Art UK: Opening Up Access to the Nation's Art

The following state-of-the-sector report has been commissioned by Towards a National Collection to open debate on future copyright and open access practice and recommendations. The recommendations presented are the authors own and their report form part of the evidence that Towards a National Collection continues to gather to determine the future policies it will recommend.

This report gives an overview of Art UK’s approach to image rights management and how its policies and practice have enabled the charity to ensure that artwork records shown on artuk.org include a digital image with minimal risk to the charity and the participating collections. Art UK presents a particular example of an aggregated national collection in which the audience’s ability to view images is critical and in which image rights are exerted by thousands of collections and tens of thousands of creators. This report explains how our Intellectual Property Rights policy, licensing framework, rights clearance processes and digital licence logic work together with the technology in making images available to view online. It ends with our plans for the future and the lessons learnt that are applicable to Towards a National Collection (TaNC).

Aidan McNeill has over 10 years practical experience working in the cultural heritage sector and creative industries. She is the Head of Copyright and Licensing at Art UK, a cultural education charity that offers a digital platform and infrastructure shared by 3,400 public art collection venues across the UK. In her role at Art UK, she has been responsible for developing IP policies, workflows, licensing agreements and risk management policies related to digital image rights management for the organisation.