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James Love 2011-06-14 Huffington Post "In 2008, the Bush administration opposed a treaty for the blind. In early 2009, the Obama administration also opposed a treaty for the blind. But by December 2009, the Obama administration seemed to have changed its mind, and announced it was "open" to a treaty. But since 2009, three key treaty supporters left the Obama administration -- Susan Crawford and Andrew McLaughlin in the White House and Arti Rai at USPTO. Since the departure of Crawford, McLaughlin and Rai, the USPTO has been aggressively but quietly trying to kill the treaty, and pressuring treaty supporters, including both NGOs and governments, to settle for a soft recommendation as a "first step" and to wait several more years before taking the treaty proposal up again. Europe is divided on the treaty. Some countries, such as the UK and a few northern European countries support the treaty, and the European Parliament recently voted to support the treaty. But France and Germany oppose the treaty, and so has the European Commission. At this point, the fate of the treaty is largely in the hands of David Kappos, the former IBM executive now running the USPTO. If Kappos supports the treaty, opposition will fade, and the treaty will move ahead to a diplomatic conference. For a detailed history and background on the negotiation, see: Background and update on negotiations for a WIPO copyright treaty for persons who are blind or have other disabilities."

Reference: MEMO/11/333 Date: 24/05/2011 "What does the proposal for a Directive on orphan works say? The Commission's proposal, which takes the form of an EU Directive, rests on three pillars. First, the proposal contains rules on how to identify orphan works. It provides that the user has to conduct a diligent search to find the copyright holder. In this search, the user should rely on sources such as databases and registries. One such tool that exists in the book publishing sector is ARROW, the Accessible Registry of Rights Information and Orphan Works. It is hoped that other sectors will also develop similar central rights information databases. Doing so would greatly simplify and streamline the conduct of a reliable diligent search. Secondly, the proposal establishes that if the diligent search does not yield the identity or location of the copyright holder, the work shall be recognised as an orphan work. This status shall then, by virtue of mutual recognition, be valid across the European Union. This implies that once a work is recognised as an orphan work, it shall be recognised as such across the European Union. The proposal also foresees that there will be a generally accessible record of all recognised orphan works. Thirdly, the proposal establishes the uses that can be made of the orphan works and the conditions for such uses depending on their nature. Thus, the current proposal should make a major contribution to the development of various European digital library initiatives and their accessibility for everyone throughout the European Union. Clear rules on what works can be posted online as orphan works will also provide the beneficiaries of the Directive - not only libraries, museums and archives but also film heritage institutions and public service broadcasters - with a sound legal framework that safeguards them against claims of copyright infringement. In this respect, a degree of legal certainty can be achieved that will exceed the one th

-> piece on British Library + Google and this EC directive?

" Proposal for a directive Public consultations and hearings Public Hearing on Orphan Works (26.10.2009) Information hearing on the "Google Book Settlement Agreement" (07.09.2009) Related documents Proposal for a directive The Commission has adopted a Proposal for a Directive on certain permitted uses of orphan works with a view to establishing common rules on the digitisation and online display of so-called orphan works. Orphan works are works like books, newspaper and magazine articles, and films that are still protected by copyright but whose authors are not known or cannot be located or contacted to obtain copyright permissions. Orphan works are part of the collections held by European libraries that might remain untouched if no common rules are developed to make their digitisation and online display legally possible. Common rules on how to deal with such works are therefore necessary in order to proceed with large-scale digitisation projects, such as the Commission's Europeana portal. Text of the proposal PDFdeenfr Executive Summary PDFdeenfr Impact assessment PDF Citizen's summary PDFbgcsdadeetelenesfritlvlthumtnlplptroskslfisv Frequently asked questions (MEMO/11/333) "

Maybe for a piece on that directive and the British Library - Google agreement.