Re: STM signs Out of Commerce Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)

[Ann Okerson <aokerson@gmail.com>]

With regard to the STM press release below, might someone from 
among the signatories explain what an "out of commerce" work is? 
That will help readers to understand the meaning of this new MOU. 
Thank you.

*****


On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 9:03 PM, Kim Beadle 
<beadle@stm-assoc.org> wrote:

> PRESS RELEASE FROM STM
> 20 September 2011
>
> STM Association signs Out of Commerce Memorandum of 
> Understanding (MoU)
>
> Michael Mabe today signed the Out of Commerce Memorandum of 
> Understanding (MoU) in Brussels, enabled through a dialogue 
> with libraries facilitated by the European Commission (EC). The 
> MoU recognises that the right to authorise the use of an Out of 
> Commerce work is vested in the copyright holder (authors and 
> publishers) and that voluntary solutions involving collective 
> management are the way forward.
>
> The signing of the MoU was witnessed by Michel Barnier, EC 
> Commissioner for Internal Market and Services. Representatives 
> of libraries, publishers, authors, creators and representatives 
> of authors, publishers and collective management organisations 
> for text and image based works also signed the MoU today. Mabe, 
> CEO of the International Association of Scientific, Technical & 
> Medical Publishers (STM) signed the MoU on behalf of STM's 
> members.
>
> Commenting on the MoU, Mabe said, "For the book and journal 
> sector, as well as for the library sector, the MoU is a 
> milestone in co-operation: it achieves a fine balance of 
> protecting the economically useful life of an in-copyright 
> work, without insisting that access be unduly retarded in all 
> cases for the full term of copyright."
>
> The MoU envisages crossborder EU-wide copyright clearance and 
> access rules. Reproduction Rights Organisations, represented by 
> The International Federation of Reproduction Rights 
> Organisations (IFFRO), can clear rights EU-wide for both 
> mandating rightholders and for obscure rightsholders of 
> infrequently used materials. The MoU is limited to books and 
> journals (and embedded materials)and does not cover newspapers 
> or audio-visual materials.
>
> The European Bureau of Library Information, Documentation 
> Association (EBLIDA), the Association of European Research 
> Libraries (LIBER) and the Conference of European National 
> Libraries are co-signatories of the MoU, with the International 
> Federation of Libraries and Archives (IFLA) supporting the MoU 
> for their European members.

[SNIP]