Penso che questa notizia interessi molti in lista. juan carlos -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [A2k] EU signs MoU on Key Principles on the Digitisation and Making Available of Out-of-Commerce Works Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:53:45 +0530 From: Pranesh Prakash <pranesh@cis-india.org> Organization: Centre for Internet and Society To: Commons Law <commons-law@sarai.net>, A2K List <a2k@lists.keionline.org> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 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). - -- Pranesh Prakash Programme Manager Centre for Internet and Society W: http://cis-india.org | T: +91 80 40926283 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk56uFAACgkQ7JoSBR1cXwe7LACfaftdu8n1YqQt2pcirH5qWLUs pvEAn1Xdj7d3MTvsTR98BaGIIibPHo6i =tRc5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ A2k mailing list A2k@lists.keionline.org http://lists.keionline.org/mailman/listinfo/a2k_lists.keionline.org