Arkiverad men inte tillgängliggjord : En studie av upphovsrättslagen, kollektiva avtalslicenser och tillgängliggörande av digitaliserat arkivmaterial

Sammanfattning: This study focuses on the Nordic model of Extended Collective Licenses (ECL) and how this model can be used in the process of digitalising and publishing archival material such as photos, letters, maps or films. The question that this study aims to deal with is what advantages, and disadvantages, there are for archives and copyright holders when an ECL is being used. To help answering this question the ‘theory of the knowledge commons’ has been applied. The research question has been answered through a text analysis based on legal texts including Swedish law. To get a wider perspective, international literature such as official and law-binding documents from the Nordic countries and the European Union have also been consulted. Policies and contributions to the debate about making cultural heritage available online have also been included to give light to the complexity of the question. In 2013 the Swedish copyright law was changed to facilitate for certain archives and libraries to sign an agreement with a so called Collective Administration Organization (CAO). There are no examples of ECLs being used by Swedish archives for classical archival materials even if the possibility to draw up this type of agreements has existed since 2005. One of the reasons might be the complexity of the law and that the archival institutions have problems of interpreting it. The institutions often avoid providing access to their materials online or choose material they know is in the public domain already. Finding copyright holders before publishing material online is time-consuming. One of the major advantages of functional ECLs is that they save time and resources – both for the archival institutions and the copyright holders. The ECLs provide an opportunity for the archival institutions to share their collections with the public and the copyrights holders get an organized way to communicate their terms and conditions. This is a two years master’s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies.