ДАВАЊЕ ЕЛЕКТРОНСКИХ КЊИГА НА ПОСЛУГУ ОД СТРАНЕ ЈАВНИХ БИБЛИОТЕКА У ПРАВУ ЕВРОПСКЕ УНИЈЕ
LENDING OF ELECTRONIC BOOKS BY PUBLIC LIBRARIES UNDER EUROPEAN UNION LAW

Summary/Abstract: Public libraries are among the key public institutions that ensure free access to information, knowledge, and cultural content, the fundamental values that every society rests on. Throughout history, public libraries have evolved in line with the changing social circumstances, with the aim of fulfilling their core mission. The latest in a series of major transformations affecting public libraries is the process of digitization. In the information age, the foundations of human functioning have been profoundly altered by the pervasive influence of technology in everyday life. Public libraries have not remained immune to these developments. One of the principal functions of public libraries in fulfilling their mission is lending books to their members, which is a traditional prerogative of public libraries. The impact of digitization on this function has been significant, primarily due to the emergence of electronic books. In the European Union, the lending of e-books has not yet been uniformly regulated at the supranational level. Libraries in several EU Member States had already begun lending e-books to their users even before it was clarified whether such lending was permissible. A key milestone was the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the case Vereniging Openbare Bibliotheken (VOB), where the Court held that the lending of e-books by public libraries is permissible, provided that such lending constitutes a technological equivalent to the lending of printed books. An additional restriction on e-book lending was introduced through the CJEU judgment in Tom Kabinet. To date, several best practices have emerged regarding the lending of ebooks, which may serve as a valuable guide for future legislative regulation, especially considering that this issue has not yet been comprehensively addressed by any legislative act at the EU level.

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