The European Parliament and the European Council have come to an informal agreement on the proposed Directive on orphan works. The proposed Directive, which was adopted by the Commission in May 2011, would allow the digitisation and online display of orphan works held by public institutions (see Legal update, European Commission adopts proposal for directive on orphan works). It sets out the diligent search necessary to identify if a particular work is an orphan work and, once this has been established, to allow the work to be made available to the public online under certain conditions and for specific purposes. It also provides for compensation to an author whose work is incorrectly given orphan status. During the latest negotiations a number of amendments were agreed to the original text of the Directive. These include amendments in relation to the potential compensation payable to an author to provide that it is to be calculated on a case-by-case basis, taking account of any actual damage to the author's interests. There is also the inclusion of a new provision to allow institutions to generate some revenue from the use of an orphan work, which would have to be used to pay for the search and the digitisation process. The draft Directive will now need to be formally approved by the Parliament and the Council.

Sources: European Commission press release, 6 June 2012 and European Parliament press release, 7 June 2012.