Frequently asked questions

What’s KeepRight for?

KeepRight (KR) is an open protocol to record and share instructions for keeping things long-term. You can create a Declaration, which is a set of questions and answers that might help future caretakers respect your wishes more easily. It’s not a legal thing, at least not yet, but it is a statement of intent. Declarations can be kept with the material it relates to, and when it’s passed to someone else, they can check what you’d like to have happen.

How do I use KeepRight?

You can use it in two main ways: 1) on keepright.info (this website) you can make a declaration, or 2) if you’re into coding, you can check out the specification and figure out what’s required to integrate KR into your environment.

How is this different from copyright?

Copyright is about property and describes who owns what. If you’re working on keeping something for a really long time, you have other things to consider that copyright doesn’t cover: privacy and perpetuity. You can make a KR declaration about something that’s copyrighted - that just becomes a factor to consider for the future keeper of the materials. The good thing is, it still allows the conversation about future access and conditions to happen, and the copyright status is noted in the declaration.

What should I do with my KeepRight declaration?

The important thing is to make sure you make a note of it somewhere it won’t get lost. You could even add it to your password manager. (One of those comes in very handy here!) We like the idea of printing them out, too. When you finish making your declaration, there are a few ways you can take note - you can email it to yourself or copy the URL. We’ll make it so you can download a PDF version at some point soon. If the thing you’re making a declaration about is physical, making a print out or card with the URL on and putting it with the materials will be useful for people who need to know that information later. Basically, put the KR declaration near the materials, whether that’s in a physical or digital context.

Wait. What is this thing?

KeepRight was invented in April 2025 over lunch on a sunny patio in Los Angeles, when George Oates, Joshua Christman, and Jim Bumgardner were talking about the gap between copyright and preservation. The conversation turned to the 95% of creative work that will probably never be commercially exploited but still deserves to be carefully kept, and to the cultural organisations that are perpetually stuck because rights management wasn't designed with stewardship in mind. The "No Known Copyright Restrictions" assertion had proved useful even without a full legal framework behind it. KeepRight started from that same instinct: that creators and keepers needed a simple, human way to say how their work should be looked after that’s separate from copyright, while being able to sit alongside it.

The first version of the protocol has been developed by Deep Keep, a small band of folks who work on software, archives, and ethics, and which includes George and Joshua. The formal launch is June 1st, 2026 at the IIIF Summer Conference in Leiden, Netherlands.

How do I get involved in this?

On the feedback page there’s a bunch of ways to connect, and we would love that. It’s an esoteric idea and we want to see if it’s any good.

How do I know my KeepRight Declaration will be available for the long term?

Declarations made on keepright.info are stored permanently, or as permanently as possible. Each declaration gets its own URL that's designed to last. The Safe Harbor Network, currently in development, will distribute declarations across partner institutions so that no single point of failure can make them disappear. That's not fully in place yet, so in the meantime, keeping your own copy is a good idea. Print it out, email it to yourself, store the URL somewhere safe. The spirit of KeepRight is that declarations travel with materials, so the more places one lives, the better.