" 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) "