Page:The digital public domain.pdf/118

Rh to publicly subsidise these institutions not only for the  pursuit  of  their primary purpose of training the performers of tomorrow, but also for the development of open archives designed to host high quality recordings. The latter activity would add very little costs to those implied by the former and would be abundantly compensated by the benefits for the general public.

This chapter has shown briefly that the open access management of copyright-related rights in the digital environment may have highly beneficial effects for the building of digital commons. Removing legal obstacles to the free dissemination and use of digital recordings enables the enjoyment of creative works which have entered the public domain by the public at large. Private companies and associations that have opted for these licensing methods in order to pursue their own business models or their foundational mission have in turn benefited society. These licensing models should not be developed only by private parties: the most significant beneficial effects for society may come from the adoption of these models by public bodies (for example, national ministries of culture) that may wish to maximise the dissemination of creative works through the building of freely accessible platforms and repositories of digital commons. This objective could be usefully developed by obliging or giving performing arts institutions an incentive to embrace licensing models  for the digital release and archiving of high-quality audiovisual and audio recordings of their most significant productions.