General Terms
Legal notice
The DIGITAL LIBRARY OF SU “ST. KLIMENT OHRIDSKI” (http://lib.sudigital.org) is developed in full compliance with the Bulgarian, European and international legislation in the field of copyright.
It is based on the key principles and goals that are set out in the European Commission Recommendation of 27 October 2011 on the digitalization and online accessibility of cultural material and digital preservation, in the IFLA/UNESCO Manifesto for Digital Libraries of 2011 (IFLA - International Federation of Library Associations), as well as in the IFLA Glasgow Declaration on Libraries, Information Services and Intellectual Freedom (27 March 2002):
• protection of the fundamental right to seek, receive and impart information (article 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, reaffirming everyone’s: “freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers”); article 41 of the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria: “Everyone shall be entitled to seek, obtain and disseminate information.”);
• protection of intellectual freedom (article 37 of the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria: “The freedom of conscience, the freedom of thought … shall be inviolable”), with a view to the protection of universal human rights and freedoms, of cultural development and of research, as well as with a view to the consolidation of the democratic values and the rule of law, which guarantees the life, the dignity and the rights of the person and provides for the free development of people and of civil society through the granting of free access, without any restrictions, to information resources and services and rejecting any form of censorship and disinformation whatsoever;
• ensuring the access to the richest possible and the most varied sources of information, library materials and services, reflecting pluralism, diversity and the wealth of ideas in the civil society;
• providing of library materials that are available on equal footing to all registered users, without any discrimination clauses and restrictions based on whatever grounds: race, national and ethnic belonging, gender, education, age, invalidity, political or religious beliefs;
• guaranteeing the right of each user to privacy and confidentiality as regards the information and library materials that he/she seeks and receives;
• digitalization and protection of the European cultural heritage (including, within the meaning of article 1 of the European Commission Recommendation of 27 October 2011, printed editions – books, journals, newspapers, photographs, museum objects, archival documents, sounds and audio-visual material, monuments and archaeological sites and other materials in the field of culture and science);
• inclusion in the overall EU Strategy for digitalization of cultural heritage, associated with the pan-European initiatives for creation of digital libraries (article 2 of the same act).
In the process of creation of the library, our team of specialists took into account and still wholly complies with the requirements of article 23 of the Law on Copyright and Neighboring Rights (LCNR), which states that: “The free broadcast of works shall be admissible only in such cases as are described in the law on condition that it does not hamper the normal use of the work and does not harm the legitimate interests of the holder of the copyright”.
The DIGITAL LIBRARY OF SU “ST. KLIMENT OHRIDSKI” (http://lib.sudigital.org) provides access to collections of various types of works of scientific literature and publicism, audio-visual and photographic works, translations of works, periodicals, collections and anthologies within the meaning of article 3, par. 1, point 1, 4, 7 and par. 2, point 1 and 3 of LCNR and article 2, par. 1 of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (1886), ratified by the Republic of Bulgaria by Decree No 1389 of the State Council of 29 June 1974, (OJ No 53 of 6 July 1974), as well as official documents, teaching resources, PhD and master’s theses, as well as scientific works of lecturers at the Faculty of History of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”.
As regards the last group (teaching resources, PhD and master’s theses, as well as scientific works of lecturers at the Faculty of History of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”), the authors have granted their express written consent for the digitalization and the inclusion (in this library).
I. Part of the said digitalized materials definitely fall into the category “in the public domain”, i.e. they are no longer protected under LCNR, because the statutory 70-year term as of the death of their author or authors have already expired (article 27 of LCNR, article 12 of Council Directive 93/98/ЕЕС of 29 October 1993 harmonizing the term of protection of copyright and certain related rights).
II. The documents that are included in the “Archives” section do not fall within the copyright protection, because, due to their nature, they fall within the scope of article 4, point 1 of LCNR, which states:
“Article 4. The following shall not be considered objects of copyright:
1. normative and individual acts of government bodies and official translations thereof”.
III. The library also contains works that are protected by copyright and for whose digitalization and dissemination the authors have granted their express written consent.
IV. As regards another part of the digital library, the LCNR special rules and conditions apply in full. They imperatively list the cases, when the law allows and when it is possible to reproduce freely the works within the meaning of the above law, as well as the granting of access to them. Their scope is determined by a number of key factors, namely:
- the goal and the character of the reproduction and of the use, including whether such reproduction and use is commercial by nature and serves commercial goals or, on the contrary, it pursues non-commercial, purely educational and research goals;
- the nature, the legal status (the way the law treats the work as an object of copyright), i.e. the type of the work.
Pursuant to article 24 of LCNR: “No permission from the author and no compensation shall be due in the case of:
- reproduction of already published works by generally accessible libraries, research and educational institutions, museums, and archives for educational purposes or to ensure the preservation of the work inasmuch as such action is not undertaken for profit;
- providing access to natural persons to works that belong to collections of organizations as described in item 9 if this is done for scientific purposes and not for profit;
- for educational and/or scientific purposes, with a view to the preservation of the works and the ensuring of access to natural persons thereto only for scientific, cultural and educational purposes, without any profit and commercial interest and without serving any commercial goals.
In this respect the DIGITAL LIBRARY OF SU “KLIMENT OHRIDSKI” (http://lib.sudigital.org) is developed in full compliance with the above-mentioned provisions of LCNR and with the principles underlying article 10 of the first international convention in the field of copyright and its protection – the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works [ratified by Decree No 1389 of the State Council of 29 June 1974 (OJ No 53 of 6 July 1974), with the subsequent ratification of the amendments introduced by the Paris revision of the Convention by Decree No 1887 of the State Council of 18 September 1980 (OJ No 76 of 30 September 1980], which permits:
“(1) … to make quotations from a work which has already been lawfully made available to the public, provided that their making is compatible with fair practice, and their extent does not exceed that justified by the purpose, including quotations from newspaper articles and periodicals in the form of press summaries.
(2) It shall be a matter for legislation in the countries of the Union, and for special agreements existing or to be concluded between them, to permit the utilization, to the extent justified by the purpose, of literary or artistic works by way of illustration in publications, broadcasts or sound or visual recordings for teaching, provided such utilization is compatible with fair practice.
(3) Where use is made of works in accordance with the preceding paragraphs of this Article, mention shall be made of the source, and of the name of the author if it appears thereon.”, as well as article 10 of the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty (signed on 20 December 1996 in Geneva; ratified by law adopted by the 38th National Assembly on 12 January 2001 – OJ No 7 of 23 January 2001; issued by the Ministry of Culture, promulgated in OJ No 58 of 17 July 2007, in effect as of 6 March 2002), which reaffirms the clauses of article 10 of the Berne Convention, which in turn provides the legal basis and the framework of article 24 of the Bulgarian LCNR.
Pursuant to article 10, par. 1 of the Treaty: “(1) Contracting Parties may, in their national legislation, provide for limitations of or exceptions to the rights granted to authors of literary and artistic works under this Treaty in certain special cases that do not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the author”.
The DIGITAL LIBRARY OF SU „ST. KLIMENT OHRIDSKI“ (http://lib.sudigital.org) is created and functions in full compliance with the principle of “fair use” of the resources, as established by the international, European and Bulgarian legislation in the field of copyright, i.e. the granting of access to the digitalized information only for scientific, cultural, information, teaching and educational purposes, without serving any commercial interests and goals.
Pursuant to article 24 of LCNR and article 10 of the Berne Convention, the fair use of protected works is not a violation of the copyright, only if it is used for the stated scientific, cultural, information, teaching and educational purposes, with a view to the needs of the education, training, teaching and research.
The DIGITAL LIBRARY OF SU „ST. KLIMENT OHRIDSKI“ (http://lib.sudigital.org) as such is part of the information system of the oldest higher educational establishment in Bulgaria – Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. It is created with the financial support of the Research Fund to the Ministry of Education, Youth and Science and therefore it fully complies with the specified regulations due to its educational and research profile.
Being an online collection of digital objects of assured quality within the meaning of the IFLA/UNESCO Manifesto for Digital Libraries of 2011, the team of the DIGITAL LIBRARY OF SU „ST. KLIMENT OHRIDSKI“ (http://lib.sudigital.org) collects, stores, digitalizes and grants access to the included resources in accordance with the internationally accepted and also regulated by the European and Bulgarian law principles, norms and rules for the management and maintenance of such type of libraries, joining the efforts for successful development of the international and of the national digitalization strategies and programs in compliance with:
- the Strategy for development of the information society in the Republic of Bulgaria (7 October 1999);
- the eLearning Action Plan in the context of eEurope – an initiative of the European Commission “eLearning: Designing tomorrow's education” (24 May 2000), which is a joint effort of the Member States for the accelerated introduction of the information and communication technologies into education;
- the European Commission Recommendation of 27 October 2011 on the digitalization and online accessibility of cultural material and digital preservation;
- the decisions made at the World Summit on the Information Society, 2nd phase, Tunis 2005: “Agenda for the Information Society”, paragraph 93);
- the National strategy and action plan for introduction of information and communication technologies (ICT) into education.
Internet resources:
Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=DD:17:01:32001L0029:BG:PDF
Directive 2006/116/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006 on the term of protection of copyright and certain related rights
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/Notice.do?mode=dbl&lang=en&ihmlang=en&lng1=en,bg&lng2=bg,cs,da,de,el,en,es,et,fi,fr,hu,it,lt,lv,mt,nl,pl,pt,ro,sk,sl,sv,&val=438220:cs
Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms:
http://www.constcourt.bg/Pages/LegalBasis/default.aspx?VerID=38
Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria:
http://www.parliament.bg/bg/const
Law on Copyright and Neighboring Rights:
http://lex.bg/laws/ldoc/2133094401
National strategy for introduction of information and communication technologies (ICT) into Bulgarian schools:
http://www.minedu.government.bg/opencms/export/sites/mon/left_menu/documents/strategies/strategia_ikt.pdf
Strategy for development of the information society in the Republic of Bulgaria (7 October 1999);
http://europe.bg/upload/docs/Strategy_Informationsociety.pdf
“eLearning: Designing tomorrow's education” of 24 May 2000
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexplus!prod!DocNumber&lg=en&type_doc=COMfinal&an_doc=2001&nu_doc=172
European Commission Recommendation of 27 October 2011 on the digitalization and online accessibility of cultural material and digital preservation:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2011:283:0039:0045:BG:PDF
