SAA participates in Public Hearing on Bringing Europe's Cultural Heritage Online

Following the online consultation on boosting cultural heritage online in Europe organized by the European Commission at the end of the summer, the Reflection Group (Comité des Sages) whose three members Elisabeth Niggemann, Director general of the German National Library, Maurice Lévy, CEO of Publicis and Jacques De Decker, writer have been appointed by Commissioner Kroes and Vassiliou in April 2010 to make recommendations on ways and means to make Europe's cultural heritage and creativity available on the Internet, looking in particular at funding sources, at how cultural organisations and the private sector can interact in the digital age, and at responsibilities and solutions for digitising material that is in the public domain or still in copyright, organised a public hearing on 28 October 2010.

The hearing, chaired by Maurice Lévy, brought together 100 participants in a lively discussion nurtured by the questions of the Reflection Group. SAA presented proposals for a successful partnership for the digitization, archiving and online making available of European cultural heritage co-signed with three other organizations: European Visual Artists (EVA), Federation of European Publishers (FEEP) and International Federation of Reproduction Rights organizations (IFRRO).