[CR] | Global Talk | What does the global copyright landscape look like from a GLAM perspective?
Brigitte Vezina
Creative Commons
Netherlands
What does the global copyright landscape look like from a GLAM perspective?
What does the global copyright landscape look like from a global perspective? Access to culture and knowledge is essential to sustain a vibrant and thriving society. Galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAMs) have been the gate openers to the world’s culture and knowledge for centuries, and play a fundamental role for the communities that they serve. They provide resources and services for enjoyment, education, research and the advancement of knowledge and stimulate creativity and innovation in the service of global, sustainable development. Around the world, GLAMs are increasingly making use of new digital technologies to enhance global access and connections between audiences and collections in inclusive and equitable ways.
However, they are regularly confronted with copyright challenges that prevent them from conducting their legitimate activities. Core GLAM functions like making copies of works for preservation or making them available online to enable the sharing of our shared heritage for purposes of education, research, or enjoyment, are hampered by a jumble of copyright issues. These challenges severely undermine GLAMs’ public-interest activities, with the potential knock-on effects of slowing society’s economic, social and cultural development; exacerbating inequalities by curtailing efforts to provide universal access to knowledge and culture; and carving “the 20th-century black hole” into the world’s digital cultural heritage. In this presentation, we chart the copyright issues affecting GLAMs and consider:
- The minimum exceptions and limitations that need to be in place;
- Protecting the public domain and the need to ensure digital reproductions of public domain works do not attract new rights;
- The need to reduce the term of protection and the dangers of extending copyright’s duration;
- Emerging issues like artificial intelligence.