To launch the publication of her new book, Art and Modern Copyright: The Contested Image, CREATe’s Dr Elena Cooper gave a talk at the Victorian Picture Gallery, Royal Holloway, University of London on 5 December 2018. Dr Cooper illustrated central themes of her research – the first in-depth and longitudinal study of copyright protecting the visual arts – by drawing on the rich collection of nineteenth century paintings in the Gallery, focussing particularly on nineteenth century copyright debates concerning painters’ repetitions of their own work. The presentation provoked comments and questions from a broad interdisciplinary audience. A film, presented by Dr Cooper, using the paintings in the Gallery as a way into the history of copyright, will follow in 2019, produced by Exhibition on Screen.

photographs by Susanna Brunetti.

Now available is a new paper in the CREATe Working Paper series: Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning and EU copyright law: Who owns AI? by Thomas Margoni

Dr Thomas Margoni is a Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property and Internet Law at the School of Law – CREATe Centre and convener of the LLM programme in Intellectual Property and the Digital Economy. His research interests concentrate on the relationship between law (especially IP) and new technologies with particular attention to the role of the Internet as a new medium to access, create and disseminate knowledge in the current information-based society. Recent examples of research projects include OpenMinTeD, the EU H2020 project for the development of an e-infrastructure for Text and Data Mining (TDM) in Europe where Thomas coordinates the legal working group (www.openminted.eu); OpenAireAdvance, the EU 2020 project to support Open Science in the EU; the role and liability of online intermediaries; copyright, design rights and 3D printing; the digitisation of cultural heritage; and the role of property rights in sports.

The full abstract and downloadable paper can be accessed from here: Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning and EU copyright law: Who owns AI?

A paper forthcoming in the International Journal of Digital Television is now available in the CREATe Working Paper series: Television and the development of the data economy: Data analysis, power and the public interest by Gillian Doyle.

Gillian Doyle is Professor of Media Economics and Director of the Centre for Cultural Policy Research (CCPR) at the University of Glasgow, and Co-Investigator of CREATe’s workstrand in the new AHRC Creative Industries Policy & Evidence Centre (PEC).

ABSTRACT: Data analysis is steadily becoming more central to management decision-making in media organizations across the globe. The reliance of subscription video on demand (SVoD) services, such as Netflix, on data analytics to underpin decisions about new content investment is well-established. However, what are the key opportunities and challenges facing the rest of the television industry? This article examines how data analysis is facilitating improved methods of personalization and more effective intelligence about the relative appeal of content for differing audience segments. But growing reliance on big data also raises a number of critical public interest questions. This article highlights how data is now a key source of competitive advantage in the television industry and a resource that can be monopolized. It argues that media policy-making needs to pay more attention to the emergence and implications of asymmetries of power in relation to ownership and use of data in managerial decision-making.

The full paper can be accessed here: Television and the development of the data economy: Data analysis, power and the public interest

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Report by Anthony Rosborough (LLM Candidate in the Intellectual Property & Digital Economy Programme at the University of Glasgow).

On the 21st of November, Dr. Fiona Macmillan (Professor at Birkbeck, University of London, School of Law) delivered a lecture on the relationship between intellectual property markets and the management of cultural heritage. Chaired by Professor Martin Kretschmer, the lecture was held in the University of Glasgow’s Arts and Humanities Lecture Theatre as part of CREATe’s autumn Public Lecture series.

Dr. Macmillan’s main focus was how to properly define and conceptualise “cultural heritage” as a legal concept. She addressed the regulation of cultural heritage in international law under the “authorised cultural heritage” doctrine as established by the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, 2003 (the “Convention”). In particular, Dr. Macmillan addressed the conflicts between a market-based intellectual property system and the realities of how communities develop, recognise, and maintain cultural heritage. Continue reading →

BOOK LAUNCH, Wednesday 5 December 2018, 6.15pm, Victorian Picture Gallery at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Cambridge University Press have just published Art and Modern Copyright: The Contested Image by Dr Elena Cooper, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at CREATe. The book is the first in-depth and longitudinal study of the history of copyright protecting the visual arts. Exploring legal developments during an important period in the making of the modern law, the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, in relation to four themes – the protection of copyright ‘authors’ (painters, photographers and engravers), art collectors, sitters and the public interest. It uncovers a number of long-forgotten narratives of copyright history, including views of copyright that differ from how we think about copyright today. As well as considering the distinct nature of the contribution of copyright to the history of the cultural domain accounted for by scholars of art history and the sociology of art, Art and Modern Copyright examines the value to lawyers and policy-makers today of copyright history as a destabilising influence. In taking us to ways of thinking that differ from our own, history can sharpen the critical lens through which we view copyright debates today.

The book will be launched at an event at the Victorian Picture Gallery at Royal Holloway, University of London, at 6.15pm on Wednesday 5 December 2018, where Dr Cooper will draw on the rich collection of nineteenth century paintings in the Gallery to illustrate the central themes of her research.

If you are interested in attending, please contact Dr Cooper: elena.cooper@glasgow.ac.uk

You may also register directly here: https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/about-us/events/art-and-modern-copyright-the-contested-image/

As part of CREATe’s role in the new AHRC UK Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC), we are providing monthly updates summarising new entries to the Copyright Evidence Wiki (organised thematically). The Wiki catalogues empirical studies on copyright, informing public and policy development based on evidence. In the first of this series of posts, we summarise the new empirical studies added to this database under the themes of: Piracy; Copyright in the Courts; Open Licensing, and; Copyright and Representation.

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Guest post by Dr Cheryl Foong, Lecturer at Curtin Law School in Western Australia

The making available right has been a source of contention in recent times, giving rise to numerous decisions at the EU level that do not appear to be grounded in existing copyright rules or principles. This trend is not exclusive to the EU; courts around the world have struggled to interpret the right with clarity and transparency.

The incongruence of EU, US and Australian caselaw on the making available right (or its national equivalents, under the so-called “umbrella solution”) prompted my doctoral research on the topic, completed earlier this year. I was keen for the opportunity to share my comparative analysis and engage with an informed audience, and my session at CREATe on 2 November 2018 did not disappoint. Continue reading →