On January 1, 2013, the Act on the Partial Revision of the Copyright Act (Act No. 43 of 2012/June 27, 2012 promulgation) regarding the transmission of digitized contents of the National Diet Library (NDL) to libraries, etc. came into effect.

The NDL has provided its digitized materials, but only on the premises if they are copyrighted. This amendment enables the NDL to transmit part of them to other Japanese libraries, etc. The service is applicable to those unavailable, e.g. out of print materials. The libraries and other institutions also came to be able to provide browsing and copying services of the transmitted materials.

Although the date of effectuation was January 1, 2013, the service is scheduled to start in January 2014, because the NDL will select the materials falling under “unavailable” and upgrade the system in 2013.

The Stakeholder Council for Digitization of Materials and Their Use, composed of associations of rights holders and publishers, universities and public libraries, discusses how to operate the transmission of digitized contents. The Council published the Agreement on the Qualified Transmission of the NDL Digitized Contents to Libraries, etc. in November 2012. For the background of consultation and the Agreement, see the NDL website: http://www.ndl.go.jp/jp/aboutus/digitization_consult.html (Japanese only)

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