FAQs on digital cultural heritage and the concept of openness

What does ‘open’ mean in a general sense?

The term ‘open’ is used to refer to information and tools which are accessible and reusable to a large extent. In a general sense, when these materials are marked as ‘open’ anyone is free to access, use, modify and share them for any purpose, subject, at most, to measures that preserve provenance and openness. 

The term ‘open’ is used slightly differently depending on the context or sector. Active open movements can include: 

• Open access ensures publications and other content are available to everyone for new learning and insights

• Open data shares information about ourselves, our world, and our environment 

• Open Educational Resources (OER) creates the textbooks, websites, videos, and other resources for teaching and learning

• Open knowledge eases access to research, information, and understanding

• Open GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) expands access to heritage collections by making them freely available for all reuse purposes

• Open science shares the research that informs, and the conclusions that drive key scientific insights 

• Open source collaboratively develops the software and hardware that support our modern world

Lastly, open content can refer to any of the above materials which are openly licensed in a manner that enables users to reuse and share them freely. 

The various ‘angles’ of ‘open’ are sometimes supported by certain areas of law, or built upon certain legal provisions. For example, open movements build on copyright legislation or public sector information obligations and are supported through licensing or contractual terms.

The following questions focus on the areas of openness that are most relevant to the cultural heritage sector, namely open GLAM or open content and open data. As a general rule, for content to qualify as being ‘open’, it must be freely accessible as well as available for any reuse purpose, including commercial use and modification. 

What does ‘open access’ mean?

The term ‘open access’ has a specific context compared to other movements. Originally, the idea of Open Access (OA) as conceived by the 2002 Budapest Declaration and the Berlin and 2003 Bethesda Declarations, which referred to: 

[T]he free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.

Thus, originally ‘open access’, in its definition, involved free reuse. 

The scope of the term ‘open access’ in the context of EU Open Data and Open Science policies has no formal definition but appears to extend to reuse. The Commission Recommendation (EU) 2018/790 on access to and preservation of scientific information refers to ‘open access’ as ’the possibility to access and re-use digital research outputs with as few restrictions as possible’, while the Open Data Directive (EU) 2019/1024 stipulates that ‘[o]pen access is understood as the practice of providing online access to research outputs free of charge for the end user and without restrictions on use and re-use beyond the possibility to require acknowledgement of authorship.’ 

Other EU acts regard ‘open access’ as a tool to only secure free availability of research results, in the sense that research outputs cannot be subjected to paywalled platforms, with no requirement as to the reuse conditions of the outputs. According to the Regulation (EU) 2021/695 establishing Horizon Europe – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, as well as the Horizon Europe General Model Grant Agreement -  ‘open access’ refers to ‘online access, free of charge to the end user, to research outputs’ whereas the regime of subsequent use of research results, such as scientific publications or data, is called ‘reuse’. In the field of academic publishing the colour coded types of Open Access such as ‘Green’, ‘Gold’, ‘Platinum’, ‘Hybrid OA’ etc. refer only to the way the content was made available to the public (and to who is paying for the publications to be made accessible without a paywall). 

What do open GLAM and open content mean?

Open GLAM refers to the movement in the cultural heritage sector that seeks to develop and adopt principles to make creative works, heritage, data and knowledge, available online for reuse using open licences or public domain tools. From a legal perspective this implies no licences or other legal frameworks (such as copyright, data protection, cultural heritage, archaeological or archival laws) impose restrictions on modifications and commercial reuse. This means that, to be open, content can still be protected by copyright but it must be made available by the cultural heritage organisation under terms that permit access, commercial use and modification. 

For example, the cultural heritage organisation owns the copyright, or has permission from the rightsholder to the content and decides to make it available under a CC BY 4.0 (Attribution) licence.

The Open GLAM movement also advocates for public domain collections to remain in the public domain once digitised, such as a digital surrogate of a public domain work.

What considerations beyond copyright should cultural heritage institutions take into consideration when opening up?

There are other legal and ethical considerations for cultural heritage organisations to make content openly available, such as data protection, privacy and sensitivities of the works. These considerations mean that some works may not be made openly available. 

Transparency about how and why works are made available is a key aspect of Open GLAM. This means that works are made available with associated metadata, clear labelling on reuse conditions, and that the cultural heritage organisation shares policies and guidance on reuse. This transparency helps audiences, communities and users gain an understanding of the cultural heritage organisation’s mission and responsibilities as stewards of cultural heritage works.

For more information, check our page on Open and Reusable Cultural Heritage and read our Public Domain Charter.

What does open data mean?

Oen data is data that is accessible, usable, modifiable and exploitable, and can be shared by anyone for any purpose.

The open data movement has been strongly fuelled by the open government movement, advocating for transparency and reusability of public sector information. As a result, some legal provisions establish open data obligations in the area of public sector information. At the EU level, the legal regime of Open Data is regulated in the Public Sector Information/Open Data Directive (EU) 2019/1024 which mostly tackles the free accessibility and reuse of data gathered by public sector organisations (such as state bodies), and in some limited cases - data handled by universities and research organisations, resulting from publicly funded research.

For example, in 2019 the European Commission adopted the use of CC BY 4.0 and CC0 1.0 for sharing information. At the national level, governments have been relying on the same or similar standards to release public sector information. 

What are the FAIR principles, and how do they link to open data?

Open data often involves a strong technological dimension, such as the need to make data machine-readable, or to structure the data so that it can be linked with other data (linked open data). Thus, the requirements associated with opening data to the public cover not only legal, but also technical considerations. A term that is closely linked to open data is FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable), which is widely used in the scientific world for research data. While FAIR principles and sub-principles include openness, they go further by specifically focusing on improving the accessibility and usability of data, without necessarily requiring openness in the broader research methodology. The FAIR principles do not explicitly address legal aspects such as licensing, leaving it to external considerations. FAIR also relates to broader concepts to openness in research, including methods, publications, licensing, community engagement and ethics. 

An important counterpart to the FAIR Principles include the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance. CARE refers to Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility and Ethics involved in ensuring that Indigenous peoples and individuals are able to assert greater control over the application and use of Indigenous data and Indigenous knowledge held by cultural heritage institutions and other organisations. 

To read more about the topic, check the page Europeana and the FAIR principles for research data and the Global Indigenous Data Alliance’s website on how to #BeFAIRandCARE.

Is all content made available online ‘open’?

Digital access allows someone to view a work. Being ‘open’ allows people to lawfully use materials and the knowledge they contain. 

Something being available online does not mean that it is open. Users should assume that materials they come across online are not available for reuse unless a label or licence indicates otherwise. In other words, materials are ‘closed’ unless they are clearly marked as ‘open’. This is because copyright protection is granted automatically, and ‘all rights reserved’ is the default unless the rightsholder indicates otherwise.

For example, video content on YouTube is available online for viewing. However, most YouTube content (in common with much of the content that’s publicly available on the web) is not truly ‘open’ for lawful reuse, remixing or sharing. 

Why is some content ‘open’ and some not? 

Content may not be available for reuse for any number of valid reasons. 

Works may be subject to legal conditions, such as those established by copyright or personal data protection, that limit the possibilities to share or further use them. An example is if a work is subject to copyright protection, it is the author (or rightsholder’s) decision to choose to release it under an open licence or not. Another example is where cultural heritage institutions have copyright-protected content in their collections but they are not the copyright rights holders. While they often have legal safeguards to digitise and make these materials available online, they cannot authorise any further reuse.

Other reasons for content to not be ‘open’ include contractual conditions (that impose, for example, commercial restrictions or embargoes) and ethical limitations based on concerns by Indigenous communities.

Finally, content might not be open because of a decision by the person or institution that holds the rights, deciding to reserve these rights to place restrictions on reuse possibilities. 

It is important to both understand and respect the terms under which content is made available. Any reuse that infringes on these terms may expose the user to legal or contractual infringement and the rightsholder (or data subject, or other, depending on the legal area) to harm. 

However, there are some occasions in which the ‘closing’ (as opposed to ‘opening’) of content is not valid. For example, some cultural heritage institutions want to control how the works in their collections are used by others. Many do this by claiming there is a new copyright protection in the faithful digitisation of a public domain work which justifies ‘closing’ the work, even in cases where copyright protection does not arise. In these cases, any licence - whether closed or open - that limits use on the basis of copyright will be unenforceable. It may be worth questioning such restrictions in order to determine whether they are justifiable. 

Is it appropriate for some materials to remain ‘closed’?

As a starting point, the EU and other similar copyright regimes plan for all works to eventually become ‘open’ by entering the public domain. 

But there will be cases, despite the inevitable expiration of copyright, where individual items should not become truly ‘open’ as that term is defined above. Some works will remain inappropriate to be made available openly, particularly where they include sensitive information or personal data, or when they can result in risks for individuals or communities that outweigh the public right to access and information.

Even then, in the context of cultural heritage, it is necessary for cultural heritage institutions to explore ways to make the works that they hold available to the greatest extent possible by exploring options such as clear warnings or contextual clarifications, access restrictions, or the anonymisation or pseudonymisation of certain types of personal data.

Can content move from being ‘closed’ to ‘open’ or vice versa?

Content can become more open. For example, copyright eventually expires in copyright protected works. Additionally, a copyright holder can decide at any time to apply an open licence to the work, or even a more permissive open licence than originally selected. 

However, with respect to Creative Commons licences and similar statements, once a work is published under a licence it cannot be revoked or made more restrictive, such as by applying a closed licence to materials that were previously released under an open licence.  

What are open licences? Are all Creative Commons licences open?

Open licences are tools that provide permissions to everyone in the world to use and modify copyright-protected materials for any purpose, provided that some obligations are met. Examples include some of the Creative Commons licences and open source licences (e.g. MIT GPLv3, etc.).

Creative Commons (CC) licences and tools are designed to communicate reuse conditions in a simple way to maximise the public’s reuse of information and culture. They are often used with works made available online, and they can only be applied by the rightsholder. These licences and tools address the ‘problem’ that one should assume that works are ‘closed’ (as indicated in the question above) unless otherwise indicated. 

CC licences and tools are based on copyright and neighbouring rights (a lower copyright-type of protection that is granted to certain types of materials). That is, they provide information about the existence or lack of copyright and neighbouring rights, and where copyright arises, they establish what types of reuse are possible. CC licences provide no warning about the existence of other types of rights, nor inform of reuse possibilities beyond copyright. As a result, a work released as CC BY might be reusable from a copyright perspective but could be subject to other types of restrictions due to personality rights, for example.

Among the CC suite of licences for copyright materials, those that are open include CC BY and CC BY-SA. 

Materials for which copyright does not arise, or has expired, are also ‘open’ and they may be clearly placed or marked as being public domain, by using the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication or the Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal (PDM). The PDM is not a legally-binding licence, but simply a label to communicate the public domain status of a work that is unequivocally in the public domain. 

Open

Chart by Andrea Wallace - CC BY

Are Right Statements by the Rights Statements Consortium ‘open’?

The Rights Statements created by the Rights Statements Consortium are a set of labels of the reuse conditions of a work in a standardised form. They refer to copyright limitations, but they also inform users of relevant legal or contractual restrictions. 

Because they are labels, the suite of Rights Statements are not legally binding. Where licences are legal tools in the domain of the author/rightsholder serving to grant authorisation to the public for certain uses of the licensed content, rights statements are tools to express information, and not permissions. Unlike licences, such as Creative Commons licences, rights statements do not grant permission to use. Instead, they seek to accurately reflect the copyright status of the work to which they have been applied and communicate the types of use that are already permitted. As a result, they are not necessarily ‘open’.

How does the Europeana Initiative promote ‘openness’ of digital cultural heritage in the common European data space for cultural heritage?

http://Europeana.eu provides access to a wide range of digitised cultural heritage from across Europe and beyond. This material is provided to Europeana by a large number of contributing institutions. Europeana strives to make this data available for reuse as much as possible. 

All of the metadata (i.e., the data about the cultural content published on http://Europeana.eu ) is released using the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. 

Each digital object on http://Europeana.eu is labelled with a CC Licence, Tool or a Rights Statement which makes it easy for anyone to check if or how it can be used. The choice of statement to apply, and therefore the choice of ‘more or less open’ when it comes to digital objects, is in the hands of data providers. The Europeana Initiative encourages data providers to allow the reuse of content to the greatest extent possible through our policies and frameworks, namely:

• The Europeana Public Domain Charter, through which we advocate for public domain content to remain in the public domain after digitisation. 

• The Europeana Publishing Framework, which introduces four tiers of criteria for measuring content quality by taking into account not just the quality of the digital resources, but also the degree of openness in the Rights Statements and CC Licences and Tools applied to them. 

You can read more about how Europeana support openness on this page.