmmaker struggling with the idea.

It's vaguely akin to a GNU rather than BSD license in software. (Which I think works much better in patent rather than copyright space, FWIW)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:10 AM on August 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

These "sketches & designs for an Elizabethan playhouse" by Walter C. Hodges are great. Technical illustration heaven.

You can see the progression of his work from conceptual rough to a more refined sketch to final art.

Here's another cutaway of the Globe Theatre. And a Globe Theatre Chirstmas Card design.

Last but not least, a sketch for a proposed reconstruction of Sir John Harington's original water-closet invention of 1596.
posted by Kabanos at 11:28 AM on August 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

SA (Share Alike) limits how something can be used. Here is a filmmaker struggling with the idea.

Reading your link, that filmmaker's problem seems not to be with the Share-Alike license but with the fact that people don't understand it. So far as I can tell, s/he likes the SA license precisely because it doesn't "limit how something can be used"--but is frustrated with the fact that people mistakenly think it does. What am I missing?
posted by yoink at 11:32 AM on August 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

As regards the FPP--I'm very glad to read this. I've been yoinking things from the Folger's image library with gay abandon to use in my lectures for years; it's a rich resource.
posted by yoink at 11:33 AM on August 13, 2014

So far as I can tell, s/he likes the SA license precisely because it doesn't "limit how something can be used"--but is frustrated with the fact that people mistakenly think it does. What am I missing?

You are correct, and I'm guilty of the same confusion she is frustrated by. (it's been some years since I've had to reconcile CC licenses.)

The problem is that SA (share alike) implies that you are limited by the terms of the entire work, rather than the individual aspect the license covers. Pair that with the prevalence of the NC (non-commercial) option, it's not surprising that people get confused. (SA and SA-NC are incompatible.)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:48 AM on August 13, 2014

This is really fantastic, well done Folger. I also have to give them credit for explaining the SA license terms in a fairly common-sense paragraph in their blog post, as well as including the contact info if you do need to license their works-- I think a lot of other image depositories make licensing/what you can do with their images more opaque than they need to.
posted by jetlagaddict at 11:53 AM on August 13, 2014

It looks like most of the images were already in the public domain anyway -- it's just that they've made their scans of them available.
posted by litlnemo at 12:04 PM on August 13, 2014

I'm guessing that some people may not like that, if they remix an SA work for what happens to be non-commercial purposes, they can later discover that their work (with same obligatory SA license) has been picked up and used for commercial purposes by someone. Like the filmmaker said, SA is an imperfect solution.

But let's not derail too much… there are gems waiting to be found:
THE WOMEN'S PETITION AGINST COFFEE.
Lace kerchiefs barely concealing muffs.
Armored hand with sword impaling severed boar's head.
How to use secret codes and invisible ink.
Scary Falstaff.
posted by Kabanos at 12:27 PM on August 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

I still have my mom's Folger paperback Shakespeare's from when she was a youth (and actually I think even those were her dad's first). I've been given updated copies of plays as gifts, like nice hardbounds and leatherwhatsits but I still prefer my dogeared copies Folgers' with their yellowed pages and crunchy late '60s graphic design.
posted by Doleful Creature at 1:00 PM on August 13, 2014

OMG John Austen sketches

Seriously if I ever get this stoner metal band going I'm going steal one of those for our first gig poster. Yowza.
posted by Doleful Creature at 1:07 PM on August 13, 2014 [3 favorites]

I mean just look at how fucking metal this is hot damn
posted by Doleful Creature at 1:09 PM on August 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

I mean just look at how fucking metal this is hot damn

That is, indeed, gorgeous. But what scene from Hamlet is that supposed to be?
posted by yoink at 1:23 PM on August 13, 2014

That is, indeed, gorgeous. But what scene from Hamlet is that supposed to be?

From some Googling, I think it's supposed to be Gertrude mourning the dead Ophelia. Hmm.
posted by yoink at 1:37 PM on August 13, 2014

Damn. I thought for a moment Jane Austen did Shakespeare sketches. (That would be super-goody-awesome)
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 2:10 PM on August 13, 2014

How to use secret codes and invisible ink.

Holy crap the code on the left, or at least a variation on it, was in the "A Boy's Guide to Spycraft" or whatever that I read obsessively when I was a kid. And the one on the right is a table for calculating Caesar ciphers, which I knew was old but it's so strange to see it written down in a how-to format in 1655.
posted by BungaDunga at 6:01 PM on August 13, 2014 [1 favorite]