The Commission presided the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in which libraries, publishers, authors, and their collecting societies have agreed to a set of Key Principles that will give European libraries and similar cultural institutions the possibility to digitise and make available on line out-of-commerce books and learned journals which are part of their collections.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the stakeholders under the boosting of the European Commission sets out a Key Principles which will encourage and underpin voluntary licensing agreements while fully respecting copyright and recognising that right holders should always have the first option to digitise and make available an out-of-commerce work. Therefore, European libraries and similar cultural institutions will have the possibility to digitise and make available on line out-of-commerce books and learned journals which are part of their collections. The MoU is an essential part of the efforts of stakeholders and of the Commission to address the needs of mass digitisation by European cultural institutions.

European authors, publishers, libraries and collective management organisations have been working together since November 2010 in a an eight-month long stakeholder dialogue facilitated by the Commission. They have agreed on a solution which takes account both of the interests of authors and the publishing sector on the one hand and of libraries and mass digitisation projects on the other. Collecting societies representing right holders in books and learned journals will play a key role in the practical implementation of the MoU which should substantially facilitate the negotiation and acquisition of the licences that libraries and similar cultural institutions need to digitise and put on line an important part of their archives (i.e. the books and learned journals in their collections which are out-of-commerce).

Michel Barnier, European Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services who presided the signing of the MoU believes that this agreement is clear sign that, through dialogue and taking into account the specific needs of specific sectors, it is possible to reach negotiated solutions to surmount copyright issues in the digital era. The Digital Agenda for Europe and the more recent Communication on a Single Market for Intellectual Property Rights boosted the MoU. It is rooted in the overall objective of enabling the rolling out of Europe’s digital libraries and making European cultural heritage available online. This non-legislative initiative is complementary to the Commission’s recently adopted legislative proposal on orphan works. Both initiatives are important to further the development of European digital libraries and the Europeana portal. Europeana counts with more than 14 million European cultural heritage pieces on line so far.