Table sessions

Day 1 – Monday 7 December Track 2: Stand up for yourself!

How to manage copyright matters?
Vincent van den Eijnde & Arlette Bekink

Copyright: an obstacle or a tool?

Many people of cultural archives experience copyright as an obstacle. Is copyright still working these days as it needs to be working? Should there be a copyright exemption for archives for online usage of their collections? The question will be asked whether it is a bad thing to give photographers and other creatives a remuneration when their work is used by online archives.

Almost every other person who works in or with an archive, gets paid. Thus the person who scans images, builds a website, has meetings and who makes the descriptions of the images are all being paid without having to fight for their rights. Why is it so hard to decide it is fair to compensate the artists for their work too?

During the table sessions, Vincent van den Eijnde and Arlette Bekink from Pictoright will discuss these and other questions concerning copyright and online archives. This session might be well combined with the table sessions of Afelonne Doek: “Fight for a different (copy)right!”.

Fight for a different (copy)right!
Afelonne Doek

Table discussion on the issue of copyright law and what this means for the online accesibility of collections for researchers, from the general public to scientific researchers.
It is time for us, institutions with collections, whether cultural heritage institutions or scientific institions, to stand up for ourselves. We have a mission to make our collections known, available, accessible, and usable, but are seriously hindered by copyright law.
In this digital age, where online availability of information is the norm, institutes face serious lawsuits when making the collections accessible through the internet.
It is time to get the message across: Heritage collections are meant to be used and the institutes that digitize and provide online access to the collections are not doing it for the money. It only costs a lot of money to do this.
Institutes with collections do not want to take the copyright away from the creator of the work or exploit their work in a commercial way. What we need is to join hands and lobby lobby lobby together for a better understanding between collection institutes and makers, for an provision in the copyright law (Extended Collective Licensing) and exception to the rules regarding unknown creators or orphan works. Update on the actions taken up so far, next steps and discuss options how we can work together on this.

KB and Google: quite a good match
Hans Jansen

On 14 July 2014 the KB (Koninklijke Bibliotheek – National Library of the Netherlands) and Google signed an agreement on the digitization of approx. 160,000 out-of-copyright books from KB’s collections. This caused quite a stir in the Dutch library field. Even though copyright laws were not violated (contrary to what happened in the US), it was felt that KB ‘sold out’ its collections, the quality of digitization was sure to be awful, books would surely be harmed by the quick and dirty digitization process, the agreement seemed to be secret etc, etc. KB was actually very happy about the whole negotiation process (we were prepared) and the results that came out of the joint venture were satisfying (all books were digitized in three year time and no harm was done). The collaboration proved so successful that KB even prolonged its digitization efforts and were able to start digitizing Dutch published books from the library of the University of Amsterdam. Hans Jansen (KB’s initiator and negotiator) will share his inside story with you.

The good, the bad and the ugly of money & power in transforming a museum
Pieter Matthijs Gijsbers

Pieter Matthijs Gijsbers is Director of Comenius Leergangen. He took on this position following his directorship of Orientalis and The Netherlands Open Air Museum. During his years as a director of these organisations, Pieter-Matthijs was confronted with the good, the bad and the ugly of money & power in the cultural heritage sector. When he transformed Orientalis to the modern day he was confronted with a diocese that so vehemently opposed to the plans for the museum that the finances of the entire museum were at stake. It took a court battle between the museum and the diocese to achieve a joint (financial) future. Simultaneously a benefactor supported his efforts and lend a helping financial hand. During his period as director of The Netherlands Open Air Museum Pieter Matthijs met with the power that money can bring when he worked to integrate the canon of Dutch national history in the museum. Pieter Matthijs will share his experiences with money & power and the strategies he used to find a constructive road ahead whilst preservering the museums vision and ideals. He will invite participants at the table to discuss how these experiences and coping strategies can be used in the digital domain.

“You wanted it, now you got it” – How film archives manage (?) orphan works and copyright through FORWARD project
Kerstin Herlt & Aubéry Escande

On October 27, film archives worldwide celebrate the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, declared by UNESCO in 1980. This is an opportunity to draw attention on the fact that film heritage is at risk. Because of negligence, deliberate destruction or simply because they are forgotten. The digital environment is a chance to rescue films from oblivion, provided the means to digitize and make them accessible online are available. If not, the vanishing of analogue film (in terms of production, projection, scanning technologies, expertise) will speed up the process of locking away our film heritage.

Apart from lacking resources, film archives must handle right issues – once a film is digitised, film archives must make sure and the material (?) can be used. However, searching for the rights holders, especially for older films, is complex and often unsuccessful. The outcome generates an orphan work, which means that the right holder cannot be found or located, and – from a legal perspective – the work cannot be exploited, neither for commercial distribution, nor for educational and cultural purposes. According to a survey conducted by ACE (Association of European Film Archives) in 2010, more than 200.000 works held in ACE members’ archives can be classified orphans. The Orphan Works Directive, eagerly awaited and heavily lobbied for by Europe’s cultural heritage institutions, requires a thorough diligent search and has not really facilitated the procedure.

The biggest problem is the lack of a structured and reliable EU-wide information resource. To answer this need, 10 film archives are collaborating in FORWARD to develop a system that supports and simplifies the rights assessment and the complex searches for rights holders. FORWARD will also deliver a registry for orphan films, and has to take into account the different national copyright and orphan works legislations in Europe.

In this table session, we will outline the AV sector landscape and the challenges FORWARD is facing in developing the system by 2016.