23 April 2021

By Amalyah Keshet, Senior Consultant Considering the flood of attention, volumes of verbiage, and mountains of money that NFTs (non-fungible tokens) have produced recently in the art world, it would be inconceivable to ignore the subject at present.  To make sense of it all is another matter altogether. We’ve had a go at breaking it […]

22 April 2021

By Naomi Korn, Managing Director In the UK, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sits side by side with the Data Protection Act 2018 as the UK GDPR. The intention of this EU derived legislation was to harmonise data protection rules across EU member states. It applies to data processing carried out by individuals and […]

20 April 2021

By Faye Cheung, Researcher One of the key principles of data protection law is security. In 2019 the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) fined a London-based pharmacy for its ‘careless’ storage of sensitive personal data.[1] The pharmacy had left approximately 500,000 paper documents containing special category personal data in unlocked containers on its premises.[2] The lack […]

25 March 2021

By Amalyah Keshet, Senior Consultant “In the face of a pandemic, copyright law may seem a frivolous concern; but its importance lies in the ever-expanding role that it plays in either enabling or constraining the kinds of communicative activities that are critical to a flourishing life.” An article published last October by the Washington College […]

22 March 2021

By Faye Cheung, Researcher The European Commission (EC) has published its eagerly awaited draft adequacy decision regarding transfers of personal data from the EEA (European Economic Area) to the United Kingdom.[1] The draft decision concludes that the UK provides an adequate level of protection for personal data coming from the EEA. This is of great […]

16 March 2021

By Ellie Pridgeon, Consultant at Naomi Korn Associates, and Lead Archivist, 14-18 NOW programme This blog explores some of the key rights management challenges encountered on 14-18 NOW – the UK’s First World War commemoration programme. Based at the Imperial War Museum (IWM) in London, the 14-18 NOW team was supported by Naomi Korn Associates.

5 March 2021

By Naomi Korn, Managing Director The Problem Orphan works are works in copyright where the rights holders are either unknown or cannot be traced. Across UK heritage institutions, there are probably hundreds of millions of orphan works, sometimes representing up to 40-50% of collection items[1]. These include photographs, letters, prints, films, sound recordings, plays, broadcasts, […]

2 March 2021

By Debbie McDonnell, Senior Consultant I recently enjoyed delivering a talk on how to use digital assets to support your strategy back in October 2020 as part of the #HeritageDigitalNow sessions provided by Heritage Digital, a project funded by The National Heritage Lottery Fund. If you missed it, a recording of the session is available […]

22 February 2021

by Amalyah Keshet, Senior Consultant Last May (2020), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) published an international study of 94,675 museums, reporting that 90%, or 86,101 museums had closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and speculating that more than 10% might never open again.[i] More recent research from January of this year […]

15 February 2021

It's hoped that improvements to data protection and privacy rights will continue to increase around the world. However, the key challenge will be in agreeing on 'baseline' standards and in enforcing it.

1 February 2021

By Liz Bowers, Senior Consultant The closure of museums, galleries and other heritage venues for much of 2020 has wiped out their biggest income sources – admissions, exhibition ticket sales, shop and café income and revenue from corporate hospitality and events. Business areas that do not rely on visitor numbers have therefore become ever more […]

18 January 2021

By Faye Cheung, Researcher The Intellectual Property Office recently called for views regarding the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and copyright.[1] The consultation addresses an apparent anxiety over whether the Copyright Designs and Patents Act (1988) is keeping up with developments in AI and machine learning. The increase in the use of AI and it’s […]