In August 2020, a review of the Orphan Works Directive (2012/28/EU), or OWD, was initiated by the European Commission. The study concluded that the OWD has had limited practical impact, but the European Commission has not proposed any modifications to the Directive. This post provides a short introduction to the OWD, an overview of the…
It is a common practice to make copies of deteriorating or far away cultural heritage. As of 2022, it is not even a new idea to use digital methods to copy heritage, considering that the mass digitisation of cultural heritage, especially books, started more than two decades ago. But we should also recognise the current…
This is the second of a set of two blog posts (see Part 1 here) which analyses the limitations to parties’ freedom to determine the law applicable to contracts aimed at the exploitation of protected content online. It discusses the concept of overriding mandatory provisions and its potential application to relevant rules of (copyright) contract…
The online exploitation of content protected by copyright inherently entails cross-border aspects. Thus, the digital context of copyright exploitation contracts leads to questions of applicable law. Business-to-business contracting parties enjoy significant freedom in determining the law applicable to their contractual relationship. It makes commercial sense for parties to leverage their relative bargaining position to impose…
Earlier this week, the European Commission published a recommendation for a common European data space for cultural heritage. As Executive Vice-President for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age, Margrethe Vestager, explained, “[t]he tragic burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris showed the importance of digitally preserving culture and the lockdowns highlighted the need for…
The French Act No. 2012-287 of 1 March 2012 ‘on the digital exploitation of unavailable books of the twentieth century’ created a specific compulsory collective management system for out-of-commerce books, in Articles L.134-1 to L.134-9 French intellectual property Code (‘IPC’). These new provisions were intended to allow the digitisation and reissuing of books that are…
Playing Catch 22 with cultural heritage is quite simple: since cultural heritage institutions hardly ever are in a position to digitize their collection because of a lack of financial resources, they obtain funding on the basis of public/private partnerships. Chances are that in return for the financial support needed for digitization, the private party will…
On the 28 of October the European Commission adopted a Recommendation on the digitisation and online accessibility of cultural material and digital preservation. The Recommendation follows up on a similar Recommendation from 2006, updating for new developments such as the launch in 2008 of Europeana and the adoption of the Commission’s proposal for a Directive…
