Presentation given by Ben White of the British Library at the Europeana Connect Extended Collective Licensing workshop in Luxembourg

1. Extended Collective Licensing –
the view of a national library.
Benjamin White, Head of Intellectual Property
British Library

3. The British Library Collection
• 150 millions items
35km of music shelving (357 years to listen 9-5. 3
minutes of new music collected every minute.)
• 12km added a year from legal deposit.

4. British Library Mass Digitisation Collections
• 4 million pages of 17th – 19th Century Newspapers
• 25 million pages of “out-of-copyright” books 1800 –
1900
2000 days of Sound Recordings
• 85,000 books from the 19th century

5. What is Mass Digitisation?
• Minimal or ideally no “weeding” – top left hand corner
to bottom right.
• Intellectual creation by curators of a thematically
aligned collection.
• A whole historical collection or a part of a historical
collection.

6. Text: 24 pt
● Bullet
● Bullet
● Bullet

7. Unique and rare material

9. Why digitise?
Not “because it’s there” but
• Increasingly digital targets for cultural bodies;
• Educational, research and cultural benefits for
! citizens;
• Stimulate further artistic creativity in turn;
• Promote business and technology innovations.

10. ! “Europe can become a leader in the
distribution of digital content, and as part
of this change, our digital heritage is an
important component.”
! Orange’s Vision – The Migration of Digital Content to Open Markets.
! Comité des Sages Hearing October 2010.

11. 19th Century Study of In-Copyright Material
excluded from Digitisation
• Total Number of titles excluded from digitisation as in-
copyright = 865
• Number of titles theoretically available for purchase = 173
• Number of titles available in print on demand format = 140
• Number in stock = 1

13. Public Domain pre 1923 in America.

14. Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988
§2(1) The owner of the copyright in a work of any
description has the exclusive right to do the acts
(specified in Chapter II), as the acts restricted by the
copyright in a work of that description.

15. Mass Digitisation
Strong correlation between commercially
valuable works and ability to efficiently clear
rights.
Research libraries interested in rare, unique,
less common material including unpublished
material.
Inevitably this means that rights clearance
issues are manifold.

17. Orphan Works - evidence
• Broadcast / unpublished sound recordings high? > 90%
• Film – 21% of film in European film archives orphan.
(60% of these are over 60 years old.)
• ARROW – 2011 study of 140 titles from 1870 – 2010.
31% are Orphan Works.

18. Rights Clearance
• BBC estimate 12 hours to clear one hour’s worth of film.
• ARROW study shows that simultaneous rights
clearance of 140 titles on average took 4 hours per
book.
• To clear rights for the 500,000 estimated 20th century
out of commerce works at the BNF it would take one
person over 1200 years to clear (with no weekends).

19. Rights Clearance Framework and its effect
on Digitisation
• Stick to public domain and contribute to the “blackhole
of the 20th Century”.
• Only cover commercial material with active
rightsholders – could already be digitised so value
questionable unless curated, arranged and presented
differently.
• Spend a lot of time looking for rightsholders and then
just take the legal and reputational risk with what you
cannot clear.

20. How do you clear rights en masse in the
context of mass digitisation?
Extended Collective Licensing
but

21. Issues
• How does it work across borders?
• Are collecting societies open, transparent and
independently regulated?
• Is it acceptable to multi-national publishers?
• Is it acceptable to incumbent commercially active creators
and authors?
• Does it negate all new limitations and exceptions – the
“comfort blanket” or “sovepute” effect – and where does
that leave the public interest?
• What happens to the money collected for the
unrepresented?
• Does it create more problems for memory institutions –
orphan works?

22. Orphan Works
Governmental Licence or an Exception?
• Much unique material not produced with
commercial intent in mind – JISC In from
the Cold.
• Is a diligent search more appropriate for
certain collections?
• Ethical problems with commercialising
through collecting societies –
exacerbates problems with re-emerging
owners.

23. What is the solution?
No one size fits all.

24. What are the options for Out of
Commerce Works and Orphan Works?
Orphan Works
● “Pure” Exception – US and UK
● Governmental Licence – Canada, Japan, Hungary, UK (?)
● Licensing Based Solution (Extended) – Scandinavia
Out-of-Commerce Works
● Streamlined licensing solution. e.g. ECL

25. www.bl.uk/ip
ben.white@bl.uk