Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

cc-europe - [CC-Europe] Fwd: [communia-associates] Fwd: Update on proposed amendments to the EU PSI Directive

cc-europe AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Cc-europe mailing list

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Timothy Vollmer <tvol AT creativecommons.org>
  • To: cc staff all <cc-staff AT lists.ibiblio.org>, cc-europe AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [CC-Europe] Fwd: [communia-associates] Fwd: Update on proposed amendments to the EU PSI Directive
  • Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 09:51:03 -0700

FYI the Commission has issued a press release at http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-316_en.htm. Nick provides some analysis below of the proposed changes. Apparently the official text has not yet been released but will be soon. 

timothy



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Javier Ruiz <javier AT openrightsgroup.org>
Date: Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 2:24 AM
Subject: [communia-associates] Fwd: Update on proposed amendments to the EU PSI Directive
To: "communia-associates AT lists.communia-association.org" <communia-associates AT lists.communia-association.org>


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Nick Poole" <nick AT collectionstrust.org.uk>
Date: Apr 10, 2013 8:35 AM
Subject: Update on proposed amendments to the EU PSI Directive
To: "Nick Poole" <nick AT collectionstrust.org.uk>

Dear colleague,

 

I wanted to send you a brief update following our previous discussion about the proposed amendments to the European Public Sector Information Directive. Do please feel free to circulate this email to your networks if useful.

 

I have been in Luxembourg yesterday and today at the Member States Expert Group on Digitisation and Digital Preservation. As part of the discussions, we received an update from Szymon Lewandowski on the proposed amendments to the PSI Directive.

 

The Commission has had, it seems, something of a change of heart. They have made some specific concessions and amendments in favour of cultural heritage institutions (museums, galleries, libraries and archives), which are due for ratification at a meeting in Brussels today. In summary, these concessions are:

 

1.       The Directive has been amended so that cultural heritage institutions are no longer required only to recover marginal costs. We can charge more than marginal costs, and specifically the costs of IPR clearance and digital preservation can be covered within charging models;

 

2.       The Public Task of cultural heritage institutions will no longer be defined through a legislative instrument. Instead, we are free to arrive at our own definition based on ‘administrative practice’. This is very loosely defined as ‘what we do currently’;

 

3.       The existing recommendation in the Directive in favour of machine-readable formats has been strengthened further to provide for a ‘strong recommendation in favour of open formats and open standards where possible and appropriate’. While it stops a long way short of mandating open standards, it does at least strengthen the expectation that people will deliver public sector information in standards-compliant formats for open re-use;

 

4.       A specific (and perhaps most important) amendment has been made concerning restrictions on exclusivity. A specific amendment has been included which permits exclusive arrangements where they relate to the digitisation of cultural heritage resources. The permitted period of exclusivity has also been increased from 7 to 10 years. This effectively opens the door to longer-term public/private partnerships for digitisation, under which the resulting content will be made exclusively available for commercial use for up to a decade following the signature of the exclusivity agreement;

 

5.       For legacy (ie previously-existing) contracts, an absolute statute of limitation on exclusivity has been set at 30 years.

 

These are significant changes in terms of EU policy on digitisation, and were presented essentially as an acceptance that the public sector is not able to shoulder the burden of digitising Europe’s heritage, and that the only practicable option is to do so under public/private partnership.

 

I asked two questions:

 

1.       Are these amendments stable (ie. will they change again)? Apparently they are, and I was told that there is ‘no chance of further changes’ after today’s meeting;

 

2.       In our charging policies, can we cover the costs of effort expended as well as licensing fees, and of preservation infrastructure? The answer was that these points (unsurprisingly) are too detailed for the Directive itself, but that the Commission will be producing guidance on the implementation of the Directive which will permit a broader interpretation of what can be charged for.

 

The Collections Trust will be updating our Position Paper on The PSI Directive and Cultural Institutions following the publication of this guidance. In the meantime, the current version can be downloaded from:

 

http://www.collectionslink.org.uk/discover/copyright/1205-briefing-paper-the-psi-directive-a-cultural-institutions

 

I hope that this is a useful update, and I will send through further information on the Directive as it moves to implementation. In the meantime, do please let me know if there is any further information I can provide.

 

With best regards,

 

Nick

 

 

 

Nick Poole
Chief Executive Officer
Collections Trust

 

Insurance for Museums Conference 2013

25 April 2013 • British Library Conference Centre

CollectionsTrust2013_Black_Logo1 

2-3 July 2013, The Kia Oval

www.openculture2013.org.uk

 

111010417411401701

 

Linked http://press.linkedin.com/sites/all/themes/presslinkedin/images/LinkedIn_IN_Icon_15px.jpg  

Join CT's Collections Management Group

 

Visit Collections Trust online

www.collectionstrust.org.uk

www.collectionslink.org.uk

www.culturegrid.org.uk

 

Company Registration No: 1300565 Registered Charity No: 273984

Registered Office: Collections Trust, WC 209, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD

 

 


_______________________________________________
Communia-associates mailing list
Communia-associates AT lists.communia-association.org
https://lists.communia-association.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/communia-associates


Attachment: image001.jpg
Description: JPEG image

Attachment: image002.gif
Description: GIF image

Attachment: image003.jpg
Description: JPEG image



  • [CC-Europe] Fwd: [communia-associates] Fwd: Update on proposed amendments to the EU PSI Directive, Timothy Vollmer, 04/10/2013

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page