Sunimal Mendis Livres

The book explores the role of European memory institutions in preserving rare documents that contain valuable public domain content, often kept in inaccessible 'dark-archives.' It highlights the challenges of limited public access, which leads to the neglect of this knowledge. The potential of digitization is emphasized as a transformative solution, enabling rapid global access to these documents and heralding a new 'digital renaissance' in the way public domain content is shared and utilized.

European memory institutions are repositories of a wealth of rare documents that record public domain content. These documents are often stored in ‘dark-archives’ to which members of the public are granted limited access, resulting in the public domain content recorded therein being relegated to a form of ‘forgotten-knowledge’. Digitisation offers a means by which such public domain content can be made speedily and easily accessible to users around the world. For this reason, it has been hailed as the harbinger of a new ‘digital renaissance’. This book examines the topical issue of the need to preserve exclusivity over digitised versions of rare documents recording public domain content. Based on data gathered through an empirical survey of digitisation projects undertaken by fourteen memory institutions in five European Union Member States, it argues for the introduction of exclusive rights in digitised versions of rare documents recording public domain textual content as a means of incentivising private-sector investment in the digitisation process. It concludes by presenting a detailed proposal for a European Union Regulation that would grant memory institutions a limited-term related right in digitised versions of rare documents held in their collections subject to stringent exceptions and limitations that are designed to safeguard user interests.

With the advent of a global community, which draws its sustenance from the unfettered communication of ideas and expression, it is worth reflecting on the role of copyright law and considering whether the existing legal frameworks of copyright in Europe have the capacity to meet the changing needs of a new generation who have given a whole new meaning to the term „creativity“ and to that of „original expression.“ This book considers the prevailing tension between the competing values of copyright, the freedom of expression, and the right to information. It also looks at the possibility of introducing a public interest exception to the copyright framework of the European Union as a means of resolving the existing discord, along with a comparative survey of the developments presently taking place in the jurisdictions of France, Germany, and the UK.