Contents:
- Lead Article: Public Sector Information and Audiovisual Archives
- Related Reporting : The Digitisation of our Heritage
- ZOOM: Audiovisual Works and teh European Directive on Certain Permitted Uses of Orphan Works
The lead article describes the main lines of the amended Directive on the re-use of public sector information. The scope of application of the revised PSI Directive (Directive 2013/37/EU) for audiovisual archives depends on three criteria:1. The archive has to be publicly financed, or has to be “established for the specific purpose of meeting needs in the general interest, not having an industrial or commercial character”. According to this Type-of-public-sector-bodies criterion, most film heritage institutions are governmental institutions. However the public service broadcasters (PSBs) and their subsidiaries are explicitly excluded from the scope of the PSI Directive. Although they are public sector bodies, subjecting PSBs to the rules of the PSI Directive would interfere with their remit and competence to organise their commercial exploitation as acknowledged in the Protocol of the Amsterdam Treaty. A second argument is based on the high volume of third party copyright protected materials held by PBSs. As third party intellectual property rights (e.g. music rights) from an integral part of virtually all broadcast material and because materials covered by third party rights are excluded from the scope of the Directive, nearly all broadcast materrials held by PBSs would be excluded from the scope.2. Only information supplied by public sector bodies in the exercise of their public tasks is covered by the PSI Directive.3. Documents can be excluded if they are not accessible or exempted from disclosure at the national level to protect public or private interests. Excluded from the scope of the PSI Directive are also documents for which third parties hold intellectual property rights. In separate sections the rules that apply in the revised PSI Directive and their impact for AV archives are explained. The lead article concludes that the impact of the the revised Directive rules on audiovisual archives appear to conflict. On the one hand, the effects might be limited, because only out-of-copyright materials will be subject to the rules on re-use. Plus audiovisual archives that are not compelled to supply their data (reports, statistics), are strongly encouraged to share their metadata. On the other hand, cultural institutions like audiovisual archives, are allowed to charge for the re-use of materials at cost recovery plus a reasonable return on investment. (The status-of-information criterion.) The following Related Reporting section presents a summary of the most recent developments concerning digital preservation of cultural heritage at the EU level. The publication finishes with an article that zooms in on orphan works, explaining which use of orphan works is permitted according to the EU rules.This report appeared as part of the series IRIS plus 2013-5, and can be ordered here.
Relevant publication for policy makers as the scope of the PSI Directive, which harmonised at a minimum level rules on re-use (rules on access to public information remains the competence of member states), has been revised to include libraries, archives and museums (LAMs) for those public sector bodies subject to the rules on re-use. Knowing that the EU issued this directive in order to stimulate the economic potential of public sector information by harmonising the rules and practices on re-use of PSI in member states, it is useful to be informed on the scope of the directive, which is defined by a list of exclusions. This way, managers of AV archives will know what they have to do or can do with (parts of) their AV collections where dissemination and re-use are concerned.