Libraries and copyright: Amendments on the possibility for libraries to digitize their collections have been made to the Civil Code of Russia

The State Duma Committee on Civil, Criminal and Procedural Law promulgated a new text of the bill "On amendments to the Civil Code, certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation and the annulment of certain legislative acts (provisions of legislative acts) of the Russian Federation", prepared for the second reading which is expected that fall.

The document, in particular, refers to the new amendments made to the article 1275 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. In particular, it was suggested using electronic copies of books only inside the libraries in order to protect from further reproduction.. Libraries also have the right to create single copies, including those in electronic form, of the works held by them, without permission of the right holder or the author, and without remuneration:

1) to ensure their integrity and availability for users:

- Old, worn, damaged, defective copies of the works;

- Single and (or) of rare copies of works, manuscripts, whose issue to users can lead to their loss, damage or destruction;

- Copies of the works recorded on a machine-readable carriers, for use of which there are no appropriate resources;

- Copies of the works of purely scientific and educational value, which have been out of print for over ten years from the date of the publication of the latest edition in the territory of the Russian Federation;

2) in order to restore or replace lost or damaged copies of the work, and to provide copies of the work to other public libraries or archives, access to the archival documents of which is not limited, that have lost them for some reason from their holdings.

The amendments were made after a joint letter had been sent to Russian President Vladimir Putin and State Duma Chairman Sergei Naryshkin by representatives of 48 companies that publish educational and scientific literature as a result of the conference on copyright held within the Moscow International Book Fair. The letter outlined the concerns of publishers regarding the last version of Article 1275 CC which actually legalized piracy and led to a devaluation of intellectual property, as well as to a sharp decline in the educational and scientific publishing.

The new version also included proposals to introduce into legislation the concept of free or open license, which Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev had promised earlier to include in the bill. The licenses will be covered by a certain article, under which licensees will be able to grant the right to use freely and to modify works of science, literature and art, which they own, including, until the expiration date of the exclusive right in the territory of the whole world.