Out-of-Commerce Works Portal

Out-of-commerce works are works that are protected by copyright but are not available commercially, such as literary works, audiovisual works, phonograms, photographs and unique works of art. More information about out-of-commerce works is available on our webpage.

Orphan works are works that are protected by copyright, but whose authors or other rights holder(s) are not known or cannot be located. You can find information about orphan works on our webpage and by checking the Orphan Works Database.

The out-of-commerce works regime complements the measures in place for the use of orphan works at a European level.

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The Out-of-Commerce Works Portal is the main publicity measure of the out-of-commerce works system established under the Directive (EU) 2019/790. The main purpose of the portal is to provide access to information about the ongoing and future use of out-of-commerce works.

The portal gathers information about out-of-commerce works that cultural heritage institutions wish to disseminate, such as literary works, audiovisual works, photographs, videogames, software, phonograms and unique works of art, including never-in-commerce works, such as posters, leaflets, trench journals or amateur audiovisual works, as well as unpublished works. The portal also provides details about the use being made of out-of-commerce works (i.e. license or exception information).

Another important feature of the portal is to provide information about the opt-out mechanisms available to rights holders and to make it easier for rights holders to withdraw their work(s) from the system.

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The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) is responsible for the establishment and management of a single online portal of out-of-commerce works. The portal is publicly accessible and can be found on the EUIPO webpage.

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A cultural heritage organisation or a collective management organisation can access the Out-of-Commerce Works Portal as a public user and request the registration of their organisation as a user in the portal. This can be done by completing the user registration request form that is available here.

The user registration request will be dealt either by a national contact point (for those Member States where the contact point is appointed), or by an EUIPO administrator (for those Member States where the contact point is not appointed).

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A rights holder may, at any time, exclude his/her works from the licensing mechanism or from the application of an exception or limitation. The opt-out can either be general or specific.

A general opt-out applies in relation to all the works, all the licences or all the uses under the exception or limitation. A rights holder may submit a general opt out request by completing this form in the portal.

A specific opt-out applies in relation to particular works, particular licences or uses under the exception or limitation. In order to initiate a specific opt-out request, the rights holder has to identify a particular record or records in the portal, and complete the opt-out request form for the specified record(s).

The portal facilitates the opt-out mechanism. However, initiating an opt-out in the portal does not make the opt-out effective. The opt-out requests will be dealt with outside the portal by the organisation(s) entitled to deal with opt-out requests in the Member State(s).

Additional information about rights holder features and options is available in the portal.

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Yes, you can find the user guides in the links below. These will be helpful as an introduction to the portal’s features for each type of user, or as a technical guide while using it.

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If you have questions or need technical support please contact us at outofcommerceworks@euipo.europa.eu. To help us identify the issue, we strongly recommend you include your username and, if possible, a screenshot from the portal showing the problem or error message you are getting.

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