Rights Clearance Case Study Report

Authored by Roxanne Peters and Lisette Kalshoven, 2016

In an attempt to better understand and highlight to the European Commission the challenges and costs involved for cultural heritage institutions in obtaining permission from rights-holders for digitisation projects, Europeana has undertaken interviews with representatives from the cultural heritage sector, based in different EU member states, holding different types of collections. All participants have first-hand experience in balancing the practical day-to-day management of their collection and the expectations in making them available to the public, together with the restrictions imposed by current copyright rules.

To support the European Commission with their aim to make it easier to publish out-of-commerce works online, as outlined in their communication on copyright reform in 2015, we sent the outcome of the interviews to the Commission in March 2016.

The Rights Clearance Case Study Report was received well and the Commission now better understand some of the challenges cultural heritage organisations face. They will take into account these findings in their impact assessment this summer.