Call to widen global access to public domain heritage

Creative Commons has launched a collective call for equitable access to heritage in the public domain through an Open Heritage Statement that identifies barriers to access and outlines shared values, principles and actions to overcome them.

Drafted by the Towards a Recommendation on Open Cultural Heritage (Taroch) Coalition, the statement is available for governments, institutions and organisations that support equitable access to public domain heritage to sign, including museums, archives and universities.

It sets out the importance of making public domain heritage accessible and recognises the role that digital technologies – such as digitisation – play in promoting access.  

But it also warns that “various legal, contractual and technical mechanisms are presently used to limit access and reuse of heritage materials that are rightfully in the public domain”.

For example, some heritage institutions wrongly claim copyright over faithful digital reproductions of public domain heritage or impose contracts or usage agreements on them, such as “non-commercial only” or “permission required.”

Such obstacles “conflict with the right to participate in the cultural life of the community, impede access to heritage, freedom of expression, and cross-border collaboration, and reduce the potential of public domain heritage for community building, new creativity and learning”, the statement says.

Overall, the statement identifies 17 barriers to equitable access, including inconsistency in copyright laws internationally. It pairs each barrier with a commitment to action.

“[The statement] is grounded in a shared vision and intended to lay the groundwork for a global dialogue toward an international framework for open heritage,” said Brigitte Vézina, the director of policy and open culture, and Dee Harris, the director of open culture storytelling, at Creative Commons.

“It aims to support Unesco’s ongoing work on cultural rights, digital transformation, and knowledge sharing for sustainable development, reinforcing Unesco’s founding commitment to the free flow of ideas.”

To support the statement, Creative Commons has produced StoryFrames that use case studies to show how to remove barriers to open heritage.

For example, in Poland, the digital library Polona has enabled the digitisation of manuscripts, maps and photographs, affirming that faithful reproductions of public domain heritage remain in the public domain and free for any use.

“When institutions impose new copyrights on faithful reproductions, they undermine global commitments to keep digital heritage in the public domain, free of unreasonable restrictions,” the StoryFrame says.

“Enabling equitable access is not merely technical; it is fundamental to preserving and promoting heritage.”

Creative Commons is an international non-profit organisation that supports and promotes the sharing of education, culture, and science in the public interest.