European Digital Library struggles with copyright

Helena Spongenberg, Old books only in European Digital Library, EU Observer, September 19, 2006. Excerpt:

The EU wants to digitalise and online the vast volumes of cultural works in member state libraries to make them accessible to all, but unless the issue of copyright and intellectual property rights are solved, the European Digital Library may consist only of books and journals published before the 1920s.

The European Commission in August urged the 25 EU member states to speed up and co-operate on the setting up of a European-wide digital library.  In its recommendation, Brussels called on governments to deal with obstacles such as copyright questions and reasons for delays in the digitalisation of materials, which include books, journals, newspapers, photographs, museum objects, films and other cultural works....

The aim is to have at least 2 million cultural works accessible via the European Digital Library by 2008, and at least six million volumes by 2010....

But until a solution is found, only volumes already in the public domain - works no longer covered by intellectual property rights - will be available online....

[W]orks being digitalised for the library will mainly be from before the 1920s unless the issue of intellectual property rights is dealt with. "This is one of the main topics in all discussions going on at the moment," says Britta Woldering of Deutsche Nationalbibliothek and CENL – a group of national librarians.  "The issue of copyright is the biggest barrier for digitalisation," she said.

Ms Woldering said many libraries with digitalised works could only show them in their own reading rooms. "It's like keeping them in a black box, which is ridiculous if you think how many readers they could reach online," she noted....