National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) has updated its grant funding conditions to require all the projects it funds to share the digital resources they create under an open licence. This includes images, research, educational materials, project reports, software, web and app content, databases, 3D models, and sound and video recordings. Creators of this type of digital content will have to share it under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC-BY 4.0).
NLHF says this will ensure that due credit is given to the organisations and individuals responsible for creating the works, whilst providing more opportunity for communities to "get hands on with heritage". They believe it will open the door to using and reusing the wealth of resources funded by National Lottery players for a wide range of purposes, including education, and will ensure digital resources funded by the public remain freely and openly accessible to the public. The new licence also removes the barrier to commercial use. Josie Fraser, Head of Digital Policy, said:“Our new licencing requirement helps us to increase access to the UK’s rich heritage and promote the innovative use of digital across the sector.”