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Today the European Parliament passed with an overwhelming majority – 531 voting in favor, 11 against and 65 abstentions – a compromise proposal for a directive on certain permitted uses of orphan works. In Europe, orphan works are a much greater problem than, for example, in the USA, because European copyright has for a much longer time featured automatic protection. As a consequence, finding rights holders is more difficult than in the USA, where works had to be registered until the end of the 1980s. And due to ever-longer protection terms, the number of orphan works is going to increase even further every year, making access to our common cultural heritage increasingly difficult.
The so-called orphan works directive addresses the problem by allowing public-sector institutions such as libraries, museums, archives, educational establishments and film heritage institutions to digitize and publicize orphan works after conducting a “diligent search”. What constitutes a “diligant search” is outlined in more detail in a “Memorandum of Understanding on Diligent Search Guidelines for Orphan Works”.
While the dust of the SOPA and PIPA battle in the US has not settled yet, we quickly approach the next showdown around an acronym in the realm of intellectual property regulation. This time the main battleground is Europe, the acronym is ACTA. The “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” had been negotiated secretly for years until in early 2010 a draft of the agreement was leaked (see Michael Geist; for a critical and more up to date overview see the ACTA info portal of La Quadrature du Net (LQDN)). Since this leak, the draft had been substantially reworked and, last week, the treaty was signed by representatives of the European Commission and 22 member states in an official signing ceremony.
However, the political controversy is far from being over. For one, the treaty needs to be approved by the European Parliament, which is now the main target for mobilization of both supporters and opponents. For another, the signing of ACTA has sparked surprisingly strong protests in some EU member states, above all in Poland (see video below). The intensity of the Polish opposition has in turn raised attention in neighboring states, most importantly in Germany, as well.
governancexborders.com 