Legal regulation of the European works in European Union and Republic of Serbia

Rapid development of technology has brought a need to digitalize copyright works. This way knowledge, stored in these works, can be shared with every internet user. Problem is, that for many of these works it is not possible to find right owner and so, important knowledge remains hidden from the eyes of society. The need to regulate digitization in cases where the consent of the right holder is missing (including orphan works where the holder is inaccessible) has also been recognized in the European Union, first through a project called Europeana. The main objective of this project is to disseminate knowledge by creating digital libraries that would contain all the copyrighted works that users can access from anywhere and without any time limit. This problem is partially resolved in European Union in 2012 when the Directive 2012/28/EU on certain permitted uses of orphan works was introduced. This directive gives instructions for all members of the EU to recognize and limit the use of orphan works in their countries accordingly to the rules given in the Directive. The Republic of Serbia, as an EU membership candidate, needs to harmonize its legislation system with rules provided in EU law and include the definition of orphan works and usage of orphan works into its copyright rules.