Digitalizzazione di opere librarie e diritti esclusivi

The digitization of the European cultural heritage has been playing a central role in the EU Commission's agenda since 2005. Nonetheless, the European legal framework seems still unclear, e.g. as far as orphan and out-of-print works are at stake. As a matter of fact, in many instances, the very legal meaning of (i) the object, (ii) the process, and (iii) the result of digitization seems difficult to define. Having as a case-study the digitization of a book, this short essay aims at analyzing certain key issues relevant from the perspective of the Italian law.