Every six months, Europeana hosts a conference under the Presidency of the Council of European Union. Germany holds the Presidency between 1 July and 31 December 2020. On 5 and 6 October 2020, the conference under the German Presidency explored the role of copyright in the digital transformation of the cultural heritage sector.
The conference gathered members of the Expert Group on Digital Cultural Heritage and Europeana (DCHE), an expert group of Member States’ bodies and the European Commission. On the first day, the legislative and policy environment around copyright were discussed. On the second day, case studies to support the digital transformation of the cultural heritage sector were presented.
In the welcome speech, Frank Scholze, Director General of the German National Library, said: “It’s our mission as institutions to actively embrace and shape the opportunities of digitalisation within our platforms and to make cultural heritage visible and accessible to a wider public in order to avoid the digital dark age.”
During the conference, participants expressed high expactations of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. The Directive entered into force on 20 June 2019. The new laws need to be implemented by Member States in their national law by 20 June 2021.
In an explainer article, Paul Keller, Expert Observer on the Europeana Foundation Board, wrote: “The objective of the new rules is to enable cultural heritage institutions to make Out of Commerce Works that they have in their collections available online without having to clear the rights on a work by work basis.”
Watch the recordings of the open sessions here and the interviews with the speakers here.
Source: Europeana.
For more information about the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, click here. For the official website of Germany’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2020, click here.
For more information about the Expert Group on Digital Cultural Heritage and Europeana (DCHE), click here. For a explainer article on the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, click here.
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