A few days ago, the European Commission (EC) released arecommendation for a common data space for cultural heritage, which aims to “accelerate the digitization of all cultural heritage monuments and sites, objects and artefacts for future generations, to protect and preserve those at risk, and boost their reuse in domains such as education, sustainable tourism and cultural creative sectors.”Europeana, the European digital cultural platform, will serve as the basis for building this common data space. It will allow museums, galleries, libraries, and archives across Europe to share and reuse the digitized cultural heritage images, such as 3D models of historical sites and high quality scans of paintings, on the Europeana platform.
The recommendation encourages Member States to digitize by 2030 all monuments and sites that are at risk of degradation, and half of those highly frequented by tourists. Thierry Breton, Commissioner for Internal Market, said: “We owe the preservation of our European cultural heritage to future generations. This requires building and deploying our own technological capabilities, empowering people and businesses to enjoy and make the most of this heritage. We must take advantage of the opportunities brought by artificial intelligence, data, and extended reality.” This last point wasreinforced by the EC on Twitter: “3D, artificial intelligence or virtual reality can accelerate the digital transformation of the cultural sector.”
Creative Commons (CC) is eager to explore the recommendation and its potential to catalyze “open GLAM,” the set of ideals, principles and values promoting preservation, open access, sharing and reuse of cultural heritage around the world, in line with our organization’s value of global inclusivity and commitment to better sharing. As part of ourOpen GLAM Program, we strive to help create a regulatory environment that supports creativity, collaboration, and the sharing of creative works and cultural heritage, upholds user rights and enables a rich, robust and thriving public domain. The recommendation appears to be a step in the right direction.
The recommendation succeeds the 2011Recommendation on the digitization and online accessibility of cultural material and digital preservation, which underwent review last year. Creative Commons had submittedcommentsto the consultation on the opportunities offered by digital technologies to the cultural heritage sector. We are thrilled to see many of our comments have found an echo in the new recommendation. Here’s a summary of what we pushed for:
- Digitization is essential to ensureaccess, sharing, use and reuse of cultural heritage
- Digitization is a fundamental component of cultural heritagepreservation
- Creative Commons licenses and toolsare standard and easy ways to communicate with users, a cultural heritage’s copyright status and use permissions
- The copyright system, notably throughexceptions and limitations, mustenable cultural heritage institutions to fulfill their missions
- Access and use of cultural heritage is also governed byethical considerationsthat must be taken into account
- The implementation of theCDSM Directivemust support cultural institutions
- There is a crucial need fortraining and capacity buildingon copyright and licensing issues in the cultural heritage sector
- Artificial intelligencecan potentially offer many benefits for the cultural heritage sector
Our Open GLAM Program comes within the scope of ourstrategyfor 2021-2025, whose central theme isbetter sharing，即有背景的、有道德的、包容的、可持续的、有目的的和亲社会的分享。我们期待关注这一建议的制定和实施，并将努力将我们获取、使用和共享文化遗产的工具交到所有人手中，为世界各地的每个人建设更美好的未来。
Cultural heritage must be preserved, accessed, shared, reused and celebrated throughout the world. At Creative Commons, we’re proud to support the cultural heritage sector through our Open GLAM Program. Interested in learning more? Join theCreative Commons Open GLAM Platform, subscribe to ourmailing listor get in touchinfo@www.familygiver.com!
