Image: Sunny Brabant landscape, Jean Brusselmans, collection Musea Brugge, photo: Hugo Maertens, artinflanders.be, public domain.

On January 1st of every year, new heritage works enter the public domain. Unfortunately, these works often remain inaccessible to the public.

In order to share experiences and best practices in opening up this material, Meemoo, COMMUNIA, Creative Commons, Wikimedia Europe, Wikimedia Belgium, the Royal Library of Belgium and Europeana are co-organising the annual Public Domain Day, to be celebrated on 9 January 2025.

This event will highlight inspiring developments and use cases from Belgium and examine the legal, financial, technical and institutional barriers that prevent the public access to this works. Discussions will focus on strategies to overcome these obstacles, ensuring that public domain content can truly benefit everyone.

What is the public domain?
The public domain is the collection of all creative works that are not (or no longer) subject to exclusive intellectual property rights, such as copyright and neighbouring rights. Every year, new works enter the public domain because in many countries copyright protections expire 70 years after the death of the author or artist.

Join the event on 9 January 2024 at KBR (Kunstberg 28, 1000 Brussels). The morning session is split into two tracks, for which you can register separately. The Belgian track will be mainly in Dutch, with some possible interventions in French or English, depending on the speaker. The European track as well as the afternoon plenary will be held exclusively in English.

Take a look at the full programme and speakers, and register now!

Please note that online participation will be limited to the plenary morning session, the European track and the plenary session in the afternoon.