In order to contribute to the debate on the ongoing copyright reform at the EU level, CEIPI drafted an Opinion on the proposal to facilitate use of out-of-commerce works, as presented in the European Commission’s Proposal for a Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market of 14 September 2016. Other topics of the reform are reviewed in separate position papers.
The Opinion supports the proposal to facilitate access to the European cultural heritage and its digitisation through the establishment of extended collective licensing of rights for out-of-commerce works. CEIPI endorses the extension of the notion of “out-of-commerce works” toworks never intended for commercial use and the possibility to determine the out-of-commerce status of a collection of works as a whole. At the same time, it proposes some amendments regarding the scope of out-of-commerce search, the representative character of collective management organisations, the sufficiency of general publicity measures on the use of out-of-commerce works, and the application of the mechanism to third-country works.
CEIPI follows and comments the main developments in the area of intellectual property at national, European and international levels. Development of a balanced and efficient intellectual property system of the European Union is of great interest to the centre. This Opinion follows the previous CEIPI Opinion on the proposed introduction of neighbouring rights for press publishers, CEIPI Opinion on exceptions and limitations to copyright as well as a Study for the Committee on Legal Affairs of the European Parliament on the exception for text and data mining.
The CEIPI Opinion is available here.
This opinion is also published in the JIPITEC (Journal of Intellectual Property, Information Technology and E-Commerce Law). It is available here.
Click here to access a table comparing the texts adopted by the European Commission, by the Council of the EU and by the European Parliament.
To access previous position papers click here.
