Thursday, November 7, 2019

Regardless of our institutions’ physical locations, our online collections are accessible worldwide. As museums embrace open access, the call to make digital surrogates of public domain assets freely available, and the associated requirement to evaluate and declare their rights status, increases. Yet, duration of copyright varies across countries; works that are in the public domain in one may remain under copyright in another. A work may be created in one jurisdiction, published (or the equivalent) in a second jurisdiction, housed and digitized in third, and aggregated and accessed worldwide. Exceptions, legal decisions and practices may also vary, while international copyright treaties aim to provide a baseline across countries. In a potentially groundbreaking development, Article 14 of the new European Union Copyright Directive codifies the equivalent of the US Bridgeman decision (i.e., no separate copyright in reproductions of public domain works) across EU member countries, which have two years to enact local legislation in compliance. What are the practical implications for online collections and collaborative digital projects with stakeholders from both EU and non-EU collections? And what are the corresponding ethical and moral rights implications related to digital cultural heritage? Does online access make every copyright question an international copyright question?

Session Type60-Minute Session (Professional Forum or Hands-on Demonstration)

TrackContent
Chatham House RuleNo

Key Outcomes

After attending this session, participants will have a greater awareness of recent developments in international copyright law and intellectual property in cultural heritage, will have a better understanding of what challenges this may present for their projects, and understand the considerations of an international collaborative digital project (PHAROS, an international consortium of photo archives) surrounding these issues.

Speakers

Session Leader : Melissa Fournier, Head of Imaging and Intellectual Property, Yale Center for British Art

Co-Presenter : Mikka Gee Conway, Associate General Counsel, The J. Paul Getty Trust

Co-Presenter : Emily Lanza, Counsel, U.S. Copyright Office

Co-Presenter : Andrea Wallace, Lecturer, University of Exeter