About the conference
Each year, new heritage works enter the public domain, opening up possibilities for their creative reuse by educators, researchers and culture lovers. Since 2022, partners COMMUNIA, Creative Commons, the Royal Library of Belgium, Internet Archive Europe, CREATe, Europeana Copyright Community, Europeana Foundation, Open Nederland Wikimedia Belgium, Wikimedia Europe, have organised the European Public Domain Day conference, an event dedicated to highlighting the importance of access to cultural resources, materials and data in the public domain for all citizens. The conference gathers scholars, advocates, policymakers and heritage practitioners to explore the Public Domain, and how we collectively can continue protecting it.
The European Public Domain Day conference is usually divided in two parts: the first focuses on European legal and policy developments around the Public Domain, such as court cases, academic research and policy perspectives; the second aims to gather case studies and practitioners’ experiences related to the Public Domain.
In 2026, the conference will take place on 15 January at the Royal Library of Belgium, in Brussels. We encourage you to save the date and stay tuned as the registration will be opening mid-october through our partners socials and on our website.
Respond to the call for contributions
At Europeana 2025, the European Public Domain Day conference’s organisational committee were excited to open a call for contributions for this year’s conference, to gather diverse case studies and experiences when it comes to Public Domain collections. Through the call, we want to hear new voices, discover new topics and have a better representation of the activities all over Europe.
The call for contributions for a talk or presentation at the European Public Domain Day Conference is open until 30 September 2025. Cultural heritage professionals, practitioners, researchers and GLAM community members are welcome to submit your proposals in order to join the afternoon program. Find out more and submit your proposal.
A world map of Public Domain celebrations
This year, we have decided to launch the World Map of Public Domain Celebrations. The goal of the map is to help citizens to find the closest celebration to take part in. Fill in the form to share your upcoming event, and be visible to other community members!
Find out more
You can find lots of information about the Public Domain and the event on the Public Domain Day website.
If you would like to be the first to hear news about the public domain and related developments in Europe, we also invite you to join the Europeana Network Association Copyright Community and continue the conversations!