efforts of the EU. In this regard, as one of the seven flagship initiatives of the Europe 2020 strategy, the Digital Agenda is setting up several key principles and guidelines to redress many of the tensions challenging the full exploitation of the value of the digital public domain. Many of the key actions proposed by the Digital Agenda strengthen the conclusions and the call for policy actions put forward by Communia. In particular:
i. Digitization of the European cultural heritage and digital libraries are key aspects of the recently implemented Digital Agenda of the EU. The Digital Agenda notes that fragmentation and complexity in the current licensing system also hinder the digitization of a large part of Europe’s recent cultural heritage. Therefore,
a. rights clearance must be improved;
b. Europeana — the EU public digital library — should be strengthened and increased public funding is needed to finance large-scale digitization, alongside initiatives with private partners;
c. funding to digitization projects is to be conditioned to general accessibility of Europe’s digitized common cultural heritage online;
ii. The Digital Agenda calls for a simplification of copyright clearance, management and cross-licensing. In particular, the European Commission should create a legal framework to facilitate the digitization and dissemination of cultural works in Europe by proposing a directive on orphan works;
iii. The review of the Directive on the Re-Use of Public Sector Information to oblige public bodies to open up data resources for cross-border application and services has been prioritised by the Digital Agenda;
iv. Promoting cultural diversity and creative content in the digital environment, as an obligation under the 2005 UNESCO Convention, is an additional relevant goal of the Digital Agenda;
v. The Digital Agenda is also very much concerned with harmonisation and simplification of laws by calling for the creation of a “vibrant single digital market” and promoting the necessity of building digital confidence as per the EU citizens’ digital rights that are scattered across various laws and are not always easy to grasp.
The mentioned European strategies have been translated in a vast array of projects and endeavours to protect and propel the public domain in Europe and to investigate its capacity to produce value for society at large. Communia is one of the outcomes of this strategic vision, especially conceived to investigate the challenges and the opportunities brought by digitization.
