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Every year in January, Open Knowledge and Open Culture communities celebrate the moment when heritage works enter the Public Domain, as their copyright terms expire. Open Future participated in this year’s celebration of Public Domain Day 2025, which took place on January 9 at the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR).
Professor Séverine Dusollier (University Professor and Senior Member of the Institut Universitaire de France, Law School Sciences Po, Paris) opened the event with a keynote speech, providing a comprehensive overview of Public Domain and copyright.
After the keynote, the morning session split into two tracks: a Belgian Track and a European Track. Open Future participated in the European track. This track explored significant barriers to strengthening the Public Domain in Europe and showcased ongoing European and international initiatives working to overcome these challenges.
Paul Keller (Director of Policy at Open Future) and Sebastian Posth (Founder and CEO at Liccium) introduced the new Commons DB project. It is an EU-funded pilot project to develop the EU Registry of Public Domain and open-licensed works. It is part of Open Future’s commitment to supporting the Digital Commons, and our first effort to build Public Digital Infrastructure suited for this purpose.
Meanwhile, the Belgian track focused on Public Domain developments in Belgium and beyond, showcasing newly released Public Domain works and their reuse.
Public Domain Day in Europe 2025 was co-organized by meemoo, COMMUNIA, Creative Commons, Europeana, Royal Library of Belgium (KBR), Wikimedia Belgium, and Wikimedia Europe, with the aim to share experiences and collaborate on making these cultural treasures accessible.
This blog post on COMMUNIA’s website provides more information about the event, and all the recordings can be found on Europeana’s Vimeo account.
