Rights statements

The data space receives data from thousands of institutions across many countries, and they all express copyright information about their collection items in different ways. To help users reuse material for research, education, and other purposes, we need to make the reuse possibilities easy to understand. That is why we use rights statements: Creative Commons licences, Creative Commons public domain tools, and Rights Statements by the Rights Statements Consortium.

Rights statements express the copyright status of a digital object and explain whether, and under what conditions, it can be reused. They use clear, standardised language, are easy to understand, and are machine-readable. Designed for both human and machine users, they also allow the public to search and filter by rights on Europeana.eu.

As mandated in our Data Exchange Agreement, every digital object must be published with a rights statement assigned by the data provider. Because rights statements communicate the copyright status and any conditions or restrictions on reuse, it is important that they accurately reflect that status and the permissions granted.

If you share data in the data space, the guidance in this section explains the rights statements you can choose from and how to map them in EDM:

• Rights statements FAQ: plain-language answers to common questions (what rights statements are, the types available and how they compare, with links onward to the detailed guidance)

• Considerations before assigning a rights statement: how to establish the copyright status of an object and any restrictions on its reuse, so you can select a statement that accurately reflects both

• Accepted rights statements and URIs: the rights statement values the data space accepts and how to express them correctly in the metadata