The Creative Commons Italian Chapter launches a common appeal to EU Member States and cultural institutions for the free re-use of the images of cultural heritage in the public domain
Veduta di Roma dalle arcate del Colosseo, 1815
Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK), inv. KMS3123
Public Domain
Images of cultural heritage in the public domain belong to everybody. Culture can be a driver for economic development.
On March 15th 2021, Creative Commons Italian Chapter launched an appeal to the governments of European Member States and cultural institutions (museums, archives, libraries, galleries and archaeological sites) to ensure the best implementation of Article 14 of Directive EU/2019/790 on copyright in the digital single market. The provision represents an important opportunity to act in this direction by removing related rights on images reproducing works of the visual arts in the public domain if “the act resulting from the reproduction is not itself an original work”.
The aim of the appeal is to facilitate the free re-use, for any purpose, of images of public cultural heritage that is no longer protected by Copyright law, giving concrete expression to two fundamental principles: “cultural heritage in the public domain belongs to everyone” and “culture can be a driver of economic development”.
The appeal was signed by most of the Creative Commons European Chapters and by important associations representing the cultural sector at national and international level, as well as associations representing civil society rights (AIB, AISA, ANA, ANAI, ArcheoFoss, CIA, Federculture, ICOM Italia, Wikimedia Italia, Communia, Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU-Wikimedia, ICA, etc.).
The Coronavirus emergency has greatly contributed to the rediscovery of the centrality of the web and digital technology in communicating cultural heritage to the public, stimulating initiatives all over the world aimed at offering free reuse, also for commercial purposes, of digital resources on the web to overcome the physical distances imposed by the measures to contain the pandemic: these experiences are essential, even and especially at the end of the emergency, to relaunch cultural entrepreneurship, creative industry, tourism, as well as study and scientific research activities.
The appeal is addressed to the Member States to implement the principle stated in the Article 14 in the broadest and most harmonised manner possible, encouraging the widespread adoption by cultural institutions of legal instruments to identify work in the public domain and, when appropriate, of open licences for the free re-use of heritage images for any purpose.
The deadline for European Member States to transpose the European Copyright Directive 2019/790/EU is June, 7th 2021.
It is desiderable an implementation of Article 14 as broad as possible, inspired by Communia guidelines (https://www.notion.so/DSM-Directive-Implementation-Guidelines-45233be9c0e143338860ae5a03118bf3), in order to allow public cultural institutions to fully pursue their institutional aims of promoting, preserving and disseminating cultural heritage.
The appeal has been signed so far by:
Creative Commons Italian Chapter
Creative Commons Austrian Chapter
Creative Commons Bulgarian Chapter
Creative Commons German Chapter
Creative Commons Danish Chapter
Creative Commons Finland Chapter
Creative Commons French Chapter
Creative Commons Polish Chapter
Creative Commons Slovenian Chapter
Creative Commons UK Chapter
APRIL — Promouvoir et défendre le logiciel libre
Communia
Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU (Wikimedia)
ICA — International Council on Archives
AIB — Associazione Italiana Biblioteche (Italian Library Association)
AISA — Associazione Italiana per la promozione della Scienza Aperta (Italian Association for the Promotion of Open Science)
ANA — Associazione Nazionale Archeologi (National Association of Archeologists)
ANAI — Associazione Nazionale Archivistica Italiana (National Association of Italian Archivists)
ArcheoFOSS
CIA- Confederazione Italiana Archeologi (Italian Archeologists Confederation)
Federculture — Federazione delle Aziende e degli Enti di gestione di cultura, turismo, sport e tempo libero (Federation of Companies and Management Bodies of culture, tourism, sport and leisure)
Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights
ICOM Italia — International Council of Museums Italia
Rete Open Education Italia
Wikimedia Italia
#noisiamorete
Donatella Calabi
Professor at the IUAV University of Venice
Mauro Matiddi
Full text is available here:
https://creativecommons.it/chapterIT/index.php/1249/
For any further information:
