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

[David Prosser <david.prosser@rluk.ac.uk>]

Although I am not among the signatories, can I point you to set 
of FAQs on the European Commission web site:

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/11/619&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

The MoU itself is here:

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/docs/copyright-infso/20110920-mou_en.pdf

It will be interesting to see how this works in practice.

David



On 22 Sep 2011, at 01:15, Ann Okerson wrote:

> 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]