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The present Finnish Copyright Act was passed in 1961, and has been altered twenty times since then. The important twenty-first change, adopting national legislation to the EU Directive, took place in October 2005 after a three year controversial preparation process. At the final stage, the Government Bill was heavily criticised and was finally passed after a clause presupposing monitoring of the future development and potential revisions from the point of view of insufficiently considered consumer interests. The critics argued that the new Act is stricter than was required by the EU Directive in respect to private copying and the criminalisation... read more →

The main legal instruments that regulate the use of the Finnish labour force are the Act on Labour Contracts and the Act on Civil Servants. Both define the rights of the employees and the obligations of the employers. The Finnish tri-partite system of collective bargaining (income negotiations) "activates" these laws often and this may result in their revision. They – as well as the rounds of collective bargaining – are relevant from the point of view of performing arts and cultural services. Self-employed artists and freelance workers are, of course, outside these laws and the more comprehensive system of collective... read more →

There are no legislation or special administrative arrangements that would offer incentives for business sponsorship. On the other hand, income taxation legislation (Income Tax Act, paragraph 57, amended in 2007) offers tax deductions for donations. More specifically corporate actors (not a private individual) can deduct: a minimum of 850 EUR and a maximum of 250 000 EUR donation to promote art or science or to support the protection of the cultural heritage; the deduction limits are the same where the receiver is another EEA state, publicly supported university or other institute of higher education or a fund linked to either of... read more →

Cultural workers, including most of the cultural professionals employed in publicly owned or publicly supported cultural service systems – including the performing arts – are covered by the compulsory social security and pension systems. This is also the case for those who are more permanently employed by enterprises of the culture industries and by professional / trade associations in the fields of the arts and culture. This overall social security protection does not, however, cover free (self-employed) artists and free-lance cultural workers. There have been attempts to improve the pension and social security system of self-employed artists and non-taxable grant... read more →

The following Acts in Table 9 provide the legislative basis for financing the arts and culture. The first Act provides the legal and administrative basis for the national lotto, lottery and sports betting monopoly and the second Act specifies the use of profits. The remaining Acts provide the legislative framework for state transfers (subsidies) to municipal and local cultural activities and services (including local / municipal theatres and orchestras). These Acts are frequently accompanied with decrees by the Council of State (Cabinet) or the ministries, which specify in greater detail e.g. the tasks and criteria of professionalism of the institutions.... read more →

From the point of view of cultural policy the Finnish Constitution (1999) has relevant provisions in four respects - rights and liberties of individuals, equality, freedom of expression and cultural rights of minorities. Chapter 1 states the basic principle that the constitution promotes justice in society and safeguards the rights of an individual and inviolability of human dignity and freedom. Chapter 2, Section 6, states the principle that everyone is equal before the law, and no one shall, without an acceptable reason, be treated differently from other persons on the ground of sex, age, origin, language, religion, conviction, opinion, health,... read more →

The Ministry of Education and Culture decided to evaluate the structure, functions and activities and of the Finnish National Gallery (FNG) in 2010. Since 1990 the FNG has been a fully state-owned institution consisting of four operative components, Ateneum Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art (Kiasma), Sinebrychoff Museum of Foreign Art and the Central Art Archives. The evaluation was carried out by a panel consisting of five leading foreign art museum experts, and one Finnish expert who is a member of the Supreme Administrative Court. According to the report, the biggest challenges of the FNG were related to the organisational... read more →

Since the late 1990s, the Finnish government has emphasised the central role of the new ICT in economic and social development. In the early 2000s, new information policy programmes were outlined and strategic plans written by governments and ministries, but most of them were concerned either with instruments (the techniques of distribution and reception) or contents (knowledge, educative material). This division corresponded by and large with the division of jurisdictions between the Ministry of Employment and Economy and the Ministry of Education and Culture. The National Digital Library (NDL) is a project of the Ministry of Education and Culture which... read more →

Gender equality has not been explicitly stated as an objective in Finnish cultural policy. Thus its development must be seen as a part of the general development of gender representation and legislative and administrative efforts to make gender representation more equal in all fields of society. Since the 1970s, Finnish gender policies have converged into a Nordic version of "state feminism", where the main means used have been legal measures, official monitoring and positive action, including parity clauses and quotas in the representation and employment of women in the labour market. Since the Beijing Conference (Fourth World Conference on Women),... read more →

Although the flows of immigrants and refugees accelerated in the 1990s, Finland is culturally and linguistically still a very homogeneous country. The share of the Finnish- and Swedish-speaking Finns is still somewhat above 97% and the share of foreign language speakers is thus below 3%. Even the share of Swedish-speakers is only around 5.5-5.7%, and the number of people belonging to other traditional minorities is small: the total number of the speakers of Sami languages, Roma people, Tatars and Jews add up to some 22 000 -24 000 people. A similar homogeneity prevails to religion: 84.6% of Finns belong to the Lutheran... read more →