It covers particular uses of orphan works by "publicly accessible libraries, educational establishments and museums, as well as by archives, film or audio heritage institutions and public-service broadcasting organisations" to achieve "aims related to their public-interest missions".
Those works include
(a) works published in the form of books, journals, newspapers, magazines or other writings contained in the collections of publicly accessible libraries, educational establishments or museums as well as in the collections of archives or of film or audio heritage institutions;
(b) cinematographic or audiovisual works and phonograms contained in the collections of publicly accessible libraries, educational establishments or museums as well as in the collections of archives or of film or audio heritage institutions; and
(c) cinematographic or audiovisual works and phonograms produced by public-service broadcasting organisations up to and including 31 December 2002 and contained in their archives; which are protected by copyright or related rights and which are first published in a Member State or, in the absence of publication, first broadcast in a Member State.It aims to
- Ensure lawful cross-border online access to orphan works contained in the collections of libraries, educational establishments, archives and museums across Europe.
- Facilitate EU-wide online availability of orphan works, promoting Europe's cultural diversity and increasing sources of knowledge and learning.
- Create European-wide access to a comprehensive world-class digital library so that every citizen can access the consolidated EU library collections from a computing device anywhere in the EU.
- Increase legal certainty for digital libraries: by adopting a binding instrument clarifying the legal status of orphan works and the conditions under which libraries can display such works online and carry out preparatory acts such as reproductions for preservation or restoration purposes.
- Protection against liability for infringement: by ensuring that legislation contains provisions (i) to protect libraries against possible liability for copyright infringement for the use of orphan works after a diligent search and (ii) for redress to reappearing rightholders.
- Ensure adequate protection for rightholders: by ensuring that legislation contains provisions (i) for libraries to conduct a diligent search for rightsholders prior to the online display of works and (ii) for redress to reappearing rightholders.
- Reduce transaction costs for the online use of orphan works by libraries, educational establishments, museums and archives.
- Establish common sector specific criteria to conduct diligent search: uniform criteria need to be established and, at the appropriate stage, be made binding on all parties involved in conducting a diligent search.
- Limit diligent search to one country i.e. of first publication or country of origin of the work: by limiting the diligent search to the country of first publication of a work, unnecessary duplication of searches and their inherent cost are avoided.
- Enable mutual recognition of orphan work status: by establishing a system of mutual recognition of a diligent search carried out according to predefined criteria, duplication of such searches is avoided.
- Facilitate the identification of rightholders: by providing transparent and comprehensive information on existing orphan works and reducing their occurrence in the future by better identifying works and their rightholders.
- Facilitate cross-border access to orphan works: once libraries, educational establishments, museums and archives display orphan works online, these should be indexed and accessible from all Member States.
