The contracting parties are the licensee and the licensee. The owner of the digital content is the licensee. The licensee is the party that has access to digital content (often for internal purposes and for walk-in researchers or general citizens). Although many licenses use the terms of the licensee and the licensee throughout the agreement, it is not necessary to use these terms once the parties have been identified. You can then simply use “the museum” and “publisher” or “content owner,” etc., or the names or abbreviations of the names of both parties. However, reference to the names of the contracting parties should be included somewhere in the licence. Some museums are legal persons in themselves and can sign legal agreements, while other museums are part of larger legal entities. If you are unsure of your legal name, speak to your lawyer. This is important information for research before entering into a licensing agreement.
Museum as a licensee: make sure that the owner of the content has all the rights necessary for you to grant the content and that these rights are not restricted. Formulations such as “in one`s soul and conscience” are not acceptable. If the licensee cannot guarantee that they can grant you the content, look for a licensee who can do so. Museum as a licensee: some support may be required for the buyer to make the content fully and continuously accessible. What is appropriate and at what cost? It would be great to provide unlimited resources, but you have to look within your own budget and staff requirements to see what is right for you and still profitable in terms of content licensing. An automatic renewal clause is very welcoming in many cases because it means that if both parties are satisfied with the agreement, it will continue and you will not have to renegotiate the licence. If one of the parties is dissatisfied with the license, each party may terminate the licence or begin its renegotiation. However, remember that if you do nothing, then the agreement will be automatically renewed. Determine whether this is compatible with the operation of your museums, i.e.
a contractual obligation automatically intervenes without any concrete action. In other words, while automatic renewal has its advantages, it may mean pursuing a license for an electronic product that you no longer use simply because you have not informed the content owner that the license will not be renewed. Another approach, with a successful licence, is to enter into a contract letter signed by both parties shortly before the end of the licence, in which it is stated that each party wants the licence to be maintained for an additional period, for example. B a year. This is not an automatic extension, but a quick and easy renewal and does not involve a further review of licences and possible negotiations. Museum as a licensee: Check out who will use the licensed content. Is it wise to grant the content to the licensee and include a sublicensing to that licensee? Or is it more convenient and/or more cost-effective to grant the same content directly separately to the licensee and one of its potential underlicensed? A well-written licensing agreement should specifically identify the registered IP, current or unregistered IP, unpublished IP or trade secrets.
