Brussels, 05/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 4 October, the EU Council of Ministers adopted a directive to improve access to orphan works and their digitalisation in the EU, explains a Council press release. Orphan Works are works which are protected by copyright but whose creators cannot be identified or found. The new rules will make it easier to put such works online.
“The new Directive on Orphan Works will provide Europe's libraries, archives, film heritage institutions, public broadcasters and other organisations acting in the public interest with the appropriate legal framework to provide on-line cross-border access to orphan works contained in their collections. The Directive is a central element of the Commission's strategy to create an enabling framework for the use of intellectual property announced in its intellectual property strategy adopted in May 2011,” explains a press release.
The directive will apply to works first published or broadcast in the EU27. Strenuous efforts must be made to find the copyright owner in the member state in which the work was first published before it can be viewed as “orphan.” Material catalogued as having orphan status in a member state will have the same status in all member states. The new rules include a compensation system if the owners of the work come forward at a later date. The amount and criteria for the copyright payments will be determined by the member states, bearing in mind the non-commercial usage that the beneficiary institutions have made of the works in question. (SP/transl.fl)