I read that the EU copyright reform changes the rights regarding books that are no longer sold. It should become possible to publish them for non-commercial use (probably under conditions).
Is this correct? What are the prerequisites to do this?
The closest thing to what you're describing is the new rights granted to cultural heritage institutions described in Articles 8-11 of the new Copyright Directive (draft Articles 7-9). Note this doesn't apply to individuals, just cultural heritage institutions, which is defined by Article 2(3):
‘cultural heritage institution’ means a publicly accessible library or museum, an archive or a film or audio heritage institution;
I won't quote the articles in full since it's over 1000 words, but the main points are:
- Under Article 8(1), collective rights management organizations may independently issue a non-exclusive, non-commercial licence to a cultural heritage institution for out-of-commerce works. By Article 9(1), the licence may apply within EU territory.
- Under Article 8(2) and (3), where no appropriate collective rights management organization exists, the cultural heritage institution does not need a licence for out-of-commerce works. By Article 9(2) this only applies within the Member State concerned.
- Under Article 8(4), the rightholder for the out-of-commerce work has a unilateral right to deny usage of their work at any time.
- In all cases, the work must already be within the collection of the cultural heritage institution.
