Creative Commons (CC) is happy to announce the launch of a new publication entitled Guidance for Indigenous Collections and Indigenous Data: Recommendations from Creative Commons and Local Contexts. This publication is the result of a collaboration with Local Contexts, as both organizations share commitments to equitable knowledge sharing, proper attribution, and respect for diverse cultural and community protocols. It aims to support cultural heritage institutions (CHIs) in navigating the complex legal, ethical, and cultural issues regarding open access to Indigenous heritage and associated data.
In this blog post, we offer some background to the publication, share some hot takes from the launch webinar, and invite you to learn more about this topic.
Background
CC has long promoted equitable access to cultural heritage (most recently by leading the Open Heritage Statement), and it is part of our mission to support cultural heritage institutions (CHIs) like museums, libraries, and archives in making their heritage collections openly available in the digital environment. Many CHIs are using CC licenses and tools to communicate the copyright status of digitized cultural heritage materials and to educate the public about reuse possibilities.
That said, we know that heritage materials’ copyright/public domain status is not the only factor to consider in order to determine access and reuse possibilities, let alone determine rightful ownership or guardianship. Indeed, various governance frameworks may determine how cultural heritage is shared and used, including Indigenous rights and interests. This is something that the Statement addresses in multiple areas: in its Preamble at paragraphs t) u) and v) as well as in Articles 16 and 17. In short, the Statement recognizes that there are other legal and ethical considerations to take into account when making heritage openly accessible, including respect for the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and for the principles of participation and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) as well as FAIR principles and CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance.
This means that some heritage materials may not be suitable for open access. There may be legitimate reasons not to digitize, allow access, or openly share heritage with CC licenses or tools. This requires institutions to transparently engage with, consult, and involve communities of origin to enable FPIC in decision-making processes involving access to heritage.
At CC we had been pondering these questions for many years. We’ve explored how to ensure more participation, involvement and agency in relation to Indigenous heritage held in CHIs, and the role that CC licenses and tools can play in the process. Based on this prior work, CC was able to identify four lines of action for CHIs:
- consider, in addition to the public domain status of a cultural element, additional legal, ethical or contractual restrictions that may govern the conditions of access, use and reuse;
- acknowledge that access and reuse restrictions might be justified in certain situations;
- engage and liaise with source communities to determine a framework for digitization and making collections available; and
- clearly communicate and educate their users about the terms of use and reuse, and any conditions thus established.
The Guidance at a glance
The purpose of this new Guidance is to advance practical understanding among cultural heritage practitioners of how open heritage interplays with the protection of Indigenous rights over their heritage and data. Following a hands-on approach, the guidance unpacks the key issues underlying equitable access to and reuse of Indigenous cultural heritage and maps out the practical steps institutions can take when engaging with Indigenous communities.
Most importantly, it clarifies how the CC licenses and tools and Local Contexts Labels can work together towards greater cultural equity, supporting communities in sharing on terms that reflect their cultural authority, and supporting respectful cultural exchanges and intercultural dialogue. In other words, it aligns open licensing tools with Indigenous data sovereignty frameworks. This strengthens support for communities, institutions, and users navigating knowledge care and stewardship—both historical and legacy collections and those coming into institutions into the future.
The Guidance is the result of deep collaboration and exchange between CC and Local Contexts and benefited from inputs across both teams.
Hot takes from the webinar
The webinar Responsibilities, Ethics, and Access held on September 1 was an opportunity for CC to set the scene, for the authors to present the publication and highlight key insights, and to hear from a museum’s on-the-ground perspective on adopting Traditional Knowledge (TK) and Biocultural (BC) Labels. CC was thrilled to have the support of interpreter Guillermo Jauregui, who gave attendees the option of following along in English or via simultaneous Spanish interpretation (special thanks to Wikimedistas de Uruguay and Wiki Colombia for making this possible).
In addition to CC’s Dee Harris and Brigitte Vézina, the panelists were:
- Jane Anderson, Director, Indigenous Data Law Lab, NYU; Co-Founder, Strategic Advisor, and Council Member, Local Contexts
- Maui Hudson (Whakatōhea), Director, Te Kotahi Research Institute, University of Waikato; Strategic Advisor and Council Member, Local Contexts
- Hop Hopkins, Executive Director, Local Contexts
- Corrie Roe, Director of Programs, Local Contexts
- Anne Young, Director of Legal Affairs and Intellectual Property at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Newfields
The webinar explored key questions, including:
- How do open licensing frameworks interact with Indigenous data sovereignty?
- What tools and protocols help institutions work ethically with Indigenous collections?
- How can institutions move from policy commitments to meaningful practice?
A Pyramid of Five Stages
A highlight was the pyramid overview of the five stages the Guidance recommends for recognizing Indigenous rights in cultural heritage materials (on page 13 of the Guidance), which Maui explained as building on one another rather than standing alone. Acknowledgement sits at the base (for example, many institutions already practice land acknowledgment) and is, as Maui said, “in some ways, the least you can do.”
He said that attribution is a stronger form of that same recognition, tied to Local Contexts’ TK Labels. Authorship goes even further, bringing the tools of copyright and CC licensing into the relationship. Access and Authority sit at the top of the pyramid, where communities take part directly in decisions about digitization, exhibition, transfer, and repatriation. The Authorship Assessment (on page 19 of the Guidance) offers institutions a step-by-step way to work through where a given piece of content actually sits.
From there, other panelists discussed where open access and Indigenous rights pull against each other in practice.
“As open as possible and as closed as necessary”
Jane quoted the guiding phrase “as open as possible and as closed as necessary” from the Indigenous Data Sovereignty movement, and it became a throughline for the conversation. The tension between open access and Indigenous rights, she said, often comes from an unexamined presumption that everything should be open without accounting for how a collection was made, or what sensitivities sit within it. Local Contexts’ contribution is nuance about what openness means, and for whom, she said.
A Whakatōhea example
Maui shared how his tribe, Whakatōhea, has been applying the Guidance’s five-stage framework in an active relationship with the Fowler Museum at UCLA. After identifying a kaitaka (a traditional feather cloak) at the museum, tribal representatives visited in 2024, applied Local Contexts Labels to it and related items, and gifted a woven poi to travel alongside the cloak as a companion piece. That relationship is now culminating in an exhibition of Whakatōhea weaving opening October 10, 2026, for a six-month run, the first time TK Labels will appear in an overseas collection.
Newfields’ repatriation work
Anne said that Newfields’ work with Indigenous collections was based on their institutional values of stewardship and inclusivity. She also emphasized the need to move beyond action and for museums to approach ethical change in a thoughtful manner, to substantively improve inclusive practices, to defer to the lead of Indigenous communities, and to not make rushed promises that cannot be met. For Newfields, this meant deference to and collaboration with Indigenous communities. She shared that having Local Contexts Notices in their collections management system, visible in online collections portal, gave them another tool and opportunity for engagement with representatives from Indigenous communities. This served as an invitation to begin the conversation, and could be an opportunity to introduce representatives to Local Contexts as part of the consultations.
Labels are guidance, not a legal mandate
Asked how Local Contexts handles competing claims within or between communities, Jane explained that the Labels are built for multiplicity rather than a single authoritative answer. Multiple communities can apply distinct labels reflecting different perspectives on the same material. Because the Labels don’t carry legal force, they leave room for the kind of internal community governance an institution may never see from the outside.
Panelists also clarified a point that came up repeatedly in the Q&A: institutions do not need a copyright holder’s permission before opening a conversation with a source community. That relationship-building can run alongside, not after, the legal process.
Practical next steps for institutions
Hop closed with concrete calls to action:
- Read and share the Guidance internally and externally
- Implement Local Contexts tools alongside CC licenses since they can live in the same metadata field
- Connect with existing cultural institution networks, and most of all,
- Pick one of the five areas of action (the pyramid above) and take a step today rather than waiting for a perfect plan.
Corrie added that institutions should ask content management systems (CMS) and digital asset management systems (DAMS) to support a field for Local Contexts data in the rights record, and check whether the CMS or DAMS is already part of Local Contexts’ integration partner program before building something from scratch.
Watch the full video recording on CC’s YouTube channel.
For more information
- Read the guidance on CC’s website or on Zenodo.
- Read the Wikimedia Australia ICIP and IDSov Guide and the accompanying white paper CultureStrong Platforms: Setting the Standard at Wikimedia, both prepared by Terri Janke.
- Read the white paper by Mehtab Khan (2020) that laid the groundwork for CC’s reflections and action.
- Check out CC’s desk-based research on GLAM policies and practices regarding Indigenous cultural materials.
- Catch up on past events and presentations, such as the European Fashion Heritage Association (EFHA) annual symposium “Is Sharing Always Caring?” (as reported in CC’s blog post: Can Open GLAM Reshape the Fashion Heritage Narrative?).
- See the reports of two Open Culture Platform Working Groups:
- Rewatch the Open Culture Live webinar “Whose Open Culture? Decolonization, Indigenization, and Restitution”