[pd-discuss] Privatization of the public domain by the BnF

Fri Jan 18 20:16:34 UTC 2013

On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 3:07 PM, Primavera De Filippi
<primavera.defilippi at okfn.org> wrote:
> The French Ministry of Culture announced yesterday the signing of two
> agreements between the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) and private
> firms for the scanning of documents belonging  (either partially or as a
> whole) to the public domain, including old books and over 200,000 sound
> recordings.
>
> These partnerships include a 10-year exclusive agreement allowing for these
> private firms to commercialize the digitized documents into their database -
> before they will be made available online on the digital library of the BnF
> (Gallica).

It would be helpful to link to the original source for things like
this, so that people can read it for themselves.
Here's the press release:
http://www.culturecommunication.gouv.fr/Espace-Presse/Communiques/Investissements-d-Avenir-Deux-partenariats-d-envergure-conclus-pour-la-numerisation-et-la-diffusion-des-collections-de-la-Bibliotheque-nationale-de-France-BnF
(wow, that's a long URL!)

Does anyone have a link to the agreements or know whether the 10 year
exclusivity is for:

1. the digital copies that the private firm funded, or
2. any digitization by others during the 10 year period, or
3. all access to the original public domain materials

The first might be a reasonable way to get the materials digitized and
more widely available without having to charge taxpayers for it,
although it would be interesting to see the analysis of what the
projected cost would be a couple of years from now when digitization
costs were lower.

Here are some details pulled from the press release:

Books:
 - private partner is ProQuest
 - 70,000 books published 1740-1700 to be digitized
 - all volumes published before 1500 will be digitized
 - one copy of each edition for those published 1500-1700
 - 3,500 works of the BnF's choosing to be made available immediately
on free Galica web site
 - the rest will be available to BnF readers for 10 years before being
put on Galica
   (it's unstated, but presumably they will be available via ProQuest
during this period as well)

Records
 - private partner is Believe Digitalet Memnon Archiving Services
 - 200,000 33 & 78 rpm records to be digitized
 - no details on availability of digital copies