Safeguard Access,
Empower Europe

For libraries to fulfil their role in supporting research, education, preservation, and cultural participation, they need to build collections based on their professional judgement. In a physical-only world, libraries could simply buy books like any other consumer.

The same does not apply to digital, where publishers can refuse to license materials to libraries. Even when a work is available, this may not continue, with libraries often having no control over content bundles and no post-cancellation access. Publishers have no incentive to account for the costs of their actions, including lost possibilities for lending, research, or education, leading to greater inequality in access. Finally, this creates the risk of a 21st-century black hole, as libraries are never in a position to acquire the necessary files to make preservation copies.

Unlike individual consumers, libraries and their parent institutions don't enjoy any meaningful protection against unfair contractual terms. A key concern is that contractual terms can take away possibilities to use materials granted under the law.

Freedom of contract assumes both parties are equally strong. This is rarely the case when libraries have an obligation to provide access to content, and they rarely have the same access to lawyers and professional negotiators that publishers do. This can include unreasonable terms, such as obligations to share personal data or accept foreign copyright law. The end result is that individuals enjoy fewer possibilities of access to research, education and culture.

Strongly linked to concerns about unfavourable conditions surrounding digital materials, the over-application of technological protection measures (TPMs) can have a very similar impact. These can go beyond preventing illegal activities to make legal ones difficult or impossible, such as preservation copying, interlibrary document supply, or lending.

It is far from clear that TPMs preventing legitimate activities do not enjoy legal protection. Even when the statute limits TPM protections, there are no effective means of allowing circumvention. Only Bulgaria and Slovenia have set a 72-hour time limit for TPM removal, and only Portugal has created a practical process for this. Elsewhere, libraries face lengthy and uncertain legal processes, making many uses pointless.

The threat of litigation can have a significant chilling effect on public sector institutions such as libraries and universities. With limited resources, there is little appetite to spend on lawyers rather than on services, which means libraries may prohibit the use of subscribed content even when it is fully legal.

A recent concern is a shift toward holding libraries fully liable for activities carried out by their users, particularly text and data mining. Efforts to impose such direct and unlimited liability risk make content almost useless for libraries. More broadly, the absence of protection against liability, even when acting in good faith, can lead to excessive caution and under-provision of access to educators, researchers, learners and readers.

While markets for information may not represent a large share of the overall economy, the way they work has a significantly broader impact, particularly for libraries and their users.

When functional, they support broader public policy goals, including education, research, and access to information. However, when too much power is left in the hands of some players, short-term profit is prioritised over long-term growth, restricting libraries' ability to support users. To date, there have been no serious efforts to explore how well these markets are functioning or how far they impede the achievement of policy goals.

e-Books have proven their value as a means for new voices to reach readers, to support accessibility, and to help those unable to physically visit the library. Many books are indeed only published in electronic form.

Despite this, libraries cannot acquire and lend e-Books in the same way as physical books. Challenges include availability, pricing, terms of use, and long-term financial sustainability, particularly harming less well-resourced libraries in rural areas. With no guarantee of an access right under reasonable terms, libraries have no way of guaranteeing the possibility to lend e-Books to their users.

Libraries' provision of access to knowledge helps achieve purposes from supporting research and innovation to enabling education, democratic debate, and cultural participation. As more activities move online, libraries' ability to fulfil their missions depends on embracing technology's possibilities.

Restrictions on remote digital access to library collections disproportionately hurt people in remote areas, those with mobility issues, and those who need accessible formats. A particular priority is enabling digital document supply, upgrading interlibrary loan services (ILL) to the digital age. However, restrictions on digitally sharing articles and materials have placed significant limitations on this key means of supporting research.

A key goal of the EU's Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSM) Directive was to address the '20th Century Black Hole', works no longer being sold but not yet in the public domain, sitting on library shelves with limited access possibilities. In education, particularly, publishers often stop providing titles long before libraries stop needing them.

Since these works are out-of-commerce, there is no risk of lost sales from wider availability. However, the CDSM Directive allows collective management organisations to license such works, but the right to license does not mean they will, threatening the Directive's entire objective.

Libraries have a well-recognised role in supporting learning in their communities, whether complementing formal education or serving as a portal for lifelong learners. Informal and non-formal learning, such as that carried out by libraries, makes a major contribution to wider educational goals, competitiveness, inclusion and resilience.

However, current EU copyright provisions for education involving digital materials are limited to formal education institutions, effectively excluding libraries. Thus, while libraries frequently have an official mandate to support learning, they enjoy far fewer possibilities to do so than other institutions.