This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. By clicking or navigating the site you agree to allow our collection of information through cookies. Check our Privacy policy.

Copyright and digital cultural heritage

Copyright raises relevant questions for those who work with or otherwise use digital cultural heritage: how do you legally share collections online and support their reuse? How can you deal with legal risk? How are legal and policy changes shaping this area? 

The Europeana Initiative offers free, up-to-date and expert guidance, resources, standards, webinars and an active community for all professionals who work with copyright in the cultural heritage sector. Explore these below.  

Training

Learn and test your knowledge on copyright and the use of rights statements.

Tools and knowledge

Access resources and documentation on topics which support cultural heritage professionals to build understanding of copyright in relation to digital cultural heritage.

FAQs on Out of Commerce works
Title:
Helsingin rautatieasema, perspektiivipiirustus keskushallista
Creator:
Saarinen, Eliel
Date:
1913
Institution:
Museum of Finnish Architecture
Country:
Finland

FAQs on Out of Commerce works

Discover information about out of commerce works. 

Recommendations on copyright and its role in the digital transformation of the cultural heritage sector
Title:
Exterieur van de bibliotheek van de Humboldtuniversiteit te Berlijn
Date:
c.1890 - c.1910
Institution:
Rijksmuseum
Country:
Netherlands

Recommendations on copyright and its role in the digital transformation of the cultural heritage sector

During the German Presidency of the Council of the European Union, Europeana held a conference to explore the copyright challenges the cultural heritage sector faces as it embraces its digital transformation. Read the report.

Standards for rights information

We support the use of Creative Commons Licences and Tools, and through the Rights Statements Consortium, we offer additional tools to standardise the way you communicate rights information about online collections.

Open access

We advocate for open access through our policies and frameworks, and encourage you to open your collections up for reuse. Learn about the benefits of removing barriers to reuse and explore the experiences of other institutions.

Copyright Directive

Gain an understanding of recent and upcoming legal and policy changes in the European Union and your country.

Network and communities

Join our vibrant Copyright Communityto engage, collaborate and transfer knowledge with peers and experts working on copyright and digital cultural heritage.

Events

Register for upcoming events which support cultural heritage professionals to gain new skills and knowledge.

Webinars

Learn from various useful and successful approaches to clearing rights and to managing copyright in a cultural heritage institution.

News

Keep up to date with policy and practice around copyright and digital cultural heritage.

AI ‘opt-outs’: should cultural heritage institutions (dis)allow the mining of cultural heritage data?
Title:
Diamond washing, machine de Beers
Date:
c.1890 - c.1896
Institution:
Rijksmuseum
Country:
The Netherlands

AI ‘opt-outs’: should cultural heritage institutions (dis)allow the mining of cultural heritage data?

Created: 22 August 2024

In 2019, the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive allowed the analysis of large amounts of copyright-protected data through ‘text and data mining’ techniques, while giving rightsholders the possibility to refuse permission for their copyright-protected data to be mined. This ‘refusal’ is now being applied in practice by cultural heritage institutions. What legal and ethical questions does this raise?

Copyright office hours: a review of the Europeana Public Domain Charter
Title:
Zwei Personen in volkstümlicher Kleidung mit einem Pferd im Grünen
Creator:
Joža Uprka
Date:
1917
Institution:
Albertina
Country:
Austria

Copyright office hours: a review of the Europeana Public Domain Charter

Created: 1 August 2024

The Europeana Public Domain Charter was developed in 2010 to ensure that cultural heritage could be reused as widely as possible. The Europeana Article 14 Task Force is reviewing the Charter to ensure that it continues to respond to relevant challenges. Discover the review process, and the feedback received during an online copyright office hours session dedicated to the topic.

top