Discussion
AfricaMuseum refuses to release Congo geological archive to US mining company, despite pressure from President Trump
The AfricaMuseum in Tervuren (Flemish Brabant) is refusing to hand over geological archive material on Congo to an American mining company that wants to use the data to map valuable raw materials. ‘We want to digitalise the archives ourselves and not leave it to a private company,’ the museum says. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is increasing pressure through diplomatic channels.
mikkupikku: Yield to a US mining corp. Title buried the lead.> The AfricaMuseum in Tervuren (Flemish Brabant) is refusing to hand over geological archive material on Congo to an American mining company that wants to use the data to map valuable raw materials. ‘We want to digitalise the archives ourselves and not leave it to a private company,’ the museum says. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is increasing pressure through diplomatic channels.Yeah I'm with Africa Museum on this one. This said, there is a broad problem of getting old records digitized in African libraries. Very often these library and archive building are very old, don't have working climate control, and the records are often irreplaceable cultural artifacts that are rotting on the shelves for lack of funding to rescue them.
doctorpangloss: i'm with the museum too, but: the default HN critic is unsympathetic to people seeking to exploit some data. except when the default HN critic stands to make a lot of money exploiting some other data. what is the line? like i could easily flip this on the museum: what right does this museum have, it is a public institution, criminals are welcome to visit it and learn whatever the hell they want, for any exploitative reason, why draw the line at miners? why do they have an exclusive right to systematic data use? why is it even theirs, exclusively, to begin with? there is no simple, objective framework for this stuff. that said, i think we would all be better off if non-entertainment information were free and easily scrapable.
