A digitalização do património cultural na perspetiva do Copyright e do Direito de Autor

Abstract

This article analyses the issues that Copyright and Author's Rightslaws pose to the recent process of digitizing the cultural heritage of humanity. After a review of the historical evolution and fundamentals of copyright laws, it will be seen how museums have adapted intellectual protection laws to scanningand public availability of their collections. The case of books scanning will then be analysed, referring to the way in which CreativeCommons licenses have been used. We then refer to the Europeana project, andfinally the recent European Copyright Directive is analysed.The guiding thread of the article is to underline the importance of the public domain not only in terms of the conservation of cultural heritage but also as a basis for future creations