Rights

Knowledge about the rights that cover (parts of) your archive or collections is important if you want to reproduce, (re)use or provide access to them. As (co-)author or creator of a document or object, you also have copyrights. If you want to reuse or make another author’s work available, you need to respect their copyrights. It’s also important to make clear agreements with third parties when creating new works. Carefully noting down who the rightsholders are at the moment of creation, and what rights cover items in your archive and collections, simplifies reuse at a later date.

In this section, you can read what rights could come into play and how you clarify them when you want to reuse content which you aren’t the (only) rightsholder for. You will also become acquainted with the possibilities of Creative Commons licences and the impact of privacy laws (GDPR) on your archive and collection operations.

In the autumn of 2020, TRACKS partners organised a webinar and Q&A on copyright. You can watch the (fully subtitled) webinar below. It answers questions such as:

  • What types of rights are there? (04:20 - 18:21)
  • What can and cannot be done with archival materials according to copyright? (18:22 - 22:21)
  • What agreements need to be made regarding rights at the time of creating a new work? (22:30 - 26:14)
  • What should be documented when recording rights? (26:15 - 30:02)



On 24 January 2023, Cultuurloket organised the webinar: ‘Protecting your work’. You can watch the full webinar below (in Dutch). It answers questions such as:

  • What are copyright and related rights: the basics? (3:10 - 24:45)
  • When can I use someone else’s work? (24:45 - 46:41)
  • How do you correctly transfer your rights? (0:46:41 - 1:12:00)
  • How can you earn from your copyright? (1:12:00 - 1:36:00)
  • What about copyright in the online environment? (1:36:00 - 1:48:00)


Model agreements for freelancer assignments

When you as an organisation want to work with freelancers (e.g. photographers), it is important to make clear agreements and set them down on paper – and there are a number of model agreements avail...

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Checklist for clearing rights

When you want to (re)use or make documents or image content from your archive publicly accessible, you first need to check whether they are subject to copyright. In this article, you’ll learn: When...

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Creative Commons licence as a solution for the rights issue

Instead of retaining full control over your work through copyright, as a rights holder, you can assign a Creative Commons licence to it. This allows others to freely reuse the work under certain con...

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GDPR and archive care: what else is possible?

The GDPR provides extensive protection for privacy and personal data, and this legislation also has consequences for archive management. Fortunately, you can make use of some exceptions within the c...

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Types of rights

Different types of rights may apply to your archive or collection. When you want to make items publicly accessible, it is important that these rights are cleared. In this article, you’ll learn: W...

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TRACKS is a collaboration between these partners: