The European Commission has published a new report according to which at least 3 million orphan books exist in Europe - works which are still in copyright but cannot be digitised because the rights holders cannot be traced to grant permission. The study gathered responses from 22 cultural institutions involved in digitisation work, including many national libraries and national film collections.
Not only books are affected. There is an especially high percentage of orphan works among photographs and audiovisual collections, says the report. The report 'Assessment of the orphan works issue and costs for rights clearance' was carried out on the basis of the replies to a questionnaire sent to a number of cultural institutions or organisations from all sectors.
The Europeana plays a key role in making Europe's digital resources available online. In the 'Europeana - Next Steps,' report released in May, members of the European Parliament called on the European Commission to establish a simple and cost-efficient rights clearance system. Europeana is working with the ARROW project to speed up rights clearance for orphan works.
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