On the first day of each new year, a significant amount of heritage enters the public domain. This is the perfect material to make as freely accessible as possible, although this is not always the case yet. Public Domain Day offers organizations an annual platform to share knowledge and best practices for opening up and making this material (re)usable.

In 2026, we will celebrate the public domain on January 15 at KBR, together with meemoo and Wikimedia Belgium. We are still working on the program, but here is an overview:

Program

Morning (9:30 AM – 1:00 PM)
You are welcome from 9:00 AM. The program starts at 9:30 AM.

After a plenary session with a keynote by Bartolomeo Meletti (CREATe), you can choose between two parallel tracks:

Belgian Track | European Track

Belgian Track
We highlight developments in the public domain in Belgium and beyond. Which recent events have had an impact on the public domain?

This session will mostly be in Dutch and will focus on:

• New works entering the public domain;

• (Re)use of public domain material;

• The award ceremony of Wiki Loves Heritage Belgium.

European Track
In this English-language session, we will look at recent actions by partner organizations to protect and strengthen the public domain.

Confirmed speakers:

• COMMUNIA

• OpenFuture Foundation: on the latest developments in CommonsDB, a registry of works in the public domain and with open licenses.

• Panel by CREATe, with Kristofer Erickson, Martin Kretschmer, Aline Iramina, Bartolomeo Meletti, and Séverine Dusollier: on their empirical and theoretical research on the public domain and how it can contribute to policy and practice.

Lunch (1:00 PM – 2:00 PM)

Afternoon (2:00 PM – 4:50 PM)
After lunch, we will reconvene in a plenary session. In English, we will discuss practical use cases and professional challenges related to the public domain and the creative reuse of public domain material.

Presentations

• Tapestries: This free open-source tool allows anyone to create non-linear presentations using web pages, PDFs, images, audio and video files, and even code running in an emulator. It is a way to bring the wealth of digital objects from Wikimedia Commons, the Internet Archive, and Europeana to life. – by Bob Stein

• The Graveyard Shift: on public engagement, copyright, death dates, and data – by Annabelle Shaw & Louise McAward-White (British Film Institute)

• Pattern-a-thons: a crowdsourcing event to create and share fashion designs – by Dieter Suls and Stijn Van den Bulck (ModeMuseum Antwerp)

• Remixing heritage to imagine future sea-level rise scenarios – by Carlo Gaetano (University of Amsterdam)

• Happy accidents with videos in the public domain – by Björn Wijers

• Wiki Loves Public Domain – by Geert Van Pamel & Maarten Zeinstra

Q&A
Coffee break

Workshops

• CommonsDB Workshop

• Tapestry Workshop by Bob Stein: Bring your laptop and we will create digital “tapestries” together. It’s easier and much more fun than you think!

Q&A

Reception (4:50 PM – 6:00 PM)

Practical Information

You are welcome on January 15, 2026, at KBR (Kunstberg 28, 1000 Brussels), or online! The Belgian track (physical only) will mostly be in Dutch. The European track and the afternoon session (both physical and online) will be in English. Participation is free, but registration via the link below is mandatory.

Don’t forget to bring your laptop for the workshops.

Register before January 7

Registration