Nome da Revista: International Journal for the
Semiotics of Law
Classificação: B1
Dossiê Temático: Towards digitization of cultural
practices and contents Issues, limits and legal tools
Prazo: 25/02/2022
Titulação: Não informada.
It is often claimed that developing a digital strategy to improve access to and participation in culture and cultural heritage increases democratization and citizens’ sense of collective belonging. As a result, and particularly in the COVID-19 context, many cultural institutions, both public and private, have accelerated the development of tools for accessing and digitally disseminating their cultural content: online access to collections, visits to museums or 3D virtual sites, visits to entirely online exhibitions, online access to cultural and musical performances, reading of tales via video... Furthermore, participatory digital cultural practices have also increased exponentially to integrate users in the creation, use and transmission of culture and cultural heritage (methods of crowd sourcing, storytelling, citizen science...), notably through digital tools linked to artificial intelligence and virtual reality.
However, this digital craze, already underway before the pandemic, is not without legal difficulties, particularly in the field of intellectual property and data protection, and also raises ethical questions. With the dematerialization of cultural practices and content some legal principles can constitute obstacles, while others can facilitate digitization and access to such content and practices. Both mechanisms in public law – legislation and case law ensuring a balance between rights and interests, such as those of the author, the owner, the user, the personal data subject or controller; participatory governance measures; development of direct and indirect cultural policies… – , as well as tools in private law – licence contracts; property rights; control and access mechanisms such as Digital Rights Management (DRM); legal governance models and structures, etc. – must be examined for an inclusive access to dematerialized cultural practices and content. Nevertheless, the notion of access itself should be examined, including from an ethical point of view: the desire to grant universal access to certain dematerialized cultural content may come up against certain rights and interests, particularly those of the communities of origin, a fortiori when it comes to digitizing sacred objects. Following a decolonial approach to the concepts of access and dematerialization, thought should be given to the inclusion of these communities in the digitization process as well as in the access policies of these digital contents.
The aim of this Special Issue is therefore to question the dematerialization movement from a legal point of view, by asking within what limits, under what conditions and with what legal tools cultural practices and contents can develop in the context of digitization of cultural practices and contents.
Three axes are to be explored in this Special Issue, in which more concrete thematic ideas are listed, while being open to other aspects within these three axes:
1. Digitization and intellectual property
2. Digitization, cultural platforms and data protection
3. Digitization, participatory governance and virtual communities
Please send your abstract of 500 words (max.) to Marie-Sophie DE CLIPPELE (mariesophie.declippele@usaintlouis.be) by 25 February 2022 with decisions made by 25 March 2022. Papers should be no longer than 15,000 words. The deadline for submitting full papers is 25 August 2022.