Online rights income for manuscript images

Dear Sir or Madam,

I note that the BL charges a fee to websites that use digital
images of pages from manuscripts from the BL collection.

Please would you let me know, for each of the past 5 years (either
calendar or financial, whichever is more convenient):

How many requests were made for use of BL collection images of
these items on third party websites.

How much income was received by the BL in consideration of the use
of BL collection images of these items on third party websites.

Yours faithfully,

Roger Pearse

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of The British Library's
handling of my FOI request 'Online rights income for manuscript
images'.

My question related specifically to **manuscripts**, and income
from reproduction of **these** items. The answer I received was in
respect of **all items in the collection** which of course includes
printed books, maps, newspapers and many other items. While the
response was interesting, and thought-provoking, it doesn't really
answer my question. It looks from the response as if the question
was misunderstood?

Can the response be reviewed please?

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/on...

Yours faithfully,

Roger Pearse

Dear Mr Barlow,

I have received your acknowledgement. You ask for clarification of
the term "manuscripts".

The British Library has a catalogue of its manuscripts online here:

http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/manuscripts/...

A definition of the scope of the catalogue is here:

http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/manuscripts/...

Items contained in this catalogue would meet my need.

The items I have in mind are handwritten books and the like,
particularly those written in western languages including Latin and
Greek, but also Arabic, Syriac, Hebrew, Persian. This would
probably also include papyrus fragments. However not printed books,
maps, and the like.

I hesitate to *invent* a definition myself, as I imagine that, when
permissions are sold, there is some form of categorization of the
material? If so, whichever category would include the above, but
not combine them with huge quantities of non-manuscript material
would meet my need.

Yours sincerely,

Roger Pearse

Dear Jonathan Fryer,

Many thanks for your kind reply, and the numbers are very
interesting and helpful.

May I ask for a small clarification on what I'm looking at? Because
I'm not quite certain from the wording on whether the reply is to
precisely the question I asked (although it may be).

The question was as follows, highlighting the bit I'm unsure about:

"How many requests were made for use of BL collection images of
these items **on third party websites**?
How much income was received by the BL in consideration of the use
of BL collection images of these items **on third party
websites**?"

The answer:

"The table below indicates the number of requests for rights to
reproduce BL collection images of manuscript items, for which a
charge was made, and the income derived from those transactions for
the five years in question (etc)."

Are these numbers for *all* requests/income for permissions for BL
images of manuscripts? (still a useful piece of information); or
specifically requests/income for use of these images online (which
was requested)?

I imagine, in my ignorance, that the majority of requests and
revenue come from printed publications, rather than online use, you
see.

It is the proportion of the amount the library makes from licensing
images of manuscripts to other websites that I am trying to get at
here (although I would have gone on to request these other details
anyway, in order to get a balanced picture so in fact the BL has
saved itself some effort here).

I hope you can help me with this.

Yours sincerely,

Roger Pearse