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Unique agreement between Dutch libraries and right holders

On 29 January, the alliance of Dutch library organisations (FOBID) reached a breakthrough agreement with right holders (VOI©E) on the digitisation and accessibility of their collections within the Digiti©E Committee (Digitisation of Cultural Heritage).

Essence of the agreement between FOBID and VOI©E is that the represented libraries receive permission, on certain conditions, from virtually all right holders to digitise their collections and make them publicly available for teaching or research purposes on their own premises. As long as the works, which must be part of the Dutch cultural heritage and must no longer be commercially available, are only accessible on their own premises, the libraries do not need to pay the right holders.

Separate consent is required if the digitised works are made more widely available, e.g. by means of remote access or via the Internet. In that case, an agreed payment must be made. But most importantly, the library will not need to search for the right holders - this will be done by collecting societies.

This agreement is also a major step forward in the discussion on how to deal with orphan works. It will prevent institutions to dedicate a large amount of time and money to searching for the right holder. If this kind of arrangement is imitated in other European countries and cultural heritage domains, it will enormously increase the availability of recent works in Europeana.

Press release