FIAT/IFTA World Conference 2025

The Value, Use and Copyright Commission of FIAT/IFTA would like to present the recent year’s work researching the impact of generative AI on the audiovisual archiving sector. GenAI impacts the authenticity, integrity, and future accessibility of archival content, and the goal was to write a paper with insights from broadcasting archives who already implemented GenAI. The paper presents guidelines on these aspects:

• Allowing archives to be used for GenAI training – What are the implications, rights, and permissions?
• Handling GenAI-generated content – Addressing authenticity, ownership, and copyright challenges.

A EBU report released in spring 2025 has offered critical insights about the current state of public broadcast media (PSM) archives, as they negotiate new challenges related to AI, misinformation and copyright clearance. Recognising the urgency to unlock the potential of broadcast collections, the report also recognises that PSM archives are well-positioned for this task, given that they ‘hold the key to contextualisation’ (EBU 2025: 22).

Taking the EBU report’s findings as its departure point, this presentation will reflect on the necessity and possibilities for better contextualising past histories of audiovisual collections in PSM archives’ metadata. Preliminary findings will be shared from the current, funded AV-DATA project (2024-2025), a collaborative project with the aim to explore strategies to 1. better integrating broadcast archive histories into institutional documentation (i.e. metadata enrichment) and 2. share the ‘story’ of archival collections with broader audiences.

For the first aspect, an initial consultation has taken place with archive staff across the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (NISV), ahead of semi-structured interviews with PSM archivist colleagues in the European context. The second concern, of audience engagement, has taken the form of a pilot project to develop a ‘Tilt story’, as an interactive digital heritage format to generate improved public knowledge of AV-collection histories. The presentation will conclude with a preview of the ‘toolkit’ that has been developed as part of the AV-DATA project, and a critical evaluation of the project’s selected approaches to the challenge of improving contextualisation of broadcast archival collections today.

The Western Balkans, shaped by the legacy of former Yugoslavia, hold a rich and diverse audiovisual heritage that reflects the region’s complex history, cultural plurality, and evolving national identities. However, this heritage faces numerous challenges stemming from political tensions, historical antagonisms, and unequal access to preservation resources. Following the breakup of Yugoslavia, the centralization of archives in Belgrade led to significant disparities in access and preservation capacities across the region.

The linguistic and cultural diversity of the Balkans further complicates efforts to safeguard and promote these archives. Each country encounters distinct obstacles, from a lack of infrastructure and technical skills to varying levels of political will and funding. In this fragmented landscape, collaborative initiatives offer a vital pathway toward bridging these gaps, encouraging mutual understanding, and reinforcing the shared memory that binds the region. By pooling resources and expertise, such initiatives can overcome national limitations and promote a collective responsibility for preserving this common heritage.

To address these issues, national broadcasters from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo, and the Vojvodina region will launch the project “My Balkan(s)” in September, with support from the French Embassy in Serbia. The French National Audiovisual Institute (INA) will act as a knowledge partner. A roundtable marking the project’s launch will serve as a starting point for open dialogue and strategic cooperation.

Experts and stakeholders will discuss key challenges related to audiovisual preservation, technical needs, regional cooperation, and content creation. The goal is to foster a shared vision, promote skill exchange, and lay the groundwork for a sustainable and inclusive model of audiovisual heritage valorisation in the Western Balkans.

The presentation is built upon the groundwork laid in my previous year's talk. In 2024, I presented the initial phase of my doctorate’s thesis, which explored the migration of audiovisual documents to the cloud, using Rede Globo of Brazil as a specific case study. This current presentation turns its attention to the second part of my research: the environmental ramifications of choosing cloud infrastructure.

Drawing upon the insights of Bindhu and Vijesh (2019) in their work on mitigating the environmental impact of cloud technologies, the concern regarding the ecological cost of computing initially focused on diminishing energy consumption. However, contemporary understanding - shaped by technological progress - emphasizes the efficient utilization of computers and associated technologies while prioritizing environmental stewardship. The adoption of virtual computers and the transition towards Nano Data Centers should yield an energy expenditure reduction of up to 30% when compared to traditional data center models.

The increasing global environmental consciousness, coupled with more stringent regulatory frameworks and the potential for significant cost savings, has spurred considerable efforts to minimize the ecological footprint of the entire information technology ecosystem vital for modern business operations. Cloud computing has emerged as a compelling solution to these aspirations, giving rise to the concept of 'green clouding'. However, it's important to acknowledge that the energy consumption associated with machine learning processes, the development, and the application of artificial intelligence can be considerable. To investigate this topic in a practical context, I will once again analyze the case of Rede Globo, specifically through the lens of their ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) reports, alongside those of Google Cloud, the cloud platform utilized by Globo.

The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB), a collaboration between the Library of Congress and GBH Archives, goals are to preserve and make accessible material created for American public tv and radio such as voices, culture, and news from communities across the country.  The AAPB fortunately has had funding to support the growth and outreach of the collection, in addition to creating AI tools to help generate metadata.  With US federal funding sources shutting down, the future of support for public media archives in the US is limited.  How do we continue to support the needed staff, the contributors to the AAPB, and be responsible to the historic record?

The GBH Archives, in addition to the AAPB collaboration, is responsible for the preservation and access of the materials created by GBH, the public broadcasting station in Boston that provides over 30% of the content for the US public media system (PBS). GBH Archives website Open Vault provides access to GBH materials and is also facing funding cuts.

GBH Archives has had success with social media outreach, building a following, and licensing of GBH materials.
Highlighting the use of the collection by scholars, journalists, filmmakers, educators, and the public should support the value of the work. Licensing footage brings some revenue, but not enough to support the whole preservation and access ecosystem. The AAPB has been using non generative of AI tools to help create metadata to increase discoverability within the growing collection. Interest in the use of the collection to train tools, as a dataset, could be licensable, but what are the ethics and rights issues in allowing that? Identifying faces, or voices, raises concern. AAPB will share outreach work, the value of making content accessible (even if it might not be dollars), and some stories from the field.

Northern Ireland Screen is part of the UTV Archive Partnership alongside UTV and the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, with PRONI storing much of the physical film and tape. Northern Ireland Screen is responsible for the digitisation, curation, hosting, education and creative repurposing of this archive. In 2024 UTV approached us to use our knowledge of their archive to create a six-part TV series. We said, “Yes, please!”

My own background is as an archivist on many television series for BBC Northern Ireland as well as a director of my own feature documentaries. My colleague, Paul McClintock, worked for many years as an editor on a variety of TV shows. Within the archive team of Northern Ireland Screen we had the experience necessary to take the archive and create something new out of it for a modern television audience.

My talk will be about how we went about this process of deciding what the series would be about and what time period to focus on, based upon what would tell the best story of social history and entertainment, combined with it being a period represented by heavily digitised parts of the archive. Of course, for most of UTV’s early history Northern Ireland’s narrative is contentious and the archives represent a divided and violent society. We decided we would bypass the troubled period in history and go back to the start of UTV in October 1959 to tell the story of the 1960s – a time before the violence.

Blending the moving images carefully with the music of the period to create a nostalgic experience, history and entertainment come together. With clips and imagery in the talk, we will tell the story of how a national archive can be repurposed for broadcast again to teach an audience about a more shared past they have forgotten about against a backdrop of all the social change of the 1960s. And, of course, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones drop by as part of the journey.

This is archive truly valorised to live again.

The presentation explores the comprehensive archiving and publication processes of Yle's program content, with a particular focus on factual programming. It emphasizes three key areas: archiving program content, republishing or reuse, and the ethical and moral considerations surrounding programs published indefinitely on Yle's online streaming service, Yle Areena.

Initially, the focus will be on the AV archive database designed for Yle's internal use. The primary questions center on journalistic and cultural perspectives, as well as Finnish law, which guide the long-term preservation of Yle's programs. We will examine who can access the archive database and under what conditions, while considering the significance of maintaining the authenticity of archived programs and the conditions under which they may be altered.

Next, we will explore the principles behind republishing archive programs. Publication decisions consider legal, ethical, and journalistic guidelines, with particular attention to personal stories and sensitive topics. We will assess whether such publications require additional conceptualization, such as an accompanying editorial article or at least a note in the program's description. For instance, expressions and behaviors that were accepted in the past are evaluated within the context of today's society, with historical background information provided when necessary to enhance understanding.

Finally, we will explore the principles related to the modification or removal of published archive programs from Yle Areena. Ethical considerations, including privacy and freedom of speech, play a crucial role in these decisions. Additionally, we will detail the responsibilities of the editor in charge when handling requests to remove videos from the online platform.

This presentation aims to discuss the ongoing National Research Project funded by the European Union SAFE (the SustainAbility of italian Film hEritage: archival infrastructures, digital preservation, and stewardship Strategies) and its outcomes. The non-theatrical Italian film archive community is daily engaged in dealing with highly complex and internally diverse issues: on the one hand, aligned to international standards or part of recognised federations, on the other and not infrequently on the fringes of institutional, legislative and governmental procedures and frameworks.  

To adequately explore the main research questions around three axes - archival infrastructures, digital preservation, and stewardship strategies -, the methodological framework for this research draws on three key areas of study: critical infrastructure along with archival and museum studies; digital film and critical digital humanities; and media archaeology combined with media sustainability. SAFE is carrying out three macro-actions of applied research: monitoring and analysing the infrastructural sustainability of preservation centres; surveying digital preservation practices and protocols, collecting and sharing stewardship strategies. A digital atlas addresses these intentions, being a tool derived from the digital humanities’ methodological framework through data visualization. Such exchanges are crucial for building a resilient and sustainable future for film heritage.

Beyond technical solutions, the SAFE initiative emphasizes the role of archives in fostering cultural memory and community engagement. By addressing environmental, cultural, and ethical dimensions, the project offers a holistic approach to the challenges of the digital age. Its outcomes will not only benefit Italian film archives but also contribute to global efforts to safeguard cultural heritage in an era of rapid technological and ecological change.

The Archives of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) is cultural heritage and should be available to the Norwegian public. Open archives are an important democratic principle and tell us about our societal development, who we used to be, and who we are today. We call our archive Norway’s diary.

We have over 240,000 unique programs on our streaming platform NRK TV. But how does all our content hold up for modern viewers?

Archive content needs context. We have experienced that time works both for and against us: what was once acceptable may be perceived differently today. At the same time, things that were very difficult many years ago may be completely unproblematic today.

NRKs rule is as follows: NRK shall have a low threshold for publishing content, a high threshold for removing it – and the content we curate, we curate for a contemporary audience.

In the process of publishing the archive we had many discussions and different solutions. In our presentation we will show a wide range of cases of how NRK considers ethics when making the past accessible.

We're going to talk about how we handle our skeletons in the closet.

The research team in DR Archive has for 10 years worked to change the workflow of producing new programs with archive content. From being in the end of the production chain, the archive team has moved to the beginning of the production chain. This has resulted in better use of the archive, better focus on rights, and a much higher awareness of the archive content as a big asset for the corporation. I would like to explain the new and better workflow from archive to production exemplified by DR’s 100 years anniversary. The archive was consulted way before the editorials started their program workflows, and this very early visibility of the archive team has resulted in many new programs with archive content not only from the surface of the archive, but from all corners of the archive with experts digging to find the very best materials for each production.

AVI - Italian Association of Video Libraries and Media Libraries was born out of an unexpected event, and accidents can sometimes turn into ‘opportunities’.

Founded as an Association on October 24, 2001, in Cesena, its primary goal was to offer legal guidance on issues related to audiovisual materials management.

Today, AVI represents over 300 Italian audiovisual archives and serves as a key representative body in the cultural, scientific, technical, legal, and legislative fields, advocating for the organization of services and documentation in institutions preserving invaluable cultural heritage.

AVI has supported affiliated public and private institutions through workshops and meetings on topics like conservation, access to collections, and copyright. The evolving nature of copyright remains a challenge due to changes in audiovisual production and distribution, which have expanded access and platforms.

This revolution has pointed out challenges in preserving audiovisual works, particularly in locating both current and past Home Video editions, for which AVI organizes an annual award for the best national and international releases.

These issues, along with the need for professional development have been highlighted to both the public and industry experts. Since 2017 AVI has organized discussions at the annual Convegno delle Stelline - Biblioteche.

What goals does AVI set for the future?

- Encouraging digital lending;
- Promoting specific licenses for multi-subject screenings;
- Building new partnerships;
- Discussions with home video producers for usage licenses;
- Cataloging archives to increase collection visibility;
- Training and updates.

AVI’s connection with institutions such as RAI Teche, Mediaset, RSI, Cineteca di Bologna, Istituto Centrale per i Beni Sonori e Audiovisivi, Archivio Luce/Cinecittà, Museo del cinema di Torino, Images en bibliothèque will undoubtedly play a role in safeguarding audiovisual culture from a contemporary perspective.

The growing reliance on artificial intelligence technologies in film archiving has raised increasing concerns regarding the neutrality of these systems: particularly in representing non-Western productions. Global tools such as Google Cloud Video Intelligence and Amazon Transcribe are commonly used in audiovisual archiving; however, their linguistic and cultural training raises questions about their ability to accurately represent Arab films.

Although advancements in Arabic language processing have improved AI’s capacity to interpret Arabic content, challenges remain. These systems may still reproduce algorithmic biases stemming from unbalanced training data or design assumptions. Furthermore, the complexity of the Arabic language, especially its dialectal and cultural diversity, continues to pose unresolved technical and archival obstacles. This gap has yet to be systematically studied through comparative analysis with specialized Arabic-language AI models. If unaddressed, the integration of such global technologies into Arab film archives risks producing digital repositories that misclassify or marginalize local narratives, thereby distorting cinematic memory.

This research proposes an applied analytical study to examine the potential bias of global smart archiving systems toward Arab films. It evaluates the performance of Google Cloud Video Intelligence and Amazon Transcribe, comparing their results to those of specialized Arabic AI models. The study also explores the potential for integrating Arabic models via a dedicated API to enhance the performance of global systems and proposes practical solutions to foster a more inclusive Arab digital film archive.

In the rapidly evolving digital landscape, the television industry is increasingly required to adapt to new technologies and workflows to meet both creative and operational demands. The Mediaset Fiction case study illustrates how a comprehensive business process reengineering (BPR) approach can streamline the complex workflows of Media Management, involving end to end processes from prospecting, to production, approval, and distribution of related content.

The project focuses on the lifecycle of Fiction materials, examining the intricate steps involved in managing audiovisual assets—such as episodes, trailers, scripts, and audio files. The core of the project lies in the collaborative efforts of multiple internal departments and external stakeholders and production companies, each playing a crucial role in the process from ideation, to raw material approval till final delivery, including different steps from preview, to validation, ingest, standard and 4K quality control, conversion till publishing in the library, ready for linear and/or OTT distribution. Additionally, the project encompasses other related processes, such as the creation of promotional materials and the delivery of assets for social media and press office activities.

The complexity of this process is underscored by challenges such as managing fragmented content, scheduling processes, capacity constraints, especially in 4K production, emphasizes the evolution of the Media Supply Chain through the adoption of advanced ERP tools for content management, and the automation of approval cycles for faster, more efficient workflows.

As a strategic project, Mediaset Fiction not only highlights the technical complexities and operational efficiencies required in modern media production but also underscores the importance of archive management and the strategic re-use of content. In fact, Mediaset fiction materials play a crucial role even in the sales division, which main activities are commercializing, promoting and selling assets to external networks, TV channels, and other stakeholders.

In the digital era, television archives have evolved from static storage to dynamic assets that drive both operational efficiency and creative innovation. In this context, they are no longer just repositories; they are central to fostering innovation, improving collaboration, and maintaining a competitive edge in the fast-evolving media landscape.

In 2019 the BFI launched the Young Audiences Content Fund (YACF), a government sponsored lottery fund which was designed to support programming for children and young audiences against a backdrop of declining industry output in this area. The Fund would go on to award over £40m to 221 projects developed for free-to-access platforms, including UK broadcasters, with specific goals including diversity, innovation and representation of the UK’s nations and regions. Though the Fund closed in 2022, it had resounding successes with award winning programmes including Big Boys (2022-2025), Sol (2020) and Milo (2021).

From the outset, the BFI National Archive worked with the YACF to preserve all the completed programmes that were supported by the Fund, lead to a remarkable collection of over 1000 titles. This presentation will explore the significance of this funding initiative and the cultural significance of the collection. We will set out the challenges in developing preservation workflows that aligned with programme delivery from commissioning to broadcast and outline how expectations changed over the course of the Fund. We will also discuss the ways in which the fund and BFI National Archive attempted to embed Equity, Diversity & Inclusion principles into the preservation workflows – with varying degrees of success.

The presentation will conclude with a look at our open source approach to archiving innovative Ultra Access interactive programming for the final series from the fund - Mixmups (2023) - and how this might inform future collecting plans.