Stakeholder workshop Commercial versus Non-Commercial in Copyright

January 12th 2009

The European Greenbook ‘Copyright in the Knowledge Economy’ (‘Europese Groenboek 'Auteursrecht in de Kenniseconomie') has set Dutch museums and archives in motion. In October representatives of Dutch heritage foundations gathered in an open brainstorm for a joint reaction to the European thought development concerning copyright.

On Monday, the 15th of December, a stakeholder workshop about the poorly defined difference between commercial and non-commercial use of works protected under copyright was organized at Kennisland HQ as spin-off for the brainstorm. Among other things, the definition which is used by Creative Commons came up for discussion.

The workshop’s goal was to collectively produce a first design for a statement from the heritage sector about the difference between commercial and non-commercial use. Two questions form the guiding principles. First of all, what acts of cultural heritage foundations are considered to be commercial or non-commercial use by the sector? Secondly, what forms of recycling of material under management of heritage foundations by third parties are considered to be commercial, respectively non-commercial by the sector?

The workshop was organized by the consortium Images for the Future and Creative Commons NL in collaboration with the organizers of the brainstorm Greenbook from the 17th of October 2008.