Today, COMMUNIA is releasing Policy Paper #20 on the right to use Public Domain heritage (also available as a PDF file), in which we address the restrictions imposed by a number of Member States on the use of reproductions of Public Domain works.
The cultural heritage laws of Bulgaria, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Slovenia require permission and the payment of a fee for specific uses of reproductions of heritage in national collections – even if the work in question is in the Public Domain.
The introduction of an additional layer of exclusivity over materials that are out of copyright or have never been protected by copyright hollows out the Public Domain and conflicts with the right to access and enjoy culture, freedom of expression, and artistic freedom. It is also incompatible with copyright legislation and, in particular, contradicts Article 14 of the DSM Directive, which stipulates that non-original reproductions of Public Domain works are not subject to copyright or related rights.
In this policy paper, we take a closer look at the cultural heritage laws of these Member States and propose an EU-level solution to resolve this conflict. Copyright is the legal framework that regulates the dissemination of reproductions of works of cultural heritage in the EU. We propose to introduce legislation to prevent Member States from restricting their reuse through other normative frameworks.
This proposal is aligned with our proposals for access to public sector documents and speeches (Policy Paper #16) and publicly funded research (Policy Paper #17) and should thus be implemented as part of a broader legislative intervention, a Digital Knowledge Act.
