(11 September 2014) An EU press release reports that Member States may, within certain limits and under certain conditions, including the payment of fair compensation to rightholders, permit users to print out on paper or store on a USB stick the books digitised by the library.
Pursuant to the Copyright Directive, authors have 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) is asking the Court of Justice to clarify the scope of this option, of which Germany has made use.
Read the detailed EU press release 124/14 here (pdf)
Intellectual Property Watch has also commented on the story as has Digitisation.eu.
