När kommer upphovsrätten in i bilden? : En kvalitativ studie av digitalt tillgängliggörande av bildmaterial

Sammanfattning: The aim of this master’s thesis is to investigate the effect of copyright on the selection of pictorial material for digital access at cultural heritage institutions. We also look into the attitudes of cultural heritage workers towards copyright. We want to show what different attitudes exist among them and we hope to contribute to a changed view on copyright. What is made accessible on the internet affects what is being used. That is why we believe that it is important to investigate how this selection is made, who is involved and what different factors affect the selection process. Our main focus is what influence copyright has on the selection process. The method used in this study is qualitative interviews of seven people working with digitization and digital access at cultural heritage institutions. We use Terry Cooks ideas of postmodern theory in archival science to argue that the cultural heritage worker has power over the selection of material for public access. One issue related to this is that it's not made clear how the people involved motivate their choices regarding selection, neither through policy guidelines nor documentation of the work process. In our study, we examine how cultural heritage workers describe the selection process and to what extent the individual worker can decide what gets digitized. We also examine different problems that can arise in regards to copyright and how the institutions deal with these issues. The results found in the study is that several of the people we interviewed view copyright as an obstacle when they want to make material accessible and they deal with this in different ways. Regarding material where there are uncertainties about copyright the institutions can choose to either make it accessible despite the uncertainties or prevent access. We also found that very few institutions have actual policy guidelines concerning digital access. Instead they use informal criteria to select what should be made accessible to the public.