Brigitte is passionate about all things spanning culture, arts, handicraft, traditions, fashion and, of course, copyright law and policy. She gets a kick out of tackling the fuzzy legal and policy issues that stand in the way of access, use, re-use and remix of culture, information and knowledge.
Before joining CC, she worked for a decade as a legal officer at WIPO and then ran her own consultancy, advising Europeana, SPARC Europe and others on copyright matters.
Currently located in the Netherlands where she lives with her husband and two kids, Brigitte grew up living in eight different countries across North America, Africa and Europe but Montréal is where she proudly comes from.
Brigitte is a fellow at the Canadian think tank Centre for International Governance Innovation. She holds a bachelor’s degree in law from the Université de Montréal and a master’s in law from Georgetown University. She has been a member of the Bar of Quebec since 2003.
Photo credit: Victoria Heath CC BY 4.0
Open Culture is a growing sector of the open movement around the world, with museums, galleries, archives and libraries increasingly making collections available and accessible online. The Open Culture VOICES series aims to shine a light on the leaders and advocates in the sector to inspire others and increase the accessibility and availability of cultural … Read More “Coming Soon! Season 2 of Open Culture VOICES”
Ever wondered how it must have been for some of the first cultural heritage institutions to embark on their open access journey? Michael Weinberg, Executive Director of the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy at NYU Law, talked to three major institutions that helped shape the early open GLAM / open culture movement to … Read More “Pioneers of Open Culture: A look back at how open access happened at three early adopters”
2022 was quite a year for the Creative Commons (CC) Open Culture Program, thanks to generous funding from Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing & Peter Baldwin, and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. In this blog post, we take a look back at some of the year’s highlights in our program’s four components: Policy, … Read More “2022 in Review: a Look at Creative Commons’ Open Culture Program”
Since its creation in 2001, Creative Commons (CC) has helped release nearly 5 million digital open images of cultural heritage held in cultural heritage institutions using CC tools. We have also been promoting open culture to build a more equitable, accessible, and innovative world, and it is based on this rich experience that our Open … Read More “CC Publishes Global Open Culture Call to Action to Policymakers”
This week, the international community celebrates 30 years of the UNESCO Memory of the World Program. At Creative Commons (CC), we applaud the program’s achievements in enhancing preservation and access to documentary heritage from galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAMs) around the globe. We laud the multitude of efforts enlisting documentary heritage to promote inclusive, … Read More “CC celebrates 30 years of UNESCO Memory of the World”
This week, policymakers from around the world gather in Mexico for MONDIACULT2022, the UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development, a critical event that is bound to shape the future of international cultural policies worldwide. In the lead-up to MONDIACULT2022, Creative Commons’ (CC) Brigitte Vézina delivered a keynote to the international forum “Digitalizar … Read More “UNESCO MONDIACULT2022: A Starting Point for Open Culture”
Do you know about the Creative Commons Open Culture Platform? It’s a space for open culture and cultural heritage practitioners, advocates, and enthusiasts to share resources, hold conversations, and collaborate on matters related to open access to cultural heritage, especially heritage held in galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAMs). As we were curious about our … Read More “Members Share Their Experiences with the CC Open Culture Platform”
What are the barriers to open culture? What challenges do cultural heritage institutions — such as galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs) — face in making their collections openly accessible online? How could Creative Commons support institutions in addressing these challenges and taking part in better sharing of cultural heritage? In search of answers, we … Read More “What are the barriers to open culture? Here’s what the CC community has to say”
Yesterday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a motion for summary judgment calling to reject the lawsuit against the Internet Archive (IA) brought by four big publishers that threatens IA’s controlled digital lending (CDL) program. Creative Commons fully supports this motion. Here’s why. The Internet Archive is an American non-profit library preserving and giving access … Read More “CC Supports Internet Archive’s Efforts to Ensure Public Access to Books”
A few weeks ago, the Italian Ministry of Culture issued its National Cultural Heritage Digitization Plan 2022-2023 – Guidelines for the acquisition, sharing and reuse of digital cultural heritage reproductions. While the Plan is welcome as an important step towards the digital transformation of cultural heritage institutions (CHIs), it risks nonetheless restricting, rather than increasing, … Read More “CC Expresses Views on Italian National Cultural Heritage Digitization Plan”
