[Commons-Law] [A2k] EU signs MoU on Key Principles on the Digitisation and Making Available of Out-of-Commerce Works

[Pranesh Prakash]

Dear all,
I wonder if anyone has any comments on how this might not be a good
development.

Regards,
Pranesh

Pranesh Prakash wrote [2011-09-22 09:53]:
> Dear all,
> I believe this is a very interesting and important development in the
> EU.  They've taken a non-legislative approach to something even broader
> than the orphan-works problem: the out-of-commerce book digitisation
> problem.
> 
> The FAQ on this:
> http://goo.gl/L30Ew
> 
> From the FAQ:
> ## 4. What are the main elements of the MoU?
> It is sector specific, providing solutions for books and learned journals.
> It is based on voluntary licensing agreements to be negotiated in the
> country of first publication of the works.
> The determination of the out-of-commerce status will be decided in the
> country of first publication according to criteria defined by the parties.
> The types of use of the works will be agreed by the parties in each
> licensing agreement.
> It foresees the need for solutions to situations of collective
> management when not all right holders are represented by a collecting
> society.
> 
> ## 5. Why a MoU? Why is the Commission not proposing a legislative
> initiative?
> Copyright holders, whether authors or publishers, are the ones who can
> decide whether or not to permit libraries or other cultural institutions
> to digitise out-of-commerce works contained in their collections and put
> them online as part of a digital library project. Through voluntary
> agreements interested parties can negotiate mutually acceptable terms
> and conditions for the online exploitation of out-of-commerce works.
> This is preferable to legislation that could be too prescriptive and
> lack the flexibility to provide solutions adapted to the needs of
> particular users and the specificities of particular sectors while fully
> respecting copyright.
> 
> The Key Principles contained in the MoU signed today contain the
> necessary elements to ensure sufficient flexibility enabling authors and
> publishers to mandate collective management organisations to grant
> national and multi-territorial licences to those libraries and other
> publicly accessible cultural institutions wanting to digitise and make
> available out-of-commerce books and learned journals in their
> collections. In turn, the MoU recognises that legislative backing for
> these licensing solutions voluntarily developed by stakeholders may be
> needed in some Member States in order to cover situations where licences
> include right holders that are not members of a collective management
> organization.
> 
> ## 6. How do out-of-commerce works differ from orphan works?
> There is one fundamental difference between them: orphan works are works
> where the copyright owners are not known or cannot be found so it is not
> possible to get the necessary authorisations to use their works. By
> contrast, the right holders of out-of-commerce works are generally known
> so a user such as a library will know whom to contact to get the
> necessary permissions to use the works. Whereas for the use of orphan
> works, the key element is the determination of the "orphan works"
> status, for the use of "out-of-commerce" works, the key element is how
> to facilitate their licensing (without having to determine whether
> within a collection of out-of-commerce works there are some that may, or
> may not, be orphans).
> 
> ## 9. Who are the signatories to the MoU?
> 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).
> 
>
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-- 
Pranesh Prakash
Programme Manager
Centre for Internet and Society
W: http://cis-india.org | T: +91 80 40926283

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