News
Letter to the Members of the European Parliament on behalf of European writers and translators, and press, book, and journals publishers
EWC, together with IFRRO, EMMA, ENPA, EPC, FEP and STM, sent a letter to the European Parliament’s JURI Committee, reiterating the position of the European print sector on the Orphan Works Directive, ahead of the voting in the JURI Committee on 1 March 2012.
“Décalogue pour l’Europe de la Culture” signed by 22 EU Culture Ministers and by the EU Commissioner for Culture
On 9 February, the French Minister for Culture, Frederic Mitterrand, published a statement defending the role of culture in
ARROW and ARROW Plus revamp their website
ARROW, Accessible Registries of Rights Information and Orphan Works towards Europeana, is a project of a consortium of European national libraries, publishers and collective management organisations also representing writers through their main European associations and national organisations.
ARROW aims at becoming the European system for the identification of rights, rightholders, rights status of a copyright work including whether it is orphan or out of print. This will facilitate the realising of the ambitious project of digitizing and making available the European cultural heritage. The system may also be used outside Europe to obtain information on rights, rightholders and rights status in copyright works.
ARROW Plus, in which the European Writers’ Council is a partner, is a Best Practice Network project selected under the European Commission’s Competitiveness and innovation framework programme, running from 1 April 2011 till 30 September 2013. ARROW Plus builds on and further implements the ARROW system, which it aims at refining after the piloting phase in Germany, France, Spain and United Kingdom.
The objectives are also to increase the number of countries in which ARROW is used; and broadening the types of works for which it is used to include visual material. Under ARROW Plus a legal entity will be constituted to prepare for the implementation of the business model. The project contributes to the goal of the European Commission and European Parliament to make European cultural heritage legally accessible through an innovative way of establishing rights status in and facilitating rights clearance of copyright works.
For ARROW Plus information material and more details about ARROW:
EWC co-signs Memorandum of Understanding at ceremony chaired by Commissioner Barnier to increase the number of out-of-commerce books being made available again
On 20.09.2011 Commissioner Barnier presided today over the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in which public libraries, authors, publishers, and their collective management organisations have agreed to give European libraries and similar institutions the possibility to digitise and make available on line out-of-commerce books and learned journals.
Librius launches SINBAD, the first Belgian anti-piracy webcrawler for books
In July 2011 Librius, the collecting society of the Flemish book publishers, launched SINBAD (‘Searching the Internet for Non-authorized Books And Displays’), an anti-piracy webcrawler for books.
Read more: Librius launches SINBAD, the first Belgian anti-piracy webcrawler for books
The European Commission launches high-level expert group on literacy chaired by Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands
One in five 15-year-olds in Europe, as well as many adults, lack basic reading and writing skills, which makes it harder for them to find a job and puts them at risk of social exclusion.
EWC book on “Authors’ Rights in the Digital World published
The Proceedings of the 5th European Conference organised by the European Writers’ Council, and held in April 2010 at the European Parliament (Brussels) under the patronage of MEP Helga Trüpel, Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, is available in digital form.
To download the PDF, please go to the Publications page of this website
The European Commission Replies
Question on “Non-implementation of the Public Lending Right in Europe to the European Commission by Zuzana Roithová (PPE), Member of the European Parliament
On 22 July MEP Z. Roithová sent the Parliamentary letter for a written answer, highlighting three key questions:
1. What steps and measures will the Commission take in connection with the violation of EU legislation by several Member States in their non-implementation of the public lending right pursuant to Directive 92/100/EEC (2006/115/EC)?
2. When does the Commission intend to bring infringement procedures in this matter against the abovementioned Member States?
3. What are the reasons for the failure to complete the internal market regarding the public lending right in order to provide fair compensation for authors for the lending of their works?
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+WQ+E-2010-5654+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&;language=EN
The European Commission Replies
On 31 August, Mr. Michel Barnier, European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services answered the letter on behalf of the Commission. Mr. Barnier’s response focuses on three points:
1. The Commission's practice is to commence infringement proceedings once a complaint makes a reasonably substantiated allegation that the EU Treaty or secondary legislation is not respected.
2. The Commission has, at this stage, not received any substantiated complaints that the Member States mentioned in the Honourable Member's question have committed a breach of EC laws.
3. There are indeed several reasons why the public lending right is not applied in a uniform manner for the benefit of authors throughout the European Union. These reasons are not, however, linked to the enforcement policy of the Commission but rather the wording of Directive 92/100/EEC(1) on rental right and lending right and on certain rights related to copyright in the field of intellectual property (as codified by Directive 2006/115/EC).
For the full text of the Commissioner’s reply:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getAllAnswers.do?reference=E-2010-5654&;language=EN