The New Orphan Works Regulation of Hungary

Abstract

The Hungarian Parliament accepted a regulation to settle the orphan works dilemma in 2008. Under this system the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office grants a license to applicants to use orphan works under limited circumstances. Since the entry into force of the amendment of the Hungarian Copyright Law in 2009 the system had modest success. Due to the acceptance of the Orphan Works Directive in 2012, however, it became necessary to amend the Hungarian Copyright Act to introduce the new limitation granted by the directive for beneficiary institutions. The future Hungarian regime will therefore include both systems: the licensing model (for the benefit of every user) and the limitation model (for the benefit of specific institutions). The paper introduces the main points of the former (old) regime, and also includes comments and criticism of the experiences of the past 5 years. Further the paper summarizes the key elements of the implementation of the directive and highlights its prospective positive effects and the drawbacks of the legislation (both the statute and the government decree) as well.