European Digital Library Suggests Model License to Cover Orphan Works

-- Library Journal, 04/24/2007

A European Union “High Level Expert Group on Digital Libraries,” including stakeholders from the British Library, the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, the Federation of European Publishers, and Google, has prepared an advisory report suggesting a voluntary license scheme to deal with copyright issues hampering the progress of library digitization efforts. Among the report's suggestions: a model license that libraries could use to scan orphan works, that is works where the copyright owner is not identifiable, and works that are out of print. The report urged cooperation and articulated "respect for copyright and related rights," acknowledging that "digitization and use within the premises of libraries should take place with rightholders' consent or be based on statutory exception."

Under the voluntary license for orphan and out of print works, libraries would gain "a non exclusive and non transferable right to digitize and make the licensed work available to users in closed networks." The rights holder, however, would be entitled to payment "which (s)he is at liberty to waive," would retain copyright in the work, and may "at any time revoke the license...to recommercialize." Viviane Reding, the EU's commissioner for information society and media, said she would examine the report: "After the discussions so far, for me an approach based on widespread agreements between libraries and rightholders looks promising if they manage to make the user interests a priority."