Bartolomeo is a Senior Lecturer in Law and the Head of Knowledge Exchange for CREATe, the Centre for Regulation of the Creative Economy. In 2026, he was awarded a Smart Data Research UK Fellowship to work with the British Library, the British Film Institute and the National Library of Scotland on the legal challenges that currently limit cultural heritage institutions' ability to share collections and data for AI research and innovation. Bart is also the convenor of the University of Glasgow's PgCert in AI Law and the Creative Economy. Together with Elena Cooper, he is the co-lead on the CREATe research theme Legal History and Cultural Memory.

Since 2012, Bart has led the development of CopyrightUser.org, an independent online platform intended to make UK copyright law accessible to everyone. More recently, as part of the Horizon 2020 consortium ReCreating Europe, he launched CopyrightUser.eu, which provides accessible and authoritative guidance on EU copyright law. Bart is on the managing board of Primary Sources on Copyright (CopyrightHistory.org) and the editorial board of the Copyright Evidence Wiki (CopyrightEvidence.org).

Previously, Bart worked as Education and Research Executive at Learning on Screen. He also worked at the British Film Institute and the Digital Catapult on secondment from CREATe, and held research and media production positions at CIPPM, the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy & Management (Bournemouth University), where he is currently a visiting fellow.

Bart is also a research fellow of the Creative Industries Policy & Evidence Centre; a board member of the EUscreen foundation; a member of the Libraries and Archives Copyright Alliance (LACA) and the Europeana Copyright Community Steering Group; and a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (RSA).

In 2015, alongside Ronan Deazley, Bart received the Arts and Humanities Research Councils (AHRC) Innovation Award for Research in Film. This was for their work 'The Adventure of the Girl with the Light Blue Hair', the first episode in 'The Game is On' webseries.

My research interests lie in copyright law and the lawful use of works of authorship, with a focus on copyright exceptions and, more broadly, the public domain. More recently, my work has focussed on the relationship between copyright law and artificial intelligence. I am interested in how copyright, data protection and other areas of the law shape access to and the use of existing content for creative, educational and research purposes, including the development and deployment of AI systems.

My research aims to develop and inform a conception of the public domain that is responsive to the needs of the people and organisations that draw upon it. I have co-designed and applieddeliberative research methodologies that enable creative and cultural communities to articulate the legal challenges they face and to develop best-practice approaches to addressing them.

I am currently working with leading cultural heritage institutions to explore whether Trusted Research Environments may provide a viable model for enabling the use of copyright protected content for AI research and development.

List by: Type | Date

Title: Unlocking Cultural and Creative Data: Legal Infrastructure for a Smart, Open Research Ecosystem (Smart Data Research Fellowship)

Applicant: Bartolomeo Meletti (PI)

Funder: ESRC (UKRI4014)

Time period: 2026-2027

Project value: £199,080

Project summary

Funded by the ESRC Smart Data Research Hub and supported by the British Library, the British Film Institute and the National Library of Scotland, this Fellowship examines whether and how Trusted Research Environments can facilitate secure and responsible access to in-copyright works for AI research and development.

Title: CREATe Continuity funding as UKRI research infrastructure (Centre for Regulation of the Creative Economy)

Applicants: M. Kretschmer (PI), K. Erickson (Co-I), M. Eben (Co-I) with B. Meletti and other seven CREATe academics (Co-Is)

Funder: UKRI (AH/Y007662/1)

Time period: 2024-2028

Project value: £1.1M

Project summary

Core funding by the AHRC as UK research infrastructure, with a focus on the regulation of creativity, technology and markets (intellectual property law, competition law, information and technology law). Activities funded include digital resources, policy and stakeholder engagement and capacity building.

Title: Sustainable Open Licensing Models in the Cultural Heritage Sector

Applicants: B. Meletti (PI) and K. Erickson (Co-I)

Funder: Creative Commons

Time period: 2024-2025

Project value: £12,000

Project summary

A series of case studies with gallery, library, archive and museum (GLAM) sector institutions. The purpose of the research is to identify economic and social costs and benefits of closed vs open business models in relation to digital reproductions of public domain images and other materials.

Funding body: European Union Horizon 2020

Title: reCreating Europe: Rethinking digital copyright law for a culturally diverse, accessible, creative Europe

Reference: No 870626

Applicants: Sant’Anna Pisa (PI C. Sganga), IViR University of Amsterdam, CREATe University of Glasgow (M. Iljadica, M. Kretschmer, T. Margoni, B. Meletti), A.v.Humboldt-Institute for Internet & Society Berlin, University of Trento, Stichting Liber, and partners in Estonia, Danmark, Hungary, Ireland.

Dates: 2019-2022

Amount awarded: €3.1m Consortium, of which €454,000 to University of Glasgow

Project summary

reCreating Europe will develop (1) cross-national maps of multi-level regulatory responses that impact access to culture, cultural production, competitiveness of creative industries; (2) innovative qualitative and quantitative methods to measure the impact of digitization on the production and consumption of cultural goods and services; (3) legal and technological evaluation of TPMs and content-filtering algorithms, and their impact on cultural diversity, access to culture and the generation of cultural value.

https://www.create.ac.uk/blog/2020/01/28/copyright-law-cultural-diversity-and-the-digital-single-market/

Funding body: AHRC

Title: Intellectual Property and Collaborative Agreements

Applicants: M. Kretschmer (PI), S. Singh, B. Meletti

Dates: August-September 2018

Amount awarded: £8,900

Project summary

“Landscape” briefing paper on best practice in IP Consortium Agreements

https://www.create.ac.uk/publications/ip-collaborative-agreements-in-the-creative-industries/

Funding body: AHRC

Title: Unlocking co-creative possibilities: CREATe follow-on engagement with UK creative economy stakeholders to improve copyright practice and policy

Reference: AH/P013341/1

Applicants: M. Kretschmer (PI), R. Deazley, K. Erickson, S. Singh (named researchers B. Meletti, K. Patterson)

Dates: February 2017-September 2018

Amount awarded: £161,000 (£200K fEC, plus £30K UoG ESRC/EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account) 

Project summary

1. Co-creation in the production chain: animations and guidance
Extending animation techniques (piloted in the award winning film The Adventure of the Girl with the Light Blue Hair - http://copyrightuser.org/the-game-is-on/), copyright opportunities and risks relating to co-creation will be presented as they arise in the production process. British Film Institute (BFI), lottery funded partner IntoFilm, UK Intellectual Property Office and Authors Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) are collaborating partners. 

2. Co-creation from cultural heritage: events and guidance
This activity seeks to improve understanding how copyright norms shape digital access to cultural heritage. Using the exemplar of Sherlock Holmes, two screening events will explore the creative reuse of the Sherlock character at the BFI Southbank in London and in Glasgow’s new KelvinHall hub. National Library of Scotland, British Film Institute (BFI) and Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) are collaborating partners. 

3. Co-creation in policy deliberation: peer production of evidence
This activity will address neglected and under-represented stakeholder groups in the copyright policy making process, in particular micro-sized innovative firms and individual creators engaged in co-creation. In consultation with a Wikimedian-in-residence, we will provide new data-mining tools and open functionality via the MediaWiki software in order to facilitate a series of ‘virtual town hall meetings’ for these groups. Wikimedia Foundation, N-Square Consultants and UK IPO are collaborating partners. 

4. UK Research and Innovation Network
CREATe will develop as a national catalyst, connecting expertise in law, social science and technology with stakeholders through a new national Research and Innovation Network for the Creative Economy. Scottish Games Industry network at Dundee, KTN Ltd (Creative Industries) and Digital Catapult are collaborating partners. 

Funding body: Digital Catapult

Title: CopyrightUser.org

CREATe researcher in residence at Digital Catapult

Applicants: M. Kretschmer (PI), B. Meletti (named researcher)

Dates: September 2015-August 2016

Amount awarded: £25,000 

Project summary

Placement support for the lead producer of CREATe portal CopyrightUser.org; Production of new content, engagement with Copyright Hub, engagement with user groups (publishing, music, film, games, archives sector).

Funding body: Author’s Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) Support and Sponsorship Funding 

Title: Motion Words

Applicants: B. Meletti (PI), R. Deazley (Co-I), K. Erickson (Co-I)

Dates: 2015-2016

Amount awarded: £3,500

Project summary

Production of The Game is On! - Episode 2: The Adventure of the Six Detectives and accompanying case files providing copyright guidance to audiovisual writers: https://www.copyrightuser.org/educate/the-game-is-on/episode-2/

Funding body: Google Faculty Research Award

Title: Enhancing Access to European Books through Crowd-Sourced Diligent Searches

Applicants: M. Borghi (PI), B. Meletti (Co-I), Bournemouth University

Dates: 2014-2015

Amount awarded: $40,000

Project summary

The project aimed to allow for a more efficient use of books that are either digitized or just indexed in Google Books, and to contribute to “unlock” those that are either in public domain or that qualify as orphan works under European national laws.