CommonsDB Feasibility Study: Building the Future of Digital Commons

Open Future, in collaboration with Liccium, Europeana Foundation, Wikimedia Sverige, and the Institute for Information Law, has released the first part of the CommonsDB Feasibility Study.

This milestone report presents a framework for creating a registry of Public Domain and openly licensed works, outlining both the conceptual foundation and technical specifications for a system that will enhance legal certainty in digital content reuse.

The Purpose of the Study

The first part of CommonsDB Feasibility Study outlines the registry’s objectives and technical approach, while providing a legal analysis of key participants under EU copyright law.

This study aims to gather community feedback and ensure transparency as we develop the prototype registry, which launched in February 2025.

Key Findings

1. Greater Confidence in Content Reuse: Verifiable rights information enables confident identification and use of Public Domain and openly licensed works.
2. Trust and Interoperability Through Open Standards: CommonsDB uses ISCC codes and Verifiable Credentials for authentic rights declarations.
3. More Reliable Attribution: The registry will link digital assets to rights information for better attribution by cultural institutions and other parties.
4. Scalability and Openness Achieved by Design: The prototype features federation for interconnected registries with public metadata.
5. Low Risk of Copyright Infringement: CommonsDB standard operations present minimal copyright infringement risk.

Next Steps for CommonsDB

With the first part of the Feasibility Study complete—which establishes our development approach and design decisions—the project moves into its implementation phase.

We anticipate launching the first public version of the registry after summer. The second part of the Feasibility Study, scheduled for November 2025, will address the technical and operational challenges identified in our initial study. These findings will inform the final prototype, expected in the first quarter of 2026.

We welcome feedback on the full report as we work with our partners to enhance access to Public Domain and openly licensed works.

The project, building on Open Future’s 2021 white paper and backed by European Parliament support, is developing essential copyright infrastructure for Public Domain works and Digital Commons resources.
 

Download the study

 
Learn more at the CommonsDB website.