# A Culture of Copyright/Conclusion

​Conclusion and Recommendations
This study set out to paint a picture of the state of open GLAM in the UK, in all its nuance and complexities, to identify what the sector needs to move forward and enable new futures around the UK’s outstanding cultural collections and any barriers to that goal. TaNC is about realising these futures through the networked potential of digital collections held across UK GLAMs.
This study found the key building blocks to enable connectedness and new discoveries beyond TaNC projects are not present, namely due to the practice of claiming new rights in digital collections of public domain works based on desires to reserve them for any potential commercial viability.
A strong open access foundation must support the premise that public domain collections remain in the public domain following digitisation. This not only aligns with UK copyright law but reflects a growing and global understanding of open GLAM. Otherwise, barriers to access will remain and undermine the impact of TaNC projects and others across the UK GLAM sector.
This study has identified the extent to which UK GLAMs engage with open access, how far there still is to go, what is required and what is at risk. The key takeaway is that the rights-related barriers are overwhelmingly self-imposed by GLAMs. It is within the sector’s control to change this culture of copyright and commercialisation. Based on this, the following recommendations are made.
Take a position on copyright and open licensing
It is recommended that TaNC, AHRC and UKRI take a position on copyright and open licensing and adopt a policy for future funding awarded by the programme and its potential successor infrastructure, as outlined below.
To support adoption, TaNC should collaborate with other UK funding bodies and associations such as Arts Council England, the National Museum Directors’ Council, the wider Arts and Humanities Research Council, Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, the Archives and Records Association and The National Lottery Heritage Fund. This might include:
* Organizing a meeting to present the report’s findings and its recommendations;
* Bringing key leaders together to support the report;
* Working toward a shared policy for UK funding bodies and associations; and
* Developing a shared programme for long term public domain, copyright and open access support, as outlined below.
At minimum, a statement should incorporate the following positions:
An endorsement of the UK IPO’s Copyright Notice
This will support the retroactive application of CC0 to non-original reproduction media generated around public domain collections. GLAMs can voluntarily align where they have cleared and claimed rights in digital assets.
Adopt an open licensing requirement for future infrastructure outputs
This will support the prospective application of CC0 to non-original reproduction media generated around public domain collections. This should include obligations to publish original materials produced with infrastructure funding as CC BY to enable their widest possible reuse while ensuring ​GLAMs receive attribution for their work.
A diagram of how these positions will impact the digital national collection and the UK GLAM sector is included below.
Figure 18. Diagram of recommendations and impact on collections
Additional provisions may include:
* Prohibitions on holding back high-quality images for exclusive GLAM use and commercialisation;
* Sustainability obligations and/or guidelines on how to publish or deposit data with repositories;
* Obligations to ensure public access for a minimum period of years; with
* Some potential flexibility on the above provisions, but clear expectations on copyright and the public domain.
This approach will fill gaps left by legal grey areas and shape good practice across the GLAM sector. It aligns with The National Lottery Heritage Fund’s new policy and it will improve harmonisation and open access uptake. Many participants expressed support for such a position:
   It’s difficult to push an open agenda internally without lots of external support. The IPO guidance was a fundamental shift, but it has not been followed. The Heritage Lottery Fund is also another important development and would have been even more useful if they took an actual position on copyright. More organisations should take positions on this in ways that benefit staff and the public. This is what decision makers will respond to.
   It’s getting hard to test the waters in order to go forward at all. Any support from TaNC or the AHRC is great. It gives us something we can point at and say, “Yes, this is it. And we have to do this.” It means we have a standard we can point at and aspire toward. ​It will probably not impact many GLAMs that take strong positions, but the more public institutions that acknowledge copyright, the better.
   A policy could be the tipping point. If the AHRC took this up, it would mean everyone else would come together and fall in line. Even if it's only prospective, it’s a huge step forward.
   We need transferable, long-term goals. Knowing what to aspire to is important. But things also need to be formatted in a way they can plug into other platforms and make it worthwhile for everyone involved. We hate revisiting datasets and assets to rejig them. Things need to be realistic.
Finally, participants also expressed a desire for a national repository and/or sustainable digital space. Although this is outside the scope of this report, it is worth considering in light of EU developments.
A programme for long term public domain, copyright and open access support
TaNC and AHRC can provide important leadership in this area and coordinate with other UK funding bodies and associations to develop a programme to provide long term support and improve the landscape for a digital national collection. This might include:
Access to funding and community support
Expand access to funding and explore ways to support GLAMs who are not RCIs or IROs, particularly the UK’s small- and medium-sized GLAMs with collections that will remain inaccessible without funding support. For example, this might be facilitated through a community partner programme focused on pairing less-resourced GLAMs with more-resourced GLAMs to exchange knowledge around rights and collections management, as well as smaller institutional needs around open GLAM that should be shaping larger institutional projects to improve scalability and translation across the sector.
Future infrastructure and a programme for open access support
Comprehensive and long-term support could be embedded into the TaNC programme as it grows, which can be supported and extended by a range of UK funding bodies and associations and made available to the wider GLAM sector.
Employ someone to provide centralised support
Regardless of how (or by whom) this person is employed, a centralised person who has knowledge of GLAMs, their projects, what technologies are being used, and who can help problem solve across this programme and others would be an invaluable resource.
Capacity building through tailored approaches
Rather than broad training sessions on all things copyright, a programme should focus on capacity building and increasing copyright expertise through involvement in and support of projects.
Support with communication and understanding rights
Better communication earlier on will support rights discussions that result in greater understanding of open access and its benefits. This will also improve understandings of risk management aspects, including what risks GLAMs should expect to bear.
Publishing templates and outputs for wider reuse
Outputs produced might include contract templates, data collaboration agreements, checklists and ​toolkits for project planning, and other useful documents that explain the non-copyright concerns that should inform access to materials in the public domain. These could help close gaps in expertise and improve the bargaining power of GLAMs during contract negotiations with other parties.
Improved messaging around open access
Messaging is incredibly important to the success of open GLAM in the UK. This applies to both GLAMs and to public users on the receiving end. Messaging should communicate what open access is, what it includes (and does not include) and its benefits.
Advocacy
A campaign is necessary to support wider open access uptake. In addition, advocacy could extend to sharing best practice and sharing failures, supporting networks and un-siloed conversations among GLAMs, and the GLAM sector.
Focus on access and reuse, rather than reaching new audiences
This takes a user-centred focus without gatekeeping or preventing delivery and reuse through technologies.
Supporting exceptions to open GLAM
Staff also need reassurance that not everything should be assumed as appropriate for open GLAM. There are many legitimate reasons why exceptions must be made, which may involve sensitive subject matter, contributions by children or young people, data protection concerns or other factors. Documenting and publishing examples would provide a form of transparency helpful for everyone involved.
Formal open access accreditation
One participant suggested exploring a formal open access accreditation for the GLAM sector. This could take the form of prerequisites that must be met before applying for funding schemes, which GLAMs could also advertise on websites as a form of endorsement.
New research on ‘future proofing’ open access
In addition to areas discussed in Section 5.4. Research on ‘future proofing’ open access can place the UK in a position to lead on research on open GLAM. This might include:
New ways to measure user engagement
Limited models often rely on access and rights management to monitor engagement and reuse. Participants noted desires for tools that measure engagement across collections (facilitated by open GLAM) rather than within collections or specific projects (facilitated by access barriers).
Specific strand of research on rights-related issues stemming from open access
Future proofing for open GLAM requires new research on topics related to privacy, cultural sensitivity, digital and intellectual property rights restitution, and user-generated intellectual property rights. One participant noted a need for a copyright study on data due to grey areas and the inability to call it back once integrated into structured data sources like Wikidata.
Technological solutions that achieve goals related to copyright but are better at mitigating risk and harm ​IIIF, PIDs and other technologies can enable attribution and integrity desires related to data quality or image resolution. Another example includes Respect.txt, which is in development to provide a “stopgap against harm” around culturally sensitive materials and operates similarly to robots.txt and humans.txt.
New business models around open access
This might enable networks with SMEs around digitisation services and new business models that support real innovation around the public domain. New opportunities await when access is not mediated and controlled by institutional platforms.
Finally, it is important to highlight that significant portions of the UK’s collections cannot be made available under open licences or public domain tools due to the rights subsisting in the underlying work (e.g., text, book, document, sculpture, architecture, photograph, etc.,).
To aid this understanding, this report recommends integrating user-centric goals into research, communications and technologies. Research itself is for the public. Communications must centre users in definitions and terminologies and package programmes so that the broadest possible user base can understand what is possible around open access. Technologies should allow users to search by licence, download high quality assets with rich context, and support reuse.
This will help bolster understandings of copyright and open access among GLAMs and their publics, as well as understandings around what cannot be made open access with respect to reuse purposes. As one participant commented: “The user-centred focus is about future proofing.”
* ↑ Figures: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6242179
* ↑ Contact George Oates for further information.