From lost metadata to legal certainty: new approaches for Europe’s shared cultural heritage infrastructure
Every time a digital file is shared, transformed, or uploaded to a new platform, its copyright metadata often gets stripped away. For cultural heritage institutions, this means losing track of who owns a work, how it can be used, and whether it’s in the public domain or under a license like CC-BY. The result is legal uncertainty, duplicated efforts, and a fragmented digital ecosystem, a challenge that is a common concern across European infrastructure initiatives that serve heritage data, including Europeana and the Data Space for Cultural Heritage, two of the target systems for TIB’s ECHOLOT project.
Through exchange with our consortium partners and the umbrella project – the European Cultural Heritage Cloud (ECCCH), ECHOLOT’s TIB team got in touch with CommonsDB, a project funded by the European Union and including some of ECHOLOT’s partners, including Wikimedia Sweden. CommonsDB aims to tackle the persistent issue of lost or inconsistent rights information by creating robust, verifiable links between digital works and their associated metadata. Our team attended the final event of the project hosted by the European Union Intellectual Property Office[1] (EUIPO) in Alicante in September 2026 and reports back.
Introduction
The problem begins with metadata stripping: when files are copied, resized, or uploaded, embedded information such as creator names, license terms, or copyright status is often removed or altered. A photograph downloaded from a museum’s website might lose its CC-BY license tag when reposted on social media, leaving users unaware of how they can legally reuse it. This issue is compounded by the fragmented nature of today’s digital ecosystems. Works are stored across countless databases, from Europeana to national libraries and collective management organizations, each using different identifiers, metadata schemas, and update mechanisms. This lack of standardization creates a maze of conflicting information, making it nearly impossible or extremely time-consuming to determine the true rights status of a work.
The urgency to solve this issue has only grown with the rise of automation. AI systems, content filters, and large-scale digitization projects require reliable, machine-readable rights data to operate legally and ethically. Without it, institutions and developers face legal risks, while users are left in the dark about what they can and cannot do with digital content. CommonsDB addresses this gap by offering a decentralized, content-based solution that ensures rights information remains accessible, verifiable, and intact across any distribution channel.
The CommonsDB Solution
At the core of CommonsDB’s approach lies the International Standard Content Code, or ISCC[2]. Unlike traditional identifiers that rely on external databases or embedded metadata, ISCC is a content-based fingerprint standardized under ISO 24138:2024. It is generated directly from the digital file itself, whether an image, text, audio, or video, creating a unique identifier that remains tied to the content. This deterministic process ensures that identical files always produce the same ISCC, while similar files generate slightly different codes. Because the ISCC is derived from the content rather than attached to it, it cannot be stripped away like embedded metadata, making it a persistent and reliable reference point.
CommonsDB builds on this foundation with a straightforward yet powerful workflow. First, data suppliers such as Europeana or Wikimedia Sweden generate ISCC codes locally from their media assets. These codes are then paired with rights information, along with descriptive metadata like creator names or creation dates. This combination forms a declaration, which is digitally signed using the EU trust infrastructure (eIDAS)[3] Verifiable Credentials to ensure authenticity and trust. Once signed, the declaration is published to open, federated registries, where it can be accessed and verified by anyone.
For users, CommonsDB offers multiple ways to interact with this system. The CommonsDB Explorer[4] allows individuals to upload a file or enter an ISCC or declaration ID to search for associated rights metadata. For larger-scale applications, APIs provide programmatic access: the Search API lets users submit an ISCC to find matching or similar declarations, while the Metadata API retrieves the full declaration using its unique ID. To optimize performance, organizations can also operate local reader nodes, synchronizing CommonsDB registry data to avoid the inefficiency of making an API call for every single file. This federated approach ensures that rights information remains accessible and verifiable at scale, without relying on a centralized database.[5]
The Bigger Picture
The impact of CommonsDB extends far beyond individual institutions, offering a blueprint for a more cohesive European copyright infrastructure. Europeana, for example, faces a significant challenge: approximately 75% of its collection lacks persistent identifiers, leading to duplicate entries and gaps in metadata. By adopting ISCC as a content-based fingerprint, Europeana can not only deduplicate its vast collection but also clarify the rights status of works across its platform. Looking ahead, their five-year vision includes scaling ISCC generation to cover all content, upgrading infrastructure to leverage these fingerprints for automated duplicate detection, and improving overall data quality. This approach would not only streamline internal processes but also enhance the end-user experience by providing clearer, more reliable information.
EUIPO shares a similar vision with its CopyrightView initiative, a transparency portal designed to interlink existing national and EU databases on copyright-protected works. The goal is to create a unified access point that improves discoverability without centralizing data. In this federated ecosystem, common identifiers like ISCC, along with standardized APIs and metadata frameworks such as the Open Rights Data Framework (ORDF), would serve as the backbone of a more interoperable and coherent information landscape. A key innovation in this context is the ISCC Discovery Protocol[6], which addresses a critical question: “Which registry contains metadata for a given ISCC?” This open, federated framework enables content-first discovery, allowing users to locate relevant metadata across multiple registries without relying on a single centralized database.
Community collaboration plays a vital role in this transformation. The Copyright Infrastructure Task Force (CITF) serves as a forum for stakeholders to share knowledge, align standards, and drive the adoption of interoperable solutions.[7] By fostering cooperation among cultural heritage institutions, policymakers, and technology providers, initiatives like CommonsDB and CopyrightView are paving the way for a more transparent, efficient, and user-friendly copyright infrastructure across Europe.
Why is it important?
For the TIB’s involvement in EU infrastructure initiatives, including ECCCH and EOSC, CommonsDB and its underlying technologies offer significant opportunities to enhance existing workflows without requiring extensive additional effort. In a landscape where metadata loss and fragmentation are persistent challenges, CommonsDB provides a practical way to ensure that rights information remains accessible, verifiable, and actionable. Projects like ECCCH and ECHOLOT, which focus on cultural heritage and open knowledge, could greatly benefit from the ability to access reliable rights information and deduplicate content more effectively. By leveraging ISCC codes and the CommonsDB framework, these initiatives can tap into an already operational decentralized system for verifying the rights status of digital works. TIB and ECHOLOT’s consortium partners will remain in close contact with the CommonsDB team to continue exploring together how the existing tools and standards can improve data quality and streamline processes.
Acklowledgements
Thanks to the Team of the CommonsDB Project, especially Doug McCarthy and Paul Keller for organizing and inviting me to the event!
Notes
[1] https://www.euipo.europa.eu/en
[2] https://iscc.io/
[3] https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eidas-regulation
[4] https://registry.commonsdb.org/explorer
[5] For more Information about how CommonsDB work take a look at the presentation slides of the final Event (page 7-21) or at the documentation the project provided (https://www.commonsdb.org/docs/)
[6] https://iscc.io/learn
[7] For more Information about the work of the CITF see their project report https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/items/7c69a052-44e0-42ba-abdf-b26fbfa04b3f
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