What is the model licence for the digitisation of out-of-print works developed at EU level?
The model license for digitisation of out-of-print works was developed by the Copyright Subgroup of the Commission’s High Level Group on Digital Libraries as a tool to facilitate digitisation by libraries and cultural institutions of works that are no longer commercially available. It covers both the right to digitise and the right to make the works available through secure networks or accessible over open networks at the parties’ discretion. What does the Commission’s 2006 Recommendation on digitisation and digital preservation recommend be done about orphan works? The Commission’s 2006 Recommendation calls on EU countries to establish or promote mechanisms to facilitate the use of orphan works, following consultation of interested parties, and to promote the availability of lists of known orphan works. Normally this would imply a change in the national copyright legislation, and an organisational effort to pull all information on orphan works available in the country together.
