Europe's Digital Library experts focus on copyright

The EU's High Level Expert Group on Digital Libraries has presented an advisory report on copyright issues to the European Commission. At a meeting held last week, the group also discussed how to ensure more open access to scientific research and how to improve public-private cooperation.

The group, which includes inter alia, stakeholders from the British Library, the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, the Federation of European Publishers and Google, advises the European Commission on issues regarding digitisation, online accessibility and digital preservation of cultural material as part of the European Commission's efforts to make Europe's rich cultural and scientific heritage available online.

'Protection of intellectual property is important to stimulate creativity and innovation in the knowledge-based economy. Solving copyright issues in an online-environment is therefore crucial if we are to make the vision of a European Digital Library a reality,' said Viviane Reding, the EU's Commissioner for Information Society and Media, who founded the High Level Expert Group on Digital Libraries a year ago.