Memory institutions steward the world’s documentary heritage and fulfil the crucial mission of both preserving and making it accessible to the public. Understanding the critical importance of access to heritage in the digital environment, institutions that share heritage openly generate many benefits for society. Indeed, openness, defined as a means to enable barrier-free sharing, facilitates heritage preservation, creativity, education, scientific research, and cultural participation in the digital environment. And yet, several obstacles still stand in the way of equitable access to public domain heritage in the digital environment. Illustrated by examples and case studies from around the world, the article demonstrates how barriers like wrongful copyright claims, pseudo-copyright restrictions, paywalls, technological protection measures, and accessibility gaps unfairly limit access to heritage. In response to these challenges, by highlighting successful open heritage initiatives, the article shows how open heritage strengthens legal certainty, supports cultural rights, and fosters creativity and innovation. However, with fewer than 1% of the world’s museums, libraries and archives currently sharing their collections openly, the article also points to the absence of an international policy framework encouraging open heritage. Because of this legal vacuum, the full potential of open heritage remains largely unrealized.

To help close this global policy gap, Creative Commons convened the Open Heritage Coalition (formerly TAROCH Coalition). Bringing together around 70 organizations across 25 countries, the Coalition developed the Open Heritage Statement to affirm shared values, identify unfair barriers to access, and offer policy solutions to remove such barriers. The Statement aims to foster international dialogue among all relevant stakeholders and to lay a foundation for UNESCO to develop an international standard-setting instrument, such as a Recommendation, to ensure equitable access to heritage in the public domain in the digital environment.