Harvard monetized descendant images without consent under an ownership claim

Evidence

The title of the four-page missive was “Harvard Human Subject Complaint: The Gross Mishandlings of the Harvard 7 Dataset.” She then meticulously outlined all the ways in which she believed Harvard’s insistence on “ownership” of the images was wrong, stating: “Their images and information, commissioned by Harvard’s Louis Agassiz, have been repeatedly published in newspapers, were released online by Harvard for public access, and remain on display at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Additionally, the personal information of these subjects and their images continue to be sold and circulated in a variety of publications and forthcoming books authored by Peabody affiliates, for profit.” — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 1018

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sets out the operative factual claim in Meredith’s human-subject complaint: Harvard’s ownership authorizes publication, display, and sale of the images.
• SEED: An essay angle: the evolution of the ‘Harvard 7’ framing from research dataset to human subjects requiring Belmont-Report protections — how naming a dataset makes its harms legible.