CommonsDB Feasibility Study: Laying the Groundwork for a Rights Registry

Today, the first part of the CommonsDB Feasibility Study has been published, giving insights into the conceptual, legal and technical considerations for a system designed to enhance legal certainty around the reuse of digital content.

What is the purpose of the study?

Supporting the prototype registry's development (which commenced in February 2025), we have published the study to provide insight into our development and design decisions, and to solicit community feedback.

This first part of the study describes our emerging registry, outlining its objectives, key parameters, and our chosen technological approach. It also includes a detailed legal analysis of how CommonsDB’s key participants interact under EU copyright law.

Key Findings

• Greater Confidence in Content Reuse: By providing verifiable rights information from trusted sources, CommonsDB will allow people to confidently identify and use Public Domain and openly licensed works. This will empower users to legally reuse and remix works, supporting creativity and innovation.
• Trust and Interoperability Through Open Standards: CommonsDB will ensure the authenticity of rights declarations by using International Standard Content Codes (ISCC) for decentralized content identification and Verifiable Credentials (VCs).
• More Reliable Attribution: CommonsDB will strengthen the relationship between digital assets and their associated rights information, enabling more reliable attribution for parties, such as cultural heritage institutions, that make collections available online.
• Scalability and Openness Achieved by Design: The prototype is being developed with federation as a core principle, envisioning a network of interconnected registries. All CommonsDB metadata will be public and available as open data.
• Low Risk of Copyright Infringement: In its standard operations, CommonsDB will present no significant risk of copyright infringement.

What's next for CommonsDB?

With the publication of the first part of the Feasibility Study, we conclude our initial exploratory phase, clarifying our development approach and design decisions. Building on these insights, our next steps will focus on translating these findings into concrete action. We anticipate launching the first public version of the registry after the summer.

We acknowledge that more technical, operational, and legal challenges lie ahead as the prototype continues to evolve. These aspects will be addressed in the second part of the Feasibility Study, due in November 2025. This subsequent study will delve deeper into the specific issues identified in this initial study, aiming to present detailed solutions for incorporation into the final version of the prototype, which we anticipate delivering in the first quarter of 2026.

We invite you to read the full study and follow our work towards a more accessible and legally certain landscape for Public Domain and openly licensed works. Your feedback is invaluable as we move forward; please feel welcome to contact us by email.