The European digital library (Europeana). Concerns related to intellectual property rights
The European digital library (Europeana). Concerns related to intellectual property rights

Summary/Abstract: The current technological and scientific revolution taking place within the larger context of knowledge and innovation based society and economy has changed all aspects of life, including those related to cultural content consumption, creation, access and distribution. Although art galleries, libraries, archives and museums will continue to exist and function in a physical form, there has been noticed a trend is to preserve and provide access to world cultural heritage by means of digital libraries. Among the European objectives included in the Europe 2020 Strategy we find the digitisation of cultural content and the development of a library that can store and preserve European culture –Europeana. The main objective of this paper is that of debating the main stakes of access to digitised cultural content, such as it is found in digital libraries, A particular focus is set on the issue of intellectual property rights. The study specifically refers to the case of the European Digital Library, Europeana. The main scientific research method used in the paper is the critical analysis of IP legal regulations. Thus, we debate the main implications of these regulations for the process of digitisation, and we next identify the main current legal opportunities for and obstacles in the way of cultural content digitisation.

• Details
• Contents