Enhancing access to 20th Century cultural heritage through Distributed Orphan Works clearance

Kennisland is participating in a European Heritage Plus project abbreviated to EnDOW. In this three-year project Kennisland will work together with CIPPM (University of Bournemouth), IViR (University of Amsterdam) CREATe (University of Glasgow) and ASK (Bocconi University) in a comparative study to the implementation of the European Union’s Orphan Works Directive. This comparative study is transformed into a suite of tools that enable everyone to determine the orphan work status of a work given a national jurisdiction++Out of CopyrightThis is similar to our work on outofcopyright.eu. Read more here.. This in term enables crowdsourcing of orphan works.

Orphan works are literary and artistic works restricted by copyright whose rights holders cannot be identified anymore. Either because their creator is unknown or the chain of transfer of ownership is broken. Without being able to obtain permission these works become locked up in archives and museums. They cannot be legally viewed and used online. This blocks our access to a lot of cultural heritage.

In October 2012 the European Union enacted the ‘Orphan Works Directive’++Orphan worksKennisland is very critical about the form the directive took. (2012/28/EU). This directive set out a few exceptions to the copyright framework where orphan works can be used even though their rights owners cannot be identified, found, or contacted. This is only applicable under strict conditions and for a narrow scope of use. So, the adoption of the directive++WorkflowDirectives usually need to be interpreted and implemented by member states of the EU within two years. does not mean that works whose rights holders cannot be located or contacted can be generally used.

A mandatory key feature of determining the orphan work status of a work is a due diligence search. This is a set of steps that needs to be recorded before the status of orphan work can be granted. EnDOW compares the implementation of the directive in all EU jurisdictions and makes tools to guide people in determining the orphan work status of works to enable crowdsourcing.

If you find this interesting, you might also like: