Marta Bustillo, Kathryn Cassidy (Trinity College Dublin), Rebecca Grant (Royal Irish Academy)

Implementing Orphan Works Legislation at the Digital Repository of Ireland

Open Repositories, 14 June 2016

The Digital Repository of Ireland is a Trusted Digital Repository for Humanities and Social Sciences Data in Ireland, launched in 2015.

The DRI links together and preserves both historical and contemporary data held by Irish organisations, providing a central internet access point and digital preservation services

http://repository.dri.ie

National Library of IrelandIrish Film ArchiveNational Archives of IrelandGalleriesUniversitiesOral History NetworkNational Broadcaster (RTE)Contemporary Music CentreResearch fundersMuseumsDepartment of Arts, Heritage and the GaeltachtResearch Institutions

Stakeholder organisations

Copyright and the Digital Repository of Ireland

Copyright – intrinsic, on creation. An area of Intellectual Property law which covers original creative works including literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works, film, sound recordings, broadcasts and the typographical arrangement of published editions, computer software and non-original databases, and performances.

Copyright exists from the moment the work is created, and does not require any registration of the work.

Original objects, digitised objects, born digital assets and metadata may attract their own copyrights

Generally, copyright covers a work until 70 years after the death of its creator.

EU Orphan Works legislation

EU Orphan Works Directive 2012/28/EU. Published in 2012, this Directive was required to be enacted in law by the Member states by 29 October 2014.

An orphan work is a registered, copyright protected work for which the creator or rights holders cannot be located or identified. Cultural organisations must perform a diligent search to identify the rightsholder.

A process is in place for each country to allow organisations to register works as Orphans in the EUIPO database.

Implications for the Digital Repository of Ireland

Case study: the Clarke Stained Glass Studios Collection

Orphan works in the Clarke Collection

Letters from third parties to Harry Clarke Studios

Photographs by unidentified photographers

Drawings and plans by architectural firms no longer in existence

Types of works covered by directive 2012/28/EU

Literary works

Cinematographic works

Audiovisual works Phonograms

Others: Letters?

The due diligence search: Guidance from the IPO

EUIPO Orphan Works Database

Institutions must be registered as a beneficiary organisation

Each country has a Competent National Authority [CNA] that receives the diligent search reports, and approves submissions to the Orphan Works Database from organisations in that country

EUIPO Orphan Works Database

EUIPO Orphan Works Database

Works can be registered in two ways:

Single work registration through online form

Bulk upload by exporting records from local databases onto spreadsheet [template supplied by Orphan Works Observatory]

EUIPO Orphan Works Database: What users say

"It’s quick to use and the required fields are minimal so we’ve experienced no difficulties registering works, it works on different computers/browsers, and it doesn’t require specialist software."

"We’re fairly happy with the process and it has enabled us to digitise film material that was at risk of decay, as most digitisation funding is dependent on copyright clearance."

"I think the online form is very user friendly and the minimum data requirement means it can be straightforward to complete."

EUIPO Orphan Works Database: What users say 2

"Most of the information had already been recorded through the Registration as a Beneficiary Organisation process. It is unfortunate that there is a lot of duplication between the two processes, and that they are not better linked"

"The form is quite vague so this might limit the information available to other people searching for orphan works. "

"The categories and questions the form asks aren’t always clear."

Some missed opportunities

Some missed opportunities

There is no field in the single-work online form to record a name authority ID

The bulk upload spreadsheet template includes the field name 'Right Holder VIAF ID'. VIAF, the Virtual International Authority File is the most used names authority in the library community

The lack of authority IDs in the single work online form could lead to duplication of right holder names in the database

Addressing DRI’s responsibilities

Legal agreements – organisational manager agreement and deposit terms and conditions

The Depositor: Will ensure, in the case of an Orphan Work, that Work has been registered with the EU IPO Orphan Works Database, and the file number provided by that Database will be provided in the metadata associated with the Work.

In the Repository UI, the information given for the Rights statement field now says “If the asset is an orphan work it must be registered with the EUIPO Orphan Works Database, and the associated file number must be included here.”

Data ModelingWe chose not to add a dedicated field to capture the EUIPO Orphan Works Database File Number.

Currently there is no way to validate that the information given to us is correct:

EUIPO database has no API at presentEUIPO database does not issue persistent identifiers at present

Best practice involves storing this information in the free-text Rights field as part of descriptive metadata associated with an asset.

Conclusions

Updating the Repository’s technical infrastructure and user interface were not as challenging as the policy and legal changes required to facilitate the publication of Orphan Works.

The implementation of the Orphan Works Directive provides an opportunity for cultural heritage organisations to allow the publication and dissemination of works where the copyright holder cannot be identified.

The lack of persistent identifiers, API and consistency in data entry in the EUIPO database constrains technical integration with repositories.

Organisations wishing to register Orphan Works do not necessarily find the process user-friendly, particularly regarding the interface between the Competent National Authorities and the EUIPO.

@dri_ireland

r.grant@ria.iebustilm@tcd.iekcassidy@tchpc.tcd.ie

http://repository.dri.iewww.dri.ie

Illustrations courtesy of the Digital Preservation Business Case Toolkit http://wiki.dpconline.org/