Now that Showtime is making an offer to Smithsonian museums to film documentaries about selected works, the museum's publicly financed curators and scientists are worried about competitiveness.
Scared such a contract could prohibit them from selling their knowledge and products elsewhere and restrict access to other interested parties, the controvery has attracted the likes of Micheal Moore and other so-called documentaries like R.J. Cutler who created "The War Room" and Alex Gibney of "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room"
Using the much overused "chilling" argument, liberals employ endlessly in academic freedom debates, Moore and others wrote to Smithsonian officials that "Closing off one of the most important collections of source materials and limiting access to staff will have a chilling effect on creativity, will create disincentives for digitization of the collections for access by all Americans, and violates the mission and purpose of the Smithsonian Institution."
So, on one hand we have the curators, fed from the taxpayer trough who want to be able to sell their product to the highest bidder and their ilk who want free access to the citizen-financed products so they can make millions in movie theaters.
And, yet Showtime is malicious for wanting to rightfully pay for material so they can make a product for consumers who would willingly pay Showtime to get it.
I hope Showtime puts them all in a deep freeze.
