Verso una democrazia della cultura: libero accesso e libera condivisione dei dati

The subject of the access and free reuse of cultural data is one of the more topical challenges in the modern democracy of the knowledge. The full affirmation of this principle, still finding today however several cultural obstacles both on a cultural and a regulatory point of view, would allow to rethink toward more including forms the public administration’s approach to cultural heritage. This paper focuses on the request, advanced by the movement Fotografie libere per i Beni Culturali to extend the free photography for research purposes to public archives and libraries, lately fulfilled by the law n. 124/2017 which entered into force on the 29th of August. Great opportunities may instead be presented by the adoption of licenses by museums, archives, and libraries, allowing free commercial reuse of digitization, as well as that panorama freedom today still denied in Italy. The paper concludes by examining another category of cultural data, namely documentation related to the archaeological excavations preserved in the MiBACT archives: free access to this type of data could encourage not only archaeological research, but also more efficient conservation and promotional activities.