European Commission Agreement a Major Step in Boosting Mass Digitization Efforts
By Michael Kelley Sep 22, 2011An agreement signed September 19 in Brussels could make it possible for European libraries and cultural institutions to acquire the licenses necessary to digitize "out-of-commerce" books and journals in their collections and make them accessible online via Europeana. "Out-of-commerce" works are those that are in copyright but "no longer commercially available because the authors and publishers have decided neither to publish new editions nor to sell copies through the customary channels of commerce."
Michel Barnier, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services, presided over the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that spells out "key principles" of digitization, based on voluntary licensing agreements, for works in publicly accessible cultural institutions that are not to be used "for direct or indirect economic commercial advantage."
The agreements would be negotiated in the country where a work was first published, and the licenses would only be granted by "collective management organizations," in which "a substantial number of authors and publishers affected by the agreement are members."
Rights' holders would have the first option to digitize an out-of-commerce work.
Each digital library project would be required to widely publicize its efforts so that all stakeholders can decide whether or not to participate. The agreement does not include orphan works whose rights' holders are unknown, but the European Commission is working on a legislative proposal that would establish rules for orphan works.
The two initiatives are considered complementary, although it was considered better to take a voluntary approach for out-of-commerce works since legislation could prove too "prescriptive" and lack necessary "flexibility" for the needs of particular users.
The MoU says that "the creation of such 'digital libraries' has to respect the moral rights of the authors, as well as the intellectual property rights of authors and their assignees."
The MoU was signed by the European Writers' Council (EWC), the Federation of European Publishers (FEP), the European Publishers' Council (EPC), the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM), the European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations (EBLIDA), the Conference of European National Librarians (CENL), the Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER), European Visual Artists (EVA), the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and the International Federation of Reprographic Rights Organisations (IFRRO).
"I strongly believe this is a clear sign that, through dialogue and taking into account the specific needs of specific sectors, it is possible to reach negotiated solutions to surmount copyright issues in the digital era," Barnier said in a press release.
European authors, publishers, libraries and collective management organizations have been working on the criteria since November 2010 at the behest of the European Commission.
"The library organizations welcome the positive outcome of the Stakeholder Dialogue on Out-of-Commerce Works," said Gerald Leitner, the president of EBLIDA, one of the signatory organizations, in a press release. "We hope that this first step in the development of efficient collective rights management mechanisms may be followed by initiatives in other areas."
Europeana's Accessible Registries of Rights Information and Orphan Works (ARROW) system, which libraries use to trace books' rights' holders, was recognized by the signatories of the agreement as indispensable for mass digitization.
A British Library study released September 15 found that using the ARROW system reduced the time to search for a copyright holder from four hours per book to less than five minutes.
"The [ARROW] project is a cooperation between libraries and rightsholders groups to find technological solutions to the challenges that clearing rights for mass digitization presents," wrote Barbara Stratton, author of the report.
