The
Commission wants to put Europe’s cultural heritage on the internet
by turning books, photos, records and films into a massive digital
library. It has launched a consultation that invites suggestions
for legislative measures that could facilitate the digitisation and
subsequent accessibility of copyright material while respecting the
legitimate interests of authors.
“Without a collective memory, we are nothing, and can achieve
nothing. It defines our identity and we use it continuously for
education, work and leisure,” said Information Society and Media
Commissioner Reding. “The internet is the most powerful new tool we
have had for storing and sharing information since the Gutenberg
press, so let’s use it to make the material in Europe’s libraries
and archives accessible to all.”
Google's library project takes the book collections of several
research libraries – about 15 million books – and makes this
content searchable online. According to the Commission, Google's
initiative "triggered a reflection on how to deal with our European
cultural heritage in the digital age."
Google has faced problems: some copyright holders whose books
featured in the libraries were upset and are currently suing the
search company.
The Commission hopes to avoid such problems by addressing
copyright issues upfront. It does not depend on legal change in
order to succeed; it can also work within today's laws. Its only
driver for adjusting the laws is to increase the range of material
on offer. Without change, the Commission can still stock works in
which copyrights have expired or where permission is granted by
copyright holders.
There are already several Member State-based digital library
initiatives, including the British Library backed “Collect Britain”
project. But these are fragmented and could result in duplicate
work and systems that are mutually incompatible, according to the
Commission. It therefore proposes that Member States and major
cultural institutions join EU efforts to make digital libraries a
reality throughout Europe.
The scale of the project is ambitious: there are 2.5 billion
books and bound periodicals in European libraries and millions of
hours of film and video in broadcasting archives.
Current copyright restrictions will limit the collection to
works from the early 1900s or before, depending on the year of
death of the author, and those works for which agreement has been
obtained.
Even if works are out of copyright, the Commission notes that
the situation is not always straightforward. There may be rights
attached to the different editions of a work that is itself no
longer protected by copyright, for example rights to introductions,
covers and typography.
The Commission notes in its Communication to the European
Parliament and the Council of Ministers, "An online library
offering works beyond public domain material is not possible
without a substantial change in the copyright legislation, or
agreements, on a case by case basis, with the rightholders."
Identifying the rightholders may also be difficult.
The Commission seeks responses to its consultation by
20th January.
Meanwhile, yesterday saw the launch of the Open Content
Alliance, a consortium led by Yahoo! that aims to build a permanent
archive of multilingual digitised text and multimedia content. Like
the Commission, the Alliance will focus on public domain works to
avoid copyright problems.
