A Culture of Copyright/Analysis of findings

by Andrea Wallace

5. Analysis of findings - A culture of copyright

“I don’t have any power. I can advise [my organisation] this is wrong, and that we should change it, and provide all the reasons. But I don’t have any power.”

IP manager of a national collection

The study observed many longstanding tensions that inform practices around gatekeeping, commercialisation, control and access have been further complicated by economic recessions, reduced funding for the sector and public remits that seem to evolve alongside technological advancement. At the same time, there are ways to employ these technologies to support new knowledge and cultural production, creative innovation and commercialisation, for both the UK’s GLAMs and their public(s). However, the sector’s ongoing focus on maintaining exclusive rights in, and thus control over, the reproduction media produced by such technologies risks both TaNC’s aims and crystallizing a barrier that thwarts open access to a digital national collection. This study finds the focus on copyright is not only misplaced, but also seriously impeding the potential of the UK’s cultural heritage collections for GLAMs, their wider public(s) and our cultural and creative industries.

5.1. A sector in need of support

It should be stressed that GLAM staff are working under significant and increasing pressures to achieve what they can with the limited support and power available to them. Interview participants agreed the biggest barrier—both within their respective institutions and across the UK GLAM sector—is a lack of resources.

This state of affairs has negative consequences for various aspects of digital collections creation, rights management and open access. Specific stressors relevant to why rights are claimed in reproduction media are addressed below. The negative consequences that materialise and shape the digital national collection and the potential of open access to reduce them are addressed in the sections that follow.

5.1.1. Support for public domain and copyright competence

The quantitative research suggests there is a fundamental lack of knowledge around copyright and the public domain across the UK GLAM sector. Even staff in IP-related roles may interpret the law within an institutional vacuum according to the relevant desires and needs of the organisation.

Staff routinely referred to the complicated nature of copyright as inducing risk averse determinations around open access and general collections management. Put simply, in a participant’s own words, “the natural position is one of saying no before yes”. The result is that copyright is assumed to subsist in far more materials than it should, which impacts not only assessments of digital collections and materials created around works known to be out-of-copyright and/or in the public domain, but also assessments of whether copyright subsists in physical collections and materials for which the potential rightsholder is alive or has died within 70 years. Not everything is protected by copyright from the moment of creation. As one IP manager commented, “For a lot of people, copyright is an abstraction. The field itself has so many misunderstandings in terms of how it impacts collections management.” Another participant stressed that, “You must understand copyright in order to understand what is in the public domain and what can be made available openly.” Staff expressed future proofing worries that if GLAMs do not understand (or know with certainty) that something is in the public domain, they will treat risk averse materials as in-copyright and disengage. Across the UK, the scope of impacted materials is immeasurable.

This stressor is compounded by the fact the sector has underinvested in copyright awareness and support. The majority of GLAMs have limited access, if any, to legal service and expertise. Some receive pro bono services for project-specific or one-off advice. Few have an IP manager or legal team to support the range of needs that go beyond rights management. Those who do rely significantly on such persons and are even expected (and happy) to defer to them. For many, such persons provide an invaluable resource. Some are even able to push back against (relative) risk aversion to design creative solutions. Others noted difficulties when these roles sit within the commercialisation department or trade arm of the GLAM. Where more traditional positions are taken, this is seen as contributing to stagnation on open access and interpretations of law that do not serve the public.

Conversations revealed that commercialisation factors primarily influence decisions to claim copyright and/or provide digital access rather than a legal assessment of the “originality” of reproduction media. For many GLAMs, decisions on digitisation, access and open access hinge on the commercial viability of materials. Staff expressed additional concerns considering such assessments are often made based on potential commercial viability, rather than any immediate or concrete plans to commercialise. This can impact different collections disproportionately. Those ripe for public engagement are seen to be equally ripe for commercialisation due to their attractiveness and the GLAM’s ability to leverage their public as future consumers through a commercial partnership. A copyright-by-default approach is therefore seen to protect potential revenue streams and prohibit any commercialisation or profit that does not flow back to the GLAM itself. A few staff interpret the RPSI Regulation to support or require this approach, as a risk averse reading could prohibit GLAMs from charging for commercial partnerships where the collections are also published using open licences and tools.

Reasons for taking these approaches in this transitional moment are understandable. Some staff expressed a sense of unfairness when for-profit commercialisation or the commercial sector steps in and “free-rides” on the collection. Many do not want things to be “wrongfully commercialised”. Other staff reasoned this is why GLAMs use copyright: to prevent others from taking content that is not theirs, and to safeguard it for the nation. GLAMs cannot presume to know how artists intended for their works to be reused, particularly considering such reuse includes the GLAM’s perpetual commercialisation. To counter this, participants feel “[t]here needs to be massive education around this.” As one participant observed, “GLAMs are effectively putting things back into copyright by putting a licence onto the reproduction materials. This results in perpetual copyright. Once something is out of copyright, it should be turned over to the public.”

The outcome of a traditional copyright approach is thus one of risking the public domain and its incredible potential for UK GLAMs, the public and the economy.

5.1.2. Support for existing digital and open access remits

All participants noted the collapse in funding for digitisation following its initial push two decades ago. Today, GLAMs are expected to build digitisation into operations and find costs within the budget. Funding and budgets for open access remits are almost non-existent.

For many, severely limited resources make proactive digitisation impossible. Instead, most GLAMS digitise reactively, in response to public, scholarly or commercial requests. This enables GLAMS to pass costs onto consumers while producing digital assets necessary to collections management and digital operations, which can then be commercialised to support other activities (for the profitable few). For some, digitisation funding has been secured via small grants for projects limited in scope, or by larger projects that involve onsite renovations or storage removal. Commercial partnerships can enable digitisation yet restrict assets further through rights negotiated in the contract. These impose new obligations on GLAMS around digital asset management and licensing. For many reasons, most GLAMS situate digitisation operations within the business plan (e.g., as opposed to education and outreach), and their approaches reflect that understanding of the institution, including its goals for, and the purpose of, its digital collections.

Financial precarity among the sector thus negatively impacts the stability and sustainability of digital and open access programmes. Almost all participants noted that staff turnover and loss of institutional knowledge raised barriers over the years. Complicated agreements signed with commercial partners or donors can render entire collections unsound for open access (and TaNC projects) where the staff involved have moved on from the organisation. Where the turnover involves staff who support open access implementation, efforts may stall, dissipate or regress entirely.

In general, the incapacity to engage can be related to finances, labour, staffing and technologies. Participants interviewed stressed the incredible amount of work that goes into preparing collections for digital systems even prior to the incredible amount of work required for publication and for open access. As one open GLAM participant observed, "Open access is hard too. For something that seems simple, it's really not." A participant from a second open GLAM explained, "Change comes from the few. Having internal champions really helps, and yet there is still a long way to go even for people who have made the first step."

5.1.3. Support for COVID-19 fallout and new setbacks

All participants felt the pandemic had exacerbated resourcing issues and steered many GLAMS away from open access. Instead, "all focus has shifted to the existential crisis of how to operate".

UK GLAMS may not charge for entry to their permanent collections, but they do rely heavily on revenue generated by visitors. Data shows some of London's national museums welcomed between just 3% and 7% of their normal visitors in 2020/21.^[1] These losses result in hundreds of millions of pounds across the sector. The pandemic is now impacting other revenue sources, like international partnerships and special exhibitions that normally produce income, as there are less opportunities across the global sector with everyone fighting to keep their doors open.

Voluntary and involuntary redundancies have led to significant reductions in staff. Tate reported reductions between 18% for gallery employees and 46% for the gallery's commercial arm.^[2] Such redundancies and furlough programmes have impacted all operational areas, with an incalculable loss of institutional knowledge and expertise. The consequences are impacting GLAMS ability to do some work at all. This includes TaNC projects, in terms of getting data together or what can now be achieved. With respect to many toolkits and resources, one participant noted guidance now feels very pre-COVID and limited in usefulness.

Meanwhile, public desires for digital engagement grew during lockdown with no increase in resources to match increase on demand. Some felt GLAMS responded by prioritising commercialisation and commercial partnerships above the calls for open access. One commented, "COVID drove institutions to reconsider digital. But what came out of it is not impressive for the UK [compared to countries with developed open access agendas]. One national institution's response was to sell Zoom backgrounds." Some felt GLAMS are now too focused on new commercial partnerships while believing the ability to secure new partnerships and compete with other GLAMS for them relies on maintaining exclusive control of collections. Others saw open access as a way to fulfil raised expectations around hybrid models, while continuing to offer exclusive access to curated content: "During COVID, many institutions filmed exhibitions, tours and other exclusive content for members and supporters. While they were successful, the fact is the public may expect a hybrid offer from now on. But there is no funding for this! Making digital assets more widely available can help with the hybrid position."

Indeed, this state of affairs is bad for trying to maintain a traditional copyright approach due to the resources it drains and the legacy issues which spur from it. As one participant explained, "There's a lot of human intervention required to manage policies. We've lost so many colleagues around this, and now cannot manage the legacy data issues that are arising a round the management of the status quo." Staff felt that at this point, GLAMS are unnecessarily making it harder on themselves and future staff members.

Ultimately, GLAMS now appear even less inclined to eliminate any income sources, particularly given increased pressures from the government to self-generate revenue.

5.2. What is the impact of 'A culture of copyright' on open access?

The above stressors provide an important backdrop to analysing the impact a culture of copyright has on open access to the UK's cultural collections. In sum, the quantitative and qualitative research suggests that open access in the UK GLAM sector remains an emerging trend rather than a sector-wide commitment to the public. It appears that difficult conditions experienced across the sector pose risks to the progress made, and have even motivated some GLAMS to return to traditional approaches. Copyright claims and commercialisation desires sit at the heart of these approaches. As one participant commented, "we're having the same conversations we were having 10-15 years ago". The analysis below addresses the consequences for open GLAM.

5.2.1. How does law contribute?

Legal grey areas enable GLAMS to interpret laws to the greatest extent in a way that is favourable to a given goal. Currently, that goal is a desire to avoid risk and claim copyright in digital surrogates. However, the inverse is also true: there is scope to interpret those same laws and legal grey areas in a way that aligns with public missions to facilitate access to the greatest extent of openness.

Claiming copyright when no rights subsist is not illegal, but it is a misrepresentation of the law that can render the copyright, licences and contractual claims reinforcing it unenforceable or void.^[3] It is also an increasingly controversial practice. Participants raised the ethical issues involved while stressing the prevailing approach is made possible by a legal climate with variants of grey. These conditions support a sector-wide practice that caters to copyright and commercialisation where digital collections are concerned.

The majority of UK GLAMS take favourable interpretations to a network of laws, extending claims of copyright and other rights to digital surrogates, metadata, data and all other content published on digital platforms. These approaches contradict the UK IPO's Copyright Notice while citing copyright law as the basis for their interpretation. One participant noted, "Museums will do whatever they can to interpret the law in their interest until they can't."

Although enforcement against users is absent or limited to cease-and-desist notices, interviews disclosed instances of GLAMS enforcing copyright or contractual claims against each other. Staff observed risk averse GLAMS holding back from publishing their own digital surrogates of public domain works that are held in the collection of a rights-conservative GLAM. For those GLAMS, a digitised black-and-white photograph of an artwork is considered to compete with the GLAM's own coloured and high-resolution digital reproduction.

That these concerns materialise and combine with others, and without legal clarity, is felt by some GLAM staff as a form of pressure from others to maintain the status quo.

5.2.2. How are staff affected?

Traditional copyright approaches are impacting staff efficiency and knowledge production within and across GLAMS. Staff provided examples of copyright being obstructive and open access being constructive to various operations and projects.

Traditional copyright policies were noted to shape what projects staff could pursue, and what research could be undertaken, due to desires to reserve certain collections from engagement (and open access obligations) for their potential commercial viability.

More than a few examples revealed staff were charged for their use of an image in the GLAM's collection for scholarly publications. In one case, images were eliminated to bring the licensing fees paid to the GLAM within the budget's limitations. The fees were paid using project funding secured from a national funder.

Participants revealed turning to Wikimedia Commons, Flickr Commons and well-known CC0 collections of organisations like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Wellcome Collection illustrate blog posts on the GLAM's own website. Many staff regularly prioritise use of openly licensed images over images from their own collections (and other UK collections) because of their free availability and quick transaction time. Self-service downloads cut out the need for conversations between GLAMS and negotiating any bespoke 'courtesy of' credits. Staff appreciate policies that signpost clearly and provide detailed catalogue information to users (i.e., other GLAMS) to enable easy citation. One participant noted the institutional contradiction of using openly licensed collections while operating a licensing service for their own, asking: "Who is this serving?"

UK GLAMS are integrating openly licensed content to enrich collections data, improve information services and enable staff to focus on other tasks. Few UK GLAMS also reciprocate by contributing openly licensed content and CC0 data to websites and external platforms.

At least two GLAMS use Wikipedia biographies on their website, which are crowdsourced and openly licensed as CC BY-SA. The Museum of Modern Art's initiative was referenced as opening the door for others to follow. Staff realised much of the information in artists' biographies was inaccurate and needed updating; some was unfit for publication. They found the Wikipedia biography was not only more accurate, but the platform also provided a more useful interface for staff to update biographies or mistakes where present. The added benefit is that staff have been able to lend credibility to these websites by engaging with them. The approach is thus to improve public biographies on a platform that will reach millions while feeding that information back to the website, rather than reinventing each individual wheel and replicating the work for a more limited audience. The move was important for improving the overall representation of artists' biographies on the website, but particularly for artists who are under-represented and deserve more authoritative information. GLAMS simply do not have the resources to devote to developing and maintaining comprehensive biographies, which disproportionately impacts marginalised and less written about artists. The outcome was to support and enrich a crowdsourced authoritative voice, rather than to compete with it to sustain an institutional one with known errors and under-representation. As one participant noted, "Championing institutional authority can come at the expense of so many people and lives. It reveals how discriminatory it can be as an organisation and collection to try to maintain control over authority."

Finally, staff from GLAMS that took incremental steps towards open reported experiencing inefficiencies as a result. With each policy change, legacy data and rights assessment issues are revived, staff must update digital collections and website terms and communicate the new policy to a confused public. This results in greater overall resource investment around open GLAM.

5.2.3. Who do these policies serve?

Existing UK policies and practice appear to centre GLAMS, rather than the public (or even the creators they mean to protect).

From a user's perspective, GLAM policies and reuse parameters are difficult to understand (even for more knowledgeable user-GLAM staff who operate under similar policies).

Few public-facing policies are clear at the point of consumption. Others advertise they are "open," while contradicting this statement in practice, such as by:

• presenting collections online under all rights reserved statements;
• applying closed licences that prohibit commercial reuse;
• openly licensing collections while preventing download through technical protection measures;
• publishing content as all rights reserved on the website while publishing small samples of low-resolution images under open licences or public domain tools on external platforms;
• publishing policies that attempt to limit reuse of images published under open licences or public domain tools on external platforms; or
• distinguishing between scientific research outputs and the digital collections and data.

That a user must remediate multiple policies and platforms to make linkages among collections is obstructive to reuse, open access and public domain goals. The effect is to silo digital national (and international) collections within institutions unless a platform or project is specifically designed to aggregate them as an exception to the status quo.

Within such projects, digital collections remain restricted according to the rights claimed by the contributing GLAMs. Data collaboration agreements reinforce the GLAMs’ (alleged) rights, secure to the platform a broad licence for the project’s needs and limit the public’s reuse according to each GLAM’s embedded policy and the rights claimed. New datasets of limited descriptive data may be published under open licences or public domain tools. The research found no examples of such datasets including openly licenced collections images.

Such policies are useful to compare against GLAMs’ original public missions, an example of which is provided below:

Manchester Art Gallery is the original useful museum, initiated in 1823 by artists, as an educational institution to ensure that the city and all its people grow with creativity, imagination, health and productivity. The gallery is free and open to all people as a place of civic thinking and public imagination, promoting art as a means to achieve social change. Created as the Royal Manchester Institution for the Promotion of Literature, Science and the Arts, it has been at the centre of city life for nearly 200 years and has been proudly part of Manchester City Council since 1882. The gallery is for and of the people of Manchester and through its collections, displays and public programmes it works with everyone to ensure creativity, care and consideration can transform all aspects of the way we live.^[4]

5.2.4. How are GLAMs using technologies to provide access?

Quantitative and qualitative research suggests GLAMs are primarily using technologies to replicate and bolster control around digital collections, rather than to provide meaningful access and enable reuse.

The review of websites revealed 35 or 17.9% of GLAMs in the UK sample continue to use technical protection measures like watermarking, disabling download or uploading the lowest quality of images. These measures are put in place via older and difficult to update website interfaces in addition to new technologies, like IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework). Participants mentioned a rise in new platforms and interfaces that disable downloads or deliver high resolution images in tiles, along with renewed interest by licensing teams. Some suggested that such technologies were pointless, as circumvention measures could be used. At least one participant mentioned them as the future for collections management with their ability to balance open access to high resolution images (i.e., digital access) while protecting licensing revenue streams.

It should be noted that a demand for such technologies creates a market for restrictive interfaces that replicate barriers to the public domain, rather than a market for permissive interfaces that support new types of public reuse, knowledge generation and innovation. The effect is to further direct public funding into a private sector that responds to such demand, rather than building new technologies that emancipate the potential of the UK’s outstanding cultural heritage collections and support public demand.

Participants expressed disappointment that the present focus is on designing technical infrastructures for display and delivery, rather than for users and reuse, particularly where development projects are led by GLAMS with traditional copyright approaches to image licensing and reuse of digital collections.

Legitimate desires for attribution and integrity and enabling new research through high-quality display often inform these infrastructures. However, where legitimate rights have expired, they cannot be re-secured through technology or claims to new rights in reproduction media. Instead, these technologies should be explored for their potential to support citation best practice, high-resolution delivery of standardised image quality and the public's ability to trace the image to the organisation and to locate the best quality image, without imposing new restrictions or compromising the quality of access provided.

5.2.5. How does open access impact commercialisation?

Interviews and web-based research revealed open access is often pitted against commercialisation goals and seen to jeopardize a GLAM's ability to self-generate revenue. However, data does not support this view.^[5]

Data provided by the Birmingham Museum Trust tracked commercialisation in the period surrounding the adoption of CC0 in May 2018. Annual licensing sales of £11,000 produced between 2016 and 2018 dropped to just over £4,000 in 2019. However, according to the Trust, the drop in income corresponds to the amount previously received from academics. In fact, staff from other GLAMS noted image licensing is dominated by academics who need particular images.^[6] The Trust noted licensing sales produced by Bridgeman Images have slowed more gradually, as global pricing becomes more competitive and/or more images are published for free. Interestingly, commercial sales of prints have remained the same.

Many participants stated their data supports another conclusion: a traditional copyright approach is itself a bad business decision. For the majority of GLAMS, it is more expensive to attempt to generate revenue through licensing services than it is to set collections free.

Participants unanimously agreed reduced government funding and pressures to self-generate income are barriers to open access goals. They also agreed that licensing income cannot make up for that shortfall, with one observing "the idea that it could gained currency in the early 2000s with the onset of digitisation and shiny new assets that could be monetised".

Conversations revealed many open access approaches are informed by various business driven and narrow understandings of copyright and the public domain, except for those already engaged in open GLAM:

• Many view commercialisation and open access as being mutually exclusive, particularly with respect to the collection as a whole.
• Many view themselves as rightsholders whose rights must be balanced alongside the creators' rights of in-copyright collections where public access is concerned.
• Some condition open access upon copyrights arising, seeing copyright as necessary to balance public access with income generation around some collections while releasing others as "open access" (the meaning of which varied).
• Some balance the "freedom of commercialisation" against assets as information and the obligations of public bodies.
• Others feel copyright is not a prerequisite to income generation and noted its absence had more of a positive impact.

There appears to be a general conflation of copyright with commercialisation goals, or copyright as even being necessary to commercialise media, perhaps informed by assumptions that controlling access is necessary to controlling revenue streams. For these GLAMS, scarcity around collections is understood as necessary to attracting commercial interest from the private sector. Indeed, some open access obligations were framed as disabling GLAMS from commercialising data published under open licences, which by design are available for everyone to commercialise, including GLAMs.

Staff noted difficulties getting conversations started. Some attributed progress to restructures affecting decision making hierarchies, or to a key decision maker with a good understanding of intellectual property and open access who was supportive of policy change. Others referenced tensions felt between commercialisation and research departments. In one instance, research staff preferred a more permissive approach but met resistance from the commercial group. When reviewing priorities for business growth, image licensing was low on the list. Staff also referenced decisions made by, or those answerable to, a governing board as weighing heavy on commercialisation priorities. There is a sense that senior leadership among boards and councils are becoming more restrictive due to government messaging. It is worth noting three of the six public domain compliant UK GLAMs are trusts: the Birmingham Museums Trust, York Museums Trust, and Royal Pavilion & Museums Trust, Brighton & Hove.

Participants also highlighted interpretations of income, revenue, profit and value in relation to open access and grant-in-aid obligations. There is a very strong sense that income needs to continue to be generated in the current economic environment, particularly given the obligations of government funding. However, many noted such targets are set to generate income, not profit. In some cases, this means income is generated at all costs, which are not reviewed or tracked by the GLAM. While this is changing, the consensus was that this reflects a narrow understanding where collections produce direct, limited and one-way value to the public.^[7] Staff expressed a pressing need to change perceptions of value: the GLAM rather than a reciprocal and broader value

The value that we all get when we make collections available far outstrips the "value" that institutions get [from licensing]. It's a reversal in value, and one of making [collections] available to the world. It's value to the public. A simplified understanding of value flows only one way-to the institution-and that's not how it works. There is a reciprocal value that flows both ways, and that is direct value.

Another observed:

So many UK collections are incredibly low value in terms of licensing. What is being sacrificed so that GLAMs can retain control over licensing the few images that do bring in revenue? Who is making that sacrifice?

Another mentioned:

Value is a big thing that needs to be reassessed. It can’t be reduced to columns. It also needs to consider the value to the local economy for apps and products, but how do you measure that? What about the value for schools and the education sector? How do you measure that? […] Once you start talking to teachers who are engaging with [collections], graphic designers who use content, artists who need content, then you start to understand the value. But it’s not as simple as having a dashboard [or spreadsheet] where you can measure stuff. You need to build [tools] and distil impact into something people can understand.

While value-based assessments modelling may not be directly relevant to the lawfulness of IP licensing models, this data could help the sector reimagine commercialisation beyond copyright and move forward to benefit from the new opportunities that are activated by the collections’ public domain status.

Many participants commented that open access is, in fact, a good business model and commercial decision. One noted, “licensing services were haemorrhaging money, the legal basis was shaky, and public opinion and expectations made [the GLAM] vulnerable to bad will”. The opinion was that “In the absence of a robust commercial market, open access reduces the costs of dealing with inquiries. It’s a good business decision.” This decision was observed to positively benefit other income sources: “open access can get more people through the doors, especially community groups and locals who are repeat visitors” and drive up onsite revenue generation.

On a practical level, narrow copyright licensing models will never produce the value that open access can, but it is much easier to track.^[8] Staff noted data on indirect revenue, new opportunities and value generated through open access were both difficult to produce and to present as representative. One participant commented, “Benefits are easy to frame as anecdotal one-offs. It becomes hard to counter the profit-making argument with ‘anecdotal’ evidence.” Another noted:

It’s difficult for institutions to articulate how important access has been to the work they do, how they do it and to the institution itself. Because it’s difficult to track, it’s at risk of being taken for granted. Open GLAM doesn’t make revenue. But it generates incredible value. It’s important we make the case around value for the institution, and to the institution, but staff just don’t have time.

Many pointed to data from the US and EU showing that open access increases brand value and the licensing opportunities that come with it.^[9] For some, this also illustrated how chilling the lack of open access is on their ability to drive the brand forward. The collaboration aspect, curatorial input and the GLAM’s audience base remain desirable for commercial partnerships. At least one UK GLAM published CC0 collections online and sent the assets to a commercial image library, through which they receive a small income that costs nothing to operate.

In conclusion, copyright or exclusive control are not precursors to income generation or commercialisation, and their absence can have even more of a positive impact. GLAMS remain free to commercialise collections in the public domain and form commercial partnerships around them, which remain desirable because of the expertise and brand value carried by the GLAM. The main difference is that everyone else can use the public domain too. According to one participant, "Open access is not just good economics. It's the right thing to do."

5.2.6. What does open access mean to UK GLAMS?

The qualitative and quantitative research reveals a complex picture of open GLAM policy and practice in the UK. In general, this reflects outdated approaches to open access, with little progress since the 2015 Striking the Balance Report and an overall imbalance across the sector in terms of whose voices shape the debate.

Across the UK, the prevailing approach is to provide digital access to view GLAM content, rather than open access to reuse GLAM content. In the UK sample of 195 GLAMS, this materialized as follows:

• 144 or 73.8% of GLAMS provide digital access to view GLAM content. As a majority approach to open GLAM, 108 GLAMS retain all rights in content and 36 GLAMS publish content under closed licences prohibiting commercial reuse.
• 50 or 25.6% of GLAMS provide open access to reuse GLAM content. As a majority approach to open GLAM, 7 GLAMS publish all eligible collections under open licences (1) and public domain tools (6). The remaining 43 GLAMS publish some eligible collections under open licences and public domain tools.
• A total of 6 GLAMS comply with UK law. These include: Birmingham Museums Trust, Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru (National Library of Wales), Newcastle Libraries, Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove, Wellcome Collection and York Museums Trust.^[10] Given the UK sample included all known instances of open GLAM participation, this number is representative of the entire UK GLAM sector.
• Only 2 national collections have published large volumes of open collections.

Digital access to view content is a standard open access approach in scholarly publishing. Further distinctions are made between Green and Gold open access, which reflects the reuse parameters of the content itself and may be conditioned upon release fees paid by the author, rather than by individual users. However, there is a huge difference between scholarly publishing of new research articles and GLAM publishing of digitised public domain collections: rights undoubtedly exist in the scholarly content published via the platform. Moreover, even in scholarly publishing, attitudes are increasingly shifting to international standards that qualify "open access" upon commercial reuse of content.^[11]

The data shows a strong desire to engage in open access, whatever that means for an institution. Where commercialisation is prioritised, GLAMS commonly apply versions of the Creative Commons NC licences to enable public reuse while ensuring commercialisation proceeds through the GLAM itself. Where attribution is prioritised, the data shows UK GLAMS are publishing small sets of data under the Creative Commons BY and BY-SA licences to ensure credits are given while enabling commercial reuse. In any event, the application of any Creative Commons licence requires a valid copyright to subsist in the digital surrogate. This is also true of the Open Government Licence. The application of such licences to digital surrogates of public domain works is neither lawful nor enforceable according to the Intellectual Property Office's own interpretation of UK copyright law.

Many TaNC projects, and wider GLAM projects, connecting collections across the UK, are being framed as revolutionary for their ability to support new scholarship and address new research questions. Their 'public' is revealed to be academic or educational, extending also to citizen researchers. Download and commercial reuse by any public is however prohibited. This scholarly approach to open access limits new knowledge, innovation and engagement with public domain collections, primarily supporting only their study.

Many participants commented that such policies are creating tension with volunteers who freely contribute their time and expect reuse of collections and data they produce or enrich to be freely available. Such policies do not acknowledge what should happen to non-original contributions in which no new rights subsist, such as transcriptions of public domain documents and/or the facts or basic information documents contain. These materials, and digital media generated around them, are communicated to create new rights for the GLAM by which the institution (and the volunteer) is bound. In this way, it seems projects involving the public are also shaping their understanding of copyright, open access and the public domain.

The result is an open GLAM landscape that maintains the status quo. Notably absent are the UK's national collections. Some mentioned many were waiting for a national institution to break rank and adopt a meaningful open access policy. When asked what might help, one participant responded: "Anything that moves the needle would be helpful. But we really need a jump at this point."

5.3. What is the impact on the digital national collection?

The research uncovered various back-end aspects of copyright, open access, funding and GLAM operations that have already altered the front-end of the digital national collection.

5.3.1. The impact of copyright

Interviews revealed examples of commercialisation goals impacting what gets digitised, used for research projects and published online.

Across UK GLAMS, this has materialised as follows:

• Commercial partners are selecting collections for digitisation based on their commercial viability. GLAMS receive copies for their own personal and/or commercial reuse, including for commercial licensing services. Exclusive agreements can be limited (e.g., five or more years), subject to renewal by the GLAM. This can impact what is published, when and under what reuse conditions once the agreement expires.
• GLAMS with commercial licensing services are selecting collections for digitisation based on their potential commercial viability. This can result in digitising and publishing more popular collections and well-known works, while lesser-known collections, works and creators remain undigitised.
• Historical practices in collecting also decrease the likelihood of older collections containing the artistic contributions of women and people of colour. When included, it is often unlikely such contributions are attributed to their creators due to that information not being recorded (or known) at the time of their acquisition or taking. This can impact the value perceived in these collections and/or render the collections as risky.
• Copyright clearance is necessary to conclude collections are in the public domain. The expense of copyright clearance in preparation for digitisation can impact which collections are digitised.
• Copyright's long term of protection (author's life + 70 years) results in less diverse digital collections when collections are selected for digitisation based on their public domain status, and for reasons related to historical practices of collecting, as discussed above.
• The digitisation technologies used can impact whether claims are made in reproduction media. Some GLAMS delineate by scan (no copyright) versus photography (new copyright).
• The likelihood that copyright arises in 2D reproductions of 3D works (e.g., a photograph of a sculpture) renders openly licensing photographs of 3D collections a policy-based decision.^[12] This affects 2D reproductions of sculptures, as well as what cultural heritage GLAMS label as 'craft' and 'antiquities' which typically have been the creative forms of expression of women and people of colour. The impact can be to further reduce diversity in representation among digital collections published online.

Within TaNC projects, this has materialised as follows:

• At the proposal stage, staff needed to examine what images already existed, were not impacted by commercial partnerships and made up a coherent series of data and images for research purposes.
• For one project, desired image sets required approval from commercial colleagues due to the project's plans to publish images online.
• Staff selected unpublished images sets that had been digitised through costs paid by external researchers.
• Staff selected image sets because they had not been flagged as valuable for commercialisation.
• Participants from GLAMs with stronger commercial licensing programs and returns that produce profit expressed desires to continue enhancing the digital collection and digitise items they know will be commercially attractive.

This data strongly suggests that copyright and the commercial benefits it is perceived to carry have already shaped the UK's digital national collection.

First, commercially minded decisions have created conditions where collections not seen as valuable can remain undigitised for a very long time. One participant noted the circularity of this problem: "In general, if collections are not digitised, they don't get researched." These aspects, and the others above, increase the likelihood of digital collections representing the contributions of white male creators (and collectors) of European descent and that the research undertaken focuses on these contributions.

Second, in general and with TaNC projects, commercialisation goals are holding assets back from being released under open licences and tools.

Third, commercial voices are disproportionately shaping whether, how and when open GLAM takes place, as discussed at length in previous sections. One participant noted the organisation was heading in the right direction but had reached a stalemate with the commercial team. While no ground has since been lost, raising the prospect of 'more open' revives previous tensions felt across the institution.

Fourth, in the aggregate, institutional decisions that shape what gets digitised, and which may be informed by the lack of copyright and the opportunity for commercialisation, can render collections relatively invisible, both digitally and for research.

Fifth, and as previously discussed, copyright fees also shape what research is undertaken by scholars within GLAMs, the UK and globally. One participant noted the "sweet irony of writing about art objects but not being able to include images" and observed that it was "becoming more common to switch topics, or the works featured, to write about things that do not implicate fees and the time involved in negotiating them".

Sixth, copyright fees do not just impact research on UK collections in the public domain. Copyright claims raise barriers to public innovations and the UK's technological and economic competitiveness with other markets.

Finally, copyright claims stall the generation of new cultural products and creations around the public domain. This impacts GLAMs' own abilities to collect new works made by the public that are inspired by their collections.

Some staff feel these conditions are negatively impacting the relevance of the collections, GLAMs and their role to the public. One participant stressed:

Everything has to be brought back to why institutions are here. Copyright has negative obligations which restrict GLAMs from doing things. And it does depend on how you interpret it. But so much of this has been justified to say 'we can do that so long as the money flows back to the museum.' Instead of an 'image licensing service,' it should be 'searchable collections online.' Plus, there's a misplaced vanity about where users go to find images. It's not the collections, or the source. It's Google. Make images open and they will spread, and people will come to the website through those platforms.

Another felt a culture of "hyper-commercialisation" was limiting to UK GLAMs:

Currently, GLAMs are too rewarded for innovative throwaway projects that engage with the latest thing rather than initiatives that develop or sustain long-term strategy. They've turned their interests to hyper-commercialisation opportunities, like NFTs. Commercial capture of museums have consolidated on Instagram and other commercial platforms, like Ancestry, rather than through public access.

5.3.2. The impact of open access

Interviews revealed examples of open access goals, obligations, policies and benefits that are shaping projects, digital collections, reuse and GLAMs themselves.

Across UK GLAMs, this has materialised as follows:

• Open access has removed barriers across GLAMs' systems and within GLAM operations. Participants from two open GLAMS noted that the shift to open revealed where internal barriers had been, as they became visible only once removed.
• Open access has "removed the copyright delay". Participants from open GLAMs noted turnaround is quicker and has resulted in more public engagement in a playful way. The focus is now more about digitisation turnaround and flipping content for online access, rather than allowing copyright to drive that process. One open GLAM divides its digitisation approach into primary and secondary photography: primary photography includes more difficult work or specialist training; secondary photography is faster and just for imaging purposes to expand online access. They have found that when a secondary image is created, and is popular, this often spurs additional asset creation.
• Open access has positively impacted GLAMs' ability to attract research funding that includes funding for digitisation. One participant observed, "[w]hen seeking external funding for digitisation, funders are more willing to support policies for open access and want to see any assets produced with the funding published for public release".
• More than one participant noted that the amount of funding attracted by the GLAM's well-known open access programme far outweighed the revenue generated via commercial licensing on an annual basis. And while direct value is measured by the funding award, the added value of the open access programme to the GLAM as a research institution is immeasurable.
• Open access has positively impacted internal and external researchers' ability to pitch new projects and publish on topics that require images.
• Users are no longer required to navigate rights restrictions. This has led to greater overall public interest in collections.^[13] Some open GLAMs noted an increase in collections inquiries and the need to respond to confirm that people can really reuse the images.
• Open GLAMS regularly receive positive attention online and in print for releasing images to the public domain. This is seen to add brand value, increase reputation and reach and raise interest around the collection, which carries monetary value.
• Open GLAMs are gaining a good reputation among educators and academics. A far greater number are now using images, which raises the profile and research interest in collections.
• Open GLAMs continue to be credited for use of images in academic publications and receive complimentary copies.
• Some GLAMs have stopped acquiring commercial image sets (which come accompanied by copyright claims) so they can focus on data that they can release via open licences and tools.

Within TaNC projects, this has materialised as follows:

• Many TaNC projects will produce open access platforms and new interfaces to deliver content for exploration and research within the new platform.
• A number of TaNC projects will publish datasets CC0. The catalogue data is not seen as commercially viable compared to other media, and therefore can be released to satisfy open access goals.
• Some GLAMS will provide data to TaNC projects at lower resolutions than they maintain internally. Decisions on whether to provide less precise data for public consumption are taken by each GLAM.
• Some TaNC projects ingest and interlink complementary, open, machine-readable, unstructured and/or structured data (i.e., Wikidata) published by GLAMs and organisations both in and outside the UK.

These factors will shape which national collections and data are integrated into TaNC and other UK GLAM projects, in addition to how they can be viewed and reused by the public(s).^[14]

First, open access is extended to the TaNC project platforms, but not the digital collections they aggregate. Users will experience and engage with rights-restricted collections through the curated narratives, algorithms and selection processes discussed in the previous section.

Second, CC0 datasets published to the public domain require levels of digital literacy or expertise to ingest data, run queries, build apps and make other uses.

Third, digital collections published under open licences and public domain tools are receiving greater attention than those restricted by rights and technical protection measures. For example, open GLAMs have observed wider image circulation and reuse via unforeseen external platforms. These external interfaces produce new data on unexpected reuse of and interest in the collection.

To illustrate, Birmingham Museums Trust publishes collections as CC0 via a digital asset management system. There, the most downloaded images are also those most well-known. Of the collection, 312 assets have reappeared on Unsplash where all context around the images has been removed.^[15] This has produced novel and interesting results. Unsplash tracks statistics on reuse and supplies new data to organisations. The Trust found users were downloading and reusing collections in new and fascinating ways without institutional involvement. One surprise has been the interest in The Phantom Horseman by Sir John Gilbert, which has been viewed more than 4,700,000 times and downloaded more than 38,000 times.^[16] This can be compared against the wider collections data, which has been viewed more than 10,000,000 times and downloaded more than 68,000 times. By contrast, this image received 1,425 views and 40 downloads on the Trust's website.^[17] That users can access collections outside of the institutional selection process is seen as important to how, and with what, users engage.

Fourth, the limited extent of UK open GLAM activity indicates meaningful reuse may increasingly shift to the many high-quality digital collections published outside of the UK. This is true of the UK public and even UK GLAMs that encounter barriers around reuse of the UK's digital national collections.

Finally, non-UK open collections and data are already being ingested into UK GLAM collections for research and other reuse purposes, thereby shaping the UK's digital national collection in ways UK GLAMs render impossible by claiming rights in digital collections.

5.3.3. The impact of funding

Interviews revealed examples of funding, including who can access it and what obligations it carries, as shaping the national collection.

Across UK GLAMS, this has materialised as follows:

• One GLAM abandoned a project because obligations to publish open access increased the project costs specifically related to copyright clearance, making the project impracticable. Where obligations do not accompany funding, the GLAM's strategy is to reserve copyright in digitisations of older materials that it cannot clear rights on.
• Some GLAMs revise what proposals include as project outputs due to open access obligations. This requires "getting creative around what parts are funded, as we would not be able to commercially exploit it".
• Participants noted The National Lottery Heritage Fund's Open Licensing Requirement as a very welcome development, and one unlikely to deter GLAM applications: "Funding is always needed, so everyone will always go for it." Similar sentiment was expressed with reference to the Wellcome Collections funding obligations.
• The research documented a trend of CC BY-NC sculpture images being published on Art UK, including by GLAMs with All Rights Reserved policies. These works were digitised as part of Art UK's Sculpture Project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and therefore subject to the previous open licensing requirement of CC BY-NC. This trend is represented in the data for the 40 GLAMS assessed as 'Closed by exception' via their most open approach.^[18] Without this funding obligation, these images likely would have been published All Rights Reserved.
• Some participants noted that funding obligations carve out chunks of the collections and force GLAMs to be more open. The hope is these obligations could eventually snowball and have a retroactive effect on GLAM practices.
• One participant expressed that open access funding obligations are currently treated as exceptions to a system that plans to remain the same.
• Another noted not having an open access policy in place meant GLAMS were missing out on funding revenues. And not only grants, but other opportunities too.

Within TaNC projects, this has materialised as follows:

• Participants commented that if funding had been available for digitisation, they might have focused on different sets of documents.
• TaNC funding is available to RCIs and IROs, although other GLAMS may join projects as partners. Of the UK GLAM Sample data, 40 GLAMs (or 20.5%) are involved as investigators and/or partners on TaNC projects.
• TaNC funding imposes no obligation to publish outputs created with public funding for public reuse.

The increase in funding obligations over the years strongly correlates to the increase in open access to digital heritage collections. While such funding obligations are welcome, participants were concerned they might continue to provide limited reuse patches to a sector that prioritises a culture of copyright and commercialisation over open access to digital collections.

Participants commented it was harder to advocate for embedded change if open access occurs only in the margins. The experience was that it was easier for their work to be side-lined if it was externally funded. This was something seen as requiring fundamental attention.

Participants expressed frustrations that open GLAM in the UK seems reliant on funding obligations and open access carve outs. The feelings were that public funding is funded by the public, public collections are owned by the public, public institutions hold collections in trust for the public and operate according to public missions, and public domain digitisations should remain in the public domain for the public to use for whatever purpose the public so desires.

Funding obligations to publish the underlying research data (e.g., a zipped file with images, data, translations) as open access with a repository can raise barriers for researchers in higher education seeking to work with GLAM collections. Where agreements to publish the data in open access cannot be reached, researchers are unable to go through with the project. A positive alignment across funding policies would improve conditions for UK higher education and GLAM collaborations. One suggestion was to move the UKRI policy into practice with GLAMs.

5.3.4. The impact of GLAMs

As explained above, these layers build upon one another to shape what becomes the UK's digital national collection.

Each GLAM holds exclusive access to their own physical collections. With that comes significant power in terms of unique content for digitisation with added curatorial and educational insight. This will never cease being of value to commercial partnerships. However, the data suggests a culture of copyright and commercialisation is deeply embedded within GLAM practices and has already impacted the digital national collection.

First, as discussed above, GLAMs and commercial partnerships have already selected what gets digitised and how users encounter it.

Second, projects focus on digital access through new interfaces that connect collections or research and shape how users access and engage with collections in new ways.

Third, projects incorporate and produce new research on Al, deep learning, cross-collections engagement and research and other methods, which will undoubtedly produce fascinating results.

Fourth, no plans are made to release these public domain collections or publicly funded outputs for unfettered reuse. The result is that various curated and layered forms of mediation will inspire, influence and ultimately limit how users encounter and engage with this media. This limits the potential of the UK's collections in the public domain to what bespoke projects can enable or permit based on GLAM desires to claim rights, retain exclusivity and commercialise collections for their individual benefit.

Participants expressed serious concerns that maintaining the status quo was negatively impacting the sector's public and international reputation, as well as its ability to keep pace and compete with relatable peers:

UK GLAMs need to be seen as innovative again. We have to make things exciting. The UK will never be seen as innovative until it embraces open access.

As another observed, "Doing nothing is setting the UK back."

5.4. What is the potential of open GLAM for the UK?

The research revealed clear and strong desires to engage with open GLAM. Although the UK may be behind its relatable peers, this inaction can be leveraged to the UK's advantage.

Open GLAM presents the UK sector with exciting opportunities to bring about change that truly can shape future knowledge(s) around cultural collections and position the UK sector as a world leader on open GLAM. Participant observations have been summarised below.

5.4.1. An opportunity of change

Opportunities stemming from change include:

Catching up to the UK's relatable peers. As demonstrated by the data, the United States is well in the lead with 292 instances of open GLAM. With new legal reforms, policies and funding, the European Union and its Member States are only just behind.^[19]

Leveraging the sector's inaction to its advantage. The sector's early stage is also a benefit. Many participants engaging with open access discussed what they would do differently if they could start from scratch, starting by not proceeding with open access on an incremental basis. These participants noted the difficulties and legacy errors now embedded in collections data and internal processes that stem from starting with a closed licence approach, then moving to an open licence approach before finally embracing the public domain status for eligible digital collections. Others noted the carve-out impact on collections management and the internal policies required to manage sets of open data on an exceptional basis, rather than as a policy-wide approach across the GLAM. With each policy change, staff must update digital collections, data and metadata, website terms and conditions, replicating previous work and resulting in greater overall resource investment. The sector's inaction can therefore be seen as a blank slate. This data and other research published by open GLAMS can be used to design more direct and informed strategies for the UK sector and its many GLAMs who have yet to engage.

Supporting open access as a commercial decision. For the majority of GLAMs, commercial licensing is not a sustainable or profitable business model. Nor does it justify the copyrights of GLAMs that do see a profit. Instead, the financial impacts of open access are far greater for the wider economy than licensing images at the point of access. Open access must be seen and embraced as a good commercial decision.

Getting senior management on board. Open GLAM participation often stems from bottom-up and community-led organising. There is a huge opportunity to create a shift across the sector by getting senior management on board with the convening power and lobbying effort to support sustainable change. The UK sector could lead on new strategic thinking around open access as being a central part of the institution’s mission and necessary for its relevance, brand value and long-term survival.

Shifting focus to digitised assets for public reuse. Participants expressed desires to rethink digitised assets themselves and how to make them available for reuse. This requires shifting the focus to the public domain, what that includes, and whether it is appropriate for digitisation, how it should be digitised, and other technical and qualitative questions. The audiences will follow. As one participant noted, “this will enable new forms of scholarship and research because everyone can work fast and loose”.

5.4.2. An opportunity to shape future knowledge(s) and lead on open GLAM

In addition to the new research made possible by open access, there are opportunities to shape future knowledge(s) and become a leader on open GLAM.

Participants raised interests with respect to:

• Technology. What are the ways technology can achieve the things GLAMs want or perceive copyright to achieve (i.e., best practice around attribution and integrity)? How can interfaces: support high quality display and downloads with rich metadata and cataloguing information; make collections display and management more efficient for GLAMs; collect information on reuse at the point of download; educate the public around rights, reuse and the public domain; support voluntary donations, reasonable service fees or financial kickbacks to the GLAM?
• Digital humanities. What is the role of research potential, digital humanities, and networked interoperability in this and the desire for open access? What existing and new scholarly fields can digital collections enrich and inform?
• Understandings of ‘national’ in a digital realm. How does a digital national collection erode traditional borders and access barriers, particularly with respect to open access? How can digital collections outside the UK be networked with those in the UK to enrich the UK’s own national collection, and vice versa?
• Digitalisation. How can collections speak to each other through open access and beyond the confines of institutional lenses? What roles might the public and the commercial sector play in the digitalisation of the public domain, and in the enrichment of GLAM collections?

Many presented this moment as an opportunity for the UK to step forward and become a world leader on open GLAM. Participants raised new research is urgently necessary on:

• New questions arising from open GLAM. Digitisation, open access and even just digital access can raise urgent questions related to cultural sensitivity, decolonisation, contract law, privacy, data protection, rights in user-generated data and other legal and ethical frameworks. An absence of reuse restrictions exposes materials to machine learning, artificial intelligence and computational processes that can replicate bias in collections data and lead to harm. The growing uncertainty in this area causes collections holders to take new risk averse approaches to guard against reuse and fears of misuse. With public domain collections, the focus should be what collections and data are appropriate for online display, and how. New projects examining these questions are proceeding without UK involvement, with some notable exceptions.^[20] There is an urgent need for greater insight on the non-copyright-related issues arising from open GLAM.
• More diverse and accurate representation among open collections. Collections management systems have many issues related to storing and publishing historical terminology and data without adequate contextualisation to support ethical reuse. Some collections cannot be published until the technologies and labour can be invested in to update information so it is fit for purpose. Project-based solutions designed to filter this information or connect collections within a platform can limit the harms raised by publishing data. However, they result in short-term patches to addressing deeply embedded issues found across collections, rather than systemic change across GLAMs and heritage management. These aspects and other reasons discussed above negatively impact diverse and accurate representation and require our urgent attention. Otherwise, what is presented on the front-end will continue to shape public perceptions around value and exacerbate underrepresentation and bias.
• New open access business models. GLAMs have real and serious concerns around the resources required to digitise, prepare and publish collections, including the fear that open access poses risks to commercial partnerships and income that is direly needed. Many expressed desires for new research on open access business models that can support creative opportunities while taking a holistic approach to asset creation, management and open access goals.
• How open access to the digital national collection can support the UK economy. To this point, it worth quoting from the Commission Recommendation on a common European data space for cultural heritage, published 11 October 2021:

Cultural heritage is not only a key element in building a European identity that relies on common values but also an important contributor to the European economy, fostering innovation, creativity and economic growth. For example, cultural tourism represents up to 40% of all tourism in Europe, and cultural heritage is an essential part of cultural tourism. Advanced digitisation of cultural heritage assets and the reuse of such content can generate new jobs not only in the cultural heritage sector but also in other cultural and creative sectors, including for instance the video game and film industries. Cultural and creative industries contribute to 3.95% of EU value added (EUR 477 billion), employ 8.02 million people and involve 1.2 million firms of which 99.9% are [small and medium-sized enterprises].

[...] The creation of a common European data space for cultural heritage will give the cultural heritage institutions the possibility to build on the scale of the single market, in line with the European data strategy. It will foster the reuse of content and spur creativity in various sectors, with value for the whole economy and society. In particular, it will provide high quality content and efficient, trusted and easy-to-use access to European digital cultural heritage assets. It will enhance further collaborations, partnerships and engagement with the network of data partners (e.g. museums, galleries, libraries, archives across Europe), aggregators and experts working in the field of digital cultural heritage. The data space will build on the current Europeana strategy for 2020-2025, whose aim is to empower cultural heritage institutions in their digital transformation.

Currently, the UK sector cannot participate in such research and activity because it lacks sufficient engagement and support on open GLAM. As one participant noted, “those first to market have the advantage”. At this moment, other countries, sectors and GLAMs are setting international standards, leading on open GLAM research and reaping the economic benefits. The UK is notably absent.

The final section concludes by incorporating the suggestions and requests of GLAM staff with recommendations based on the research.

 

---

1. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/11/10/tates-income-loss-reflects-disastrous-impact-of-covid
2. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/11/10/tates-income-loss-reflects-disastrous-impact-of-covid
3. However, claiming copyright when one is unsure of the claim and seeking to license the work could amount to statutory fraud. It is not illegal per se, but doing so by making a false representation to obtain monetary gain opens the door to illegality and a potential criminal investigation. See Ronan Deazley and Robert Sullivan 'Copyright, Licences, and Statutory Fraud (2011) Journal of Media Law 3(2): 287-303; Jason Mazzone, Copyfraud' (2006) New York University Law Review 81(3): 1026-1100
4. About us, 28. Manchester Art Gallery (All rights reserved)
5. See also http://siarchives.si.edu/sites/default/files/pdfs/2016 03 10 OpenCollections Public.pdf;
   https://pro.europeana.eu/files/Europeana Professional/Publications/Democratising%20the%20Rijksmuseum.pdf;
   https://pro.europeana.eu/post/making-impact-on-a-small-budget
6. See also https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/true-costs-research-and-publishing
7. https://www.theguardian.com/law/2021/nov/15/museums-cash-in-market-cultural-digitisation-licensed-goods
8. See also p. 1 of the 2015 Striking the Balance finding: “There is a growing body of evidence that open access to digital content for both commercial and non-commercial reuse drives value back to the existing business model or revenue streams of the institution.”
9. Examples included: the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Cleveland Art Museum; Rijksmuseum; National Gallery of Denmark; Smithsonian Institution; J. Paul Getty Museum; and Nationalmuseum Sweden. See also http://siarchives.si.edu/sites/default/files/pdfs/2016_03_10_OpenCollections_Public.pdf
10. This number could be extended to seven GLAMS to include the Portable Antiquities Scheme, which publishes archival images of objects as CC BY. Copyright is more likely to arise in these images considering objects are three-dimensional (e.g., coins) and arranged on a black background with other elements, leaving greater scope for creative input.
11. See Section 2.
12. See Section 2.
13. For example, Birmingham Museums Trust noted 2,763 downloads by the public in the first 4 months of the policy. Prior to releasing images, they averaged licensing around 175 images total per year.
14. https://collectionsasdata.github.io/
15. https://unsplash.com/
16. https://unsplash.com/photos/5EUh-tq31eA
17. https://dams.birminghammuseums.org.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=17338&index=17&total=501&view=viewSearchItem
18. See Section 3.3.
19. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-proposes-common-european-data-space-cultural-heritage
20. https://www.tate.org.uk/about-us/projects/provisional-semantics; https://photoarchive.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/groups/Archival-Silence-and-Historical-Bias