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2 minutes to read Posted on Friday November 11, 2016

Updated on Monday November 6, 2023

portrait of Julia Fallon

Julia Fallon

Community and Partner Engagement Manager , Europeana Foundation

They’re here! New rights statements available now

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We have exciting news! The new and updated rights statements are now live and available to use. Our collection of available rights statements now totals fourteen, each with their own features. This includes the existing suite of 8 Creative Commons Licences and tools, including the Public Domain Mark.

We have changed the names of 4 rights statements:

  • In Copyright (was 'Rights Reserved - Free Access')
  • In Copyright - EU Orphan Work (was 'Orphan Work')
  • No Copyright - Non Commercial Use Only (was 'Out of Copyright - non commercial reuse')
  • Copyright Not Evaluated (was 'Unknown')​

We have introduced 2 new rights statements:

  • No Copyright - Other Known Legal Restrictions
  • In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

In addition, 'Rights Reserved - Paid Access' is no longer supported. All objects using these statements are, with the data providers’ agreement, now labelled with ‘In Copyright’.

Over the past few months we have been working with data providers to ensure that the transition to the new rights statements is smooth. You can see the changes reflected on each published record, and the search facet has also been updated to reflect the newly updated rights statements. And you can still search collections or our API using the ‘Can I use it’ filter.


Are more works now openly available?
No. The changes have not had an immediate impact on the balance of the portfolio between open vs closed data. It does however mean that we have more accurate statements for providers to use, ensuring that users receive relevant and accurate information about the rights status and understand any restrictions placed upon the use of an object.

More work to be done
If you take a look at the portal today, you will notice that there are currently no records that use the new rights statements. We are working with data providers who we know are keen to share their data using our new more accurate and descriptive rights statements. In the coming months we will share with you more examples of how these new statements have been used.

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