A Member State may authorise libraries to digitise books they hold in their collection

Advocate General Jääskinen's opinion in the case C-117/13 , concludes that a Member State may authorise libraries to digitise, without the consent of the rightholders, books they hold in their collection so as to make them available at electronic reading points. 

 Pursuant to the Copyright Directive, Member States must grant authors the exclusive right to authorise or to prohibit the reproduction and the communication to the public of their works. However, the directive allows Member States to provide for specific exceptions or limitations to that right. This option exists notably for publically accessible libraries, which, for the purpose of research or private study, make works from their collections available to users by dedicated terminals. In the present case, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice of Germany) asks the Court of Justice to clarify the scope of the option, of which Germany has made use.

Next, the Advocate General considers that the directive does not prevent Member States from granting libraries the right to digitise the books from their collections, if their being made available to the public by dedicated terminals requires it. That may be the case where it is necessary to protect original works which, although still covered by copyright, are old, fragile or rare. That may also be the case where the work in question is consulted by a large number of students and its photocopying might result in disproportionate wear.

However, Mr Jääskinen makes clear that the directive permits not the digitisation of a collection in its entirety, but only the digitisation of individual works. It is particularly important not to opt to use dedicated terminals where the sole purpose of doing so is to avoid the purchase of a sufficient number of physical copies of the work.


read the opinion at http://curia.europa.eu/juris/documents.jsf?num=C-117/13