Copyright legislation impacts the activities of cultural heritage institutions whose collections often contain materials that are subject to copyright or neighbouring rights protection. While not all items in the collections of cultural heritage institutions are subject to copyright, some are, resulting in cultural heritage professionals having to put processes in place to manage these rights. This becomes particularly relevant when cultural heritage institutions undergo digitisation projects with the aim of making these materials widely available to the public and facilitate their reuse. The copyright in the digital single market Directive is particularly relevant in this area because it brings forward solutions to facilitate the management of copyright in such scenarios.
The copyright and information society Directive harmonises copyright exploitation rights across the European Union, and establishes a number of exceptions to copyright that Member States can choose to transpose into their national legislation. Some of these exceptions concern the use of copyright-protected material for preservation, teaching, research and creative reuse.
