OA to publicly funded art

Robin Good, Free Open Access To Public Domain And Publicly Financed Artworks Is Every Citizen's Right: Let's Download Them! A blog posting, March 1, 2005. Excerpt: 'If we pay our state to create public works like art, music, architecture, research, is it right that these creations are then exploited for commercial uses by a restricted few?...It is therefore with some notable appreciation that I am following the passionate efforts of the Creative Commons Italian community as it launches and fuels with energy a new very inspiring initiative called Scarichiamoli! ("Let's download them!")....Here is what they say in their latest press release issued a few hours ago:..."Public access to know-how and free use of intellectual work represent a common denominator for different movements (Open Access, Open Content, Open Source, Web Accessibility), which are concerned with varied problems, but which in the respect of their own mission and principles can't refuse to acknowledge a fertile common ground: An open development of the Knowledge Society. Based on this assumption, our request, to the Italian State and to relevant government organs, for a Web portal, a meta-search engine, a P2P client and other technological solutions targeted at creating popular and secure channels for the popularization of Italian culture, must reflect the successes that the above movements have achieved and which represent an extraordinary valuable set of resources for society: For example, the requested system will need to use free software, to support the OAI-PMH protocol, to comply with WCAG 1.0 specifications, to make available all public domain works." '