IPR knowledge at your fingertips: introducing our new training presentations

It can be difficult to find your way in the IPR maze. Take an example - One cultural heritage institution. One archive. Two hundred amateur videos, some dated, some undated. Multiple right holders, some named, some anonymous. How to reach the centre of the maze and navigate your way out logically and legally?

Custodians and the challenge of managing IPR

For custodians of cultural heritage, understanding what IPR means in practice is not easy when faced with olympic sized hurdles, such as how to understand your national law (which may differ from your neighbour’s), how different rules apply for different types of material (e.g. copyright last longer for artistic works than for audiovisual material), or how to proceed if you cannot trace a rights holder.

Europeana’s network comprises of 3,500 institutions each well versed in understanding IPR practically when managing their collections and developing digital strategies. Part of Europeana’s role with its network is to help bring people together and encourage cultural and knowledge exchange. This includes translating IPR in a meaningful way and lies at the heart of many of its policies, frameworks and standards.

Tools of the trade

Given the wealth of knowledge within the network which reinforces Europeana as trusted authoritative source, it is important to build a space for shared working practice.

This includes being able to publish key IPR deliverables as outcomes of subject-specific projects such as fashion, food and drink and the IPR toolkit achieved as part of the Europeana Space project.

To help put IPR on the map at an institutional level, to help support data partners put IPR knowledge into practice, and influence decision makers and colleagues, we are delighted to introduce our new IPR training presentations and videos.

It’s all in the detail

The 3 identified priority areas are a general introduction to copyright and the digitisation of cultural heritage, an overview of Creative Commons licenses, and a walk through the principles of the Europeana Licensing Framework.

The presentations focus on:

• The key principles of European copyright law and related rights

• Why it is important to be legally compliant when sharing cultural content online

• Why it is important to understand the law in the context of working with Europeana and other digital platforms

• How to correctly label digital objects and metadata using the Europeana Licensing Framework

• How to work with other standards of best practice such as Creative Commons

• Where and who to go to for further help

The presentations are now available as slides and as video presentations giving trainers and participants the flexibility to brush up their knowledge before a training session. They are also a useful tool as a follow up method of learning and ongoing engagement.

We continue to work collaboratively with data partners to shape relevant tools and resources when managing IPR.

In the meantime, schedule your next workshop, use the new IPR presentation tools and tell us what you think!