CC is a small nonprofit fighting for the open web. We need your support to continue our work. Donate today!

Brigitte Vézina

Director of Policy and Open Culture

Brigitte Vézina (Photo by Victoria Heath, CC BY)

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

Posts by Brigitte Vézina

Open Culture Live Webinar: Changing the Subject & Respectful Terminologies

by Brigitte Vézina, Jocelyn Miyara Open Culture

For centuries, cultural heritage institutions have been undertaking the work to document and catalog objects in their collections — sometimes this work suffers from a legacy of colonialism and discrimination in the way their collections are labeled and categorized. Some institutions are working to update these labels with more respectful terminology. Hear more from some of the changemakers working to update labels and metadata with more respectful terminologies during this CC panel.

Dave Hansen — Open Culture VOICES, Season 2 Episode 33

by Brigitte Vézina, Connor Benedict Open Culture

Dave talks about how many “institutions are on a mission to expose their collections to the world and make them available for everyone.” Dave sees this as a major evolution from a time not too long ago when it was only those with means who could access collections in any way. Open Culture VOICES is…

CC’s Key Insights from WIPO’s Meeting on Copyright

by Brigitte Vézina, Catherine Stihler Copyright, Open Heritage

From 6 to 8 November 2023, Creative Commons participated remotely in the 44th session of the World Intellectual Property Organization Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights. In this blog post, we look back on the session’s highlights on broadcasting, exceptions and limitations, and generative AI, from CC’s perspective.

Kyle K. Courtney — Open Culture VOICES, Season 2 Episode 32

by Brigitte Vézina, Connor Benedict Open Culture

Kyle believes that “the artistic and creative expressions of humanity is the best way to experience our human efforts” and open GLAM makes this a reality for much more than what you can see on a given day in a museum. Open GLAM also helps drive more digitization of collections around the world in an…

Maarten Zeinstra — Open Culture VOICES, Season 2 Episode 31

by Brigitte Vézina, Connor Benedict Open Culture

Maarten believes that “Open GLAM is a necessity of a disbalanced copyright framework.” Maarten talks about how open access policies help institutions achieve their public missions. Open access policies in instutions provides good evidence that society and communities need access to cultural heritage to flourish. Open Culture VOICES is a series of short videos…