The interaction of copyright law with the legal protection of cultural goods
Cristiana Sappa · Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2025
Rules on cultural goods are introduced to enable the community to access the knowledge they bring along. Such provisions are designed for keeping the past alive in the present time, while copyright mainly looks at the future. Knowing that, it is possible to identify two phases in the interplay between cultural goods preservation and valorization and copyright. The first phase is determined by some copyright exceptions and limitations, thanks to which copyright serves the goal of facilitating the preservation of cultural goods and access to related information. In this perspective, copyright looks at how to keep the past alive, in a specific and non trasversal way, without distorting too much the focus from its main forward-looking mission. The second phase concerns copyright as applied to the digital versions of cultural goods. Practice shows that copyright is often (mis)used by cultural heritage institutions (CHIs) as a self-funding mechanism to recover preservation and valorization-related expenses. This reflects a deviation from copyright's main goal. Within this context, recent regulatory measures have introduced some flexibilities that aim at fostering cultural production based upon cultural goods’ images, including from a market perspective. This represents a focus shift in the interaction between copyright and cultural goods that looks at the future instead of looking at the past, and thus reconciles this form of protection with its initial purpose of rewarding creators. However, such measures do not seem sufficient for upsetting the practice and encouraging CHIs to make an appropriate and consistent use of copyright.