Rights Statements provided by RightsStatements.org are a set of 12 simple, standardised and internationally interoperable terms which can be used by cultural heritage institutions to inform their users of the copyright status of works and other reuse conditions in their digital collections. They are a valuable tool for institutions who wish to share their digital objects online and clearly communicate how they can be reused to their audiences. 

Unlike Creative Commons Licenses, statements provided by the Consortium are not a contract or a license. They do not grant permission, but instead provide information. For instance, they communicate to the user that the work is protected by copyright, or that it is no longer protected but that other legal restrictions apply. They were designed so that standardised rights information could be provied even when the institution did not hold the rights, and to complement the use of Creative Commons licenses where these are not suitable.

Europeana includes six Rights Statements from the Rights Statements Consortium among the statements that our data providers may use to provide rights information about digital objects when sharing content with us. A further eight are drawn from Creative Commons licenses, Public Domain tools. 

RightsStatements.org was initially founded as a joint initiative between Europeana and the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) to facilitate engagement with cultural heritage online through rights statements. It is now run by a consortium consisting of the two founding institutions together with the National Digital Library of India, Library and Archives Canada and Trove at the National Digital Library of Australia.