European Parliament Passes Orphan Works Directive 13/09/2012 by Intellectual Property Watch 10 Comments Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch The European Parliament today passed a “directive on certain permitted uses of orphan works” with 531 in favour versus 65 opposed (11 abstentions). The directive will be a good first step toward allowing the digitisation and making available to the public of older copyrighted works that are buried in the archives and libraries of the Union because no rights holder can be located, the lead rapporteur Lidia Geringer de Oedenberg (S&D) and many supportive MEPs said. The draft directive is available here. Yet many members, even those voting in favour, criticised the directive as not ambitious enough. The risk of becoming liable for compensation of a re-appearing rights-holder paired with the ban of commercial benefits for the venturing institutions could make the use of orphaned works too risky for libraries and archives, they said. Old broadcasting material (for example from Europe’s big public broadcasters) is even more at risk as there were always a lot of additional rights holders in addition to the main authors. Pirate Party Member Christian Engstroem welcomed the centralised database on orphaned works and the acknowledgment of orphan status researched in one EU member states for Union in general but complained that Parliament had missed a chance. According to Engstroem, Parliament should have gone with the bolder proposal prepared by the European Commission. Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes, said to be the “fairy godmother” of the orphaned works directive, this week announced that digital copyright as a whole should be urgently rethought on a broader scale. The orphan works directive that now has to be passed through the Council and implemented in the member states is only one of several projects on copyright in the information society. A critique of the outcome from the TransAtlantic Consumer Dialogue is here. The new directive “will not facilitate nor promote mass digitization and large-scale preservation of Europe´s vast cultural heritage,” it said. “Countless out-of-circulation works whose authors are unknown or not found will remain unaccessible. This has been an historic missed opportunity.” Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window) Related "European Parliament Passes Orphan Works Directive" by Intellectual Property Watch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
mapoloko kabeli says 09/10/2012 at 8:48 am We may not agree with some of the decisions made but information should be made available to people who needs it. digitization and making available to the public of this information is indead a good stept as the copyrighted owners cannot be traced. Reply
[…] European Parliament Passes Orphan Works Directive “The European Parliament today passed a “directive on certain permitted uses of orphan works” with 531 in favour versus 65 opposed (11 abstentions). The directive will be a good first step toward allowing the digitisation and making available to the public of older copyrighted works that are buried in the archives and libraries of the Union because no rights holder can be located, the lead rapporteur Lidia Geringer de Oedenberg (S&D) and many supportive MEPs said.” http://www.ip-watch.org/2012/09/13/european-parliament-passes-orphan-works-directive/ […] Reply
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[…] European Parliament Passes Orphan Works Directive http://www.ip-watch.org/2012/09/13/european-parliament-passes-orphan-works-directive/ […] Reply
[…] the Orphan Works Directive) sets out rules for the digitisation and online display of orphan works (IPW, European Policy, 13 September 2012). However, the objective was not fully realised, according to the EIFL, which says that libraries […] Reply
[…] other members of the European Parliament, even those voting in favor, shared the same critiques regarding the Directive and, since the latter did not strive to address those issues, they referred […] Reply
[…] Intellectual Property Watch: “The European Parliament today passed a “directive on certain permitted uses of orphan works” (…). The directive will be a good first step toward allowing the digitisation and making available to the public of older copyrighted works that are buried in the archives and libraries of the Union because no rights holder can be located (…)” (Continuar lendo) […] Reply