Art Project uses Internet to introduce art to the world(2)

"Compared to domestic tech companies like Baidu, which is also making a similar effort, Google has an edge when it comes to its practical tools," Qin told the Global Times.

Inevitable concerns

While it seems that Google is offering a win-win solution when it comes to the digitalization of art works, convincing local museums to join the project is still a challenge, especially when it comes to public museums in the Chinese mainland.

As early as March 2013, when the first public museum from the mainland, the Hunan Provincial Museum, decided to join hands with Google, questions about copyrights, safety of art work data and other matters abound: What happens if high-definition pictures are misused? How do we know this data isn't being used to produce counterfeits?

Now that contracts ensuring the correct usage of these works often reach more than 170 pages in length, Google seems to be making progress with local museums. "We learned that the pictures on Google's website can't be copied. If anyone tries to copy the picture by copying the entire screen, the picture will become very blurry," said Gao.

As part of its commitment to museum partners, Google has no plans, either now or in the future, to make commercial use of the Art Project. "It's a non-commercial project, we provide all these tools for free," said Amit Sood, chief director of the Google Culture Institute and founder of the project. "We welcome commercial cooperation, but with other Google teams, not the Art Project," Sood told the Global Times.

Untapped market

Figures from Google show that visitors in China are the 4th largest group to log in to the Art Project. Meanwhile, Sood mentioned that there is a high level of traffic for Chinese art work as well. These two points underline the huge potential of the Chinese market, both in terms of potential visitors and the demand to learn more about Chinese culture.

"Relics in our museum like the Golden Sun Bird (a ring-shaped piece of foil, made of nearly pure gold from the Shang Dynasty, C.1600 - 1046BC) are permanently forbidden to go overseas according to our laws regulating cultural relics," said Qin. "If there was no international online platform like this one, foreign visitors would barely have any chance to see this relic."

This may be one of the most important reasons why domestic museums have chosen to cooperate with Google, despite the occasional blocks against its sites. However, while Google undoubtedly possesses an advantage when it comes to bringing art works to international audiences, it faces increasing competition from local tech leaders such as Baidu.

Originally only providing written information about domestic art works, Baidu has started using high-definition imagery technology to entice domestic museums to cooperate with it. Some of the museums that joined Google's Art Project, have also chosen to work with Baidu as well.

"Digital art works will account for half this sector in the future," Gao predicted. However, while this market has very high potential, the industry is still struggling to produce 3D versions of these art works. No matter if it's museums or tech giants, this is a major bottleneck that everyone is looking to solve.