In the light of the doubling of size of Europeana's collections, the discussion about the lack of a common web copyright solution in the European Union is revived.

The European multilingual digital library Europeana provides access to digitised books, maps, photographs, film clips and newspapers to all internet users. It was first launched in November 2008 (IP/08/1747) and has managed to double the size of its collections in less than one year disposing today of 4.6 million digitised objects, compared to 2 million items 9 months ago. New items that have been added include among others: a collection of 70 incunabula (books printed with the earliest printing techniques) from the library of Catalonia, a 1572 edition of 'Os Lusíadas' by Luís de Camoẽs, the national poem of Portugal, and footage of the Friedrichstraße in Berlin from 1913, from the Association des Cinémathèques Européennes.

At the end of August 2009, the European Commission declared in a policy document that its objective is to increase the number of digitised objects to 10 million by 2010. The Commission also opened a public debate on the future challenges for book digitisation in Europe: the potential of the public and private sector to team up and the need to reform Europe's too fragmented copyright framework. However, the substantial progress made with Europeana also brings to the surface the challenges and problems linked to the digitisation process. At the moment, Europeana includes mainly digitised books, which are in the public domain and are thus no longer protected by copyright law (which extends to 70 years after the death of the author).

For legal reasons, Europeana does not include in its collections neither out-of print works (some 90 % of the books in Europe's national libraries), nor orphan works (estimated at 10-20 % of in-copyright collections), which are still in copyright but where the author cannot be identified. Europeana also shows that licensing of copyright-protected material in Europe still takes place under a fragmented legal framework. In order to address all these issues, the Commission launched on 28 August 2009 until 15 November 2009 a public consultation on the future of Europeana and the digitisation of books.

Further information:

• Original Press Release - Europa Rapid Press Releases - Official Website