Toolkit aims to help museums share out-of-copyright works

A new toolkit has been launched to help cultural heritage organisations enable and encourage the reuse of out-of-copyright works in their collections.

The guide was developed by the Glam-E Lab, a joint initiative between the Centre for Science, Culture and the Law at the University of Exeter and the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy at NYU Law.

The lab works with gallery, library, archive and museum (Glam) organisations to help them remove legal barriers and develop open-access programmes for their public-domain collections.

The toolkit aims to give a clearer picture of what open access means in practice, with advice on assessing and mitigating risk, copyright clearance, using Wikimedia Commons, and selecting alternative licenses or labels. It offers practical explanations on key words, and relevant concepts, as well as considering some of the technical, legal and ethical implications.

The toolkit comes amid a growing trend towards “open Glam” in the UK and internationally, with Birmingham Museums Trust and Exeter's Royal Albert Memorial Museum recently launching copyright-free programmes.

Advocates of open Glam have criticised the existing “culture of copyright” among museums, and argue that offering unrestricted access to public-domain works can help break down barriers and support creativity, learning and free expression.

“Galleries, libraries, archives, and museums have a fundamental role in supporting the advancement of knowledge, creativity, and culture,” says the toolkit.

“As custodians of our cultural heritage, they hold important records and creations of humankind. Providing open access to heritage materials is one way that cultural institutions can fulfill their public and educational missions.

“By openly sharing their collections and metadata, cultural institutions make it easy for society to access, engage with, and learn from our shared cultural heritage.”

The launch of the toolkit follows a landmark ruling in England and Wales last year, which found that 2D copies of intellectual property do not qualify for copyright protection. The ruling has significant implications for the Glam sectors as it implies that many organisations are wrongly restricting the public from reusing digitised out-of-copyright works.

The new guide states: “At its core, open access allows your institution to comply with copyright laws that say no new rights arise in faithful reproductions of public domain works – in other words, recognising that an institution that digitises an object does not get a new copyright in that newly created file. This central principle should inform a localised open access strategy that is based on your organisation’s needs.”

The Glam-E Lab has also launched a new survey that tracks data and insights on open access policies and practice across the globe.

The lab recently won Wikimedia UK’s Partnership of the Year Award for 2024.