The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), through the European Observatory on Infringement of Intellectual Property Rights (the Observatory), in collaboration with Europeana, is organising the Out-of-commerce Works Portal Datathon event.

The main objective of the Datathon event is to raise awareness of the existence of the new out-of-commerce works solution available under the Directive (EU) 2019/790 with the aim to facilitate the digitisation of out-of-commerce works. The event also aims to bring together leaders among the cultural heritage institutions, in order to increase visibility and further attractivity of the out-of-commerce works system.

The Directive (EU) 2019/790 introduces a legal framework to support the cultural heritage institutions in the digitisation and cross-border dissemination of out-of-commerce works. Information about works has to be recorded in a public single online portal, the creation and management of which has been entrusted to the EUIPO.The Out-of-commerce works portal (the Portal), launched to the public on the 7th of June 2021, is the main publicity measure of this new regime.

The Datathon is an opportunity to create a steady relationship between the cultural heritage institutions and EUIPO for collaboration and information exchange. It is expected that, as a result of this collaboration, possible sources of out-of-commerce works and ways to approach them will be identified and important part of cultural heritage will be made available to the public in the EUIPO´s Portal.

The Datathon will be organized around the following workstreams:

• Sharing of information with the cultural heritage institutions about the new out-of-commerce works system.
• Increasing the confidence among the cultural heritage professionals regarding the use of the Portal and creating a network of providers of out-of-commerce works.
• Sharing best practice examples for digitizing the out-of-commerce works held in the collections of cultural heritage institutions.
• These workstreams will be facilitated by creating a system of “godfathers”, i.e. already participating institutions that would help the newcomers in the system, as well as a network of out-of-commerce data providers.

The event is open for participation to all cultural heritage institutions, potential holders of out-of-commerce works, i.e. publicly accessible libraries or museums, archives or film or audio heritage institutions established in EU Member States.

The event will be organized in several phases and each one of these will rely on information sessions, to be held over the period of April – May 2022.

The first phase will focus on the identification of datasets of out-of-commerce works in the cultural heritage sector.  During the second phase we will look into the key functionalities of the Portal. The Phase 3 will be dedicated to the preparation and upload of information in the Portal.

The information sessions will be held on 26 April, 10 May and 24 May 2022, each day from 10.30 to 12.00, online via Zoom platform. During these sessions there will be an opportunity to share questions and experiences related to digitization matters and the use of the Portal.

The final closing event will take place on the 28 June, 2022, in a hybrid form, in EUIPO, Alicante. The programme of the closing event will be available closer to the event date.

Interest to participate in the event shall be confirmed by completing and submitting the online registration form via the below link by 19 April 2022.
Online registration link: https://euipo.blumm.it/event/ar/1/datathon-june-2022

For additional information regarding the event, please feel free to contact us at: outofcommerceworks@euipo.europa.eu (contact person Ms. Kaisa Unander, tel. +34 96513 8662).