Digitisation and Extended Collective Licensing

The Government has published its response to the consultation exercise on Extended Collective Licensing. ECL is the solution offered by the Intellectual Property Office to the copyright issues which prevent large scale digitisation projects in libraries, archives and museums. These are projects involving so many works that it would be impractical to carry out a “diligent search” in an attempt to identify the rights holder of each item. The solution would enable collective rights organisations such as the Copyright Licensing Agency to sell licences for large scale digitisation of works which fall within their area. This is achieved by allowing those organisations to licence the works of rights owners who are not actually their members.

There is of potential interest to any library contemplating a large scale digitisation project to make its collection more accessible, particularly if that collection includes a large number of orphan works. The Government aims to have the new regulations in force by 1st October 2014. The proposed 5 year initial limit on licences is likely to be a big issue.