The Europeana Public Domain Charter, revised in 2025, is an essential document that champions the principle that cultural works, once their copyright expires, should be freely available for everyone to use, share, and build upon. Copyright Community Steering Group Member Ana Lazarova and her students from the Department of Library and Information Studies at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski have provided a translation of the charter into Bulgarian. This is a significant step towards wider understanding and adoption of the charter.
The Public Domain Charter harmonises principles of the public domain:
Copyright is temporary
The public domain is permanent
The public domain is crucial to the enjoyment of fundamental rights
Cultural heritage institutions are the stewards of the public domain
And it's a call to action for cultural heritage institutions, policymakers, and the public to:
Advocate against any expansions of the scope or duration of copyright protection
Advocate against attempts to reconstitute or obtain exclusive and/or undue control over public domain materials.
Ensure that all forms of digital reproductions of public domain materials are not subject to additional legal restrictions.
Avoid entering into contracts that limit the reuse of public domain material
Mark public domain materials systematically, rigorously and accurately.
Balance the public domain against other legitimate interests.
Safeguard the availability of public domain materials
Provide high quality and reusable reproductions and metadata.
Help us translate the charter
To ensure that the Charter resonates across Europe, it's crucial to make it available in as many languages as possible. If you are passionate about the public domain and would like to contribute to making this initiative to a wider audience, we invite you to translate the Public Domain Charter into your own language.
By translating the Charter, you'll be directly contributing to:
Increased accessibility: making these crucial principles understandable to more people in your region.
Broader advocacy: enabling wider discussions and stronger advocacy for the public domain.
Community engagement: fostering a shared understanding and commitment to open cultural heritage.
If you are interested in creating a translation, please contact Europeana at [email protected], you can started immediately by downloading the translation template.
If you would like to be the first to hear news about the public domain and related developments in Europe, we also invite you to join the Europeana Network Association Copyright Community and continue the conversations!