For the fourth consecutive year, ICOM has been invited to participate as an observatory member to the G20 Culture Working Group, hosted this year by South Africa under the theme “Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability”. To prepare its contribution to the 4 priorities chosen by the South African presidency of G20, ICOM is relying on experts from its network. ICOM Voices is highlighting the contributions of these experts through a series of 4 articles, giving them a space to share their views and the work of museums in these areas.
This article presents the work of our experts on priority 3, “Harnessing Digital Technologies for the Protection and Promotion of Culture and Sustainable Economies”.
Joelle Nwabueze: Associate Professor of Law, Head of Business Law Department, Faculty of Law, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Nigeria. Member of ICOM Legal Affairs Committee.
Mariana Valente: Assistant Professor of International Economic Law, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. Member of ICOM Legal Affairs Committee.
Catherine Snel: Archivist and Museologist at Sanlam Ltd (Chair of ICOM South Africa).
Marion Torterat: Legal Advisor at ICOM Secretariat.
ICOM’s participation in the G20 Culture Working Group highlighted the role of digital transformation in enhancing the protection, promotion, and sustainability of cultural heritage.
To leverage arts, culture, and heritage specifically as economic drivers ICOM promotes copyright and intellectual property frameworks that are fair, balanced, and supportive of the public interest missions of museums. This is demonstrated in ICOM’s involvement since 2014 in advocating with its partner institutions, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and the International Council on Archives (ICA), at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for an international instrument that would allow limitations and exceptions to copyright for libraries, archives and museums.
Legal issues arising from new technologies
Digitalisation and projects using digital technologies are proven to offer great promises to museums around the world, as the examples in the second section of this article will show. However, restrictive legal frameworks often prevent the dissemination of collections that is at the heart of the museum’s missions.
The treatment of faithful reproductions of public domain works is a pressing issue. Some jurisdictions allow new copyright protection for high-resolution photographs or scans of 2D artworks whose original copyrights have long expired. The result is a “re-enclosure” of the public domain. This problem has been acknowledged by the EU’s 2019 Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, which states that faithful reproductions of 2D artworks should not generate new rights – in European Union countries. The practice of recognising rights to these reproductions contradicts copyright law, burdens museums, and restricts reuse by educators, researchers, and artists, contradicting the principle that the public domain is a common good. Also, where legal frameworks are unclear, museum professionals report refraining from practices that would allow dissemination, for fear of litigation.
Contractual arrangements add another layer of complexity. Digitisation partnerships with commercial entities sometimes involve clauses that transfer exclusive rights over images or limit free online access to them. In Brazil, a contemporary art museum agreed to allow its collection to be digitised for a commercial project, after obtaining all the necessary authorisations for that project. The contract was clear: in some cases, the museum would not have the right to use the digitised images produced by the company. The museum accepted this, due to limited funds for promoting digitisation on its own. Challenges involving digitisation are therefore far from being purely legal, but often have a legal component. Such agreements are common and can lock museums into restrictive models, undermining their public missions. Technical barriers, such as digital rights management (DRM) or watermarks, can further constrain legitimate reuse even where no rights should apply.
On the other end of the spectrum, legal challenges arise from the protection of living and intangible heritage. Traditional songs, rituals, and knowledge are often exempt from copyright, leaving them vulnerable to misappropriation and commodification. A well-known example is the use of Māori haka performances in advertising campaigns without the Māori community consent, sparking calls for sui generis protections. In Brazil, Afro-Brazilian religious chants and Indigenous designs have been appropriated in fashion and media without acknowledgement or benefit-sharing. These cases illustrate the tension between the openness of digital platforms and the need to respect community protocols.
What is needed is a dual approach: clearer copyright rules that safeguard the integrity of the public domain, and governance frameworks that recognise community rights in intangible heritage, as well as guarantee fairness for creators broadly. Harmonising national laws to prevent new rights in faithful reproductions, ensuring contracts cannot override the freedoms of the public domain, and embedding accessibility requirements into digitisation projects would empower museums to share more openly. At the same time, embedding free, prior, and informed consent in the digitisation of intangible heritage, as UNESCO recommends, would help prevent exploitation and distortion. Lastly, while not within the realm of museums, clear copyright rules are also needed to govern the use of digitalised copyrighted works in commercial AI training, ensuring fairness in this new context. We need carefully crafted frameworks that consider the different creators and different users, to achieve a system that promotes balance and a diverse and lively creative environment.
By confronting these legal obstacles directly, museums can act as trusted stewards of cultural diversity, ensuring that the digital future reflects not only dominant narratives, but also the voices and traditions that risk being silenced. ICOM is an active member of the G20 Culture Working Group, aiming at achieving these objectives.
The use of digital technologies and artificial intelligence by museums to promote cultural heritage
Museums have acknowledged the transformative impact of digital technologies in enhancing documentation and long-term transmission of culture and heritage, therefore expanding engagement and facilitating audience access. This has been facilitated by the development of digital co-creative strategies. Examples below highlight how some museums adapt technology to provide a smooth and engaging experience for their visitors.
In Central Africa, the National Museum of Cameroon has integrated digital technologies into its strategy to ensure the long-term transmission of their cultural heritage. Information and communication technologies have been used by the museum for inventorying various collections. Artefacts, archives and literary works have been digitalised for better access and transmission to the general public during public exhibitions. Creating digital collections also enabled the National Museum of Cameroon to overcome challenges posed by limited storage facilities.
In Nigeria, the city of Enugu has welcomed its first digital museum in 2024, which combines digital technologies and culture for the long-term safeguarding of Igbo traditions, Nigerian pre-colonial civilisations and iconic landmarks. Enugu virtual museum facilitates the exploration of the city’s cultural heritage, irrespective of time and location. With a click, one can visualise ancient artefacts, the industrial legacy of the city of Enugu in South-East Nigeria that shaped Nigeria’s industrial age, interactive cultural stories, and oral histories.
In Seoul, South-East Asia, the National Museum of Korea (NMK) has moved beyond the traditional information booth displaying store and location directories, to incorporate robotics. Today, people enter the museum not only to admire artworks, but to learn, be inspired, and also to discover robots. Shaped like a kiosk, the robot at NMK enhances the learning experience in the museum, offering a map of the museum to guide visitors through exhibition rooms. The robot can provide information in different languages, including sign language. It automatically adjusts to the visitor’s height and delivers rich information on specific topics upon request, and in a font size suited to individual preferences.
Fig. 1. The National Museum of Korea robot (2025). © Marion Torterat
In Brazil, Museu do Ipiranga, the oldest museum in the city of São Paulo, has leveraged a free software project developed by the government and universities, Tainacan, to make its collection available online, along with research on the items of the collection that has been developed over the decades. A partnership between Wiki Movimento Brasil, a Wikimedia user group in Brazil, the University of São Paulo and others, generated several initiatives that added digitised items to the Wikimedia database and populated several Wikipedia pages. The State Secretary of Culture of the state of Espírito Santo also partnered with Wiki Movimento Brasil and InternetLab for a project aimed at digitalising and making available the collections of several public collections in that state, also utilising Tainacan.
Around the globe, one can witness several countries prioritising investment in digital cultural innovation, and the integration by some museums of AI for cultural enhancement. The Robot & AI Museum (RAIM) in Seoul is one such museum. It has integrated robotics and artificial intelligence to renew cultural expression. Robots at RAIM create new possibilities for cultural innovations. First, they are used as educational tools, providing information on the features, content and significance of various cultural objects. Secondly, RAIM robots entertain visitors by intermingling music, broadcast of Korean art objects, and cultural performances. The museum thus delivers an innovative cultural experience to its visitors, and unveils the future potential of creative sectors.
The transformative potential of digital technologies and AI in museums is undeniable: they enable wider access to collections, foster engagement, and open new avenues for cultural innovation. Yet, these opportunities come with legal and operational challenges that require careful navigation – from ensuring open access to cultural heritage and respecting community rights to ensuring equitable copyright frameworks and ethical use of AI. By advocating for clear, balanced, and forward-looking legal frameworks at the G20 Culture Working Group and through its partnerships, ICOM helps museums to not only embrace technological innovation, but also to fulfil their mission as trusted stewards of cultural heritage – ensuring that the digital future amplifies all voices, preserves diversity, and strengthens the role of museums as drivers of sustainable cultural and economic development.