Current Best Practices among Cultural Heritage Institutions when Dealing with Copyright Orphan Works and Analysis of Crowdsourcing Options

The purpose of this study is to establish the current state of best practices among Cultural Heritage Institutions (CHIs) when dealing with in-copyright orphan works in three countries: the United Kingdom, Netherlands and Italy. A baseline understanding of current practice provides a benchmark against which crowdsourcing (or any other proposal) to address the challenge posed by orphan works can be evaluated. The research team used a purposive sample to approach the ‘Big 3’ national libraries and film archives in each country, typically including the national library, the national archive and the national film archive. The researchers also aimed to include at least

one institution from each jurisdiction that had used the EUIPO database, and one institution that digitized orphan works but opted not to use the database.

15 cultural institutions are included in the study. A semi-structured interview format was used to gather qualitative and quantitative data about the CHIs,

their collections, their diligent search processes, the results of rights clearance for specific digitization projects, their thoughts on the potential of crowd-sourcing as a solution, and their views on the current legislative framework.