A new CREATe research project based at The ARC starts today examining ‘Law and Economics of eBooks Markets in Europe’.

Libraries are vital providers of access to information, ideas and works for individual citizens, communities and organisations. As such, intellectual property and copyright in particular, plays a significant role in shaping the activities of libraries and readers. Digital lending is an increasingly important part of what libraries do. The shift from libraries as primarily analogue institutions, towards a mixed model with a significant digital dimension presents numerous challenges and opportunities for stakeholders. In this context, this study of the eLending market for Educational and Trade eBooks will make an important contribution to knowledge in the field and evaluate the need for policy interventions from Competition and IP law perspectives.

The research will be led by co-investigators Dr Kenny Barr, Dr Magali Eben and Professor Martin Kretschmer, along with Matteo Frigeri (Research Assistant). Two CREATe Fellows with expertise in this area, Professor Rebecca Giblin, University of Melbourne and Professor Paul Heald, University of Illinois will contribute in an advisory capacity. The project is conducted in cooperation with the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and Knowledge Rights 21, a programme committed to, ‘facilitating fair access to e-books for users of public, national, educational, and research libraries’. This 1-year project is funded by an €80,000 grant from the Arcadia– a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin

This new research will build on CREATe’s long track record of work on issues relating to copyright and competition law, and the public interest. More broadly, the theme of digitalisation of culture that underpins the eBooks project, is central to much of the work conducted at CREATe on: platform regulation, audio and video streaming, digital markets, artist labour markets and many other aspects of the digital cultural industries.

This article was first published on the CREATe blog: https://www.create.ac.uk/blog/.

First published: 1 September 2022

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