The British Library, the national library of the UK, as part of the wider EU funded ARROW (Accessible Registries of Rights Information and Orphan Works) project, has published a study into rights clearance and mass digitisation. The study examines the issue of orphan works.
'Seeking New Landscapes: A rights clearance study in the context of mass digitisation of 140 books published between 1870 and 2010’ found that more efficient ways of clearing rights and providing cultural institutions with legal certainty over their activities are needed to ensure that highly valuable research materials do not remain out of reach of the vast majority of citizens.
Through analysis of a representative set of titles published within the 140 years, the study demonstrates a need for innovative solutions in relation to mass digitisation projects. The study found that manual rights clearance of works on an individual, item by item basis is unworkable in the context of mass digitisation which can potentially involve the copying and making available of millions of copyright works.
Due to the complexities of identifying rights holders and clearing works the study found that it took an average of four hours research and clearance activity per book – with some works very quick to research and others taking significantly longer than four hours. At four hours per book it would take one researcher over 1,000 years to clear the rights of just 500,000 books. In contrast the use of the ARROW system would take less than five minutes per title to upload the catalogue records and check the results.
The significant presence of orphan works is seen to strengthen the case that a legislative solution for this category of works is needed across Europe to allow access to millions of highly valuable research materials. The study also shows that the development of the ARROW system is highly encouraging, indicating that it could provide a technical solution to support diligent search and new rights clearance processes and support legal access to millions of highly valuable research and other materials.
In the UK, the ARROW system should become a key plank of the Digital Copyright Exchange, according to Prof. Ian Hargreaves. He stated this in his recent governmental review of intellectual property and growth – “Digital Opportunity: A Review of Intellectual Property”.
ARROW is a project coordinated by the Italian Publishers Association (AIE), funded by the European Commission within the eContentplus programme. The initial phase of the ARROW project was concluded in February 2011 and the follow-up phase – ARROW Plus – is now underway as a flagship project of the European Commission.
