Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation supports Hamburg Note
Press release from 10/15/2015
Parzinger: Digitisation of cultural heritage requires a new legal framework
Together with other German archives, libraries and museums, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation is campaigning for new copyright regulations for the digitisation of cultural heritage. In the so-called "Hamburg Note", the directors of renowned institutions and academics call for access to cultural heritage not to be jeopardised by legal obstacles. The note states: "If the opportunities offered by digitisation are to be exploited, however, a legal framework is needed that makes a legal case-by-case examination unnecessary for all public memory institutions and generally enables holdings to be made visible on the Internet."
According to SPK President Hermann Parzinger, who is one of the signatories of the "Hamburg Note", the current law is not compatible with the requirements of the information society in the 21st century: "We must and we want to make progress with the digitisation of our collections if we take the preservation of our cultural heritage seriously. However, this is only possible if we do not have to clarify the copyright status of every item. We would like to see a significant simplification of the situation here."
This year's "Shaping Access!" conference on 5 and 6 November will continue the copyright debate with regard to cultural heritage.