Concurrently, what \u2018Cultural Openness\u2019 can mean has been under discussion among libraries, NGOs, governments and creators. Collectively, we have an interest in ensuring art and heritage locked away from the public and their creators.<\/p>\n
As the international community continues discussing what culture as a global public good means in practice, IFLA and likeminded partners are underlining the importance of open cultural content as part of the broader UN Digital Public Goods agenda<\/a>. IFLA is working to ensure that perspectives from the library field are being heard in these discussions.<\/p>\n I was asked by IFLA to represent the Cultural Heritage Advisory Committee (CCH) at the Open Culture Roundtable organized by Creative Commons. The purpose of this event was to start shaping an initiative towards building a UNESCO Open Culture Recommendation. In addition to CC and UNESCO, Roundtable participants came from the fields of law, library science, policy, design, anthropology, history, museum curation, and international organizations. The CC team was Brigitte V\u00e9zina, Director of Policy and Open Culture; Connor Benedict, Open Culture Coordinator; Jennryn Wetzler, Director of Learning and Training; and Jocelyn Miyara, Open Culture Manager. Brigitte V\u00e9zina also shared thoughts on the event on CC\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n Before the Roundtable we met online and shared our ideas of Open Culture. The actual Roundtable day in Lisbon we were divided into small group working sessions and discussions.<\/p>\n We started with the history of Open Culture, which naturally included the history of copyright and ownership. The second step was to discuss the context around Open Culture, including the political climate, internal and outside trends, economic climate, technical factors, stakeholder needs, and uncertainties. The \u2018platformisation\u2019 of culture \u2013 in which large companies control distribution of media \u2013 and a predominant focus on Western \u2018culture\u2019 were recognized as risks. Advancing developments in AI were seen to have both potential risks and benefits.<\/p>\n Finally, we considered bold steps that could be taken to move Open Culture forward. More public-private partnerships are needed. Ethics of Open Culture must emphasize a global perspective. Last but not least, economic resources are needed to make Open Culture sustainable.<\/p>\n Picture: Visualization of the third session (\u00a9 Creative Commons \/ Abdul Dube and Mona Ebdrup,\u00a0CC BY 4.0)<\/a><\/p>\n The Open Culture Roundtable was an inspiring opportunity to meet people from different backgrounds working with similar questions than we librarians. It is crucial that IFLA \u2013 and the library sector in general \u2013 are represented in this work which continues in virtual meetings and in the CC Summit in Mexico City in October 2023.<\/p>\n I joined Johanna at CC\u2019s Open Culture Roundtable. \u00a0I came to the library field from anthropology and am used to considering \u2018culture\u2019 as a dynamic, lived practice. It is what you do <\/em>more than what you put on a shelf. What you can take off a shelf,<\/em> however, becomes a part of cultural practice and should not be locked away arbitrarily. The Mondiacult Declaration presents an opportunity to advocate for openness and accessibility for culture as a global public good. Heritage informs us best when we can actively engage with it, and libraries play a key role in both preservation and access. Open Culture supports the integration and accessibility of preserved heritage and IP within everyday life.<\/p>\n Creative Commons is active in the area, and its licenses<\/a> have been important in providing practical ways to share content in line with creators\u2019 and users\u2019 interests. The Lisbon conversation continued in Creative Commons\u2019 session in MozFest in Amsterdam on on Generative AI.<\/a> The \u2018Open\u2019 world has tended to emphasize the value of the commons, which is currently being exercised and tested by AI training models. If you\u2019ve read the news this summer, you\u2019ve likely heard about it \u2013 I\u2019ll be speaking on the topic at WLIC<\/a> as will other library professionals.<\/p>\n The MozFest discussion, however, prominently brought in creators. AI utilizes large amounts of human-created work to enable the creation of new works \u2013 and could positively or negatively impact how creators make a living. It could be used to make work easier by taking over time-consuming, menial aspects of jobs (as many technologies have done<\/a>), or displace skilled workers and their artisanal output with cheap, inferior knock-offs (as many technologies have done<\/a>). Often the line between the two (art and banality) may not be easily distinguishable \u2013 I linked above to the photocopier as an example of \u2018technology that made work easier\u2019, but the CC discussion used typesetting as an example of a once prominent, now diminished art.<\/p>\n There are two takeaways I\u2019d like to share I\u2019ve been turning over in my mind. The first is that how<\/em> we create changes and adapts with time. As one session participant described, our choices are about what skills we want to keep and what tasks we want to delegate to technology. This is the strain of the conversation that doesn\u2019t want AI to do the work of artists and humans to do the work of Roombas. The second key thought is that AI and other technologies should support creatives\u2019 ability to make a living, and consumers\u2019 capacities to access their creations. While \u2018openness\u2019 may be framed as something to fear for creative workers, the AI come to take their hard-created stuff, I see a bigger threat in established, powerful commercial entities using licenses, contracts and the law to capture creative works and the tools of creation from <\/em>creators and the public. Creators\u2019 and libraries\u2019 interests in openness are here very much aligned.<\/p>\n This summer\u2019s Hollywood strikes of the film writers\u2019 and actors\u2019 guilds have expressed concern over AI<\/a>, which captures both of these takeaways \u2013 the need to innovate thoughtfully, in ways that support creative workers. The writers worry that AI could be considered the original \u2018author\u2019 of scripts they are called on to \u2018re-write\u2019 (and thus they would be denied credit and given less pay). The actors worry that after an hour\u2019s work, AI could be used to modify their likenesses indefinitely. In these cases, studios would continue to profit, and humans would be cut out of the loop. These concerns are less about the technology itself, and more about how it could be used to minimize creators\u2019 legally remunerable contributions. Meanwhile, streaming services are pulling original movies and shows <\/a>that lack physical releases, depriving creators of residuals, the public of access, and libraries of their long-established role in preserving this heritage beyond immediate commercial considerations.<\/p>\n Creators, the public, and libraries have a shared interest in ensuring these works aren\u2019t \u2018closed\u2019. \u2018Cultural Openness\u2019 is about more than just ensuring creations remain accessible, but also of ensuring that creators\u2019 contributions aren\u2019t \u2018captured\u2019 by licenses. The future will ultimately be determined less by technology, and more by the personal, professional and policy decisions we make about how to use it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What does Open Culture mean for libraries, creators, and consumers? 2022\u2019s UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development \u2013 MONDIACULT resulted in a declaration that affirmed culture as a global public good. This means States have recognised the benefit that culture can and should bring to all, and governments\u2019 role in providing clear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1051,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/lpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/lpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/lpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/lpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1051"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/lpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3635"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/lpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3639,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/lpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3635\/revisions\/3639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/lpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/lpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/lpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Open Culture Roundtable in Lisbon (May)<\/h2>\n
Johanna Lilja, the National Library of Finland<\/em><\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/lpa\/files\/2023\/08\/cc-session-3-b.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nMozfest, Amsterdam (June)<\/h2>\n
Matt Voigts, IFLA HQ<\/em><\/h3>\n