The Rodin Museum has spent years hiding scans of Auguste Rodin’s sculptures, and now a French court has told it to stop. The museum and the Ministry of Culture ignored a 2023 order to hand over 3D scans of Rodin’s work, and the museum responded with lies about which scans existed and what they contained. The result is a judgment that exposes the extent of the deception — and the lengths to which a national institution will go to keep public property secret.
The case centers on requests for 3D scans of Rodin’s sculptures, some of the world’s most famous and widely copied public domain works. In 2017, the author began asking the Rodin Museum to identify and share its scans. That request went nowhere until Paris-based civil rights advocate Alexis Fitzjean Ó Cobhthaigh took it up formally in 2019.
Seeking the Scans
Fitzjean Ó Cobhthaigh sent the museum a formal request, and its senior directors sought legal advice from the French government’s Commission on Access to Administrative Documents (CADA). The CADA issued an opinion finding that the museum’s scans were administrative documents and must be made public. The museum’s director did not dispute that analysis.
That opinion was the first signal that the museum’s position was weak. The scans were already public domain, and the CADA said they were official records that belonged to the public anyway.
The Court Orders Release
In 2019, the author joined forces with open culture and digital rights groups Communia, Wikimédia France, and La Quadrature du Net. They filed suit in the Administrative Tribunal of Paris, with Fitzjean Ó Cobhthaigh representing all parties.
The case moved through the courts, and in December 2023 the Paris court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. The court held that 3D scans in various formats were administrative documents and must be made available to the public. It ordered the museum and the ministry to provide the scans to the author and to pay him €1,500 in compensation.
The museum and the ministry chose not to appeal the decision. Instead, they simply refused to comply.
The Lies Begin
The museum’s response to the order was not cooperation. It was fabrication. The museum claimed it could not figure out how to use its own scan documents. It dissembled about which sculptures had been scanned. It falsely asserted that its written applications for public funding to produce those scans were nonexistent.
The museum also tried to argue that its laser-scanned 3D point cloud documents were technologically mysterious, of poor quality, and incomplete — and that they were unusable even by the museum itself. These claims were not consistent. The museum’s legal briefs included contradictory statements:
- Scans were unusable and could be used by counterfeiters.
- The museum confirmed then denied that Les Trois Ombres had been scanned.
None of it worked.
The Appeal to the Highest Court
The case was appealed to the Conseil d’État, France’s highest court for administrative justice. Representation in that court is mandatory, with specialist avocats au Conseil d’État et à la Cour de cassation handling the work.
Represented by Fitzjean Ó Cobhthaigh’s colleagues at the law firm SCP Marlange – de La Burgade, the appeal detailed the lower court’s serious procedural and legal errors and its obvious misunderstanding of point cloud documents.
The Conseil d’État rejected the museum’s arguments. It ruled that the museum’s claims about trade secrecy, counterfeiting, its business model and revenue, and intellectual property were all without merit. The judges improvised a novel exception to French FOI law, however, allowing 3D scan point cloud documents in open, plaintext formats to be withheld from the public.
That exception is notable because it was invented by the court itself. The museum’s arguments were disjointed and absurd. The judges created it on their own, then promoted it.
The Judgment Against the Museum
The Paris court’s final judgment came after the museum had repeatedly failed to comply with the 2023 order. The court rejected all of the museum’s arguments relating to trade secrecy, counterfeiting, its business model and revenue, and intellectual property.
The judgment is a rebuke to an institution that should know better. Rodin’s work is public domain. The scans are records of public property.
“Sometimes a document is not a document.”
That is the kind of reasoning the museum faced in court. The Rodin Museum and the Ministry of Culture ignored the court’s order rather than appealing it. That is a remarkable position for a national institution to take.
The New Exemption Problem
The Conseil d’État’s ruling creates a problem of its own making. By inventing an exception to FOI law, the court has established a precedent that may be used elsewhere. The judges improvised a rule that allows point cloud documents to be withheld in plaintext format.
The irony is that the museum’s behavior was so bad that the court felt compelled to create a new rule to deal with it. The result is a judgment that punishes the museum while also weakening the very law it was meant to enforce.
What Comes Next
The judgment is binding. The €1,500 compensation is part of the order, and the court’s rejection of the museum’s claims means those claims are settled.
The case has broader implications for cultural heritage preservation. If institutions can hide public-domain records by claiming they are technologically mysterious or incomplete, then the public loses access to its own history. The Rodin Museum’s behavior shows how easily that can happen — and how quickly a court can correct it.
The museum’s lies were extensive. It claimed it could not use its own documents, which is absurd for an institution that employs conservators and curators. It claimed funding applications were nonexistent, which is a lie about its own record-keeping. It claimed the scans were unusable, then contradicted itself about which sculptures had been scanned.
None of those claims survived scrutiny. The court rejected them all.
The Paper’s View
Clay Tribune supports open culture and individual freedom. This case is a victory for both. The Rodin Museum tried to treat public property as its own, and the court reminded it otherwise.
The museum’s behavior was dishonest from start to finish. It hid scans, lied about funding, and contradicted itself in court filings. It ignored a court order rather than appeal it. That is not how a national institution operates.
The judgment sends a message to other museums and cultural institutions: public records are public, and hiding them is not an option. The Rodin Museum learned that the hard way.
The case is a reminder of how fragile transparency can be. Even when the law is on your side, institutions can resist. The Rodin Museum resisted for years — until a court stepped in and forced it to obey.
The judgment is a victory for the plaintiffs, for open culture, and for anyone who believes that public records should be available to the public. The Rodin Museum fought that principle — and lost.
Source material: “Treachery in the Rodin Museum 3D scan verdict,” cosmowenman.substack.com.
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