IMO, copyright is scary enough to be a big red stop sign for most museums. Tracing copyright holders (let alone getting decent permissions from them) is a big and expensive part of many digitisation programs – at least for the kinds of objects museums like the Museum of London tend to hold.

I don’t know what to do about this. ‘Instant takedown’ might be a bit too maverick for many museums (and rightly so if it exposes them to a real risk); but the ogre of the lawsuit from an angry copyright holder also prevents us from really exploring the possibilities. IANAL – I’m a geek, and I can’t make that call on ‘copyright unknown’ images, but is there anyone in our institutions who can?