The Culture Data Space

It can often be difficult to choose the right cultural event from the wide range on offer. Networked culture platforms can help with this: they provide cross-border personalised information tailored to the situation. For cultural professionals, the network reduces their promotional workload and provides visibility beyond the local level. The Software Innovation Campus Paderborn of Paderborn University and OstWestfalenLippe GmbH (in German) for example, will link the new cultural platform OWL live (in German) with other regional cultural platforms, leveraging the possibilities of sharing and linking data and sources of data to create added value for users.

Like no other painter, Caspar David Friedrich represents romanticism, and his works are icons of their time. To commemorate the 250th birthday of the artist in 2024, the Hamburger Kunsthalle in cooperation with the Alte Nationalgalerie of the Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin and the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden is launching a digital platform with multimedia offerings, based on decentralised sources. The portal will allow the public to view a cleverly curated and varied collection of Friedrich’s oeuvre, from multimedia to gigapixel, open access to pay-per-view. The platform is being developed against the backdrop of the joint Caspar David Friedrich Festival involving commemorative exhibitions and events.

In Germany there are more than 1000 privately and publicly funded theatres, orchestras, festivals and venues, so there is a commensurately large volume of programmes, scheduling data and venue-specific information (such as on accessibility). However, the data are not in a standardised form, which narrows the possibilities for research and evaluation. In collaboration with the Deutscher Bühnenverein (in German), the Akademie für Theater und Digitalität Dortmund and the Staatstheater Augsburg standards are to be drawn up for machine-readable theatre programmes. This will lead to more effective work processes in the theatres and create tailored offerings for the public. In addition, this will make it easier to process and share cultural data.

Playing with other musicians – at any time, anywhere in Germany. Under the baton of the Hamburger Konservatorium (in German) a digital marketplace is being developed that will create completely new ways for everyone to make music. At first, music teachers will be able to connect with students to hold digital music lessons in real time. Later, various features will be added to the platform, developing it into a music community at national and international level.

A data space is a digital infrastructure in which data is shared according to mutually agreed rules and defined standards. The data is shared between sovereign participants and the data space provides the technological support for the process.

Data spaces are key components of both the national and European digitalisation strategies. The result is an efficient, competitive, secure and trustworthy data infrastructure based on European legal standards.

In a data space, data and utilities are not stored centrally (“data repository”). It is merely a decentralised network accessed via connectors. For this reason, the data are not “fed” into the data space. The conditions for the reciprocal use of data and the duration thereof are set out beforehand in a contract between the participants – with the support of the data space – and respecting the rights of the data owners. For secure, uncomplicated data sharing that is financially systemised, the Culture Data Space provides contract templates.

The object of the Culture Data Space is to support the digitalisation of culture. It is being built alongside existing data spaces in other sectors (e.g. mobility). The Culture Data Space brings together public and private institutions, individuals, companies and other organisations for the purpose of sharing data. It targets all areas of cultural life, from publicly funded culture to the largely commercial cultural and creative industry.

The Culture Data Space makes data on the cultural sector freely accessible on an interoperable basis, and facilitates simple and secure peer-to-peer data sharing. It also offers participants a multitude of options with regard to the joint collection and use of meta, usage and sales data. However, it is not a platform on which works can be purchased or obtained free of charge. Data sharing is consistently based on procedures and charging models agreed between the data space participants. The Culture Data Space thus ensures that copyrighted works do not become available in circumvention of established fee systems.

The main benefits are:

• Data sovereignty and data security on the basis of the German/European legal framework
• Greater penetration/visibility/outreach as well as an increase in target group and customer base
• Creation of a cross-sector and cross-border network of (digital) offerings and content
• Process optimisation
• Simplification of access to data
• Greater sustainability thanks to multiple use/reuse of data
• Networking with (potential) partner institutions
• Building of communities
• Simple technical means of joint collection, sustainable use and long-term securing of data
• Establishment of new business models
• Options for open access and paid services
• Access to data services

In this data space especially for culture, participants set out the terms for data sharing themselves and under the specific conditions of their industry, e.g. in terms of copyrights, image rights, duration of use, and commercial interests. What is new is that mutual use/sharing of data will be possible without the data having to be stored centrally. The data is held decentrally at source. The Culture Data Space thus creates a data environment for the participating partners where the culture and creative industry can directly pocket advertising revenue.

The Culture Data Space is a B2B environment that is essentially open to all participants in the multifaceted cultural sector and creative industry. This environment brings together community partners’ own meta, usage and sales data and other partners’ data, thereby creating new distribution channels and streams of income. The Culture Data Space is thus not a B2C platform to which end users have access; this is up to the participating community partners themselves.

Initially only a working Internet connection is required to use the Culture Data Space. The nature of use depends on the role of the participants. There are data owners who want to make their data available and share them with other data users on certain conditions, for which both parties avail of the technical infrastructure of data/service providers (e.g. website operators, cloud service providers). The data space ensures secure communication between data owners and data users via these service providers.

The rules are provided by the technical infrastructure, which are based on the principles established by the International Data Spaces Association. The rules governing actual data sharing within the Culture Data Space are laid down case-by-case by the participants themselves. Suitable templates are currently being developed for the Culture Data Space in consultation with the cultural sector and creative industry.

The Culture Data Space is a network for both open-access and non-open-access data. The fact that the data owners themselves make the rules for use on a case-by-case basis means that they can also advance the implementation of common and country-specific open-access data strategies.

The Culture Data Space is being built with start-up funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. A concept for the sustainable operation of the Culture Data Space beyond the project framework is in development.

The Culture Data Space is being developed iteratively on the basis of use cases at the moment, the findings of which will influence its actual definition. The parameters are being set in consultation with the cultural and creative industry. Various applications within the Culture Data Space are set to become available successively over the course of 2023. From 2025, the Culture Data Space will be available to all interested parties.

Ideas and suggestions can be put forward in stakeholder dialogues and multiplier communities coordinated by acatech. These are open to all interested parties in the culture and creative industry (Contact).