Enhancing access to 20th Century cultural heritage through Distributed Orphan Works clearance (EnDOW)

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Describe the proposed research in simple terms in a way that could be publicised to a general audience [up to 4000 chars]. Note that this summary may be published on the AHRC's website in the event that a grant is awarded.Digitization of 20th Century cultural heritage is severely restricted due to the real or potential subsistence of copyright and related rights. Under the new European laws on orphan works, a large amount of cultural heritage whose copyright status is uncertain could possibly be lawfully digitized by cultural institutions on condition that a "diligent search" of the rightholders has been performed. While these diligent searches trigger prohibitively high costs for institutional users, the project designs a cost effective de-centralized system that enables cultural institutions across Europe to source information from end-users and determine the copyright status of works contained in their collections. Ultimately, the project will allow for an enhanced access to 20th Century cultural heritage and will contribute to enable use and re-use of items that would otherwise remain scarcely known and certainly unexploited.Key objectives of EnDOW are:? To analyse the legal requirement of "diligent search" across the orphan works legislation of the 15 countries members of Heritage Plus? To investigate best practices of orphan works clearance across cultural heritage sectors (libraries, archives and museums);? (Based on this knowledge:) to design, implement and optimize an online platform for crowd-sourced diligent searching on works contained in the collections of European cultural institutions;? To study the potential applications and challenges of the crowd-based search method for images, film and born-digital cultural heritage works.Through analytical and empirical approaches to mass digitization, the project will foster knowledge exchange between cultural heritage stakeholders, including small and medium size institutions. It will produce a high-value tool to maximise sustainable management of recent cultural heritage and use and re-use of related cultural artefacts.