Reuse of cultural heritage’s digital image: problems and perspectives

Abstract

The EU directive 2019/790 on copyright in the digital single market includes some principles and exceptions to exclusive rights of particular interest for archives, libraries and museums: art. 14 of the directive, in particular, aims to promote the dissemination and reuse of faithful reproductions of works of visual arts in the public domain. For a better harmonization of the directive with national regulations, it is necessary to modify art. 87 of the Italian law on copyright, which defines the related rights on simple photographs of figurative art works, and it is desirable to amend artt. 107 and 108 of the Italian Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape, liberalizing the reuse – for any purpose – of faithful reproductions of public cultural heritage in public domain.

The current pandemic, in the digital era, has, moreover, strongly brought out the issue of the digital cultural resources' reuse. If the digitization of public cultural heritage will be accompanied by an expansion of conditions for reusability of the digital reproductions of cultural heritage, it will be able to unfold its potential in support of creativity, publishing, cultural entrepreneurship and tourism, sectors weakened by the pandemic, which could be revitalized by the free reuse of images also for commercial purposes. The ongoing debate, which has recently entered the Italian parliament, is not only a urgent matter but also a political issue, as it directly affects the relationship between society, cultural heritage and cultural institutes.