Dedicating July as Public Domain month

Here at Europeana, we talk about the Public Domain a lot. Do you?

You know by now that we care about sharing the metadata and objects that you have carefully digitised. We have great ambition for how this data can be shared with and used by others, how it can be used in schools, in apps and to share memories with your loved ones. We also believe that where possible, the fewest restrictions should be put in place for those sharing and using your great, rich and colourful data.

So what has this got to do with the Public Domain? Why do we talk about it every day in the office here in The Hague? Why should you be talking about it? Well, making cultural heritage available to everyone is our business. One of our fundamental principles is that works that are in the public domain before they are digitised, should remain in the public domain (i.e. free from copyright) once they are digitised. With 7,607,443 objects available via Europeana declared to be in the public domain, we think this is also really important to cultural heritage institutions and we want to share with you a few tips and tricks on how to apply the Public Domain Mark. What better way to do this than to pack all of this into one month, dedicated to the Public Domain?

All this month, we will be publishing blogposts from the team at Europeana, along with our long serving partners at Kennisland, University of Amsterdam and National Library of Luxembourg to share our knowledge with you in digestible portions. We’ll be telling you about a few upcoming events as well as sharing facts in 140 character via our new Twitter account, @EuropeanaIPR, dedicated to sharing IPR information.

How can you get involved?  Keep an eye out for updates posted via Twitter and follow the #PublicDomainMonth hashtag or @Europeanaeu to stay up to date on the campaign, and of course check our Pro website for lots of great new articles each week. Also don´t forget to follow Europeana on Facebook, Pinterest and Google+ where we regularly curate stunning Public Domain collections that have been made available via Europeana.

Happy Public Domain Month!